《Demon's Virtue》


 Chapter 1 - Prologue

    Sleep. Fight. Eat. Those have always been the only three things any simple Monster was supposed to know of. Of course, the higher their levels got, and the more intelligence or strength they gained, the more things they would be capable of doing, but more than 99% of all Monsters were mindless drones that knew nothing but how to fulfill their barest of desires.


    Of course, there were still Monsters that had a fair amount of raw ability. Intelligence that put the world''s greatest Human Schr to shame. A strength that could only be surpassed by every nation of the world put together. Or Skills that every single person wished to have.


    But there was one quality that was so rare in Monsters that only a handful were truly known to have it, while at the same time being nced over by any single person in the world and swiftly dismissed as a mere lie. Kindness.


    It was possible to tame a monster, but that was all it was. The taming of a wild creature that would never hesitate to cause havoc if the Tamer stopped paying attention to it. Teaching a Monster what kindness was was known to be simply impossible, no matter what method one used.


    But even then, while they were mostly merely mindless and wicked creatures, those that were able to reason to a certain amount ended up following simr rules in civilization to what Humans did. They had concepts simr to dividing the popce up into Commoners, Nobility, and Royalty, although overall prowess was the most important value that Monsters used to choose who belonged into which ''caste''.


    The mindless monsters without reason were Peasants. Those with at least something simr to a mind, who were able to listen tomands of those stronger than themselves were Commoners. Nobility was filled with monsters at the level of intelligence of humans, although they were far, far stronger than most humans could hope to be.


    And then, atst, the Royalty was filled with those directly underneath the King, the Monster that stood at the peak of every single Monstrosity or Fiend out there.


    The concept behind choosing a new ''King'' was quite simple, however. If you could kill the King, you would be him. If a King died through natural reasons, the remaining Royalty would choose the strongest amongst themselves to be the new King.


    Most of the time, the Royalty wasn''t able to choose who the strongest amongst them actually was, and would end up fighting each other to death in order to be able to take over the position of their fallen Brethren, who they would not have spared a single tear for.


    The current King of Monsters was a quite peculiar one. The majority of Kings in the past were those that had be as such through simple brutish strength after dethroning the former King and would rule over those beneath them to fulfill their own desires.


    But the King that had taken the throne at the current time was one of the rarest kind. He felt kindness. However, this kindness did not extend past his brethren, so those he cared for were only those that he ruled. And one might be confused, thinking that such a thing is not ''Kindness'', but simple loyalty to their people, although it was not too dissimr to the kindness spread amongst Humans.


    No matter how nice they were to those around them, if they gave everything they owned away to those more in need and lived without a single wicked thought when surrounded by other people, if they were faced with something else, such kindness had immediately disappeared. They would not bat an eye at the sight of a monster being in and would celebrate it instead.


    It did not matter if that Monster had done nothing wrong yet; it was a monster and had to be exterminated for that sole reason.


    Such things showed what kindness truly was; selfish.


    A Kindness that was meant to make life more convenient or to fulfill their own sense of self-worth. Simply, to do whatever they wished, and allow those around them to be selfish.


    In that sense, the Kindness of the King of Monsters and the Kindness of the people of the world were not much different. All they wanted was to kill their enemy to protect their own folk.


    And this is the story of a young Monster doing all it can to fulfill their own personal Selfish Kindness, trying to escape the Kindness of that King of Monsters.

 Chapter 2 - Big Blue Boxes

    With a grunt from behind, an Imp hurried up in its step and continued along the path filled with its brothers as long as its eyes could see.


    Like all of those brothers, this Imp had a single role in life. ''Do as you''re told''. It didn''t know why it had to, but it did know that if it didn''t, it would be killed like many of its brothers were every single day, especially on this most recent venture to a ce the Imp didn''t know much about. It knew why they were going through, to retrieve some lump of meat somewhere! That was the most that it knew, however.


    So instead of thinking about what was going on, the Imp simply looked at the back of his brother in front of him. It was so nice and red and shiny! The Imp liked red things, especially the juice that always came out of things that it killed! Well, the Imp itself didn''t kill anything yet, but it was there while its brothers killed things!


    But then, the Imp suddenly noticed something on the back of the brother in front of it, a small lump. The Imp walking in front of the Imp was a good brother, it always went out into fights first, and even managed to kill something alone once! But now, something was different about this brother, and the Imp didn''t like that at all.


    With a loud shriek, the Imp began to push against the lump on the Imp in front of it, immediately drawing attention from not only the other Imps around it but also the stronger monsters that were following the group to keep them in check.


    "You. Quiet." One of them, a big, thick-furred guy grunted out of its nose and pointed a stick at the Imp, but it simply stared back and kept hitting against the lump on the back of the Imp in front of it, as it didn''t understand what the big guy just told it.


    "Lump, Different. Different, evo. Evo, good." The big guy grunted out again and pushed through the group of imps before grabbing the lumped-imp by the back of its neck and then dragged him further down the incrediblyrge group of monsters toward where the stronger ones were.


    The Imp was actually quite jealous. It itself wasn''t able to grunt in that way to make that ''Evo'' sound, but it would really like to be able to because it seemed like a lot of fun. The Imp was only able to grunt or shriek, or huff and puff, but never ended up speaking. That way, it would be able to ask about this ''Evo'' thing that it kept hearing about. Whenever one of its brothers was seen with something different on its body, it was dragged away, and the stronger monsters would mutter ''Evo'' over and over again.


    It had thought that ''Evo'' meant something bad, but the big guy just now clearly grunted ''Evo'' with a smile, so maybe it was actually something good. And if it was, then the Imp did something good for its brother. The feeling of doing such a thing immediately imprinted itself into the Imp''s brain as the first helpful gesture it had evermitted! And it hated it!


    "Grah!" It grunted out before spitting in front of it at the spot that the lumped-imp was at before while it simply kept walking. Of course, the Imp didn''t notice that a strong wind was blowing, and even if it had noticed, it most likely wouldn''t have expected the spit to fly back onto its body.


    "Bleeh!" The Imp eximed as it looked down at its body and rubbed its hand over the spot that its spitnded at, before removing the sticky liquid annoyedly. And then, the Imp realized something. If the spit that it spat in front of it was able to turn back and hit the Imp again, then if he spat up, it would hit the Imp behind it!


    The Imp didn''t know why it wanted to spit at the one behind it, but all of a sudden, it felt like ying a prank on it again. It was the perfect crime! Most likely, none of the other Imps knew about the peculiar effect of spit, so they probably wouldn''t be able to find out it was him, because all it was doing was looking up a little bit!


    And so, the Imp moved its tongue around in its mouth to gather as much spit as it could, before raising its chin and pushing it out of its mouth all at once! And a few momentster, it heard the grunts of an Imp behind it. It didn''t hit the one directly behind the Imp, but instead, it hit one even more behind that, which made the young Monster even less likely to be found out!


    With a grunting chuckle from the depth of its throat, the Demon began to celebrate the sess of this trick, although that celebration was quickly interrupted by a certain annoying entity.


    [You have drawn a correct conclusion. Intelligence Stat unlocked]


    There was this weird, very, very annoying blue box floating in front of the Imp. It didn''t know what it was or why it had those weird squiggly lines inside of it. The Imp finally did something super fun for the first time in its life, which had started only a few days ago and quite literally felt its mind go from small brain to big brain because it did such a fun thing, but then this annoying box appeared and ruined the moment!


    "Grugh!" The Imp grunted out angrily and swung its hands at the box, and the moment he did so, the box disappeared in a cloud of blue mist. Happy that he was able to get rid of such a challenging enemy so easily, the Imp bared its crooked teeth in a proud grin and continued on the seemingly infinite march.


    And that march continued on until night nearly came. This truly surprised the Imp, as they usually kept constantly walking up until the moon was high up in the sky, but now, the sun was still there, and the stronger Monsters, which were very very scary to the Imp, were apparently preparing for something at the back of the enormous group of hundreds, or even thousands of monsters.


    So while everyone stopped walking, the Imp didn''t know exactly what to do, and as such, simply chose to follow its fellow Imps around. They surely knew what to do, right?


    Well, either way, the group of a total of five Imps then began to walk in the direction of the forest, where they seemed to smell something delicious. The group stepped further and further into the woods until they could hear some noise in the distance.


    "¡­careful¡­" They heard a voice yell out, although none of the Imps knew exactly what kind of creature that voice came from, or what those weird words it was saying meant. So, of course, as curious as Imps are, they continued walking in the direction that they heard the voicee from before one of them began to grunt.


    "Grek!" It eximed toward itsrades as it pointed into the direction, and all of them began to sprint there with the exception of your very own big-brain Imp. It had seen a lot of dangerous things over thest few days, and from what it remembered, the most dangerous things made a lot of noise. For example, the big hairy, horned thing that one of the stronger monsters killed screamed loud enough to make the Imp''s ear-holes hurt!


    [You remembered a past event and learned from it. Wisdom stat unlocked]


    With an annoyed frown, the Imp stared at the blue box that reappeared after the Imp killed it before, and just swung at it again, which once more made the box disappear and die in a weird blue cloud.


    Satisfied at having killed this persistent enemy once more, the Imp turned around and tried to find the other Imps again, although it then quickly noticed that the enemy had tricked it! It was smaller than before, so it most likely sacrificed some of its body for this sudden second attack!


    [You learned from past experiences. Wisdom +1]


    Angrily, the Imp kept staring at the box, trying to figure out what it was nning, before simply hissing and growling at it to make it run away, but it didn''t seem like it worked, as the box just continued floating in the air, mocking the Imp with its weird squiggly lines!


    But then, the Imp had an idea. Instead of trying to attack it outright, it could maybe do other things. After all, it was a big-brain Imp now, so it would be a small-brain thing to not use that big-brain! It remembered that once, a super-strong Monster from the group came from the back and killed one of the enemies that nearly hurt the Imp and its brethren, and it was doing so by pretending not to notice the enemy. Then the enemy attacked, and the strong Monster killed it immediately!


    The Imp didn''t know how it did that, but it remembered what exactly happened, so the Imp simply repeated that. Slowly, he stood simr to the Monster from back then, with its back straight as it looked in the opposite direction.


    But then suddenly, the unimaginable happened.


    [You learned from past experiences. Wisdom +1]


    A Second one showed up! Immediately, the Imp jumped away from both of the blue boxes, especially the one that just appeared out of nowhere, before the two small boxes were joined by a third one, a big box!


    [You evaded something you saw as dangerous. Evasion stat unlocked]


    Scared at what was going on and why the enemies were suddenly multiplying, the Imp had one choice. Running! It turned around and simply began to sprint away, but he was soon met with another box appearing in front of him.


    [You made the choice of Tactical retreat. Intelligence +1]


    The Imp, for some reason, was able to react far quicker than before! Well, that didn''t mean much, as such reactions were still iparably low to the reactions of a rock, but it did change something to the Imp. The issue was just that, even if it could run away from the boxes properly, it didn''t mean that he could run away from everything. Especially if the issue was the fact that he was running in the first ce.


    The Imp hadn''t thought about the fact that he was in a forest ever since the group of boxes appeared, and without looking at the ground had just been booking it. But it probably should have noticed that he was doing something wrong beforehand, although it was toote when the Imp dropped to the ground and hit its head against a hard rock.


    It managed to stand up quite swiftly, but there was another problem now. Three more enemies returned, and one of them was a new type! Instead of blue like the sky, it was red like that juice thates out of enemies!


    [You fell to the ground and injured yourself. Resistance Stat unlocked]


    [-10 Health]


    [You realized your mistake and want to learn from it. Wisdom +1]


    Immediately, the Imp jumped up from the ground again and tried to continue running from them. It was slowly realizing that these were enemies far beyond what the young Monster could ever hope to beat, but he, at the very least, had to try to survive! That was the conclusion that he came to, and he wouldn''t let some dumb boxes beat him! He was a proud Imp! Such boxes couldn''t do anything to him!


    [You have formed Self Identity. As you currently are unnamed, it is possible to change your name if you wish to do so]


    [Widsom +2][Intelligence +2]


    And now, the Imp once more realized what it had to do in order to get away from the numerous enemies that were surrounding him. Simply run for his life and search for his brothers! They stank like a frog''sher-regions, so it probably wouldn''t be that hard if the Imp used his sniffer!

 Chapter 3 - Ownership

    Immediate correction. Despite the horrid smell of his brothers, it was quite hard to find them. All that happened while he was trying to do that was that he got distracted when more and more boxes appeared out of nowhere. But luckily, the more the boxes appeared, the more the Imp''s body became stronger and faster! Hah, screw you, dumb boxes with your stupid squiggly lines!


    The thing that changed most about the Imp was that he became much faster and whenever he nearly couldn''t run anymore because he was out of breath, for some reason, he could nearly immediately start running again!


    But those feisty boxes kept catching up to him for some weird reason. He managed to kill them a few times, but in the end, they would always return a little bitter. They started appearing less frequently, yeah, but there was still a new box appearing every few minutes, and always when the Imp did something super cool or smart as if they were waiting for him to be distracted.


    And a few momentster, the Imp noticed something else. It was the smell that he had been looking for all along, and when he did find it and stopped in his tracks to properly find out where exactly his brothers were, the smell became a lot stronger, while a new box appeared as well.


    [You picked up a familiar smell. Perception +1]


    "Grarh!" The Imp growled out and simply hit the box to make it disappear again. They were easy to take care of alone, but when they were in a pack, the Imp was feeling quite intimidated, so he wanted to take care of the ones that weren''t with the others whenever he could. Now, the Imp did the same, and then immediately booked it away from the other notifications that were slowly catching up to him, running in the direction of his brothers.


    And soon, he could not only smell his brothers, but he could also hear them! And some other weird sounds. And loud and painful grunts. And-


    "Degh?" The Imp muttered out as he looked at the scene in front of himself, seeing his brothers cut up on the ground while three tall, weird-looking things were standing above them. One of them, the shortest, was apletely red thing. It looked a bit like his brothers, but the Imp could tell that it really really wasn''t his brothers. It had way too many weirdly colored bits, and the red bits were far too long and not really attached to the weirdly colored bits.


    Another one of them was apletely ck thing. The Imp could see two blue eyese out between the weird ck stuff that covered the thing''s body, which looked simr to the cloth that some of the stronger monsters in his unit wore, but very different, and this one didn''t seem to stink the same way.


    And thest of them, the tallest, was silver and blue, and it had a weird shiny stick in its hand, and its foot was directly on one of the Imp''s brothers'' heads, which was split off of its body.


    And that was something that the Imp didn''t like at all.


    Immediately, the Imp began to bare its teeth, not caring for the boxes anymore, as he was now facing a more imminent, albeit not nearly as dangerous, opponent.


    "Look! Another one!" The Red thing eximed excitedly as it pointed its hand toward the Imp, who simply continued to stare at them. "Huh? Doesn''t it look somewhat angry?" The tallest responded as it looked toward the other things. The Imp didn''t understand what it said, although it did understand that it was saying something, and he really wanted to know what it was.


    "Tsk, Angry? You realize you''re talking about a monster, right? What could that thing be angry about?" The ck thing asked, and the Imp listened closely as it was movings its mouth, managing to pick something out of it. ''Angry''. It didn''t know exactly what that grunt meant, but it seemed to be something important, so it figured that it was a good idea to remember it.


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Learned]


    Noticing the new box that appeared next to it, the Imp jumped to the side a little, before the tall thing seemed to release a lot of air at once.


    "Guess you''re right. Just look at it, it probably ate some Ariz root and is now just high off of his ass." It replied before the Imp averted his attention from the box over to the thing. For some reason, even if he had no clue what exactly they were saying, he somehow knew that they were mocking him. And the Imp didn''t like to be mocked.


    "Who cares? I want to make it mypanion!" The red thing eximed excitedly before the ck thing turned over to the red thing and frowned. "Seriously? Ava, what do you want with an Imp as a fucking pet? It''s the lowest-grade Demon-type Monster there is. And it''s not even a proper Imp; it''s a Lesser Imp. Let''s just kill it and get you something that doesn''t look like it''s going to hump the living daylight out of that plushy collection you have at the Inn, Ava." The ck thing grunted loudly in a lengthy way, and all of a sudden, the Imp got confused. He had never heard such a long grunt before! The Imp was actually getting somewhat curious and excited!


    But then, the blue and silver thing began to grunt as well. "Exactly, Ava, why don''t you just stop being impatient and wait, Ava. We know that you''re happy you got the taming ability through your Hunter Job, Ava, but an Imp is a really bad choice, Ava. Most Hunters choose animals, like Dogs, Ava." It said with a smirk on its face, and the Imp got pretty confused again.


    Why were they saying that weird grunt so often? Was it something important as well? Maybe he had to remember that grunt ''Ava''! Although then, the red thing''s weirdly colored bits became red as well, and it became really loud and angry.


    "My name isn''t Ava, you fuckwits! It''s Avalin! You know I don''t like being called Ava!" It eximed, and this time, the Imp took a real close look at the ce where the grunts came out of for the red bit, and it slowly tried to copy what the thing was doing.


    "Avva¡­Avva¡­Ava" The Imp grunted out, hoping that it said the right thing, but the red thing just became more angry and red at that. "I just fucking said it''s not ''Ava'', you goddamn-" It eximed, and while the Imp didn''t realize what it said, the other three things realized what it was.


    They seemed to look at each other confused, but at the same time, the Imp was just taking care of the new boxes that appeared next to him.


    [You have learned speech!]


    [Intelligence +2][Wisdom +2]


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled up!]


    Immediately, the Imp just waved his hand at the boxes immediately, and then at the same time, chose to just take out the other boxes that wereing closer again. For some reason, he didn''t feel like he was just as scared of these boxes anymore. They were terrifying still, but the Imp now thought he could take them on for some reason!


    And while the Imp was just iling its skimpy, thin arms around at the boxes around it, the three things began to talk amongst each other.


    "Did¡­ Did that Lesser fucking Imp just say my name..?" The red thing asked, confused, and the ck thing nodded its head slowly. "I think it did¡­ Can Monsters usually learn ournguage? Is it some unique mo-"


    "Who the fuck cares! Ava, tame that Imp immediately! If we bring it to Zaragon, he''ll definitely give us a shitton of money!" The blue and silver thing eximed, and for once, it seemed like the three of them started to agree with each other, although the red thing seemed to have something small against it still. "It''s not technically taming, that''s a really hard thing to do, but it doesn''t need an ''Ownership Cor''. And my name isn''t-"


    "Just fucking get to it, Avalin, please. God¡­" The ck thing responded sassily as it crossed its arms and rolled its eyes, and the red thing just grumbled quietly and walked up to the Imp that seemed to be swatting invisible things in the air.


    Slowly, the red thing stepped up behind the Imp with a leather cor in its hand and then tried to put it on the Imp''s neck. And it didn''t end up just trying, but it really did work.


    And as it did so, the Imp immediately froze as numerous, blinking red boxes appeared around it, covering its sight.


    [WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!]


    [AN INVASIVE ENTITY IS TRYING TO TAKE OVER YOUR MIND]


    [YOU DO NOT HAVE THE REQUIRED RESISTANCE, INTELLIGENCE OR WISDOM TO RESIST]


    And while the Imp wasn''t able to really do anything but try to rip at the thing around its neck and just looked around itself as a lot of boxes appeared around it, the Imp just dropped to the ground, starting to shake in fear at this unknown feeling. It suddenly felt weird, as if its mind was being pulled away, and it couldn''t help but stare at a single point:


    The red thing that was standing next to it.


    [You are experiencing extreme fear. Resistance +1]


    [You have now been ced under the ownership of Avalin Stinehearth]


    [As the item used to ce you under themand of your owner is not meant for your kind, it is possible to break out of its effect. Do you want to initiate the resistance?]


    The Imp didn''t know exactly what was going on, but it just realized one thing. That one big box that appeared in front of it just now wasn''t one that was trying to harm it. Instead, the Imp was feeling hope from it, and for some reason started to understand what it was trying to tell him.


    Slowly, the Imp began to think that he wanted to ept whatever it was the box was trying to make him do before another box appeared around it while all of the others, even the red blinking ones, disappeared, and the Imp began to feel very hazy all of a sudden.


    [resistance will be effective in 7 Days, 13 Hours, 11 Minutes, 45 Seconds]


    The Imp stared at the box in front of it, and a few of the squiggly lines toward the end were starting to change all the time. Nothing happened just yet, but the Imp was sure that something would happenter as long as he just dealt with what was going on right now. And now, when the Imp looked at the Red thing, it felt a few different emotions.


    One,plete will for submission. He wasn''t sure why, and he had never felt such a thing before, but the Imp somehow knew that it wouldn''t end well for him if he did anything the red thing didn''t want.


    Two,plete, and utter hatred. To begin with, the Imp didn''t like a lot of things. Not the sky, not the ground, and not even that dumb pink flower in the corner of his eye. But now, all of that dislike turned into pure hatred.


    Slowly, the Imp stood up and looked around, simply staring in front of it at the red thing.


    "Ooh! I think it worked!" It eximed, and the blue and silver thing began tough. "You bet it did. I didn''t think those kinds of Ownership Cors worked on monsters, but apparently, they do. Either way, I think that guy is going to be very interesting." The thing said with a grin, but the Imp just ground its own sharp teeth and stepped forward. There was a sudden urge that overcame him, which seemed to be connected to one of the new boxes that he just started seeing.


    [You are too exhausted to fuel the resistance. Somehow regain energy]


    The Imp began to be able to somewhat understand these boxes, although just roughly. Even if they were his greatest enemy, maybe he had to rely on them for now. And if that was the case, he really had to get rid of his exhaustion, and there was one certain way that the Imp figured would be a great way to get his energy back, which was to eat.


    And so, he ate. His teeth ground through the red meat in front of him as bones cracked as he pressed into them. The Imp could feel the disgusted stares from behind him, but the Imp didn''t care. He just knew he needed to do something, anything, to make sure he could break out of the control they had him under.


    Even if it meant eating his own brothers.

 Chapter 4 - Boosted

    With the dark red, nearly ck, murky dried blood covering his mouth and hands, the Imp kept walking behind the three things in front of him. They kept looking at him weirdly, but the Imp didn''t care in the slightest. The hatred that he felt in his body was more than enough to look past such things.


    The sun had now nearly gone downpletely, and it seemed like the things were looking for something. It was simr to what the Commoner Monsters always did when the sun went down, so they would probably stop moving soon to wait for the sun toe back up. The Imp didn''t really understand why they did it, but once more, it didn''t care. He just watched them from behind, with a cold stare that he hoped would make them all drop dead instantly. But whenever he thought about actually attacking them to try and kill them, the Imp felt such horrendous fear throughout all his body that he would nearly drop to the ground, letting him even ignore the boxes that would appear all around him at such a time.


    And usually, when that happened, the Imp was unable to keep moving and instead just stopped in his tracks, and the ck thing would in response, then grab the Imp by the stuffy cor around his neck and drag him behind it.


    After a while of walking, the things stopped moving next to a river and ced down the things on their backs, before the ck thing attached a rope to the Imp''s cor and then climbed on a tree before tying the other end of the rope to a branch.


    "Isn''t that kinda unnecessary?" The red thing asked in response to seeing such a thing happen, and the ck thing shrugged in response. "I mean, who knows what this thing might do at night? It probably can''t climb, and it definitely won''t be able to destroy an enchanted rope, but it might be able to loosen the knot if we''re not careful."


    "So what, not like it can attack us or run away anyway." The Blue thing then eximed before throwing something at the ck thing, "Juste and help set up the tent." It said before the three things huddled around some kind of brown object, while the Imp just stood there underneath the branch.


    There were more issues than just one with this, although there was a problem that stuck out. It was probably on purpose, but apparently, when the ck thing tied the rope to the branch, it made it too short. That meant that the Imp wasn''t able to sit down, and always had to keep his body stretched as much as possible to not choke himself.


    But after all that happened today, the Imp was feeling extremely exhausted. He could already feel his legs giving in, and it took him a lot of effort not to let that happen. The Imp just stared forward, trying to focus on something, on anything, to keep himself from falling asleep.


    And to his luck, there was something to focus on now, the mes that the three things ignited in front of them. Fire was something mesmerizing to the Imp. Out of all the different things that it saw in its short life so far, it was what excited him the most. The way that fire just waved around chaotically and swallowed anything in its path was something beautiful.


    All monsters admired strength, and to the Imp, a fire was the epitome of strength. So, of course, the choice was obvious. The Imp would continue to stare at the mes to make sure it wouldn''t fall asleep.


    At some point, the Imp stopped noticing anything else that was going on. The light disappeared from anywhere around him, and the mes slowly began to dwindle and shrink. The Imp''s body became heavier by the second, but in the middle of the night, just when the mes were about to disappear, and the one thing that allowed the Imp to stay awake would be gone, they spiked up all of a sudden. Of course, this startled the Imp, enough to let him look away for a little while.


    The first thing that the Imp noticed were numerous notifications around him.


    [Beginner Concentration Skill Learned]


    [Beginner Concentration Skill Leveled Up!]


    ¡­


    ¡­


    ¡­


    [Beginner Concentration Skill Leveled Up!]


    [Beginner Exhaustion Resistance Skill Learned]


    [Beginner Exhaustion Resistance Skill Leveled Up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [Beginner Exhaustion Resistance Skill Leveled Up!]


    [You managed to fight through your tiredness through pure will. Willpower Stat unlocked]


    [Your will doesn''t dwindle. Willpower +1]


    [Your will doesn''t dwindle. Willpower +1]


    [Your will doesn''t dwindle. Willpower +1]


    [You fought through exhaustion. Constitution +1]


    [You fought through extreme exhaustion. Constitution +1. Resistance +1]


    The Imp was terrified at the fact that so many of the boxes appeared all of a sudden, but at the very least, he could now see that they were not nearly as aggressive as he thought they were. They made him shudder, but the Imp was sure that it could see through that if it needed to. So it literally tried that, and saw through the boxes with his pure will, noticing the red thing standing past them.


    "I noticed that you liked the fire¡­" It said before slowly stepping up closer toward the Imp, but he himself wasn''t sure what he wanted to do about it. He was filled with hatred when looking at the red thing, but at the same time, he was filled with fear when that hatred started taking over.


    It helped his body stay energized, but it seemed to, at the same time, exhaust the Imp. It didn''t like this feeling at all.


    "Grrrgh!" The Imp ended up growling toward the red thing, but it simply came closer. "Shh¡­ Don''t worry¡­ You don''t need to be scared of me¡­" The red thing said quietly as it sat down on the ground in front of the Imp, who was simply staring at it with a smile.


    "Ava! Ava!" The Imp yelled out because he noticed that this word made the red thing angry, and he wanted to somehow make sure that the red thing would just run away from it. It seemed like the red thing was rather annoyed for a moment, but then it let out a deep breath and looked at the Imp again.


    "It''s Avalin¡­ Can you say that? Avalin?" The red thing asked, and the Imp simply continued staring at it with his teeth grinding against each other. "Come on¡­ You managed to pick up that stupid nickname, so surely you can manage my real name¡­ Avalin, I am Avalin. A-Va-Lin." Once more, the red thing began to speak as it repeatedly pointed at itself, and now, the Imp stared closely at its lips before another box appeared in the corner of his vision.


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled up!]


    "Ava..lin¡­" The Imp muttered out through his clenched teeth, and the red thing''s face suddenly became happier, it seemed.


    "Yes! Yes, that''s it! I''m Avalin!" It replied, before the Imp once more repeated one of the red thing''s words. "Yes¡­ Yes¡­" He said next, and now the red thing''s face just became ecstatic.


    "Wow, that''s amazing! Hmm¡­ What if¡­" It muttered to itself, turning away as it did so, before grabbing some kind of square object from the thing that it came out of before, and then sat down in front of the Imp.


    "Here, let''s try this¡­ Reading should definitely help yourprehension skill¡­" The red thing muttered to itself before opening the square to show a few white squares inside of it, and then suddenly it took a stick and created some squiggly lines on the front of it. They were exactly like what was on the boxes!


    And all of a sudden, the Imp realized something. Maybe if it used the red thing, it would be able to understand the boxes. Obviously, they had something to do with him bing stronger, faster, and smarter, the Imp just didn''t know why yet. But it hoped to be able to find out soon.


    "This here is the letter A. Try to pronounce it. ''A''." The red thing said, and the Imp followed part, using its mouth to make that sound. Next followed another sound, then another, then another, until the red thing wanted to do something else.


    Instead, it now slowly made other, longer sounds. For example, it made a certain sound while pointing at the lowly kindling mes. "Fire. This is... Ffffiiirrreeee." The red thing said as it pointed at its mouth before the Imp slowly repeated it. "Ffffiiiirrreee." In the exact same way.


    "Good job!" It eximed as it sped its hands together, before looking to the side at the mes again. "You really like fire, right?" The red thing asked, and the Imp just stared at it while bearing its teeth the whole time, before the red thing just sighed loudly.


    "Well, work with me here, will you? I need to find something you like to get you to practice stuff more easily... that''s like Animal-Training 101!" The red thing eximed, but the Imp simply started growling lowly, before the red thing shook its head and looked down at the fire.


    "Alright, let''s figure it out tomorrow, then..." It muttered before moving its fingers around in the air while releasing a steady stream of a pure white, bright substance that illuminated the area around the red thing while floating in the air, forming a small circle with squiggly lines inside, but different ones to those that the Imp knew about. And after a little while, the red thing tapped the center of the bright substance, and the fire nearly immediately went out.


    "Heguh?!" The Imp eximed, confused, simply staring at the slowly-fading light that was still floating in the air, and the red thing turned over to him, confused.


    "Oh, do you like magic? Or do you not like magic... I don''t know what those sounds mean..." The red thing muttered, and the Imp simply kept standing there doing nothing, before the red thing stepped back toward him.


    "Wait, that''s it! There was a special spell like that, right?" The red thing whispered excitedly, before turning around and sprinting toward the small thing that it crawled out of before, and returned with another one of those squares with lots and lots of white squares inside, although there already seemed to be some of those squiggly lines in there.


    "Oh please, I really, really hope this works and will end up worth it... Because these spells were really fucking expensive..." The red thing muttered to itself and ced its hands on one of the white squares with the squiggly lines inside before the whole white square began to glow brightly.


    And before he knew it, the Imp himself was surrounded by a lot of white light, and a box appeared in front of him again.


    [Proficiency Boost Activated. Boosting Skill ''Beginner Common Language Comprehension'' for the next 7 days]


    The Imp continued to stare forward at the squiggly lines inside of the box, and then the red thing sat back down in front of the Imp and took its big square out again.


    "Now, let''s try this again, buddy...."

 Chapter 5 - Overeating

    Sound after sound, the red thing made the Imp repeat after it.


    More and more boxes seemed to appear while they were doing so, and more and more, the Imp began to understand what exactly it was doing. It was bing easier and easier to learn the new sounds, and it actually somewhat knew what was happening. Until now, it was just repeating the sounds without exactly knowing what they meant, but now, it understood its meaning.


    The sound ''Fire'' referred to the mes that the red thing put out before. ''Avalin'' was the way the red thing wanted to be spoken to, and for some reason, the ''Red thing'' in his mind had changed to ''Avalin'' after finding this out. He didn''t want that to happen, but it became simply inevitable!


    Overall, the whole process of learning those sounds was pretty interesting to the Imp, but for some reason, so many many more boxes popped up all of a sudden, and they were all the same one. The Imp was pretty scared, but in the end, he managed to get used to them being around somehow, even if just barely.


    And before the Imp knew it, the sun came up again, and Avalin turned around toward the sunrise surprised. "Eh? Already..?" She muttered out quietly before standing up with a sigh and stepped up toward the thing that the other two things were sleeping in, which the Imp found out to be called a ''Tent''.


    Just a few kicks against the side of that tentter, the blue and ck things came out of it tiredly and looked around, mainly at Avalin.


    "You''re up already..?" The ck thing asked with a wry smile, and Avalin nodded her head smugly and pointed at the Imp. "Mhm! The Imp and I were working together on somethingst night! Go on, buddy, show them what you can do!" Avalin eximed and looked at him full of hope, but the Imp just stared back at one thing. The piece of dried meat that the blue thing was currently holding.


    "Eh? You showed it how to be even more of an idiot? To be fair, if anyone could do that, it would be you..." The ck thing muttered as it held its hand to its chin, but was surprised when it noticed the Imp open his mouth.


    "Food..!" He eximed and tried to point at the jerky, trying to step forward, although he was unable to do so due to the rope around its neck, which he was forced to stand in ce through. Confused, the ck thing now looked back at Avalin, who was crossing her arms smugly.


    "Who''s the idiot now?" She asked with a grin, and the blue thing ripped a piece off the jerky with its mouth and then threw the rest toward the Imp, who tried to catch it but didn''t manage to, instead tripping on his own feet which ended up making him fall down and nearly choke himself to death.


    "Yeah, I''d say it''s still that thing." The Blue thing pointed out, but Avalin just replied with an angry expression and rushed over toward the Imp to remove the rope.


    And immediately when she did so, the Imp rushed over toward the jerky that the blue thing threw over to him before for two reasons. The first being that the hunger he felt was so much more intense ever since he was given this cor, and he hadn''t eaten anything ever since he devoured his brothers.


    The second reason was that he started to smell Avalin''s scent when she approached him just now. The Imp was able to get used to seeing her, but any other sense just overwhelmed him with anger and hatred anew.


    While the Imp just started to rip at the small piece of jerky, the others slowly got ready to leave again after having a bit of breakfast themselves, and the ck thing climbed up on the tree to release the other end of the rope still attached to the branch.


    "Alright, let''s get going. It''s still a few days until we reach town... again... Erm, Avalin, did you take the tomest night?" The Blue thing asked confused, and before it knew it, Avalin already started moving to try and ignore the question, but both the ck and blue things swiftly looked at each other and then at the Imp, who was still savoring the vor of the jerky, before sprinting after Avalin.


    "Wait, don''t tell me you..." Immediately, the blue thing started flipping through the square, which the Imp found out to be called a ''Book'' until it stopped and turned its head over to the side to where Avalin was walking, "If you just used a fucking Skill-Boost on an Imp, I''ll rip your head off..."


    "Wait, wait, she did what?!" With confusion and anger on its face, the ck thing jumped in front of Avalin and spread its arms out to make her stop walking, "Why would you waste a Skill-Boost on an Imp?! Do you know how expensive that tome was?!" It yelled out, and Avalin twirled her long red hair around her finger.


    "Of course, I know... But I paid a third of it, so I can use a third of the spells how I want... And I wanted to use a Skill-Boost on the Imp''s Common Language Comprehension to make it sell for more when we get to town..." Avalin exined, and was for some reason twisting her body in weird ways toward the ck thing, which was slowly looking away in response.


    "Tsk... Fine, but if that didn''t pay off, I swear I''ll share that story about the one time you-" It started saying, and Avalin immediately grabbed the small de by her side and held it to the ck thing''s throat faster than the Imp could react.


    "If you even think about it, James, I swear to the gods that I will tell Jennifer all the things you said about her." Avalin replied immediately, and all of a sudden, the Imp felt an ufortable sting in the center of its body, considering that he seemed to have learned the name of another one of the three things.


    He, under no circumstances, wanted that to happen, but it seemed like the Imp couldn''t just rip his ears off. Or... could he?


    "Hey, stop that!" James yelled out angrily, and Avalin crossed her arms with a huff and twisted her face away. "You started it!" She replied, but James pushed her to the side as he moved closer to the Imp, who was currently trying to quite literally rip his ears off to stop hearing more about the things that took him captive.


    "Not you, bird-brain, the Imp. If you ended up using a Skill-Boost on it, then I don''t want it to be damaged at all. We need it to be in peak condition!" The ck-clothed young man yelled out as he forced the Imp to keep his arms away from his head, and then James turned back around and looked into the distance with a sigh.


    "By Gordon- Now there are monsters here, great... Thomas?" James muttered with a sigh, and now the Imp once more felt the same sting in its body as it even learned the name of the blue thing.


    "I got it..." Thomas replied and unsheathed the sword from his side and held his shield in front of himself, before mming the former against thetter a few times to attract the attention of the monsters.


    The Imp recognized them, actually. Not these particr ones, but he saw some that looked like these before. They were very nasty monsters that smelled horribly, even to an Imp, but right now, they for some reason smelled... pretty good. Although, that was probably just because of the Imp''s incredible hunger.


    These monsters were pig-faced, rat-bodied Peasant monsters, which some strongmoner monsters chose to ride on sometimes, and they had a very nasty bite to them, stemming from their giant, razor-sharp incisors.


    But the Imp was confused at what was happening right now, because Thomas simply ended up cutting the three peasant monsters apart instantly like they were nothing, before taking a step back while pressing his nose closed with his fingers.


    "Fuck, they smell horrible... Let''s get out of here; we can''t use them for anything..." Thomas muttered and jerked his head down the path the four of them were standing on, but the Imp wanted to do something else. He, for some reason, felt terrified at the thought of doing so, but his hunger managed to ovee his fear for just a moment, so the Imp sat down in front of the peasant monsters and simply burrowed his teeth inside of their dirty, stinking, delicious meat.


    While twisting their faces in disgust, the three things that captured the Imp looked at each other and slightly shuddered after seeing this. "How can it eat that..? Urgh, makes me sick just thinking about it..." James said and turned around, trying not to look at what was going on, and even Avalin nodded her head slowly.


    "True that... But let''s let it eat, for now, we can''t have it starve before we get to town. And we should probably let it drink something by the river here as well, we''re going ind now, and I don''t want to let it drink from my pouch..." Avalin said with a wry smile, and Thomas shrugged his shoulders and leaned against a tree.


    "Fine, but let''s leave immediately afterward." He replied, so the others nodded and joined Thomas by the tree, while the Imp continued on with his feast.


    The taste on his tongue was utterly disgusting, and the smelling from the blood around his mouth made him want to run off and hide, but the Imp knew that he had to deal with this for now. He didn''t directly understand what the three things were saying just now, but he knew that this was one of the few chances that he was given to eat. And that meant that he had to eat as much as he possibly could.


    Then, halfway through thets monster, he nearly wanted to throw up. And not because he was disgusted, which he was, but because he was full. He couldn''t eat another bite, but then he did and was severely punished with a box.


    [Beginner Overeating Skill Learned]


    And it seemed like even the Imp''s stomach was distracted by the notification because it forgot that he wasn''t hungry anymore! So, the Imp continued forcing the monster''s meat and blood down his throat until there was nothing left and then looked up toward the three things, before the Blue thing pointed at the river just about ten meters away from them.


    "Go and clean yourself. And drink something as well." Thomas said with a frown, and just out of spite, the Imp thought he shouldn''t do what he wanted, even if he didn''t really understand what Thomas wanted, but before the Imp could actually start that thought, his body was overwhelmed by fear that he wasn''t able to overthrow with hunger again.


    Immediately, the Imp felt inclined to sprint toward the water flowing next to them, which he then did nearly immediately, before simply jumping inside of it at a shallow ce where he could stand.


    The water colored itself red for a few moments after the Imp entered it, but that soon disappeared, although the same thing happened a few times when he put his hands or face into the water.


    And a little whileter, when the Imp filled his body with as much water as he could, the three things now continued to move, so the Imp rushed out of the water and followed them, as despite feeling pure hatred toward them, he had no choice.

 Chapter 6 - Level Up!

    For hours and hours on end, the Imp continued to follow the three things that had captured him, and considering that the Imp was somewhat able to keep its anger under controltely, it was able to properly take a look at what they were doing and what they were like.


    After all, they were his enemies, so it was best to know something about them, at least that was the conclusion the Imp came to.


    The main things that it noticed were the roles of the different things. First, the ck thing, James, usually went on ahead if something seemed off, and usually was the one that tried to distract some of the monsters while Avalin and Thomas took care of the rest.


    Avalin herself, for the most part, stayed in the back and shot arrows at the monsters, although she also chose to go into closebat when necessary sometimes, using a small dagger by her side. She was also using a lot of magic, and sometimes shot fire-arrows at monsters!


    And atst, Thomas. He was the one that the Imp deemed most dangerous, albeit least aggressive. While James and Avalin ended up being quite loud pretty often, Thomas just stayed out of everything for the most part and tried to get the others to keep walking instead of yelling at each other. But when monsters entered his sight, he basically changed instantly.


    Within a few moments, the monsters in front of him were shredded to pieces with his sword. The Imp didn''t even understand why he had that shield beyond hammering onto it to grab the monsters'' attention sometimes, because none of them even managed tond a hit on him.


    Especially in the fight that the Imp was currently watching, Thomas was once more taking care of most of the monsters, but the Imp himself noticed something that none of the others did, not even James, the lookout.


    On one of the trees behind the group, a monster was lying in wait, eyeing Avalin the whole time. It seemed to just ignore the Imp because it had no interest in him, which he was rather d about. If that MonsterMonster managed to hurt, maybe even kill, any of them, it would make it possible for him to escape a lot earlier than he would have thought!


    At least that was in the Imp''s mind for a while, until what he had hoped for actually happened. The MonsterMonster jumped off the tree and grabbed onto Avalin''s back, and the Imp ended up grinning broadly in response to seeing the red-haired thing il around so much trying to get it off of her.


    Thomas and James were pretty far away, and because the MonsterMonster was holding Avalin''s mouth shut with two of its four arms while the others began to scratch at her neck, neither of them noticed that anything was even going on.


    But then, something that immediately changed the Imp''s mind happened. A red box appeared in front of him.


    [Your Owner is currently taking damage. If your Owner dies, so will you]


    The Imp was smart, maybe not as smart as it thought it was just yesterday, but it was smart enough to figure out that red boxes were the worst of them all. The blue ones seemed to actually help him, so maybe they weren''t all bad, but the red boxes only appeared when something really, really bad was happening.


    And the moment that the Imp saw the color of the box, his body was filled with fear, a fear that he had never felt before. A fear that he didn''t want to feel, but had to due to being captured by Avalin.


    The Imp actually felt scared for something else''s sake. It was for something that the Imp hated from the deepest pore of his body, but it was fear nheless. He was probably feeling it because it also influenced him, but for some reason, this felt different. For just a split moment, it felt as if the Imp didn''t hate Avalin all that much, because he knew what she was feeling right now. And then a few new boxes appeared, and the Imp ended up just sprinting forward.


    [You have felt Empathy for the first time!]


    [Intelligence +1][Wisdom +1][Willpower +1][Perception +1]


    As fast as he could, with all the speed that he had gained while running from the boxes before, the Imp now chose to engage something instead of running away from it, despite being utterly terrified. For some reason, it just wanted to continue on forward.


    [You fought against fear. Willpower +1]


    Avalin seemed to have tried to grab the small de from her side to fight the MonsterMonster off, but it had mmed it out of her hand, making the daggery in the Imp''s path. It wasn''t exactly sure how to use it, but it had watched Avalin do so a few times, and even then, instinct may be enough to let the Imp push through.


    It grabbed the dagger at the not-sharp part, and without thinking about it, just pushed it against the Monster''s back as hard as it could. But just then, it realized that it had never gained strength before.


    [Bug-Ape, -1 Health]


    [You have dealt damage for the first time! Strength Stat unlocked!]


    [Beginner Dagger Mastery Skill Learned]


    Immediately after the Imp hit the dagger against the Monster''s back, the MonsterMonster turned its head around and began to screech. Of course that pulled James'' and Thomas'' attention, but at that point, Avalin was able to use the distraction that the Imp caused to overwhelm the MonsterMonster and then threw it to the ground, before pulling on the Imp''s hand, which was still holding the dagger, and made him stab the dagger through the Monster''s chest.


    [Bug-Ape, -298 Health]


    [You have dealt damage improbable for your strength. Strength +3]


    [Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled up!]


    [Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled up!]


    [Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled up!]


    Confused and surprised, the Imp stepped backward and let go of the dagger, letting Avalin grab it instead before she swiftly continued stabbing the MonsterMonster repeatedly before itpletely stopped moving.


    And then, all of a sudden, more boxes appeared in front of the Imp.


    [You leveled up!]


    [You leveled up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [You leveled up!]


    After the notifications stopped appearing, there seemed to be about as many as the Imp had fingers, anotherst one appeared.


    [You have 9 unused Stat Points Avable]


    Annoyed, the Imp waved his hands around to make the notifications disappear, because it was more worried about something else at the moment. And the thing that the Imp was worrying about took the shape of James, currently running at the Imp before kicking it into the stomach, pushing it a few meters away.


    [-189 Health]


    [Warning, you are low on Health]


    [You took a high-damage attack. Resistance +1]


    "Avalin! Did this fucker try to hurt you?!" James yelled out as he looked over at Avalin, but the young woman held her throat and shook her head immediately, while the Imp just held its hand to its stomach.


    "...N-No... It... Helped..!" She responded in a painful voice, and James began to grind his teeth as he looked at the Imp with a short sword pointed at it. "It was holding a dagger toward you. Of course, it was trying to hurt you!" He eximed, and the Imp''s vision slowly turned darker as he noticed that Avalin was drinking some red liquid before the blood from her throat stopped flowing.


    For some reason, the Imp somehow felt relieved after seeing this. Another emotion that he had never felt before, which filled him with utter discontent. But after Avalin twisted her face and held her hand against her mouth for a few moments, seemingly trying to hold something back out of disgust, she slowly stood up and walked over toward James and held her hand up.


    "I... Said that it helped...!" Avalin told James, and before thetter managed to get a word in, she continued, "It tried to stab the Bug-Ape! It wasn''t trying to hurt me, really!" She yelled at James, who simply clicked his tongue and turned around while putting his sword back into its sheath before Avalin herself kneeled down and took a look at the Imp.


    "Are you okay? Do you need a potion as well?" She asked, holding forward a bottle with the red liquid she gulped down before, although the Imp just tilted his head to the side while trying to sniff the bottle suspiciously.


    "It''s a Potion. Poh-Shen." Avalin exined, first trying to get the Imp to know the word, so that it wasn''t aplete ''Unknown'' to him, and soon he tried to repeat what she said. After all, he already managed to learn whenever she wanted him to repeat something, and his mouth was used to making sounds like that a little!


    "Potion..." The Imp eximed smugly, and Avalin nodded her head with a smile. "Yup, exactly! A Potion. If you get hurt and bleed, it makes you feel better again." Avalin exined, pointing at the blood still on her throat before smiling brightly.


    "Better!" Once more, the Imp repeated a word it heard while pointing at the bottle, and Avalin nodded once more.


    "Mhm, good. Well, you seem to be healthy enough." The red thing said with a sigh before rubbing her hand over the front of her neck a few more times and then turned over toward the other things. "There was another small river near here, right? I''d like to wash this off, if possible." Avalin exined as she turned toward Thomas, who just replied with a shrug.


    "I think so. Let''s just keep going for a while, and if we don''t find anything, we''ll try to figure out something else." He replied before Thomas looked over toward James, who seemed to be fiddling around with the monsters that they were fighting before. "Did you find any?" He asked, but James just shook his head before rubbing the blood off his hands with a towel.


    "Tough luck again. But really, the monsters in the area are mostly really weak... The most extraordinary one we found is the one that''s currently stuffing a Bug-Ape''s foot in its mouth, and it''s only level..." James started as he looked over at the Imp, who was trying to have a nice little meal.


    "Actually... What is its level?" James asked as he stepped forward toward the other things, and the three of them looked at each other for a moment before both James and Thomas turned exclusively to Avalin.


    "You didn''t check yet?" Thomas inquired, but Avalin just kept trying to get some more of the blood off her throat while shaking her head. "Nope. As I said, it''s not taming. Taming would let me check its stats, level, skills, and so on, but the Ownership basically just makes it so that it has to follow ourmands and can''t attack us. And my Beginner Inspection doesn''t let me see beyond its race." She exined, so Thomas began to scratch his cheek for a little while, before opening his eyes wide in realization of something important.


    "Wait, you started teaching it how to speak, right? Can you teach it how to read and write as well? If you can make it write down its Status for us, we won''t need to Inspect it." Thomas suggested, and Avalin shook her head with a sigh.


    "Beginner Language Comprehension doesn''t support reading and writing, thates at Apprentice, and it obviously only has the Beginner one. I mean, it''s not impossible to learn it without the skill support, and it might actually be easier than I think because of the Skill Boost, but... It''s going to take a while. I''ll try my best, though." She replied, but James just sighed lightly.


    "Do we really need to teach that all to an Imp? We''re selling it in a few days anyway." The ck thingined, but Thomas lightly hit his shoulder with a smirk. "That''s exactly why. The higher its stats and skills are while it stays an Imp, the more it''s going to be worth. It probably got a little bit of experience just now because it hit the Bug-Ape, but it shouldn''t have been enough to get it to evolve." He pointed out before pointing at the Imp himself.


    "Just think about it... We managed to confirm it''s a ''Lesser Imp''. A Lesser. Imp. They''re ssified as High Peasant Monsters at most, dude. What do you think a Peasant Monster with the intelligence of a High Commoner, or even a low Noble would be worth?" Thomas exined with a smirk on his face, and James could only follow in part.


    "A shitton?" The ck thing asked, and the blue thing nodded its head. "A shitton.." It replied, and even though the Imp wasn''t sure what was going on, he knew that something was off, considering the happy grin of the two dumb thingspared to the sad expression of the nice thing.

 Chapter 7 - Write

    While the Imp was currently ying around with the chunk of a bone in its mouth, the only leftover from the group of monsters that the three things killed just now, exactly those three things started to walk again, and the Imp simply followed like always.


    The Imp actually felt rather weird at the moment, ever since that one monster died. Not only did he stop feelingplete hatred toward Avalin, but he also felt something else. Something deeper inside of his body that he couldn''t really exin.


    And it wasn''t anything physical either, more of a feeling like something was wrong with him, or that there was something that he still needed to do, but in the end, he really couldn''t figure out what that thing was, even if he tried really hard to.


    Although he did notice one thing. Whenever he tried to concentrate on that weird feeling, a specific box appeared in front of him.


    [Unused Stat Points: 9]


    But even then, the Imp had no idea what was actually going on. He recognized thest squiggly line at the end of the box because it was one of the ever-changing squiggly lines in that one box that wouldn''t disappear no matter how often the Imp hit it.


    It was a feisty little bitch, to be exact. Either way, if the Imp couldn''t find out what it was supposed to do with this weird feeling, he would probably go insane at some point, because that feeling of unease simply kept growing stronger and stronger the more the Imp tried to ignore it!


    And so, the Imp tried to make that box appear as often as he could, to hopefully annoy it before it could annoy him too much, and soon enough, it seemed as if that ended up working at least to an extent because a new box appeared in its stead.


    [Rmended Stat to enhance: Intelligence. Continue?]


    Happily, the Imp began to smile brightly at his overwhelming victory against the box! His first one in a while, actually! And in response, the Imp wanted to just yell out one thing, the only word that the Imp knew to be at least somewhat appropriate in this situation.


    "Yesh!" It eximed and raised its hands into the air, and the three things immediately turned toward the Imp, cing their hands on their weapons, ready to attack anything that might have shown up before James clicked his tongue and turned back around, being the first to continue moving.


    "The hell was that about?" He asked, but Thomas just shrugged, while he and Avalin also began to walk again. "Just ignore it. Who knows what''s going on in its head." Thomas pointed out, and there was one specific thing currently going on in there.


    [9 Stat points assigned to Intelligence Stat]


    [New Intelligence stat at 20]


    An immense and horrid, stinging pain, as the Imp''s head felt overwhelmingly hot. It didn''t know what was going on all of a sudden, but it knew for sure that it wanted to know, and as such, gaining another new part about himself.


    Greed for knowledge. The Imp''s mind, which was usually just filled with the mere emotion of hatred toward the three things, although the hatred he had for Avalin had shrunk, was now filled with numerous, numerous questions.


    ''What''s going on?''


    ''What are the boxes


    ''Where are the things taking me


    ''Why is Avalin teaching me to speak


    ''How can I stop this pain


    All of these were just a handful of the thoughts that the Imp had gained together with the increase of its intelligence. And after a little while, at least thest one of them had been answered.


    The pain simply stopped on its own, and the Imp could continue walking behind the three things, slowly managing to focus on the rest of his questions.


    And in response to any of them, all that the Imp could think was ''I don''t know''. And then, the ''I don''t know'' had was overwhelmed by the new feeling in its mind. The curiosity of ''I want to know''.


    But it knew that it couldn''t just go and ask the three things about his questions, mainly because he simply didn''t have the ability to. The three things seemed to speak to each other in thenguage that the Imp was still learning, so it somehow had to try and get his thoughts across.


    For hours and hours on end, while they were all walking, the Imp was trying to get an idea, but he simply never got one. He just tried to figure it out, although he seemed to stillck the intelligence for it. But at the very least, it managed to figure out the priority of the issues it needed to figure out.


    The Imp somehow had to be able to speak to the three things. For one, to tell Thomas and James how much they sucked, and to then ask Avalin whatever questions he might have! And to his luck, the nice red thing seemed to have the same thing in mind.


    While they were all taking a break when the sun was at the highest it would be, Avalin sat down together with the Imp and grabbed the empty book that Avalin drew into before, and then grabbed a pencil to make the squiggly lines inside of it. Although instead of being squiggly, the lines were straight!


    And then, they changed into the shape of the box! The Imp barely could believe his eyes, but soon enough, Avalin even drew the squiggly lines inside. Excitedly at maybe finding a way to learn about them, the Imp jumped back up and raised his hand toward one of the boxes.


    "Ergh... Ergh...!!" He tried to exin, although he just really didn''t know the word for it, although Avalin seemed to.


    "You see it? Is it a notification?" She asked with a broad smile, and the Imp just tried to repeat that word as well as he could.


    "Noddiphikashion!" It eximed, considering that it only heard such a long word so quickly, the Imp felt rather proud at managing to replicate the sound so well!


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled up!]


    And immediately, the word that the Imp just said seemed to be nearly imprinted in his mind, like the words that caused a box to appear always were, and just then, the ''Box'' turned into a ''Notification''. It was a bigger word, but for some reason, it seemed a lot less scary than ''Box''. The Imp didn''t know why, but it was happy that it managed to figure out what it meant!


    "Yes! Exactly! Well, at least it knows about them..." Avalin muttered to herself before starting to write something down in her book, before drawing a long line into the center of the page.


    "Alright, I guess we should start like this. Try to take this into your hand, okay?" The red thing asked the Imp as she held forward the small stick she was holding toward him. Slowly, the Imp grabbed it from her, realizing that that was what Avalin wanted from him before Avalin slowly led the Imp''s hand across the paper.


    "This is how you write. I already showed these letters to you yesterday. Now you just need to write them." She exined, and the Imp slowly nodded his head, "Write." It grunted, and Avalin''s smile grew a little bit.


    "Exactly. This one here is ''A''. Do you remember it? Try to say it again?" Avalin asked of the Imp, and he just did as asked, slowly moving the stick in three straight lines while making that sound lengthily.


    "Good job!" Avalin eximed with a bright smile and pushed her hand into her pocket, grabbing a small bag that gave off apletely delicious smell to the Imp before Avalin slowly grabbed a cube of meat out of it and presented it to the Imp.


    Confused, he leaned in a little bit and just sniffed the cube, unsure what Avalin wanted him to do with it before the red thing just chuckled in response. "You''re supposed to eat it. Eeeaaat." She exined and slowly held the small cube of meat in front of her lips, before holding it back toward the Imp.


    "Gah!" The Imp eximed happily and immediately sucked the cube up with his mouth, or at least he wanted to. But before he could do that, Avalin pulled the cube away from him.


    "No! Bad!" She eximed with a stern expression, but the Imp was confused. Wasn''t he supposed to eat the cube?


    "Say ''Thank you''." The red-thing told him, and the Imp tilted his head to the side, before augh from the super dumb ck thing could be heard. "You trying to teach it manners? Come on, as if it can do that." Jamesughed with a smirk as he looked at the Imp, and for some reason, he felt incredibly annoyed at what he just said, even if it couldn''t understand what James was saying. But the Imp figured out that Avalin wanted him to repeat the words she just said, so he swiftly try to do so.


    "Sank you!" It eximed smugly while giving a stink-eye to James, who just shook his head with a smirk and turned back around before Avalin smiled at the Imp happily.


    And then, Avalin slowly grabbed his hand and ced the cube on top of his palm, once more repeating the same motion as before, pretending as if she was grabbing a cube between two of her fingers before leading it to her mouth. "Like this, now." She said, so the Imp tried to mimic what she was doing, and grabbed the small meat of cube between his fingers before leading it to his mouth, while Avalin nodded her head.


    "Good. And now you can eat it." She told the Imp, so he slowly opened his mouth up and ced the cube of meat on his tongue before swiftly moving it to his back-chompers to crush the puny little thing up.


    "Good job! Now, keep writing the same letter some more, okay?" She asked of the Imp, and he simply tilted his head to the side and said, "Sank you?" In a questioning tone while extending his hand forward to get another meat-cube, but Avalin just replied with a deep sigh.


    "Right, couldn''t be that easy..." The red thing muttered to herself before just pointing at the paper again, slightly starting to lead the Imp''s hand once more.


    "Not yet, after you continue." She told him, so the Imp began to frown but looked down at his hand, following the motions that Avalin had given him a few more times, and then started writing another version of the same sound before another notification appeared in front of him.


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled up!]


    "Gruh?" The Imp muttered out before tilting his head to the side, leaning up toward the notification confused, which seemed to be coincidentally right in the direction of Avalin, who ended up leaning in toward him a little as well.


    "Ah, a notification, huh? Hmm, I wish I could properly read the writing through the reflection in your eyes..." Avalin whispered, and even though the Imp didn''t really understand what she said, it understood something else.


    It recognized the smaller, rounder written version of the ''A'' sound in the notification! Excitedly, it pointed at the ce where it could see it and then looked at Avalin, repeatedly making the sound.


    "A! A!" It eximed, so Avalin began to smile in response. "Oh, so you recognize the letter?" She asked happily and then grasped her hands together excitedly.


    "How great!"

 Chapter 8 - Manmade Beauty

    Once more, the Imp carefully ced one of the Meat cubes into his mouth and began to chew on it, in the same way as he had been for the past few times whenever he finished writing all the versions of one ''Letter'', which the Imp found the short sounds to be called, and each ''Letter'' usually had two versions to itself, a big and a smaller version.


    It seemed like the Imp was not even halfway done with all of the different letters there were when Avalin grabbed the book and stood up with a smile on her face. "Alright,e. We need to keep walking now. We''ll continue tonight, okay?" Avalin asked the Imp, who just slowly nodded his head.


    It didn''t really understand what Avalin was saying, but he understood when she was trying to ask him a question, and most of the time, it seemed to be a good idea to nod or say ''Yes''. It didn''t always work, but in about four out of five cases, it did! And that was good enough for the Imp, really.


    Either way, for now, the Imp once more started to follow the three things along the trampled path in this forest. And while he was walking, the Imp decided to punch the notifications that appeared while he was writing the letters, because there were a lot! They all seemed to be the same one though, at least all the letters were in the same order on them.


    The Imp also noticed that there really didn''t seem to be that many other notifications appearingtely, no matter what he did. A few ones dide by again, but only very, very rarely! Of course, the Imp had mixed feelings about that.


    For one, it meant that he had nearly achieved absolute victory over his oldest nemesis, but he was also missing out on the sweet new things that it could do because of them. He felt so much smarter, stronger, or quicker whenever they appeared, but now that they stoppeding by, he stopped gaining as much stuff in those areas.


    Although, there was one other new notification that appeared a few times since the Imp started writing the letters, and one of them actually appeared while the Imp was writing thest few letters!


    [Your fingers feel easier to move. Dexterity +1]


    And whenever this one appeared, the Imp''s hands started feeling different, and he could write the new letters far better! So this was definitely also a good one!


    And with a smug grin on the Imp''s face, he continued on walking behind the three things, although he was soon filled with unimaginable boredom. And then, another few monsters appeared! The Imp was hoping that it was allowed to help again this time, but instead, the three things just got rid of the monsters immediately, although one of them was holding a pretty interesting thing that the Imp didn''t seem to be able to eat properly.


    It was short and hard and looked a little like all the trees around from its material, and Avalin slowly squatted down in front of the Imp and took the small thing from him. "Hmm, a wooden toy dagger?" She asked, confused, and then looked at the Imp with a wink.


    "Here, you can keep this." She told him, but the evil ck thing seemed to have something he wanted toin about again.


    "Come on, what the hell are you doing all the time?" James asked with an annoyed expression on his face, and Avalin stood up with her arms crossed. "What do you mean? I just gave the Imp something to y around with. Toys are supposed to help children''s intelligence develop, right?" She asked with a frown, and James seemed to want to say something but instead just sighed angrily and shook his head before turning around. "Just tell it to start eating already." James told her annoyedly, "How does it even have an appetite like that?" He asked, but Avalin just shrugged and smiled down at the Imp, who was still trying to somehow bite the wooden dagger apart.


    "Well... That means it''s healthy, at least, right?" The nice red thing suggested, and then squatted down toward the Imp again. "No, don''t bite it. That''s something like my dagger here. You used it before, remember?" She exined, and the Imp slowly nodded his head and looked at the small item, somehow seeing the resemnce between the two things, even if just barely.


    Avalin''s dagger was super shiny and pretty, but this one was just dirty and not even sharp! And some idiot seemed to have even covered it in their saliva! "Greeh..." The Imp grunted with a wry smile, cing the dagger down to the side before leaning forward toward the Monster lying in front of him to just eat instead of trying to figure out what to do with this thing.


    Although just when he was trying to bite into it, the Imp noticed that something felt off. It wasn''t a big feeling, and it wasn''t anything like what he kept feeling with the three things, it just felt... wrong.


    Confused, the Imp just sat down on his butt and tried to think about what that ''wrong'' feeling was about, and then used his blunt ws for ripping a small piece off flesh out of the Monster before cing it onto his mouth.


    It seemed like, for some reason, Avalin was happy about seeing this and started doing something with the other monsters while the Imp was eating the first one.


    After a little while, when the Imp was finally done eating the Monster with the exception of those hard bits in the center of the flesh that were hard to rip apart with his hands, he stood up to eat the others, but for some reason, there were already only the hard bits left. Did he forget that he already ate those?


    At the very least, that was the Imp''s first thought, although it seemed to be rather different in reality. Soon enough, Avalin stepped up to the Imp with a very delicious-smelling bag in her arms and held it up in front of the Imp. "Here you go, now you can eat while we continue walking!" She eximed, and then opened the bag up to show that there was more meat inside of it, although it didn''t seem to be as bloody as the meat that the Imp usually ate.


    "That''s actually a pretty good idea..." Thomas, the blue and silver thing, pointed out as he looked at Avalin, who happily chuckled as she tied the bag to the Imp''s back in a way where he was able to simply pull the bag to the front of its body to start eating. And although the bag was very, very heavy, the Imp still kind of liked it, because he now always had something very delicious with him!


    "I know it is! But let''s get going now if we hurry we can maybe get over the bridge to Erand before tonight." Avalin pointed out, but Thomas quickly shook his head in response.


    "I doubt it. It took all dayst time, remember? There''s supposed to be an Inn there. We should reach it in a few hours, so let''s just rx when we get there." He replied, and James seemed to take an issue with that suggestion.


    "But that''s going to cost us probably half a day... Can''t we just try to walk around theke this time?" James asked, but Thomas just sighed deeply and once more shook his head.


    "That''s going to take two days longer than waiting for morning. And just think about how many bandit hideouts there are supposed to be all around the World Lake... it''s a pain in the ass, trust me." Thomas exined before turning around and starting to walk again.


    "Let''s just keep going. The sooner we get to the Inn, the sooner I can get to training properly again." The Blue and Silver thing said with a rather annoyed expression, and Avalin and James slowly nodded their heads before following behind him, while the Imp did the same as he was continuously stuffing his face with some of the meat in the bag.


    Although, now that he could carry it around with him, it seemed to be a good idea not to eat it all at once. Until now, he was overeating all the time when he ate the monsters and was literally hurting himself a little, but he had to in order to keep his hunger from making him mad.


    But if he was able to eat all the time now, he wouldn''t need to worry about that! "Gregeh!" The Imp cackled to himself at his intelligence and stuffed his mouth with another chunk of fine, raw meat.


    And after a little while, he figured to just put the bag on his back again so that he wouldn''t end up eating it all at once, and a nice little notification appeared in front of him.


    [You resisted a basic urge. Willpower +1]


    Surprised that it suddenly appeared out of nowhere, the Imp quickly hit it with his new wooden dagger to make it disappear, and then continued to just follow the others in front of him.


    He didn''t know why he was given the wooden dagger, by the way, but it looked pretty fun, so it didn''t have much issue with it. And for some reason, the Imp felt prettyfortable while carrying it.


    And with such thoughts, the Imp continued to follow behind the three things for another few hours, until he started to hear something in the distance. It sounded pretty loud to the Imp, so he wasn''t sure what exactly the loud sounds came from, although it was rather curious about it.


    The Imp and the three things were currently walking up a tight slope, and he actually had to use the wooden dagger for support a few times, but the further they went, the louder the sounds became. And then, the Imp''s eyes were blinded by bright light nearly immediately from the light of the sun that had started lowering itself.


    And when his eyes got used to that light, the Imp was able to see the ce that the sounds originated from. There were hundreds of things just like the three things that the Imp was with inside of that ce, and there were a handful of big structures there with many different moving blocks of wood pulled by animals moving toward and away from it.


    But the things that seemed most impressive to the Imp were none of that. Rather, what impressed him were the structures behind that.


    There was a giant, seemingly infinitely long gray road reaching into the distance, where the Imp could see some kind of tiny speck of dirt floating above the water.


    With the sun directly behind that speck of dirt, the Imp had no idea what to think. It was something that it hadn''t felt before.


    This was the first time that the Imp was faced with Manmade Beauty.

 Chapter 9 - Fear

    The Imp stared forward at all of these new things that he had never even imagined could exist, and was soon faced with Avalin leaning down toward him, pulling him out of his nearly petrified state. "Come on, don''t stop walking." She told him with a frown, and the Imp simply looked at the red thing in front of him and began to follow the three things again, all the whilst still staring forward at this wondrous sight, although it soon snapped out of it when the Imp started to feel incredibly dizzy and nauseous, and simply felt like running away.


    "Hm? Why''d you... Oh,e on, the Imp again? What''s it this time?" James asked, annoyed, staring down at the shaking young monster, and Thomas quickly took a look around and then pped his forehead with a sigh.


    "Right, I forgot... The Lake God scares off Monsters, doesn''t it?" He pointed out, and Avalin looked at the Imp with a nod herself. "Then how can we bring the Imp to town with us? We can''t just let it stay out here. It''s just going to be killed by some random adventurer..." She said and crossed her arms, and Thomas scratched his neck in thought.


    "Well, it seems to trust you a good bit, and Monsters are scared of the Lake God because of the Aura it gives off... That kind of stuff can be ovee with a high enough Willpower Stat, so... Maybe with your help, its Willpower stat can rise a bit more?" Thomas suggested, before then continuing, "We''ll go and get rooms in the Inn while you''re out here with it, and at the very least, I''lle back in a bit before training. How''s that sound?" The Blue and Silver thing pointed out, all the whilst the Imp was still just standing there, trying to figure out what was going on, while he stopped being able to hear what the things were speaking about.


    He didn''t really understand much of it anyway, so it didn''t really matter if he listened to them or not in the end. Right now, the Imp just wanted to figure out what exactly to do. He wanted to copse right there, or just turn around and sprint off, but the Imp knew that he couldn''t do that. At the mere thought of fleeing, he was faced with fear just as strong as he was feeling at the thought of getting closer toward thatke.


    And the Imp''s mind felt like splitting open because of just that. Whenever a single thought appeared in his head, the pain just got stronger, letting the Imp even ignore the notification that popped up soon after the pain started.


    Just a little whileter, the Imp could feel the pain get less, and he regained his ability to think, and immediately saw two the same notifications, as well as one long one.


    [You managed to fight off against mental pain. Willpower +1]


    [You managed to fight off against mental pain. Willpower +1]


    [Your mind is exhausted. In order to be able to break out of the ownership, ensure that you are always in a conscious state of mind]


    Confused, the Imp stared at the notifications without even getting the gist of what was there. He now recognized about half of the letters, but even then, that didn''t allow him to know about words he never heard before.


    So, the Imp swiftly tried to turn away from the notifications while holding his head in pain, before he noticed that he was suddenly further away from therge structures. Turning around, the Imp could then see Avalin standing there, looking down onto him.


    "You better now?" She asked with a smile, and the Imp was about to immediately reply with ''Yes'' as he did to any of her questions, although he noticed that he actually slightly understood what she was saying. He knew that she was asking him if the pain had gone away!


    "Yes!" The Imp then replied, this time truly meaning its reply, and another notification appeared in front of him.


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill leveled up]


    "Good. Now, do you want to try to get back there again?" Avalin asked, and the Imp didn''t really manage to reply before its head began to hang low, because it was as tired as it never was before all of a sudden.


    "Come on, wake up! We need to get going!" The Red thing eximed, and immediately at hearing her voice again, the Imp snapped its neck upward while another notification appeared in front of it.


    [Beginner Exhaustion Resistance Skill Leveled Up!]


    All of a sudden, the Imp could notice that it didn''t feel nearly as tired as it did before, even if its body still felt quite heavy and sluggish, and it soon heard the red thing''s voice again.


    "Huh? Oh, well, I guess if that works, then..." Avalin muttered to herself and then looked down at the Imp with a stern expression, "Get started! Hurry! Toward the Inn!" She eximed and pointed in the direction of therge buildings, and immediately, the Imp''s body began to move on its own, and he could hear Avalin speak from behind him again.


    "Eh? Wait, am I an idiot? Of course,mands would work!" The red thing whispered and began to follow the Imp, although he soon stopped moving again because the sharp pain returned to his head as he started to y with the thought of fleeing once more.


    "Imp! Go!" Avalin eximed, although her voice seemed rather conflicted at the moment as she was staring at him, hold its head in pain. And then, the fear of not following themand heavily overwhelmed the fear of getting closer to theke, but just for a few more steps, and then the fear toward theke returned stronger than ever.


    [You are fighting against fear itself. Willpower +1]


    Slowly, the Imp managed to cool down his head again and took a few more steps forward, but now the Imp really couldn-


    "K-Keep walking!" Avalin yelled out toward the Imp in a stutter, and he immediately felt his feet move on their own, as he continued to move toward therge structures against his fill.


    All the time, his mind was screaming, wanting to make him run away immediately, and whenever that happened, Avalin would give the Imp anothermand to move forward, albeit ever-the-less convicted to do so. A handful of notifications appeared while the Imp was walking, and they always seemed to make it at least a tiny bit easier to keep going, although taking a bucket of water away from the ocean didn''t make a difference either.


    But soon enough, these notifications stopped appearing altogether, and his body continuously felt as tired as it could be. And then, the Imp just couldn''t take it anymore, and his body copsed on the grass.


    All he could see at that time was the darkness of the inside of his eyelids, while the outside was pressed up against the dirt. His body was just stuck like it was, and he couldn''t keep going no matter what happened.


    It was as if his whole body convulsed at once to make any sort of movement impossible. To the Imp, it seemed somewhat as if he was about to die, although he soon felt something tugging on his arms.


    For a few moments, the Imp thought that it was Avalin pulling him back away from therge structures again, but he was soon shown that it was the opposite, as his body continued to cramp up in response to seemingly getting closer to what caused his immense contradictory fears, until he just stopped somewhere on hard ground and keptying there for another while, until he seemed to be able to calm down somehow.


    That took quite a while in itself, however, and his fear was reced with another emotion when he heard a certain thing''s voice, although he still wasn''t able to see him.


    "Thatzy bastard. Why''d you let it sleep on the grass?" James asked angrily, and next, Avalin''s voice could be heard again. "He wasn''t sleeping. He fell unconscious!" She eximed, and for a few moments, there seemed to beplete silence, while the Imp was just trying to concentrate on not passing out because it for some reason instinctively knew not to do that at the moment.


    For a little while, both James and Avalin seemed to start yelling at each other again, before the Imp felt a cold hand touch his forehead once they went quiet. Just momentarily, he was startled at the sudden feeling, but soon it seemed to help him calm down somehow. It was as if his body rxed, and the fear of everything just disappeared at the same time, before the Imp was slowly able to stand back up and open his eyes.


    He was now far closer to the big structures than before, and all around him, numerous things were walking around, staring at him suspiciously and full of fear.


    And the Imp returned that by feeling scared once more as well, although this time it wasn''t such overwhelming fear as before, instead he was just slightly startled and chose to hide behind of Avalin.


    "Good... looks like you''re better again, huh buddy?" The red thing whispered with a relieved sigh and looked at the Imp standing behind her, before scratching her cheek. "Now, let''s try to get a bit closer again." She suggested, before grabbing the Imp by his hand to lead him forward as if he was a child.


    A few times, it felt like the Imp would end up far too scared to move on again, but for some reason, with Avalin''s support instead of hermands, he was able to continue on forward, until they stepped into thergest structure in the area before heading off up the stairs toward where the blue and silver thing was standing.


    "Huh? You''re here already?" Thomas asked and then looked down at the small Imp, still attached to Avalin''s hand, "And what exactly are you doing there?" He then asked with a wry smile, before Avalin shrugged.


    "He acts like a kid a lot of the time, so let''s just try and treat him like one. Maybe that''s going to help get him through town?" Avalin suggested, and once more, Thomas looked at her with a wry smile.


    "''He''?" Thomas asked, and Avalin sighed deeply before looking at the blue and silver thing annoyed. "Yes, ''He''. And don''t start in the same way as James now, I''m not in the mood." She eximed rather angrily, actually squeezing the Imp''s hand tight enough to make a red notification appear.


    [-2 Health]


    Immediately, Avalin loosened her grip and looked to the side at the Imp, "Oh, sorry! Did I hurt you?" She asked with worry in her voice, and the Imp just tilted his head to the side. He once more wanted to just answer with ''Yes'', but this time again, he actually somewhat understood what she was asking him, so he said the opposite, "No..." He muttered nervously because it was the first time that he said this word, and Avalin just smiled in relief.


    "Alright, I''m d..." Avalin whispered to herself before Thomas looked at her with a deep frown. "Right... Let''s go to the training rooms in the basement, for now, James is there already as well.. I think we need to talk about this."

 Chapter 10 - Protect

    Quite swiftly, the Imp followed behind Avalin and Thomas as the two of them were walking through therge structure, while he was still attached to Avalin''s hand for some reason.


    He didn''t know exactly why she grabbed his hand so suddenly, but the Imp didn''t really mind. It helped him calm down a little, and it was just a pretty nice feeling overall. But soon enough, that ''Nice Feeling'' became useless because he soon felt a sharp pain in the side of his body as the Imp flew away against a wall.


    [-213 Health]


    [Warning, you are low on health]


    Confused, the Imp tried to figure out what was going on, but the world around him was just constantly moving for some reason, so he quickly closed his eyes in order to regain hisposure slowly, before he heard Avalin''s voice.


    "James, what are you doing?!" She eximed, and as the door to the room that Avalin, Thomas, and the Imp just entered closed behind them, the red thing started moving toward him with loud stomping footsteps, although she suddenly stopped moving.


    "Stop. Let me ask you, what are you doing exactly?" Thomas asked her loudly, and the Imp tried to continue listening in to the conversation, trying to pick up as much as possible from what they were saying.


    "I''m trying to help him!" Avalin replied immediately and tried to continue making her way toward the Imp, but she seemed to be held back by someone, who the Imp assumed to be Thomas.


    "Who is ''He''. James and I don''t need help. And the Imp is an ''It'', try to remember that."


    "No, he-"


    "Avalin, stop this. It''s an Imp. It would probably kill you immediately if it had the chance to. It''s a monster, a heartless, cruel monster. Don''t try to pretend that it''s an animal that can be trained." Thomas exined rather angrily, but Avalin simply seemed to stay quiet as she looked over at the Imp, who was still trying to listen in on everything and, as such, was simplyying there dizzily with his eyes closed.


    "Alright, then let''s test which of us is right." Avalin said and ripped herself away from Thomas before making her way toward the Imp and helping him up.


    "We''ll see what he does. It''s possible to deactivate the function of Cors like he''s wearing momentarily. Then, we''ll try to see if he would attack me, or if he still wouldn''t. If he does attack me, then we''ll keep treating him like you want, which is like a walking rock without a heart. If he doesn''t attack me, then you leave me alone and let me treat him like I want. We''ll sell him to Zaragon either way, don''t worry." Avalin said with her arms crossed angrily as she stared forward at the other two, who were just looking at each other for a moment.


    "You realize that you''re putting your life to risk in order to be able to treat an Imp better for a few days, right?" The Blue and Silver thing asked utterly astounded, and he was seemingly pretty surprised to see Avalin nod her head.


    "Mhm, let''s just get to it." She replied and brought the Imp to the center of the room before sitting down on the floor cross-legged in front of him, touching the cor with the tip of her finger before looking at the other two. "Ready? Well, tough luck, I''m deactivating it." Avalin said quite clearly before the Imp felt a slightly hot pain around his neck.


    [The Effect of the Ownership Cor has been weakened considerably. Breakout Possible in 10 Minutes, 14 Seconds]


    Immediately, the Imp was ovee with numerous confusing thoughts and emotions as he felt that he wasn''t under the control of Avalin anymore, and it was justpletely confused at what was going on or what it was supposed to do now. Was it supposed to go? Was it supposed to do something special for them? Were they waiting for something to happen?


    Confused, the Imp tilted its head to the side at Avalin, because he had noticed that she often did so when trying to ask questions, and figured that it would be possible to get his thoughts across like this.


    "Wat?" He asked, trying to use a word that he heard a little while ago and somewhat managed to keep the meaning in his mind before the Imp suddenly began to sniff the air. He was feeling so much more hungry all of a sudden, but at the very least, he wasn''t tired or dizzy anymore, so that was good!


    Immediately, the Imp tried to grab at its back to pull the bag in front of himself and then pushed his hand into the pile of meat that was still inside of it before pushing it into his mouth to keep himself fed, before he suddenly heard James and Thomas in the background.


    "It''s..." Thomas started confused, and immediately, James finished the sentence, "... eating..?" The two of them asked although the Imp added something else onto his workload while he was doing so.


    Slowly, he turned around and stared at the two of them while grinding the meat into a paste in his mouth, before he slowly began to notice how good everything around him smelled just now. At first, the Imp thought it was just the meat in his bag, but after actually eating it, he noticed that it came from somewhere else, from directly in front of him. But despite smelling so good, it made him feel sick from the bottom of his stomach.


    And there was one thing that popped into his head at that moment. The Imp managed to figure out what it actually was called not too long ago. It was an ''Imp''. He somehow knew that already, but now he managed to connect this knowledge to an actual word.


    The Imp also knew what these three things were called, even if he didn''t know what they actually were.


    And atst, the Imp also knew what this emotion that he felt toward the two of them was called, and what the emotion he felt toward Avalin was called. All of a sudden, now that the Imp was allowed to think and do freely, he seemed to have knowledge that he didn''t have before, although that just regarded his speech for the most part.


    Slowly, the Imp swallowed the meat in his mouth and stared at the two things in front of him with pure anger in his eyes, before slowly beginning to speak, "Imp... hate... James..." He muttered as he looked at the ck thing with a cold stare, and his sight turned over toward the blue thing next, "Imp... hate... Thomas..." The Imp added, and confused, both James and Thomas looked at each other, trying to figure out what was going on, before the young monster turned around and looked at Avalin next.


    "Imp... No Hate... Avalin... Imp... Like Avalin..." The Imp said as he looked at the red thing and then stepped closer toward her. For a moment, James seemed to want to step forward and stop him but was held back by Thomas.


    And then, just when the Imp stood in front of Avalin, he turned back around and once more stared at Thomas and James. "James... Thomas... Bad... Imp... Protect Avalin..." After a few moments, the Imp understood what he actually just said, although he himself didn''t know that he thought like this before speaking.


    But it seemed like at least one of the two bad things had something against that. "The hell are you fucking talking about, you shitty little shitter?!" James yelled out as he began to walk toward the Imp with determination, but before he could actually reach him, Avalin stood up and stepped in front of the monster.


    "Stop it, James." She told him with anger in her eyes, but James simply pushed her to the side. "No, I won''t stop it. And do you know why? Because you''re insane, Avalin." James replied, and before he could do anything to defend himself, the ck thing kicked the Imp in the stomach. Or at least he tried, but the meat-bag was still in the front of his body, so he didn''t really take any damage from the kick itself, even if the Imp did hurt himself from the impact when he tripped backward.


    Without hesitation, James stood above the Imp and slowly raised his foot over his face, but now, he was stopped by even Thomas. "James, I agree that Avalin''s insane for treating the Imp like that, but we can still make a lot of money by selling it, and we need a lot of money, remember?" The blue thing exined to James, who just continued staring down at the Imp before clicking his tongue and turning away angrily, just walking toward the door without any hesitation.


    "And now to you, Avalin. You won. Treat it however you want, James and I will stay out of it, but if you even for a moment hesitate in the decision to sell it, you''re out. Got it?" Thomas told her and stepped into the center of the room, only turning his head toward Avalin.


    "Now get out of here. We''ll get going by sunrise so that we can actually cross theke before dusk." Thomas saidmandingly, and Avalin stood up with a nod and made her way out of the room, pulling the Imp behind her, while the Imp just started staring at the things in the notification that were constantly changing. They didn''t seem to be letters, so he didn''t really know what he was supposed to think of these.


    In the first ce, it was weird that they were changing at different paces to each other. But most of the ''things'' werepletely the same now, and only one of them was slightly different and was still changing.


    But soon enough, Avalin interrupted the Imp and squatted down in front of him, mumbling something to herself as she began to fidget with the Imp''s cor.


    [The Effect of the Ownership Cor has been reinstated. You have managed to break through the effect immensely. It is is now possible to break out of the control within 12 hours, 23 Minutes, 11 Seconds]


    All of a sudden, the things that were changing once more changed to bepletely different! It startled the Imp a little bit, but at the very least, it was now able to actually figure out what they were and why they were changing.


    But for now, the Imp kept following behind Avalin again and stuffed some more meat into his mouth, because he was feeling really hungry again. And so, Avalin and the Imp made their way up the stairs inside of this building, and entered a small room, before Avalin closed the door behind them and tiredly copsed on the bed, pressing her arm against her eyes without thinking of what was going on around her.


    And just then, it seemed to be the Imp''s perfect chance. There was something that he wanted to do for a while now, but Thomas and James always looked at him angrily whenever the Imp got too close to Avalin.


    Slowly and quietly, the Imp stepped through the room toward Avalin and extended his hand toward her with a mischievous smile.

 Chapter 11 - Values

    Slowly, the Imp extended his hand toward Avalinying on the bed, and immediately pushed his fingers into the skin that he found there. It felt so nice, soft, and smooth to the Imp that he couldn''t resist it at all. He had to look at it over and over again numerous times so far, and now he had enough from just looking and wanted to actually do what he wanted with it.


    But it seemed like Avalin wasn''t so happy about that. "Ah! What are you doing?" She yelled out and immediately sat up on the bed when she noticed that something was off, staring at the Imp in front of her.


    The Imp, however, simply tilted his head to the side, confused. "Book?" He said in that weird tone that Avalin always used when asking questions as he showed Avalin what he was holding.


    "Ah¡­ Yeah, sure, we can take a look. But be careful, you''re scratching it up¡­ Although¡­ your ws aren''t as sharp as other Imps'', huh..?" Avalin asked surprised as she took a closer look, and the Imp just once more tilted his head to the side, not really understanding what Avalin was asking.


    "Well, anyway, I guess we should continue practicing the letters, huh?" The Red thing asked with a smile before the Imp just looked at her with a nk expression.


    "Thene on, the rest of them shouldn''t be that tough. You did a great job toward the end of yesterday''s practice as well." With a smile on her face, Avalin took the book that the Imp grabbed before from him again and then flipped it open to the page that they were atst night, taking out the pencil that they were using as well.


    And from that point on, Avalin and the Imp continued having the young monster learn about the rest of the letters, as nned, which he managed to do far quicker than Avalin expected, and when all of them were finished, the Imp really just noticed how often more of the same notification appeared in front of him.


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled Up!]


    And while the Imp was trying to reach them to make them disappear, the red thing ced her hand on the top of the Imp''s head, although it was really confused at what was going on.


    "Erguh?" It eximed askingly and held his hands on top of his head as well, or rather on top of Avalin''s hand that was still on top of his head before she began tough quietly.


    "Just saying, you did a great job. And now¡­ Hmm, if I want to see what your status is, then I should maybe¡­" She muttered to herself and then wrote even more letters onto the page, although they seemed different than the other ones.


    And the Imp actually recognized them as well! They were the letters that were alternating on that notification that just didn''t seem to want to disappear!


    "You see, these are called Numbers." Avalin exined as she tapped the page, so the Imp nodded his head excitedly.


    "Numbahs!" He eximed, but Avalin shook her head with a smile, trying to properly teach him pronunciation as well. After another try, the Imp seemed to already get it, though.


    And one after another, the Imp was taught how these different numbers worked, and in what order they worked. It was pretty simple, actually! But something seemed weird to the Imp, so to make sure, he looked back and forth from the page with the order of the numbers and the notification floating next to him, before tilting his head to the side confused.


    "Gehu?" He muttered, and Avalin chuckled in response to hearing these weird sounds from the Imp before she looked at him with a smile.


    "Now, I think we should be able to try this, huh..? You can see notifications, right?" Avalin asked the Imp while she took a blue pen and drew a blue square onto the paper, with the word ''Notification'' written inside of it, and the Imp pointed at the page and then at the notification floating next to it before nodding quickly.


    "Good! Can you think really, really hard of it?" The red thing asked, but the Imp just tilted his head to the side confused, so she figured she should do something else, turning the Imp''s head to look directly to where he was pointing before, where a notification seemed to be, making sure that he was really thinking of notifications.


    And then, while the Imp was looking at the notification and its ticking numbers, "Now, try to say the word¡­ ''Status''!" Avalin told the Imp, who did as told and simply repeated that word in a mutter.


    "Status¡­" He said, before a really, really big, the biggest one so far, notification appeared in front of the Imp! Of course, he immediately jumped back, confused and startled, but Avalin touched his back to reassure him.


    "Don''t worry, that was supposed to happen. Just take a look at it." The red thing told the Imp with a calm voice, so he slowly turned his head toward it to see what the notification was.


    ---


    [Name ¨C None][Race ¨C Lesser Imp][Level ¨C 10]


    [Health ¨C 220][Mana ¨C 380]


    [Strength ¨C 6][Constitution - 12][Resistance ¨C 13]


    [Agility - 6][Evasion ¨C 5][Dexterity - 5]


    [Intelligence - 20][Wisdom ¨C 14]


    [Perception ¨C 9][Willpower ¨C 20]


    [Skills]


    -[Beginner Common Language Comprehension][Level ¨C 73]


    -[Beginner Dagger Mastery][Level ¨C 4]


    -[Beginner Concentration][Level ¨C 18]


    -[Beginner Overeating][Level ¨C 13]


    -[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance][Level ¨C 21]


    ---


    This was so different from what the Imp usually saw when looking at notifications! There were lines everywhere, and not the letters, but straight lines splitting the words up into sections! It seemed like there were a lot of different numbers as well, but overall, the Imp really had no idea what all of this even was!


    "Now¡­" Avalin muttered to herself while looking back down onto the page in front of her, drawing another notification, but this time arge one that looked like therge notification that appeared in front of the Imp, and then ced the book down in front of the Imp.


    "Compare." She told him and then pointed from the page to the ce where the notification seemed to be, doing so over and over again, before the Imp nodded and realized that they were supposed to be the same. But there were some parts missing! And once the Imp was given the pencil again, before the pencil was pressed against the paper through Avalin, the Imp understood what he had to do, at least somewhat.


    To the best of the ability, the Imp then continued to fill the different fields on the paper out, and even though there were some empty ones, it seemed to look a lot like the notification that the Imp could see now!


    Although, he was freaking out when he finished one of the fields, and a notification appeared that distracted him for a moment, and when he looked back, the number changed! What pesky little bitches these notifications were, working together to trick him like that!


    But soon enough, all of the fields were filled outpletely, and the Imp grabbed the book, showing it to Avalin proudly.


    "Good job!" Avalin eximed and grabbed the small bag in her pocket, grabbing one of the meat-cubes from it to give it to the Imp. For some reason, while this meat was a lot tougher, it was a lot tastier as well, so the Imp enjoyed getting such a treat!


    "Wait, what..?" Avalin muttered to herself as she looked at the page, confused, frowning as she did so. The Imp already started thinking that he did something wrong, but after a while, the red thing simply raised her head and looked at the Imp excitedly, and then flipped the page of the book to the next one before writing down something else, muttering to herself.


    "Hmm, you''re pretty healthy, so your levels should have full worth for Health and Mana¡­ What was it again? Stat times the stat value, plus level times ten?" Avalin asked herself and then began to smile brightly.


    "Holy shit¡­ Holy shit!" The red thing eximed, and then stared at the Imp with wide-open eyes and immediately jumped off of her feet, stepping over toward the big bag that she always had with her, pulling out a small booklet from inside it.


    "Please, please¡­ Be in here!" Avalin whispered, seemingly nervously, and the Imp just looked at her confused while trying to listen to Avalin some more. "Here it is! Lesser Imp, Demon Type¡­ Stat values¡­ Usually, it''s 0.2 for Consitution and other physical stats, and for Wisdom and other mental stats, it''s¡­" She muttered to herself before shaking her head, confused and looking at the Imp again while standing up, flipping the book in front of the Imp back to the page before, pointing at it and into the air where the status still seemed to be again. "Compare!" She told himmandingly to activate the Ownership cor for extra insurance, and the Imp immediately once more went over the sketch of the status to make sure everything was correct but didn''t seem to want to change anything.


    So, Avalin opened her eyes wide and stared at the Imp happily, "You''re an Anomaly! That''s why!" She yelled out, but once more, the Imp didn''t understand what was going on while he was being dragged along the room by his hand, back toward the door, although Avalin stopped just before opening it up.


    "Should¡­ Should I tell them about it? I mean, that should just be proof that he''s valuable, right? Maybe they''ll treat him better if they know that we can¡­ sell him better..?" She whispered to herself and then looked down at the Imp with a slightly bitter smile, and then nodded her head with dedication and opened the door, although she wasn''t nearly as excited as before.


    Slowly, the Imp was dragged through the hallways of the building until they stood in front of another door, which Avalin slowly tapped her fist on a few times, causing the door to open a few momentster and a voice came from the inside of the room.


    "Yes, can I- Oh¡­ it''s you." Thomas said with a slight frown as he stared down at the Imp, who ended up just feeling a slight shudder before Avalin scratched the back of her neck. "Can Ie in? I have something to tell you two about. Maybe it''s going to be a good way to show you two not to treat him that badly, at least not¡­ physically." Avalin said with a frown as she red into the room at James, who was standing behind Thomas, and the blue and silver thing sighed and stepped to the side.


    "Fine. But I hope it''s worth it." He replied, so the red thing quickly dragged the Imp into the room before showing the two of them the page with the status information.


    "That''s it''s status? Sure, it''s pretty high for a level 10 Lesser Imp, but that''s what you were working toward, right?" James asked with a frown, not understanding the issue here, and Avalin immediately shook her head. "Don''t you notice anything off? At all?" She asked with a smirk, and slowly, Thomas rubbed his chin.


    "Isn''t the Imp''s Mana value way too high? It''s nearly double the Health Value¡­ Is it sick or something?" The blue thing asked and frowned again, but Avalin shook her head. "Nope, he''s pretty healthy. A bit tired, but being tired doesn''t pull down your Per-Level Value for Health."


    "Then, can you just tell us what''s up and stop being so cryptic?" James asked with annoyedly, and Avalin simply handed them the small booklet she looked through before and told them to flip to the next side in therge book they were already looking at before Thomas opened his eyes wide in confusion.


    "Wait, are you trying to say¡­" He asked, and Avalin nodded with a smirk. "Regr Imps have a rough physical stat value of 0.2. His seems to be 0.1. That makes him about half as strong as other Lesser Imps. But when ites to mental stats¡­ Lesser Imps have a rough 0.05 stat value. But at the very least, his Wisdom stat has a value of 0..2¡­ If it''s the same for his other mental stats¡­" Avalin started, and both Thomas and James looked at each other and then at the Imp, who was currently stuffing its finger into his nose to go on a mining-trip, while Avalin continued, "Then he''s about four times as smart as a regr Lesser Imp."

 Chapter 12 - Reading

    "That¡­ thing¡­ is supposed to be four times as smart as a regr Imp? Are you serious?" Thomas asked with a wry smile, and Avalin nodded her head smugly for some reason, while the Imp simply stood there next to her, pulling his finger out of his nose again.


    And there it was, the most beautiful thing that he may ever produce! Such form! Such Color! Such Size! It was perfect! Deep down, the Imp knew that he didn''t want to see it go, but right now, he was on another mission.


    He had seen it done before by one of the stronger monsters when the Imp was still part of that group, so all he had to do now was replicate that God-Like Technique! Slowly, he ced the treasure onto his thumb and pushed his middle finger onto the skin directly behind it, before pressing it down and forward, just waiting for his middle finger to be released with as much speed as possible!


    But from watching Avalin shoot those sticks out with her bow, the Imp knew that speed wasn''t the most important thing a projectile needed. He also needed proper aim!


    Slowly, the Imp grasped the arm that was going to shoot the treasure out with his other one for more stability, closed one of his eyes, and lined his fingers up with the face of the most disgusting of the two things in front of him! James!


    And then, it was time for it to say goodbye to the treasure born out of his nose. With thoughts of loss and regret pushing themselves up within the Imp''s head, he simply stayed dedicated and did what he had to do.


    "Erm¡­ The hell''s it-" James asked with a wry smile as he finally noticed this happen, but it was toote for him already.


    With a speed that the Imp himself couldn''t fathom, his middle finger pushed the treasure forward, and as if the world around him slowed down in order to allow him to watch his greatest work so far unfold, the Imp was able to see the treasure fly through the air in a straight line, and before anyone in the room knew it, the treasure flew into James'' throat, the ce that was supposed to give the Imp max points.


    It was done, the Imp had to sacrifice everything, but it was worth it in the end. Especially so when the Imp was able to see James convulse and run over to a bucket in the corner to get rid of what he had eaten today.


    "Khekekaghaaa ghaa!" The Impughed loudly, although it soon felt a pain in its stomach when he couldn''t manage to stopughing.


    Was he poisoned? Was he cursed? What did these horrible things do to him?! But then, it seemed as if the three main conspirators appeared in front of the Imp as he dropped to the ground, staring down onto him to watch him suffer.


    [You hit your target with Perfect uracy!]


    [Dexterity +1][Perception +1]


    "Gh-Ghee!" Trying to call for help, the Imp looked around, raising his hand in the air to at the very least do damage to his greatest enemies to take them down with him if he wasn''t able to be saved from this horrid fate.


    "¡­Yeah¡­ Erm, let''s check on that again, maybe?" Thomas asked with a wry smile as he looked at Avalin, who wasn''t sure how to react herself, with embarrassment or enjoyment over what the Imp did. But at the very least, she held James back from hurting the Imp even more in his dying moments!


    "Come on, just let me break one finger! If it''s that weak, it shouldn''t need them anyway!" James eximed angrily, but Avalin still held him back with as much strength as she could muster.


    ---


    Back inside of the same room that Avalin and the Imp were in before, the red thing dropped down onto the bed again and went to sleep. She seemed to have prepared a smaller spot for the Imp to sleep at as well, but he somehow really didn''t think that he actually should go to sleep, for whatever reason.


    And while he was tired, he was still able to hold out a little bit, although he really didn''t understand why that was. Maybe it was just an instinct to make sure that he wouldn''t be able to be attacked by the notifications after their failed attempt at his life?


    Either way, the Imp still felt a little bored, so he figured he should do something else to pass the time, and then ended up taking another one of the smaller books that Avalin had with her.


    It waspletely useless, though! It already had a lot of words and letters inside of it,pletely different from the book that he and Avalin always yed with. He was just about to throw it to the side when he noticed that he recognized some of the different words inside of it from the notifications.


    If the notifications and this useless book were somehow rted to each other, then he really had to investigate what this wicked creature was! After all, if it was dangerous, he didn''t want it to be anywhere near Avalin!


    The Imp continuously tried to properly figure out what those things were saying, but while he was able to somewhat figure out what the words were, he had no idea what they meant!


    After all, what the hell was a ''Rock'', and what was a ''Fish'', and worst of all, what was ''Antidisestablishmentarianism''? All of these things made the Imp really, really angry! And annoyed¡­ And tired¡­ Although thest one was usually taken care of whenever new notifications appeared around him because his dedication rose in the face of the enemy!


    That, and he was scared shitless whenever they appeared out of nowhere¡­


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled Up!]


    "Stah!" The Imp yelled out angrily and was now even more startled when Avalin began to groan behind him, but she seemed to properly fall asleep immediately afterward again.


    So, instead of stopping so that this wouldn''t happen again, the Imp quickly went back to reading. Or at least he stared at the pages and tried to read, but it didn''t seem to work all that well¡­


    And before he knew it, Avalin stood up from the bed even before it was bright out again, and she immediately jumped up when she saw that the Imp was holding the book in his hands.


    "Ah! Careful with that! That''s not something you should y around with!" Avalin eximed, but the Imp just tilted his head to the side, confused, and watched as Avalin quickly took the book from him and put it into her bag.


    "Well, at least it doesn''t seem to be ripped anywhere¡­ Guess you weren''t ying with it for that long, huh?" The red thing said with a relieved sigh, but for some reason that annoyed the Imp a little. He didn''t fully understand what Avalin was saying, but he actually kind of got the gist of everything she said.


    "¡­Not... ying¡­" The Impined, and Avalin raised her eyebrows in surprise as she looked at the Imp confused, and then took out the empty book again.


    "Can you think about making this box appear again and say ''Status''?" Avalin asked, and with a disgusted expression, really not wanting to summon what seemed to be the boss of his enemies over to him.


    "Greh¡­ Status¡­" Annoyedly, the Imp muttered this out, and the huge notification appeared again. Somehow, even if he could understand Avalin pretty well now, he still had no idea what any of this was saying, even if he did recognize some parts of it.


    Slowly, Avalin held the page with the drawing of the box in front of the Imp again and tapped one of the fields at the bottom of it. "Compare." She told him, and the Imp tilted his head to the side, confused.


    He already did that a few times yesterday! He did have to change one or two things all of a sudden, but by now, he should have gotten everything right!


    At least that''s what the Imp thought at first. But it seemed like one mistake still hid inside of therge notification, and annoyedly the Imp took the pencil Avalin was holding toward him and fixed the mistake by writing the right number next to the wrong one.


    And before he knew it, Avalin pulled the book away again and then looked at the Imp surprised once more.


    "Wait¡­ Is this right?" She asked herself confused, and with a smug expression, the Imp just showed its crooked teeth and nodded.


    "Yes!" He replied, and Avalin just looked at him with a confused expression. "How did you manage to go from 73 to 96 in one night..?" And in response to that question, the Imp just shrugged his shoulders and looked back at her.


    "Hahh.." Avalin sighed deeply and began to frown, before taking the book back out of her bag and handing it to the Imp again, "If you somehow damage it, I''m taking it back again, got that?" The red thing told the Imp, and he just nodded his head again and sat back down to try and read again, although once more, he was just looking at the letters and words and tried to see where else he could see the same words.


    And a little whileter, Avalin tapped the Imp''s shoulder, telling him that they''re leaving now, so he quickly made sure he had everything.


    Bag full of delicious meat, check! Wooden Dagger that can even y the gods check! Book that somehow has to be rted to his worst enemies, check!


    And so, the Imp puffed some air out of his nose while the meat-bag was slung over his back, the Dagger stuck into the strap running diagonally across his body, and he was holding the book with both his arms against his chest so that it couldn''t run away.


    "Leave!" The Imp then eximed, heading toward the door as he said so, and for some reason, it seemed like Avalin wasughing now that she took a closer look at him, even if the Imp really didn''t understand why.


    Then, Avalin opened the door up, and the two of them made their way down to the bottom floor of the building, waiting for Thomas and James to arrive outside. There were a lot of things simr to the three things the Imp was traveling with out here, but most of them were looking at the Imp angrily or annoyedly, although some even seemed to be scared of him even if he didn''t do anything¡­


    The Imp especially liked it when thest of those three things happened! That just showed that, despite looking so dumb, all of the things were at least smart enough to know how strong and scary the Imp was.


    With a proud puff out of his nose, the Imp stood there straight, although Avalin seemed to drag him somewhere else a little bit further to the side, and then ended up pulling the meat-bag to the Imp''s side while cing some weirdrge piece of brown cloth over his back, bound some of it around his neck, and pulled some of it over his head! All of this felt kind of weird to the Imp, and he wanted to rip it off of his body, but he hesitated for a moment when he saw Avalin''s expression.


    "Alright, as I thought, you look good with a cloak.." She said with a bright smile, rubbing her palm over the Imp''s head.

 Chapter 13 - Breaking Out

    Confused, the Imp just stared at Avalin while he was clothed in the cloak and currently had the red thing''s hand pressed onto his head.


    "You need to wear this to hide being a monster from other people. It might be a bit troublesome if others found out, after all." Avalin exined, and the Imp did somewhat understand. It was impossible to hide the fact that there was tension between monsters and these ''People''. The first time that the Imp met any of them, they had killed his brothers and were just about to kill him as well.


    These people¡­ Wait¡­ "¡­People?" The Imp repeated, confused, and Avalin nodded her head as she looked around. "Yeah¡­ people¡­ You know, Humans, Elves, Dwarves¡­" She exined, and then looked at the Imp with a wry smile.


    "Wait, you didn''t know what we were until now?" Avalin asked him, and the Imp slowly nodded his head. "Holy fucking- Well¡­ Thomas and I are Humans, and James is a Light Elf. That''s what people are called that are half Elf and half Dark-Elf." She exined to the Imp, but he just tilted his head to the side, really not able to connect any of that to anything.


    "Hahh¡­ Well, I guess I can try to show you when we''re in town¡­" The Red thing¡­ no, the Red Human muttered to herself, and the Imp slowly nodded and just shrugged, really not interested in all of that. But at least he knew what the things were now, so that seemed like a good thing.


    For now, the Imp simply tried to get used to this thing, this ''Cloak''. He didn''t like it at all, but ording to Avalin, it was important, so he figured he should keep wearing it. Avalin was smarter than the Imp, so she was probably right.


    And a few minutester, while the Imp had already moved on to looking at the notification that wouldn''t disappear no matter what and was trying to figure out what the countdown was working toward, Thomas and James came out of the Building, and without them saying anything to Avalin and the Imp, the group continued on toward therge bridge leading to the floating speck of dirt in the distance.


    It began getting a little tough the closer they got toward that bridge because the Imp was starting to feel like he was getting scared again, but with Avalin''s help and support, he managed to fight through it. Soon enough, they then entered therge, broad structure and began to walk on it further into the distance. From this perspective, it seemed like it would continue on infinitely because it simply looked like it, but the Imp knew that it wasn''t the case because he managed to see the ind in the distance beforehand.


    It was pretty full on the bridge, and because he had nothing else to do, the Imp resorted to just eating some of the rest of the meat in his bag while continuing to stare at the page of the book, and soon, they reached an area that was evenrger and broader than the rest of the bridge, where a lot of people that were evening from the other side seemed to be gathering.


    "Finally, at the rest area¡­ Walking on a light slope for so long is damn exhausting¡­" Jamesined as he approached an area where they seemed to be able to sit down, although he was staring at the Imp while they were walking there.


    "And why the hell isn''t that thing tired yet?" James asked annoyedly, and Avalin just smiled wryly. "Well, he has the exhaustion resistance skill, so I guess that''s why? I did expect him toin a little, though¡­ Although he has the concentration skill as well and he was staring at the book the whole time¡­ Maybe that helped?" Avalin suggested, and Thomas shrugged as he sat down on one of the benches and pulled his bag in front of him.


    "Maybe. And even if it has a low Constitution stat and stat value, it''s still a monster, so its base stamina is probably still pretty high." He replied, before biting into his food with a frown. "Actually, why did you give it your book? That''s the Minor Arcana Fairytale one, right?"


    "Well, he just had it when I woke up this morning¡­ I took it away from him at first, but then I noticed that he was speaking a lot more, so I had him update the level of his Language Comprehension¡­ And it rose like 20 levelsst night¡­ So I figured I should let him keep reading for a while¡­ He''s been treating him well, so¡­ that''s why?" Avalin replied somewhat nervously, seemingly once more trying to make sure that everything was really fine with it.


    "Well, I guess¡­" Thomas said with a sigh, and for another while, they all just continued eating, while the Imp just stared down at the book some more. At least, until he suddenly felt a slight rush in his head, as if he was woozy for a moment but immediately recovered.


    And when he looked up, he saw another notification that he hadn''t seen before.


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension Leveled Up!]


    [Beginner Common Language Comprehension hit Level 100 and became Apprentice Common Language Comprehension]


    Confused, the Imp looked at the notifications before just slightly shrugging and returning to his book. He still didn''t really understand anything, but at this point, something kind of felt different. He recognized some of the words more easily, and he was able to actually imagine what they sounded like. That didn''t make it possible for him to actually find out what they meant, though; he just knew what they were said like. But at the very least, he was able to recognize some of the words he heard before written down like this!


    Even then, the Imp had to just continue trying like this, and soon all the knowledge that this book was hiding from him would be unraveled, revealing the secrets to once and for all killing the notifications! But then, around the same time that the Imp thought that, some more annoying notifications appeared.


    [You have broken out of the control of the Ownership Cor]


    [You are no longer under the Ownership of Avalin Stinehearth]


    The Imp felt slightly weird all of a sudden, simr to what happened yesterday night when he told Thomas and James that he didn''t like them, but this time was slightly different. It was far more liberating! But there was something else that the Imp was trying to figure out.


    He managed to recognize Avalin''s name pretty quickly, but he was confused about the word behind that. It didn''t really seem like other words to him, so he slowly turned to Avalin, the one who that word appeared with. "¡­Avalin." The Imp said in the clearest pronunciation it managed so far, so she turned toward him, surprised, and smiled, although she still had food in her mouth.


    "Mhm?" She asked, so now that the Imp had her attention, he tilted his head to the side. "What¡­ Stinehearth?" He asked her, and immediately Avalin ripped her eyes open and began to choke on her food.


    The Imp was a bit worried at what was going on all of a sudden, but a few momentster, it seemed like Avalin was alright again. "Did¡­ you just say ''Stinehearth''?" She asked, confused, so the Imp just nodded his head, before Avalin looked over toward Thomas and James.


    "Did you mention myst name to him?" With confused expressions, the two of them shook their heads before Thomas replied. "Why would we? We never really knew you as a ''Stinehearth'', just as Avalin, so saying your name has little meaning¡­ And names aren''t needed at the Inn, just our Adventurer''s ID." Thomas pointed out, so Avalin turned around back toward the Imp.


    "Erm¡­ Where did you hear that name?" Avalin asked him, but the Imp quickly began to frown. "Not hear. Read." The Imp said as he pointed at the notification in front of him before Avalin looked at him surprised. "Were there any other big words in that notification?"


    Slowly, the Imp turned back toward the notification and frowned, trying to see what it was, and then seemed to recognize another of the big words.


    "Ownership." The Imp exined, so Avalin just sighed in relief. "Hah¡­ I guess it was just some kind of Ownership info¡­" She sighed in relief, before leaning in toward the Imp confused.


    "And you can read now?" Avalin asked, and the Imp nodded his head with a smug smile. "Imp can!" He eximed, and Avalin turned to the others with a grin, "Well, seems like his Language Comprehensions was upgraded." She told them, and Thomas, James, and Avalin then began to speak about some things that the Imp didn''t really care about. Instead, he just wanted to return to reading the book now that he actually managed to figure out what they at least sounded like. Maybe soon, he would be able to understand the words as well!


    Soon enough, the small group stood back up and continued on their way toward the ind, while the Imp continued to try and read and was still bothered by the notifications all the time. It was pretty annoying actually, but in the end, the Imp managed to fight through that due to being happy about the fact that he slowly began to understand the words he was actually reading, although only if he looked at it really hard and then thought about the word over and over again in his head.


    And after a little while, the Imp was stopped by Avalin, and when he looked around, he was suddenly back on proper ground instead of the wood of the bridge.


    "Geh?" The Imp asked, confused, and tilted his head to the side, and Avalin looked at him with a light smile.


    "We''re here, so now you need to be more careful. Stop reading and just look around a bit." She told him, and the Imp nodded his head, closing the book like he was told to and pressing it back against his chest.


    There were a looot of people here, though! Some were short and stumpy, and others were super tall and hunky, and some looked more like monsters with fur all over their bodies. And so, as promised, Avalin showed the Imp all kinds of different people and told him what kind of person they were. Through that, the Imp learned lots and lots of new words actually, and after a handful of failed tries, he was able to properly assign the right race to a person ever few attempts.


    But then, some loud people interrupted the interesting lesson all of a sudden. "Anyone that can fight,e down to the southern bridge! There''s a Monster Horde down there!" One yelled out, and immediately, Avalin, Thomas, and James looked at each other confused.


    "A Monster Horde? From the south?" Thomas asked, surprised, and next, James spoke up. "Weren''t those rumors fake?" James added, but Avalin immediately shook her head. "I-I thought so as well, but¡­" She said, confused with wide-open eyes before Thomas scratched the back of his neck.


    "Well, there''s a bunch of adventurers in this town, and if any ce can defend against monsters, it''s this one. So let''s not worry, and instead make our way back like nned." While scratching the back of his neck, Thomas told this to the others, before looking up into the sky at the sun. "If we don''t hurry, we''ll not make it all the way down again. At the very least, we can''t go all the way back down the south bridge." He said in amanding tone, and the others slowly nodded their heads, although Avalin seemed rather reluctant about it.


    "Fine¡­ Let''s get going then."

 Chapter 14 - Pheasant

    While arge number of Adventurers were rushing south to take care of the Monster Horde at the bottom of the bridge, Avalin, Thomas, James, and the Imp made their way to the northern bridge, which they without any hesitation started descending from.


    There were a lot of other people seemingly trying to do the same thing, although the Imp didn''t really understand why they seemed so scared. The Imp himself was starting to rx a lot because the weird, icky feeling that he got ever since they got close to the hugeke slowly disappeared the closer they got to the end of the bridge.


    "Do you guys really think it was a good idea for us to just leave like that?" Avalin asked with concern as she turned around and looked at the ind when the group had nearly reached the bottom of the bridge already, and Thomas sighed deeply and simply frowned at that question, just like every time that Avalin asked something simr, before finally turning around with clear annoyance in his face. "I already said, no dis¡­ cussion¡­" Thomas said with a frown, which suddenly turned into shock and confusion, before he took a sudden step backward, bumping into the Imp and dropping to the ground.


    "Gegh!" The Imp let out involuntarily as he dropped his book to the ground, which had started sliding down the slightly sloped bridge while Thomas dropped onto his back due to that slope as well.


    And then, suddenly taken out of his trance created by trying to read, the Imp quickly followed the book and picked it back up, before turning around and looking into the direction of the others, before noticing that literally everyone on the bridge was currently just staring at the floating ind in the distance, which hat turned into a pure mass of mes.


    While everyone around the Imp seemed to be pretty scared of the mes, the Imp was more curious about them, because weirdly enough, instead of that red-orange that fire usually was, these mes werepletely blue! Although, exactly that seemed to be the reason why everyone was so scared.


    "Azure mes¡­" Avalin muttered quietly and kept staring at the ind in the distance, while others around her began to start moving again, although incredibly erratically and seemingly as quickly as they could. Even those that were going up the bridge started to walk down it again. And there, the Imp came in contact with a word over and over again, but he was pretty confused about it, because it was supposed to be in a whole different direction to the fire, and it wasn''t usually blue either.


    Although considering that even Avalin was saying it, it had to be true. "Th-The Sun¡­ It''s The Sun¡­ Get going! Hurry!" Avalin yelled out and immediately grabbed the Imp by the hand, dragging him behind her as quickly as she could, while Thomas and James ran in front of them.


    And once they got to the bottom of the bridge, they didn''t stop either, but instead just continuously kept running without any sort of hesitation in the slightest. The Imp actually nearly lost his book a few times, so it was pretty annoyed and unhappy about having to run like that all of a sudden.


    But after a while, one, two, or maybe even three hourster, the four of them finally stopped running, and everyone immediately copsed on the ground while it already became dark out. The Imp was feeling surprisingly energetic even then, even if he would have been heaving for air just yesterday. That was probably just because the Imp was so amazing at everything he did, but he didn''t feel like bragging while Avalin was obviously not feeling well.


    With a pale, nearly pure white, expression, the young woman looked at Thomas and James with fear in her face. "What was a royal doing there..? What the fuck was a Royal doing there?!" She yelled out, but it seemed like neither Thomas nor James had an answer to that at all.


    "I¡­ I don''t know, but¡­ We really need to get going¡­ We''re taking a quick break here, and then we''re continuing on to the Capital. N-Not even a Royal Would go there at the moment, right..?" Thomas asked with a wry smile, burying his face inside of his hands, and James quickly nodded his head.


    "Right¡­ Literally, the strongest fighters in the world are gathering there¡­ Some of them should be able to take care of a Royal or two, r-right?" He asked while shaking all over, and the Imp just stared at the two of them annoyedly and looked over toward Avalin, pushing his hand into the meat-bag and offering her a fistful of his food. After all, he wasn''t feeling as hungry as the past few days, so he would surely be able to spare a little for her.


    "Th-Thanks, but I can''t eat that¡­ We probably should eat, though, right? Just some grilled meat should be fine¡­" Avalin muttered in reply before slowly standing up, "I''ll get some firewood¡­" She said, but before she could even stand up properly, her body copsed again in reaction to what she just experience.


    "Oh, seems like I''m still a little tired¡­ I can go get some in a minute. I just need to rest¡­" The woman added, but while she did so, James shook his head. "It''s fine. I can go get it¡­" He replied, although he just kept sitting there, pulling his knees against his chest, while Thomas began tough nervously.


    "So, you think you''re going anytime soon..? I can do it as well if you want.." Thomas suggested, but simr to James didn''t even budge at all besides the little bit caused by his constant shaking.


    "Tsk¡­" The Imp clicked his tongue because he was annoyed at theirziness and looked over at Avalin. "Fire, wood?" He asked, and pulled his cloak to the side to show the dagger bound to the strap of his bag. "Wood?" The Imp added, and Avalin just so slightly smiled at him. "Yeah, that''s wood¡­ Do you think you can get us as many pieces of wood like this as you can?" Avalin asked, pulling over a stick that was lying near her, and the Imp took a closer look before nodding his head.


    He saw a lot of those sticks a little while ago! They were all piled together already as well, so it would be easy to find a lot of them! "Yes!" The Imp yelled out and immediately turned around, trying to remember where he saw all that wood, although it was rather hard to do so because of how dark it was.


    But after just a little while, the Imp got used to it while he was walking through the forest, soon finding the pile of sticks again. For some reason, though, some annoying thing was sleeping on it, and the Imp really didn''t like that at all.


    So, angrily, the Imp took the wooden dagger he had with him and stared at the thing! But the Imp knew that he had to be careful because even if it was harmless and asleep right now, he might wake it up and be attacked! He learned such a lesson the hard way before when he was still with his brothers.


    Slowly, the Imp moved across the distance between him and the pile of sticks as quietly as he could, and when he reached the small thingying on the sticks, he swung the pointy tip of it directly at its head! And with a loud crack, it seemed like some delicious-smelling blood sttered across the Imp and the sticks below it, but this beautiful scene was interrupted by some horrid notifications.


    [Pheasant -40 Damage]


    [You attacked without being noticed! Damage increased by 20%]


    [You attacked a weak spot! Damage increased by 50%]


    [You attacked a sleeping enemy! Damage increased by 50%]


    [Total Damage: 108]


    [You killed the Pheasant]


    [You leveled up!]


    [Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled Up!]


    [You killed an Enemy with one hit!]


    [Strength +1][Agility +1]


    [Beginner Stealth Skill Learned]


    Annoyed at their sudden Appearance, the Imp swung his wooden dagger at the Notifications and quickly made them run away in a cloud of mist, while the Imp stuffed the small thing into his bag to eatter, although that didn''t seem to be the only interesting thing on the pile of sticks.


    And all of them were pretty shiny, so they were probably good things! Happily, the Imp stuffed them into his bag as well and then grabbed the pile of sticks, which were stuck together pretty tightly, and pulled it along with him back to where Avalin, and the two bad people, were waiting for him. And it seemed like especially thetter two were quite surprised to see the Imp bring along that many sticks so quickly!


    "You¡­ found a nest?" Avalin asked with a light smile, and then took a closer look at the Imp and frowned slightly, "Wait, are you bleeding?!" She eximed all of a sudden when she saw the red stters on the Imp''s cloak, but he just shook his head proudly and stuffed his hand into his bag, pulling out the first enemy that he killed himself.


    "Wait, this is a Pheasant''s nest?" She asked, surprised, and Thomas smiled lightly, "Well, at least we''ll have something to eat for now¡­ We only have a little left right now¡­" He pointed out, but Avalin frowned at him, "Hey! He killed it, so he should keep it! You know that he eats a lot more than us!"


    "Yeah, because it''s a glutton! It has the overeating skill. It doesn''t NEED to eat as much as it does. It chooses to. So, let''s go ahead, and fucking eat it already, I''m starving!" James eximed, trying to take the Pheasant from the Imp, who quickly took a step back so that he couldn''t do so.


    "You fucking- Give me that now!" James yelled out, trying to move closer to the Imp, but Avalin quickly stopped him, "Seriously, stop! We spoke about this! We''re treating him like I want to. He hunted it, so-" Ain told him off, but was interrupted by the loud grumbling of her stomach, something which the Imp had learned to be a sign that she was hungry.


    He didn''t want to give it to James or Thomas out of his own free will, but he didn''t mind giving his prey to Avalin at all. The Imp himself wasn''t hungry anyway, so he swiftly looked at the thing in his hand and held it over toward Avalin. "Take." The Imp said, and Avalin raised her brows in response, "You sure?" She asked him, and the Imp slowly nodded his head.


    "Imp not hungry. Avalin hungry. Eat." The Imp told her, and with a smile on her face, she slowly received the bird from him. "Thank you.. You two, then at least take care of this, alright? I''ll wash the blood off of him and the cloak so that we don''t attract monsters¡­" Avalin said, slowly trying to stand up before giving the prey to Thomas and James, both of which slowly began to make a fire while preparing the bird for eating.

 Chapter 15 - Cooking

    After just a little bit of searching, Avalin and the Imp managed to find a small river with clear enough water to clean clothes with, and Avalin then swiftly pulled the cloak off of the Imp''s body.


    "Now then, let''s hope we can get this out easily enough¡­" Avalin muttered quietly, while the Imp just stood there confused. Why was she trying to get the blood off of the cloak? It smelled delicious, and who didn''t want to smell delicious? And then, the Imp noticed that, if he didn''t know something, could just ask at this point! He was a big brain Imp, after all.


    "Why clean?" The Imp asked curiously, and Avalin turned to him surprised as she was rubbing over the cloth with her palm, still shaking out of fear as well as due to the cold water she was washing the cloak with. "Ah, hmm¡­ Do you think this smells good?" Avalin asked, so the Imp immediately nodded his head without a moment of hesitation, although Avalin just seemed even more surprised at that. "Oh, erm¡­ Other monsters think so as well, so if you have bloody clothes, monsters might smell you ande because they want to eat you."


    With a frown, the Imp crossed his arms in front of his book and grasped it tightly. "Not eat Imp." He said angrily, and Avalin nodded her head with a smile. "Mhm, exactly. We don''t want that, now do we?" She asked, so the Imp quickly shook his head in response.


    And for the next little while, the Imp just stood there, watching Avalin as she was washing the blood off of the Imp''s cloak, before putting it over her arm and bringing it and the Imp back to Thomas and James, who already made a small fire. Conveniently, they did so next to a fewrge rocks, which were the perfect surface to ce the cloak down on to have it dry through the fire.


    But once more, the Imp was confused at why she did so, and simply asked again. "Why dry?" He asked, so Avalin scratched her cheek with a wry smile and began to exin it the best she could. "If you wear wet clothes, you can get sick, and that''s really not good. You''ll cough and feel sluggish, and just, in general, be super weakpared to usual."


    With a frown, the Imp shook his head and stared at the wet cloak with an angry frown. "Imp not weak. Imp strong." He said annoyedly, so Avalin slowly ced her hand on the top of the Imp''s head and began rubbing it again, although the Imp thought that was a pretty weird thing to do. Even then, he just let it be and epted this fate, because it seemed to make Avalin happy.


    "Alright then¡­ Let''s just hurry and get this done." Thomas suggested while rolling his eyes, and then ced a fleshy version of the bird that the Imp killed before over the fire, but the Imp titled his head to the side at this action. Wouldn''t fire just break the bird?


    "Why Fire?" The Imp asked and pointed at the fleshy bird before Avalin smiled at the Imp. "Ah, erm¡­ It seems to be different for monsters, but people like us can''t really eat raw meat or else we''ll get sick, so we need to cook it like this first until it''s a different color all the way through." Avalin exined, and the Imp frowned and looked into his bag at the bunch of meat that he had in it, before grabbing a handful of it and dropping it into the fire, causing some small bits of the fire to fly around in James'' direction.


    "Argh! What the hell are you doing, you damn-" James yelled out angrily, but the Imp just looked at him with a frown before turning to Avalin. "Wrong?" He asked, so Avalin quickly nodded. "Yeah, pretty wrong, actually¡­ Here, just try this out." Avalin suggested and grabbed one of the thinner sticks that couldn''t really be used for the fire all that well, before grabbing some of the meat from the Imp''s bag and binding it around the stick, before giving it to the Imp.


    "Here, try it now. And don''t throw it in, just hold it above the fire." Avalin said, and the Imp frowned in response but tried to take the meat-stick, doing what he was just told to do.


    "Now, you just need to wait a little longer. That should give him the Cooking Skill, right?" Avalin asked as she turned toward the other two, so Thomas just shrugged, "Maybe, I guess." He replied, and the Imp just looked at the meat at the end of the stick while it slowly changed its color to be much, much darker than before.


    And around when it was pretty dark and brown, Avalin slowly pulled his hand with the stick back, "Alright, that should be enough. Just wait a little bit now until it cooled off some, and then you can-" The young woman tried to exin, but before she could even finish, the Imp stuffed the meat into his mouth, distracted by a notification that instantly became more.


    [Beginner Cooking Skill Learned]


    [-9 Health]


    "Bwah?" The Imp eximed with the hot meat in his mouth but still continued chewing it nheless. Others seemed to be able to eat it like that, and the Imp didn''t want anyone to think that he was weaker than them in any way! So, even if the meat was a lot tougher than raw meat, he had to fight through it, and when it finally cooled off in his mouth a bit, he swallowed it down and once more started slightly burning his throat, but it wasn''t nearly as bad as with his tongue just now, so there was nothing to worry about.


    "Are you alright?" Avalin asked when the Imp finally settled down a little, and he just nodded his head in response. "Yesh¡­" He replied, even if he couldn''t really feel his tongue, but nheless but another piece of meat around the end of the stick. The Imp wasn''t a wuss, so he would continue eating this meat as long as these people did so!


    At the very least, that''s what he was thinking before, but when the meat became brown again and wanted to stuff it in his mouth, Avalin took the meat from him and held it away a bit. "Not this time! Just wait until it cooled off a little!" She eximed while Thomas and James started cutting the bird apart into pieces that could be properly eaten by them and Avalin, and the Imp just crossed his arms with a pout on his face, while Avalin sighed and gave the Imp another stick and bound more meat around it, handing it to the Imp again.


    "Here, just make some more. When this is done, you can eat the one you made before, alright?" Avalin told him, so the Imp slowly nodded his head and began to hold the meat above the fire again.


    And a few minutester, when it was finally finished, the Imp looked over at Avalin again. "Alright¡­ Here, try it now." She suggested and gave the other meat to the Imp while taking the new one from him, and confused the Imp took another bite off the meat, expecting it to be just as hot as the other meat was before.


    But to his surprise¡­ It wasn''t! It was still warm, but it wasn''t hot enough to hurt him anymore! And on top of that, something else came to the Imp''s surprise¡­ This burned meat tasted really, really, really good! Far better than the raw meat that he has been eating up until now!


    So immediately, the Imp stuffed his face with the burned meat and quickly put new meat onto this stick, holding it over the fire again. And when this meat was done, the Imp ate the bit of meat that had been cooling off a little bit, and then ced the next bit of meat over the fire. And he didn''t actually eat all of it all at once but stuffed some of the cooked meat into his bag to keep forter.


    "Haah¡­ Yeah, that bag can never be used ever again, can it..?" Avalin muttered with a wry smile, while the Imp just looked at her with his head tilted to the side.


    In total, the Imp, Avalin, and the other two sat there for a total of one hour, slowly finishing to eat and just recovering a bit of their stamina, and most importantly, they did this to cool their nerves down after what they saw at thest town they were at.


    Well, with the exception of the Imp, of course. He just happily continued cooking his meat until he didn''t have any raw meat left anymore, and then slowly began to eat what he ced into his bag on top of the shiny stuff he grabbed from the pile of sticks before.


    But once that hour was over, Avalin quickly grabbed the cloak, which had finished drying at this point, and ced it back onto the Imp, who just looked down at it with a frown. It smelled a little weird, but it was probably fine now.


    So, after Thomas and James destroyed the pretty fire that they made before, the four of them continued walking, and although they weren''t in just as much of a hurry as before after leaving thest town, they still seemed to be walking faster than usual, and most importantly, they seemed far more on edge and reacted pretty aggressively to the slightest sound they didn''t know the source of.


    And when they encountered a few monsters, Thomas actually stumbled up for the first time ever and got injured! One of the monsters managed to bite his arm, but it sadly didn''t seem to be a serious injury, so the Imp had to continue dealing with that annoying person.


    But after the useless Thomas got injured, the group had to stop for a little while, while Avalin bound some white cloth around Thomas'' leg to seemingly stop the bleeding. Quickly afterward, though, they continued on moving again until it became bright again.


    Such bright light was actually a little annoying to the Imp, but at the very least, his cloak blocked a little bit of it, so he really didn''t need to worry.


    But instead, what the Imp did have to worry about was the fact that there suddenly seemed to be more people around again, in the same blocks of wood that the Imp saw in front and on top of the bridges, but this time around, there was something else that seemed a lot more interesting, especially the closer that the group got to it.


    It seemed like a giant block of stone, and all of the people that the Imp could see were approaching arge hole in one side of the block of stone.. It seemed a bit weird at first, but from Avalin''s reaction, the Imp figured that it was a good ce.

 Chapter 16 - Zaragon

    "Finally, we''re here!" Avalin eximed with a heavily relieved expression, before turning her head over toward the Imp with a bitter one, and then just grabbed the Imp''s hand and continued leading him toward the block of stone.


    "What?" The Imp then asked and pointed at the block, and Avalin just smiled at him. "That''s called a town. A ce where lots of people live together." She exined to the Imp, who just slowly tilted his head to the side, "Ind, not town?" He asked, really confused. The Imp thought that the ce that they were at before that began to burn so prettily yesterday was supposed to be a Town, but apparently, it wasn''t? Because these two ces lookpletely different!


    In response to that question, Avalin audibly gulped down the saliva from her mouth, "It-It is, but this one here needsrge walls to defend against monsters." She exined, so the Imp slowly nodded in understanding, even if he still wasn''t totally sure why this one looked so different to the town they were at before, but in the end, the Imp didn''t really care all that much.


    Instead, he returned to his book, which he was actually slowly starting to properly understand when reading the words, so he was slowly making his way through the first chapter, called the ''Ace of Cups''. It seemed pretty interesting, and the Imp really enjoyed reading through it, although he did have to read it a few times to totally understand what the story was about.


    From what the Imp could tell, it was about a boy who grew up in one of these ''Towns'' that Avalin spoke about, although for his whole life, he was hiding from other people every chance he got.


    And the few times that he did go to see them, he stole things from the other people without them knowing about it. After a while, the boy grew older and continued stealing and stealing, until more people joined him within a hideout in the town, and the boy became known as the ''King of Thieves''.


    Later, a trap was set for him, and the boy was captured, imprisoned within a deep dungeon. For years, the boy was kept there, nearly starving to death each and every day, and only given the minimal amount of rotten food and dirty water to keep him alive.


    But then, out of nowhere, a figure clothed in a brightly colored suit appeared in front of him, and introduce himself as the ''Arcane Dealer'', holding a deck of cards in front of him, and telling the boy to pull any one card out of the deck. And the card that he pulled was the ''Ace of Cups''.


    Soon after, the figure disappeared, and the card that the boy pulled out of the deck had turned into a decorated golden cup with a pitch-ck liquid inside.


    Craving any type of sustenance out of sheer starvation and thirst, the boy chose to drink the liquid inside of the cup. The world around the boy became weird and shifty, and out of surprise, the boy dropped the cup to the ground, alerting the guards that stood around his cell at all times.


    But when they stormed into the cell, all they found was the cupying on the ground, while the boy seemed to have disappeared. In reality, however, they werepletely unable to perceive the boy in any way, even forgetting who they were supposed to be guarding.


    Just like that, the boy escaped the prison, never to be seen again.


    The Imp didn''t really understand what all of these words meant, but at the very least, he got a rough idea, and figured out that the ''Ace of Cups'' was something really amazing! Although he didn''t really understand what exactly it did, it seemed amazing, at least!


    And when the Imp looked up from the book the next time, he quickly punched some notifications and then looked around himself, noticing that he was no longer outside the block of stone, but inside a town just like the one on the floating ind from before!


    "Alright, first, we need to go to the Guild. Then we''re going to see Zaragon and finally sell the Imp." Thomas told the others with a sigh, although the Imp really didn''t understand what exactly he meant with ''Sell the Imp''. He was an Imp, but what did ''Sell'' mean?


    While trying to figure this mystery out, the Imp continued following Avalin, Thomas and James toward arge building that took them surprisingly long to each, and that time was spent with the Imp eating some of the cooked meat he had in his bag and looking around at all the different people around him.


    And when they finally did reach the building, the four of them quickly went inside, although there was a surprising amount ofmotion there, and lots of people were running around wildly, yelling at each other. "Seems like they already know about The Sun¡­" Avalin sighed in relief before James nodded and crossed his arms.


    "Good, then we can just rx from now on, right?" He asked with a wry smile, and Thomas nodded his head as well. "I hope so! Then let''s go to Zaragon''s and sell the Imp already." Thomas said with a smile, seemingly finally able to rx after they started running away from thest town, although Avalin was still tensed up a whole lot. She did keep quiet about what was bothering her, though.


    And so, the four of them once more began to walk, to a whole other part of town, even further away than the building they were in before, although the area was a little ufortable for the Imp to be in. It seemed like there was someone staring at them at all times, and a lot of hooded people were walking around there, and most importantly, there were more small animals here than in the forests that they were in until now.


    And while the Imp generally didn''t mind all of that, as he was used to it to a certain point already, all of these things together seemed really¡­ Bad to him.


    But then, the four finally reached a small door, which not only seemedpletely out of ce location-wise, directly set into a wall in an alleyway, but it was the only clean thing around as well. And while the alleyway was dark and gloomy, this door waspletely white, without a single speck of discoloration on it.


    "Aah! Lucky! First Location!" James eximed with a grin on his face, and Thomas nodded his head as well. "Yeah, people say Zaragon always offers you a good deal when you happen to find the door right off the bat." Thomas replied and quickly stepped up to the door, hitting it with his knuckles a few times to knock, and a few momentster, the door slowly opened up to reveal a bright, pure white room inside.


    And so, the four of them stepped into that room, before the door immediately closed, and Avalin walked up to the Imp and slowly took all of his things from him! His cloak, his meat-bag, his book, and even his wooden dagger! He was leftpletely naked and exposed now!


    Although, that was the way he usually was, so it wasn''t that big a deal either. Especially after seeing that the others also ced their armor and weapons away into small white baskets, even taking off their shoes.


    "Is this really necessary every single time?" James asked with an annoyed grunt, and Avalin just shrugged quietly as she began to pour water over the Imp''s feet, before doing the same to her own. "Zaragon''s rules. Nothing we can do about it." She said, and James sighed deeply before nodding his head.


    "Right¡­ Just feels weird to ce all of my items at the entrance of a shop that you can enter from a dozen ces in town." James said with a frown, but Thomas just chuckled quietly while shaking his head. "You know nobody cane in here while we''re here, right?" He asked, but James just tilted his head slightly to the side, confused.


    "You didn''t?" Thomas added, surprised, "I thought that wasmon knowledge for people who go see Zaragon."


    "How am I supposed to know? I''m not from the Capital, the first time I even heard of him was when I came here with youst time¡­" James replied, so Thomas just chuckled again and stepped up to the next door at the other side of the room, once more knocking on it.


    Slowly, the door opened up, and Avalin took the Imp by the hand and, for some reason, squeezed really hard all of a sudden, actually kind of hurting the Imp, even if not by much.


    And then, when the Imp stepped into the room, he was met with even more pure white, although some things stuck out of that pure color.


    Neatly aligned items, ced against the walls or set on pedestals along the center of the room, and on the side of the room opposite to the door stood a single, tall man wearingpletely white clothes. Even his skin was nearly white, so he was basically invisible as he stood there, at the very least that was until the man slowly opened his eyes, showing small, pitch-ck circles with glowing white rings in their center.


    Just from looking at the man''s eyes, the Imp began to shudder, although it became even worse when the man began to speak.


    "Wee, wee, dear customers. How may I help you on this beautiful day?" He asked with a deep, clear voice that made the Imp want to scream just hearing it. He didn''t know why that was the case, but it was.


    "We want to sell." Thomas eximed in a clear voice, and swiftly, the pure-white man began to grin broadly as he disappeared into a ck mist, before appearing directly in front of the Imp.


    And while the ck mist still came from his body, the man ced one of his glove-covered hands onto the Imp''s right shoulder, another one on his chin while pulling his face from left to right, a third hand was pressing onto the Imp''s hand while thest one pulled the Imp''s eye open and then ran down to his mouth.


    Although the Imp really didn''t like any of this at all, the sheer force ced onto his body with that single hand on his shoulder made it impossible for him to move.


    "Ohoh? An Anomalous Imp, I see? Some interesting skills as well, but most importantly, an Apprentice-Stage Language Comprehension skill?" The man asked with his deep voice, and in response, Avalin nodded her head slowly.


    "Y-Yes¡­ When we met him, he said my name after hearing it only a few times¡­ And then I showed him how to read and write, and¡­"


    "Boosted the Language Comprehension Skill even?" Zaragon asked, so Avalin once more just nodded.


    "Interesting, Interesting. Doing all of this to a Wild Imp is quite impressive, I must say." The man said and ced all four of his arms behind his back, but Thomas, James, and Avalin just looked at him, confused.


    "Wild? No, no, Avalin put an Ownership cor on-" James eximed, but he immediately stopped after being hit by Zaragon''s re.


    "Did I ask you to speak?" Zaragon asked, but James simply shook his head, so Zaragon swiftly turned back toward Avalin.


    "It is true that you put it under the control of Ownership, but this dear young Imp broke out of that control." Zaragon pointed out, looking at Avalin while waiting for a response, so Avalin looked down at the Imp with a frown. "But I ced the Cor on him, and it worked without a problem¡­" She replied, so swiftly, Zaragon began to smile, showing his sharp teeth as he did so.


    "So you did, but this is not an item meant to restrain Demons, you see? It worked as it is nothing but a Lesser creature. Due to its Anomalous nature, it was able to slowly resist the effect. It seems like something happened to considerably weaken the control, although I can''t exactly say what that was." Zaragon pointed out, and immediately, the three of them could remember what exactly that moment was before Zaragon continued.


    "Either way, that is not of importance. So you say this Imp can truly read?" Zaragon asked curiously, and Avalin nodded her head immediately. "Yes, he can. Erm, he was reading the ''Minor Arcana Tales'' a lot since yesterday¡­" She exined, so Zaragon slowly formed another broad grin.


    "Is that so? Tell me, young Demon, can you tell me about any of the stories in that book?" Zaragon asked, and the Imp, feeling forced to oblige after the words of the man, slowly tried to remember what he read.


    "Ace of Cups¡­" The Imp replied, and with a surprised smile, Zaragon raised his brows. "I see, I see. What a coincidence that is." He exined with augh, before turning around and waving one of his hands in front of himself, immediately making all of the different items and pirs in the room disappear, just to rece them with a single other one.


    It was a pir, about at the height of the man''s waist, with a single small item on top of it. A small card with a decorated, golden cup disyed on it.

 Chapter 17 - Disappear

    "Wait, is that the¡­" Thomas muttered quietly, and with a broad grin on his face, Zaragon nodded and moved closer toward the young man.


    "Of course, it is, each and every piece that I offer is authentic. It is the one and only Ace of Cups. And now, let''s get to business, shall we?" Zaragon said immediately afterward, stepping up to the card on the pedestal.


    "In exchange for the Imp, I offer you a single use of the Ace of Cups, or alternatively, 30 Gold Coins." The man exined with that same broad grin on his face, while the Avalin, Thomas and James were looking at each other immediately.


    "A use of the Ace of Cups¡­ or 30 Gold coins¡­" James repeated quietly, "If we use the Ace of Cups, can''t we get far, far more money than 30 Gold Coins if we handle everything properly?" The ck-Clothed Light Elf asked, and Avalin immediately looked at him with a frown. "What do you mean with ''Everything''? Are you trying to tell us that we should steal from people using the Ace of Cups?" She asked, and with a light frown, James started looking down nervously, unsure whether that was what he was insinuating or not.


    "And even if we figured that we should do that, I don''t even understand why Zaragon is selling a use of the Ace of Cups to us as an equivalent of 30 Gold coins¡­ That would be worth far, far more, wouldn''t it..?" Avalin asked with a frown, and the Four-Armed man swiftly exined with a broad grin on his face.


    "Let''s just say that I have my own reasons." Zaragon said with a smile, but that made Avalin even more suspicious. "Yeah, I don''t think that''s a good idea¡­ Let''s just go with the Gold, that''s the safe route." Avalin said and looked at the Imp with a bitter smile. "Or maybe¡­ Maybe we should just go? Maybe we don''t need to sell him? He could be really useful inbat if we train him properly, right..?" Avalin suggested, but before she could do so, James began to grind his teeth in response.


    "What the fuck, Avalin! That was the deal from the start, you stupid bitch! Just get it already, we''re selling him, and that''s that!" James eximed, and then looked directly at Thomas, "Let''s use the Ace of Cups." He told his Humanpanion, all the whilst Zaragon just curiously watched and grinned.


    "Yeah¡­ Yeah, let''s do that. Avalin, it''s the Ace of Cups, it''s been used for the greatest Heists and Assassinations in history! You can steal anything, kill anyone, without anybody even thinking that something''s wrong! If you don''t think that is the best chance we get to seed in life, then you''re out, Avalin." Thomas eximed, and at that point, the Imp started to mentally drift off in response to what Thomas just said.


    Steal anything? Kill anyone? This somehow reminded the Imp of something that he had suppressed all this time, a task that he had been given when he first came into existence. The whole reason for the Horde of Monsters to walk together in such a fashion as it was when he was part of that group.


    And with the Ace of Cups, that would be possible?


    Just when that question crossed his mind, a notification flickered into existence, although it did so pretty weirdly. As if it had always been there, the Imp just never noticed it before.


    [Command - Retrieval of <The Fool>]


    [Retrieve the one who is to be the greatest Weapon to the King at the cost of your life if necessary]


    Seeing this notification caused a feeling that the Imp had felt only a few times before to appear, a feeling that seemed to force him to do something. It was just far, far stronger than what the Imp could have ever imagined any kind of feeling to be.


    It was¡­ Suffocating. Just imagining the idea of trying to resist thismand made the Imp want to crawl up into a ball and die right then and there because the pain that he felt when he did so was far worse than any death.


    "Hm? Is something wrong with it?" Zaragon asked with a frown as he leaned back in toward the Imp, who was currently trying to fight against this pain after dropping to the ground.


    "Oh, it''s probably just a bit tired, that''s all." Thomas said with a wry smile and immediately ran up to the Imp, trying to pull him back up on his legs. "Come on you litt-"


    And then, the Imp could feel his body drop back onto the ground, while everything waspletely silent. But just a few momentster, the silence disappeared in a storm of disaster, while the Imp could hear James convulse and throw up while Avalin dropped to her legs.


    Finally, the Imp seemed to be able to open his eyes and quickly saw Thomas'' arm, still grasping the Imp''s hand. Although, something seemed to be a little off. All that the Imp could see of Thomas was this one arm, the rest of his body was just¡­ gone. At least that''s what it seemed like at first, but soon the Imp could see a pair of legs, smelling like deliciously cooked meat that even still gave off a little smoke.


    But weirdly enough, it seemed like the same thing didn''t just happen to Thomas, but also Zaragon, who was standing directly next to Thomas while it happened, although Zaragon''s body seemed to have turned into something of a mass of pure-white flesh that was constantly moving and growing.


    Then, the Imp noticed something else. Arge sphere of blue mes in the distance, easily seen through therge hole that now made up half the room, starting directly from behind the Pir with the Ace of Cups on it.


    Slowly, the Imp then stood up and just walked up to the card that piqued his interest that much and caused such pain to appear. He needed to climb onto the Pir a little bit, but he managed to grab the card pretty easily, and immediately when his fingers touched the Card, Avalin''s hand grabbed the Imp''s and pulled him away toward the door that they entered this room through, back into the room that they ced all of their items into.


    As quickly as she could, Avalin put her armor and shoes back on and simply gave the basket with the Imp''s items back to him, so he happily put his cloak back on, put his bag over his shoulder and grasped his book, pushing the card in between the pages to make sure he wouldn''t lose it.


    "H-Hurry, we need to hur-hurry¡­" Avalin muttered to herself quietly, shaking all over as she did so, and then immediately tried to push the door open to step outside. But¡­ Nothing happened.


    Nothing at all, the door didn''t budge in the slightest. Although in return, the other door in this small room opened up again, and Zaragon, now only wearing a scorched lower-half of his suit, stepped through the door, looking even more horrifying than before.


    His whole body was covered in cracks as if he was about to shatter just like that, and now that he was shirtless, a vertical slit with sharp de-like teeth revealed itself on Zaragon''s upper body, and even worse, Zaragon''s already terrifying expression became twisted in madness and anger.


    "Did¡­ I allow¡­ you to leave..?" Zaragon asked angrily, but Avalin just dropped to the ground again, her dagger falling to the ground next to the Imp, who seemed to be just as terrified of the existence in front of him.


    "I know¡­ How you can¡­ Repay me¡­" Zaragon said with a slight grin on his face, before the vertical mouth on his upper body slightly opened up, closing in on Avalin. And the Imp knew exactly what he was about to do with that mouth. After all, one of the things that he was best at was eating¡­ So he knew when someone wanted to eat¡­


    But the Imp couldn''t let that happen, Avalin was always so kind to him, while the other two people were treating him horribly, she tried her best to be nice. Even now, instead of trying to help James, Avalin grabbed the Imp, even if he was further away from her than James. She was trying to save him, so now, the Imp had to save her!


    He knew that the small wooden dagger couldn''t do much, but there was a different weapon that might be able to. Nervously, and filled with fear, the Imp grabbed the dagger that fell from Avalin''s hip and grasped it tightly.


    Zaragon was currently distracted as he was closing in on Avalin, so the Imp had the perfect chance to step behind the monstrosity in front of him and attack him there, a tactic that the Imp learned by watching the three others fight that much.


    He knew that this would work! He would save Avalin, and the two of them would go back to the forest and run away from all of this! Avalin could show him so many more words, so many more things to eat, and so many, many more kind things!


    With such thoughts in his mind, the Imp grasped the dagger with both his hands and stabbed it right into the center of Zaragon''s neck! A ce where it would be impossible to fight an attack off properly!


    Surely, the Imp would-


    [Zaragon -0 Damage]


    Immediately when the Imp saw the notification and the tiniest of numbers attached to the Damage that he did, his mind began to race. But before he did so, Zaragon turned around with a face twisted in immeasurable anger.


    "Don''t worry¡­ I''ll get to you¡­ Later.." He said, showing the sharp teeth in his mouth as he did so, and his dark eyes prated the Imp''s being.


    And while the young Monster dropped backward onto the ground with nothing but terror soaked into every fiber of his being, he had to watch the mouth on the front of Zaragon''s body close around Avalin with a loud crunch.


    While the bones were cracking and being ground up inside of Zaragon''s body, the man himself used all four of his arms to rip Avalin''s body apart, pushing parts of her body into the mouth in his face. This pure-white room instantly became dyed red while the person that was Avalin Stinehearth Slowly disappeared into nothingness.


    When something died, it was impossible for it toe back to life. The Imp knew that. But even then, this was something that he didn''t want to be true in this case.


    The Imp didn''t know how long he just sat there, but for a while, he simply stared forward and watched the whole thing. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. His body became petrified, and he was unable to do anything at all.


    The Imp wanted to disappear immediately from this terrifying creature that just devoured the one being that the Imp thought of as kind and caring.


    And with that thought, the Imp''s eyes slowly turned toward the book that wasying next to him, while he slowly moved his shaking, thin hand toward it to pull the card out of it.


    He wanted to use this card exactly in the way it was intended. He wanted to disappear. He wanted to be the King of Thieves that ran away from his prison. The Imp just wanted to be¡­ gone.


    And while the Imp grasped the Card, Zaragon turned around with a pleased expression as the cracks on his body disappeared, and a full suit re-appeared on him, although he became surprised when he stared at the Imp in front of him.


    Although that feeling of surprise vanished quite swiftly together with the sudden disappearance of the Imp himself.

 Chapter 18 - Nothing Matters

    While from Zaragon''s perspective, the Imp simply disappeared. From the Imp''s own perspective, the world around himpletely changed. Everything looked as if covered in a thinyer of smoke or mist, and there was no ce that wasn''t blurry. But at the very least, it seemed to have worked properly. When the Imp held the card tightly, a small cup suddenly appeared in his hands like they story he read told him, and when he drank the ck liquid inside of this, Zaragon started ignoring him while the Imp began to see the world around himself differently.


    The first thing that the Imp did was to pick up the things that he dropped just know, even if he could only do so with a heavily shaking body. But even then, the Imp didn''t want to leave behind the book or the wooden dagger, and even if it didn''t help him this time, the Imp picked up the Dagger that Avalin dropped before she¡­ also disappeared.


    Slowly, the Imp stepped forward toward the door which had slowly opened in front of him, stepping into the blood that Avalin left behind. With an empty mind and no idea what to do, the Imp continued on forward.


    All he did was walk without a single moment of thought, simply grasping the book and Avalin''s dagger tightly, after stuffing the cup, which had turned back into a card, into his bag together with the shiny stuff and the meat.


    The Imp did somewhat notice that something was going on around him, even if everything seemed just so dull. There was a little bit of heat around him sometimes, but it was never enough to hurt him. At one point, a part of a building dropped down onto the street in front of the Imp, but it missed him by a few centimeters.


    And then, the Imp suddenly found himself at another ce, a ce that he really didn''t recognize. He had no idea why he was there, but he knew one thing, which was that he didn''t care either. The Imp just continued walking around the ce and stepped through therge door while numerous people in shiny armor were running around, trying to fend off the monsters that were trying to invade the ce as well.


    Slowly, the Imp stepped up therge stairs in front of him and along the long,rge hallway to the ce that his feet brought him to. There were some people at the end of the hallway in arge hall, one of them holding arge blue sphere of mes above his head, while the others were surrounding something small on the other side of the roompared to the small person.


    Momentarily, it seemed as if the Imp recognized that small person, but he didn''t care enough about figuring out why he thought he recognized them. That person wasn''t Avalin, so it didn''t matter to the Imp.


    But then, the Imp stopped moving, apparently having found the ce that his body was looking for while his mind was absent. He looked into the basket, and for some reason, felt drawn to the small creature lying inside of there. The Imp didn''t know why, but he did.


    Carefully, the Imp ced the metal dagger in his hand into the ring on his bag''s strap for it and stuffed his book into his bag, somehow feeling rushed. Slowly, the Imp grabbed the woven basket that the small creature wasying in and grasped it tightly, involuntarily smiling as he looked at its eyes.


    They seemed to be going through numerous different states of color, but every once in awhile, they were red like blood, the same color that Avalin''s eyes had. And although the color soon changed again to something else, in those few moments while the eyes were red, the Imp couldn''t stop just staring at the small thing he was carrying.


    And without him even noticing, the Imp already brought the basket with it outside of the ce that he entered subconsciously, before stepping along the utterly ruined streets, through the masses of monsters that were around him that didn''t spare him a moment of thought, and toward the forest outside of the town.


    The Imp didn''t really know how long he was walking after that, but at the very least, it already got dark when he did so. And like he was now used to, the Imp stopped when he realized that this was the case. At a safe location, surrounded by as many trees as possible, the Imp just sat down with the small creature in the basket and held that basket as tightly as he could, not leaving a single chance for it to be stolen.


    But just sitting there like that, the Imp suddenly felt quite tired. He wanted to keep watching the little thing and see what it was doing, but in the end, the exhaustion that he hadn''t allowed to overthrow him over the past few days had won, and the world became dark around him.


    Although that soon changed again, when the Imp noticed that the thing he had been carrying was making loud sounds. Really, really loud and obnoxious sounds.


    But most importantly, the Imp noticed something else as well. The world around him had changed back to what it was supposed to be. It wasn''t blurry or shifty anymore, even if the Imp still felt somewhat numb about everything that happened yesterday.


    Although just when he thought that, an immense pain spiked in the Imp''s head while numerous notifications appeared all around him.


    ---


    [You have activated the Ace of Cups. For the next 12 hours, you will evade the world, and the world will evade you]


    [Beginner Stealth Skill Learned]


    [Beginner Stealth Skill Leveled Up!]


    [Beginner Stealth Skill Leveled Up!]


    ¡­


    [Beginner Stealth Skill Leveled Up!]


    [Beginner Stealth hit Level 100 and became Apprentice Stealth]


    [Apprentice Stealth Leveled Up!]


    [Apprentice Stealth Leveled Up!]


    ¡­


    [Apprentice Stealth Leveled Up!]


    [You have evaded immense Danger. Evasion +1]


    [You have evaded immense Danger. Evasion +1]


    ¡­


    [You have evaded immense Danger. Evasion +1]


    [You have been surrounded by arge amount of Holy Energy. Resistance +1]


    [You have been surrounded by arge amount of Holy Energy. Resistance +1]


    ¡­


    [You have been surrounded by arge amount of Holy Energy. Resistance +1]


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Skill Learned]


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Skill Leveled Up!]


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Skill Leveled Up!]


    ¡­


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Skill Leveled Up!]


    [The Effect of the Ace of Cups has run out. As you are still in possession of the Ace of Cups even after the effect ran out, you are now the Owner of the Card]


    [1/14 Cards of the Suit of Cups acquired]


    [1/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]


    [Aptitude with the Water Element increased]


    [Beginner Water Magic Skill Learned]


    [You have found <The Fool>. Bring it back to the Monster King.]


    ---


    After that total onught of notifications, the Imp had no choice but to press his eyes shut and try to get through it until they all appeared, because right now they were really putting a lot of pressure onto his head.


    But more than that, the Imp was worried about what was going on with the small creature that he brought with him from that town. It was screaming a lot, so it was probably hurt somewhere!


    So, trying to fight through the pain that overcame him by ignoring the actual notifications as much as he could, the Imp tried to see if there was something wrong with the creature.


    But no matter how many times he checked, he couldn''t find any injuries anywhere. Other than that, maybe it was just hungry? At the very least, that''s what the Imp figured, so he swiftly pushed his hand into his pocket and grabbed a chunk of the meat that he had inside of it, trying to give it to the creature.


    "Eat." The Imp told it, but it just didn''t react at all! If it didn''t want to eat the delicious meat that he himself cooked, then it should just starve!


    That was what the Imp thought only at first, though. Because after a while of trying to endure its crying, the Imp couldn''t handle it anymore. He started feeling nauseous; even so, he had to try and figure something out.


    And then, after looking at the basket a little bit more, the Imp soon found a few different things lying inside of it under the nket that the creature wasying on. One of those things was a small bottle with a white liquid inside. The Imp didn''t really know what it was, but the creature seemed to try and grab it when he held it up, so he figured he could try to give it to the creature.


    But when he actually ced it into its hands, the stupid thing just dropped the bottle! So the Imp was forced to hold it for the creature, and just did what it wanted to do, which was to press the tip of that bottle against the creature''s mouth.


    And before the Imp knew it, the creature stopped crying and instead just drank the white liquid. d that it finally shut up, the Imp started to look at the notifications floating in front of it, which he now actually understood for the most part. He didn''t really know why he got so many notifications all of a sudden, but they all seemed to tell the Imp about good things. At the very least, there weren''t any red notifications again, so that had to be a good sign.


    Slowly, when the bottle was basicallypletely empty, the creature closed its eyes and finally stayed quiet for a while. It seemed like this white liquid was a wonderful magic item meant to get rid of annoying things!


    So, of course, quite curious what it tasted like, the Imp began to sip on the liquid left inside of the bottle and then twisted his mouth a little in response. "Ehhw¡­" The Imp muttered to himself and slowly ced the bottle back into the basket, although he felt no effect of it at all. Maybe it wasn''t a potion after all, but just the kind of thing that the creature could eat?


    If that was the case, then he should probably figure out a way how to get more of it, because if the creature wouldn''t eat meat and just that white liquid, then it would probably start crying just like before.


    And the Imp really wanted to avoid that under any circumstances.


    But for now, the Imp had to do something else, even if he didn''t really know why he had to do it. He had to bring this creature back to the ce where he was born, but that would probably take a really, really long time, and he only knew where to go because it felt like someone was telling him to go into a specific direction.


    In the end, it didn''t really matter anymore anyway. Nothing mattered anymore, not after the one kind person the Imp knew died.


    The Imp just wanted to crawl up in a ball and die right there, just shrivel up and disappear to where Avalin was waiting.


    "Mmng¡­" However, the Imp was swiftly pulled out of such thoughts by the creature lying in the basket next to him, simply turning in its sleep.

 Chapter 19 - Child

    After a little while of just sitting there and staring at the small creature in the basket, the Imp chose to finally start moving again, and then carefully picked the basket up by therge handle attached to it.


    And then, the Imp began to walk, walk, and walk, without pause. After all, that seemed to be what he was supposed to do. Every once in a while, the small creature seemed to wake up, although it luckily fell right back asleep so that the Imp didn''t need to worry about what he was supposed to do with its screams and cries.


    But then, a few hourster, the Imp chose to take a break, just because that''s what he learned from the three he has been traveling with until now and wanted to use that break for something else. First of all, he wanted to properly try and figure out what exactly happened to him after they entered that ce with the four-armed man, and the Imp tried to disappear, and for that grabbed the small card out of his bag.


    Again and again, the Imp tried to use it in the same way again, but nothing ever happened. Instead, after a little while, a notification appeared.


    [Ace of Cups Cooldown: 29 Days, 6 Hours, 46 Minutes, 9 Seconds]


    And once again, it seemed to be one of those notifications that kept changing over time, switching out the numbers all the time. The Imp slowly understood that it meant that it would take a certain amount of time until the countdown hit zero, but he wasn''t entirely sure what would happen when it did.


    Either way, for now, he had no choice but to ept it as it was, and instead angrily ced the card back into his bag, starting to eat some of the meat inside of there. At the very least, that''s what he wanted to do, but instead he suddenly bit into something very hard that the Imp identally picked up together with the chunk of meat.


    Annoyedly, he spat it onto his hand and took a look at it, recognizing it as one of the shiny things that he found inside of the pile of sticks from before, although he once more really wasn''t sure what it was. There was so much that he didn''t know about, and now he had nobody that he could ask either. So, instead, he resolved himself to try and find out what it was himself!


    It was small, round and blue¡­ It was hard and couldn''t be eaten¡­ And most importantly, it was shiny and was found in a pile of sticks¡­ Combining all of these things together, the Imp came to a simple conclusion.


    He had not the slightest clue what it was supposed to be.


    Although, he did see something simr before, attached to Avalin''s dagger. Carefully, the Imp pulled it away from the strap of his bag and took a closer look at it, noticing that there really was a simr thing set into the end of the dagger, even if it was red instead of blue and a slight bit smaller. But at the very least, it was a clue!


    Next, the Imp swiftly chose to grab the other shiny things that he found on top of the pile of sticks andpared them to the two things that he already found. Most of them seemed to be different types of the same thing, usually just in different sizes or colors. There were some other things as well, but the Imp really had no idea what they were supposed to be.


    And then, the Imp picked up one of the small, yellow shiny things which seemed to be different from the other yellow shiny things, because it had a different shape and other colors on it as well. But when the Imp yed around with it a little, he identally moved a small part of this shiny thing, and it broke apart!


    "Whaah!" He eximed, for some reason feeling really nervous at the fact that he broke it, although for some reason, it seemed to be still hanging on one side. When the Imp yed around with it a little more, he soon figured out that he indeed didn''t break it, and actually just¡­ opened it. And inside of it, the Imp found another monster!


    It was another Imp, even, at the very least it had the same red skin as the Imp! On top of that, it was also wearing the same clothes as him! And while the other Imp was incredibly ugly, the Imp was d to at least see someone else!


    Although, for some reason, he was only able to see the other Imp''s face, and only inside of the small shiny te of the thing. And when he got closer, the other Imp also got closer¡­


    And then, the Imp remembered something else. Whenever he looked into water, he would be able to see himself inside of it as well, so maybe this was actually the Imp it was showing?


    But the shiny t piece didn''t really seem like water, so the Imp was a little confused about it¡­ Either way, for now, the Imp just ced it away.


    Other than this small item, the Imp found one more thing. Although it looked like a stick at first and the Imp meant to have it burnt together with the other sticks, it had some shiny bits inside of it, so he really didn''t want to burn it if he didn''t have to for some reason.


    He wasn''t sure what exactly this stick was, and why it was special enough to have shinty bits inside of it, but all of the shiny bits were the exact same color as the blue thing the Imp bit into before.


    So maybe they also had something to do with each other? The Imp really wasn''t sure what that might be, though, so he put it back into the bag with the other things, because it was just about time to get moving again.


    But exactly when he tried to pick the small creature back up, the Imp heard something else behind him, immediately turning around in response.


    Just there stood another person, although a very, very short one. As far as the Imp could remember from what Avalin taught him, that person could be one of three things just based on size. One, a Dwarf. However, the Dwarf could be excluded pretty quickly, because they were supposed to have heads that were a lot bigger, a lot of hair on their faces, and shorter, stumpier arms and legs.


    Then, a Gnome. But the Imp could also exclude those because Gnomes were supposed to have pointy ears, and this one''s were just as round as Avalin''s ears were.


    And third, a ''Child''. The Imp didn''t really understand what a child was supposed to be and why it could be other types of peopleter on, but from what the Imp could tell, this could be the most likely type of person this one was.


    But when the ''Child'' saw the Imp, it immediately dropped onto the ground and ced its hands against its face, starting to cry in response to seeing it. "Stop¡­" The Imp told it, but the child was already crying way too loud to be able to hear him, so the Imp got closer and grasped his Dagger tightly. "Stop." He eximed, a slight bit louder.


    This time, it seemed like the child did hear him and slightly flinched in response, but just started crying even louder.


    And now, the Imp got really angry. Once more, he moved in closer and pointed the Dagger at the child, leaning in toward it so that it could really hear him speak. "Stop!" The Imp yelled out as loudly as he could, because he didn''t want to deal with whatever this person was trying to do, and immediately, the Child stopped crying and just stared at the Imp with its whole body shaking, just like what Avalin, Thomas and James did when they all ran from the burning ind.


    But then, the Imp noticed something else. A very unpleasant smell that just entered his nose, and he swiftly turned toward the source, which seemed to be in between the legs of the child, where a small puddle formed on the cold and hard ground.


    [You have instilled immense fear in someone. Charisma Stat Unlocked]


    Entirely annoyed at the sudden appearance of a notification, the Imp swiftly took a look at what it said and then shed it with his dagger. He understood what they were telling him now, but he still didn''t care.


    Instead, the Imp was thinking something very different. Which was that no matter the unpleasant smell this child gave off, the Imp was hungry, and the small creature in the basket would probably wake up soon enough as well.


    And if it couldn''t eat anything, then maybe the Imp was able to give it some blood to drink. He saw a few monsters back in the Horde do that, so perhaps the small creature could do the same. But just when the Imp was about to turn his Dagger at the Child, exactly that tiny creature began to cry as well.


    For some reason, the cries of this small creature and the child caused very different feelings in the Imp. This Child just made him very angry, but the little creature, on the other hand, made him feel scared, although it was a different type of fear to what he used to feel before in different situations.


    So of course, as fast as he could, the Imp turned around and ran toward the small creature in the basket to take care of it, and even if the Imp felt a little bit of pain when he got closer all of a sudden, he still couldn''t help himself.


    Quickly, the Imp stuffed the Dagger into his bag, not even trying to put it onto the bag''s strap, and tried to figure out what to do to calm it down, most importantly trying to find more of that white liquid that made it stopst time.


    But no matter how much he looked, there only seemed to be that one bottle. And at the worst timing, another notification appeared.


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Leveled Up!]


    Once more incredibly annoyed, the Imp turned toward the notification and without even thinking about reading it, hit it with his hand to make it disappear. And behind that notification, the Imp saw something that might help him out.


    The Child. Immediately, the Imp grabbed the basket it one hand and tried to haul it over toward the Child while grabbing his Dagger again with his other hand. And when the Imp stood in front of the child, he ced the basket down and pointed the dagger at it while trying to grab the bottle that had the white liquid inside of it before, and held it toward the child as well.


    He wasn''t exactly sure if it could help him, but the child and the small creature looked somewhat simr in a few ways, so it might know something about the white liquid.


    Then, seeing that the Child didn''t understand, he pointed the bottle at the still-crying creature, "It needs¡­ food." The Imp growled, and then pressed the bottle against the child''s hand.. "You give food."

 Chapter 20 - Aaron Irnhoff

    Confused and basically unable to move because of the monster in front of it, the Child just grasped the bottle as tightly as he could, before the Imp slowly moved the Dagger closer toward the Child''s face.


    "You give food." The Imp repeated with a growl, and now, the Child began to slowly react in response and tried to stand up in a hurry, throwing the bottle to the ground as it did so. But instead of doing what the Imp told it to, the Child turned around and chose to run into the opposite direction as quickly as it could.


    Of course, the Imp immediately picked the bottle up and chose to follow the Child, unsure whether it was trying to lead him to where more of the white liquid was or not, but the child was still the Imp''s best lead to get the tiny creature in the basket he was carrying to stop crying.


    For a few moments, he then just followed the child, but before he knew it the Imp stood in front of a small group of people. None of them seemed to be a major threat, at the very least they didn''t have any weapons that the Imp could see, and the majority of them seemed to be weak children like the one that the Imp followed before.


    "Wh-What..? Why isn''t the repent working?!" One of the people, a human clothed in a mostly white cloak with some yellow and red bits on it, eximed confused and looked atrge wooden box that they connected to what the Imp learned to be called a ''Horse''.


    The Imp got a pretty bad feeling when he looked at that box, but it was nothingpared to the fear he felt when approaching that floating ind for the first time, so the Imp could fight through it and ended up feeling just a little annoyed.


    "Wait, it''s a Lesser Imp! They are hurt by Holy Energy, right..? I-I think I can deal with it..!" The same human said, his body slightly shaking as he did so. Why did these people recognize the Imp as a monster so quickly? The cloak was supposed to hide that he was one, right?


    And just then, the Imp tried to touch his head to see if everything was right, although he swiftly noticed that he didn''t have the cloak''s hood pulled up, something that he was told was the most important thing about it.


    But while he was thinking about how dumb he was for not realizing that, the human started using a weird yellow stick with lots of white shiny things on it and waved it around in the air. The Imp really was pretty curious about what exactly he was doing, especially because the white shiny things looked really simr to the small shiny balls that he was looking at before, and this might be a way to find out how to use them!


    So, while the small creature was crying loudly in the basket the Imp was holding, the human stopped waving the yellow stick around, and for a moment, the Imp felt a deep sting in his chest that he immediately grasped.


    [-31 Health]


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Leveled Up!]


    After trying to rub the spot on his chest that started hurting all of a sudden, the Imp slowly looked at the notifications next to him, and the moment that he saw that one of them was red, he turned toward the Human in front of him.


    "That hurt." The Imp scowled angrily, and immediately, the Human looked at the Imp confused. "It-It''s speaking..? Wait, it''s wearing clothes, so m-maybe it''s tamed..?" The Human asked as he turned to the others in the group, although before they could answer, the man felt a sharp, burning pain in his leg. And as he turned around toward the source of that pain, it didn''t take long to find out what caused it. After all, how could he miss that shiny, well-kept dagger currently covered in his own blood being pulled out of his leg?


    [Aaron Irnhoff -20 Damage]


    [Aaron Irnhoff -23 Damage]


    [Aaron Irnhoff -24 Damage]


    [Aaron Irnhoff ¨C 25 Damage]


    [Aaron Irnhoff ¨C 22 Damage]


    [Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled Up!]


    Again and again, the Imp stabbed the dagger into the Human''s leg, mostly trying to hit the same spot, and so swiftly caused the man to drop to the ground with a horrified scream in his voice as he tried to pull himself away from the Imp, who simply continued to stab his victim, although this time aiming for the back.


    After all, this Human tried to attack the Imp. It didn''t matter if he did it because he was scared, or because he wanted to protect the other people that were there with him. Many of the Monsters that Avalin, Thomas and James killed were obviously also just trying to live their own lives, and often didn''t even attack them first. If it was okay to kill monsters in that way, it was obviously okay to kill People as well, right? At least the Imp himself didn''t see any difference in it.


    And after stabbing the back of the man a few more times, the Human''s body went limp and a few more notifications appeared in front of the Imp.


    [Lethal Damage done to Aaron Irnhoff]


    [Beginner Dagger Mastery Leveled Up!]


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You Leveled Up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You have 34 unused Stat Points]


    Confused, the Imp tilted his head to the side at at especially the ''Stat Points''. It seemed like he read that word somewhere before, although he didn''t really remember it. But on top of that, a weirdly familiar, awkward feeling returned to the Imp''s chest, which he felt after his first ever fight, just before he suddenly became a lot, lot smarter.


    This was probably what the others called ''Experience'' before, right? By listening to the others'' conversations, the Imp figured out that you were supposed to get it whenever you killed something, and that it helped you get a lot stronger. But the word ''Stat'' Reminded the Imp of something else, before repeating the word that he mentally seemed to automatically connect with it.


    "Status."


    [Name ¨C None][Race ¨C Lesser Imp][Level ¨C 44]


    [Health ¨C 560][Mana ¨C 840]


    [Strength ¨C 7][Constitution - 12][Resistance ¨C 13]


    [Agility - 7][Evasion ¨C 20][Dexterity - 6]


    [Intelligence - 20][Wisdom ¨C 20]


    [Perception ¨C 10][Willpower ¨C 20][Charisma ¨C 1]


    [34 Stat Points Avable]


    [Skills]


    -[Apprentice Common Language Comprehension][Level ¨C 73]


    -[Apprentice Stealth][Level ¨C 56]


    -[Beginner Dagger Mastery][Level ¨C 6]


    -[Beginner Concentration][Level ¨C 18]


    -[Beginner Overeating][Level ¨C 13]


    -[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance][Level ¨C 28]


    -[Beginner Cooking][Level ¨C 6]


    -[Beginner Water Magic][Level ¨C 1]


    -[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance][Level ¨C 78]


    Slowly, the Imp looked through all that was written on thisrge box, and he was able to swiftly recognize a lot of parts about it from some of the notifications that appeared before. He somewhat understood a few parts about it, even if not really all that much, but he at least got the gist of it.


    And the thing that he was luckily able to figure out at this point as well was what all of the stuff at the top of the notification meant. They were describing how good the Imp raw abilities were. How smart he was, how strong he was, or how fast he was.


    And while the Imp didn''t exactly know how he knew this, he was aware that these ''Stat Points'' could be used to make him a lot stronger or a lot smarter than before.


    It would surely be useful to be able to get stronger before dealing with all of these people in front of him, all of which were seemingly still trying to understand what was going on, but the Imp wasn''t sure if he really should put all points into strength or speed. He really had no idea.


    The thing that was most useful to him at the moment was, after all, the Imp''s intelligence. The person that the Imp just killed was incredibly weak, and seeing how he was the only one that even tried attacking the Imp, he figured that he was the strongest amongst these people.


    Once he got that white liquid from them, he would probably be able to kill them for more of these points anyway, so he didn''t need to worry about how he used the ones he had right now, probably. So, in the end, the Imp quickly ced a few into Srength and Agility, and then put the rest into intelligence, all by just clicking the different words on the notification in front of him, although the Imp was a little confused at why it didn''t disappear like all other notifications usually did.


    But the Imp didn''t care much either, because with an actual quick punch, the notification immediately turned to mist and disappeared. And while the Imp did feel a really sharp stinging in his head again, at the same time everything just looked so much clearer to him, and he was able to properly see through different situations.


    For example, he quickly made a connection that he didn''t make before. There was a woman there, and she had a lot of children around her. And what she was holding was very simr to the small creature in the basket the Imp was carrying.


    It looked a little different, sure, but they seemed to be the same in some way. And from that, the Imp figured that the woman had to have some way to take care of these creatures, and swiftly stepped forward in front of her, holding the bottle he had with him toward her as he did so.


    "Give food." The Imp told the woman, who slowly nced at the creature still crying inside of the basket, while the Imp continued, "It hungry. Need food." He said angrily, just wanting her to get to it because the creature was making him feel weird the more it was crying.


    "Y-You want me to f-feed that child..?" She asked, and confused, the Imp looked at the creature in the basket, figuring that she meant it, and then just nodded his head in response.


    Slowly, the woman took the bottle from the Imp and nodded her head. "Th-Then can you give it to m-me for a moment..?" The woman asked as she slowly handed the tiny child she was holding to one of the other children next to her, before extending her hand toward the basket, which he simply pulled away from her.


    "You give food. Give." He told her, and the woman slowly nodded and rushed to the side of the wooden box. Of course the Imp followed her while she was doing that. And after stepping into the box, the Woman came back out with another,rger bottle of the white liquid.


    "H-Here, this is the milk we give to the children..." She said fearfully, and the Imp frowned and looked at the two bottles. The liquid did indeed look the same, but the bottles werepletely differently. Noticing that the Imp was thinking about something like that, the Woman slowly took a bottle out of her pocket and tried to fill it up with some of the milk, before handing the bottle to the Imp.


    "Use th-this one..." The woman told him, so the Imp ced the basket to the ground and held the bottle toward the small creature, apparently also considered a child, but no matter what the Imp tried, it wouldn''t try and drink anything. Although, at this point he did notice a really unpleasant smelling from it, now that he got close to it, and wasn''t sure if it only just appeared now or was already there some time ago.


    "It not eating. Wrong food." The Imp said as he growled at the woman, who tried to slowly approach the basket, seemingly also smelling that something was off, and then looked at the Imp fearfully.


    "I-I think its di-diapers are full...."

 Chapter 21 - Lonely Naiad

    With a deep frown, the Imp just stared at the woman, unsure of what she meant with what she just said. "Diapers?" It asked, wondering if this person was making up words to confuse him, and she quickly nodded her head in response.


    "Y-Yeah, wh-what it''s wearing under the cloth-clothes..." The Woman stuttered fearfully, and the Imp continued to frown, "Diapers make it cry?" He asked, continuing to point the dagger at her.


    After all, he paid as much attention to the child as he could, so nobody could have snuck something into it that he didn''t know about. And he doubted that the people at the town he was at before wanted to make this child cry so horiffically and put something like that on it.


    Nervously, the woman shook her head in response and slowly extended her hand toward the tiny childying in the basket, "C-Can I show you..?" She asked, seemingly truly concerned for the child even if she never even saw it before now, and the Imp slowly nodded, holding the tip of the dagger now directly against the Woman''s skin, so that if she made any wrong move, he would be able to fight her off immediately.


    Carefully, the then slowly pulled the dress that this child for some reason was wearing up and opened the cloth diapers up, revealing the bad-smelling substance to the Imp.


    "Th-This is it... I-It needs to be cleaned..." The Woman told the Imp, who slowly nodded at the woman, waving his hand at her to tell her to get to it already. Now that he at least somewhat understood what was going on, he was aware that it was a good idea to get rid of that dirt, even if the Imp didn''t understand why people wore things like that anyway.


    It had to get in the way when taking a shit, right? Well, obviously it did, as seen for this child. And before the Imp knew it, the woman tried to stand up, but he simply grasped her arm and tried to make her stay by pushing his ws into her arm, and even if they weren''t as sharp as other Imps'', they were still sharp enough to cause the woman to bleed a little bit.


    "Not move." The Imp growled at her, but the woman looked at the Imp with a pained expression, quite literally caused by the pain she was feeling in her arm just about now, "B-But I need w-water for th-this... W-We have some in the ca-carriage..." She exined, and the Imp slowly looked at the wooden box, connecting it with that new word, before staring at one of the children standing next to it, the one that the Imp encountered first before.


    "Get water." He told it with anger in his voice, which seemed to work pretty well before, and the child hurried into the carriage to get what the woman was talking about, a small bucket filled with water, and ced it down next to the woman.


    Quickly, under the Imp''s direct supervision, the woman began to clean the cloth-diapers with her hands, and then slowly tried to put it back onto the child, but the Imp stopped her immediately, slowly boring the tip of the dagger into her flesh.


    "No. It wet. We dry it. You make fire." The Imp said in amanding tone, and the woman twisted her face in horror, seemingly not able to cope with this situation anymore.


    "J-Just make it yourself then!" She yelled out as she hurriedly turned toward the Imp to look straight at it, although she seemed to focus on something directly behind the Imp instead, and the Woman''s face twisted into one of ecstatic pleasure at what she figured was about to happen.


    "Gard! Hurry, kill-" She yelled out, but before she could finish, the Imp already pushed the dagger deeper into the woman''s arm. He didn''t want to kill her just yet, after all she might still be able to somehow tell the Imp more about how to care for this kind of tiny child, which he would need to know if he wanted to make it all the way back to the... to the... to whatever ce he was supposed to go right now.


    In reaction to the injury the Imp just gave her, the Woman began to scream, horrified and scared for her life, and simply tried to get away from the Imp. Knowing that the woman didn''t seem to be that much of a threat anymore, the Imp turned around to take a look at who or what the woman was just talking to, and seemingly did so with just the right timing. Because just when the Imp turned around, he saw a bright ray of light bouncing off the weapon in front of his face, closing in on him at a high speed.


    Immediately, the Imp tried to dodge, but in the end didn''t manage to fully do so.


    [-39 Health]


    Confused, the Imp stared at the red notification, looking at the number created by this tiny scratch to his cheek. It was more than the damage that the Imp did when directly stabbing that man''s leg before, so this was a clear sign to the Imp that something was off.


    This person in front of him was far stronger than the Imp. That was as clear as day to him, and the Imp simply stared forward at that man, who now just stood there, trying to properly inspect his enemy.


    But when the Imp was looking at the man, he started feeling something weird, as if there was something that the Imp wanted, no, needed inside of his pocket, before the man raised his eyebrows with an excited grin.


    "You... You''re a Card owner!" The man eximed with an ecstatic grin on his face, "An Imp with a fucking card, this has got to be my lucky day!"


    Immediately after the man said this, he took a few more steps forward to get closer to the Imp and raised his arm up high, before shing down onto the Imp immediately, although he took another step backward and as such managed to once more evade a direct hit from the de, even if that really didn''t make that much of a difference, apparently.


    [-367 Health]


    [Warning! You have been affected by ''Bleeding''. If the wound is not treated, you will die in 19 Minutes, 46 Seconds]


    Immediately, the Imp opened his eyes wide at seeing that notification. But most importantly, his eyes stuck to the word ''Die''. The Imp didn''t want to die, he really, really didn''t want to. If he didn''t want to die, he had to leave, he had to leave as quickly as he possibly could.


    The Imp just needed to turn around and run as fast as his legs could take him. He left behind his bag because the strap was cut, together his book, the shiny things and the meat inside it, now he only had his dagger and a cut-up, blood-drenched cloak. And most importantly, he ran away from that small creature inside of the basket. Just the fact that he was running away terrified the living hell out of the Imp, he didn''t know why, but it did.


    He knew he was supposed to bring that child somewhere, but he couldn''t. He couldn''t anymore, not now, not ever, not if it meant dying.


    The Imp really, really didn''t want to die, dying was scary, so scary. But what was even scarier was the darkness that followed when the Imp dropped into a river exhaustedly, his blood simply pouring out of him and mixing with the water of the river.


    And then, everything around the Imp went ck.


    Without even knowing what was going on now, the Imp could only notice the weight of the water on top of him,bined with the seemignly infinite darkness that apanied it.


    It was so cold around the Imp, so, so, incredibly cold.


    It seemed like everything was about to end, but the world seemed to have another idea. A bright, shining light appeared in front of the Imp, in the form of a small, scaled woman. The Imp knew it wasn''t a monster, because he knew whenever he saw another monster, but this didn''t seem like a person either. Proportionally, she may have been simr to a regr, grown and slim woman, but just from her height, she didn''t seem to be any taller than the Imp.


    Without knowing why, and without the ability to fight it off, the woman slowly ran her hand over the Imp''s upper body, directly across the wound that was now on his chest. The sheer pain that the Imp felt from that simple, slight touch was iparable to the pain that he felt when actually getting the wound.


    The little bit of air that he still had in his body was immediately pushed out through his mouth as the Imp began to wrythe in pain, and once more passed out.


    But instead of dying, like the Imp thought he would in the first ce, he woke up soon after, in the ce where he seemed to have ran into the water before. At the very least, there was a lot of blood where he wasying right now, leading in a straight line through the dense forest in the direction where he encountered all of those people before.


    Slowly, trying to immediately return to where he was at before, and most importantly to the child that he left behind, the Imp rushed back through the forest, ignoring the notifications that were still floating around behind him.


    [Due to your affinity with water, a lonely Naiad took a liking to you and healed your wounds]


    [You have gained the <Blessing of the Lonely Naiad>]


    [Affinity with the Water Element Increased]


    And as the Imp rushed through the forest, his already ripped-up cloak, weighed down due to being soaked with blood and water, got stuck in numerous branches and became even more destroyed than it was before.


    But the Imp didn''t pay attention to all of that, instead, he just approached the area where he seemed to have been nearly killed before, while the sun went down behind him. The Imp continued further forward as quickly as he could, before he saw a small, kindling light in the distance, hearing some voices from the same direction.


    "....Jackpot! Do you understand what this means?! I''m a double Card Wielder now! And this is the Ace of Cups as well, I can''t believe how lucky I am!" The same man that spoke before eximed happily, while the Imp just slowly approached, trying to be as quiet as he possibly could ever be, both out of fear of that man, and simply because it was something that his body naturally did as if it was the most logical thing in the world.

 Chapter 22 - Three Of Swords

    When the Imp looked over the nts that he was hiding behind, he soon managed to properly assess the situation. The Children seemed to all be exhaustedly sleeping inside of the Carriage, and the Man and Woman were sitting outside around a fire, the woman trying to properly aid her wounds while the man was looking at the two cards in his hands.


    But it seemed like the Woman wasn''t exactly happy about this either, because she was simply scowling at the ecstatic man constantly. "Could you maybe help me? It''s hard to do this myself..." She said with a frown, and the man just shook his head without hesitation.


    "No thanks, I''m really not good at any of that." He replied, continuing to stare at the cards with an ecstatic expression. "But listen, thebination of these two cards is just... Insane! I always had a good Agility and Dexterity stat Value, seems like fate wanted me to be the perfect thief after all, huh~?" The man said with a grin, and due to how loud he was speaking, one of the children in the carriage apparently woke up and tried to go outside to see what was going on.


    "Huh? Brat, get back to sleep, the adults are talking." The man said with a scowl, but once more the woman wasn''t happy about what he was saying.


    "Don''t talk to the children like that! They didn''t do anything!" The Woman told him, but the man simply red back at her while one of the two cards he was holding began to glow, slowly turning into what seemed to be four different small des, each connected to connected to four rings on the man''s hand through thin threads.


    But what was interesting was that the four des weren''t hanging down like the Imp would have expected them to, but instead they were floating in the air, as if the strings were just supposed to make sure they couldn''t fly off.


    "Shut it." The man said with a frown while one of the four des moved in front of the woman''s face, while the others just surrounded her head, spinning slowly around it.


    Startled, the child that was still standing in the doorway of the carriage stepped back inside and shut the door behind it, and the Imp saw something there that seemed rtively familiar from the room that he and Avalin were staying in before.


    A small board of wood was hanging next to the door, seemingly able to be held in front of the door by two hooks so that it couldn''t be opened from one side. The children were annoying, and if he managed to put the nk in front of the door, none of them could escape and suddenly take the child that the Imp himself was looking for with them. But for that to work, the Imp needed to find the right moment to kill the man. The woman wouldn''t be an issue, but the man was someone that the Imp didn''t want to live anymore.


    Luckily, the man seemed to be getting more tired by the moment, and might be falling asleep soon, so that was a good enough time. Well, at the very least that''s what the Imp was thinking before, but the man apparently had another idea.


    Slowly, he used the four des to rip the woman''s clothes up, not caring for the injuries he was giving her through that. "Wh-What are you doing?!" She asked, slowly holding her arms in front of her body to hide her exposed chest, although just doing that seemed to hurt a fair bit due to the injuries that the Imp gave her.


    "Come on, just having a little bit of fun~." Gard said with a smile on his face, continuing to cut the woman''s clothes up until all of them dropped off of her body, before she dropped onto her back out of fear. "G-Gard, stop it!" She yelled, but the man didn''t listen to her in the slightest.


    Although, the Imp did notice something else that was going on, which the man apparently didn''t pay any attention to. Starting from the rings on his hands, the man had red lines running across his arm, as if he was bleeding.


    It didn''t seem like it was a good thing in the slightest, but the rest of the man''s body didn''t seem to be in a peak condition either. He seemed histerical, his legs were shaking, and he had dark rings under his eyes that weren''t there when the Imp saw him before.


    But because it seemed like this was a really good time to start with what the Imp was nning, he quickly rushed through the bushes toward the carriage, hurrying to climb up the small step in front of the door to reach the wooden nk, and then swiftly managed to grab it and ced it in front of the door.


    And then, with his dagger in his hand, the Imp slowly turned around toward the man and the woman, both of which where making quite a lot of sound. The woman sounded as if she was in a lot of pain, while the man seemed to have a lot of fun.


    But then, all of a sudden, the man seemed to be getting angry and was yelling at the woman as well.


    She continued to scream in fear, but then, she suddenly went silent, and the man began to try to figure out what just happened. "I-I didn''t hurt her, she did it to herself, she, she shouldn''t have..." The man muttered quietly as he slowly continued moving around like before, while the Imp approached him from behind.


    He was a real idiot, wasn''t he? This man got basicallypletely undressed, and he so easily exposed his back to his enemy. So obviously it was not hard for the Imp to slowly step up to him and stab his dagger through the back of his neck.


    It was pretty hard to prate all the way through even then, but it did a fair amount of damage to the man, more than the Imp ever managed to do.


    [Critical Attack against Gard Henson]


    [Gard Henson -2314 Damage]


    The man''s body tensed up immediately in response to that attack, and the four des slowly moved toward the Imp, although the moment one of them actually touched the monster''s skin, it fell to dust. And the Imp didn''t even feel anything in response to that, it was onlyparable to blowing on your skin. But nheless, the Imp was pretty happy about this. The weapon that the man used to attack the Imp before wasying on the other side of the fire, and the weapon that seemed even more threatening to him was now useless.


    And so, the Imp had no qualms about continuing to attack. Although, it only took three or four more blows to actually finish the man off, and soon, other notifications appeared in front of the Imp.


    [Lethal Damage done to Gard Henson]


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You Leveled Up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You have 29 Unused Stat Points]


    [You killed another Card Owner, and have taken his card into your ownership yourself. You are now the Owner of the Three of Swords]


    [1/14 Cards of the Suit of Swords acquired]


    [2/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]


    [Aptitude with the Air Element increased]


    [Beginner Air Magic Skill Learned]


    With a deep frown, the Imp quickly cut through the notifications, making the blood that was covering the dagger fly off in the same direction.


    And then, after hauling the man''s body off of the woman''s, the Imp took a proper look at what was now in front of him. First, there was the card that he had before, the Ace of Cups, as well as the new card that wasying next to the other one, the Three of Swords.


    After picking them both up, the Imp took a look at what was around him, and what he could use forter, swiftly noticing his own bag from before. The meat inside was starting to smell weird at this point, so the Imp chose not to take that with him. After all, he had two new fresh sources of meat now, the two men that he killed before, and maybe a few of the children as well, depending on how everything went.


    So, instead the Imp just took all of the shiny things out of the bag and ced it to the side for now until he found another good bag to use.


    But for now, the Imp wanted to take a look at the Woman. And when he looked, he immediately scowled in response. There was a cut in her neck, and even if she still seemed to be alive for now, it didn''t seem like she would live for a long time like this.


    Then again, did he really need her? There were a lot of children in the carriage, so wouldn''t it make more sense to ask them? The Tiny creature in the basket was supposed to be a child as well, and it made sense that a child was able to best take care of another child. They were the same, after all.


    So, with little hesitation, the Imp took his dagger and swiftly pushed it through the woman''s forehead.


    [Lethal Damage done to Jasmin Howards]


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You Leveled Up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You have 35 Unused Stat Points]


    Once more, the Imp shed through the notifications with his Dagger, and then, he had to take care of something else.


    Swiftly, he went back to the door of the Carriage and opened it up, slowly stepping into the space. It seemed like only one of the children was awake at the moment though, and the Imp was able to move surprisingly quietly, something that he himself didn''t even expect, considering how clumsy he used to be.


    But even if the Imp was seen by one of the children, it just stayed quiet, out of pure, simple fear of the monster in front of it. Slowly the Imp grabbed the basket with the small child in it and confirmed that it really was the one he was looking for, and swiftly picked it up with his hand, before staring back at that one child.


    It seemed to be one of the tallest and strongest ones, so the Imp figured it would be a good idea to have it help him, and the Imp then swiftly pointed his dagger at it to make it do what he wanted.


    "Out." The Imp whispered, so that only the child could hear him, and it slowly stood up and made its way out of the carriage. When the Imp put the board back onto the door, he ced the basket in his hand down next to him and then looked at the child in front of him.


    That child was simply staring forward at the two dead, naked bodies in front of him, and immediately fell to its knees and threw up.. However, the Imp wanted it to do something else.

 Chapter 23 - Butchering

    And then, the Imp made the child help him out, and in a very specific way. The Imp wanted the child to show him how to do things like make fires. He had no idea how it was done, but that was something that he needed to know from now on. After all, he needed some way to dry the tiny child''s diapers after cleaning them, and as far as the Imp could tell, people usually couldn''t deal with the cold as well as the Imp could.


    Especially now, the Imp somehow didn''t really feel cold at all, even if he didn''t directly understand why that was. Either way, the Imp quickly put the fire out and then looked at the child in front of him. "Show. Make fire." The Imp told it, and confused, the child just looked at him while shaking uncontrobly in response to seeing the dead bodies of the two people that took care of it until now.


    It was something that the Imp understood, he felt the same way when it came to Avalin, after all. So, with a sigh, the Imp went over toward the two dead bodies and covered them up with his ripped up cloak and whatever else he could find, and then turned toward the child.


    "Make fire." He told it, and slowly, the child nodded its head and crawled up to the pile of sticks that the Imp prepared, before grabbing a small piece of wood, a thin stick, as well as some dry grass, cing the dry grass on top of the small piece of wood before cing the tip of the stick against that dry grass, and then it began to rub the stick to make it move quickly.


    It took a little while, but soon enough, slight smoke started rising from the dry grass, and the child then ced his hands around the dry grass and slowly blew into it, causing the slight kindling inside of it to growrger, before the child ced the dry grass into the center of the pile of sticks and continued to blow into the dry grass, before a small me started to spread through it.


    "H-Here..." The child muttered nervously, showing the fire to the Imp who slowly nodded his head in satisfaction, before looking at the basket with the tiny child in it, and then grabbed the small bottle that wasying next to it.


    "This. How get?" The Imp asked, and the Child just pulled his knees up to his body and shook its head. "I...don''t know..." It replied, "It-It''s cow''s milk, I think..."


    "Cow''s Milk?" The Imp once more asked with a frown, and the child nodded slowly, "We have some of it in the carriage... but otherwise you can get it at most farms..." It replied, and the Imp just pushed his eyebrows together annoyedly.


    What was this ''Farm'' ce supposed to be? He never heard of it before, but at the very least the Imp might not need to get more, depending on how much of it they had in the carriage.


    Now, was there anything else that the Imp might need to know? He didn''t think so, so he probably didn''t need the child anymore. As such, the Imp swiftly stood up and stepped in front of it, holding his dagger up above it.


    But just when he wanted to stab the child with it, it quickly moved backward and shook its head violently. "No, no... d-don''t kill me please...!" It eximed out of fear and pulled its body together into a ball, before letting its eyes drift toward the carriage, at which point it got an idea that might save its and the other children''s lives.


    "I-I can drive the carriage for you!" The child yelled out, and the Imp looked at it confused, slightly hesitating to actually stab it now. Seeing that this might actually work, the child slowly stood up and looked at the Imp in front of it. "Y-You''re going somewhere, r-right? The carriage can bring you there more quickly!" It exined, and now that the Imp thought about it, it was true that the carriages it saw before were moving a good bit quicker than him back then. If that was how it was, then it might really be useful. However, he didn''t know why he needed the child for that.


    "I drive." He said with a frown, but the child shook its head again, "P-Please, we''re going to be useful! My father was a coachman, so I know how to handle horses!" It eximed, and the Imp just stared at the child after hearing these unfamiliar words.


    At the very least, he understood that the child was trying to say that it knew how to drive the carriage, and if the Imp was being honest, it did seem pretty troublesome, so he was happy being able to leave that to someone else. And on top of that, he might be able to have the children teach him words that he didn''t know yet. That was something the Imp was really interested in as well, after all.


    So, with a deep frown, the Imp just nodded in response and turned toward the carriage. "We go when sun there. Sleep." The Imp told the child with a frown, before stepping up to the carriage and removing the wooden bar in front of it to let the child back inside there, and confused and surprised, but also more than just d, the child hurried inside of there without hesitation, before the Imp shut the door again and ced the bar back where it was.


    And then, the Imp had to deal with something else.


    First, he made sure that the tiny child was really okay. He figured it was a bad thing if it died, so he had to be sure it wasn''t injured. After seeing no blood or wounds anywhere, he slowly nodded to himself and then went ahead and stepped in front of the two people that wereying on the ground. And if his sniffer didn''t lie to him, then the dead body of the third person was also still nearby, so he would get to thatter too.


    But before then, the Imp had to properly prepare these bodies. After all, he knew that he wasn''t supposed to eat them like he used to, so instead of digging his teeth into their flesh, the Imp took the dagger and started slicing into the meat. He wasn''t entirely sure what he was doing, though, and basically just hacked at the arm of the strong man for a while, cing the chunks of meat down to the side onto one of the pieces of metal from the man''s clothes.


    Although soon enough, a notification appeared in front of the Imp.


    [Beginner Butchering Skill Learned!]


    It really annoyed the Imp a lot that these kept appearing all the time, but he knew that he couldn''t do anything about it. And they weren''t necessarily bad either, except if they were red, of course. But even then, what the hell was ''Butchering'' supposed to be? It was annoying when he had so many new words thrown at him from his enemies!


    Either way, the Imp swiftly continued his work, and the new skill that he learned started leveling up a little more, and so the Imp somewhat understood what it was that he was doing. And his ''Dexterity'' went up a few times as well while he was taking the bodies of the people apart, althoug at that point, the Imp remembered something else.


    He was supposed to have a lot of new ''Stat Points'' avable to him, so the Imp figured he should try and open his status again to reassign them. "Status."


    [Name ¨C None][Race ¨C Lesser Imp][Level ¨C 80]


    [Health ¨C 920][Mana ¨C 1200]


    [Strength ¨C 12][Constitution - 12][Resistance ¨C 13]


    [Agility - 12][Evasion ¨C 20][Dexterity - 11]


    [Intelligence - 44][Wisdom ¨C 20]


    [Perception ¨C 10][Willpower ¨C 20][Charisma ¨C 1]


    [35 Stat Points Avable]


    [Skills]


    -[Apprentice Common Language Comprehension][Level ¨C 73]


    -[Apprentice Stealth][Level ¨C 56]


    -[Beginner Dagger Mastery][Level ¨C 6]


    -[Beginner Concentration][Level ¨C 18]


    -[Beginner Overeating][Level ¨C 13]


    -[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance][Level ¨C 34]


    -[Beginner Cooking][Level ¨C 6]


    -[Beginner Butchering][Level ¨C 13]


    -[Beginner Water Magic][Level ¨C 1]


    -[Beginner Air Magic][Level ¨C 1]


    -[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance][Level ¨C 78]


    [Blessings]


    -[Blessing of the Lonely Naiad]


    With a slight frown, the Imp looked through thisrge notification and then tried to figure out what exactly he was supposed to spend the stat points on.


    In the end, the Imp figured he should go for a few more different stats that he slowly figured out to be important over time. For one, the Imp needed higher ''Wisdom''. It made it easier to remember a lot of things, and there were a lot of new things to remember these days, so it would definitely be useful.


    On the other hand, he was able to use his Dagger far easier the higher his ''Dexterity'' was, and it seemed to help in taking things apart as well. Other than that, his ''Perception'' stat also seemed pretty useful. Actually, all of the stats seemed to have a really important use, except the Charisma one, which the Imp didn''t manage to figure out yet at all.


    Either way, figuring that it was a good idea to do it like that, the Imp tried to split the stat points up amongst three stats. Wisdom, Dexterity, and Perception.


    Immediately after the Imp raised his perception stat, he felt a sharp pain literally all over his body, although mostly on his face. His eyes hurt because of the lighting off of the fire, his ears felt like they were about to fall off through the cracking of the mes, his nose was overwhelmed by the smell of the meat and blood in front of him, and although all of these things settled down rtively swiftly, the Imp still needed a little bit of time to properly get used to hisparatively heavily-increased perception.


    Either way, the Imp had to calm down a little bit, and then just tried to do one of the things that Avalin did after they ran from the flying ind, or when they were trying to leave Zaragon''s ce. She held her hand against her chest and breathed in and out deeply and slowly while closing her eyes for a moment.


    Immediately, the Imp tried to do that, although it was rather tough to do when his hand was twitching around constantly, which seemed to be the result of him increasing his Dexterity.


    But by just making his hands hold each other by interlocking them, that issue was fixed somewhat as well. Either way, like this, the Imp was able to use that way of rxing, and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on his breath, although something else happened while he was at it. He could feel some kind of burning hot feeling inside of his body, it was just ufortable, so the Imp really, really wanted to get rid of it, trying to push it out together with his other uforts, although he seemed to feel himself grow more exhausted when he did it for some reason. He did feel more rxed at the same time, though, so it was fine.


    Although, when the Imp then opened his eyes again, he immediately felt annoyed after seeing that a new notification appeared out of nowhere.


    [Beginner Air Magic Skill Leveled Up!]

 Chapter 24 - Magic

    "Air... Magic?" The Imp asked himself confused, trying to figure out what that actually was. He did hear the word ''Magic'' before sometime, didn''t he? The Imp really wasn''t entirely sure where he heard it, but he was close to positive that he did.


    And then, slowly, the Imp started to remember. It was mentioned a few times whenever the three that the Imp was with before were doing really weird things. One of those was when Avalin immediately put the fire out with a few hand movements.


    That was magic, wasn''t it? So what exactly just happened before that notification appeared? As far as he could remember, all he did was close his eyes, and breath in and out deeply. There was that weirdly hot feeling inside of his chest that the Imp wanted to get rid of, maybe that was part of it.


    And so, the Imp slowly tried to dig for it, he tried to actively seek that feeling out. It took him a while to do so, but when he managed to find the same hot feeling, he once more tried to push it out of his mouth, although he was trying to watch what was going on this time.


    Without the Imp understanding why and how it became so strong, the breath that the Imp pushed out of his mouth seemed to cause even the leaves of the bushes in the distance to wave around strongly for a few moments. It was a weird feeling, but at the same time, it was pretty interesting as well. The only thing that the Imp didn''t like about it was that it made him pretty tired to do that, but at the very least, he managed to figure out how to breath real hard!


    The Imp had not the slightest clue how that mighte in useful, but it was nice to y around with! Although, there was something else that the Imp also wanted to y around with, it was that second card that he found. He somehow instinctively knew that he couldn''t use the card that he got first for another while, even without the notification appearing that would tell him how long it would actually take.


    It was simr with this card, just that he instinctively knew that it would be dangerous to use that card for a long time. Slowly, he touched the card and tried to do something with it, just activate it in the same way that he activated the other card back then.


    But how did the Imp actually activate that card? He was too scared to even think back then, so maybe it was just a lucky coincidence that it appeared just when he needed it. Although that did also seem pretty unlikely to the Imp.


    He could feel something else when he was touching that second card though. The Imp''s hands became really, really cold, but it wasn''t that the card itself was cold, but his hands themselves were slowly cooling down in response to him touching the card.


    "Cold? So... Need hot!" The Imp eximed as he thought about it for a while, and slowly tried to repeat that ''Magic'' from before, attempting to blow it directly onto the card.


    All that did, however, was blow the card out of the Imp''s hands to make it fly away pretty far, making the Imp have to quickly stand up to go get it. He hurried back just as quickly when he grabbed the card again, there might be something even stronger than that man from before out there in the dark, after all.


    Either way, it seemed like that didn''t really work. That did make sense though, the heat was just inside of his body, his actual breath wasn''t warmer than it usually was, so the weird heat probably didn''t work anymore when it left his body.


    Then that just left one solution to the Imp! A rather simple one, at that! He just had to swallow the card, didn''t he?


    That made the most sense, and the Imp was really proud of himself for seeing this so quickly. He was a real Big Brain Imp, after all. And so, the Imp swiftly pushed the card into his mouth and tried to push it down his throat, although he soon noticed a fatal mistake in his n. He wasn''t actually able to bend the card, it was like a really hard piece of metal most of the time, even if it was so light and thin. And the card was way too big to swallow it just like that, so this solution might have to wait until the Imp wasrger than now.


    And so, the Imp just sat there in front of the fire, trying to dry the card with his saliva on it, although when he did so, the Imp noticed something else that was weird.


    His cloak was all ripped up, so he took it off sometime before, but even then he didn''t notice it at all up until then. The Imp''s beautiful, red, soft skin... had turned blue right in the center of his chest! And in a weird pattern, at that!


    So disgusting! The Imp really had to cover that part of his body up now, so he had to get his hands on a new cloak somehow. Other clothes seemed too annoying, and he was at least somewhat used to a cloak by now.


    He quickly looked around the area, mostly around the two people that wereying there on the ground, and quickly found what he was looking for. It seemed a little too big though, so the Imp cut the end off of it so that it wouldn''t drag along the ground.


    And then, the Imp chose to get back to work stripping the two dead people''s bodies off their meat so that he could eat itter. The Children would need something to eat after all, and because they were useful to him, the Imp figured he should prepare as much as he could.


    And so, the Imp continued to cut as much meat off of the bodies as he could manage. He really got a lot better at it, that was something that the Imp was sure of. Justparing the first piece that he cut off with thest piece that he cut off, it was as clear as night and day!


    Proud of his work, the Imp wrapped some of the meat that he cut off in some cloth and put it away to the side, while going ahead and cooking some of the rest. He did only manage to take half of the woman apart though, so her upper half was still very much there. She looked a little weird just sitting there with such skinny legs, but the Imp knew that there was no helping it.


    Just like that, the Imp started to prepare some food for the rest of the night, even if he was soon interrupted by certain little creature.


    It started crying again, just like yesterday, so the Imp swiftly ced all of the meat that he had to the side and rushed over toward it, trying to see what it was this time. Quickly, he looked for the bottle with the ''Milk'' and held it up to its mouth, and to the Imp''s luck it quickly took the tip of it into its mouth and began to suck, slowly drinking the milk inside of it until it seemed somewhat satisfied. But even then, the tiny child continued crying, and the Imp was pretty confused.


    "You ate! Why cry?" The Imp eximed confused, before leaning in toward it, noticing a horrifically strong smelling from it. Did it soil itself again?


    With a slightly disgusted expression, the Imp slowly uncovered it from the small nket on top of its body and ced that nket onto the ground, before cing the child down there. And then, there was the next mystery that the Imp had to solve. The child was wearing somethingpletely different to yesterday, and it had not the slightest clue how he was supposed to get to that stinky mass inside of its ''Diaper''. Was it supposed to just cut the clothes open?


    That seemed pretty wrong, though. After a little bit of searching though, the Imp found that he could pretty easily open up the top of the one-piece thing that the child was wearing, before pulling it out of that piece of clothing, setting it down onto the nket while cing the clothes into the basket for now. And then, the Imp just had to remember how that woman did this yesterday. To his luck, the moment that he managed to even loosen it, the sheer weight of the shit inside of this child''s pants made it all drop open. Although the Imp wasn''t necessarily sure if that was actually something he could call himself lucky about, because with his new perception, it was really insanely disgusting.


    Swiftly, the Imp picked the diapers up and brought them away to the forest, quickly throwing its contents away. He quickly came back to the child, though, and then the Imp just needed to figure out a proper way how to clean the child and this soiled piece of cloth up. But then, the Imp realized something. It was just cloth! There was some cloth leftover from when he cut his new cloak up, so he really didn''t even need to clean this dirty one! And if he really did need to use it, then he could just tell one of the children to do it.


    Either way, the Imp swiftly cut the leftover piece of cloth into the shape of the old cloth diaper and then swiftly ced it onto the child after using some of the little bit of water left there to clean the child itself up a bit.


    And then, the Imp just put the clothes back onto the child and ced it back into the basket, before the Imp continued cooking until the sunpletely went up, before swiftly wrapping the cooked meat up in some cloth as well, and then ced it down next to the basket with the uncooked meat and the child. He didn''t really feel like staying here much longer to take the woman''s body apart as well, and the meat that he got so far shouldst him for a little while. But even then, the Imp collected everything that seemed a little interesting, including the weird yellow stick that the first man the Imp killed swung around.


    And when he did all of that, he opened up the door at the back of the carriage and looked at the children inside of there. The five of them seemed pretty scared at the Imp, but he really didn''t care all that much and just called the child fromst night out of the carriage.


    "Put inside." The Imp said in amanding tone, pointing at the basket with the tiny child in it as well as the meat next to it and the shiny things next to that.


    Slowly, the child nodded its head and did as told, but even then, it obviously had to hold itself back not to freak out in response to seeing the two people there cut up, or rather one and a half peoplepletely cut up because of the Woman''s current state.


    But for some reason, the child didn''t seem as disgusted as the Imp thought it would be.. Instead, he thought he actually saw a slight grin on its face.

 Chapter 25 - Smile

    Soon enough, the child brought everything into the back of the carriage, and the Imp and the child sat down on the seat in the front together, after the Imp made the child get the two horses hooked up to it. For now, the Imp wanted to take a look to see how the child would actually move thisrge box. He only ever saw it from the distance until now. And if he figured out how to use this thing on his own, there would be one less thing to rely on the child for. After all, the Imp had no real reason to trust this child, besides the fear that it was feeling in response to the Imp quite literally holding a dagger toward him.


    But even then, the child seemed surprisingly calm after a while, a lot quicker than the Imp expected it to. And he really didn''t like that at all. But then again, the Imp needed it for now, so he didn''t want to kill it just yet.


    Before the Imp knew it, the carriage started to move forward in response to the horses moving. The child was saying some things to the horses though, which the Imp was pretty annoyed about. He didn''t like that the child was able to understand horsenguage and he wasn''t. After all, he was so much smarter than this child!


    Well, even though that''s what the Imp thought, he had other things to concentrate on right now. For example, the fact that he was feeling very, very weird in response to the carriage''s rough movements, even if it wasn''t moving all that fastpared to walking-speed right now.


    Butter on, the carriage started moving way faster, and at that point, the Imp could barely hold his food in. He couldn''t show weakness like that to the child, though! So the Imp held on through it, and even though he kind of hoped to get one of those wondrous ''Skills'' that seemed to let the Imp do things a lot better than he usually could, the Imp was sure he could hold out even without that!


    He was a strong Imp, he had no need for things like that! He was the smarted and bestest there was, of course the Imp could hold out against simply feeling a little sick. That was what the Imp thought at first at least.


    [Beginner Sickness Resistance Skill Learned]


    With a d expression, the Imp nodded his head, d to see that he was able to finally start feeling less like he wanted to die. But even then, the notification''s existence in itself pissed the Imp off, so he of course shed at it with his dagger.


    It startled the child a little bit, but immediately afterward the Child just sighed and shook its head before staring forward.


    Slightly annoyed that this child didn''t seem to fear him as much as he wanted it to, the Imp ground his teeth together angrily. "Me strong."


    He exined, and before he knew it, the child nodded its head in response.


    "Of course you are." It said quietly, and the Imp smirked in satisfaction that this fact seemed so obvious to the child. "Me Smart." The Imp added next, and once more, the child nodded immediately.


    "Of course you are." The Child replied, so the Imp crossed his arms happily, "Me Feared." He then exined, and as if it had been drilled into its mind already, the child nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world.


    "Of course you are." It sighed slightly. Happy that the order of obedience had been properly established now, the Imp moved on to something else that he wanted to deal with somehow. There were two things he was interested in, to be exact.


    For one, this weird mark on his chest. When exactly did it appear? There was something on his status too that surely wasn''t there thest time he checked it beforest night, this ''Blessing of the Lonely Naiad''. The Imp didn''t know what a Naiad was, but the word ''Blessing'' in and of itself made the Imp''s whole body feel weird, as if he was rejecting it with his whole existence.


    So, out of instinct, the Imp quickly moved on from that. He could deal with that sometimeter, after all, it didn''t seem like this mark would disappear anytime soon.


    But then, there were these two skills, in his status. ''Air Magic'' and ''Water Magic''. Apparently, him breathing out real strong was rted to magic. The Imp somehow figured out that it was more something that had to do with that heat in the center of his body instead of breathing out in itself, but no matter what he did, the only situation where he was able to do anything with that heat was while doing that little practice. And whenever he did do that, it made him pretty tired, so it wasn''t something that the Imp liked doing all that often.


    He still didn''t manage to figure out how to use that ''Water Magic'' though. In the first ce, he first probably needed to find a way to actually use that heat in other ways first and foremost, right? So, that''s what the Imp did, or rather, tried to do.


    For now, the Imp did the exact same thing as before when breathing out strongly, just that he wanted to do one thing differently. Instead of blowing strongly out of his mouth, he wanted to do so out of his nose! If he could do that and switch between the mouth and the nose, then that was all the proof the Imp needed to show that it really had to do with that heat! And then, after that, the Imp would... Think of the next step!


    First, the Imp slowly tried to gather some air in his body again, and then went to look for that heat, trying to bring it out of his body his air. And now, instead of breathing out through his mouth, the Imp had to breathe out through his nose, it was as simple as... breathing!


    For the first three tries, that''s what the Imp thought, at least... But whenever he tried to do that, he felt a lot of pressure in his nose and his mouth would practically be ripped open to let air escape through it. A little of it seemed to also get out through his nose, but for the most part it was still just through his mouth.


    The Imp was feeling far too tired to continue after that though, and the child next to him seemed a bit to energetic himself. Its face had be slightly red, and it was trying hide its expression from the Imp, but it was pretty obvious it was... Laughing.


    Was it normal tough in a situation like that? Having a Dagger pointed at you? After seeing the people that took care of you up until nowpletely ripped to pieces, stripped to their barest existence, until they were nothing but meat... Were you supposed to still be able tough?


    Even the Imp still felt weird about what happened with Avalin. Sure, there were a lot of times where he was feeling very angry at her, and he had a little bit of hatred in his body for her even now, but toward the end she chose to try and save him, didn''t she? The Imp could remember one time where he was fighting with his brothers, or rather, the Imp himself was standing in the back and trying to get at least a single hit in, which he never managed to in the end, and the other Imps chose to throw him toward one of the wild monsters so that they could take their time killing the monster.


    He wasn''t hurt at all though, because the monster ended up just running away for some reason, so the Imps just returned back to the Horde.


    That was how you were supposed to be treated, wasn''t it? So why did Avalin try and help him? That''s something that the Imp didn''t understand. Yes, she seemed to want to get rid of the Imp at first. Yes, she treated him like the other two at the start. And yes, she was the one that actually captured him in the first ce. But even after all that, the Imp was pulled away from Danger by her. Instead of using him like bait, she wanted him to keep living.


    At least that''s what the Imp thought was going on, he might be heavily mistaken, but for now he somehow wanted to keep that image in mind.


    So after experiencing both of those things... Which was the normal thing? Even if the Imp didn''t really care about ''Normal'', ''Right'' or ''Wrong'', his curiosity still took the better of him. The Imp himself felt terrified whenever he was threatened by Thomas and James, or even when he saw his brothers in on the ground, before eating their whole bodies due to feeling... scared, and hungry.


    So why, why did this child not act the same way? The way it saw those three people, including the first one that the Imp killed, was not too far away from what happened with the Imp''s brothers. It was being threatened right now by a monster, which everyone else seemed to be scared off.


    That whole thing not only made the Imp curious, but also nervous. If the child wasn''t scared of him, then it might try and fight him sooner orter. The Imp had to be careful about that, really, really careful.


    And, he had to get stronger to make sure that the child couldn''t beat him even if it tried, and for that it needed to kill even more than now.


    The Imp wasn''t necessarily thinking straight at the moment because of how tired he was, so it was hard to really put all the information he had together. Although, even then, it did seem to be a prettyplicated issue if even the Imp couldn''t figure out a proper solution, even if he wasn''t thinking straight.


    But for now, the Imp had to properly take a rest and stop trying to use magic, because if he fell asleep, he would be easy prey to the child.


    So under now circumstances could the Imp actually let himself show weakness in front of it. Although, now that the Imp actually thought about it, he didn''t even hear a single monster ever since he got close to the carriage. It might be because of that weird feeling that the Imp noticed from inside the carriage, and now that he thought about it, one of the people the Imp killed mentioned something about a ''Monster Repent''.


    Slowly, the Imp turned toward the child with a frown, rather annoyed at the fact that it was still smiling, even if it did stopughing, "Monster Repent." The Imp said, and the child turned toward him and nodded his head.


    "Yeah, we have one back there. Why, you feeling scared that other monsters mighte and hurt you?" The child asked, but the Imp wouldn''t have that and just chose to show the child a little something to put it in its ce, pushing the tip of his dagger into his leg until it began to slightly bleed.


    But to the Imp''s surprise, the child didn''t react all that much. Sure, its breathing became a little heavier and quicker, and its smile disappeared from its mouth, but neither did it move its leg away that much nor did his smile stay away for that long.


    "Ohe on, do you have to do that?"

 Chapter 26 - Broken

    Confused, the Imp looked at the Child as it was just sitting there like nothing just happened. It seemed to be scared for a moment there, but that soon changed and it just started smiling. So, the Imp chose to push the dagger a little deeper. And the Child didn''t seem to even notice, and just looked forward.


    This wasn''t good, this wasn''t good at all. But the Imp couldn''t show the child that it was worried. There was something wrong, but the Imp had no idea, but at the very least he could be sure of one thing. He did damage the child, even if not by a lot.


    [Arc -10 Damage]


    "Arc?" The Imp asked confused, for the other three people that he killed there were always two names there, but for this child just one. But before the Imp could think about this even more, the child turned toward him with a smile on his face.


    "Hm? Yeah, what is it?" The child asked, as if it was speaking to one of its friends, and the Imp looked at the child confused. So its name was ''Arc'', then. That was good to know. At the very least that''s what the Imp thought. It would be easier to speak to it if it knew the children''s names.


    Instead of replying to Arc''s question, the Imp just slowly pulled the dagger back out of the side of his leg, causing a little bit of blood to start flowing. It seemed like that freaked the child out for a few moments again, at least judging from its heavy breathing, but soon enough he calmed down and looked forward with his regr smile.


    The Imp was confused, but also intrigued. Intrigued and scared. This child didn''t feel hurt being stabbed, and even if it wasn''t a deep stab, it should have at least hurt a little bit. Arc was still damaged, but there just didn''t seem to be any pain.


    Even thought the Imp wanted to y around a little bit to see if he could find out how much pain the child could actually resist, he knew he shouldn''t do that, because that would probably just end up killing the child sooner orter.


    But this made the Imp interested in the other children as well. If this one was like that, then maybe the other children were as well? Even if he couldn''t y around with Arc, then he could maybe do so with the others! At the very least, that''s what the Imp thought, and he wanted to get to it when they stopped movingter that day, but for some reason Arc stopped the carriage by the side of the road before that.


    "Why stop?" The Imp asked, immediatley holding the dagger toward Arc''s throat, and the child pointed forward at the two horses strapped up to the carriage. Once more, he was shaking a little bit at the start, but soon managed to calm down.


    "It''s been like four hours already, the horses need to rest for a while. And we should probably take a look to see how the other kids are doing in the back, right?" Arc suggested, but the Imp wasn''t really all that happy with that idea.


    "Why rest? Horses Lazy?" He asked, but the Child just sighed and shook his head. "Lazy? They''re notzy, but they have to pull this super heavy carriage for this long! If we don''t let them rest, they''ll pass out and die, and then you''ll need to go on foot." Arc exined with a frown, so the Imp started grinding his teeth, angry at the way that Arc was speaking to him, and just nodded his head.


    "Down." The Imp said in amanding tone, and Arc did just as asked, sighing and jumping off of the carriage, letting the horses loose from the carriage for a little while before bringing them to the small river that they stopped next to, binding them to a tree standing next to the water.


    "I''ll get them backter, don''t worry." Arc told the Imp with a sigh and stepped up to the back of the carraige, taking the initiative to open the door up on his own to let the children out.


    And immediately when he did so, the other children stepped out the door, three of them walking on their own, but one of them a child at the same size of the child the Imp brought with him, so it still didn''t seem to be able to walk.


    "Arc..?" One of the shorter children asked as it stepped out, immediately trying to hide from the Imp, before it noticed the blood dripping down its leg, immediately jumping to the ground next to him. "What happened?" The child asked, but Arc just moved his leg away.


    "Nothing, Clementine. Don''t worry about it." Arc told her as he leaned in toward her, but Clementine swiftly ced her hands onto the wound, and before the Imp knew it, she pulled them away again. The wound on Arc''s leg disappeared, but in return, Clementine suddenly started crying and holding her leg at the spot that Arc''s wound was before as blood slowly dripped out from under her hand. Confused, the Imp just stood there, unsure what was going on. He didn''t want to let any of them out of his sight, and he constantly had his dagger in his hand, ready to use it when needed. But before he could do anything, another one of the children looked over toward the Imp. It was obviously scared, just like the other children beside that tiny one and Arc, but even then, it seemed to want to say something to the Imp.


    "Wh-What did you do to A-Arc?" It asked with a stutter, and the Imp just looked at the Child and frowned, "Stabbed. Arc not hurt. Damaged yes, hurt no." The Imp told them quite clearly. He had no reason to lie about it, and he had no reason to just let this child just yell at him like that.


    "You quiet. Or Imp stab you." He said quite clearly, but another one of the children stepped toward the Imp, giving the child it was carrying to the one that just spoke up before that. "I-If you want to sta-stab Sammy then you have to stab me fi-first!" It eximed as it stood in front of the Imp, and with a frown, the Imp did just that. It was really annoyed by this kid, what did it think it was? It was the one that was the Imp first met, which led him to this carriage in the first ce, and back then, it was more than just terrified, wasn''t it?


    But apparently, it was a lot stronger than the Imp thought.


    [Rudy -0 Damage]


    Confused and in a panic, the Imp looked at that notification and tried to figure out what exactly happened. The only time that the Imp saw a ''-0 Damage'' until now was when he tried to attack Zaragon... So that meant that this child was as strong as that monster there?


    That seemed to also be wrong. Seeing that the Imp was a bit startled and frightened at not being able to damage Rudy, the slightly round boy swung his fist at the Imp. At first, he thought that was his own end, that he would die right there, but the notification that appeared after feeling a slight touch to the side of his head said otherwise.


    [-0 Health]


    And then, there came the next attack.


    [-0 Health]


    And the next.


    [-0 Health]


    And then a few more, until the boy was a bit too exhausted to continue. That was something the Imp never experienced before, and it was more than just confusing. He noticed that this child in front of him was trying to attack the Imp with as much force as he could extend, but no matter how often he tried, the Imp didn''t receive a single point of damage. It really just felt like someone rubbing the side of his head a little hard as well, it really, really didn''t hurt in the slightest.


    "Argh, this damn skill!" Rudy eximed after finally stopping to try and ''Attack'' the Imp, holding his hands to his face as he did so, while Arc hurried over from the younger girl, Clementine, over toward this boy, Rudy, to cheer him up this time.


    "Don''t worry, Rudy! We''ll definitely find someone that can hurt you at some point, and when we do, we''ll seal that damn skill away so that you can be an Immortal Warrior! We spoke about this, didn''t we?" Arc asked the other boy, who slowly rubbed some tears out of his eyes before nodding his head.


    "Yeah, you''re right! I will- I will definitely do that! And then I will protect all of you!" Rudy said, now really starting to cry, and the Imp just stared forward at the children with a confused expression. There were a few things he didn''t understand, and a few things he roughly picked up.


    So some of these ''Skills'' were the reason why the Imp couldn''t damage the boy, Rudy, but also why Rudy couldn''t hurt the Imp? The Skills the Imp had right now all seemed pretty helpful, so that was pretty confusing. But at the same time, at the very least the Imp didn''t need to worry about being killed by that boy.


    But then again, what exactly did Clementine do to get rid of Arc''s wounds? He saw something simr before when Avalin was drinking that red liquid after that monster attacked her so violently, back before the Imp leveled up his first time.


    "Now then, I think we should all try and get along here, shouldn''t we?" Arc suggested with a smile on his face, turning around toward the others with an even brighter smile, but they all just looked at Arc confused, before the young boy began to exin, "Come on, he''s an outcast, we''re outcasts, and technically he did kind of save us. And he came with a cute little child, and cut up his own clothes to make a diaper for it. He can''t be so bad, can he?" Arc asked as he stepped closer toward the Imp with his constant smile, but the already confused monster of course didn''t know what the hell was going on, and the other children didn''t seem to be any better off at the current situation.


    "Imp not save you." The Imp eximed, trying to clear this out first. That was not at all what was going on, and the Imp really didn''t want this dumb child to think so. But before he knew it, Arc looked at the Imp with his cheek so up high that his eyes were being pressed into horizontal slits.


    "Of course you did. If you hadn''t killed those three, we would have just been used in the most cruel of ways." Arc said, and slowly stepped away from the Imp toward the other children, Clementine still crying and holding her leg while Sammy wasforting her, holding a tiny child in her arms, while Rudy just stepped up to them with a sad expression. And then, when he stood next to these for children, Arc turned back toward the Imp.


    "After all, we''re all Broken."

 Chapter 27 - Holy Priestess

    The Imp looked at the Children in front of him, trying to figure out what they meant. He knew about the word ''Broken'', because it was in the story in his book, but he didn''t understand what they actually meant with that in this situation.


    Broken things were supposed to be unusable, useless, or shattered, but these Children seemed to be normal to the Imp, even if they made him worry about a lot of things. Either way, the Imp figured it wouldn''t make sense to beat around the bush and just ask.


    "You broken?" He asked, and Arc replied with a nod, "Yes, we''re broken. We are children that nobody else wants, because our skills have control over us, and not the other way around. What do you say, Mister Imp? Will you throw us away like everyone else did, or will you let us stay with you?" Arc asked, while the children behind him were seemingly scared of the Imp, but Arc himself wasn''t.


    "Broken, how?" The Imp asked next, because Arc seemingly didn''t understand what he asked him. With a sigh, Arc just crossed his arms and looked at the round boy next to him, Rudy.


    "Let''s start with him. You saw it already, so it shouldn-" Arc started, but before he could finish the sentence, the girl behind him, Sammy, stopped him. "Wh-What are you doing..? It''s a Monster... We can''t trust it..." She told the boy quietly, thinking that the Imp didn''t hear her. But on the contrary, he heard it quite clearly.


    But Arc just turned around toward her and smiled like normal, although a deep shiver ran over the Imp''s spine when he saw just the edge of Arc''s eyes. "You''re saying he''s a Monster, but what about everyone else? Everyone that treats us like we''re inhuman, like we''re some tool to be used. Maybe you didn''t realize it yet, but we were going to the Capital. Do you know what they do with Broken Children there? They turn them into tools of war! Clementine would be someone used only to keep the soldiers alive over and over again no matter how much damage they take, you would be used to talk others into killing themselves, Leon would be used to rile up monsters!" Arc eximed, slowly starting to get louder and louder as he was speaking before he started up yelling at the girl in front of her, both of them, Sammy as well as Arc himself, shaking heavily.


    But in response to what was happening, not only did the child that Sammy was holding in her arms start crying, but the child that the Imp had to care for started crying as well.


    Immediately the Imp rushed forward toward the carriage without a moment''s hesitation. When he did so, all the children flinched in response and stepped away thinking they were about to be attacked, but they never thought that the Imp would jump through the open door of the carriage toward the child in the basket.


    As soon as he got there, the Imp leaned forward to see if it soiled itself again, but noticing that this wasn''t the case, he quickly grabbed the bottleying next to it and wanted to feed the child some milk, but the child didn''t seem to want to eat either.


    Instantly after realizing that something was wrong, the Imp turned to the children outside of the carriage and grabbed the basket, carrying it outside before looking at Arc, who seemed to have caused the state the child was in.


    "You hurt it! What you do?" The Imp asked angrily as he ground his teeth together and leaned in toward Arc, and even now he didn''t seem to be able to hold back and all of his emotions came out together, causing Arc to break down and drop to his knees while holding his face, sobbing.


    "I-I didn''t- I didn''t do any... anything... I..." He began to stutter, and the Imp slowly got way too annoyed at him to let this keep going. He thought this child might be of use, but the Imp might as well use it to get stronger again by killing it. Because that''s what he needed to do right now.


    He was a Monster, why would he care if he killed a person? The Imp was supposed to do that, wasn''t he? So why, why did it feel wrong to stab this child then? It was right there, his dagger was in his hand, so what the hell was this child doing to him that he wasn''t able to just stab it?


    Angrily, the Imp ground his teeth and looked around himself, before noticing that the child that Sammy was holding already stopped crying. So, the Imp figured it was more important to think about this now.


    "You, what wrong with childs?" The Imp asked as he stared at the young girl, and she looked at the toddler in the basket and shook her head.


    "It... It was startled... I think..." She replied nervously, and the Imp continued to just stare her down, "How get rid of startled?" He asked, and slowly, Sammy gave the child she was holding to Rudy, before she leaned toward the child in the basket to try and pick it up, but the Imp stopped her and held the dagger in front of her.


    Why he didn''t just stab her arm to show his point was also unknown to him, after all, that''s what he did with that woman from before. But somehow, he thought he shouldn''t do this right now.


    "No touch." The Imp told her, but Sammy looked at him confused, "B-But I-"


    "Imp say, no touch." He interrupted her with a re, and Sammy took a step backward and nodded her head. "Th-Then... Hold the child..." She exined to him, and the Imp nodded and ced the dagger down on the ground so that he could use both his hands for this.


    Slowly, he picked it up like he thought was right, which was under its arms, but Sammy quickly stopped him and shook her head. "N-Not that way..." She told him, and slowly took the other child from Rudy again to demonstrate. She ced the child''s body against hers, the child upright, with the head above her shoulder, held by her right hand. And the other hand was underneath the child to hold the brunt of the weight. Slowly, the Imp tried to hold the child like that as well, and slowly copied what he saw her do.


    And so, he was now holding the child like that, and was waiting for new instructions from Sammy. "Erm... Just walk around slowly now..." She told him, demonstrating what she just said again, and the Imp quickly did the same, trying to calm the child in his arms down.


    And soon enough, it seemed like it finally stopped crying, and the Imp looked at the child next to him, while it was now starting to giggle for some reason, moving its hands around happily, even pushing the Imp''s hood off of its head as it was doing so.


    The Imp was a bit annoyed at it for doing that, but for now, he was at least d that it wasn''t crying anymore. But then, Sammy looked at the child and ripped her eyes open, taking a few steps backward confused.


    "Wait... That... That baby is..." She muttered confused, and the Imp looked at her with a frown, not wanting her to yell and make the child cry again, but Sammy just continued, especially when Arc seemed to have calmed down a little and took a look at the child the Imp was holding himself.


    "Is that baby the..." Arc asked quietly, but the Imp just once more stared at him with a frown, although this time he was a lot angrier, because Arc was the one that made the child cry in the first ce.


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Leveled Up!]


    Slightly annoyed at the sudden notification that appeared in front of him as well, the Imp quickly turned toward the children, "What?" The Imp asked, and Sammy and Arc looked at each other nervously, before they stepped up closer to the Imp.


    "She''s... The Holy Priestess, right...? The One who''s supposed to kill the Monster King together with the hero..?" Arc asked confused, but the Imp quickly shook his head.


    "Child... Fool. Imp bring child away." He exined, but none of the children understood what he was talking about. But Rudy then stepped up next to the other two children, "But didn''t Mister Irnhoff tell us that she''s supposed to be able to kill demons just by touching them..?" Rudy asked, and Sammy and Arc turned toward him confused, before Sammy nodded her head.


    "Yeah... And Imps are Demons, right?" She asked in reply, but before she knew it, another one of the children walked up to the Imp.


    "Mister is hurting..." Clementine exined, and immediately, Rudy ran up to her and grabbed her without hesitation to make sure she couldn''t approach the Imp.


    But that Imp was still confused about everything, although right now he really just wanted to know one thing, "What ''Holy Priestess''?" The Imp asked. He read the word ''Holy'' before, and it was part of the notification floating right in front of him as well. The Imp already figured out it had something to do with the child, but he really wasn''t aware that it was supposed to be something bad that could kill the Imp that easily.


    "The baby you''re holding... Her eyes are shifting between every color there is, ''Rainbow-Colored Eyes''... That''s a trait only the Holy Priestess has..." Arc replied with a frown,pletely confused at what was going on at the moment, but the Imp just looked at the child happily giggling in his arms, confirming that its eyes were changing colors.


    And when he looked at the other children, theirs weren''t changing their color at all, they just stayed the same. If that was the case, this child was supposed to be able to kill the Imp that easily? But it was so weak and fragile, how was it supposed to do that?


    Sure, he felt a little bit of burning whenever he touched it, but it wasn''t anything special. Just a bit of slight burning, as if he pped his arm too hard.


    "But..." Clementine muttered quietly as she looked toward the Imp, "If the Holy Priestess likes him that much... Can Mister Imp really be that bad?" She asked with her head tilted to the side, and Sammy immediately spoke up in response.


    "H-He killed three people right in front of us for no reason! Of course he''s bad!" Sammy eximed, but the Imp somehow had an issue with what she was saying. It wasn''t like he just killed them for no reason. Even the Imp learned that it''s unnecessary to kill things that didn''t attack you first, because that''s something that Avalin, Thomas and James also always did. There were a lot of monsters in the forests that watched them for a few moments and then ran away, and they never hunted them after that.


    "White man attack Imp." He told her in reply, and Sammy turned toward him confused. "White man Wave stick and hurt Imp. Strong man attack Imp too. Woman not attack Imp, but Woman with scary white man, so Imp hurt woman. Imp kill Woman, woman already near dead." The Imp exined to them as best as he could.


    It wasn''t like he had any regrets about killing them, that''s not what it was at all. But they were dangerous to the Imp and the child he was supposed to bring away, so that''s why the Imp had to kill them. And on top of that, after being injured by that strong man, the Imp did kind of want to kill him, but that was also just because the strong man attacked him first.


    The Imp didn''t care about ''right'' or ''wrong'', he just cared about ''Dangerous'' and ''Not Dangerous''. Those people were dangerous to him, so the Imp killed them.. That''s all it was.

 Chapter 28 - How Broken They Are

    Slowly, with a smile on his face, Arc stepped toward the Imp. "See? He''s not all that bad. All he did was defend himself. We would have done the same, wouldn''t we?" The boy asked as he slowly turned to the other children from beside the Imp, before exactly that Imp felt a slight cold of air approaching his throat. "That being said, I personally don''t have any qualms doing the same, Mister Imp. I personally don''t mind youing with us, on the contrary, you''re probably stronger than all of us at the moment and can protect us. But we''re more than you. Only three of us may be able to injure you, but remember. Even you need to sleep sometime." Arc said with a smile, using the Dagger that the Imp so thoughtlessly dropped on his way into the carriage to grab the child in his arms.


    Slowly, it seemed like Arc was pushing the de against the Imp''s throat, although he was really just touching it a little. Only if either of them rapidly moved would it actually cut the Imp. The Imp had to figure out a way to defend himself right now, overwhelm this child, and then git rid of it. He somehow didn''t feel like killing any of these children, but if they threatened him like that, he had no choice but to, didn''t he?


    But before the Imp could actuallye to a decision, Arc already pulled the Dagger away from the Imp''s throat and grabbed it by the de, holding the handle back toward the Imp.


    "Don''t worry, I don''t actually know how to use this that well." Arc pointed out with a slightugh, before the Imp continued to re at him and quickly pulled the basket standing next to him closer with his foot before cing the child in his arms back into it, and then slowly took the dagger from Arc again.


    "Imp not kill childs. Childs not kill Imp." The red monster said with a re, as he took the dagger and ced it into the small bag hanging by the side of his hip, and Arc nodded his head with a smile.


    "Alright, then I hope you trust me enough not to sit right next to me while I''m driving the carriage while stabbing my leg." Arc told the Imp, and he did so with a slight smile, barely any animosity included in it, something that the Imp didn''t really expect, "You didn''t hurt me, but you drained a little bit off my health, so it would be great if you stopped doing that or I''ll end up unconscious sooner orter. We don''t want that, now do we?" The young boy asked before heading back toward the carriage, but the Imp had something else he still wanted to know.


    "Why no pain?" He asked the boy, and he looked back at the monster behind him again. "Oh, right! Well, if we''ll be staying together for a while now, I think we should better exin it a bit and introduce ourselves properly. I''m sure everyone is hungry, so let''s do that over a little bit of food, huh?" Arc suggested and stepped into the carriage, and at that point, the Imp more than just happily nodded his head.


    If it was about food, he had more than enough prepared. These children sure must be hungry, so the Imp had to share his food as well, didn''t he? Wanting to share wasn''t a feeling he has felt for such a long time, he first felt it when he killed that weird little bird sitting on the pile of sticks and then gave it to Avalin, but he didn''t expect to feel it toward all of these useless children.


    So, the Imp quickly stepped into the carraige and grabbed his bag of cooked meat, happily cing it down in front of the children. "Eat!" He eximed, and while Rudy, Clementine and Sammy seemed pretty hungry and wanted to grab some of it, Arc actually knew where that meat came from.


    "Ah, sorry, Mister Imp. We can''t eat that food." Arc exined, but the three other children looked toward him disappointedly. "Huh? Why not? It''s meat!" Rudy eximed hungrily, already trying to extend his hand toward it, but he was quickly stopped by Arc who simply grasped the other boy''s arm tightly.


    "I said we can''t eat that food. That meates from... something that will kill us if we eat its own. They''re going to be able to smell us out, and they will be able to hunt us wherever we are. That only applies to people though, so monsters can eat it..." Arc exined, and the Imp just looked at him confused while taking one of the pieces of meat and starting to eat it, because why wouldn''t he? It was just normal meat, but Clementine looked at the Imp jealously.


    "Whaat? Why can Mister Imp eat it but we can''t?" Clementine asked as she crossed her arms, but Arc just ced his hand on the top of her head and rubbed over it, something that made the Imp stop for a moment. But soon enough, he just continued eating like normal, while the children went into the carriage and grabbed themselves some other food that the Imp recognized from what Avalin, Thomas and James always ate, bread.


    But the Imp didn''t care, it was the children''s loss, after all. And while they were eating, and the Imp tried to figure out why he felt so calm around things he wanted to kill just a few hours ago all of a sudden, Arc quickly began to speak again.


    "Alright, then let''s start our introduction. Let''s go with Rudy first, again. Do you mind?" Arc asked as he turned toward the other boy to his right, and he slowly shook his head. "...I don''t mind... So, I''m Rudy... Are we also supposed to exin our skills..?" Rudy scratched his cheek as he turned back toward Arc, who just nodded his head with a calm smile. "Alright... I have to Unique Skills, called ''Perfect Defense'', the strongest defense skill ever known... It makes it nearly impossible for attacks below a certain amount of damage to hurt me... I can''t identally hurt myself either, because no damage can pass through my skin. And then, I have ''Impossible Attack''. It makes me literally impossible to attack anything. I can''t even hurt a fly..." Rudy said in aining tone as he was pushing bread down his throat, and the Imp took a short break from eating.


    That first skill sounded pretty useful, and the Imp wanted to somehow learn it, but that second skill was really useless. It just turned Rudy into nothing but a shield. The Imp wanted to ask about how to get that first skill, before Sammy spoke next.


    "My name is Samantha, but everyone calls me Sammy. My Unique Skill is ''Liar''s Truth''. Everyone who hears me speak believes what I say asplete truth, but I can''t control it at all... Sometimes I also believe myself, even... But right now the skill is sealed, so everything''s fine!" Sammy eximed with a somehow smug expression. It also sounded somewhat useful, even if pretty annoying if it couldn''t be controlled. But that could just be solved by not speaking, so the Imp didn''t mind that condition, and also wanted to get that skill somehow. And next, he looked at Clementine, who seemed to also want to speak up.


    "I''m Clementine... My Unique Skill is... S-Status... Ah, right, it''s ''Damage Eater''. It makes it so that I can heal any injury without issue, so tell me when you''re hurting!" She exined to the Imp, and immediately he nodded his head excitedly. That would surely be useful to him! Good that he didn''t kill her! Although, then he learned something else about that skill.


    " ''Without Issue'' isn''t exactly right, though. She basically get''s hungry for injuries, and whenever she hasn''t eaten one for too long, she has to go ahead and eat it up to still that hunger. But when she does that, she takes the injury onto her own body. She doesn''t get damaged by it, but she still feels the same amount of pain, so please don''t rely on her too much." Arc added, so the Imp just looked at the young girl surprised, before Arc spoke up again with a sigh, "Her''s is probably the most singr broken skill there is..." He muttered quietly, before pointing at the tiny child that Sammy was holding in her arms.


    "And this little one here is Leon, he has two Unique Skills as well. I think they were supposed to be ''Loved By Monsters'' and ''Feared By Monsters''. The first one attracts monsters, the second one makes them run away, but if both of them are active at the same time, the monsters go mad and end up rampaging and killing everything they see. Both of them are sealed right now though, obviously." The young boy exined with a slightugh, before crossing his arms with another big, broad smirk.


    "And I''m Arc, the oldest of the group! I have two Unique Skills as well, one is ''Negative Emotion Resistance'', and the other is ''Pain Resistance''! The first one includes stuff like Anger, Sadness, Fear, and so on, so I''m basically happy most of the time! Well, except when I''m a bit overwhelmed like before, hehe..." Arc admitted with a wry smile, before pointing at his leg where the injury was before. "And obviously, Pain Resistance makes me pretty resistant to pain! Not totally though, but small cuts like these are fine." And as the young boy exined these, the Imp really just had to admire those two skills that he had. They would definitelye in handy for the Imp! He under any circumstances had to learn them!


    "How I get?" The Imp asked curiously, and the four children looked at the Imp confused, and Sammy slowly scratched her cheek. She still seemed pretty scared, like the other children that could actually either register what was going on, different to the toddler Leon, or that could register fear itself, different to Arc as the Imp just learned, but due to the oldest boy''s help, they seemed to be able to have calmed down a little.


    "How do you get Unique Skills?" Sammy asked, trying to rify what the Imp meant, and the monster swiftly nodded his head because that was exactly what he was asking, and Rudy crossed his arms.


    "You can''t learn Unique Skills. You either have them, or you don''t. We were all born with our skills." The chubby boy pointed out, and the Imp looked at him just confused, "Imp no learn skills?" He asked, and Rudy nodded his head. "Not Unique Skills, no." Rudy replied with a frown and just dropped onto the ground without any hesitation in a way that would have hurt any normal person, but Rudy himself was apparently just fine. After all, just like he said, he couldn''t take any damage at all.


    But sad that the Imp couldn''t learn these skills after all, he looked at them all and asked about something else that they said. "What Seal?" The Imp asked, and Sammy slightly scratched her cheek as her face flushed red, pulling up her sleeve as she did so to show pitch-ck drawings as well as scar-like carvings all over her skin.


    "This is a seal... It can stop you from using your skills. Mine and Leon''s were too dangerous, so they were sealed." Sammy exined quietly, and Rudy sighed with a nod as he kept eating his bread. "They tried to seal my ''Impossible Attack'' Skill as well, but they couldn''t carve into my skin..." He said annoyedly, before Arc just slightly chuckled to try and lift the mood a bit, and then looked at the Imp and the child in the basket next to him.


    "Well, now we''ve all been introduced. What about you, Mister Imp?"

 Chapter 29 - Monster Repellant

    While continuing to eat his food, the Imp just stared at the children and then shrugged his shoulders, trying to tell them that there isn''t much to exin about him or the child with him, but Arc quickly shook his head as he inerjoined his fingers behind his back.


    "Come on, we''ve told you so much about us! So tell us a little about you! Like, what''s your name, even?" Arc asked with a smile, but the Imp just tilted his head to the side confused. A name, huh? He never actually knew if he had any name or not, at least in his status it says ''None''.


    "Imp no have name." He replied due to that, and Arc slowly turned toward the other children with a broad grin, "Oh, then do you want us to name you?" The boy asked rather excitedly, but the Imp just stared back at him and shook his head, but Arc didn''t really ept that as an answer and huddled up together with the other children.


    And while they were doing that, the Imp had to figure out a few other things. He didn''t care much about what the children were doing right now, so the young Monster just sat down on the ground, his Dagger at the ready, before trying to do the thing with the strong breathing again, now that he felt like he wasn''t all that tired anymore. Especially after eating, he felt just rejuvenated!


    So, the Imp closed his eyes and concentrated on the heat in the center of his body again, because this interested him a little more than whatever these children were doing, and soon enough, the Imp started to breath out strongly again.


    However, this time around, his mouth wasn''t ripped open and he was able to release all of the air only through his nose. That was a strong victory for the Imp!


    That meant that he was able to control that heat at least a little bit! He was a lot more tired than before though, so he couldn''t y around with the heat any more than that for now. But at the very least, that ''Air Magic'' Skill leveled up again, so that was a really good thing! The Imp really needed to get better at this, though, and this seemed like the type of thing that could be solved through these ''Stats'', at least that''s the feeling that he got when looking at them. So, he really needed to kill more things.


    "Should we just call him Mister Breather?" Clementine suggested while the Imp was thinking, but Arc just chuckled and shook his head. "Better notugh about that, when I did, he stabbed my leg." The boy said with a slightugh, before the Imp just stared at them annoyedly and went back to thinking, before getting an idea after remembering something that the woman he killed mentioned when he first saw her.


    "Monster repent." The Imp said with a slight frown as he stepped up to the group of children, and Arc turned toward him. "Huh? That''s the Orb thing in the carriage, right?" The boy asked the other children, and they just slowly nodded in response while the Imp stepped into the carriage to take a look around. It wasn''t really hard to figure out what they meant, because the Imp had a very weird feelinging from a certain spot. He was kind of reluctant to grab it, but after a little bit of convincing, the Imp slowly wrapped his fingers around the orb, even if it gave him a very, very weird feeling when he did so.


    It was like he just wanted to immedately get rid of that because his whole body was starting to get scratchy and stuffy, so, the Imp quickly brought the Orb outside of the carriage andid it down on the ground and rxed from this weird feeling again.


    "Ick..." The Imp muttered annoyedly, and then looked at the children. "I break?" He asked, but the children looked at him with confused, wide open eyes. "What, no! Of course not!" Sammy eximed immediately, although Arc stepped in with a curious expression.


    "Why exactly do you want to break it?" He asked, and the Imp replied without hesitation, "Want monsterse here. Imp kill monsters, get stronger. Imp get stronger... Get smarter. Use hot better." The Imp exined in a clear voice, and Arc crossed his arms with a nod. "You know what, sure, let''s do that! It sounds exciting!" The boy replied, before the other children looked at Arc confused.


    "What do you mean, exciting? That''s horrifying!" Rudy replied, but Arc just shook his head, "It shouldn''t be an issue, especially for you. And look, Mister Imp made it through to us without issue, so it can probably only defend against weak ones anyway." The boy pointed out, and quickly turned back to the Imp.


    "Go ahead and break it." Arc told the Imp, who swiftly grabbed his Dagger and stabbed it into the sphere on the ground in front of him. And even though the children beside Arc wanted to stop him, they weren''t fast enough, and the orb slowly formed a crack and shattered in front of them. It gave out a small wave of heat around the Imp that seemed very simr to the heat that he felt in his body, though, so that was good in itself!


    But either way, the icky feeling waspletely gone now, so the Imp turned toward the children. "You in carriage." He told them, handing one of them the basket with the child in it, and they all quickly did as told, rushing into the carriage. The only one that didn''t get nervous was Arc, which was exactly what the Imp expected.


    And then, the boy made a suggestion, "How about we keep going for now, the horses should have properly rested." He told the Imp, who slowly nodded his head and sat down at the front of the carriage like before.


    While the Imp was just sitting there, he took hisrge book out of his bag, the one where he first learned about the Ace of Cups. His whole goal for now was to try to control this heat to be able to activate the second card that he got, because it seemed like a useful weapon to him when he saw it. Maybe if he read about it in this book, he could find out about it. But then again, the Imp wasn''t exactly sure which card it actually was. He thought that he read something about a ''Three of Swords'' on the notification though, so that seemed like a good ce to start. The Imp wanted to read through this whole book anyway, because if there were other useful cards, it would be good to know about them.


    The story of the ''Three of Swords'' was also a pretty interesting one. It was about a young child that grew up in something called a ''Circus'', although the Imp didn''t know what it was, and he was known as the ''Living Puppet''. In the shows he was part of, he was always connected to threads, and some other person would pretend topletely control him. Of course, the child itself wasn''t really happy with all of that, but he continued on doing the same thing over and over again, until he got sick of threads and the man that was using them to dictate his life.


    So, the child killed the man, using the very same threads that would always be connected to the rings ced around the child''s hands. And after he took his first life, the Arcane Dealer appeared in front of him. Most of the threads that the child was holding snapped while he was pulling them around the man''s neck, but with the card that the Arcane Dealer gave him, that didn''t matter. The child was able to create new threads that could never break, with des that were controlled by said threads.


    But this new weapon of his wasn''t something that could be easily controlled. It spread out inside of the child''s body and slowly turned him mad, before he waspletely taken over by the Three of Swords. For a while, the child was finally controlling the threads, but soon enough, the threads controlled him again.


    The Imp thought about it for a while, and then remembered that he did notice these weird red lines running across the man''s hands and arms when he was using the card, so maybe that was this ''spreading'', but the Imp really wasn''t sure what exactly this ''Madness'' meant. Did the man act weird back then? It did seem like he was hurting the woman, but the Imp wasn''t aware whether or not this was that madness or not. Either way, he was dead now, so it didn''t matter in the slightest.


    But despite his hopes, the Imp didn''t get any closer to figuring out how to actually make that weapon appear. So after all, he had to figure out how to use this damn annoying heat! But it just made him so tired all the time, so the Imp really didn''t want to use it too often.


    It seemed like he really had to, though. He managed to control the air from his body and it didn''t really help him much, so maybe he could try and use the water from his body instead? He had this ''Water Magic'' skill is well. But exactly what kind of water could that mean?


    There were three things that might be close enough to that, which the Imp could immediately think of. First, his piss. He didn''t need to go right now though, so he had to wait for that for a little longer. Then, there was his spit. The Imp did already show his expertise in controlling his spit''s trajectory back when he was with the Horde, but it was so far away from the heat in his body that he really wasn''t sure if he could do that yet.


    But the third type was the one that the Imp was sure he could try and control. His blood. He always had some of it in his body, and it was probably around the ce with his heat as well! And after remembering back to how the Imp ate his brothers, he did know that there was one ce with really a lot of blood right where the heat was gathering as well!


    His heart! So, without further ado, the Imp tried to concentrate on that lump of meat by doing the same thing that he did before while Arc was starting to move the carriage again. The Imp slowly closed his eyes and put his hand to his chest, where he noticed a slight bumping every once in a while, which seemed toe from his heart as well.


    So, the Imp concentrated on that ce in his body, trying to focus on that continuous beating as he was doing so. And before he knew it, the Imp felt the heat slowly spread throughout his whole body. At first, it was just as if he was feeling cozily warm, as if sitting in front of a fire, but soon enough, the heat became burning hot as if he was pushed into the fire by someone.


    It came so quickly that the Imp didn''t know what he was supposed to do, and just grasped his chest as he was doing so, trying to hold out through the pain as much as he could. Slowly, the Imp hunched over, just ring at the notifications that appeared in front of him.


    [Your Mana Spread throughout your body]


    [A Lesser Imp''s Body is not supposed to handle mass amounts of mana. As long as this state is in effect, you will lose 1HP per second]

 Chapter 30 - Evolution

    Confused, the Imp stared at the notifications while trying to somehow handle all of the pain that he was feeling in every part of his body. And while he was in a lot of pain, he still somehow felt like his senses were sharper in some ways. But maybe it was just in return for the Imp''s ability to think straight that his nose was able to pick up a certain smell not too far from where they currently were.


    The Imp wasn''t sure how to stop this, he already lost all control over the heat, but it wasn''t being pulled back out of every part of his body. It truly felt like he was being burnt alive.


    The notification told the Imp that a ''Lesser Imp'' couldn''t handle what was happening, but maybe he could handle it if he wasn''t a lesser Imp anymore.


    There was something that the Imp could remember, one of the things that happened the day that he split off of the horde. The Imp in front of him had growth on his back, and some hairy monster came and brought that Imp away, speaking about ''Evo''. And then, at ater point, he heard Thomas, Avalin and James speaking about not letting the Imp level up, because they wanted him to stay a Lesser Imp. So, the Imp just had to level up as much as he could as soon as he could in order to have his body change so that he could be something beyond a Lesser Imp. Something that could handle this heat.


    And for that, the Imp had to approach the source of whatever he could smell, and without hesitation jumped off of the carriage with his dagger in hand. He could hear Arc yell something from behind him, but the Imp didn''t care too much at the moment, because right now, getting rid of this pain was more important to this Imp. Because if he didn''t, he would die.


    The Imp ran through the forest closer toward the source of the smell, before he saw it in the distance. A dark-furred beast standing on all four legs, with its back turned toward the Imp. As far as the young Demon could tell, there were a few more monsters nearby, but as long as he could kill this beast as quickly as he could, it wouldn''t matter.


    Quickly, the Imp rushed forward and grasped his dagger tightly in his right hand. It seemed like the beast somehow didn''t notice him until the veryst moment, but at that point, it was already toote. The Imp jumped onto the monster''s back and at the very same time, he stabbed the dagger into the back of its neck.


    [Critical Damage done to Shade Wolf]


    [Shade Wolf -1154 Damage]


    With a frown on his face, the Imp pulled the dagger out of the back of the monster''s neck and pushed it directly into its head without hesitation, and then, the notification he wanted to see appeared in front of him.


    [Lethal Damage done to Shade Wolf]


    [Beginner Dagger Mastery Skill leveled up!]


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You leveled Up!]


    ...


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You have 9 unused Stat Points]


    For a moment, the Imp could feel the pain disappearing, but it came back as soon as he was hoping that it was gonepletely, and the Imp just continued running on forward toward the next closest monster that he could smell.


    This time around, he wasn''t as lucky as his first time. There were two monsters, and they were both standing in his direction. They had green skin and they were wearing some cloth over their lower body. The Imp didn''t really recognize them, but he figured that this might be a little tough.


    So, the Imp chose to take out the one that seemed stronger first, the one that was closer toward him. It somehow still seemed to take a little while for the two monsters to notice him, even if they were looking in his direction, so the Imp was able to jump out from the bushes and immediately stab the first of the two right in the face, or more specifically, right in the eye. The bad-smelling mud-colored blood that covered the Imp''s cloak didn''t put the Imp off for a few moments, simply because his sense of smell was a good bit better right now, but the Imp didn''t care and looked at the notifications that appeared in response to him stabbing this monster.


    [Lethal Damage Done to Goblin]


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You leveled Up!]


    ...


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You have 17 unused Stat Points]


    And right when the Imp tried to look at the other Goblin, that one swung his club at the Imp''s head and immediately caused him a fair amount of damage.


    [-713 Health]


    While dropping to the ground, the Imp red at the Goblin in front of him. It seemed like this monster was supposed to be far stronger than him, but the Imp couldn''t let it be like this either. He was losing health steadily, and to his ''luck'', the pain that he was feeling all over his body was stronger than the pain he felt in his head right now.


    The Imp was a bit dizzy when trying to stand up, but luckily, it seemed like he was able to dodge the next attack somehow and then stabbed the dagger right into the side of the Goblin''s body.


    [Goblin -231 Damage]


    And then, the Imp pulled the dagger back out and stabbed the Imp again, right when it was moving away due to the damage it just received.


    [Goblin -177 Damage]


    This time around, the attack was a bit more shallow than before, but it still did a lot of damage even then, and before the Imp could even really think about it, he already stabbed the Goblin again, but this time right in its chest.


    [Critical Damage Done to Goblin]


    [Goblin -612 Damage]


    And then, the Imp pulled the Dagger out once more while the Goblin was trying its hardest to attack back, even causing some damage back to the Imp, but soon enough the Imp stabbed the dagger directly into the Goblin''s throat.


    [Lethal Damage Done to Goblin]


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You have 20 unused Stat Points]


    [You have reached Level 100]


    [Possible Evolutions]


    -[Imp (Crimson, Azure, or Fern Variants)]


    -[Lesser Imp(Shadow, Unholy, or Sleepless Variants)]


    [As a Card Owner, you have ess to a Unique Evolution. Do you want tomence Evolution into a Unique Subspecies of Imp?]


    Slightly overwhelmed, the Imp tried to look through all of those notifications. The pain was still there, but now there was also this urge to choose something from what was in front of him. The word ''Unique'' stuck out to the Imp, however. He heard it a lot today, but he wasn''t sure what he was supposed to think of it.


    The children had Unique skills, and they seemed to be ''Broken'' because of it. The Imp didn''t want to end up broken, but right now, he was most drawn to it despite his doubts. Right now, he just had to get to it already, and so, the Imp said the word that popped into his mind at that time.


    "Yes..." He muttered, and immediately, all of the notifications in front of him disappeared, reced by single different one.


    [Commencing Evolution. Evolution will be over in 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds]


    [You are unable to open your status during evolution]


    [Mana overload stopped]


    Slowly, the Imp noticed that the pain all over his body was disappearing. He was still aching, but the Imp didn''t care about that for now. The Imp just had to return to the Carriage to the children, and then he would let his evolution happen.


    Step after step, the young monster walked through the forest toward where he remembered the carriage to be, and soon found the wooden box as it stood in front of him. The Imp approached the carriage, and immediately when he did, Arc looked at him surprised at the wound on the top of his head.


    "Mister Imp, what happened?" He asked with a bit of worry and hurried over toward him, although he did somewhat hesitate after noticing the horrid smell that the Imp was giving off due to the Goblin-Blood, but in the end, he still helped the Imp out a bit.


    The young monster itself was feeling tired right now, just incredibly exhausted. But he wanted to stay up to make sure nothing happened to these children. He wasn''t sure why, but ever since he came back from thatke and waspletely healed of all his wounds, the Imp was more open to being with these children. The Imp knew that he probably would have just killed them before that, but somehow, he just wanted to be around them.


    There was this other thing that appeared when he hade back, at the very bottom of therge notification, the ''Blessing of the Lonely Naiad''. The Imp looked at it a bit more closely once and made another notification appear, but he didn''t really understand all that the notification was saying, because there were words in it that he never heard before.


    However, now at least one of the sentences made a little more sense, ''Your longing for a group to call your own is amplified''. The Imp still wasn''t sure what this meant, but at the very least, he was sure that he wanted to protect these children, at least for now. They were weak, they didn''t treat him with despise, and from what the Imp was told, they needed him.


    It was probably due to his rtively delirious state caused by his injuries and fatigue, but to him at that moment, it didn''t matter much who or what they were, but if he was able to get stronger than he was now, he would use any and all of his power to make sure these children wouldn''t end up breaking even more.


    He would treat them as his own, as if they were his brothers or sisters. The Imp didn''t have much sympathy toward the Horde for a while now, basically ever since he left and was taken by Avalin, Thomas and James, so maybe these children were just supposed to be his new horde, but the Imp was undoubtably sure that his thoughts were genuine.


    And so, while the young monster dropped down onto the ground, these were thest thoughts that crossed his mind at the time.

 Chapter 31 - Alone

    At some point, although the Imp didn''t really know how long it''s been since then, the Imp woke back up with pain all over his body.


    He pushed himself off of the floor of the carriage as it was rumbling around. The Imp''s mind was incredibly hazy, he just wasn''t sure what happened yesterday. He could barely remember what happened after he started feeling all of that pain, but he didn''t remember any of what happened after the pain stopped no matter how hard he tried to remember.


    As the Imp was pulling himself up on one of the boxes standing against the wall of the carriage, he noticed that they were a bit smaller than he remembered. Not by much, but he was sure he wasn''t able to look on top of them just yesterday, and now he was able to see it without an issue.


    But the thing that annoyed the Imp the most was that his head felt incredibly heavy and was hurting far too much right now, and when he thought about that, he remembered being hit by that green monster yesterday. Trying to see if that wound was alright at this point, the Imp raised his hand to the top of his head, although there was something else that troubled the Imp far more now.


    There was a small, hard growth on his forehead, two of them actually! They weren''t there before, so of course the Imp was pretty worried about it and tried to find something to take a look at himself, although he noticed another thing then.


    His hands were a little different. The Imp''s skin was the same red that it was before, even if it seemed a bit smoother and definitely not as crumbly and dry as it was before, but the thing that worried the Imp was that he basically didn''t have proper ws anymore now!


    He knew that they were never as awesome as his brothers'', but that didn''t mean that he had to have them taken away from him! The Imp still had slight ws, but they really weren''t anything much to speak of... For the most part, his hands now seemed like a person''s instead of a Monster''s, ignoring the color.


    "Hmm...?" A quiet voice muttered out from behind the Imp, and when he turned around, he recognized itssource to be Clementine, the young yellow haired girl, and next to her was Rudy, still sleeping. Quickly, she hit the wall behind her a few times, "Arc! He woke up!" She eximed, and nearly immediately, the carriage seemed toe to a stop before two people jumped off the front of it and ran over toward the door to open it up, revealing a bright glimmer of sunlighting from a red and orange sky.


    In the doorway stood Arc and Sammy, thetter holding the male tiny child Leon in her arms. The basket with the Imp''s tiny child was here in the carriage as well, he already made sure of that, but before he could even react at all and ask about what was going on, Arc already began to smile brightly.


    "Mister Imp!" Arc said happily and waved his hand to signal the Imp to step outside, which he swiftly did with shaky legs after grabbing the basket standing next to him.


    "Wow, you look really different now..." Sammy said with a slight frown, seemingly still pretty hesitant about the Imp, but overall a lot more open to the idea of having him around.


    The Imp was pretty confused at what she meant, although he immediately remembered when he finally noticed the notification floating in the corner of his sight.


    [Congrattions! You Evolved and became a Unique Species! You are now a Schr Imp!]


    With a slight frown, the Imp looked at the notification and then turned toward Arc and Sammy to ask them about it. "What is... a Schr..?" The Imp asked them, before Arc raised his eyebrows in pleasant surprise.


    "You''re not speaking in such a broken way anymore either!" He eximed, before actually thinking about the Imp''s question, "Erm, a Schr is like a... researcher or something. Just someone super smart."


    Slowly, the Imp turned to stare at the notification and then back at the children in front of him, while the two who were still in the carriage, Clementine and Rudy, stepped outside to them as well.


    "I... Evolved. I now am... a Schr... Imp." The Monster exined, his voice a lot clearer than it was before, as if he was actually supposed to be able to speak now. It was pretty hard to get used to this new feeling in his throat, but other than that, the Imp didn''t mind the way it was right now at all. But he was still confused about all that happened, so Arc, the smartest and most mature of the children here, once more took the initiative to speak.


    "So that''s an evolution, huh...? The biggest change are those horns though, right?" Arc asked as he turned toward the other children, and Clementine nodded her head with a pout. "Mhm, and even though he seemed to be in pain when they were growing, I wasn''t even able to eat it..." She huffed, before Rudy looked at her with a wry smile and shook his head.


    "I think it''s better that way, you probably would have grown horns as well." The boy replied, and the Imp looked at him as he was speaking before looking around at the other children.


    He remembered now, it was the same yesterday. This weird feeling that he had then, even if he couldn''t exin it, he felt like he wanted these children to be alright no matter what. The Imp was aware that he was a lot smarter right now all of a sudden, so he could also see that there were apparently different reasons for that, although he only had a rough idea about just one of them.


    There was a lot that the Imp didn''t know yet, so he would surely be able to find those reasons out if he properly spoke to them. But once more, first he wanted to know what exactly happened.


    "Before... I fell asleep... What happened?" The Imp asked the boy in front of him, the only one that was with him at the time, and Arc just interlocked his fingers behind his back and began to exin.


    "Well, you were doing that thing yesterday, where you seemed like you wanted to breath out so strongly again, but then you suddenly reacted weirdly and hunched over before jumping off the carriage. When you came back, you were covered in blood, reeked like a pig, and were injured... We brought you into the carriage-"


    "I brought you into the carriage." Rudy interrupted with a smile, and Arc just chuckled at him and nodded his head, "Yes, Rudy brought you into the carriage. Even if he can''t damage anyone, he''s actually pretty strong, you know? Anyway, we brought you into the carriage, washed your cloak, and then... kept moving. Without you or the repent, we had to make sure not to be found by monsters somehow." Arc exined to the Imp, and he slowly nodded his head before looking at the sleeping child in the basket next to him.


    "Who... Cared for... it?" The Imp asked them all, and Sammy slowly spoke up. "I did... She wasn''t that much trouble though, at leastpared to Leon..." She exined, before the Imp nodded his head, still staring down at the child in the basket.


    "Thank... you. I need to... bring the child... away." He said, truly grateful that she made sure nothing happened to it. No matter how much he changed, he still had the urge to bring it, far away.


    The Imp wasn''t sure if it was because of the fear that he felt just thinking about not doing so, but while he was worried for this child for every moment of his thoughts, he felt morefortable with the idea of staying with these five other children than her, <The Fool>. The Imp just felt colder toward her, even if he didn''t necessarily feel all that warm toward these children either.


    But soon, Sammy frowned in response to what the Imp told them, rather angrily, "What do you mean you need to bring her away?" She asked, and the Imp slowly turned in the direction that he felt like he was being pulled and extended his hand forward.


    "The child... needs to be... there. The child is... the Fool. I was...manded to by... the King." The young monster exined, even if he didn''t really understand the situation himself.


    "So you just want to abandon her and bring her to some random king?" Sammy asked angrily for some reason, and the Imp turned back toward her slightly startled at her loud voice, before he nodded his head.


    "Yes." He replied quite simply, but instead of continuing this conversation, he had something else to ask. "Why do you... Not run?" The Imp asked the children, remembering back to when hundreds and hundreds of people ran away from a monster. And even the first time they met, Arc dropped to the ground out of fear, letting the Imp unlock his useless ''Charisma'' stat.


    Slowly, the three children beside Arc looked at each other with unknowing gazes. It seemed like they weren''t exactly against being around the Imp, but in the end just went along with what their ''Leader'' did. And exactly that leader had a rtively simple reason.


    "Because I''m not scared of you anymore." With a clear gaze and a slight smirk, the young boy, who was as tall as the Imp now was, exined, before continuing, "At least not constantly. Without the fear that regr people have of monsters, I can look at you rationally without anything talking to me in the back of my mind. You don''t seem to want to hurt us, so I don''t mind being around you personally." Arc told him, before the Imp slowly nodded his head.


    Even if the other children weren''t necessarily happy with Arc''s answer, for the Imp it was enough. Staying somewhere where you''re safe at least for now always made more sense than going somewhere your life is in Danger. And from the way that Arc was speaking sometimes before, that''s what it seemed like was going on, at the very least.


    "But now..." Arc started, and the Imp was pulled out of his thoughts again, "Why aren''t you killing us? You''re a monster, aren''t you?" He asked, and for some reason, a slight shudder ran over the Imp''s back while the young boy was speaking.


    But without hesitation, the Imp nodded his head. "I am... a Monster. I do not... mind killing... anything. As long as they... are dangerous. You are not... dangerous." The Imp replied, and slowly held his hand to his chest where the weird marking still seemed to be, while trying to think about his reasons.


    "And... You are... ''Broken''... You are not... normal. You are... anomalies... right?" The young Monster asked them, thinking back at what Avalin so happily told the others about back then when she realized that the Imp was different.


    "I am... an anomaly... too... I am Broken. And I... don''t like being... alone." The young Monster admitted, and just thought about it for a moment. There were four times in his life that the Monster remembered being alone.


    Ever since he was born, he was together with the horde, made up of hundreds or even thousands of monsters, so he was never alone until he was looking for his brothers in the forest, running away from his notifications, before he was found by Avalin, Thomas and James.


    Then, after Avalin was eaten by Zaragon, while the world became hazy around the Imp and everything just seemed so distant from him as he was running away from the most fearsome monstrosity he ever actuallyid his eyes on, before he found the child in the basket currently next to him.


    The third time was when the Imp was attacked by that man, Gard, and had to run away in fear of dying. He felt like he met someone in the water he dropped into, but he really couldn''t be sure. But when he returned, he once more found the child in the basket.


    And the fourth time was when the Imp was ovee with pure pain all over his body, and once more ran around the area for fear of his life.


    Every time the Imp was in a bad situation, he was in fear, in a situation that scared the living crap out of him. Each and every time, the Imp wanted to get away.. So, he would much rather spend time with a bunch of people like them who treated him not too differently to how Avalin treated him than be alone again.

 Chapter 32 - Blood

    Soon, the group started to move again, and the Imp reced Sammy on the seat in the front so that he could properly take a look out at whatever may be happening. But of course, he wasn''t needed constantly, so he spent the time that he had to just keep reading his book. He already noticed that his status wasn''t much different to before, just that his Health and Mana numbers were a bit higher, thetter especailly, and his ''Race'' had really changed to ''Schr Imp''.


    But there was something that the Imp himself was pretty worried about. It was the thing that happened yesterday, when the Imp was trying to move the heat in his body around. Then, the notifications told him that as a Lesser Imp, his body wouldn''t be able to take all that ''Mana'', and then the pain started.


    So now that he wasn''t a Lesser Imp anymore, it should work, shouldn''t it? Slowly, the Imp chose to try the same thing that he did yesterday. He was worried about the same thing as yesterday happening, but if he was never supposed to be able to use this thing called ''Mana'', why did it increase in his status that much? Usually, whenever a number gotrger there, it was a good thing, after all.


    But even then, the Imp still wanted to be a little bit careful about this, so while he concentrated on the heat in the center of his body again, the Imp just slowly tried to feel where his heart was, and once more slowly moved the heat into that heart. It was very hard to even barely move it, but in the end, his heart ended up taking the heat in without an issue, and the Imp could feel it being spread all over his body.


    That''s what happenedst time as well, so the Imp was still unsure if this would really end up fine. And just when he was thinking that, a notification appeared in front of him.


    [Your Body is being saturated in mana. You feel your senses grow more delicate, while your body bes stronger]


    With a slight frown, the Imp looked at these notification before staring down at his own body. These ones were positive notifications, and he wasn''t feeling any pain at all. Sure, his body felt a little weird at the moment, but it was a good type of weird.


    But at the same time, that feeling disappeared as soon as the Imp''s concentration broke down. Although, at the very least, the Imp now knew that he could really do something like this! It didn''t have the direct effect that the Imp wanted it to have, meaning that his Water Magic skill wasn''t increased, but in the end, the Imp didn''t really do anything with his blood directly. If his Goal was to manipte the water in his body in the form of his blood with his heat, then he did literally the opposite, letting his blood control his heat instead.


    So now, the Imp needed to repeat this whole thing again now that he knew that he could really do this properly. Once more, the Imp moved his heat to his heart, but this time didn''t let it go like before. Now, he instead kept it directly in his heart, trying to move the blood that was being pushed away from it even faster, in whatever direction it may have been moving at the moment.


    Although, the only thing that really happened was that the Imp''s arm started to feel a little numb and turned pale, so he quickly let it go again and his arm recovered. In the end, though, something else also came out of that little practice, except that his arm was really starting to hurt for a few moments.


    [Beginner Water Magic Skill leveled Up!]


    With a smirk on his face, the Imp just directed his thoughts back into the center of his body. He wasn''t exactly sure why his arm started feeling like that, but he sure wanted to find out. So, he tried the same thing again, although he didn''t seem to remember which way he made his blood flowst time, and this time around, the Imp felt a little bit of pain in the left side of his belly.


    But again, the Water Magic Skill leveled up once more. And then, the Imp tried to move the blood using the heat into a whole other direction again, through a different one of these thin lines that he could feel. And then, his right leg started to hurt a bit while turning slightly pale. For now, the Imp chose to do something else instead of moving his blood radically into any direction, and just used his mana to somewhat consciously let his blood move just a slight bit faster, for a simple reason.


    The Imp''s curiosity took over, and instead of wanting to try and use his ''Magic'' a little more, he instead wanted to see what his maniption of his blood had to do with the pain that was happening in his body exactly.


    For that, the Imp wanted to figure out where exactly his blood was going naturally. He didn''t really know for how long he was doing it, but soon enough he found that he now knew quite a lot about how his blood was moving through his body, even if not perfectly.


    But in the end, this let the Imp figure out one important thing that he quickly wanted to try out, and then quickly grabbed his dagger to do just that. Slowly, the Imp pressed the tip of the dagger into his finger, causing bright red blood toe out of it. There wasn''t enough for the Imp to actually try it out properly, so while it hurt him even more, the Imp actually cut a little bit into his finger, surprising the child sitting next to him.


    "What are you doing...?" Arc asked surprised, although with a bit of curiosity in his voice, and the Imp just ignored him and tried to manipte the heat again, slowly moving it into his heart and along the numerous different strands inside of his body over toward the ones closest to his finger. For a while, the Imp held his hand downward onto a spare piece of cloth, causing drops of blood to steadily appear out of his wound and drop onto the cloth. But when the Imp moved his blood in a way that it wouldn''t give any more blood from the strands to his flesh in that area, the dripping stopped, and Arc raised his eyebrows confused.


    "Huh? Did you heal yourself..?" He inquired, trying to lean forward toward the Imp''s finger as it began to drip more blood out of his wound when he let go of that control over his finger. And actually, he was able to make it bleed a little quicker than before as well, although that seemed counterproductive, really. He lost a little bit of HP through this, though, so it maybe wasn''t the best way to test this new neat little trick out. If he had been able to use this sometime before, the Imp wouldn''t have needed to worry about running away from Gard when he shed him across the chest. Although in the end, that probably would have meant that the Imp would have died instantly after the man''s next attack.


    Either way, if he could stop himself from bleeding, that would definitely be useful... At least that''s what the Imp was thinking for now he had to test it out properlyter. For now, he had to stop himself from bleeding until everything healed at least a little bit to not let any more blood out naturally.


    "I stopped... the blood." The Imp exined to Arc, who still seemed to be pretty curious about what just happened, but Arc raised his eyebrows confused, "What, how''d you do that?!" He asked excitedly, but the Imp just shrugged in response.


    "The Water... Magic Skill..." The Imp replied quite coldly, and Arc looked at him just as excitedly as before. "Whoa, water magic''s so cool! I didn''t know you could do that to your blood!" Arc eximed, and the Imp just looked at his finger with a frown. This was a rather simple thing to do for him, and he just started using this new skill. So this shouldn''t be too hard for others to do either, right?


    Well, for now, the Imp was happy that he could do it, others really didn''t matter much to him. What mattered most was that the Imp was now able to use the heat at least a little bit, enough to be able to move it throughout his body. He couldn''t really move it all that wildly though, not in a straight line at least, so he wasn''t able to just pull it out of his body anywhere.


    For now at least, the Imp had to move the heat through his blood toward ced like his fingertips, something quite convenient for what the Imp wanted to test out.


    First, he wanted to try it on the card he got at Zaragon''s shop, and moved the heat from his finger into that card, causing a decorated, shiny golden cup to appear in its stead. That did remind the Imp of those other shiny things though, maybe he should try them out with the heatter as well... But for now, the Imp looked into that cup, noticing that it was... empty.


    The ck Liquid that was inside there was gone now, sadly, and a notification appeared just when the Imp was thinking about the possible reasons for it not being there.


    [The Ace of Cups will be refilled in 27 Days, 17 Hours, 31 Minutes, 11 Seconds]


    With a slight frown, the Imp just took his dagger and stabbed the notifcation to make it disappear. Arc looked at him a bit startled for a moment, but then just started to slightlyugh at the Imp about this, because it just looked pretty funny to him.


    Annoyedly, the Imp tried to do anything at and then found that his ''heat'' was still inside the cup. The Imp wasn''t sure how exactly he could feel that, but he did. And so, he swiftly pulled it back out of the dumb cup, before it turned back into a card. Surprised, the Imp tilted his head to the side, and then pushed his head back into the card, and when he did so, the cup appeared inside of his hand again. And when he pulled it back out, it once more just turned into a card, and the Imp made a rtively quick connection to how these cards worked.


    With the heat inside of it, it turned into something else, and without the heat inside of it, it would turn back into a card! That was pretty simple, actually!


    So, as simple as that was, the Imp tried to do the same thing again, just with his second card, the three of swords.


    The story of this card seemed really unpleasant to the Imp, but judging from it, he would go mad if he used these too long. The same thing happened with Gard when he was using it as well, didn''t it?


    Careful, so that the Imp could pull the heat back out as soon as it seemed to be dangerous, he slowly pushed the heat into the card, and before he knew it a tight ring appeared around the Imp''s index finger. But weirdly enough, instead of the four that the man had before, the Imp really only got this one ring, with only a single, pretty short version of the same weapon. It was still the same de, but the string connecting them seemed pretty short whenpared to the ones that Gard had.


    But at the very least, he wasn''t feeling as if he was being taken over, so that was good for now!

 Chapter 33 - Disguise

    For another little while, the Imp just started to experiment with his new weapon a bit, finding that he was able to control it as if it was part of his body, simr to how he controlled his own blood by letting his heat flow inside of it. It was kind of tough at first, and the Imp nearly stabbed his own eye out once, but one of his new horns luckily stopped any damage from happening to him, by blocking the de.


    It still hurt a little, but at the very least the Imp wasn''t damaged or anything. And while he wasn''t being taken over by this weapon, the Imp knew that he was starting to feel incredibly tired after using it for too long, and soon just pulled his heat back out of the weapon and made it turn back into a card.


    This would definitely end up being pretty useful to the Imp, although for now, he wanted to continue using the weapon that he had been using up until now, his Dagger.


    "What was that weapon?" Arc asked curiously, and the Imp turned toward him with a frown, "The Three of... Swords. It belonged to... Gard." The Imp exined, and Arc raised his eyebrows surprised. "Oh, that guy''s... I didn''t see him use it, but it looks cooler when you have it..." Arc admitted slightly annoyedly, before starting to speak about something that apparenly just popped into his mind.


    "Ah, and there''s something else I need to tell you..." The boy exined, but the Imp just kept staring at him, waiting for him to start talking, "We need to stop by a Vige soon, with a lot of people there..." Arc told him, and the Imp looked at him questioningly.


    Why did they need to go to a ''Vige''? If there were people there, the Imp didn''t really want to go there at all. He barely liked these children, so he really didn''t want to go somewhere with a lot of different people. Or any people, at that.


    "No." The Imp replied quite clearly, but Arc just returned his look with a wry smile. "Err, Mister Imp, we need to go there... We don''t have a lot of food for us left, and yours will be rotten sooner orter as well... And we need the milk for the babies too. If we don''t have that, we''ll be done for sooner orter." Arc exined, while the Imp just listened to him, before annoyedly nodding his head, making Arc grin broadly in reply.


    "Alright, perfect! We''ll be there in around... an hour?" Arc exined, in a manner that seemed to insinuate that this was the n all along, and the Imp just looked back at him while grinding his teeth, before pushing his two cards into his bag and taking out his book. He needed to wait a bit until he wasn''t as tired anymore, so while he was doing that, reading was probably a good way to pass the time. He already read about half of this book as well as he could, finding out about a lot of different cards that were supposed to exist. Some of them seemed really useful, others not at all, and then for others, the Imp wasn''t even sure what they were supposed to do. But all of them had inmon that they were given to someone by the ''Arcane Dealer'', even if the Imp wasn''t exactly sure who or what it was supposed to be.


    Either way, the Imp liked this book, it told him a lot of different things that he didn''t know before, and it wasn''t scary like those dumb notifications. Even if they may be peaceful most of the time, the Imp knew that they woulde back around to attack him somehow. That was something he waspletely sure of.


    But even then, this book was harmless, and most importantly, he got it from Avalin. So he wanted to take good care of it. Although then, Arc started to chuckle slightly. "You know, the town we''re going to has a book store. We don''t have a lot of money, but maybe we can spare a bit for one or two more books?" Arc exined, and the Imp, slightly surprised at hearing this, turned his head over toward the boy next to him.


    "There are... more books?" The Imp asked, and Arc nodded his head immediately. "Yes, of course! I mean, I think there was a bookstore... I didn''t get a good look at the ce thest time... But I think there was!" Arc exined, and the Imp turned his face back toward the book currently on hisp, before nodding his head.


    "Then we can... Go to the vige." With a slight nod, that was the conclusion the Imp came to. If there were more books, then it might be a good enough reason to go. There was a lot of things he could learn from them, at least from what the Imp could tell, so maybe he could get some books that told him more about this ''Magic'', or this weird ''Blessing'' that he now had.


    And while the child was justughing a bit next to the Imp, he himself continued to read for now. Because he wanted to finish this book before starting with the next ones.


    Around an hourter, which the Imp spent doing just that, Arc stopped the carriage by the side of the path they were on right now. The Vige that Arc was talking about could be seen in the distance, and the Imp could feel a slightly eery feeling from there, simr to that ''Monster Repent'' that was in the carriage before.


    But the Imp managed to fight through such things long ago, and it was nothing against what he felt while close to that floating ind and theke. Even then, the Imp was confused as to why they were stopping all of a sudden, because they weren''t actually at the Vige yet. And before the Imp could even ask, Arc already pulled him off of the front of the carriage to bring him to the back.


    "What are you... doing?" The Imp asked confused as he pulled his arm away from Arc, and the boy replied quite swiftly, "Well, you can''t go into town looking like that, you''ll be recognized as a monster right away... And we need someone to act as an adult for us, because children aren''t allowed to be alone like this." The child told him, and then slowly opened the door of the carriage.


    "Rudy, is everything done?" Arc asked, and soon, the boy stepped outside and nodded his head in reply. "Yes, here it is. The Mask should be good enough for now, there''s some spare pants that I shortened and tightened, a shirt, and some of Mr Irnhoff''s old gloves... And then of course some shoes as well, although they''re Mr Henson''s, because, you know..." Rudy exined and just pointed at the Imp''s feet, which were a bitrgerpared to a person''s, also because of the slight ws at the toes.


    "Coolio. Mister, get dressed please." Arc told him and then handed him all of the things that Rudy seemed to have somehow changed around to make them fit better to the Imp''s body. But the Imp was still a little confused about everything. Why did he have to wear all those different things and cover up his beautiful red skin?


    And as if Arc could read his thoughts, the boy started tough a bit. "As I said, you can''t be recognized as a monster, and I have personally never seen anyone with red skin, so... We need to hide it." Arc exined, but the Imp just clicked his tongue and took the different things from the boy''s hands, and then with a few instructions from the children got dressed in them. They felt really ufortable, but at least they fit him. The Imp hoped he would get used to these as quickly as he got used to the cloak, though.


    After all, he was constantly wearing that cloak now, no matter what happened, and he even made himself a new one after the old one was ripped up. It felt weird to wear something else on his chest underneath the cloak, though. The gloves and shoes felt especially out of ce, but he just had to live with it. If someone noticed that he was a monster, he would probably be attacked, right? And then, the Imp would have to either flee, would be killed, or would kill whoever attacked him. And he really wasn''t feeling up to any of those things right now.


    But either way, the one thing that the Imp somehow didn''t mind was the mask that covered up his facepletely. It was nk on the front and only had two holes that he could look through, but the Imp didn''t necessarily mind wearing this for at least a little while. Not constantly, but for now it would be fine.


    "Alright, now he looks like just a really short person! But... How can we convince people that he''s really an adult?" Arc asked with his head tilted to the side,paring his own height with the Imp''s, "He''s way too short to be an adult." He exined, and the Imp thought about this issue for a little while as well, until he remembered a type of person that was supposed to be very short even at the tallest they could be. Avalin showed him some of those on that floating ind, after all.


    "Can we say... I am a Gnome?" The Imp asked, slowly getting a bit more used to his new ability to speak properly, and Sammy stepped up into the Carriage''s Doorframe and shook her head.


    "A Gnome is way shorter than you are though, right? It''s like... you''re right in the middle of being a human adult and a gnome?" She suggested, and Rudy immediately nodded his head, seemingly having a rtively good idea.


    "Then let''s just say his Father was a Gnome, and his Mother a Human!" Rudy added, and Arc smiled brightly at that idea. "Ooh, sounds good! That should work, definitely! And Mister''s voice sounds more adult-like than ours as well, so it should wok!" Arc eximed optimistically as ever, and the Imp just shrugged. They should know other people better than the Imp, so it would probably be fine.


    "Then let''s go!" Suggested the young boy and quickly made his way to the front of the carriage, although he wanted to do something else for now that the Imp didn''t expect, giving him the reigns of the horses, exining step-by-step what he had to do for now.


    ording to him, it would look weird if a child was driving a carriage and the adult was just sitting next to it, reading a book.


    Slightly nervous about this, the group approached the Vige and the small gate in front of it. As they were doing so, Arc grabbed the book that the Imp was reading before and flipped it open to a seemingly random page, and started to move his legs back and forth in opposite directions all the time while smiling brightly.


    When they came into sight, a seemingly very slow, overweight and lethargic man stood up from a small stool by the side of the gate set into the wooden wall. While he didn''t seem to be very excited, the younger man, fully clothed in shiny metal armor and holding a spear in his hand, was shaking nervously.


    The older man seemed somewhat surprised by the Imp''s clothing, but just then, Arc spoke up with a happy smile, "Daddy, look! What''s this word here?" He asked the Imp as he held the book toward the Imp, pointing at a random word, and the Imp looked at it and frowned underneath his mask, "Fairy."


    He replied quite clearly, and just when the Imp thought they were going to be stopped, the older man that seemed slightly suspicious at first simply waved them through the gate with a slight smile.

 Chapter 34 - Growing Up

    Once they got into the actual Vige, it didn''t take long until Arc seemed to have spotted a small building with an open front, with a few other carriages and horses inside. "We need to go there." The boy told the Imp, who tried his best to actually properly do this, stopping right in front of the structure, before a man came up to them with a bright smile.


    "Well then, how can I help you, Sir?" The Tall-Built Man asked, and Arc quickly spoke up with a stutter. "E-Erm, we''re... We want to..." He started to say, getting nearly infinitely quiet toward the end, tapping the Imp''s leg as he was doing so to give him the signal to start speaking. "We-" The Imp said, as Arc had nned, but the young boy quickly interrupted him.


    "Wait, y-you said I could do it! We want to put the carriage and horsies into the Stable!" Arc eximed, trying to speak as excited and nervous as he could manage at the same time, and the man standing next to the Carriageughed and nodded his head with a smile.


    "Of course, for how long do you want to stay?" The Man asked while softlyughing, before the Imp slowly spoke up. They already spoke about these things while they were on their way to town, so the Imp just needed to voice the conclusion they came to. "One Night." He said with a clear voice, and the man slowly nodded his head.


    "Alright, that''s just going to be one Large Copper coin, please. 5 copper for the space, and 5 for the feed we''re going to give the Horses. Is that alright?" The man exined, and the Imp slowly nodded and grabbed the bag next to him, trying to pull out the small bundle of coins that he was told to be the currency the man was talking about.


    It was pretty confusing to the Imp, there were three different types of coins, and each then again had a small, normal, andrge version of it. It was a bit weird, but in the end it wasn''t hard to figure out for a smart creature like the Imp. And so, he slowly opened the small bundle of a handful of Large copper coins and gave it to the man.


    Each coin seemed to have a hole in the middle, and how things were apparently usually handles was that you pulled a thin piece of string through each hole to bundle some of the coins together to handle them more easily. The string that this one had could simply be pulled away from each other to open it up and would snap back together when each end was held near each other.


    It was something neat to y around with, but the Imp was told he shouldn''t do that in front of people. Either way, after giving the Large Copper coin to the man, he took a look at it and then slowly nodded his head. "Alright then. You cane by whenever if you want to get anything out of your carriage, but check in with me when you do." The Man exined and then started with disconnecting the horses off of the front of the carriage and bringing them into the open structure, while the Imp and Arc made their way to the back of the carriage, where the other children were already stepping out of, Rudy carrying the basket with the Imp''s toddler in it, and Sammy carrying Leon like always.


    "What should we do first?" Rudy asked, and before the Imp could make a suggestion, the Man running the stables walked up to them.


    "Ah, I suggest you go ahead and go to the Inn first. It''s cheaper if you get a room during regr hours." He exined as he started leading the second horse into the stables as well, and when he came back again pointed a little bit further down the street. "It''s one of therger buildings here, so it''s hard to miss. If you need to buy anything, there''s a general store directly opposite to it as well. They have basically everything you need there." The man pointed out, and the Imp slowly nodded his head while the Children thanked the man for his help, before the Imp made sure they had everything they needed from the carriage and then closed the door, before the man started to pull the carriage away.


    "Then let''s do that." Arc said with a smile as he basically led the group into the direction that the man was pointing at, while the Imp stayed at the back of the group, grasping his dagger underneath his cloak in case someone was going to attack them. It was slightly harder than usual to see because of the mask, so the Imp had to be prepared for anything, and he didn''t trust any of these people here.


    Ever since they got here, the Imp was having this eery feeling. At first, the Imp thought it was the same feeling as the Monster Repent, but the Imp got used to that rtively quickly, leaving behind a different eery feeling, as if someone was staring at the Imp from behind at all times, breathing down his neck.


    But whenever he turned around, the Imp never saw anyone or anything, but it put the Imp on edge. To his luck, he wasn''t really feeling all that tired. After his Evolution, he was really energetic and could concentrate on a lot of things pretty well, so he was sure that he could stay up tonight to make sure that nobody just attacked them while they were sleeping.


    Either way, for now, the group entered the building that the man seemed to be speaking about before and quickly headed to the first person that they saw sitting behind a table, just smiling at them happily. "Hello there! How can I help you?" The Woman asked, and the Imp quickly spoke up before Arc could. He was in an Inn before, so he kind of remembered how this worked. "We want a room for one night." The Imp said, and the Woman nodded her head with a smile, while the children looked at him surprised.


    While he wasn''t actually there while the room he stayed in was ordered, they had to wait near the tables people went to to get a room for a little while, so the Imp picked a few things up from what the people there said.


    "Right away. Would you want a room for all of you, or two seperate rooms next to each other?" The Woman asked, and the Imp quickly responded once more. "One room for all of us." He said rtively quickly. Whenever the Children were sleeping, it seemed like they did so together in the small carriage at the same time anyway, so a singlerger room would already be an Upgrade. But most importantly, the Imp wanted to make sure that he could watch the children all at once. It would be a lot harder if he had to figure out how to watch two rooms at the same time.


    "Alright, then that''s a five-bed room... We can give you beds for the babies for free, Sir." The Woman said with a smile and a wink, and the Imp nodded his head in response. "Thank you." He said, after all, he learned that he was supposed to do that when people did something for him, and it seemed like the beds for Leon and the Imp''s toddler weren''t normally included.


    "That''s just going to be 14 Copper, please." The Woman told him, and the Imp slowly nodded his head and pulled his bag out slowly, trying to think about which coins that were then.


    A normal coin was worth 10 small coins, and arge coin was worth 10 normal coins. So that meant if she wanted 14 copper coins, the Imp needed... onerge coin and four normal ones. Slowly, the Imp pulled those away and then gave them to the Woman. It was pretty hard to calcte that, but the Imp somewhat learned how to do that with small numbers from Avalin, and the rest he kind of just tried to figure out while using his Stat points, especially theter ones.


    He still had 20 from leveling up, and then it seemed like he got 10 as a bonus after Evolving, so he used them as a little bit of practice as well, spreading them around Intelligence, Perception, and Agility, because those seemed to be the Imp''s most important stats at the moment.


    So, after handing the Woman the five different coins, he was given a key with a small numbered tag at its end. "It''s room Number 19, right at the end of the hallway of the second floor." After the woman told them that, the Imp nodded his head and then slowly turned around toward the stairs, waiting for the children to go on ahead again. And after they went up the slightly creaking stairs and along the hallway, the Imp gave the key to Arc and let him unlock the door, because he didn''t really understand how it worked, before they all stepped into the room.


    And the first thing that Arc and Clementine did was hurry on over to the beds and throw themselves on them happily. "Aaargh! A regr bed! Finally!" Arc eximed with a happyugh, pressing his head into the pillow, while Clementine just spread her whole body on a different bed. Nervously, Sammy and Rudy looked at the Imp, who simply nodded his head at them, before Sammy slowly handed Leon to the Imp, who set his dagger onto the small table in the corner, and then held the young boy who was just giggling now as well, while Rudy set the basket with the other child inside of it down.


    And then, the two of them rushed over to some beds as well, while the Imp was left to amuse the two babies for a little bit. It seemed like such an unnecessary thing was important to them, so the Imp figured to just let them enjoy it for a while. They would get back into the carriage tomorrow morning, after all.


    Just a few minutester, the Imp heard a sudden knock on the door, and warily turned toward Sammy to tell her to take Leon again, while the Imp swiftly grabbed his dagger and hid it under his cloak while slowly opening the door.


    "Hello there, Sir. We bring the beds for the babies?" One of the two men said, and slowly, the Imp nodded his head and made way for the two men toe inside with the two small beds with bars around them which they were pushing inside on wheels, before setting them in ce so that they couldn''t move.


    A few minutester, the two men already left again, and the Imp took a look at the two beds a bit confused. "Why are they different?" The Imp asked, and Arc slowly stood up and took a look at them. "Well, they''re for babies... so that they can''t crawl outside in the middle of the night an hurt themselves. Right?" Arc asked as he turned toward Sammy with a questioning look, and she slowly nodded her head, "Yeah, exactly." She said, but the Imp was still confused, and figured that this was a good enough time than ever to ask about something that he wanted to ask about anyway. "Why are Leon and mine smaller than you? Why can the not talk? And Why are children smaller than other people?" The Imp asked, and Arc looked back at him confused.


    "Huh? What..? Well... I don''t know why, but soon, Leon and the girl, who we need to name at one point, will grow bigger and stronger and be children like us, and at that point we''ll be more like ''other people'' taller and stronger." Arc exined to the Imp, trying to put it into words as best as he could, before the Imp slowly nodded his head in understanding.


    "Like Evolution?" He asked, and Sammy slowly sighed in response and shook her head, mumbling something to herself under her breath, "Kind of, but not really. We constantly grow until we''re adults, and even then we be older and more wrinkly, you know? Isn''t that the same with monsters?" Sammy asked, but the Imp was pretty confused at that concept, shaking his head.


    "I always looked like before."

 Chapter 35 - The Expensive Town

    "You always looked like you did before..?" Arc asked with a slight frown, and the Imp just nodded his head in response, before continuing to speak about what he himself remembered about his life.


    "My first memory is from when I was walking with the Horde. I was surrounded by other monsters all the time. I never grew up, I was always like this." The Imp exined, but it seemed like something was very wrong about that fact. He definitely didn''t remember being any smaller than the Lesser Imp version of himself at any point in time. Sure, he was slightly smaller than the other Imps now that he thought about it, but it wasn''t like any of the others were growing up either.


    "Are there..." The Imp slowly started, unsure whether this was really something he needed to explore, "Books about this? Books about monsters growing up?" He asked them, but Arc just slightly shrugged his shoulders.


    "Maybe, I don''t know. We''ll just have to see... I think we should get going and go shopping now anyway, right?" The young boy suggested as he turned toward the other children, all of which slowly stood up from their beds as well, while the Imp nodded his head.


    He might be able to find out soon, but he should try and see if he actually could figure these things out before trying. The Imp didn''t want to start anything impossible.


    Soon, the group then made their way out of the room, but for another moment, the Imp stayed behind and made sure to really take a look at this ce. He was feeling weird ever since they got to this town, so he wanted to make sure everything would be alright after they came back. And just to make sure, the Imp used a small trick that he picked up from Avalin.


    There was a little bit dirt in his pocket, so the Imp pulled that out and closed the door until only his hand could fit through that slit, before throwing that dirt onto the floor in front of the door in the room. Avalin exined it only briefly, but she said it was to see if anyone came in at night. When the dirt was moved a bit, it would mean that the door pushed the dirt out of the way. This way, the Imp would need to make sure to squeeze himself through the door first, though, so that wasn''t necessarily the best thing, but it should be fine.


    Slowly after, the Imp closed and locked the door, before the group stepped down the stairs of the Inn and back out of the building, and Arc turned toward the Imp again. "Should we split up to get things done quicker?" He asked with a smile on his face.


    For a moment, the Imp wanted to nod his head and respond with a ''Yes'', but then, he once more felt this eery feeling from before creeping up on him. "No. We will stay together. Less Dangerous."


    With a slight chuckle, Arc shook his head. "What do you mean, ''Dangerous''? You remember how Rudy can''t be injured?" The young boy asked, but the Imp just stared at him and shook his head.


    "Not injured, but captured. Rudy can not defend himself, and he is still weaker than many others. There are a lot of ways to hurt someone that do not need a weapon." The Imp told the boy, and the other children stayed silent, while Rudy seemed to start slowly freaking out about that idea, and then the Imp simply turned and looked around, trying to find the ''General Store'' the man from the stables spoke about.


    "Let''s go." The Imp told them, waiting for them to get moving first so that he could have all of them in their sight at all times. Slowly, Sammy opened the door to the dirty, smelly shop while Rudy hid behind her, nervous about all those ''Ways to hurt someone'' that the Imp just mentioned.


    And when the Imp stepped inside of the shop after all of them, everyone went around the small space together to try and figure out what they may need. Dried foods, simple spices, and some simple clothes that everyone could wear while alternating between clothes while the dirty ones would be washed. Of course, they also got a lot of Milk, even if they would need to try and get something new at another town on the way, because this Milk would spoil not too long from now.


    Other than that, they didn''t really need anything important beside some cloth diapers, so after they bought those as well, the group wanted to make their way out of the building as well, although the Woman behind the counter spoke up about something before they could open the door.


    "You don''t seem to have that much money left... If you need some work, then maybe you should try and ask around town. Or you can sell some things you don''t really need anymore." The woman suggested, and the Imp looked at her and nodded his head. "I will think about it. Thank you." He replied, and then turned back around before they left the shop.


    It was true that they didn''t have that much money left, at least not enough to spend the same amount they did just now again, but it shouldn''t be anything to worry about. After all, everything in this shop was so cheap. The clothes were a normal copper coin at most per outfit, and while they weren''t necessarily as ''Nice'' or ''cute'' as Sammy wanted them to be, they would do.


    "Let''s bring this to the room." Sammy said as she was holding Leon in her arms as well as a bag with some diapers hooked up to her finger, and the Imp shook his head.


    "We should bring it to the carriage." The Imp said instead, and Sammy looked at him with a frown. "But our room is right across the street!" She eximed, and the Imp nodded his head. "If we bring it to the carriage we only have to carry this once." He replied, before Sammy looked at him annoyedly and rolled her eyes at him. "Right..." Sammy muttered to herself, before the Imp looked at the other children and then told them to get moving toward the stables.


    There, they soon saw the man from before, who brought them to their carriage, and after bringing everything inside, the Imp noticed something weird. Nothing was out of ce from how he remembered it, everything seemed to be like they left it. But there was a weird, lingering smell inside of here that he didn''t recognize.


    Sure to remember this, the Imp stepped out of the carriage again and they all then made their way along the main street, trying to look for the book-shop, while the Imp was looking at some of the other shops in the street, trying to look into the windows at the front to read the signs next to the items disyed there.


    There was a small bottle with a red liquid inside of it for example, and it looked simr to the liquid that made Avalin heal so quickly back then. And surprisingly, on the sign next to it, it said ''5 Large Silver'', the most important thing that the Imp saw so far. And the shop was so clean and inviting as well, so it seemed to make sense for it to be so expensive.


    But to the Imp''s surprise, everything was that expensive in this street. There was something called a ''Jeweler'' near the ''Apothecary'' the Imp was at just now, and it sold some things in the small gold coin range, which really surprised the Imp. They could buy a lot of milk with that money, after all, and it was just for those small rocks and shiny stuff?


    Either way, the Imp figured it wouldn''t make sense to look at these things and continued, but over and over again, his attention was pulled to the different shops. A Bakery with incredibly expensive cakes disyed in the front of the window, and a clothes'' shop with clothes that cost at least a small Silver at the cheapest.


    Although, weirdly enough, all of these shops werepletely empty. There didn''t even seem to be anyone behind the counter, but they were so clean nheless. The only ces that had any sort of customers were the dirty, run-down shops, of which there were only two or three in the whole town, while there were about a dozen of those luxury shops.


    None of the people here were wearing anything but the same cheap clothes that Sammyined about before that the group ended up buying. Not a single one of them was wearing any of those shiny things from the Jeweler, and if the Imp saw anyone eating anything, it was something dirty from the ground that even the Imp was hesitant about eating.


    This was such a weird town, no wonder he was feeling all of these eery stares in the back of his head all the time. There was definitely something off about this ce, but the Imp wasn''t sure what yet. They should just stay the night and then get going in the morning again, that seemed to be the best choice.


    "Ah, look! There it is!" Clementine eximed happily as she pointed into the direction of one of the dirty, run-down shops in the area, with a small picture of an opened book disyed on the wooden sign in the front. With a nod from the Imp, the group headed toward the shop and headed inside, before the Imp saw the biggest collection of books that he has seen so far in his young life.


    And to his luck, the price-tags in front of the books read things like ''1 Copper'' or ''8 Small Copper'', so as the Imp thought, this was one of the cheap shops, even if that seemed rather surprising to the Imp. Books seemed so useful, they should be more expensive than diapers, shouldn''t they?


    Either way, in the end, the Imp didn''t want toin about this lucky turn of events and started looking around. It was rtively easy to look over the whole room in the shop from any ce, so the Imp let the children roam around a little while he went to speak with the sickly, elderly man behind the counter.


    And after the Imp made sure the man got his attention, he just smiled down at him with a shaking voice, although it seemed like that shaking was caused by weakness rather than surprise or fear like the Imp was used to. "Ah, yes, how can I help you, young man?" He asked, and the Imp quickly thought about what information he needed the most and narrowed it down to three topics.


    "Books about Beginner Magic, General Knowledge, and Monsters." The Imp exined quite clearly, before the elderly man nodded his head.


    "Of course, of course." The man replied and slowly stepped in front of the counter, moving his hand toward one of the shelves. "For one, ''Magic Theory and Practice''... and here would be a ''Monster Encyclopedia''... And ''General Knowledge'' is the broadest topic of them all... There could be history, geography, economy, herbology, all kinds of topics that might be interesting..." The elderly man exined, and then moved his fingers through his small goatee, "Do your purchases have a general reason?" The man asked, and the Imp slowly nodded his head.


    "I just learned Beginner Magic skills. We are moving through the forests alone, so I need to know more about monsters. And I don''t know much about anything, so I need to change that." The Imp exined, even if he kind of hid a few facts about the seconds reason he named.


    After all, he couldn''t tell this man that he wanted to buy a book about monsters to find out if he was normal.

 Chapter 36 - Books

    "Hmm, if you want, you can take a look into a few books here and then just pick whichever you find most interesting." The elderly man exined to the Imp with a smile on his face, before the Imp slowly nodded his head in response. For now, he had already decided to buy the books on magic and monsters that the shopkeeper suggested, but for the book on ''General Knowledge'', the Imp had to look around a little more.


    He hoped to find a book that just told him whatever he needed to know... It was annoying that there wasn''t a book called ''Everything you need to know if you''re a recently Sentient Imp''... Maybe he should do that himself when he got even bigger brained.


    Either way, the Imp just quickly sat down on one of the chairs that stood in the corner of the shop, where he luckily had a pretty good view on the children as well. And when the Imp started flipping through a book called ''nts Galore'', he noticed something else going on. Sammy sat down in the corner in a spot with a few colorful books and had Leon sitting on herp while she was doing so, seemingly reading it to the toddler.


    The Imp wasn''t sure why exactly she was doing that, but he was wondering if he should be doing the same thing for the baby right next to him. If he was able to teach her how to speak, it would make it much easier to find out if she was hungry or shat her pants, after all.


    The Imp would only do thatter, though, with any book that he would buy today. For now he had to actually decide which books to buy other than the two he already decided beforehand.


    This book he had right now seemed pretty useful as well, and it told him about a lot of nts that he never even heard of before. Although that wasn''t hard, considering that the only nts the Imp knew by name were Trees. Or rather the generic word ''Tree''. He couldn''t really differentiate between them that well either.


    So maybe this would be a good idea to take with him, because there seemed to be some nts that were supposed to be poisonous. The Imp himself didn''t eat anything but meat and bones in his life so far, so he didn''t really care about that, but he saw that the children were eating some nts before. He didn''t want them to die by eating random leaves, so maybe he should buy this book as well.


    And just as he put this on the pile of ''Maybe'' books, Rudy came up with one that he seemed to be interested in on his own. "E-Erm... M-Mister, could I maybe have... this?" The Boy asked and slowly held the book in the Imp''s direction, while the young monster himself just took a look at the cover and then took it from the boy to start looking through it.


    To his surprise, it was a ''Cookbook'', something that had a lot of recipes in it to make different types of food. "You can cook?" The Imp asked Rudy, and the boy slightly scratched the back of his neck.


    "We-Well, if it''s already dead, I can cut it up... And I like to eat, so... I want to at least try..." Rudy exined, and without hesitation, the Imp just sighed and ced the book away. Disappointed, the boy was just about to turn around, before the Imp looked at him confused.


    He ced it on the ''Yes'' pile, so why was he looking so sad?


    Either way, it would be useful if he could have Rudy cook. The meat that the Imp himself made wasn''t really that good. He wasn''t sure if it was because it was Human meat or because of his new perception stat, but the Imp noticed it being pretty tough and chewy, and just not good at all. Maybe the Imp could kill some animal instead, they usually tasted pretty nice.


    For now, the Imp went back to picking some books to buy to expand his knowledge with. Just a little whileter, the Imp picked a total of five books for himself, as well as the book that Rudy asked for, bringing them all to the counter where the elderly man was already waiting, smiling at the Imp as he approached.


    "Hmm... ''Magic Theories and Practices''... ''A Monster Compendium''... then ''nts Galore'', as well as a simple Geography book... And a book about Spirits... And a cookbook?" The elderly man asked, feeling like this was a rather surprisingbination of books, but in the end it wasn''t that much of a surprise if one thought about it.


    Although the one most surprised about one of these was the Imp. He was flipping through the book about Spirits just to see if there may be anything important in there, and when he did, he caught a glimpse at the word ''Naiad'', something that was in his blessing. He sadly didn''t find any books about blessings themselves, but maybe this would bring him closer to finding out what exactly the mark on his chest was, and how he could get rid of it. It didn''t hurt him right now, but it didn''t seem to do him any good either, so the Imp wanted to just get rid of it before anything bad could happen while he was being careless about it.


    "Well, you know what, I''ll give you a discount." The Elderly man said with a smile on his face, "There haven''t been many people buying books here these days. So I''m d that some youngsters like you chose to do so." The man pointed out, and then started mentally calcting the price, while the Imp nodded his head and thanked him, before turning around, noticing the stares of a certain boy.


    "M-Mister Imp..? Yo-You''re really buying the book for me?" Rudy asked with a slight sniffle, and the Imp nodded his head, slightly confused. "You asked for it, so why are you surprised now?" The Imp asked, and not only Rudy but Arc and Sammy looked at him rather surprised as well.


    "Is he actually pretty nice..?" Sammy asked, and Arc just smirked at her with a slight chuckle in the back of his throat, "She said about the man-eating monster." And while the young boyughed, the Imp just slightly red at him, not wanting the man behind the counter to hear, but luckily his expression didn''t seem to have changed at all from before.


    "Alright, that would be... 11 Copper." The man exined, and the Imp nodded his head and quickly handed the two coins to the man, onerge and one normal, and then pulled the books from the shelf while asking Rudy to take half of them, while asking Arc to pick up the Basket.


    But just before the Imp stepped out of the room, the elderly man wanted to stop him. "Ah, that reminds me, do you have any ns on attending tonight''s Festival?" The Elderly man asked him, slightly looking past the Imp toward the children, with a slight smile on his lips. The Imp thought he was really nice, but he didn''t really know what a Festival was, and just tilted his head to the side confused. Seeing that, the elderly man quickly exined.


    "Oh, so you don''t know about it yet?" The man asked surprised, and the Imp nodded his head in response. "Each and every night, this small, tired vige is turned into the most wonderful ce on this vast. You can do whatever you may wish to do, and everybody will end up the happiest they''ve ever been! It''s quite a sight, to tell you the truth. Of course, if you do not wish to attend, you should go ahead and stay inside. Nobody will me you, just know that you will be dearly missed." And with that, the elderly man once more just smiled at the Imp and the children behind him, before the Imp himself just nodded his head.


    "I will think about it, thank you." He replied, before turning around and making sure that the children all properly left the shop. When they were on the street, the Imp noticed a bright light shining into his eyes through the small holes in the mask, which he quickly tried to shield himself from, of course.


    It was the sun being a bit of a bitch about having to go to sleep, just like each and every night. While, now slightly annoyedly, walking forward back toward the Inn with the Children, the Imp noticed something else for a split moment.


    Or rather, he wasn''t sure if he really noticed anything, but for just a split-moment, the light stopped shining into his eyes and the Imp was able to see the outline of arge, deep ck figure creeping above the town.


    And while it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared in the first ce, and nobody else seemed to have noticed it at all, the Imp was sure that he didn''t just imagine it. The eery feeling that he felt on the back of his head was still constantly there as well, although it only appeared again when the Imp left the shop.


    "Hurry up." The Imp told the children in front of him, feeling sligthtly tense at the current situation. Following what the Imp said, the group made their way back to the Inn where they would spend the night, and then they would continue on forward to whatever ce they needed to go.


    Quickly, they all rushed into the building and up the stairs, back to their room. And luckily, the Imp remembered that he prepared a little something to see if anyone went into the room, slowly unlocking and pushing the door open, squeezing himself through the smallest slit that he could, before trying to see if the dirt was moved in any way.


    While looking at the floor, the Imp was pretty sure this counted as the dirt being moved, considering that there was not a single speck of it left. None of it, not even a small pebble that might have been mixed in.


    Confused, the monster looked around the room to see if anything else was out of ce, but everything other than the dirt was like it was when they left. Even the slightly dirty sheets on the bed, which had some mud on them from the children''s shoes after they jumped on them, had been left as they were.


    "Come inside, quickly." The Imp told the children without a single moment of hesitation. He looked around the whole room to make sure that nobody was there, so now that he was inside, it would surely be safer in the room than out there.


    When thest of them, Rudy, came into the room as well, the Imp shut the door and locked it immediately, holding the key tightly in his hand while cing the books down on the table in the corner, next to the small window.


    They would surely be safe for now. After all, the Imp was there and he would not stop looking at the children inside of the room for even a single moment.


    Although, maybe that''s exactly what he should have done.. Because if he had, he might have seen the pitch-ck face staring at him from right outside the second story window, not even a whole step away from him.

 Chapter 37 - Learn

    "Rudy, show me the book you''re reading~!" Clementine eximed happily, as she jumped onto the bed that the young boy wasying on. With a slightly embarrassed expression, Rudy nodded his head and slowly held the book over toward her.


    "It''s a Cookbook specialized in making food from ingredients in the wild... So it also exins a little bit about how to best gather them and know what''s edible and what''s not." He exined, and Clementine smiled brightly in response. "Whooa! That''s such a grown-up book! Can you read to me a little?" The young girl asked excitedly, before Rudy nodded his head, pointing at one of the words on the first line to concentrate on where he was at.


    "An ea-easy way to... to know if a nt is edi...edib...edibel... is to see if any ani...aminals... animals have eat-eaten it..." Rudy read out loud, letting even the Imp hear him. He read that part in the book before briefly as well, and it wasn''t all that hard to the Imp. But on the other hand, Clementine looked at him with an excited expression. "Whoaa! You''re so good at reading!" Sheughed, seemingly truly meaning what she was saying, and Rudy scratched the back of his neck excitedly.


    Was that normal? The Imp really wasn''t sure, but maybe he should ask them about it. "How high are yournguageprehension skills?" The Imp asked rather loudly so that everyone in the room could hear him. It seemed like the skill that supported how easy it was to read and write and such things was that one, after all.


    "Erm... I don''t know... I can''t read my status..." Clementine admitted embarrassedly, but on the other hand, Rudy, Sammy and Arc seemed to be at least somewhat aware. "Apprentice Level 5." Sammy replied rtively coldly, and Arc nodded his head. "Mine is simr, Apprentice Level 11, hehe." Arc said smugly, and Rudy quickly smirked smugly and crossed his arms.


    "Hehe, mine is Apprentice Level 19!" He eximed, and the Imp looked at them surprised. They were able to speak so well, so he didn''t think that their skill level would be so much lower than his own.


    "What about you, Mister?" Arc asked curiously, and the Imp slowly opened his status and chose to take a look again. It seemed like the most important things were the word at the start and the Level, huh?


    "Apprentice Level 89." The Imp exined, and the others looked at him excitedly.


    "That''s really high, right?" Arc asked surprised, and Sammy quickly shook her head. "Yes... Even my papa was stuck at Level 99..." She exined with a slightly bitter expression, and the Imp looked at her confused.


    "What do you mean, ''Stuck''?" The Imp asked, and Sammy slightly frowned at him in response to the sudden question, and then crossed her arms with a huff.


    "Hmph, how can you not even know something that basic?" She replied and looked away, before Rudy smirked in reply and slightlyughed. "You don''t know either, huh?" He asked her, and Sammy''s face flushed red and she shook her head.


    "Of course I do! I just don''t want to tell him..." Sammy replied, before Arc chuckled and looked at the Imp.


    "Well, I don''t think I''mpletely right, but I think different people can do different things better than others, and that expresses itself in how fast a skill can level up, and to what Grade you can bring your skill. Some people can''t even learn certain skills at all... That''s just how it is, apparently. It does change over time though... As children, our skills level up really slow, and babies like Leon or the Priestess can''t learn skills at all yet." The boy exined, before scratching his cheek embarrassedly, "As long as they aren''t Unique Skills, at least." He added, and the Imp slowly nodded his head in understanding.


    It seemed like he wasn''t really able to teach the babies how to speak after all. That would make things a little more annoying, though. With a slight sigh, the Imp stood up from the chair he was sitting on in the corner and ced his book down on the table, before stepping up to Rudy''s bed, sitting down on it next to the boy.


    Confused, Rudy looked at him as the Imp took the book from him, and then ran his finger over the first line that Rudy just read. He did it simrly to how Avalin did it back then, so that Rudy would be able to learn it properly.


    "A Good way to know if a nt is edible is to see if any animals have eaten them." He said out loud, while looking over at Rudy, showing him the next sentence while just looking at him through the mask on his face.


    "Keep reading." The Imp told him, and slowly, Rudy nodded his head and did as he was told, although slightly startled by the Imp sitting next to him.


    "E-Erm... Ma-Many amin...animals c-can inst... instict... instictiv..." Rudy started, although he felt pretty nervous being watched by the Imp like this, although the Monster just ced his finger on the word and then turned toward Rudy. "Instinctively." He told him, and Rudy looked at the word and slowly repeated what the Imp said, trying to start the sentence again.


    "Many animals can instinctively... differ...enti... What''s this word?" The young boy asked rather carefully, and the Imp took a quick look. "Differentiate." He exined, and Rudy slowly nodded his head and then continud to read, with the Imp helping him out wherever he could, until Rudy managed to finish reading the sentence properly.


    "Many animals can instinctively differentiate between food that will kill them, and food that is safe to eat." The Boy eximed proudly, and the Imp slowly nodded his head in response.


    "Good job." The Imp said, and even though it was in a rather monotone voice, Rudy seemed pretty happy about it.


    And so, for the next little while, the Imp continued helping Rudy read the cook-book, while the other children curiously listened in as well, as if someone was reading a story to them. It seemed like before in the book store, Sammy wasn''t actually reading to Leon, but instead just showed him some pretty pictures in a simple picture-book, so the Imp promised to help the other children readter as well.


    But just a little whileter, the Imp noticed that the children all seemed pretty tired, and the two babies that were already ced into their own beds were sleeping already as well, so the Imp slowly stood up from the bed and made his way back toward the corner of the room to the chair and table.


    "You four, go to sleep." The young monster told them, "We will leave early." He exined, and the children slowly nodded their heads, tiredly climbing into the beds that they reserved for themselves, while the Imp started to read one of his books, the one he was most interested in right now.


    ''Magic Theories and Practices''. It seemed like a book that both went quite in-depth about magic, but also described the more general things at the start, so the Imp was most interested in that. Once he would find out what he needed here, he would look at that book about Spirits as well.


    What the Imp found out while reading the book about Magic was pretty interesting, really.


    Magic wasrgely split up into two parts. Maniption, and Creation. The Maniption part described the control over the elements that naturally existed in the world, something that around 95% of Magicians focused on. And now that the Imp thought about it, it was the exact same thing with him. After all, he manipted his own blood through the water inside of it with the help of his Water Magic Skill, and the air in his body with the help of his Air Magic.


    ''Creation'' Magic was something quite rare and hard to actually aplish, but it seemed like this book didn''t focus too much on Practical Creation Magic either. This was a book for people that just started out, so it made sense, at least in the Imp''s own logic.


    For now, he chose to try out some practice-methods for people with ''Beginner'' Grade magic. First there was practice for Air magic, something that he already managed to do before, which was to increase the strength of your breath by pouring your ''Mana'', or as the Imp called it, ''Heat'', into it.


    That seemed to be step one of the practice, and the next step was for those that already managed to do the former. You were supposed to control the air that left your body while it was outside of you. This had to be done by keeping your mana inside of the air at all times and constantly being aware of it. So, the Imp figured he could just try this out. He already had a pretty good awareness of the heat, so it shouldn''t be too big of an issue.


    Slowly gathering his concentration, the Imp let out a deep breath out of his mouth, that quickly swirled some of the dust on the ground away from the Imp. But then, the Imp slowly closed his eyes and concentrate on whether or not he could feel heat from anywhere here in this room. And as if he was trying to take it all back into his body, he took a deep breath.


    Judging from the light gust of air that hit his body and flipped the pages in his book around a little, it seemed like he managed to do it right.


    And it seemed like the notifications figured the same to be the case.


    [Beginner Air Magic Skill Leveled up!]


    Seeing that there was a slight bit of progress in his magic, the Imp thought to try and repeat this again. The Goal of this practice was apparently to properly be able to push your released breath around you quite easily. So, the Imp figured he shouldn''t stop practicing until he managed to do that.


    For a while, that was all that the Imp did as well, even if he got pretty tired in the process. But in the end, he managed to make great progress, because he was now able to move his breath around in a rough circle on the floor. It probably wouldn''t help him much to do really anything at all, but it was better than nothing. He could expand from there.


    So for now, the Imp figured he should take a little break until he wasn''t feeling just as tired anymore, and leaned back in the chair, properly looking into the room in front of him. Everybody seemed to be sleeping, so that was good. Hopefully nothing would be happening tonight and they could depart just like intended. The Imp really didn''t like this town at all, so he wanted to get away as quickly as possible.


    "Hmm..?" Slowly, the Imp noticed something about his thoughts that he wasn''t really aware of before. If he wanted to leave as quickly as possible, why didn''t he? They were literally inside of the carriage while he was thinking about it before, so why didn''t they just get away immediately?


    But it seemed like it was slightly toote for that now. Because the moment the Imp realized that something was going on, a loud bell rang throughout the whole town, and bright, purple light shone through the window whileughter could be heard from the streets.


    And the eery feeling became unbearable.

 Chapter 38 - Shadow

    That night, the Imp made three big mistakes, that would greatly impact the flow of the night toward the negative.


    While holding his hand over his face, the Imp pressed his mask further onto his skin, simply out of reflex in response to this overwhelming feeling. Slowly, the Imp stood up and looked out of the window, peeking inbetween his fingers directly onto the street. That was his first mistake.


    To his surprise, what he found was extraordinarily... unordinary. At least from what the Imp could tell out of instinct, this situation waspletely fake, fabricated, and utterly abnormal.


    Numerous forms, dressed in bright colors, most of them simr to red, pink or purple, were walking around on the streets while people were making lots of noise with different tools. Some were pulling on random threads on a box, others were blowing into a metal horn, and then others were just hitting a box.


    For the first time, the Imp also saw that the ''expensive'' shops were being walked into, and quite a lot at that. And whenever someone left one of the shop, they came back out with numerous things all at once.


    Some of the people that were walking around were recognizable to the Imp, because he saw them in the shops or they just caught his eye while they were on the street, but most of them were in ufortable situations.


    Mostly, they werepletely undressed, some of the colorful forms were throwing fruit at them while others were walking them as if on a leash. But they all had one thing inmon. They were absolutely enjoying what they were doing, at the very least they were smiling brightly in pleasure and happiness all the time.


    And then, the Imp heard a noise behind him.


    "Hmm..? Mister, what''s that noise..?" Rudy asked quietly as he woke up and sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes as he was doing so. And at around the same time, the other children were also waking up, while the babies were waking up and screaming around as well.


    "I don''t know... Stay in here." The Imp told them as he hurried over toward the door with a frown on his face and unlocked it, slowly taking a peak outside as he was doing so.


    That was the Imp''s second mistake.


    At first, the Imp wasn''t able to see anything at all, and his sight became dark, the few spots that he could see being very burred. After all, that''s what happens when someone pressed their eye directly again the eye-hole of your mask from the outside.


    The moment that the Imp noticed the pressure on his face, it was already toote, and his body was being thrown through the room, before he hit his head at the rough wooden wall.


    [Critical Attack! -221 Health]


    [You feel dizzy and out of control of your body]


    Confused, the Imp tried to look forward, but he couldn''t really see all that much. His sight was justpletely blurred, and his mask was slowly drooping down over his eyes. The Imp wanted to adjust it, but he couldn''t move his hands no matter what he tried to do.


    But at least, he could still hear everything like normal, and he saw the outlines of everyone. There were the children in the room, confused, startled and scared at the pitch-ck, unproportional figure that just entered the room.


    The first that the figure approached was Rudy, and it pressed its face directly toward the child''s, with just a few finger''s with inbetween them, before the figure started to speak in a voice that sounded as if it was reverberating from everywhere around the Imp so that he could hear it loud and clear, while also sounding muffled as if he spoke through thick cloth.


    "Envy." The Figure said, and pressed its finger against Rudy''s forehead, before the round young boy''s figure simply disappeared into nothingness.


    The Imp wasn''t sure what just happened, but he knew that the other children were like paralyzed, although Leon and the ''Holy Priestess'' were crying just as loudly as before, as if prating the Imp''s skull.


    And while nobody knew what to do, the pitch ck figure approached the next child, Clementie. Just like with Rudy, it held its face directly in front of her''s, and then ced its finger on her forehead. "Gluttony."


    Just like that, another child''s figure disappeared into nothingness. And then, a different child could be heard starting to cry. It was Sammy''s, who was slowly being approached by the figure in ck.


    She tried to move her head away from it out of fear, but that didn''t mean much to the figure. While its feet stood directly where they were, the figure''s upper body moved closer toward Sammy, as if its body was stretching itself longer. And then, it repeated the same as before. "Pride." It said, and slowly pushed its finger against Sammy''s forehead, before she disappeared like the other two.


    All the whilst this was happening, the Imp was obviously trying to get up, trying to make his body move. But no matter what he did, it felt like his whole body wasn''t his own, and he weighed a hundred times his normal weight. Slowly his vision got better, but his body stayed the same, while the Figure approached Arc.


    Even if the boy was highly resistant to things like fear, the Imp noticed that even he was sobbing in response to seeing the figure in front of him after what it just did to his friends. But before he knew it, the Figure made its choice.


    "Lust." And so, the next child disappeared.


    Just like that, the figure made its way over toward the babies, while the Imp could feel his body slowly returning to his control, due to a single emotion he was feeling. Pure and utter anger.


    But it seemed like the figure cared little about that, as it simply approached Leon, curving its body over the side of the bed to hold its face in front of his, before touching the baby''s forehead. "Sloth."


    And then, when one of the crying voices disappeared, the Imp''s anger overcame whatever was just happening to him. Although at that point, the figure had already approached thest one in this room beside the Imp and itself. The ''Holy Priestess''. For some reason, it seemed hesitant to do the same thing to her, and some of the ck on its body seemed to be moving away from it the closer its face got to her, but it still followed through, holdings its finger toward her as it was doing so. "Greed."


    Immediately when the Figure touched the child''s forehead, the baby disappeared like the others, but the Figure''s hand was also seemingly slowly starting to fall apart, taking damage from the girl''s existence.


    At that moment, the Imp remembered something. She was supposed to be the ''Holy Priestess'', and the holy energy she gave off damaged Demons... The Imp somehow learned the ''Holy Energy Resistance'' skill, so he was protected for now, but if this other being was also a Demon, it wouldn''t have that.


    It didn''t matter though, because the child was now gone anyway. And the Imp''s anger got so much stronger.


    With the Dagger he had in his hand, the Imp ran forward toward the figure and tried to stab it right into its body. And to his luck, he managed to do so! At least that''s what the Imp thought at first, but when he took a closer look, the Imp noticed that arge hole opened up in the figure''s body where the Imp was supposed to have stabbed it, letting the daggerpletely miss him.


    But luckily, the figure''s hole soon closed up, although unluckily, right around the Imp''s hand. He managed to pull it away, but as he was doing so, the Dagger got stuck inside of the Figure''s stomach, alhough it didn''t really seem to mind that fact.


    Due to the rash movement, the Imp lost his bnce and ended up falling backward onto the ground, right next to the basket where the baby was usuallyying in. And the figure was now approaching the Imp, so he had to defend himself somehow.


    With those thoughts, he quickly grabbed the basket''s handle and just threw it toward the figure''s head. And then, that part of the figure''s body disappeared in arge hole, although it regenerated itself just as quickly as it appeared.


    While the Imp thought that this was it now, something else happened. The piece of cloth that the baby was usually wrapped in dropped out of the basket while the Imp threw it, and slowly dropped to the ground right in front of the figure.


    And without noticing, the figure stepped on that piece of cloth, although it didn''t do so for long. The foot that touched it immediately disappeared and was ''pushed away'' by the cloth, and the Figure started screaming in pain. Of course, due to the peculiarities of its voice, that in itself hurt the Imp an incredible amount, but he was able to just fight through that.


    Obviously the Imp noticed that the cloth for some reason damaged the figure, maybe because the baby was alwaysying on it and it became holy through that, or some other reason the Imp didn''t know about. But either way, this was a good enough weapon for him for now.


    Quickly he picked the cloth up and wrapped it around his fist, trying to tie it around it so that it wouldn''t drop off, and then immediately threw his fist toward the figure.


    And while the Imp did, the figure turned toward him, stopping to scream for just a split moment to say a single word while staring at the Imp. "Wrath."


    But this time, the Imp''s attack connected. Although just for a second, because the area that the Imp touched even just slightly just sttered outward out the back of the figure.


    [Demonic Shadow -134 Damage]


    [You attacked using the Opponent''s Bane. Damage increased by 100]


    [Total Damage: 13400]


    Confused, the Imp looked at the notification while the Figure, the ''Demonic Shadow'' continued to scream in pain. And that chance was of course used by the Imp.


    [Demonic Shadow -161 Damage]


    [You attacked using the Opponent''s Bane. Damage increased by 100]


    [Total Damage: 16100]


    [Demonic Shadow -117 Damage]


    [You attacked using the Opponent''s Bane. Damage increased by 100]


    [Total Damage: 11700]


    [Demonic Shadow -159 Damage]


    [You attacked using the Opponent''s Bane. Damage increased by 100]


    [Total Damage: 15900]


    [You killed the Demonic Shadow!]


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You leveled Up!]


    ...


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You have 7 Unused Stat Points]


    After staring at the figure as it slowly disappeared into nothingness as if just seeping away, the Imp quickly picked up his dagger and got rid of the notifications. He read through all of them, of course, but the Imp had to take care of something else.


    And that started with opening his status.


    [Name ¨C None][Race ¨C Schr Imp][Level ¨C 8]


    [Health ¨C 1200][Mana ¨C 2350]


    [Strength ¨C 20][Constitution - 20][Resistance ¨C 20]


    [Agility - 32][Evasion ¨C 20][Dexterity - 22]


    [Intelligence - 64][Wisdom ¨C 31]


    [Perception ¨C 43][Willpower ¨C 20][Charisma ¨C 3]


    [7 Stat Points Avable]


    [Skills]


    -[Apprentice Common Language Comprehension][Level ¨C 90]


    -[Apprentice Stealth][Level ¨C 57]


    -[Beginner Dagger Mastery][Level ¨C 21]


    -[Beginner Concentration][Level ¨C 43]


    -[Beginner Overeating][Level ¨C 18]


    -[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance][Level ¨C 56]


    -[Beginner Sickness Resistance][Level ¨C 6]


    -[Beginner Cooking][Level ¨C 13]


    -[Beginner Butchering][Level ¨C 19]


    -[Beginner Water Magic][Level ¨C 11]


    -[Beginner Air Magic][Level ¨C 3]


    -[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance][Level ¨C 96]


    [Blessings]


    -[Blessing of the Lonely Naiad]

 Chapter 39 - Blue Lights

    What did the Imp need most right now? Did he need to be stronger? Did he need to be faster, smarter, or more perceptive? He really didn''t know, but he couldn''t just waste these 7 stat points on something useless right now.


    The Imp was slowly starting to freak out over what was actually going on, and his thoughts werepletely out of order. The children all disappeared, and he had no idea where the hell they were now. But the Imp was mostly just terrified. After all, if such a creature like the Demonic Shadow was just walking around the ce just like that as if it was normal and sending people off as if it was the easiest thing in the world... What other creatures may be there?


    Would he be able to survive this ce? Maybe if he just stayed here in this ce, then he could do that... What was the Imp supposed to do against beings that strong? Sure, he had the piece of cloth, but what if that was just a fluke?


    The Imp really had no way of knowing that this would work on all enemies that he might face in this town. But... He had to try.


    The Imp didn''t know where that feeling came from, but as if his hand was moving on its own, it clicked on the ''Willpower'' stat a few times, and the Imp managed to calm down again without an issue.


    Finally, the Imp was able to actually think, and then tried to figure out a way to use the cloth to attack, it was the only thing that he knew would work on Demons other than himself. His skin burnt when he was touching it, but it wasn''t more than a bit of unpleasant pain, so it waspletely fine in the end.


    But he wouldn''t be able to fight with the cloth wrapped around his hand like this, so the Imp had toe up with another idea.


    He had seen only few people actually fight so far, but he remembered that there was one person that fought with his hands sometimes. James.


    And the Imp managed to see him wrap some strips of cloth around his hands as well, so maybe if he was able to remember how it worked, he would be able to move his hand properly even while using the cloth as a weapon.


    He had to really concentrate as hard as he could on that one moment where the Imp managed to catch a glimpse of that action. What did he do? How much cloth did he use? Did he need anything else beside that?


    And then, a single bright sh covered his whole sight, and the Imp jumped backward in fear over what just happened. He didn''t want there to be another enemying to attack him like that Shadow.


    But... Nobody was there. Nothing, it was as if everything was alright. The only thing that the Imp managed to see was a new notification.


    [Schr Imp''s Racial Ability unlocked - Memories of a Schr]


    The Imp was confused at what the notification was saying, but after a little while, he realized what it seemed to refer to. That sh of light wasn''t an enemy... It was an ability that the Imp himself had.


    So once more, he just had to try and do the same thing as before. Like always, he just had to repeat what he did before.


    And when the Imp concentrated as hard as he could on that single memory of seeing James use the cloth on his hand, the sh of light appeared again, but the Imp soon found what that sh of light was.


    It was the light of the morning sun shining into his eyes. For a moment, the Imp was confused at what was actually going on. Why was he back here? With the burnt-down fire and a body of water behind it, while Thomas just exited the tent that the three of them, him, Avalin and James, were sleeping inst night, while the Imp was forced to stay up the whole night because of the rope slung around his neck that would choke him to death if he lost the strength in his legs.


    The Imp now fully remembered again, it was just then that James, who was standing next to the tent at the time, started wrapping his fingers in a certain, specific way.


    When the Imp concentrated on those motions, it was like the world around him had be just James'' hands and the Imp. Or maybe not even that, it was as if the Imp himself disappeared as well, and the motions of James'' hands were all that was left.


    And then, after a moment that felt infinitely long, the Imp found himself back inside of the room in the Inn. Immediately, he managed to get to work, and quickly used his Dagger to cut the cloth up into as many strips as he possibly could, and then tried to tie the ends together somehow so that he could get a single long strip, which the Imp quickly started to wrap around his fingers, just like in this memory that he just saw.


    After a little while, the Imp''s right hand was now wrapped in the cloth instead of the glove that was there before. A little bit of the cloth was left, so the Imp just wrapped it around the base of the Dagger''s de, so that he could at least do some damage to people that he stabbed with this, if they were just like the Shadow and evaded normal attacks.


    Now the Imp might actually have a chance against these enemies. But the Imp was sure he needed to use whatever weapon he could, so he quickly grabbed one of his cards out of his bag and held it tightly in his hand, while stuffing the other back into the bag.


    Carefully, the Imp made his way back toward the door and then slowly opened it up, taking an immediate step backward as he was doing so in case another shadow wanted toe rushing in.


    But this time around, there was nobody there, and the Imp slowly stepped through the hallway, still careful to see if there was anyone there, but the only thing he could hear wasughing and different moans of either pleasure, pain, or both at once from behind the doors he was passing.


    And then, just as the Imp was about to start walking down the old wooden stairs, a door opened up behind him and the Imp heard a female voice speak up.


    "Oh~? Is it another customer~?" She asked, and the Imp immediately tried to turn around and bared his dagger toward her, but the woman seemed merely amused.


    She had pale red skin, and all of it was exposed to the air with the exception of a single strip of cloth bound around her head to cover her eyes. A thin tail was moving from the left to the right and back from her behind, and two short horns were sprouting on her forehead.


    In the room behind her was a man wasying on a bed,pletely unclothed and unconscious, while the woman was simply smirking at the Imp while supporting her bosom with her arm.


    "Interesting, there aren''t many men that can resist my charms that easily~!" The woman said with a smirk and leaned forward toward the Imp, holding her face toward his, with only a little bit of distance between them.


    The Imp wouldn''t fall for that again, so while the woman was reaching for his mask and slightly moved it to the side, the Imp extended the hand wrapped in the ''Holy Cloth'', which was burning itself into his skin just so slowly, toward the woman''s throat. But then, the woman noticed one of the new peculiarities of the Imp, his two small ruby horns.


    "Another Demon?" She asked surprised, and at the same moment she finished her sentence, the Imp pressed his hand around the woman''s throat, and immediately heard the sound of sizzling from that spot while she started to scream in pain.


    But soon enough, she grew unable to properly speak and was only giving out muffled sounds, as blood started streaming onto the Imp''s arm. The woman fell to her back while the Imp tried to push her further into the room she came out of, and the moment he got a good grip on her, he removed his hand from her throat.


    [Lesser Subus -2191 Damage]


    For now, the Imp ignored the message, and then just quickly pushed his dagger downward onto the being''s face, cracking through he skull with a loud sound as another notification popped up in front of him.


    [Lethal Damage done to the Lesser Subus!]


    [You have killed the Lesser Subus!]


    [You Leveled Up!]


    [You have 1 unused Stat Point]


    With a frown, the Imp finally looked at the notifications. He was happy that this did so much damage, but he didn''t understand why he only leveled up once. Either way, he quickly put the stat point into willpower again, because it seemed to be pretty important right now, and the Imp then quickly stood up again and made his way back out of the room, properly adjusting his mask again while swinging his dagger around to the side to make most of the blood stter off onto the ground.


    And then, the Imp returned back toward the stairs and hurried down them, trying to ignore the feeling of pain on his hand caused by the tight cloth around it. But just then, though, another notification appeared.


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Skill leveled up!]


    The pain slightly went down in response, but it still hurt him quite a bit even then. He could hold out, though. After all, what would happen to the children if he didn''t?


    The town wasn''t thatrge, so it shouldn''t be an issue to find them wherever they were. This kind of thing didn''t happen everywhere after all, so it was probably just something for this ce, so they had to be nearby. At the very least, the Imp figured that the town wasn''t thatrge, although he was met with quite a surprise when he stepped out of the door.


    Not only were there all thoserge, nearly giant and disproportionate figures in front of him, some with horns, others with more limbs than a spider, while others were simply freakishlyrge. Large enough to see above the buildings of the town.


    But the Imp didn''t even need to be that tall to see one particr thing that changed all of a sudden when he stepped out of the buildingpared to before.


    While the only thing that could be seen in the distance before were mountains, a blue sky, andrge trees, they were nowpletely reced, without a single exception.


    The blue sky turned into a dark red, as if it was dried blood, and while there were still mountains to be seen, they were now directly around the town, as if this town was at the bottom of a bowl.


    It definitely wasn''t like that before, but the thing that worried the Imp the most were none of those things. It wouldn''t have mattered what changed directly around the town if it was all empty. But around the town, numerous structures could be seen built along the steep sides of the mountain, and there were seven particrlyrge buildings around. But there was one fact that the Imp was sure about.


    This town had be many, many timesrger.


    While the young Demon was trying to figure out what was going on here, he looked into the distance toward the ce where the moon should be, and just then found a red sphere just slightly glowing in its ce, illuminating this town that was decorated with blue lights.

 Chapter 40 - Lord Of Wrath

    Carefully, the Imp stepped through the streets filled with purple light, nervous at being possibly attacked by someone. First, he needed to find out where the children were, they just had to be nearby, the Imp knew it.


    And then, the Imp suddenly reached the edge of the town, where not only the gate, but also the stables with the carriage was. It was good to know that this part of the town was just like normal, at least.


    But starting with the gate itself, the Town becamepletely different. The Gate was far, farrger than it was before, and a single figure stood in front of it slowly letting the ''people'', or rather Demons, in and out of the town.


    It was everyone that went through there a question, where the Imp heard the same words from before over and over again. The Imp figured that if he could find the children anywhere, it would be in the demonic town surrounding them now.


    And so, the Imp just joined the line. He would have preferred to kill all of them and just rush through, but the Imp knew that he would die immediately if he tried to do that. No, if he wanted to survive, he had to y along with what the other Demons were doing.


    Just a few minutester, the Imp then found himself in front of the figure at the center of the gate, which then asked him the same question as everyone else.


    "What is your sin?" It asked in a slow and deep voice, and the Imp slowly repeated the word that the Shadow said to him before. "Wrath."


    Immediately after that word, the Imp heard the other Demons around him somehow... gasp in surprise. He didn''t know why, but he didn''t care either. Although, no matter what he did, he couldn''t stop listening to them.


    "A Demon of Wrath?"


    "Aren''t they dangerous?"


    "What if it attacks us?"


    With immediate, pure annoyance, the Imp turned toward the source of those voices. One of the Demons was sitting on a human''s back, while the human itself was on all four''s. Another one was stuffing its face with the food that cost so much in this town. And thest was simply staring at the Imp, eyeing his weapons and outfit jealously.


    While clicking his tongue, the Imp slowly turned back toward the Gatekeeper, who looked intensely back at him. "You are rare. Lord Wrath will like you." It told him, and grabbed the Imp''s whole body without him being able to do anything against it, and started to walk off while a different, nearly identical Gatekeeper took its ce.


    "Where are you bringing me?" The Imp asked angrily, but the Gatekeeper just stayed silent and continued to carry the Imp in its giant hand through the Demonic Town.


    No matter what the Imp tried, he wasn''t able to get out of it, and he wasn''t able to move his arm to touch the Gatekeeper with the cloth either. But in the end, maybe this would help the Imp figure out where the children were. If there was a ''Lord Wrath'', there should be a ''Lord Gluttony'' or ''Lord Lust'' as well, right?


    Soon, the Imp was brought over toward one of the giant structures that were built on the side of the mountains, and the closer they got there, the emptier it got. But soon, the Gatekeeper stepped through arge open door into a giant, empty room, with nothing but a single seat on the other side.


    "What do you think you are doing?" A loud and angry voice asked; its source being a figure sitting on that seat.


    With a broad, dumb smile, the Gatekeeper got closer and held its hand out to show off the Imp inside of it. "Found Wrath Demon." It exined, and with a slightugh, the man on the other side of the room stood up and approached the Gatekeeper, letting the Imp actually properly see him.


    He had dark red skin and tworge horns on the side of his head, and his skin itself seemed as if it was made of rock in sharp angles and cracks, making the Demon seem more than just intimidating. It gave off a pure feeling of anger that the Imp was able to recognize fairly quickly. After all, he knew anger pretty well.


    For now, the man was smiling, but soon, he held his hand forward toward the Gatekeeper''s face before his expression changed so grim and horrid that the Imp could feel his whole body tense up.


    "What took you so long?" The man asked, and with a loud crack followed by sttering, the Gatekeeper''s head was simply shattered into a million pieces that all shot backward in the direction they came from.


    The Gatekeeper''s body copsed and its grip loosened, letting the Imp squeeze himself out of the hand, while the Demon in front of him kept speaking.


    "Useless creature, now the floor is dirtied. Shadows are the ones to judge others and bring them to us, not you." The man said with a disgusted expression, before he turned over toward the Imp. "However... This time it seems that it was right. A Demon with the sin of wrath is quite rare. Although, you seem to be pretty special already... There aren''t many Demons born in the realm of the living either. I can see why it thought it should show you to me." The man said with a seemingly pleased expression, leaning in closely toward the Imp, who simply took a step backward in response to him getting closer, but the face of this man just turned sour immediately.


    "Of course, wrath is born out of grief, and grief is born out of betrayal. It makes sense for you to be careful; however..." As the man spoke, he slowly pressed its hand around the Imp''s neck.


    "I don''t like it at all... Not in the slightest. Do you know why Demons of Wrath are rare?" As the man''s grip tightened and his fingers started boring themselves deep onto the Imp''s skin, close to breaking through into his flesh, the Imp tried to furiously escape.


    "It''s because Demons are unable to resist their personal sin. And when a Demon of wrath and another meet, it usually doesn''t end nicely." The Demon, the Lord of Wrath, added.


    "Demons of Wrath are rare, because I killed them all. Same with anyone from that town of disgusting humans who were inflicted by wrath. Without a single exception, they are all dead. Now, you piss me off quite a lot, so how about you-"


    All of a sudden, the Lord of Wrath stopped speaking, feeling a burning pain in the arm he was grasping the demon with.


    Immediately, it let go of the Imp, who dropped to the ground immediately and grasped his own throat. Good thing that he managed to reach this man''s arm, otherwise he would probably be dead now.


    [Lord of Wrath -1215 Damage]


    "You damned..." The Lord muttered quietly, the whole air he was giving off immensely and insanely intimidating to the Imp. But of course, he just had to do something, anything to be able to get away from this Demon.


    As quickly as he could, the Imp ran back toward the entrance, but the Lord of Wrath seemed many, many times faster than the Imp.


    "How...? How did a measily, lowly Demon get a hold of Holy Energy?" The Lord asked and once more tried to grasp the Imp, but he quickly tried to use the card that he pushed into his glove. And immediately, a ring formed around his right hand with the cloth around it, although he activated it with his left, and the de slowly sprung out from it and started floating around.


    But the Imp didn''t care, and just tried to use the swift quick de to move toward the Lord. It seemed like he didn''t care much about it, because he didn''t think it could even hurt him, but to both his and the Imp''s surprise... the de made a small cut on the Lord''s chest that soon started to sizzle and give off steam.


    [Lord of Wrath -13]


    [You attacked using the Opponent''s Bane. Damage Multiplied by 30]


    [Total Damage: 390]


    The Imp stared at the notification and then back toward the Lord, who seemed to be just as confused as the young Demon, but then just stared at him with pure hatred. "You... You..." He eximed, but the Imp didn''t leave him much time to think and just tried to sprint away. For some reason, the Lord stopped for a few moments, and the Imp got the time that he needed to get out through the door. Now, there were two sets of stairs next to him leading back down to the streets, but the Imp, without thinking much, stopped there for a moment, just for a single moment.


    But that single moment was used to the fullest by the Lord. With a single movement of his hand, the railing behind the Imp shattered into pieces and the Imp was thrown off of it, dropping down toward the streets with high speeds.


    There was not a single being down there below him, and nothing that could stop his fall. If he didn''te up with some sort of idea, he would just die immediately.


    At the very least, that''s what the Imp was thinking at first, but then it was as if his body was acting on its own, on reflex, an his mind was getting to a single decision as if pulled toward it.


    The Imp ripped his mask off his face and took in as much of the air into his body as he could, and then, all at once, used his whole body to push downward toward the ground while pushing all of the air back out of his body.


    With the help of an immensely strong gust of air, the Imp managed to somehow stop his fall for just a split moment, before he started to fall again. But at that point, he was only a meter or two in the air, and the drop was no longer lethal to him.


    [-67 Health]


    While heaving for the air that he just lost, the Imp tried to start moving again. He was ovee with tiredness because he used up a lot of his ''Heat'', or mana, so he had a lot of trouble actually getting back up. But, there was still some of his mana left inside of the weapon around his finger, which he quickly pulled out.


    It wasn''t a lot, but at the very least, it let the Imp get back up and start running. He couldn''t take whoever or whatever this Lord was on, so he wouldn''t be able to take on the other lords either. But from what the Lord of Wrath just told him, the Shadow that was there before sent the children to them.


    So he had to go to these other buildings to get them back.

 Chapter 41 - Useless

    The Imp didn''t know what he was supposed to do. He had to get the children back somehow, but he couldn''t do it just like this. He was nearly killed by the Lord of Wrath, and it didn''t seem to be very hard for him to do that either.


    And obviously, the Imp was just dragging his body around right now. He didn''t really hurt himself back there, but he had trouble breathing and he couldn''t concentrate ever since then, simply because he was too tired.


    There were a few thinks he did notice though, for example that his Air Magic leveled up five times just through that one thing that he did. Or that he lost his mask, and was now running around through this crowd of confused Demons.


    The Imp knew what he had to do, he had to get stronger. Much, much stronger. But what if he was toote? What if the other Lords were like the lord of wrath, and would just end up killing them sooner orter? Maybe they already were dead since long ago.


    But the Imp didn''t want to think of that. First, he had to do something else. Somehow, the Imp had to replenish his heat, his ''mana''.


    Was there any way of doing that described in his book? His... His book was still in the town... But the Imp didn''t know where else but there he was supposed to start looking for ways to get stronger. The Imp wasn''t strong, but he was smart. He somehow had to find ways to fight against these Lords, as weak as he was. He had to turn his smarts into his strength.


    Dragging his body along, the Imp hurried back down the mountain and back toward the town, immediately rushing through the gate. Of course, he was stopped by the Gatekeepers as he was at it, though.


    "What is your sin?" It asked, this being that waspletely identical to the one from before. And the Imp just clicked his tongue and stared it deep into his eyes. "Wrath. Now... let me through, or before... you can be killed by the Lord of Wrath... for bringing me there, I... will take care of that." The Imp said in a quiet, angry voice while heaving for air, using a type ofnguage that he himself didn''t know he could use.


    The Gatekeeper slightly flinched in response to the Imp, seemingly because he mentioned the Lord of Wrath, and the Imp simply rushed through the town back to the Inn, and back up the stairs toward his room, only slightly ncing into the room where the dead Subus was stillying on the ground while another woman, seemingly also a subus, was pleasuring a different man to the one that wasying on the bed before.


    The Imp rushed into his room and locked the door behind himself, immediately grabbing the different books that he had.


    Intensely, he stared at the first one, the one about magic, and read through it as quickly as he could. But no matter what he tried, the Imp couldn''t concentrate on whatever the pages, the words, the letters, were trying to convey to him.


    For just a moment, the Imp had to calm himself down to be able to learn whatever this book had to offer. Slowly, the Imp had to make sure there was nothing distracting his mind, and took a deep breath.


    The Imp had to concentrate properly. If he was able to learn such aparatively useless ability like wrapping his hand in some cloth, then he should be able to learn what was in this book as well.


    Slowly, the Imp concentrated on the page in this book, and read through it as carefully as he could, of course still trying to do so with some speed.


    Page by page, the Imp''s knowledge increased, and what was in this book turned into part of himself. He couldn''t use most of what all of this was describing just yet, but at the very least, he knew how to do it for when he would grow capable of it.


    The book also described a little bit of basic information on the small orbs that the Imp found in the Pheasant''s nest. They were supposed to be ''Magic Stones'' of different elements, and each of them seemed to have a different effect to it.


    It said that there were different ways to use them, and that they could be processed into other things as well, but the most basic use was to enable the use of effects that were like magic, without needing the Magic Skill. But even then, the higher your affinity was, the stronger the effect could be.


    For now, the Imp tried to do all of this with a random one of the Magic Stones that he found, the light green one, which, ording to the book, stood for the wind element. His Mana seemed to have slowly replenished as well, so he could do that.


    Slowly, he ced his finger onto the Magic Stone and let his mana flow into it by leading it along through his blood, and he could swiftly feel a slight flow of air around his hand that wasn''t there before.


    With the ''activated'' Magic Stone still in his hand, the Imp moved his hand to the side, and could notice that the flow of air suddenly got strong enough to flip the pages in the book around.


    And then, he remembered that there were a few different things that some of the Magic Stones were embedded into. His Dagger, the golden stick that the Imp found in the nest, and the staff that the man in white from before seemingly attacked him with using holy energy. Especially thetter of the three seemed useful to the Imp right now, if he was able to somehow make use of it.


    First, he tried out the one on the Dagger. Nothing really happened for a little while, but when he tried to touch the de of the dagger to ce it away, he soon noticed that it was hot enough to hurt his fingers even through the glove. This surely seemed to be useful, but not useful enough right now.


    He had to use these white, slightly golden Magic Stones on the staff somehow. They seemed to be the ones that produced Holy Energy somehow, and if that was the case, then using these would end up helping the Imp out immensely.


    The Imp wasn''t sure how he should use the staff itself, but he was able to at the very least pop the Magic Stones out of it.


    But when the Imp first tried one of them, the Magic Stone quickly started to make his fingers burn and even sizzle a little bit, and he ended up dropping it down onto the floor. The Imp didn''t understand how, but the reaction seemed a lot stronger than what the Imp felt when attacked by that man using the staff.


    Maybe it was exactly because he wasn''t supposed to use it that the reaction was so strong, and the stone wanted to fight the Imp off somehow to scare him away, but to his luck, he didn''t care about the pain. The cloth around his hand was hurting a fair bit more, but it seemed to let him properly attack the other demons, and maybe even made his ''Three of Swords'' have holy energy. Just in case, he couldn''t take the cloth off just yet.


    Either way, for now, the Imp had to move on to one of the other books. The one about monsters that he bought didn''t seem to have anything about demons inside of it, but the Imp read it anyway, just in case. He remembered everything as quickly as he could, but really did just end up finding information about highly dangerous monsters, some that were weak but highly venomous, and others that could only be killed through poison. It was just ridiculous what kind of monsters there were.


    They were so different to the Imp that he wasn''t even sure if he could call himself the same kind of creature as them, but in the end, he clearly was a monster, wasn''t he? That was the little knowledge that the Imp had even before he was captured by Avalin, Thomas and James.


    Either way, now that he had wasted his time reading through that book, the Imp threw it to the side and went to the next one, the one about the spirits... Maybe this mark on his chest was able to help him?


    He learned a lot of different things about a lot of different spirits, and that only certain, high-tier spirits were able to give out blessings. A Blessing from a spirit apparently allowed you to summon one of its kin made up of your own mana when you reached ''Intermediate'' Grade in the skill... Something that the Imp was still very far from achieving.


    So while the information was useful forter, it was utterly useless right now.


    Of course, the Imp slowly grew desperate. The basic techniques about magic and the things about Magic Stones that he learned seemed the most useful out of the things he learned from these books until now, but this still wouldn''t be enough to kill the Lords, the Imp was sure of that.


    Desperate to find anything that might be able to help him, the Imp slowly started to read through the other books that he had, and once more, there was nothing there that helped him beside knowing about some edible nts.


    But then, the Imp remembered that there was another bookying around somewhere that also spoke about such things, and quickly rushed over toward the Cookbook that he bought for Rudy, immediately starting to flip through it.


    He didn''t care much about the different dishes, although he still read through whatever seemed like it could help him in any way possible, but the parts about poisonous nts and ways to prepare venomous animals properly was something that the Imp thought might be helpful somehow. In the future. Not now, not in this situation.


    None of these books were helpful to him in the slightest!


    Angrily, the Imp threw the book to the other side of the room, staring down at the floor underneath him. And just then, a slight glimmer stook out to the Imp,ing from inbetween the floorboards. Now that he thought about it, this was exactly where the Shadow died before, so maybe this was something that it dropped after being killed?


    Carefully, the Imp picked it up, and looked at the small, deep ck Magic stone that was now inbetween his fingers. Slowly, out of instinct, the Imp pushed his mana into the small orb, causing his fingers to bepletely enveloped in darkness in the form of a thick ck mist, just like the one that the Demonic Shadow was made up of.


    It didn''t seem to be able to get any further than his fingers right now, but at that point, the Imp realized something. If he just looked closely enough, he would be able to find useful things amongst what seemed to bepletely useless.


    And so, the Imp rushed out of the door toward the ce that seemed the most useful to him inside of this useless town.


    The bookstore.

 Chapter 42 - Tenaga Jin

    Quickly, the Imp rushed through the groups of Demons in front of him toward the ce that her remembered the book-store to be, and without hesitation, he tried to rip the door open the moment that he found the ce.


    But just do add onto his bad luck, the door was not opening at all, no matter what he did or how hard he pulled or pressed!


    "Hehe...~! Look at that young one over there~!" The voice of a womanughed behind him, "How dirty he is~! He must be from the slums, huh? Otherwise, who would choose such a rundown ce out of all these beautiful, high-end stores~?" She asked, and when the Imp turned around, he saw a Demon that looked nearly identical to a human, with the exception that she had red skin, holding her finger to her lips with a pitiful expression on her face as she stared at the Imp.


    "Ooh~! Such a nice re, isn''t it?" The female demon pointed out as she looked over at the heavily disproportionate man, with arms long enough to touch the ground while walking upright, next to her, before that man nodded his head.


    "Of course, of course... But for a Demon from the slums, he has some pretty nice equipment, doesn''t he?" The Demon asked and extended his long hand over toward the Imp, trying to grab the dagger that he was holding in his hand.


    But of course, the Imp wouldn''t have that. He figured that this might be as good a time as ever to try a little something out. While pulling the cloth around his hand away from his palm for a few moments, something that hurt the Imp by itself because his skin was practicallypletely burnt away at this point in time, the young demon stuffed some of the white-golden orbs inbetween twoyers of the cloth. He couldn''t touch them directly when they were active either, so he had to do it this way.


    "Do you... Want this?" The Imp asked, and slowly held his dagger forward to the male Demon, who immediately nodded his head. "Ooh, of course, of course! Hmm, how much do I owe you? I can give you a coin or two, or I can spit in your face if you''re into that?" The Demon asked, but the Imp quickly shook his head.


    "Break the door open for me. Then I will give you the dagger." With a slight smile on his face that he could barely keep up while suppressing his anger, the Imp tried to hit off a deal. Every other Demon here was smiling brightly, so he figured he had to fit in at least somewhat.


    Without hesitation, the male Demon formed a bright grin on his face and took a few steps closer to the door, before pushing his thin, long fingers inbetween some cracks in the door, just to simply crack it open by pulling it apart in the center.


    "There you go. Now, a Deal is a deal, give me the dagger." With the same bright grin on his face since before, the Demon leaned forward, trying to grab the dagger with a smile, before the Imp nodded and quickly handed the dagger to him, but before the Demon left, the Imp extended his hand forward. This was something that he''s seen a few times over the past few days, when two people finished up a deal, they shook their hands on it. The Imp was just ying with the hope that this Demon knew about that as well.


    "Ah, of course, of course. If you find anything else you can give me for basically free, just let me know." The Demon replied, extending one of his long hands toward the Imp, who was more than just d that this Demon fell for it. Because the moment that their hands touched, the Imp pushed his mana into the small Magic Stones on his palm, while using his other hand to press the Demon''s further against them, trying to grasp it as tightly as he could.


    Of course, the other Demon noticed this as well and wanted to pull his arm away immediately, but before he could react, the Imp already activated the card that he had up his sleeve, quite literally, causing the small de connected to the ring on his finger through a string to appear.


    And without hesitation, the Imp made the de push itself into the Demon''s arm, which was rather easy, because it just opened up like butter hit by a hot knife.


    "Wh-What are you d-doing?" The Demon asked confused, feeling his arm start to burn up from the inside out, in a pain that it had never felt before.


    Of course, the other Demons around them noticed that something was going on as well, but most of them just passed by with nothing but a nce. After all, they couldn''t know that the Imp was using Holy Energy on this Demon.


    "I changed my mind. Give me the dagger back." The young Imp told the Demon, who just grabbed the dagger tightly and shook his head without hesitation. Or rather, at least he tried to do that.


    "It''s mine! Sh-Shut it!" The male Demon eximed, while standing there as if frozen in ce, something that the Imp didn''t understand in the slightest. It was the same with the Lord of Wrath, he also couldn''t move around when he was injured by Holy Energy, at least not until the damage fully recovered.


    Maybe this was a way to beat them, then? "It''s my Dagger. If you don''t give it back, I will kill you. I was just nning on testing this out a little, but I won''t hesitate to finish you off either." The Imp exined to the Demon in front of him, while the female Demon that was with him before seemed to have left as well, out of pure boredom, probably.


    "Then just kill me! You know what happens when a Slum-Dweller kills one of us, don''t you?" The Demon asked with a broad grin,pletely sure that the Imp wouldn''t even dare injure him, but he just sighed in the end and let go of the Demon''s hand, before taking a step closer, making the de of the ''Three of Swords'' drag along his arm as he was doing so, slowly and painfully ripping it open while causing quiet sizzling and bubbling along the way.


    And then, the Imp simply pulled the de out and ced his hand onto the Demon''s chest. The Magic Stones were hurting him quite a bit as well, so-


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Skill leveled up!]


    [Beginner Holy Energy Resistance Skill hit Level 100 and became Apprentice Holy Energy Resistance Skill]


    Just then, the strong pain simply disappeared. Same with all the constant pain that his skin was receiving through the bandages. As if they were just nothing but a lie before.


    So, the Imp figured he should test the weakness of Demons out a little more, and grabbed one of the Magic Stones from underneath the cloth, before slowly pressing it, in its active state, against the Demon''s bare skin after ripping its clothes open with the help of the de.


    Slowly, the Magic Stone was digging into the Demon''s flesh, causing bubbles around it, before the Imp got a bit of an idea. Last time, his blood carried his mana around with it naturally when it touched his heart, so maybe something simr could happen in this situation? This ''Holy Energy'' seemed to be something simr to mana, after all.


    And so, the Imp tried to push the small white-golden orb deeper and deeper into the Demon''s chest, while he himself was trying to understand what was going on.


    "Y-You, what are you..?" He asked, just when the Imp started to feel a slight bit more resistance than before and had to start pushing a bit harder, while the Demon''s arms seemed to be able to slowly move again.


    "Hmm..." The Imp asked confused. He really wanted to find out if this was a good way to kill the Lords, but if this Demon started being this annoying, then it probably wouldn''t work out. The Imp was lucky that he managed to trick him, but this male Demon was obviously far stronger than the Imp himself. There was no doubt about that in his mind.


    Just when he was thinking that, however, the Magic Stone started to move deeper again while the Demon was starting to freak out even more. And then, finally, the Imp managed to reach what seemed to be the Demon''s heart.


    Exactly then, the Demon''s pain was apparently far, far stronger than ever, while the Imp himself simply pulled his fingers away in response to the Demon in front of him convulsing and moving around so suddenly. This of course attracted a little bit more attention from the other Demons around as well, but there were a lot of weirdos around, so all that he got was a swift nce from anyone that even cared enough.


    That was just perfect to the Imp. Especially because he was now able to properly look at the notifications telling him about the damage he has been doing to this Demon through all of this.


    And then, before the Imp knew it, another notification appeared in front of him.


    [Lethal damage done to Demonic Tenaga-Jin]


    With a nod, the Imp looked forward at the figure of the Demon copsing on the ground, while everyone was just staring at the corpse with disgusted expressions.


    "Urgh, he one of those Gluttony Demons that just drink booze all day?" One Demon asked, simply staring down at the dead Tenaga-Jin. Others said simr things, but that first one already made the Imp understand that nobody cared at all at what just happened, and that they would just look past most of what he could and would do here.


    So, without hesitation, the Imp just quickly pushed his fingers into the sizzling wound and pulled the Magic Stone back out. He didn''t want to waste it, after all. The Imp knew that this was a more than just valuable experience in trying to kill the Demons, even if something bothered him. He didn''t level up from killing this one. That''s the first time that happened, though.


    Either way, there was no time to think about useless stuff like that. He could mess around a little bit with that Tenaga-Jin because it would probably help him somehow defend himself against the Lords while he was trying to get the children back, but in the end, he still had no idea how to even approach them.. So of course, he was still headed into the book store which he now gained easy ess to.

 Chapter 43 - Sorry, I Lied

    Slowly, the Imp took a look around himself, trying to figure out if there was any sort of clue toward finding out how to best distract or kill the Lords.


    He didn''t see any books about Demons here, or else he would have bought it to find out more about himself, but maybe the Imp could find something out if he just looked closely enough.


    And just when he was concentrating on finding any possible clue, the Imp overheard a quiet thumping noise from further into the shop, behind an old wooden door, which slowly opened up a crack with a quiet creak.


    "Wh-Who is there?" A voice, sickly and paranoid, asked, barely noticeable because of the low volume the man was speaking in being drowned out by the noise from outside. If the Imp hadn''t been concentrating on what was going on inside of the shop, then he probably wouldn''t have noticed it either.


    Slowly, the Imp turned his head over toward the bright eye staring at him, before making his way over to the door to open it up. Maybe there were more books back there with this old man.


    "D-Don''te in!" The Man eximed immediately and shut the door at the same time, trying to make it impossible for the Imp toe through there.


    But the Imp wouldn''t try and make another demon open the door for him again, not this time around. Instead, he simply stood there in front of the door. He knew that the man was still there, he could see his shadow from underneath the door after all, and so that the man couldn''t see the Imp''s, the young monster climbed on top of the counter.


    And while this was happening, the Imp took his time to properly prepare for whatever might happen after this, readying his de and his card as well. It took a while for the man to think that the Imp just left, and just when he tried to open the door to double check and stuck his eye out inbetween the door and its frame, the Imp jumped toward the slit that opened up and stabbed his dagger right into the man''s eye.


    The Imp wasn''t trying to kill him like this, so he only pushed the tip of the dagger inside, and to his luck, it seemed like the man didn''t die.


    [Joffrick Johanns -317 Damage]


    [You permanently blinded Joffrick Johanns'' right eye]


    With a slight nod to himself, the Imp shed through the notification floating next to him, and while the man on the other side of the door dropped to the ground in pain, the Imp simply opened the door and stepped into the the room beyond.


    He stared at the elderly man that was running the shop earlier today, nowpletely unclothed and sweaty, and of course also bloddy due to the Imp''s own actions. There was a small bed in the corner of the room, right next to a bookshelf with some interesting-looking books on it, as well as a small table on the other side of the bed.


    The bed itself wasn''t anything special, it was probably in a worse state than the beds in the Inn room the Imp was in before. It was dirty, haggard, cut up, and most importantly, it was in such a horrid state now after having a dead child on top of it.


    The Imp wasn''t exactly sure what happened here, but there were some blood-stters on the wall that the child''s head was leaning against, and judging from how it was still running down the wall a little, that was probably the source of the loud thud that the Imp heard before.


    But it was weird. If he thought about how one of the children he was with before was in this state, the Imp was ovee with indescribable anger that couldn''t even be calmed if this whole town was burnt to ashes.


    However, while looking at the state of this child here, the Imp didn''t feel anything at all. Not sadness, not anger, nothing. This child didn''t have anything to do with him, after all.


    Nheless, once more, the Imp drifted off into the area of ''What if''.


    What if this WAS one of the other children? The young girl that wasying there might as well have been Sammy or Clementine, and what would the Imp do then?


    And with those thoughts, the frustration over letting that shadow take them away in the first ce resurfaced, and he knew that something had to be done right here and now to quell that anger and frustration.


    Slowly, the Imp stepped up to the man that wasying on the floor in pain, trying to pull his body toward the door, but the Imp stopped him and just pushed his dagger into the back of the man''s leg.


    "I need a book." The Imp said in a quite clear voice. He was there for a reason, so he had to act like it. But in response to hearing the young monster''s voice, it seemed like the elderly man turned toward the Imp in surprise. "I-It''s you! From e-earlier today, with those ch-children!" The man eximed, and with annoyance clearly written on his face, he slowly started to twist the dagger around in a circle.


    "I said, I need a book. About the Lords." With a clear, angry voice, the Imp started to pull the dagger out of the man''s leg, slowly pushing his mana into the Magic Stone attached to the handle to make the de hotter, before once more stabbing the dagger back into the man''s leg after noticing that the man was hesitating.


    "Tell me know and I won''t kill you." The Imp told him, and without a single moment of hesitation, the elderly man nodded his head furiously in fear of death. He knew that this monster would definitely do something like that to him, after all, the Imp already gouged his eye out and practically destroyed his leg without a moment''s hesitation.


    "Th-There''s a book on the Lords on my shelf, the dark r-red one..." Trying to lift his arm toward the book he was speaking about, and slowly, the Imp made his way over there and climbed up on the different segments to try and reach it, before pulling the book he seemed to mean out.


    After flipping through it for a few moments, the Imp soon saw that it seemed to really speak about them, so at least this man wasn''t a liar.


    Slowly, the Imp sat down on the bed, unbothered by the dead child behind him, and started to read through the book with utmost concentration, an act that more than just baffled the elderly man.


    And on top of that, the man was getting incredibly angry at being interrupted and attacked like this now, especially when it was just getting good. If it was just sitting around there like that, then the elderly man would surely be able to do his best and try to overwhelm him, right? He maybe didn''t look like it, but he did study under a quite reputable mage for a few years, and when he was banished from that town and couldn''t finish his studies, he went to a monastery and learned Beginner Holy Arts.


    The man never had a true talent for it, so he ended up not being able to push it past that Beginner Grade, but with his prior Knowledge as a Mage''s apprentice, he still had a trick or two up his sleeve that he could use on a measily, weak demon like that.


    Slowly, the man pulled his shaking finger in front of himself and pointed it at the Imp, carefully opening his mouth to whisper something while the Imp was deeply immersed in this book.


    "Thie Zhur Argor, logris partus requim;" The man muttered, slowly drawing a circle of dim light into the air as he was speaking. He was repeating this multiple times while trying to finish the circle of light, and only when he was apparently done, he said something else. "Zuhr Gran."


    With a big grin on his face, the man started tough loudly as the circle of light was starting to twist around in a circle, shrinking down into a single spot, before causing a bright light to shine outward, illuminating the whole roompletely so that neither the Imp nor the man were able to see anything anymore.


    The Imp felt a slight burning all over his skin, and there surely was some sizzling and bubbling in some parts, but nothing really threatening to the Imp. It barely did 300 damage to him, and the elderly man seemed more than just exhausted from this one.


    Clearly annoyed, the Imp stood up from the bed and ced the book to the side, slowly stepping up to the confused elderly man. "How- you-you are a Demon! Nothing but an Imp! How didn''t you die from this?!" The elderly man asked angrily, and the Imp started to grind his teeth and stared at the man in front of him.


    If he could use these kinds of attacks, maybe he had something that could help him. "Anything with Holy Energy." The Imp muttered quietly as his skin was starting to recover from the attack, but the elderly man was still just too confused to understand, so the Imp repeated it a bit more lengthily.


    "I want anything you have that has Holy Energy." The Imp told the man, who just stared at him scaredly, slowly moving hisst good eye over toward a big box in the corner of the room.


    With a frown, because he simply wanted to kill this man as soon as he could now, the Imp turned around and slowly opened the box up. Just from touching it, he felt slightly ufortable. It seemed to be roughly at the same level as the cloth around his hand, although that was just the box itself.


    What was important was what was inside of it.


    Slowly, the Imp opened the box up, and before he knew it, he was met with an air that in and of itself was already quite annoying for the Imp. It didn''t damage him at all, but it made his eyes water pretty badly, and the Imp thought that was pretty annoying.


    And so, the Imp slowly grabbed the different things inside of the box that might be useful to him. A small metal chain with an ''X'' in front of a star-shapes surface on it, a small book that gave off a pretty ufortable feeling in and of itself, a staff simr to the one that the man from before had that the Imp got the white-golden magic stones from, as well as some bright white robes, once more also just like the ones that the Imp saw on that man before. Just after touching these things a little, the Imp could already tell that they should be more than just helpful to him if he made proper use of them, and immediately grabbed as many of the things as he could and stuffed them into his bag.


    And then, with a smile on his face, the Imp stepped up to the elderly man, who wasying on the ground in fear as he was being approached, but then shook his head immensely as he stared the Imp in the eye.


    "Y-You can''t go back on your word! You said you wouldn''t kill-!" The elderly man eximed, but before he could finish his sentence, the Imp pushed his dagger straight through the elderly man''s cheek, cutting through his tongue as he was doing so before the tip of the dagger came back out of the other cheek, and the Imp just stared at the man, saying only three small words as he was doing so, slightly tilting his head to the side while showing his just sharp teeth in a grin.


    "Sorry, I lied."

 Chapter 44 - Hungry

    [You leveled up!]


    [You have 1 unused Stat Point]


    Slowly, the Imp turned toward the notifications and shed through them with his dagger, at the same time getting rid of the man''s blood that ws still on it. And then, the Imp just started to look through the book again, now that he could do so undisturbed.


    Surprisingly, the book told him about the characteristics of each of the Lords. Apparently they were written down by hand, though, so some parts of it were hard to decypher, but at the very least, the Imp was able to read the most important things.


    And in the end, he quickly found the one that seemed the most dangerous at the moment, in the sense of probably being the first to cause any sort of injury or even death in one of the children. The Lord of Gluttony.


    ording to what was written in this book, the Lord of Gluttony never stopped eating, and never hesitated to devour even living creatures to take their life with his stomach. The others seemed more harmless than this one, at least initially so, meaning that the Imp should try and go there first.


    As far as he remembered, the one that was sent to the Lord of Gluttony was Clementine. Even if she was used to experiencing pain, she was a frail young girl, and probably the weakest out of the group with the exception of Leon and the Priestess, of course.


    So it seemed like a good idea to take care of them first. He thought about getting the Priestess or Leon first, but as long as he didn''t have someone else with him to carry them, he wouldn''t be able to do much anyway. And the Priestess especially might be fine for a while just because the Demons would avoid her, or would be unsure of what exactly they should do with her, considering that she constantly gave off Holy Energy.


    As far as the notes went, the Lord of Gluttony was the one that was most easily avoidable out of the Lords, because his body was so overwhelminglyrge that he couldn''t even carry it himself, meaning that he was simply sitting around in the central hall of his castle at all times.


    So, the Imp now had to go there, quickly pushing the book into his bag while rushing out the door again, stepping over the Elderly man''s dead body as he was doing so, and then made his way outside, where the corpse of the Tenaga-Jin was still on the ground, slowly turning into a mud-like form probably due to the holy energy still contained in the inside of its body.


    But even then, none of the other Demons seemed to even care all that much, so the Imp hurriedly made his way around town toward the closest gate. There, the Imp was soon able to see a few demons that seemed like they would know which is the castle of the Lord of Gluttony, considering that they were stuffing their faces with food constantly.


    And so, the Imp quickly stepped over to them. "Where can I find the Lord of Gluttony?" The Imp asked quite clearly, before one of the Demons looked down at him annoyedly. "Huh? What''s this shrimp asking?" One of them said, and the Imp just stared at him, waiting for an answer.


    "It''s that one." The Demon told him, or that''s what the Imp thought he said. He couldn''t really hear, because his speech was muffled by the cake that was filling out the near entirety of the Demon''s mouth.


    But at the very least, the fat Demon pointed at one of the castles, and it was the one opposite to where the Lord of Wrath was, so the Imp nodded his head and quickly turned around.


    Moving his legs as fast as he could, the Imp moved through the gate, not even waiting for the Gatekeeper''s question before answering with "Wrath", rushing to the other side into the Demonic Town immediately, where the Imp had to push himself through the crowd of different Demons first and foremost.


    He fixated his eyes on therge structure looming above him in the distance, at the side of this giant mountain, and simply moved along the path that seemed to be the shortest toward it.


    A few times, he ran into Dead-Ends in this maze-like town, but after simply trying again, the Imp managed to properly get close enough, and then stood in front of the stairs to the castle.


    Right around here were basically only Demons that were eating as much as they could, and each and every single ''shop'' seemed to sell only food, although it all seemed quite dirty and disgusting, even though the Imp really didn''t mind.


    But when the Imp tried to make his way up the stairs, he was stopped by what seemed to be a Guard, currently eating the leg of a fellow Demon.


    "Where is your offering?" The Guard asked, and the Imp looked at him confused. "No offering, no audience." He said and momentarily pulled the leg out of his face to block the stair, before the Imp looked at the Guard.


    "I am the offering." The Imp exined, so the Guard looked the Imp up and down and shrugged. "Then go." The Guard said quite clearly, making way for the Imp again before the young monster stepped up the stairs in front of him slightly confused. This was far too easy, wasn''t it?


    With a slight frown, the Imp continued, starting to rush up the stairs as he was doing so, before he started to hear crying. Crying that he quite quickly recognized, because he heard it the first time he actually consciously paid attention to Clementine.


    The Imp picked up his pace and tried to rush up the stairs on all fours, immediately turning toward therge space beside him, before seeing what was practically a wall of red taking up at least half the giant room.


    Most of it was the skin of a certain Demon, which made the Imp understand what exactly was meant in the book.


    And then, the Imp looked around, trying to find the source of the crying, before he quickly found Clementine sitting next to thatrge Demon, her hand forcefully pressed against its skin while she was obviously having more than just pain in her stomach.


    Immediately, the Imp rushed forward without a moment''s hesiation, getting his dagger ready while trying to run past the Demons here in this room, most of which were distracted with eating something. Even the Lord of Gluttony was. And so, the Imp had the chance to instantly just grab Clementine and pull her away from the Lord.


    The moment he did so, a few things happened, however. First, Clementine immediately copsed into unconsciousness, while the Lord of Gluttony''s body started to react by forming cracks on its stomach''s skin, followed by a loud scream caused by the pain apanying that.


    "Who dares..?" The Lord asked, chunks of meat and coagted blood flying around as he was doing so, and the Imp just tried to run away back to the exit, although his path was quickly cut off by the other Demons in the room, whose attention was drawn to him now.


    "Don''t... let them... go!" The Lord eximed, and immediately, the other Demons in the room rushed toward them, but they were all so round and heavy that they were too slow for the Imp, letting him run past them quite quickly. But sadly, it seemed like the door was just closed by some of the Demons, so even then, the Imp couldn''t escape.


    Quickly, he let Clementine''s body down, and even if it maybe was a bit rough, the Imp didn''t have time to be careful. But even then, he still pulled out the white cloak that was in the chest at the bookstore, immediately wrapping Clementine''s body with it. Even the Imp''s fingers were hurting as he was touching it, so he was sure that none of these Demons would dare touching Clementine like this.


    But now, the Imp had to think. He had to really, really think about what he needed to, or even just could, do in order to get out of here safely.


    And so, while rushing through the room, trying to dodge the heavy Demons around him while attempting not to slip on any blood or meat on the floor, the Imp took out whatever he could that had holy energy out of his bag and wrapped it around his hand.


    He stuffed the White-Golden Magic Stones inbetween theyers of cloth on his hand, and wrapped that ne that was in there around his hand. And then, the Imp grabbed his dagger in that hand as tightly as he could and rushed toward the Lord of Gluttony, immediately heading for the cracks in its stomach.


    Immediately when the Imp got close enough into stabbing-distance, he simply pushed the Dagger forward, all the whilst trying to push out as much of his mana out of his hand as he possibly could, to activate the card and the Magic Stones he had there all at once.


    [-221 Health]


    Ignoring the notification, the Imp tried to press furhter forward, just staring at the point where his Dagger touched the Lord of Gluttony''s body. The string of the Three of Sword had slung itself around the dagger and their des had be one, while the Dagger itself was burning its way through the Imp''s hand.


    Cracks seemed to have formed around where the tip of the Imp''s dagger touched the Demon in front of him, and starting from those cracks, the whole area around its stomach began to bubble and sizzle, giving off steam or smoke, and the cracks just grew farther than they were before, and in the end, enveloped a small area with a two-meter diameter in the front of the Demon''sstomach.


    And then, as if it was made of opaque red ss, it simply shattered into pieces. Blood and stomach acids poured toward the Imp, which he quickly tried to avoid by just stepping to the side.


    [Lord of Gluttony''s Shell -1342 Damage]


    The Imp immediately ignored the notification and sprinted through the flood of liquid liquids intertwining with each other, slowly digging through the floor underneath them. The Imp didn''t care all that much about that, though, he managed to get through without actually touching any of the parts that dissolved things, and while trying to use this time that the Imp gained by surprising and confusing the Demons in this room, who were all running out of this room all of a sudden, opening the door for the Imp while they were doing it, the young Schr Imp made his way toward the young girl at the side of the room.


    As quickly as he could, the Imp picked Clementine up and ran toward the door, and only then really had time to look at the notification that appeared.


    Only then did the Imp realize that something was up.


    He damaged the Lord of Gluttony''s ''Shell''. He didn''t damage the Lord of Gluttony.


    Slowly, the young Imp turned around to look at the figure of therge Demon, whose stomach was cracking open more and more. And then, through the opening in the stomach, from the darkness that was inside of that false Lord''s Body, another form stepped forward.


    It wasn''t nearly asrge as the Demon from before, simr to the Lord of Wrath in both shape and aura, while the true Lord of Gluttony slowly opened his mouth.


    "Ahh... How hungry I am...."

 Chapter 45 - Joy

    The true Lord of Gluttony''s voice made the Imp immediately halt. He didn''t know why, but this one was far, far more intimidating than the Lord of Wrath, even if what the Lord of Gluttony was saying himself was in a far calmer tone and demeanor.


    Whenever the Lord of Wrath spoke, it didn''t affect the Imp much, it simply sounded like mad rambling to him and he didn''t pay much attention to what he was saying, but rather how to escape from that situation.


    But right now, his need to escape was exactly part of the reason why the Lord of Gluttony was so intimidating. The pure, instinctive hunger that the Lord was feeling mixed into the aura that he was giving off to the outer world, and immediately gave the Imp a single mental image.


    That of prey being hunted by a predator. And the Imp didn''t like which position he took up in that situation at all.


    He wanted to run away as quickly as he could, but just the sound of the Lord''s slow footsteps as he was treading through the mixture of blood and stomach-acids was horrifying. The Imp just had to somehow take another step forward, just a single one, and he would be able to take it from there, he was sure of that.


    And so, the Imp had to somehow divert his attention from what was going on behind him somehow, and there was one quick way that the Imp figured might work. Trying to slightly move his hand that was shaking from having its skin nearlypletely burnt away by holy energy, the Imp tried to move the tip of his Dagger toward a ce that he didn''t really need at the moment, his stomach, and slowly ran across it with the edge.


    [-112 Health]


    Now, the Imp had two ways to distract himself. The pain on his stomach, and the notification floating in front of him. It somehow worked, but only barely. The Imp was just able to move forward a little bit toward the steps in front of him, and the Lord of Gluttony was already getting closer and closer toward him.


    But the moment that the Imp ced his foot onto the first step of the enormously long set of stairs, his body started to push forward as if moving on its own, and the Imp started to practically sprint forward as fast as he could.


    Just like that, the Imp managed to see the end of the stairs quite soon. The Guard that stopped him before was still standing there, looking at the backs of the Demons that ran away from this ce, but the Imp just had no time to mind him and just ran past him immediately.


    It seemed like the Lord of Gluttony was standing at the top of the stairs, just staring forward into the empty distance, but the Imp didn''t want to wait until he got riled up and chose to follow him. He wasn''t in the mood to die today, after all.


    And so, the Imp just sprinted into the distance, direclty along the middle of the way between the Lord of Gluttony''s castle and the next one''s. From behind him, a loud crash sounded out, followed by more Demons trying to run away from that direction, so the Imp figured that it had something to do with the Lord, and he just sped up even more, until he waspletely out of breath, trying to stop near one of thest buildings in front of the edge of the forest surrounding the Demonic Town.


    In a slim alleyway where it seemed quite unlikely for anyone to be ore, the Imp set Clementine down and sat down next to her, trying to wait for the girl to wake up before continuing.


    Taking that time, the Imp took a close look at his wounds. For some reason, his own wounds weren''t healing as fast as those of the other Demons that he saw, but maybe that was just because he was technically weaker than them, or because he just reacted differently to Holy Energy than them in the first ce. He didn''t be unable to move when he was damaged through holy energy, after all.


    But the Imp still had to try and somehow close the wound on his stomach up now. Losing too much blood didn''t seem good either.


    So for now, the Imp took off his cloak and properly got rid of his now ripped-up and bloodied shirt, by throwing it against the wall in front of him, and then looked down at his body, noticing something else.


    The blue mark on the Imp''s chest had spread out a little with thin blue lines. It wasn''t by much, but he was sure that this definitely was a bitrger than thest time he looked at it.


    The Imp didn''t really understand what this meant, but he had no time to really think about that anyway. Instead, the Imp tried to think about what he should do to close this wound.


    But before he could do anything, he felt a slight touch against his skin around that wound, and it started to slowly close up. Immediately, the Imp grabbed the hand and pushed it away, looking over at Clementine next to him who was now slowly getting drenched in blood.


    "What are you doing?" The Imp asked her, and Clementine, with tears in her eyes, simply started to grasp her stomach and slightly looked at the young Demon in front of her.


    "Th-thank you... for.. for... for saving me..." She said, quietly starting to sob. Even she understood the situation, knowing that she really shouldn''t pull attention to them at the moment, but the Imp just stared at her, before grinding his teeth.


    "Don''t." He told her, slowly moving the white cloak that he wrapped her in to the side to take a look at her stomach, which was nowpletely covered in numerous wounds from different sources. For one, there was of course the fresh wound that she just took from the Imp, but there were also different cracks all around it, simr to the ones that formed on the Lord of Gluttony''s fake body before.


    The Imp wasn''t entirely sure what he was supposed to be doing against this, but he was still panicking at seeing so many deep wounds on such a small body. "You aren''t losing Health?" The Imp asked her, just to once more confirm that she couldn''t actually die from this but just felt all of the pain, like it was exined to him before, and Clemine slowly nodded her head, although shakily, trying to somehow bear with the pain without screaming out loud.


    And then, the Imp got an idea. There was a line in the book about the Lords, speaking about how Holy Energy was the ''savior of the people, but the demise of the Demons''. The Imp wasn''t entirely sure, but at the very least he was hoping that this would really work out.


    If Holy Energy hurt Demons, being their demise, then it being the ''Savior'' of people meant that he somehow should be able to help Clementine using it, right?


    Slowly, the Imp ced his Dagger down next to him and pushed the Three of Swords back into his bag, while pushing his hand against Clementine''s stomach, directly onto her wound.


    Immediately when the Imp did so, Clementine couldn''t hold it in anymore, starting to scream as loudly as she could, but the Imp quickly pressed his other hand against her mouth to stop her from doing so.


    "Quiet." He told the young girl, before starting to push his mana out of his palm and into the Magic Stones, causing a rtively high amount of holy energy to pour out from them.


    Before, the amount was practically explosive, but right now the Imp was trying to let it out slow so that he wouldn''t hurt his hand any more, and so that he could make sure he wasn''t really injuring Clementine in any way.


    And soon enough, the young girl seemed to calm down, the blood stopping to flow from her body. Apparently it wouldn''t kill her anyway, but she was still in pain as long as this wound wasn''t somehow gotten rid of, and if she was in pain she wouldn''t be able to walk around on her own.


    Carefully, the Imp pulled back his left hand from Clementine''s mouth and his right hand from her stomach, taking a proper look at whether or not she really was fine.


    "Does it still hurt?" He asked her, trying to rub away some of the blood from her stomach with part of his cloak to get a proper look at the wounds, while Clementine slowly nodded her head. "Mhm... But... but no as much..." She replied, so the Imp looked at her with a satisfied expression.


    "Can you walk?" The Imp asked her, but Clementine just looked back at him and pulled her legs toward her body. "Can... can we stay here for another few minutes..? Just a little while, please..?"


    Trying to hide her face, Clementine pushed her forehead against her knees, and the Imp slowly nodded. "A few minutes." He replied, just trying to make sure that he as well would be able to get rid of a little bit of his exhaustion.


    There were a question that the Imp wanted to ask her, but in the end, he just stayed quiet about it, because he figured he knew the answer already. He wanted to know why Clementine had to ''Heal'' the body of the Lord of Gluttony. It was probably to let him eat as much as he could without breaking like he ended up doing.


    And so, the Imp and the young girl just sat next to each other, the monster trying to prepare as much as he could for the next Lord, while the girl was trying to stop her crying caused by fear as well as physical and mental pain.


    While the Imp was preparing, he also took a look at the book once more, and then noticed a page right at the very back of the book, mapping out the seven different ''areas'' of the town, mostly describing which castle and area belonged to which Lord.


    Right now they came from the Lord of Gluttony, and when seen from the town they went left, so it would be the Lord of Pride, and then the Lord of Sloth, so where Sammy and Leon were. Behind that was the Lord of Wrath, so they would have to try and stay as far away from there as possible and maybe pass through town again, to get the Rudy from the Lord of Envy, and then the Priestess from the Lord of Greed, before moving onto the castle of the Lord of Lust to get Arc.


    Slowly, the young monster continued to read about the different Lords that would being next, first the Lord of Pride. ording to the book, as long as youplimented them as much as possible and stayed humble, you might be lucky enough to get away from him alive. Sounds easy enough... Or it would, if the Imp had any idea what either ''Compliments'' or ''Humbleness'' were.


    He didn''t read about it before, so maybe he just had to improvise or ask Clementine about it on their way to the next castle.


    Either way, for now, the Imp luckily got the first of the children back and knew where he could get the others.. And that made him feel a joy that he couldn''t even express if he wanted to.

 Chapter 46 - Backstabbing

    After a little while of sitting around and trying to catch a breath, the Imp stood back up properly put his cloak back on while Clementine stood up as well, wiping tears out of her eyes.


    Seeing that she was obviously still scared, the Imp slowly extended his hand toward her''s and slowly grabbed it. It rxed him when Avalin did it, so he was hoping it would rx Clementine as well, although she just looked at the Imp surprised for a moment.


    "Let''s go." The Imp told her, and Clementine slowly nodded her head, before the Imp made sure that she was really properly wearing the cloak to cover as much of her body as possible.


    Slowly, the two of them then made their way over toward the next castle, the castle belonging to the Lord of Pride.


    And the closer that they got to that castle, the stronger the change in the environment got. The streets that were covered in blood and meat practically everywhere in the area for gluttony were now as spotless as they could be, and there were barely any Demons around, although the few that were there looked at The Imp and Clementine with twisted expressions of disgust.


    For now, the Imp ignored it, because it was a good thing they were able to just rush through there without an issue. But the first problem came when they reached the castle and were met with the guard that stood in front of the set of stairs leading up to the room the Imp needed to get to.


    "Don''t enter, you Mongrel." The Guard said, immediately pointing its weapon toward the Imp and Clementine. The Imp wanted to immediately use this chance to attack, but before he could do that, a small thought in the back of the Imp''s head was trying to tell him to act, to say something that might get this Guard away.


    "I... Don''t want to enter." The Imp said, and the Guard looked at the Imp with a twisted expression of anger and annoyance. "Huh? You don''t want to go see our almighty Lord? What are you, a liar?" The Guard asked angrily, but the Imp just shook his head without hesitation.


    "Who would want to go see such a useless, disgusting Lord?" With a mocking voice, the Imp just stared at the Guard, who was looking down at him with pure anger, even if it wasn''tparable to the anger that the Lord of Wrath showed.


    While Clementine was grasping the Imp''s hand more tightly, scared at what was going on, the Imp himself just kept staring forward at the Guard, who was seemingly about to attack the Imp and Clementine, but the Imp figured out a reason why he wouldn''t.


    "If you kill me, you will make the entrance to your Lord''s castle dirty. I don''t think he will like that. How about you let the Lord himself kill me? He is the one I insulted, not you." The Imp pointed out, and the Guard immediately nodded its head, stepping behind the Imp and Clementine to ''force'' them up the stairs, even though that was exactly what they wanted. And on their way up, the Imp was really quickly trying toe up with what he could possibly say to trick them, and then, all of a sudden, a number of notifications that the Imp didn''t expect appeared.


    [Proficiency Boost Deactivated. Skill ''Apprentice Common Language Comprehension'' will now level up like normal]


    [As a bonus for upgrading your skill through this boost, you will gain extra proficiency]


    [Apprentice Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled Up!]


    [Apprentice Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled Up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [Apprentice Common Language Comprehension Skill Leveled Up!]


    [Apprentice Common Language Comprehension hit Level 100 and became Intermediate Common Language Comprehension]


    Immediately, the Imp felt something in his mind click. All the words that he had heard up until now, that he had read up until now, and that he had misunderstood up until now were starting to make far more sense than he ever could have imagined.


    It was like someone ripped open a door that was only opened for a thin slit until now. And with that, the Imp understood the meaning behind some words as well, not just the meaning that words themselves had. He truly figured out what lies were, and why you told them, and in what situations which lies were best used.


    But instead of being able to think about lies, there was one single truth that crossed the Imp''s mind, which he couldn''t resist but voice in a low, mumbling voice.


    "Skills are truly amazing, aren''t they..?" The Imp asked himself with a whisper, and soon enough, when he finally reached the top floor that the stairs were connected to, arge open room with a simr structure as the two others the Imp had seen until now.


    And while seeing the figure at the other side of the hall, staring down into the center of the room toward the young girl sitting there on her knees, her forehead pressed against the ground in fear as she was practically begging, the Imp remembered one of the stories from the book about the ''Minor Arcana'', the different cards that the Imp had collected two of so far.


    The story was about a Beggar, who had gotten more power to his voice through an ability given to him by the Arcane Dealer, the Four of Pentacles. Using that voice, the Beggar collected more and more money and became a rich man, until a knight brought him to the King after finding out about his ability. Without hesitation, the Beggar managed to convince the King that the Knight was a traitor, and the Knight was executed without anyone else finding out about his voice, and the Beggar was given a noble title andnd with as much money as he could imagine. He waster killed by one of his servants because he didn''t voice his wishes properly, but that was beside the point. Using the speech that the Imp read there and could remember quite well, he figured he might be able to convince the Lord of Pride if he really tried.


    When the Lord of Pride spotted the Imp, Clementine, and the Guard escorting them, his expression became sour. "What do you think you are doing, interrupting me like this?" The Lord asked, and the Guard immediately started to speak, while the Imp grabbed Clementine''s hand and started to sprint forward.


    "This wicke-"


    "My Lord! I came to warn you!" The Imp interrupted the Guard, surprising not only the Guard himself and Clementine, but also Sammy, who didn''t expect to hear the Imp''s voice all of a sudden. Or ever again, to be exact.


    Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, the Imp grabbed Clementine''s hand tighter and continued running forward, pushing Clementine in front of himself. "I know I am not much to look at, My Lord, but please, listen to me! I am nothing but a mere Imp, looking up to such a Prideful ruler such as you! I always wanted to show you how much even those Demons with sins other than Pride look up to you! And then, I finally found the perfect gift!" The Imp eximed, trying his best to change the speech from the story to fit his needs better, before he momentarily ground his teeth and pulled his hand away from Clementine before holding both of them toward her, while Clementine looked at the Imp with confused fear, and Sammy stared at him with pure disgust.


    "This Human has the ability to take any injury of another onto herself. Any sort, without any danger of her death! Not only is this chivalrous, but a pure sign of Pride! You understand what I mean, don''t you, my Lord?" The Imp asked with an excited, broad grin, while the Guard who had brought them up here looked at the Imp with anger, shaking his head vehemently.


    "That is not true, Lord! This Imp was insulting you!" The Guard eximed angrily, but the Lord of Pride, seemingly amused and curious, looked at the Imp. "Now how does that make sense? It is true that it is a wonderfully prideful present, of course." The Lord started, and the Imp''s expression for a moment nearly dropped, because he didn''t really expect that the Lord would really believe the Imp''s rambling, but before anything happened, the Lord continued.


    "Now you, who hase with an offering, I will give you the right to speak first." The Lord said benevolently, and although the Imp was confused, thinking that he was already speaking first anyway, the young Demon took the chance.


    "It is not I that insulted you, my Lord, but rather this fiend! When I told him about how much I look up to you and wanted to give you this gift, the Guard simply tried to take her from me, saying that you, my Lord, are not deserving of such a wonderful present! He much more wanted to take it for himself!" The Imp exined, and while the Guard''s expression twisted in Horror, the Lord of Pride stared past the Imp, Clementine and Sammy and looked right at the Guard.


    "Is that true?" The Lord asked, slowly standing up from the throne he was sitting on, before he started making his way over toward that Guard in an intimidating manner.


    Once the Lord was too far away to hear him whisper, the Imp immediately kneeled down next to Sammy and made sure that she could stand. It seemed like she wanted him to get away from her, because she was purely disgusted, but she stopped when the Imp whispered into her ear.


    "I''m going to attack him. When I do, take Clementine and run out the door. I will be right behind you. But be careful, she''s still hurt, and the stairs are steep." The Imp told her, before immediately standing back up like normal and followed behind the Lord of Pride, leaving a baffled Sammy right next to Clementine.


    The Impalso used the chance where he was kneeling down to fiddle with some things and pushed the Three of Swords back underneath the cloth. All that the Imp had to do was to injure the Lord even slightly, and then he would be unable to move for a few moments. The Imp first saw this effect on the Lord of Wrath, after all, so it obviously also worked on them.


    "Don''t listen to a mongrel like that, Lord!" The Guard said, even though exactly that sentence was his downfall. With his head twisted upward and his eyes looking downward onto the Guard, the Lord just stared at the Guard and extended his hand forward to the Guards head, grasping itpletely with a single hand. "Do notmand me." The Lord said, and the moment that the Imp heard the first crack in the Guard Demon''s skull, he pushed his mana out of his hand to once more create such an explosive attack as before.


    "Sammy, Clementine!" The Imp eximed, while a sh of golden-white light appeared around the Imp''s hand while a thread started connecting the Imp''s dagger with a ring that just appeared on his finger, and was pushed deeply into the Lord of Pride''s back.


    [Lord of Pride -612 Damage]


    [-436 Health]


    With a shocked expression, the Lord stared at the Imp behind him while the ttering of footsteps could be heard while Sammy and Clementine sprinted past them toward the stairs. There weren''t any guards in this room, luckily, so the girls could just enter the staircase immediately.


    And just when the Imp pulled the dagger back out of the Lord''s back, he got an idea for how he might be able to avert the attention from himself and the girls to another troublesome enemy.


    "This is a Message from the Lord of Wrath.. Answer it, if your pride allows you to."

 Chapter 47 - Dyed In Shadow Colors

    The moment that the Imp pulled his dagger out of the Lord of Pride''s back, the Imp rushed out toward the door, following the two girls that were doing their best to rush down there.


    And the very moment that he managed to catch up to them, he grabbed Clementine by her right, and Sammy by her left hand, trying to pull them behind him as quickly as possible. The Imp was aware that his right hand was pretty injured at the moment, just from the bacsh of all that Holy Energy at once, but he just wanted to make sure that both of the girls were able to follow him properly.


    It seemed like Sammy was incredibly confused at what was going on, but the Imp couldn''t stop and just exin. For now at the very least, they had to make their way toward the Castle of the Lord of Sloth, while trying to clear away from the direct path toward the Lord of Wrath''s castle as much as possible. Because if the Imp''s lie worked on the Lord of Pride, then he would most likely go right there the quickest way possible.


    And then, after running for a while, the Imp once more saw the Demonic Town around him change into a different environment, where a lot of Demons were simply sleeping on all kinds of surfaces. On the ground, on hammocks, and even on random dirty nkets.


    Luckily, there was a spot in the distance where nobody seemed to really be, so the Imp pulled the girls over there and then grabbed a random currently unused nket so that they could hide and cover especially Sammy up.


    And when they were sitting in the alleyway, the Imp stopped and quickly pulled the nket over Sammy, who was breathing pretty heavily together with Clementine, although the moment that she got the chance to, she immediately hugged the other girl next to her, her whole body shaking.


    "I... I was so scared..." Sammy said in a quiet voice, before slowly pulling away from Clementine and looking at the Imp. Before, in the Lord of Pride''s castle, she had a pretty disgusted expression at what the Imp was doing, but it seemed like she somewhat understood his intentions now.


    "Thank you... for saving me... Saving us..." The young girl told the Imp, who just slowly stared back at her. "Sorry for letting this happen to you." After slowly turning away to make sure nobody was around them, the Imp looked back at Sammy and Clementine before handing the nket to Sammy.


    "Cover yourself with this. So that the Demons can''t see that you are Humans." The Imp told them, and Sammy slowly nodded her head as she took the nket from him, although she couldn''t help herself but look at the Imp''s hand, which was very, very slowly recovering from the damage done to it through the Holy Energy.


    "What... What happened?" Sammy asked a bit worried, and the Imp just looked at his hand before pulling out one of the Holy Energy Magic Stones from underneath the cloth. "This happened. This hurts Demons when I use it properly, so that''s what I''m doing." The Imp exined quite clearly and slipped the Magic Stone back inbetween the clothyers, before Sammy looked at the Imp just confused.


    "But aren''t you a Demon?" She asked, and the Imp slowly nodded his head in response. "I am. But because of the girl... the ''Priestess'', I can resist the thing that hurts Demons more than others. Not perfectly, but well enough." With that exnation, the Imp slipped his hand into his bag and pulled out the notebook filled with information about the Lords again, trying to read up more about the Lord of Sloth, while Sammy just quietly covered herself in the nket to make sure her skin could be seen the least amount as possible.


    "What are we doing now..?" Sammy asked, and the Imp slowly raised his hand to point at the castle in the distance in front of them, only momentarily lifting his head to look away from the book''s page, and then said, "We are going to the Lord of Sloth to get Leon." He exined, and Sammy looked at the Imp confused.


    "He was also taken..?" She asked, before the Imp simply slowly nodded his head. "You all were. But the Shadow that brought you away is dead." He exined, and then, the Imp closed the book again before turning toward the two girls.


    "Let''s go." The Imp said in a clear tone, and although the two girls were pretty exhausted, they nodded their heads in response.


    And while they were on their way, the Imp asked something that he was wondering right now. "Why were you bowing to that Lord?" He asked, and Sammy slowly looked away from him, "Rulers that rely on their pride like being bowed to." She exined quite clearly, "I... was trying to buy time, I guess..." Sammy added quietly, while the Imp nodded his head, noting this knowledge in his mind so that he could possibly make use of this if he ever was in this kind of situation again, where he needed to appease someone that he couldn''t fight against.


    "Where did the others go..?" Sammy asked after a little while, before the Imp quickly exined the situation a bit more. And after hearing him out, the young girl sslowly held her hand to her chest. "I hope they''re okay..." The girl muttered, and the Imp slowly nodded his head.


    "I think they are." He replied, making Sammy look back at him confused.


    "What do you mean?" She asked him, and the Imp quickly told Clementine and Sammy what he meant, and what he thought was going on. "I don''t think they are allowed to kill. In that town, the Demons and humans are walking around together, although the Humans are in power. I don''t think anyone was killed there, though."


    "Really..? So this is normal in that town?" Clementine asked as she slightly turned her head to the left to look toward the town, and the Imp nodded his head. "I think so. And we need to hurry, I think all of this will disappear again when the night is over. If we are outside of town, we might have to stay here until the town is back." The Imp exined, and that mere idea seemed to make the two girls shudder, something that the Imp did really understand.


    Either way, soon enough, the three of them got close enough to the castle, and the only guard stationed there was seemingly sleeping on the floor in front of the stairs. It seemed like this town was the easiest to hide in, because everybody that might be able to find them was simply asleep.


    So, instead of taking the extra rist apanied by having these girlse with him up there, the Imp just told them to hide for now, in a spot near the castle that would allow them to rush directly toward the town. The Town''s gate was luckily directly within sight as well, even if it was quite far away, meaning that they could just run straight forward if needed to.


    "Stay here, I will be right back." The Imp exined to the girls, who both nodded their heads while the Imp got to work with the n that seemed to work the best for this.


    While the Lord of Sloth was practically never awake, there were times when he could be woken up fairly quickly, and if that happened, nothing good was to follow.


    So, the Imp figured he should go the safe route and just try to make use of his ''Stealth'' skill somehow, and for that, wanted to add something else into his arsenal.


    While pressing the Shadow Magic Stone against his chest, as close to his heart as he could, the Imp pressed his mana into the stone through his hand into the stone, and then through that stone into the Imp''s body toward his heart, so that the shadow could be spread throughout his whole body. At least that''s what the Imp was somewhat hoping would happen. And soon enough, it seemed like his hopes were fulfilled, because he could feel his body slowly changing into a different state. It was as if he was far lighter, far quicker, and far quieter.


    As soon as this change was noticeable to the Imp, a notification appeared to confirm this fact.


    [Your Body is being saturated in Shadows. You be quicker, harder to notice, and close to silent]


    With a satisfied nod, the Imp looked down at his body, happy to see that his body was ck and mist-like, just like the body of the Shadow from before.


    Sammy and Clementine were quite surprised to see this happen, but considering that they watched this whole thing unfold, they were more than just aware that this was actually the Imp, and as such weren''t more scared than they usually were.


    "I will be right back." The Imp said, his voice bing quite weird through this all. It was like his regr voice was still there, just that it was overtoned by a voice whose source couldn''t really be pinpointed that easily.


    Either way, the Imp was sure that this was perfect. He wasn''t exactly sure why the children were all brought in front of the Lords, but he didn''t care all that much either. The Imp was actually pretty d that, at least so far, they were all brought in front of the Lords and were still there when the Imp got to them. At the very least, he hoped that everything would be the same with Rudy, Arc and the Priestess as well.


    As quickly as the Imp could, he rushed up the stairs, and when he got to the top floor, he silently stepped into the dark room in front of him. It seemed like this whole ce was covered in nkets and pillows, to allow anyone to sleep anywhere in this room, which a lot of the Demons here even did.


    How useless all of these guards were... They were supposed to protect the Lord, weren''t they? Then why did they allow themselves to sleep?


    Annoyedly, the Imp stepped through the room, and the little bit of sound that he was still making was muffled by the nkets underneath his feet.


    And then, in the corner, in what seemed to be a cage, the child that the Imp was looking for wasying on its back, silently sleeping.


    The space inbetween the bars was too slim to fit through, so the Imp somehow had to find the key to open it. And that was the rather rough part about all this. He was starting to feel a bit droopy as well after using a lot of his mana, so he had to properly hurry to make sure he could get Leon out of the cage before anyone woke up.


    And so, the Imp chose to first look with the guardsying around near the cage itself. Luckily enough, the first guard had the key, and the Imp was able to open the cage pretty quickly. But just when the Imp stepped into the cage to get Leon out, something happened that would ruin how well this all was going.


    And in the end, it was the fault of the Imp himself, because a loud explosion happened outside, sting away a corner of this castle even, and the Imp was able to see the source of that explosion.


    The Lord of Wrath''s Castle.


    And as the Imp was staring at that spot in the distance, from the corner of his eye, he was able to see therge, heavy-bodied Demon standing up, slowly turning toward the Imp.

 Chapter 48 - Third Mistake

    With tired, lifeless eyes, the Lord of Sloth looked at the Imp, practically locking eyes with him. It seemed like the Lord wanted to say something for just a moment, but... he just sat down again and kept sleeping, without minding the young monster at all. On the other hand, the rest of the Demons in this room, as well as Leon, all woke up.


    And while Leon was starting to cry due to being woken up like this, while held by a figure made of Shadows, the Guards came closer to the cage, and the Imp had to act quickly. He definitely wouldn''t be able to fight his way through them, and he wasn''t fast enough to get out through a gap while carrying Leon.


    So in order to escape, the Imp just did something that only worked out due to pure luck. And that started by closing and locking the door of the cage.


    The Imp let go of Shadow Magic Stone and instead grabbed one of the Holy Energy Magic Stones while activating the Three of Swords. Through that thread and the de connected to it, the Imp was able to actually pretty easily let his mana flow to the outside. And so, the Imp ripped off part of his pants and used the cloth to bind the Magic Stone to the de in a way that it couldn''t get out.


    Then, while pushing as much of his mana through the Three of Swords as he could, the holy energy that was given off was scaring away the other demons.


    But the only thing that the Imp now needed to do now was pretty simple. He had to rely on his luck to an extent and just push open the door of the cage again, grab Leon, and then rush out of there while using the high amount of Holy Energy to get rid of the Demons. The de wasn''t moving that quickly due to the extra weight, and it was straining the Imp pretty heavily, but this was the only way he could somehow defend himself against this many Demons while using both his hands to hold the baby.


    And so, the Imp just did exactly that, and unlocked the cage again, quickly kicking it open while he went to grab Leon, and then just ran out toward the exit.


    With the Holy Energy, the highly unmotivated Demons that were ''chasing'' him were pretty easily lost, and the Imp could start rushing down the stairs. Although then again, this somehow seemed far, far too easy. He managed to break into three of the Castles, and break back out quite easily four times. Considering how strong these Lords were, that was just... unlikely. The Imp didn''t really know why this all was going on, but he did know that he didn''t have time to think about it either, and so just rushed down the stairs. Although he was soon met with a bit of an issue.


    Part of the stairs were broken, and it was a pretty long fall until then that the Imp wasn''t sure he could survive. He managed to somehow break his fall when dropping out of the Lord of Wrath''s castle, but he didn''t want to risk that again.


    So instead, the Imp had toe up with some sort of idea, before he remembered something that he might be able to make use of himself. First things first, the Imp removed the cloth from the de, and then tried to push that de into the wall. It seemed like even materials like this somewhat reacted to holy energy, so the Imp was able to cut through it rtively well like this.


    With a nod, the Imp then started to use the de, or rather the thread, to ''bind'' leon tighter to the Imp so that he could hold him safely with just one hand, before digging his fingers, which were covered in holy energy, into the walls. It wasn''t easy, but soon enough, he was able to get a good hold of everything, and with a bit of faith, the Imp was able to try and hold himself up with one hand.


    It was hard, incredibly hard, but it worked. The Imp was able to push his feet into some grooves in the wall sometimes so that he could properly dig through the wall further to slowly let himself down. And it really worked pretty well, at the very least until something that happened a little while ago happened again. Another loud explosion shot through the Demonic Town.


    And thus, the Imp''s third great mistake of the night revealed itself. The first mistake was to look out the Inn''s window onto the street, getting his attention onto what was going on in the first ce.


    The second mistake was to open the door and look into the hallway, practically inviting the Shadow inside.


    And the third mistake was averting his gaze from the wall in response to the explosion. The very moment that he did, he lost concentration and slipped, slowly falling backward.


    Although, it probably wasn''t actually that slow, it just seemed that way to him for whatever reason. And within that infinitely long, short moment, the Imp made a single decision, which turned the oue of the third mistake away from the unfavorable death, toward an oue that was pure luck deeply hidden in demise.


    Quickly, the Imp held Leon as tightly as he could while making the Three of Swords push toward the wall, and instantly had it did itself as deeply inside of it as possible.


    The Imp''s fall was stopped for around a moment, when they were just a meter or so away from the ground, although it wasn''t perfectly stopped. Because at that moment, something snapped.


    And it wasn''t the thread of the Three of Swords, but rather the thin threads inside of the part the whole weapon was connected to. The muscles inside of the Imp''s finger.


    Once the muscles snapped immediately, a loud crack followed while the Imp''s whole right index finger was dislodged. Whatever happened after that was just a clear oue, now.


    Within a single split-second of a moment, the Imp''s finger was ripped away from his hand, and the Imp stared at it while the Three of Swords turned back into a card and fell onto the Imp''s together with his finger, still wrapped in part of the Holy-Energy soaked cloth, while the Imp wasying there, staring upward.


    [-212 Health!]


    [Critical Damage! You permanently lost one of your fingers]


    Slowly the Imp stood up, still holding Leon tightly, and just tried to concentrate on stopping the bleeding on his finger for now by controlling his blood-flow through Water Magic. Dizzy, the Imp packed his finger and the card into his bag and stood up, slowly trying to make his way over toward the spot where he left Clementine and Sammy before.


    The moment that he saw the two girls and they saw him, they rushed over toward him, seemingly scared because of the explosions from before. And then, they noticed what happened to the Imp''s hand.


    "Y-You... How?" Sammy asked, quickly taking Leon from him before taking a closer look at his finger, and the Imp just stared back at her. "I... I don''t know... I fell, and then I wasn''t falling, and my finger was off." He exined, and before Sammy and the Imp could react and stop her, Clementine grabbed the Imp''s hand and immediately wanted to ''eat'' the injury.


    For a moment, it seemed like small bloody rips were forming on her index finger, but they disappeared nearly as soon as they appeared in the first ce. Something that they found pretty confusing. Although Clementine was obviously feeling physically unwell after trying, and failing, to heal the Imp, she kept trying and trying, and soon, Sammy grabbed her hand and stopped her.


    "Stop... Maybe it doesn''t work on demons..." She suggested, but Clementine immediately shook her head, "No! I did it before! It definitely works on Mister!" The young girl protested, and Sammy looked at the Imp confused, before he just shook his head.


    "Don''t worry... It''s fine..." The Imp muttered quietly, slowly scrambling through his bag to grab one of the small red Magic Stones, and then pressed it against the wound on his hand where his finger was before, pushing his mana into the stone. This immediately caused some mes to appear around the Magic Stone, together with some red notifications that the Imp simply tried to ignore, because he was well aware that he was taking damage through this.


    But soon enough, the wound seemed to have closed after being burnt shut, and the Imp slowly grabbed a Water Magic Stone to clean his wound up, before drying it on his cloak and wrapping the open spot with the Holy-Energy Cloth.


    "I''m alright... See?" The Imp pointed out as he held his hand forward toward the two girls, who were just looking at him confused.


    "Why...?" Sammy asked as she stared at him, but the Imp didn''t really understand the question, and just stared back at her with a questioning expression, before Sammy ground her teeth and stared at the Imp.


    "I asked you ''Why''! Why are you helping us? Why are you reacting like it''s nothing if you lose a finger for us? We saw it just there as well, your hand ispletely messed up because you''re using Holy Energy the whole time, right? So why are you doing all that to yourself just for us?" She asked, incredibly emotionally upset over all of this to the point of getting teary-eyed, and the Imp just looked back at her and shrugged.


    "I just want to." The Imp exined, before swiftly grabbing the book out of the bag, quickly trying to read through it to look up more information about the Lord of Envy to find out how to get Rudy back best, before shutting the book again and looking at the two girls.


    "Let''s go." The Imp told them when he had all the information, grabbing the nket that Sammy was wrapped in to help her cover up Leon as well, before turning around and heading to the street. It seemed like it was a little bit messy right now, with a lot of rubble and dead demonsying around there, but they could still rush through this part of the Demonic town properly to get to the regr town in the center the mountains around them.


    It took a little while, and around two more explosions, for them to reach the Town again, where the Imp immediately made a single choice. Most Demons, even the Gatekeepers, seemed to have apandoned this ce at the moment, so instead of heading toward the other side of town to exit there, he headed toward the Inn with the girls and the baby, and brought them to their room.


    What the Imp had noticed was that while the Demonic Town was in chaos, this town here was in a practically perfect state, and the only dead body around on the streets was the Tenaga Jin that the Imp killed before.


    Other than that, this ce seemed like just a quiet town at night, if one ignored the red light from the ''moon'' and the blue lights from the decorations.. Either way, if it was like this, the Imp felt like this ce would be safe enough to go ahead and leave the girls and Leon here while he went to go grab the other three.

 Chapter 49 - Quick Escape

    "Please...e back quickly..." Sammy said quietly as the Imp left the room, before the Monster stopped for a moment and then just nodded his head in response. He didn''t want to leave these three alone here, but it was safer here than out there, amongst all those Demons and Lords.


    While the Imp hurried through the hallway toward the stairs, he finally took the time that he didn''t have to directly pay attention to his surroundings to take a proper look at his hand. He knew that he could burn his wound closed by the way that meat sometimes stuck together when cooking it, so he was d that this worked as well, but the Imp had to admit that this hurt like a bitch, even now.


    His Health did recover again a little, although the Imp had issues actually staying awake for too long at the moment, meaning that he had to hurry as quickly as he could. Luckily, because it was Rudy who he was rescuing next and then the Priestess, he could give the Priestess to Rudy and then send him off on a straight path toward the town. Rudy couldn''t be hurt, after all, and if Rudy made sure to try and hide from the Demons while he was running, the Imp was sure that he could trust him to make his way back to the Inn safely with the key.


    And then, the Imp would go and get Arc back immediately afterward. Then they just had to go back to town and somehow wait for this ce to return to normal so that they could get out of this horrid ce as soon as they possibly could.


    In the distance, the Imp could already see the ce he was heading to next, although there seemed to be something else going on. There were even Demons gathering at the foot of the tower-like structure, something that wasn''t the case at any other ce until now.


    Because he was pretty shortpared to these other Demons, he could pretty easily fit through some gaps that were inbetween them, before looking at the ground in front of the castle. The Imp was quite surprised, as it waspletely cracked up, although the rest of town seemed pretty well-kept.


    But before the Imp knew it, he could see the reason for the cracked-up ground. Something dropped down from the area in front of the entrance to the main-hall, and that ''thing'' was Rudy-Shaped.


    Of course, the Imp wanted to rush forward and get him out of there, but he couldn''t really do that in this situation. Soon enough, the Imp could rx, however. That was because Rudy simply stood up as if nothing happened. Sure, he was dirty and his clothes were nearlypletely ripped up, but at the very least he didn''t seem to be bleeding or anything like that. He was obviously terribly scared and was sobbing like there was no tomorrow, but at the very least there wasn''t any direct danger to his life.


    While the Imp was sighing in relief, he heard the Demons around him mutter amongst each other. "How amazing... It''s not hurt at all, is it..?" One of them asked, and the rest of the Demons seemed to be saying simr things, before they started to quietly whisper one thing as if it was a mantra.


    "I''m so Jealous."


    This eery, creepy sound made the Imp shudder immediately, so he was sure to Rudy this was all far worse. And as if he was expecting something, Rudy slowly stared upward and held his arms above his head as if wanting to shield himself, but when nothing happened looked back up only to have a face staring down at him.


    And that face belonged to who the Imp could only assume to be the Lord, letting his body hang down from an invisible rope as he turned and twisted his body to stand down while keeping his face perfectly in ce, constantly staring at Rudy, who dropped down onto his back, startled.


    Slowly, the Lord of Envy grabbed Rudy by the throat and picked him up before mming him back onto the ground. "Why... won''t... you... die?! Over and over again, I tried to kill you, but nothing worked! How envious, envious, envious I am of that body! Tell me your secret!" The Lord eximed in a mad voice, while Rudy was struggling to get away from the Lord''s grip.


    While grinding his teeth together annoyedly, the Imp tried to figure out a way to deal with this situation without being killed instantly. The Imp pushed himself back behind the crowd and looked around, trying to find any way to divert their attention, while in the distance a loud explosion echoed through the whole of the Demonic Town, stilling from the Lord of Wrath''s and Lord of Pride''s castles.


    But somehow, if the Imp couldn''t see the source of the explosion in the distance, he wouldn''t be able to pin-point it on sound alone, simply due to the echo.


    And as the Imp was looking back at the Demons in front of him, he noticed that they had turned their heads and looked at the explosion in the distance as well, before once again hearing some Demons whisper about their jealousy about the power that caused those explosions.


    Through these three things that the Imp noticed, the echo, the diverted attention, and the jealousy, the young Monster came up with an idea that he hoped would work out well enough.


    Slowly, he grabbed the Shadow Magic Stone out of his bag and pushed it against his chest while stepping over toward a hard-to-notice area, and then did the same thing as he did before to turn his body shadow-like.


    [Your Body is being saturated in Shadows. You be quicker, harder to notice, and close to silent]


    Immediately after seeing that notification, the Imp tried topletely reverse that third point that was mentioned in the notification, and stepped up behind the crowd. With a deep breath of air filling his lungs, the Imp prepared to use the trick of spreading air further for his voice as well, hoping that it would work, and yelled out a single sentence.


    "I know the boy''s secret."


    Immediately, as fast as he could, the Imp rushed back into the hard-to-notice spot while his loud voice, which had be incredibly hard to find the source of as it seemed like it wasing from basically everywhere around him, echoed through the crowd and toward the Lord of Envy.


    Immediately, it seemed like the Imp''s n seemed to work, and the Demons were looking around at each other to figure out who said that, and soon enough the Lord also tuned in.


    "Who? Who said that?! Who knows this secret that I don''t?!" The Lord eximed angrily, loudly stepping toward the crowd.


    Of course, since nobody could give an answer to that, the already pissed-off Lord didn''t react to this very happily, and before he knew it, the Imp could see ripped-off limbs and dead bodies fly through the street.


    Without hesitating for a moment, the Imp rushed around through an alley until he arrived at the ce where Rudy wasying, trying to make sure that none of the Demons were paying attention to him or the boyying on the ground exhaustedly.


    And then, as fast as he could, the Imp rushed toward Rudy and grabbed his hand and pulled him along into the Direction of the castle of the Lord of Greed, while the Imp turned around for a moment and yelled out once more.


    "The boy is running to the Lord of Wrath." He yelled out as he pulled Rudy into an alley where they could hide behind some rocks and boxes, while the young Demon was peeking out, just to see the Lord of Envy rush through toward the Castle of that Lord of Wrath that was the first one here to nearly kill the Imp, before the Demon slowly rxed and sat down onto the ground, while Rudy was seemingly just sitting next to him tiredly, just incredibly scared of the unfamiliar figure next to him.


    Seeing how that might be confusing, the Imp stopped running his mana through the Shadow Magic Stone, slowly making his Shadow-Form disappear.


    But even then, it seemed like it took a while for Rudy to recognize the Imp, as tattered and exhausted as the Demon was, but the Imp didn''t mind that at all. He was just d that Rudy ended up realizing that it was him in the end. And when he did, the boy immediately started crying, while the Imp tried to pull the cloak in his bag around the boy''s body so that they could get moving quickly.


    "Stand up." The Imp told Rudy quietly, and the boy did so with a nod. "We''re going to get the Priestess, and then you will return to the Inn. Sammy, Clementine, and Leon are there waiting already." The Imp exined swiftly as he looked around the corner onto the street to see if there were any Demons there, and then quickly pulled Rudy along by his hand, although the Boy just looked at him confused.


    "Wh-What? Can-Can''t we go back to the Inn right now..?" Rudy asked, but the Imp just shook his head. "No. I want you to take the Priestess with you while I get Arc." The Imp exined, and Rudy just stopped walking, and the Imp was pulled back immediately.


    "Please don''t make me stay here..." Rudy asked quietly, and the Imp once more shook his head. "Greed Demons are different to Envy Demons. They stay to themselves and want to protect what they have, rather than steal it from others. Just wait for me in an alley, and I will bring the Priestess to you. Then I bring you to the gate of the town and head back to thest castle alone. Alright?" The Imp suggested, and while grasping his arm tightly, Rudy just looked down onto the ground, and the Imp took a step closer to push his head up, so that he could look him in the eye.


    "I need your help. Please." With a clear voice, the Imp told this to the Boy, who just slowly bit his lip and nodded silently in response to this, while the Imp once more started to pull Rudy behind him toward the next ce.


    It might be a bit hard to get the Priestess out of the Castle, because she might be locked up or something, but at the very least he could be near-to sure that she wasn''t dead or injured yet.. ording to the book, the Lord of Greed took good care of all of his possessions, especially if they were Unique like the Priestess was.

 Chapter 50 - Dumb

    "Wait here." The Imp told the young man in front of him, who slowly nodded his head in response. "Come back quickly..." Rudy asked of him, and the Imp just slightly formed his lips into a smile, trying to reassure him, although he wasn''t entirely sure if that worked the way that the Imp wanted it to, because Rudy just seemed even more nervous as the Imp turned around and left toward the structure not too far away from them.


    Slowly, the Imp made his way over toward the stairs, in front of which stood a guard, like usual. And just to lure him away and distract him, the Imp took out some coins out of the pouch in his bag and threw them away so that the Guard could hear and see the coins on the ground, which he quickly rushed toward.


    And so, once more trying to make use of his shadow-form, the Imp onto and up the stairs toward the room at the top of the tower-like castle.


    The moment that the Imp reached it, he noticed something that was very different to the other castles. The door was shut, and it didn''t seem like the Imp would be able to open it that easily. Knocking onto the door as hard as he could, the Imp tried to make someone pay attention to him, and apparently from the inside, someone was reacting, although more in a nervous rush to hide than open the door, so the Imp sighed and just started to think about what he should best do in order to get inside.


    "I have a gift." He then yelled out while stopping the flow of his mana through the Magic Stone, and now, there once more were sounds from the inside, although this time, they came closer to the door.


    "Wh-What gift?" A Voice from the inside asked, and the Imp took the pouch in his hand and moved it around to make the coins tter, and the Door opened up without hesitation and a thin hand reached out. Its surface was seemingly very damaged and had just recovered, meaning that the Priestess was seemingly still inside there. Either way, now that the Hand was reaching out, the Imp had a good idea at what he could do. He took some of the cloth that was around his finger before, the finger that had now been ripped off, and immediately pulled it around this hand.


    Instantly, sizzling-sounds appeared and smoke started rising off the spot, and the Imp pushed his dagger right through that cloth, trying to push it into the Lord''s skin, so that the cloth couldn''t fall off somehow.


    Immediately afterward, the arm tensed up and veins were popping up all over it, while the Imp knew that everything worked and the Lord was now unable to move.


    Through the thin gap in the door, the Imp rushed into the room and looked around, immediately able to see mountains and mountains of shiny rocks and coins, many of which the Imp never saw before. There were books stacked on top of each other, jewelry and sks that seemed too valuable to just haveying around like this, and of course in the middle of it, the priestess,ying inside a golden bowl, that the Imp immediately ran toward without minding anything else.


    Of course, the Lord of Envy didn''t like that very much. "Don''t touch it! That''s mine! Mine!" The Lord eximed angrily, but the Imp didn''t listen at all and just picked the young girl up. Seeing him, the girl immediately started giggling and extended her hands toward his face, so the Imp just slightly smiled at her and grasped the bowl tightly, slowly trying to head back to the door, where the Lord was using one of his six arms to try and reach out for the dagger in one of his hands.


    On his way out, the Imp tried to open the door as far as possible and rushed out, grabbing the dagger as he was going.


    The fastest that he could, the Imp rushed down the stairs, past the Guard and toward Rudy, who was already nervously waiting. But just when the Imp and Rudy wanted to make their way over toward town, the young boy started staring at something in the distance behind the Imp fearfully.


    And just for a moment, the Imp turned around and saw that it was the Lord of Greed, climbing down the side of the tower along the stairs using its many arms.


    Immediately, the Imp tried to think about what to do, and then grabbed the girl and pushed it into Rudy''s arms, switching the white cloth she was wrapped in with some ck cloth from his bag, and then bundling the white cloth up before cing it into the center of the bowl.


    "Run toward town as quickly as you can. I can''te with you, sorry." The Imp told Rudy, who was staring at him scaredly. "Wh-What, but you said that-"


    "I know what I said. I''ll make it up to you in town. Take the key, and run." While pressing the key to the Inn room into his hand, the Imp tried to make Rudy start walking forward, but it seemed like the boy was too scared to get going.


    So, the Imp did something that he felt like he had to do, moving a step closer toward Rudy. "If you stay here any longer, I will make your life hell. Get away from here this very moment, you useless child." The Imp said in the most fear-inflicting voice that he could, and Rudy''s body started shaking wildly, before the Imp pressed his teeth together and just stared into the boy''s eye.


    "Just fucking go!" The Imp swore, yelling as loudly as he could. This obviously pulled the attention of some Demons around to him, but that was what he wanted to do anyway. Keep attention on him instead of Rudy, who slowly realized how serious the situation was and turned, running away into the distance toward the human town.


    And while Rudy was running there, the Imp turned around to see where the Lord was, and to his surprise, he was already right in front of him, opening his mouth wide.


    "You-You! Give it back!" The Lord eximed and pushed his hand forward, and the Imp just immediately tried to activate the Three of Swords, and a ring appeared right around his middle finger, while the Holy Energy poured into that de. And as the hand of the Lord was moving toward the Imp quickly, the Three of Swords pushed forward as well, directly through the Lord''s skin.


    This obviously once more caused bubbling and sizzling, just as the Imp expected, and most importantly it made the Lord freeze up, giving him more than enough time to start running away again.


    A deep would like that seemed to take far longer to heal than the shallow one that the Imp caused with the cloth, and he was able to already make his way toward the next castle. At least that''s what the Imp thought, but before he could pass into the alley, a few Demons stood in front of him, staring at the bowl in his hand.


    It was made of gold, what else did he expect? The Imp ground his teeth and turned around, seeing that somehow, the Lord already started recovering. And then, the Imp realized what might have happened. He built up a resistance to it just like the Imp did, although obviously not as much. It still seemed to allow the Lord to recover much quicker, however.


    And so, before he knew it, the Imp felt the Lord''s hand around his neck, while the others grasped his body in different ces. Immediately afterward, the Imp was pulled away back toward the Tower and then saw the ground get further and further away, while the hands around his body grew tighter by the moment.


    Then, the door was pushed shut in front of him, and the Imp was thrown into the pile of treasure.


    "Now, stay. You are mine now, mine... Only mine, only mine..." The Lord muttered quietly, crawling up to the Throne before huddling up on it, pullings his legs onto his chest while looking around the room nervously.


    And then, the Imp just looked around. He wouldn''t be killed? He didn''t need to worry about Rudy arriving in town? As long as he got another chance to escape somehow, then the Imp would be able to just run toward the castle of the Lord of Lust and get Arc back as well somehow.


    Then everything would be perfect! The Imp just somehow had to figure out how to best get out of this ce again. Although, in the book about the Lords, the Imp read that the Demonic Town would appear each and every single night, and would disappear when the blood-red moon in the sky couldn''t be seen anymore. At the moment, the moon was in the center of the sky, so only half the night was over so far.


    From what the Imp read, it didn''t seem like the lord of Lust was the type of Demon that cared about captives all that much, except if they could ''pleasure'' him, whatever that meant. Arc seemed to be out to annoy most people around him, and that wasn''t pleasant at all, so the Imp figured that would be fine.


    And so, he figured it wouldn''t be hard to get Arc back, and then they would return to town, wait for day toe again, and then get out of there.


    With a satisfied nod, the Imp slowly stood up, and although the Lord was constantly staring at him as he was moving, he didn''t do anything. It seemed like for now, the Imp would be able to move around in this room without an issue.


    But most importantly, the Imp stepped in front of the Lord and slowly spoke.


    "Can you tell me about the things you own?" The Imp asked, slowly trying to make use of how the Lord was supposed to ''like showing off'', as was said in the book. It seemed like the Lord was slightly suspicious, but the Imp just tried to smile somehow, before the Lord slowly ask.


    "What... What do you want to know about?" He asked quietly, peeking at the Imp between his fingers, and the Imp swiftly spoke. "What is the most useful thing you own?"


    Slowly, the Lord reached his hand out toward one of the piles directly next to his throne, pulling out a small bag. "This... It''s a spatial bag... It can hold a lot more things than what it looks like..." The Lord exined, turning the bag upside down just to cause a stream of coins and gems to pour out of it, and the Imp looked at the amount of things that appeared out of seemingly nowhere, before the Lord ced the bag down on top of that pile, and then the Imp just stared at it with a slight smile.


    "What is the most dangerous thing you own?" The Imp asked next, and the Lord pointed toward the other side of the room toward the bowl, where he seemed to still assume the Priestess to be.


    "That over there." He exined, and so the Imp slowly nodded his head.


    "Makes sense." The Imp replied, and then he slowly pulled a small orb out of his bag. "This is the most interesting thing I own. Want to try using it?" The Imp asked, and the Lord slowly nodded his head, before the Imp gave the small Holy Energy Magic Stone to him.


    "Don''t do anything yet. You see, the way that you use it is very simple, but it might hurt. Do you see the slightly golden color? If you put that sphere against your heart and put all your mana into it, you get the ability to turn anything you touch into gold!" The Imp exined. It seemed like none of the Lords were especially smart, so he was hoping that this would work somehow, choosing to slowly demonstrate what he meant. Carefully, the Imp ground his teeth and cut into his chest, slowly cing the Magic Stone inside.


    [-189 Health]


    This might be really, really dumb, but it seemed like the Lord was also really, really dumb, and repeated what the Imp was doing as well.


    "Now, you can put your mana into that stone." The Imp exined with a smile, and the Lord slowly did as told, seemingly too greedy for gold to think about anything else.


    And then, the Imp sighed slowly in relief, pulling the Magic Stone back out before using a me Magic Stone to burn the wound shut again.. Because right now, the Lord''s whole body was starting to bubble up and sizzle, because it fell for the Imp''s lie.

 Chapter 51 - There’s Something In My Throat

    The Imp stared forward at the Lord of Greed as his body was starting to bubble up and steam rose from his mouth and nostrils, while the Lord''s body had simply frozen up.


    And while that was happening, the Imp hurried up and grabbed the bag that wasying on top of the pile next to that Lord. He hadn''t expected to find such a useful item this quickly, and hearing that the most dangerous things in here were the baby priestess, even if she wasn''t actuallly here, as well as the Lord himself from the Imp''s position, he didn''t seem to have much to worry about.


    He wanted to test this small trick out, maybe injure the Lord somehow to make it freeze up and give him another chance to escape, but like this he had more than just that. He had a chance to kill this Demon.


    But first, just in case, the Imp rushed around the room and picked up whatever seemed most useful to him personally. That included not only the different books, but also some of the coins and smaller trinkets that could be found here. Of course, the Lord of Greed wasn''t happy about that, but there was nothing it could do anymore.


    It just had to sit there and slowly wither away. Although the Imp did want to try and help him out with that, and activated his Three of Swords, and it connected with his Dagger and probably also the Holy Energy streaming out of his hand, and the Imp simply pushed the de slowly against the Demon''s forehead, trying to make it push deeper and deeper.


    Soon, the Imp was met with a strong, solid surface inside of the Lord''s forehead, although it seemed like the Lord''s body was giving in, considering that the de was slowly moving forward, as if slowly opening up.


    And so, soon enough, a certain few notifications appeared in front of the Imp.


    [Lethal Damage done to the Lord of Greed]


    [You leveled up!]


    [You leveled up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [You leveled up!]


    [You have 49 Unusued Stat Points]


    [You have in one of <The Devil>''s Experiments]


    [<The Devil> doesn''t take kindly to this]


    Immediately, the Imp felt dizzinesse over him as he gained a mass of experience that he had never gotten before, and an ufortable feeling together with thest two notifications that appeared, speaking about ''The Devil''.


    The Imp didn''t know who this was, or what this was, but he at the very least was aware that this wasn''t a good thing.


    Either way, for now, the Imp just had to leave again. This Demon behind him was now dead, so he could leave without any issues after stuffing the bag full with as much stuff as he could. It was pretty heavy, although still not as heavy as it would have been if he had carried all of this stuff by hand outside of this special bag.


    At some point it seemed to bepletely full, so the Imp pulled it shut by the strings at the top and slung it around his shoulder, before heading toward the door.


    Of course, he also grabbed the white cloth that was still in the bowl, it woulde in useful, after all. All of this just felt so off that the Imp had no clear exnation for it. They were so strong, but why was it so easy to kill this Lord of Greed? Why was it so easy to trick the Lord of Pride into fighting the Lord of Wrath, and why was the Lord of Envy so easily convinced where Rudy supposedly went?


    Right now the Imp wasn''t sure if he was just smarter than he thought he was, or if these Lords were dumber than he thought they were, or maybe even both. Either way, this situation felt off, and the Imp couldn''t exin it.


    But in the end, there was no reason toin, because this only helped the Imp out more. Although, just when the Imp stepped onto the stairs, he noticed that something else was going on. The tower was slowly starting to crumble down in the center of therge room, as if it wasn''t able to exist without the Lord being alive.


    Immediately, the Imp started running, because his instincts told him that he wasn''t going to have a good time if he didn''t hurry the fuck up, and just as he thought, a few of the steps he was cing his feet onto instantly broke down the moment he touched them.


    He was able to react quickly most of the time, although he did fall sometimes. It drained a little of his health each time, although never enough to actually be life-threatening. And then, at the bottom of the stairs, the Imp was bruised all over, the freshly-closed wound on his chest and the wound on his hand where his finger once was had opened up again, while the Imp''s cloak nearlypletely ripped up.


    But it didn''t matter, he had to keep going. For some reason, it seemed like this area around him here was breaking down as well. These streets that were under the control of the Lord of Greed were now slowly crumbling, just because the Imp killed it. But he was fine with that, really. He didn''t care if such a horrid being died, he made the mistake of making that shadow steal his children, so it wasn''t the Imp''s fault that he had to die.


    But exactly that thought reminded the Imp of something else. When the Lord of Wrath was reprimanding the Gatekeeper for bringing the Imp to him, he had said ''Shadows''. More than one. With a bad feeling in his stomach, the Imp continued on forward, just rushing ahead as quickly as he could and even put some of his avable Stat points into Agility to speed his body up some, just because he wanted to get back to the children as fast as he could. The others he split up between Intelligence, Wisdom, and Perception.


    And so, the Imp just started booking it toward thest castle, the one belonging to the Lord of Lust. And the moment that he entered into the area seemingly belonging to that Lord, the whole vibe just changed. Demons were out on the street, intertwining their bodies together tightly with each other, oftentimes with a lot of different people at once.


    The Imp really didn''t understand the reason behind this, although he recognized some of these Demons to be simr to the ''Subus'' that he saw and killed before.


    But that didn''t matter to the Imp, in the end. A few of the different Demons tried to stop the Imp as he was rushing through, grasping his body in different, ufortable ces, but he just continued on forward no matter what happened.


    And then, just when the Imp could see the stairs leading up to the top of the Tower-Like castle, he heard something very different at the same time.


    Through all of the pleasured moans and sounds of giggling andughter, the Imp could hear the voice of someone crying.


    And it was a voice that he recognized pretty well, to be exact. It was Arc, and if he was crying somehow, it must mean that something horrid happened to him. So of course immediately, the Imp turned his body and rushed through the alley, before he saw arge man standing in front of him, holding the young boy by the shoulders while numerous Demons were gathering around them.


    They were holding Arc in ways that the Imp saw all throughout this area of town, and their heads were in ces that the Imp didn''t imagine anyone wanting their heads to be. Bust most importantly, in the mass of Demons, thepletely unclothed Arc seemed to practically be swallowed down into the mass of deep red, demonic flesh.


    Then, for just a single moment, the Imp and Arc locked eyes, and the young Demon couldn''t fight against the movement of his body anymore. A single urge overcame him, that was caused by all of these Demons around him that he had seen until now.


    Slowly, the Imp took off his tattered cloak, his pants, and his shoes, cing his bags to the side together with this apparel, so that he was only left standing there with the cloth around his arm and a little bit of cloth around his hips to cover hisher regions up.


    And so, the Imp slowly approached the group of huddled-up Demons, constantly just staring at the little bit of Arc''s skin as he could see, and then... held his palm forward toward the figure that the Imp only imagined to be the Lord, judging from the other Lords the Imp has seen until now.


    "Huh? What, you get turned on by my face, huh?" The Lord asked with a grin and slowly leaned forward, "You know what? Sure. With such a great new toy, I''m in a good mood." With a slight whistle, the Lord ced his cheek against the Imp''s cloth-covered palm, before the young Demon himself just red at him and all at once activated the three different kinds of Magic Stones that were now hidden underneath the cloth.


    Fire Magic Stones, Wind Magic Stones, and Holy Energy Magic Stones. The Imp wasn''t sure if it would work, but it seemed like Holy Energy was something that easily stuck to other things, judging from the cloth around his hand, so he thought ''Why not other Magic?''.


    And immediately as he activated these three different elements, an explosion shot forward against the Lord''s face that immediately ripped through his flesh, causing his jaw and most of the rest of his face to bepletely obliterated.


    Of course, the other Demons behind him weren''t left unscathed either, and the Imp was soon surrounded by numerous notifications telling him about the Damage he did to them, and how he even killed a few ''Lesser Subi'' and ''Lesser Incubi'', although those were the only ones that this attack immediately killed.


    The cloth around the Imp''s hand was ripped off immediately as well, and the few pieces that were still left on it slowly fell off when the Imp grasped his palm in pain.


    But the pain in his hand didn''t matter anymore, and the Imp grabbed some of the cloth that fell down and bundled more of the Fire, Wind and Holy Energy Magic Stones together inside of it, before grabbing onto one of the Lord''s wounds to pull himself up on it, and then stuffed the bundle of cloth right into the shocked Lord''s throat.


    He wasn''t able to move due to the Holy Energy, of course, so this wasn''t a hard thing to do, really.. But no matter how easy it ended up being, the Imp wasn''t able to hold back the joy he felt when he stared deep into the Lord''s horrified eyes, and pushed his mana into the bundle of cloth inside of the Lord''s throat.

 Chapter 52 - Eiro

    While the Imp stared forward at the figure of the a Lord''s body copsing, a number of notifications appeared.


    [Lethal Damage done to the Lord of Lust]


    [You leveled up!]


    [You leveled up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [You leveled up!]


    [You have 28 Unusued Stat Points]


    [You have in one of <The Devil>''s Experiments]


    [<The Devil> doesn''t take kindly to this]


    The Imp slowly turned around and looked at the number of demons, still huddling around Arc. It seemed like even if they didn''t die, they were still hit at least momentarily, and as such they had to first recover from the Damage done to them before they were able to move.


    And so, the Imp just grabbed them wherever he could and pulled them away from Arc''s body, before grabbing the young boy by the arm to pull him away. Of course, the first thing that the Imp did was use the white cloth to give Arc something to cover himself up with, and then he quickly rubbed some of the blood on his body away before putting his clothes back on. He didn''t want to reek of this Lord''s disgusting blood when he got back to the others, so that''s why he took his clothes off just then.


    Then, the moment that they had all that they needed on them, the Imp simply took Arc''s hand before he pulled him away out of this side-alley, and quickly headed toward the nearestrge street, although the buildings seemed to slowly start copsing.


    At this point, the tower of the Lord of Greed had fully copsed onto the town below, and from what the Imp could see in the distance, so did the towers of the Lord of Pride and Envy. The town of the Lord of Gluttony still seemed to be standing, at leastpared to those others, but there were still a lot of different things going on there. And the Lord of Sloth''s tower still just had a few chunks missing in it, although it was alright otherwise.


    And for some reason, this sight of chaos all around this ce that was just so unkind to him and the children filled him with joy, and the Imp could simply continue pulling Arc along toward the human town in the distance.


    Most of the Demons around him seemed to be practically undisturbed by what was happening to the town around them, and continued on doing whatever they were already doing beforehand, while the Imp just scowled at them and went on together with the boy, before they finally reached the gate of the town and stepped through them.


    It seemed like a lot of the Humans that lived here had gone outside onto the streets again in response to the loud sounds of chaos surrounding this town, and they were especially staring at the Imp as he stepped through the streets with a sobbing child in tow.


    And just then, the fat,zy Guard that let them enter the town with the carriage before stopped the Imp. Not to mention the food-covered clothes he was wearing, his expression was both exhausted and horrified as he fell to his knees in front of the Imp.


    "Wh-What''s going on?! I thought as long as we held up our side, you would all stay here! Do you know how many people we sacrificed for yo-" The Guard eximed, but before he could finish, had the Imp''s dagger in his chest.


    "Oh, so it really was you people that made the Lords appear?" The Imp asked, and the thinly, nervous young man that was with the Fat Guard instantly ran up to him.


    "Y-You, what are you doing?!" He eximed, and the Imp slowly pushed the Dagger deeper into the Guard''s heart, just ring at the young man.


    "That''s what I would like to know. Because of you, I nearly lost the children. I lost my finger. Nearly died numerous times. And all that just for you to have a little fun?" The moment that the Imp asked this, he pulled the dagger out of the chest of this Guard and pushed it back into his body right through his eye.


    [Lethal Damage done to Eric Kirks]


    The moment that this round, heavy body copsed on the ground, the young man next to him fell backward and just stared at the Imp in fear.


    "Wh-What... Leave, please! Don''t hurt us! You killed him, so we''re even, right?" The young man asked, his knees shaking wildly as he tried to get used to this horrible feeling.


    "Sure." The Imp said with a smile, stepping away beside the Guard''s limb body together with Arc, who seemed to be slowly calming down, and the young man and the onlookers stared at the Imp confused, and the young Demon himself just looked into the Sky toward the dark red ''moon'', seeing that it was nearly by the horizon.


    And so, the Imp quickly brought the boy to the Inn while everyone in this town stepped aside the moment they saw him. Just a few momentster, the Imp pushed the Inn door open and stepped inside, quickly finding the children huddled up together inbetween two of the beds.


    "We''re back." He said, and immediately, the children raised their heads and stared at the two figures in the doorway, before they jumped up all at once and rushed toward them, before one of them pointed out one more small thing.


    "Mister... your... your hand is..." Sammy muttered quietly as she looked over at it, and the Imp slowly turned to take a look at it.


    Beside the blood seeping out of the poorly-closed wound where his finger once was, the Imp basically had no single intact patch of skin left on there, as it was all either slowly burnt away by the holy cloth, the Holy Energy Magic Stones, or just now the explosivebination of three different Magic Stones.


    The Imp did take a lot of damage throughout this night, and while most of it always recovered again, there were currently a constant 200 Health missing that weren''t recovered again.


    "Don''t worry." The Imp said clearly, before slowly looking around the room. "Take everything you can carry, we are going back to the Carriage." He announced, slowly walking over to some of the books spread across this room, before picking them up with his left hand. He was barely able to move his right one at the moment.


    The children, one after another, helped and chose to pick up some of the other books as well before following the Imp outside as he headed toward the Stables.


    There, it didn''t take long to find the owner of the stables either, who they quickly asked to take the carriage out. Of course he was surprised to find out that the man he had met before was actually a Demon, but for the most part, he didn''t seem too shocked to do his job. And so, when the Children sat back down inside of the Carriage, the Imp slowly sat down at the front and tried to remember what exactly Arc always did and what he was told before when they entered the town and the Imp took over, and the Imp tried to somehow steer the Carriage toward the closest Gate, and the blood-red moon went down beyond the horizon, before the Demonic Town simply disappeared in a sh the moment that the day''s first sunlight streamed across the world.


    The Gate in front of the Imp also changed back to the one that the Imp passeding in here, but he still had something else that he wanted to do here. He stepped off of the carriage and directly toward the building that was next to him, which still had its door broken down fromst night. The Corpse of the Tenaga Jin had disappeared by now, however.


    And as the Imp was standing there, someone else walked up to him again. And it was the young man from before again, who was seemingly just pretty shocked to see the Imp standing there for some reason.


    "How are you still here?! You Demons disappear every morning!" He eximed, and the Imp nodded his head.


    "Those Demons? Yes. Me? No." The Imp pointed out, and slowly stepped up to the young man, before stabbing the de of the Three of Swords directly into his leg, shing through it to make him drop to the ground, before doing the same to his other leg as well, to make sure he couldn''t stand up.


    "Now, you spoke about being even, didn''t you?" He asked, slowly stepping up to the screaming young man before grabbing him by the hair, dragging him into the Bookshop. This actually was very exhausting and painful to even the Imp, because he had to use both hands, and one of them was utterly fucked up at the moment.


    Once in there, the Imp stood in front of the young man and manipted the three of swords to cut into his chest a little. Of course he was being heavily damaged right now, and that would surely continue on for a while, but for now, the young man wouldn''t die from this wound yet, at least that''s what he was hoping.


    He was doing this for a very specific reason, after all.


    And so, having cut his chest open, the Imp simply pushed one of hisst Fire Magic Stones into that wound, as deep as he could, until it reached the man''s heart.


    Just like that, the Imp once more hurt himself by burning his fingers on the stone, as it was currently being kept active by this man''s body, while the mes seeped through his very being and started to burn him to ashes, using the books around him as fuel to spread the fire around.


    Satisfied at the fact that this man still didn''t die just yet, the Imp stepped out of the bookstore and sat back down on the front of the carriage, driving it out of the town, which had just started to catch fire behind him.


    The Imp wasn''t entirely sure where he was supposed to be going right now, and he didn''t know what to do next. He still had that urge to bring the Priestess away to somewhere, but it was far weaker than it was before, so the Imp was thinking about maybe just not doing that. Maybe they should just head off to some ce and live there peacefully. That sounded good enough, didn''t it?


    And so, for now, the Imp just brought the carriage to a halt about an hour away, which seemed far enough away from that town, right next to a small pond, and then walked up to the back of the carriage to open the door up.


    "You cane out now." The imp told them, and quite nervously and slowly the children did as told, cing their feet onto the cold ground in front of them.


    "Everything''s back to normal now, right?" Rudy asked nervously as he grasped his arm, and the Imp slowly nodded his head in response. "It is, yes." He replied, and the children slowly started to rx, before the Imp pointed at the pond.


    "Let''s clean ourselves up."


    With a nod, they followed the Imp to the small body of water, and the Imp slowly ced his hand into the water, and while the Imp expected a painful stinging, what he found was rather different... He felt nothing. Blood streamed outward from his wounds on his hand, but the Imp didn''t feel anything, Confused, he slowly pushed his teeth against his arm to see if he felt any pain at all, and soon just pulled back when he noticed that he did.


    With a slight sigh, the Imp stared forward into the water, before Arc sat down directly next to him. "You... Don''t have a name yet, right?" He asked, and the Imp slowly shook his head.


    "I don''t." The Imp replied, before noticing that the other children, Sammy carrying Leon, and Rudy carrying the Priestess, walked up behind him as well.


    "Can we still give you a name?" Sammy then asked, and the Imp nodded his head.


    "You can." The young Demon said, and then looked to his left as Clementine sat down next to him.


    "We came up with one just now..." She admitted, and Rudy slowly, nervously spoke up as well.


    "You saved us... And you got hurt for us... That''s why we could only choose one name for you..." The young boy said quietly, and the Imp just kept staring into the water, while Arc spoke again.


    "The name of the first Hero...." He muttered, "Eiro."

 Chapter 53 - Boar’s Leg

    [A possible name has been chosen for you. Do you want to be named <Eiro>?]


    After this notification appeared, the Imp slowly read through it and then couldn''t help himself but slightly smile in response.


    "Of course."


    [You are now <Eiro>]


    Slowly, the Imp turned toward the Children around him and then stood up. "Thank you for giving me a name." The Imp told them, and it seemed to be hard for these Children to hide their joy at their suggestion being epted.


    But then, one of them asked a pretty important question. "And... What next?" Arc asked with a bright smile, like he always wore on his lips, all the whilst both Leon and the Priestess started crying at roughly the same time.


    "For now, let''s eat." The Imp suggested, slowly standing back up before drying his hand by waving it back and forth, and him and the children made their way back to the Carriage, where Rudy quickly grabbed a few different things from inside.


    "Th-There''s one thing I want to try, then..." He muttered quietly, holding the cookbook in his hands. "While I''m preparing everything in here, can one of you here get some fire-wood?" The plump boy asked with a nervous expression, obviously both excited and scared to make food for the others for the first time.


    "I will go." The Imp said with a clear tone in his voice, already trying to take a look around to see if there was anything around that could be of use, although he then also noticed that the others seemed rather conflicted about it. They were probably worried about being left alone, but luckily, Arc tuned in not long after he noticed this as well.


    "Alright, go already! We''ll be fine for a few minutes!" The young boy eximed and pushed his arm forward while giving the Imp, now known as Eiro, a thumbs-up.


    With a slow nod, the Imp then just turned around and left toward the bushes around them so that he could pass through into the woods. It didn''t really take that long to find a fair amount of suitable firewood, the issue was more about trying to carry it properly, with his hand in the state it was. He couldn''t bend his fingers properly right now, so he mainly just used his stiff hand to push the wood against his chest to keep it in ce.


    But just then, Eiro saw a piece of wood that seemed just perfect! It seemed kind of out of ce though, mostly because it had a very different color to the wood that the Imp was carrying so far. Although before he knew it, the piece of wood was pulled away through the bush it was sticking out from, and the Imp could hear a voice on the other side, making him immediately hide.


    "Ah, here it was... I nearly thought I lost it..." A shaking, male voice said, before slow footsteps could be heard, muffled by the heavy breathing of what seemed to be an animal, which the Imp could swiftly confirm by stealing a nce from inbetween a gap in the bush he was hiding behind of.


    Eiro''s Stealth skill was pretty high, so it should allow him to stay here properly hidden until that old man finished the boar off with that weird weapon of his.


    But to the Imp''s surprise... the old man didn''t try to kill the boar at all. Instead, he was carving into the piece of wood, simply calmly sitting right next to the boar. Eiro had some quite weird feeling about this old man, although he couldn''t directly pin-point it right now.


    If he wanted to find that out, he had to try and move around the small clearing to maybe get a proper look, although it seemed like Eiro had already been noticed.


    "Isn''t it kind of rude to spy on a defenseless old man such as myself?" He asked, and the Imp''s body immediately froze up.


    "Haha, there''s no need to try and deny it. I already know you''re there." The old man chuckled, and the young demon ground his teeth together and stood up. "How did you know?"


    "I heard you, how else?" Replied the man quite swiftly, and the Imp held his dagger tightly, simply not believing that. "How could you know I was not another animal? You saw me, didn''t you?"


    If Eiro was seen, then that might be dangerous. The people at the town before also seemed nice enough, but then they turned out to be horrible creatures that couldn''t be trusted. If the Imp was seen, he might have to kill this man...


    "Oh, don''t worry..." The old man muttered quietly, slowly turning his head toward Eiro, who was now able to see that he really was telling the truth.


    Because this old man had a singlerge scar running across his face. From one eye, over the bridge of the nose to the other eye.


    "I can assure you, I did not see you." With another low chuckle, the man turned back toward the wood in his hand and continued to carve into it, while Eiro just stared at his back confused. He really wasn''t able to see him?


    Confused, the Imp stepped up behind the old man, once more grasping his dagger tightly. It didn''t matter whether or not he was actually ''seen'', as long as it was known that he was there, this man was dangerous to Eiro and the children.


    And so, the Imp just held the dagger in his left hand and chose to push it straight into the back of the old man''s neck. But instead of having blood sttered on him like usual, what followed was the sound of metal hitting metal. Eiro didn''t really understand what just happened, but it seemed like this old man perfectly defended against an attack in his blindspot with a small carving-knife...


    "Now now, at least wait until I helped this little one out, will you?" The old man asked, turning his head to just smile at the Imp, who slowly just stared at him.


    Eiro was pretty curious about what the old man was doing, so he just let him do what he wanted for now, and chose to for a moment just watch what would happen next.


    And what happened was that the wood was surprisingly quickly carved into different pieces, which the old man joined together with each other, before slowly pouring some sort of white liquid in a bottle onto the Boar''s leg. Or rather, what was left of it. It seemed like most of what was supposed to be underneath the knee just wasn''t there at all.


    Once the Boar seemed to have actually calmed down, the old man pulled some string around the upper part of the Boar''s leg and then used another knife he had with him to cut the leg just straight off, leaving what just seemed to be a t stump underneath the knee.


    Eiro at first thouht that the Boar would jump up any moment now because of the pain it was in, but it just simply keptying there quietly, before the old man ran his hand over the stump and muttered something quietly.


    "Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wass. Jiadis Naia." As the old man was speaking, water seemed to slowly be gathering around his palm, slowly covering the wound at the end of the Boar''s leg. It seemed like the blood from the wound was slightly mixing with the water, but in the end, the wound was slowly closing itself down.


    The old man seemed quite exhausted after that one, but he still continued on. And while he pulled away his right hand, which was still ''holding'' the small bubble of slightly red water, his left hand was attaching the wooden leg that was just finished to the not yet fully-closed wound, and then pushed the water back against the ce where the wood and the flesh were touching.


    Just a few momentster, the old man then held his right hand to the side and let the water flow down his fingers into the ground, while his left hand ran over the wooden leg a few more times, before the old man pushed himself up using both of them and then grabbed the different tools that wereying next to him and ced them into therge box that stood next to him, slowly approaching Eiro when he was done.


    Of course the young Demon was confused at what exactly was going on and readied himself to attack the old man, but instead, the old man just turned back around, right toward the boar.


    "A Hunter set a trap out here, you see?" He said after a little while, and the Imp slowly turned toward him surprised. But before Eiro could ask a question, the old man already continued. "It happens surprisingly often. People pass through on their travels, set up camps, and as they of course want to eat, also set up traps. Some of them end up not being used for a while, and then aren''t taken down. The trap this time around was a rather gruesome one, causing in the scene from before. I didn''t think I should let such a beautiful young animal die for naught." The old man chuckled, before slowly pointing his finger forward, where the Boar could be seen slowly standing up.


    It didn''t seem to be in any major pain right now, even if it wasn''t used to walking with this false, wooden leg. Either way, for a moment, the Boar looked at Eiro and the old man, before huffing out air through its nostrils and grunting.


    The Imp thought it woulde to attack them now, but instead, it just turned around and left into the deeper forest.


    "Now then, should we continue on from where we had left off before? Is there a reason you want to kill me?"


    Slowly, the Imp just looked at him, up and down a few times, and then sighed. "There is not. My mistake, sorry." Eiro said quite clearly, before looking at the wood in his arms as well as therge chunks stillying on the ground where the old man was carving before.


    "Can I take that wood?" He asked, and surprised, the old man nodded his head. "Go right ahead, young man."


    Satisfied with that answer, the Imp slowly stepped over there and piled everything onto the sticks in his arms, before he heard the old man speak up again.


    "Are those children I am hearing with you?" The old man inquired curiously, and the Imp immediately turned around. "They are. Don''t go near them." Eiro told him without a second of hesitation, before the old man simply chuckled.


    "Sorry, I was just slightly curious. It''s not every day you see children like that travel with a Demon, after all."


    The very moment that this man revealed that he knew who, or rather what, Eiro was, he dropped the wood to the ground without hesitation and pushed his mana into the three of swords, trying to attack the old man to get rid of him. He was far too dangerous after all.


    But instead of having his throat pierced, the old man simply dodged the Imp''s attack with a single step to the side. He immediately turned his body to try and attack him with his dagger and the three of swords at the same time, of course, but once more, the old man simply dodged his attacks with incredibly agility.


    For a short while, the Imp nearlypletely exhausted the little energy he actually had left in his body, and then just stared at the man with a deep heaving.


    "Who... are you..?" Eiro asked, and the old man just put his hands behind his back and shook his head while clicking his tongue.


    "Youngsters these days... Don''t even have the manners to introduce themselves first..." The old man muttered quietly, while the Imp realized something. He realized what this weird feeling he had about this man was all about.


    "My name is Jura, I''m a Prosthetist."


    This old man was a Card Owner.

 Chapter 54 - Green Flames

    "Go away!" The Imp eximed with a deep, nearly feral growl originating in the back of his throat. He may have only met two people that had cards until now, but both of them were insanely dangerous, so Eiro was sure that this old man was as well.


    It was obvious from seeing how he was able to dodge all of the Imp''s attacks, after all. In response to Eiro''s request, the old man just sighed quietly and walked over to the box that he put his tools in earlier, before slowly picking it up and cing it on his back. For some reason, the Imp didn''t expect him to be able to actually lift it up, just because it looked pretty heavy, but in the old man Jura''s hands it looked at light as the sticks in front of Eiro''s feet.


    While starting to quietly grumble, the old man turned around and just left deeper into the forest, before the Imp quickly picked up the pieces of wood and sticks in front of him, before quickly bringing them back to the ce where the children were already waiting for him nervously.


    "What took you so long?!" Sammy eximed as she looked at Eiro, who just ced the sticks down in a pile in front of him. "Sorry." He replied quietly before starting to properly turn the sticks into the shape of a campfire, like he remembered it being done from before, at least, and then ced a Fire Magic Stone against the sticks to start a fire.


    And a few minutester, when the campfire was actually burning properly, Arc and Rudy quickly set up everything they needed to properly cook the food in the form of different metal pieces over the fire, before Rudy started to finish everything up properly using the utensils from the Carriage. Of course the Imp was trying to somehow help Rudy out and make sure everything was working properly, even if he didn''t need to worry about the boy somehow hurting himself.


    Either way, just a little whileter, the food was done and they could all start eating after the babies were fed as well. However, from the distance, the Imp could then heard the voices of different people as they approached with the help of a carriage, and immediately scrambled around to try and find a way to hide himself from them. It was a different business with the children, but since Eiro was a monster, if these people were potentially dangerous, then they were fucked if Eiro was seen.


    Immediately, Eiro wrapped his face in some cloth that was in the carriage and tried to hide any parts of his red skin that were visible to the outside, and then stood in front of the carriage to make sure that he got a proper look at those that were trying to pass.


    "Damn, we got really lucky this time, didn''t we?" One of the two men sitting at the front of the carriage asked the other one loudly, letting the Imp listen into the conversation at a quite convenient starting point.


    "You can say that again! If this was really made by that guy, so we should be able to sell the wood alone for, what, a small Gold coin at the very least? And we were just passing through as well!" The Other replied with a loudugh, while the first one replied once more, holding up a piece of wood in a quite familiar shape, although one end of it was quite bloody.


    This was definitely the fake leg that that old man made for the Boar before.


    It didn''t seem like they were dangerous to the point of randomly attacking other people, so the carriage of those two men just passed through along the road.


    Just as Eiro was trying to rx, he heard another part of the men''s conversation. "Why is this so valuable though? It''s just some wood..." One of them muttered, and the other quickly replied with a loudugh.


    "Ah, it''s a popr material for wands''n''shit, cuz it''s on the cheaper side for those. But mainly, Nobles burn it up at parties ''cause it dyes the mes when burnt up." He exined, and immediately, the Imp turned around to the campfire, seeing that Rudy was currently trying to ce another piece of wood into the fire, one of which was the very same wood those two were talking about.


    The very moment that the wood started burning, the red mes shot upward in a bright green color that basically illuminated the whole area around them, despite it being the middle of the day and the sun was up in the sky. "Oi... does it look like that?" Eiro heard one of the men ask, while the other slowed the carriage down, and the Imp swiftly turned toward the children.


    "Hide in the carriage." He told them immediately, and although Rudy seemed somewhat conflicted because there was still some food left over the fire, they all just ended up doing what the Imp asked them to and stepped into the carriage again so that the Imp could take care of everything.


    And just when Eiro made sure that the door behind them was properly shut, one of the men reached the carriage as well.


    "Good morning to you, good sir. Could we maybe ask you one teeny tiny question?" He asked, and the Imp nodded his head.


    "Yes. Was that all?" Eiro asked in response, and the man that spoke to him just now turned to the other one confused, who was rubbing the bridge of his nose annoyedly.


    "Don''t y smart with us here, bud. We''re from one of the northern tribes, you''re just a twerp. Ya ain''t gonna want to start a fight with us here, so just answer us. Where did you get the wood you just burnt up? And did you make this thing here?" The man asked, but the Imp immediately shook his head.


    Eiro didn''t really understand what the ''Northern Tribes'' were, but these men did seem pretty strong, so the Imp would prefer to just get them to go away without fighting them, because it probably wouldn''t end all that nicely for him.


    "I found it in the forest when looking for firewood. Just in small chunks though. And I didn''t make that, sorry." The Imp replied, but the men just stared at the Imp annoyedly.


    "Seriously? Ya just found itying on the ground or something?" One of them asked, so Eiro slowly nodded his head. That''s technically what happened, after all.


    "You expect us to believe that? Wouldn''t that be a bit of a big coincidence? This thing here was just made, it''s still super dry. And then we coincidentally find someone using this wood to make some food? That''d be a bit weird, wouldn''t it?" The man asked, but the Imp had no idea how to respond to that.


    Was it? He really wasn''t sure about that, but maybe it was. Although, the Imp didn''t really care. He just wanted to finally get some sleep, as his legs were already giving in to his body at this point and it was hard to keep his eyes open.


    "Listen, just tell us where you and the geezer got the wood, and we''ll be right off." The other, dumber and nicer, man pointed out, and the Imp sighed slightly. "In that direction." He exined and pointed his hand toward the forest, although just when he did, he realized something being off. Who was the ''geezer'' that the man just spoke about?


    The Imp didn''t notice when at all, but at some point in time, someone sneaked past him. And it was the blind old man Jura, sitting around the fire currently using a knife to pick up some of the slightly-burnt meat on top of the fire.


    "Oh, you must givepliments to that boy, he did a great job with this." Jura said after turning the meat into a mushy substance in his mouth, and then turned over toward the two men standing in front of the Imp.


    "But as for you... I worked pretty hard on that, you know? It''s not easy to find the right wood for the right beast, much less coincidentally have it with you..." The old man said with a sigh and stood up, slowly stepping toward the men and Eiro with his hands behind his back, before one of them realized what Jura just said.


    "Wait, you made this?!" He asked, and Jura slowly nodded his head with a slight grumble.


    "Of course I did. And if you please, I would like you to give it back to me so I can hand it back to the Boar you took it from."


    Completely ignoring the old man''s words, the man just rushed past him and toward the wooden box that stood behind Jura. "Is this where you keep the wood? Is there more inside here?"


    "Oh? You are interested in my craft? I am currently looking for an apprentice... Would you like to learn from me? You do seem health enough." Jura said with a sligh chuckle, all the whilst the Imp stared at him, trying to figure out where he came from and how he could actually see those two men with his eyes in the state they were in. Was it some sort of Magic?


    "Apprentice? Listen, if you''re the one that made this, you''re Jura, right? I ain''t gonna risk my life to be some dumb prosthetic carver. So tell me how to open this thing, and we won''t tell the Guards at the next town you''re around here." The man said with a smirk, and the old man just sighed out deeply while shaking his head.


    "Is that so? What a shame." Jura replied, and slowly stepped up to the men before just grabbing the box by the handle and swinging it onto his back with a swift motion and then turned toward Eiro.


    "Thank you for the food, tell that boy it was delicious." With a slight, calm nod, the old man started to smile and tried to turn away, although one of the men grabbed the box before he could do so.


    "Not so fast! Didn''t you hear what he just said?" The dumber man asked, trying to pull the old man back, although he failed to do so miserably. And the smarter man then turned around toward the campfire and grabbed a piece of wood that only had one of its ends burning, then walked over toward the Carriage.


    "If you don''t stop right now, I''ll burn this piece of shit thing down!" The man eximed, "Do you want that?!"


    Slowly, the old man stopped walking and just interlocked his fingers between his back. "Hoho... I''m not so sure you will~." Jura chuckled, and before the man could figure out what he meant, he already had a hot dagger in the side of his neck, something which was only possible because the man was paying attention to the old man instead of the Imp standing right next to him.


    And with a quick motion, the Imp pulled the dagger forward and cut through most of the man''s throat, making him immediately fall to the ground while grasping at the wound, suffering to properly find air to breath or actually grasp the situation, although that wasn''t necessary, because he soon god the dagger right through the side of his head.


    [Lethal damage done to Arn Stirg]


    [You leveled up!]


    [You have 29 Stat points avable]


    The moment the notification appeared in front of the Imp, something happened to him. He was feeling invigorated for just a moment, but then, the world around him turned pitch ck.. Thest thing that Eiro saw before he hit the ground was the body of the other man as it hit the ground as well, without the Imp even realizing that the old man Jura even attempted to move.

 Chapter 55 - Belong

    All around Eiro, there was nothing but darkness. He didn''t know what exactly was going on, but he did know that he didn''t like it in the slightest. It was as if there was something directly in front of him, ever so slowly moving closer toward him until it was just a couple of meters, then a single meter, then just a couple of inches, and then barely a finger''s width away from his face.


    And it stopped there, it never touched him, but the young Imp definitely knew something was there, it was just too dark for him to be able to see it.


    No matter how much the Imp tried to extend his hand forward either, he didn''t manage to get a hold of whatever it was right in front of him, before the sound of wood ttering against each other could be heard from deep inside of the darkness, and Eiro shot up from this weird dream, before he found the source of the ttering.


    It was the wooden box that the old man Jura had with him before, as it was hitting against the interior wall of the carriage as it was shaking back and forth. And just when the Imp looked around, he soon saw the children silently sleeping in here as well. All the children, all six of them. Without hesitation, the Imp stood up and tried to get used to this shaking that was much worse in here than when sitting at the front of the carriage.


    And just when the Imp was trying to hold onto something, he fell down, as if he just missed the object that he was seeing right next to him. As if there was just a single chunk of the box missing right where the Imp wanted to hold onto it.


    "Ah..." Eiro muttered quietly as the carriage came to a hault in response to the loud thumping sound the Imp caused just now, while he himself managed to see what actually happened. It wasn''t a chunk at the side of the box he was trying to hold onto, but rather a chunk at the end of his arm.


    It didn''t feel real at the slightest, because he was still able to feel stinging and burning pain at the tips of his fingers that just weren''t there anymore. Not only the one finger that had been ripped off before, but his whole hand was justpletely gone.


    But before he could even really react in any different way, the door in front of him opened up and the old man Jura could be seen there.


    "Get up already, you bum." Jura said with a light grumble, and the Imp stared at him while trying to look for his Dagger.


    "Oh don''t even try. I''m in a bad mood, you''re not gonna be able to even give me a scratch the way you''re right now." The old man pointed out annoyedly as he stepped into the carriage and grabbed the Imp by the shoulders before just pulling him out through the door before the children would be woken up.


    Confused, the Imp just stared at the old man while trying to properly grasp the situation. "What... What did you do to my hand..?" Eiro asked, but Jura just sighed and slowly stepped up to the front of the carriage with his hands behind his back and climbed onto it with a single jump, before tapping the bench next to him, as if signaling Eiro to sit down there.


    Slowly, the young monster did as told and tried his best to climb on top of there, which was harder than he expected with just one hand. And when Eiro was finally sitting there, Jura made the horses start moving again while grabbing a small bag sitting next to him.


    Eiro grabbed it with his remaining hand and pulled it open with the help of his teeth, before looking through it and sein a few light brown-ish chunks inside of it, although he didn''tpletely understand what this all was supposed to be.


    "What are you staring at? You asked what I did to it, so I showed it to you." Jura said with a slight sigh, and the Imp immediately snapped his head over toward him. "What do you mean?"


    "Those are your bones. Demon Bones are pretty useful, so it felt wrong to bury them with your flesh. And while I don''t know how you killed your hand off like that, I suggest you don''t do the same thing again."


    Slowly, the Imp took one of the chunks out of the bag and took a closer look at it. "I... Killed my hand?" He asked, and with another grumble, Jura nodded his head. "Yes, you did. Smelled a whole lot like Holy Energy, and no matter how high your resistance is, you''re still a Demon. That shouldn''t happen."


    While grinding his teeth together, Eiro just stared at the old man next to him.


    "Could you just exin to me what''s going on? What happened after I killed that man?" Eiro asked, and Jura just swiftly exined it.


    "You killed him, I killed the other and then hurt my back while pulling their bodies away. Then I let the children out of the carriage and we spoke a bit while I treated your hand." With that swift exnation, Jura continued with his head turned forward, and just when the Imp wanted to speak, Jura did so first.


    "Those children told me quite a few things about you, you see? How you did not hesitate for a moment to save those six, and not for a fraction of a moment to get rid of those that might make that harder. Why is that?" With his head still turned forward, letting Eiro see the scar covering his face just so slightly, the old man seemed to just wait for an answer, although the demon himself didn''t know about that.


    "I don''t know."


    "Why those children?"


    "I don''t know."


    "Do you like people more than monsters?"


    "I... don''t know..." The Imp replied over and over again, before Jura just sighed out deeply. "Is there anything you do know?" He asked, and the Imp nodded his head in response.


    "Yes. I know that no matter who it is that threatens me or my life, I will not hesitate to end them. I know that I do not want those children to get hurt, even if I don''t know why. And I don''t know if I like people more than monsters because I like neither, but I also hate neither." Eiro said quite clearly, making the old man next to him apparently seem quite surprised.


    "Oh? Can you borate on thatst one?"


    With a click of his tongue, the Imp slowly leaned back against the wood of the carriage-wall behind him. "I am a Monster. In the books I read, Monsters are enemies of all the people of the world. So, as I am a Monster, I should be on their side. But the only Monsters I have met so far were either just beasts, or just horrible beings, so I''m not on their side, meaning that I should be on the side of the people." Eiro exined slowly, unsure why he was telling all of this to Jura all of a sudden, before the old man slowly nodded his head.


    "I see... And it seems like you don''t want to be on the side of the people?" And while I met a few people as well... If they weren''t horrible in the foreground, they were so in the background... Except these children. I don''t think they''re hiding anything. So... I don''t think I''m on the side of the people either..." The Imp said as he then silently stared forward, and Jura nodded his head slowly in response.


    "Then you''re on your own side." He pointed out, but Eiro just turned his head over toward him surprised. "My own... side?" Eiro asked, and Jura immediately nodded his head once more.


    "Of course. This world isn''t just ck and white, you know. You can make your own gray spot."


    Slowly, Eiro started thinking about this, and in the end just slowly nodded his head. It wasn''t like he was nning on doing anything other than that anyway, but it was nice to hear someone say it out loud.


    And then, the Imp remembered something that Jura said before, and for some reason felt his heart beat faster. "What is an apprentice?" The Imp asked, before the old man raised his brows surprised.


    "Oh, I expected someone as wordy as you to know... An Apprentice is someone that learns the craft of their teacher. A Smith''s Apprentice will learn how to smith, a Hunter''s Apprentice will learn how to Hunt, and a Chef''s Apprentice will learn how to cook."


    Slowly, Eiro turned his head toward the old man to look him up and down and make sure that he wasn''t about to make another, big mistake. His instincts were telling him that this was just some carefree, harmless old man, but the Imp was more than just aware that this definitely wasn''t the case in the slightest. This probably was a mistake, but the Imp just had to take this risk. He might have managed to kill two of those Lords, and trick some of the others, but in the end all that Eiro could do in that town was run away.


    If he didn''t have anything with holy Energy with him then, he would have been dead immediately. He would have been brought to the Lord of Wrath by that Shadow, and then he would have died immediately. Compared to him, this old man was quite strong, wasn''t he? His body seemed weaker than the Imp''s, but he was able to carry such a heavy box that the muscr man from before couldn''t even properly budge, and Jura was able to dodge all of the Imp''s attacks without even actually seeing him.


    And so, Eiro just asked.


    "And what Prosthetist apprentice learn?" He inquired in a quiet voice, and the man beside him just started to smirk. "A Prosthetist Apprentice learns how to make prostetics. How to rece that which was lost as if it was never gone." The old man chuckled, and the Imp looked down at his hand, or the ce where one was before, and then back at Jura.


    "You are looking or an Apprentice... That''s what you said, right?"


    With a grin, the old man slowly started to make the Carriage stop. He hadn''t realized it, but it seemed like they were riding up a hill, and not even on any proper roads, just heavily overgrown paths.


    And right in front of them stood a Large Tree, which had a wooden hut built right into its base.


    While Eiro was looking at this ce confused, Jura swiftly jumped down from the carriage and made his way over to the Hut''s door, simply turning toward the Imp with a smile.


    "How about we continue speaking about this inside?"

 Chapter 56 - Precious

    "Where are we?" Eiro asked confused, stepping off of the carriage with the bone-filled bag in his remaning hand before following Jura toward the structure in front of them.


    "This is my house, what else?" The old man said with a slight chuckle as he unlocked the door up using a rusty metal key and then pushed it open, slowly stepping inside.


    "It is quite dirty, but please, make yourself at home." Jura pointed out as the Imp slowly stepped onto the wooden floor, looking around nervously.


    There really wasn''t much inside here this room, however. A small table in the center of it, as well as some counters with tes and cups on top of it. However, the walls were covered in shelves with numerous types of wood, tools or different containers in all shapes and forms inside of them.


    And one of those containers was swiftly grabbed by Jura. It was a small ss bottle with a bead inside of it. After pulling the cork off the top, the old man seemed to try and sniff the interior a few times and then shook his head, swiftly grabbing another simr bottle, repeating the same thing.


    For a little while, that''s all that the old man did, while Eiro just stood there in the doorway. He knew he was told to ''make himself at home'', but he wasn''t entirely sure what that meant, exactly.


    Either way, there was something far more important that he needed to know. "Should I wake the children?" The Imp asked, as he wasn''t sure what was about to happen, while Jura kept grabbing different bottles and judging their smell, "Let them sleep a little longer. They will be as save in that carriage as anywhere."


    Just a few momentster, it seemed like Jura then found the seemingly right bottle and handed it to the young Demon with a smile on his face. "Here you go." Jura said, but the Imp just looked at him confused. And while Jura couldn''t see the confusion on his face, it seemed like he sensed it. "Ah, sorry, sorry. This is a bit of a test. I want you to find a suitable ce near this hill to nt this seed, and then care for it. Once it sprouted into a health sapling, I will ept you as my apprentice."


    Slowly, the Imp held the bottle against his chest with his right arm while pressing the bag of bones into his pants'' pockets to try and hold the bottle properly, before then taking a look at the ''Seed''.


    "And... How do I find a good spot to nt it? Isn''t any spot fine?" The Imp asked, but Jura shook his head without hesitation.


    "Not in the slightest. You need to listen to the voice of that seed and the voice of the forest to find out where it can grow. If you nt it in the wrong ce, it will never sprout, even if you dig it up again and nt it somewhere else, so make a good choice. Until we know which it is... You and the children can stay here." Jura said with a slight smile, letting the Imp just nod in response. "Thank you." He said, and with a slightly surprised expression, Jura interlocked his fingers behind his back.


    "Who is it that taught you to speak like this?" The old man asked, and just when Eiro wanted to open his mouth to answer, he felt his body suddenly get heavier all of a sudden. Surprised, he twisted his body to look at the source of that weight, and soon enough saw Clementine''s short blond hair.


    "Eiro! You''re fine!" She eximed with a sniffle, trying to pull the Imp as close toward her as she could muster apparently, and the young Demon nodded his head. "I am. Are you fine?" Eiro asked her, and she immediately nodded her head, although she still had her head buried inside of his cloak, before he saw the other children step out of the carriage as well, all of them making their way over toward the Imp quite swiftly.


    It seemed like they were more than just worried about him when they came out of the carriage and saw him copsed, but Jura apparently calmed them down a little, which the Imp was quite d about.


    "A-And when old man Jura was cutting your hand-" Rudy was exining worriedly, although he was swiftly interrupted by a deep, loud grumble originating in Eiro''s stomach, making Juraugh in response, "Hoho, well, it is to be expected. You were asleep for two days, after all. Come, I still have some bread left, I think." Jura admitted and pointed at the table in the center of the room while motioning the Imp and the children to sit down on there, although he himself was confused over what he was just told.


    "I was sleeping for two days?" The Imp asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head as he went through some cupboards. "Oh, yes. I was surprised as well. But you seem to have the Exhaustion Restistance Skill, do you not?" Jura asked, letting the Imp simply reply with a nod, prompting Jura to continue.


    "That exins it then. At the start, that skill makes you resistant to the feeling of Exhaustion, not exhaustion itself. There are many that relied on that skill too much and overworked themselves until they died, so try to sleep properly from now on." The old man suggested, and Eiro immediately felt cold stares at the back of his neck after Jura''s exnation, the source of which being the Rudy, Sammy, Clementine and Arc, all seemingly quite upset over how careless Eiro was being, apparently. Even Arc was staring at him with a frown, something that the Imp didn''t expect to see on him in such a situation.


    "I will try to remember that, thank you." Eiro replied, while Jura ced a small te with bread in front of him with a chuckle.


    "If you truly want to thank me, I would have a suggestion. Of course I said you can live here for now, but an old man like me cannot take care of everything on my own." With a slight chuckle, the old man looked at the Children, and then started to give out a few tasks for everyone.


    "Rudy was left with the task of Cooking, Sewing, and other smaller tasks that he could use his hands for. Sammy was given the task to take care of the two Children, while Clementine and Arc were supposed to take care of the horses and other animals that the old man wanted to keep around this house for things like Eggs and Milk. And the Imp was supposed to go out into the forest every day and hunt animals for meat and gather different nts to use in cooking, while also making his way to the town a day from here every couple of weeks for things they couldn''t get from this forest alone.


    And in the meantime, the old man Jura would... He would... "And what will be your task?" The Imp asked Jura, who just replied with a frown. "I''m going to sleep. I''m an old man, you can''t expect me to do so much work!" Jura eximed, and then seemed to try to sniff for something before holding his nose, maybe in a slightly exaggerated fashion.


    "Now finish eating and go to the river to get yourself cleaned up! You smell like those horses'' droppings!" Jura eximed, while the Imp just buried his teeth inside of the bread in his hand and looked at the children, who seemed to be of a simr opinion. They themselves were pretty dirty as well, however.


    "Then let''s go." Eiro said and slowly stood up, cing the bottle down onto the table because he didn''t want to break it on his way, although Jura immediately turned back toward him. "Take the seed with you, will you? How else do you want to connect to it?"


    With a slight frown, the Imp grabbed the bottle again and just held it in his hand for now. He wasn''t sure why he was supposed to take it, but he figured that if he wanted to learn from Jura, it made sense to listen to him, even if he did so slightly involuntarily.


    Either way, for now, the Imp and the Children slowly made their way along the overgrown path in front of them to get to the nearby river, stopping by the carriage for just a moment to get some other clothes to change into although the Imp was the only one that didn''t have anything else. He didn''t really need anything for now either, though.


    He didn''t feel as weird doing so now, but he still preferred to at the very least wear no shoes, and even if he did like wearing pants and a shirt now, he didn''t necessarily feel like he had to. He wasn''t wearing a shirt anymore anyway, and his pants were ripped up nearlypletely as well. That fact was kind of concealed through the cloak, which was also nearlypletely destroyed...


    As long as he had something to rece his cloak, he really didn''t mind the other stuff all that much, though. He didn''t really know why, but it just felt right to have a cloak at this point for him.


    Either way, soon enough, Eiro and the Children finally found their way to the small river and could crouched down next to it, starting to simply slowly clean themselves, while the Imp made sure that they were all physically fine. He especially took a closer look at Clementine''s stomach to make sure that all the wounds from there had properly healed, or were at the very least on a good way there.


    In the end, the river started carrying some red, brown and ck bits of blood and dirt with it, especially when the Imp helped the children wash their hair. He saw Avalin do it once, and now he understood why. Hair really got incredibly dirty easily and caught onto a bunch of small pebbles and chunks, making the Imp happy that he was practically hairless.


    For him, after a few proper scrubs, which he did end up needing the help of the children with considering the state of his hand, meaning that it was just not there, Eiro was basically sparkling. Although, the children were looking at him weirdly, so Eiro wasn''t able to properly appreciate that fact.


    With a slight frown, worried that they noticed something he didn''t, the young Demon turned toward them. "Is something wrong?" He asked, and slowly, the children diverted their gazes and continued getting dressed again, although Arc swiftly spoke, as the only one that didn''t worry about such things simply because he was incapable of doing so.


    "Why aren''t you upset over your hand?" The young boy asked, and Eiro looked at him confused before staring down at the stump at the end of his arm. "Should I be?" He asked, slightly surprised, and Arc immediately nodded his head.


    "Of course you should be! You were more upset over Clem''s wounds than your missing hand! That''s not normal!" Arc basically yelled, and the Imp just stared at him and said something that he himself felt to bepletely natural.


    "As long as I live, I can do what I want no matter what parts I''m missing. At least I feel that way, so I don''t care. Maybe it is not normal to you... But you are people, I am a Monster. My Normal is different from yours. That is why I don''t want to make the choice of what you can and can''t, and want and don''t want to do. So, yes, I was more upset over your bodies than mine.. Because they are more precious."

 Chapter 57 - Nelli

    After that conversation came to its conclusion, Eiro brought the Children back up the hill toward the Hut in the tree, although they all stayed rtively silent all the time. The Imp wasn''t sure why exactly they didn''t say anything anymore, but he didn''t necessarily mind it either. This way he could properly look out for any monsters that might be stalking them to prepare an attack without any disturbances.


    But it seemed like such a worry was unfounded, because Eiro didn''t really see any monster at all right now. There were some birds and bugs around, even some rabbits, but nothing dangerous as far as the Imp was concerned.


    And so, those seven made their way back to the top of the Hill, where the Imp waited for the children to go inside first before following them. He still wasn''t wearing any clothes beside a pair of pants that Arc called ''Underwear'' when he gave it to him. Eiro didn''t exactly know why he was supposed to wear it, but in the end, he figured he should and did as suggested by the children.


    When Eiro then stepped into the room, he noticed that the old man Jura seemed to be looking at him weirdly, even though he wasn''t actually ''Looking'', per-se, it was just that he was facing him directly.


    "Eiro, that mark, what is it?" Jura then asked with a slight frown, and the young Demon looked down at his chest, looking at the blue Sigil whose markings had continued spreading a little bit further since Eiro looked at it thest time.


    "I think it appeared with a Blessing." Eiro replied quite swiftly, and Jura raised his brows just so slightly. "Oh a blessing; from a Spirit? Which kind is it? It has to be a High ranking one, surely, but I can''t directly identify the smell... Well, I do have an idea, but... There''s just such a strong scent about you anyway to tell for sure... That idea is quite ridiculous." The old man pointed out with a light smile, and the Imp just stared at him with a slight frown before sighing out deeply.


    "It''s called the ''Blessing of the Lonely Naiad''." He pointed out, and instantly, the old man froze up for a moment. "The... The Lonely Naiad?" Jura asked doubtingly, and the Imp nodded his head as he noticed some droplets of water simply floating above the old man''s head, amalgamating into a small sphere, which soon changed its shape into that of a small, well-proportioned woman. She was roughly two hand-width tall and had long flowing hair made of the water that just gathered, while more droplets floated around her.


    And the very moment that she fully appeared and opened her eyes, she flew over toward Eiro as if weightless. "You? A blessing from our Queen? Don''t make meugh!" She eximed and flew straight toward his chest; running her cold fingers over the blue mark and along the lines, before she slowly stared up at the Imp.


    "It... It''s truly her''s..." She muttered quietly, and Jura stepped up to him confusedly. "Nelli, are you positive?" The old man asked the small woman made of water, and she just nodded her head immediately.


    "Of course, you old fart! Do you think I wouldn''t recognize the Queen''s Blessing?! I just don''t understand why... why YOU have it!" Nelli eximed angrily and floated upward, angrily moving directly in front of Eiro''s face while pointing her tiny finger at him.


    Confused, the Imp just looked past her and toward Jura, because he wasn''t sure how he was supposed to react, although the children seemed rather excited.


    "Whoaa! Is that a Naiad?" Sammy asked with a broad, happy smile, and Clementine sped her hands together and pressed them against her chest. "So pretty!"


    Hearing the young women''s words, Nelli slowly turned around toward them and just smirked wrily. "P-Pretty..?" She asked, and then ran her hands through her hair, pulling it in front of her body. "Nonsense~!" Nelli eximed, giving Eiro the chance to speak to Jura.


    "This is a Naiad?" He asked, trying to remember if he ever saw something like her before by closing his eyes. With his nifty Schr-Imp ability, he tried to properly see back onto the moment that he probably got this ''Blessing''.


    He dove back into that specific memory and found himself running through a forest with blood pouring out of his chest after just being heavily injured. Especially whenpared to now, he was just so much slower back then, so Eiro was lucky that he managed to even reach theke that he ended up dropping into.


    Even though this was just a memory, the Imp could feel all of it as if it was really happening right this very moment. He felt his wound start to burn aftering in contact with the sand that was pushed around after he fell into the water. He felt his throat fill with the water around him and his eyes burn in response to the dirt.


    But then, a figure appeared in front of him. She was roughly the same height as the Imp from back then, so slightly shorter than him now.


    Either way, the Aura she had around her was dignified, something that the Imp surely couldn''t feel back then. She had shiny white-blue scales around her back and her hips, as well as along her upper arms a slight bit, but for the most part she simply had light blue skin, although the Imp wasn''t entirely sure if maybe her ''skin'' was just water that stood out more than usual.


    Up to this point, this was somewhat in his mind hazily before already, but there was one thing that he didn''t remember happening at all. The Woman was staring at the Imp confusedly and made her way toward him quite slowly, running her hand over his chest where the wound was.


    Caused by that extreme pain, Eiro''s body writhed and pushed out any air that was still left in him, before his sight slowly went ck. Up to this point, he still remembered.


    But then, through a simple number of short glimpses from when the Imp may have been half-awake, he noticed that the woman had her lips pressed against Eiro''s own and his body was being filled with heat as his wound was healing.


    And this scene was ryed to the others currently around him with as much detail as he could, speaking out what he saw in his mind when he saw it, and then slowly opened his eyes when this part of his memory was over, before exining to them what the notification that appeared after told him.


    "Because of my Affinity with the Water Element, she took a liking to me... Or so it said." Eiro told them, and ''awoke'' to surprised expressions, especially from Nelli and Jura.


    "Water Affinity..? But you''re an Imp... A Fire Demon..." Nelli muttered quietly as she turned toward Jura, and he just leaned in toward Eiro with a frown and took a deep sniff. "Truly, there is some water affinity, and it is the highest amongst them. Then follows Air, and only then Fire. Eiro, which Card do you have?" The old man asked, trying to clear this up immediately, so the young Demon just exined it although he didn''t necessarily know why they wanted to know about that.


    "Ace of Cups, and Three of Swords." He exined, before Jura slowly nodded his head. "Two Cards, I see... The Ace of Cups will have given you that Water Affinity. Maybe it was purely because you were meant for the mes that she gave you her blessing?" Jura suggested, but Eiro still didn''t understand what they were speaking about in the slightest.


    And so, the Imp just asked what he wanted to know the most. "Who is this ''Queen''?" He asked, and Nelli immediately twisted her body around and stared at him, before she rushed back up toward his face.


    "You don''t even know that?! She''s the True Queen of Naiads! Not like that vile Imposter!"


    "Im...poster?" The Imp repeated, and Nelli immediately nodded her head with support of practically her whole body. "Yes! Exactly! Imposter!"


    With a slight sigh, Jura pulled up one of the chairs and motioned the Imp to sit down on it, while looking at the children. "Children, go ahead and y outside a little, but don''t leave beyond the rock-ring around this hill, alright? And trust me, I will know when you do." Jura said with a chuckle, so the children nodded their heads and made their way out of the door, until only Eiro, Jura and Nelli were left.


    Jura sat down on one of the chairs and still waited for Eiro to do the same, before Nelli started floating in the center of the table, her legs crossed and bent as if she was sitting on an invisible chair, facing toward the young Demon.


    With a slight sigh, Jura started to exin what Nelli had been talking about before. "As Nelli so gracefully said, the current Queen of Naiads is not the True Queen. She may have the title, but it is so that she is not one with nature like the True Queen is. She has a vile personality and the vast majority of Naiads disapprove of her current title, as is the case the other Spirit Queens and Kings, even so with the Naiad King. Through deceit and trickery, she caused the True Queen to be banished into lonesomeness, giving her the title of ''Lonely Naiad''." As such, the old man exined, although Eiro had a hard time actually imagining the weight of these things, considering that the only Spirit he had actually spoken to so far was Nelli.


    All the other things that he knew about spirits was from the book about them that he flipped through quite swiftly.


    "For one..." The old man continued, pulling the Imp out of his momentary thoughts, "The Queen has never actually been found since she has been banished. Not once in a hundred years. But you... You simply stumbled upon her? That alone makes you quite astounding, not even considering your possession of two cards..."


    "Is that so?" Eiro replied quite coldly. Once more, he wasn''t sure of the weight that all of these words carried, so how else could he reply?


    With a slight smirk, Jura started to chuckle and shook his head as he did so. "Quite amusing, aren''t you? I have quite high hopes in you, so you better get that seed to grow properly, now will you?" The old manughed loudly, and the Imp just nodded his head in reply while letting his gaze reach Nelli.


    "But why is a Spirit here?" Eiro asked, "I read they are usually only in specific ces." He pointed out, before Nelli crossed her arms and scoffed, turning away annoyedly.


    "Well, that surely is the case with Lower-Rank Spirits! But personally, I''m a High-Rank Spirit!" She huffed and ced her fists onto her hip, while the Imp tried to remember if there were any specifications about that in the book he read, which didn''t seem to have been the case. But for now, that didn''t matter, as Nelli hadn''t properly finished her reply yet, it seemed.


    "I am currently ced under a Contract with this Man right here that ends the moment his life does. He gives me Mana so that I can survive, and in return, he can use me as a medium for Ancient Water Magic!" Nelli exined, revealing another new term to the Imp. ''Ancient Magic''.


    He wanted to interrupt this Naiad just then to ask about what this was, but he figured he should let her finish, because something important was apparently about to be said by her.


    "Of course... Considering that Mark on your Chest, you should be able to find a Spirit to Contract yourself quite easily...."

 Chapter 58 - Papaver Somniferum

    "I can contract a Spirit? I have not read about this before..." Eiro slowly replied with a frown, and Nelli nodded her head smugly. "Hehe, of course not, there are few that actually met spirits that can be contracted! But with the great me, it will not be hard to find some~!"


    "Now, now..." Jura interrupted the Naiad floating in the center of the table, "How about we speak about thatter? We would first need to practice Magic in general. His Mana is quite unrefined, you see?" The old man pointed out, "First, he needs toplete my task. I am going to make you a temporary hand that you can use on your hunts, so just go outside now and wait for when I call you."


    Pointing at the door with his fingers interlocked, the old man all of a sudden told the Imp to leave, despite his immense curiosity about numerous different things that they just spoke about. But he was aware that he had to listen to Jura, as he seemed quite whimsical and might change his opinion about teaching the Imp if heined too much.


    So, the young Demon made his way outside with a slight frown and soon saw the children sitting around together near the carriage, unsure of what they should do exactly. And the Imp as well, was quite unsure of what exactly he should try and use his time for.


    There wasn''t really much he could do without a hand, but Jura said he would make him a recement for now, so the Imp figured that he should do something that didn''t require his hand, and stepped into the Carriage to grab the small, heavy bag that he ''stole'' from the Lord of Greed and then filled with numerous different things on his way out of the tower after killing him.


    "Huh? What''s that?" Clementine asked curiously as she saw the Imp approach them with it, and he just shrugged and sat down with it.


    "A bag?" He replied, but the young girl looked at him with a frown and a slight pout. "That''s not what I mean! What''s inside of it?" She asked again, so Eiro just sat down in front of them and opened the bag up, before turning it upside down, immediately making numerous different coins, gems, and books flow out of it.


    "This." Eiro pointed out, and the Children all just stared at all that was there in front of them confusedly. "H-How?" They asked, and the Imp just raised his eyebrows and exined. "This is a special bag I stole from the Lord of Greed. It can hold a lot of stuff. And I put that ''a lot of stuff'' in here. But I just wanted the books right now."


    As the young Demon was exining this, he was starting to somewhat ''Sort'' the contents of this pile into different ''types'' to see if there was anything else useful here.


    First, there were the books which the Imp wanted to go through. Then, there were different magic stones, or things that seemed simr to magic stones but were in weird shapes other than the round version that Eiro knew them as.


    And the rest was just split up into Gems, and then the coins, thetter of which Eiro asked the children to help put into ''packs'' with him so that they could use them more easily, although the children all seemed pretty impressed at such arge sum of money. The Imp wasn''t really sure of the implication of this amount, so he wasn''t as impressed, but he was aware that there were a lot of things that could be bought with this money, which was nice?


    At the very least that''s the only reason that Eiro could think of why one would be impressed with these small, shiny discs.


    Either way, soon enough, Eiro and the children bundled all of the coins up, and then he ced those bundles back into the bag together with the gems, and just left the books and magic stones outside, although he put thetter into his regr bag so that he could grab them more easily.


    "Now..." Eiro muttered quietly, before he grabbed one of the books right next to him and tried to read the title.


    "Stories of the Afterlife..." He read out loud, and slowly flipped the book open to the first page, swiftly finding what kind of book this was. Apparently, it was the type that just spoke about something fake? But it seemed to the Imp as if there were some useful parts in here... So, he figured he should just read.


    This book was about a Human whoter got inflicted by undeath, soonmanding literal armies of them in wars against people or other monsters.


    There were parts that confused Eiro, or references that he didn''t understand, especially as he wasn''t entirely sure what all of these different ''Undead'' were, but the story gave him a rough idea, at the very least.


    And so, Eiro finished this book quite swiftly, before he and the children were called in by Jura. The Imp just put the books into the carriage so that he knew where they were, and then followed the children inside, where Jura had apparently cooked something for everyone, although the form of that food was quite confusing to the Imp. It was just a bowl with steaming liquid inside?


    It didn''t seem like food to Eiro because there was nothing to chew, but at the very least it smelled good... So, the young Demon sat down on one of the chairs and slowly tried to spoon this ''Soup'', as Jura called it, up, while the old man himself was trying to ce a wooden hand on the Imp''s stump.


    "Careful, this might hurt a little." Jura then said all of a sudden, just before Eiro felt a painful stinging, pain which ran through his arm like a wave and made his whole body shake, although that changed quite soon as that feeling settled down.


    [Your missing Hand was reced by a


    ]


    With a slight sigh, Eiro pulled his new ''Hand'' over in front of him and took a look at the wooden surface. He wasn''t really able to move his fingers each on their own, and he didn''t feel anything in them, but it seemed that at the very least he could form a fist. It was a weird feeling, but at the same time quite easy to get used to.


    "Good. Now you should be able to hold that dagger of yours. Finish that soup and get out there so that we can eat something proper, now will you?" Jura asked, pointing his finger at the bag that Eiro had with him.


    "Leave that ''Special Bag'' here, will you? It''s not going to help much if you can use trickery like that. And get clothed already!" The old man eximed, so the Imp quietly grumbled and nodded his head, cing the bag down on the table before standing up, while Jura threw a cloak at his face, although the young Demon had a quite important question right now.


    "Why can''t you go hunt? You are stronger than me." The Imp pointed out, and Jura raised his brows surprised. "Oh? Are youining?" He asked, but the Imp just kept staring at him silently while Jura started to chuckle.


    "You need to know the forest, Eiro. Just go already, or else these children will go to bed hungrily."


    With a grumble, Eiro stepped out of the door, and Jura yelled something after him that made the Imp feel even more annoyed.


    "Ah, and before I forget, do not use either of your cards. I will know when you do." Quite surprised, Eiro turned around and tried to see if Jura was serious, but as there was nothing but a slight, honest smile on the old man''s face, the Imp figured that this was actually what Jura wanted him to do, or rather not to do.


    And so, Eiro stood there outside of the hut, unsure what exactly he was supposed to do. How was he supposed to find food like this? The only things he saw were small animals around here... But at the very least, he could go and gather some edible nts, right? He remembered the nts that he read about in that one book pretty well, so if he just properly tried to think about where he saw those, if he did, then it might work out somewhat.


    Although, just now, he noticed that he didn''t actually properly remember the specific contents of that book about nts he read. It was still in the Carriage, so he could just take it with him and flip through it on his way. But then again... That seemed maybe not like a perfect idea, because the book was prettyrge and heavy, so it would be annoying to carry around in his bag if he had to gather other things.


    Instead, Eiro came up with a different way. He swiftly rushed to the carriage and grabbed the book, swiftly squatting down inside of the carriage as he went to take a look at the first page.


    Eiro was aware that the memories he went back and ''Visited'' with his ability were in his mind as if he just experienced them for quite a long time. Even now, he could still feel the lips of the Lonely Naiad on his own, as if they were still pressed against each other.


    So, the Imp tried to look at each and every part of this book as closely as he could, taking in the littlest detail that he could find before moving onto the next page.


    The moment that the Imp reached thest page, he closed the book down at the same time as his eyes, before starting to slowly remember the first page.


    And then the second, and then the third. Just like that, the Imp managed to mentally go through the content of this book far quicker than the first time he read it, while probably remembering it for a far longer time.


    With a smirk on his face, Eiro then stepped down the hill into the thick forest below all the whilst going through the contents of the book again and again in his mind, until something peculiar happened.


    He saw a small patch of flowers that he usually wouldn''t have really taken any notice of, and couldn''t help but mumble to himself as he did so. "Papaver Somniferum, or ''Poppy''... The seeds can be used for... bread... or Opium, a pain reliever..." He muttered quietly, trying to arrange his thoughts into a manner that he could properly give words to them as he squatted down in front of the small flower.


    "A pain reliever, huh...?" Eiro whispered, "Could be useful for Clementine..." The young Demon added to what he himself said, and then quickly grabbed the dagger out of his bag and slowly tried to grasp it with this new wooden hand of his.


    It was hard to do so, and the hand itself was moving slowly, or barely if at all in response to his intentions, but after a little while he managed to get a tight grip on the handle... At least that''s what he thought at first, but when he twisted his hand a little, the de just slipped out inbetween his fingers.


    With a sigh, Eiro picked the de back up and ced it into his wooden hand again, before using a strip of cloth that was leftover from his old cloak to bind it to his hand to make sure it wouldn''t fall out anymore.


    And then, the Imp just tried to cut through the stems of the flowers, soon managing to do so, although this action seemed to be connected to a fair amount of pain around the end of his arm, something that he thought to be rather annoying. It didn''t actually ''Damage'' him, but it still hurt, which was annoying.


    For now, Eiro just swiftly wrapped the heads of the flowers in some cloth and put them into his bag, before continuing to walk through this forest.

 Chapter 59 - Stags, Sap, And Meditation

    As he stepped through the thick, overgrown parts of these dense woods, the Imp managed to pick up a few different useful nts, flowers and herbs that he read about in the book and could somehow immediately recognize the moment that he saw them now.


    Eiro ced all of them into his bag, although that meant that it was already pretty full... He was pretty sure he was supposed to get some meat, however, so the young Demon wasn''t sure if this really was fine.


    It was just that he didn''t know how exactly he was supposed to find, and then kill, different animals that could be eaten. Sure, he did see a bunch of small critters running around, but they were far too agile and fast for the Imp. He still had his stat points that he didn''t assign yet, but Eiro wasn''t entirely sure which stat they were supposed to go into right now, because he simply didn''t know which he needed the most. And it wasn''t like he could revert that choice either.


    He already lost his hand, he didn''t want to make another big mistake like that, meaning that he had to properly think about what he was doing.


    Just as Eiro was thinking that, he suddenly heard a sound. It was just a branch cracking, but it was enough to show him that there was something around here. Slowly, the Imp turned around and tried to find the source of that sound, before finding it in the form of a Stag with antlers on only one side of its head.


    And it was staring right at Eiro with its beady ck eyes. But while the Imp mentally didn''t think that this animal was any trouble and might be a nice enough meal, no matter how much he tried to make them move, his feet were stuck in ce out of instincts.


    The Imp simply knew that he shouldn''t even try to attack this one, or else it wouldn''t end well for him. Luckily, the Stag just turned away with disinterest and stepped away with a slight limp, the reason for which the Eiro wasn''t aware of right this moment.


    Once the Stag was outside of Eiro''s visible range, the Demon was able to finally rx his body again as blood rushed to his head and he started to breathe heavily. He hadn''t been aware that this was such a serious situation in his mind until just now. Either way, that was a pressure that the Imp didn''t expect to feel at that moment.


    Just when his attention returned to his surrounding instead of his own body, Eiro managed to find another sound that he much rather wanted to pay attention to than that Stag just now. The sounds of a few rabbits jumping around near him.


    And so, Eiro swiftly started rushing into that direction, as quietly as he could, before he finally found a couple of small rabbits huddled up around a tree''s exposed root together. To the Imp''s surprise, no matter what he did, he was able to grab one of the rabbits without any issue, and... The others just stayed there, still chewing on the root. Eiro was pretty confused about that, but for now just quickly pushed his dagger through this rabbit''s neck to kill it, and did the same with the other rabbits. This was surprisingly easy, really. Just because of that root they were eating.


    When Eiro took a closer look, he saw a red-brown, think liquid dripping out from that root, and out of curiousity, the Imp put his finger to it and chose to taste the contents. And it was... Just delicious! It really was!


    Without hesiation, the Imp continued to cover his fingers in the sap and then licked it off of them, before choosing to just cut a whole chunk off of the root and chew on it on his way back to the hut. He had a bunch of meat in the form of these rabbits now as well as a lot of ntstuff to eat, on top of this really delicious root!


    It just tasted so great, he couldn''t resist trying to eat it!


    Just like that, the Imp swiftly made his way through the forest back toward the hut at the top of the hill that he could already see, with a great mood! He didn''t know why he was so happy right now, but he couldn''t help himself but be really excited!


    Although, that all stopped when Eiro stepped into the door of the hut and was pulled over to a chair by Jura while Nelli practically dove into his throat. He wasn''t aware of what exactly was going on, but soon, the bright colors that had been moving around all over the ce and the dulled sounds returned to normal, and the Imp managed to hear what everyone was saying again.


    "You Imbecile!" Jura eximed, while Nelli was cing the sap that she pulled back out of the Imp''s body just now into a jar, while Eiro was just looking around confused.


    "What happened?" He asked, his head feeling just so slightly hazy right now, before Jura sighed deep in response.


    "You just ate Poisonous Sap. You can be happy you''re not a person, otherwise this would have killed you right away." The old man exined, and Eiro looked back confused. "Hm? I would have... died? But these rabbits ate it without issue..." He pointed out, letting Jura just nod his head.


    "It''s only poisonous to people, somehow. Animals and Monsters get ecstatic when eating it, but even they will suffer under a lot of pain when the effect is gone. Luckily, we can still eat these, the poisonous mana can''t be carried over like that." Jura said, pointing at the rabbits that Eiro was holding by the ears and then stepped over toward the jar with sap.


    "This is quite a nice ingredient, however..." He muttered and swiftly sniffed the thick liquid, before twisting his face in disgust. "Smells like Imp-stomach..."


    "Sorry..." The Imp said quietly, before standing back up from the chair to bring the rabbits over toward the ''Kitchen'' area where Rudy was standing, waiting patiently to get started on cooking again. Jura sat down in a chair in the corner, however, and started inspecting the sap some more, while the other children were just taking care of and ying with Leon and the Priestess.


    "C-Can you help me here?" Rudy asked Eiro nervously, and the demon slowly nodded his head in response. "Okay." He said, just waiting for the boy''s instructions, before Rudy pointed at one of the rabbits.


    "Can you skin that?" Rudy inquired nervously, considering the state of Eiro''s hand, but the Imp just nodded his head and grabbed the rabbit by the throat and turned around to look at Jura. "Where can we put the blood?" Eiro asked the old man, remembering that it was sometimes important to just get rid of a lot of the blood first if you didn''t want to take a mess, and the old man stood up with a sigh and walked over to the corner of the room grumbling, grabbing a small wooden bucket.


    "Here." Jura said and ced it down in front of the Imp, who slowly nodded his head. "Thank you." He said in a clear voice, and then made use of his ''Butchering'' skill, cutting through the throat of the first rabbit before pulling the wound open a bit more as he held it above the bucket, letting the blood just drip out into it.


    Taking the time while the rabbit was being bled, Rudy started chopping up a few different herbs and vegetables as the cook-book instructed him to, using a small stool to reach the counter while Eiro was kneeling on the ground for now.


    When not all that much more blood was dripping out of the rabbit, Eiro stood back up and ced it down on the counter, also making use of a chair to reach the counter. He wasn''t that tall either, after all.


    And so, the Imp started to properly butcher this rabbit, running his knife underneath the skin of the rabbit, removing it a patch at a time, something that he could probably do a lot better if he practiced this some more, but for now, this was all that he could do.


    After that, Eiro just cut the rabbit''s meat off like Rudy told him to and ced the bones to the side. Rudy said he wanted to use them for ''Broth'' as well, so the Imp figured it was fine. It seemed like what the young boy was trying to make would make use of nearly every part of the Rabbit, even the innards, so the only thing that the Imp now needed to dispose of was the skin and blood, and swiftly left the hut to do just that, just disposing everything where Jura told him to, and then he returned back inside, before the old man spoke to him again.


    "Now then... Do you think you managed to connect with the seed already?" Jura asked, but Eiro just slowly shook his head. He still didn''t understand what ''connect'' meant, so maybe he already did and just didn''t notice, even though that seemed slightly unlikely.


    "Then go back out there and try to do that. From now on, you''re only allowed inside here at night while you''re sleeping and otherwise when you''re eating. The rest of the time, you will spend inside of the forest to try and find a way to connect with that seed." In a rathermanding tone, that''s what Jura said, and once more, he said something else that the Imp wasn''t really all that happy with.


    "And never make use of your cards, not even once, understood?" The old man asked, making the Imp just stare at him with an annoyed frown.


    Just like that, the Imp stepped back out of the house as he was told, back into the hot sun above. What exactly was he supposed to do? Should he just go into the forest like this and sit down somewhere? He did read in that one book about magic that ''Meditation'' is supposed to help you ''refine'' your mana and ''find yourself'', or even ''connect with your surroundings''. Especailly the third of those things was something that the Imp wanted to achieve.


    While walking through the forest to find a suitable, quiet ce, Eiro tried to remember what that book said about meditation exactly, and how he was supposed to do it.


    "Peace of mind... stillness... undisturbed..." The young Demon muttered quietly as he looked around, as these words especially stuck out to him. And then, Eiro found a ce that seemed to allow him to enter such a state.


    It was in the middle of the river, a small bank with some grass and flowers, as well as the stump of a tree. The rest of that tree seemed to have conveniently fallen down to the side to create something like a bridge that the Imp could cross pretty easily, before sitting down on the stump.


    This seemed like a ce that not necessarily many people mighte by, and the few animals that were around simply lived their own lives. The flowing water around the Imp somehow calmed him down, so this seemed like a good ce to start.


    And so, with the bright sun shining down at him on this hot day, the Imp slowly closed his eyes.

 Chapter 60 - Passing Seasons

    Slowly, Eiro opened his eyes up again and stood up from the tree-stump before slowly stretching as he pushed his hand into his pocket and looked at the seed in the bottle, finding that it once more hadn''t changed in the slightest.


    There was a bit of an improvement a couple of asions, but it''s been nothing for a few weeks now, and the Imp simply wasn''t able to properly connect with this thing no matter what he tried.


    As he made his way over the log in front of him bringing him to the shore of this river, he smelled the air and looked into the distance toward the hut which smoke was rising from. But that always happened when Rudy was making that stew... It tasted really good and always gave Eiro a cozy feeling, but the process of cooking it took all day, and one of the steps produced a quite horrid smell and a massive amount of smoke.


    Even Jura had to leave while Rudy was making it, considering how strong his senses were. Eiro still wasn''t told whether this naturally happened because he was blind and that just increased the amount he could focus on his other sensory organs, or if this was because of his card, which Jura still hadn''t revealed to him no matter how much he asked.


    But right at this very moment, that wasn''t necessarily Eiro''s focus. Instead, he had to make sure he didn''t make too much noise, something that was incredibly annoying even on the way here. All this annoying ''snow'' was just way too loud.


    The first time it snowed a few weeks ago, the Imp really wasn''t very happy about it, because it made it harder to hunt the few animals that were actually still running around. There were already a lot less things to hide behind, so that made it extra annoying.


    That''s why he was d he bought the book about traps he in town a while ago, because this way he didn''t have to stay on lookout all the time. It still meant that there was a lot more ''broth'' based food like souptely just because there wasn''t any more food, but it made the process of hunting a lot easier.


    What also made them easier were these thick clothes and boots that Jura made Eiro buy for himself and the children, otherwise he would have frozen to death a dozen times over already. The Imp was a little annoyed that he still had to run around with this scratched up, barely usable wooden hand, but he figured it was better than none at all, so Eiro didn''t really want toin about that after all that Jura did for him already.


    Another thing that was quite convenient these past few weeks was the amount that Eiro could practice his Water Magic! He got it to Apprentice Grade justst week, joining his Air Magic Skill! Although, the Imp still didn''t manage to ''refine'' his mana like Jura kept telling him to.


    The old man said it would help him get his Fire Magic that he innately was supposed to have, but the Imp just didn''t understand how he was supposed to do it.


    After Eiro read about a method to test elemental affinity in a book, he immediately tested it on himself an the children! While Jura was able to ''smell'' or ''hear'' this kind of thing somehow, he was only able to do so once the magic had ''awakened'' into a skill or something like that.


    Either way, the Imp himself had his highest affinity in Water, as they already knew, then came Wind. Those two were the only ones strong enough to have automatically awakened into skills. Then came Fire, which was already quite close to awakening into a skill, and the Imp also had a bit of a minor affinity for the Shadow Element! It was barely noticable though, so the Imp didn''t have much hope of getting ''Shadow Magic'' at any point.


    There was also a thing about ''Talent'' for a certain type of Magic, and it seemed like the Imp didn''t show any particr talent into any direction, meaning he was open to going anywhere with his magic, albeit slower than some others.


    As Leon and the Demon''s little Priestess were too young to be tested, he tried it on the other children next.


    Arc had a strong Affinity for the Fire element with hopes of awakening into an advanced versionter, although the Imp wasn''t able to test for that advanced version just yet, as well as a Talent for Physical Combat.


    Sammy''s Affinityyout was simr to Arc''s, just that instead of having the Fire Element, she had the Wind Element, but also a talent forbat, although a different kind to Arc, and high hopes of awakening into an advanced version of this element.


    As for Rudy, he had minor Affinities for the Earth and Fire elements, both of them with a nonbat rted supportive Talent. Then atst, Clementine had affinities for the Water and Light elements, with a very strong Talent toward Healing magic.


    Jura already expressed his interest in teaching Clementine about magicter, but that wasn''t a good idea for now, considering how young she was. Her body first had to get ustomed to mana properly before she was able to use it in any shape or form, after all.


    Thinking about how proud he was for the talents the children were showing, Eiro slowly made his way over toward the traps he set up along his ''Return route''. So that he could cover thergest area he could, he chose to basically travel through the forest in a circr path, with the destination always being the river to meditate before he returned home.


    He actually ended up making use of the sap that the Imp so unknowingly ate when he first arrived in this ce to attract animals to the traps more easily. It worked pretty well in the summer when the smell of it was being carried through the air, but now that it was winter, it always just froze. It still worked as a pretty good ''lure'' for animals making their way through the forest to search for food, so Eiro shouldn''tin, but he was in a slightly nervous mood over nothing having fallen for his traps on the ''Leaving Route''.


    But to his luck, a rabbit seemed to have fallen for this trap, and a pretty big one at that!


    As Eiro approached the white creature that was nearly blending in with the snow and his breath turned into mist in the cold air, he noticed something else, however. It wasn''t a regr rabbit, but a monster! It had a small horn in the center of its forehead, and the Imp remembered this kind to be especially delicious, so this was a great catch!


    Quite swiftly, the Imp went behind the tree he attached the simple trap to and pulled on the rope, immediately pulling the rabbit upside down to make it hang there like that. And then, Eiro took out his Dagger and quickly pushed his mana into the Magic Stone in its handle to heat it up to melt a little bit of the snow underneath the rabbit.


    Then while momentarily holding the dagger with his right hand, the Imp ran his left hand over the spots of the snow that were now soaked in water. While the Imp''s Magic was at Apprentice Rank by now, it was still a lot easier to manipte things that were either part of his body or directly touching his body, so like this Eiro was able to quite easily form this water into the shape of a bowl before it froze into strong ice before the Imp quickly took his dagger back onto his left hand and held the Horned Rabbit''s with his wooden right hand.


    Usually, as the horn of this breed of Horned Rabbit was covered in razor-sharp small needles, you wouldn''t be able to do it just like this without immensely damaging yourself. But because Eiro didn''t feel any pain in that hand, in the end that just made it easier for him to grab onto the rabbit without it slipping away while the Imp cut its throat.


    Eiro kept holding it while it was trembling and shaking its body around wildly so that it wouldn''t fling any blood around, and soon enough the thick red liquid started dripping down onto the horn and into the bowl of ice.


    The reason why the Imp did all of this was quite simple. For one, like this he had a good way of preserving the blood, which he and Rudy found to be an actually quite amazing ingredient to add into some dishes, until he got home, he was able to safely kill the rabbit right here without any worries about what might happen on his way home, and the horn absorbed a little bit of the blood as it dripped down and crystalized inside the smaller nooks or crannies.


    Over the past few months, Eiro has actually been collecting these kinds of small trinkets from beasts or monsters he killed as long as he thought they were interesting enough. Jura said they might turn out to be useful to Eiroter on as well, so he didn''t see a reason not to gather them.


    And so, once the first onught of blood was gone, the Imp cut the rabbit loose and then attached the rope still around its legs to the stick he had on his back as he picked up the blood-filled ice bowl, still holding it under the rabbit while carrying it with his right hand and holding the stick for bnce with his left hand.


    For now, this Rabbit should be enough for everyone to eat a bit of, considering how big it was, and Eiro figured he should make his way over toward the hut again. He still checked the traps on the rest of the way back, of course, but they were all empty so he just continued on. There really wasn''t much to gather at the moment either, so there was no reason to stay there any longer.


    While the freshly frozen snow cracked underneath the Imp''s feet, he stepped up the hill and tried to use the same path that he has been using every single day especially since it started to freeze like this. It was actually around the back of the hill when seen from the path that he used to take. It was a bit steeper here, but in return there were things like natural ''steps'' in the form of coarse rocks and such. And because there was a little bit of an overhang there as well, the snow wasn''t just as steep here and it froze a lot less, meaning that Eiro didn''t have to worry about slipping without any free hands to catch his fall.


    He remembered that on one of the first days that it snowed like this he tried walking up the regr path and tripped, before sliding down the whole path down to the foot of the hill again. It was rather annoying, especially because he nearly froze to death afterward because snow and ice got under his clothes.


    First things first, Eiro stepped into one of the new parts that were built onto the side of the house. The top of this hill was actually prettyrge and t, so there was a fair amount of space for animals and other smaller houses, so once when Eiro came back from town with a few cows, there suddenly was a small barn there. And another time, there was a small shed that the Imp was allowed to use practically alone to properly butcher some animals or to keep his books and ''Trophies''.


    It was pretty cold in there, but at the very least it was dry, that''s all that the Imp really cared about. He dropped one of his books into water once before he finished it, so there were still about a dozen pages of ''Farm Animals for Dummies'' he didn''t read yet. It was a shame, but there weren''t much important things he missed... That''s what Eiro hoped, at least.


    For now, the Imp had to get inside the shed and hang the rabbit there to let it bleed into a regr bucket and pour the blood he had so far into a bucket or something as well.


    Then after Eiro properly cleaned the little bit of blood that did end up on his clothes off, he stepped up to the door to the house and hit his boots together to get rid of the majority of the snow stuck to it, then opened the door and stepped out of the boots directly into the house before cing the boots down next to the door on a towel so that the floor wouldn''t get wet, before Sammy came running up to him before the Demon even had the chance to take off his cloak and jacket.


    "Eiro! Hurry, hurry, Avalin''s been babbling all day! You haven''t heard her do that before, right?" She eximed, and Eiro raised his brows surprised. He knew that they were pretty excited when the little priestess and Leon started to crawl, but he wasn''t aware that this was also such a big deal. It was true he wasn''t there to witness it yet, although he didn''t try to stay just for that anyway.


    But since even Jura seemed quite interested, he just followed along and took a look. And then, the very moment, that Eiro looked at the rainbow-eyed little Avalin, the young toddler herself started giggling happily and extended her hands toward the Imp, quickly grasping his index finger.


    "Daa....da!"

 Chapter 61 - Four Ladies

    "Daa...da!" Avalin eximed happily as she grasped Eiro''s finger more tightly, and the Imp looked around at the others confused. Especially Nelli seemed to be quite surprised, although the children were basically celebrating the fact that Avalin just ''spoke''.


    "What is this... The one being meant to banish all demons... just called a Demon ''Dada''?" The Naiad asked as she floated right next to Jura, who was just leaning back in his chair with a light, pleased smile. But that still didn''t help Eiro have the most important thing that he needed to know answered... "What does ''Dada'' mean? Is it like that ''Dodo'' bird I read about?" The Imp asked, making Jura chuckle quietly as he shook his head.


    "Of course not, you buffoon. ''Dada'' means ''Dad''. The kid sees you as her father. Guess all those stories you read to them made her remember the word." Jura exined swiftly, before Eiro looked back down at Avalin, unsure of how he should react to this. "Thanks?" He asked with his head tilted to the side, before he heard a p next to him while Sammy hit her own forehead again.


    "Is something wrong?" Eiro asked, but Sammy just shook her head. "Nope, nothing''s wrong... That''s exactly how my father would have reacted... Either way, now only Leon needs to speak up!" She eximed, trying to steer the conversation into a different direction, and the Imp nodded his head as he looked at the other toddler sleeping right next to Avalin. All he ever did was sleep, really.


    When everyone was sitting around them to wait for them to crawl, Avalin managed to do so first and everyone was so excited about it that Leon got woken up from his nap and swiftly crawled over toward his cradle at a world-champion speed.


    But it seemed like this time around, Leon wouldn''t just speak up and tell them to be quiet like Eiro slightly hoped he would, simply because it would be entertaining as heck, and so the Demon just turned over toward the Chubby boy next to him who was slowly returning back to the Kitchen to check on the stew.


    "Rudy, I got a Horned Rabbit today. The Spiked-Horn type." The Imp pointed out, and immediately the children looked at him with hungry expressions. "H-Horned Rabbit? Today of all days..? C-Can''t we eat that together with the stew this time..?" Arc asked with a curious smile, although he knew what the answer would be.


    "The meat we have left over will be made into Jerky, so no. Rudy already uses a lot of meat in the stew, you know? I was just telling him because of the blood." Eiro replied quite clearly, and the young Chef started to chuckle. "Don''t worry, I think I could make some Rabbit Blood-Sausage? There was a recipe in the new cookbook Eiro brought me... And you mentioned something about smoking, right? That should make themst longer as well...? Right?" The boy asked, still as unsure in his decisions as always, and as the Imp himself didn''t know too much about that either, he swiftly turned toward Jura, who nodded his head with a sigh.


    "Mhm... You can use some of leftover wood from myst trip to the forest... Should give it some nice vor." Jura replied, and Eiro nodded his head in response. "Thank you." He said, and the old man raised his brows with a bit of curiosity.


    "Speaking of... Any Progress?" The old man asked, but the Imp just stared back with a gaze that said everything. But as Jura was blind, he obviously had to say it out loud.


    "Not as far as I noticed, no. It''s still only that I can let my Mana Flow through it, but there''s nothing else since that first happened." Eiro pointed out, and Jura slowly nodded his head as he cupped his chin in his hand for a moment.


    "I have an idea. I think instead of letting you repeat something that does not work, we should take a little break from that and simply make you help me with a few things." Jura suggested and slowly stood up, making loud moaning noises to exaggerate the pain he was feeling in his knees and back like always, and then stepped over toward the door, while Eiro looked at him surprised.


    "What do you need my help with?" He asked slightly suspicious. Ever since he first came here, his daily routine had been the exact same thing over and over again. He would go out into the forest to hunt or gather, meditate, and then continue to hunt or gather. Then ever two weeks, Eiro went to the nearby town to get different things, and once a month, always during the two-week interval that Eiro was at home, Jura went off for roughly three to four days and then returned without speaking about what happened during the trip for even a moment.


    It was pretty weird that Jura was changing that routine up all of a sudden, at least from the Imp''s standpoint.


    "Juste outside with me, I will exin on the way." Jura said with a sigh as he put on his jacket and shoes, before Eiro slowly did the same, before turning around toward the children as he opened the door.


    "Don''t go outside, and be careful until we are back." The Imp said, and the children just nodded their heads, dismissing it as natural after all the times they''ve heard it already before the Imp stepped outside. Slowyl, he and Jura made their way down the hill, along the frozen path that Eiro really didn''t like. But luckily, because of how proficient Jura was with Water Magic, he managed to get rid of all of the ice in front of them without any issue.


    "Do you remember, three months ago? There was one day when I was gone from midnight to midnight, the wholeplete day. That was because I was out to greet a very special Lady. This forest is quite a special one, you see. The Flow of nature is strong and everpresent. One of the things that makes this forest so special is the appearance of the four Ladies." Jura exined in a clear, albeit quiet voice, before the Imp raised his brows surprised.


    "Four Ladies? A Lady is an Adult Woman, right? There should be more than four of those..." He muttered quietly, making the old man next to Eiro chuckle in response.


    "Of course, of course. But in this case, ''Four Ladies'' refers to the Ladies of the Seasons. Three months ago, I greeted the Lady Autumn, like I do each and every time. Tomorrow, Lady Winter will appear in this forest, and I wish for you to greet her with me and bring her to the town." Jura exined, and the Imp just turned to him curiously.


    "Bring her to town? Why do we need to bring her there?" He asked, and Jura sighed out deeply.


    "Did you never take a look at the central za? That town was founded solely to serve the four Ladies. They are depicted as statues there. Long ago, I was given the task to lead the Ladies, so that''s what I am doing."


    "I see..." Eiro replied coldly as he looked around himself, trying to figure out where exactly they were going at the moment, although he was quite surprised to see them stop in front of a simple rock.


    "Ah, here we are. Fresh Lavender Moss." The old man muttered as he smelled the air, all the whilst Eiro just looked at the snow-covered rock confused.


    "Lavender Moss?" The Imp asked, before Jura once more nodded in response. "Yes, it is the purple-pink growth underneath that snow. It''s one of the things we need. So grab as much of it as you can, and then we will continue."


    With a slight frown, Eiro nodded his head and pushed the snow away with his wooden hand to look for the growth Jura mentioned, and then simply pulled it off when he found it, folding it up like a piece of cloth before putting it over his arm, as he didn''t have a bag with him.


    It seemed quite strong for some reason, so Eiro figured it would be fine like this. "Next, we are looking for Elf-Berries. They grow on bushes around here, although they''re pure white and as such hard to find in the snow." Jura exined next.


    And as Eiro followed Jura around for a couple of hours, he found just how little he knew about this forest even after spending day after day inside of it. He never even read about any of the nts or fruit they gathered today.


    In the end, they only returned home when the sun went down as well, although that happened very, very earlytely.


    "Now then." Jura said once the two of them returned back to the House, slowly opening the front door as he and Eiro carried everything inside, "Hang some of these things to dry above mes made with this charcoal. Don''t worry, it won''t burn hotter than a person''s touch." The old man exined, and Eiro did as told and made his way over toward the firece that was set into the ground in the corner especially for asions like these. It was pretty closed off, so all the smoke just left through the chimney without spreading through the room.


    And then, after Eiro prepared the things he was told to to dry, he made his way back toward the old man, who sat down at the table already, considering that Rudy was just about to serve the stew. This surprised Eiro, considering that he thought they were supposed to take care of all of the preparations for tomorrow, but apparently, that wasn''t all that important right now after all?


    "Come on, sit down! Let''s eat first! The rest is quite easily done, after all." Jura pointed out, so the Imp just simply nodded his head in resposne and sat down on his usual seat as well, right inbetween Arc and Clementine, on the opposite side of Jura.


    Eiro really didn''t exactly know why, but he was feeling pretty nervous, so he figured he should go ahead and do what he did every day during dinner. "Status."


    [Name ¨C Eiro][Race ¨C Schr Imp][Level ¨C 99]


    [Health ¨C 10500][Mana ¨C 12500]


    [Strength ¨C 20][Constitution - 30][Resistance ¨C 20]


    [Agility - 42][Evasion ¨C 20][Dexterity - 42]


    [Intelligence - 79][Wisdom ¨C 52]


    [Perception ¨C 66][Willpower ¨C 20][Charisma ¨C 20]


    [0 Stat Points Avable]


    [Skills]


    -[Intermediate Common Language Comprehension][Level ¨C 2]


    -[Apprentice Stealth][Level ¨C 58]


    -[Apprentice Butchering][Level ¨C 9]


    -[Apprentice Water Magic][Level ¨C 3]


    -[Apprentice Air Magic][Level ¨C 5]


    -[Apprentice Holy Energy Resistance][Level ¨C 4]


    -[Apprentice Concentration][Level ¨C 3]


    -[Apprentice Meditation][Level ¨C 12]


    -[Beginner Trapmaking][Level ¨C 21]


    -[Beginner Trading][Level ¨C 31]


    -[Beginner Botany][Level ¨C 47]


    -[Beginner Dagger Mastery][Level ¨C 94]


    -[Beginner Overeating][Level ¨C 19]


    -[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance][Level ¨C 65]


    -[Beginner Sickness Resistance][Level ¨C 41]


    -[Beginner Cold Resistance][Level ¨C 16]


    -[Beginner Cooking][Level ¨C 83]


    [Blessings]


    -[Blessing of the Lonely Naiad]

 Chapter 62 - Second Use

    "Oh!" Eiro eximed in surprise, before the others looked over toward him curiously. "Something good happen?" Arc asked from next to him, trying to peek into his eyes to try the impossible task of catching a glimpse of the Imp''s status, and Eiro just quickly nodded his head. "My Botany Level went up five times today. I didn''t level it up at all since Winter started." Eiro pointed out, before Jura just quietly chuckled and pushed a spoon of the stew in front of him into his mouth.


    "Well, well, who''d have thought that finding and gathering nts that grow nearly purely due to the fact that a Lady ising are so helpful for that?" The old man asked with a slightly sarcasticugh, but Eiro just stared back at him, really not appreciating such a thing, although he soon rxed and happily started eating this favorite stew of his.


    It had a fair bit of meat inside, a lot of it being meat that was taken from different animals'' internal organs, which was something the Imp somehow really enjoyed. There was one ingredient in here that couldn''t properly be eaten besides when it was prepared in the right manner beforehand. And that manner was the thing that created the horrid smell and smoke that the Imp was trying to see if he could notice it from the forest before.


    It was called a Rancid Root, because it simply had such a rancid odor and appearance that you didn''t want to even have it in the same room as you when eating a food you loved. But after sitting in salt for a day and then being roasted, it was basically like that ''rancid'' part was simply being burnt off, and after that the root became an incredible ingredient!


    Rudy usually made a bit more of it than he needed for the stew, because when the root was then cut up into strips and dried, it was a really nice, albeit as chewy as dry leather, snack that the Imp usually took with him on his way to town.


    And as it was an ingredient that grew in any environment, they were growing it in a small spot at the foot of the mountain.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro continued on eating now and slowly ran his finger through his status to make it disappear, although Sammy looked over toward him with a slight frown.


    "Eh... It keeps surprising me when you do that..." Sammy muttered quietly, and Rudy immediately nodded his head, "Right?! I get that it''s a habit, but you can just ''think'' the notifications away..." He pointed out, but Eiro just quietly huffed and looked back at them.


    "They are annoying, and I dislike them... So I want to annoy them as much as I can as well." The Imp pointed out, and Arc immediately started tough out loud. "Damn, you might as well be the smartest person I know, but you''re so dumb sometimes!" He eximed, and Eiro just stared back at him for a moment while feeling his chest tighten for a moment.


    What was this feeling? He really, really didn''t know exactly, but it made it impossible for the Imp to swallow the food in his mouth, to speak, or even breath, as his throat felt stuffed. He could feel his own heart suddenly beating much more strongly than before.


    For just a moment, Eiro thought that maybe he was feeling upset at being called a ''person'', but it might have been the opposite. He was happy... being called one. And it wasn''t that he thought he wanted to be a person all of a sudden, that definitely wasn''t it at all. It was just that... Eiro was happy that the children seemed to so naturally think of him as their own, despite that very obviously not being the case. Anyone with the ability of sight could know. Although, maybe even that wasn''t necessary, considering that Jura obviosuly knew this as well.


    So for some reason, this was just... so nice for Eiro to hear. He himself couldn''t exin it, but it definitely was a thing.


    And so, the Imp just started smiling like an idiot in response to what Arc just said, which weirded them all out even more, before they continued eating.


    After dinner, Eiro quickly stood up and checked up on the different dried things before he turned over toward Jura.


    "What else do we need to do with these?" The Imp asked, still slightly smiling from before, and Jura slightly crossed his arms. "We just need to take it with uster on, so make sure it''s dry and then ce it to the side." Jura pointed out, so Eiro ended up just nodding his head before properly taking another look at these materials, taking them away from the fire before putting that colorful, currently pink, fire out.


    Swiftly, Eiro then made his way to the table and ced the different things down there, before stepping up to the door to put his jacket, cloak, and shoes back on.


    "The horned rabbit should have bled out by now, I will take care of it real quick." Eiro said, before slowly opening the door, although Jura swiftly turned toward him as he did so.


    "Hm, there seems to be something running around outside... It blends in pretty well, but smells like a monster... It walks on two legs... Could you take care of that as well?" Jura asked Eiro, who turned toward him surprised.


    "Sure... Do you know what kind of monster it is?" The Imp inquired, but Jura slowly shook his head. "I''m afraid not. I don''t recognize that scent. But it doesn''t seem that strong... You should be able to take it. It''s in the direction of that ce in the river you always go to." Jura exined, so Eiro nodded and just stepped out the door, quickly closing it behind him. He would just let the rabbit bleed a little longer, then.


    And so, while trying to make use of the thin path that Jura cleared up before, the Imp stepped down the hill and tried to take a look around. His senses were incredibly dull whenpared to Jura''s, but he still trusted in his nose, eyes and ears, so he was sure he could be able to find it if he needed to.


    Soon enough, that time had alreadye as well. He was hearing snow and sticks cracking underneath heavy footsteps, and when the Imp approached the source of those sounds, he soon saw the monster that created them.


    It was tall, very, very tall. It was evenrger than the house Eiro lived in, and its breath turned into thick mistparable to when you poured water on hot coals. Its upper body had a statureparable to a bear''s, although its limbs were thin inparison.


    It had no hair all at any ce on its body, and its eyes were slightly glowing like the moon was. It had tworge horns on top of its head, and behind it, it was dragging something by its single antler.


    It was that incredibly pressuring Stag that Eiro first met a few months ago. He saw it a couple of times since then, and each time it stayed around him a little longer, as if trying to watch him do his thing. The first few times the Imp was barely able to move, but soon enough, he got used to the Stag sometimes just appearing out of seemingly nowhere.


    But what shocked him even more was... That such an obviously powerful being was defeated by this... this thing. Was this not what Jura was speaking about? It couldn''t be! Eiro wasn''t capable of taking this on in any way, shape or form, not to mention kill it!


    On the other hand, the monster in front of the Imp was able to do so quite easily, and swung its long, thick arm forward, trying to use therge Stag''s body like a weapon. Eiro was able to dodge, luckily, but he soon heard the sound of the stag crying out in response to its body hitting the ground strongly.


    Eiro could swear that he heard bones cracking as well, but that wasn''t of importance right now. Rather, the Imp had to do something, anything, to get this monster to just leave. If he didn''t, the children might be in danger.


    Just then, the Imp remembered the two tools he hadn''t used once ever since he first got here. Jura told him he wasn''t allowed to, and as such Eiro just had them with him, tied to his chest with some cloth at all times so that he couldn''t lose them no matter what. Slowly, the Imp just ground his teeth together as he stared at the monster. "Jura, if I can use my cards, give me a sign. Anything at all." Eiro yelled out loudly, although even a whisper should have been enough to reach the old man''s ears.


    And a few momentster, Eiro could see a bright green light in the sky above the house. It was probably a piece of that Jura''s special wood that was ignited and thrown into the air. But the Imp didn''t care about what it was, what he cared about was one thing.


    That he might be able to kill this thing now.


    Immediately, the Imp ced his left hand against his chest and pushed his mana into them, before a ring appeared around the Imp''s left index finger, connected to the Imp''s dagger through a thin thread.


    And at the same time, a golden, decorated cup appeared in Eiro''s hand, with a pitch ck liquid inside of it that the Demon quickly poured down his throat. It tastedpletely disgusting, to the point of nearly making him throw up just by having a droup touch his tongue...


    But then, Eiro''s body simply disappeared from the Monster''s sight and mind, as it was trying to think about what exactly it was just doing and then made its way over toward the Stag.


    However, Eiro didn''t let it do that, and slowly climbed up on the Monster''s back, immediately trying to push the de into the back of its neck, although the Imp really wasn''t able to properly see, hear, smell, or feel anything that was going on around him. He could somewhat see the Monster''s figure, but he couldn''t really. It was as if it was there, but at the same time wasn''t.


    But in the end, the Imp managed to inflict a fair bit of damage to this monster, although it didn''t seem like the monster cared much about it, as it just continued walking on. Eiro couldn''t technically see the damage it did to the monster, but his de was pushed deep into the Monster''s neck, so he didn''t understand how it couldn''t affect the monster.


    However, because Eiro couldn''t really think straight, he just kept going, just continuosly stabbing this monster over and over and over again, always at the same spot, right into the center of its neck.


    Then, all of a sudden, the world returned to what it was before, and the body of the monster nearly instantly copsed underneath the Imp, making him drop down into the snow himself, as multiple notifications appared around him.


    [You have activated the Ace of Cups. For the next 12 hours, you will evade the world, and the world will evade you]


    [Apprentice Stealth Skill Leveled Up!]


    [Apprentice Stealth Skill Leveled Up!]


    ...


    [Apprentice Stealth Skill Leveled Up!]


    [Frozen Monstrosity -1928 Damage]


    [Frozen Monstrosity -2156 Damage]


    ...


    [Frozen Monstrosity -2084 Damage]


    [Lethal Damage done to Frozen Monstrosity]


    [Due to going against the nature of the Ace of Cups of evading the world by killing a creature with its help, a cooldown penalty has been applied]


    [Ace of Cups Cooldown: 364 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds]


    [You leveled Up!]


    [You have 1 unused Stat Point!]


    [You have reached Level 100]


    [Possible Evolutions]


    -[Greater Schr Imp]


    -[Magic Schr Imp]


    -[Nature Schr Imp]


    -[Hidden Schr Imp]


    [As a Card Owner, you have ess to a Unique Evolution. Do you want tomence Evolution into a Unique Subspecies of Schr Imp?]

 Chapter 63 - Daughters Of Winter

    Eiro wasying there in the snow, staring up into the sky, just seeing the notifications appear in the corners of his eyes. His whole body was feeling cold, but at the same time, he was feeling quite hot. It was weird, to an extent, but it also felt somewhat nice.


    To the Imp, it seemed like he only now realized the power of these cards. His body had never been able to properly control the Three of Swords to its full extent, and there still seemed to be many secrets about it that he wasn''t aware of just yet.


    But this one card... The Ace of Cups... It was truly incredible. He disappeared from the awareness of everyone, even strong beings like that... ''Frozen Monstrosity''. And even though he seemingly wasn''t supposed to do so, he was able to kill such a being very, very, very easily. Who knows, maybe Eiro would have been able to kill even Zaragon back there the first time he used it if he just tried. Although, that probably would have brought the Imp down a very, very different path than this one.


    Either way, right now, Eiro had to make a choice. He made all of the notifications beside the ones about evolution disappear, and then let that notification just float there behind him while the Imp made his way over toward the Stag.


    It was breathing incredibly heavily, and parts of its fur were drenched in cold blood. In general, the condition of the Stag had never been great, considering its limping and its missing antler. Maybe he should just kill it to let it out of its pain and misery.


    Eiro hadn''t gained much direct knowledge through Jura so far, but amongst the bits and pieces that he did learn from him was that each living being was its own thing. There was no reason to condemn all beings of one kind for the wrongdoings of one, and neither was it a good idea to trust all of one kind for the good that a single one did.


    You had to take a look at the singr entity and then judge. Over the past few months, the only times that Eiro had killed was either for food, or because there was a troublesome monster in the forest that Jura told him to go kill. And of course, even those monsters were eaten when possible.


    But in the end... this stag was too old. It''s meat was probably too tough to be chewed even by the Imp''s teeth, and it was so dirty that you could probably have that taste stuck in your mouth for months.


    There were some swollen parts that seemed like they were filled with pus as well, and this stag was obviously very sick on top of the injuries it had gained right here.


    So of course, there was only one possible solution to this issue. This stag''s life had to be saved somehow, obviously. And so, the Imp looked at the house at the top of the hill. "Will you save it?" The Imp asked, quite clearly meant for Jura, but there was no answer in any way.


    "Do you want me to save it?" He then asked, but once more, there was no answer.


    "I see. My choice, then." Eiro said quietly, and while there once more wasn''t an answer, this time around it felt like the silence said more than any sort of answer he could have received.


    Slowly, the Imp looked around himself to try and find anything that could be of use to him, before he remembered one thing. Immediately he jumped up and ran around, trying to orient himself in this bare, white forest, before he ended up finding what he was looking for.


    One of his traps. Immediately, he cut the rope loose and as he was running around to find one of the traps nearby, as he always ced two or three close to each other, he scratched of some of the poisonous sap that made the Imp feel so ''good'' back then.


    Before, he once tried to properly remember the feeling from then and in retrospect checked his whole body for what might have changed. For sure, he definitely felt less of anything. He just felt cozy and warm, and happy. But as he was running around, Eiro scratched his arm on some branches and ended up bleeding a little, although he hadn''t even felt that pain.


    And most animals that ended up eating this sap often fell asleep after having too much of it, because it ''rxed'' them too much.


    It seemed like the perfect thing for the stag with its currently heavy breathing. And so, after of course deactivating both his cards and properly cing them back into his bag, Eiro pushed his mana into the Fire Magic Stone in the handle of his dagger so that he could try to melt this sap down a little bit, or at least turn it a little softer for now.


    Just like that, Eiro managed to gather a handful of this chunked-up sap and brought it over toward the stag, before slowly pushing part of it into its mouth. The stag seemed rather aggressive, trying to bite the Imp, but luckily he was just using his wooden hand, so he didn''t feel any of it and could just push it down the Stag''s throat, flushing it down with molten snow.


    It took a few minutes, but soon, its breathing finally slowed down and its eyes closed, so Eiro could now properly get started.


    He knew a lot about how the bodies of animals worked now, considering how much he had been cutting them up finely over the past few months, and once there was a deer amongst the animals as well... It was much, much smaller than this stag, but their bodies should be simr.


    The first thing that Eiro somehow tried to do was to stop the bleeding. And for that, he ced his hand directly onto the wound, making the stag slightly twitch for a moment. But at that point, Eiro had already been able to push his mana into the blood and at least partially ''redirected'' it to at least lessen the amount of blood it was losing.


    The Imp knew that this stag had broken bones as well, but he could only care for what he could see... He couldn''t just cut the stag open, after all! Instead, he pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out one of the magic stones that he hasn''t been using ever since they got away from the Demonic Town, a Holy Energy Magic Stone. It should be able to help this stag recover to some extent, shouldn''t it?


    At the very least, that''s what Eiro thought... In the end, nothing happened. It worked with Clementine back then, so why not now? Or... or was it because Clementine was insanely close to the topic of ''Healing''..? No matter how messed up it is, her unique skill lets her heal nearly any wound, she has an insane talent for healing, and two elements that are both known for their healing capabilities...


    That... That might be it. That could have been the only reason why she was healed so easily. Eiro didn''t know what he was supposed to do! He figured it would be easy like this, but it absolutely wasn''t!


    Was there another way? Any way at all for him to heal this Stag? And then, he remembered what Jura did back when the Imp first met him.


    He wasn''t sure how exactly it worked, but maybe he could try to replicate it... Slowly, he pushed his hot de into the snow and melted it into water, before trying to ''lift'' that water with his magic. It was hard, but soon, he managed to form it into some form of bubble on top of his palm. And into that bubble, the Imp ced the small Holy Energy Magic stone. After all, it should still be able to help somehow, and the Imp could use any help he could get.


    And then, he slowly ced the bubble against the Stag''s most serious wound, making it directly flinch in response. The water was still quite cold, after all. Eiro had a tough time properly keeping it in shape, but he had to concentrate properly.


    With a deep breath directed outward that didn''t even create mist anymore because of how cold Eiro''s body was feeling, the Imp tried to remember that moment from back then in as much detail as possible.


    He stepped into that memory, and instead of standing right where he did back then, he walked over toward Eiro and took on his spot, before he started to slowly chant.


    "Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wass. Jiadis Naia." He muttered quietly, before the Imp''s body started to tense up. It was as if something was being sucked out of his very being and entered the water in the bubble.


    It felt like all the air that was in his lungs had disappeared together with the stew fresh in his stomach, creating just two big holes that wanted to be filled immediately. But the Imp knew that if he did, he would fail. He didn''t know how he knew, but he did.


    And so, without any air, and with gaping pain in his abdomen, Eiro continued to chant, although he was unaware how he really did so.


    "Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wass. Jiadis Naia. Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wass. Jiadis Naia. Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wass. Jiadis Naia."


    Over and over again, Eiro repeated this chant, until he couldn''t anymore.


    And then, he slowly opened his eyes directly at the stag in front of him. And... The wound was closed. There were some frozen bits of water around the ce where the wound once was, but the wound was closed. It seemed like in general, the Stag''s condition slightly improved. But...


    Wait, there was something weird... It wasn''t this dark when the Imp started this, and somehow, his whole body seemed as if it was frozen in ce. He couldn''t move properly anymore. He would probably be able to react to itter, but for now, the burning pain he felt in every nook and cranny of his body was overwhelmed by the pure pressure behind him.


    "So he is the one, is he not?" A Woman''s voice asked, echoing through the forest with a cold tone that reverberated throughout Eiro''s whole being.


    "Yes, yes he is." A familiar voice, Jura''s, replied. Slowly, the Imp turned around, making the ice stuck to his body slowly crack. But soon, heid his eyes on the Woman.


    She was tall, very, very tall. She might have been twice as tall as that ''Frozen Monstrosity'', even. She had pure white skin, and wore a thick white fur-jacket on her body. The only color on her whole being were her pale blue lips and the ice that made up parts of the decoration on her body, reflecting the light of the moon.


    "How curious. A usually me-Alligned Demon, letting his body be taken over by frost to save a creature''s life. And on top of that, a blessing from an old friend of mine. Jura, thank you for showing him to me." The Lady of Winter said, her lips slightly curling up into a warm smile as the Imp felt his body itself gain back its feeling and movement, frozen heat concentrating on the center of his chest as that happened.


    And before the Imp knew it, flowers started to sprout around him. Out of the cold, barren dirt, flowers made of ice appeared, while the Imp could hear the giggling of children. They weren''t Eiro''s children, but others that he didn''t know yet. They peeked their heads forward from behind the Lady of Winter, each carrying a different one of the nts that Eiro and the Imp gathered before.


    They looked practically like younger versions of the Lady of Winter, and especially one of them stuck out to the Imp. She was the smallest of all of them, and the only one not carrying anything, something which she seemed to be quite sad about.


    Eiro didn''t know why he did it, but he felt like he should. Slowly, he stood up, making even thest of the ice around his limbs crack, before he cut off the head of one of the flowers in front of him, an action that seemed to shock not only Jura, but also the ''Daughters of Winter''. But the Lady of Winter only seemed intrigued, and watched as the Imp approached the smallest of the Daughters.


    On that first day, when Eiro meditated for the first time and returned, he saw that the three girls, so Sammy, Clementine, and even the little Avalin, were giggling happily. And when he saw the source of that happiness, he was surprised. The flower that he picked to make that ''Opium'', the Poppy, was stuck to their hair as a decoration. They were somehow so proud of it when they showed it to the Imp, so he figured something like that was supposed to make people happy.


    So, instead of letting that young girl stand there sad like that, the Imp figured he should rather cheer her up a bit. She did look quite simr to Avalin after all. And not the little one that simply inherited that name, but the original. She looked just far too simr for the Imp to let her stay sad like that.


    And so, he lightly ran his thumb through her cold, ice-like hair and adjusted it a little, before cing the flower into her hair with a light smile on his face.

 Chapter 64 - Second Evolution

    Slowly, Eiro took a step back from the Daughter of Winter, and then looked up at the Lady of Winter, while Jura stepped up to him and grabbed his arm tightly. "You buffoon! How-"


    "It is fine, Jura." The Lady interrupted him, before the old man''s grip immediately loosened, as if Jura let go in shock.


    "Men shall not harm these blossoms for selfish reasons, that is true, but this Demon here did it for the little one. I cannot call this selfish, can I?" The Lady pointed out as she kneeled down in front of the Imp and slowly stretched her finger forward toward his chest, tapping it just once, before a cold that the Imp hadn''t felt even after sitting there for hours was inflicted onto his body.


    "Take this as a little gift." The Lady said, all the whilst a notification appeared right in front of the Imp.


    [The <Blessing of the Lonely Naiad> has been transformed into the <Blessing of Winter''s Lonely Naiad>]


    Soon, this prating cold disappeared again while Eiro read through the notification and made it disappear by extending his hand toward it.


    "Thank you." The Imp said quietly as any cold around his body simply disappeared, as if he had always lived in this environment.


    "Now then. Shall we go?" The Lady suggested with a warm smile, and the Imp slowly turned around toward the Stag. The Antler on the left side of his head, which had been broken off by the base, was currently reced by vines of ice, and its fur was covered in different flowers and nts just like the one that Eiro just put into the Daughter of Winter''s hair.


    "I... I can''t leave it here... Won''t it die?" Eiro asked, and while Jura was once more getting angry at him, the Lady of Winter simply shook her head.


    "Do not worry, young one. Your friend''s life is not in danger anymore, thanks to you." She exined, and the Imp slowly looked at the stag with a nervous frown, before nodding his head. "Alright." He replied, and then turned back toward the Lady, who simply turned away with a slight smile and started walking, right into the direction of the Town, followed by the Daughters of Winter, although a particr one seemed to not want to walk on her own and rushed up in front of Eiro, lifting her hands up toward him, exactly what Leon or little Avalin did when they wanted him to pick them up.


    And so, he did just that and picked her up,with his arms around her legs so that she would be sitting on his arms and could still look forward before he started following behind everyone.


    They stepped through this forest, which soon started to light up in numerous colors as flowers of glowing ice appeared everywhere the Lady of Winter stepped.


    Soon, far sooner than the Imp expected, they reached the town, which had apparently prepared something like festival. Everyone was having fun, stalls were built all over the ce and admiring the Lady of Winter. It seemed like some noticed, but nobody cared about how Eiro was obviously not a person, considering that he still was the Lady''s escort.


    After walking through the town for a little while, they reached the central ce where the statues of four women had been built, one in the image of the Lady of Winter. She stood in front of her own statue for a little while, and then returned to the center of the square the statues were forming.


    Without saying a word, she just kneeled down there, as one after another different people came up to her, giving her an ''Offering''. Young children, or old men, it didn''t matter. It seemed like everyone wanted to give her anything they could.


    It took a while for this to finish, but it soon did when the sun rose again. And as the first light hit the silent Lady''s body, the Daughters of Winter made their way over to their mother. While their bodies werepletely channeling the first light of the day, they soon disappeared as snow started to fall from the sky.


    And in front of Eiro, the head of a small flower descended as if trying to push itself into his hand, so he slowly took it and just held it. Somehow, while it was still cold, it didn''t seem as if the ice the flower was made of was melting in response to his touch, different to all the other flowers of ice that appeared then, which all disappeared after a little while.


    While Eiro was looking at the flower, he soon felt something hard hit the back of his head. And that ''something hard'' was Jura''s hand.


    "You utter andplete fool! You were lucky that the Lady was in a good mood, or you would be dead now! And what are you doing, caring for a half-dead deer instead of following hermand? What is so special about that thing that you wanted to save it like that anyway!" He asked rather angrily as he stomped off, obviously telling Eiro to follow him.


    "You... didn''t feel it?" Eiro asked, but Jura just sighed as he slighly turned back toward the Imp. "Feel what? My heart stop every moment you acted so idiotically?"


    The Imp just slowly shook his head, "Nevermind..." He said, still cupping the ice-flower in his hand. "I am sorry. Was I too disrespectful?" He asked, and Jura immediately nodded his head.


    "Of course you were!" The old man replied, and for the couple of hours that he and Eiro were on their way back to the house, he lectured the Imp on why what he did was wrong. Of course, he basically just repeated himself a couple of times, so it gave Eiro a good chance to think about what exactly this flower was, whether or not the stag was really still alive, and what happened to his blessing. Obviously, he also thought about what to do when it came to his evolution.


    Should he ept the ''Unique Evolution'' again? He felt amazing with his current body, and it was also given to him through a ''Unique Evolution''... so probably he should ept it, right?


    "Are you even listening to me?!" Jura asked a while after the two confirmed that the Stag stood up and left from where it was before, as they were stepping up the hill their house was on, and Eiro shook his head in response.


    "No." He replied clearly, as there was no reason to lie here in his opinion, and Jura sighed out deeply.


    "Just get inside and heat yourself up. You must be cold after sitting in the snow for a few hours." The old man said annoyedly, although Eiro just quietly denied that fact.


    "I haven''t felt cold since the Lady of Winter changed my blessing." He exined just as Jura opened the door, but the old man just stood there as if frozen.


    "Since... The Lady did what?" Jura asked, and Eiro just stepped past the old man into the house and took off his basicallypletely frozen clothes off. "The Lady of Winter tapped by chest... and a notification appeared. My Blessing of the Lonely Naiad was changed into the ''Blessing of Winter''s Lonely Naiad''." Eiro told the old man as he started drying himself off, and Jura slowly followed behind him.


    "She... She gave you her Blessing?" He questioned, making Eiro just nod in response. That''s what he just said, wasn''t it? For now, the Imp was just really tired, and he definitely needed to get some sleep. It seemed like he wasn''t even really registering what was going on right now.


    "Can I sleep?" The Imp asked, and Jura simply nodded, letting Eiro drop into his bed in the corner of the room, right next to the beds of the children, who were still sleeping cozily.


    And just as Eiroid down in his bed and ced his cards down underneath his pillow like always, he looked at the notifications he set to the side before and quietly muttered ''Yes'' to ept the Unique Evolution.


    [Commencing Evolution. Evolution will be over in 6 days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds]


    [You are unable to open your status during evolution]


    And so, Eiro slowly drifted off into sleep as he dropped the ice flower onto his chest, right onto the blue mark, which had changed in a few ways.


    Instead of the royal blue color it had before, it was now ice-blue, and while there were still royal blue lines running through it and the general shape stayed the same as before, the markings became more intricate andplex, as if they were modeled after a snowke.


    To Eiro, it felt like he woke up just as quickly as he fell asleep, although the notification that didn''t seem like it would disappear until his evolution was over only went down to 11 hours, although everything else was nearly the same, so he slept about half a day.


    He was already aware that you were usually conscious during evolutions, because the Imp that was walking in front of him in the Horde was going through evolution as well, apparently, and he was awake like normal then too.


    As he picked up the flower of ice that was still on his chest likest night when he went to bed, Eiro stood up from his bed and got dressed in his clothes for the day, although something was weird about them.


    He looked around the room, noticing that the others were just sitting there, eating dinner apparently, and then looked at Arc, whose bed was right next to the Imp.


    "Arc, are these your pants? These are... A bit too short and tight for me..." The Imp said, before the young boy slowly stood up from the table and walked over toward Eiro to take a look. "Erm... I don''t think so, at least... Those should be yours, but..." Arc said and then stood up straight, cing his hand onto the top of his head before running it over toward Eiro, noticing that it was reaching the Imp''s chin instead of his eyes.


    "I think you grewst night?" The boy pointed out, and Eiro slowly looked down at his body.


    "Oh..." He muttered quietly. "I started my next evolutionst night." He exined, and could immediately hair the sound of a chair being pushed away as Jura stood up.


    "You did? Just going off and doing what you want all the time, huh? So, what evolution did you choose?" The old man asked as he stepped up to Eiro and tried to smell him for some reason, but the Imp just shook his head. "I don''t know. It''s a Unique Evolution because of my Cards..." Eiro pointed out, and Jura looked at him with a sigh.


    "A Unique Evolution? Interesting, interesting... Well, that doesn''t matter for now, then. Oh, and because you didn''t go out today, you will have to go outside tomorrow for double the time. You still have to find the way to get your seed to grow." Jura said, and Eiro slightly furrowed his brows. Whenever Jura spoke like this, he expected something of the Imp. Usually he didn''t know what to say, but this time around, he did.


    "I know how to." He pointed out, before the old man turned around, both excited and in doubt. He was probably supposed to notice something from yesterday to help him find how to get the seed to grow, and that''s exactly what he did.


    As he looked down at the Ice Flower in his hand, the young Demon spoke, "If something like this can grow out there... Then it doesn''t matter where it grows. It matters who cares for it.... And I will care for this seed, and will nt it right now."

 Chapter 65 - Flash Of Red

    "Oh?" Jura asked surprised after hearing Eiro speak about what he wanted to do with the seed, slightly smirking. "So you really want to go out and nt a seed in such a situation? You realize that if you fail, you will never be allowed to learn from me?" The old man inquired, and the Imp just nodded his head in response.


    "Yes. I know that. But I simply want to nt this seed as soon as I can." Eiro exined, making Jura just chuckle in response.


    "Fine, but eat something first. Rudy made those sausages he spoke about, and they''re really good."


    Slowly, Eiro nodded his head as he approached the table in the center of the room, trying to figure out what Jura''s... unusual reaction meant. Usually when the Imp was thinking about doing something extreme like this all of a sudden, Jura yelled at him... And now he offered Eiro food?


    That was really something that the young Demon wasn''t used to, but he figured there was no reason toin. It was Rudy''s food, after all.


    And then, as Eiro sat down at the table and was quickly given a te with some food by the young Chef, Clementine, who was already finished with her food, rested her chin on the table and stretched her arms out to grab the Flower of Ice, taking a proper look at it.


    "Pretty...!" She muttered quietly, and Eiro turned over to her with his mouth full of food, all the whilst Sammy looked at the small Ice Flower as well.


    "It really is! Did you buy this somewhere in town?" She asked, and Jura slowly raised his brows after hearing the flower be moved around.


    "That... It still held up?" The old man inquired with a sigh, before turning toward the Imp. "Why did you even do something as unnecessary as that? There was a reason she wasn''t carrying anything!" Jura eximed, obviously still more than just upset over the Imp''s actions in front of the Lady of Winter, and Eiro swallowed the sausage in his mouth and quickly exined.


    "I did it because... Because..." Or rather, he tried, but he couldn''t find the words, instead trying to use what seemed to be the most logical. "Because she looked sad?"


    "Eiro..." Jura started as he slowly shook his head, "You have been here for half a year, and I have not seen any sign of you caring for anyone beside these children." And all of a sudden, it seemed like Jura remembered something, although it seemed unprobable.


    "Perhaps... You recognized her?" He asked, and the Imp thought about it for a moment. Did he recognize her? Now that he thought about it, it seemed like he did... As if that young girl looked like a tiny version of Avalin, the Avalin that first picked the Imp up, or rather trapped him.


    "I don''t know." Eiro replied quite clearly, simply because he wasn''t sure if that was really what was going on then or not. He was feeling dizzy and tired, and even as he was carrying her through the forest, it was like Eiro was simply following behind everyone in a haze. The trip that should usually have taken nearly half a day seemed like just a couple of hours to him.


    It was weird, to say it bluntly. Maybe she just looked a little simr to her, and he imagined to see her. Eiro really wasn''t sure about all of that in the slightest. Next year he might be able to see her again to confirm it.


    But in response to Eiro, Jura just sighed and shook his head. "Nevermind then, it does seem quite impossible. Either way, you should keep that flower with you. It is a special one, it is a gift that will show you are an ally to nature. Not something you see every day either, really." The old man admitted with a slightugh, and Eiro nodded his head in response.


    "It... Will not melt, right?" In response to that question, Jura immediately shook his head. "It will not, don''t worry. It will not shatter either, but you can lose it, so I would still be careful. You will never gain something like that again."


    Noticing the importance of this ''pretty'' flower, Sammy quickly pushed it back over toward the Imp, who just ced it in front of him to have it in his sight, if it really was as important as Jura said it was. For a little while, everyone just stayed somewhat silent, although Eiro did somehow end up groaning because of ''growing pains'' all over his body. Literally, there was no spot anywhere that didn''t slightly hurt.


    But even then, and despite it being dark already, Eiro helped clean the table up after dinner, or breakfast for him, and then stepped up to the door, where he tried fitting into his boots. However...


    "They don''t fit anymore." The Imp said rather annoyedly as he noticed that his toes were curled up beyond what Eiro felt to be even ''slight ufortable'' and still pressed against the front of the shoe, not to mention how hard it was to even force his feet into them.


    Although... He did have that new version of his ''Blessing'' now, and he didn''t feel cold yesterday, so maybe... "Status."


    [You are unable to open your status during evolution]


    "Ah..." The Imp muttered immediately as he stared forward at the rather annoying notification, before dropping onto the ground to pull his boots off his feet, now in a rather bad mood.


    "Is... everything alright?" Rudy asked slightly concerned and surprised, and Eiro just shook his head. "Can''t open my status while I''m evolving..." Eiro admitted, making the children and the old man look at him rather surprised. "Really? Isn''t that pretty annoying? You look at your status religiously, don''t you?" Arc chuckled as he leaned back in his chair with a cheeky smirk, but the Imp just red over at him.


    "Stop teasing him! Eiro is in a bad mood!" Clementine eximed in response, more upset than the actual Imp in question. "I think you''re the one in a bad mood here. Did you overeat or something?" Arc asked teasingly, now directing his need for humoring over to the young girl.


    "No! But I can feel that Eiro is hurting, so my Magic Stomach is grumbling, but I know it''s nothing that I can eat!" She replied, making the young boy once more just slightlyugh. "Magic Stomach? I know you can eat as much as a Dragon, but that doesn''t make your stomach magical. That just makes you an overweight lizard!" With a loudugh, Arc leaned all the way into his chair, although Clementine seemed not to really be happy with it at all and kicked the chair the boy was sitting on with all her might, causing him to immediately drop backward onto the ground, although that didn''t really seem to bother him all that much. "You know what I mean! My... well, Magic Stomach! The one that all the Ouchies I eat go to!" She yelled out, as serious as she could, although her choice of word just made Arcugh even more.


    "You big dummy!" Clementine yelled out, seemingly seriously upset, and started running to the beds to hide under her nket.


    "Yikes..." Arc said as he slowly stood up, his mood tough seemingly gone, "What''s up with her?" He asked, and everyone just stared at him, although the Imp in particr noticed something that Jura seemed to have as well, but before the old man could say something, Eiro threw his boots to the side and stepped up to Arc, immediately grabbing the sides of his face.


    "Wh-What are you doing?" The boy asked surprised, and Sammy stepped up to Eiro and held his arm. "I get that he upset Clem, but you shouldn''t do... that..." She said, seemingly as nervous as ever when it came to the topic of ''punishment'', but Eiro just shook his head as he stared deep into Arc''s eyes, although he did try to keep a little bit of distance.


    "That''s not it. Arc hurt himself just now. I saw the red notification through his eyes." The Imp exined, and after confirming it pushed the boy to sit down on the chair before looking him over, while Sammy just took a step back surprised.


    "From... across the room?" She asked, and the Imp nodded his head in response.


    "Yes." He said quite clearly, before swiftly taking a look at any ce that Arc might be hurt at to make sure it wasn''t anything serious and soon noticed a small spot of red in his hair. Everyone was especially carefully about possible injuries when it came to Arc, because he was the only one that didn''t feel any pain, so they had to make sure he really was fine.


    Even Clementine had a hard time finding small cuts on him if Arc himself didn''t notice them, because the way she usually ''sensed'' them was through the pain the other party was feeling. And if there was no pain, she couldn''t find the wound easily.


    "Jura..." Eiro said as he looked over toward the old man, but he just shook his head. "Shouldn''t be anything serious. Just a small scratch, I think. The blood should already be drying." Jura said to calm the Imp down, before Arc sighed annoyedly.


    "Stop touching me, it wasn''t even 10 damage..." The boy said annoyedly, but Eiro shook his head. "Yes, but the wound could have be worse over time. And now be quiet and let me clean your hair." As the Imp said this, he quickly stepped over toward the barrel in the kitchen where they kept their drinkable water and tried to get some water from there, but Arc just once more sighed.


    "I can do it myself, it''s fine." He said, but Eiro just ignored him, although there did seem to be someone else that was against Eiro doing it. The little girl peeking out from underneath her nket with tear-filled eyes.


    "C-C-Can I... C-Clean it?" She asked, trying to stop herself from actually starting to sob from hurting Arc like that, although Eiro had rather mixed feelings about that.


    "Can you promise not to eat the wound?" The Imp then asked, and Clementine slowly nodded her head up and down, before he looked at the other children.


    "Make sure she really doesn''t. This is a good wound to test her self-restraint on." Eiro said, having properly calmed down after seeing the sh of a red box inside of Arc''s eyes, and then gave the small bowl with water to Clementine together with a small towel to properly clean it up, and then headed back over to the door.


    At least it let him stop thinking about his own pain all over. "Be careful, and stop fighting, all of you. I will be backter.." The Imp told them as he opened the door after simply pulling the cloak over his body, choosing to just not wear any boots to test whether he really didn''t mind the cold anymore, as he stepped out through the door.

 Chapter 66 - Will

    To Eiro''s pleasant surprise, he didn''t really feel all that ufortable as he stepped into the snow like this. He still felt that it was cold, obviously, but it just didn''t bother him anymore. Without his shoes, it would probably be a lot easier to grip onto the ground, right? At least that''s what Eiro figured should be the case... Well, he would seeter, for now he just had to make his way through the forest like this.


    He had his cards, his Dagger, his bag to carry something to drink and a little to eat in, as well as the seed right there in his left hand. There was a spot that Eiro figured would be a good ce to go to nt this, but first, the young Demon wanted to go check up on a different ce, as long as he actually managed to find it again.


    Although in the end, that wasn''t necessarily all that hard, considering how the body of the ''Frozen Monstrosity'' was still there, with a few parts that weren''t covered in snow still sticking out here and there.


    But sadly, Eiro had to see that the Stag didn''t return here anymore, so maybe he just had to hope that it would return sooner orter. Hopefully sooner thanter. He did really want to know whether he actually managed to save it or not, after all, and the fact that he didn''t know which it was really made him feel ufortable.


    Either way, before the Imp would then make his way to the spot where he wanted to nt the seed, he kneeled down right in front of the frozen monstrosity and took a look the few parts that were still sticking out from the snow, and then ended up choosing one of itsrge fangs as a bit of a ''trophy''.


    He didn''t really know why, but his ''habit'' that had been formed over the past few months felt even stronger now. It might have to do with his evolution, but he couldn''t really know that and just stuffed the fang into his bag after cleaning some blood off of it with a bit of loose snow that quickly melted inside of the Imp''s hand.


    Soon, Eiro found the ce where he wanted to nt this seed, the ce he had been spending a few hours each and every day for quite a while now. The small bank in the middle of the river. The stump that was there hadn''t really been attached to the ground for a while now, because most of the roots were already rotten. And at some point, the Imp was just too annoyed with having the stump wobble around all the time and properly cut it loose to be able to set it into ce at least temporarily.


    And so, after making his way over the fallen log, Eiro simply used his Dagger to melt away the frozen snow around the base of the stump so that he could actually push it away. It would probably be a bit tough, butst time he just did it by pushing a stick underneath it and trying to push it out from the bottom, so Eiro figured he could just do the same again.


    To his luck, it seemed like some of the roots continued rotting even more ever since Eiro cut everything loose, and the only thing currently holding the stump up was the ice, so he could actually just somewhat kick it over to the side and then roll it into the water.


    It sshed over his legs a little bit, but the Imp figured it was fine. After all, the cold didn''t bother him anymore.


    Then, the only thing that Eiro had to do was pull out the rest of the roots, which didn''t take even nearly as long as the Imp had initially expected. He was already done after an hour! Although, he was pretty lucky that tonight was an especially bright full moon and that this ce wasn''t really obscured by any trees, so he didn''t have to worry about light all that much.


    Soon, Eiro just had cold, wet dirt in front of him that was mixed with a few chunks of ice and slowly getting muddy the more Eiro was using his dagger while ''heating it up''.


    Either way, it was still alright like this, so the Imp just ced the seed into the center of that spot of dirt and covered it in some more dirt, before sitting down right on top of it.


    One thing that he noticed during his constant, daily meditation was that he was able to use his mana far easy when he was meditating. The first time he controlled water that didn''te from his own body was actually on coincidence when trying to somehow interact with the seed more easily.


    And the other thing that the Imp found after that was that he could make his mana ''speed up'' pretty easily. He was mostly still letting it flow through his blood, but there were some certain paths that he noticed a little while after that his mana could flow through without affecting his body in any major way no matter how slow or fast his mana moved.


    It mainly went around a few specific paths, at least as far as Eiro could tell so far, and there was one path down each of his limbs, and if he pressed his bare feet together, the paths going into his feet would actually touch each other, so he could just let his mana from one foot jump into the other one.


    If he let his mana move from his right foot into his left, and then up his left leg into his chest and back down into his right leg, he could create something like a ''circle'' that he could use to let his mana speed up a fair amount.


    And Eiro didn''t exactly know why this happened, but at a certain speed, he always got the notification that his Mana Regeneration increased momentarily, although it would stop again when his mana slowed back down.


    Like that, Eiro had alreadye up with a method that he used to practice connecting with the seed that was now underneath him. While letting his mana move in a steady circle around his legs, he would let a part of it constantly split off into his left arm and right into the seed.


    Now, the Imp wanted to do the very same thing, just that he wouldn''t let the manae back out of the seed again and would just continue to fill it up, even if it couldn''t take anymore. Then he would just fill the dirt around the seed with mana instead.


    The benefit of this method was very clear. To be able to move his mana across any of these ''paths'', he always needed a certain base amount of mana to be moved like that. And that base amount was just a slight bit more than Eiro''s Mana Regeneration in this ''increased'' state.


    While it still didn''t mean that Eiro could just do this all forever, it still let him keep pushing his mana out constantly for at least two to three hours until he becamepletely exhausted. Eiro hadn''t actually testedpletely getting rid of all his mana yet, but his instincts told him that he seriously shouldn''t even think about doing that, so he usually stopped after roughly two hours.


    And Eiro was trying to be even more careful now, considering that he couldn''t have his status open in front of him to let him check up on his mana every once in a while now.


    For the next few hours, Eiro really just continued pushing his mana into the ground, and although not much seemed to have happened so far, the Imp was sure that this would work... He hoped, at least. If not, then he just made the biggest mistake he could have, and Jura practically led him into making that mistake.


    What if he really was just really angry about how Eiro acted yesterday..? Considering that he never saw Jura so genuinely annoyed before, that could be the case, couldn''t it? But it was toote now... He just had to continue trying to let this seed grow somehow, in any shape, way or form.


    Now that Eiro took a short break to stretch a little and properly inspect if everything was alright with the seed, he did notice something else that might be a bit annoying. Parts of his pants were frozen after getting the cold water from the river on them.


    Luckily the Imp could just make it melt with his Dagger and partially got everything dry just like that as well, but it was still pretty annoying, simply because it made it hard for him to move, an action that was tough as is with the subtle growing-pain he was in anyway. Although that did make him think of something else as well.


    As the ice was a literalyer on top of his legs, when he was tapping the frozen parts, he couldn''t actually feel the tapping on his leg. It made sense, it was the basic concept of ''Armor'' as the Imp learned, but he didn''t really think about this when it came to the seed so far.


    Maybe he should use his mana to protect the seed, or to let it grow in a safe manner. He was still able to sense his mana in the ground like this, and while it was really, really tough to move it through dirt considering that he didn''t have Earth Magic, because the dirt was mixed with ice and water, he could actually do so to an amount. It was what he did to let his mana get to the seed in the first ce, after all.


    Slowly, he tried to let his mana move through the water properly to gather as tightly around the seed as possible, and while that in itself did also seem to use up a little of his mana, Eiro figured that it wasn''t that bad yet. He actually stopped pushing his mana into the ground a little early because he was too careful, so he had a fair bit too spare.


    "Now... What did I read in those books again?" Eiro asked himself, trying to remember the specific parts written in some magic-rted books before, and then sighed deeply as it returned back into his mind. "Magic is a representation of your will in the physical world, and Mana is the carrier of that will." He repeated, and then crossed his legs as he dug the tips of his fingers a little into the slightly muddy dirt.


    "If that''s so..." As the Imp started to mutter, he tried to follow exactly what that book told him.. He made his mana carry his will, and his will was to make this seed grow.

 Chapter 67 - Hot Bath

    Eiro kept on continuosly trying to push his will into the seed however possible, until the sun rose from beyond the horizon, meaning that the Imp had been out here all night.


    He didn''t think he had to stay there constantly, after all, all of these trees around him also grew without anyone''s help. For now, Eiro figured he should make his way back to the house, considering that he was actually pretty tired again. Of course, he would still check the traps and then bring whatever food he could to the house, but then Eiro thought that it was a good idea to go to sleep again.


    However, as it seemed like nothing ended up in the Imp''s traps this time around, the young Demon made his way through the forest empty-handedly and instead chose to pick up whatever edible nts he could find, although that still was fairly little.


    And then, Eiro just opened the door up and stepped into the house again, his feet covered in rough, frozen snow that he had to quite literally break off by kicking his foot against the door, simply because he had been walking around bare-foot the whole time. For some reason, while the Imp was out there in that harsh, cold, uninviting environment he didn''t mind the cold at all, but when he stepped inside here, it seemed like that was slowly catching up to him.


    He still didn''t feel those cold-burns that he got a couple times up until now on his skin, but it seemed like his whole body had cooled down to the temperature a dead body had, and that did make him actually feel slightly lethargic and probably even more tired than he usually would be. So, Eiro chose to just quickly make his way into the small shed adjacent to the house where he had his little ughterhouse, library, and trophy-room in one, and then grabbed the bucket standing in the corner and started filling it up with snow outside before bringing it back inside and pouring the snow into a metal tub, underneath which Eiro lit a small fire made with wood that produced as little smoke as possible. Of course there was still a bit of a chimney at the top, though.


    Because Sammy and Clementine both asked for it, they were using this ce to bathe as well sometimes, because neither of them wanted to have Jura, Rudy or Arc there, although Avalin, Leon and the Imp were fine for them. Well, Eiro did take a bath seperately from them, usually, but he still helped them wash themselves properly when they needed it, although he mainly did so for Leon and Avalin to let Sammy rx a little for once.


    But this time around, Eiro really just wanted to take a bath on his own to let his body heat up again, and to maybe distract himself from the aching he had been feeling all day. It seemed like he grew a couple fingers'' width again throughout this night, after all.


    And as the snow inside of the metal bathtub ced in this corner made from stone, so that the house wouldn''t burn down somehow, despite it being made of pretty fire-resistant wood apparently, the Imp noticed that his horns also grew a little and his skin turned a little more pale as well.


    His horns did change their color quite rapidly, though, as they turned from the Ruby-Red into a Sapphire-Blue. In the end they just became a little thicker and longer, and curled up a slight bit, but Eiro was still feeling a fair bit of stinging pain in his forehead next to where those horns already were.


    With a slight sigh, Eiro just sat down inside of the water once it started to get a little warmer, sitting down on the pieces of wood ced onto the bottom of the tub so that he wouldn''t burn himself on the hot metal, and then just submerged his whole body in there as far as he could.


    Immediately, the temperature returned to Eiro''s being, and while he did feel like he could move around a little easier again and that his limbs weren''t just as stiff, he was still pretty tired, so he should really just get to sleep immediately after this bath.


    Soon, the water picked up in temperature pretty quickly, although the Imp was just lost in thought about what he should do with his seed.


    Maybe instead of sleeping, he should just return to it immediately and simplye back every couple hours to check up on the children and heat himself up like this? It did feel pretty nice out there underneath the moonshine, in that quiet, cold ce, where the only thing that could be heard was the water flowing and the wind blowing across his body.


    Although, this right now wasn''t really bad either... The heat wasforting, just asforting as the cold, and he couldn''t bring himself to simply let go of this. He heard the water start to bubble around his skin as the wood cracked underneath him, the slight smoke rising up through the hole in the roof acting as a chimney.


    He knew that Demons like him were supposed to be tightly connected to Fire, and in the back of his head, the Imp figured that he always was. But only now he acutally consciously thought about how nice heat was.


    It was like the heat slightly growing in the center of his body was growing even bigger, as if he was supposed to just grasp it and hold it with him tightly.


    Right now, the Imp was even able to ignore this notification that appeared above himpletely. It just didn''t bother him at all, so he didn''t bother to read it either and just pushed it hand through it. He just wanted to... to sleep... In thisfortable warmth...


    The next the Imp knew it, the amazing heat was reced by incredible cold as he heard the snow underneath him give in. As steam around him rose, Eiro felt ice immediately close in around his limbs as a small mountain of it basically started to glue him to the ground.


    "You bum, don''t fall asleep in the bath!" Jura eximed loudly and annoyedly, before the young Imp actually realized what exactly happened. It seemed like... Jura emptied the bathtub with Eiro in it. And that wasn''t impossible either, considering Jura''s insane, hidden strength. He didn''t really know why the water froze so quickly, but what mattered most right now was that he had to quickly get up before it actually frozepletely.


    And so, Eiro quickly jumped up and made his way into the small hut in front of him to dry his body and put on new clothes.


    "Sorry." The Imp told the old man in front of him, although he really just sighed in response. "Well, let''s move on... You did really nt your seed, didn''t you?" Jura asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he finally gave up trying to fit into his pants again and instead just pulled the cloak around his body. Luckily this still fit him properly.


    "I did. I did the right thing, didn''t I?" Eiro replied, slightly nervously, and Jura just slightly smirked. "In your case I would have waited for spring because nts grow more easily then, but you seem to be well-alligned with the Winter as a season anyway, so there should be no real need to worry. As long as you properly care for the seed, that is. If you remove it now, it should wither and crumble away, so you don''t have much choice anyway." The old man exined, so Eiro looked back at him and nodded, incredibly relieved.


    "Then I will finish my sleep in bed now." With a slight smile on his face, Eiro stepped out through the door with Jura behind him, although the old man was seemingly confused about something once they really left the room, but he wasn''t able to actually be sure.


    Either way, after properly greeting the children and eating a little bit of food together with them, the Imp dropped down into his bed and slept again.


    After waking up from his sleep again, his body once more grew an inch or two in height, and his horns did also grow a little bit longer as well. It seemed like they would keep growing further as well, because the pain near them was still there.


    With a deep groan, Eiro put his clothes on and sat down on his chair with all the things he needed in his bag already so that he could just set out after eating something. The sun just went down, seemingly.


    "Good morning... Oh, good evening, I mean." Eiro told them as he pulled his chair back, and the children all looked at him surprised. They were already staring at him because of his physical change, but they really hadn''t expected a change in that area as well.


    "Your voice is deeper... Did you go through pubertyst night?" Arc asked with a bit of a smirk, and Eiro just raised his brows at him confused. "Puber-what?" The Imp replied confused, although he did notice now as well that his voice sounded a little differently, but the young boy just shook his head in response.


    "Nevermind. So you''re going out every night instead of every day now?" He asked instead, before the Imp looked out the window and shrugged in response. "It seems so, yes. I don''t think it matters whether or not it''s day or night, I just want to spend as long as I can caring for the seed."


    "B-But..." Clementine nearly interrupted with a bit of a sad expression as she was fiddling with her own fingers and looking down at the surface of the table in front of her. "That means we won''t see you much anymore, right? If you sleep all day and are out all night..?" She asked, and with a slow nod, Eiro looked back at her.


    "For now, yes. But don''t worry, I will be here when you need me to be." The Imp replied, in response to which Clementine just quietly nodded. "Okie..." She said, and Eiro just ced his hand onto her head for a little while, because he noticed that it did rx especially her a fair bit when he did that, although just at that moment, something else crossed Eiro''s mind as he held his real left hand, and fake right hand next to each other. Considering his growth over thest day or so, his hand grew as well, quite clearly. His right hand didn''t however.. He looked kind of ridiculous with a wooden babyhand, and theughing Arc seemed to be just the confirmation for that.

 Chapter 68 - Changes

    For now, Eiro chose that it might be a better idea to take the wooden hand off. After all, as it was connected to his stump directly, it might end up doing quite a bit of damage depending on how much the young Demon would continue to grow. Jura agreed that this might be the best choice as well. He seemed to do the same thing for some young animals that he ''treated'', to just go back to the ces where he met themst time to track them ever once in a while, just to rece their wooden limbs with new ones.


    In the end, Eiro wasn''t really using his wooden hand all that much anyway except for very specific situations, so considering that everything should be pretty monotonous and boring for now, he might not even really need it. And this way he did have ess to the end of the ''mana path'' inside of his right hand to maybe increase the speed at which he could push mana into the ground below him, or it might open up a new method of speeding his body up for all he knew.


    Either way, this was only the second time that he was moving around without anything at the end of his right arm, so he was trying to be as careful as he could be.


    This Evolution business was really quite annoying, wasn''t it? He couldn''t wear clothes, and he couldn''t use his prosthetic... How bothersome.


    But for now, it didn''t matter. The Imp knew the path he was walking right here like the back of his hand. Well, the back of his still existing hand. Eiro doubted that there was anything that could surprise him, except maybe a wild animal or monster, but thetter didn''t appear around here much anyway, and the former became less during this season as wel.


    So as he expected, Eiro made his way to the ce where he nted his seed without issues, and then looked at the ground in front of him. He could still feel the mana there, and while it did dissipate a fair bit, the seed was still there with the ''shell'' Eiro formed around it yesterday, so he just quickly sat down there and started doing the same thing as he did yesterday, just trying to push his mana, and with that his will, into the ground to the seed.


    It was really just supposed to grow, that''s all there was to it. But when Eiro was doing that, he noticed something... odd. It felt like he was pushing out far less mana than before... At the very least it didn''t feel like he was getting as tired as before.


    And that was just really weird, but for now, Eiro tried to ignore it and continued on like this, but roughly two hourster, he took a break. It was just really, really weird. He feltfortable and nice here underneath the cold moon, and feeling like that usually made the Imp feel even more tired, but he was just as energetic as he was when he first got here.


    In the end, it didn''t feel like there was too little mana in the ground either. Maybe... Maybe it was something else? Instead of having a sudden decrease of mana he could control... His total mana maybe just went up?


    It did increase a little during thest evolution as well, but this time around it just felt slightly off. The reason for that was probably that Eiro couldn''t actually properly control his mana in his Lesser-Imp days anyway, so this was apletely new feeling to him. And considering that he had to use as much of his mana every day for now anyway, it probably made sense that he noticed something like this only now.


    But... How much mana did he have exactly? This would probably make something like that far, far harder to grasp, wouldn''t it? At the very least, he noticed it pretty early on and could concentrate on that ''expansion'' from now on a bit more.


    At least Eiro could tell at which point he used too much mana, just because he could gage his tiredness pretty well, so he could probably continue on doing all of this for a fair while longer thanst time. He was being less hesitant now as well, so he was even putting his mana into the ground a little faster, although at some point, the more he concentrated on that amount of mana, there was something else that he was noticing.


    Before, he thought the mana simply dissipated, but right now, Eiro could tell, because it was happening right in front of his face. Or rather, right underneath his bottom. The seed was pulling the mana into it. It was absorbing the mana and concentrating it inside of itself! That was perfect! Eiro didn''t know why this happened, but this seemed like a really good sign!


    If the mana was being absorbed, it probably meant that the seed was doing this deliberately! And that meant that things were working! This made the Imp really excited, and it finally confirmed the words that Jura already told him of everything being fine.


    It wasn''t like Eiro was doubting Jura or something like that, but it was still sometimes easier to believe things when you can see it happening instead of just hearing about it.


    And so, Eiro quite happily continued his work and then returned home to take another hot bath. Just like yesterday, he was feeling quite slow and lethargic after spending all day in the freezing cold, so he once more simply chose to take a bath.


    He had to make sure not to fall asleep in the water this time around, however, or Jura would pour the water out again. Although, now that he thought about it... Weirdly enough, the water froze really quickly then, didn''t it? As the mountain of snow he put into the tub was melting, he wanted to confirm something and just took some cups of water at different stages, pouring them onto the ground outside to see what would happen.


    The cold water stayed sitting there for a few moments but soon also turned into ice. The Warm water was steaming a little bit and melted some of the snow around it, but overall, it did turn into ice a bit quicker. The actually boiling hot water, however, froze before it even hit the ground. Sure, it was cold out, but wasn''t that a bit quick? And the difference between the hot and cold water was incredible as well... Was there any specific reason behind that?


    As Eiro was contemting on what the reason might be, he put out the fire underneath the metal tub and sat inside without thinking much about anything. "Do hot things freeze easily? That doesn''t make sense... then mes would freeze too... Then is it just so with water?" Eiro asked himself, but he really wasn''t entirely sure what he should think of this. Although in the end, that shouldn''t be his biggest worry.


    Instead, it should be the fact that he heated the water up enough to make use of boiling water in his experiment, and then didn''t wait at all to get into the tub after putting the fire out. And that meant that Eiro simply sat down inside of the boiling water. It didn''t feel ufortable, and he didn''t really think about it, so he just did it but in the end... This was not something normal, was it?


    He was always good with heat, and fire never hurt him as much as normal, but even he got hurt when identally spilling boiling water onto his skin before.


    So how could he just sit inside of it like this? Was it because of his evolution? "Last time..." Eiro muttered quietly, noticing that he didn''t put the fire out when he was bathing yesterday, meaning that it probably also heated up enough to be actually boiling...


    He did concentrate on the heat quite a lot then, and after that a notification appeared. He wasn''t sure which, but maybe it had something to do with how he was able to stay in the boiling water? Because Eiro didn''t even glimpse at the notification either and just made it disappear immediately, he couldn''t use his ability to remember things like that perfectly.


    That meant he just had to wait for his evolution to be over and see if anything on his status exined that change.


    Either way... Somehow, boiling hot water didn''t really seem all that troublesome to him. Actually, it felt pretty nice to him. Well, whatever. If it didn''t hurt him and he couldn''t even figure out what it was that caused this, he would have to seriously wait and see.


    For now, Eiro just wanted to rx with a nice bath. And after that bath, the Imp quickly dried himself and got dressed, although he noticed again that he grew a fair bit more.


    But that was something that Eiro had figured would happen anyway. The thing that surprised him more was that one of the things he expected to happen hadn''t happened. His blue horns stopped growing, and instead, he had two smaller, red horns instead that grew next to them, as if slightly growing onto the blue horns.


    They were thin and short so far, and it seemed like they were just slightly wrapping themselves around the blue horns, but maybe over the next few days something might change about them again.


    Now there was another thing that bothered the Imp a little more, though, something that he only actually noticed when he sat down on his chair inside of the actual house while waiting for the others to wake up.


    His butt really hurt. Or rather, the area where his lower back became his butt. He did sit on the cold ground all day, so maybe he wasn''tpletely immune to the cold and this was just something he had to deal with...


    Soon after the Demon sat down, the others woke up as well and first looked at Eiro''s new horns curiously, although Jura was seemingly thinking about something else. Well, he probably didn''t care too much about the horns, the only use that the Imp found for them was that they looked nice, and visuals weren''t necessarily the aspect of life that Jura could appreciate the most.


    Maybe he was just curious about his increase in his mana-capabilities, just like the Imp himself. Either way, the Imp was pretty sure that these changes would continue at a simr pace for the next few days.. And in the end, he was actually correct.

 Chapter 69 - Ice Blue Collector

    Over the next week, Eiro grew to be around 1.8 Meters tall, and ended up tripping a fair amount because he wasn''t used to this sudden change in perspective. His blue and red horns continued intertwining a bit, while Eiro''s general bodily features became a bit more humanoid.


    His hands and feet were now basically exactly like those of a person, although his feet might still be on the bigger side of things, and his proportions ''fixed'' themselves so that you wouldn''t really notice him being a monster if you only saw his ''shape''.


    While Eiro''s skin did indeed just be a bit paler on his chest, neck, throat and face, it stayed a red color simr to what he was used to. The mark extended a bit and covered more space, but that wasn''t a big deal.


    What changed most about his skin, however, were the areas around his other limbs. From right above his elbows and knees down to his finger, toe, or stump-tips, his skin became blue instead.


    But overall, that wasn''t even the change that annoyed the Imp the most... Instead, it was the thin tail that grew at the bottom of his back that got caught in the door more than just once.


    Now, it was thest day of Eiro''s second evolution, or to be more exact, thest hour. The young Imp was on his way of returning home from his daily ''Work'' of trying to properly help the seed sprout.


    The constant, uneasing, annoying pain that Eiro was feeling in his very bones had stopped the moment his growth seemed to have slowed down, so he was rtively rxed, at least as rxed as you could be with your body suddenly undergoing rapid changes like this within a week.


    It wasn''t like he didn''t expect it, but it was simply a step above hisst evolution, during which he simply grew a little bit in size. This time... the changes were just far greater, and it made Eiro a little nervous if he had to be honest.


    Sure, it wasn''t like anything beside his exterior really had changed about him, and he was still the same old Eiro that he was one week earlier, but since even the color of his limbs changed and he got an extra one, it still was a hard thing to get used to.


    In the end he noticed that his tail was honestly pretty neat, especially after that big old headache that he had for a couple of hours disappeared, which seemed to have made it so that Eiro could actually move his tail around how he wanted it to. And while he didn''t really find a direct use for it yet, Leon and Avalin enjoyed ying around with it, and that was... good? Eiro wasn''t really sure, but they were happy, so Eiro was happy too.


    Well, besides when Avalin nearly bit off part of it... She really liked biting into anything she could get near her mouth ever since she started teething. Nelli did Eiro a favor and healed the bite-mark, but he should really be careful about that kind of thing now.


    Either way, for now, the Imp just made his way back home and wanted to get started with his new daily ''ritual'', the literally boiling hot bath. It seemed like his evolution would be over while he was doing so, so Eiro figured he would be able to take his time and just see what exactly changed for him stat-wise.


    And so, that was exactly what he did! He got everything ready by melting enough snow inside of the bathtub, let the water start boiling, put the fire out and then sat down inside of the water.


    The tub was actually pretty small for him now, considering that Jura wasn''t amongst the tallest people Eiro has seen before either, so he couldn''t properly submerge himself anymore, but other than that, it was still pretty rxing. And like this, Eiro could actually take his time and read a little as well, because he could now properly ce his arms on the edges of the tub to keep the book away from the water.


    And just as Eiro was trying to flip the page over, which was annoyingly hard with one hand as he found since taking off his wooden hand, a certain notification appeared in front of him, blocking the sight of the page.


    [Congrattions! You Evolved and became a Unique Species! You are now an Ice Blue Collector Imp!]


    Immediately, Eiro ced the book to the side and said the word he had only said once in thest week. "Status."


    [Name ¨C Eiro][Race ¨C Ice Blue Collector Imp][Level ¨C 1]


    [Health ¨C 19.750][Mana ¨C 32.000]


    [Strength ¨C 20][Constitution - 30][Resistance ¨C 20]


    [Agility - 42][Evasion ¨C 20][Dexterity - 42]


    [Intelligence - 79][Wisdom ¨C 52]


    [Perception ¨C 66][Willpower ¨C 20][Charisma ¨C 20]


    [100 Stat Points Avable]


    Eiro looked at the Status screen floating in front of him curiously, before not being able to avert his eyes confusedly. His Mana had nearly tripled... Eiro knew that it increased a lotpared tost time, but this really was just insane, wasn''t it? And on top of that, he had 100 Stat points to just spend away all of a sudden! Last time he only got ten as an extra!


    With an excited smirk, Eiro immediately got up from the bathtub and started drying himself off, while continuing to look through his status. His meditation skill went up by two levels, and his Water Magic skill by one. But that wasn''t the thing that surprised the Imp the most skill-wise.


    What surprised him was rather one small box inside of his status.


    [Beginner Fire Magic Skill][Level ¨C 1]


    "That was the notification that appeared then, isn''t it?" Eiro asked himself with a slight smirk on his lips, before he just swiftly made his way into the main part of the house to wait for everyone to wake up. This was something he wanted to show off, after all.


    To his very pleasant surprise, everyone was already awake, so Eiro swiftly exined the changes in his status to them, and the children were rather excited about it.


    "Whoa! Twenty Thousand Health? Mine is only about Seven Thousand..." Rudy muttered quietly, and Eiro raised his brows rather confused at what was just said. "Seven... Thousand..?" He asked, and slowly turned toward Jura, to try and figure out whether that was arge amount or not, and the old man slowly chuckled in response.


    "Hmm, it is quite surprising... Both of your values, at that. Rudy''s Health is incredibly high for a child his age, despite the fact he cannot even take damage, and your''s, Eiro..." Jura said as he moved his hand along his chin, "Is quite low." He pointed out, and immediately, Eiro opened his eyes wide in surprise.


    "I was aware of this for a while now, but I thought you knew. The Average Noble has around a Million. Well, in the end, once you reach that stage, Health matters little, as even that amount of Health will be useless once your head is blown off." The old man pointed out as he sat down on a chair with a loud groan, and Eiro looked back at him confused.


    "One Million..? That is..." The Imp muttered in response, trying to figure out what was going on. Was he actually that weak? Would any of the training he could do under Jura actually do anything for him..?


    "Jura, stop teasing him already!" Nelli eximed as she suddenly appeared above the old man''s head, "You were observing him the past week anyway, you know that he''s on the right path for the seed! So at least tell him about that already!" The Naiad demanded, all the whilst the children were either tiredly sitting on their bed or getting started with their tasks for the morning, and Eiro looked back at her surprised.


    "Tell me what?" Eiro asked, and the old Prosthetist started grumbling to himself. "Damn spirits, can''t even mind their own business..." He whispered quietly, and then leaned back in his chair. "Fine!" Jura eximed suddenly, before he stared right at Eiro. And despite him not having eyes, it still seemed exactly like Eiro was being stared at.


    "I will tell you this now, but there will not be any further exnation until you grew your seed into a sapling properly!" The old man said, seemingly a ''final decision'' of his. And as if his life depended on it, Eiro payed attention to Jura as closely as he could.


    "''Health'' as we know it is actually something called ''Life Force''. Our Status disys it as ''Health'' for whatever reason. Any type of ''Damage'' we take drains away at our life force in addition to the actual ''Damage'' we take. You can die while retaining some ''Life Force'' due to extreme actual Damage, and you can die with your body in peak condition because your ''Life Force'' was drained. It is something seperate to actual ''Health'', so don''t mind such matters for now!" Jura eximed as if slightly annoyed, but for some reason, the young Imp was actually feeling rather calmed-down due to what the old man told him.


    "I see..." He muttered quietly, "Thank you!" Eiro added, before Jura huffed out some air and turned his head away.


    "Either way, what is this ''Collector Imp'' thing? I figure the ''Ice Blue'' part is because of Lady Winter and her blessing to you, but as for that..." Jura muttered quietly, although Eiro had a little bit of an idea.


    "Erm... Maybe because I have more than one card? And I bought most books I could afford if they seemed interesting... And grabbed some trophies from a lot of monsters... So maybe because of that?" He guessed, and Jura just shrugged and nodded his head.


    "Seems like a fair enough guess. Do you have any idea about what your racial ability this time around could be?" Jura inquired curiously, but Eiro just shook his head. "I don''t, sorry. I can still use myst ability like normal, though, I already tried that. Last time I found out about it because I was desperate. Hopefully this time it won''t be the same." Eiro pointed out, making Jura chuckle slightly, and then the old man seemed to want to move on to thest thing that changed about the Imp Status-Wise.


    "Now then. Do you at least know why your Fire-Magic skill suddenly awakened?" The old man asked as he slowly stood up, and finally the children payed some attention as well, especially Arc and Rudy, who both also had a fire-element affinity, and Eiro just smiled at them and nodded his head.


    "I think I know what triggered it. One week ago, the first night I stayed out in the cold like that, my body became slow and lethargic, and I couldn''t move well anymore. I wasn''t hurt, but I still wanted to heat up with a bath. I forgot to put out the fire, and ended up making the water boil.. I think I got a notification about my Fire Magic at that time."

 Chapter 70 - Remember

    "You boiled yourself? Does that raise Fire Element affinity? Maybe I should..." Rudy muttered quietly in response to what Eiro just revealed, but the Imp himself immediately interrupted him. "Don''t do that, please. We still don''t know exactly if there might be things that can hurt you. And there are a million other ways I can think of how that might hurt you than direct damage." The Imp replied, but Jura instead turned the conversation somewhere else.


    "That is not possible." Jura said quite clearly, and Eiro looked at him surprised. "What is not possible?" He asked instead, and the old man turned toward Eiro. "To gain an affinity in such a manner. Sure, your affinity can be increased over time and a lot of hard work via refination of natural mana, through special blessings like that of the ''Lonely Naiad'' you have, or through Divine Items such as the Cards... Simply sitting in a hot bathtub will not raise your affinity..." The old man pointed out, and Arc raised his hand with a big grin and an idea of his.


    "Then maybe it was because he was evolving?" The boy suggested, but before anyone else could react to that, Nelli instead offered a possible reason.


    "Spirits... can raise their affinity in such a manner." The naiad pointed out as she floated over toward the young Demon, "To say it in a basic manner, we are the consequence of a spell cast by the world itself. Spirits have a body made of Mana held together by Life Force, so we can even subconsciously take in energies we have a basic, raw affinity with and use it to increase our affinity, and with that our strength, over time."


    "So you''re saying Eiro is actually a Spirit?" Clementine asked excitedly, and Jura was listening was intensity at what his Contracted Spirit had told them just now, trying to figure out what it meant.


    "No, no, he is not, but... He might be something simr... Eiro, do you remember what it was like when you grew up?" Nelli inquired, but the Imp himself just stared back at her and shook his head. "I didn''t."


    As a first response, the Spirit turned around in thought, seemingly to figure out another way to go about this, before she started to realize what Eiro actually just said and started to get confused.


    "You... didn''t? You didn''t remember, but now you do?" She asked, but Eiro shook his head. He had explored this memory a couple of times, and was quite confused about it himself. But in the end, there was just one thing he had to ept.


    "I didn''t grow up." The Imp said clearly, but Jura just scoffed at that for a moment, "Outrageous, of course you did! Even Demons are living beings, they are born, they age, and they die! Why should you be an exception?" The old man asked, although Eiro thought something was rather weird about how he was acting. As if he was trying to actively deny everything that Eiro said at the core of his very being.


    "My first memory is the sight of arge hall, with other Lesser Imps in front of me. And then, there is something... something obscured. I can''t actually see it, but I know it''s a person... no, a monster? It''s... It''s weird. Either way, that... thing, spoke. ''Sun, do you not remember what I said about interruptions?'' It asked, and another Monster stood in the doorway as if frozen... And then the thing looked down at me and..." Eiro muttered quietly, and the more he spoke about this somehow horrifying memory, his body kept shaking and shuddering, as if his very being was trying to reject this knowledge.


    "And... what?" Sammy asked nervously, seemingly taken aback at how Eiro was grasping at his chest like he was, soemthing that the Imp himself didn''t even notice doing. "And... And then it said ''A Failure... But well, these Demons are fodder anyway, so what does it matter?'' and then it sent me away..." He exined, and only now the realization of what all of this meant sunk in. Eiro wasn''t exactly sure, but it seemed like whenever he thought of this before, he simply subconsciously dismissed it as unimportant, but now that he actually spoke about it out loud, he couldn''t do that anymore.


    "What... what am I?" Eiro asked quietly as he stared at the blue skin on the palm of his hand, and Jura sighed deeply and stood up, walking up to the Imp before hitting him on the back of his head. "You''re just tired, that''s what you are. You have to continue your work as soon as you can, so just rest." The old man said in amanding tone, and Eiro turned back after dismissing the red notification in front of him, telling him about the little bit of damage Jura just inflicted upon him.


    "Alright..." The Imp said, simply feeling defeated for some reason. Tiredly, he made his way over to his bed and threw his things onto the ground next to it and then just plopped down onto the cold, fluffy surface.


    Jura was right, Eiro was simply tired, that''s all there was to it. Later when he would wake up, he would surely feel far, far better, wouldn''t he?Yes, the Imp was sure of it...


    If only being sure of something meant that it would actually happen. When the Imp woke back up, he had really forgotten about everything for a moment, but then the memories fromst night caught up to him again and he just sat there for a few moments.


    "Good Eve- Morning? Wait, what are we supposed to say if he gets up at night?" Arc asked a bit surprised as he looked up from the table where everyone had currently gathered for Dinner, and Sammy seemed to just re at him for a moment. "How about ''How did you sleep''?" She suggested, and Arc snapped his fingers and nodded in satisfaction before turning to Eiro with a broad smile.


    "How did you sleep?" He asked, so Eiro just slowly stood up and smiled, "I slept well, thank you." The Imp responded, despite that not really being the case. His whole body felt sore, and his head seemed to want to just split open this very moment. Eiro didn''t exactly know why, but that''s just what he felt like.


    Confused, the Imp looked around at the ground where he remembered to have left his things, and then noticed themying on his nighttable, where someone just neatly ced them down so that he could find them properly.


    With a smile on his face, the Imp grabbed hte different small items and properly took them again, wrapping his cards in cloth to bind them onto his chest again. This was always a bit unhandy, but Eiro figured it was better than losing them somehow.


    As Eiro stood up and walked to the table, half-naked as he still didn''t have any clothes that fit him now, although that seemed to change quite soon. "Eiro, if we can''t eat without clothes on, then neither can you!" Rudyined, pointing over toward the pieces of folded-up cloth right at the foot of Eiro''s bed. "They aren''t that special, but... I did my best." The young man pointed out, and Eiro looked at him rather surprised before he picked the cloth up.


    To his surprise... They were new clothes. Ones that should probably fit him. They didn''t really look much different to the the ones that Eiro usually wore before, just that these clothes were a bit darker to fit the color of his cloak, and they seemed to be simply a lot stronger than his old ones in the material that was used itself.


    "Thank you. These are great." Eiro said with a smile on his face as he turned toward Rudy and swiftly started to put the clothes onto his body. They fit him really well, something that Eiro didn''t expect, considering that clothes like these should take a little while to make, as far as he noticed at least. But in the end, Eiro had no reason to mind that fact, he was simply proud of Rudy for making something like this.


    And so, with his mood raised a fair bit, Eiro sat down at the table again, before Jura turned toward him as well. "If you want new shoes, you''ll have to order them at the cobbler in town when you go there next time." The old man pointed out, so the Imp just nodded his head.


    "Alright." He replied in a clear tone, and in the end, just had dinner with everyone like normal, although it was technically his breakfast.


    A little whileter, once they finished, Eiro just helped clear everything up and then stepped up to the door with his bag to go out for the night, although Jura stopped him just before he did so. "Oh, and just remember... Don''t do anything dumb now." The old man said in a clear tone, and Eiro just quietly nodded his head and left the house, slowly making his way down the hill along his regr path to check if anything fell for his traps. At the very least on the path toward the river, there was nothing... Hopefully, Eiro had more luck when it came to the return-path.


    Either way, soon, Eiro found his way to the small spot where he nted his seed, stepping over the log-bridge to get there, and then sat down on the ground while cing his cloak underneath his body so that his new clothes wouldn''t get dirty.


    First things first, the Imp had top get started with his work. Like Jura said, Eiro shouldn''t do anything dumb, so what he was about to do was actually rather smart in his opinion. He pressed his feet together and got the ''circle'' there going, and then added another ''circle'' with his arms, pressing his palm against his stump, and then led his mana out through the ''path'' in his tail, so that he could keep this going for even longer!


    He didn''t really understand all this stuff about ''Life Force'' yet, and he didn''t get what the whole deal with that ''Thing'' from his memories was, but in the end Eiro just had to focus on what he was doing right now anyway, right?


    It wouldn''t change anything if he just ended up sitting around, contemting his life without getting anywhere. If he had to know about it, he should think about it when he got stronger...


    Although, he did still wish he got some kind of sign that he wasn''t just a ''Failure'' like the thing said he was. That what he did was actually good, or useful.


    Just as he was thinking that, Eiro heard some branches crack around him, and the Imp opened his eyes, interrupting him in his work.


    And there it stood, the exact thing he was asking for.. The One-Horned Stag stood there on the other side of the river, with a small fawn looking at Eiro right from inbetween its legs.

 Chapter 71 - Nowhere To Be Seen

    Quietly, Eiro just stared at the Stag and its child, thetter still being quite weak on its leg. While it was stillrger than a normal fawn, considering the size of its father, it seemed just as helpless. Slowly, the Imp tried to stand up and looked across the river toward the Stag. The Imp really wasn''t sure, but he felt like it was happy or grateful toward him just as it turned around. "You''re leaving again?" Eiro asked quietly, and the Stag slowly turned around as it huffed some air out of its nose and a few times started to look back and forth inbetween the Imp and the forest behind the Stag.


    "Do you want me to... follow you?" Nervously, the Imp stared forward at it, his heart beating so fast and loud that it seemed like he could hear it pump his blood through his body, and the Stag seemed to nod its head up and down before simply turning around and pushing its snout against the behind of the fawn to make it move.


    While the Stag was actually just walking quite slowly, to Eiro it seemed like it was sprinting at a pace the Imp could never hope to catch up to. But at least, he had to try. The seed would be fine for another while, Eiro was sure of that, but his instincts were telling him that he had to follow behind the stag no matter what, or else he himself wouldn''t be.


    "W-Wait for me!" He eximed as he looked around himself to find a good path over the river, because he couldn''t just swim through it like this. The river''s water was moving insanely fast and it was so cold that it might freeze the moment it stopped moving.


    Although, that mighte to Eiro''s benefit, now that he thought about it. Slowly, he kneeled down in front of the water and held his hand against it, slowly trying to push his mana out of the tips of his fingers right into the water. Now, he just had to do what he always did when manipting water...


    He made his mana and the water itself intertwine with each other andbine until even Eiro didn''t know the difference between the two anymore. As if they were always a part of one another. And then, he simply tried to make the water slow down, although at that moment, another thought came to his mind.


    As if channeling the cold he had been absorbing in his body the past week, the Demon simply wanted to make the water stoppletely. It should stop flowing, stop moving, and simply be stagnant. Just like the flower in his pocket. The water should just stay the exact same way that it was, until Eiro didn''t need it to anymore.


    Extending from the ces where his skin touched the cold water,s of ice starting growing outward, taking over the whole area around his hand. The water kept flowing over the ice, but as soon as it got there, it started being frozen as well and built up onto the frozen pile until Eiro pulled his hand away.


    The ice that he had formed was slowly being overflown by the river, and ended up being dragged away together with it. But surely, he just created Ice... And the notifications that appeared in front of him seemed to confirm that.


    [Nature is bending to your will. Your Water Magic awaked into Ice Magic]


    [Current Magic Skills will be retained]


    [Beginner Ice Magic Skill Learned]


    Eiro raised his head properly and then stood up straight, slowly running his fingers through the notification as the little bit of ice still stuck on them crumbled off.


    After picking up his cloak and putting it over his body again, Eiro took a step forward into the water, trying to push as much of his mana into his feet as he could. And then bit by bit, and step by step, Eiro repeated what he had just done.


    Out of the skin of his feet, he pressed his mana and attempted to turn the water into ice, and just slowly, it did. The surface of ice was wobbling underneath his step, however, so the Imp had to make it go as deep into the water as he could make it, to get it to be more stable.


    Luckily it wasn''t being pulled away by the river, for whatever reason, but it was still quite tough to do this with the river-water flowing over the ice, making it even harder to stand on that it was anyway.


    But soon enough, the Imp just had to try his best, or he would seriously lose sight of the Stag and its child. And he didn''t want to let that happen. He decided to follow them, so he would.


    After feeling safe on one foot, he slowly raised his other one and tried to build up a bnce on the ice, before bringing his foot forward and slowly setting his toes into the water, immediately making it freeze before any ripples could spread out. And so, Eiro ced the next spot to stand on. And then, the next, and the next, and the next, until he was close enough to the other side of the river to just jump over there.


    Before he knew it, Eiro could hear the frozen snow crack underneath his body as he tried not to put his weight on his stump as he instinctively tried to catch his fall with both his hands.


    But that wasn''t important right now either way. The Imp jumped up as quickly as he could, and before even properly standing, sprinted forward in the direction of the stag to follow it. There was a reason why it kepting back to him, a being that was so obviously strong that he could feel it in every single cell of his body. This Stag that was neither a spirit, nor a monster, nor a simple animal. It was something different, something vastly different.


    If Eiro had topare it to anything, then it would be the Lady of Winter. While the Daughters of Winter seemed to be spirits of sort, the Lady of Winter was something far, far beyond that. The same thing could be felt when the Imp stared at this stag.


    But for some reason, nobody else could feel this. Usually, Jura would have at least hinted at the fact that he sensed the Stag at any point in time that it appeared around Eiro. Sometimes he thought he was just imagining it, but that was disproven when it was nearly killed by the Frozen Monstrosity a week ago.


    Both Jura and the Lady of Winter reacted to it after actually having it in front of them, and Jura seemed to have noticed it even from the house at the time through the sounds it made or how it smelled, but neither of them noticed how... special, the Stag was.


    The Lady of Winter merely called it a ''Creature'', and Jura got mad at Eiro for ''caring for a half-dead deer''. How could they not... realize... what is this? Confused, the young Demon stared at the sight in front of him. He had no idea when, but at some point, the snow disappeared from underneath his feet, and nts grew wildly around him.


    Birds were chirping, and Eiro could hear the howl of wolves in the distance. Right next to his ear a bee flew by and it filled his head with the sound of buzzing, although it seemed to have flown away too quickly for him to see it, because there was nothing there when he turned his head on reflex.


    "What''s going on?" Eiro asked himself as he looked around, but all of this was just too... weird. Whenever he tried to look at any specific point in particr, it seemed like the scenery would keep moving along around him without him doing anything. It was nauseatin and made the Imp dizzier the longer he tried to stay focused


    Instead, he just closed his eyes for a moment and held his hand in front of them as he grasped literally anything that was around him. Or at least, he attempted to, and instead dropped right onto the floor. He could swear there was a tree right beside him.


    Slowly, he opened his eyes and stared up into the sky, although luckily, that didn''t seem to make him dizzy, so he figured he should just keepying there for a moment. And just as he did so, a small, hairy snout covered his sight and breathed hot air into his face, just before a tongue was pulled across his forehead.


    As fast as he could, Eiro tried to push his body away and turned around to be able to properly look at the creature there, and to his surprise, it was simply the fawn. "Hey there...?" Eiro muttered quietly as he looked at the young creature, "Where is your father?" He asked, and soon, the Imp felt something poke the center of his back.


    "Well, that''s good enough of an answer, I guess..." Eiro said quietly and looked forward at the stag that was simply staring at him. "Where did you bring me?" The Imp asked, trying to only look through a thin slit in his eyes to minimize how weird this ce made him feel, and the Stag just turned around and kept walking, so the Imp did the same.


    For a while, Eiro didn''t actually know how long, he just followed behind it. It might have been an hour, a day, a week, or a year. Or it might have been a minute, for all Eiro knew. It was as if everything happened all at once anyway, so time seemed to have little meaning.


    And then, all of a sudden, the Stag stopped. It just stood there in front of arge, truly giant tree. And if Eiro thought something was giant, that''s what it was. It reached beyond even the clouds, the sky, and the stars. Along its bark were numerous structures, and right in front of them, a set of stairs.


    Slowly, the Stag stepped up the steps and Eiro followed behind like always, while the fawn stood there next to him.


    Soon, the Imp found himself on the path built outside the tree, which gave off a cold, freezing vibe, despite it actually being quite warm outside. And all around him, Eiro could hear voices speak as he passed these weird-looking structures that were set into the wood, although there was nobody to actually say the words he heard around him.


    "Look! You can see the whole forest from here!" One of the voices eximed enthusiastically, but another one justughed. "Dumbass, the sight from up there is way cooler."


    "Mommy, mommy! Popsies!" A child then yelled out from somewhere else, but the voice belonging to its mother justughed quietly, "There there, I''ll get you one if you''re a good girl until we reach the top, okay?"


    "Oki!" The child replied quickly, while Eiro heard footsteps pass by his side, and another voice caught his attention.


    "As many of you know, this ce was the center of the ''Total Solnox'', as it was dubbed back then. But do any of you know how long it has been since then? I''ll give you a hint, it''s a very special number!" A voice then said, and for some reason, it was far louder than any of the others, painfully so, and it sounded different as well. As if someone screamed through a wall, although it came from right next to Eiro.


    And then, a voice in a regr tone replied to the first voice''s question. "Here, here! It''s been a thousand years!"


    "Exactly right, we''re just another half-year away from the thousand-year anniversary since then!"


    Slowly, the more the voice spoke after that, the more it just faded out, until all of the voices disappeared. And not just the voices, any sound. There were no footsteps, and the smell of delicious food was also gone. Neither did Eiro even feel the weird mix of cold and hot air on his face anymore.


    In the end, it seemed like the Imp heard what he had to hear, and felt what he had to feel, and so the stag, fawn, and Demon continued making their way up the tree, until they reached a ce that was carved out of the giant tree''s log.


    It was an enormous hall, and it was even slightly tough to properly see the exit on the other side of it, but in the end, that wasn''t the thing that he seemed to have to pay attention to. Instead, it was the thing right in the center of this hall, decorated with intricate blue-crystal patterns underneath Eiro''s feet, while numerous pirs each made of differently colored crystals shot out from the center of the room and grew up to the ceiling of the hall like the branches of a tree.


    Blue, Yellow, Green, or Red, those were the four colors that could be seen the most. But that didn''t mean there weren''t any other crystals. Purple, Orange, Brown, ck, and even White, and numerous other shades of all of these were there slinging themselves around the four main pirs. And the source of those pirs was a single point in the center of the room, although right underneath it was an infinitely deep hole that Eiro couldn''t see the bottom of.


    And it wasn''t like he didn''t try, he really did. He leaned over the edge, until he suddenly lost his bnce and fell forward.


    As his body fell down along the deep hole, Eiro could still see the Stag as if it was right in front of him, before his body turned downward and the darkness suddenly swallowed him whole.


    Before he knew it, Eiro... lifted his face out of the snow and looked up after having fallen to the ground to jump the rest of the distance between the river and the frozen ground. And right in front of him simply staring him deep into his eyes, was the fawn from before.. But the stag was nowhere to be seen.

 Chapter 72 - Fawn

    "What... What just happened..?" Eiro asked quietly, just staring at the Fawn in front of him, although it just looked at him confusedly and tilted its head to the side. With a deep sigh, the Imp just pushed his body away from the ground and shook his head as he tried to get rid of the snow stuck to his clothes.


    "Nevermind. Go on, get back to where you came from, bud. I''m sure the Stag''s worried." The Imp pointed out as he slowly turned around and looked at the river in front of him, realizing that he somehow had to get back over there again now that hepletely lost the location of the Stag. He didn''t really feel like following it anymore anyway, even if he did manage to see it again.


    Although then, just as Eiro was about to take another step forward to repeat the process from before, the Fawn pressed its forehead against the Imp''s hand. "What are you doing?" He asked, surprised, and the Fawn simply looked up at him, while Eiro noticed something else.


    "Hmm, weren''t you bigger before? I''m sure you at least reached my chest, but now...", now, the height of the Fawn was simply around the Imp''s hip. It wasn''t much of a difference, but it was more than enough.


    "Well, who cares..." Eiro sighed. Sure, he was curious, but most importantly, he had to get over to the other side of the river again. Slowly, he stepped onto the surface of the river to make it freeze, which it slowly did, at least to the extent of letting him stand on it.


    To the extent of letting him stand on it. Him. Only him. Not the Fawn that was immediately following behind the Imp and cing its feet onto the small surface of Ice as well. "Stop it, you''re going to-"


    And the next he knew it, Eiro''s clothes gained a fair bit of weight as they were soaked in ice cold water, and ripples of ice formed around his feet before he stopped letting his mana flow out of them.


    "...make me fall..." The Imp sighed annoyedly and then just looked up at the sky. Somehow this didn''t feel all that bad. It was simr to the boiling hot bathtub. Maybe... It might be a far stretch, but maybe Eiro could try something out.


    For now, he still just had to get out of here. The current he was able to handle, but he didn''t want his clothes to freeze after walking around in them a little while, and just quickly got out of the water to the other side of the river''s shore, quickly collecting some branches and sticks while his clothes were already hardening up, and the Imp slightly nced at the Fawn that was still standing inside of the water. "Come on over, this will heat you up too."


    Quickly, Eiro pushed some of the snow to the side with his feet and then took one of the me Magic Stones Out of his bag and used it to light a small fire. The power of the me Magic Stone was a bit stronger than usual, but that seemed to be because his affinity rose a bit as well.


    Either way, quite swiftly, Eiro managed to get a fire going and swiftly hung his clothes over therge rock that he lit the fire next to, to get them to dry. And meanwhile, the Fawn had alsoe out of the water and slowlyyed down next to the fire, all the whilst Eiro made his way into the freezing cold river, now utterly unclothed.


    The river back really wasn''t all that big, and because of its crescent-like shape, Eiro could sit inside of the water and still reach the ce he nted his seed at with his tail.


    If the water that was artificially heated up increased his affinity for the Fire Element, then this water that was cooled down by nature itself should be a fair help for his new affinity for the Ice Element. Or was it a new affinity? It said his Water Element awakened into the Ice Element... So did it rece his Water Element Affintiy? That didn''t seem to be it... Specific things like this usually weren''t discussed in the books Eiro read, and if they were, just very briefly.


    It was like they wanted to avoid the stat and skill system, so... That wasn''t anything he really knew about.


    Either way, for now... He just had to do what he had to do, right? Eiro had to continue feeding the seed his mana to make it sprout. It would be nice if it could be asrge as the tree in that... Vision? Illusion? Fantasy? Whatever it was that Eiro just saw a few moments ago. Well, that hope was unrealistic anyway, and Eiro would be happy if it reached the bare minimum that Jura would ept him as an apprentice at.


    And so, the Imp just started continuing this. He continued on and on, and somehow, while the flow of his mana slowed down considerably, the recovery rate becamerger and the amount that he could move at once also increased.


    Slowly, just so slowly, the Imp''s mana now flowed into the seed while the Demon himself used a new method to aplish this.


    Hourster, when Eiro was finally done for the day, he got out of the water, although his legs just felt so incredibly heavy, as if they were made of metal. He took slow steps and swiftly reached the mes, then simply stood in front of them for a little while, looking down at the Fawn which had been sleeping up until now, but then stood up and stretched its body properly and walked up to Eiro to rub its face against his leg.


    "...what are you doing..?" He asked, but the fawn just continued as it was doing without stopping. With a slight sigh, the Imp simply looked down at it with a slight frown and pushed it away as he walked over to his clothes and put them back on, before covering the fire in a bunch of snow to put it out.


    And as steam rose from the small temporary campfire, Eiro started making his way through the forest into the direction of his house. Although, a certain little fe simply wouldn''t stop following him.


    "Don''t you need to get back to the Stag? Go on, leave." The Imp said quite clearly, but the fawn simply stood there and stared at him before tilting its head to the side, and Eiro sighed deeply.


    "...Fine..." Eiro sighed and just turned around before continuing to walk, "I don''t expect Jura to let you stay anyway, but you can try your luck I guess."


    ---


    "Sure, let him stay." Jura said with a light smile as he extended his hand forward to rub over the fawn''s head, and Eiro raised his brows confused. He didn''t even ask yet... "Would it be too much to ask not to listen to private conversations I lead with myself?" The Imp inquired, and Jura just started tough in response.


    "Haha, what are you even asking? Of course it would. But be happy, I won''t even ask why you crossed the river to get to this stag and then left again immediately without wanting to take it with you." Jura pointed out with a slight smirk, as if saying ''I got you'', although Eiro was just looking at him surprised.


    He... didn''t notice the Stag? Was it actually there, or did Eiro really just imagine it?


    "Come on now, stop making that face! Forest creatures like this are great familiars. I used to have one too, a young Albino Wolf. Quite feisty she was, that one." The old manughed, and Eiro raised his brows curiously.


    "Familiars? Didn''t those need to be some special creatures or breeds?" The Demon asked, but Jura just sighed and shook his head as he turned around and went to grab a towel, which he swiftly threw at the Imp. "Dry it''s feet when youe back inter, but take it with you to the other room when you take your bath. The children will wake soon." Jura said, and Eiro looked at the old man with a frown.


    "Sure." He said and was just about to turn around, before Jura simply sat down on his chair. "Most are only capable of taking such beings as their Familiar, because they don''t know the right methods. Anything can be a familiar as long as it''s willing to."


    With a satisfied expression, Eiro then left the main part of the house and then quickly made his way over to the adjacent structure, where he quickly started to prepare his bath. And once the water started boiling, the Imp sat down inside of the water and looked at the fawn with a serious expression.


    "Goy down over there." The Imp said. After all, the water in this tub sometimes ended up boiling over the edges, so he didn''t want the young animal to be hurt somehow. It was weird, but while it seemed to be the Stag''s child, it didn''t give off the same feeling at all.


    It just seemed to be a normal young, small deer. And while it didn''t directly listen to each and every of the Imp''smands, it seemed very docile and kind. Slowly as the Fawn approached Eiro''s hand to snuggle up to it again, the Imp pulled his arm away.


    "Stop, don''t. I said goy down over there. This water is hot." Eiro said in a strict tone as he pointed at the other side of the room, and while the fawn looked back and forth from the Demon and the corner he was pointing to, he repeated himself once more. "Go." He added, making the small forest creature slowly turn around and make its way over there, despite how it simply seemed as if it was pouting. Eiro was aware that it couldn''t actually do so, but it just somewhat seemed like it outwardly.


    Either way... for now, Eiro couldn''t help himself but try topare the feeling of the ice cold river water to the boiling hot tub water. Maybe he should try and let his mana flow here as well?


    Slowly, the Imp sat up inside of the tub and pressed his feet against each other before wrapping his stump in his palm, properly trying to make his mana flow in the circles. And... There definitely was a change. His regeneration increased even morepared to normal, even whenpared to the ''normal'' increase from when he did this while just sitting in front of the seed. That part was the same as what happened when he was sitting inside of the cold river water and doing this. However, the rest was basically the opposite. His mana was flowing way faster than normal, and he could actually move far less at once than he was used to. Well, the minimum mana that he had to move at once also went down like this, while in the cold water it just became more.


    That made Eiro came to a rtively simple conclusion. If at some point he needed to use proper spells, then spells while he was in his ''Freezing'' state would be stronger, but slower. On the other hand, spells while he was in his ''Boiling'' state would be weaker, but far quicker. At least that''s the conclusion Eiro came to. But in the end, he couldn''t really entirely be sure about that, so there was no use in thinking about it until he actually knew proper spells to test this out on.


    After all, until now he was only going for raw maniption. And actually, that did give Eiro a little bit of an idea that he felt like he wanted to try out. Slowly, Eiro tapped the water surface with his finger and tried to do the same thing he did at the river. In his head, it didn''t make much sense... But right now when he tried to make the water freeze... the ice spread out nearly instataneously across the surface of the water.


    Sure, it melted nearly immediately afterward after being broken up by the bubbles, but in the end, it seemed like this principle of nature that he had already observed also applied when it came to magic.

 Chapter 73 - Understood

    After finishing his bath, Eiro stepped out of the tub and quickly dried himself, before taking a look at the Fawn. Eiro himself wasn''t really all that dirty to begin with, considering that he had been sitting in the river water for hours, and that cleaned any dirt on him off. Not that there was much dirt there anyway, considering his daily baths.


    On the other hand, the Fawn had a bunch of dirt intertwined with its fur, and he was stinking quite heavily as well... "Come over here." Eiro said finally as the water seemed to take on a regr, albeit still warm, temperature after Eiro had put the fire out. After bringing some of the water away with a bucket, Eiro quickly tried to get the young forest creature into the tub.


    "Just get inside already, you wanted to before..." The Imp muttered with a deep sigh, before he pushed his arms underneath the young Stag''s body, trying to pick it up. Luckily he wasn''t asrge as Eiro thought he was before when he saw him and the big Stag by the river, as it really was just a regr fawn now.


    So it actually wasn''t much heavier than Arc or Sammy, and he was a fair bit lighter than Rudy, so it wasn''t that hard to lift him into the tub, albeit against its will. "Stop it already!" Eiro eximed when the fawn unsessfully tried to get out of the tub for the fifth time after being lifted inside, and then slightly calmed down, it seemed.


    "Good. Now stay still, alright?" The Demon requested as he grabbed a bowl standing next to him and quickly scooped up some of the water in the bowl, before pouring it over the fawn''s back to clean him up a little bit.


    Before Eiro knew it, the water had turned a light muddy brown from the dirt and small rocks finally being washed off. "Hmm, I wonder, can I borrow Arc and Clementine''s Horse brushes?" The Imp asked himself, but in the end simply shrugged. "Guess I should ask themter..." Eiro muttered quietly as he for now just continued pouring water over the fawn before rubbing through its fur to try and clean it as much as possible.


    And then, once the Imp was done with that, he swiftly stood up to go grab a towel to dry the fawn, although before he could do that, the young animal swiftly jumped out of the tub and started shaking its body to quickly dry itself, and those drops of course reached far enough to cover Eiro''s desk, where he had been working on trying to level hisnguageprehension up more by writing different things.


    The fawn mostly caused mist-like droplets to fly around, so the paper wasn''tpletely soaked, but some of the Ink still started running again. "Would it be cruel to make it stop moving by freezing its wet fur..?" Eiro asked himself with a wry, annoyed smile, simply sighing as he stepped forward with the towel and then swiftly used it to dry the small animal.


    "Quit it already!" The Imp eximed as he tried to hold the fawn in ce, although it seemed like the juvenile deer itself was fighting against him as if trying to save his own life. "There! We''re done." Eiro sighed as he finally finished drying the fawn, and then ced the towel he used over the rack that the towels were over, before he started to pour out the dirty bathwater and cleaned the tub a bit, and then properly got clothed again.


    "Come with me." He added and jerked his head over toward the door, making the fawn quickly follow him outside to get over toward the main part of the house, where Eiro opened the door and quickly let the fawn inside, before it curiously took a look around at the new people that were walking around in here.


    "Wh-What is that?" Sammy asked surprised when she saw the fawn, and Eiro just looked down at it and back toward the young girl. "A Baby Deer." He pointed out, although Sammy still seemed nervous. Both Arc and Clementine, however, seemed to be incredibly excited about this.


    "Whoa! So cuutee!" Clementine eximed as she tried to extend her hand forward to pet the small animal, which quickly responded by pushing its head against her palm as well. In the meantime, Arc started rubbing over its back. "Where did ite from?" He asked with a bright smile, and Eiro just shrugged.


    "He started following me in the forest, so I took him along. Jura said he might be a good Familiar, so... I''m thinking of keeping him." The Demon said as he looked down at the small, innocent animal right next to him. And yes, of course he would hide what else happened. And it wasn''t like he was lying to them either. Technically, that''s what happened as, so he had no qualms about what he said.


    "Ooh! It''s a boy?! How can you tell?" Clementine asked, and Eiro looked at her with his brows raised. "Well, I just cleaned him, so that''s how." He pointed out, and Clementine looked at the Demon with a nk, embarrassed expression. "Hehe, right..." She muttered quietly as she scratched her cheek, while Eiro just slightly smiled at her and rubbed his hand over her head.


    "Anyway, for now, I''m heading to bed. It''s been a long night." Eiro said with a slightugh as he slowly made his way over toward his bed and simply dropped down into it after taking his clothes off, while the young fawn simply climbed on top of him, although the others had different worries at the moment.


    "What... What was that..?" Arc asked, with an expression more terrified than he''s ever shown before, and Clementine looked around at the other children confused at what just happened. Rudy nearly dropped the pan he was cooking food in, and Sammy didn''t notice how Avalin was stealing food from the sleeping Leon''s te... Only Jura was slightly smirking.


    "Did... Eiro justugh?" Sammy asked in disbelief, although the Demon in question had already dozed off with the ball of fur sleeping on top of him.


    ---


    From then on, life once more entered a quite regr routine. At night, Eiro went to the river and cared for the seed together with the Fawn, who was soon named ''Lugo'', after the ''Ancient Language'' word for moon, one of the few words whose meaning was actually known. The reason why Eiro thought that was a pretty nice name was, that the two of them only ever were really awake when the moon was out.


    At least at first. They were still awake in the day when Eiro went to town every couple of weeks, where Lugo simply went along with him each and every time. And then the next exception came when spring came and the days started bing longer again, meaning that they now went to the forest before sundown, and came back after sunrise. But even then, they were always out the whole night.


    Somehow, while he could have just started going in the day when he had the chance to, he somehow thought he should just continue to try and make it grow during the night. It just felt right to him.


    And soon, he found that it might have been a good choice, because once all the snow had actually properly frozen and other nts grew as well, the small seed started sprouting and turned into a small sapling.


    Somehow, it was always surrounded by a cold mist, but that wasn''t anything that Eiro really minded. It seemed rather nice, really.


    Over the next few months, while Eiro stayed practically the same with the excpetion of managing to get his Fire Magic skill to Apprentice grade, the others kept changing more and more. The speed at which the skills of the children leveled up picked up quite heavily, meaning that they were slowly stopping to be ''children''. They were all ten now as well, and got a little taller as well. Not by much, so they were all still shorter than Eiro was, but they did still grow a little bit.


    Both Leon and Avalin started talking a fair bit more, and soon after either of them spoke their first words, they started walking as well, and at this point were simply running around the house at every chance they got, meaning that Sammy''s stress increased a fair bit.


    But a thing that both of the toddlers picked up was... calling out to Eiro as their father. They still couldn''t talk that well, so it was still a broken version of ''Daddy'', but it was obvious that both of them somehow saw Eiro as a sort of father figure. And it wasn''t like he minded either, it just felt somewhat off sometimes, considering who and what the Imp was.


    Not only the children grew, however. The fawn also grew a little, although still not by much. However... It grew its first antlers! Or well, they were more like two single spikes at this stage, so maybe calling them ''antelrs'' was a bit too much. But either way, they looked pretty nice!


    Somehow, after Eiro''s evolution, only then did he really start appreciating the beauty of such things. Horns were pretty cool, weren''t they? At least that''s what Eiro himself thought.


    Thenter, the Spring Equinox came around. It was basically the same thing as the Winter Solstice, because the Lady of Spring would appear then. Once more, Eiro helped Jura out with the gathering of different nts and materials, however... When the Lady actually appeared, she seemed to practically scowl at Eiro whenever she saw him.


    Even the ''Daughters of Spring'', the young spirits that were following the Lady of Spring around, weren''t all that happy with Eiro. Was it because of his blessing from the Lady of Winter? Were they maybe not on good terms with each other?


    The Demon wanted to ask Jura about it, but it seemed like he didn''t really want to speak about it.


    And then when summer came around... Jura finally told Eiro exactly what the Imp wanted to hear.


    "You passed. You can now start studying under me as my apprentice, Eiro." Jura said in a clear tone, and somehow, Eiro''s excitement could hardly be contained anymore.


    He had been working toward this for a whole year after all! However... There was still something that worried the Demon.


    "But... will I have the time to keep caring for the tree?" Eiro asked, and Jura slowly shook his head. "You will not. But it does not matter, due to your constant infusion of mana into the seed, its nature changed. It''s far more resilient than a regr tree. You should still give it some of your mana every once in a while, but it will continue to grow into a splendid tree from now on." The old man said, rxing Jura''s worries, before the young Imp nodded his head in satisfaction.


    "I see..." He muttered quietly, while Jura sat down right next to Eiro and started carving into some wood, quickly giving it the shape of something that Eiro had been living without for the past half year. A new wooden hand. But this one was much different than the one before.


    "You see, this hand will be one that will shatter in exactly five years. At that point, your Apprenticeship under me will be over, and you will carve yourself a new hand out of a branch from the tree you yourself nted and cared for." Jura said in a clear tone, and Eiro just sat there as the old man ced the new wooden hand onto his stump.


    And while Eiro, for the first time since the incident in the Demon town, managed to move fingers on his own hand individually, the Demon just smiled back at Jura.


    "Understood."

 Chapter 74 - Rude

    "Good morning Eiro. That time of the month again, huh?" A short, middle-aged, weakly man asked with a broad smile as he looked over the counter in front of him, seeing the young demon open the door.


    "Morning." Eiro replied, slowly setting down the bag over his shoulder down on top of that counter. "I finished the requests I took with mest time. Five bags of Moonshade, ten bags Sulfuranum, and five liters birch water." The Imp replied, and got in total fifteen pouches as well as five metal bottles out of the bag.


    "Ah, how grandiose! I don''t know what we would do without you!" The man replied, and swiftly packed everything Eiro gave him away without even checking it. "Oh, but just a warning, there''s some travelers in town... Arrived prettyte, so they should still be asleep, but wear your mask and hood for the rest of the day, alright?" He suggested, so Eiro quickly nodded his head in response, quickly following at least thetter part already, swiftly pulling his hood over his horns.


    "Thanks for the warning. Any new-"


    "Already sorted out, don''t you worry. Been a slow month, so there''s only three again..." The man interrupted Eiro as he ced the three pieces of paper in front of him on the counter, although he had a broad grin on his face. And once Eiro checked them, he already knew what that grin was about.


    "Hmm, it''s been a while since I''ve seen a hunting request. But Tim, isn''t this a bit of a weird one? Ten rabbit legs, six frog tongues, and two eagle eyes?" Eiro read with his brows raised, and the man, Tim, nodded his head with a shrug.


    "It is, but what can you do? There aren''t many monsters ''round here, so most hunting requests we get are like that. One of those travellers I told ya about made the request. But nevermind that, the reward is pretty nice, isn''t it?" Tim asked with a smile on his face, and Eiro looked at the bottom of the piece of paper.


    "A small Silver? This is too weird..." Eiro said with a frown on his face, but Tim justughed loudly. "Hahah, buddy, that kinda request would normally just give ya what, one or tworge copper at most? It''s a great deal!"


    "Fair enough... Been running low on rabbit meat anyway. Thanks, Tim. About the rew-" Eiro said, but he was quickly interrupted by the sound of something mming against wood right behind him, and the Imp didn''t even have to turn around to see where that sound came from. "I''lle by to grab the money when I''ve taken care of everything else..." He sighed, trying to ignore the continuos mming, while Tim started to simplyugh.


    "Haha, I get what you mean. Winter''sing up, and those kids should be growin'' like weeds, aye? Gotta get some new clothes for ''em!" Timughed loudly, and Eiro just sighed deeply with a nod. "You can say that again. Especially now that Clem and Sammy getting picky about what they wear..."


    "Children, am I right?" Tim asked with a grin on his face, and Eiro just replied with a smile. "Yours are the same, ri-" Just as Eiro was speaking, one of the sounds of wood being knocked against was especially loud, and the Imp turned around annoyedly.


    "Lugo, stop it already! I''ming!" He yelled, and then looked back at Tim, who slowly chuckled and nodded his head. "It''s alright. Go on, I''ll see youter when youe to get your money." The middle-aged man reassured, so Eiro just smiled back at him.


    "Thank you." The Demon replied and swiftly picked the nearly-empty bag up from the ground and threw it back over his shoulder, before stretching his fingers out in front of his face, making a quite simple, boring wooden mask appear right on his palm that he swiftly pushed onto his face before pulling the strings over his head to make it hold in ce.


    "Lugo, what are you doing? You know you don''t fit through the door anymore." Eiro sighed as he pushed the Stag backward away from the door, before the annoyed creature bellowed in response.


    "I''m not calling you fat, Lugo, it''s your antlers." The Demon replied, rolling his eyes underneath his mask, as Lugo lifted his head up to try and see those damned things everyone''s been speaking about. But they were simply too fast for him, always hiding right outside his sight.


    "Juste on, we''ve still got a few ces we need to go to." Eiro sighed and quickly started walking along the road, away from the small building with a sign depicting a sword and a staff crossed in front of a shield.


    The universal sign of the Adventurer''s Guild. Eiro didn''t really know what was adventurous about it, in the couple of years he''s been signed up there, the only thing he was doing for them was gathering random nts for people in town. At least he got a little bit of extra money, although he didn''t necessarily need it, considering how much money was leftover from what Eiro grabbed at the Lord of Greed''s ce... Why exactly did he sign up again?


    Just as he was wondering that, the Demon chose to ignore it and swiftly stepped onto the central za, where the four statues of the Ladies were gathered around. It was just a two months ago that he and Jura led the Lady of Autumn here, and in another month, the Lady of Winter woulde back already.


    It was a rather rxed job, and the Ladies were all pretty fun to speak to, especially after the others beside the Lady of Winter warmed up to him a little. And luckily, Jura had also given up on lecturing him about speaking to thedies so casually.


    "Eh? And this is really supposed to be the ce where four Nature Goddesses go to every year? Really?" An unfamiliar voice asked loudly, standing right in the center of the four statues, something that was seen as more than just disrespectful in this town. That was downright insulting. And while Eiro didn''t really care too much himself, he didn''t want this to escte somehow once the more extreme devotees to the Ladies saw the three people standing there, and as such stepped up to the entrance area into that literally fenced-off small area.


    "Excuse me, but I don''t think you should be there." Eiro said in a clear voice, and once the three of them turned around and looked at the masked, hooded figure, the tallest and physically most defined of them, a warrior with arge sword strapped onto his back, turned toward him and leaned forward to look Eiro right into his face.


    "Is that so?" He asked, obviously not that happy with being told what not to do, and Eiro quickly noticed that this was the man that so rudely yelled that out earlier.


    "Yes." The Imp replied quite simply, leaving the man rather baffled, while hispanion, a woman with hip-long blonde, braided hair and a pointed hat started tough loudly, although the third of them simply stood there quietly.


    Especially that man''s figure stood out amongst those three. A whole chunk of his body was missing, hisplete arm including even his shoulder, and he was wearing a mask depicting a simple, ugly, angry demon. He had two dark scalloped daggers on his hips, and his remaining arm and both legs were covered in rather serious burn-wounds and deep scars.


    Eiro thought it was rather weird that he so openly disyed those facts, but in the end he didn''t care too much either and just looked back at the tall man in front of him, who seemed rather annoyed.


    "Don''t y smart with me, you little shit." The man said and grabbed Eiro by the cor, but in the end, Eiro just sighed. "You can count yourself lucky that it just rained." The Imp said as he ran his feet over the ground, freezing the entire area around and inside the four statues.


    And using that, Eiro just grabbed the man''s arm and took a step back. Of course, as he hadn''t really expected this to suddenly happen, he lost his bnce and then fell to the ground when Eiro finally manipted the ice to be slightly sloped.


    Once on the ground, the Imp just grabbed the man by the foot and pulled him along to get him away from the statues.


    "Now, do you two want toe out on your own?" Eiro asked, and behind himself, the Demon could hear the sound of metal scratching against rock as the man pushed his sword into the ground through the ice.


    "Don''t fuck with me!" He eximed, staring at his femalepanion. "Jess, st him away!" The man yelled, and the woman was just about to raise her staff up, before the masked man shook his head, revealing the pointy ears that were hidden under his hair until now.


    "What?! Dude, he attacked me!" The man eximed next, but Eiro turned toward him annoyedly. "I attacked you? I just pulled you out of the ce that is seen as holy in this town before the wrong people see you in there. Be happy that I didn''t attack you."


    Quickly, both the masked man and the woman with the staff got out from the center of the statues, and the woman looked at Eiro apologetically.


    "Sorry! We didn''t know that ce was so special! It looked like you were supposed to go in there, with therge gate and all..." The Woman apologized, and Eiro just shook his head in response.


    "That gate is for the four Ladies only. We''re not allowed to close it offpletely, so the gate is left open." He exined, and then just turned around and went up to the Stag smugly standing there behind Eiro, before the Imp himself quickly reached down and picked up the bag he ced down next to Lugo before, although just when he did so, the woman let out a surprised sound.


    Slowly, Eiro turned around toward her again. "Something wrong?" He inquired, but the Woman immediately shook her head. "Not at all! Everything''s fine! But where exactly did you get that... erm, hand?" She asked, and soon noticed how insensitive that sounded, although Eiro just shrugged.


    "Traveler came through here and made it for me." The Imp pointed out and threw the bag over his shoulder, not wanting to listen to what these others were about to ask.


    "Do you maybe know where that traveler is now?" The woman, Jess, asked, and Eiro just shook his head and turned toward Lugo to signal him to follow behind him, but the tall and physically strong man from before seemed like he wasn''t exactly happy with that answer.


    "Hey, can''t you at least answer properly? We just want some help. You see the state our friend''s in, don''t''cha? So stop being such a dick and tell us where we can meet that ''Traveler''. We''ve been lookin'' for him for years." The man pointed out and ced his hand onto Eiro''s shoulder, but the Imp himself just turned around toward him with a re.


    "Hey, can''t you at least use your eyes properly? I just shook my head. You see I''m in a rush, don''t''cha? So stop being such a dick and leave me alone. My kids are waiting for me at home." Eiro said, returning the rude thing the man said right back to him.


    "Heh, a fucker like you has kids? What kind of sad bitch you must''ve married. Bet those kids of yours would much rather be alone without ya, so you can take your time." The man said with a broad grin, obviously just trying to provoke Eiro.


    "K-Krog, what are you saying? Stop that!" Jess eximed, seemingly angry for Eiro''s sake, and the young Demon just smirked at that as he just stared at the man in front of him, while the ice around them slowly started to melt and move into Eiro''s direction.


    "That''s not a nice thing to say, you know?" The Imp pointed out, and the man just started tough.


    "Hahaha, not a nice thing to say? It''s not a nice world out there, buddy. But I guess some random bum like you wouldn''t know that, being holed up in this shitty little town and all." The man said, thinking that he had Eiro right where he wanted him, while the water from the rain slowly climbed down Eiro''s body, gather on top of his hand in a ratherrge bubble.


    "Oh? You want to attack me with Ice magic again? Buddy, slow shit like that''s not gonna do anythin'' to-" The man said, but Eiro interrupted him.


    "Better save your breath." He pointed out, as the bubble of water slowly started to give off steam as it started to get hotter and hotter, and slowly even started to boil. "You''re gonna need any you have left." The Imp said, and simply pushed the bubble of boiling water forward. But he didn''t want to seriously injure this man, just incapacitate him for a little while. That wasn''t the reason for this boiling water.


    After all, the man, Krog, was right. Usually, Ice magic was rather slowpared to other types. So, Eiro was making use of aw of nature to make up for that.


    And before the man could even be injured by the hot water, it started to freeze when it touched his skin, quickly forming a sphere of ice right around his head.

 Chapter 75 - Venison Bandits

    "Now then, if you''ll excuse me, I have things to take care of. Come, Lugo." The Imp said in a clear voice, making his way along the za toward the first shop he needed to buy things from. The General Store, where he usually bought all the spices they needed as well as things like flour and vegetables or fruit that were hard to nt yourself. After that he would need to get to the Tailor and then the Cobbler to pick up the orders Eiro ced with themst time he was here.


    And there was also that one-


    "Where do you think you''re going?!" The Woman of the three, Jess, yelled out after Eiro as she worked on melting the ice around herpanion''s face, although the third of them, the masked and disfigured one, didn''t really react all that much. "Guards, finally!" She then yelled out, and Eiro turned his head to see two armed men standing by the street, the small insignia on their chest showing that they were part of the Vige Militia.


    Although, one of them was a Farmer that produced a lot of the wheat the young Demon bought, and the other was the son of the local cksmith. At peak-times he would be helping his father out to make horseshoes or tools for the people of the vige, but as his help wasn''t really needed, he used his free-time to get make sure the town was safe.


    "Please, arrest that man! He attacked ourpanion!" Jess yelled out as she pointed her staff toward Eiro, and the two men looked over toward him.


    "Erm, what exactly happened here?" The older of the two, the Farmer, asked as he stepped up to the Demon, who just sighed and exined the situation. Once he was done, the two men looked over at the three travlers and shook their heads.


    "Hmm, then thank you, Eiro. But could you at least melt the ice? If he dies or ends up crippled, we''ll really have to arrest you." The Farmer said with a sigh, and Eiro turned around annoyedly, slowly lifting his wooden hand up before letting his mana flow inside of it. The wood this hand was made of was a special one that was used to make staffs and wands, after all, so it was quite useful for such things.


    And soon, the ice started to give off steam and soon simply broke into pieces on Krog''s face.


    "Now, can I finally get going?" Eiro asked, so the Farmer slowly nodded his head. "Sure you can, just don''t cause any more trouble, got it?" He replied and then turned over toward the three travelers, "And as for you-"


    "You''re just going to let him go?!" Jess aksed confused, practically baffled, and the cksmith''s Son just stared at them angrily. "Yes we are. And you should be greatful to him. After all, what you just did goes against thew in this town. Maybe he shouldn''t have done that to your friend, but we know him well enough to know he wouldn''t permanently hurt anyone.


    True, the Imp thought, if they''re dead they can''t be hurt, right? Well, over the past few years, he had built up a reputation as being trustworthy here in this town, after all. After a total of six years, it would be weird if he wasn''t known around here.


    Either way, for now, Eiro just left the za behind to finally get on with what he had to do. Luckily, the ces he had to go to were right next to each other, so he was able to finish everything up pretty quickly.


    With the bags he had now properly filled up and strapped onto Lugo''s back, Eiro was finally able to make his way back home.


    He did see the travlers again on his way out of town, and Jess and Krog were just ring at him as he was going. "How bothersome." Eiro muttered as he rolled his eyes underneath his mask, and then quickly climbed onto Lugo''s back, making the Stag groan loudly in response.


    "No, I''m not fat either, you''re justzy." The Imp sighed, "Just get going already." He added, and Lugo just looked forward and finally started walking, all the whilst Eiro turned his eyes to the side and pushed his hand forward right next to him, making the same motions that he would as if he was pulling something out of a shelf, before a small book appeared right there in his hand as if he used magic to make it appear.


    And technically, that was what it was. A Sort of Magic. At least, it took a bit of Eiro''s mana to make it happen, so he figured that was it.


    This was Eiro''s racial Ability. <The Collector''s Treasury>. It allowed him to store one of anything he wanted in something like a subspace. That was where he pulled his mask out of before as well. Luckily, books were often seen as seperate things depending on their topic or genre, so Eiro currently had around half a dozen books he hadn''t read yet stored in there. And once he finished them, he would just ce them into his ''Library'' and get the next book.


    Beside the Mask and books, he had the Ice-Flower, his two cards, and his dagger stored in there. He could store any trophy he took from monsters or animals he beat in the past, although that would mean he could only store one piece off of any specific monster. So for example, there was this beast-type monster called ''Horned Wolf'', which had three different quite interesting things. Its ws, fangs, and its horn.


    If he chose to store the Horn, he couldn''t store the w or fang. Sadly he couldn''t just store the whole horned-wolf either, because the space he could store things in was pretty much limited to his own physical volume... Apparently, he wasn''t really entirely sure. It was tough to test, really. It didn''t seem like he would be able to store a whole thing like that anyway.


    Either way, this ability came in quite useful for the most part, because it made his everyday life easier to be able to hide his weapon and ''treasures'', meaning the cards and ice-flower, very easily.


    It also made work very easy, because most of his tools were seen as their seperate thing as well. So he could have things like a hammer, chisel, and knife all stored away, but not each their different variations that he needed.


    However, depending on how well he used this ability, he could move things from one hand to another instantly, so for the most part he had his array of tools just next to him and would just touch the ce where the one he needed right now was, to be able to switch them out nearly instantaneously!


    Well, Jura''s work was still far quicker and more detailed than his own, though... And he still had trouble properly making things like his own right hand that the animals he treated were able to use without worry.


    "Hmm... Lugo, stop here for a moment." The Imp said with a slight sigh, cing the book he was nearly finished with back into his ''Treasury'', slowly climbing off of the Stag''s back. "Stop moving around, gotta tie this in ce more tightly." Eiro said as he got out some extra rope and fastened the different bags more tightly on Lugo''s back, before climbing back onto him and wrapping his own lower body in rope as well, before tightly grasping at Lugo''s antlers.


    While the Stag himself just bellowed, Eiro just sighed. "Lugo, don''t freak out, but I think we''re being followed right now. It should be the... Venison Bandits." The Imp said in a serious tone, and Lugo immediately turned his head around toward him and groaned loudly.


    "What, you haven''t heard of them? The Venison Bandits, Lugo! They have made it their task to hunt each and every Deer they can find... and then cut off their limbs one by one, to let them watch how they''re eaten." He exined, and the Stag''s eyes just circled around as he bellowed again, although his voice this time around sounded nearly like cackling.


    "Lugo, you''re a deer." The Imp sighed, and once more, Lugo''s head instantly turned around to stare at Eiro in shock, who just nodded his head in confirmation, before the Stag immediately started sprinting forward at immense speeds, all the whilst Eiro was just quietly muttering to himself. "I live in a Forest filled with numerous creatures, animals, some spirits and even four Nature Goddesses each year... And I had to choose an idiot as my Familiar..." The Demon sighed, as he slowly turned around, quickly confirming that the three travelers were now finally left behind.


    One thing, Eiro had to admit, Lugo was the fastest animal he''s ever seen. So he doubted that two humans and an elf would be able to actually follow them.


    For now, they just had to get home, and then Jura would be able to tell if they ended up being able to follow, so Eiro could just go out and face them in the forest at that point. He didn''t want to do it in the middle of town, but he didn''t mind killing them in the forest where nobody was looking.


    Well, although, technically they were just looking for help for the Elf... So maybe he shouldn''t kill them after all? Not even the people in town knew exactly where they lived, so Eiro didn''t actually want them to follow, because it might turn out troublesome for the kids...


    That was an issue to think aboutter, right now they just had to get home. It was a bit annoying that Eiro couldn''t read anymore because of how bumpy and fast this ride was, but that was fine if they managed to get home earlier in return.


    Just a couple of hourster, they managed to reach the hut built into a tree at the top of the small hill, and Eiro calmed Lugo down a little once they started ascending it. The exhausted Stag was of course also quite d to get home, although Eiro was pretty sure he had forgotten about why they were rushing by now.


    "Come on." Eiro said as they were finally back in front of the hut, and the Imp opened the door to the storage-hut/Study, swiftly carrying the different things inside and cing them down on the ground. He would sort them outter, but for now he just had to clean up Lugo''s legs. They werepletely mud-covered, after all.


    "Eiro!" A young woman eximed with a bright smile, her shoulder-length blonde hair bound into a ponytail. She was wearing high, mud-covered boots as well as the simple, beige-tan colored clothes she usually wore when working out here. "Hey there, Clem."


    "Hehe, you bring me anything from town?" She asked with a slight smirk, and the Demon raised his brows with a slight smirk as he took off his mask.


    "Beside Food, Clothes and Shoes? No, sorry." Heughed slightly, and Clementine just slightly pouted in response. "Awe man! I''ll clean Lugo up, Arc''s still milking the cows anyway." She said with a slight sigh, so Eiro looked at her with a smile.


    "Thanks." The Demon said as he stood up, finally pulling his hood off as well, swiftly going in to give Clementine a quick hug before going around the house toward the small farmhouse that was built to keep the other animals in, where he swiftly knocked on the door as he entered.


    "Arc? You in here?" Eiro asked, and the boy he was looking for slowly raised his head over the back of the cow he had been standing behind, although just barely. "Oh, you''re back!" He eximed, and Eiro just nodded his head in response.


    "Looks like it."


    "Anything happen in town?"


    "Nope."


    "You got me anything?"


    "Nope"


    "Can I finally be an Adventurer?"


    "Nope."


    "You sure?"


    "Yep."


    "Dammit!" Arc eximed bitterly, but Eiro justughed slightly. "You''ll be fifteen in another month. How about I just take you along to town then? We''ll speak to Sam and get you signed up." The Imp suggested, making the boy smile at him brightly in response.


    "Wait, really?!" He asked surprised, and Eiro smiled back at him.


    "Mhm. There''s really only requests for gathering nts, but I guess it''s better than nothing, hm?" The Imp pointed out, but Arc just shook his head. "That''s fine! Thanks!" The boy.... or rather, young man replied, and Eiro simply smiled.

 Chapter 76 - Project

    "Hey, I''m back." Eiro eximed as he stepped through the front door of the house and looked around, before his lower body suddenly gained a bit more weight. "Daddy!" Avalin eximed, her mouth still half-full with some food as he clung to the Demon''s legs, and the Imp himself squatted down and smiled.


    "I''ve only been gone for the morning... Go on and get back to eating, will you?" He asked the young girl, who looked at him with her currently yellow eyes and then quickly hurried back over toward Sammy, who was currently cleaning up after her and Leon.


    "Wee back." She said with a smile as she slowly made her way over toward him with toys in her arms and gave the Imp a quick hug, before the Demon took a look around the room again. "Where are Jura and Rudy?" Eiro asked curiously as he stepped up behind the two small children and took a look at what they were eating, while Sammy just scratched the back of her head in response.


    "Ah, they''re just on a walk right now. You know how Jura istely..." The young, red haired woman said bitterly, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "Then I guess they will be back soon. I''m just going to work for a bit." The Demon pointed out, swiftly making his way over to one of the shelves ced around the corner and took a look at them to get an idea for what he should do for daily practice.


    "Oh, any new ideas today?" Sammy asked curiously, and Eiro slowly shook his head in response. He didn''t feel like doing general practice today, so he had to figure out something new and Unique that he hadn''t made before.


    Slowly, with his eyes closed, Eiro mentally went through all the things he had made until now. All Eight-Hundred-Seventy-Three of them. For the most part they were just small figurines depicting monsters, animals, or even nts that Eiro encountered so far. There were a few exceptions, of course, although it seemed like the number of exceptions was about to get smaller.


    Because for whatever reason, Eiro was reminded of something that had happened a long time ago... Six years ago, to be exact.


    Slowly, the Imp took a look around the shelves again to locate the different types of wood that he wanted to use... First, there was Snowbark. This wood was nearlypletely white, and got its name because it usually grew in areas that were snow-covered for most of the year and nearly perfectly blended in with the surrounding snow due to its color.


    The next wood was Soot-Root. It was pitch-ck, and got its name from how it covered the hands of anyone that carelessly touched it in a ck soot-like substance. That was the first part of the name. The second came from how this specific wood could only be harvested from the thick roots of a specific tree after it was lit on fire, and that fire naturally went out.


    That meant that it was sometimes hard to get acrossrger pieces, but that was fine. They had a literal mountain of smaller pieces that could just be put together into arger piece if he needed to. Although, this one here would only be around the size of his hands any-


    "Change of ns, young... Eiro..." Jura said as he loudly coughed into his fist in a rather unhealthy manner, and then looked at the Imp once more as he turned around in surprise.


    "Hm?" Eiro asked, and the old man slowly sat down on his chair in the corner, getting the necessary help from Rudy.


    "You''re starting... yourst big project now... Before your Graduation as my Apprentice..." Jura said in a clear tone, and Eiro stared at him as if in shock. "Wait, what do you mean? But my Carving Skill is still at Apprentice 98, I''m not even close to getting it to Intermediate..." Eiro pointed out, and Jura shook his head.


    "That is fine. You will be able to do quite well anyway. Carving is only part of half of it anyway. Whatever you wanted to make just now, supersize it to its regr size. From how your heart''s beating, it must be quite a horrible creature." Jura pointed out, and Eiro raised his brows surprised, before nodding with a slightly nervous grin.


    "Sure... But, how much of the Soot-Root can I-"


    "Use it up for all I care. The only time I''ve used it was... Did I ever use it?" Jura asked himself with a slight frown, so Eiro slowly grabbed all the pieces of Soot-Root that were here in the shelf already and put them onto a piece of cloth so that they wouldn''t dirty the ground, while nodding his head.


    "Yes, you have. Last year, on your trip in May. I don''t know what for, but you came back with roughly half than you left with, and I doubt you''d use it to make fire." Eiro pointed out, so Jura slowlyughed and nodded his head. "Haha, right, right, I remember now. Either way, go out and get to work already, you buffoon. You have one week to finish it." The old man said as he waved his hand over toward the door, so Eiro just nodded and made his way out of the door with the different woods that he needed... They had a prettyrge piece of Snowbark sitting in the wood-storage, so Eiro should probably use that as the base for the body.


    "Rudy, can youe downstairs with me and help me out a bit?" Eiro asked, although he wasn''t entirely sure if he should be excited about such a big project, or... sad, about this being one of thest things he would do under Jura.


    "Sure." The young man said, his voice already a few octaves deeper than before as his figure was already as tall as Eiro''s own. Quite impressive for a fourteen years old boy.


    "Thene on." Eiro said as he bundled up the Soot-Root he had already gathered and chose to bring it outside already, and then the Demon and young boy made their way to the back of the house, where the entrance to lead down into the hollowed-out space underneath the house was, which was basically just held up properly through the thick roots of the tree above, which even still shot down through the roof of this space deep into the floor. Luckily, it was quite dry in this room, so all the wood that was herested for years and years on end, and they didn''t have to worry about getting new types all the time.


    "Ah, here it is." Eiro said as he pointed at therge block of white wood that was roughly as high as the Imp was tall. That would mean he would need to make the legs seperately, considering the size of the thing he was making. Since its figure was quite thin, he should be able to re-use some parts of this block of wood as well.


    "Let''s just bring it out to the front." The Demon suggested, and Rudy quietly nodded his head, walking to the other side of the block of wood while Eiro squatted down in front of it, digging under the wood with his fingers. This kind of thing usually strained his wooden arm pretty badly, but until now it held out pretty well, so Eiro wasn''t worried about it breaking.


    "Alright, I''m ready." Eiro said, his legs, back, and arms slowly heating up immensely as he lifted the heavy block up a little, while Rudy just made sure to push it forward onto Eiro''s back properly so that he could carry it in a hunched-over position.


    And so, while Eiro''s fingers basically buried themselves in the white wood, Rudy helped out by keeping everything bnced. With the technique the Imp was using, he was able to gain incredible raw strength for a short while, but that didn''t help his bnce at all, so he wasn''t really able to carry this kind of thing alone anyway, even if it he was fine weight-wise.


    "Careful, steps." Rudy said in a rather cold, although sad, tone as he kept his hands at the sides of the wood, and Eiro took a heavy lunge with his foot to press it onto the first step. Then the second, then the third, and so on until they finally reached the surface.


    Although, this was a little more annoying without any proper footing, especially because the floor was still a little wet from the rainst night. There wasn''t much of it around here, but a quick shower hit them anyway.


    And so, Eiro slowed down a little just to be safe, and ced the block down on the stone tform by the side of the house, before breathing out deeply, finally able to rx again.


    "Listen, Eiro, I-" Rudy started, although Eiro quickly interrupted him as he held his finger up. "Just a moment... Let me get this over with first..." The Imp said and then ground his teeth together as he slowly let his Life Force dissipate through his body again, making the stress he put his body under finally catch up with him.


    "Haaah..." Eiro sighed deeply as he leaned against the wood as pain filled the parts of his body that had heated up so much before. This was the drawback of manipting your life force... It allowed you to strengthen certain parts of your body momentarily, but the drawback was rather painful. "So annoying..." The Imp muttered as the pain slowly died down again and he stretched his body for a while. "So, what is it you wanted to say?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, and Rudy slowly looked through the window of the house, confirming that Jura was asleep, as he always was around this time of the daytely, and then sighed deeply.


    "Jura, he... He really isn''t doing well..." Rudy pointed out quietly, and Eiro raised his brows surprised. "Hm? What do you mean? Sure, he sleeps a lot moretely, but that''s because you guys have all be more dependable... He doesn''t really have anything else to do anymore." The Imp replied as he went to grab his tools, and when he got back out, Rudy just stood there, grasping his own arm tightly.


    "It... It''s not the sleeping... Well, the sleeping as well, but... You noticed it before, didn''t you? He''s getting more forgetful... He hasn''t gone out for a trip for four months, and he barely even touched his tools outside of showing you techniques. You maybe don''t notice it as much because you''re gone a lot during the day, but... Jura is really, really not doing well." The young man exined with a bitter expression, even slowly wiping away what might have be a tear in a few seconds out of his eyes.


    "He lost so much weight that I had to tighten his clothes a couple of times already, he doesn''t have any appetite anymore... He always leaves nearly all his food on his te..." Rudy added, "His hands have been shaking all the time, and on an especially bad day, I even had to repeat myself when speaking to him once because he didn''t understand what I said... Andst week, when I made the stew, he was surprised when I put it on the table, because he couldn''t smell when I was cooking... Eiro, he couldn''t smell it! Jura couldn''t!" He eximed loudly, getting incredibly upset, and at this point, even Eiro realized that something was wrong.


    "Is he sick? Was he poisoned somehow? Maybe he-" The Imp suggested with worry in his tone, but Rudy just interrupted him.


    "No! Eiro, I know you haven''t seen something like that yet... And you yourself haven''t changed at all in the past five years, but people like us get older... We can''t live forever..." Rudy said quietly as he looked down at the ground, now really unable to hold back his tears, "Eiro... I think... Jura is dying...."

 Chapter 77 - Mortality

    "Dying? What are you talking about? How could Jura be dying?" Eiro said with augh, as if what Rudy just said was the most ridiculous thing anyone had ever said to him, "Who could ever beat him in a fight? Not even an army should be-"


    "Eiro, just stop..." Rudy muttered quietly as he looked down at the ground underneath him, "I''m going back inside, tell me if you need my help with anything..." Rudy said quietly as he made his way inside again, leaving the Imp to just stand there confused.


    "What a weird joke..." Eiro muttered as he turned around toward the block of wood and ced the box with his tools in it down on the ground in front of him to properly get to work.


    For now, Eiro should really just concentrate on what needed to be done, and quickly got a piece of ck chalk out of the box that he used to make a rough silhouette of the figure from here so that he could remove pieces as big as possible from this base block, and then swiftly got to work, quickly carving into the wood with a straight gouge to properly get a good outline, creating an oval that waspletely around the silhouette that Eiro just carved, and then grabbed the saw that he brought outside together with the box, swiftly cutting the pieces outside of that oval away.


    And then, Eiro quickly stepped up to the other side of the wood block, which still seemed square from that perspective, and then did the same exact thing, sketching the silhouette of the figure when seen from the side, then carved an oval with a straight goughe, and then cut away the excess pieces.


    So, Eiro was left with a base that was far easier to work with. And on top of that, he should have enough pieces of wood to properly create the limbs of the wooden statue out of the pieces that he just cut off.


    "Let''s get started, then..." Eiro muttered quietly, and then instantly started visualizing the figure of the person... No, the being, that he wanted to recreate. Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what it was, after all.


    Either way, with the image of it clear in his mind, the Demon got started on carving it out.


    It had a slim, incredibly tall figure. It was so tall that it seemed to basically overtower the Imp just thinking of it. It was so white that it would probably disappear in the snow just like this wood did, and the same was the case with its clothes, as they were the same white color. If Eiro hadn''t seen it without that suit on, he would have thought it was just part of its body, maybe something like a natural shell or carapace.


    Soon, Eiro came to the step where the rough shape was done, and you could slowly recognize what it was, at least if you had seen it before. From the four arms extending out from its shoulder, the neat white suit that it wore, and the slight smile on its face that Eiro had only just hinted at for now.


    It was Zaragon. The truly most terrifying creature heid his eyes on in his currently quite short life. Even now, Eiro just wanted to push his dagger deep into its stomach where it was hiding its true, horrifying mouth, and just cut it up from the inside. Inflict immeasurable pain upon it for what it did to Avalin, and ultimately make it suffer endlessly...


    But at least for now, that wasn''t something that Eiro could actually do. He wasn''t able to even face Zaragon properly at his current strength, that was something that Eiro was sure of. He would never be able to even dream of killing Zaragon.


    For now, the only thing that Eiro could do was carve Zaragon like this and then enjoy seeing it slowly rot away out here.


    Either way, now, it was time for proper details, so Eiro quickly pushed some of his tools into their spots in the belt and then held his right hand against them to be able to properly switch them out in the manner that he usually did, using his new racial ability.


    And so, at a swift pace, Eiro ran his left hand across the surface of the wood and switched his tool out whenever necessary. Just like that... Eiro was able to at least properly prepare the base for the work that was toe over the next couple of days. Meaning now he had to refine the shape some more, add details, make the wood around its torso and legs actually resemble cloth and the wood around its upper arms, which were crossed behind Zaragon''s back, and its face to resemble its skin.


    But that was a task for tomorrow... For now, he had to get this work in progress project into proper storage inside of his study and storage space.


    Considering that the amount of wood had gone down considerably, Eiro was now able to carry the Zaragon wooden-statue in there alone and on his own, and just quickly sat it down on the ground and then grabbed a smaller piece of the Snowbark that seemed to be big enough to create the rest of one of the arms of Zaragon out of, as two of his arms would currently be extended forward in the statue, and the block of wood wasn''trge enough to create Zaragon like that in one piece.


    So with the piece of wood, as well as a carving knife, in hand, Eiro made his way out of the hut and made his way toward the front door, which he quickly opened up and stepped through.


    "Ah, there he is. I said so, didn''t I?" Jura said with a grin on his face as he turned away from Rudy and toward the front door, "Now, how far along are you with your project?" The old man asked, and Eiro just smiled as he sat down at the table next to him and ced the piece of wood in his hand down on it.


    "Finished the main-body base. Still need to make four extra limbs, and then add the details to everything, and then add the Soot-Root around it. That alone should take a full day though, maybe a little bit of a second day." Eiro exined as he leaned back and started to carve into the wood, making the actual carvings drop into the piece of cloth he ced onto hisp.


    "Is that so?" The old man asked quietly with a light smile on his face, and Eiro just continued his work while Rudy made his way back to the Kitchen to keep cooking.


    The next day, Eiro continued working on the wooden statue just like he said, although that only came after his regr trip to the forest where he checked on his traps and gathered some simple herbs, and then made his way back home.


    Then, he continued carving. And for the next couple of days, that''s all that Eiro did. Meaning... Not much changed to his regr routine over the past few years, just that this was his first time working on such a big project that stretched out over a few days.


    And so, after four days of working on this as much as he could, the figure of Zaragon was finished. It already made Eiro shudder immensely, but it was really just insane, now that he took a look at it.


    He would go over it againter after getting down from the high of finishing it to see if there was something he overlooked, but for now, he had to work with the Soot-Root. And that soot-root was simply carved into numerous cubes and stacked up on top of each other, held together by riffling the sides slightly and pushing the different cubes into each other tightly, with each surface of the cubes covered in glue to continue holding it together.


    And that mountain of ck wood was constructed directly around the wooden Zaragon. After all, it was supposed to be the mist that it had used to transport itself instantly over toward the Imp back then. It would be seeping out of the pant-legs and its clothes in different parts, but first he had to actually create the proper base for it before making such connections.


    After building up the mountain of cubes, Eiro started to carve into it to smooth out the edges, doing his best to give it the right rough shape of what he remembered it to look like back then. And then, after that was done, the Imp created the connections between the body and the the ck mist, before moving on to the next step...


    Scratching the surface up to give it a texture that was more recognizable as mist than the rough, but still rtively smooth and t, texture it had right now. It was quitete at night now, but Eiro was actually nearly done... And he still had two days left, so he would just use those to properly add some more details, and maybe treat the surface of the wood a little after smoothing everything out properly.


    For the next few hours, Eiro did his best to put scratches into the wood in the right ces with the right depth and path, even making a few ''tunnels'' inside of the wood through it, and soon, the Imp was done with this as well. It was toorge to actually move now, and it wasn''t like it fit through the door anyway, so Eiro just let it outside and covered it in some cloth to make sure it wouldn''t pull in too much water should it rain, although that seemed rather improbable.


    And then, Eiro went into the house again, where the Imp once more would have to face something new. Something that he had been facing over the past few days, every day.


    The day after Eiro started the wooden statue, Jura stopped getting up out of the bedpletely, although he was still awake most of the time.


    The next day, Jura was still asleep when the Demon got home from the forest... the next day, he woke up rather early, but didn''t say a single word... Then he only woke up for roughly an hour or so, that he spent just quietly watching the children. Although, Eiro only heard Arc speak about that... After all, he himself wasn''t there during that time.


    "Now, now, don''t be so mean to your brother, Avalin." The old manughed, half-covered by the nket as the two young children were standing right next to his bed, and Eiro looked at Jura surprised. He knew it, Rudy couldn''t have been right, there''s no way Jura was dying! It was just impossible for a strong man like him.


    "I''m d you''re in such a good mood again." Eiro said with a smile on his face as he approached the bed and quickly picked up the tired Leon. "Hello Daddy..." The boy said quietly, and Avalin stared up at them with green eyes, "No fair! Daddy, I want up too!" She eximed, and Eiro just chuckled quietly and leaned down, quickly picking her up with his other arm. It was a bit unstable, but it should be fine.


    "Be careful with her, will you? She''s been very mean to Leon today." Jura said with a slight chuckle as he extended his hand over toward the girl, although she just giggled and shook her head.


    "Not true! I just wanted to wake Leon up!" Avalin eximed, and Eiro turned his head over toward Leon with a smile. "Oh? Did you fall asleep again?" He asked, and the boy slowly nodded his head as heid it down on the Demon''s shoulder. "Mhm..."


    "Well then, seems like you slept a round for Jura as well, huh? So that he didn''t sleep all day again." The Imp said with a smile as he looked at Jura, who just nodded his head.


    "Truly, I have been quite tiredtely. But I''m feeling quite well today." He pointed out, and before he and Eiro could continue the conversation, the Demon heard a loud thump outside.


    "Ah damn, I think Lugo hit his antlers somewhere again... I''ll be right back." Eiro said, smiling happily as he ced the two children in his arms down onto the ground again and made his way to the door, although he didn''t believe his ears when he heard what the old man said next.


    "Oh, just leave Lugo to Eiro, will you? It''s his familiar!"


    It seemed like Jura didn''t know who he had been talking to.

 Chapter 78 - Reason To Hate

    "Hah... Hahah..." Eiroughed in response, even if it was obviously a fakeugh, "G-Good one, Jura... I... I''ll get going to help Lugo now..." He said, quickly pulling the door open and rushing out before anything else could be said about this, as he looked around, his sight getting rather hazy.


    "I need to get away from here..." The Imp muttered quietly, just staring forward into the distance in front of him and starting to walk.


    Just... walk. Eiro didn''t know where he was trying to go, or how long he would, but that didn''t matter right now. Soon, walking turned into jogging, and eventer, jogging turned into sprinting, until Eiro found himself in front of the river. It was normally roughly an hour away from the house if you walked without stopping, but it seemed like now, Eiro made it there a lot quicker... Although, he really didn''t know how long it''s been.


    He just really wasn''t thinking about anything when he was running like that. It calmed him down a bit, but Eiro was still insanely upset over what just happened.


    It wasn''t that he was angry at anyone, it was more of a raw, pure frustration. After all, how could he not be frustrated? Eiro thought that as long you were strong, you wouldn''t need to worry about things like death or disease... And Jura was one of the strongest people he knew, but he was still dying? What the fuck was with that? How could he ept that in any way?


    Did that mean that no matter what you did, it was all worthless? If you were to end up dying at the end anyway, then what was even the point, why should Eiro just not end it right then and there, if in the end he just had to sumb to death anyway...


    Slowly, in Eiro''s hand, a decorated dagger with a small red stone in the handle appeared as if out of nowhere, and the Imp just slowly held the tip against his throat, as a few drops of bright red blood rolled down the cold metal.


    "What the fuck are you doing?!" A voice that Eiro really didn''t want to hear just then yelled out from behind him. "You''re the guy from before, right?! Didn''t you say you have children?" Jess, the Wizard from the party of three asked as she stepped through the thicket to somewhere she could speak to him more easily.


    Right now, Eiro had his hood on his head so his face was mostly hidden, but it was still obvious to anyone that saw him what he had been about to do with the dagger.


    "Shut up." Eiro growled rather angrily, but Jess didn''t stop and walked up closer to Eiro. It seemed like she was alone, for whatever reason... but what did that matter anyway?


    "No, I''m not going to shut up... Just put the knife down ande over here, alright?" She asked, but Eiro just ground his teeth.


    "What, you think I was actually going to hurt myself?" Eiro asked with a slightugh, and then, Jess suddenly stopped. "You think I would actually be that selfish? That I would leave them behind on their own, after all they''ve already been through? Sure, the thought to end it all crossed my mind just now, but who are you to judge I would actually do it? That I wouldn''t have just stopped after the few drops of blood right there, that pulled me back into my right mind?" He asked, getting more angry the more he spoke about this.


    And it was the truth... It was his n, but after the moment of pain right there, he snapped out of it and realized how wrong it would have been, in any possible way.


    But no matter what Eiro said, Jess simply didn''t stop. "That''s what you''re saying now, but can you be sure you wouldn''t have done it if I didn''t intervene?" She asked, continuing toe closer, while Eiro just continued to grind his teeth as he let his arm hand loosely as the de of the dagger he was holding loosely pointed to the ground.


    "I can''t. But can you be sure you would have?" The Demon inquired with her, still facing away, and Jess was now just a few steps away from him when she continued to speak.


    "I know people like you, I know you would ha-"


    "No, you don''t know people like me." Eiro growled as he turned around and stared the woman in front of him right into the eyes as he pulled his hood down, thest sunrays of the day hitting his horns and reflecting off, as this man''s Demonic face just stared at Jess''. "Because I''m not a person."


    "Wh-What..?" Jess muttered quietly, confused at what was going on, "Aren''t you the-"


    "I am. I am the guy you met in town, that froze your friend''s head in a sphere of ice. I''m a Demon, you see? I''m a monster. Now tell me, knowing this new fact, would you stop me from ending myself again?" Eiro asked, taking a step closer toward Jess, "Would you stop me, or would you kill me yourself? And then proudly sell my horns to some guild, or use parts of my body for your research?" He added, while Jess just started to take steps backward.


    "D-Do the people at town know about you?" She asked with shock in her voice, and Eiro just red at her. "Leave them out of it. This is not about anyone but you and me. Tell me, do you actually care? Do you actually care about keeping me alive? Or did you just not want to see another person die?"


    "I don-"


    "Just fucking answer me already!" Eiro yelled out as he stared at the woman in front of him intensely, "Just give me a reason to hate every single person! A reason not to be mortified over his...! His..." He screamed, his voice now echoing through the forest around him, and just stared forward at the face of the woman in front of him, as she stood therepletely unarmed and terrified, before Eiro just clicked his tongue and stepped past her.


    "Get out of my sight. I swear that if I ever have to see you again, I''m going to push this dagger through your throat instead of mine." And so, now Eiro stepped away from Jess again, while he could see Lugo in the distance, slowly approaching him.


    "Hey there, boy..." Eiro said with a slightly bitter smile, extending his hand forward to the Stag, who just ced his snout into the Demon''s palm.


    "Yeah, let''s go home..." He muttered quietly, and quickly climbed up onto Lugo''s back, before the stag started running back toward the hill, while Eiro just looked deeper into the forest around him while rubbing the few drops of blood that ran down his throat away.


    It had already dried up, so he didn''t need to worry about anything. He was really dumb right there, wasn''t he?


    Jess was probably right... He had no idea whether or not he would have actually done it, but she stopped him and made sure he didn''t. But... Even then, Eiro was right, wasn''t he? People despised monsters.


    The children didn''t because they grew up with Eiro... and the people of the town epted him because they also all had quite a lot of secrets.


    The Town that was built here, far away from any other town or vige. It was a town founded by people that couldn''t find a ce in other ce. A town of people that were the offspring off a Person and a Monster, Spirit, or other creature. It was hard to see at this point for the most part, because there were a lot of pure-blooded people there, but for example Tom from the Adventurer''s Guild had the blood of a Satyr, so he had two small bump-like horns hidden underneath his hair, and his legs were quite weak as well, so he was sitting most of the time.


    The cksmith of the town was part Ogre, and his wife part me Spirit, so their son had parts of both. Most people wore things that hid any monster-like part they had, but... It was undeniable that they weren''t fully people. So while they still had a rather tough time epting Eiro at first, they still weren''tpletely hostile to him. And after the time that Eiro had spent around here, they ended up seeing him as just anyone else of the vige people.


    Eiro wasn''t sure if maybe the Viger''s connection to nature due to their mixed blood was the reason why the Ladies appeared around here, but he didn''t care too much either.


    Either way, the people that Eiro had contact with here were all very different to regr people. And from Jess'' reaction, it was obvious that he would never be able to live with them like he did with the people of the vige.


    But why did he need to? He just had to stay with the children and he would be fine, absolutely fine. Who cared about people? Eiro sure didn''t.


    As the Imp approached the house again, he saw a certain young woman standing in front of the door, and she seemed relieve when she saw Eiro.


    "Eiro, where were you? Didn''t you say you just wanted to check on Lugo?" She asked while the Imp jumped off of the Stag''s back, "Sorry, I had something else to take care of for a moment there. Let''s get back inside." Eiro suggested and stepped up to the door, cing his hand on Sammy''s back to calm her down a little as well before he walked back inside, where he soon saw Jura sleeping again.


    With a slight sigh, the Demon simply sat down on his chair at the table and leaned back as Avalin approached him and raised her hands up toward him, so Eiro just slightly smiled and reached down to pick her up and sat her down on hisp.


    "You okay Daddy?" She asked as she looked at him, and Eiro just nodded his head in response. "I''m fine, don''t worry." He said reassuringly as he rubbed his hand through the girl''s hair, trying to ignore the slight stinging pain that came with it.


    "Erm..." Arc started as he looked at Eiro with a slight smile on his face, although it was more of aforting smile than one caused by actual glee. "So, the Lady of Winter ising back soon, right?" He asked, and Eiro turned toward him and nodded his head. "In two months, yes. Why, is there anything you wanted to ask her?" The Imp inquired, and Arc just shrugged.


    "I just think it would be nice to meet her sometime..." The Boy pointed out, and Eiro raised his brow in response. "Sure, I doubt she would mind. If it''s just meeting her, that is. It might be different with leading her to town, though, but we can just ask her then. But is there any reason you want to meet her?" Eiro asked, trying to lead the conversation along, grateful that Arc wanted to take the chance to distract him a bit, and the boy slowly nodded his head in response, just slightly chuckling as he did so, seemingly nervous about what he was about to say.


    "Of course there is... You and Jura have spoken about her a lot, so why wouldn''t I want to meet my Father''s friend?" He said, scratching his cheek with a wry smile, and Eiro looked at him surprised.


    "Your father is a friend of her''s?" He asked. Arc, like the other children, hadn''t spoken about their parents a lot, so-


    "Yeah, aren''t you?" Clementine asked confused, and Eiro just turned toward her. "Hm, what do you mean? Yeah, I would like to think I am, but we''re speaking about Arc''s father..." The Imp said with a slight frown, and he just heard Sammy sigh behind him.


    "What the hell are you saying now?" She said with a wry smile as she stepped up to him, and Rudy looked at him rather annoyedly as well. "You''re the one always going around calling us your children, so what''s wrong with calling you our Father?" The young man said with a frown, and Eiro looked at them allpletely confused before staring at Arc.


    "You... you meant me?" He asked, feeling his stomach tense up a little as he did so, and Arc just nodded his head without hesitation. "Yeah... Wasn''t that obvious?" He asked, and Eiro just for a moment stopped doing anything, before looking down and cing his hands over his eyes, slowly starting tough, "I knew it... No matter what she had said, there''s no way I can hate people if they''re like you...."

 Chapter 79 - Finished

    "What''s up with you? You''ve been in such a good moodtely... We''ve, like, never seen youugh this much." Arc pointed out with his chin ced onto the table, and Eiro simply looked up at them and shrugged. "Ah, I see, so you don''t want this Demon here to be happy?" He said with a sad expression and quickly looked away, pretending to be incredibly hurt, while Avalin looked at him with a purely worried expression before standing up on hisp and hugging his head tightly, while looking over toward Arc.


    "Dummy! No be mean to daddy!" She eximed, while the young man himself just looked back with a wry smile. "Who the hell taught you that, Eiro?" Arc inquired a bit confused, while Eiro just looked back and scratched his cheek. "That''s how Tom from the Guild teases his kids... It seemed fun, so..."


    "Is such a sadistic sense of humor part of being a Demon, or part of being a Father?" Sammy asked as she dropped down onto a chair next to Eiro, while the Imp just shrugged.


    "I remember my first ever action-based stat-gain being Intelligence... When I was walking in a group of Imps and wanted to spit on the one behind me with the help of wind for fun... So I can''t answer that." Eiro exined, and the others looked at him confused before Arc turned around and looked at Rudy with concern in his eyes.


    "Yeah, is it toote to take the ''Father'' thing back now?" The boy asked, and Rudy just looked at him with a nervous chuckle as he ced the food down on the table, not answering, and Eiro turned over toward Arc again.


    "Actually... Why do you all think of me as a father..? Didn''t I do a horrible thing to you back then? I basically kidnapped you, didn''t I?"


    "And saved us from bing War-tools for the Kingdom while you were at it, and then a couple of days after meeting us nearly died while saving us one after another from horrible beings. I think that makes up for it..." Sammy pointed out, and Eiro raised his brows with a slight smirk as he nodded his head.


    "I... I see..." He muttered quietly, before slowly turning toward the food in front of him and looking down at Avalin. "Go on, sit down and eat, alright?"


    "Okie!" She replied as Eiro ced her down onto the ground, and immediately rushed past her chair, while Leon had already been a good boy and sat down... although he was probably just too tired to really do anything else... Maybe Eiro should have him checked out for that sometime.


    Either way, instead of sitting down on her chair, she ran right over toward Jura''s bed. "Grampie Jura, wakie wakie! Dinner time!" She eximed as she pulled on the nket on top of him to somehow wake him up, and Eiro slowly ced his fork down and stood up, quickly walking up behind her to pick her up, although he did so with a quite bitter expression.


    "Come on, Jura is tired... He''ll eatter, alright?" He said, and while Avalin looked at Eiro surprised, she soon nodded her head. "Okay..." She answered, looking back at Jura as he was justying there, before the Imp sat her down inside of her chair and pushed it closer to the table.


    "Eat now before it gets cold." He said and slowly stepped away as he rubbed his hand through Avalin''s hair for a moment, and then sat down on his own chair again, and just quietly started to eat. Although in the end, he really didn''t feel like eating in the slightest. After that, he felt more like throwing up everything that he had eaten over the past five years. Just make everything that happened in that time disappear, so that maybe he had some more time left to study under Jura.


    But Eiro knew that he couldn''t just act like this again. He said it to Jess out there, he wouldn''t just leave the children behind, meaning that he also couldn''t leave them to deal with this alone. Eiro had to face this, and that started with not letting a situation that he couldn''t control, control him in turn.


    And then, after Dinner, Eiro cleared the table and cleaned everything up, while the children went to bed a bit earlier than normal. It seemed like they were pretty exhausted. But Eiro didn''t join them, no, instead he just took one of the chairs from the table and set it down right next to Jura''s bed, before pulling out one of the books he was reading at the moment to keep going with it.


    But in the end, he couldn''t really concentrate, and in the middle of the night, when he tried going over the same line for the fifth time after miserably failing, he just closed his book down and pushed it back into the invisible shelf in front of him.


    "Status."


    [Name ¨C Eiro][Race ¨C Ice Blue Collector Imp][Level ¨C 9]


    [Health ¨C 24.250][Mana ¨C 42.250]


    [Strength ¨C 50][Constitution - 50][Resistance ¨C 20]


    [Agility - 64][Evasion ¨C 50][Dexterity - 53]


    [Intelligence - 90][Wisdom ¨C 85]


    [Perception ¨C 90][Willpower ¨C 30][Charisma ¨C 20]


    [0 Stat Points Avable]


    [Skills]


    -[Intermediate Common Language Comprehension][Level ¨C 4]


    -[Apprentice Stealth][Level ¨C 71]


    -[Apprentice Butchering][Level ¨C 89]


    -[Apprentice Water Magic][Level ¨C 99]


    -[Apprentice Air Magic][Level ¨C 67]


    -[Apprentice Fire Magic][Level ¨C 97]


    -[Apprentice Holy Energy Resistance][Level ¨C 24]


    -[Apprentice Concentration][Level ¨C 67]


    -[Apprentice Meditation][Level ¨C 78]


    -[Apprentice Carving][Level ¨C 99]


    -[Apprentice Trapmaking][Level ¨C 21]


    -[Apprentice Trading][Level ¨C 31]


    -[Apprentice Botany][Level ¨C 47]


    -[Apprentice Dagger Mastery][Level ¨C 94]


    -[Apprentice Exhaustion Resistance][Level ¨C 6]


    -[Apprentice Ice Magic][Level ¨C 36]


    -[Apprentice Zoology][Level ¨C 78]


    -[Beginner Sickness Resistance][Level ¨C 95]


    -[Beginner Overeating][Level ¨C 29]


    -[Apprentice Cooking][Level ¨C 12]


    [Blessings]


    -[Blessing of Winter''s Lonely Naiad]


    "One more Level for Carving, and I actually won''t be an apprentice anymore, huh?" Eiro muttered quietly, and then just turned his head over toward Jura as he was peacefullyying there in his bed.


    "Seems so..." A voice said as if out of nowhere, also Eiro knew who it was once the first few drops of water formed above Jura''s chest, "Let''s hope he''s still going be there to see it, huh?" Nelli asked as she was fully formed, just floating above Jura sadly.


    "So he really is..?" Eiro asked quietly, and Nelli just quietly nodded her head, before the Imp formed a tight fist, "And you can''t do anything at all? Is there no way to somehow... Heal him back to his teenage years?" He asked, but Nelli just chuckled and shook her head.


    "If there was, then this would be a very different world, wouldn''t it? No, Aging is neither injury nor disease... It''s simply a part of life." She exined, so Eiro just slowly nodded. "I figured so..." He whispered quietly, before he soon looked back at the Spirit.


    "You... don''t age, do you?" Eiro asked, and Nelli quickly shook her head. "Not for the past 300 years, at least, no..." She pointed out, and the Imp looked at her with a slight frown, asking her a question with a serious expression as if it was the most important thing that anyone had ever been asked.


    "Does it ever get easier? Seeing people you care for just die like this?" Eiro asked, and Nelli just looked back at him with a nk expression. "Does it get easier to kill?" She asked, and Eiro shook his head.


    "It''s never been hard for me, so how can it get easier?" He pointed out, and the spirit just slightlyughed.


    "Fair enough. But in the end, the answer is still the same... No. It doesn''t get easier." The Naiad exined, and Eiro just looked over toward Jura.


    "Do you know how long he has left?"


    "If he doesn''t wake up again, maybe a day or two. But if he does wake up... He won''t be sleeping anymore after that." Nelli said, "Just please stay here for him, alright? I know he never told you what he really thinks of you, but in the nearly fifty year I''ve been Contracted by him, I''ve never seen him take in any one person, not to mention seven people at one, six of them being children, and one of them an ignorant Demon."


    Slowly, Eiro nodded his head in response, slowly standing up from his chair to go to the front door, before Nelli flew up right next to him in a panic.


    "Wh-What are you doing? Didn''t I just ask you to stay with him?" She asked, and Eiro nodded his head with sad smile. "Don''t worry. Just in case he wakes up again, I want to have the Project he left me with done. I will be right in front of the door, so just get me if you need me."


    "Oh... alright..." The Naiad replied, before the Imp pushed his feet into his shoes and quickly stepped out of the door. It wasn''t all that cold yet, but his breath did still form a slight mist in front of his face.


    For now, however, Eiro just ignored everything that was going on around him, and simply stepped back up to the covered wooden statue, and swiftly started to continue working on it.


    And that was really all that Eiro did for the rest of the night. He stood there in front of the wooden statue and continued to form the mist into an as realistic representation as he could, and when morning came, it seemed like was done.


    But for some reason, it didn''t feel like that was enough. Not nearly enough, so he went over this wooden Zaragon''s body once more, improving on his skin some more, adding whatever he could to make it seem as realistic as possible.


    It just had to be as neat as possible, as perfect as possible. Eiro constantly just explored those few minutes of memories that he had of Zaragon in his mind, and pushed whatever he could into this one representation. He made it eery, he made it creepy, and he made it horrifying, all packed into a neat, outwardly possibly harmless package.


    The first set of sharp teeth hidden behind Zaragon''s just so slightly opened lips, that Eiro could only carve out using a set of special tools that he had never even really used before. And then there were of course details that one might not really notice on first nce, like the outline of a grinning, vertical mouth hidden underneath the suit, just pressing against the cloth waiting to be unleashed.


    And then, Eiro finally came to the eyes.


    Out of the same material that he created the mist, Eiro created thin, curved ovals out of it and ced them into the currently empty eyesockets, making sure they couldn''t budge at all. But even then, the eyes weren''t done. There was still that single white circle in the center of each eye. And they weren''t just any normal type of white, it was as if they were radiating, glowing. In a dark room without any source of light, those two circles would probably still stick out despite the impossibility of that situation. And there was little that could really do such a feeling justice. But there was one thing amongst them that he knew about, the thick, wood-like stem of a rtively rare flower that was growing around here. For some reason, it seemed like a quite fitting nt, as its name was called ''Deathblossom''.


    Eiro had not the slightest clue why it was called this, but he did know that it simply fit, because to him, Zaragon was the personification of Death.


    The list time he saw one was about a five minute walk from here... It would probably fine if he left for ten minutes, right? Just to be sure, he did go inside and let the others know where he was going, and even chose to ride on Lugo''s back to do so.


    It really wasn''t that hard to find the flower, considering that it was pitch-ck and grew around Birch trees. And after cutting some of the stem off, Eiro quickly chose to return on the back of his Familiar, d that he would be able to finish up the Wooden Statue before Jura''s passing.


    And there it was in front of him. On his way here, Eiro had already finished up the two rings that he would ce in the eyes, and he could tell it would turn out a simply perfect addition to this fake Zaragon.


    As he took a step on the block of wood that he was using to actually properly reach this Statue''s head and ced the two rings into the eyes, he was actually ovee with a bit of a shudder at the aura this statue was giving off.


    It was nearly as if he was really standing in front of Zaragon. Although there was one exception to that.


    He couldn''t directly remember Zaragon''s head flying off its shoulders after being cut by the Dagger a masked stranger was holding in his hand.

 Chapter 80 - It’s Been A While

    "What...?" Eiro muttered quietly as the head of the statue suddenly hit the ground, slowly turning toward the man who was responsible for this.


    And that person didn''t stop at cutting off its head. No, he simply continued to cut into the wood over and over again, as splinters and chunks of wood flew around everywhere, nearly blocking the Demon''s sight. Eiro would have been able to fix the issue with the head, but he couldn''t get rid of all of this damage.


    But... He just wanted to show this to Jura... "What the fuck do you think you''re doing?!" Eiro screamed out, with pure anger in his voice, supported by Air Magic, causing his voice to echo throughout the whole forest as flocks of birds started to fly away in response, and the man in front of Eiro slowly turned around, the ugly, demonic mask staring back at the Imp, breathing heavily underneath. For some reason, it seemed like the man was incredibly, and purely angry at seeing


    "We''re taking care of a family of Demons that settled here, that''s what." A Deep, brutish voice pointed out, and as Eiro turned his eyes to the side, he could see Krog the Warrior, and Jess the Mage, approach him slowly.


    "I wasn''t speaking to you." Eiro growled, and swiftly held his left hand forward with two fingers stretched forward, and then pulled them back as if pulling something off of a stack, before a golden card appeared in Eiro''s hand, held between those two fingers and his thumb.


    But that card soon disappeared again as three rings appeared around Eiro''s three central fingers. It was a bit tough to handle this many for a long time, but he would be fine. He didn''t want to drag this out too long anyway.


    "The fuck?!" Krog yelled out, "A fucking Demon with a Card? Hah, what kinda-"


    "I said I wasn''t speaking to you." Eiro growled quietly as he just red at therge man standing halfway up the hill now, his voice literally carried by cold, freezing wind, giving Krog and Jess deep chills.


    "Now, first, I want you to tell me why you did that just now." Eiro said as he stared at the man in front of him, who just turned his head and slightly red behind him at the cut-up wooden statue, while the door of the house opened up.


    "Careful! There''s more Demonsing out!" Jess yelled as she held her staff forward, seemingly preparing for an attack, although she wasn''t the only one baffled when instead of a hideous monster, a good looking young woman with long red hair stood there in the doorframe, holding a sleepy young boy in her arms. "Wh-What''s going on out here?" Sammy asked confused as she looked at the unfamiliar faces, and Eiro with his Card active, as the others from inside walked up behind her.


    "You..." Krog started saying quietly, before he unsheathed therge sword he had been carrying on his back, holding it forward, "Are those the kids you were talking about?" Krog yelled out, seemingly starting to get quite pissed off, "You holding them hostage? Or kidnapped them? Huh fucker, answer me!"


    With Anger imprinted in his face, the warrior started running up the mountain, preparing to attack Eiro, but a certain one of the kids inside sprinted out as fast as he could. "Rudy, stop!" Sammy yelled after him, and Eiro turned around in surprise, just looking at the figure of the boy running up inbetween Eiro and Krog, stretching his hand out toward the de.


    "Kid, the fuck-" Krog yelled out, trying to avert the attack, but with the speed he was going at it was impossible. He pressed his eyes shut and tried his best, but soon enough he felt resistance. Krog was sure that it was the boy''s hand being cut off, but then... The de just stopped moving, and when he opened his eyes and saw the notification telling him about the damage that he did... He didn''t know what was going on anymore.


    "What did you just try to do?" Rudy asked, staring Krog down angrily, before the Warrior himself just looked back at him confused. "That''s what I wanna know! If-If I didn''t stop my attack that much, you''d be without your hand!" Krog yelled,pletely misunderstanding what just happened.


    "Rudy, get back inside." Eiro said, slowly turning back toward the man in front of him, who for some reason didn''t take the moment that the Demon was distracted to attack.


    "No, I won''t." The boy replied, "I''m not fast, so I can''t be used to distract people..." He said, slowly pushing the de of the man in front of him to the side, "I''m not smart, so I can''te up with good tactics..." Now, Rudy slowly pped his hands down in vertical motions to get rid of the flower that was still on them from baking bread, "And I''m not capable of doing damage, so I''m useless in a proper fight..."


    And as Eiro looked to the side, he soon saw Rudy take a stable defensive stance, although he didn''t know where exactly he learned that, as the boy just stared at the Warrior in front of him. "So at least let me do the one thing that I can do for you... And let me be your shield for now." Rudy said with determination in his eyes, and Eiro just slightly stared at his back.


    He knew that Rudy couldn''t take any damage, or be wounded in any way at all, but he was still scared that somehow that ability would just stop working all of a sudden. But... "Rudy..." Eiro started, "If you lose even a single point of Health, you''re recing Lugo as a pack-mule next time I go to town." The Imp said, and with a slight chuckle, the boy nodded his head. "Sounds fair."


    "Hah... Hahahah! You... You really want to defend a fucking demon? Are you retarded, kid?" Krog asked,pletely taken aback by this situation, and Rudy justughed back at him, "That''s kinda mean, isn''t it? I''m just trying to be a good son here." The boy said, and Krog just clicked his tongue, "I see, so you''re too far gone, huh? Sorry ''bout this, kid, we''ll get you a good healer..." Krog said, and immediately swung the t side of his sword again the side of Rudy''s body, and waited for the damage notification to appear.


    "Huh?" Krog muttered, and repeated the same kind of attack, even choosing the same spot, but once more, the same message appeared, "The hell is going on?" Krog asked, and then started to genuinely try to attack Rudy, but no matter what he tried to do, all the notifications that Krog saw said ''0'', without a single exception.


    "What the fuck are you?!" He finally yelled out, and Jess, who waspletely overwhelmed by anything and everything that was going on, spoke up as she was grasping her staff, "Wh-What do you mean? What''s wrong?" She asked, and Krog slowly turned around toward her, "He...He ain''t taking a single point of damage..."


    "What, how is that even possible?!"


    "I don''t fucking know! Just help me out, maybe magic will do something!"


    "B-But... he''s just a kid!" Jess protested, but soon took a step back in surprise as she saw Krog''s re.


    In the meantime, Eiro had already turned back toward the man in front of him, whose name or purpose was still unknown to him.


    "Now, will you finally answer me? Answer me and tell me why you just did that?" Eiro asked, as the des of his Card were floating around closer toward him, and the man just shook his head and held his dagger forward toward Eiro, while the Demon himself just sighed. "Fine, then just die..." The Imp muttered, and then slowly held his hand forward, causing a small dagger to appear, while the man in front of him suddenly stopped and tensed up as he saw it.


    "What..." The man said, finally speaking, an action seemingly even surprising Krog and Jess, "What are you doing with that dagger? Where did you get that?" The man asked, his remaining arm suddenly starting to shake, but not out of fear like Eiro would have preferred, but instead out of pure and utter anger.


    "Ah, so that''s why you had this statue¡­ He gave that dagger to you, didn''t he?" Slowly taking some steps forward toward Eiro, the man kept questioning where the de came from, although it didn''t matter much to Eiro as he just frowned and made the dagger connect with the middle one of the three threads and started to heat up while the other two started to give off cold mist.


    And soon, with a swift motion of grasping his hand into a fist, the des started to move around quite swiftly and Eiro steered them toward the man in front of him as he dodged the iing attack and shed the des along the side of his arm, immediately cutting into the man''s flesh.


    These des were as sharp as they could be, after all. But the man simply continued on sprinting forward and tried to sh at Eiro, but he stepped away to the side and continued dodging, while causing small cuts'' worth of damage to the man in front of him, although he wasn''t really paying attention to the damage notifications too much. If he had, this might have ended a bit quicker, since Eiro would have been able to properly understand the situation. He checked for the actual damage, but not for the name that appeared with the damage.


    He was able to dodge, but just barely, so he couldn''t afford to get cocky like that. And so, the continuos damage that was inflicted on the man in front of Eiro continued, while he himself wasn''t attacked more than a few times, and he was able to avoid major damage by pulling his Life Force away from the ces he was being attacked at in thest moment.


    The pain that followed afterward anyway was pretty annoying, but at least he didn''t take too much actual Damage to his health.


    "Give me that fucking Dagger!" The man yelled out with anger in his voice, and Eiro looked at him while clicking his tongue, "Sorry, can''t do that. Also, dead men don''t have a use for¡­ weapons." Eiro growled in response as he dodged some more of this man''s attacks, and then the man just stopped moving, giving Eiro the chance to calm down and think for a moment as well, and with that finally saw the name that was written on the notifications.


    "If you won''t give it to me, then fine¡­ Then I''ll take what''s important to you!" The man yelled out, and instead of going for Eiro started to sprint toward the door that Sammy had luckily closed shut in response to what was going on out here to protect the children, but in the short moment of Eiro''s confusion, the man managed to make his way to the door and ripped it open.


    "Ah¡­ Doing that won''t bring Avalin back either." Eiro said quietly as he stared at the back of the man, who slowly tensed up and turned around. "What did you just say?" The man asked, slowly turning around toward Eiro, "How do you know that name?"


    "How could I not? I named my Daughter after her." Eiro said in a clear voice, slowly approaching the man as he was just standing there as if in shock. "Wait, no, you¡­ you''re not¡­" The man said, and Eiro shook his head.


    "Yeah, I''m not. I''m not the purely moronic Lesser Imp from back then, who sprinted into your arms after getting scared by his own notifications." With a slight growl, Eiro made the threads from the card twist around each other to be thicker as the Dagger disconnected from the middle one, and Eiro just held it in his right hand, and he just immediately slung the thread around the confused man''s throat, making the the des rip off the mask on his face, revealing the scarred face of a Light Elf.


    "Long time no see, James."

 Chapter 81 - Father

    "What are you talking about..?" The Light Elf asked, just staring forward at Eiro inplete confusion. It was as if his mind and body had both shut down in response to what was currently going on, which was the only reason that Eiro could actually sling the Three of Swords around his neck so easily to take his mask off. "There¡­ there''s no way you''re really that monster¡­ That little piece of shit¡­" James muttered quietly as he stared at the Demon in front of him, although Eiro just red back, sick of the sight in front of him.


    "Why is there no way?" He asked, "Because you don''t want me to live? What a coincidence, I feel the same about you." Eiro pointed out pressing his hand into a fist as the three of swords slung around James'' neck more tightly.


    "No¡­ Avalin, she¡­ she died and you¡­ lived? You should have died the moment she di!" James asked with anger and frustration, "Avalin and Thomas both..! I ended up like¡­ this, and you¡­? You have a happy family? Don''t fuck with me!" He yelled out as loud as he could, and Eiro nodded his head.


    "I know. I''m lucky, aren''t I? Well, thanks for letting me be the one that kills you, anyway." The Demon pointed out as two of the des around James'' throat digged slightly into its side and the third one pressed against the bottom of his chin.


    "I guess I understand why you felt anger over seeing that Statue. Even I could barely hold myself back from doing the same thing as you, and all of the others just stopped whatever they had been doing and looked at the two of them, and Krog and Jess both couldn''t believe what they were seeing. It seemed like they had never seen James'' face before, or heard him speak that much.


    "What the fuck..? You¡­ you two know each other?" Krog asked with a wry smile, just going insane over the ridiculousness of this situation, and Eiro turned his eyes toward him with a sigh. "I guess I can tell you the story a little, huh? It''s going to be thest one you''ll hear, after all." The Imp said, and slowly looked back at James.


    "I mostly pieced it together through knowledge I gained over the years, but I think this is what happened. Six years ago, I was part of a Monster Horde led by <The Sun> to attack the Kingdom''s capital. As we were stopping to rest, some other Imps and I split off of the group, and I soon lost those brothers after getting scared by my own notification." Eiro exined, and then sighed deeply, "The next time I saw them was cut up in front of the feet of three adventurers. The Female Archer with a decorated, expensive dagger, d in red, Avalin. The warrior with sword and shield d in blue and silver, Thomas. And of course the Rogue with two ck daggers d in ck. James." Eiro said, and the more that he spoke, the more James wanted tried to reach forward and somehow hurt him, but the more that he did so, the more Eiro''s des dug into his skin.


    "Ava¡­lin?" Rudy asked surprised, looking through the door at the young girl holding onto Sammy''s leg, and Eiro just closed his eyes for a moment and continued. "Thomas and James quickly started mocking Avalin over her nickname, which she somehow despised. And I repeated what they said, ''Ava'', and they all quickly took an interest in me, so Avalin took ''Ownership'' of me. But somehow, the band she used didn''t work properly on me. And within a week, I could break out. But I needed nourishment and energy for that, and so¡­ immediately fed on the flesh, blood and bones of my brothers. That was the first time I truly felt hatred, toward all three of my captors." The Demon exined, his re hitting James.


    "Soon, Avalin warmed up to me, and I warmed up to her. She seemed to really care for me, even boosting my Language Comprehension Skill. And I-"


    "Cared for you? Hah, she just wanted money! We all did!" James interrupted, and Eiro tightened his fist to make the three des slowly scratch over his skin. "I''m aware of that. But she was kind enough to not treat me like a horrendous being. She did not treat me equal, I know, but I wouldn''t have done so either. I barely understood what was happening, after all. Either way, she¡­ helped me, at least. She helped me ovee the terror I felt from the monster of theke underneath a floating town. She trusted me to bring you food when you were exhausted. She showed me how to read, properly eat food with my hands, and dress in clothes, even if I didn''t want to at first." The Demon exined, just slightly smiling.


    "I only read of such things now, and even if it may sound ridiculous, she was probably the closest thing I would have to a ''mother''. But then, to prove that I am faithful to her without her control, she weakened the ownership over me for just a few moments, which let me break out the moment we left town that day. Remember that moment? When I asked Avalin what a ''Stinehearth'' is? That was the notification telling me I wasn''t owned by her anymore." The Imp pointed out, and all of a sudden, Jess made a surprising sound, and finally spoke when she was looked at.


    "St-Stinehearth?! Like¡­ Like THOSE Stinehearths?! The Duke Family?!" She asked, and Eiro just sighed. "I don''t know, and I don''t care either. She didn''t want to be a Stinehearth anymore, after all. Either way, soon, the time to be sold came soon, and the three of them chose to sell me to a thing known as ''Zaragon''. A horrible creature I never want to really face again. He offered a use of the Ace of Cups in return for me, but just when they made their choice, <The Sun> attacked the town, cut the room we were in in half together with part of Zaragon''s body, and just instantly incenerated Thomas without any trace of his body. Zaragon went mad and ate the living Avalin right in front of my mouth to heal, all the whilst I used the ''chance'' she had given me to use the Ace of Cups myself, and then escaped. I saved a little girl on the way, who Iter named after the one that saved me. Then, I met a carriage filled with people who wouldter be my family, minus three adults who I killed for their sake." Eiro exined in a clear tone, and then slowly turned his head over toward Krog with nothing but a slight smile, although his eyes showed the anger he was hiding behind that smile.


    "And anyone who would dare doubt how genuine my love for them is will suffer." The Demon said, slowly leaning down to grab the mask that James had on his face before and smiled. "I see, so this is supposed to be the me from back then, huh? Did you have to make me that ugly? You really must have hated me." Eiro chuckled, and suddenly, a voice that the Imp hadn''t expected to hear again spoke.


    "Heh, I think he might''ve done you a favor. I''m d I''m blind already, otherwise your mug might''ve taken care of that." A weak, elderly voice said as he stepped out of the house, held up by Sammy and Arc, while Clementine took care of Leon and Avalin. "Eiro, I think a single death on this hill is enough for a day, don''t you think? Let''s not pull these children there just yet." Jura suggested, and immediately the three des and threads slung around James'' neck disappeared with a light as a card appeared in Eiro''s hand, which he immediately made disappear as well.


    "J-Jura, you''re¡­" Eiro said with a slight smile on his lips as he approached the old man, and he nodded his head in response, "For now I am, yes. But I won''t be much longer¡­ Eiro, please, show me the product of that task I have given you." The old man asked, and without hesitation, Eiro nodded his head and rushed up to Jura to take over holding him up, quickly bringing him to the cut down project.


    "It¡­ It''s in a bit of a messy state right now, but¡­" The Demon said quietly as he tried to push the chunks of wood that James cut off back into the ces they were supposed to go, but Jura just stopped him and ran his fingers over the wood.


    "You see, Eiro¡­ My card is that of the pentacle suit¡­ so I gained an affinity for the earth element, adding onto the affinity I had for water already¡­ And because of my talent for that element, gained Nature Magic." The Old man said, slowly closing his eyes, before the grass they were standing on was slowly starting to grow longer and thicker, lifting up the different chunks and splinters of wood and pushing them into the right ces.


    As they slung themselves around the wooden body and stayed there to keep everything together, atst the head was re-attached, and as a bit of blood streamed down the sides of the old man''s mouth and some even started seeping out of the scar across his face, he just coughed and smiled. "Hmm, truly splendid. I have raised a good Apprentice, have I not?" Jura asked, and Eiro just slightly smiled back, just looking at the backs of the group of three, James, Krog and Jess, as they just left the hill, quietly and defeated, and while Krog was angry and Jess felt horrible, James simply seemed¡­ to be sad.


    But Jura was right, one death here was enough for now¡­


    "Let''s go back inside, shall we?" Jura suggested, and Eiro nodded his head and quickly helped the old man inside of the house again, bringing him over toward his bed, where he swiftlyyed down while Nelli was floating next to him bitterly. "That story, surprisingly intense, isn''t it? I thought you were just some rich person''s ytoy, and that was why you were so smart¡­" Jura chuckled quietly, and Eiro just lightly smiled as he sat down directly next to the bed, on the chair that still stood right there.


    "Eiro¡­" Jura said quietly, "I thank you for all you have helped me these past years." He muttered quietly, his breathing slowing down more and more. "Of course. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat." The Imp said in a clear voice, and Jura slowly moved his hand over toward the Demon''s to grasp it in hisst moments.


    "I''m proud of you. You have grown into a splendid man these past years. A Demon, better than most men I have known. The children as well, of course¡­ You can be proud of how they turned out." Jura muttered, and it seemed as if he had already fallen back asleep right then and there, although he soon just grasped Eiro''s hand tightly, while the others one after another said goodbye to the old man.


    Neither Avalin nor Leon really understood what was going on, so they might have just thought that Jura was taking a nap now and everyone was acting weirdly about it, but all of the others couldn''t really hope to hold back their tears. Of course with the exception of Arc, who still felt quite bitter about all of this, but he was simply currently incapable of crying, even if he wanted to.


    And when it seemed like Jura really was about to pass, he pulled Eiro a bit closer. "You have fulfilled a dream that I hadn''t even known I had¡­ and at my age, it might be a bitte to ask to be called¡­ this, in particr, but¡­" Jura said, his voice growing quieter and quieter, until Eiro had to nearly press his ear against the old man''s mouth to understand him, and he soon lifted his head with a slight smile.


    "It''s not toote at all¡­ Thank you for all that you have done for me¡­" Eiro said, as he grasped Jura''s hand tightly with both of his, his fake and his real one, "I will never forget you, Father." The Demon muttered, and next, he just heard a slightugh from in front of him.


    "No wonder you enjoy hearing it so much¡­" The old man said, as the grip that Eiro felt returning his own slowly loosened up, "¡­it sure has a nice ring to it¡­"


    And with those words, and with a slight shine, a single golden card appeard on Jura''s chest, as the old man''s hand slipped out of Eiro''s.

 Chapter 82 - Thank You

    Eiro sat outside in front of the wooden statue that he himself made, but that was destroyed by James. Jura repaired it with his nts, but they withered away right when he did, so it was back in the state it was in before. Slowly from behind him, he could hear something approach, and soon felt the snout of a certain Stag tapping against his shoulder.


    "Hey there, Lugo¡­ Where were you before?" The Demon asked as he turned his head toward his Familiar, who just slightly turned his head away embarrassedly, "Hiding, huh? Thought those were the Venison Bandits?" The Imp figured, and Lugo slowly nodded his head.


    "Well, we''re all fine, so don''t worry." Eiro muttered quietly, and then turned back in front of him, slowly looking at the Golden Card in his hand, before putting it into his ''Treasury'' for now.


    He would activate itter, but Nelli told him that he should rather wait for a situation where it was quiet and dark, and where he was in a stable,fortable position, because all his senses would increase once he activated it. That was the ability of this card, after all, the Five of Pentacles.


    "Now then¡­" Eiro said to himself as he pushed his body up from the ground and stepped up to the front door, although he was quickly stopped by Jura''s former Spirit.


    "Could youe with me for a moment?" Nelli asked Eiro, and the Demon just quietly nodded his head, before being led to the back of the house into the basement. "What are we doing down here?" Eiro asked as he stepped down the stairs, and Nelli just stayed quiet as she floated along the room to the very back.


    "Push these to the side." She told the Imp, pointing at therge blocks of wood standing against the wall. It wasn''t a type of wood that was really ever used here. It was ugly, way too soft, hard to properly carve, and didn''t respond well to final treatments¡­ Eiro didn''t really know why they still had it. But nevermind that, there had to be a reason why Nelli told him to do so, so he just did as asked, and stood next therge blocks with his feet set properly onto the ground so that he wouldn''t slip away.


    Then he pressed his hands onto the lower half of the wood and then just pressed against it, and soon a small room was revealed behind the block. It really wasn''t all thatrge, maybe three by three meters wide, and two meters high, but it was enough to hold the few things that it had inside.


    One of them, dead in the center, was the dark wooden casket, just sitting there, ready to be taken out. "Oh¡­ How¡­ how long has this been down here?" Eiro asked quietly, and Nelli just looked at him with a slight smile. "He made it when you went out to townst month." She replied in a clear voice, although she seemed just as upset as Eiro, if not more.


    "Ah, there''s a few other things in here as well, though! Things Jura wanted to give you when you graduated as his apprentice¡­ So I guess they''re your''s now¡­" Nelli pointed out with a slight smile, and Eiro raised his brows surprised as he looked around this room that was only illuminated by the Light Magic Stone that Eiro was holding.


    "Is that so?" The Demon asked quietly as he took a look around, and soon found what Nelli was speaking about. In the corner of the room, somehow hidden despite the room not being thatrge, stood a Mannequin with Eiro''s height and build, wearing a ck cloak made of a really, incredibly nice but also incredibly expensive material. Eiro recognized it because a wandering merchant that visited the town had it in his sortiment once. Back then, the merchant called it ''Woven Shadows'', because it was a material that supported the ''Stealth'' skill incredibly. Mannequin


    On the Mannequin''s face was a mask simr to the one that Eiro had been using up until now, just that it was of far higher quality, and from the front it seemed like just aplete b of wood without even eye-holes, but when Eiro took it into his hands and looked at the inside, he noticed that it was very much not the case.


    From the inside, the wood seemed basically invisible, and Eiro could look through it without an issue. He wasn''t really sure how it worked, but Jura''s expertise with wood was far beyond Eiro''sprehension anyway, so he was sure that this was done through a sort of magic wood. Either way, when he then ced it on his face, to him it really seemed like he wasn''t wearing a mask at all. Neither his sight, nor his breathing was influenced at all, and the mask stuck to his face without even and straps that Eiro needed to pull around his head.


    When Eiro took the Cloak off of the Mannequin''s body and put it on, he soon noticed that there was a leather satchel by its side. When he ran his fingers over the material, it seemed nearly freezing, and it seemed incredibly tough, but when he opened the bag up, he could barely believe what he saw.


    "Did Jura..?" Eiro asked quietly, his voice unobstructed by the mask, and Nelli quickly nodded her head. "He had this made a while ago. On thest trip, we didn''t go to care for an animal, but we visited a nearby town that had a skilled craftsman that could deal with such things. And so, the dirty spatial bag that you brought here back then was used to create this piece. In total, it has the same amount of space as the bag had, but is a little bigger, so it might just be a downgrade, but Jura was quite happy with it¡­" Nelli said, and Eiro just slightly nodded his head, his smile hidden behind his new mask.


    "It''s perfect, don''t worry. And¡­ this?" Eiro asked quietly as he pushed his hand into the satchel, although he did slightly struggle to actually reach the bottom of it with his arm, but he soon managed to grab the small box that was ced inside of the satchel.


    And when he opened that box up, he soon had a collection of different tools in front of him, all engraved with a symbol¡­ The symbol that was in the center of Eiro''s chest. A few years ago, the Demon learned that Marks of blessings were always unique to who had it, even if the giver of the blessing was the same. There was even a small note in the box describing where exactly the cksmith that made these was, although Eiro wasn''t sure why Jura didn''t just ask the cksmith of the nearby town¡­


    Well, that didn''t matter too much in the end. What did matter was that these were all just amazing things that Eiro would treasure for years toe, he was sure of that.


    With a light smile, Eiro ced the box back into the bag and then was just about to turn around, before he saw that something was missing on the Mannequin. It didn''t have its right hand¡­ Eiro was sure that Jura wouldn''t do this just to be ''urate'', or to make a ''joke'' or something like that. And now that he thought about it, the whole Mannequin was made of the same material that his current right hand was made of¡­


    "I see, then that''s the next task, huh?" Eiro asked himself with a smile on his face, as he ced the satchel onto the ground and just quickly pushed the Mannequin''s body inside. "Pretty useful, huh?" The demonughed slightly, before he walked up to the casket behind him, pressing his fingers underneath the wood, before Nelli looked at him surprised.


    "If you need help, I''ll go get Rudy¡­" She said, but Eiro just shook his head.


    "It''s fine. I can carry this one myself¡­" The Demon muttered quietly, and then managed to push the casket up properly to at least scoop his body underneath it, before he let it back down onto his back as he pushed his fingers into the holes at the underside of the casket that he used to keep it stable, as he continued to manipte his Life Force to make sure he could actually properly carry the casket despite its weight.


    And so, he made his way out of this room and then carried the wooden piece through the room and up the stairs, each step getting heavier and heavier, before he soon saw the light of day outside again, and the others who had been waiting out there quickly came rushing up to him when they noticed what he was carrying.


    "Where did you get the casket from?" Rudy asked quietly, and Eiro just smiled at him, although he probably didn''t notice, as Eiro''s face was still hidden under his mask, "Jura made it himself¡­ A fair while ago, apparently."


    "Why didn''t you wait for us?" Sammy asked with a frown, her eyes still red from crying, same with the others, and Eiro just smiled back at them. "It''s fine. Did you find a nice ce to bury him?" The Demon asked as he looked at Arc, the only one that wasposed enough for Eiro to ask him that, and the boy nodded his head.


    "Yeah¡­ On the small spot inbetween the roots where Jura often sat every summer." Arc said quietly, "I figured that would be a nice ce."


    Slowly, Eiro nodded his head as he carried the casket over to the ce that Arc suggested, carefully cing it back down onto the ground, before Eiro, Arc, and Rudy started to dig the ground up enough for the casket to fit into it, using the shovels that were in the shed, before Eiro made his way inside of the house and carefully grabbed the old man off of the bed¡­ His body just limplyying in his arms.


    It was tough for the Demon to see, despite having seen so many dead bodies before¡­ It was just different this time. Jura''s body was cold, and heavy¡­ far heavier than anything Eiro had carried before, despite Jura having been so thin toward the end.


    Outside, Eiro slowly ced the old man''s body into the casket he had made for himself, and everyone just looked down onto the casket as it was set down into the ground.


    "Do any of you want to say something?" Nelli asked quietly, and Arc nodded his head first, slowly grabbing the shovel as he picked up some of the dirt on the small mount next to him.


    And what Arc said was kind, and nice, and happy, like everything that Arc ever did and said. He was the happiest person that Eiro ever knew. He joked, to lighten the mood, and the Demon really did appreciate that, because he knew he couldn''t do that kind of thing.


    When Rudy spoke, he was serious and regretful, and told a few stories of what he remembered Jura being like in his day to day life, so that everyone could reminisce about him.


    Sammy was simr, or at least she tried to be. She was obviously trying to hold back her tears, although in the end, she had to stop when she just started outright sobbing. And Clementine wasn''t much better. She was usually pretty cheerful, but definitely the one out of this group of weirdos that showed her true emotions in the most direct and pure way, so she just spoke of how much she would miss Jura and how much she loved and appreciated him. At least that''s what Eiro understood from her words drowned out by her cries.


    Neither Avalin nor Leon really knew what to say, it was understandable. They just tightly held onto Eiro, crying because everyone else was. They probably didn''t even understand what death was yet.


    And then, it was Eiro''s turn to say something. But he didn''t really know what he was supposed to say. There was so much he wanted to convey, but there were so little words that he could actually feasibly grasp and say right now, as if whenever he tried to start moving his tongue they just disappeared out of his mind.


    So, in the end, Eiro could only narrow it down to two words, that he hoped would be able to say all that he wanted them to.


    "Thank you."

 Chapter 83 - Farewell Gifts

    After everyone held their ''speech'' about Jura, adding a shovel of dirt onto the casket each time, Eiro chose to finish up closing it on his own while the others went back inside.


    There wasn''t any specific reason why he wanted to do it alone, he just didn''t want the children to have to do it, and Eiro slowly made his way inside after he was done, and just quietly slipped out of his shoes and took the old mask out of his storage, recing it with the new one he had been wearing on his face, before he rubbed the bridge of his nose inbetween his eyes and stared at his satchel, slowly opening it up again.


    There were other things inside of it beside Eiro''s tools, after all, he just didn''t take a look at them yet. It was a bit annoying to try and grab it from under the mannequin that the demon stuffed into the satchel, but he managed to get it out soon enough, and took a look at them one after another while the children gathered around him. These were things meant for them, after all.


    First, there was the small, t box that Eiro somehow noticed first, and he slowly opened it up and read the folded up note inside of it.


    "To hide who she is." Eiro read out loud, and then looked at the two thin, translucent, rounded discs inside of the box. "What are these?" The Demon asked as he slowly turned toward Nelli, and the Spirit slowly pointed downward at Avalin, who was sitting on Sammy''sp trying to see what was in the box, "They''re for her eyes. They will make them constantly gray, so that you can''t notice they''re changing." Nelli exined, and Eiro raised his brows in response as he slowly reached his hands out forward to grab the girl from Sammy''sp to sit her down on his own, and then attempted to press the tip of his finger against the outside of the first disc.


    "Can you walk me through this?" Eiro asked as he turned toward Nelli, who nodded her head, before the Imp then slowly ced the discs onto Avalin''s irises before they basically melted into them, as if there was nothing there while the color grayed out, just like Nelli said.


    "And how do you take them out?" The Demon then asked, and Nelli just smiled, "Just put your finger on them to pull them out. Maybe save them for when Avalin can do it herself, though¡­" The Spirit suggested, so Eiro slowly nodded his head, as he slowly removed the lense from Avalin''s eye again.


    "What was that? Felt icky¡­" The young girlined, before Eiro just lightly smiled at her and rubbed his hand through her hair. "It''s something that makes it that we can go outside and meet other people together, you see?" He exined, before Avalin looked at him with a broad, big smile as she excitedly nodded her head. "Oooh! Yes please! Give me the icky!" She yelled out happily, and Eiro just shook his head.


    "Not yet, I''ll let you put them on again some other time, okay?"


    "Awe¡­" Avalin replied quietly as he looked down onto the ground, while Eiro ced the box with the lenses to the side, while he looked at the other boxes and opened the next one, although that box simply held some pieces of paper.


    "Weapons, Armor, and so on can be found here. He knows of you, so don''t be afraid to reveal yourself. Until then, use these to make training weapons for them." The Imp read, and then took a closer look at the different sheets of paper, which had some impressively detailed sketches on them that definitely weren''t made by Jura himself, while the children were even more curious about it now.


    "A long, thin, one-edged, two-handed de and a one-handed version, for Arc. Make them with Ovoya." The note said, this time it was Jura''s handwriting again. The paper itself depicted a sword that Eiro had read about in a book before, a type of sword from the east. It was apparently based on speed, so Eiro figured that it was a pretty good fit for Arc, who could barely sit still. And so, Eiro handed the piece of paper to the boy in question so that he could take a look, before he looked at the next one. "A Longbow made of Avenos, with woven Forest-Spider Silk as the thread for Samantha. Tom has some of the Silk in the back." The Bow depicted on the paper itself wasn''t really all thatplex orplicated. It was just a training bow, after all, so it made sense.


    With a smile, Eiro handed that piece of paper over toward Sammy, before he looked at the next piece of paper, that had a sketch of arge staff on it, the top of which was a sphere filledpletely with water. "A Water-Magic based, body-high Spellcasting Staff for Clementine. Made with Acquen. Some ready to use at the bottom of the pond." The Imp read, and slowly handed the note to the girl in question, before Eiro looked at the next note, slightly ncing at Rudy, who seemed to be a bit jealous over the others getting weapons made by Eiro himself.


    "A Large Damage-Focusing Shield. High In durability and reach, convertible into a small box. For Rudy. Made with Kavin." The Demon read loudly with a light smile on his face as he looked down onto the piece of paper, which showed arge square shield with a spider-web like pattern in the front of it. It sligthly seemed like the web was bending to give into the vortex-like hole in the center of the shield though. It seemed to cover a prettyrge area, so it was probably the perfect item for the physically slow Rudy.


    "Wait, there''s something for me..?" Rudy asked surprised, and Eiro nodded his head with a smile on his face. "Seems so. You said it yourself, right? You wanted to be our shield¡­ Jura apparently already knew that." Eiro smiled as he handed the piece of paper over to him, and then looked at the few other notes inside of the box. They weren''t ns for different weapons anymore, but rather instructions directed to Eiro himself. Things that Jura had left unfinished, that he seemed to hope for Eiro to finish, and he slowly just ced them to the side, keeping the contents in his mind.


    "If you wish to leave, wait another year and let each of the Ladies know one by one. A recement for you will be found." Eiro read quietly to himself, unaudible for the others, before the Imp continued to look through the information, and that was some that Eiro was rather¡­ surprised about. There was no need to worry about this just yet, so he would look through the paperter when he had the time, but first, he should keep looking at the other boxes. Thergest of them was simply a collection of different ready-made prosthetic pieces that Eiro always had prepared, like recement fingers, toes, joints, and so on. As Eiro wasn''t able to fully rece the parts of Jura''s special prosthetics himself, this was greatly appreciated.


    Just in case Eiro ever came across someone that Jura had worked with before, he could care for them now.


    And then, there was thest box, containing something that Eiro was rather confused with. They were simply a collection of bottles, each with not more than a gulp in them, although some did hold a bit more than the ohters. The smaller ones read ''L'', and the bigger ones ''S''. And stuck inbetween the bottles was another note.


    "For when their restraints break." The Imp said loudly, looking over toward Nelli with a frown, "What does this mean? What restraints? And whose?" Eiro asked, and the Naiad just slowly but surely turned toward Sammy, who was currently sitting there with Leon on herp. "Theirs." She said clearly, and now everyone stopped looking at the pieces of paper in their hands and looked at Sammy and Leon confusedly.


    "Wait, do you mean the Seals? The Skill Seals?" Arc asked surprised, and Nelli slowly nodded her head. "I do. Their bodies are constantly growing, and at some points the seals simply won''t be able to handle the difference between the current and the original vessel they were ced on. It''s not going to happen anytime soon, but within the next two years it should start¡­" Nelli admitted, and Eiro looked at the bottles again.


    "And then what are these for?" Eiro asked, and Nelli slowly exined. "To prolong the process of them breaking." She exined, and Eiro looked at her confused. "Wait, isn''t it a good thing if they break?" The Demon asked, but Nelli immediately shook her head. "If they break instead of being removed by someone who knows the craft, the thing that was sealed will¡­ break with them." Nelli exined, before Eiro pushed the chair away and kept looking through the box, and then quickly found the note that he expected would be there, a map showing where exactly the person that could remove the seals could be found.


    "Then let''s go right now. We shouldn''t risk anything¡­" Eiro said quietly, immediately thinking about what to do, but Nelli quickly stopped him. "Even by carriage, it''s a two month trip¡­ You won''t be able toe back to see the next Lady if you go now. And there is a reason why Jura didn''t bring them there yet, Eiro."


    While grinding his teeth, Eiro looked at the Spirit annoyedly. "And what is that reason?" He asked, and Nelli slowly looked at the two children. "Their abilities are immensely powerful. A Single word from Samantha, and a mentally weak man will take their life. And Leon? He will cause chaos wherever he goes if he can''t manage to somehow control his abilities."


    "These abilities can be controlled?" Rudy asked suddenly, and Nelli looked back at him with a slight, albeit bitter, smile. "Sorry Rudy, yours are definite. ''Damage'' is a clearly defined thing, so you will most likely not be able to do, or receive damage just by trying to influence your abilities¡­ But surely, Samantha can learn to choose her words, or maybe change whether she wants something to take effect or not. And things such as ''Love'' and ''Fear'' are mere concepts. Both take numerous forms and shapes, and often are one and the same thing. And a concept can be taken advantage of." The Spirit exined clearly, so Eiro sighed deeply as he sat back down,ying his face into his palms. "Then that means we should wait until the next Autumn Equinox, so that I could meet eachdy one more time, and then a recement wille for us¡­ In that time we need to somehow make it that Sammy is either more thoughtful of her words or can directly split up what she means and what she says¡­ And Leon has to learn to turn Fear into Love¡­ Or have them both cancel each other out instead of working at the same time?" Eiro asked with a deep sigh, basically just trying to figure out what the best approach would be.


    "But he''s just¡­ six¡­" Sammy said quietly as she looked down at Leon, who was peacefully sleeping on herp, and Eiro nodded his head in response. "He is¡­ But I would like to see him again two years from now¡­ So we have to do it, right?" Eiro asked quietly and pushed himself up with the help of the table before looking around himself.


    "Although I think for now¡­" The Demon said quietly as he looked around the table, "We should eat." He suggested. It has been a tough and long day for everyone already, despite it barely being the afternoon. Eiro just wanted them to be able to calm down a bit.. He would take care of everything else.

 Chapter 84 - Five Of Pentacles

    It waste at night, while the children were alreadyying in bed sleeping off their sorrow of the day, while Eiro was sitting on the rocking chair that Jura often sat in during the day, with Nelli floating right in front of him.


    "In case anything happens, I''m here. If you''re overwhelmed, I''ll cover your ears and nose in water, so breathe through your mouth if you can." Nelli exined quietly, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he looked at the card in front of him. "Remember, the Pentacle Suit is different to the others, you can''t get rid of the cards anymore as long as you live." She pointed out, so Eiro simply sighed as he looked at her.


    "I know, I read about that." He replied, and then slowly breathed in as much air as his body could handle and then pushed his mana out of his fingers into the golden card inbetween them as he held his eyes shut.


    The very moment that he did, he immediately felt more than just overwhelmed. It was an insane feeling. Despite his eyes being closed as tightly as Eiro could manage, he still felt blinded, although the only light in this room was the moonlight shining in through the window behind him.


    It immediately felt as if a hundred people screamed into both of his ears at once, and he could smell literally everything. He smelled Arc, Sammy, Clementine, Rudy, Avalin and Leon, as well as all of the animals they kept together with Lugo. He could smell the roots nted at the bottom of the hill, and then there were scents he couldn''t even recognize.


    His mouth was filled with the taste of hisst ten meals all at once, and they all tasted overwhelmingly strong so that Eiro nearly wanted to throw up.


    He could feel his own heartbeat so strong that it seemed like a grown man was repeatedly punching him into the chest, something that nearly took all his breath away. All over his body it was like something was pressing against him as he took notice of the immense pressure his clothes somehow gave off onto him. It didn''t hurt, but it felt like someone was pushing him around from every single direction.


    "Argh..!" Eiro gave out quietly as his body got tense and he sat up, but both the sound of his feet rubbing over the wooden floor and the reverberating, loud scream of his voice made his situation even worse, and he tried to press his hands against his ears to just make it stop, but it simply felt as if tworge hammers were hitting the sides of his head at the same time, before his hands were pushed away and the sound suddenly got muffled. It was still ufortably loud, but it was at least bearable.


    And at that point, he finally managed to calm down a little and collected his thoughts again, slowly starting to breath through his mouth as his nose was covered in water as well, and his eyes were being wrapped in thick cloth.


    The air tasted... dirty, and somehow drowned out the taste of Eiro''s meals. For a while, Eiro didn''t recognize that taste, but soon he connected it with a smell. The smell of wood, the one thing that was currently all around him.


    Somehow, the feeling of knowing he was still where he was before like this was quiteforting, so the Imp soon managed to calm down, and then just whispered as quietly as he could, although to him it still felt like he was yelling, "Thanks...." The Imp said quietly, and then managed to sligthly get used to the feeling of that pressure he felt all over his body, and then even the stronger pressure that appeared when he was leaning backward against the chair again.


    With deep breaths through his mouth, Eiro then slowly managed to get used to the taste of the air and the feeling of sitting down, he slightly pushed against the water around his nose to signal Nelli to remove it, and then Eiro slowly started to breath in through his nose.


    The smells all around him made him feel dizzy and sick, as if he just wanted to throw up right away, but after taking them in for a little while, he managed to at least make that feeling bearable, and then tapped the water around his ears, before Nelli slowly made a little of it disappear, to slowly ''settle'' Eiro into the loud noise that came to him out of this silence.


    The first thing that Eiro did to slowly get used to it was tap the armrest of the rocking chair with his wooden fingers a little, slowly getting louder and louder to make sure he could get used to it.


    This alone took Eiro a little under an hour until he got to a point where he wasfortable enough to speak at a volume where Nelli could at least understand him.


    "Help me take the cloth off..." The Demon said quietly, and Nelli swiftly nodded her head in response, an action that Eiro noticed despite not being able to see her. So this was what Jura lived like, huh?


    Slowly, Eiro could feel the pressure around his head getting less and less as the brightness increased and his eyes started hurting more and more.


    Once the cloth was fully removed, Eiro just tried to open his eyes carefully, although he was soon overwhelmed by his notifications'' light.


    Just like before, this took another hour for Eiro to get used to, and he soon finally managed to read what the bright notifications in front of his eyes told him.


    [You have activated and connected with the Five of Pentacles. You are now its owner]


    [1/14 Cards of the Suit of Pentacles acquired]


    [3/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]


    [Aptitude with the Earth Element increased]


    [Beginner Earth Magic Skill Learned]


    With a slight sigh that nearly ruptured his eardrums, Eiro reached his hand out to get rid of the notifications, and when he touched the first one, he noticed something.


    It disappeared, sure, but he actually felt resistance when the tip of his finger touched it, and he could feel the blue mist it fell apart into wrapping around his finger for a moment.


    It was just a slight feeling, as if someone was lightly blowing against your finger. Barely noticeable, really, but in the end there it was. It was pretty surprising to Eiro, but in the end, he could explore thister. For now, he just wanted to get rid of the notifications, because they were hurting his squinted eyes.


    For the next few hours, until the sun came up, all that Eiro did was try his best getting used to his new, extraordinarily strong senses. And then, when the sun actually fully came up, Eiro was simply constantly holding his hands in front of his eyes and only peeking through his eyes, because it was a little too bright for him.


    "¡­Morning¡­" Rudy said tiredly with a deep yawn as he stood up from his bed and sat his feet down onto the floor, and Eiro could immediately feel those sounds reverberate through his body and he immediately pressed his hands against his ears again.


    "Hmm? Eiro, are you alright?" The boy asked with a bit of worry, and the Imp simply slowly nodded his head while Nelli flew over toward him, whispering into his ear, although Eiro could hear her clearly even then. "He used Jura''s Card¡­ And now it''s like his perception stat is a hundred times higher than before¡­ So try to be as quiet as you can be." She exined, and Rudy raised his brows surprised and turned to respond to the Naiad, although before he could, Eiro just stood up, still pressing his hands against his ears as he walked over toward the beds. In the end, he would surely be fine no matter how loud they were. Jura was fine as well, so it was improbable for Eiro to actually get hurt just by his senses. So maybe he had to be a bit drastic about this, and slowly let his hands slip from the side of his head, his eyes still closed shut.


    "Rudy¡­ make the stew tonight¡­ please." Eiro said, his own voice echoing through his head in a painful manner, and the boy looked over at Nelli confused, "Why does he-"


    "Because it''s easy to get used to¡­ this feeling when I¡­ Argh¡­ Feel the highest extent¡­" The Demon said in a clear tone, and then slowly made his way over toward the door, the bottom of his feet hurting just from walking over here.


    On another note, maybe his heightened senses really were dangerous to him¡­ But there was no turning back now, he made his choice and he would stick to it.


    "Isn''t that a bit¡­" Rudy asked, "Insane?"


    Slowly, Eiro nodded his head and extended his hand forward to grab the door handle. "It is¡­ I will be in the¡­ Basement room¡­ The isted one¡­" Eiro exined and opened the door as the scent of the forest immediately hit him like a punch, and he turned his face away for a moment before stepping outside onto the grass in front of him.


    He simply tried to get around the house by running his fingers over the wood walls, and then turned around the corner when he couldn''t feel it anymore, before slowly making his way to the basement-storage entrance before stepping down into it.


    Since it was pretty dark down here it was already way morefortable to his eyes, and it was pretty quiet as well, so he could let go of his ears as he slowly made his way through the room with Nelli''s help.


    The smell was pretty overwhelming, because of the many different kinds of wood from numerous different ces, but even then, Eiro thought the smell of wood to be quite calming so he managed to get used to it pretty quickly. And then, Eiro sat down inside of the room that he found the casket and all the other things in, before noticing something interesting.


    The floor underneath his feet was pretty soft and was surprisinglyfortable to walk on, and there somehow was barely any smell in here¡­ The narrow entrance didn''t let in that much light in. The air didn''t taste like much, he couldn''t hear anything from outside, and when the demon opened his eyes, he soon noticed that his eyes were fine in this room as well, and he just slowly stood in the center of the roomfortably like this, and then slowly grabbed two of his tools out of his treasury, starting to hit them against each other lightly to cause some sound, that sounded just like an explosion to the Imp himself.


    He would just go ahead and try to get used to things that his senses reacted to this strongly as quickly as he possibly could. It would probably take a while, but at the very least, he somehow had to try his best to get there quickly to get started working on the practice weapons for the kids.


    And if he could listen to whatever was going on in the forest, he would be able to find prey or nts far easier, something that woulde in useful especially this winter, so he should be able to take the rest of the time properly practicing and training with the children to get them to a point where they could protect themselves properly within the next year¡­ And then, they would leave to get the seals on Sammy and Leon removed. Somehow, while a year was a long time, it still somehow felt weirdly short. Maybe that was just because Eiro was feeling nervous about everything that was going on at the moment.. Either way, he had to do his best.

 Chapter 85 - Branch

    "One... Two! THREE!" Eiro yelled as loud as he could, alone in the quiet, separated basement-room. For the past few days, he''s been trying his best to continuosly overwhelm his senses to get used to the feeling of that happening, and in the process, finally managed to properly live with his new senses.


    It was still a bit ufortable, but it seemed like his body had properly adapted to this new feeling. Just now, he was simply trying to make sure he was really fine when it came to his hearing, and as he was fine, he swiftly made his way out of the basement. Because today, he would finally get started on his work, beginning with a rather important project.


    Over the past few days, Eiro had noticed more and more how he simply had to rece his right hand. It was the reason why Eiro was supposed to even grow the tree at the start of the apprenticeship, after all. And for that, he would make his way through the forest while practicing his sensory control, something that he figured would be a good idea. He always relied on his sight, so he figured it would be a good idea to at least get rid of that sense for now, and bound some cloth around his eyes, as thick as he could so that he could finally just see the pitch-ck that he usually did when closing his eyes.


    "Lugo,e here." Eiro said quietly as he raised his hand to the right, and soon heard the Stag approach him quietly, and the Imp tried to concentrate on Lugo''s figure as much as possible. He knew how he usually moved pretty well, so maybe he could use that as a reference to figure out how exactly he was moving right now.


    "Your head is low... because you... you have some of the cows'' feed in your mouth? Again?" Eiro asked annoyedly with a sigh, and could then hear Lugo quickly continue chewing to swallow what he was eating, "You have your own food... But nevermind... Your breathing is quick, but that''s because I just caught you... and... you need a bath..." The Demon sighed, before slowly turning away toward where he remembered the path down being.


    "Just keep walking behind me, and help me out in case I''m about to walk into something, or in case I fall down..." Eiro told his Familiar and then just slowly started walking forward, hearing the des of grass be pressed down underneath his step.


    There was something running around in the distance to his right... A Rabbit, maybe. Some bugs were crawling inside basically every single tree, creating an awkward, ufortable sound as they were at it.


    But especially those were a fair help to figure out where the trees were, even though he already somewhat knew through their smell itself. Eiro specifically was trying not to ''remember'' the path, because if he did, he could navigate this forest pretty well without any senses at all.


    Instead, he was trying to visualize the area around him in his mind. First came the smells, represented through thin, colored mist in the color that Eiro somehow instinctively connected each scent to without any order. Then there were the sounds, which were like ripples on a water surface, just spreading outward everywhere around him.


    Eiro wasn''t breathing through his mouth, so taste wasn''t really used right now, but his touch was. He could feel the soft air currents all around him, and they were simply white lines all around him, moving into the directions the wind was moving.


    It was really, really hard to properly concentrate on everything, but all of these senses just somehow mixed together so intensely, so sometimes the ripples were in the color of different scents, and the scents weren''t mist but instead the lines that he usually connected to wind.


    It was hard to concentrate on all of these things at once... But at least it helped level up exactly that skill a little more, even if his concentration did waver a few times when he nearly tripped over random thingsying on the ground.


    It was surprisingly tough to navigate through here while blind... And Jura did it just so seamlessly, as if he could see every single detail around him. How long would it take for Eiro to get to that point?


    Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, or maybe never... He really didn''t know, but he knew that he had to just go ahead and try his best until he did know.


    "The river... That way..." Eiro whispered quietly as he tried to properly identify the direction that the sound of flowing water came from, and then slowly made his way over there, although it seemed like his concentration really did waver far too much just then and he stepped right into a small rabbit hole at the side of the path he was walking on, although Lugo quickly caught his fall and prompted Eiro back up.


    "Thanks." The Demon said as he slowly ran his fingers over Lugo''s snout, starting to feel a slight tingling sensation, as if there was something moving. Slowly, he ran his fingers through the Stag''s fur to follow that tingling, it more and more just following something like a ''beat'', before he reached the side of Lugo''s torso.


    "Ah... That was your... blood?" Eiro asked quietly, while he felt Lugo''s body just slightly shift around while the Stag probably tilted his head to the side confused. "Nevermind, let''s just... keep going." Eiro suggested and lifted his hand from Lugo''s torso, turning back around to where he could hear the river before, and then he soon stood right in front of the cold water. Now, Eiro just had to walk along the river bank until he was at the small river bank his Tree was upying.


    In the past five years, it really grew a lot, far more than a tree usually should in that time, and it looked as if it was already a few decades old at this point. It was really incredible, and every single time that Eiro looked at it, he felt astonished at what he had created. And so, Eiro slowly removed the cloth from his eyes to feel exactly that way again, although it was a bit... different this time.


    As Eiro''s eyes that were able to now see the tiniest detail in anything ryed the visuals to his brain and those visual mixed with the fake imagery he created in his mind to visualize the scents, sounds, and the wind around him, this tree looked even more amazing than he could have ever really expected, and he thought it was amazing all along anyway.


    With a slight smile, Eiro just made his way over there and quickly froze a small ''path'' between this side of the river and the bank in the center of it, and just swiftly stepped over there with a smile on his face, slowly cing his hand on the bark.


    It felt rough and cold, nearly freezing, but it was an object full of life that was deeply connected to Eiro himself. "Alright then¡­ Let''s get the material I need, huh?" The Demon muttered quietly as he took a look around the tree to see if there was any ce that he could use as a good footing, and soon found a small split in the bark that he was sure he could wedge his foot inbetween of, so he did just that and climbed up this tree onto one of the nearby branches, swiftly taking a look around, before Eiro somehow immediately found the perfect branch to use as a base, and then quickly took his saw out of his Treasury, swiftly pushing and pulling it across the top of that branch, before the connected part became too thin and weak to hold it up anymore and the branch just cracked away.


    Eiro tried to keep holding it up a little so that he could get a good, clean cut, but there was still a little bit too much that splintered off. It was annoying, but there was nothing Eiro could really do about it anymore.


    Once he made sure that the branch wasying on the ground safely, the Demon climbed back down and then proceeded to cut off whatever small twigs were still on it, and then just nodded his head in satisfaction. It really seemed like a really good piece of wood, and so Eiro just carried it back to the side of the river that Lugo was waiting on, and then tied the branch onto the Stag''s back. It wasn''t that it was heavy, it was just pretty long and unhandy, and since Eiro was going to walk back home with his eyes tied again, he wanted to make sure he could do that without any unnecessary obstruction.


    And luckily, Eiro managed to make his way back perfectly, this time not even requiring Lugo''s help because he stepped somewhere wrong and nearly fell down.


    At the house, the Demon removed his blindfold and got the branch off of Lugo''s back, before he was apanied into the hut by the Stag, who quite swiftly sat down on the floor right next to Eiro''s workbench.


    Usually, Eiro would work outside, but in here, everything was a little more controlled and shut off, so he felt morefortable. Now taking the chance, Eiro quickly started stripping the branch properly and cut off any part that seemed like it really wasn''t useable, although he ced it to the side just in case.


    The sound was just so intense to him, and the small vibrations that moved through his body as he was removing the bark from the branch was just so¡­ fulfilling, It was moving through his whole body, and in the end, he could just smile as he waved his hand to the side to make the scraps of bark gather together in one spot so that he could dispose of them more easiertely. Wind Magic was pretty handy for that.


    Although, it somehow felt pretty¡­ Weird to cast magic with his new senses. It felt like something was literally seeping out through his skin whenever he did¡­ The fact that he could feel his own blood flowing through his body was awkward enough already.


    Either way, now that this first step was done, Eiro first got rid of his cloak and hung it up next to the door and took off his shoes, and let his tail unwrap from around his hip, before sitting back down on his chair and pulling his left foot onto the chair inbetween his legs while he pressed the tips of his toes against the floor underneath his chair. It might look like a bit of an awkward position, but to Eiro himself, it was weirdlyfortable, even now.


    Slowly, the Demon reached his hand out and flipped the box he already sat down onto the table beforehand open, and then used his new tools to cut the wood up into differently sized pieces that he would each carve into another part of his soon-to-be recement hand.


    The process of carving itself was reallypletely the same for now, with the one exception of the mana that Eiro was currently pushing out of his hand into the wood through his fingertips.


    Just like that, Eiro got started, and once he had each of the differently sized cuboids, he started cutting them up into different simple parts of his hand, taking his current left hand as a reference for that. From fingertip to palm, soon, Eiro had all of the parts that he needed finished, and then spent a little while simply reworking some bits and pieces to make it more life-like.


    The wood itself had a rather pale blue color right now, although the bark before was rtively dark, and surprisingly enough the color of the wood fit well with the color of Eiro''s blue limbs. It wasn''t a perfect fit, but it was close enough!


    And with each piece of wood that dropped onto the ground, to Eiro sounding as if someone just smashed a rock into ss with full power, the Demon simply calmed down and more and more got used to these new senses.. It was weird, he was trying to get there really strongly over the past few days and never really managed to do sopletley, but the moment he started to work with some of this wood, he waspletely fine.

 Chapter 86 - Handy

    The small pile of wood-scraps that Eiro carved off of the pieces of wood the he had was slowly growing bigger and bigger as he continued on going with this work. This had to be absolutely perfect... After all, this was something that could only be seen as proof of the fact that Eiro was Jura''s student for these past five years.


    The Demon had gathered incredible knowledge of the anatomy of a lot of different beings over the past few years, and when it came to hands, he knew an Imp''s hand the best. After all, he had one himself. Every retraction of his muscles when he tensed up different parts of his hand, every bone that twisted in different manners depending on how you moved your hand, all of this was something that Eiro wanted to take into ount.


    He had seen Jura work on projects like this two or three times before, and those were the only projects he worked on at home anyway, really. Of course, beside the work that he did to give examples to Eiro while teaching him.


    It would be an exact copy of what a hand would be like. Of what a hand should be like. It was something that allowed incredible control over an artificial limb. It was simr with Eiro''s current hand. It wasn''tpletely solid like he thought it to be at the start, but the interior of the palm was partially hollowed out and filled with the pieces that let Eiro moves his fingers individually.


    It didn''t have any special power source of course, it was still simply ''fueled'' by the mana of the one that had it on their body, meaning that a limb like this would naturally take a piece of the total amount of mana regeneration, which was a price that Eiro didn''t mind to pay. Especially Jura''s were always quite efficient after all.


    Either way, soon, Eiro seemed to have finished the pieces that he would end up needing for the hand, and then slowly breathed out the air he had been keeping in his lungs for the past minute as he was finishing up thest part of his soon-to-be hand.


    His hands were weirdly enough hurting a lot, especially his joints. It was probably because he was just more sensitive to such things now, with his new card. With a slight sigh, Eiro simply leaned back in his chair and looked at the pieces in front of him, simply choosing to take a little bit of a break.


    Although, all of a sudden, he could hear the noise of water boiling from the next room over... As well as the footsteps of Avalin and Leon who were giving Sammy a tough time. He could smell the raw meat that Rudy was currently preparing, and heard Clementine and Arc as they were speaking to each other about how much food each of the animals had left.


    It was a bit... surprising. He somehow didn''t notice any of that while he was working, and then, all of it came rushing in when he stopped concentrating on that one thing. Maybe he was just noticing everything so strongly because he knew it was there at that very moment, or because he wasn''t thinking about other things other than what he was perceiving.


    "Could that be it..?" Eiro muttered quietly, as he slowly chose to switch exactly what he was paying attention to right now. He let everything else phase out, and then could only hear the sound of the water boiling, and smelled the scent of the metal the pot was made of. He had really just pushed everything away, and in turn, this one thing became so much stronger.


    "Hmm..." The Demon whispered, before he slowly turned around and looked at the window next to the door. He could already see each and every speck of dirt and particle of dust that was covering the ss panes like this. It was somewhat distracting, if he had to be honest. So instead, Eiro slowly tried to ignore that dirt and dust, and instead concentrated on the crown of a tree in the distance.


    And soon enough, it was as if that tree was the only thing in front of him. It even seemed as if his sight had... narrowed. He was only seeing that tree, and as if he was standing right in front of it as well. It did end up slightly hurting Eiro''s eyes, so he quickly returned to his new ''normal'' sight, but this was immense progress already.


    He figured that his ''Concentration'' skill was a big reason for why he was able to control it this well when he actually tried the right method, so Eiro was rather d about that.


    And with a smile on his face, weirdly excited, the Imp turned back to his work, and just tried to push all of his concentration onto them again, this time consciously. Again, it was like all that existed right now were these parts of the wooden hand he was about to make, and he slowly pushed his hand forward and picked the first piece up.


    Somehow, it felt like this tiny piece had a fair amount of weight to it, although Eiro couldn''t really describe his reasons for actually thinking so. That''s just what it seemd like to him right now. He knew that it wasn''t heavy in the slightest, but this weirdly made handling it somewhat easier.


    And so, Eiro slowly started to put the whole wooden hand together, piece by piece, until he had the raw ''structure'' of itying in front of him. It''s been a few hours since he started putting everything together, any now he really only had one step left... ce the ''outer'' parts on. And those ''outer'' parts meant the panels that he would be using to cover everything up.


    First, Eiro added the part for the palm and then the back of the hand. He tried his best to connect everything as tightly as he could without influecing the movability of the Hand''s internal parts, but it was actually a little tougher to do that than he thought. Either way, soon enough, after fiddling around with it a bit, he managed to get it done properly and then moved on to the fingers.


    With just a little glue, he managed to connect the rounded ''inside'' part for the fingers with the t ''outside'' part, and even added some fingernails as extra pieces, although that only really had one reason. Like this, if he wanted to, he could maybe put some metal ws into these wooden fingers that he could use for fighting.


    And after covering the joints as well, and then filling in any gaps with a slightly rubbery slime-like substance, which would dry and then make sure that nothing could get inside of the hand while not influencing the movability of the fingers and hand itself.


    Just like that... Eiro had a pale blue wooden hand in front of him. With his new sight, he could quickly just look over the surface of the wood to make sure that everything was really perfect, because it should be a bit annoying to take it off againter.


    Slowly, the Demon sat down on his chair while practically pulling his own body onto it with his feet as they twisted aroudn the chair-legs, before Eiro grabbed his wooden hand right at the base.


    These limbs had a trick to being removed, and it wasn''t necessarilyfortable. The reason that these fake limbs worked at all was that they had a part of the person''s Life-Energy in them, so they could be seen as an actual part of the body. When it came to other beings, like animals, monsters, or people, this could only be done if you actually had the ability to control their Life Energy. That also meant that Eiro himself wasn''t able to make movable limbs like these yet... He could make amazing Prosthetics otherwise, but they wouldn''t be ''special'' or ''magical'' until he was able to make use of Life Energy to that extent.


    But luckily, as he could control his own Life Energy pretty well at this point, that wasn''t an issue. Sadly it wasn''t possible for Eiro to go beyond the shape of this hand, and give him something like a twenty-fingered super-hand... The only reason this worked was because the ''Soul'' of the person still recognized the missing limb as something that''s supposed to be there, which was the reason why things like Phantom-Pain existed, so with the proper Prosthetic limb it was possible to trick the soul into believing it was their real limb... Otheriwse, Eiro would have already created a pair of giant wings for himself, or given himself an extra pair of arms or something like that.


    Well, he could probably connect all that to his body, he just wouldn''t be able to use them in the slightest.


    Either way, for now, Eiro had to disconnect his current hand from his arm, which he did by slowly pulling on it while dragging out any and all Life-Energy that was in the Prosthetic.


    Doing something like that to a real limb would usually kill it off near to instantly, but a fake limb like this would just stop being seen as a recement... And then, it could be cut off.


    After all, just because some life energy was in the Prosthetic didn''t mean that it would magically float at the stump. No, the wood needed to basically merge with Eiro''s flesh, and something like that couldn''t really be undone that easily, meaning the simplest choice was to just cut it off.


    Although, with the Demon''s heightened sense of pain... That was a bit frightening even to him. So, he slowly bit down on a piece of wood he hadying next to him and then ced his, now limp, wooden hand down on the table, slowly cutting through his skin as tightly along the wood as he could.


    It was incredibly painful, but luckily he could still control his blood properly using water magic, and like that could make sure that he wouldn''t lose too much health.


    Soon enough, the wooden hand just dropped off and Eiro sat there on his chair with teary eyes and a bloody stump, and Eiro sighed deeply as he kept holding his arm up and grabbed his new hand as he walked out of the hut and over to the main part of the house, slightly opening the door to get Nelli''s attention, before she quickly floated over toward him to ask what was up.


    "Everything alright? Why are you- Holy King and Queen, where''s your hand?!" She asked in shock, and Eiro just looked at her with a wry smile. "Please don''t yell that much, I just need you to heal my wound while I hold the wooden hand against it, alright?"


    "Tsk, alright, I''ve done it a million times before, but... Did you just have to cut your hand off like that before telling me?" She asked with a sigh as she followed Eiro back into the hut, where the Demon just slightly turned over toward her and shrugged. "Sorry, seems I got a bit excited." The Demon said, and then did as he was saying before, holding the base of the wooden hand against his stump, before Nelli ced one of her small hands on Eiro''s skin, the other on the pale blue wood, and water started seeping out of her body as she started muttered some spell, and the wound slowly closed down as it grew connected with the wooden hand Eiro made.


    "My Healing is a lot weaker without being contracted... Sorry. For now don''t connect it to your body and let me try to heal it over the next day or two, okay?" The Spirit suggested, and although Eiro was a bit hesitant, he slowly nodded his head as he grabbed some of the bandages he had ready in the shelf, quickly tying it around his hand and fingers properly before tying it to his arm, just to keep it tightly in ce while it was healing, and then looked at the Spirit with a slight smile.


    "Actually, about that.... Nelli, do you want to form a contract with me?"

 Chapter 87 - Contract

    Surprised, Nelli turned toward the Imp who just made a rather unexpected request, "You want to form a contract with me?" She asked, and Eiro nodded his head in response. "Of course, why wouldn''t I?" He replied, and Nelli just slightly smiled as she slowly nodded.


    "Fair enough¡­" The Spirit said quietly, and then slowly floated up to the Demon with a smile. "Are you sure you are fine with me? That would mean that for the rest of your life, as long as you don''t somehow break the rules of the contract, you will have me around¡­ you know that, right?" Nelli pointed out, and Eiro nodded his head.


    "I know, I''ve read up on it a bit before. One Spirit per Element you have a high affinity with¡­ And apparently Higher-Tier Elements count separate as well? It''s hard to get specific information like that, somehow¡­" The Demon pointed out with a slight sigh, and Nelli just slightly chuckled.


    "Why didn''t I expect you to have read up on that?" The Naiadughed, and Eiro looked at her with a slightly wry smile, "What do you expect me to do, try not to figure out why I''m a Spirit-Like existence?" Eiro pointed out, and Nelli slowly nodded with a smile on her lips before she extended her hand forward toward Eiro''s.


    "Then if you''re sure, let''s form a contract. It''s rather simple, really. All we need to do is give each other a part of our mana." Nelli exined, so Eiro slowly nodded his head. "Then let''s start." Nelli suggested, and then slowly started to push some of her mana, although in her case it was rather part of her body, since Spirits were literally made of mana itself.


    And while Eiro could feel the thick mana with a liquid-like feeling press through his skin, the Demon returned the favor and pushed his own mana out of his hand and into Nelli''s body, before the Spirit started to speak.


    "May our souls intertwine and our bodies connect. Your body is mine, and mine is yours, until either ceases." She started, and then continued on for another minute or so. It seemed to be the simple content of the ''contract'' or something like that. Eiro tried his best to remember it, although it really wouldn''t be tough with his memory.


    During the whole process, both of them kept giving mana to each other, and once Nelli finished, Eiro saw some notifications in front of him, while the center of his body slowly started to heat up.


    [You have formed a Contract with the Naiad, Nellissa Arigata]


    [Beginner Spirit Magic Skill Learned]


    As Eiro looked at the notifications, Nelli just floated right next to him and basically sat down on his shoulder. "Ew, I hate seeing my World''s Name¡­" She muttered quietly, before Eiro raised his brows surprised.


    "Oh? You can see my notifications?" He asked, and Nelli nodded her head in response. "Mhm, because our souls are connected now. You can see mine too, because of the type of contract we formed." Nelli exined, before Eiro slightly frowned.


    "There are other types?" He asked, so Nelli could only smirk at him, "Oh, right, most of us Spirits are dicks¡­ Yeah, there''s multiple types of contracts. The Usual contract that Spirits and People form are ones that basically let the Spirit leech off of the person¡­ While the Spirit needs to be fed a lot of mana, the person only gets minimal return¡­ The Spirits get to know everything about the Person, and the person nothing about the spirit beside their name." Nelli exined with a smile.


    "We, on the other hand, formed a contract on equal terms. You support me, I support you equally, in a fair rtionship¡­ And there''s no real punishment if you break the rules of the contract beside the contract being broken up¡­ Usually, it could end in the contractor''s death, not for you, though." The Naiad pointed out with a smile, so Eiro lightly smiled and nodded.


    "Interesting. Then thanks for trusting me." The Demon pointed out, and the Spirit just smiled back at him, "Don''t worry, of course I trust you¡­ How could I not after six years?" Nelli answered, before she slowly just dove into the air and disappeared, while the air itself gave off some water-ripples. Although she only really stopped being perceivable on the outside¡­ Somehow, Eiro had a tough time adjusting to the weird feeling of somehow seeing her, and at the same time not seeing her float in front of him.


    "This is the state I''ll be in most of the time¡­ something that is also only possible because of the type of contract we have. Usually, Spirits will disappear into the ne we normally live in, but this is something of a space inbetween." Nelli exined, her voice seeming weirdly like an echo.


    "I can''t be perceived by others beside you, we can speak somewhat privately here, and I can stay on lookout for you! Although thest of those will mostly just be useful when you''re asleep¡­ Because my perception is many, many times worse than yours..." Nelli pointed out, before she slowly floated up to Eiro''s hand as she came back out of the ''middle space'' and quickly helped the Demon get rid of the cloth he used to bind the wooden hand to his arm properly, while Eiro kept holding it against his stump.


    "Alright, now what?" Eiro asked, and Nelli slowly ced her hands onto Eiro''s arm again, just like before. "We''ll continue healing you. I''m going to take a bit of your mana to do it¡­ It might be slower than with Jura''s healing, because you don''t have a particr talent to healing magic, but it should work out well enough." The Naiad exined, so Eiro nodded his head and swiftly felt cold water seeping inbetween his open wound and the wood, before he could literally feel his flesh regrow.


    It was rather ufortable, like the feeling of air being sucked out of his lungs, just far, far stronger. And soon, there came the cold wood that literally merged with his flesh. This was somehow even more ufortable than literally cutting through his skin before.


    But after a while, and after having his mana drained a fair bit while a few notifications appeared telling him that his new Spirit Magic skill leveled up a couple of times, Nelli stopped healing Eiro''s arm.


    "We''re done!" She eximed, so Eiro slowly nodded his head with a smile on his face as the wooden hand hung downward limply. "Then let''s try our best¡­" The Demon sighed slightly, and then slowly ced his aching arm on the table as he started manipting his life force.


    Life Force was basically another type of energy that exists in addition to Mana, so the method of controlling it is simr in a few ways, although much tougher and with a lot more limits one had to pay attention to, since Life Force had to constantly be supplied to every part of your body for you to actually be able to survive without losing any limbs.


    Slowly, Eiro shifted his Life force around a little and started pushing it into his Prosthetic. It was pretty tough to get through there, but usually the special types of wood that they used for the prosthetics was pretty epting to Life Force. Not all kinds could be used, after all. Some either didn''t ept external Life Force in them at all, others simply wouldn''t be able to be seen as part of the person''s body, and others wouldn''t be able to be moved.


    Eiro was actually kind of worried that this wood wasn''t going to take in his Life Force, because it didn''t seem so right now, but soon it seemed like the Demon managed to break through and the wooden hand tensed up while Eiro felt a fair amount of¡­ pain.


    It was as if his bones were cracking and his muscles ripping while the fingers started bending in unnatural ways, and the Imp immediately grasped his arm. "What the¡­" Eiro muttered quietly as the pain died down and his hand became ''calm'' again, as two notifications appeared in front of him.


    [Your body has connected to the <Hand of Demonic Frost> as it carries your essence]


    [Connection Rating: 0.1%]


    Eiro turned over toward Nelli and pointed at the notifications, "Is that¡­ normal?" He asked, considering that Nelli had a lot more experience with these things considering the long time she spent with Jura, and the Spirit slowly shook her head.


    "I don''t think so¡­ Did this happen when you got your other Prosthetics?" Nelli replied, but the Demon just shook his head, "Definitely not¡­ But the ''Hand of Demonic Frost''? That does make sense considering that the tree was grown through me and my mana¡­" Eiro muttered quietly as he looked at the pale blue wooden hand and slowly tried to move his fingers. He could do so pretty well, although it was to a lesser extent than the hand he had before that he got from Jura five years ago, so he felt quite disappointed.


    "Hmm¡­" Eiro sighed, but Nelli just floated up in front of him and smiled, "Don''t worry, the ''Connection Rating'' is so low¡­ Maybe you can move it more easily when it goes up?" She suggested, so Eiro just slightly smiled back at her.


    "Let''s hope so. For now, let''s show the kids." Eiro told her, and then slowly made his way back outside before walking over toward the front door of the house, reaching his right hand forward, figuring that if it could increase, then he should try to use it as much as possible.


    It was a bit loud inside right now, but Eiro could handle it a bit better now, and could slightly control the level of strength of his senses, at least that''s what it seemed like to Eiro himself. "Hey there¡­" Rudy said with a whisper, trying to be as sensitive to the Imp as possible.


    "Don''t worry, speak normally. Just don''t yell." The Demon said with a smile as he looked around at the others, who had all gathered in here by now. "So, there''s two things that I, or rather we, would like to tell you. One, I just finished my new hand, but it''s not working perfectly just yet so your training weapons might need to wait another few days." Eiro exined to them, and the children seemed rather understanding of it and just nodded their heads.


    "It looks cool, though." Arc pointed out, so Eiro smiled back, "Thank you. I like it as well. But either way, the more important thing is something else, I just wanted to get that out of the way first." Eiro exined as he turned over toward Nelli, "The two of us just formed a contract, so I won''t be leaving you any time soon, it seems." The Spirit pointed out with a broad grin, and Clementine was the first to jump up happily.


    "Whooa! That''s cool!" She eximed, "I''m d you don''t have to leave!" Clementine said with a broad smile, and Eiro raised his brows surprised.


    "Wait, you would have needed to leave if we didn''t form a contract?" He asked, and Nelli looked at him with a slight, seemingly sad and bitter smile. "Yeah¡­ Spirits can''t exist long without a proper source of mana. And if it isn''t a contractor, it''s a ce with rich mana¡­ And those are rather rare." She exined, so Eiro slightly nodded his head.


    "I see¡­ Then I''m d I made the choice to ask you." The Demon pointed out, and then looked back at the children in front of him. "So yeah¡­ Don''t try to mess with me when I''m asleep, I have someone that can keep watch for me now." Eiro said with a slight smirk on his face, and Nelli slightly chuckled in response, "What if I''m the one messing with you?" She asked, so Eiro just slightly stared at her with a nk expression.


    "I didn''t think about that¡­"

 Chapter 88 - Staff

    Eiro looked down at his new hand and started to move his fingers around a bit to see if he would really be fine, and then looked up at the notification that appeared when he thought about his connection to the hand.


    [Connection Rating: 5.6%]


    Over the past couple of days, the connection rose a little bit, and as it did, Eiro could move his hand around better and better, just as Nelli had suggested. It wasn''t anywhere near how he could move his left hand, but Eiro honestly expected that. It was the same with his old Prosthetics after all, so he was really more used to using his left hand for everything anyway, just using the right one to support what he was doing a bit more.


    But now that Eiro could actually move his wooden fingers this well, he chose to get started on the things that Jura wanted Eiro to make for the children. It was probably best to get started on their training as early as possible so that they could handle themselves properly.


    And so, he made his way down into the basement and looked around to gather the materials that Jura mentioned, and turned over toward the Spirit floating next to him as he looked around. "So, I get the reasoning behind Acquen and Kavin¡­ Acquen is a material good for Water-Magic Based staffs and wands, so Clementine will use it to practice her magic. And Kavin is only good material we have I can think of that can divert damage like that, so we can properly use it for Rudy''s practice as a Shield-Bearer." The demon pointed out as he started looking through the pieces of wood in front of him to search for especially good pieces, and then continued when he noticed Nelli was paying attention to him.


    "But what about Ovoya and Avenos? I know that they''re supposed to be good for weapons, but we never made anything except some made of Oak, so I don''t exactly know in what way they''re actually useful." The Demon exined, so Nelli slowly looked at him with a wry smile.


    "Hmm, Ovoya and Avenos¡­ Which were those again?" She asked, slightly embarrassedly, so Eiro quickly held up the wood in his hand. "This is Avenos, it''s the wood from an especially tall breed of tree growing somewhere in the west. The highest quarter of the tree''s wood has a natural wind affinity. And Ovoya is something simr, ites from a tree that grows on a volcanic ind Jura was on before¡­ It''s pretty rare, actually, and it has a natural Fire Affinity." The Demon exined, so Nelli nodded her head as she seemed to slightly remember.


    "Ah, right¡­ I think those are simply easy to use Elemental Enhancement on." Nelli replied, and Eiro looked at her with a nk expression before the Spirit remembered something important about what she just said, "Oh¡­ You were never shown how that works¡­" The Naiad muttered quietly, and Eiro shook his head.


    "I remember hearing the term before, but at the time I was more focused on learning how to carve properly¡­" Eiro exined, before Nelli cupped her chin in response, grinning lightly as she looked at the Demon.


    "Hehe, then I''ll teach you about that part of it together with the kids, alright?" She suggested teasingly, but Eiro just nodded his head with a light smile. "Sounds good, thank you." He said, and Nelli quietly grumbled to herself.


    "Tsk, people are way more fun to tease¡­" Nelli muttered quietly, and Eiro just turned his eyes toward her with a grin, trying to remind her that it was practically impossible for her to say something he couldn''t hear now, and the Spirit just smiled at him. "Let''s just get going, alright? You also have to finally put that hand on the puppet, so get started with it already!"


    "And why exactly can''t I just put the hand on it right now?" Eiro asked, and Nelli looked at him with a deep frown, "Because I say so! You can''t do that until you''re finished with everything for the kids, and then you can, alright?" She eximed, and Eiro sighed deeply, annoyed that Nelli kept the ''hidden function'' the puppet seemed to have a secret.


    "Sure." The Demon said quietly as he put all of the Ovoya and Avenos that he needed into his bag, and then grabbed some nicer wood that he could use for handles, because especially Ovoya was a material that usually irritated your skin pretty badly.


    "Alright, and then those nks of Kavin¡­" Eiro muttered quietly and then quickly picked the nks of the rubber-like wood up and ced them onto his shoulder, and then grabbed the other type that was supposed to be the base. Kavin itself was too unstable for a shield, after all.


    Carefully Eiro brought them back out of the basement and into the hut, where he quickly ced everything down onto the ground and then went back outside, because thest material was a bit of a bother to get.


    As the note that Jura left behind said, the Acquen was at the bottom of the pond¡­ Especially wood that''s as highly magical as that and is meant for staffs or wands usually needs to be stored in a special manner like that, or else it will lose its effect. That also meant that Eiro really had to try and hurry up with the creation of Clementine''s Staff, or else he would need topletely start over.


    Eiro quickly made his way down the hill to the small pond that was near them, and started to take off his clothes so that he could dive down there. "Let me know if something is going on, this is the one time I won''t be able to properly know, I think." Eiro pointed out as he ced his feet into the cold water. Well, while it was cold, it wasn''t ufortable. He actually enjoyed the cold¡­ And warmth¡­ As extreme as possible, to be honest. Either way, as Eiro started to step deeper into the pond, which wasn''t that deep but still required him to dive down a couple of meters, the Demon held his left hand up and swung it around a couple of times as if scooping something up toward his wooden hand.


    And after a little while, the Demon kept his hands a bit of a distance away from each other as if holding something and made his way underwater while concentrating on what was happening. Slowly, as Eiro descended into the water, it slightly parted way for something small and spherical while Eiro leaned down and held his mouth onto that spherical spot.


    Because what Eiro did just there was rather simple. Using his Air Magic, he gathered enough Air in his hands and slightlypressed and held it together to be able to breathe a fair bit longer than usual, so that he could pick out the best wood they had there, and then supported that bubble with his water and ice magic, using thetter to give the bubble a shell to make it easier to keep everything together.


    And so, Eiro now had something like a small ice-mask filled with air around the lower half of his mouth as he descended into the water. It stung a bit in his eyes, but it was fine after Eiro got used to it a bit better. Somehow he was able to see perfectly through the opaque water now that he was in here, and immediately spotted the small blocks of wood both tied to the floor of the pond and a hollow sphere to keep it afloat in the water so that all sides of it were constantly covered in it.


    Eiro started taking a look around and swam around the different pieces of wood, before finding a smaller one that seemed pretty good to make the sphere out of, and another one that seemed good to make the handle out of, and quickly cut through the ropes both of them were connected to, quickly diving back up to the surface to bring them to the shore again. He didn''t pull them out of the water just yet so that he wouldn''t end up wasting the time he had to work with the wood.


    With a quick grab, the ice-mask around Eiro''s mouth started to melt, and then the Demon''s body slowly started to give off a little steam as the water covering him was evaporated by the heat he was giving off through Fire Magic.


    "Alright, let''s go." Eiro said after getting clothed again as he quickly grabbed the two wooden spheres meant to hold the Acquen Wood steadily in the water and quickly pulled the wood to the surface before cutting through the rope and grabbing the Acquen, rushing back toward the hut. He had one hour before the wood became useless and wasted.


    The moment he was inside of the hut, he got started on his work, cing the longer wood into the bathtub for the time being to make sure it couldst as long as possible while he worked on the sphere.


    It wasn''t thatplicated really, but the annoying part was that he needed to hollow it out, and it had to be a single sphere. The n for the Staff specifically said so, after all. That meant that Eiro had to fiddle around inside of the wood with a special tool after getting the basic shape done, and that was really just bothersome.


    Quickly, Eiro got started and carved the rough sphere, making it as quickly as possible and sanding it just roughly to smooth it over some more, before carving a small hole in one spot. That hole was then used to ess the inside of the sphere, and wouldter be sealed shut by the handle.


    The sphere would really just be a bitrger than a fist, so there wasn''t too much work luckily, but it still freaked Eiro out a little knowing that this would bepletely ruined if he didn''t finish on time.


    But after roughly half an hour, Eiro was done with the sphere, and could then spend the rest of the time working on the handle, which luckily was finished more quickly. It was already a long and straight piece of wood, so Eiro just had to carve along the surface to get it rounded, and then went over it to sand it a little.


    "Nelli,e on." Eiro said, rxing when he noticed that he was finally done after just 55 minutes, meaning that he could take his time putting it together. The Sphere needed to be filled with water that was created through magic, and Eiro only had ess to one way to fully create water right now, and that was through the Naiad floating next to him.


    Water Magic Stones also created water, but it wasn''t ''real'' water, as it would disappear after a couple of minutes as if it was never there in the first ce, so it waspletely unsuitable for this. But the Water that Nelli could conjure would stay there forever if she didn''t specifically make it disappear again, so it perfectly fit the conditions for the Staff.


    And then, Eiro held the water-filled sphere up and pushed the glue-covered, slightly pointed Handle of the staff inside of it to make it properly fit. The tip of the handle actually had a small Light Magic Stone pushed inside of it, since Clementine''s Affinity were both for Water and Light, so that was incorporated in the sketch already.


    Quickly, the Demon tried to help the glue dry a bit more quickly, and then when he only had a minute or two left till the hour was over and the wood would start rapidly losing quality and would stop working as a magic wood at all, Eiro ced it inside of a thin, tall tank that he prepared specifically for this, which was filled to the brim with Nelli''s conjured water, because that was the finishing step. It had to stay inside of there for a whole week to be done.


    And when Eiro sealed the top of the tank, he deeply breathed out and started to finally rx again. Making Staffs was really exhausting¡­

 Chapter 89 - Preparations

    After cing the staff into the bath of Magically Created water, Eiro looked at the other pieces of wood and then slightly sighed. These also had to be treated for a couple of days after being finished, so it might be a good idea to get them done first before making his way to Town to get the Forest-Spider Silk from Tom to use as bowstring for Sammy''s bow.


    In the end, since they were training weapons, it was mostly important to get the shape right, and that wasn''t that big a deal, really. They wouldn''t be sharp enough to actually hurt anyone either, so they didn''t need a sharp edge, but should simply have the rough shape.


    So, Eiro first got started with the Swords for Arc. First came the longer version that seemed to have to be held with two hands, and then the shorter, one-handed version. Both of them would only have the des made out of Ovoya, while the handles would be more regr wood that was better for handles.


    They were both rather thin and long, and their back was slightly curved¡­ Eiro could see how that would be good for Speed-Basedbat.


    Since the shapes of the des were rather straightforward, it didn''t take too long for Eiro to finish the Ovoya, the only annoying part was that he had to be careful with the shavings. It would be annoying if bits and pieces of it were left and one of the Kids ended up stepping into it. Eiro himself didn''t mind the touch of the wood, even if now he did also feel some of the innate heat it gave off, but others might not react all that well to it, so Eiro wanted to be as careful as possible.


    After the des were both finished, Eiro hung them up onto a stick by the round part that the handle would be attached toter and then started ced the stick onto the edges of a tub that Eiro filled with the treatment solution he mixed together just for this.


    They had roughly five different kinds of solutions they used regrly, and apparently this one was meant to go with the one that was supposed to give general strength to the de. The des would have to sit in there for 36 Hours and then spend another 12 Hours inside of direct mes to be finished. He should be able to get to town and back pretty easily within 36 hours, luckily, so he could spend the rest of the time finishing up Rudy''s Shield and Sammy''s bow.


    He already had a pretty good base wood for the bow, but he couldn''t properly make it without the bowstring, because he needed to test and adjust the bow''s flexibility as he was going along, and he couldn''t do that without the right bowstring.


    And for now, he could make the parts for Rudy''s Shield, but he couldn''t fully assemble it yet, because the Kavin was still a little too flexible. He had to attach it to the strong, stiff base wood and then have the pieces take in another treatment solution as well before assembling it.


    That was a little annoying, but it was fine. It wouldn''t take too long to make all of the parts anyway, considering how the Shield was made up and mainly required straight nks for most areas.


    It took Eiro a couple of hours to cut everything into the right shape, and then quickly glued the Kavin and Base nks together. The Glue would take a little while to dry¡­ but he wanted to get going to town as early as quickly as he could to catch everyone while they were actually awake, so he might have to ask one of the kids to put it into the solution in a couple of hours.


    In the end, Eiro was sure that it would work out. The only troublesome part was those three¡­ Krog, Jess, and¡­ James. Were they still in town? Eiro let them leave without killing themst time because Jura said he shouldn''t, and he didn''t want to defy him in hisst moments. But if he saw them again, then he wouldn''t be so kind to them. It seemed like the only reason they were there was to find the Prosthetist to make an Arm for James¡­ Hopefully they understood what was going on and left again.


    With such thoughts, Eiro left the hut and made his way to the House''s front door, quickly turning toward Rudy, who the Demon heard to be in the far left corner of the room at the moment.


    "Rudy?" Eiro asked with a loud and clear voice, and the boy stepped forward from behind the small curtain hanging there. "Yeah?" He asked, so Eiro quickly exined what he wanted Rudy''s help for and then brought him to the adjacent room to just show it to him.


    "So I just need to ce those nks into that tub? That''s all?" Rudy asked, so Eiro nodded his head in response. "Yes, that is all. I''ll be off to town to get something, so make sure everyone is fed properly as well, okay?" The Demon asked, and Rudy nodded his head, still looking down at the wood.


    "I will, don''t worry. But do I, like, need to get it out of the solution as well? Or do I just put it in and that''s it?" Rudy asked, so Eiro just lightly smiled in response. "Just put it in there once the glue is dry, and that''s it. It needs to sit in there for more than a day, and I''m definitely going to be back by the time it needs to be taken out." Eiro reassured, so Rudy slowly nodded his head and then looked at the door as if he remembered something while the two of them were on their way outside.


    "Oh, right!" Rudy eximed, and then quickly rushed over to the front door, getting back out a couple of minutester with a closed wooden box, handing it to the Demon, who figured out what it was with just a single sniff.


    "Hmm, some food for the trip?" Eiro asked, so the boy nodded his head in response. "Yeah, I figured you''d be hungry¡­ And I want you to take care of yourself, you''re the only one we have left now¡­" Rudy pointed out as he turned his face away, so Eiro just smiled at him. "Thank you, I''ll eat it when I get hungry."


    "Good! Thene in and say bye to the others before leaving, alright?" Rudy asked, and Eiro then did just that beforeing back outside and calling Lugo to ride him to town.


    And just a little while after they left, Eiro turned over toward the side, where he saw Nelli floating in the inbetween-space.


    "You said you were 300 years old?" The Demon asked, and surprised, the Spirit looked at him with a nod. "Yeah, what are you on about?" She inquired suspiciously, and Eiro replied with a clear voice, "Well, that means you must have met a lot of people. And a lot of different people as well." Eiro added, so Nelli once more nodded her head.


    "Mhm, I have. I''m a ''Contract-Dweller'', as other Spirits would call me¡­ I prefer being around others and traveling instead of being stuck in ce, so I''ve had a lot of contracts. The one with Jura was the longest so far, though." She exined, so Eiro looked up at her with a slight frown.


    "I have read a little about it before, but I haven''t read one specificially speaking about all sorts of species¡­ But¡­" Eiro said quietly, unsure of how he should word this properly. "Alright, so¡­ Since I got the card and my sense of smell increased, I started noticing a very specific type of smell in the kids. For Arc, Clementine, Sammy and Avalin it''s the same, even if there are minor differences¡­ But for both Rudy and Leon, that smell is very different. It might be something their Unique Skills do, but it doesn''t feel that way¡­ I''m still trying to figure out the whole ''Magic Smell'' thing that Jura''s been going on about, but I''m sure that this definitely isn''t that. It''s more raw, like it''s the smell of what they are. Do you get that?" Eiro asked Nelli, and the Naiad slowly closed her eyes in thought.


    "Well, Jura didn''t use his smell for that so often, because he could figure out what a person looked like with his ears, but I''m sure that he could figure out things like a person''s race through their scent? Maybe Rudy and Leon aren''t fully human?" Nelli suggested, so Eiro just nodded his head in response.


    "Alright¡­ I was thinking something simr¡­ I wanted to figure out if maybe Rudy and Leon werepletely different races, and if you had an idea what they could be, but that could also be the case." Eiro figured, and the Naiad floating next to him just shrugged. "We''re about to enter a town filled with people that are partially monsters, so I''m sure you should be able to figure something out then." Nelli pointed out, before thinking about that again, "By the way, do you think you''re going to be alright? What if you''re too overwhelmed in town?"


    Slowly, Eiro shook his head in response to that question. "I already thought about that. In a year, we''ll have to start travelling, and we can''t always avoid towns then. There will be a lot of different new things to perceive around us in general. So a town that I already know might be good practice for that. And I can''t just not go there for a year, so I''ll have to face that sooner orter anyway."


    "Fair enough¡­" Nelli replied quietly, while Eiro took out a small book out of his treasury, and Nelli looked down at it curiously. "What are you reading?" She asked, so Eiro just quickly closed it for a moment to show her the cover.


    "One of the few books about Geography we have. I want to be prepared properly, so I want to know the best paths, areas to avoid, and areas that might be useful to us. There isn''t much information in here, because Geography isn''t the main topic, but it''s better than nothing."


    "You didn''t read anything about Geography yet?" Nelli asked surprised, and Eiro just shook his head. "It just wasn''t really that important, since I didn''t leave this forest for six years except to go to town. And even that technically is still in the same forest."


    "Gotcha¡­" The Naiad sighed, before Eiro just smirked and flipped the book open again, and then quickly continued to read.


    The rest of the trip to town continued rtively silently, with Eiro just stopping to read a few times when he ended up noticing something unusual, although it usually just ended up being a bird, rabbit, or squirrel. Although soon enough, he did also hear the town in the distance, despite it still being a fair distance away.


    "How bothersome¡­" Eiro muttered quietly as he pushed the book back into the invisible shelf he kept his books in his treasury in, causing the leatherbound-book to disappear into thin air.


    "What is?" Nelli asked surprised, and Eiro just pointed forward. "I can already hear the town¡­ You might be right, it could take a lot out of me to handle all that." The Imp exined, but Nelli just smirked at him and shook her head.


    "Don''t worry, I''ll be there to cover your ears and nose again if it''s too much. Your eyes are basically fine now, after all."


    "Thank you, I appreciate it. Let''s still try to get in and out quickly, alright?" Eiro suggested, before Nelli slowly nodded her head in response.


    "Sounds good to me.." The Spirit said, and Eiro nodded his head and braced himself for what was about toe.

 Chapter 90 - Trouble In The Dozens

    Just in case any outsiders were around, Eiro slowly ced his new mask onto his face before jumping off of Lugo''s back to walk through town instead of riding through as he pulled his hood up. Luckily the hood itself also blocked off a little bit of the sound that was going on, although it was basically minimal considering how loud everything seemed to Eiro, despite it being so early in the morning that the sun hadn''t even started going up yet.


    Eiro knew that Tom usually opened his shop around Dawn, so he would need to wait a little longer until then. And while the Demon stood right in front of the Guild, he was just looking around, trying to get used to everything getting louder and louder as more people woke up, while he also wanted to make sure he would notice if one of those three ended up approaching him.


    "Hmm¡­ Isn''t this a little boring? Can''t we go sightseeing or something?" Nelli asked as she was floating next to Eiro, who looked at her confused, "Sightseeing? In a vige with maybe 400 people? You know the only notable thing here are the statues of the fourdies, who you''ve met literally more than anyone living here in this town?" Eiro pointed out, and Nelli just quietly clicked her tongue.


    "Hey, leave me be~! Can''t I be bored?" She asked, and Eiro turned his head and smirked at her from underneath his mask, "If you don''t want to be bored, I can take out one of my books and-"


    "Nevermind~¡­" Nelli replied immediately before she kept floating in the air with her eyes closed, as if she wasying on an invisible bed right next to Eiro, before Eiro could hear some footsteps inside of the Guild-Building, which meant that Tom seemed to be ready to open up. And so, the Demon stood right in front of the door and subconsciously concentrated on it, soon hearing the sound of metal scratching against metal, before a clicking sound could be heard, and the door was then slowly opened.


    "Hm?" Tom asked, looking at the figure in front of him and then raised his brows surprised, "Oh, Eiro! New cloak and mask, huh?" The middle-aged guild Master asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "Mhm¡­" He hummed, and then stepped into the Guild before Tom closed the door again with a slight sigh. "Everything alright? You don''t usuallye around this time of the month. Did something happen?" Tom asked, before Eiro just slowly nodded his head.


    "Yes, actually¡­ Jura passed awayst week." Eiro exined, and Tom turned around toward him with shock in his face, nearly dropping the cane he used to support his crooked legs onto the ground. "What..? Jura is¡­ dead?" Tom asked, and slowly made his way around the counter to sit down on his chair while Eiro took his mask off.


    "He is. But he went with a smile, at least." Eiro pointed out, hoping that this was enough to at least turn the mood around a little again, "He left behind some notes for me and the children, and in one of them it said you had some Forest-Spider Silk that I should use to make something." The Demon said, hoping to just get right to the point, before Tom slowly nodded his head.


    "That¡­ that''s right, I do¡­ So is that why Jura asked me to gather some of it thest time he was here? I was not aware it would be thest time I would see him¡­" Tom muttered quietly, slowly standing up again to go get the Silk Eiro asked for,ing back out a few momentster to ce the bundle onto the counter.


    "Thank you. What do I owe you?" Eiro asked as he moved his hand underneath his cloak to try and grab the pouch he had under there, but Tom quickly stopped him, "It''s on me, don''t worry." Tom said, "Jura was a great man. I can give you a little silk for free, I would say." The middle-aged man said quietly, before Eiro lightly smiled and grabbed the bundle of Silk. "Thank you. I really appreciate it." He said, and for a while, it seemed like Tom was trying to think of something to say, before he remembered something else that Eiro should know about.


    "Ah, right¡­ Those travelers that opened up the request I gave youst time left, saying they should have done it themselves in the first ce. They seemed pretty strong, so I get it¡­ But yeah, sorry if you already worked on it. I can give you somepensation, but you won''t be able to advance your rank."


    "It''s fine, I''m the reason they left so early. I had a little bit of a ''falling out'' with them, you could say." Eiro exined, and Tom slowly nodded his head.


    At any other time he would have been surprised and would have asked about what happened, but it seemed like the thing with Jura hit him a bit harder than Eiro would have expected. He did live near here longer than Tom was even alive, after all, so Tom ended up getting to know him pretty well, just like most people of this town.


    It was just that in recent years, he became far more closed off and didn''t often return to the town. Nheless, this message was a bad surprise for everyone.


    "Eiro, if you or the children need any help, you know you can rely on practically everyone of this vige, right?" Tom pointed out, and the Demon slowly nodded his head. "I know. Thank you." He said, and then slowly turned around again, "That was really all for now. I''m going to be back in a few weeks, so I''ll see you then." Eiro said, and then ced his mask back onto his face and made his way back outside, while Tom just waved to see him off.


    "So, is there anything else you want to do?" Nelli asked as she looked down at the Imp, who simply shook his head. "At the very least, I don''t have any ns." Eiro exined, and then looked around to see if he could find Lugo, who was currently justying around in some corner of the central ce, so the Demon quickly made his way over toward him to get going, although just as he was doing so, he heard something rather surprising and unsettling.


    Numerous heavy steps that echoed through his ears, as well as metal rubbing against metal, producing a light creaking that Eiro found extremely ufortable. The smell of blood became stronger the closer that sound came as well, but the blood had a muddy, dirty scent to it, so it most likely belonged to monsters instead of people.


    Eiro turned around toward the source of the sound and in the distance, a few minutes'' walk away from the town''s gate that Eiro had a perfect view of right now, a group of Armored men approached the vige.


    The armors they were wearing were the same amongst all of them, so they were probably soldiers instead of attacking bandits, and the vige militia stood in front of the gate looking at them in a manner that suggested these soldiers had to be respected.


    It seemed like there were people without armors there as well, but Eiro couldn''t really see them. They were probably hidden behind the wall of Knights. With a quick whistle, Eiro made Lugo quickly follow him. He wasn''t sure why these men were here, but he wasn''t really a big fan of it in the slightest.


    "Hm? What''s going on?" Nelli asked surprised as Eiro hurried into one of the alleyways that Lugo could fit into, and the Demon just slightly frowned. "We just need to hide a bit¡­ I want to see what''s going on." Eiro said, and quickly ended up on the other side of the alleyway, where he could already see the ce he was looking for, the stables.


    He hurried over there and looked at the stablekeeper, who was currently cleaning the hoofs of one of the horses in the front. "Jim, can I leave Lugo in here for a while? It won''t be too long, but I don''t want him running around wildly¡­" Eiro exined, and the Stablekeeper looked at the figure in front of him and slowly nodded his head.


    "Hmm, sure ye can. There''s a spot in the very back, if ya want-" Jim pointed out as he looked into the open stables, and Eiro nodded his head as he looked at Lugo, "Get in there. Thanks, Jim, I owe you one. I''ll be back in a bit." The Demon said, and without saying anything else hurried back into the alleyway he came from. He had a pretty bad feeling about this all somehow.


    And as he was doing so, Eiro pushed his hand to the side and then held his index finger and thumb toward each other as if he was grabbing something small, before a small ck bead appeared there. Immediately, Eiro pushed the Magic Stone into his shirt, cing it right onto the small cup he was currently forming with the end of his tail to push the Magic Stone onto the center of his chest.


    While the thin appendage wasn''t physically strong, it was an incredibly amazing carrier for Mana, so it was easy to push mana into the Shadow Magic Stone and then move it right into Eiro''s heart to spread the Shadow Mana throughout his whole body.


    [Your Body is being saturated in Shadows. You be quicker, harder to notice, and close to silent]


    This was the first time Eiro did this since gaining his new card, and the sensation was weirdly¡­ liberating. It freed him up a little, as if his body became lighter. It technically did, but Eiro somehow felt a pure joy at practically being unable to be noticed right now.


    Quickly, he took a look around and then found some ridges in the side of the house the Demon was hiding behind, and quickly pushed his fingers inbetween one of them to pull himself up. Rtively swiftly, Eiro was at the top of the wall and then pulled his body onto the t roof, which had shadows covering it because of the quite tall building standing next to this one, blocking out the early morning sun.


    From here, Eiro had a pretty good view of the central ce, which he expected the group of Soldiers to have as a destination. To Eiro''s luck, his expectations were spot-on, because the Soldiers soon entered the open space and immediately had a ratherrge, at least for this vige, group of spectators surrounding them.


    Soon, the head of this vige approached the one that seemed to be the leader of the Soldiers, a tall built man with dark brown hair and eyes, and an armor painted in gold and silver. He had a sword on his waist and a shield on his back, but judging from the state of both of them, and the nonexistent smell of blood on them, he was practically the only one amongst the Soldiers that hadn''t fought anything.


    Eiro noticed that the vige head wanted to introduce himself right now because he took a deeper breath than he noticed for his normal pace of breathing, but before he could, he was interrupted by the man in the bright armor.


    "My name is Rumia Legios Argenson, Baron to our Holy King. We were given the task to, from now on, supervise this¡­ town, as we require the assistance of the Four Ladies. We will dly ept your assistance with our cause, and hope you will ept us without problems." The man exined, and somehow, Eiro felt more than just annoyed at the choice of words this man showed right there.


    Would it be worth it to try and kill them? It seemed pretty troublesome to have to deal with them running around here¡­ He was positive that they wouldn''t be able to find Eiro''s house as well, so he wasn''t really worried all that much about that part of it, but instead more about the ''Assistance of the Four Ladies''. That meant that they would have to stay here for at least another year in order to be able to meet all of them¡­ Meaning, Eiro had to catch their attention at least four times, as he was the only one left to lead the Ladies to town for now.


    But then, Rumia said something that really didn''t agree with Eiro in the slightest, "As such, we will also honorably take on the role of serving as the Ladies'' gudies, and thank you for your help with finding our tasks in advance."

 Chapter 91 - Rumia

    Eiro just heard something that he didn''t like in the slightest. This man wanted to take on the role of leading the Ladies to town?


    Although¡­ That might be a chance. If this man would take that role over, then Eiro wouldn''t need to wait for the next year to pass and could get going to the north to have the seals on Sammy and Leon removed¡­ Wouldn''t it be way safer if they left now? That''s what Eiro thought for just a moment, but then he shook his head quickly to snap out of it.


    It was a request from Jura to stay for a year, and there were other good reasons not to go just yet as well¡­ In the end, he had to keep going with this task. And in the first ce, weren''t it thedies that chose the one that led them? The only reason that Eiro could keep going was that Jura introduced them, and they took a liking to him¡­ At least that''s what he figured, he hadn''t actually met any of the Ladies again after Jura''s death, after all.


    With a deep sigh, Eiro quietly grumbled some random swear-words toward the man in the armor, because he was simply pretty annoyed with the current situation. And that was when the Vige Head spoke again.


    "Excuse me, Lord Argenson, but I don''t think that will be possible." He exined, and immediately, Rumia looked down onto the quite short, elderly man, "What do you mean, you don''t think it will be possible? Of course it will, because I say so."


    Annoyedly, Eiro just stared at Rumia, in disbelief of his idiocy. But then again, details about the Ladies seemed to be rather unknown to people outside this town, so Eiro couldn''t push it off onto that just yet.


    "As¡­ As I said, that will not be possible. It is not us that choose the Guide, it is the Ladies themselves. Neither the current Guide, nor his recement we havee to know in recent years, were able to appoint themselves to that position." The Vige Head added, and Rumia just crossed his arms and with a clear,manding voice spoke.


    "And who might those two be? Bring them to me right now." He eximed loudly, but the Vige Head just shook his head in response, "We cannot do that. We don''t even know where they live, Lord. One of them, the recement, onlyes here once every few weeks."


    With a deep sigh, Eiro turned over toward Nelli annoyedly. "Could you prepare to produce arge amount of water at once?" He asked the Spirit, and she just raised her brows surprised. She hadn''t been able to hear the conversation unfold, after all.


    "Hmm, is it that bad?" She asked, and Eiro slowly climbed off the building again as he quietly exined the situation. Due to the Shadow form, his voice was echoing around already, but luckily Nelli understood him even then. "Heh¡­? Got it, let''s mess with that guy!" She eximed, although she was still hidden in the inbetween-space, so only Eiro could hear her.


    With a light grin, the Demon nodded his head. "You know what? During my fight with James, I noticed that I do really enjoy fighting¡­" He whispered, and then stood up, pressing his body against the wall so that he would still stay hidden for now, "So if this turns sour, let''s cheer ourselves up a little." Eiro muttered quietly, already holding a scoop of water through a bubble with a thin ice shell in his hand to prepare for the initiating attack if it was really necessary.


    The group of soldiers behind Rumia was troublesome though¡­ Was there a good way to deal with all of them at once?


    And before Eiro knew it, Rumia already replied to the Vige Head again, "Hmm, then we''ll just have to wait until they''re here. And for a bit of insurance¡­ John, Mark, arrest him. This town is under my charge now." The tall man eximed, and quickly two of the soldiers behind him walked up to the Vige head, while the onlooking Vigers were in an uproar over this.


    But that uproar soon ended when the two Soldiers, John and Mark, wereying on the ground. Once Eiro heard Rumia speak, he immediately ran forward and threw the water-filled ice bubble at them and made the water heat up as he was doing so, and once the water covered the ground underneath them he immediately started to freeze it.


    At the same time, Eiro had been freezing the water that Nelli was spreading in front of him to use it for a smooth attack. Because like this, he could run and drop himself to the ground while keeping the same momentum he had before for after, or at least the loss of momentum wasn''t quite asrge.


    And what Eiro did was rather simple. For just a moment, he had his Three of Swords out and stabbed it into the back of the Soldiers'' Armor to make use of their heavy weight and pull them down. Immediately after that, he returned the Three of Swords into their card state and ced the card back into his treasury.


    Luckily, it took everyone in the group of Soldiers a little while to realize what was going on, and even Rumia only noticed Eiro after looking around for a moment or two.


    But then, he immediately pulled his sword and pointed it at the figure standing in front of him, "Wh-Who are you?!" Rumia eximed, although Eiro just smiled underneath his mask and tilted his head as a shadowy mist seeped out from underneath his mask and cloak.


    "Who am I?" He repeated, thinking maybe ying around could be a little fun as well. A fight was good enough for him, but he first needed to figure out who these people were. In the books that Eiro read so far, when a group of soldiers went somewhere, they ususally had to regrly report to their higher-ups.


    If it was the case here as well and they ended up sending reinforcements after not hearing anything, then this situation might end up far worse in the long run.


    So, with his voice echoing through the Central ce, the Demon just started tough, "You were looking for me, were you not?" Eiro asked, and from behind him, the Demon could feel the cold air of weapons being drawn and the sounds apanying John and Mark as they were standing up and doing simply that.


    And through that voice, another voice spoke, "L-Lord Argenson, this man is the one who will rece the current Guide. He goes by ''Eiro''." The Vige Head exined as he quickly recognized the Demon''s figure, and immediately, the Soldiers started to mutter amongst themselves while Rumia just tightened his grip on his sword.


    "How insolent!" He eximed, which was a rather unexpected response from the Demon''s position, "Who are you to walk here, spreading your name as the Great Hero''s?!" Rumia asked, and Eiro just raised his brows as he started to chuckle.


    "I''m sorry, but I don''t see where the issue is? That ''Great Hero'' is dead, is he not? I''m alive, so why should I let a dead man dictate what I can and can''t be named?" Eiro slightlyughed, and immediately, the mumbling of the soldiers became louder.


    Eiro was full aware that it was more than just unusual to be called Eiro. As was quite clear right here, it was quite insulting to some to have someone be named Eiro. It was even illegal in some ces, actually. The name was seen as more of a title these days, after all. The Hero of every generation would be known as ''Eiro''s Descendant'', so being called ''Eiro'' was like saying you were the same as him, and better than the hero.


    Well, when the Imp here was named this, neither he himself nor the children were aware of those facts, but now it was toote. His name was already approved by his Status, so there were little ways to change that now.


    The only reason why Eiro wanted to do this was a simple one. People that were angry or upset often spoke too much, and that was what Eiro was counting on right now.


    "I don''t care who you are, there''s still the current Guide! We''ll have him give the task to me! So, men, kill this wicked heretic!" Rumia eximed, and immediately, he could notice that not only the two men behind him started swinging at him, but the soldiers behind Rumia were preparing to pull their weapons as well.


    But before anyone could do anything, Nelli appeared out of thin air and started covering the street underneath everyone''s feet inrge amounts of water, that were of course quickly frozen by Eiro.


    This water was pretty cold right now, so it took a bit longer than Eiro would have liked, but it was fine this way as well, because it made it that the Soldiers had their legs covered in a bit of the water as well, which was even more favorable to Eiro.


    Quickly, the Demon started sliding across the surface of the ice, since his body had surprisingly amazing control on such a surface, so he just started sliding across with a few swift motions, just moving around the group of armed soldiers as the water froze more and more.


    "Heretic? Ah, and before you spoke of a Holy King? Hmm, then you''re part of Zhurgard?" Eiro asked as he kept sliding around on the surface of ice, propelling him around in an even more agile manner with the help of his Wind Magic, masterfully dodging and tripping up the Soldiers that were trying to attack him.


    Although, there were currently also some Mages preparing to mess with the Demon, but Eiro had Nelli properly keep an eye on them. Eiro himself was a bit too sensorially overwhelmed to concentrate on any one thing right now.


    Surprised, Rumia kept looking at Eiro, not moving his eyes off of him for even a split-second, and then started to grind his teeth in a manner that Eiro could even hear him do so, "Do not speak the name of our Holy Kingdom! A Heretic like you should watch themself!" Rumia yelled out, and Eiro just rapidly moved his feet into Rumia''s direction and pushed his body weight into the opposite direction that he was moving to keep his bnce while he used his Ice Magic to create a slope that helped him slow down.


    "Hmm, really? I should be the one watching myself?" Eiro asked, looking at the group of soldiers struggling to stand up with their heavy armor on their bodies. They had obviously been marching for a good while now and were already exhausted to an incredible amount, but just then, the Mages finally got what they were trying to work and started to melt the ice back into water, so Nelli quickly informed Eiro of this.


    "Alright then, Nelli, prepare for a big one." Eiro warned and then held his right hand forward, and immediately, Rumia started tough loudly. "Hahahah, what are you trying to do now, huh?! You can see that you can''t run from us forever, can''t you?! What can a crippled man like you do with a fake hand?!" He asked, seemingly not understanding what Eiro was nning to do.


    But with a slight sigh, the Demon just stopped pushing the Shadow Mana into his body and quickly moved the Shadow Magic Stone back into his treasury so that he could concentrate all of his mana into what he was about to do.


    The thing about Eiro''s current prosthetic was that it was something created out of Eiro''s mana itself. It grew and became something that could only be truly utilized by this unique creature, and spent all of its lifetime bathing in the energy of nature.


    It was just the perfect material for a staff or wand. Since that was the case, what would happen if Eiro utilized his wooden fingers like five small wands? He was able to make use of Magic Circles in a far quicker and more detailed manner than others would be.


    As such, the very moment that Eiro''s fingers started moving, the Demon practically painted lines of ice into the air using water that Nelli was preparing for him. It was intricate, but strong. Refined, but at the same time chaotic. It was wild, and somehow tamed.. It was a Unique Magic Circle that the Smartest Imp came up with.

 Chapter 92 - Understood?

    The creation of magic circles was something that one had to master in order to advance as a user of Magic, no matter what their focus was. At some point, it was just a basic necessity. Of course, it was obviously possible to make use of different elements in their raw state with just your body, but this required aparatively immense amount of mana as well as incredible control, with minimal return whenpared to Magic Circles.


    While they required you to be static during their creation, except if you had specifically practiced the creation of Magic Circles while mobile, which was something that took even more control. There were different ways to create Magic Circles as well, out of which two methods were the most widespread.


    One, there was the image-based creation. While it was one of the fastest ways, it was also a quite inreliable one, since it meant you would need to imagine the whole Magic Circle in itspletion before creating it, and especially when it came to the use of mana, your mind tired easily so it was quite easy to make mistakes even for those that were adept with their mental imagery.


    Then, there was the draw-based creation, where you were literally drawing the magic circle into the air. It was one of the slowest ways to create magic circles out there, but it was the one that gave you most control over what you were doing, since it made it easier to create ratherplicated magic circles.


    And then there was a way thatbined both of these, where you would mentally ''link'' a certain type of pattern to your staff to speed the process up a bit more while losing as little of the control as possible. But many people weren''t quite capable of this method, since it required you to be able to both immediately switch to another specific part of the magic circle while remembering the whole thing in its entirety, while also managing the actual drawing of the magic circle as well as the mana flow that needed to be manipted to give out more or less depending on the specific part in the magic circle.


    However, Eiro himself had an uncanny talent for magic as well as memory that was second to none, so he was able to actually make use of that tactic, which was just supported even more due to the fact that he had five small wands in the form of the fingers on his Prosthetic.


    While just staring at the ice that he used to create the current magic circle he was working on, Eiro did his best to switch the mental connection of his fingers out properly. His little finger and thumb were both there for basic lines, while his ring and index finger were supposed to create different runic patterns, and his middle finger was just supposed to fill in for whatever rest was needed.


    "He¡­ He''s creating a Magic Circle with his body¡­" One of the mages that were part of Rumia''s troupe muttered quietly. It made sense that he was confused, since the method of creating Prosthetics like Eiro''s wasn''t far spread. Even the fact that you could manipte your Life Force at all was something that little to no part of the popce was aware of, no matter their position.


    ording to Jura, even most of the high-ranking adventurers and military officers hadn''t even heard of the term ''Life Force'' in this context. Of course there were some amongst those that did, but they usually didn''t make use of it due to the repercussions that came with Life Force maniption such as the pain that followed it or the risk that came with it.


    "Who cares about that?! Attack him, right now! It''s just one man!" Rumiamanded as he pointed his sword toward Eiro, but just when the first soldiers ran forward to do just that, the Demon started to grin broadly underneath his mask as the magic circle of ice started to spin around itself while glowing in a faint light, while the Demon started to let some of the water that Nelli was producing flow into his left hand and over his body, on top of the cloak, led it to his right hand right into the Magic Circle.


    The reason he was doing this for was rather simple. It allowed him to utilize as much mana as possible when heating the water up. And as the liquid started to release some steam it entered the magic circle that was made to shoot the water forward and spread it out while making it freeze around the men that were there.


    And that had one major reason. All of the soldiers were wearing full metallic armor, but there were always open spaces covered only in cloth or leather around their joints. So, Eiro wanted the water to specifically spread around the men while seeking out those weak points, although that was only possible through Eiro and Nelli''s joint maniption over the water that was already pushed through the magic circle.


    Of course, this wouldn''t have been possible without the magic circle either, which acted as the central piece to allow the fine control of such arge amount of water at such a distance.


    And once the hot water spread around the joints of the soldiers and even sometimes spread underneath their armor, it immediately froze and made it practically impossible for them to move on their own, creating what seemed like a number of statues. Some of the soldiers fell down due to their momentum, and others were just stuck in ce, although they all had one thing inmon. They couldn''t fight anymore.


    Of course, Rumia and the Mages, neither of which had such weak points because Rumia''s armor covered even the joints, and the mages weren''t wearing armor in the first ce and were just covered in cloth robes.


    "Hmm, what were you saying?" Eiro asked as he extended his arm to the side, where Nelli quickly appeared through droplets of water gathering there, showing her just sitting on his arm in a dignified manner with her legs crossed before she continued for the Demon. "One man that was chosen and blessed by a Goddess of Nature and one of the Greatest Spirits there ever were alike, as well as his good friend, an all-powerful Naiad~!" She eximed, "And you think you can face us with just a dozen men?" Nelli asked with a bit of a chuckle, while the Vigers started to mumble amongst themselves, although especially the Vige Head realized who this spirit that was apanying Eiro truly was.


    "Eiro, is that¡­ Nelli? What happened to him? How is Jura?" He asked nervously, already feeling as if he knew the answer, and the Demon slowly turned toward him. "I had hoped to be able to tell you in another way, but¡­ Jura passed a week ago. I''m now the sole Guide to¡­ The Ladies¡­" Eiro exined, although he was rather surprised when he ended up seeing something he had never expected to see.


    He looked at one of the menying on the ground, one of the few that had actually injured themselves, and could see something red in his eyes. But somehow, it wasn''t just the mere color like it usually was. Instead, Eiro could see a full reflection. Aplete mirrored representation of the notification currently floating in front of the soldier.


    [-67 Health]


    It said, and in response to that, Eiro couldn''t help himself but smirk broadly, and then started tough loudly. "Actually, you know what, now that I think about it, it does seem rather troublesome." The Demon said, unable to get rid of his grin, although that wasn''t visible to the outside. Only Nelli seemed to be able to tell what he was actually feeling.


    "I was dragged around by that old man every single time, and now I''m stuck in such a boring little nutshell of a vige? Right¡­" Eiro sighed as he shook his head, and then turned back toward Rumia, "So you want to free me of that task?" Eiro asked, and with a broad smile, Rumia immediately nodded his head.


    "Of course, of course! In return for the position of Guide, I might even consider killing you painlessly!" Rumia exined, as if this was some sort of benevolent action, and with augh, Eiro just nodded his head, "Hey, that''s an offer I can''t fight with." Eiro replied, and then snapped his fingers all the whilst manipting the air around him to cause a strong, cold wind to blow toward Rumia, even manipting some of the water droplets caught on his cloak to create tiny shards of ice that were carried with the wind to create something like a glitter to make it seem even more magical.


    "Alright, you should have it now. It''s like a blessing, so it should be at the bottom of your status right now." Eiro exined. It was obvious to anyone with a single braincell that this was nothing but a ruse, and even Rumia figured that out the moment that Eiro pretended to change his mind. But that wasn''t what Eiro needed at all. He just needed that small moment of doubt, the single thought of ''What if he is telling the truth''. And it seemed like Rumia had exactly that thought stuck in his mind, and with a quick thought seemed to silently open his status just to make sure and then clicked his tongue annoyedly.


    "Heh, you''d think I''d fall for that? Right, I-"


    "What the hell, you''re at that position and only have Apprentice Swordsmanship at 76? I mean, at least you have a Group Tactic skill that''s intermediate, so maybe it''s not too far-fetched¡­ And what''s this, you have an Intermediate Dance skill? And at Level 53 as well¡­ I sure would love to see a man of your¡­ grace, make use of that sometime." Eiro interrupted with loudugh, and for a moment, nobody understood what he was speaking about until they saw Rumia''s face turn a dark red.


    "H-How do you know about that?! You''re not an appraiser, are you?!" Rumia asked with a loud scream, and Eiro just smirked slightly, and the Demon just took a step forward with his hands behind his back, and just smiled at Rumia, "Oh, who knows what I am. I certainly don''t. But what I am certain of is that I''m far smarter than you. Hell, even my kids have a higher intelligence stat than you, and none of them are even fifteen yet. To be fair, your constitution and resistance are rather impressive. But what else would you expect from a coward." Eiro pointed out, purposefully trying to provoke him a bit. "Coward¡­? Coward, you say..?" Rumia asked, and bluntly, Eiro just nodded his head in response, "That''s right." He replied quite clearly, and immediately, Rumia started rushing toward Eiro with his sword in hand. As far as Rumia was concerned, Eiro was just a mage, so the obvious solution would be to attack him in close quarters.


    But since that really wasn''t the case¡­ Rumia was rather surprised when he stopped his body and felt the tip of a dagger pressed against his throat.


    "H-How did you..?" Rumia asked quietly. He could have sworn that Eiro was trying to punch him, he didn''t have anything in his hand at all. But this situation reached this point in a single second, and Rumia didn''t have high agility, so he couldn''t really do much about this situation on his own. He was in aplete bind.


    "Now then, buddy. Let me exin something to you. And pay attention, I will only say it once, although it''s the second time you''ve heard it, but you so rudely ignored the one that told you before." Eiro pointed his eyes as he slowly looked at the Vige Head, and then turned back toward Rumia himself, just slightly pushing the tip of his dagger further into his skin. "The only ones that can choose the guides of thedies are thedies themselves. And you know the reason why they need guides, right? Somehow, no matter how often theye, they can''t find their way here, and when they spend too much time in this realm will just go mad and destroy everything. What do you think a god like that will do to someone that intrudes on them so rudely?" The Demon exined, and then added, "Let''s just say you would be lucky to be killed here by me. I have a personal situation going on, so I will be away in a year. If you leave the town be except during the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, as well as the Summer and Winter Solstices, then I will do you a favor of mediating between you and such wrathful goddesses. Understood?"


    With a deep re, Eiro stared Rumia right into his eyes, and he just silently stared back, so Eiro repeated himself.


    "Understood?"

 Chapter 93 - Stats

    Rumia looked back at Eiro, who was holding his dagger onto his throat, and then just slowly formed a wry smile, "So you''re saying that you can really not make that choice yourself?" In response, Eiro just sighed.


    "It''s a yes or no question." The Demon pointed out, and Rumia had no choice but to agree right now. The whole town was watching, and even someone like him knew that this was an unfavorable situation for him, just considering the whole scale this grew to. If it was like this, to truly control the whole town like he was initially nning to was just an unrealistic fantasy that he couldn''t hope to aplish.


    Ruling with an iron fist was alright, but even Rumia didn''t want to force the vigers at the level of what could only be called envement. Enving people was a sin, after all.


    "Fine¡­ Have it your way. We will stay in this town and ensure its safety for the following year. And trust me, the only reason I''m letting you live right now is because you are the only way for us to achieve our goal." Rumia pointed out, so Eiro just nodded his head in satisfaction.


    "Good enough for me." He replied, and then turned his head over toward the Vige Head, "I''m sorry, but I think I should take my leave now. I will be back next week, if you want to speak to me then, I will dly take the time to." Eiro exined, and then took a step backward while moving his hand to the side and letting go of the dagger that immediately disappeared into nothingness, making especially the mages wonder what this ability was, and Eiro just started walking away without another word, although Rumia quickly stopped him.


    "Before you leave, there is one question I must ask." Rumia eximed, and Eiro slowly turned around again and looked at the tall, fully armored man. "How did you do it? Appraisal is a quite rare ability, and most appraisers capable of seeing even skills are quite weak when ites tobat. However¡­" Rumia muttered as he looked around the group of men that was slowly starting to get up again, "That is obviously not the case with you."


    With a grin on his face, although it was well-hidden by Eiro''s mask, the Demon ced his finger onto the ce where his eye usually would be, although his current mask hid even those from outsiders, "You''re quite easy to see through, Rumia. Your eyes show what you''re thinking about." The Demon exined, and then simply rushed off into the closest alleyway to get to the stables and pick Lugo up again, before Eiro rode him out of the Vige again.


    He was sure that at least for now, Rumia would be somewhat contained and wouldn''t bother the vigers too much, but Eiro would just have to see. At the very least in 7 weeks, during the Winter Solstice, Rumia should see that he couldn''t mess with the Ladies that easily.


    And so, with a rather rxed expression, the Demon slowly took off his mask and ced it into his treasury as he just heard Nelliugh loudly right next to him, which immediately made his ears ring a little. Noticing this fact, the Spirit calmed down again and floated in front of Eiro.


    "That face of his was just so amazing!" She said with a chuckle, and Eiro nodded his head with a light smile, "It was, wasn''t it?" He replied, and Nelli then looked at him rather suspiciously.


    "But you were rather confident in your ability to defeat him, weren''t you? Otherwise you never would have gone for such a straight-forward attack at the end." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro just shrugged.


    "Most of it was that he was just underestimating me, and he was pretty mad so the little ability to make judgements that he had shrunk considerably. And pulling out a dagger instantly out of nowhere isn''t necessarily something you can expect either." Eiro replied, before Nelli just keptughing.


    "Haah¡­ But actually, how did you manage to get his status information?" The spirit asked, and Eiro just smirked, "I looked into one of the soldiers'' eyes while he was on the ground and noticed that I could read his health-loss notification. It seems like with my new sight, I can read even things like that."


    "Wait, isn''t that super amazing? I''m not sure I know about anyone or anything that can do that¡­" Nelli pointed out, and then looked at Eiro with a smirk. "So..? Then you used that little speech to get him to open his status and got his information?"


    "Exactly that." Eiro replied, so Nelli curiously floated up next to him. "So, what was his status like?" She asked, so Eiro thought for a while and then just shrugged. "Pretty¡­ regr, I''d say? Well, his resistance and constitution were well above one hundred, but everything else was below eighty. Nothing special, really. It seemed a little unbnced, I guess." The Demon pointed out with a light grin, feeling like that Rumia guy was really too dumb for his own good. But Nelli thought differently.


    "Ahh, tough luck¡­ I feel a little bad for him, actually." The Naiad pointed out with a slight sigh, and Eiro raised his brows confused as he turned over toward her, "What do you mean, it''s his own fault. If he had taken a few of the points from constitution or restistance and put them into agility, I wouldn''t have been able to do all that, most likely." Eiro exined, but Nelli just looked at him with her brows raised and a wry smile.


    "You know exactly that it''s not as easy as that." She pointed out, "Influencing the distribution is really, really tough." Nelli exined, but Eiro stared at her confused.


    "But it''s not? It''s really easy, isn''t it?" Eiro said, and Nelli squinted her eyes suspiciously for a few moments, "Are you messing with me, or can you actually influence your stat distribution as easy as you say?" She asked, before Eiro stared at her with a frown. He was messing with her? She was messing with him! Eiro was just getting really confused right now, "Of course it''s easy, you just need to put the points into the stats you want." He pointed out, and immediately, Nelli''s expression became nk, as if she was just shutting down.


    "You know that ''put points into stats'' is just a figure of speech, right?" She sighed deeply, "You can''t actually put points into your stats, I guess the way your stats increased just always fit into what you wanted. That''s the case most of the time anyway, because that feels the mostfortable." Nelli pointed out, but Eiro was just getting even more confused.


    "What are you even talking about? Of course you can ''put points into stats''. You level up, get stat points, and put them into whatever stat you want." Eiro said, even getting slightly agitated, and all of a sudden, Nelli looked at him confused.


    "Huh?" She muttered quietly, and Eiro just kept looking at her questioningly, "What?" He asked, and Nelli was trying to process what she was just told.


    "You can literally choose which stats to increase?" Nelli asked, and Eiro just nodded his head as if it was obvious and natural.


    "What..?"


    "What is it?"


    "It''s just¡­"


    "It''s just what? Nelli, can you stop messing with me?" Eiro asked the Spirit, and and Nelli just floated there deep in thought.


    "I''m not messing with you, Eiro¡­" She muttered quietly, and then looked at the Demon with some thought, "Could you open your status for a moment and show me what happens when you level up?" Nelli asked him, so Eiro sighed deeply and made his status appear, just like he was asked to.


    [Name ¨C Eiro][Race ¨C Ice Blue Collector Imp][Level ¨C 9]


    [Health ¨C 24.250][Mana ¨C 42.250]


    [Strength ¨C 50][Constitution - 50][Resistance ¨C 20]


    [Agility - 64][Evasion ¨C 50][Dexterity - 53]


    [Intelligence - 90][Wisdom ¨C 85]


    [Perception ¨C 90][Willpower ¨C 30][Charisma ¨C 20]


    [0 Stat Points Avable]


    "When I level up, with my current evolution I get 10 stat points and it shows down there. Then I think about which Stat I want to increase, and the stat increases by one and the avable stat points decrease by one¡­ Isn''t that what normally happens?" Eiro asked, and Nelli shook her head with a wry smile.


    "Normal? It''s anything but normal, Eiro, it''s¡­ insane. You can''t manually increase your stats like that, at least not normally¡­ When normal people level up, your stats increase automatically depending on your general exposition, your ss or race, and of course your general useage of your different abilities¡­ That''s the one thing that ties every being with a status together." Nelli exined, and Eiro just looked at her confusedly.


    "What do you mean?" Eiro asked, and then for some reason that information just seemed to overwhelm his mind, because what he believed in in regards to stats had just been thrown intoplete disarray, "Wait, but¡­ What?" He asked, and then turned back toward his contracted Spirit, "You''re not joking, are you?"


    "I''m really not¡­ I mean, you can take a look, my status doesn''t have the ''Stat Points Avable'' thing. And did the status from that guy before have it?" Nelli asked, and Eiro quickly recalled Rumia''s status and just shook his head.


    "No, it didn''t¡­" Eiro muttered quietly, and Nelli looked at him curiously, "Were you always able to do this?" She asked, and the Demon just slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, I was. Literally since my first level-up¡­ Of course I couldn''t read then yet, but now I know that itter kept suggesting I put it into my intelligence stat, and I ended up agreeing to it on coincedence¡­ I had no idea what it was about, so¡­" Eiro pointed out, and for some reason, he seemed to have said something else that was unusual, at least judging from Nelli''s expression, and the Demon sighed deeply.


    "What is it this time..?" Eiro asked, and the Spirit slowly crossed her arms and smiled at her Contractor, "You''re supposed to instinctively know what your status and notifications say when you look at it, even if you can only see specific thingster on¡­ But you always saw the notification in the Common Language?" Nelli asked, and the Demon just sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he rested his forehead on a part of Lugo''s antlers that stuck out toward him.


    "Really, can''t I just go look for that Sun guy and ask him about what I am already?" He asked, and Nelli looked at him with a wry smile, "Sorry, you''re barely strong enough to take on a very mediocre Knight and a crippled, heavily injured, angry Adventurer. I doubt you''re a match for a Royal Monster."


    "I know, I know, don''t worry. As if I''d want to meet the guy that was originally given the task to retrieve Avalin. A bit too risky as far as I''m concerned." Eiro pointed out, and Nelli just slowly nodded her head in response.


    "Fair enough¡­" She replied, and then slowly turned her eyes back toward Eiro, "Did we really just so easily ept that you have an ability that literally changes one of the most basic rules of existence?" She asked, and Eiro looked at her with a nk expression.


    "Right, ask that the Imp with intelligence andnguageprehension surpassing the average human, while on his way to his children, one of which is the one being on this that is supposed to be the ultimate weapon against Demons. Oh, by the way, do you want to take a look at my three god-tier items again, or do you want me to keep showing you the wooden arm that can move as if it''s real?"


    "¡­"


    "¡­"


    "¡­Have you always been such a sarcastic ass?"

 Chapter 94 - Invaluable

    "Okay, so we''re just going to look into it and keep quiet about it with the others for now?" Nelli asked, just to confirm and sum up the conversation they held over the past few hours since they had drifted off a fair bit. They were rather close to home again, so she wanted to make sure she really understood what she could and couldn''t talk about with the kids.


    In response, Eiro just nodded his head, "Yes, I would suggest so. I don''t think I have found anything rted to the topic in the bookstore in town, so we might have to wait until we start travelling in a year¡­ Even though at that point, that shouldn''t be our main focus." Eiro pointed out, and with those words, something was triggered in his head and he sighed deeply.


    "Great, Ipletely forgot to look around town and remember the scent of different people." Eiro sighed, and Nelli raised her brows surprised, "Right! I forgot about it too, sorry¡­ But can''t you try to remember how they smelled?" Nelli suggested, and Eiro thought about it for a moment before inevitably nodding.


    "Well, that''s a better idea than turning around¡­" The Demon muttered, slowly closing his eyes before trying to ess the memory from before in its ''Perfect'' state.


    That''s what Eiro called it when he directly dove into Memories and experienced as if he was there at that very moment again. Usually, he could also just ess the raw information like you normally would in a memory, simply far more detailed than regr.


    And there Eiro was, back in the town, waiting for Tom to open the Guild up, and instead of focusing on what was going on inside the Guild, the Imp focused on the other people slowly beginning their day, especially on those that Eiro spoke to a few times already and whose specific race he knew.


    This would be far, far easier if he could just ask Rudy and Leon for their racial information on their status, but people apparently only saw a ''ss'' field in that spot. There were ways to somehow add another field of information like that apparently, but the methods were ratherplicated and Eiro couldn''t do it himself since it required a specific skill.


    Either way, for now, Eiro just started to try and focus on the scent of the different people, and after a while, he got a ''match'', or at least the closest to one. It was the man that owned the most livestock in town, basically supplying all the milk, eggs, and most of the meat that was needed here so that they didn''t need to go out and hunt all the time.


    And as far as Eiro could remember, he wasn''t one of those with monster blood, but still part of a race prosecuted in some countries around the world. He was a Beastman, an ''Angus Bull'' to be exact. It wasn''t a perfect match, but there was a part of it that ovepped with the ''racial scent'' that Leon gave off.


    Thinking that it was a good lead, Eiro concentrated on trying to smell the few Beastmen in this town, and soon managed to narrow one thing down when it came to Leon. He must be a beastman¡­ But it didn''t show at least. Most beastmen that Eiro saw and met so far had rather minor details on their bodies, like different ears, some had horns, split tongues, or tails. It seemed like there were some other cases where a Beastman looked basically like the bipedal version of the beast whose n they belong to, but those were really rare.


    But at least Eiro did manage to get a clue out of it! They just had to start and take a look if Leon had anything different about him, just some smaller details. Although, if that was the case, then shouldn''t Sammy have noticed it by now? She was the one with Leon and Avalin the most, after all.


    Either way, now that Eiro had a little bit of a clue toward what Leon might be, he went back to the start of the memory to specifically keep searching for a smell like Rudy''s. But sadly, he couldn''t really find anything at all. None of them smelled much like Rudy when it came to their ''Race Scent'', and the Demon just left the ''Perfect Memory'' state and looked at Nelli who was already watching him rather curiously.


    "I think I have an idea what Leon might be, a Beastman, but I still don''t know anything about Rudy¡­" Eiro exined, and Nelli opened her eyes wide in surprise. "Leon, a Beastman? Really?" Nelli asked, before cupping her chin in response, "Hmm, true, those kinds of things often only set in during puberty for Beastmen, so it could be¡­"


    "Is that so?" Eiro asked, although he was still mostly focused on what might be the case with Rudy. He was an orphan, so he really didn''t know what his parents were like, or who they even were, so they couldn''t just ask Rudy either. But who knows, maybe he did have some clues at least.


    Thinking just that, Eiro started to smell something, the rather strong smell of the treatment solutions that the wood he left behind was sitting in right now, and when Eiro stretched his body to look a bit through the thick-grown forest, he could also soon see the house. The sun had already gone down again by now, but luckily they managed to finally arrive, so the Demon rxed a bit. They hadn''t been pursued by anyone either, different to what Eiro had initially expected considering how easily Rumia agreed toward the end, but it all worked out in his favor, so it was fine.


    Soon, Lugo started climbing the hill, and Eiro got off of him and let the Stag make his way to his bed to let him sleep, and the Demon then first made his way into the hut to check on everything. There was still a fair amount of time left until the first things had to be taken out, roughly another 12 hours, so he should be able to just go to bed if everything was in good condition.


    Once he looked at the few different tubs and checked on the wood a little, Eiro sighed in relief and made his way back out of the hut and into the main part of the house, where he heard the voices of the four older kids speak while Leon and Avalin were asleep. Just when he wanted to enter the house, however, he heard something surprising.


    "And for how long have you felt that way?" Rudy asked with concern in his voice, and in response, Sammy spoke up, her heart beating so loud that Eiro could hear it do so, "Maybe a couple of months, I guess? And now that Jura is dead, shouldn''t we finally step up a bit more?" Sammy asked the others, and with a quiet grumble, Arc leaned back in his chair, making it creak just so slightly.


    "''Step up'' in what way exactly? I know that we''ve always had a rather leisure lifestyle here, but it''s not like we were justzing around all the time. We all had our tasks." He pointed out, and Sammy replied again.


    "Of course we did! But isn''t Eiro the only one who is out all day every day? Gathering nts, hunting animals¡­ The only time that I''ve seen him not do that was during special, or hard, times¡­ Like now¡­ And in the end, we should do our best to practice with the weapons that Eiro is making for us, right?" She pointed out, and Arc sighed deeply. "Obviously, none of us were nning on cking off." He exined, and Clementine immediately tuned in herself.


    "Exactly! We all want to help as much as possible, but¡­ Can we really be that much help to Eiro?" She asked quietly, and Sammy slowly responded, "That''s exactly my point¡­ A year from now, for my and Leon''s sake, we''re going to leave our home, and I don''t want the task of protecting us to be only up to Eiro¡­ But just like you said, how can we ever really help Eiro out like we''re now?" Sammy pointed out, and everyone in the round became quiet, before the Demon swung the door open, making all four of them look at him surprised and startled.


    "E-Eiro, you-"


    "Sammy, be quiet for a bit, alright? Just let me speak." Eiro said with a deep sigh, and then quickly stepped up behind the one of the four closest to him. "I don''t know much aboutbat in practice yet, since I actually didn''t have many chances to fight with people, but I know a lot about the theory behind it. And especially the theory behind growth of people when ites tobat." He pointed out, and ced his hands on Rudy''s shoulders.


    "Here we have Rudy. A Kind-Natured boy, he likes to cook and sew, and even knits like a champion. Despite his physique, he seems rather timid, doesn''t he?" Eiro started, and the boy looked up at him with a wry smile, "Is there a ''But'' after that?" He asked, so Eiro chuckled a bit.


    "Of course there is¡­ But, even though that may be the case, and even though I don''t particrly enjoy thinking about it, Rudy is perfect when ites to defense. Second to none, really. He is a protective person, and if he can manage to get a bit quicker on his feet, nobody here will even have to fight because no enemy can get through him. And outside ofbat, we won''t need to worry about freezing or starving either." Eiro exined, and then went along toward Clementine.


    "Then, there''s the girl that can heal close to every type of injury that exists, with an unbelieveable talent for Healing magic. On top of that, her body is incredibly receptive to healing. I don''t particrly enjoy the healing-methods that can be used through thatbo, but nheless, with her, we won''t have to worry about dying because of injury." He pointed out, and then moved on to Arc.


    "And Arc here is an incredible schemer. Thinking about it makes me ufortable, but since he doesn''t feel pain and his mind always stays cool, his reaction ability inbat will be many times above what it usually is for people."


    Then, Eiro stepped up behind Sammy and ced his hands onto the top of her head. "And then you, Sammy. You are just purely kind, and with just your voice, once you master your skill, you will be able topletely influencebat with other people. We might be able to just tell them to turn around and leave that way¡­ I don''t want to just leave a burden like that on you, but still¡­" The Imp sighed, and then slowly turned around and looked at the sleeping Leon and Avalin.


    "Those two are luckily years away from joining a fight, but Leon might be able topletely influence the tide of battle with monsters, while with Avalin, we definitely won''t need to worry about Undead and Demons ever." Eiro exined to them, and then sat down at the table with the others, just cing the thread that he got at town onto the table and kept looking at the others.


    "Don''t worry about your worth to me. All of you are invaluable. Even if you just sit back and never move a finger, that won''t change. Well, I might give you a bit of a knock on the head, but you get what I mean." The Demon said, and then ced his hand on the Forest-Spider Thread. "Tomorrow morning, I will get started on everything. By the end of the week, it should be done, and we''ll get to practicing.. Alright?" Eiro suggested, and with bright smiles, the four of them simply agreed.

 Chapter 95 - Swords And Shield

    ''Let''s Get to Work'', Eiro thought to himself as he entered the hut, fully prepared to work for the rest of the day to get everything done, and then first stepped up to the bath with the wooden Ovoya des, quickly taking them out of there with the help of metal tongs, and then he ced them directly onto a fire that he just lit in the corner of the room that was built with brick, where the bathtub usually stood.


    It was causing a rather strong smell, so Eiro opened the window that was directly next to the firece, and then looked around and soon found the Avenos that he set down here to make Sammy''s bow.


    Since the parts of Rudy''s shield still needed some time in the treatment-solution, he would first get the base for this done before getting those parts out and letting them dry.


    Making a bow was in itself not necessarily thatplex, especially considering the structure that the n Eiro got was going for. The wooden body had three main parts in it, the Riser, and the two limbs.


    The Riser was the center-part that would be held and was usually a rather thick, strong part since it wasn''t supposed to bend either. As for the two limbs, they were the recurve type, and luckily that wasn''t too hard to do with the pieces of wood that Eiro had here. It might be a little annoying to tightly attach the limbs to the riser though, so Eiro wasn''t necessarily excited for that.


    And so, Eiro quickly got started on first making the rather basic riser, leaving out the parts that he needed to attachter to properly connect the limbs, and then set that to the side. This didn''t take too long, since Eiro wouldter shape the handle to fit Sammy''s hand better, meaning that woulde as ater step. For now, he left enough material to properly aplish that on the strong piece of wood, and then got started on the two limbs, thinly carving along them where the part where the limbs and riser met where the thickest and strongest, making sure to get the curvature right.


    In a normal bow, the end-parts of the bow where the string would be connected to, the nocks, were pointed at the one that was holding the bow, and it had a single regr curve to it. But for a recurve bow, the nocks were pointed forward toward the target, bending forward just right before the end-part.


    Eiro didn''t necessarily know the reason behind this, but it seemed to help with the speed that the arrow would then be shot out.


    For now, just like with the riser, Eiro left the limbs too thick, although not for the purpose of fitting them to a certain shapeter, but rather to more easily be able to adjust the way the bow could bend. After all, you could always remove more of the wood, but you couldn''t add more once it was gone. Once Eiro was done with one of the limbs, he chose to finally take the parts for Rudy''s shield out of the bath and then left them out to dry outside, with the door open so that he could keep an eye on them more easily. Of course he could hear everything what was going on, but he wanted to be sure he could see if anything was wrong.


    And then, Eiro got started on the second limb, and when evening came around, had the body of the bow fully constructed and connected, and then just needed to start the fine-tuning. The Ovoya still had to stay in the fire a little while, and Eiro figured he would be done by then and could ce the bow into its own treatment bath while finishing up the training swords.


    So, the Demon got started on the thread. Forest-Spider Silk was an incredibly strong type of thread, well known for both how much it supported the flow of mana, as well as the fact that it was hard to cut through with regr des. When Jura taught Eiro about different types of materials like these, he said that this silk was often used to cover the inside of the clothes of important officials or nobles to protect against Assassination attempts.


    However, it was rather hard to get by, so it was usually pretty expensive and even then only avable in small quantities. Even the thread that Eiro got would have cost him a fair amount, despite it only having enough thread to cover for a little over half a dozen bowstrings. Well, since money wasn''t really an issue for Eiro, once he got the chance to, maybe he should look into having some clothes for Leon and Avalin made using Forest-Spider Silk.


    That was just something for the future, however, and for now Eiro had to get the training weapons done first and quickly bound the thread tightly around the nocks, and then spent a minute or so trying to cut through it since the rest of the silk was still hanging onto it.


    And then, Eiro just fixed the riser in ce and pulled on the bowstring to see how well and how evenly it was bending before starting to carve away a little bit at a time at the back of the bow''s limbs, so on the side facing toward the target, and soon managed to get a rather flexible, well-bnced bow, although he might still need to do some adjustments when Sammy actually started using it, depending on how well she could manage this specific way. He didn''t learn to be a bowmaker, after all, just how to make realistic, magical wooden limbs.


    And so, the bow''s wood was soon done, and Eiro removed the bowstring with satisfaction and then ced the wooden piece into the treatment bath, before grabbing the wooden des that were basicallypletely covered in soot, so Eiro just waited for the wood to cool down and then ran over the wooden des with a piece of wet cloth to clean them up, before grabbing the handles that he had prepared before, cing them onto the des'' base before Eiro looked at them with satisfaction in his eyes.


    "Alright, perfect." The Demon said, although just when he did, he noticed a bit of an embarrassing mistake. There was a slight bit of a rough part on the handle that Arc could hurt his fingers on¡­ Arc himself wouldn''t notice, so Eiro had to properly make sure to get rid of anything like that. With his carving knife in hand, Eiro just lightly ran over the rough part to smooth it down some, making a notification appear in front of him.


    [Apprentice Carving Leveled Up!]


    [Apprentice Carving hit Level 100 and became Intermediate Carving]


    There it was, the notification that Eiro had been expecting for quite a while. It seemed like that small part finally pushed it over the edge, huh?


    "Oh! Congrats, Eiro!" Nelli eximed as she noticed the notification floating in front of the Imp, and the Demon himself just nodded his head with a smile. Like this, he could really do Jura''s teachings justice, couldn''t he?


    With satisfaction, as well as some underlying bitterness at not aplishing this before Jura''s passing, the Demon just ced the two Training swords, one of them two-handed and the other one-handed, to the side and then moved on. Since Eiro woke up pretty early, it was the middle of the afternoon, so he should have enough time to at least get started with Rudy''s shield, which he quickly did.


    The construction method really wasn''t thatplex, really. It was basically just an inward-pointed spiral.


    "Hmm, that shield-design is pretty weird though¡­ You sure it''s not a mistake?" Nelli asked as she looked at Eiro, and the Demon turned to her surprised, "Weren''t you there while Jura sketched this up?"


    "¡­I was there, that doesn''t mean I was paying attention¡­" She replied, and Eiro looked at her with one of his brows slightly raised, before Nelli quickly borated.


    "Anyway! Usually, shields like this have an outward spiral, so the center of the shield is the point that''s going most to the outside. But with this one the center is the point that''s most going to the inside¡­ That''s weird, right?" She asked, and Eiro leaned back in his chair and slowly nodded his head as he closed his eyes and thought about it.


    "Hmm¡­ I think I''ve read about something like this before¡­" Eiro muttered quietly and then remembered it again, "I don''t know if that''s right, but I think the impact to a shield like that dislikes travelling into empty space, so part of the impact still goes directly through the shield? If that happens, it would be possible to throw Rudy off-bnce with enough raw power. But if the impact is led directly into another body, then that doesn''t happen. Because Rudy doesn''t take damage, nearly all the impact should be negated then." Eiro suggested, although he really had no idea if that theory was actually usible. It seemed enough for him at the moment, at least. Jura came up with it, so there had to be a reason for it, and that seemed the most probable.


    No matter that, Eiro started to ce the parts of the wood together,yering them to turn them into a proper inward spiral, and then properly connected them with the help of proper wood-glue and ridges that he pushed together to make everything stay in ce.


    That alone took a surprisingly long time, actually, and Eiro soon had the base of the shield done. The Glue had to dry for a little while, but in the meantime, Eiro got started on making the handles and parts that Rudy was supposed to push his arm into for the highest amount of stability possible. It was a ratherrge and heavy shield, after all.


    It seemed like there were even some parts attached that could allow the shield to have some straps pulled through so that Rudy could carry it on his back. It seemed rather well-thought through, actually.


    Once the glue finished drying, Eiro attached all of those parts to the shield tightly and then once more set it to the side to let everything dry. And once it was dry, the Shield would be done as well, meaning that today, Eiro managed to finish up two out of the four things for the kids, although he wouldn''t give the swords and shield to either Arc or Rudy yet. He wanted them all to get it at the same time.


    Either way, since that was the case¡­"I won''t have anything to do tomorrow, huh?" Eiro muttered quietly as he looked out of the window. The Staff still had to stay in the water for a couple more days, and the bow had to stay in the treatment bath for a total of 36 hours as well, meaning that it would be in the early morning of the day after tomorrow.


    "Guess I should gather some things before winter really takes over." The Demon said and then stood up from his chair, making his way out of the hut and back to the front door of the main house, swiftly stepping inside, where the children were already doing their own thing, mostly rxing since it was evening now.


    Since he figured this would be a better time to bring this up thanst night where everything turned into a rather heavy conversation about personal responsibilities, Eiro called for two of the six children. "Rudy, Leon,e over here for a bit." The Demon told them, and Rudy raised his head and ced the pair of pants he was fixing for Arc to the side before standing up from his bed, while Leon also came up to the Demon with his regr tired expression.


    "Alright, I know this might be a bit weird, but I''ll be smelling you for a bit now, okay?"

 Chapter 96 - Upset

    While Leon just nodded his head lethargically and held his hands up to Eiro, Rudy was rather confused over what was going on, and Nelli quickly tried to point that out to him, "Could you have started a bit earlier in the conversation?" She asked, and Eiro raised his brows as he picked Leon up and just held him on his arms for a bit.


    "Ah, I''m sorry... I should have probably mentioned it earlier, but with my new senses, I can even notice things that you usually couldn''t notice. For example, there''s a part in everyone''s scent that reveals what their race is. And that part of you, Rudy and Leon, smells different to that of the others, so I think you might not be humans." Eiro exined, doing so in a rather dull tone of voice, and Rudy raised his brows confused while the others starteding up to the Demon and the two boys as well.


    "Not human? Then what are we?" Rudy asked confused, and Eiro shrugged in response, "I''m not entirely sure, really. I think Rudy might be a beastman, so we should look out for anything that could be a sign for that to grow in, but for you, it''s a bit different." The Demon exined, and Rudy just frowned deeply in response, "I might not be a human..?" Rudy muttered quietly. He had always believed he was just like the others here who were basically like siblings to him, but now all of a sudden he was told he wasn''t?


    "Th-Then why didn''t Jura mention anything?" The boy asked all of a sudden, trying to find any sort of loophole in what Eiro was talking about, and Nelli quickly replied to that, "He might have noticed, but just didn''t think anything of it. He didn''t treat Eiro any different to how he would treat anyone else either." She pointed out, so Rudy slowly looked down, although he soon felt something hit his back yfully.


    "Don''t worry, dude. Even if you were a monster, we wouldn''t care either way." Arc reassured him, so Rudy slowly turned around toward him and then nodded his head in response, "Alright, I got it. Then... smell me, I guess?" Rudy replied, and Eiro just nodded his head as he first started trying to get a closer idea of Leon''s smell.


    "Mhm, it''s really simr to the smell of the Beastmen in town, so that might be it... Sammy, if you find anything on him at some point, let me know." The Demon suggested as he let the young boy back onto the ground, and then looked at Rudy, who slowly took a step forward toward Eiro, who quickly started to concentrate on Rudy''s scent a bit more, basically delving into it, picking it apart into its parts.


    There wasn''t too much for Eiro to go off of, but soon, he noticed something that led him to frown a bit. "Hm? That''s..." Eiro muttered quietly, and Rudy looked at him nervously, "Is something the issue?" He asked, and the Demon just shook his head in response.


    "There''s no issue, it''s just a bit weird." Eiro started, "I do smell a bit of ''Human'' in you, but it''s something just very raw and not very prevalent." The Demon exined, so Rudy raised his brows confused.


    "So I''m partially human? Like a Half-Human?" Rudy asked, and Eiro shook his head immediately. Since he did concentrate on the smell of different people in town through his memories, he did manage to figure out what half- or part-blooded people smelled like, "If you were part Human and part of another race, I would be able to smell both in you, not a single smell with a bit of one of them in it." Eiro exined.


    "It''s like you''re human, but at the same time aren''t?" Eiro suggested, confused by this all himself, and Nelli quickly made a suggestion of what it might be, "Then isn''t Rudy just part of a Sub-Human Tribe?"


    Surprised, Eiro turned toward the Spirit and slightly frowned. That was actually a term that Eiro wasn''t familiar with yet. And sensing just that, Nelli just chose to exin.


    "Sub-Racial Tribes are just what the name implies. They''re tribes of a certain race that chose to live differently to the ''regr'' base races, and over the generations changed to be seen as their own race, but their roots are still with the race they split off of. Nearly any race has that, I think. The Beastmen race is actually made up solely of Sub-Racial tribes to the point that the ''base'' race is close to extinct..." Nelli exined, "While they are technically very, very different to the race they split off of, that would exin that scent." She pointed out.


    "A Sub-Human Tribe?" Rudy muttered quietly, and Nelli quickly nodded her head in response, "Yeah, there''s nothing wrong with that. The ''Sub'' doesn''t mean ''Lesser'' or anything. Especially when ites to Humans, their sub-racial tribes are usually a lot better at most things whenpared to regr humans. And most Tribes have a rather small poption number, so you''re actually really special then!"


    "Heh... Thanks, Nelli." Rudyughed with a wry smile, feeling a little overwhelmed by this sudden information, and Eiro looked at the boy in front of him, "Don''t worry, we''ll figure it out at some point. Sorry to have thrown this onto you like this."


    "It''s fine, I get it." Rudy replied, making Eiro just smile at him while the boy chose to go back to sewing the rip in Arc''s pants shut again. Eiro had expected for Rudy to be just as curious as he was, but somehow he just seemed... sad?


    With a light worried frown, Eiro turned toward the other children, who all seemed to be worried for Rudy''s sake as well, but they seemed to be worried for another reason. It seemed like they understood what Rudy was going for, so Eiro was rather sad that he really couldn''t grasp itpletely.


    "Did I... say something wrong?" He asked quietly, and Sammy turned toward him with a slight frown, pulling him away to the other side of the room so that Rudy wouldn''t be able to hear them.


    "You have a pretty different rtionship to your race than we do, you know?" She exined, and Eiro raised his brows a bit confused, "Hm? What do you mean?" He asked, so Sammy just sighed deeply in response.


    "Your race literally changed twice already, ours won''t ever change. Our race is what defines us people..." Sammy exined, and Eiro couldn''t help but lightly frown in response, "Is it really that important to you?" He asked, so Sammy immediately nodded her head.


    "I mean, it''s different for everyone, but I would say it''s pretty important... Especially if what you believe in changes a lot." Sammy exined, and the Demon slightly grumbled in response.


    "Is that so..?"


    ---


    Last evening, Eiro spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to, or somehow in any way, make up for seemingly making Rudy feel bad yesterday. He couldn''t reallye up with anything though. He could just apologize, but he doubted that would help a lot, since he technically already tried apologizingst night.


    While Eiro didn''t fully understand Rudy''s reasons for feeling sad or upset, he did know that he did feel like that, and Eiro was at fault for that. Maybe he shouldn''t have done that and just should have stayed quiet.


    "Nelli?" Eiro asked as he started making his way out toward the forest for the day with Lugo next to him, and the Spirit quickly floated up right in front of him, "Yup?" She replied, so the Demon just scratched his cheek in response.


    "Do you know how I can make it up to Rudy?" He inquired, but Nelli simply shrugged in response, "Not really. I don''t see much of a problem with what you did either though. He''s not a human, so what? There''s not really anything wrong with it, is there?" Nelli pointed out, and Eiro swiftly shook his head.


    "Obviously not. I wouldn''t want to be a human, at least. But Sammy said it''s important for them, so I probably did something wrong." Eiro muttered quietly, and Nelli just sighed deeply as she shook her head, "Don''t worry about it. Rudy''s not really afraid to tell you what he feels like, so he probably doesn''t know how he feels himself. Just wait for him to figure it out, and then have a talk with him about it."


    "I guess so..." Eiro replied, and then just sighed deeply in frustration. He didn''t like seeing that Rudy was mad about something he did, so he wanted to resolve it as quickly as possible. But he would just try to trust Nelli in this and see how Rudy was doing in a few days or so.


    "So, let''s not think about that. What are we doing today?" The Spirit asked, trying to somehow distract Eiro from his current thoughts.


    "Just generic things. Gathering herbs, hunting, and so on." Eiro exined quickly, before Nelli slightly sighed in response.


    "What, just that stuff?" She asked, and the Demon simply nodded his head in response, "Yes, just that stuff." He said, and then looked over at the Naiad next to him again, seeing her unsatisfied expression.


    "Fine." Eiro said, and then just looked around a little bit before finding a rtively t spot where not too much was growing, and then sat down there, "I''ll try to use my Earth Magic for a bit, then. I should probably have done that a little sooner anyway." Eiro exined, and Nelli then quickly nodded her head.


    "That''s more like it!" She eximed, so Eiro sighed and looked at the Stag in front of him.


    "Lugo, justy down over there for a while." Eiro told him, so Lugo swiftly did just as asked and rolled up a bit out of the range that Eiro wanted to try to work in.


    "Earth Magic... Basically, I should be able to manipte this area directly around me... Right?"


    "Basically~! Do you know the basic Earth Magic practices?" Nelli asked, so the Demon just nodded his head slowly in response, "Yeah, it''s to feel the earth and to figure out what''s around you... That''s a bit hard to do, because I perfectly remember this scene, and I saw it with eyes that can see other people''s notifications through theirs." Eiro pointed out, so the Spirit just slightly sighed in response.


    "Fine, then let''s try something else. You have a bit more experience with Magic than others with Beginner Grade Magic would, anyway. Just skip that and go directly to basic maniption.." Nelli suggested, so Eiro simply nodded and did just that.

 Chapter 97 - Elemental Refining

    The Demon concentrated on the area around him, and the cold dirt that he was sitting on. It felt very differentpared to before, and the reason for that wasn''t just that Eiro''s senses recently increased manyfold, but that he felt more connected to dirt and rock through his increased Earth Elemental affinity.


    Slowly, Eiro started to think of the basic practice for Earth Magic, and then scooped up a little bit of dirt with his hand, pressing it together as tightly as he could before letting it justy on his left palm.


    And with ordance to the practice, Eiro pushed his mana out of his palm and tried to cover the dirt with it, which basically absorbed all of the mana Eiro pushed out the moment that it touched it, like he expected now that he had an earth affinity.


    [Beginner Earth Magic Skill leveled up!]


    Trying to ignore the notification that he just saw appear, Eiro started on the actual practice part, and tried to slowly make the dirt-ball break up into multiple pieces. Since a ball of loose dirt like this was rather brittle anyway, that wasn''t all that hard to do. But on the other hand, it wasn''t supposed to be hard to do either. It was just a basic practice, after all.


    [Beginner Earth Magic Skill leveled up!]


    With a bit of satisfaction, Eiro ran his fingers through the notification, before the sensation of the blue notification mist wrapping around his fingers caught his attention again, although he soon just ignored it. It was a very different feeling to what Eiro was used to, since until now there was no sensation of touch attached to the interaction with the notifications, only visuals.


    Either way, for now, Eiro just continued trying to make the dirt on his palm crumble down, then pressed it into the shape of a ball again just to make it crumble down once more, until he felt confident he would be able to move on from this practice and rather do the opposite.


    With the loose dirt on his palm, the Demon attempted at making that exact dirt move. Just bit by bit, he wanted everything to move closer together and press'' like it would when he was using his hands to form a solid shape.


    It only happened at a rather slow pace, but even then, Eiro managed to pull everything up a bit, push some other things around, and try to keep everything in shape in order to create something that at least took the shape of the dirt ball that Eiro had before. Of course it would, and did, crumble at the slightest touch, but at least this was some progress that nobody could deny.


    And his Beginner Earth Magic Skill leveled up to 13 just today as well! It seemed like Nelli was right, due to the fact that he already knew how to use Magic to control the other elements, he was able to do so rather easily with earth as well!


    Satisfied with his progress, Eiro then stood up and dropped the dirt onto the ground, swiftly wiping his hands clean as he looked over at Nelli with a smile. "So, were five hours of Magic practice like this enough for you?" He asked, and Nelli slowly nodded her head, although that was rather obviously a lie on her part. She was basically just napping the whole time that Eiro was practicing, so he didn''t directly understand why she even wanted to do something else other than gathering and hunting in the first ce.


    "Can''t we, like, practice Spirit Magic a bit more?" Nelli suggested as Eiro went to wake Lugo up again, and the Demon just raised his brows in response, "I mean, sure, we can. I can practice water magic while on the move though, so let''s do that." The Imp pointed out and started continuing along the path that they were on before, before Nelli quickly floated up next to him.


    "Soo... Spirit Magic... You know what exactly that all includes, I hope?" She asked him, and Eiro simply nodded his head, since he figured he had a rather good grasp on things like that, "Yes, Spirit Magic is giving your mana to a Spirit to give them fuel to use magic, right?" He responded, before Nelli slightly chuckled.


    "Hehe, you''re not wrong, but that''s not all there is to it~!" Nelli exined, "A big part of Spirit Magic is elemental refining! Not many people know about it, because most spirits are toozy to do it, but I actually find it rather rxing."


    With a curious expression, Eiro looked at Nelli to wait for her to continue exining what ''Elemental Refining'' was supposed to be, although the Spirit was just looking at Eiro as if waiting for something herself, although she did soon realize her fault.


    "Oh, right, sorry... So you don''t know about elemental refining, I assume. It''s basically just what it says, you can refine an element into a better version of it with the help of a spirit." She exined, and Eiro lightly furrowed his brows curiously, "A better version of it? Could you demonstrate?" He suggested, and Nelli quickly nodded her head.


    "We need regr water for it though, I can''t do it with water that I created myself, so let''s wait until we''re at the river." She suggested, and that honestly didn''t take them that long anymore. Once they were by the river, Eiro quickly scooped up a bubble of water and held it up to Nelli, curious to see what she was about to do with it.


    "So, how it works is rather simple." Nelli exined, cing both of her hands onto the surface of the water bubble and then whispered something. It was in the Ancient Language, so Eiro didn''t fully understand her. Maybe he should try and learn an Ancient Language Comprehension skill soon.


    Either way, when Nelli started muttering like that, Eiro noticed that all of a sudden, inside of the water small clumps of dirt started to form and were then pushed out to the bottom of the water, pressing onto Eiro''s palm.


    "That was the first step of refining water. I split off all of the dirt, dust, or sand inside of it and pushed it out." Nelli exined, and Eiro then slowly started to try and move the water around again, simply to make it float a little bit to get rid of the dirt that now gathered on his palm, and immediately as he did so, he noticed that it was far easier to manipte than regr river water usually would be.


    "Huh..." Eiro muttered quietly as he looked at the clear bubble of water, and Nelli then just slightly smirked, "If you think that''s cool, then look at the second step!" She eximed, once more cing her hands onto the surface of the bubble to then start muttering something in the Ancient Language.


    Now, once more, something gathered inside of the water, just that this time, it all gathered right at the center of it before a tiny bead dropped onto Eiro''s palm that he quickly took a look at, "And what''s this?" He asked, only seeing some small weirdly metallic parts on it, and Nelli quickly exined.


    "Those are the minerals inside of the water. They''re usually good for you, but for the third step, we need them gone!" Nelli exined, seemingly rather excited, before she immediately once more ced her hands onto the water.


    And this time around, the process took a fair bit longer, up to ten minutes for this small bubble of water, although as Nelli was speaking in the ancientnguage, Eiro noticed that the water-bubble actually shrunk down a fair bit until it basically only had a third of the volume it had originally, and Nelli soon opened her eyes and interlocked her fingers behind her back, seemingly excited to have Eiro take a look at the water.


    "So... What changed this time?" Eiro asked curiously, and Nelli looked at him surprised, "You didn''t notice yet?" She asked surprised, and the Demon shook his head before Nelli sighed deeply, "That water was now turned into a magical version of it. It won''t be affected by natural forces anymore, it won''t mix with regr water, but it''s quickly affected by magic! Come on, try to turn it into ice!" Nelli eximed, and figuring he should just go along, the Demon used his Ice Magic to quickly freeze the water.


    And to his surprise, it froze a lot faster than water usually would, although when Eiro let go of the thought of ''freezing'' the bubble, the ice turned back into regr water nearly immediately.


    "Erm, what''s this? Not affected by natural forces? Didn''t it melt really quickly?" Eiro asked, and Nelli quickly shook her head.


    "No, no, it didn''t melt. You see, that''s the downside of the element when ites to your style of magic... Water that was refined up to this stage will want to return to its basic state as quickly as possible, so you would need to constantly have it freeze, but in turn it should go a lot colder than usual as well?" She figured, "I don''t actually know too much about Ice Magic..." Nelli exined, before Eiro just slightly chuckled.


    "That''s fine, don''t worry. This might take a while to get used to, but it might be worth it..." The Demon pointed out, and then slowly started to heat the water up with fire magic to make it boil, and the very moment that he did he chose to turn it into ice, before the water close to instantly froze. It was at a speed that Eiro wasn''t used to, and one that he really did not expect, so it took a moment for him to actually realize that it did really happen that quickly.


    "Now then, at least that natural force still works, huh?" Eiro smirked lightly, and then turned toward Nelli, "So, what do I do with this now? Do I just take it with me, or leave it here, or..?" The Demon asked, and Nelli just shrugged in response.


    "Hmm, it''s good for magical nts, so maybe use it to water your tree?" Nelli suggested, and Eiro looked at her with a satisfied smile, "That sounds like a good idea." He replied, and then started to make his way along the river to get to his tree, and on his way turned toward Nelli rather curiously.


    "Does something happen when I drink it?" The Demon asked. Since it helped magical nts, then maybe it could help him as well! At least that''s what he hoped...


    "Yeah, I wouldn''t do that if I were you. It''s technically like poison to regr living creatures... although then again, you''re not regr... I wouldn''t risk it though. Even for those that can drink it, there''s no benefit. It''s just water to them." Nelli pointed out, so Eiro sighed with a bit of disappointment.


    Either way, they soon made their way further along the river bank and found the pale blue tree that actually stuck out like a sore thumb in this area here... No other tree had this color-scheme, after all.


    "I''m surprised nobody that came along tried to fell it yet..." The Demon pointed out, and Nelli looked at him with a wry smile, "This is a magic forest, not many peoplee into these parts at all... And if they do, they would need to be suicidal to try and do harm to anything that sticks out like that."


    "I''m aware of that, but there should be plenty of dumb people out there, right?" Eiro pointed out, and in response to that, Nelli couldn''t really say anything anymore. Technically, the Demon was right about that, so she didn''t really know what to reply to that other than...


    "Just water it already!" She eximed, so Eiro lightly sighed and did as the Spirit suggested.

 Chapter 98 - Finished Weapons

    After Eiro poured the water onto his Tree''s roots, he and Nelli chose to refine a little bit more water until Eiro''s mana ran rtively low, and just give the newly refined water to the Tree as well, all to level up the Spirit Magic Skill. And it did work, and the skill actually leveled up around five times while they were working on it, despite it only having been around an hour or so!


    With a satisfied mind, Eiro then spent the rest of the day hunting and gathering some herbs. He actually managed to hunt three rabbits and two pheasants today, so that was something that Eiro was really happy about as well. While he didn''t end up leveling up through it, he was still satisfied that it seemed he was getting closer to his next level-up through this.


    And when evening came, Eiro''s mood that had risen quite high returned to the bottom that it was at this morning when he saw Rudy and remembered what he did. Dinner was a little awkward and quiet, although Arc and Clementine did their best to try and lift the mood, which Eiro was rather grateful for as well, but it didn''t change the fact that Rudy didn''t even look Eiro in the eyes in the brief moments where they were talking to each other.


    So, with his stomach turned upside down, Eiro went to bed that night and barely got any sleep. Or rather, ''barely'' was still too much, since he only had his eyes closed for maybe an hour, and even then didn''t actually sleep. And so, he soon stood up again when it was an hour before the time that the training bow the Demon was making for Sammy had to be taken out of the treatment bath.


    Thatst hour was really just spent sitting there on a chair in the hut and waiting for the hour to be over, all the whilst starting to carve some parts for arrows out of some spare wood that he hadying around. Having a bow without arrows was quite useless, after all. But since these didn''t need to be made out of anything specail, Eiro just made them out of anything and created a bunch of straigth sticks that he could then use as a base for arrowster on. It would still be a couple of days until they would start practicing after all, since it still took a while for Clementine''s Staff to be finished.


    And then, once Eiro took the bow out of the treatment bath, he re-attached the bowstring to it and then started to actually carve the riser into the shape that he wanted it to have to properly fit Sammy''s hand. He took a look at Sammy''s handst night before going to bed to figure out which shape would be best for it, and now was working that into the actual bow. Once he was done roughly two hourster, Eiro ced it down at his table and got rid of the treatment solution that the bow had been sitting in, since he didn''t need it anymore.


    Once he was done with that, Eiro figured he may as well just sit there and read for a little while, until it was time to go out into the forest for the day.


    In the actual forest, what the Demon did was practice his earth, and then his spirit magic, sometimes at the same time since Nelli was able to take care of the refinement herself, and then they fed the refined water to Eiro''s tree until his mana was close to running out.


    Then they returned home, on their way grabbing some herbs and small animals that got into some of the traps that Eiro put up, and then he ate Dinner with the children before going to bed.


    That exact circle of sleeping, reading, practicing, hunting, and eating went on for the next four days, which seemed just extremely monotonous to Eiro at a level that he didn''t even realize. He was used to going out and doing the same thing every single day, but even for him it was a bit weird, because once he got home all he experienced was awkward silence instead of weing smiles.


    And on the fourth day afterpleting the bow, Eiro pushed his hands into the bath of magically-created water and pulled out the Staff that he made for Clementine. The texture of the wood was quite different to what it was just a week ago, since it seemed like an extremely thin ss- or gem-likeyer had grown all over the staff''s surface, and it seemed like it could slip out of his hands at any moment now.


    So, after wiping the Staff down with a piece of cloth to dry it, Eiro just ced it down onto the table next to the other items he made and then stepped out of the hut, making his way through the house''s front door where the others were still sitting around a bit before starting their day.


    "I''m done." Eiro said in a clear voice, "Come over and grab your things. We''re starting our training today." The Demon told them, and the children looked at Eiro surprised, although Arc quite swiftly jumped up from his seat and was the first to get dressed to go outside, being rather excited about this.


    But soon, the others also properly got dressed to go outside, and then followed behind the Demon and the oldest ''sibling'' amongst them.


    Once Eiro opened the door to the hut, the others slowly stepped inside, and Eiro swiftly grabbed the two training swords that he made for Arc, swiftly handing them over to him.


    "Here you go. Try not to touch the de-part too much if you can avoid it." The Demon said, and then grabbed the bow that he made for Sammy as well as the bundles of arrows that he finished over the past few days and held them over toward the girl.


    "These are yours, if you find any issue with the bncing, let me know and I''ll fix it." Eiro told her, before Sammy happily looked down at the bow and arrows in her hand, nodding her head excitedly.


    "As for this," Eiro started as he grabbed the recently-finished Staff and gave it to Clementine, "this is yours now. Try to have Nelli exin to you how healing magic works before you try anything though, alright?" The Imp suggested, before stepping up to thest item, therge shield that was standing against the wall that Eiro swiftly grabbed and held up to Rudy.


    "And now, your shield. If you can''t deal with the way the shield works, tell me and I''ll remake it in a different way." He said, but Rudy slowly shook his head in response, "Don''t worry, it''s fine." The boy said with a warm smile that made Eiro think that maybe Rudy was slowly starting to get his thoughts together about what happened a few days ago, before he saw Arc swinging his two-handed sword around behind the others.


    "This is so cool!" He eximed excitedly, "Am I doing this right? Am I a prodigy?" Arc asked with a loudugh, and just then, Sammy realized something.


    "Actually... How are we going to learn how to use these? Who''s going to teach us about these?" She asked with a bit of confusion in her voice, before she heard Eiro crack his knuckles with a light frown.


    "Who do you think? Me, of course." The Demon pointed out as he stepped over toward the corner of the room, where a set of other things wasying around. A Shield with simr dimensions to Rudy''s, a set of a two- and a one-handed sword, as well as a rtively simple bow. They were all simple versions of the items he made for the kids, with the exception of Clementine''s staff, since he already had one of those as his right hand. These things weren''t special in any way, and mostly just made of regr oak wood, but they were just supposed to be a thing for demonstration purposes anyway.


    "Ehh...? But do you have all those skills..?" Clementine asked confusedly, before Eiro just shook his head in response, "Not at all, but in return, I have my head, and my memories. The times that I''ve seen others practice, fight, or defend themselves are all still in my mind. So,bining that knowledge with the things I''ve read about your different weapons, I should be able to be of a fair amount of help to you." Eiro pointed out, before he lightly smiled at them.


    "But don''t worry, all of you. Jura came up with these, and he was sure to know what your talents were, so I doubt you will have any issues." The Demon pointed out, and then picked the different items up before bringing them outside.


    "Alright... Clementine, you please just have Nelli teach you a bit more about specifics of casting magic, while I will teach you three." Eiro exined, and Rudy, Arc, and Sammy looked at each other with unsure expressions while Leon and Avalin were just ying around a bit in the grass.


    "Don''t worry... I should be able to do it." The Imp told them, and then picked up his own two-handed sword with the same shape of the Sword, the Katana, that he made for Arc.


    Then, he dug through his memories, trying to figure out if he ever, at any point whatsoever, encountered anyone that had a weapon like this.


    In the nearby town, there was nobody. On his travels, there was nobody. Not even amongst all those that Eiro remembered from walking through the ruined capital during the invasion of <The Sun> and the Monster Horde, there was nobody.


    And then, Eiro found somebody. It was while they were waiting at the floating ind, the morning they climbed the bridge. Eiro had been in the proper state of mind to actually try looking around, different to the evening before then where he was trying to escape the fear that the being in the river inflicted upon him.


    While there were training rooms inside of the Inn itself as well, there were also plots to train outside, and there was one in a rather hidden and seemingly unpopr position where a man with a Katana like this, just the actual proper metal version, was training some moves. Eiro hadn''t really been paying attention to that, and it was just in the corner of his eye then, but now after delving into his memory, he was able to see it as if the man was standing right in front of him.


    But instead of just watching the man, Eiro took some steps forward and stepped into the man''s body, taking over his position. The moves that Eiro now remembered seeing back then were put into his own body, and the Demon grasped the wooden sword in his hand as tightly as he could and held it up above his head, swinging it down as quickly as he could just to stop it right before it touched the ground, and then swung it diagonally upward until it was on hip-level with Eiro''s body, before the Demon swung the de horizontally in a straight motion.


    These moves weren''t really all that impressive, but nheless they weirdly enough made Eiro''s body tense up in numerous ces all over his body, a sensation that he really didn''t enjoy. But when he opened his eyes, Arc looked at him excitedly.


    "That''s actually really cool, can you show me how to do that?" He asked, and Eiro just lightly smiled, "This was really just a test to see how well I can make use of this kind of thing. Actual practice will start pretty monotonously, ording to the books I''ve read. You need to build you muscles toward being able to wield a weapon, before actually doing so." Eiro exined, and Arc looked at him with a wry smile.


    "And what''s that supposed to mean..?" The boy asked, before Eiro just lightly smiled at him.


    "That you''re going to find out what it means to practice."

 Chapter 99 - Tokens

    "87....88....89..." Arc counted quietly, apanying each time he swung the wooden training sword down from over his head, which was the practice that Eiro had told him to do. In the meantime, he showed Sammy how to handle her bow, and Rudy how to properly hold his shield.


    Rudy was actually training with the help of Lugo, who would try to ram against the shield with different strengths to let the boy get used to the feeling of handling the shield like this. Sammy was simply shooting some of the arrows that Eiro made against a tower of hay bales that the Demon set up for her to practice the actual act of shooting.


    And once Eiro was sure that they were all doing alright for now, and that Clementine was able to really understand Nelli''s Water-Magic Lessons, since a Water Spirit should have a fairly different view on things whenpared to a young girl, he made his way into the hut again to get a certain wooden puppet that he wanted to put together for the past two weeks.


    Of course he confirmed with Nelli that it was alright to do that now, and then grabbed his old wooden hand and then ced it onto the ce where the puppet was missing its own right hand. Just when it was set into ce, Eiro took a step backward and looked at it properly. "And what''s supposed to happen now..?" The Demon asked himself confusedly, and the moment that he finished his sentence, it happened.


    The Puppet''s fingers slowly started to move, and then the whole hands did. Then the Arms, which the Puppet used to pull itself up with the desk.


    Once it seemed to be standing nearly upright, its legs also started to move, and it gained control over its whole body before walking right up to Eiro. It was just as tall as him, and was carrying itself in a simr way as well. It was a bit awkward to look at, to bepletely truthful, at least from Eiro''s own perspective.


    "Hello?" Eiro asked quietly, but the Puppet just stood there in front of him and pointed at the Satchel that the Imp was carrying with him. Confusedly, he looked at it and pulled it in front of himself to open it up, and the moment that it was open the Puppet pushed its hands into it, pulling on a specific thread inside of the satchel.


    At first Eiro was thinking that it might be trying to break it, but then the Puppet wouldn''t go for this hard-to-grasp thread, but would rather pull out all the cloth that was used to cover the inside of the satchel.


    And then, once the thread was pulled out, Eiro saw one more note inside of the satchel as part of the cloth dropped off. It seemed like it was something like a double wall, and the cloth that he had been seeing at that spot until now was just the regr kind, instead of the kind that came from the spatial bag.


    "What the..." Eiro asked himself as he took a look at the note, which had four small octagonal wooden token tied to it. One had a dagger carved onto its surface, one had a fist and an open palm, another one showed a tree with a figure climbing up it, and thest one had five different signs on it, each corresponding to another one of the five basic senses.


    And all that the note said was ''Practice Material''. Eiro was rather confused about this, but then the Puppet pressed onto the center of its chest and pulled out a small, nk octagonal token and then pointed at Eiro''s hand that was currently holding the five other tokens.


    Then, Eiro understood what it wanted from him and pressed the first token he could see into the open spot in its chest, and it was the one with the Dagger on it.


    The moment that the Token was inside of its chest, the Puppet held its arm forward with the palm upward, as if wanting something to be given to it. And the only thing that Eiro could think of giving it was a Dagger... So, he stepped through the room and grabbed one of the wooden training daggers that he made a couple of years ago and gave it to the Puppet, before it started to take a stance as if preparing forbat.


    And then, what Eiro had been thinking was finally confirmed in his head. This Puppet was supposed to help him train himself. "Jura really was amazing, huh..?" Eiro muttered to himself quietly with a light smile on his lips, and then grabbed another one of the training daggers. He didn''t really want to fight it with his real dagger since he didn''t want to scratch it up or unnessarily dull his dagger, and it seemed like the Puppet was alright with that as well, and prepared to attack Eiro, although the Demon quickly stopped it.


    "Let''s get outside first." Eiro suggested, and then stepped out through the hut''s door again, swiftly followed by the puppet, that the others were immediately paying attention to.


    "What''s that..?" Sammy asked confusedly, since he just saw the figure of two things that walked in the exact same manner while having the exact same figure, Eiro and the Puppet. And Eiro just smiled a bit at them.


    "Another present left behind by Jura. Nelli, it''s meant for training, right?" The Demon asked, and Nelli immediately nodded her head in response, "Yup, that''s exactly right. You''re starting with the Dagger Mastery one?" She asked, before Eiro just nodded his head with a light smile.


    "Yes. I think I''m going to try each of them out a bit for now." Eiro pointed out, and then stepped a little bit away from the others when they started practicing again, although they were obviously all still a fair bit focused on Eiro and the wooden Puppet that was moving on its own.


    And with a light smile, Eiro held his wooden dagger in his hand and looked at the Puppet, "Alright, let''s start." He said, and before he even closed his mouth after speaking, the Puppet already jumped forward to attack the Demon, and he tried his hardest to dodge in response to the sudden movement.


    But even if he could see it pretty well, he wasn''t fast enough to perfectly evade the attack, and felt something hit his cheek. But that wasn''t before the Puppet already started its next attack, now standing behind Eiro, and pressed the tip of the wooden dagger right into the center of his back. It didn''t even take a full second, and Eiro was already in a position where he would be dead if this Puppet was a real opponent.


    "Did that doll just beat Eiro..?" Arc asked with a wry smile, before the other kids just nodded their heads in disbelief, although Nelli couldn''t help but chuckle, "Well of course, those are the techniques of one who reached the Mastered Grade in Dagger Mastery, slightly changed to fit Eiro''s current build." She exined, and Eiro turned toward the Spirit confusedly.


    "Mastered Grade? That''s three grades above my current mastery..." Eiro muttered quietly, thinking about the different types of skill grades again.


    There were five grades that were achievable by the average person. Beginner, Apprentice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Mastered, and one was right to assume that one had to train all their life to reach thest of those, no matter how high your talent was.


    Often enough, despite one being extremely talented in a specific field and dedicating their whole life to raise that one skill, their Lifespan was simply too short to reach the Mastered stage. There were those with overwhelming talent that did manage to do so, even humans. Jura was one of those, actually, since his Carving skill had reached the Mastered Grade as well.


    Technically, there was still a grade above these five, but it was one that only beings achieved that lived for hundreds of years already, which was the Ascendant Grade. Some rumors even said that there was a grade even further above that, but that''s all they were, rumors.


    Either way, no matter how many grades there were, the ''Mastered'' Grade was something so amazing that Eiro could now understand why he was so quickly beat. He was actually pretty d that he was able to dodge the first attack, at least for the most part.


    "But wait, where did Jura get someone to teach this to a Puppet?" The Demon asked with a slight frown, and Nelli crossed her arms with a smirk, "You still don''t understand how great Jura was? Of course his friends would be just as great as him!" She eximed, and Eiro slowly turned toward the Puppet behind him and told it to stand down, before simply smiling like an idiot.


    Practicing with something that has techniques of someone that Mastered a skill... Was just an amazing opportunity. But at the same time, he was rather curious about what the other tokens could do.


    "Do these here also have a Master''s techniques?" Eiro inquired as he held the other three tokens up, and Nelli slowly nodded her head, "Mhm! Hand-to-Handbat, Freerunning, and then... thest one is something that Jura made to help you practice your new senses after you go used to them." She exined, before Eiro just lightly nodded his head with a smile on his face.


    "I see, interesting..." He said quietly, before turning toward the Puppet, "Hold still, I''m changing the token." The Demon exined, and then pressed the token in the center of the Puppet''s chest to pull it out, and quickly switched it out with the Hand-to-Handbat one, so the Puppet immediately dropped the wooden dagger it was holding and held its hands simr to the way it was portrayed on the token.


    One as a fist, and the other as an open palm. And after Eiro ced his dagger to the ground as well, since he figured that this was meant to be hand-to-handbat practice a daggger was a rather bad idea, he took the same stance that the Puppet did.


    The moment that this was the case, the Puppet started moving again, and all of a sudden, Eiro could see the world upside down as his body was flipped. Soon, the Demon felt something hard on his head as he dropped back onto the ground.


    "Now then... It seems like I can''t reallypete with a Master at Hand-To-Handbat without even having the skill, huh?" Eiro muttered quietly, and Nelli once more just started to chuckle, "Who''d have guessed?"


    With a light grumble, the Demon looked at her, "Oh, and I''m the sarcastic one here?" He asked, before Nelli nodded her head, "Yup, d you''re starting to see it."


    "What, that was-" Eiro started confusedly, although in the end he just sighed deeply and shook his head, "Nevermind." He said, and then once more warned the puppe that he was about to switch out the Tokens, before putting the ''Freerunning'' Token into the Puppet''s chest, and Nelli quickly tried to warn him.


    "Ah, for that one, I think-" Nelli started, but Eiro just looked at her with a frown, "Don''t worry, I''ve got this. I know how to climb, what kind of difference could it make to be a master?" The Demon pointed out, and Nelli just crossed her arms with a light frown, before Eiro turned around toward the Puppet confusedly. But that made him even more confused, since the Puppet wasn''t there anymore.


    "What the- how..?" Eiro muttered quietly. He barely noticed anything going on, and that even with his new senses... Where did it go? Did Freerunning have the possibility of making you invisible? And then, Eiro suddenly heard something, since the Puppet seemed to want to catch his attention.


    And the sound came from... above. Once Eiro moved his head upward, he managed to see the Puppet hanging by its legs from one of the branches of the tree that the house was built into.


    "How the..." He asked quietly, and Nelli justughed again, "It''s what I wanted to say. ''I think you should prepare'', because while the task for the Dagger and Hand-to-Hand Combat Mastery tokens is to beat them in a fair fight, the task for the freerunning one is ''Tag''.. You have to catch it, and then run from it."

 Chapter 100 - Tag Along

    "Stay... still... already!" Eiro eximed loudly as he hunted a certain wooden doll through the forest. For a bit more than the past month, he''s been trying to either beat the Puppet in a fight, catch it, or find it for thest Token''s task, which was based on finding the Puppet while it was hiding in the forest in a random location each time.


    He at the very least managed to analyze the Puppet''s moves enough to be able to dodge for roughly five minutes before being beat by it in the Dagger Mastery''s fight, and could hold on for a single minute for hand-to-handbat. Luckily he learned the skill by now and managed to level it up a fair bit to reach a rtively high level in the Beginner Grade.


    But the task that gave him the most pain was the Freerunning-rted task. Sure, it was annoying and frustrating that he somehow wasn''t even able to perceive the puppet in thest task, or that he wasn''t able to beat it in the twobat mastery tasks, but somehow, the fact that he couldn''t catch up to it annoyed Eiro way more.


    It took paths along the forest that Eiro usually would be avoiding because of the troublesome terrain and moves through it like it''s a t path, runs up trees and rock walls like it''s nothing, and ends up leaving Eiro behind. And worst of all, since he had been training his perception to find the puppet for the perception task, when it was actually making sound, he knew exactly where it was at all times, but Eiro still wasn''t able to catch up to it and he didn''t seem to find any sort of improvement throughout the whole past month that he''s been training with the Puppet.


    Sure, since he got the ''Freerunning'' skill he''s been able to handle his body a slight bit better when running through the forest, but the distance between himself and the puppet never got smaller.


    Seeing that today once again he wouldn''t be able to catch it, the Demon yelled out, "I give up!", which quickly made the Puppet stop and return to Eiro, who just looked at it annoyedly.


    "You damned..." He muttered to himself, and then stood up straight while trying to get his breathing under control, "Come on, we''re heading back home." Eiro told the Puppet and then turned around, slowly starting to make his way there, crushing the snow underneath his feet while he was at it. He had to get ready anyway, since he would be leaving for town againter tonight.


    Once back at the house, the Demon could swiftly see the children practicing as well with the tasks that Eiro gave to them, while Avalin and Leon were just ying together like usual. Seeing that he returned, Sammy looked at him with a light smile, "So, any luck this time?" She asked, but the Demon just shook his head as he reced the token in the Puppet''s chest with the nk one to have it go into ''standby'' mode for now, and then looked at the children.


    "And what about you, how are you all doing?" The demon inquired, and they all just slightly shrugged in response, "Well, there''s no major progress, really... Our skills went up a fair bit, like you said they would, so we can handle ourselves better, but..." Rudy pointed out, and Eiro just nodded his head in response.


    "I know, don''t worry. I asked Tom to try and get books about the Techniques that I was trying to teach you. I showed them to him when I was there a month ago, so he should have been able to get a grasp on it. I''ll bring them back tomorrow so that we can get started properly." Eiro exined, and Arc nodded his head excitedly, "Yup, we''re bringing them back with us." He eximed, and Eiro looked at him with his brows raised.


    "We?" He asked, and Arc looked at him with a light smile, "Yeah, we. You promised you''d take me once I turned 15, right? To have me register at the Guild?" He said, and then, it popped back into the Demon''s head.


    "Oh, right... Sorry, a lot happened, so I didn''t really have that in mind." Eiro admitted, and then nodded his head, "Alright, then start getting ready and maybe sleep a bit before we go. Because we won''t have many chances to take breaks." The Imp exined, and Arc excitedly nodded his head.


    "Alright!" He yelled out, and then swiftly made his way into the house to do what the Demon suggested, before Eiro lightly sighed and looked at the other children, "You all go ahead and end it here for the day as well." Eiro suggested, and they all swiftly did just like he said and made their way inside while Nelli floated to his side, wearing a slight frown on her face.


    "You really want to take Arc to town now? With all those soldiers running around?" Nelli asked, and Eiro nodded his head in response, "Yeah, why not? It was all fine a month ago when I went there, and most of the Soldiers don''t seem to be as idiotic as Rumia. So for now, everything should be fine? And Winter Solstice ising in another week as well, so they should be careful about their actions for now." Eiro pointed out, and Nelli looked at him with a wry smile.


    "I was more worried about Arc than the Soldiers, you know?" She said, and Eiro looked at her confusedly when she said that, "What do you mean? He''s a fine boy, isn''t he?"


    "Of course, he''s smart, handsome, tall for his age, and well-humored. But he doesn''t know any restraint, because he himself isn''t bothered by anything. So he might say something that upsets the soldiers..." Nelli pointed out, but Eiro just shook his head in response.


    "Don''t worry, I''m sure it''s going to be fine. We''ll speak to him about it, and then everything should work out just fine."


    With those words in mind, despite Nelli not being quite sure if talking to him about it would be enough, the Demon got started on getting everything ready for the trip while taking the fact that Arc would be riding on Lugo''s back as well into ount. The Stag himself seemed a bit annoyed at having to carry two people at once, but after Eiro did his best to absolutely peacefully convince him, Lugo stoppedining and let the boy onto his back when it was time for him and Eiro to leave.


    Although before Eiro himself got on Lugo''s back as well, he looked over at Rudy, who was closest to him right now, "If anything happens, like a monster or personing near here, put the Dagger Mastery token into the Puppet. It has that old dagger right next to him for that. It should be able to defend you guys if ites down to it."


    With a slow nod, Rudy replied, "Sure. We''ll do that. But don''t worry, nothing will happen to us." The boy replied, so Eiro just smiled at him lightly nervously, "Alright. Then make sure to practice properly, we''ll be back tomorrow night." Eiro told him, and Rudy simply smiled back at him.


    "Have a safe trip. See you tomorrow." He responded, so Eiro just told Lugo to start moving and then waved at Rudy as they were leaving.


    And just a couple minutester, Arc looked at Eiro curiously, "So, what are we doing on our way?" Arc asked, but Eiro raised his brows and turned around toward the boy with a light frown, "I usually just read... There''s not much we can really do, you know?" Eiro pointed out, and Arc looked at him surprised.


    "What, we''re just doing nothing the whole time?"


    "I just said I read, didn''t I?" The Demon replied with a lightugh, and Arc just groaned out loudly, "Fine... Then can you give me one of your books that you''re not reading right now?"


    With a slow nod, the Demon held his hand outward, ready to pull any one of his few books out of his invisible bookshelf, "Sure, which do you want? Right now I''m reading ''Historic and Current Geography of the Continent'', but I also have ''Advanced Theory of Spatial De- and construction'', ''Limitless Growth of ntlife'', and ''Existentialism of Monsters''. You read the Limitless Growth one already, right?" Eiro asked, and Arc slowly nodded his head.


    "Yup. It was pretty interesting actually, it spoke about the possibility of different ntlife growing to immeasurable extents through magic. For example an Apple could be asrge as our house, or a Melon asrge as a castle. There were also some parts about how it could stop famine in Arengard despite the drought and wars." Arc pointed out, "Overall, pretty interesting. Could you give me the Advanced Theory one? Spatial De- and construction... That was the theory where it speaks about how all matter is re-invented in some way, shape or form, and that none is ever lost or gained, right?" Arc asked, and Eiro nodded his head.


    "Mhm, flipped through it a bit before, it''s mainly analyzing how magic creates matter, and theorizing about how that influences our world in the long run." He exined as he pulled the book out of his Treasury and then handed it to the boy sitting behind him, who swiftly flipped it open.


    "Sweet. I mean, it''s magic, right? There''s not necessarily a reason behind how it creates stuff. Right, Nelli?" Arc asked, and the Spirit swiftly appeared in front of him.


    "I mean... I don''t know about any of that stuff, I just make water. Like I turn the mana that I have into it, it''s like coloring a piece of paper, kind of. In a weird way..." Nelli exined, before Eiro lightly chuckled.


    "Great exnation." He said, and Nelli floated up in front of her contractor with a deep frown, "Hey, it''s a better exnation than all those ''Analysts'' saying that we pull the water out of another Realm, which we don''t."


    "Couldn''t some Spirits just go ahead and tell that to those ''Analysts''?" Arc asked, and Nelli nodded her head, "I mean, I personally would, but like I already exined to Eiro plenty of times, Spi-"


    "Quote, ''Spirits are asshats'', quote end." The Demon interruped, and with a lightugh, Arc just flipped the book in his hands open and started to read, while Nelli disappeared back into the ''inbetween'' space and kept pestering only Eiro about a whole bunch of stuff that he tried his best to ignore. She just wanted to annoy him, so he just wouldn''t y along no matter what she did.


    And so, that trip went on for the next roughly ten hours, and they soon reached town around sunrise, and Eiro swiftly pulled his mask out of his treasury, put the two books that he and Arc were reading back into it, and prepared to enter town. Although to his surprise, there was a guard stationed at the gate now, and it was one of the soldiers that Rumia brought with him, and he swiftly stopped the Demon from entering.


    "You, Sir, have to report to Lord Argenson before entering town." The Soldier said, but Eiro just sighed in response and shook his head, "Yeah... No, I don''t." He pointed out and just told Lugo to keep moving, although the Soldier then held his spear in front of the Stag.


    "I... I said you have to report to Lord Argenson." The Soldier said nervously, and Eiro just frowned back at him.


    "And I very clearly said that I don''t have to, didn''t I? You realize right now, I''m in a position of power toward him, and not the other way around, right? So go ahead and tell Rumia that he can report to me if he oh so dearly wants to speak to me.." The Demon said with a deep re, making the Soldier slowly lower the spear while Lugo made his way into town, and Arc just turned around toward the Soldier as they were leaving and broadly grinned at him, extending his hand to show him the middle-finger.

 Chapter 101 - Signing Up

    "Lugo, stay here." Eiro said in a clear voice as he climbed off of the Stag''s back and then helped Arc down as well, and Lugo simply plopped down onto his butt next to the Guild''s door before the Demon pushed the door open and stepped inside, before then holding the door open for Arc.


    In response to the quiet ringing that the bell at the top of the door caused when someone opened the door, Tom pushed his head out of the back room to see who was there and then just started to smile and walked to the front of the counter. "Eiro, good to see you!" The Middle-aged man said with a smile as he extended his hand over toward the Demon, who swiftly returned the handshake as well.


    "Likewise. I want to introduce you to someone, this is Arc. He came with me today to sign up to the Guild." Eiro exined, and with a bright smile Tom held his hand in front of Arc to shake his hand as well before the young man swiftly shook it with his own.


    "Nice to meet you, Arc." Tom said, and Arc just smiled back at him, "The pleasure is all mine." He replied, and Tom then swiftly turned around and stepped back behind the counter while dragging one of his legs like he always did.


    "So, you want to join the Guild?" The Guild receptionist asked, and Arc swiftly nodded in response, "Yep, I do! That way I can start making my own money." The boy said smugly, and Eiro just quietly chuckled while Tom nodded his head and handed Arc a sheet of paper and a pen.


    "Then please fill out this information. Considering Eiro''s proficiency, I''m sure you can read and write?" Tom added as he looked at the boy with a smile, and Arc just slightly nodded his head, albeit with a seemingly disappointed frown, "By hand..? Aren''t Guilds supposed to have something like Magic Tools that can scan your status on their own or something?" Arc asked, and with a lightugh Tom shook his head.


    "Not here, I''m afraid. Sure, inrger towns withrger Guilds, they might have those, but such Magic Tools are rather expensive. We keep everything on paper, and once a year someone from the closestrge Guild wille here to copy the information since we can''t afford the Magic Tool ourselves." Tom pointed out, "You will notice that we do not possess any Magic Tools in this town at all, actually. No ss-Change crystal, no Monster-Repents, nothing like that. For the ss-change, just like for the guild information update, once a year someone from the churches here with a portable ss-change crystal to let anyone that can change their ss do so." Tom exined quite clearly, "They usuallye in the summer, so it''s still a while until then."


    "You mean I''m stuck without a ss for another half year..?" Arc asked with a wry smile, and Tom simply nodded his head again, "I''m afraid so."


    With a deep sigh, Arc looked down at the piece of paper and grabbed the pen, swiftly filling out the information before lifting his head again, "And what do I put as my ss in here?"


    "You can just leave it nk, we will update it once you actually get your first ss." Tom said with a smile on his face, and then swiftly took the filled-out piece of paper and ced it down onto the area behind the counter that a customer usually couldn''t look at.


    "Your Guild card will take a little while to finish. How about I give to Eiro at the end of the Solstice and he simply brings it home with him?" The receptionist suggested, and with a disappointed expression, Arc nodded his head.


    "That''s fine, I guess." He replied, and Eiro swiftly looked at the boy standing next to him, "Arc." The Demon said, and Arc swiftly raised his brows and then looked at Tom again, "Oh, right... Thank you for your help." The boy said, and with a lightugh Tom shook his head with augh as if in disbelief over something.


    "A Demon telling a child to be grateful, what a world we live in." The manughed, and then started looking through some sheets of paperying right next to him.


    "Hmm, would you perchance be interested in taking your first request already, Arc?" Tom asked, and with a bright smile, the boy nodded his head, "I would love to! What requests do you have?" He asked, and Tom swiftly started looking through the different things he had next to him before finding one that seemed rather interesting.


    "There is a request you could go shopping for Miss Jameson. Then there would also be a request where you might be able to help out in the Smithy, the Smith is rather busy these days and his son is pre-upied as well..." Tom exined, and while Arc was rather disappointed at the extent of these requests, Eiro was rather interested at what Tom just said.


    "He''s busy? The horses all got new horseshoesst month already, and the farming season is over... And why would Smith''s son be busy, besides helping his father out he''s only part of the-" Eiro started, and then all of a sudden realized what was going on. "What''s Rumia doing?" He asked, before Tom just scratched the back of his neck and sighed deeply.


    "He''s being rather troublesome, actually. While he may not have any bad intentions, he''s trying to push his ideologies onto the town and is trying to turn the militia into an actual group of armed soldiers. But you know those guys, the militia is an excuse for all those guys to meet up and get drunk every night without their wives telling them they''re bums." Tom said with a deep sigh, and Eiro raised his brows in response, "Aren''t you part of the militia as well, technically?"


    "Yes I am, that''s why I can tell you how it is. But since I''m running the Guild, Lord Argenson made an exception for me, and I can keep working here. Also, because of my legs..." The Guild receptionist exined, so Eiro lightly nodded his head in thought.


    "I''ll try and speak to Lady Winter about it, maybe she can say something when Rumia inevitably tries to speak to her." Eiro suggested, so Tom slowly nodded his head, "That would be greatly appreciated. I can''t imagine what kind of changes he will be trying to put into effect throughout the next year..." The middle aged man muttered quietly, and Eiro slowly nodded, although he still stayed silent for a little bit and then looked at Arc as he was looking through the requests that Tom gave him to choose from.


    "Tom, do you have any request for Arc that he can get done away from this town? Some simple gathering requests, maybe?" Eiro asked, and Tom slowly scratched his chin in thought, "Usually I''m not allowed to give apletely new member a request above their rank, but I will just make an exception this time." Tom said with a wink, and then swiftly grabbed another piece of paper that he then gave to Arc, which he seemed to be a bit more satisfied with.


    And after Eiro made sure that it was something that Arc could actually handle, he nodded his head in areement and finally got out the money to actually pay for registering at the guild before Arc officially took his first request, "Alright! These grow near our house, right? That would be pretty easy to get done, right?" He asked excitedly, before Eiro just nodded his head, "Yes, exactly. But you''ll have to look for them yourself, or else that would be cheating." The Demon pointed out, so the boy immediately nodded his head before Eiro and Arc said goodbye to Tom and made their way out of the Guild, where they swiftly encountered a sight they didn''t really enjoy.


    "Come on, you fat... beast! Move your ass!" A Soldier eximed as he tried to push Lugo away from where he was sitting, and Eiro looked at his Familiar with a confused expression, "Lugo, did you sit down on something of his?" The Demon asked confusedly, and the Stag looked back at him in thought for a few moments and then shook his head.


    "Did you do something else to make him angry?" Eiro asked next, but once more Lugo just shook his head, so the Imp swiftly turned toward the soldier himself, "Then what may be the problem right now?"


    Slightly surprised, the Soldier looked at Eiro and then took a step backward when he remembered who he was, and then started to stutter, "I-Is this your S-Stag?" He asked, and Eiro just nodded his head, waiting for what the Soldier was trying to get at.


    "Th-Then I must tell you that we-we''re confiscating it under the name of the Holy K-King..." The Soldier said, and Eiro looked at him with a sigh and shook his head, "No, you''re not." The Demon replied and then snapped his fingers to tell Lugo to stand up and then started to make his way over toward the first shop they needed to go to, swiftly followed by Arc and Lugo alike, while the Soldier took a moment to understand that Eiro justpletely disregarded hismand.


    "That is not for you to de-decide! We are preparing a feast for the Lady of Winter that ising next week, and we need the best of the best of food for that asion!" The Soldier eximed, "You are obligated to support us in that a-act!"


    With a rather annoyed expression, hidden by his mask, Eiro turned around and stared at the soldier while rather upset at what he just said, but just before he could do or say anything, Arc took that over for him and approached the soldier with a bright smile.


    "My man, I''m Arc, what about you?" The boy said with a grin, and the Soldier slowly frowned at him and replied, "While it is unimportant, my name is Gerald."


    "You''re right, you''repletely unimportant, d you can see that. Now listen here, Gerald, you''re trying to tell me that you''re trying to prepare a feast for a Goddess of nature, by killing a being of nature?" Arc asked, slightlyughing as he did so, and Gerald just nodded his head.


    "Of course!" He eximed, and Arc looked at him with a wry smile, "That''s not the answer I expected, honestly. Well buddy, listen here. You''re a fucking idiot. I personally haven''t met the Ladies yet, but from what I heard, they''re not huge fans of senseless destruction and murder, so what you''re trying to do here may not necessarily be the best choice going forward."


    "What are you talking about, it''s not Murder, and it''s not senseless destruction either. Beasts such as that Stag exist just to help us people strive. They are supposed to be killed, that in itself is nature. Lesser beings such as Spirits, Beasts, or Monsters all exist only for people to grow. That is the teaching of our church, and I would assume that a Goddess would agree with us there. After all, they should know the truth, shouldn''t they? So obviously it won''t be-"


    "Oh man, how neat!" Arc eximed, and both Eiro and the Soldier looked at him surprised, although the Soldier was thinking that Arc was being convinced by the Church''s teachings, "Ah, so you can see the truth behind it now?" The Soldier asked with a smug expression, and Arc just shook his head with a bright smile.


    "Not at all! I just got a new skill, it''s called ''Idiot Language Comprehension''! I''m sure that''s going toe in really useful in the future, because right now I don''t understand any of your moronic rambling in the slightest!"

 Chapter 102 - Trouble, Trouble

    While Eiro did find what Arc just told that soldier more than just hrious, he also knew that this was exactly the kind of thing that Nelli was warning him about and as such swiftly turned toward the spirit, who was already eyeing him with an ''I told you so'' expression.


    "Don''t look at me that way. If Arc hadn''t stepped in, I might have killed that guy." Eiro pointed out, and Nelli sighed deeply and shook her head disappointedly, "How great..." She sighed, and Eiro simply turned his head back toward Arc and the Soldier, thetter of which was seemingly getting rather fed up with all of this and swiftly pointed his spear at Arc.


    "That''s it! In the name of the Holy King, I am taking you under arrest!" The Soldier eximed, and there were actually some people looking at him from their own shops due to the noise.


    "Hah, right." Arc said with a smirk, and then just closed his eyes and shook his head, "As if a wimp like you would dare actually try and do that." The boy pointed out, and at that point, even Eiro noticed that it might have been too provocative in this situation, and quickly noticed that the Soldier was moving his body in a way that might mean he was about to stab the spear forward toward the boy that literally couldn''t feel pain nor any other sort of touch beyond what a simple handshake would produce.


    But of course, before he could do that, the soldier already had a dagger stuck in his elbow as it was stabbed through the gap in the armor he was wearing, "What do you think you''re doing?" Eiro asked as he slowly pushed his mana into the Magic Stone in the handle of the dagger. Since his Fire Affinity and Fire Magic proficiency in general increased a lot over the past few years, instead of just getting warm enough to melt some snow, it actually got hot enough to burn your skin. So of course, if the de was already inside of your body, that feeling of burning was probably a bit more extreme, and the Soldier''s arm immediately tensed up.


    [Gerald Muzkins -287 Damage]


    As Gerald the Soldier screamed out in pain, Eiro just pulled his Dagger out of the man''s elbow and stared down at him, "Be d that I don''t want any trouble, or else I would have killed you. Now, show that neat little wound to Rumia and the other soldiers, get yourself patched up, and then pray each and every second to those disgusting gods of yours that I won''t change my mind ande to kill you after all, understood?" Eiro asked, but the soldier just held his arm and tried to stop the bleeding as he stared at the figure in front of him.


    And despite not actually knowing of his identity as a Monster, even Gerald currently saw Eiro as nothing but a Demon. But that was when Eiro noticed the sound of metal touching metal as a de touched a piece of metal meant to hold its sheath together while it was drawn, together with the footsteps of the one that actually drew the weapon.


    It seemed to have been another soldier, as Eiro swiftly confirmed through the reeking smell of the polishing wax that these soldiers seemed to use to keep their armor in shape. And with a simple motion, Eiro turned stood up from his kneeling position and by kicking himself off with his foot practically slid over the ground, using the frozen snow as help for that, to stab the dagger in his hand into the side of the soldier trying to attack him now, once more taking advantage of the gap in the armor.


    [Simon Klitz ¨C 512 Damage]


    "Now, now, I was just defending myself and my son. And then you do something like this?" Eiro asked with a deep frown hidden under his mask, and then stood back up properly while patting down his cloak to get rid of the dust and bits of dirt that just got on it, while the second soldier was holding his side while obviously experiencing quite a lot of pain.


    "Hmm... Arc, let''s get going. We need to go pick everything up. I think we shouldn''t linger too long." Eiro pointed out and then grabbed a piece of cloth from his Satchel before using it to wipe the blood off his dagger, swiftly cing it back into his Treasury before moving away, swiftly avoided by the few vigers that just witnessed this happening.


    In the distance, the Demon did hear someone telling a soldier about all this, but none of them seemed that troublesome to deal with.


    More importantly, "Arc, are you alright? Neither of them managed to hit you, right?" The Imp asked, staring deep into the boy''s eyes to make sure there was no remnant of a red notification or the red mist it left behind after disappearing to be seen there, and Arc swiftly shook his head. "Nope, don''t worry. But damn... To think you went from a Demon literally eating human flesh to sparing those two just because you don''t want trouble. Quite a development, huh?" Arc pointed out with a lightugh, and Eiro just shrugged.


    "I guess." He said, before Nelli appeared in front of him with a confused expression, "You used to eat people?" She asked, before Eiro nodded his head with a bit of confusion. "Yeah, is there anything wrong with that? I mean, I get that people don''t eat other people, because of that whole Heresy Curse thing, but why shouldn''t I? People eat monsters all the time, and vice versa as well. And monsters eat each other a well. I''m a monster, so... I don''t see the problem?" Eiro asked the Spirit, and she just sighed deeply and shook her head.


    "Nothing, I get it. I was just a bit surprised, that''s all. I didn''t expect you to do that... and for Arc to know about it." Nelli said with a carefree expression. Spirits usually didn''t concern themselves with such things, so technically Monsters and People didn''t have much of a difference in them from their position, so she understood what Eiro was talking about. She simply hadn''t ever seen him eat a person.


    But then, Eiro quietly grumbled about something and scratched his cheek, reminded of something rather unpleasant, "Arc was there when I took a person apart once. And I had him help me with it as well." The Demon pointed out, but before Nelli could say anything, he quickly turned toward her and tried to exin, "It was when we first met, when I was more monster-like still! I would never make him do that anymore." Eiro said, and Arc just seemingly shrugged in response.


    "Eh, it''s fine. Pretty gruesome at the time, but both of you know I''m not bothered by past events like that. Now, more importantly, let''s go to the general store. That was the first ce, right?" Arc asked, and Eiro simply nodded his head in response to the question, "Yes... exactly." Eiro said in response, actually feeling horrible for putting Arc through all that in the past, but unsure how he should voice that feeling. Arc really didn''t seem bothered by it at all, so what if Eiro was just being unnecessarily annoying about it?


    Trying to hide such thoughts, Eiro just tried to divert his thoughts and looked forward toward the general store, having Lugo wait outside again while he and Arc went inside.


    After finishing their business of picking up the different things that Eiro had ordered and bought every month, they packed everything onto Lugo and then prepared to make their way out of town again, and then swiftly got to the gate, although a certain man was currently waiting for them there.


    Eiro knew that he was there, he was rather hard not to notice because of his loud, carrying voice and rather... strong smell. He smelled really fake, and Eiro didn''t particrly enjoy that.


    "Rumia... Horrid to see you today." Eiro said with a light scowl, and Rumia himself just crossed his arms and looked down at him,pletely ignoring what the Demon jsut said.


    "I think my soldiers made it clear that I wished to see you, didn''t I? And then you went on to now allow them to take your stinking beast to give it the honor to be fed to a goddess, and even injured two of my men. That is the highest treason anyone couldmit. I hereby-"


    "Nope." Eiro said in a clear tone and then just tried to step past Rumia, who looked at him confusedly and quickly blocked his path, "What did you just say?" Rumia asked, and with an annoyed voice and expression, Eiro looked up at the man in front of him.


    "Are you deaf? I said ''No''." The Demon pointed out, but Rumia just ground his teeth and looked back at him, "I wasn''t asking you anything, ''No'' is not a viable answer." The man replied, "Such heresy will simply extend your-"


    "I swear to all the gods you believe in, if you don''t shut up I''m going to stab you right now. I don''t care about you, I don''t care about your fucked up religion, and I don''t care about what you think you should be doing right now. And as I already told those useless morons that tried attacking me before, I don''t want any trouble. But if you''re giving it to me anyway, I don''t mind making it bigger by killing you right here and now." Eiro said in a clear tone, and then manipted the snow surrounding them to make it climb up Rumia''s legs while constantly freezing in a thicker and thickeryer, giving Eiro, Arc and Lugo the chance to pass him.


    But before they could get on the Stag''s back, Eiro heard the Ice crack as Rumia turned toward him, "Stop right there!" He eximed, and Eiro just red at him, "Fine, you can keep your heretic life a little longer, but the boy is staying here!" Rumia yelled out, but the Demon couldn''t do anything but stare at him confusedly.


    "What nonsense are you spouting now?" Eiro asked, and Rumia stared past him and directly at Arc, "We are preparing for a war here. Anyone that has the physical ability to is obligated to train under me to be a holy soldier to fight for our Holy King!" Rumia eximed, and Eiro red at him with a wry smile, "Again, what nonsense are you spouting now?" Eiro asked once more, before Rumia just got rid of the rest of the ice with his sword and started to take some steps forward, trying to grab Arc by the cor to pull him back into town.


    "Rumia..." Eiro said with a deep growl that made the man hesitate for just a moment, "If I were you, I would turn around and get yourself out of my sight. Better even, leave this town altogether, before I do actually end up killing you right here and now. Even if someone far stronger than you and Ibined wille here in your stead ends up showing up, I would dly let that happen if it means that it did because your life ended." The Demon pointed out.


    "I''m going to give you a singlest chance now, alright? Because I don''t want this town to end up having to pay for my actions. Leave the residents alone, ande out every three months to tell the Ladies your story. There will be no feast, no party, nothing. Not for you. You will speak to them briefly and respectfully, and then let them make their choice." Eiro told Rumia, with clear determination, and the tall-built man slowly pulled his hand away from the boy in front of him, just staring abck at Eiro.


    "We will see in a week if our position will stay the same. Once I speak to Lady Winter, then we already won''t need you anymore. Then you will be tried for your sins.." Rumia eximed, but Eiro just stared back at him, with his smile fortunately hidden under his mask.

 Chapter 103 - Lady Of Winter

    Eiro pushed his feet into his boots and pulled his cloak over his body like usual, and then grabbed the different nts and other materials he had gathered for the Lady of Winter, before then once more turning around to look at the children.


    "Better stay inside most of the day tomorrow, the snow on the Solstice is always really strong. And again, if anything happens, just have the Puppet defend you, alright?" Eiro asked of them all, and they swiftly nodded their heads, "Of course, of course, now get going or you''ll be toote!" Sammy eximed, and the Demon just lightly chuckled before nodding his head.


    "Fine, fine. I''ll be back tomorrow night. And don''t stay up toote, alright? You can look at the Auroras if you want, but if the sunes up-"


    "We get it! Now go!" Arc interrupted the Imp, who just stared back at the boy with a light frown, "You don''t have to get so mean about it... Anyway, see you all tomorrow." Eiro said with a light sigh before stepping out of the door right into the deep snow that had already gathered in front of him, although Eiro had no issue just pushing it away with his Ice Magic.


    Like this, with Lugo right behind him helping him carry some of the materials to the ce where they would meet the Lady of Winter and her daughters, the Demon, the Spirit, and the Stag made their way to the ce that thedies appeared every single time.


    It was a small open space hidden inbetween thick trees, and it was hard to look into the clearing from the outside even in winter, where most nts were simply dead. But even if that was the case usually, now on the day before the day of the Solstice, numerous unique nts that were not a thing usually were growing.


    And in this ne of Winter-blossoms, Eiro kneeled down and waited for the arrival of the Lady of winter. Just a couple of hourster, he already noticed exactly this happening. The snow started falling more quickly and more intense, to the level of a dense snowstorm, and just as quickly as it appeared it disappeared as well, leaving behind therge figure of the Lady of Winter that was towering over the Demon.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro extended his arms forward to give the first offer to the Lady, which one of the Daughters of Winter swiftly took, before Eiro took the next and then the next, giving each offering to another one of the daughters, with the exception of the youngest of these. Over the years, the Daughters actually seemed to age a bit as well, and grew taller and more mature, although they were still just children in Eiro''s eyes.


    "It has been a while, young Demon." The Lady of Winter said once all of the gifts had been given out, and Eiro himself swiftly raised his head, "Indeed so, my Lady." He replied, and soon, the Lady of Winter looked around confusedly, "Is Sir Jura not apanying you this year?" She asked, and Eiro simply started to look down onto the ground with a bitter expression.


    "Jura, he passed two months ago..." Eiro exined, and once he noticed that the Lady seemed rather surprised and even borderline shocked at this, the Demon started to tell her about what exactly happened since then. About how he inherited Jura''s card, about how he had to leave in a year, and about how there were men in town that wanted to speak to thedies.


    "I see..." The Lady muttered quietly after she heard Eiro speak of this all, and then looked down at him, "I understand that you wish to leave for the sake of those children. However, I hope that this shall not be thest time I get to meet you. If you promise me such, then I do not mind setting you free of your role. My Sisters should feel the same." The Lady of Winter exined, and then her expression was twisted into one that bordered on anger and disgust, "However, those men you spoke of... They seem quite conceited, do they not?"


    With a swift nod, Eiro nodded his head in response, "First, thank you for being so kind, my Lady. As for those men, yes, I would also say they are rather conceited. But no matter how conceited you are, I do have a favor that I would like to ask you in rtion to them." Eiro exined, and the Lady of Winter looked down onto him curiously, with her mouth hidden by her arm and the robes that were hanging down from it.


    "What kind of favor would that be? You don''t wish to ask me to actually help them, do you?" Lady Winter asked, and Eiro just immediately shook his head.


    "Oh, no, don''t worry, it''s not that in the slightest. Well, kind of, now that I think about it..." Eiro started, making the Lady of Winter even more curious about what this Demon was nning, so he himself just grinned a bit and held his hands behind his back, "The Favor I would like to ask of you is rather simple. I want you to pretend to help them, but only after they got the three other Ladies to agree as well, or at least in a simr fashion to you. I don''t mean to say that I know what you four are like, but I am sure that all of you would appreciate a little something to entertain you every once in a while, wouldn''t you?" The Demon pointed out, and the Lady of Winter swiftly started to chuckle in a low voice.


    "Interesting, interesting... And what would the goal of this be?" The Lady of Winter asked, and Eiro exined it quite quickly, "Well, I want them to believe that I can actually help them so that they won''t end up bothering me too much while I''m still here. And of course, I want them to believe that everything is going as nned, so that they won''t end up calling for reinforcements. Because if they do, it will be much, much harder to kill them all a year from now." Eiro exined with a grin, and the Lady of Winter looked down at him with an amused expression still hidden behind her garments and her arm.


    "Interesting... I knew it was worth it to give you my blessing, young Demon... I will y along, it should not be too hard to fool men like that if they truly are as simple as you say they are." She pointed out, and then looked down onto him, "Since this ''favor'' is one that seems to work out in both of our favors, for your victory a year from now and for my amusement, let me give my blessed one another small gift. One to say farewell, while at the same time being a promise to meet again." The Lady said, and then extended her arm forward toward him, holding her palm upward as if waiting for something to be ced down on it.


    "Give me that flower that you received as a gift then." Lady Winter said, and curiously, the Demon nodded his head and grabbed it from his Treasury before cing it down onto the Lady''s palm.


    She then pulled her arm back a bit and looked at the Demon with a light smile as she enclosed the Flower of ice in both her hands. A cold energy encased her body as this was happening, being pulled into the center of her hands into the flower, as Eiro could now tell with his new senses, and then, the Lady extended her hand back forward.


    The flower had now changed a fair bit... And with a ''Fair Bit'', Eiro meant that it wasn''t a flower anymore. Well, at least it wasn''t a flower yet? It had returned to the stage of a bud, onerger than the actual flower had been beforehand, even.


    "What is this?" Eiro asked as he took the bud of ice into both of his hands, and the Lady of Winter swiftly spoke, "Once you are ready, and one of my daughters matured enough to be given such a task, it will bloom once more and a new Spirit will be born into this world made from the essence of that daughter. A Spirit that, much like the Naiad currently apanying you, will hopefully be a dearpanion to you." The Lady exined, and Eiro raised his brows in surprise.


    At some point, a Spirit that he could contract would be born from this? And that Spirit would technically be one of the Lady''s daughters? That seemed like an amazing thing, but even then...


    "Thank you, my Lady, but I do not know if I can ept this. I am grateful that you would allow me to contract one of your Daughters, but I don''t think that is a choice you yourself should make, but the Daughter that would be chosen to be that Spirit." Eiro exined, and with a lightugh, the Lady of Winter nodded her head.


    "Of course, dear Eiro. I would not have given you this if there was not one of my daughters that already wished to be yourpanion." The Lady exined, looking down to her side onto the youngest of the Daughters.


    When Eiro first met the Lady of Winter, he had given her this very Ice-Flower and was then given it as a gift at the end. It seemed like she really took a liking to Eiro since then. "Is that so?" The Demon asked, "If one of your daughters truly wants to be mypanion, I will dly ept this gift from you, my Lady." Eiro exined, and the Lady could not help herself butugh a slight bit in response to what the Demon just said.


    "It truly puzzles me..." She said quietly, "In one breath, you speak of the murder of men, and in the next you are sopassionate to another being." The Lady of Winter pointed out, and Eiro simply looked up at her with a light smile on his face.


    "Well of course. There is no reason to treat you or these children in any manner other than withpassion. Those men, however, don''t deserve anything but my disgust." The Demon exined, and the Lady of Winter slowly nodded her head.


    "Then let me see those men now. Shall we go?" The Lady suggested, and Eiro swiftly nodded his head and turned around toward Lugo to tell him to stand up again since they would start walking, and then, they swiftly got started on making their way to town.


    On their way, while usually with most others that were appointed as Guides, the Lady of Winter would be close to silent on her way there, but with Eiro it seemed like she couldn''t help herself but speak about numerous different things.


    And in this case, these things were Eiro''s children, Sammy and Leon''s seals, and of course Jura. When it came to that old man, it was really mostly the Lady speaking about him, since she had known him much, much longer than Eiro did, despite technically spending less time with him overall, since they had only seen each other once a year. But it seemed like nheless, the Lady of Winter had a few interesting stories to speak of when it came to Jura, which the Demon listened to with curiosity, all the way until they reached the Town, at which point both Eiro and the Lady quieted down and said their proper farewells to each other, since this would be thest time for them to meet until Eiro came back here a few years from now, as he promised in return for receiving the Bud of Ice.


    And then, after that, Eiro ced his mask onto his face to hide the fact he was a Demon from Rumia and the Soldiers, and then followed the Lady of Winter into town toward the market, where the man in question was already waiting, in the one ce that just showed his pure conceit and ignorance to the Lady of Winter right off the bat.


    In the center of the four statues.

 Chapter 104 - Gruesome Hatred

    Eiro could feel the air around him grow colder and colder every single split-moment that the Lady of Winter was looking at the man standing in the center of the four statues, with a few people standing in front of its entrance to try and get Rumia out of there, but he wasn''t entirely sure what he had to do.


    Considering how Rumia and his soldiers acted so far, he wouldn''t be surprised if the people from the Holy Kingdom were to try and attack the fourdies if the Lady of Winter was to kill him right here, practically turning this town and forest into the stage for a war.


    And so, the Demon chose to do something that he rather wouldn''t have wanted to do, so he figured he might be able to put his own satisfying twist on it. With swift motions, Eiro stepped in front of the Lady of Winter, something which he usually wouldn''t have done in this situation, as it was something direspectful to do, and then spoke up with a clear voice so that the enraged Lady would really end up hearing him.


    "My Lady, that is the man I spoke of before. If you allow me to, can I take the role of removing him from that space without it costing him his life?" Eiro asked, and the Lady slowly turned her eyes toward the Demon and nodded her head, seemingly holding herself back.


    "Do as you please. I will try to y along with your favor even after this disrespect, young Demon. I permit you to enter that space. But do not sully it, will you?" She asked of the Imp, who just ended up smirking underneath his mask and turning around.


    "As you ask, my Lady." Eiro replied, and then swiftly turned around, making his way over toward the four statues while the Lady of Winter waited at the entrance to the central ce, something that none of these vigers had ever witnessed before in their life. Although, someone standing in the center of the statues was something they had never expected to see either.


    And once the Demon stepped through therge open gate in front of the statues, Rumia''sugh could be heard, "What a woundrous sight! She is a Goddess through and through! Sorry for doubting you, young man, seems like you truly are the guide! Now-"


    "Can you shut up for a second?" Eiro asked, swiftly interrupting Rumia''s conceited speech, while the Demon seemingly prepared for something, "What are you doing there? Is that part of some Solstice Ritual?" Rumia asked curiously, before Eiro made him extend his arm forward, making the man himself think that this was once more part of this ''ritual'', although Eiro was just mumbling to himself.


    "Well, I wouldn''t really mind if this became one, to tell you the truth." The Demon said, and then swiftly twisted his body so that he and Rumia were facing in the same direction, with Eiro''s back faced toward Rumia''s stomach and chest, while Rumia looked down at him confused.


    "Is this some sort of dance?" He asked curiously, "What do I need to do?" He wondered, and was even more surprised when Eiro''s reply came.


    "I suggest to brace yourself. Now then, how did this step go again..?" Eiro replied, and then swiftly remembered the motions of the Puppet when in its hand-to-handbat mode, trying to replicate one of the moves that it had been using over and over again to defeat Eiro in their sparrs. Of course, since Rumia was a fair bit heavier than Eiro, the Demon had to cleverly manipte his Life Force, but once that step was done, Rumia''s body was swiftly turned upside down and flew through the air directly out through the gate, making Rumiand on his back and slide across the frozen, snow-covered ground a little bit while Eiro braced himself for the straining pain caused by the maniption of his Life Force.


    But since this wasn''t all he wanted to do with Rumia, and since he had the chance, the Demon swiftly stepped past the Soldiers that grabbed their weapons at the ready to try and attack Eiro for this, and grabbed the back of Rumia''s armor. With the help of his manipted Life Force changing the distribution of his physical strength considerably, as well as a little bit of water and ice magic manipting the snow and water covering Rumia''s body, Eiro started pulling Rumia across the ground as if he was nothing but a piece of cloth, swiftly bringing him in front of the Lady of Winter and flipped his body around, pressing Rumia''s face into the snow in front of the Lady and her Daughters.


    "I excuse this fool''s rude behaviour, my Lady. Please keep considering his request even so." Eiro said, doing his best to hold Rumia''s head into the snow to make sure he didn''t spout any madness in front of the Lady, and then that Lady nodded her head.


    "Since you went out of your way to ask for it, I will do so. I will hear him out after the celebration is over." The Lady of Winter exined, and then, together with her Daughters, stepped past Eiro and Rumia and made her way toward the four statues, while Eiro finally let go of Rumia, who just stared at him and was obviously about to yell ''Heresy'' or some crap, but Eiro swiftly held his dagger in front of the man''s throat before he could do so.


    "Shut your mouth. You heard her, you will speak to her after the celebrations are over, which should take a couple of hours. Be d that she didn''t kill you for yourplete idiocy." The Demon said, and then slowly moved his dagger away, and then simply stepped over to the sidelines, waiting for everything to start, although it seemed like Rumia still didn''t understand what he was just told and started approaching thedy, or at least he wanted to. Luckily, Eiro was able to rather easily trip him up with simply ice magic before pulling him back a bit again.


    "Stay." Eiro said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall, but it seemed like Rumia still wasn''t happy, so the Demon chose to resort to his favorite method of coercion. Threats of physical harm. Once more grabbing his dagger, Eiro kept holding the weapon directly onto Rumia''s throat, the de actually touching his skin, and then looked forward.


    "Now, I hope you will be a bit happier to listen to me for now." Eiro said with a broad grin, hidden underneath his mask, as the celebration unfolded in front of them. And during the whole term of those celebrations, Eiro kept holding the Dagger in front of Rumia''s throat, not taking it away for even a split moment, no matter how much Rumia was asking him to.


    But then finally, it was time for the celebration to end, at least for the Lady of Winter, and the Lady of Winter looked over toward Eiro with a nod, so the Demon swiftly removed the de and turned toward Rumia.


    "Let''s go." The Imp suggested, and then stepped forward while letting the Dagger in his hand drop into his treasury, before the rather pissed-off Rumia followed him toward the Lady of Winter.


    "Finally we have the chance to speak after this Heretic held me off from approaching you."


    "I literally saved your life." Eiro sighed, and then thought to himself, ''Well, for another nine months...'', and Rumia practically just ignored him as the Lady started to speak.


    "I will not allow you to speak of my Blessed one in this manner. I would rethink your approach if you wish to receive my aid." The Lady pointed out, and Rumia stared at Eiro confusedly while the Demon himself simply stepped up right next to the Lady, since he didn''t want anyone to think he was on Rumia''s side.


    "Of course, I am sorry to have offended you, dear Lady... and excuse me, but did you just say you blessed this man?" Rumia asked, and the Lady immediately nodded her head in response, "That is not of importance to you. Now speak, before I take away your ability to do so." The Lady told Rumia, who just started to smile brightly, albeit while obviously upset at the fact that a ''Heretic'' gained the blessing of a Goddess of Nature.


    Either way, for now, Rumia started to exin the situation. It seemed like they really were slowly preparing for a ratherrge war, or rather an attack, against the King of Monsters. That in itself would have probably been a rather good reason to ask for any help one could get, but Eiro was rather disgusted by the way that Rumia voiced everything.


    He kept speaking about what an honor it was for Lady Winter to help them fight against those wicked monsters, about how they had to defeat those that defied their god, and those that ''stole'' the Holy Priestess.


    Especially thatst part was rather annyoing to Eiro. The Holy Priestess was a title given to Avalin. That little, cheerful, although slightly mischievous, child. And Rumia was only speaking of her like a tool, like an object to be used in war. He was literally speaking about how right about now she was supposed to be their greatest war asset.


    A young child that literally tripped over with every second step because of how clumsy she was, with a weak body that was probably as easy to cut through as water was. A child like that was supposed to be an ''Asset'' if it hadn''t been ''Stolen''?


    After that speech, Eiro absolutely made up his mind. He would endure his hatred for Rumia for the next nine month, and after the Fall Equinox would kill Rumia and his men in the most horrible and gruesome way that he could think of. Anyone like that didn''t deserve to live under the same sky as his children.


    Luckily, before Eiro ended uppletely losing himself in his fantasies and ending up just killing Rumia right here and now, the Lady of Winter spoke up and he snapped out of it, "I see... So you need assistance in defending your people from the attack of the King of Monsters?" The Lady asked, to sum the far-too-long speech up a bit, and Rumia shook his head.


    "Rather the opposite! Our Holy King will use your assistance in the offense toward the King of Monsters." Rumia eximed, and Eiro could just barely hold himself back from practically screaming out loud, before the Lady spoke once more.


    "Ah, so that''s how it is. Personally, I myself am neither opposed nor eager to start a war. But if you ask my sisters and get all of them to agree, or at the lowest have them be neutral like me, I would not minding to your aid when it is needed." The Lady said with her hand and robes hiding the lower half of her face, making it seem like she was slightly intrigued at the idea to someone like Rumia, but from his own position, Eiro could tell that Lady Winter''s face was one of pure disgust and anger, but she was holding herself back for Eiro''s sake.


    "I see, of course you would agree with me! I doubt your sisters would mind helping us either!" Rumia eximed, ring at Eiro with a re that seemed to want to show his superiority, but the Lady swiftly put him in his ce.


    "Oh, but do not misunderstand, conceited man. You would never have received the chance to make this request if it weren''t for my dear Eiro. And if my sisters all take the same stance as me, the final choice will be up to him, so I suggest you do nothing that causes him anger.." The Lady eximed, "Or else, you shall regret ever stepping before me."

 Chapter 105 - Task Complete

    Shortly after the discussion ended and the Lady and her daughters disappeared again, Eiro was preparing to make his way back home, rather tiredly, and simply stopped to talk to a few people here and there, getting some free food from some of the stalls, and then also grabbed Arc''s Guild Card from Tom.


    And just when he was about to actually leave the town to be able to take his mask off and eat some of the stuff he was just given, a rather annoying man stepped up right behind him.


    "Eiro." Rumia said with a deep frown, and the Demon turned around toward him and with a smug tone shook his head, "That''s Lord Eiro for you, peasant." Heughed, ying around with the fact that the Lady of Winter practicallymanded Rumia to do whatever Eiro wants, and the man himself just ground his teeth and looked at him, "Do not speak to me in that manner. No matter what this Goddess said, you are still a heretic through and through, and will be judged for your sins once this is all over."


    "Sure, sure. If you would excuse me, I have some babies to sacrifice to the lord of the underworld. See ya." The Demon said and then swiftly climbed onto Lugo''s back, and then innocently waved at Rumia and his men as he was leaving. Luckily, even Rumia wasn''t dumb enough to actually think what Eiro just said was really the truth.


    And once Eiro was sure nobody was around him to see him anymore, he removed his mask and finally started indulging in the snacks that he was given, "You really can eat, huh..?" Nelli asked as she watched him, and the Demon looked at her with a slight frown.


    "I know it''s just Beginner, but I DO have the Overeating skill, you know?" He pointed out, and the Spirit looked at him with a light frown, "Right, where exactly did you get that again?" She asked, and Eiro swallowed the food paste he just made in his mouth and turned toward her, "When I ate three other Imps, immediately after being captured by a group of Adventurers. I mentioned that, didn''t I?" The Demon pointed out, and then slowly shook his head as he saw Nelli''s shocked expression.


    "Sorry, you were inside with Jura then... Well, nevermind that. For a period of a few days, I had to eat more than my body could have usually handled to provide myself with the energy to break out of the Ownership someone ced over me." Eiro exined, just as he was pulling some meat off a skewer with his teeth.


    "Is that so..?" Nelli asked with a wry smile, "I probably should have expected that kind of thing, to be honest." She said, simply epting it, since there was no reason to worry about it in the end. For now, they just had to make their way back home.


    The next few hours went practically like any other trip to or from the town went, with Eiro just reading a bit until they got home, and once they were actually there, the Demon just made his way into the house to warm back up properly after riding through actually rather snow for that long. His body didn''t get cold like normal though, he just got more lethargic, and that was a bit ufortable to him.


    "I''m back!" The Demon said with a bright smile as he entered the house in the darkness, while everyone was just sitting around the table ying with some cards, and then looked at the Imp with smiles on their own, before Eiro threw the Guild Card over toward Arc.


    "Here you go." Heughed, and Arc looked down at the thin piece of metal excitedly, "Whoa, that''s so neat! Thanks!" Arc eximed, before Eiro just chuckled and sat down on one of the free chairs, slowly using fire magic to heat himself up a bit from the inside out.


    "Anything happen while I was gone?" Eiro asked, but it seemed like everything was just like normal. And that was something that Eiro was rather d about. Hopefully they could live somewhat normally for another nine months.


    ---


    Eiro could feel the air envelop his body as he was running around the forest, using his air magic to boost his movement as much as he could while using Earth Magic to at least sligthly change the terrain to his advantage. For example right now, he was creating a bit of a ramp to be able to take a higher path than the puppet was.


    Over the past few months, Eiro had grown capable enough to catch the Puppet basically half the time that they were practicing together, although he was never able toplete the one hour that was set as a requirement to pass the second half of the freerunning task.


    Hopefully, that would change today. Eiro had tried his best to manipte the paths that the Puppet would take by subtly changing the angle of how he was running to make the puppet want to go into another direction, and now, the Puppet was in a ce where Eiro was able to catch it and then rather easily escape along a route that he knew would allow him to build up a fair amount of distance between them.


    Eiro dropped his body down and used Air Magic to catch his fall just when the Puppet was jumping inbetween a small gap in the ground and then lightly touched the Puppet''s back, before the mode immediately switched to Eiro being the hunted and the Puppet the hunter.


    But, the Puppet still had to stop and turn around, and more importantly find Eiro, who dove into the gap in the forest ground to use it as a good starting point, swiftly making his way through the thin gap before pushing his body out of it by cing one of his feet on one of the walls, and the other foot on the other wall, before pushing his body up and out of the gap and starting to just book it.


    For now, he was running along the forest with the Puppet a good bit behind him, but if Eiro wanted toplete the full hour as the hunted, he had to increase the distance between them some more. His Air Magic did give him a little bit of an advantage over the Puppet, which had the superior techniques and physicality, so he would probably be able to increase the distance if he just kept running in a straight line for a full hour, but that wasn''t the point of this task.


    He was supposed to use his environment in the best possible way, and as such gathered his mana and swiftly manipted the earth underneath his feet to increase the strength of his jump to be able to properly reach the branches of the trees above him while the earth ttened again once his mana was pulled out of the ground, and Eiro then did his best to jump from branch to branch as quickly as he could, changing directions using them as well as elevations as much as he could.


    And that continued for the whole hour, although just when thest minute started, it seemed like the Puppet was about to catch him, but Eiro had been continuously running toward a certain spot. The spot where the Lady of Autumn would appear tomorrow. In that spot, it was incredibly windy around this time, so of course that helped Eiro use his Air Magic a bit more proficiently and used it to give him thest boost to get away from the Puppet with a long jump into the open space in front of him, although the Puppet was sliding toward the ce where he would bending.


    But just before the Puppet touched the Imp, the full hour was finally over, and the Puppet stepped aside and turned toward Eiro, who was busy celebrating his win.


    "Take that, you piece of scrapwood!" Eiro yelled out, and then pat his body down to get rid of the dust and dirt that gathered on him due to hisnding, before he had something held toward him. The Freerunning Token, which the Puppet pulled out of its chest itself just now.


    "Well then, thank you." Eiro said with a smile, and then ced the token into his treasury, as he found that he could weirdly enough store all four tokens in there at the same time, and then looked at the puppet with a smile.


    "Let''s get home and finallyplete the other three tasks as well, shall we?" The demon suggested, and then started walking while properly stretching his body after running for that long.


    "I managed to get my skill that high, huh?" The Demon muttered as he looked at one of the lines of his status as he was walking.


    -[Apprentice Freerunning][Level ¨C 13]


    "Well, I''m still not all that greatpared to a literal puppet..." Eiro smiled wrily. Sure, he may have caught it this time around, but the Puppet''s techniques were still far, far above Eiro''s own. It made sense though, considering that those techniques came from someone who brought the Freerunning skill to its Master Grade.


    He wanted to pass each task at least once each before starting the trip to the ce where Sammy and Leon''s skills would be unsealed, but it obviously wasn''t thest time he would try to pass the task. Just winning once didn''t mean that he was suddenly as great as a master. He just got lucky with his nning. He had to be able to easily beat the puppet to say that he was at least on the same scale as a master, since the puppet itself probably wasn''t even nearly as great as an actual master would be, and that was still a long time away. Luckily the Puppet could constrict its body into a rather small space so that Eiro could actually fit it into his Satchel pretty nicely.


    Either way, for now, the Demon had not much time left to rx, since he still had to beat the Dagger Mastery, Hand-to-Hand Combat Mastery, as well as the Perception tasks.


    And soon, the Demon found his way to the top of the hill where his house stood, and where everyone was just practicing a bit since there was not much better to do.


    They already butchered some of the animals for provisions and then sold the rest with the exception of the two horses, and their things were packed for the trip that would be starting the day after tomorrow as well.


    Eiro felt a little bad about leaving behind so much amazingly special wood as they had in the basement, but that was something he had to live with. He already had to leave behind all his books because there wasn''t that much space in the carriage that Eiro had been constructing over the past few months. He couldn''t make it toorge, since otherwise the horses wouldn''t be able to pull it anymore, so it ended up justrge enough tofortably hold the kids and the more important things they needed as well as all their provisions and simr.


    And now, since everything was set up for them to leave, everyone was really just trying to pass the time and get rid of their nervosity, since they hadn''t left for nearly seven years. The four older children were all fifteen now and one after another were signed up to the Guild, although they weren''t able to get their sses just yet, since, for whatever reason, the man from the church with the ss-change crystal didn''te this summer.


    Well, they would surely pass a town on their way and would be able to get their sses at a church there, so that wasn''t an issue anyway.


    While the children were practicing with each of their items, Eiro just pulled the dagger mastery token out of his Treasury and grabbed the two wooden practice daggers that he and the Puppet always fought with, and threw one of them over toward said puppet, and then swiftly prepared for the fight.

 Chapter 106 - Combat Wins

    Once the Dagger Mastery token was ced into the puppet''s chest, it immediately started to take its stance, same as Eiro.


    And then, during a seemingly random moment, the puppet started attacking first with a rapid forward movement in the form of a stab that Eiro managed to dodge with the help of Air Magic, and then continued back-stepping away from the Puppet as it continued its relentless attack to force Eiro into a situation where he couldn''t dodge anymore.


    But at some point when the Puppet stabbed the wooden dagger upward, Eiro took that chance and instead of stepping backward again, he jumped forward and tried to attack the puppet, hitting his wooden dagger onto its shoulder. This wasn''t a win for him yet, however, since he, for now, gave the puppet a better chance to attack Eiro as well.


    So the demon slid over the ground by covering the underside of his feet with ice to build up some distance more easily, and while that was happening noticed the puppet moving around to try and stab at him with its dagger again, but Eiro swiftly held his own inbetween that spot to defend against the attack while holding the de just so slightly tilted, making the puppet''s dagger, and with that his arm, move in the way that Eiro wanted it to.


    And just then, the Demon was able to slightly bring the Puppet out of bnce, or at least make it harder for it to recover for its next attack, and used that time to build up even more distance.


    Just like this, the fight continued on and on, with Eiro trying to either block, deflect, or run from the Puppet''s continuous attacks, until he was able to find a good gap to finally end the fight.


    Just when the Puppet ced its foot forward for a heavy sh with its dagger, Eiro ced ayer of ice underneath its foot to break the bnce of the attack, since with this move most of the person''s weight had to be ced on the front leg to support the body for rotary movement of the body for the sh to follow.


    And using that split-second that the Puppet''s movement was a bit restricted through this, Eiro managed to break through the Puppet''s defense and stabbed the wooden dagger directly into the center of its chest where the Token Currently was.


    With that, it seemed like Eiro finally won! Once more, he was ovee with incredible excitement as the Puppet took the Token out of its own chest and handed it to Eiro, who was doing his best to recover his stamina a bit while calming down his breathing, since he would next be working on the Hand-to-handbat mastery task, swiftly getting rid of the two wooden daggers for that.


    "Holy shit, you did it!" Arc eximed excitedly, and Eiro looked toward him with a smile and a nod, "Yes I did, finally." The Demon replied, his breathing having calmed a bit again, "It took a while, but at least I once before we leave." He pointed out, before then taking the Hand-to-Hand Combat Mastery token out of his treasury and cing it into the center of the Puppet''s chest.


    "Wait, you''re moving on now? Already?" Sammy asked, a bit concerned considering that Eiro didn''t really leave a break inbetween the two fights, and the Demon just smiled at her, "Yes, I want to get everything done today, so I should hurry up to have the time for the Perception Task." Eiro exined, and Sammy looked at him with a slightly concerned frown and then just nodded her head slowly. She knew how troublesome thest task was for Eiro, so she understood why he wanted as much time as he could get.


    Once Eiro started paying attention to it, the Puppet took its regr hand-to-handbat stance with its right hand forming an open palm facing Eiro, and its left hand forming a fist next to its body.


    And so, Eiro took the exact same stance, like usual. Once he did, the Puppet immediately started its attack and came jumping toward the Demon, throwing its fist toward him, although Eiro swiftly blocked that iing attack by protecting his with his lower arms.


    Taking that restricted movement, the Puppet let its body drop down and held its body up with his left leg and left arm, holding its right hand forward and right leg backward to get the right force for a face-high kick.


    Once the puppet''s foot was practically hooked onto Eiro''s arms, it tried to move its left leg behind the Demon''s legs and used both its hands to create a rotary movement in its whole body to attempt and make Eiro lose bnce.


    And it seemed like it worked, because Eiro now was upside down again, with his head right above the ground. Although it might seem so to outsiders, Eiro didn''t fall for the Puppet''s scheme, and instead jumped a bit right before the Puppet''s leg could sweep away his own, as such using the force of its kick to Eiro''s arms that were guarding his face to flip around and pressed his hands onto the ground, all the whilst trapping the leg that just kicked Eiro''s arms inbetween his own legs, pressing it onto his thigh with his other knee, while using air magic and Life Force maniption to properly lift the Puppet''s body up a bit while regaining his own footing.


    But the puppet itself also used Eiro''s attack for its own, using the chance and speed of movement to kick the demon onto its leg in a manner that actually made it feel numb for a little while.


    However, Eiro didn''t mind that, and could rush forward using his other leg for main bnce and then threw his body foot-first toward the puppet while stretching his whole body out in a straight and stiff manner. And just when the demon''s back was about to hit the ground, he pushed his body back up and regained his footing once more while the Puppet was being pushed back.


    And just like this, an intense exchange of hits, kicks, throws, and grapples started, with either of the two parties trying to make use of what they had the best way possible and using the other''s attack to their advantage.


    But then, the Puppet ran in for a grapple, and instead of somehow evading it, he just let it happen, and once the puppet grabbed him by his hips, Eiro shifted his body around a bit and leaned over the puppet''s body before twisting his own arm around the front of the puppet''s throat, and then with as much force as he could muster jumped up over the puppet, using his own body-weight to make it trip up.


    Once both of them were on their backs, Eiro already had the puppet in a choke-hold while it was on its back. Like Eiro expected it to, the puppet tried to reverse the situation and somehow lift its own body up while Eiro held it by its neck to get onto Eiro''s back or shoulders, but just when it lifted its lower body up a bit, Eiro slipped underneath with his legs and wrapped them around the puppet''s hips, pulling and pushing it down as much as he possibly could all at once while pulling the puppet''s chin up.


    And soon, the puppet hit the ground with an open palm a few times to signal that it was giving up, so Eiro let go of its body and looked at it triumphantly.


    "Hah! Finally I beat this damn doll!" The Demon yelled out excitedly as he dly received the hand-to-handbat token again.


    "That''s honestly insane..." Rudy pointed out as he leaned onto his shield after watching Eiro fight, "I wish I could move like that at some point..." He said with a wry smile, and Eiroughed slightly as he nodded his head.


    "Yeah, if you were a bit more nimble and agile, things like grappling would be perfect for you, I think. But stature-wise, it''s enough to be a regr shield-bearer." Eiro suggested, so Rudy just sighed disappointedly.


    "Yeah, yeah, I know, don''t worry. I mean, I did get a bit faster after sparring with Arc a bit." The boy pointed out, before Arc immediately nodded his head, "Definitely! At the start, it was still rather easy to get around to his back, but recently wherever I am, he''s got his shield pointed at me! It''s so cool! He''s like a fortress!" He exined, so Eiro raised his brows curiously.


    "Oh, really? Hmm, maybe we should spar sometime as well." The Demon suggested, and while the two boys surely seemed interested, they were also a bit nervous, since...


    "Those two don''t stand a chance against you, you know?" As Nelli pointed out, and Eiro looked at her with a slight frown, "Well I wouldn''t be going all out or something. You know, just friendly sparring." The Demon replied, and Rudy looked at him with a light smile that was meant to hide nervosity.


    "Your ''Friendly sparring'' might still be a step above us. I mean, we have basic techniques, but we don''t have a ss yet so our stats are still pretty low... especiallypared to you, who has already evolved twice." Rudy exined, so Eiro just slowly nodded his head.


    "I know, but that means there won''t be anything speaking against it once we get you guys your sses, right?" Eiro pointed out, and Clementine swiftly raised her hand excitedly, "Ooh, ooh, I want to be a Water Princess~!"


    "Water Princess?" Arc asked with a light grin, and Clementine nodded her head immediately, "Mhm, a step above Water Mage!" She exined, but Arc tilted his head to the side a bit.


    "Isn''t above ''Mage'' the ''Wizard''? Also, you wouldn''t just be a water mage, you also have Light Magic, even if it''s lower leveledpared to your water magic." Arc pointed out, and Clementine looked at him with a sad and upset expression, "What? I can''t be a Water Princess?!" She asked, and Nelli swiftly floated over to her tofort her a bit.


    "Don''t worry, Clem! Having as much control over two elements as you have is really rare! And both of them are great for Healing, which you have a talent for! You''re bound to get a super special rare ss!" Nelli said reassuredly, and Clementine looked at Nelli confused and then turned toward Eiro confusedly.


    "But doesn''t Eiro have really good control over four elements? And he''s not restricted to a specific type of casting either... He can use physical casting and Magic Circle casting all the same..." Clementine protested, and Nelli just started tough slightly nervously.


    "Hahah... Yeah, Eiro is a slightly special case, so don''tpare yourself to him. But! You have a really great talent! Eiro just doesn''t have anything he''s not good at, but he also doesn''t have anything like a specific talent, you know? That means if he tries to use healing magic, it will always be weaker than yours! If you ce it like that, he really sucks, doesn''t he?" Nelli pointed out with a bright smile, and the Demon in question just looked at the two of them with a slight frown.


    "Hey, that''s a bit mean..." He pointed out, although it seemed like Clementine and Nellipletely ignored him, while the former slowly nodded her head, "Yeah, if you put it like that, he does, doesn''t he?" She asked, and once more, Eiro chose to protest a bit.


    "You''re being really hurtful right now!" He eximed, but seeing that neither of them were listening to him, Eiro just sighed deeply and grabbed thest token out of his treasury and pushed it into the center of the puppet''s chest to start the perception task.


    And once Eiro turned away from the puppet to start, he already wasn''t sure where exactly it was at exactly, and when he tried to take a look and see, there was nothing there anymore.


    "Let''s start this, I guess...." The Demon muttered quietly, and then just squatted down onto the ground to get going.

 Chapter 107 - Second Slot

    The wind making the dried up, fallen leaves rustle, and the smell of the Autumn-Blossoms that were growing because of the Lady of Autumn''s arrival tomorrow. The sweat that was running down his body because of the two fights he just went through one after another. Right now, Eiro was concentrating to be able to perceive everything that he possibly could.


    And the thing that he learned to make special use of was his earth magic. At some point, during his training to be able to somehow find the puppet, Eiro remembered the basic practice method for Earth Magic, which was meant to make a person try to find simple small things around them through the ground itself.


    At first, Eiro thought that it would be something that he didn''t really need, considering that he was able to usually find anything and everything around him with just his regr five senses, but now that he wasn''t able to do so anymore, this extra sense actually came in pretty useful, and surprisingly actually grew rather strong the higher Eiro''s Earth Magic skill rose. It seemed like the perception stat even increased this sort of magical perception, meaning that Eiro''s card helped with that as well. He just never figured that out since he didn''t have the base to perceive anything in that manner in the first ce.


    Either way, now with his mana spread out in the dirt in a roughly ten meter radius around him, he was able to properly use this as a base for widespread detection.


    Because the way that Earth-Magic based perception worked was to detect vibrations to the ground, so regr movement could be found rtively easily. But that wasn''t all, since that step could be taken even further.


    It was possible to cause tiny tremors through magic, and you were then able to make use of the way those tremors travelled through the ground to figure out far more than Eiro had initially expected, such as what stationary things were standing where, how heavy something was, what it was made of, and especially it also helped finding things that weren''t on the surface or that were ''locked'' away so that his usual perception wouldn''t be able to reach it.


    And with this, Eiro could expand on something that he started working on a year ago, when he first got his superior perceptive ability. The mental map of the world around him created out of senses outside of visuals.


    Now, it had a new baseyer, and that was the world as shown through his earth-magic based perception. For now, it was basically just a rough mental recreation of what it would be in reality. Then, everything would be colored in a way that corresponded to the smell it gave off. And atst, the sounds that were created through any sort of movement were shown through ripples in the air.


    Those three parts of perception already created a quite detailed map of Eiro''s surroundings, and once he worked everything out as much as he could with just these three senses, there was something else that was added on top, something that Eiro had been working ontely.


    Considering that it was possible with the ground, and also with water as the Demon had tested already, to perceive things around you, then why shouldn''t it be possible with the air as well? Of course, ''Air'' wasn''t usually a carrier for such things, but Eiro already knew that he was able to perceive the slightest breath of someone that was a dozen or so meters away from him even normally just through the feeling on his skin.


    So if you pair that with Air Magic, Eiro was able to strengthen the reaction that wind showed when hitting against surfaces so that he was able to notice it, even if it was a change that others weren''t able to notice.


    Like this, Eiro was able to perceive parts of the world that he already mapped out that even the earth-magic based perception didn''t reach, while further increasing the detail of the parts that he did already figure out.


    While this drained a fair amount of mana, it seemed like it would be worth it this time, especially since Eiro would finally try to add the most important sense for this to the mix. And that sense was sight.


    And even if it maybe didn''t seem that hard to do, if you actually try to visualize something in your mind while actively looking at the world around you, it was rather hard to do. Of course, since he was visualizing what he was looking at, it was a bit easier, but he was also at the same time trying to keep the parts that he couldn''t properly see visualized at the same time.


    This was what Eiro spent every free second practicing for weeks now, and finally, he managed to get a rough grasp on it. While he could see the world normally, on top of that he could also see the colors that he assigned to what he smelled as well as the ripples that sound now created for him.


    And of course, he also instinctively could tell what was behind whatever blocked his sight, while his mental image was just slowly getting filled in in incredible detail in correspondence to the visuals that were just added.


    Slowly, once Eiro managed to get this all started, he slowly stood up and lifted his foot up, bncing his own weight on only his left foot. This movement alone created small ripples through the sound his clothes made.


    With his Life Force pushed mostly into his lower back, hip, and right leg, Eiro prepared his mana to be pushed out of his body as quickly as possible as well, and then took a deep breath to fill his lungs with as much air as he could.


    And with a single motion that just took a split-second, Eiro pushed his right foot onto the ground with as much force as his body could muster while pushing mana out of that foot into the ground to create strong tremors to use as a perceptive base, while at the same time letting out a scream as loud as he could and pushed out all the air that he pulled into his lungs beforehand at once.


    This actually slightly hurt his ears, but at least everything seemed to work out for him right about now. His range of perception increased by an incrediblyrge area, and the detail that his mental image had was at a whole new level as well.


    And then, Eiro managed to find something that seemed slightly out of ce. It blended in truly perfectly with where it was hiding, in the narrow gap inbetween a boulder and the ground. It seemed to have mana around it in a manner that allowed it to mess with perceptive abilities like Eiro was trying to use, but now, he finally managed to find it.


    He finally knew where the puppet was. With a determined stride, Eiro started rushing forward through the forest right to where he noticed the puppet to be before. But now that he was actually standing in front of it, even his eyes weren''t able to see the puppet, no matter how hard he looked.


    Even when he actually ced his hands onto where he definitely knew the puppet was, he just felt some dirty, wet, and moss-covered rock, although that passed soon enough and Eiro was able to push his hand through that as the false image faded from his sight as well and he was now able to see the puppet as it crawled out from underneath the rock.


    "How in the..?" Eiro asked himself quietly, utterly confused at what was going on. How was the puppet able to do this? This Task was created by Jura, wasn''t it? Just how...


    "Nelli!" The Demon yelled out the moment that he rushed back home swiftly followed by the puppet, and the Spirit already awaited him once he got back to the house, looking at him with a bright smile.


    "So? You found it this time, huh?" She asked with a grin, and Eiro nodded his head with a slight frown, "Yeah... But this task is not made by Jura, is it?" He inquired without hesitation, and Nelli swiftly shook her head.


    "Notpletely, no." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro looked at her with a confused expression, "What? Then why did you tell me it was?"


    "Because you''re too conceited." She exined, but the Demon just looked at her with a deep frown, "What do you mean? How am I conceited?" He replied, and Nelli sighed deeply.


    "Listen, I don''t want to insult you. But technically, you''re really young, and you don''t have many experiences with other people yet. You have incredible abilities, but they''re by far not the world''s best. Well, maybe your perception is close now, but there''s sure to be people that managed to bring it to a simr state through training. You got it by luck. Since Jura knew that you wouldn''t think much of a task based on perception due to your enhanced ability through the card, he had me exin that the Token was made through his skill." Nelli exined, and Eiro just looked at her with a surprised expression, just listening to her speak. He wanted to, but it wasn''t like he could actually deny anything she was saying.


    "That Token was made with a Master-Grade Stealth Skill imbued in it. Jura did help a bit, and that was by fine-tuning things to make it as hard to notice for even increased perception as possible." The Spirit told Eiro, and he just sighed slowly in response as he nodded his head.


    "Alright... I got it. Well, at least I know where my Stealth skill might go if I keep leveling it up." Eiro pointed out. He felt a weird sense of disappointment after suddenly finding out that this token wasn''t made by Jura himself. He couldn''t really exin it though, that''s just what he felt like.


    Either way, he knew that it was a dumb way to feel, so Eiro swiftly moved on and turned around to ept the token from the Puppet again.


    Although just then, something else rather weird happened. Instead of only thest token, it also held a nk one in its hand, swiftly making Eiro divert his eyes to the Puppet''s chest.


    And there, he found a second slot for a token added into the mix, making Eiro just smile wrily in response, "Wait, do you mean to say that now I''m supposed to pass tasks with more than one mode enabled for you?" Eiro asked the Puppet, which swiftly nodded its head in response, before the Demon just started rubbing the bridge of his nose.


    "So, what''s possible with this now? Advanced Combat using kicks, throws, grapples, stabs and cuts... Then Mobile hand-to-hand and daggerbat... those types ofbat where you''repletely hidden from me... and a version of tag where I don''t know where you are?" Eiro asked with a slight grumble, and then just sighed deeply in response.


    "Are there more token slots if Iplete all that?" Eiro asked next, making the Puppet simply nod its head once more, and Eiro slowly shook his head as he ced the hide-and-seek token into his treasury while pushing the nk token into his pocket, and then looked at the others.


    "Seems like I''ll have stuff to do for a good while from now on." The Demon told them all, and even Nelli seemed slightly perplexed at the revtion of extra token slots. Apparently not even she knew about this part of it.


    "That thing is far more versatile than you''d think, huh?" Arc asked with a loudugh, before Eiro simply nodded his head.


    "Sadly enough, my greatest rival is a dummy...." Eiro pointed out disappointedly.

 Chapter 108 - Change Of Plans

    "I''ll be off." Eiro told everyone as he picked up the materials that he had collected for the Lady of Autumn over the past few days, and everyone swiftly sent him off.


    They were quite busy right now, actually. Since Arc and Clementine''s tasks have been cut down on quite heavilytely, they were doing their best to help Rudy when it came to cooking and preparing provisions for the long trip. Thinks like jerky from the meat that they wouldn''t be able to eat before it would go rotten usually, or some fermented or pickled vegetables. All the things that they might need at some point during a longer trip, really.


    In the meantime, Sammy had been practicing the control over her ''intention''. Since Eiro figured that intention was a rather big aspect that yed into Sammy''s ''A Liar''s Truth'' unique skill, he suggested that she should just try and control what she meant to be opposite to what she was saying, just for practice.


    She had learned to do so rtively quickly, actually. Since Eiro could hear things like the other''s person''s heartbeat, their breathing, and could see the slightest change in facial expression, he was able to figure out the moods of others quite well as long as he tried to pay attention to it. He did have to buy a book on it first, but that didn''t really matter.


    Either way, Sammy was able to for example say ''Thank you'' in a situation where she actually genuinely meant it, but show all the signs of sadness or anger. Or she couldin about things and tell Arc to stop messing around while showing the ssic signs of excitement and happiness.


    It was quite interesting to look at, anyway. Right now, Sammy was just continuing to try this all out to be properly prepared for when he unique skill was unlocked. Of course, she also helped Leon practice a bit to be able to soon control his own Unique Skill a bit, but his way to practice was a bit weirder than her''s.


    But for now, Eiro couldn''t stay there and watch them any longer, and instead really had to get going toward the ce where the Lady of Autumn would soon appear, so that he could properly greet her.


    Once in the windy clearing together with Lugo and Nelli, the former of which once more helped Eiro carry the gifts like he did for the other Ladies, the Demon kneeled down on the ground and just waited for the Lady''s appearance.


    A couple of hourster, the wind sped up more and more, and the leaves that had been dropping for the past few weeks were gathering together in the center of the clearing, creating a red, orange, yellow, and brown storm, before each and every one of those leaves suddenly started slowing down and moving to a specific spot, slowly building up the Lady of Autumn''s body piece by piece.


    Soon, her dress of Autumn colors was fully put together, and numerous leaves gathered around the legs, arms, and head and then just disappeared in a strong gust to reveal the limbs of the Lady of Autumn smiling down onto Eiro.


    The moment that their eyes locked, Eiro slightly bowed forward and greeted her properly, "Nice to see you again, my Lady." The Demon eximed, and the Lady of Autumn just kept tiredly smiling at him, "Raise your head, Eiro." She told him, before all of a sudden, a few small figures peeked out from behind the Lady''s body. The Daughters of Autumn.


    In dresses simr to the Lady''s, they swiftly jumped forward and approached Eiro, receiving one gift after another from him before walking back toward the Lady, who had been looking around for a while now.


    "I do believe that Jura is not here this time... Why is that?" She asked curiously, although Eiro knew that she didn''t truly care as much as she showed. While she seemed rather nice, amongst the Ladies, she weirdly enough was the coldest, even colder than the Lady of Winter. Although, that may also just be the case due to the fact that Eiro was closest to the Lady of Winter amongst all of them, so she simply wasn''t that cold toward him. Although... Compared to how the Lady of Autumn treated Jura, she actually did also treat Eiro rtively warmly.


    Either way, Eiro had to exin. He told the Lady of Autumn that Jura passed away nearly a year ago, and then swiftly moved on toward how he would be leaving soon, and then started to exin the situation with Rumia and how the otherdies agreed to follow along with Eiro''s n.


    "Hmm... That should be quite fun indeed. Seems like I am quite lucky to be thest, as I will see how this whole act unfolds, is that not so?" The Lady asked, and Eiro just slowly nodded his head.


    "Indeed so. If you wish, should we make our way toward town to get started?" The Demon inquired, and the Lady swiftly nodded her head.


    "Let us, yes." She eximed, and immediately turned around to start making her way toward the town, with Eiro, Lugo and Nelli silently following behind. Unless they were spoken to, they weren''t allowed to speak, after all. Well, Eiro could do that with the Ladies of Winter, Spring, and Summer, but he was nearly killed when he did so with the Lady of Autumn, so he wouldn''t try to do so again.


    And so, they silently made their way to town, where the townsfolk was already awaiting them. Now that he was in here, Eiro could see a fair amount of changes to thest time he was here as well. And the most important of those changes was that all the soldiers seemed to have packed up and were preparing to leave the moment they got the support of all thedies.


    Which was just absolutely perfect for Eiro. Since he told all of thedies that no matter what he told to Rumiater, they should never ever support his country for as long as they existed, he could very easily pretend to fall the ''final choice'' and make them believe that thedies would give their aid to Rumia. They would leave, and Eiro could finally have a little bit of fun once they weren''t in town anymore. Luckily they didn''t end up recruiting someone from this town for their army, meaning that Eiro could kill anyone without worrying about what this town would think.


    Slowly, the Lady of Autumn made her way into the center of the statues, which wasn''t upied by Rumia anymore. He learned his lesson after making the same mistake with the Lady of Spring again, and ever since then was at least a little more respectful, albeit still just as condescending as always.


    Once the basic celebration part with the Lady of Autumn was done, Rumia swiftly stepped up and held the same speech that Eiro had now heard four full times, with the same disgusting content that made the Demon''s blood simply boil.


    And once he was done, the Lady of Autumn looked down onto Rumia and slowly nodded her head, "I see... Well, truthfully, I will have to agree with you. The King of Monsters is quite a threat."


    ''Hmm..?'' Eiro thought to himself confused. That wasn''t what they spoke about before, "What is she doing?" Nelli asked quietly, in the space where only Eiro could notice her, but even he didn''t know.


    "I think the choice is clear. I will lend you my power during that war, young man. And so, my sisters will too." The Lady of Autumn exined, and Eiro stared up at her with utter confusion, while Rumiaughed loudly.


    "Hahahah! As I thought! One of you had to agree with me!" Rumia eximed, and the Lady of Autumn sighed deeply, as if disappointed, "Truthfully, when Eiro came up with that plot to trick and kill you, I thought this would be something I was supposed to disagree with. But you, young Demon... Why should I disagree with Rumia? Just because you are a monster, and you are my guide, I should take the side of those wicked monsters as well?" The Lady asked, and Eiro just red up at her, while Rumia''s stare was directed at Eiro.


    "Demon? Monster? What do you mean?" He inquired with a hateful expression, all of that despise focused on Eiro, who just sighed deeply in response, slowly taking his mask off while pulling his hood off his head, revealing his red-skinned face as well as his spiraling blue and red horns.


    "Exactly what she just said. I''m a Demon. An Imp, to be exact." Eiro exined, making not only Rumia, but also Nelli react quite surprised, "What are you doing now?! Did everyone here go crazy all of a sudden?" She asked, but Eiro shook his head and clicked his tongue.


    "Well, I surely didn''t go crazy, but this bitch here surely did." The Demon said as he stared up at the Lady of Autumn, something that made everyone in this town look at Eiro with shock. Shock, and despise. After all, he just insulted one of their gods.


    With anger in her eyes the Lady stared down at Eiro, "You, a mere guide, dare sp-"


    "Shut the fuck up. I''m not a ''Mere Guide''. Not anymore. My Job as a guide ended the moment you stepped into the center of those statues. And since that was myst ''trip'' as a guide ever, I''m not someone you canmand anymore. Now I''m just the one that your Sister, my Lady Winter, blessed. One that she chose. If I was still your guide as well, it would be a different story, but now you can''t even hope to threaten me without feeling the repercussions through all three of your sisters." Eiro exined with a deep re, and the Lady of Autumn just stared down at him, slowly extending her hand forward toward the Demon.


    "What do I care!" She eximed, but Eiro just took another few steps away from her, "Also, I know that once you''re in there, you can''t leave the center of those statues anymore. So try me, you bitch. Don''t think you can beat an Imp in trickery and fraud." The Demon pointed out, and without hesitation started to yell out to the town around him with the help of Air magic.


    "You heard it right! I''m not their guide anymore! I can''t stand all those uptight pieces of shit! That''s why I quit my job as a guide! Fuck them!" Eiro eximed loudly, continuing on and on until every single person living in this town started to hate the Demon, albeit with some exceptions. Of course, Tom could see that this was just a trick as well.


    "Hahahah!" Rumia startedughing loudly, interrupting Eiro''s sessful attempt at provoking the whole town, "I knew it! You were pure evil! Men, kill it!" He eximed, but with a sigh, Eiro just looked at all the soldiers bearing their weapons toward Eiro while Nelli appeared around him and prepared for the fight as well, although she was obviously rather upset at Eiro''s rash action.


    But the Demon didn''t care much. Since the only ones that could really be aware of what Eiro was about to pull out would soon be dead, he got his Three of Swords out as well and connected it with his dagger, immediately making all the soldiers around him stop.


    They were from arger town, they obviously had heard of what the cards actually looked like. They knew that this was real.


    But Eiro didn''t care too much, and just swiftly pulled one of the three rings from his left hand, something that he learned to do recentaly, and ced it onto the middle finger of his right hand. And then, he took the ring that connected with Eiro''s dagger and ced it around the end of his tail which he started to swiftly unwrap.


    The threads of the des all wrapped around the limbs they were now connected to, tightly holding the des in ce on them so that his two arms and his tail practically turned into weapons themselves.


    His tail like a scorpion''s stinger, and his arms like a harpy''s, which had had sharp ws at their end. Although, for that, Eiro was still missing the wings.


    "Why did you have to do all of this?!" Nelli asked, not understanding why he deliberately escted the situation, and Eiro looked at her before just pulling her closer so that only she could hear him.


    "What else should I do? Like this, the town will sell me out to the men thate look for Rumia.. They won''t be punished because of me."

 Chapter 109 - Slaughter

    "This is great..." Rumia said suddenly, and Eiro slowly turned toward him with a frown, "What is? Were you suicidal this whole time?" The Demon asked with a slightugh, before Rumia just shook his head with a broad grin on his face, "In a single day, I managed to get the support of four Nature Goddesses, get to kill the monstrous heretic that made my life a hell on earth this past year, and even get to be a Card Owner!" The man eximed, but Eiro just sighed deeply and shook his head disappointedly.


    "Let''s see about that." Eiro said, and could then hear the sound of a de being swung toward him, splitting through the air, from his back. But in the next moment, Eiro could hear that de hitting the ground while slight steam rose as hot blood streamed over the cool ground.


    [Bern Siegheim -1124 Damage]


    [You stabbed Bern Siegheim through his throat. +25% Damage and Heavy Bleeding effect activated]


    [You defended against a sneak attack. +5% Damage]


    [Total Damage: 1461]


    The moment that the de strapped to Eiro''s tail pushed through the gap in the Soldier''s armor and into his throat, the Soldier dropped down onto the ground in pain, holding his hands around the source of the blood before staring up at the Demon, while the other soldiers stopped moving in response to this quick retaliation from the attack of one of their strongest men.


    "Oh, what a surprise. You''re holding out pretty well. Seems like you have high constitution and resistance..." The Demon muttered quietly, and then held his two hands behind his back, interlocking his fingers while the two des he had strapped to his hands were slightly hitting against each other.


    "That was a pretty good sneak attack as well... You know what, I''ll give you a deal, Bern." Eiro exined, and then swiftly turned back around toward the other soldiers, just showing the man a devilish smile, "If all of these others, except Rumia of course, die before you do, I''m letting you live. I''ll even heal you a bit! How does that sound? You''ll just have to do me a little favor afterward." He suggested, and the man stared up at the Imp with pure fear in his eyes.


    Fear of Eiro himself, fear of dying, and fear of the blood that was leaving his body right now. Slowly, he nodded his head a minuscule amount, and the Demon started grinning broadly.


    "Alright, then let''s get to work, shall we?" Eiro said quietly as he turned toward the soldiers that were unsure what to do before Rumia just continuedughing.


    "Hah! Do you think we wouldn''t end up preparing to take you down?! We managed to get a Pyromancer from the Inner Circle! You won''t be able to use those Ice Tricks any further!" Rumia eximed, but Eiro just smiled back and slightly tilted his head to the side.


    "Ice? Oh, I think you''re misunderstanding something, Rumia." The Demon pointed out as he took a few steps toward the nearest group of soldiers, extending his arms to the side in a vulnerable manner as he was doing so, "It''s been a while since I''ve taken a person''s life. You think I would let that go to waste by using petty tricks like that?" He asked with a wicked grin and a re that overwhelmed Rumia''s.


    Just when the Baron wanted to call out a warning to his soldiers, it was toote, and they already took their chance to attack the Demon. As the first de got close to his left arm, Eiro twisted his body around and slipped past the three others that were closing in on him as he stabbed his dagger into the first soldier''s neck, making his body immediately drop.


    But as his armor was keeping his body rather stiff, it took a while for him to actuallypletely hit the ground. A time which was used by Eiro to step onto his back and use him as help to reach the next soldier. Since two of the four that attacked him were anything but a threat, he went for the one that seemed to actually be able to use a weapon and jumped over him, pushing his fingers into the slit that let the soldier look out of his helmet.


    Of course, manipting the swift de to move around like a snake, he managed to push it into the helmet through that slit right through the soldier''s eye, and then once Eiro''s currently upside-down body flipped back over, he pulled the helmet off the soldier''s head and threw it toward the closest group of mages using wind magic to speed it up as much as he could manage.


    And like that, Eiro soon heard the sound of bones breaking as the helmet hit one of the mages'' hands. Since it was the hand that was holding a staff, that dropped to the ground as well. From the smell, Eiro could tell that he was apparently a water mage, so the staff was probably built for that as well. And so, while covering his feet and hands with Ice, Eiro slid across the ground and then soon grabbed the staff, before holding its tip toward the mage that dropped it as Nelli appeared and floated across it.


    Eiro poured his mana into the quite simple staff, which was basically just in the shape of a straight stick and had Nelli help him cover the de in arge amount of water. Since a staff supported all sorts of magical abilities, it of course also supported Spirit Magic.


    Once the water covered the staff, he slowly just made it freeze to the point where it gave off a slight cold mist while shaping it into a particr form.


    "I-Is that a sword..?" One of the Soldiers asked confusedly, and Eiro just slightly smirked as he held the magical ice-de in his hand. Obviously it was a de, and a very specific kind as well. The one that he taught to Arc. Since, through that, he got two pretty useful skills as well.


    -[Beginner Katana Mastery][Level ¨C 31]


    -[Beginner Wakizashi Mastery][Level ¨C 24]


    They really weren''t that high in level, and at Beginner Grade, the skill didn''t seem to show too much support, but at the very least Eiro knew how to roughly use a de like this. He didn''t have a chance to properly try out how useful this sort of weapon was inbat, so Eiro figured he should at least do so before Arc had to fight with it.


    "This should be good for a couple of hits at least..." Eiro pointed out, and then swiftly manipted his Life Force into his legs and wrapped his body in Air Magic, swiftly jumping forward toward some of the other mages. With a single swift motion, he cut through the weak, thin neck of two of them, before the ice-de got stuck in the throat of the third.


    And before Eiro knew it, the de already started melting, although it should havested a while longer. The reason for that was the mage dpletely in red that was now standing beside Rumia. Seemingly the Pyromancer that he mentioned. With a bit of disappointment, Eiro looked at the staff in his hand and sighed deeply.


    "How bothersome..." He muttered, and as he noticed some soldiers running toward him, he figured he should hurry up and turned back toward the mage whose throat was half-cut, "To hell with it." The Demon said, and with a quick motion hit the side of the mage''s head with the solid staff, immediately cracking it open and causing the mage to fall to the ground.


    Quickly, Eiro then turned around toward the soldier now closest to him and slipped past his attack, stabbing one of the des connected to his hands into his armpit while using the de connected to his tail to stab through his knee, immediately disarming him as he dropped on his knees.


    And so, Eiro pulled the soldier''s weakened arm behind his back and used him as a shield against the next attack that caused little blood to stter around. It seemed like the other soldier managed to slow the attack down a bit and only cut slightly into the other''s stomach. Either way, it was enough, so Eiro pushed the injured soldier toward his attacker and then once that attacker stumbled backward, Eiro hit his palm onto the underside of his jaw to further incapacitate him for another few moments.


    With a weakened stature, Eiro could then simply throw the soldier on his back by cing his foot behind the soldier''s legs. And once the soldier''s head closed in on the ground, it already had Eiro''s tail-de waiting for it. Although not for much longer.


    The moment that this soldier died, Eiro already turned around toward the next three soldiers, one of which came to attack Eiro with a spear.


    The Demon swiftly dodged that spear and grabbed it mid-stab, pushing it inbetween the armor of the half-dead soldierying behind him, for one putting that soldier in a condition where he couldn''t be saved anymore without strong healing magic, while also lodging the spear up.


    And the moment that the soldier let go of the spear, Eiro grabbed his hand and swung him over his shoulder to get rid of this guy for now while he took care of the other two... something that was aplished by swiftly blocking and diverting the two attacks made through their swords with the des conected to Eiro''s hands, before then stabbing the Tail-dagger into one of the two''s heads through the bottom of his helmet, before pulling the other ones closer toward him and throwing him to the ground while punching his lower back. But due to the de attached to his hand, that punch was actually a stab at the same time.


    And then, already surrounded by a small mountain of corpses after killing half of the troupe within a minute or so, Eiro looked around at the others with a light smile as he wiped some blood off his face, although it blended in perfectly with his skin.


    "How refreshing." The Demon said with a genuine smile, immediately making the other soldiers shudder in disgust and anger.


    "Hey, you. The Pyromancer." Eiro said with a grin on his face, "After I get rid of these guys, it''s your mes against my Ice, got it?" He told him, and then immediately started sprinting toward the closest soldier, immediately getting rid of him by throwing him to the ground, and stabbing him into the back if his neck. And then the next by pushing him onto another soldier''s de, while cracking the neck of that one to make both of them fall to the ground at the same time.


    Another one had his face smashed in by one of Eiro''s punches because he wasn''t wearing a helmet, and yet another one lost a hand and a leg before he knew it. Like that, nearly all the soldiers here died, the exception being the one that Eiro made his small ''Deal'' with as well as three soldiers that simply gave up after seeing they couldn''t beat him. Of course they did so in hopes of being spared, but Eiro wasn''t kind enough for that, and simply slit their throats in a swift motion to let them bleed out.


    Since he was going after the mages and priests next, nobody would be able to heal them, after all. There weren''t any healers in this town beside Eiro, after all. But the Mages and Priests were easy to deal with. Since Magic was something that required deep concentration to be able to properly use, they obviously weren''t able to cast any spells that quickly while seeing theirrades be ughtered, and even if they did they were low in power and Eiro was able to quite easily dodge them.


    Like that, the rest of the mages were taken out as well, and from Rumia''s troupe, only three men remained.


    The lucky man who got his deal, the Pyromancer, and Rumia himself.


    And to everyone in this town, Eiro was now nothing but a monster of ughter.

 Chapter 110 - Frozen Blood

    With a slight smirk on his face, Eiro looked at the two men in front of him, both of which were terrified to hell and back at what they just witnessed. And when Eiro finally spoke again, they immediately flinched.


    "Now then, dear Pyromancer. How about it? Will you fight me now? If you beat me, you can leave alive, you know?" Eiro pointed out, and the Pyromancer stared at the Demon in front of him in terror, before he felt something on his back.


    It was the hand of his superior, Rumia. At first, the Pyromancer thought he was going to be encouraged, but it was rather different, "Go on already! F-Fight that monster for the sake of my life!" Rumia eximed, making the Pyromancer stare at the Baron in angry confusion. But soon, he just turned back toward Eiro and gulped deeply. He knew that he couldn''t leave if he didn''t kill this Demon right here and now.


    And then he realized something. He was definitely at an advantage here. Fire manipted through magic had the benefit of being able to grow to an immense volume with the slightest spark as a base, since it would just burn the user''s mana to spread. While Water Magic was rather powerful, especially once you had a contracted spirit, the speed at which a Spirit could create water was still lowpared to the speed at which a trained Pyromancer could create incredibly hot mes.


    Letting out a slightugh, the Pyromancer became more confident. The higher his confidence rose, the louder hisugh. Soon, he held his hand forward, where he had two chips of a special metal on his thumb and index finger to create an initial spark and then stared at Eiro. The Pyromancer seemed rather mad or crazy in this situation, which nobody could really me him for.


    After all, he was supposed to single-handedly kill this being that just got rid of two dozen men within a matter of minutes, and just got the hope of doing so.


    Although, the Pyromancer was rather confused as Eiro started walking around the ce a bit and just touched the bodies of everyone he just killed with his wooden hand, and was even more confused when Eiro looked at him as if he was an idiot.


    "Go on, you can get started. I''ll be ready in a bit." The Demon exined with a gentle smile, and continued doing whatever he was doing, while the Pyromancer was doubting himself.


    ''Is he looking for something?'' He asked himself, ''Is there something that could help him win a battle of magic?'' The Pyromancer thought, but either way, after a little while he couldn''t just keep thinking about it and had to act instead.


    He snapped his fingers, but failed to create the spark that he needed because he was so nervous. So, he tried again, but failed once more. "Come on,e on..." He muttered to himself, and then once more snapped his fingers to create a spark that soon turned into proper mes above the Pyromancer''s hand, which he swiftly moved toward his staff.


    Arge merger than even Rumia now floated above the Pyromancer, and he soon wore another broad grin, seeing that Eiro hadn''t even started creating any water at all, "Hahah! This is my win!" The Pyromancer eximed, and therge me started to split up into many smaller ones that one after another started flying toward Eiro, who was just smiling a bit as he stood up.


    And before anyone knew it... Eiro caught the first me, "H-Huh..?" The Pyromancer muttered instinctively at seeing this, and Eiroughed lightly as he rtively easily dodged the other mes in response to the Pyromancer''s wavering attention.


    "Thanks for the fire, bud." Eiro replied, and then swiftly started to increase the size of the me that he just ''caught''. It looked that way, but in reality, he just took control over them. The thing with magic was that while it was rtively easy to control it while it was around your body, it was quite hard to do so at a distance. And so, especially when it came to attacks that split up into many pieces like the one the Pyromancer just went with, the Fire wasn''t under the control of anything anymore.


    So, Eiro, who had rather good physical resistance against heat and fire in general, stopped the mes'' motion with his hand and took control over them with his own mana, making them his own. He wouldn''t be attacking with this, of course, since he promised it would be a fight between fire and ice, but he wanted to use the heat from this fire for something else.


    And so like this, he finally managed to drain thest of the corpses right here, "Well then, let''s hope that my Butchering can actually help me out here..." The Demon said with a curious smile, and then formed his wooden hand into a fist, before the blood that he had pulled out of the bodies of these corpses gathered around him.


    To make the process of butchering a bit quicker, he had tried his best to control the blood of other beings beside himself so that they wouldn''t have to wait for everything to bleed out first. This worked quite well, albeit only to this extent when the one the blood belonged to was actually dead.


    And since blood wasrgely water and as such could be controlled by Water Magic, Eiro was able to freeze it in this manner as well. Although, apparently not every water mage could properly control blood as well, but Eiro didn''t care about ''Every water mage''. As long as he could, he didn''t care about others.


    Once the blood gathered around him, Eiro made it tower up toward his right hand so that it didn''t need to climb up his clothes and possibly stain them any further than they already were. The blood gathered around his wooden hand and formed a ratherrge pir of it between the ground and that hand. Of course, there was also a fair amount of blood simply spread tly around the area that Eiro could also somewhat control, since it was connected to his hand through the other blood.


    And then, Eiro pressed the mes in his other hand against the blood, trying to use the heat from them to make the blood boil a lot more quickly, making it just give off a rancid, dirty smell. At least that''s what the Pyromancer and Rumia experienced it as.


    "Alright, I''m ready. Hm? Why haven''t you been attacking anymore?" Eiro asked as he looked at the Pyromancer in confusion, although the man there was just looking at him in shock at what was happening right here. With a shrug, Eiro swung his hand forward and made the boiling blood fly toward the Pyromancer, before freezing directly around his body.


    The mes at the end of his staff were already extinguished at that point, though. As Eiro took a step toward the deep red boulder of ice that contained the Pyromancer, the Demon could do nothing but sigh.


    "How disappointing. I didn''t need to do all this for this guy, now did I?" Eiro thought with a slight sigh, and then swiftly turned around and grabbed a small bottle from his satchel before walking over toward the man who was half-dead already after having his throat stabbed through.


    "Congrats, you can keep your life for now." Eiro said with a smile as he pushed the weakened man to his back and poured the contents of the bottle over his throat. It was refined water that he and Nelli prepared beforehand, and now just started to slowly heal the man''s throat with the help of a rather simple spell. "Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wass. Jiadis Naia." He muttered quietly, and soon, the wound in the man''s throat started to slowly heal.


    "Hmm, that guy is running away right now, you know?" Nelli pointed out as she looked at where Rumia was before, and Eiro nodded his head with a lightugh, "Of course I know. But he won''t be able to run from me for long anyway, so let''s give him a little hope for now." Eiro replied, and within a few minutes, finally healed the man''s throatpletely before leaning down toward the man''s ear with a grin to tell him the message that he was supposed to give to his higher-ups, and then turned around again.


    It seemed like everyone had fled the central ce by now, as Eiro would have thought, and not even the men from the vige militia darede up to Eiro anymore.


    And so, while the Demon could still hear Rumia trying to flee, Eiro stepped up toward the Lady of Autumn who was just sitting there in the center of the statues.


    "Well then." She said quietly, "I did not expect things to go this way..."


    "Oh? Did you not? Didn''t you do all this to see something interesting happen while you were still here?" Eiro replied with a deep re, and the Lady of Autumn looked at Eiro with a slight smirk, "Smart Boy! Of course~. And don''t worry, I doubt my sisters took your little ''opinion'' on us seriously. You obviously didn''t mean it for them, after all." The Lady pointed out, and Eiro nodded his head.


    "Obviously. I did mean what I said about you though. You''re absolutely insufferable, and I''m d I don''t have to ever see you again." The Demon replied with a light smile, to which the Lady could only respond with a quietugh.


    "Truly amusing up to the very end. Now then, let''s hope we will be able to see each other again during that little war. No matter which side you take." The Lady told Eiro, who was justpletely confused at what she just said.


    "What? What do you mean? You''re actually going to help them out in this crazy war?" Eiro asked, and the Lady of Autumn replied with a smile, "Of course I will. I''m rather bored, you see? I want to experience a little excitement every now and then. The perfect way for that is war, isn''t it?" As such she exined, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and Eiro ground his teeth and just red at her.


    "Fine, whatever. But don''t involve me or the otherdies with that piece of shit country." The Demon growled, and before the Lady of Autumn even replied, he got moving while the Lady just waved at him with a chuckle.


    "Let''s meet again, love!" She eximed, and then disappeared into a storm of leaves as Eiro called over Lugo with a whistle and climbed onto the Stag''s back. "How annoying..." Eiro growled annoyedly in response to hearing the Lady''s words, and then looked over at Nelli, who was looking at the Demon with a slight frown.


    "What is it?" He asked, and the Spirit just sighed deeply, "I can''t believe you just killed everyone there in the middle of town. I mean, the fight itself was rather impressive, but I didn''t expect you to be that rash..." She exined, "What if for example Tom spreads the news about you and the children wouldn''t be able to live a normal life ever."


    "Don''t worry about that." Eiro said, but Nelli just looked at him confusedly, "Why shouldn''t I worry about that?"


    "Because there''s no need to. In the midst of that chaos, Tom was rather calm, and even told me that he would keep my secret. From afar, of course. But he knew about my increased perception, which I didn''t tell him about. So, he must have understood that by hearing that Jura died. If that was the case, then Jura must have told Tom himself, meaning that Tom is trustworthy enough." The Demon pointed out.

 Chapter 111 - You Have Died

    "Lugo, keep running straight ahead." Eiro told his Familiar, who swiftly sped up a bit now that he knew he just had to go straight. And while Lugo was doing that, Eiro was trying to look around the area to see if there were any good paths to make use of.


    "When I say ''Now'', stop as quickly as you can, okay? And after you stopped, follow me again." The Demon said, and the stag slowly nodded his head. Lugo was an idiot, but he was smart enough to understand simplemands like this.


    "Three... Two... One..." Eiro counted, all the whilst standing up on Lugo''s back, wrapping his body in Air Magic before bracing himself, "Now!" He eximed, and immediately, Lugo mmed his hoofs into the ground and started sliding across it. Using the extra force, Eiro stepped on Lugo''s antlers and jumped as far forward as he could manage.


    The Demon caught his own fall both with the help of Air Magic to slow himself down a bit and Ice Magic to cover his feet so that he could just slide across the ground while keeping his speed. After then melting the snow, Eiro just started sprinting forward to follow Rumia to where he was going. He was already a fair bit out of town, so Eiro was able to use this terrain like the back of his hand.


    He jumped up and reached a low-hanging branch, using his momentum to swing himself forward onto the branch of another tree that he was now standing on, and then jumped along all of the trees that stood between him and Rumia.


    To Eiro''s luck, the Baron wasn''t the most agile person, and soon tripped over the uneven road due to theck of proper footing. Of course Rumia tried to jump up immediately, but at that point, Eiro had already properly caught up to him. And to not let the fun end so soon, Eiro even turned into his shadow form.


    [Your Body is being saturated in Shadows. You be quicker, harder to notice, and close to silent]


    Eiro looked down toward the man that was just trying to run away from him, and then started tough, pushing air magic into his voice. This made Rumia be surrounded by a loud echo whose source he couldn''t make out.


    "Rumia~..." Eiro said with a light chuckle, making the Baron in question jump immediately. He turned around, trying to defend himself with the shield he was carrying from any direction that he possibly could, "Wh-Where are you?! Show yourself, Demon!"


    "Oh? But you were the one running from me... And now you want me to be there?" Eiro asked, making Rumia''s body shake even more than it did before, "Now, which is it? Do you want me to show myself, or keep running and die without seeing my face again?"


    "M-Me? Die?! What a joke! How would I ever die from such a weak-"


    "I saw your status, remember? I doubt it can change that much in a year. At least not in a town like this." The Imp pointed out, and could then hear Rumia swallow out of nervousness, "Ha-Hahah... That-That must have been a trick, right? There is no way a Demon co-could have such an appraisal skill..."


    With a slight chuckle, Eiro swiftly agreed, "That part is true, I don''t have appraisal."


    "See? Th-Then-"


    "But I truly did see your status. You could say I just have great Eyesight." Eiro exined, and then jumped down the branch he was currently standing on, simplynding directly on Rumia''s shoulders, something that made that man flinch incredibly.


    But before he could actually react, he already had the threads from the three of swords around his neck, with one of the three des'' tips digging into the back of Rumia''s neck, another''s tip digging into his throat, and thest one pushing itself into Rumia''s mouth, just so slightly scratching over the roof of his mouth without actually cutting into it.


    "I''m going to tell you a secret now, alright?" Eiro told Rumia, squatting down while standing on his shoulders while cing his two hands onto the man''s head, just so slightly pulling it up so that Rumia would be looking at Eiro''s face after he deactivated his Shadow Form and ced the Shadow Magic Stone back into his treasury.


    "You remember the reason for why you came to ask for the help of the Ladies in the first ce?" He asked, and Rumia slowly tried nodding his head, although he stopped when he felt the stinging in his throat, neck, and mouth increase, "Don''t move a muscle, you hear?" Eiro warned, and then moved on.


    "The reason was that the King of Monsters kidnapped the Holy Priestess, isn''t that right? On the day that the Capital was attacked by <The Sun>?" He added, and Rumia''s eyes started wandering in confusion and panick, before Eiro continued.


    "The thing is, I was there that day. I got my first card that day, and it wasn''t the Three of Swords I''m going to kill you with. It was the Ace of Cups. And using that Ace of Cups, and wandered around the capital as it was being destroyed, and instinctively ended up in a certain building. I was basically drawn toward a basket on the far side of the room I entered, and picked up a cute little girl with ever-colored-eyes without anyone noticing. Do you know what I did with that cute little girl?" Eiro asked, slowly removing the de from Rumia''s mouth to actually let him answer.


    "D-Don''t tell me..! Y-You killed the Holy Priestess?!" Rumia replied with a loud scream, but the Demon just leaned over Rumia''s head and grinned broadly. "Wrong." He said, "She''s still alive. She''s the tiniest, cutest little girl I''ve ever seen. To be fair, I haven''t seen many little girls yet. But in a way, you could say I killed her. The ''Holy Priestess'' that you turned her into is no longer. Now she is just my little Avalin. My Daughter." Eiro exined with a soft smile, and Rumia ripped his eyes open in shock.


    "Y-You are keeping the Priestess trapped?! You wicked beast!" He eximed, and Eiro justughed in response, "I''m not keeping her trapped, you piece of shit." He chuckled while shaking his head, "I would honestly call myself a good father. I would do everything for my children. So hearing someone talk about one of those children, saying that she would have be a tool of war... One that would have to fight for the sake of a whole country without a say in it..."


    Slowly, Eiro increased the strength at which he was pressing his hands onto the sides of Rumia''s head to cause him a bit of extra pain while waiting for his answer.


    "Y-You delusional... You are a monster! You shall not... ever hope... to escape death..!" Rumia eximed, and Eiro just slightly scoffed in response.


    "What a coincidence. That''s what I just wanted to say." Heughed, and immediately, the two des around Rumia''s neck and throat buried themselves in him and cut his head off, which Eiro swiftly caught with the third de.


    And as Rumia''s head was hanging there, for just a second, Eiro saw a storm of something inside of Rumia''s eyes.


    ...


    [You have died]


    [You have died]


    [You have died]


    [You have died]


    [You have died]


    [You have died]


    [You have died]


    [You have died]


    [You have died]


    ...


    "Wow... What a useful notification..." Eiro sneered as he looked at Rumia''s head with a light smile, "Thanks for bing my experience. At least you were useful for something, huh?" The Demon said, slowly turning his eyes toward the notifications that appeared in front of himself.


    [Lethal Damage done to Rumia Legios Argenson]


    [You leveled up!]


    [50 Stat Points Avable!]


    "Hmm, in total I gained five levels through this, huh?" Eiro muttered to himself, and then just threw Rumia''s head to the side with a light shrug while Nelli and Lugo finally caught up to him.


    "Well then, this ended rather quickly, didn''t it?" Nelli asked as she looked down onto Rumia''s body, and the Demon just smiled as he climbed onto Lugo''s back.


    "I didn''t really want to waste too much time on him. But for now... Lugo, run forward and then go right when I tell you to. I''m going to wash up before we head home." Eiro exined to the Stag, and they soon reached a small river with rtively clean water that Eiro swiftly used to get rid of the blood in his cloak and skin. Especially his wooden hand needed a good scrubbing, since it turned from light blue to dark red.


    Luckily, this wood wasn''t much harder to clean than actual skin, so he was able to get rid of the blood pretty swiftly.


    "So that''s really it, huh?" Nelli asked with a seemingly slightly sad tone in her voice, "What is it?" Eiro replied, unsure what exactly she was talking about. And as Eiro started to dry his clothes again using magic, Nelli quickly replied.


    "It''s just, ever since I''ve been contracted by Jura, I''ve been here for most of the year as well. This has basically be my home too. And it''s the first time ever since then that I won''t be seeing any of the Ladies..." She exined, so Eiro raised his brows surprised.


    "Oh... I didn''t realize this forest meant that much to you, I''m sorry." Eiro told her, but Nelli swiftly shook her head in response, "Don''t apologize, there''s no need to. I couldn''t have lived here forever anyway." She pointed out, so Eiro looked at her with a light smile, "I see... Well, then let''s hope we can find a new home after this. Because following what I just had to do in that town... I doubt we can return here."


    "Most likely not, you''re right." Nelli said quietly, "But you weren''t exactly at fault here. I mean... you didn''t have to kill everyone in the middle of town, but you did all that to get the town to despise you, so I get it... I guess."


    "Let''s just get back to the kids." The Demon said with a deep sigh, putting his dry clothes back on and climbing onto Lugo''s back, starting to ride his familiar toward the ce that they called home for the past seven years.


    Once they arrived back at the hill roughly ten hourster, however, they were met with an unpleasant surprise. Eiro had heard that something was going on from rather far away already, and then tried to make his way home even quicker the moment that he did, and without hesitation pushed the house''s front door open.


    And what he saw then was something rather unpleasant, something he really, really didn''t want to see. Leon, grasping his stomach in deep pain while he was bleeding from his eyes, nose, and corner of his mouth. His body was practically being ripped apart due to the seals, Eiro just knew it. And the reason why this went so far was very simple.


    He had the bottles to get rid of the side-effects in his satchel. Immediately, he pulled out the box and grabbed one of the bottles meant for Leon out. Without even waiting for anyone else to say something or react, Eiro pulled the cork off the bottle and rushed over toward Sammy who was holding the boy in her arms tofort him through this pain.


    The Demon slowly grabbed the young child and sat him down on hisp as he sat down on any nearby chair, supporting the back of his head as he poured the reeking contents of the bottle down Leon''s throat. Of course, judging from the smell they must taste horribly as well, so Leon swiftly started gagging. But Eiro slowly just tried to help Leon out some more and ran his fingers along the sides of his throat, practically forcing the liquid down with Water Magic.


    And the effect came nearly instantly, and the negative reaction to the seals stopped.

 Chapter 112 - The Devil

    Holding Leon in his arms, Eiro just sat there on the chair for a while, feeling his own heart beat strong enough to potentially explode any moment now. Slowly, he looked around at the others while both Nelli and Clementine were doing their best to somehow heal any outward damage that was done to Leon''s body, although it luckily wasn''t much.


    "What exactly happened?" The Demon asked, and Sammy slowly spoke, although she really wasn''t in any proper state to do so. After all, she just saw what would happen to her if they didn''t manage to get to the person that would get rid of the seals in time, "It-It just happened so suddenly... He got a fever shortly after you left, and then just two hours ago, it turned out this bad... We didn''t know what to do, Clementine did her best to try and heal him, but he was just in so much pain..." Sammy exined, and in the next moment, Eiro turned his eyes toward Clementine. She seemed to be a bit more pale than usual.


    "Rudy,e hold Leon for a bit." Eiro said, swiftly handing the boy in his arms over toward Rudy, interrupting both Nelli''s and Clementine''s healing-attempt.


    "Wh-What are you doing?" Clementine asked nervously, but Eiro didn''t listen to her for a single moment and grabbed the bottom of her shirt, pulling it up immediately to expose Clementine''s stomach.


    "Clementine, did you eat the injuries the seals gave Leon?" Eiro asked, and with a nervous expression, the girl just nodded her head before Eiro ground his teeth angrily, "I-I''m sorry, I know I''m not supposed to just eat injuries, b-but regr healing wasn''t working a-and he-"


    "Stop it." The Imp interrupted, "Why are you apologizing? I''m the one that should do that, seeing how I''m the reason you had to resolve to eating them in the first ce. For now, just concentrate on healing yourself, alright?" Eiro asked her with a light smile, and then stood up with his eyes closed, tapping his foot on the ground a couple of times.


    "What are you doing now?" Arc asked confusedly, since it seemed like Eiro was thinking about something, but the Demon just signaled him to be quiet for a bit, "I was just checking if we have something elseying around, but we don''t. Get in the carriage, we''re heading off." Eiro told them, and everyone immediately agreed and got their bags before heading outside toward the carriage parked by the side of the house.


    Arc immediately went to grab the horses and attached them to the front of the Carriage, and Eiro removed the wheel-blockers so that they could all get going now. Eiro himself chose to ride on Lugo, since it allowed him to react quicker to any sort of monsters that woulde to attack them.


    At some point along the path, Eiro called out to Arc and pointed to a different, slightly less tread path that they could ride on, "Take that route. We''re taking a shortcut." Eiro told him, but Arc just looked at Eiro confused, "Isn''t the river that way?"


    "It is, but we''re crossing the river over there. Just trust me with this, it''s going to save us quite a bit of time if we don''t have to head to the bridge." The Demon exined, and Arc just nodded his head in response, swiftly steering the carriage along that path. It was a bit roughpared to the other path, but it was not too bad to handle.


    Roughly an hourter, Arc stopped the carriage in front of the river. Or rather, in front of therge pale blue tree that stood there. It was maybe fifteen meters tall and had thick roots that reached either river-bed. Both the one where they were currently standing, and the one on the opposing side.


    "Eiro, isn''t that the tree you nted? How is it so big?" Arc asked confused. He wouldn''t have thought this was the tree if he didn''t recognize the wood to be the same as Eiro''s hand''s. The Demon slightly sighed and climbed off of Lugo''s back as he approached the water, "It''s just not a normal tree, I guess?" Eiro replied, slowly looking over at the tree as well.


    He knew the reason, actually, he just didn''t want to waste time by exining it just yet. He would do itter when he calmed down a bit again. The reason why it grew that much was rather simple. Over the past year, every chance that he got, Eiro and Nelli woulde here to level up the Spirit Magic skill by continuosly refining the river-water and immediately ''feeding'' it to the tree so that they wouldn''t just waste it.


    At the beginning, the water would just drip off like normal water would, but after a few months, once it grew a meter or so, it started actively absorbing the refined water. And water in general, actually, even if that wasn''t technically as much. But in the end, noticeably less water went past the tree than actually reached it.


    For now, Eiro had to properly control everything around here so that they could actually pass. And for that, Eiro did something that the others really didn''t expect. Eiro grabbed his carving knife and carved a bit of the bark away so that he could ce his hand onto the actual wood behind it.


    "Eiro, what are you doing?" Nelli asked nervously, and the Demon just turned toward her with a light grin, "It''s obvious, isn''t it? If this wood is the perfect material for my staff... And this hand of mine is fusing with me perfectly, while still being this same wood... Then shouldn''t I be able to use this tree?" Eiro asked, but Nelli still didn''t fully understand. No, actually, shepletely understood what he was saying. She just couldn''t believe it.


    "Eiro, you can''t-" The Spirit started, trying to stop the Demon, but he himself didn''t care. He wanted to get past this river, so he had to do everything he could in order to do that. The currents were rather high and strong right now, so there was no way they would be able to get past there if Eiro just tried to regrly manipte the water. That was way too risky.


    With his feet both pressed onto the exposed roots of the tree, Eiro got started. With both of his hands, he pushed as much of his mana into this tree as he could muster at once, and tried to let it travel through it in order to reach his feet again. And then, it once more travelled through his body and out his hands.


    Like this, Eiro created a rapid current of his mana that caused his own internal mana generation to skyrocket, and he could always use a part of this newly-generated mana to push it into every nook and cranny of the tree, before Eiro noticed some notifications appearing in front of him.


    [Warning! Your Body is experiencing an overwhelming amount of mana! If you don''t keep it under perfect control, you will experience severe repercussions]


    [Your mana is mixing with foreign mana]


    [Due to an overwhelming amount of foreign mana, your body is slowly changing]


    Eiropletely ignored all these notifications and simply kept on doing what he was doing, no matter how much stress his body was under in response. They just had to get through right here. He didn''t know why, but he just knew that they couldn''t make their way toward the bridge no matter what. It was as if his instincts were screaming that at him.


    Through the roots that were underneath and inside of the river, Eiro then finally got started releasing some of his mana, making it intertwine with whatever it could. The first thing he tried to do was stop the water, and its flow rapidly slowed down, but that wasn''t enough yet.


    So, he thought of freezing the rest, before arge wall of Ice started forming right in front of the tree. It was hard to keep up, but in the end, it slowly seemed to work. Then at the same time, Eiro used Earth Magic to raise the ground a bit higher for the carriage, while using Fire Magic to dry it enough for the carriage not to get stuck.


    And at the same time, he used wind magic to help push the carriage over that dirt bridge, and Arc swiftly rode the carriage over the wide, deep river. Actually, it seemed to have somehow increased in width and depth over the past few years as well... Although, Eiro wasn''t entirely sure if that was because of him or not.


    But just when the carriage reached the halfway point, the stream sped up, as if someone removed some sort of blockage further up. He definitely wouldn''t be able to hold it like this... So, without a single moment of hesitation, Eiro pushed half of his avable stat points into intelligence, and the other half into wisdom, prompting another few notifications to appear.


    [Your Intelligence has passed the 100 Point Mark! <Thought Processing> Ability gained!]


    [Your Wisdom has passed the 100 Point Mark!


    Ability gained!]


    [Since the


    ability is lesser to the <Memory of a Schr>, you will enter an alternate ability-path]


    [


    ability reced with <Speed Learning> ability]


    [Thought Processing - An ability that increases the speed at which you process information]


    [Speed Learning ¨C An ability that increased the speed at which you learn mind-based skills]


    "Just... shut up!" Eiro yelled out, trying to get rid of the notifications immediately, and then just started to properly increase his area of control over the river.


    But then... Something else happened. It was as if something was breathing down his neck. He felt hot air that gave him goosebumps the moment it touched him, and then soon came a blood-red hand with long ws.


    "How... interesting." Whatever being this was muttered quietly. Its voice alone, as calm and soothing as it sounded outwardly, made Eiro immediately want to run away for his life. His body froze up, but for just a moment. Because in the next, he could noticed that his control was breaking down, so Eiro just pushed it as far as he could for a single moment, and soon noticed the carriage reaching the other side.


    Without hesitation, Eiro ripped his hands away from the tree to get away from whatever creature it was standing behind him, but at that moment, two things happened.


    One, a red notification appeared, followed by one that disappeared as soon as it came before all the writing even appeared on it. Of course, this still brought arge amount of pain to Eiro. It said there would be sever repercussions, after all.


    [You lost control over arge amount of foreign mana]


    [Foreign mana locked aw-


    Two, he couldn''t move an inch. The light grasp on his shoulder that this creature had on him was enough to make his body bepletely stuck without any hope for escape. And even when Eiro wanted to speak, he couldn''t. Not a single sound came out of his mouth.


    "I have been looking for you for a while, you see?" The soothing voice exined, "I don''t like my toys being meddled with like that. You remember, don''t you? My rare little mister Wrath." The voice exined, and immediately, Eiro understood what kind of creature this was behind him.


    Slowly, he opened his mouth, and with all the will he could muster, he spoke, "The Lords of... Sin..." Eiro muttered quietly, and with an excited tone, the figure behind him continued, "You can speak even in my presence? As I thought, the willpower of you artificial goons is astounding. It makes sense, the King can''t just have you running away out of fear, after all." The creature chuckled lightly, and then held its mouth toward Eiro''s ear, just quietly whispering.


    "Don''t worry, I''m not mad at you for killing my toys anymore. I just found a way better toy, thanks to your little disy of Wrath in that tiny vige too boring for me to even touch. So they are still alive, if you want to return and end them yourself sometime." The voiceughed, and the hand suddenly went away, letting Eiro turn around.


    In front of him stood a tall figure, maybe three meters in height, with a slim and slender build. It was obviously a Demon, although Eiro wasn''t sure what kind. It wore a pitch ck shirt and boots, with a dark red vest and pents on top. It had tworge ck Horns on its forehead, each maybe half a meter in length, just curving up into the sky.


    Outwardly, this Demon mostly looked like a person if you ignored its red skin,rge horns, and monstrous ws. And next to that Demon stood a... thing, that Eiro didn''t even know how to start and describe at first.


    It was like a mixture of something that lived and an inanimate object. Like a chair made of flesh that was constantly convulsing and shifting. And on top of that chair sat the unconscious, blood-covered figure of the man that Eiro thought to have killed. The Pyromancer.


    And then, while Eiro was trying to assess the situation, he heard the voice of a certain little girl scream toward him, "Daddy, where are you?" Avalin asked, and Eiro''s body immediately tensed up. He read about the Monster King''s army, and if this was the being that Eiro thought it to be, then she would-


    "Oho, is that the little Holy Priestess? Sun was rather mad about not finding her that day, you see? He destroyed the whole capital out of frustration." The Figureughed, "So she was with you, huh?" The Demon asked, just lightly ring down at Eiro, and without hesitation, the young Imp readied his dagger even though he knew he could never win a fight against this being. But then, it justughed once more.


    "Don''t worry, don''t worry. The Sun can''t exist without the sky, so he listens to all of our King''smands without hesitation. But I myself just want to have fun. And I think this will turn out like far more fun if I leave her with you." The Demon pointed out, and Eiro just stared at it.


    But without doing anything else, the Demon turned around and waved his hand to the side, making a demonic gate appear in front of him, the domain of hell beyond it. And once the living chair stepped through it, the Demon just lightly winked at Eiro and stepped inside, swiftly disappearing.


    [You have been Marked by <The Devil>]

 Chapter 113 - Sleep

    With horror on his face, Eiro watched as the ming portal made of bones, flesh, and blood disappeared by simply crumbling to dust. It seemed as if it simply copsed onto itself, disappearing without a trace but a specific unfamiliar smell that Eiro couldn''t really ce anywhere right now.


    But either way, Eiro was still terrified beyond anything he had experienced in thest few years. Slowly, Eiro got up with shaking legs, the singing pain in his body that he momentarily felt before gone, albeit reced with the feeling of some object in his chest. It wasn''t painful, just ufortable.


    "Is this the mark..? Or that Foreign mana?" Eiro muttered quietly, and then simply stumbled forward. Everything that he had constructed with his magic just now was still there, at least to an extent. Enough to let him get over, that was for sure.


    Eiro swiftly ran over the dirt bridge, before the speedy current broke up the ice blockage and swiftly swept away the dirt bridge, before the whole river returned to its regr state.


    "What took you so long?" Arc asked with a slight frown as Eiro climbed back onto Lugo''s back as the stag stood right next to the carriage, and the Demon just lightly smiled. "Sorry, I was a bit overwhelmed after all, it seems." The Demon admitted.


    "Well are you alright?" The boy asked next, as he got the horses to move again, "Don''t worry, I''m fine." Eiro admitted as he slowly rubbed his chest to try and get rid of the ufortable feeling that he found there. But unluckily, it just constantly stayed in ce without disappearing or moving in the slightest.


    When Eiro was trying to figure out what this feeling was, and if he could somehow change something about it, Nelli floated up next to him. It seemed like she had finished properly treating both Leon and Clementine, with the former of those two now silently sleeping like always.


    "Why did you do something like that? You were using a huge amount of mana there! And you were even pulling in ambient mana!" She eximed, seemingly quite mad at the demon over doing something as rash as he did.


    "I know, I''m sorry. But everything worked out in the end, right?" Eiro pointed out, before Nelli slowly nodded her head, just slightly looking at the top of his head, "Yeah, everything did work out... With just minor repercussions..." She muttered quietly. With a puzzled expression, ced his hand on top of his head and swiftly ran them over it, trying to find if anything happened. Technically, the notifications did say that his body was slowly changing...


    And then, he found something that did indeed change. It wasn''t by much, but just by a little his horns increased in thickness, "Erm, my horns changed, didn''t they?" The Demon asked, and Nelli just slowly nodded, squinting her eyes in response.


    "There''s a little bit more mana concentrated in them, I think..." She pointed out, "In general, you have a little bit more mana... Wait, did you increase your stats just now?" Nelli inquired surprised, and Eiro nodded his head in response.


    "Mhm, I have. Intelligence and Wisdom both by 25." Eiro exined, and the Naiad looked at Eiro with a curious expression, "Ooh, they''re both over a hundred now, right? What did you get?"


    "You mean the abilities I got..?" The Demon replied. "Of course I mean those! There are a few different ones you can end up with, so I''m curious what yours are!" Nelli pointed out, and Eiro just slightly scratched his cheek and exined.


    "Thought Processing and Speed Learning. Although I was supposed to get ''Perfect Memory'', but because the ability from my Schr-Imp evolution is better than that, it got reced by speed learning."


    "Huh... That means you''re basically really set for learning whatever you need, right?" Nelli muttered quietly, and Eiro just slightly shrugged, "Kind of, I guess?" He replied with a wry smile, and Nelli just sighed deeply in response, seemingly a little annoyed by that reaction. But instead of saying anything about it, she simply floated back into the carriage, "Let''s talkter, then." She said.


    With a light frown, Eiro leaned forward toward Lugo''s antlers. He finally got the chance to properly calm down after what just happened with <The Devil>, and before that with Leon.


    How did he suddenly find him? Why now of all times? And why did Eiro know about him being there in the first ce. And about what he said... so Eiro really was an artifical being, like he already thought he was.


    After thinking about what exactly the Devil was saying, Eiro managed to at least put a rough picture together. The reason why he was able to find Eiro was that he let his anger loose in town. He was a Demon with the sin of ''Wrath'', apparently. At least judging from what happened back in the ''Town of Sins''. So maybe, since the Devil had already been ''watching'' Eiro since back then, he was able to notice when he was actually indulging in his sin, and then found him as easily as that. It was obvious that the Devil was immensely powerful, Eiro knew that much just from standing in front of him. He could instantly create a portal to hell, and whatever that weird living chair creature was that was carrying the Pyromancer around.


    Maybe because they were both Demons, Eiro knew about his presence there, or it was just another ''Sense'' that increased through the Five of Pentacles. Either way, it actually turned out to be... unnecessary. No matter if he had continued on forward along the regr path toward the bridge or not. Since Eiro ended up running into the Devil anyway, that was useless. But at least Eiro was the only one that noticed him being there this time around, so maybe it was a good choice after all.


    And then to tha ''artificial'' part... There wasn''t actually any knew information there, just that he apparently had a rather high Willpower Stat value. This was something that Eiro had expected to be the case already anyway, but at least now he had a proper confirmation for that theory.


    ''At least something good came out of today.'' He thought to himself, and just quietly looked forward. He had to concentrate now, no matter what just happened. Eiro didn''t like that he was ''marked'' by the Devil, since he wasn''t sure what exactly being markedpletely entailed, but he wouldn''t be able to change much about this now anyway, right?


    He just needed to concentrate on finding the closest path. They had a long trip ahead of them, one during which they couldn''t afford taking long breaks on the way. And they needed to stop by the person that Jura mentioned in the letters he left behind, the one that made actual weapons and tools for the group.


    With a deep sigh, the Demon concentrated on what was going on around him. They weren''t on a proper path right now, so the carriage was going rather slow since the wheels couldn''t turn properly and the horses had a much higher load.


    Eiro was kind of trying to help them out by ttening the ground as much as he could with earth magic, but it wasn''t as easy as he thought it to be at first. His wand-hand helped a lot, actually. The fact that he increased his amount of mana and his control over it by a fair amount just now probably didn''t hurt either.


    They soon managed to reach an area that had slightly harder and tter ground, so Eiro could finally stop using magic on the forest ground and instead concentrate on other things. Like for example using magic and his increased senses to look for a good path in front of them.


    With his mask sitting on his face, since he didn''t want anyone to somehow see him without it while he was concentrating on the distance, Eiro gathered arge amount of air in his lungs all at once and then breathed out deeply. He tried to cause the same reaction as he did during the task for the Perception, or actually rather ''Stealth'' task, as the demon found out recently.


    Eiro looked around the area, increasing upon his visual image bit by bit through the help of sound, smell, and of course anything that his ''Magical Perception'' gave him. And so, it didn''t actually take that long for the Demon to then find a proper road that they could ride on. Hopefully Eiro would be able to find some sort ofndmark around here, or even better, some sort of mountain or tree that peaked over anything else here so that he could take a look at where they actually were and what the best path was.


    After all, the map that Jura gave them was pretty useful, but only to show bigger things like main roads, basic geography, and of course towns and viges. Since a lot could happen in a year, Eiro wanted to make sure that they would really take the best route they possibly could.


    Their first important stop was in a town called ''Argberg''. He tried to find some information on it so he knew that it was a prettyrge town, actually. It was a Dwarven town of craftsmanship, so it really would be the best ce to look for weapons, armor or tools, that was for sure.


    While Eiro had never properly spoken to a dwarf before, he remembered seeing them in passing and reading stories about them. They were supposed to be the best craftsmen you could find anywhere, some even capable of creating tools for the divine.


    So, the young Demon was actually slightly excited to see a town filled with people like that. Or rather, he would be, if he didn''t have to constantly worry about Leon now. He had to take the concoction in the bottles once a week, and they had enough for three consecutive months, meaning that they really had to hurry. Since anything could happen on a trip, Eiro didn''t want to waste any time if it was possible to avoid at all.


    "Eiro?" Arc asked with a slight frown, and the Demon raised his brows surprised at suddenly hearing his name being called, "Yeah?" He asked, and the boy slowly turned his head toward the inside of the carriage, looking at the others sitting inside of there exhaustedly.


    "I asked if we should maybe take a short break and eat something if we can? We left in a hurry, so none of us really did that yet... And you seem to want to see where we are first as well, so." The boy suggested, so Eiro just slowly thought about it and ended up nodding his head, looking forward toward the path in the distance.


    "Yeah, let''s do that. There''s a bit of a clearing right next to the road over there." Eiro pointed out, before Arc just slowly nodded his head and tiredly looked forward as well. Seeing this made Eiro just feel rather bad, to be quite blunt. He really pushed a lot onto all of them. They had to leave the one ce they felt safe at and suddenly start travelling for multiple months inside of a carriage.


    After the group stopped by the side of the road, Rudy handed out a little bit to eat to everyone, before they all quietly ate, although Leon was still sleeping inside of the carriage. Once they were all at least somewhat filled up, they slowly got back into the carriage, although Eiro pulled Arc to the side. He wanted to speak to the boy about something before he sat down and started driving again.


    "Get in the back." Eiro told him, and Arc started at him confusedly, "What do you mean? I''m fine driving, really." He replied, but Eiro shook his head immediately.


    "You can take over tomorrow again. You''re obviously more tired than you try to let on. So just sleep properly and let me drive for now.. Please."

 Chapter 114 - In Front Of Argberg

    With a deep sigh and grumble belonging to it, Eiro opened his eyes once the sun hit them. The demon slowly pushed himself off the ground and took a look around himself. Everything was still in order, and the changes were to the amount one might expect to see happen naturally during a night.


    The children were all in the carriage as well, so the Demon rxed a little again. Or rather, he rxed as much as he could in this situation. By this afternoon, the group would reach the first major city they''ve been to together. One that wasn''t just a small town or vige, like those that they''ve been passing through for the past two weeks.


    Eiro was actually slightly nervous about that. It''s been a while since he''s been around that many people, after all, and he wasn''t entirely sure how things worked in a ce like that. He heard rumors, but those were apparently not always true, as far as the Demon heard. So even if Argberg was said to be a peaceful ce without much poverty, it could be the exact opposite. A ce where people killed each other day and night to survive.


    Although, that might be a bit too far-fetched, now that he thought about it. Either way, Eiro didn''t want to be put in any dangerous situations, so he needed to be well-prepared. Or at least as well-prepared as he could be. He had everything that he could need in an emergency in his treasury, and anything else was directly within reach inside of his satchel, including some recement parts for his own hand.


    Just in case, Eiro had taken some more of the Tree''s wood with him and turned it into anything he could need. Really, just to be prepared for any situation that coulde up in the future.


    "Morning..." Rudy yawned tiredly, and Eiro slowly turned around toward the boy with a smile, "Good morning."


    "What are you doing?" The boy asked next. But Eiro just shrugged and scratched the back of his neck, "Nothing, really. I just woke up."


    "Then why don''t you go ahead and practice with the puppet again? It''s been a few days, right? You seemed pretty eager about it too..." Rudy pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, breathing out his nose as he lightly smiled.


    "I''d rather wait a bit longer until we know we''re properly on track. I don''t want to waste too much time." Eiro exined, but Rudy looked at him with a slight frown, "Don''t just think of us, think of yourself sometime. We''ll be fine. We''re already a week ahead of schedule, right?"


    "I know, but still..." The Demon started, "I don''t want to risk anything. So let''s just eat and then keep going, alright? Depending on how things go, we can... sight-see in Argberg." Eiro suggested, even if he once more felt pretty unsure about it.


    "Really? That would be really cool!" Rudy eximed, before Eiro slightly crossed his arms, "Actually, I think we should use this chance to get you guys your sses." He added, and immediately, from inside the carriage, Eiro could hear some rumbling, "sses? We''re finally getting them?!" Arc asked immediately, looking at Eiro with a broad grin that was impossible to contain at this point.


    With a slight smirk, Eiro just nodded his head, "Better while we''re ahead of schedule than if we''re behind schedule... right?" The Imp pointed out, and with his hands formed into fists, Arc stretched them high into the air excitedly, "Hell yeah!" He yelled, and Eiro stared at him with a deep frown and then crossed his arms.


    "Duck." He said, and Arc lightly tilted his head to the side with a puzzled expression, "Heh? What do you-"


    Before Arc could even finish his sentence, he lost his bnce from standing on the edge of the door after being hit in the back of the head by a pillow.


    "Shut up, you maniac!" Sammy eximed angrily, before Arc turned around with a lightugh, "Hahah! At least now we can head off earlier, right?" Arc pointed out, "We''re getting our sses today!" He exined to Sammy, but it took a little while for the still half-asleep girl to properly grasp what Arc just told her.


    "So what about it, why-... Wait, we''re getting what now?" Sammy asked, slowly thinking about what she just heard, "We''re getting our sses?" She asked excitedly, and Eiro lightly smiled at her.


    "If everything works out right, yeah."


    "Awesome!" Sammy eximed, in a manner simr to how Arc did it, and Eiro lightly smirked and started helping Rudy prepare breakfast.


    Once everyone properly ate, Arc took over the task of driving the carriage again while Eiro rode on Lugo''s back to be prepared for everything.


    It then took a couple of hours, but soon enough, Eiro was able to spot the town in the distance, even if all that the others could see was a small speck.


    That speck turned into a blotch, and that blotch into the image of a town, growingrger andrger the closer they came.


    The whole town was constructed on some cliffs at the side of a mountain with a peculiar shape. On one side, it seemed to have the regr shape that a mountain should have. On the other side, however, it was nothing but a cliff-face. A cliff-face that then had a town built upon it.


    In front of that town was a thick wall, although it only covered the lowest yer'' of town. The higher parts were far above the actual base wall since they were protected enough already.


    Once they started getting closer to this town, Eiro started to feel a slight unease that took him a little while to grasp. But after actually thinking it through properly, he finally found the source of it and managed to calm himself down again.


    The source was nothing but a monster-repent. It was rtively strong, but nothing that Eiro really had to worry about in the end. It might be a bit annoying while trying to rx, but Eiro doubted he would do that anytime soon anyway.


    Seeing that they were this close already, Eiro quickly asked Arc to stop by the side of the road for a little while.


    "Hm? Is something up?" The boy asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head in response, "We need to put Avalin''s contacts in." He pointed out, and Arc opened his eyes wide with a quick smile. "Right, forgot about that."


    With a swift pull, Eiro opened the carriage''s door and stepped inside, swiftly picking up Avalin as he stepped inside and sitting her down on the edge of a low crate before squatting in front of her.


    He pulled the small box out of his Satchel and looked at the young girl, "Alright, want to try it yourself this time?" The Demon asked, and the young girl immediately nodded her head, "Yes please!" She eximed. Avalin had been wearing these contacts a little bit more often over the past few weeks, whenever they entered the proximity of any vige or town, no matter how small it was.


    All those times, Eiro put them on for her, but he wanted to try and have her do it herself this time. He couldn''t do it for her forever, after all. And fearlessly, Avalin pressed the tip of her finger onto the contact lens like Eiro showed her, and then ced it onto her eye, blinking just a few times afterward.


    "Icky..." She muttered quietly, and then repeated the same thing for her other eye. And now, Avalin simply looked like she had blue-gray eyes, and it would be harder to find out who she truly was.


    "Okay! Am I pretty now?" Avalin asked with a broad grin on her face, and Eiro slowly patted her head, "You''re always pretty, don''t worry." Eiro told her, and Avalin just started to smile even more brightly than before, "Hehe~! Daddy called me pretty!" She giggled, and then sat back down next to Sammy, while Eiro left the carriage.


    He stepped out of there and slowly looked down at his left hand, the one that he used to pat Avalin''s head with. He probably wouldn''t have normally noticed it if it was the him from a year ago, but now Eiro knew. The holy energy that Avalin naturally gave off was getting stronger and stronger. It was fine for a while, but just now his hand got just so slightly singed and irritated in reaction to the energy.


    Maybe he could somehow get something that naturally let out holy energy that Eiro could increase his Holy Energy resistance with some more. He didn''t want to at some point have to stay away from the young girl, after all.


    For now, Eiro just let it be for a while, simply climbing onto Lugo''s back while letting the slight irritation naturally go away. And so, the group started moving again, swiftly reaching the town within the next half hour.


    Or well, they reached the end of the line to enter the town. It seemed like there were a lot of different people standing in line here. Merchants, Adventurers, Travellers, all sorts of people, really. Some were able to just walk by into town, but those seemed to be people that lived and worked in this ce.


    With a slight sigh, Eiro got off of Lugo and quickly stepped up toward the carriage to look inside, "Seems like we''ll have to wait a while. You cane outside for a bit to stretch some." The Demon suggested, "You too, Leon." He added, and the young boy slowly raised his head, "But I''m tired..." Leon replied, and Eiro sighed slightly in response.


    "You''re always tired, bud. Come on, the sight is pretty neat from here." Eiro exined, and Leon slowly got up and rubbed his eyes as he took Eiro''s help to get out of the carriage. And immediately, the young boy and the other children saw the quite beautiful, albeit scary, sight in front of them.


    You couldn''t really see it beforehand, but there was actually another steep canyon surrounding the town on the outside of the wall. It had a raging river underneath it, and the only way that seemed to make it possible to actually get into town like this was a single central bridge, the one that they were currently on, as well as four smaller bridges scattered along the rest of the town''s perimeter.


    From where they were currently standing, they could look deep into the dark canyon. Right now, they weer all higher above the ground than ever before. Or well... technically not, but as far as Leon and Avalin remembered, that was the case. Rudy was actually the only one staying close to the carriage right now.


    After what happened seven years ago, he developed a quite intense fear of heights, so he wasn''t exactly a fan of staring over the edge like this. He knew that he would be fine even if he fell, exactly because of that traumatic experience. But even then, it was still too much for him to take at this time.


    So, while the others enjoyed the sight, Rudy just leaned against the carriage while trying to make sure that the horses wouldn''t freak out or anything like that.


    And while the Demon stood there, actually quite enjoying seeing the world in front of him like that, he noticed someone approach him from the side. And it wasn''t just someone walking into his direction, there were plenty of people like that since there was a different line for people without carriages. However, this one was obviously directly heading for the Demon.


    With a bit of curiosity, Eiro figured he would just wait and see what would happen. And as the Demon expected, the man walked up right behind the group and with a single quick motion snatched away the small pouch hanging by Sammy''s side.


    The man actually seemed to be rather skilled at what he was doing, since nobody here beside Eiro himself noticed anything going on at all. But then again, he wasn''t skilled enough to see that the pouch he just grabbed was a rather obviously ced decoy filled with nothing but some rocks and regr pieces of metal to make it believable.


    Usually, Eiro would have just let this man be, but then he did something that the Demon really didn''t appreciate. After leaving, he came back around with the pouch in full disy on the top of his palm as he approached Sammy with an embarrassed smirk.


    "Hey? I think I saw you drop this just now."

 Chapter 115 - Felix

    "Hm?" Sammy turned around with a puzzled expression, looking at the man standing there holding the pouch. Confused, she looked toward her side and saw that it really was missing. "O-Oh, thanks." She said embarrassedly and swiftly grabbed the pouch again. Or at least she wanted to, but the young man slowly pulled his hand away.


    "First, don''t you think we should agree on a little reward?" He asked with a light smirk, and at that point, Eiro already wanted to grab him by his cor and immediately chuck him over the edge of the bridge, but... apparently that wasn''t good manners, so he refrained from doing so.


    Instead, he just intervened with words, "What kind of reward do you expect?" The Demon asked, but the man just slowly turned his eyes toward him with a re, "Sorry bud, I wasn''t talking to you. I was talking to this beautiful youngdy here." He replied, and then just slightly smiled at Sammy again.


    "It seems like you are travellers, so I was thinking maybe I could show you around town?" The young man suggested, and Sammy looked at him with a light frown, "You want your reward to be to give us a tour?"


    With a slight chuckle, the man simply shook his head, "Not exactly... My reward would be to be able to spend more time with you." He smirked, and Eiro felt like throwing up. He did read quite a few novels before, and whenever he read someone say such a line... the demon felt embarrassed and disgusted to his core.


    Sammy, however, seemed to think differently. Her heart-rate sped up and her face flushed to turn a bright red as she just took the pouch from him, "Th-That''s fine... Right?" She asked and turned toward Eiro, trying to hide her face from this man, and the Demon just red at him from underneath his mask.


    "Of course, my dear Daughter. If you want to, that''s fine." Eiro said, purposefully saying the word ''Daughter'' as loud and clear as he could so that this man would understand.


    And it seemed like he did, because the next moment, he opened his eyes wide in surprise, "Y-You''re her father?" He asked, and the Imp just kept ring at him, "That I am. But having someone like you show us around might be quite good. After all, someone with fingers as quick as yours seems to fit right into a town full of craftsmen." Eiro added, trying to tell this man that he knew about him having stolen the pouch.


    But while his face went pale for just a moment, he startedughing shortly afterward, "Of course! I grew up here, everyone knows me! I''m practically famous!" He eximed, "My name is Felix. And what''s the name of this beauty here?" Felix asked, slowly turning his sight back toward Sammy.


    "I... I''m Samantha, nice to meet you Felix..." She exined nervously, and Arc immediately startedughing, although that''s something he had been trying to hold back for a while now anyway, "Samantha? What are you even saying?" He eximed with a loudugh. And although Sammy had been trying to shut him up by elbowing him into his stomach, things like that didn''t help much when it came to a boy that didn''t feel pain, "Just call her Sammy, like all of us." He pointed out as he looked at Felix, just wiping away a tear from the corner of his eye.


    "Sammy, huh..?" Felix asked with a light smirk, "That is a quite cute name... But a name like that does not do your beauty justice. It''s too childish, is it not? Samantha, on the other hand, sounds far better than that."


    The moment that Sammy heard Felix say this, her face became even redder than before, and she started being unsure what she should say. With a slight frown, Eiro turned his eye toward the Spirit floating next to him, visible only to him.


    "He''s doing something with his voice... I think he might have a Charisma centered ss." Nelli exined, and immediately, Eiro raised his brows and started grinning.


    ''I see... Then we might be to get Sammy a pretty good teacher, huh?'' He thought to himself. Of course he wouldn''t ever let anything happen to Sammy, so he would keep his eyes on both her and Felix at all times. But even then, since it seemed like Felix had an ability simr to Sammy''s unique skill, albeit obviously far weaker, it would be good for her to know what it was like to be on the other side of the control.


    On the other hand... Thinking about her being controlled like that made Eiro want to rip Felix''s throat out so that he would never be able to speak again.


    "Felix." Eiro said, trying to get him to stop looking Sammy''s body up and down like that, and the young man, who seemed to be just a few years older than Sammy, turned toward him with a slight smile, trying not to annoy the Demon, "Yes?"


    "We need to find our way to a craftsman. His name is Armodeus. Do you know where he is?" Eiro asked, and without hesitation, Felix nodded his head, "Of course I do! There''s nobody in his town that doesn''t know about Armodeus! He''s an Elder-Dwarf that''s even called the ''King of Craftsmen''!" Felix eximed, "I''ll show you where his shop is, don''t worry!"


    "Thanks. Nowe on, I think the line is advancing again." Eiro pointed out, and everyone swiftly followed the Demon back to the Carriage, where Arc immediately filled Rudy in on what just happened. Of course, without decency, as he didn''t hesitate to yell it out in his regr loud voice.


    With a bit of a sigh, Eiro sat down at the front of the carriage to properly make the horses advance whenever necessary. Roughly an hourter, it was finally their turn, which Eiro epted with more than relief. After all, in that time, Felix had been smooth-talking Sammy constantly, and he didn''t like that in the slightest.


    "Good afternoon to you, Sir." The Guard standing in front of the carriage said, "What''s your reason foring to Argberg? Are you passing through, here on vacation, or for work?"


    "Passing through." Eiro replied clearly, so the Guard slowly nodded and then looked over toward Lugo, "Is the stag with you?" He asked, so Eiro slowly nodded his head and ran his wooden hand over Lugo''s forehead, making a small glowing mark appear there, "Yes, he''s my familiar." The Demon exined, and the Guard slowly nodded although he seemed to be more interested in his hand right now.


    "Alright. Then how many people are with you?"


    "Four adults, two children." He replied, and the guard raised his brow as he looked at the group of people walking next to the carriage, "There''s five adults, right?"


    "Oh, that one guy isn''t with us, he''s from this town. We just met him." Eiro exined and then pointed at Felix, before the Guard sighed and looked at him as well, "Hey bud, wrong line. Wait for them inside."


    With a disappointed expression, Felix nodded his head and smiled at Sammy as he made his way over toward another entrance where he passed right through.


    And once that was done, the Guard just nodded his head, "Then we should be all set. We just need the entrance fee. Five small copper for adults, and children get in for one small copper. So that woulde to two medium and seven small copper." The Guard exined, but before he was done, Eiro already handed the coins to him, which the Guard greatly appreciated.


    "Thank you. Have a great stay in Argberg. There''s a ratherrge selection of Inns right along the main road. Most of them even have some stables attached to them." The Guard added with a friendly smile, and Eiro just slowly nodded his head as he turned toward the children, telling them to get into the carriage.


    Once they got through the short tunnel to reach the other side of the wall, Felix soon came back up to them, and then smiled brightly, "Wee in Argberg! The ce you need to go to fulfill your dreams!" He eximed, and then turned around with a broad smile, "Here, let me show you toward a really good, affordable Inn!" Felix told Eiro, who just sighed in response. He didn''t really want to, but it was probably a good idea to stay the night and have a proper rest every once in a while. After all, they were ahead of their travel-schedule right now.


    "Sure." Eiro agreed, and Felix then just smirked and climbed up onto the carriage and sat down right next to the Demon and then exined to him where exactly the Inn was. And while he did technically agree to Felix''s suggestion, he was checking out all of the Inns ced around the main street here to see what the regr quality of them was.


    Once he then saw the Inn that Felix brought them to, Eiro was rather disappointed. It was dirty, there was a wretched smelling from inside, and there were obviously some hidden passages inside. This wasn''t a regr Inn, just a setup to rob people easily.


    "Yeah, we''re not staying in that ce." Eiro said with a deep re, but Felix looked at him just confusedly. On the outside, it did look pretty good, after all, "What? Why not? I work here, so I can probably work out a discount." The young man said with a wink, but Eiro simply shook his head once more. Although, before he could fully disagree, Sammy stepped out of the carriage and walked up to his side.


    "Come on, please..? Could we maybe stay here? Just for tonight..?" She asked Eiro, who didn''t exactly know how to react.


    "...Fine." He finally agreed, "We''ll stay here. Then get us a ce in the stable, please." The Demon Felix before getting off the carriage, and then waited for everyone to get out before stepping in once more, turning toward the Puppet in the corner as he pulled out two tokens out of his treasury.


    The ''Stealth'' and ''Hand-to-Hand Combat'' ones. "If anyone tries toe inside of here, immediately defend it. Understood?" Eiro whispered, and then put both of the tokens into the puppet''s chest, watching it as it practically disappeared from his sight while standing right in front of Eiro.


    Once Eiro came back outside, he watched as Felix brought the carriage into the stables before the Demon made his way into the Inn to get a room for everyone for the night. And so, he paid received the keys, and then everyone made their way back outside.


    There, they met back up with Felix, who swiftly guided them through town, talking about random things that Eiro didn''t really care about while also continuously smooth-talking Sammy.


    With a deep grumble, Eiro just shook his head out of irritation and tried to look at the shops around here. Basically any shop was one that offered to make any of their items by hand, even the bookstore. That''s something that Eiro was actually slightly interested in, but for now, he simply chose to find Armodeus'' ce.


    And to his surprise, that was actually rather easy. Soon, they reached arge building with the writing <Armodeus''> on the front of it. Just that. Once they got there, Felix stood in front of it and spread his arms wide, "Here we are! Armodeus''! The shop of the greatest craftsman in the world!"


    But once Eiro turned his sight toward Nelli, the Spirit just shook her head, "This is the wrong ce. He''s at the highestyer''s shop most of the time."


    With a deep frown, the Demon just shook his head, "Felix, didn''t I tell you to bring me to Armodeus? I meant the person, not the shop."

 Chapter 116 - Salesman

    With a wry smile, Felix looked toward Eiro and didn''t exactly know how to react, "That''s a joke, right?" Felix asked, "Didn''t you hear how I spoke about him? You can''t ever hope to just meet him like that!"


    "And why not?" Eiro asked with a deep frown. Jura sent him here, so obviously he had to have some way of meeting him.


    And with an annoyed sigh, Felix just crossed his arms, "Alright, let me set this straight. You''re travelers, so it''s fine. But listen, this town has threeyers for craftsmen. Armodeus has a ce on eachyer. The lowestyer is one thatmoners can ess. The secondyer is only for nobles, and the thirdyer is for Kings. Just try and buy whatever you need here, alright? It''s reasonably priced." Felix exined, slowly turning toward Sammy.


    "They even have some amazing essories here. Nes, bracelets... rings..." He pointed out, acting as if he was embarrassed about it, obviously insinuating something annoying.


    "So it''s really that hard to get up there?" Eiro asked as he turned around, trying to see if he could find the ce, and Felix nodded his head irritatedly, "Yes, it is. Nowe on."


    "No thank you. Rudy, Arc, keep watch on those two. Don''t let them out of your sight. Clementine, please take care of the kids. And Nelli, make sure that Felix doesn''t try anything. Let me know immediately if he does." The Demon sighed, slightly cracking his knuckles and stretching as he was doing so before the Naiad appeared out of nowhere and smiled.


    "Sure~." She replied, turning her sight over toward Felix who was more than just surprised at seeing a Spirit here. And he really wasn''t the only one.


    "Is that a spirit?"


    "Mommy, so pretty!"


    "A Naiad!"


    Some people started muttering from all around them, and Eiro scratched the back of his head as he turned toward Nelli with a wry smile, "Also, distract these guys for a little, alright?" He asked of her, and the Spirit slowly sighed as she shook her head in disappointment.


    "Oh, what should I ever do with you...? Pushing troublesome tasks like this on me..." Sheined, but Eiro just turned toward her with a smirk, "Don''t pretend you don''t love the attention."


    "I don''t know what you''re talking about~." Nelli replied with a wink, "Now leave, you''re stealing the show!"


    With a slight chuckle, Eiro took a step to the side while everyone really was just distracted by Nelli, making his way into the closest Alleyway where he pulled out one of his three cards. The Ace of Cups. Obviously he didn''t just leave it lying around in his treasury these past couple years, he did try experimenting with it as much as he could since it was his most powerful tool at the moment. The repercussion was a bit too strong for him though, which was why he came up with another method of using it instead of drinking it.


    He pushed his mana into the card and made the cup appear, before cing his palm over the rim of the cup. Eiro slowly started to concentrate on the liquid to pull just a bit of it out while using air magic to turn it into a light mist that he used to bit by bit cover his body and clothes.


    [You have cloaked yourself using the Ace of Cup''s powers. You will be hidden from sight, but you will still create sound to a lesser degree and the evasion effect will not activate]


    [This effect willst 1 Hour and can be canceled at any time]


    With a slight smirk on his face, Eiro pulled the half-empty cup back into the card, before cing it back into his treasury.


    This method of using the power of the card had both advantages and disadvantages. The obvious disadvantages were theparatively low time-of-effect and the heavily decreased power of it. But then again, the advantages were that the cup filled back up within a day, and the effect could be canceled at any time.


    Using the cup regrly would mean that Eiro would be forced to stay hidden and forgotten for the whole duration, and that really wasn''t useful in this situation. And now, Eiro started taking a look around. He really had to hurry.


    He had been inspecting the area for a good path for a little while now, and already directly knew where he had to go.


    Eiro wrapped his body in air magic and used it to help him jump as high as possible, and the moment he reached a light ledge he spotted before, pulled his whole body up and tried propelling him upward.


    Since the rock-wall in front of him was still basically in its natural state starting from roughly five meters up instead of a brick-wall, Eiro could easily use earth magic to create small ledges. These could then be used to ce his fingers and feet onto to continue climbing until he reached the lowest nearby roof.


    From building to building, the Demon simply kept climbing, jumping, and running, before he reached the entrance area to the secondyer.


    As it didn''t have any walls, all that Eiro had to do was properly climb it up while avoiding the ''sensors'' that were seemingly ced on it. That really wasn''t hard with his strength of perception.


    The spot he climbed up at had especially little guards because it was the gardens in the very front of the secondyer. It was easy to see it from anywhere in town, so nobody would expect someone to try scaling the wall there anyway.


    Inside of the Gardens, Eiro could already notice that the environment was heavily different from before. The few Guards that were around were better-equipped and -dressed than the ones in the lowestyer, and the magic items around here were basically scattered everywhere. They seemed to be used to even light the streets up, despite how rare and expensive they were.


    If it was like this on the secondyer, Eiro really couldn''t restrain his curiosity of the thirdyer.


    There weren''t that many people around here on this secondyer, but most of those that were obviously had a whole different vibe around them as well. They were more dignified, carried themselves more elegantly, and even spoke in a whole other manner. Eiro could actually learn a few things here how to act with etiquette.


    That was his first impression at least. But once he actually tried to take a look at the crafting areas of thisyer, nobody was working. The only ce that had anyone doing anything was a store that sold essories.


    But then, Eiro noticed an area where quite a lot of business was, and it was a ce that he honestly hadn''t expected encountering here. It was something like a mobile theater.


    There were some children seated onvender colored chairs that seemed more expensive than the average item on the loweryer. And the gold-decorated versions of their parents'' seats weren''t anything tough at either.


    The actual stage was rather expensive as well. It was made of a regr, hardwood base, but the decorations around it were made using a specially grown type of wood that was usually used to increase the effect of earth magic.


    It seemed to be slightly scratched up, but not at a level that you would usually be able to see. But Eiro noticed that it was in a weird pattern, otherwise, he wouldn''t have paid attention to it. The part with the most scratches was a pir set right next to where it went behind the curtains to the right. It was like the scratches were running from the outside to the inside of the stage.


    At first, Eiro thought that maybe someone was continuously bumping into it whenever they walked inside, but then he noticed that this really couldn''t be the case. The scratches went around nearly the whole circumference of that pir. It was more like someone was purposefully making markings like that, or... someone was trying to hold onto the pir while being pulled inside.


    Thinking that this might be pretty interesting to watch, Eiro figured he would take the time he was looking for a route also watching the ''show'' that was going on, and soon noticed movement from behind that stage, before a well-dressed man stepped outside.


    He was wearing a brightly colored suit, the kind that would be obnoxious seeing in any regr situation, but weirdly fit for this kind of performer. Together with his top-hat and decorated walking-cane, it gave him a rather clich¨¦ image of a stage director.


    The man started speaking about a few random things that didn''t really interest Eiro, but then he waved his hand to the side and made a bouquet of flowers appear, all of them made of rock.


    Rock that soon crumbled down and was carried by the wind, or so it seemed, higher into the air. In reality, the air basically stood still at that time. What this really was was simple earth magic, using rock created through that same type of magic.


    And that this was an element created in such a manner could mean a couple of things. One, this person was actually one of the most skilled mages in this world that could create an element on their own without the help ofplicated magic circles. Two, he had a unique skill that allowed him to have superior control over the earth element. Three, he had a card, although Eiro could confirm that this was not the case as the ''vibe'' he got from other card holders wasn''t there. And four, the most likely of these, he had a contract with an earth spirit that he used for boring party-tricks.


    And as soon as Eiro thought this, he got his confirmation. It was the fourth of those options. Because after floating around a bit more, the rock kept gathering and turned into a body madepletely of rough rock. A Gnome, a sort of earth spirit. This was what ''Golems'', regr earth spirits, were called before they fully matured.


    It was obviously naturally skilled at what it was doing, since to it the control over the earth element was like breathing for people, but what surprised Eiro wasn''t that. Only mature spirits were capable of forming contracts, that much he was told by Nelli. At least, it was impossible to form two out of three types of contracts for it.


    There was the ''Privilege'' contract type. The one that Spirits normally formed, where they had little to no disadvantages in the contract with a being.


    Then there was the ''Partnership'' type, the type of contract that Nelli and Eiro formed. There, they were equal partners.


    And third, the type that the Spirit couldn''t initiate. The ''Submission'' contract. This was usually only possible with immature spirits and gave them nothing but pain and suffering. Literally. They would get the bare minimum of mana they needed to even exist, and had toy open all of their secrets, follow any one of the contractor''smands, and would sometimes even take over some of the physical damage done to the contractor.


    It was rather obvious that this was the case right now because it was undeniable that this was an immature spirit. Mature spirits had something simr to skin on some parts of their bodies, as well as often unique markings and essories made of mana. On the other hand, immature spirits were simply their element turned into a roughly humanoid shape.


    There were exceptions of course. For example, the Daughters of Winter were technically immature spirits as well, but since they were an incredibly special type of Ice Spirit, their immature form was quite advanced already.


    But that didn''t matter much right now. This whole situation didn''t really matter much, not to Eiro. He had no reason to help this young spirit out. It was probably at least a dozen years older than him anyway, it should be able to fend for itself. Although then, Eiro heard a rather annoying noise in the form of a voice.


    "Ladies and Gentlemen, here we have our prime attraction! Indulge in its beauty! The natural minerals contained within its body have properties that naturally strengthen you and your health! For just a small gold coin, you can take a bit of it with you!"


    A noise that revealed that this man wasn''t a performer after all.. He was a salesman.

 Chapter 117 - Solomon

    Eiro was rather annoyed at this situation. On one hand, he had to go meet Armodeus as soon as he could. But on the other hand, he couldn''t just let this Spirit''s body literally be sold. He knew that the materials making up a Spirit''s body were on a whole other level, truly, but selling them would be like Eiro chopping off his finger to sell it.


    With a low growl, Eiro couldn''t really hide his annoyance all that well. He climbed down the roof he was currently on and stepped through the crowd of people, some of which were genuinely currently attempting to buy something from this man. But Eiro himself simply stepped up right in front of the spirit. Nobody else could see him, but Eiro knew that this spirit could still see the flow of his mana in this ''lesser'' form of invisibility. With a quiet whisper, Eiro leaned forward toward it.


    "Hold out for a few hours, I''ll be backter. And I''m getting every part of your body back as well, don''t worry." The Demon said, and deeply ingrained the face of each and every person currently watching this Sales-Performance, together with their scent of course.


    And then, Eiro turned back around and stepped away again. It would be too risky to try anything in front of all these people. They would be staying the night, so he could get everything done then if he needed to.


    After making his way through these streets again, Eiro rushed over toward the entrance to the thirdyer, having only maybe twenty minutes left in this state, so he needed to find Armodeus before then.


    It was actually surprisingly easy to get up there, weirdly enough. Probably because it was hard enough as is to get into the secondyer, and nobles especially would know not to try and mess with the authority of those that could enter the thirdyer. Eiro kept climbing up the rock-walls, and then soon stepped onto therge, open thirdyer.


    There weren''t many buildings here, but those that were here were simply enormous. It seemed like there were some high-tier shops here with items Eiro couldn''t hope to ever buy even with the amount of money that he stole from the Lord of Greed back then, but one thing surprised him.


    There was actually a ce where Eiro could hear someone working. He could hear the sound of mes crackling, the smell of charcoal burning, and practically just felt the heat radiate from over there.


    Somehow, Eiro felt like that was the ce he was looking for. But once he actually pin-pointed the location, he was surprised to see that it was the simplest, smallest structure out of all of the ones on this thirdyer. Sure, it was still rtivelyrge, but it was at the level that arge family could live in itfortably instead of a mansion that a whole vige could fit into.


    The small wooden sign hanging above the door read ''Armodeus'''', just like Eiro had expected. But when he approached the building, he started hearing something. The voice of someone who was obviously pleading for something out of pure anguish.


    "Please, I beg of you, help my son! I know that he is nothing but a stuck-up brat, but he''s my son! Don''t condemn him for my mistake of raising him!" The voice eximed, and the very next moment, Eiro could hear a deep sigh and the loud, rough, grumbling voice of a different man sounded out in response.


    "I said it before, it''s not that I don''t want to, but I can''t. I literally am incapable of helping you. The one person that could is no longer there either." The man exined, but the first voice continued to simply beg, "If you cannot do it, then who can? Please, Armodeus! My son lost his arm and leg! You have that artificial leg yourself, please!"


    With an annoyed mumbling, the sound of a hammer being ced onto a metal surface sounded out, "I just told you I am incapable of doing so. The one who made my leg is no longer alive. And even if he was, just getting his help would mean highest treason, even to a king. Jura, the man that helped the King of Monsters. I''m lucky that I''m even allowed to work here like this."


    "What did you just say?" Eiro heard another voice speak, although it was a rather familiar one. And then, the Demon realized it. It was his own voice. He hadn''t realized it, but after hearing what that man, Armodeus, just said, he couldn''t hold himself back and instinctively spouted this out as he pushed the door in front of him open.


    The moment that Eiro stood there with his invisibility canceled, the guards that were seemingly apanying the man that was begging Armodeus for help pointed their weapons at the Demon, but he didn''t care much, "Armodeus, exin what you just said."


    "Halt right there!" One of the Guards yelled out, pointing his sword at Eiro, but the Demon simply kept staring across the room, while Armodeus stared back at Eiro confusedly.


    "Put down your weapons." The Dwarf said and stepped in front of the counter while the guards seemed rather confused. Once Armodeus approached Eiro, he could get a proper look at the man.


    He was quite tall for a dwarf, actually, standing at the same height as Eiro did at roughly 1.80 Meters in total. Armodeus had a long, dark grey beard and light grey eyes with light red waves in them. His face was built to look rather aggressive at any point, even while he was smiling, but he wasn''t ugly by any means. It just meant that he was intimidating, that was all.


    "Are you..." He started quietly, "By any chance Eiro?" The Elder Dwarf asked, and the Demon slowly nodded his head.


    "I am. But now answer my question. What did you just say about Ju-" Eiro started angrily, but before he could finish, this intimidating man of a high position that even had kings bowing to him pulled the Imp into a hug.


    "I will exinter, boy. But first, I''m d to finally meet you. Jura was like a brother to me." He exined, and somehow, this calmed Eiro''s anger down a bit. And once Armodeus stopped holding the Demon, he turned toward the man kneeling on the ground.


    "I''m sorry about that, but this man here is Jura''s apprentice. Or rather, he was Jura''s apprentice." Armodeus exined, and immediately, the man stared at Eiro with hopeful eyes.


    "The apprentice of Jura..? The man that can create life out of nothing?" He asked, "Please, help my son! He lost two of his limbs in-"


    "I heard it. You need someone to make recements for him?" The Demon inquired, and the man immediately nodded his head, "Yes! Yes, that''s exactly it! He had always been prone to injuries, and as he does not take healing onto him easily, so not even an elixir would be able to help him! Please, you are myst hope!"


    Staring down at the man cowering in front of him with a slight re, Eiro just looked around the room, soon spotting the young man that he seemed to have been speaking about. He was obviously incredibly depressed. His heartbeat was slow and weak, he was heavily underweight and pale beyondpare.


    This was exactly the kind of being that Jura would never hesitate to help out. So, Eiro wouldn''t turn him away either.


    "Give me a few hours. But first, I need someone toe bring a group of people here. They''re my children. They''re in the lowestyer, currently inside of Armodeus'' shop of thatyer, apanied by an attention-seeking Naiad. I''ll let her know that you''reing to get them, so bring them here, please." In response to what Eiro just said, it seemed like the Guards were rather upset at the whole idea, and one of them even took it on himself to respond.


    "You want to bring your children to such a ce? Who do you think you are?" The guard eximed, but the man cowering in front of Eiro immediately red at the guard, "Let me ask you that! Who do you think you are? They are his children! Bring them here, you fool!" The man eximed, and without hesitation, the guard flinched and nodded his head.


    "Yes, my King!" He eximed and immediately left the building together with a few more guards, and Eiro stared down at the man, who then stood up with a light smile. He was obviously very sickly as well, his cheeks slightly caved in with pale skin. If this person really was a King, then the only reason Eiro could see for this situation was that this came from concern for his son.


    "Allow me to introduce myself." The man said with a quiet voice and a happy, hopeful smile, "My name is Solomon Sigurd Skyhart, King of the country of Skyhart. Could I ask who you are? I would like to know more about this man that may end up saving my child."


    While slowly shaking his head, Eiro looked over toward the man sitting on a chair sat against the wall, "There is not much to say. My name is Eiro, I studied under Jura for years. More importantly, shouldn''t we get started helping your son?" Eiro suggested, and Solomon immediately nodded his head.


    "Please!" He eximed, and Eiro slowly stepped up in front of the young man. He was maybe seventeen, not much older than Eiro''s own children... "How did this happen?" Eiro asked as he took a rough look at the wounds, and Solomon slowly grimaced as he looked down onto the ground.


    "In my country, we have Skyhart Academy. A school that teaches everything you may ever hope to learn, ranging from craftsmanship to magic. My son attended that academy, but... One of the Lecturers I hired lost control over one of the Divine Cards. We don''t know how he got his hands on it, but it was the type that corrupted his mind. He killed many students, and crippled my son like this." Solomon exined bitterly.


    "Of course, we treated everyone that was even slightly injured during that incident, and are fully supporting the families who lost their loved ones, but my son was the one who couldn''t be healed."


    "Which card was it?" Eiro asked with a slight frown, and Solomon shook his head, "The lecturer ran away, but from his behavior and injuries that the students and other lecturers received, we think it may be the


    , the Three of Swords.


    With obvious surprise, Eiro turned around and immediately shook his head, "That can''t be it." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon was rather surprised at this sudden answer, "Why not? Do you know if this incident?"


    Just slightly sighing, Eiro scratched his cheek and shook his head, "I haven''t heard of it, sorry. I might exin it to you after I gained your trust, and you gained mine." The demon said, rather embarrassed that he just spouted that out without thinking properly, and just turned back toward the young man in front of him again.


    He was missing his limbs from directly underneath his elbow and knee, so for now, Eiro was able to create a simpler version of a prosthetic. He couldn''t directly create aplex one for him like Eiro''s hand. For one, because Eiro wasn''t skilled enough at manipting others'' life energy for that yet. And two, because it wasn''t a good idea to overwhelm his weakened body like that.


    And so, he turned around and exined the situation to Solomon. He seemed slightly disappointed, but Eiro then continued to exin, "Don''t worry. It''s like Jura taught me. After this first treatment, I wille to visit you multiple times over the next few years to see the situation and improve on the limb.. His body may not be able to take a proper recreation now, but in a few years, it might be able to."

 Chapter 118 - Bite Marks

    "Really? You honestly think so?" Solomon asked with a bright smile, and the young Demon just slowly nodded his head in response, "Yes, I do. There''s no proper reason why he shouldn''t. The issue here right now is the fact that he doesn''t take to healing all that well." Eiro exined, slowly turning his eyes toward the quiet man sitting there.


    With a wry smile and a cracking voice, he finally spoke for the first time, "Oh... So you don''t want to treat me...? Because I''m meant to be dead, is that it? I get it, everyone is like that... just let me die already then..." He muttered quietly, and with a deep re, Eiro stared down at him, noticing that Solomon''s heart was speeding up immensely and his lips were wavering while his legs were shaking.


    Once he noticed that, Eiro extended his wooden hand forward and grabbed the young man by the chin, pulling it upward so that he was looking into the Demon''s face... or rather, onto his mask. Eiro simply didn''t want him to keep looking down at the ground, "Hmm, I don''t think people want you dead because you''re not easy to heal, but because you''re a little shit." The Demon said quite bluntly, and one of the remaining guards immediately took offense to Eiro''snguage. But before that guard could actually do anything, Solomon stopped him, wanting Eiro to continue.


    "If all you do is act like this and bathe in your own agony, then how else should others react? What, you want others to believe in you if you can''t even do that yourself? How important do you think you are? Everyone has issues. Sure, yours are a bit heavier than others'', but that doesn''t mean anything. They broke you down, so why should others risk ending up like you by making your issue theirs?" Eiro said clearly, obviously going a bit too far in his tone as he kept slightly squeezing the young man''s chin to get some sort of reaction from him.


    And luckily, that seemed to work out quite well, "What the fuck do you know?! How could you know how I feel?! Do you think I want to be like this? I just don''t know what to do!" He yelled out angrily, and Eiro slowly let go of his chin and instead pushed his palm onto his face.


    "Take a look at this. You think I reced my hand with a wooden one for the heck of it? Seven years ago, all my children were kidnapped by Demons. While I was rescuing one of them, my finger was ripped off. Then, my hand lost all feeling. An old man saved me and gave me a new hand. You think throughout all of that, I was as insufferable as you are? That I would bite the hand that fed me like you are doing right now?" Eiro asked, running his hand over toward the back of the young man''s head, forcing him to look at the King in front of them.


    "Now look at all the bite-marks in your father. His ripped-up clothes because he prostrated himself while begging for help. His caved-in cheeks because he couldn''t eat anything for days. The dark rings underneath his eyes thate frompleteck of sleep. He is a King, kid. You have someone to whom you are literally more important than the state of a whole country." The Demon said, "So act like it."


    Finally, Eiro let go of the young man and slowly turned over toward Armodeus, "Sorry to ask this, but could I borrow some materials? The type of wood that you used for that healer''s staff over there would be perfect." Eiro exined to the Elder Dwarf, who immediately frowned and shook his head.


    "Sorry, I have three of those staffs, but not the raw materials. Although..." Armodeus replied, taking that one staff hanging on the wall before throwing it over toward Eiro, "You can use this. Free of charge, of course."


    With a satisfied smile, Eiro nodded his head, "Thank you. And sorry for wasting your time with all this." The Demon said as he slowly ran his fingers over the surface of the wood. It wasn''t made in aplicated manner, really. There wasn''t anything about it that made it specifically a staff at least, so Eiro could pretty easily re-use this.


    "Ah, I have tools right here if you need''em." Armodeus pointed out, but Eiro slowly shook his head and closed his hand around an invisible tool''s handle and slightly pulled his hand backward, making a small carving knife appear out of thin air.


    And this action itself was something that shocked everyone in this room. Abilities like this were more than just rare, after all.


    ''Who is this man..?'' Solomon thought to himself, with Armodeus thinking something pretty simr at the same time. And that was before Eiro even started carving. With swift motions, the Demon got started, switching out his tools whenever necessary. He first got started on the leg, and as such created a dummy''s foot, so it wasn''t as detailed as a regr foot would be. That meant that it, for example, didn''t have any separate toes, but instead was just meant to have the shape of a foot.


    Then there was, of course, the joint that was meant to connect that foot with the actual leg, as well as the lower leg itself. Eiro tried to copy the rough shape that this young man''s leg had as much as he could, although he made it a bit more muscr, albeit not by much.


    Eiro was sure that once he had a proper leg, he would start walking again and the muscles of his left leg that had barely been used would strengthen again. Eiro simply didn''t want it to look too different for the next year until Eiro maye and check on it again.


    And just as he was roughly halfway done with the actual lower-leg, he slowly turned his eyes toward the side and groaned annoyedly.


    With a concerned expression, Solomon stepped up toward him, looking at the piece of wood in Eiro''s hand, "D-Did something go wrong?" He asked with pure worry in his voice, but Eiro simply shook his head.


    "No, no, don''t worry. I just noticed that they brought someone annoying with them." He replied, and Solomon turned toward his guards and Armodeus confusedly, before they heard a knock on the door.


    "My King, we have returned!" The guard from before eximed, and Solomon looked at the door with a slight startle, "You may enter..." Solomon told them, and the Guard opened the door before a group of people came in, led by Nelli the Naiad.


    "Eiro!" She eximed immediately, "Down there on the secondyer there''s this performer-"


    "I know, we''ll deal with thatter. First, you and Clementine, take a look at that boy for a second. He has a rancid smell to him, I just need you two to confirm my guess."


    "Of course..." Clementine said quietly, although she seemed obviously pretty hesitant to approach the boy for whatever reason. And while Eiro then continued carving the leg, he spoke to the others, "Behave yourselves, everyone, alright? And with ''Everyone'', I mean you, Arc."


    "Hey! What''s that supposed to mean?" The boy asked annoyedly, and then looked at his siblings before shrugging, "Alright, fair enough."


    Seeing that Arc wasn''t really up to behaving, Sammy looked toward the King with a light smile, "Lord Skyhart, it is an honor to be able to stand in front of you like this. In advance, I already apologize for whatever my brother, as well as my father, may do or say throughout this night." She pointed out as she bowed to Solomon, who simply shook his head.


    "Do not worry about such things. I''m not here as a King, but as a father. And as a father, Eiro is my benefactor." Solomon said with a slightugh, and Eiro noticed Felix''s whole existence currently being washed away by confusion.


    "Hmm, these are the children Jura spoke of?" Armodeus muttered quietly, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Probably. You made some things for them, right? Could you bring them out and show them to them while I work?"


    "Oh, of course!" The Elder Dwarf eximed, swiftly rushing to the room toward the back, while Avalin walked up to Eiro, "Daddy am I getting something too?"


    "Hmm, what would you want?" The Demon asked, and Avalin ced her hand to her chin and looked up in thought about it, "Everything!" She eximed, but Eiro just slightly smiled and ran his hand through her hair with augh, "That''s a little much, isn''t it?"


    "No!" She eximed immediately, "Everything is too little!" Avalin eximed with a huff, so Eiro slowly looked at her. "Then I''ll get you everything and more when I''m done with work, alright?" He asked, and with an excited smile, Avalin nodded her head hurriedly.


    "Yeesh!" She eximed, and then happily ran over toward Sammy, while Eiro finally finished the prosthetic leg and slowly started putting it together. And once he did, Armodeus already returned with some items as well as the second staff that he would give to Eiro for the arm, which the Demon happily took from him.


    "Thanks. Nelli, Clementine, how does it look?" Eiro asked, as he slowly looked at the two of them, and Clementine turned toward him with a paleplexion, "Not great..." She pointed out, and Nelli seemed to agree to that as well.


    "What were these wounds made with?" The spirit asked, and the Demon slightly shrugged, "They''re assuming it''s a card with simr properties to the Three of Swords. A teacher went on a rampage. But others could be healed, just not him."


    "Hmm, then this might have been a targeted thing..." Nelli pointed out quietly, and Solomon ripped his eyes open immediately, "Targeted? What do you mean? My son was simply unlucky, and his limbs couldn''t be healed through magic... It worked for others that lost their limbs, however."


    "Sure, he''s basically the opposite to Clementine when ites to healingpatibility, but it''s impossible to have so littlepatibility that high-tier spells like that won''t work. If that was the case, then the wounds wouldn''t have closed either. A single papercut could take his life because he could bleed out." Nelli pointed out, "Spells like that often only take effect shortly after the limb was removed. Something was done to this child to prevent that. Something to counteract those healing attempts."


    "Huh, so it really was that, huh?" Eiro asked with a deep sigh, and Solomon turned toward him confusedly, "What do you mean? You know the reason he can''t be healed?"


    Slowly nodding, Eiro got started on the parts for the arm, "My guess is a sort of curse. But if that''s it, it wouldn''t be just as strong anymore as it used to be. A curse like that must be pretty strong, but it''s doesn''t smell that strong." Eiro pointed out, and then slowly stood up and walked over toward Clementine, cing his hand onto her back, seeing that she was seemingly still feeling sick.


    "Go on, take a look at what Armodeus made for you. If you need it, you can head outside for a few minutes, but take someone with you, alright?" The Demon told the girl, who just slowly nodded her head, "Thanks..." She replied, and Solomon looked at Clementine rather confused.


    "Is she also capable of sensing curses like you?" He inquired, but Eiro just shook his head, "It''s moreplicated than that. I can exin it some other time. But first, let me finish everything and help your son." Eiro told Solomon, not wanting to reveal knowledge that he didn''t necessarily need to know about.


    And so, Eiro for now simply continued on carving into the staff to turn it into a prosthetic arm instead, once more simply creating three different major sections. The hand, the joint, and the actual arm.


    Maybe two hourster, once everyone took a closer look at their new items and Solomon grew even more nervous than before, while his son just sat there still thinking about Eiro''s words from before, the Demon finished and held the two prosthetics in his hands.

 Chapter 119 - Jura’s Treason

    "Okay, you need topletely trust me now, alright? Whatever you feel, just ept it. Don''t fight it, or else this won''t work." Eiro told the young man, who hadid down on a table that Armodeus swiftly supplied. After all, he wanted to see this process as well.


    Seeing that the young man agreed, Eiro just rolled up the pant-leg enough to uncover the stump properly, and with just a light touch pressed onto the skin there. "Do you feel this?" The Demon asked, and the young man nervously nodded his head, so Eiro pushed his arm deep into the satchel that he ced onto the ground and grabbed a small bottle that he ced at the very bottom. Solomon and his guards were actually a bit surprised to see his arm reach that deep inside of the rather small bag, but Armodeus didn''t expect anything else. After all, he was the one that turned the former spatial bag into this satchel.


    After he had the bottle in his hand, he slowly pulled the cork out of the top and pulled a little out of it with his water magic and then applied it to the stump. And a few minutes of waitingter, Eiro pressed onto the stump a bit more.


    "Do you feel this?" Eiro asked again, but the young man just raised his head and looked down at his leg, "Feel what?" He replied, and Eiro turned toward Solomon, "Alright, I can start now. Don''t worry, he won''t feel anything. But please keep talking to him to distract him a bit." The Demon exined, so Solomon slowly agreed and did as he was asked, trying to distract his son from what was going to happen now as much as possible.


    And then, Eiro took out a knife, and slowly cut along the outeryer of the stump, simply to re-open the wound as cleanly as possible. He pushed some of his mana into the blood as well, trying to hold it back from flowing out while he was working, and then properly positioned the prosthetic leg against the stump.


    After that, Eiro poured out a bottle with refined water onto the ce where the open wound and prosthetic touched and swiftly controlled it, and with Nelli''s help started the healing process.


    "Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wass. Jiadis Naia." Eiro muttered quietly, concentrating as much as he possibly could on the healing process while at the same time creating a small, uplicated Magic circle to support this as well.


    It didn''t take too long, but roughly twenty minutester, it seemed like the wound had properly merged with the wood like it was supposed to, and Eiro slowly ran his hand over the part where they connected, "Hmm, seems good enough." Eiro muttered quietly, and then slowly started running his palm over the young man''s leg, trying to properly prepare for the life force maniption inside of his body.


    It would be rather hard to fill the legpletely just like this since Eiro wasn''t great at manipting others'' life force just yet. But if he created at least a slight opening into the prosthetic, Eiro would most likely be able to let it fill itself in. As if he drilled a hole into the bottom of a bucket to fill a bowl.


    It was slowpared to just pouring the bucket out normally, but at the very least it was easier to control for now.


    "This might hurt a bit now." The Demon said as he started slowly pulling life force into the prosthetic and then watched as the young man''s body cramped up in pain, "Come on, just a few moments longer. You''ll get used to it." Eiro said reassuringly, and soon, the young man nodded his head and pressed his teeth together while pressing his eyes shut, trying to get through this immense pain as much as he could before his body rxed again.


    "There we go. Once the anesthetic wears off, we''ll try walking a little. But first, let''s move on to your arm." Eiro said quietly, stepping around the table toward his side, "Are you ready?"


    With deep, heavy breaths, the young man nodded his head again, "Just get it over with already..."


    "Don''t worry, you''ll be able to get through the second one more easily. I think."


    "You think?" The young man asked with shock in his voice, and Eiro just pulled the bottle with the anesthetic back out. With water magic, he pulled a bit of it back out and moved it over the stump underneath the young man''s elbow, waiting another few minutes for it to properly work.


    "Can you feel this?" Eiro asked as he pressed onto the stump, and the young man slowly shook his head, feeling too nervous to actually speak. And then, Eiro took his knife and cut back into the skin, cutting the outermostyer off of it


    Once the skin was removed from the stump and Eiro stopped the bleeding with magic, he ced the prosthetic onto the wound and started to heal it again with Nelli''s help before swiftly pulling some more life force into it.


    "There we go." The Demon said with a light smile underneath his mask, looking at Solomon as he was doing so, "In a few moments, you''ll be done. It''s going to hurt a fair bit for the next couple of days, and you might not be able to walk for a long time right off the bat, but you can start practicing at the very least." Eiro exined, and Solomon could barely hold off the glee he was feeling from covering his whole body.


    "It''s going to take a while for everything to wear off and for him to calm down, so excuse me until then. I would like to have a small talk with Armodeus if that''s fine with you." Eiro exined, and Solomon immediately nodded his head, "Of course, of course, take however long you need!" He eximed happily, and Eiro turned over toward the Elder Dwarf, stepping past a baffled and freaked-out Felix, as they entered the back-room.


    It seemed to be isted pretty well, so hopefully, nobody would be able to hear them speak. And finally, in there, Eiro took off his mask and ced it into his treasury all the whilst pulling his hood off his head.


    "Now, it''s nice to finally properly meet you, Armodeus." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, and with a loudugh, the Elder Dwarf crossed his arms, "An actual Demon, huh? Who''d have thought? When Jura told me about you, I imagined you being far colder, far crueler, you know?" He pointed out, and Nelli, who was floating next to Eiro, looked at Armodeus with a wry smile.


    "He killed thirty men within fifteen minutes, just two weeks ago. And one of them he attempted to kill by locking him in a giant boulder of ice made from the blood of the people he killed before that." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro stared at her confusedly, "Why did you just say that?" He asked her, and the Spirit just shrugged.


    "I dunno." She said quite bluntly, but Armodeus was just rather startled at that revtion, "Well... Then I guess I should stay on your good side, huh?" The Dwarf asked, and the Demon just shook his head, "Don''t worry, you were Juras friend, no way I can ever kill you."


    "Heh... Makes me feel a bit better, actually. Well, I''m d you''re treating all the items I made you so well." Armodeusughed a bit, trying to change the topic, and Eiro raised his brows, slightly intrigued.


    "So you really were the one that made all of these things? The bag, the tools, even the cloak?" He inquired rather curiously, and Armodeus swiftly nodded his head, "Of course I did. Not anyone can make pieces like that, you know?" He pointed out with a wink, making Eiro just slightly smirk in response.


    He was aware that these were all incredibly amazing things, but he didn''t know they were made by someone as amazing as Armodeus. Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what that whole ''King of Craftsmen'' deal that Felix was speaking about meant, but now he knew. All of the swords, shields, staffs, and so on that were scattered not only across the front of the house but also here in the back were simply at a whole other levelpared to anything that Eiro had seen before.


    "Actually, I need to thank you. I could make some pretty interesting things for you all. Of course, I didn''t properly exin it out there, for obvious reasons, but once Solomon and his guards leave, I''ll exin it properly." Armodeus suggested, but before then, Eiro had something else he wanted to speak about. Well, two things, actually. But one was more important to him right now.


    "Okay then. Now go on about what you were saying before, please. About Jura and the King of Monsters." Eiro requested, and Armodeus scratched the back of his neck, "Well, it''s not like it''s a secret. If you wanted to, you could find something about it in any major library. Eiro, do you know what kind of being the current King of Monsters is?"


    "A being that threatens the peace of the world?" He asked, and Armodeus slowly shook his head, "That''s not it. Well, technically yes, but that''s not what I wanted to talk about. I meant it literally. The current King of Monsters. He''s a Unique Monster."


    "Well, that''s what I would expect. Even I''m apparently a Unique Monster, right?" The young Demon pointed out, and Armodeus crossed his arms as he sat down on the edge of the table behind him, "Sure, but once again that''s not what I mean. He didn''t just evolve into a unique monster, his base race was unique. His father was a Goblin Lord who ascended to the role of <The Emperor>, and his mother was a Shadow Creature who ascended to the role of <The Empress>."


    "So he would be a hybrid? What would that be, a Shadow Goblin?" Eiro asked curiously. With a slight frown, Armodeus just grumbled, "Usually so, yes. But, just before the Empress gave birth to the King, she killed the Emperor. Usually, the spot of Emperor would open up and a worthy candidate would ascend after a while, but instead it just went to the unborn King." The Elder Dwarf exined before he looked at the ground with a deep frown.


    "The awakening process caused the Empress to be killed as well. And somehow, the King gained ownership over both cards of the Major Arcana. Of course, this is impossible, so the King''s body changed drastically inside of his dead mother''s womb before rejecting both of the cards. The King turned into a unique creature that had never existed before in this world, and may never exist ever again. But once that young monster-child wed its way out of its mother''s body, it just kept wandering the forest it was born in." Armodeus exined, "That was until one day, it encountered a young man. That young man was Jura."


    "And neither of them tried to just kill the other?" Eiro asked with a deep frown, and Armodeus shook his head immediately, "Of course not. The King was newly born, he didn''t know anything about the world. And he was too intelligent to act on instinct as well. And Jura... well, he was always rather entric when it came to things like that."


    "So Jura became a traitor the world because he took in the current King of Monsters?" Eiro asked with a deep frown. That would make sense, at least to an extent, even if he didn''t like it. But the Demon was more than just confused when Armodeus didn''t just nod his head or agree with him.


    "Actually... That wasn''t why he became known as a traitor. The reason for that was that, before thest great hero could kill the former Monster King, he nearly killed the current Monster King. He nearly lost his whole body... his whole self. And Jura created a new body for him but lost his sight after the King attacked him immediately after that.. And then, the current King killed the hero, turned a whole country into a wastnd, and killed the formed Monster King in a way that none of the Royals even dared fight back."

 Chapter 120 - New Dagger

    "And for that, Jura wasbeled a traitor to the world?" Eiro asked with a deep frown, and as if it was obvious, Armodeus nodded his head.


    "Of course, what do you expect? Thest hero was the strongest that we''ve seen in hundreds of years, and he was killed as if he was just a bug. People didn''t see much hope in defeating the King, so they pushed the me onto the one person they could. Jura." As the Elder Dwarf pointed this out, Eiro just started slowly growing angrier and angrier.


    "Hmm, then maybe I should end those that did that to him?" The Demon muttered quietly although Armodeus swiftly responded, "That would mean you would have to destroy the world, something that I doubt even you can do. But there is something else I would like to speak about." The Craftsman pointed out, and Eiro lightly raised his brow.


    He was still angry, but it wasn''t like he could change anything about what happened in the past. He would try to change Jura''s reputation after his death if he could, but there was no use in trying to kill everyone in this world. So, Eiro just looked at Armodeus and waited for him to speak.


    "Which cards do you have?"


    With a slight frown, Eiro looked at him in surprise, "Why do you want to know?" He asked, and Armodeus just so slightly smirked.


    "Curiosity. As you''ve probably noticed..." The Dwarf started, however before he could finish, Eiro spoke, "You also have a card. Yeah, I noticed." Eiro replied, and Armodeus just started tough loudly.


    "Well then, guess I should start first then, huh? Mine is the Eight of Pentacles, dubbed ''Hands of God''."


    "Makes sense. That should be the perfect card for someone like you." Eiro pointed out, and then just thought of the story of the one that first received this card.


    It wasn''t as tragic as some of the others'' stories, but still pretty interesting in the end. It was the story about a prodigious young craftsman, whose hands were crushed after he was falsely used of stealing something from a noble.


    Despaired over this, the craftsman tried to end his life, but the Arcane Dealer appeared before him and gave him the card that changed his life for the better again. He could move his hands even better than before they were crushed, and he used them to create a Sword that could kill anything.


    That de was then used to kill the noble that falsely used him, but due to his malice in the creation of the sword, it became cursed and killed him along with the noble.


    "Of course, it''s the card made to be used by craftsmen!" He eximed, and then looked at Eiro curiously, "Now tell me, which cards are yours?" Armodeus questioned the Demon, who just sighed deeply and leaned against the wall.


    "Ace of Cups, Three of Swords, and Five of Pentacles." Eiro exined, making Armodeus just smirk broadly, "Well, well. Never expected to see a triple card owner in my lifetime. But the three of swords, huh? That would exin what you said before..." Armodeus muttered quietly. Hearing this, Nelli just turned toward Eiro confusedly.


    "Why? What did you say before?" She asked the Demon, who just slightly sighed in annoyance because he really wasn''t in the mood to fight about something like this now, "We were speaking about the cause of that kid''s injuries, and Solomon mentioned it might have been a card, the Three of Swords. And I just said that it couldn''t have been that. I didn''t tell them that it''s impossible because it''s my card, obviously, so calm down."


    "That''s still one of the less smart things you''ve done..."


    "I know, but I felt bad for the kid. He lost his arm and leg. I know how at least part of that feels. I didn''t want them to chase wrong clues." Eiro pointed out, and at that point, Nelli couldn''t reallyin anymore, "As long as you don''t actually tell them you''re a card owner, it should be fine..." The Naiad replied, and Armodeus was just rather silently staring at Eiro.


    "It''s still quite weird to me. A monster with truepassion? Sure, it''s not like that''s unheard of, but that only happened a handful of times in recorded history..." Armodeus pointed out, and Eiro simply shrugged.


    "Yeah, I haven''t heard much about that either. But personally, I''m more curious about what you made for the kids for now. We can''t stay too long, so I''d like to know before we head off again."


    Surprised, the Elder Dwarf crossed his arms, "You''re leaving already? Not staying in town for a little while?"


    "Not for now, sorry. I''m sure Jura told you about it, but my youngest boy and oldest girl both had their unique skills sealed. Leon''s seals are starting to break his body down already, and it can''t be too long before it happens to Sammy as well."


    "It started already?!" Armodeus asked with a loud scream, and then with concern stared at the demon in front of him, "You still have the potions that Christoph made, right? The one to hold that off from happening?"


    "I do, don''t worry. And we''re ahead of our travel schedule, so it should all hopefullyst. We''re heading out tomorrow morning as soon as the sun rises. Tonight I just wanted to get the things you made and get the kids their sses before then." Eiro exined, "So please, I don''t want to be rude, but after I made those prosthetics we don''t have much time left to get to the Church. Could you just tell me about the weapons?"


    With a slight grumble, Armodeus nodded his head, "Sure. But I think I might have a solution to your problem. Kings usually have their own ss-Change crystals with them, because their royal guard always needs to be in peak form. You''re his benefactor now, so he''s surely going to let you use it." Armodeus exined, and Eiro raised his brows surprised, "Oh, that might work!" He eximed, "Let''s try that." Eiro said with a satisfied smile, and Armodeus chuckled slightly, and just followed Eiro''s request.


    "Well, anyway. All I made were simple things in the shape of the training ones you made for them. Swords, a Staff, Bow and arrows, a damage-focusing shield... And other than that, just some armor for everyone. For Arc and Sammy, they''re focused on letting them move. Rudy''s isrge and bulky, but really light because the armor is just for show so that nobody suspects anything when he doesn''t get damaged by strong attacks. Clementine just got specially woven robes that let her easily heal herself should she use that skill of hers." Armodeus swiftly exined and then turned around as he walked toward a box standing on the table that he then opened up.


    "Then, there are some other things as well, of course. Pots and pans made for travel, magic items to make your life a bit easier, and then some simpler things like Spark-Snappers, Whetstones, threads, leftover cloth, and so on." The Elder Dwarf added, swiftly getting all of those items out of the box one after another, before looking at the table next to him.


    "And then there''s also something else for you." The Elder Dwarf pointed out and then grabbed a small, bright-red Dagger.


    "It''s a Drake-Fang Dagger. It generally enhances any sort of Fire Magic. That should be your fort¨¦, right?" Armodeus asked, but Eiro just looked at him with his eyes slightly squinted, "Oh, what gave that away? The Water Spirit floating next to me? Or how I used water magic before? Or the blue parts of my horns and hands?" The Demon replied, but Armodeus was just a bit confused.


    "What? What do you mean?" The Elder Dwarf asked, and Eiro just slightly sighed as he extended his hand over toward Nelli as she produced a small sphere of water for Eiro''s demonstration, "I do use any magic that I have ess to, sure. But mostly, I use fire magic to bring water to a boil..." Eiro started, and the sphere of water slowly started to bubble and give off steam before immediately freezing and turning into ice, "So that I can freeze it. My fort¨¦ isn''t fire, it''s ice. I was blessed by the former Naiad queen and the Lady of Winter."


    "..." Silently, Armodeus just stared at Eiro for a while, before closing his eyes and breathing out deeply with annoyance, "What?" he asked confusedly, and Eiro just looked back at him with a light smile. "Yup, sorry. I mean, that does seem like a pretty good dagger, though... But when ites to me-infusion, I''ll still keep this one, I think." Eiro exined, slowly running his hand through the air to pick up his regr dagger from his treasury, making the decorated dagger with the red magic stone in its handle appear in his wooden hand.


    And the moment that Armodeus saw this, he opened his eyes wide, "C-Could I take a look at that?" He asked quietly, and Eiro slightly frowned and handed the dagger to him nervously, "Sure... but be careful, that thing''s basically a treasure to me. But now that you mention it, a second dagger might be a pretty good idea. Can I take a look around what you have here?" Eiro asked curiously as he ced the dagger into Armodeus'' hand, and the Elder Dwarf slowly raised his head.


    "Hm? Oh, of course, of course. I keep the daggers over there against that far wall. Listen, do you mind if I maybe grind this down a bit? Just sharpen it properly, remove some of the nicks and scratches in it?"


    With a deep sigh, Eiro scratched his cheek and nodded his head, "Sure? As long as you don''t break it or anything..."


    "Tsk, who do you think you''re talking to?" Armodeus asked with a click of his tongue as he stepped over toward a grinding wheel standing in the corner of the room, while Eiro walked around the room to look at the Daggers that the Elder Dwarf mentioned.


    There were a few that were pretty interesting, although none that seemed special enough to be worth using, as far as Eiro was concerned. Sure, some of them had interesting gimmicks and properties, but there wasn''t anything that really made the Demon think that he wanted to actually use any of them in a fight.


    That was until he found a certain ck dagger. Outwardly it didn''t really seem too interesting, at least not more so than the other daggers that were hanging from the wall orying on the table here, but Eiro could tell that there was something special about it.


    That was because the actual de had a hollow core and had some small holesing out of it. Once he picked it up, he noticed that despite itcking a fair amount of metal, it was still a bit heavier than the other daggers here, something that Eiro actually somewhat liked.


    The handle itself also seemed to be hollow and could be filled with a liquid if needed to. After Eiro took a closer look at the small holes and edges in the dagger that would seem just like decorative carvings to others without visual capabilities like Eiro''s, he noticed that a bit deeper in, the metal was actually pressed shut, so no liquid that may be on the inside could drip outside.


    At the very least, it couldn''t do so like this, but when Eiro cooled the metal down some with ice magic, he saw that the tiny holes opened back up.


    With a grin on his face, Eiro held this rather interesting weapon in his hand and tried to just swing it a few times to see how well it would lie in his hand, before smiling with satisfaction. It seemed like he actually found a rather interesting weapon for himself.


    But when Eiro turned around to tell Armodeus about the dagger he would like in that ''Drake-Fang'' Dagger''s stead, he just saw the Elder Dwarf staring down at Eiro''s regr dagger as if it was a lost treasure.

 Chapter 121 - Unique Compatibility

    "Is something wrong with it?" Eiro asked with a deep frown, trying to understand what Armodeus was currently doing. He was holding Eiro''s dagger in his hand, staring at it intensely with a light smile on his face.


    But when the Demon''s question came, Armodeus slowly turned toward Eiro questioningly, "Where did you find this piece?" The Elder Dwarf asked, but the Imp wasn''t sure why he wanted to know that and just approached him quickly, trying to take it back out of his hand.


    However, before Eiro could do so, Armodeus pulled his hand away and just stared at Eiro, "Answer my question." He said, and Eiro just stared at him rather annoyedly, "Why do you care?" Eiro asked, slowly getting a bit agitated before Armodeus looked back at him.


    "Because I made it. It''s been a while, two hundred or so years, but I remember making this for a friend of mine back then. Aren Stinehearth. As far as I know, it has been handed down the Stinehearth family for generations, and thest one that should have had it was..." Armodeus exined, and the more he spoke, the more he started to guess why Eiro had it.


    "Don''t tell me you hurt her..." The Elder Dwarf asked, but Eiro just stared back while grinding his teeth, "Are you asking me if I killed Avalin?"


    The moment that Armodeus heard Eiro say that name, he started to walk forward with heavy steps that made the whole room seem to shake, "You have?!" He yelled out, "I swear to the gods that if youid a hand on that young girl, I-"


    "Armodeus. I didn''t kill her. She was eaten by Zaragon." Eiro interrupted, and Armodeus stared back at him, "What... What did you just say...?" Armodeus asked as with a deep, angry voice that originated deep inside of his body.


    And that anger soon turned to frustration, "She... really is dead?" The Elder Dwarf asked, slowly sitting down on the chair behind him, "Are you really sure?"


    "Of course I am. I was there. It was during the attack of the Sun against the Holy Kingdom''s capital. Zaragon was injured, and ate Avalin to heal himself." Eiro exined, but Armodeus stared at him confusedly, "Then how did you get away? If Avalin was killed, then you should have died too! Zaragon is not someone you should be able to face!"


    "That''s because I didn''t. I drank the Ace of Cups and ran away with that dagger in my hand." Eiro said with a deep frown, and while Armodeus was just sitting there with confusion, Eiro took the dagger from him again. Or at least he tried, but without Eiro even properly noticing it, Armodeus had already ced the dagger behind him on the table.


    "I am sorry for thinking you had hurt her... But I can''t believe she was dead all these years... Sure, James, her former adventuring partner, said so, but her father was convinced he was just going mad because he became disfigured during the attack. He kept on believing that she was alive, like any father would." Armodeus exined, but Eiro just looked at him with a slight re as he ced his mask back onto his face.


    "Can I take this dagger instead of that drake one you made?" Eiro asked as he stepped up to the table and grabbed his regr dagger again, which had actually been proficiently sharpened by Armodeus just now within only a few moments, and Armodeus just slowly nodded his head as Eiro headed toward the door.


    "Oh, and I have just one thing to say about that. I didn''t know much about Avalin, but... I know that she despised being called a Stinehearth." The Demon exined, and then proceeded to open up the door to step into the front of the building again, his new dagger in his hand and Avalin''s old dagger in his treasury, and then saw that the young man that Eiro treated was currently sitting up on the table.


    With a bit of hurry, Eiro just made his way toward them to make sure he was there to see if anything was wrong, and then looked at the young man again.


    "Is everything alright?" Eiro asked him, and he just slowly nodded his head in response, "It stings and burns a bit, but it''s fine..."


    "Alright, that''s good then. Now, look your father in the eyes and tense your whole body up for a moment, but let me move your body a bit." Eiro said, and the young man looked at him a bit confused and turned to his left side to look at his father, and then tensed his body up like Eiro wanted him to.


    And then, Eiro grabbed his upper right arm and started to move it around a bit, before nodding in satisfaction. After Eiro tried moving the young man''s leg around by his thigh as well, he just sighed in relief.


    "Okay, everything seems to have worked properly." He pointed out, and both the young man and his father, the King, looked at Eiro a bit confused.


    "How do you know?" Solomon asked with surprise, and Eiro pointed at the young man''s arm, "Because the limb is tense. Usually, it would hang down if it doesn''t work. Here, like this." Eiro exined and held his wooden hand forward, slowly pulling the majority of his life force into just his palm, making all his fingers justpletely hang down.


    "If he doesn''t specifically concentrate on using them, they''re going to still hang down a bit, because of how long he didn''t have his arm and leg, but with time it''s going to be as natural as if they were his original limbs." Eiro exined before his own fingers tensed up again a bit as he held them forward to the young man.


    "Hold on to me for a second. Let''s try standing." He suggested, and the young man just looked at him with a nervous expression, "A-Are you sure that''s a good idea?"


    "I''m not, but there''s no reason to wait. Come on. I want you to be able to show me around town when I visit you in a year." The Demon said, and with a slight smile, the young man nodded his head and took Eiro''s hand before slowly letting his real foot touch the ground, and just stood one-legged on it before letting his new wooden leg down as well, slowly transferring some weight to it.


    "It... doesn''t hurt..?"


    "Of course not. Why would it? You could technically walk on your own now already, but you should have a bnce issue right now, so I don''t suggest it." Eiro pointed out, and then slowly turned around toward Solomon, who was just on his knees in front of the Demon.


    "Thank you! Thank you! I don''t know how to repay you for this!" Solomon eximed, seemingly just relieved out of his heart that his son was able to stand on his own legs again. And with a light smirk, Eiro crossed his arms.


    "Well, I would really have a bit of an idea for that." He pointed out, but the moment he did so, one of the King''s Guards seemed to get a bit offended. And like Eiro thought, it was the same one from before.


    "How dare you! It should be an honor to assist the king in itself! A reward is unneeded!" He eximed, but Eiro looked at him with just a slight re, "Oh really? Sorry, but the thing is... He''s not my king. He''s ''a'' king, but why should that matter? I didn''t help him because he was a king, but because he was a father worried about his kid. And if it can help my children in return, I''m going to take a reward."


    "That''s it! You are under arr-" The Royal Guard eximed, but before he could finish what he was saying, he was swiftly interrupted.


    "Quiet!" The King yelled out, "As I said before, I am not here as a king, but as a father, like Eiro said! He deserves any reward he wants, understood?!" Solomon eximed, and the Guard slightly flinched and nodded his head, "Yes! Excuse my rude behavior, my King!"


    "You''re excused. But don''t let it happen again." Solomon said with a re and then looked back at Eiro with a warm smile.


    "What is it that you wish to have as a reward?" He asked the Demon, who just slightly smiled and looked at the children behind him, "My children don''t have their sses yet. And we have to leave as soon as we can tomorrow morning, so could you allow them to use your ss-change crystal?" Eiro asked Solomon, and without a moment of hesitation, he nodded his head.


    "Of course! That is no issue in the slightest! Please, bring it here!" Solomon eximed as he looked at two of his guards, who swiftly ran out of the house and made their way toward where their ss-change crystal seemed to be right now.


    Just a couple of minutester, they returned while carrying arge wooden box. They ced it down onto the ground and opened the top part up, just folding it to the side, to reveal the top of a crystal in a rough, uneven shape. It was like it was a splinter of something way bigger.


    "Please, proceed. Simply ce your hand on it one person at a time and make a careful choice." King Solomon exined, and Eiro turned toward his children and nodded his head.


    "Arc, you first." The Demon said, and he didn''t even hesitate to follow up, just pressing his palm onto the crystal.


    And then, Eiro immediately saw a yellow notification appear in front of Arc''s eyes. Of course, he didn''t actually see it, but instead just saw the reflection instead.


    [Choose a ss for initial setup]


    [Low Compatibility]


    -Coach Driver


    -Fire Mage


    [Medium Compatibility]


    -Strategist


    -Animal Handler


    [High Compatibility]


    -Swordsman


    -Berserker


    [Unique Compatibility]


    -Painless Samurai


    After reading through all of that, Eiro immediately stared at Arc''s eyes again, making out what part of the notification he was staring at the most, "I swear, Arc, if you choose Berserker you won''t ever see the light of day again."


    "But it''s on High Compatibility!" Arcined immediately, and Eiro just stared at him, "I would rather you choose Coach Driver instead of Berserker." The Demon said with a re, and with a slight pout, Arc crossed his arms, "Fine, then I''m choosing the samurai one or whatever." He said, and Eiro nodded his head with satisfaction.


    "Perfect. Thank you." Eiro said with satisfaction before he noticed that Solomon was staring at him confusedly, "Wait, what was that conversation? Did you already manage to have his possible sses read somewhere?" Solomon asked, but Eiro just shook his head.


    "Nope. I read the notification''s reflection in his eyes." The Demon exined, and then looked back at the children, "Sammy, you''re next." He said, just noting the notifications that appeared in front of Arc just now to be up-to-date, and then turned back toward Solomon, who was justpletely confused.


    "What does that mean? How can you do that?" Solomon asked, and Eiro just slightly shrugged.


    "Trade secret." He said, and then turned toward Sammy to be able to see what she chose as her ss, and was d to see that she also made the choice of the uniquepatibility ss that was offered to her, ''Siren''s Archer''.


    After that, Rudy chose the ''Castle'' ss, although both he and Eiro were rather confused about it. And at least, Clementine chose the ''Devouring Healer'' ss. Eiro was d that they all got sses that were created through their unique skills because that might help them control those skills a bit better. He was hoping so the most for Sammy, really.


    Eiro wasn''t happy that it would take another eight years for Leon to be able to get a ss that might help him out, but maybe Leon was able to get it under control anyway.

 Chapter 122 - To The Rescue

    "Everyone has their sses now, I assume?" Solomon asked with a smile, before he then turned back toward Eiro, "Was there something else you would like from me?" The King inquired, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, although he first turned his head to look at Felix.


    "There is, but before then..." Eiro started, and Felix, who had been speechless the whole time they had been up here, was just staring back at Eiro with a bit of fear over what was about to happen. Felix knew that Eiro was aware of what he did before on the bridge, so he assumed he was going be ratted out, but instead, the Demon just shook his head, "Nevermind, I''ll deal with that myself. There''s something else I would like, though." Eiro said with a slight sigh. He really didn''t know how to deal with Felix right now.


    It seemed like Sammy was rather infatuated with him, and she was smiling for the first time ever since they started traveling, so Eiro figured that he could stay with them for a little while... But on the other hand, he was nothing but a thief and smooth-talker that most likely just wanted to get with Sammy because of her looks. Eiro would just make his choiceter after seeing what would happen at the Inn.


    Of course, the choice was only between Eiro forever scarring Felix so that he would never mess with anyone again, and Eiro giving him few knocks over the head so that he would stop being an idiot. He really just wanted to punch Felix, seriously.


    But before then, there was something more important, something that Nelli had been trying to point out to Eiro as well, "In the secondyer, there''s someone selling parts of a Gnome''s body." Eiro pointed out with a slight sigh, and immediately, not only Solomon but also Armodeus looked at him with confusion.


    "Wait, do you mean the spirit or person?" Armodeus asked immediately but then shook his head, "You know what, that doesn''t matter right now. Let''s go."


    "Wait." Solomon said as he held his hand in front of the Elder Dwarf as he wanted to head to the door, "What is it that you want to do, Eiro?" The King asked the Demon, who just slightly smiled, "Convince that man to sell me the rest of the stock." He pointed out, and immediately, Solomon nodded his head.


    "I see. Then lead us there immediately." Solomon said in a dignified manner before Eiro simply nodded his head and stepped over toward the door, "Armodeus, are youing as well?"


    "Heh, what do you think?" The Elder Dwarf said with an angry frown, so Eiro just turned away again and chose to hold the door open so that his children could get out first. And then, the Demon led the way toward the gate that would bring them toward the secondyer, and as King Solomon was directly behind him, the guards at the gate immediately opened it up without a moment''s hesitation as the group made their way down into the secondyer''s town. It wasn''t far away, just a ten-minute walk like this, and Eiro could soon hear something in the distance.


    "...the end for tonight,dies and gentlemen, thank you for..." The performing salesman eximed, and Eiro slowly turned around toward Solomon, "I''ll go ahead. Nelli will lead you the rest of the way." Eiro told them, and immediately rushed forward with the help of Air magic while telling King Solomon something else, "Excuse me if I end up breaking a few bones."


    And so, Eiro immediately climbed up the side of one of the houses, jumping over the streets and the different signs and decorations there to reach that stage as soon as he possibly could. Within just another minute, the Demon could already see the stage. The group of people watching had already increased manyfold and were currently trying to buy as much as possible of the Gnome''s body.


    But thinking that it would be a waste of time to have them sold and needing Eiro to go after even more of the people that bought it than he already had to, the Demon made a rather... risky choice.


    Instead of waiting and assessing the situation for a few moments, he immediately jumped down the roof toward the salesman and kicked him in the face. As Eiro was feeling the impact on the bottom of his foot, he kicked away with as much force as he could muster, making the salesman drop onto the ground immediately while Eiro could stop his fall a bit more easily.


    "Sorry about this, but it seems like none of you will be able to buy this tonight." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, just lightly turning his side toward the Gnome as it was floating there right next to him, seemingly about to just fall apart and die, while the salesman stood back up from that sudden attack.


    "Wh-What do you think you''re doing?! Who do you think you are?!" The salesman asked with deep, obvious frustration and anger, and Eiro just lightly turned around toward him and before the salesman could actually properly stand again, he kicked him into this stomach.


    "Shut up, you piece of trash." Eiro growled quietly and then turned back toward the people in the crowd, some of which already started leaving after seeing that the salesman was attacked.


    "Don''t even try, I can smell the parts of this gnome''s body for miles. You won''t be able to hide from me. So just return here and give it back to me. Understood?" Eiro yelled out loudly, noticing that the few nobles that bought something slowly stopped moving. Although just then, Eiro noticed some spears being pointed toward him.


    "Stand down! Who do you think you are?!" A regr town-guard eximed, but Eiro just red back at him, "The guy that''s going to rip your throat open if you don''t put that toothpick away." Eiro replied, and while the guard flinched slightly, Eiro turned back around toward the salesman that once more tried to stand up. But before he could actually do so, Eiro kicked him into the side of his face and made him drop down onto the floor again.


    "Stay where you belong. On the ground. If you try to stand up again, you''re done for." The Demon announced in a clear tone, but just then, the guard that just spoke to Eiro stabbed his spear toward him. Butpared to the Puppets'' dagger-stabs, this was just incredibly slow.


    With a quick step to the side, Eiro dodged and just grabbed the spear, using some water that he had with him in a bottle to freeze his hand to the spear''s surface so that the guard couldn''t pull it away while manipting his Life Force to get a solid stand on the ground.


    And a momentter, when the Guard tried to pull the spear away with all the force he could possibly muster, a man spoke up with a light chuckle, "How interesting this is. Young man, are you seriously standing up for that half-dead, iplete spirit? You have a good heart, but you''re using it for the wrong thing, how about you-"


    But before the man could finish what he was saying, Eiro already pulled an earth magic stone out of his treasury and pushed his mana inside to cover the magic stone in ayer of hard rock, and then threw that whole thing right into the man''s stomach.


    "Shut it. It''s half-dead because of this piece of shit over there. And it''s not an ''iplete'' spirit, it''s just a young one. Are you saying that children are iplete people? Well, your children might be, but that''s because they inherited theck of brain you obviously seem to suffer from." Eiro growled deeply, looking at the man as he was cowering over, just throwing up onto the ground after that sudden impact.


    It wasn''t enough to do any serious damage, really, but because it was a critical hit, it had to cause some sort of negative effect on the man, and vomiting was one of the more basic ones that could always happen in any situation.


    But it seemed like that was something that none of the people here really appreciated, and with augh, another man stood up from one of the chairs. But different from all the other people here, he wasn''t dressed in fine clothes, but rather ragged ones. They were slightly singed around the edges of the sleeves, even.


    "Hah, how interesting. You just threw a rock into a duke''s stomach. I like you, kid. Figh- Holy mother of- Let me finish talking, you ass!"


    Immediately after that man started speaking, Eiro did his best to get some of the smaller rocks around here to gather in his hand and started just chucking them at that man as well. But this one, at the very least, was able to dodge. But that was fine since the rocks kept hitting the guy that made that idioticment before.


    "What do I care if I just hit a duke? He could be a king for all I care, anyone that makes a shittyment like that can fuck off." Eiro pointed out with a clear tone, and at that point, the man just keptughing, "Oh yeah, you''re really interesting." The man said, and then hit both of his fists together, swiftly creating a spark that ignited around both of the man''s arms.


    After seeing that, Eiro was actually rather speechless. "Hah, you''re impressed, aren''t you?!" The man eximed, but without hesitation, Eiro shook his head.


    "Nope. I''m just kind of marveling this idiotic scene." Eiro pointed out, "What kind of use does it have to cloak your hands in that? You can obviously create sparks on your own without tools somehow. Why don''t you just ignite them after you hit someone? You wouldn''t be wasting as much mana as you''re now, and you wouldn''t have to worry about literally burning your skin either. I am pretty impressed that you''re not burning alive right now though, I''ll give you that." Eiro said with a deep frown, and with an angry expression, the man just jumped forward.


    "Fuck off!" He eximed, but Eiro didn''t really care too much about this. The man was obviously using all he had to elerate as much as he could, so without hesitation, Eiro pushed the Gnome to the side and just jumped awayst second, making the mannd on the stage, nearly burning up the cloth that was hanging from it.


    And the next moment, the man just swung his arms and tried to hit Eiro, but the Demon had already prepared for that. With a quick pulled the red curtains from the stage in front of him, and the moment that the man hit him, wrapped them around him. The curtains soon caught fire, and after Eiro cut through them, there was just a wiggling mass of mesying on the ground, with the man trying to escape.


    Perfectly, that was the moment when King Solomon arrived. The Guards belonging to the duke immediately ran over to the royal guards, trying to get their help, and even the Duke himself turned toward King Solomon.


    "My King! This man is trying to assassinate all these important people! Please do something!" The Duke eximed, and Eiro looked at Solomon, "Eh? That guy''s from Skyhart? The way he spoke, I thought he was from Zhurgard or something."


    "He used to be, yes." Solomon sighed deeply, and then turned toward the Duke again, "That man is my benefactor. He is not here to assassinate anyone. Rather, he is here to help stop the demise of an innocent, young being. Who is in charge here?" King Solomon asked, and without hesitation, as the mes that were enveloping the man that attacked Eiro went out, the Demon picked up the salesman by his neck and shoved him forward.


    "This guy''s in charge." Eiro exined, although, for a moment, he was rather focused on something else.. And that was that the guy with the ming arms that tried attacking Eiro and Felix were locking eyes, both seeming rather confused about what the other was doing there.

 Chapter 123 - Pebble

    Solomon slowly stepped up to the stage in a dignified manner, seemingly having turned from a concerned father back into a strict ruler, not moving his sight away from the man that was in charge.


    "Immediately set that spirit free, and return every single piece you have taken from its body." The King of Skyhart said with a deep re, and the salesman slowly tried to adjust himself to bow in front of him, "K-King Solomon, right? I am sorry, but that spirit is how I earn my living! You cannot just take that from me!"


    "Oh?" Eiro muttered quietly, tightening the grip he had around the man''s neck, "Then it''s alright if I slit open your stomach and take your liver, heart, or stomach to sell them on the ck market?" The Demon asked, and he could immediately hear the man''s heart speed up.


    "Y-You wouldn''t dare! We are in front of a King, you can''t-" The salesman seemed to have wanted to protest, thinking that he was safe as long as they were in front of Solomon, but he was quite wrong. Because in the next moment, Eiro pushed his foot onto the salesman''s hand as hard as he could, causing it to loudly crack, "I can''t what? Sorry, I didn''t really understand you through the sound of your bullshit." Eiro said in a clear tone, and immediately, the salesman looked at the Gnome still weakly floating by the side, although it was now being supported by Nelli at least a little bit.


    "C-Come over here..." The salesmanmanded, and the gnome slowly started to move toward him and just floated in front of the salesman''s face, "I r-release the contract..." He said in a clear tone, slowly stretching out his hand toward it, and once they touched, the Spirit was enveloped in dim light and something crumbled off him, even if it wasn''t anything actually physical. It was more like a slightyer of magic that encapsted it that just shattered.


    "Nelli, can you tell if the contract is really broken?" Eiro asked the Naiad, and she slowly nodded her head, "Yeah, but... We need to find it a ce that it can turn into its home, or else it''s going to just die here..."


    "Don''t worry about that. First, let me get rid of this." The Demon said, once more grabbing the salesman by the cor before just throwing him off the stage into the chairs that his audience used to sit on a couple of minutes ago.


    And then, Eiro sat down cross-legged in front of the Gnome. "Can you understand me?" Eiro asked it, but it simply didn''t react at all. But then, Eiro slowly picked up a small pebble and ced it onto the back of his hand, "Can you lift this?" The Demon asked, and slowly, the tiny pebble rose a few centimeters and then just dropped back down.


    "Alright, seems like it can understand me after all..." Eiro said quietly, and then properly ced the pebble back onto the back of his hand, "Seen from your perspective, move the pebble to the right for yes, and to the left for no, alright?"


    Slowly, the pebble dropped down the side of Eiro''s hand, on the right side when seen from the Spirit''s perspective. Since immature spirits weren''t capable of speech, they had to resolve to something like this for now.


    "Are you in pain?" Eiro asked the spirit, and it slowly moved the pebble to say yes.


    "Do you know where the rest of your body is?" Sadly, the answer was no.


    "Do you want me to help you?" After a few moments of hesitation, the pebble moved into the direction for ''yes'' again, so Eiro just lightly smiled, "Do you want to form a contract with me once you be a mature spirit?" The Demon inquired, but the spirit didn''t move the pebble at all. And Eiro understood why.


    "Don''t worry, it won''t be like the one you were under until now. I''m not going to own you. You''re going to be my partner like Nelli is. Equals." Eiro exined to the spirit, and in response to that, the salesman slowly pushed his body off the ground and tried to protest, "Th-That is not possible!" He eximed.


    "Spirits do not form contracts to be someone''s equal! Gnome, he''s just lying to you! Did I really treat you that badly?" The salesman yelled out, but that was a rather dumb mistake on his side. With Nelli''s help, Eiro slowly formed a bolt of ice that he made to float around the salesman''s head, "Don''t you dare say another word." The Demon said with a deep growl and then looked back at the Gnome before Nelli came up next to Eiro.


    "You can trust him, we really do have an equal contract. I can help you form it if you don''t know how." The Naiad said reassuredly, and just a couple momentster, the Gnome moved the pebble so that it dropped down the side for ''Yes''.


    And so, Eiro slowly stood up and cracked his knuckles. "That''s that, then. Nelli, how old did you say you think this Gnome is?" The Demon asked, and Nelli slowly looked down at it, "It should be at the right age to evolve... But it seems like it can''t find its name because it''s missing parts of its body."


    "Got it. Then all of you that are here right now, give this one here his body back, will you?" Eiro said with a deep re, looking at each and every one of them that he noticed had a piece of the Gnome''s body on them.


    But since none of them really acted on it, King Solomon slowly turned around toward them, "Do as he says. I may not have direct jurisdiction over this ce, but I will not let you do as you want." The King said with a deep re, and immediately, each one of them made their way to the front of the stage and handed the pouches they bought back, although one particr woman extended her hand forward expectingly.


    "Your hand is empty. What do you want me to do with it?" Eiro pointed out, and the woman just deeply red at the Demon, "I paid for this! Now that I returned it, I want to have my money back!" She eximed, and Eiro just looked at her confusedly and then shook his head, "Sorry, we have a no-money-back policy."


    "Wh-What? That is outrageous! I did nothing wrong here!" The woman screamed out, and Eiro lightly leaned forward, "You know what, since you asked so kindly, I''ll make an exception." Eiro said with a light smile underneath his mask, and with a smug expression, the woman turned around toward her ''friends'', "See? I told you that all men listen to me." She chuckled, although she soon felt something warm and wet hit her hand.


    And when she turned back toward Eiro, she noticed that there was still a thin thread of spit running from her palm to the bottom of Eiro''s mask, "Wh-What are you doing?!" She yelled out confusedly, immediately trying to get rid of the spit she was just so kindly given by the Demon, who looked at her with his head tilted to the side.


    "Who said the exception was me giving you your money back?" He asked, "The exception was me not messing with you for literally taking a part of a living being''s body. So fuck you, before I take my dagger and cut your ugly mug apart, alright?" Eiro asked with a weirdly cheerful tone to his voice, starting to collect the rest of the Gnome''s body that was here.


    It seemed like it got a fair amount back already, but most of its body was still missing. Eiro just had to ask the salesman about who else bought it to make the search a bit easierter. But before then, the duke from before that Eiro threw a rock at made his way forward to the crowd and stepped in front of the woman.


    "How dare you speak to my wife like that!" He eximed, but Eiro just kept staring back, and then looked back and forth between the husband and wife, "Hmm, that''s weird." The Demon pointed out, making the duke look at him rather confusedly, "What do you mean?"


    "Oh, nothing, it''s just that I thought she was the wife of that guard over there. They really smell like each other, after all." Eiro said, pointing at the guard that stood directly behind the duke, before both he and the Duchess stared at each other for a moment, thetter''s face turning dark red.


    "Wh-What are you even talking about?!" The Duchess asked, and Eiro just leaned forward toward her, "You know exactly what I''m talking about. Now leave, please, there are other things I have to take care of." Eiro pointed out, and then looked at Solomon, "Sorry that things escted a little bit."


    "Do not worry. It is not quite undeserved." He pointed out, just ring at the crowd of people currently still gathered in front of the stage. Relieved that this didn''t somehow screw Eiro''s chances over to get Solomon''s assistance with some things, the Demon looked at the salesman, "Solomon, could you somehow get him to tell us about who he sold the Gnome''s rocks to? I think he may want to speak to you more than he does to me. And..." Eiro said, slowly turning his eyes over toward the man whose arms had caught fire just before while trying to attack Eiro.


    After his and Felix''s eyes met, he immediately ripped the curtains he was stuck in open and stepped over toward him.


    And as Solomon swiftly did as Eiro suggested, the Demon himself made his way over toward the kid he couldn''t stand in the slightest, and the man he could only assume to be his father. They had quite simr facial features and their smell was nearly identical, so that''s what Eiro figured to be the case, at least.


    "Well, hello there." Eiro said as he stepped up behind the man, who swiftly turned around, "Huh? It''s you? Sorry, but if you want to continue our fight we have to do it some other time."


    "I''m not going to fight you. I might stab you depending on how the night goes, but I won''t fight you." Eiro pointed out, and the man just started slightlyughing in response, thinking that Eiro was joking, although the four children that vividly remembered what happened both when they first met Eiro, as well as when they were all kidnapped by demons, didn''t really think it was that funny. They knew he was being serious, after all.


    "You''re a funny guy, I like that. And it seems like depending on how things go, we''re going to be family soon, eh?" He said with a wink, slowly looking at his son, who stared back at his father in horror, "I l-literally met Sammy a few hours ago, there''s nothing going on between us! Absolutely nothing, no way!" Felix eximed, seemingly not only intimidated but utterly terrified after seeing just a sliver of what Eiro was actually capable of.


    Of course, Sammy on the other hand, who had been hearing Felix''spliments all day and was being influenced by his magic-infused voice, just stared at the young man confusedly, although she just stayed silent and, slightly disappointedly, stepped away and behind Rudy as if to hide from Felix.


    "Did I teach you to treat ady like that?" Felix''s father asked with a deep frown, "Go apologize for what you said right now." He said, and at this point, Felix was unsure who he should be more scared of right now.


    But to his luck, and demise, he didn''t need to choose. Because Eiro agreed, "Yes, apologize right now.. And this time, without using that skill on your voice."

 Chapter 124 - Enka

    The moment that Felix heard what Eiro just said, he turned his head toward him confusedly, "H-How do-"


    "How do I know? I''m a Spirit''s Contractor. Of course I would know, Spirits sense magic in a different way to other beings." Eiro pointed out, before slowly turning his sight toward Sammy, "I''m sorry that I didn''t mention it beforehand. He was using a charm skill, probably. I figured it might have been a good chance for you to learn." The Demon exined, but what he got in return was just a confused, angry stare.


    "What..? You really just let him try and charm me..?" Sammy asked confusedly, and Eiro looked at her with just a slight nod, "Yes, you know just as well as I that we need to use every chance we can get to have you learn something about it. Charm abilities don''t work that well once you know they''re used on you, so-"


    "What the hell does that matter?!" The young girl yelled out as she stared back at Eiro with teary eyes, before turning around and just running off. Eiro didn''t understand really what was wrong, so he of course wanted to follow her immediately, although he soon had a hand held in front of his body to stop him.


    "I''ll go after her. You just take care of things here..." Rudy told the Demon, and then turned around to quickly follow Sammy before he lost sight of her, and Eiro just stood there staring at both of their backs, "Right..." He muttered quietly, and then turned back toward Felix with a deep re that made the young man flinch in response.


    "Alright, then while Sammy and Rudy are off, I''ll need to have a word with you, I think." Eiro said, not lightening the intensity of his re for even a second, and Felix''s father seemingly agreed with the Demon.


    "Oh, so do I. Felix, I''m really disappointed in you. Why would you ever use that skill in that way? I told you that it''s just supposed to smooth things over withdies, not to actually get to know them." He pointed out, as if that was the reason why Eiro was upset, but the Demon just slowly grabbed the dagger he just got at Armodeus'' shop and held it up to the side of the man''s neck.


    "I think I''m ready to test this one out now." Eiro said with a deep growl, although at that point, Solomon stepped up to the Demon and ced his hand on Eiro''s shoulder, "I think that may not be the best idea. After all, he''s this town''s chief warrior, isn''t he?" Solomon pointed out with a light smile, and with a broad grin, Felix''s father nodded his head.


    "That I am! I am honored to have been recognized by such a great man as yourself, King Skyhart!" He eximed, and Eiro slowly pulled his dagger away annoyedly. If he didn''t still want to keep a good rtionship with Solomon, Eiro might have slit that guy''s throat right now. He really couldn''t stand him in the slightest.


    "For now, Eiro, do you not want to keep looking for the Gnome''s pieces? I got some information from the salesman. Although..." Solomon said, just so slightly with aplicated expression, "It seems like one of the owners will be rather bothersome to deal with. And it''s the one with the highest amount as well. He has maybe two thirds of the Gnome''s missing body." The King exined, and Eiro slightly looked down onto the ground, preparing to move.


    "Alright, and who is it?" Eiro asked, but before Solomon could answer, Armodeus did it for him, "It''s Irensen, isn''t it?" The Elder Dwarf asked, before Eiro just slowly turned toward him.


    "Who is Irensen?" The Demon replied confusedly, and Armodeus just sighed deeply in response, "If I wasn''t here in this town, he would be the best. And he used to be as well, before I took over his spot. But he still has a lot of power in this town. I heard some rumors that some of his items had amazing magicalpatibility... I think now I know why that is."


    Immediately after Armodeus said this, Eiro ripped his eyes open wide before he turned toward Nelli, "Is it possible to extract parts of a spirit''s body out of objects again?" He asked with a deep growl, and Nelli thought about it for a while and nodded her head, "It should be possible with refinement. Luckily immature spirits are capable of that..."


    Slowly, Eiro grabbed his new dagger and slowly screwed off the ''cap'' that made up the handle, and then grabbed the small bottle that was in his bag before pouring the liquid inside into the de''s hollow space before closing the dagger back up.


    "Hm? Why are you filling water into that?" Armodeus asked confusedly, and Eiro slowly looked back at him before holding the dagger downward, as its edge was slowly being covered in ice.


    "I told you before, didn''t I? My specialty is Ice Magic." Eiro exined, although there was still another issue there, "I... I get that, but why are you taking out that dagger in the first ce?" The Elder Dwarf asked with slight nervosity, and Eiro just tilted his head to the side.


    "I''ll probably have to take everything by force, right?"


    "Didn''t Jura say you''re a bookworm? Why are you acting like a meathead?" He muttered confusedly, but Eiro just stared at him with just as much confusion, although about something elsepletely.


    But before either of them could say anything else, Solomon spoke up, "The issue is not that he will try to keep the things he may have made using the Gnome''s body to himself. Rather the opposite. The issue is that he will have sold them."


    Immediately, Eiro raised his brows and angrily looked at the ground, "How annoying. Armodeus, bring me to that guy immediately. Nelli, try to bring the Gnome along." The Demon said, and Armodeus slowly nodded his head as Eiro turned toward Solomon.


    "Thank you for your help. If we don''t happen to see each other again, just know that I will definitelye see you again in a year." Eiro told Solomon, and the King just smiled back, "Of course. I am still in your debt, Eiro, such a small favor will not change that. But I have another idea how we could help you. Not now, but for your trip here on out. May I deliver it to the Inn you are staying at?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "If you want to, I won''t say no. Thank you. Arc, Clementine, watch the kids and wait for Rudy and Sammy. And please let Solomon know about where our Inn is." Eiro asked them, and although Arc was slightly annoyed that he couldn''te with Eiro, Clementine swiftly nodded her head as she held the hands of the two tired children right next to her, "Of course, don''t worry!" She said reassuredly, so Eiro smiled back at her lightly, although before Eiro could leave together with Armodeus, Avalin slowly spoke up.


    "Daddy... Where are you going?" She asked quietly as she rubbed her eyes tiredly, and Eiro just squatted down in front of her with a light smile, "Just going to run some errands. I''ll be back when you wake up tomorrow morning, alright?" He exined to her with a smile, before Avalin looked at him while slowly looking down at the ground.


    "You promise?" Avalin muttered quietly, and Eiro just rubbed his hand through her hair and nodded his head, "Of course I do. I''ll be the first person you see in the morning."


    "Oki, then you can go!" Avalin agreed with a chuckle, before Eiro just smiled and turned back around, his mood immensely lifted, "You heard thedy, let''s go." He told Armodeus, who immediately nodded his head and started walking forward together with Eiro, although the Demon noticed something that he really didn''t like.


    He turned to his left, seeing the man with his burnt sleeves and soot-covered face from just burning the curtains he was stuck under, growling with a low voice, "Why are youing with us?" Eiro asked, and the man just smiled broadly.


    "Heh, you think I''d waste my chance at seeing how someone like you fights?"


    "I hope so, actually." The demon replied without a second of hesitation, and the man''s smiling face turned into an obviously fake pained expression, "Ouch, so mean..." He muttered, before swiftly returning to his smile.


    "Well, hopes don''t alwayse true! The name''s Enka!" He exined, so with a slight grumble, Eiro sighed deeply, "Can you open your status for a moment?" The Demon asked him, and with a confused expression, he just nodded his head.


    "Sure? Status?" Enka said out loud, before his sight was covered by his status window that Eiro immediately remembered.


    "Got it, thank you." The Demon said, surprised at how easy it was to get him to literally reveal this much information about him. Although then again, Enka didn''t know that Eiro could read what notifications said through the reflection in someone''s eyes.


    "So, what was that for?" The Chief Warrior asked curiously, and Eiro just kept looking forward as the group of three, plus two spirits, kept rushing forward, "I only wanted to see how good you are at followingands." Eiro exined.


    Obviously that was a tant lie. Usually he may have said something even more harsh, but after seeing Enka''s status, Eiro was actually rather impressed.


    He apparently worked incredibly hard to get to where he was. And where he was was quite a simple ce. Far, far above Eiro. He was pretty sure that he didn''t have a single chance of beating him in an actual, direct confrontation, that was for sure. Eiro might be able to kill him somehow, but that would require a few tricks.


    It seemed like the title of ''Chief Warrior'' did actually mean something. Although, that made Eiro rather confused about something else. If he was that strong, then he could have probably killed Eiro on the spot while he was on that stage there.


    So why did he pretend to miserably fail like that. Why did Enka do that, exactly? Was he really just an idiot like he seemed to be?


    Or maybe there was something that Enka was simply hiding, a reason that Eiro couldn''t figure out at the moment. Either way, he was someone that Eiro definitely had to keep his eyes on as much as he possibly could.


    Soon, the group of three stopped in front of arge building. Despite howte it was, it was still pretty busy, and from inside, Eiro could immediately smell sources of the Gnome''s body. "We''re here.." Armodeus announced, so without a moment''s hesitation, the Demon stepped inside.

 Chapter 125 - Nothing In This World

    "Good evening, Sirs. How may I be of help to you tonight?" A man, dressed in a ck suit with a white undershirt, asked as he bowed forward.


    "I want to speak to Irensen." Eiro said clearly and without hesitation, although the man that greeted them just looked at the Demon with a light smile. "I don''t think that''s going to be possible. Lord Irensen is a busy man. Not even Sir Chief Warrior, nor Sir Armodeus would be allowed to see him." The man exined, and Eiro just stared at him with a deep re before turning toward the inside of the shop again.


    He soon noticed some sound of working from the back, although he wasn''t entirely sure which of them Irensen was, "Then could you show us one of those special magic items that were madetely?" Armodeus asked instead, and the man slowly nodded his head with a slight bow.


    "As you wish, Sir Armodeus." He replied, before starting to step further into the shop, "Follow me, if you please." The man added, and the three of them quickly did just that, showing them a disy of a couple of different des, wands, and staffs. But... the smell was off. There wasn''t even a trace of the Gnome''s scent in them.


    Before Eiro could say anything about this, that task was taken over by Armodeus again, "Oh, you are saying that these low-grade weapons are something that Irensen made? I''m going to repeat myself, I want to see the special magic items that contain a certain special material." The Elder Dwarf exined, slowly pointing toward the Gnome that was floating by Eiro''s side.


    The man squinted his eyes just so slightly in response and then nodded his head, "I see, so you are aware. As expected." The man said, "Then follow me to the second floor, please." He continued, and the group of three quickly continued to walk behind him up the stairs next to the shop''s entrance to get to the second floor.


    Up there, Eiro took another look around, and immediately found what he was looking for. Although just to make sure again, Eiro turned toward the Gnome and smelled it again before immediately making his way through the room.


    "Our selection of high-tier magicpatible items is up here." The man exined, "Although even I do not exactly know which have that ''special'' ingredient or which do not." He added, and Armodeus just shrugged in response.


    "That''s fine, I''d say. I''m sure he''s found them already." The Elder Dwarf pointed out with a smirk, just looking at the Demon that was currently walking around the shop while remembering the item-codes of the things that seemed to contain part of the Gnome''s body.


    Once he finished walking around the room, he simply returned to the other three and stared at the worker.


    "S234D. 3H23A. 9IBVT. 46G-" Eiro said in a clear voice, although the worker just looked at him with a bit of confusion on his face, "Sir, what may you be speaking about?" The worker asked, and Eiro just looked back at him with a frown, even if it was hidden under his mask.


    "The codes for the things that were made with the Gnome''s body." He exined, and the worker just raised his brows in surprise, "You memorized those this quickly?"


    It seemed like even Armodeus seemed pretty curious about that part, and Eiro just nodded his head in response, "I remember everything that I''ve seen, smelled, or heard in my life as if it just happened."


    The worker, seemingly quite intrigued, ced his hands behind his back and formed a slight grin, "Is that so?"


    "It is. Now give me those things before I cut yo-"


    "Before wein to the Lord." Armodeus interrupted immediately, not wanting Eiro to start something like this in a literal weapon shop, and the Demon just looked back at him disappointedly, "Right, or that." He grumbled, and the shop-worker just slightly smiled back at him and Armodeus.


    "I don''t think that will be possible. We have a one-item per person policy." He exined, so Eiro just shrugged, "That''s fine. Gnome,e on." The Demon said, slowly helping the spirit over toward the first of the items.


    "Nelli, can you help it refine its body back out of it?" Eiro asked the Naiad next to him, and she slowly ced her hand onto the shortsword in front of her, "I can try, at least."


    "Excuse me, but what may you be doing?" The worker asked with a bit of confusion, and Eiro red back at him, "Just taking back what''s rightfully ours."


    Soon, Nelli wrapped her magic water around the de to act as a conductor for the Gnome''s spirit refinement. After a little while, since nothing really seemed to be happening, the shop-worker just slightly chuckled.


    "It seems like what you attempted did not really work." He pointed out, and Eiro, without even looking at him, immediately replied, "That''s what it looked like to you, huh?"


    Confused at what Eiro was saying, not only the shop-worker, but even Enka and Armodeus walked up behind him as they stepped up to the next object, trying to repeat the same thing. But once the shop-worker just ced his hand onto the shortsword that they were at before, he immediately turned around toward Eiro and tried to pull him away from the next items.


    "You are now banned from entering this shop at this or other locations. After you pay the full price for that sword, leave immediately." The worker said with a strict tone, and Eiro slowly turned his sight toward the sword and the small sign that was attached to its stand, "Hmm, so if I turn the things here useless, I can get away as long as I pay for the damages?" Eiro asked, and the worker looked at him with a deep frown.


    "What do you mean? Sir, I know you may be apanied by Sir Armodeus and Sir Chief Warrior, but I truly do not believe that you understand the cost of the items we sell. I doubt someone like you can afford even one of them. We do have payment-ns, however." The worker exined, and with a slight sigh, Eiro turned toward Enka.


    "You''re the chief warrior, so basically you''re something like a guard or official, right?" The Demon asked him, and with a slow nod, Enka replied, "Technically, although a little higher up thedder. Why?"


    "Could you do me a favor and get started on a lengthy questioning of this shop''s staff about the usage of a Spirit''s body in their items?" Eiro asked, "And please, with as high a priority as possible."


    With a slight grin, Enka turned toward the worker, just cing his arm around his shoulders before dragging him away, "That''s a pretty good idea, actually. How about we go over there for that?" Enka suggested, proceeding to pull the worker away by what could only be called force as Armodeus stayed there with Eiro. He was a bit confused over what just happened, although he did understand once he took a closer look at the shortsword.


    "It became... useless." Armodeus muttered quietly, and Eiro raised his brow, "Useless? We just pulled a little of the Gnome''s body out of it grain-by-grain. It shouldn''t be that damaged, right?"


    "No, it has literally bepletely useless. It''s going to fall apart during its first battle. As a craftsman, I feel a bit bad about that since it is an amazing de, but as a person, I would have just shattered it anyway." The Elder Dwarf exined, and Eiro just shrugged, "That''s fine with me. There are seven things here that have part of the Gnome''s body in them in total. I now know what different metals smell like when mixed with it, so I should be able to find the people that bought others as well."


    "And what are you going to do if you find those people?" Armodeus asked, and as if it was obvious, the Demon just moved on to the next item and shrugged, "I will have the gnome extract its body from it."


    "You know that these items are incredibly expensive, right? Sure, the people that can actually shop here are pretty wealthy, but that doesn''t mean they can just throw money out the window."


    "What does that have to do with me?"


    "Nothing, I guess. I was just saying that I don''t feel great about punishing someone that didn''t even know about the truth of the item they bought."


    "That''s their own fault for being ignorant."


    "It''s not ignorance if-"


    "I don''t care. I don''t care about other people. I don''t care about their money, their feelings, or their reasons. If they won''t give me whatever they bought, I''ll just kill them and take it from them like that. I have no issue with such things, Armodeus." The Demon pointed out, "Why should I care?"


    With a deep frown, the Elder Dwarf just looked back at the Demon, "That is wrong. You can''t just go and kill other people like that. That just makes you-"


    Eiro ground his teeth, "So, killing monsters is fine and makes you a great person, but killing people makes you a monster? Armodeus, Jura once told me that I don''t have to choose sides. That I should make my own side. Since then, I''ve been neither a monster nor a person. I don''t care about backgrounds, race, intelligence, things like that. If you fuck with me, I''m going to kill you."


    Rather angrily and disappointedly, Armodeus stepped up right in front of Eiro and stared into the ce where his eyes would be underneath the mask, "I don''t think that''s what Jura intended when he told you about that."


    "Maybe not, but that''s how it is. Just because I''m kind to my children doesn''t mean I''m a person all of a sudden." Eiro said, and then just saw Armodeus'' expression. It was filled with grief, frustration, and pure and utter anguish over what Eiro just told him.


    "Five Orcs, seven Forest Spiders, three Goblins, two me Elementals, one-" Eiro started enumerating, but Armodeus just looked at him confusedly, "What are you saying? Are those the things you''ve killed so far?"


    With an annoyed grumble, Eiro shook his head, "No, that''s the minimum amount and type of monsters that had to die to make the things in this shop." The Demon revealed, and Armodeus opened his eyes wide in surprise as Eiro continued, "To people, monsters are a threat. But they are also an important resource. To monsters, it''s the same. People are a threat to their life, and so they kill and eat humans, use their bodies for nesting or weird rituals. When I chose to be neither of those two, I had to make a choice. Should I reject both perspectives, or engage them? Obviously both monsters and people are a threat to me. So why should I see them any different from one another?"


    Slowly, Armodeus started to understand what the issue was here. But that still didn''t mean that he agreed, "I don''t care. Eiro, you can''t just go around killing people whenever they annoy you. That''s just-"


    "Are you aplete fucking idiot?" Eiro asked angrily, and Armodeus looked at him with a slight startle, "Do you think I would be dumb enough to actually do that? I want to, of course. I wouldn''t feel bad about killing piece-of-shit people either. But considering that my children are still people, and the sins of a parent befall their children as well, I can''t go around using my standards the whole time." The Demon exined.


    "And even if I say that I don''t mind killing people, that doesn''t mean I would just kill anyone. I do have friends that are people, after all.. Since there''s nothing in this world that I wouldn''t kill, there''s nothing in this world I won''t give a chance to get close to me either."

 Chapter 126 - Coal

    As Armodeus stood there baffled at what Eiro just told him, the Demon, his current spirit and his future spirit were working on extracting the Gnome''s body out of all of the different weapons that were here. Luckily, he was able to finish this work just before the shop-worker returned after ''Freeing'' himself from the Chief Warrior Enka.


    He looked around at the different items in shock, picking them all up to look at them before staring at Eiro with a deep, dark re. "You! What did you do?! That''s it, I will call the guards here right this moment! You are to be arrested immediately!" The worker eximed, but Eiro just looked at him a bit surprised.


    "I thought that was only if I couldn''t pay for the damages." Eiro pointed out, and the worker immediately nodded his head. "Of course, but as there is no chance that it may be possible for you to pay for them, we don''t even need to consider that option! Or what, do you have the two gold coins that it would cost you?" The worker asked, in a manner that obviously showed his thoughts of ''No way''.


    And seeing Eiro''s reaction of him hanging his head low, the worker grinned triumphantly. "See? Come with me yo-"


    "This has to be a joke." Eiro sighed deeply, "You''re making such a ruckus for two gold coins? You mean regr gold coins, notrge ones, right?" The Demon asked as he pushed his hand into his satchel, and the worker just stopped speaking with a puzzled expression as Eiro pulled out three small coins from his bag.


    "Here. This is for all the damages." Eiro told him, and the worker looked at the three gold coins as if he just saw a ghost, "E-Erm, Sir, these are three coins. I think you identally m-miscounted..." The worker pointed out, immediately trying to be kind to Eiro again after seeing that he did actually have the money he wanted, but the Demon just shook his head annoyedly.


    "I didn''t. I said they''re for all the damages, right? That includes the damages toe." The moment that Eiro said this, he stepped through the room and toward a heavy wooden door to the back, although the worker was unsure what he was talking about. Armodeus, on the other hand, slightly understood.


    "Is... Is he back there?" He asked, and the Demon nodded his head, "Yep. I doubt he would let someone else work with the Gnome''s body, so I know what he smells like from these items now."


    As Eiro was slowly moving his Life Force through his body to strengthen the power of his legs as much as possible, Nelli helped the Gnome prepare some magic rock that Eiro used to cover his leg in a thick, stableyer.


    And with as much force as he could muster, Eiro pushed his leg forward against the door''s lock. With a loud crack and snap, the door swung open, nearly flying out of its hinges.


    With heavy steps, Eiro let the magic rock crumble away from his leg as he let go of the Life Force in his body. And as the pain flowed through him, he kept walking forward toward the man standing inside of this room in front of burning coals.


    "Irensen. That''s you, right?" Eiro aksed with a deep re, and the man, who seemed to be a human, on the other side of the room immediately nodded his head, "I am, but who the hell are you?" After Irensen ced his hammer and the de he was currently working on onto his anvil, he stepped over toward Eiro.


    "How dare you barge in here like that?!" He asked, but Eiro just kept ring at him as he slowly stepped toward the forge. Just then, Nelli and the Gnome also entered the room, and Irensen immediately understood, "Wh-Why are you here?"


    "Isn''t it pretty obvious?" Eiro asked as he held his hand over the burning coals. It was rock-coal, luckily, so Eiro was even able to manipte it with his magic pretty well, especially since he had a pretty high affinity for both earth and fire magic.


    As the glowing rocks floated around Eiro, the Demon manipted them with rather simple movements of his hand.


    "Huh, neat." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, and then turned his sight back toward the man in front of him, "Now then. I think we both know that you used these very coals to ce parts of the gnome''s body into the things you made. How about instead, I use them to burn down this whole building together with your disgusting self?" The Demon asked with a light chuckle as he brought the coals closer toward Irensen.


    "Of course, I won''t do that if you give me the rest of the Gnome''s body you have back, and tell me about each and every person that bought something with it in it." Eiro suggested. It was obvious that Irensen was already feeling the heat from the coals right now, from how nervous he was getting.


    "Ar-Armodeus!" Irensen yelled out as he stared through the broken-down doorframe, "You took my title from me, and now you''re letting a madman like this loose onto me?! What is wrong with you?" He screamed, and with a light re, Eiro ran one of the smaller coals just so slightly over Irensen''s arm. It didn''t seem to have damaged him immensely Health-wise, but it apparently still hurt like shit.


    A part of Irensen''s skin was singed away, after all.


    "Don''t you dare try and push the me on others. The reason I am here is you, because you''re a piece of shit that would take parts of this Gnome''s body." The Demon pointed out, "I wouldn''t have cared if it was something from a monster or person, but a spirit?"


    With a confused expression, Irensen held his wound and looked at Eiro, "What difference does it make? Are you one of those spirit humpers or something?!"


    "I''ll tell you what difference it makes." Eiro growled, "A living monster or person can''t feel parts of their body that were cut off anymore. Sure, there''s panthom pain, but they don''t truly feel what''s happening to the missing parts. Spirits are different. They constantly feel every part of their body no matter how far it''s away. They feel the heat, the touch, how each part of themselves is ground or ripped up." The Demon exined to Irensen. This was a sort of information that not so many had ess to.


    After all, not many spirits wanted their weaknesses to be known, although Nelliid all of them out into the open the moment she and Eiro formed their contract.


    "So give me each and every little grain of the Gnome''s body back." Eiro said with a deep re, and Irensen stared over toward the shop-worker, "G-Get the box, immediately!" He eximed, seemingly scared for his life at this point, and the worker immediately did as he was told. He ran through the workshop and opened up a small safe hidden behind a shield, from which he took a small wooden box.


    Eiro could already tell that it contained part of the Gnome''s body. Slowly, the worker brought the box over toward Irensen, who didn''t hesitate to open the box up. He revealed a fist-sized chunk of rock, which was definitely thergest part that was missing from the Gnome.


    The very moment that the spirit noticed the rock, it floated over toward it and absorbed it back into its body. This alone seemed to give it far, far more energy than it had before. It was floating around cheerfully, even ''snuggling'' up to Eiro, even if all it was really doing was just scratching his skin, considering that its body was made up of rocks. But something was off.


    "Doesn''t it seem a little too cheerful? Shouldn''t we still be missing a lot?" Eiro asked, before Nelli slowly shook her head, "I don''t think so... Wait, you! Have you even sold any of those items yet?" She asked with a deep frown as she floated in front of Irensen''s body, and the craftsman just shook his head with a deep frown.


    "We haven''t... Because nobody could properly use them." Irensen exined, "There aren''t as many magic-based warriors as you might expect. Because of that spirit''s body, all the different weapons required an enormous earth affinity, but the few that did have it weren''t warriors but instead mages! I was about to start working on a mage''s request for a staff that included the spirit''s body, but now I can''t even do that anymore..."


    With a slight sigh that came both from relief and exhaustion, Eiro turned toward the Gnome right next to him, "I see... But does that mean there weren''t any people other than you that bought parts of its body? I thought..." Eiro started, but Irensen immediately exined since he wanted them all to just leave as quickly as possible.


    "I hired different people so that I could buy as much of its body as I could! The salesman already made enough of an exception for me to let me buy as much as I did, but since he said he would be in town for only a few days, I had to try and get as much of the spirit''s body out of him as possible! It was a chance one couldn''t just pass up, after all!" Irensen exined.


    To Eiro, it seemed like he was actually hoping for others to agree with his thoughts, but in the end, the Demon just red at him with clear spite in his eyes.


    He formed his hand into a fist, and all of the burning coals dropped onto the ground, immediately burning into it. It wouldn''t cause the ce to burn down or anything, but it would leave some nasty marks. And of course, parts of the sparks burnt more of Irensen''s body.


    "I''m leaving. Come." Eiro said with an angry grumble, stepping back out through the door that he broke down before, and was once more followed by Enka and Armodeus. The former was seemingly rather surprised at how this whole thing went down. After all...


    "You have such control over three elements?" The chief warrior asked suspiciously, and Eiro just turned toward him quietly, before Enka simply started to chuckle, "Well, not that it''s any of my business anyway. But I''ve never seen anyone control coal in that way. That was pretty interesting though." He pointed out, and Eiro sighed in deep annoyance.


    "Thanks. That''s my reason for existing. To be interesting to you." Eiro replied, and while Enka just loudlyughed, Armodeus just stared at the man... the thing, next to him. He still wasn''t sure what to think.


    What truly was Eiro?

 Chapter 127 - What Do I Look Like?

    Once they made their way outside of the building again, Eiro turned to his side and looked at the two spirits floating there. The Gnome really did seem quite cheerful, and just incredibly energetic. But still... "Didn''t you say it would be able to find its name when we get it its body back?" Eiro asked, slightly concerned about what was going on.


    Although, luckily, Nelli immediately reassured him, "Don''t worry, this is normal. It''s not as straightforward as your evolutions are. Within a couple of days, it should be able to learn its name, so let''s just take it with us for now." The Naiad told the Demon, who lightly smiled and nodded his head in response.


    "Okay, let''s do it like that." Eiro replied to the spirit, before he turned back around and looked at the two men that were looking at him with curious expressions, "Thank you for your help, I''d say. This somehow passed far, far easier than I thought it would." He pointed out, and with a deep sigh, Enka quickly agreed.


    "You can say that again. Those guys'' expressions were fun to look at, but other than that... A lot less entertaining than I''d have thought." The chief-warrior muttered, but Armodeus just slightly red at him, "Do you even take your job seriously? Would you have preferred for it to escte into a fight?" Armodeus asked Enka, and then turned toward Eiro again.


    "Let us go, I''m going to bring you back to the gate to the firstyer. I don''t want the guards to question you because you''re not supposed to be here." The elder dwarf pointed out, so Eiro just slowly nodded his head and turned around, starting to immediately walk toward the ce where he knew the gate was supposed to be, while Enka just waved at the two of them with an excited grin.


    "It was nice to meet you, man!" He yelled out with a broad grin. Enka''s face, hair and outfit was still extremely messy because of the soot from the burnt-down curtains from the stage. He attracted a fair amount of attention through all of this from onlookers, but he didn''t really care. Enka just kept staring at Eiro''s back.


    And then, Enka just stood there. He stood there and kept waving with a bright smile that would probably make a lot of other people ufortable, which it even did. The very moment that Eiro and Armodeus stepped out of his range of sight, Enka''s smile suddenly disappeared.


    With an annoyed groan, he turned around and started stepping through the roads as well. His previously slouched-over posture so that he could get closer to the height-level of those two was gone as well, and his back was now as straight as it could be, his neck stretched out and his shoulders pressed backward.


    Enka kept walking for a little while, and once nobody was really around him, he covered his palm in mes instantly before running his hand over his his face and through his hair. With that swift motion, he burnt away the soot and fixed his hair so that it wasn''t even nearly as messy anymore. It actually now looked it should have taken him hours to get this done.


    "Disgusting." Enka muttered quietly the moment he pressed his palm onto his chest, causing mes to spread across his clothes. But instead of burning up, they simply changed. His shirt changed from a messy, dirty shirt with its sleeves burnt away into a ck button-up. And as if pulling it out of thin air, Enka stuck his hand forward and had a suit-jacket appear in it by being formed out of mes.


    The moment the mes disappeared, all that he had in his hand was that ck suit jacket that he swiftly pulled around his upper body. When Enka then held both his hands in front of his neck, more mes appeared, ones that he soon ''adjusted''. Once these mes disappeared as well, it was simply a red tie, and the whole image of this man changed immensely.


    It was so different that Eiro may have not even recognized him instantly. Especially because his odour changed too. Before, he had this weird, reeking, sulfuric scent to his body, but now he just suddenly smelled like regr men''s perfume.


    Enka''s changed from round and bright into dark and angr as he looked around at his environment. And with that expression, the chief warrior stepped back through the doors of the shop of the craftsman Irensen, and the eyes of every single person in here suddenly turned toward him.


    When he was here with Eiro and Armodeus, everyone was practically ignoring him as if he wasn''t there. Sure, the employee spoke to him and about him, but if he was asked tomorrow, he would most likely have forgotten about the fact that Enka was there, even though they had a short one-on-one conversation.


    Although, it wasn''t like they actually spoke about anything important then. After all, Enka hadn''t questioned him about their usage of a Gnome''s body, but instead just whispered to him a little.


    There were a few customers in here, some even apanied by guards, and all their eyes were focused on Enka, who just pushed his hands into his suit-pant pockets and looked forward.


    "Leave." He said in a clear tone, although his voice was carried through the space to everyone as if Enka was standing right in front of each and every person. As if their bodies were controlled by some external force, they stopped whatever they were doing and stepped past Enka into the streets. This even included the employees.


    Every single person left, with the exception of the employee that led them around the shop before, who was still together with Irensen.


    Once everyone else was outside, Enka closed the door and used any random pole-based weapon topletely block the door from being opened by anyone from the outside.


    With light steps that carried through the whole shop as if he was stomping down with all his force, Enka made his way up the stairs and stepped up in front of the door that Eiro had broken down before.


    "Those damn... Who the fuck was that?! How dare he threaten me like that?!" Irensen yelled out angrily, and the worker just stood in front of him with a nk expression, "He was nothing more than a low-life. If Sir Armodeus had not been here, we could have easily gotten rid of him. I can research where he is currently living, and we can recover the whole Gnome." The worker suggested, and with a broad grin, Irensen nodded his head.


    "Yes! Yes, do that immediately!" He yelled out, "I will not let someone like that steal from me! I will show that I am the best craftsman this town- No, this world has to offer! I swear!"


    Just then, Enka showed augh that he really couldn''t hide anymore after hearing something that ridiculous. After today, he wouldn''t be able to work at all anymore.


    Both the worker and Irensen himself were surprised to see Enka''s figure standing in the doorframe, although neither of them recognized him as one of the two people that apanied that ''low-life'' before.


    "Sorry, sorry, I just heard something quite funny." Enka chuckled as he stepped onto the broken-down door and furhter into the room, before seeing that both of the others in front of him just stared at him silently, "Ah, continue. I would like to hear what you want to do to that low-life." Enka said reassuredly, and Irensen just slightly nodded and looked back at the worker.


    "We should just kill him, right?" Irensen asked, as if Enka just wasn''t there, and the worker nodded his head immediately, "I do think that is the best path we could take. Although we might have to be careful. As he is Sir Armodeus'' acquaintance, it might be tough to hide his sudden disappearance."


    "Ah, just get it done already!" Irensen eximed angrily, and once more, Enka tuned in to this conversation.


    "Oh! I think I might have a pretty good idea for you two!" He pointed out, and once more, Irensen and the worker looked over toward him. But this time, they weren''t just as confused or surprised. They just looked at him as if he had always been part of the conversation. "How do you think you may be able to help?" The worker inquired, and with slight chuckle, Enka stepped through the room and looked a bit around.


    "Instead of killing him directly, you can just ''get rid of him'' in another way. Just have him arrested. He''s nothing more than some plebianmoner, after all. You should have more than enough fame and contacts to let this happen." Enka pointed out, slowly running his fingers over some of the things in the room, like the materials spread around, or even the finished items.


    "But we can''t do that if he''s basically being protected by Armodeus!" Irensen eximed immediately, "They are surely going to trust that fiend''s word over mine!"


    With a slow nod, Enka picked up a small dagger that he found hanging on the wall and held it in his hand for a little while, "True enough. Armodeus is far more trusted than you. For good reasons, even. You are one of the lowest of the lowest of this town." Cupping his chin inbetween his index finger and thumb, Enka was just thinking for a while.


    In response, it seemed neither Irensen nor the worker could really deny what Enka just said and were just standing there, waiting for this man''s opinion on whatthey should do. And with a snap of his fingers and a light smile, Enka just started tough.


    "Of course, of course! Why didn''t I think of it before?" Enka asked rhetorically, "We''re not going to let anyone speak ill of you, so that we can fully make use of only the benefits of your fame and contacts!"


    As if this solution was just the most obvious one that anyone could have evere up with, the man looked forward at the other two and waited for their answer. With bright, excited smiles, they both immediately nodded their heads.


    "That is an incredible idea!" Irensen eximed, and the worker just looked at Enka with wide open eyes, "And how exactly are we going to aplish that?" He asked, before Enka slowly took some steps forward with the dagger pointed into Irensen''s direction.


    Slowly, quite agonizingly so, Enka pushed the dagger into the chest of the man that created it. Irensen himself just took it, however, and stood there. He stared into Enka''s eyes, and just when his life ended and his body dropped down, did the worker understand what exactly was going on and started freaking out.


    "M-Master Irensen!" He cried out nervously and dropped onto his knees to try and help him stand or sit back up, while Enka carefully ced the bloody dagger onto the floor in front of him and looked at the worker.


    "It''s quite easy, isn''t it? You don''t speak ill of the dead." Enka exined, but the worker just stared up at him with a fearful, angry expression, "Why would you do this?! What is wrong with you? Why-"


    "Tell me, who killed Irensen?" The man asked, but the worker just looked up at him confusedly before slowly speaking, "It was you!"


    "What do I look like?" Enka inquired then, and the worker once more answered immediately, "You are tall, have dark red hair and eyes! You''re wearing a pitch-ck suit! You have a calm, deep, prating voice, and smell pleasantly like an open field!" He eximed, with a deeply pained voice, one that seemed the opposite of one would expect from such a put-together answer.


    "I''m not. This is not me. What else might I look like?" Enka asked once more with a calm voice, and immediately the worker just calmed down.


    "That''s not what you look like? Sorry... I think you are of average height. Your face is obstructed by a nk mask, and your whole body is hidden by a ck cloak, with the exception of one wooden hand and one hand covered in a ck glove. Your voice is unnoteworthy and emotional, and you smell like nothing... Is that right?" The worker asked, and with a light chuckle, Enka turned around and once more stepped over the broken-down door.


    "That''s exactly right."

 Chapter 128 - What Will It Be?

    As Eiro stood in front of the Inn that he and the children were staying at for tonight, he noticed that there were actually some of Solomon''s guards stationed around the ce, probably to keep an eye on them. After all, it was possible that someone that Eiro pissed off tonight could look for revenge. And so, the Demon stepped past the building into the yard in the back where the stables stood, quickly making his way over to Lugo.


    "Well then, bud. Had a good day here?" Eiro asked the Stag that just nodded its head immediately, although Lugo was apparently quite curious about the Gnome that was floating by Eiro''s side.


    "Ah, yeah, we have someone new with us. He doesn''t have a name yet though." The Demon exined as he rubbed his hand over Lugo''s back, just making his way over toward the carriage while Lugo started sniffing the Gnome a bit.


    As Eiro opened the door, he soon saw the Puppet standing in front of him inside, seemingly already having waited for his return. With his brows slightly furrowed, Eiro started sniffing the air a little, and then stepped into the carriage.


    "Someone came in here?" Eiro asked as he took a look around, but the Puppet immediately shook its head in response to the Demon''s question. With a slight sigh, Eiro looked back at it, "Did someone try toe in here?"


    The puppet nodded its wooden head, and Eiro just steppeb back out of the carriage, "Stay in here and keep defending it. I''ll head inside to see if there''s some sort of issue." Eiro said, and swiftly scooped the gnome up and brought it with him into the Inn, while Nelli just floated right next to them.


    "What are you going to do with the person that wanted to get into the carriage?" Nelli asked, and Eiro just shrugged, "Not much. Can''t really do much with so many guards and scouts watching us, can I?" The Demon pointed out, and the Spirit looked at him with surprise, "Scouts? What Scouts?"


    "Oh, right, I didn''t tell you yet. There''s probably half a dozen scouts surrounding this building on top of the regr guards. Solomon himself had maybe a dozen watching him at all times. These guys are all different ones though." Eiro exined, "But I definitely think that those guys are the least of our worries." He pointed out.


    "And what worries you the most then?" Nelli inquired, before the Demon just slightly turned his sight toward her, "Enka, obviously."


    "Eh? That idiot? Why are you worried about him at all?" The Spirit asked, and Eiro sighed as he stepped in front of the door to their room and knocked on it to have someone let him in, "I''ll exin it in a bit. At least Felix is going to have some sort of use."


    It seemed like Nelli was justpletely and utterly confused at what Felix had to do with this now, but Eiro didn''t expect anything else. He didn''t have a chance to share the information he got from looking at Enka''s status with her, after all. Without those, Eiro probably wouldn''t have thought that anything was wrong with Enka either.


    Soon, the door in front of Eiro opened, and the Demon stepped inside. Leon and Avalin were both asleep in the other, adjacent room that was connected to this one by another door. Clementine and Arc were in there with them, but Rudy, who just opened the door, Sammy and Felix were in this room, seemingly speaking about what happened today.


    But without hesitation, Eiro stepped in front of one of the three people here. Maybe it should have been Sammy for the sake of apologizing, but instead he stood in front of Felix for a whole other purpose.


    "Open your status." Eiro said in amanding voice, but Felix, who was still rtively scared from watching Eiro ''rampage'' before, just looked at him confusedly, "Wh-What? Why do you want me to open my status?"


    "To confirm that you have the ''Charming Voice'' skill." The Demon exined, and Felix immediately jumped up in shock, "H-How do you know about that skill?! We never reveal that skill''s name to anyone!"


    "I don''t care, just open your status already." Eiro said with a deep re, getting pretty agitated at Felix trying to protest needlessly. But luckily, since the act of opening your status was rtively easily and quickly done, Eiro could soon see the reflection of Felix''s status inside of his eyes.


    With a slow nod, Eiro closed his eyes under his mask and quickly went through the status a couple times, "I see. I think I''ve roughly grasped the situation." Eiro said, and Felix stared at him with confusion once more, "What did you grasp from me openi-"


    "Your father is a horrendously bad person, is he not?" The Demon asked, before Felix kept just staring at him beforeughing with a wry smile, "Wh-What are you talking about?"


    Eiro sat down on the free bed in the room and just kept staring at Felix for a while, seeing how he just grew more and more nervous.


    "Your father is incredibly strong. That''s undeniable. But his strength wasn''t actually what surprised me the most about his status. Three of his skills caught my eye." Eiro exined.


    "First of all, the ''Charming Voice'' skill. I''ve read of bloodline skills before, this seems to be one of those since you have the same one. Then, it was the level of Enka''snguageprehension skill. It was at Advanced Grade, Level 12." The Demon pointed out. The others seemed to not really understand what Eiro was trying to say, however. Although, Sammy just didn''t seem to even care, so that was that. She was obviously still upset with Eiro...


    Either way, Eiro continued to exin, "Enka''s speech was simple. Incredibly simple. At least when youpare it to what you may usually expect from someone with Advanced Gradenguageprehension. So, to me it seemed like he was trying to hide the fact that he was obviously intelligent enough to have an intelligence-based skill be able to reach that high a grade." Eiro exined, before he looked down onto the ground.


    "Although the skill that honestly made it rather easy to connect the points and figure out that he was screwing with me was his Intermediate grade Torture skill." The Demon pointed out, and immediately Sammy, Rudy and Felix stared at Eiro confusedly.


    "T-Torture? What, but... No, he..." Felix muttered quietly with a wry smile, incredibly terrified at what exactly Eiro was incinuating. But the fact that Felix was reacting in this way just came to show that he did know about Enka''s true personality. Once more, Eiro raised his head and looked at Felix again.


    "I also know about what he did to you all this time." Immediately, Felix stared at Eiro as if he was about to reveal something that would cost him his life if it was said out loud, "N-No stop it, please..." He muttered quietly, just staring forward at the Demon, trying to get closer to him with a terrified expression.


    "Your ss is ''Charmer''. Your highest stats are Charisma, Perception, Dexterity and... Resistance. Since the regr stat-increase is seemingly dependent on, amongst other things, the regr, everyday actions of a person, they show a lot about your life, I''d say." Eiro pointed out, while Felix just dropped onto his knees and basically crawled up to Eiro so that he wouldn''t reveal it.


    "Stop, please... just don''t say any more..." Felix muttered quietly, but Eiro didn''t really care for his begging, "Charisma is obvious, it''s from your ss. You''re a charmer, and charm depends on Charisma the most. Perception and Dexterity probablye from your rtively high pickpocketing skill level. You easily snatched away Sammy''s pouch, so that was to be expected." He added with a low tone.


    Sammy seemed pretty surprised to hear this, getting just more and more upset herself. Sure, she just knew Felix for a day, but he was the first guy her age she met in seven years, besides Rudy and Arc of course, and because of Felix''s ''Charming Voice'' skill, she was basically instantly infatuated. Sammy just felt so dumb at the moment.


    Although, all her self-loathing thoughts disappeared the moment she heard what Eiro said next, "And I assume that your high Resistance states from repeated abuse, huh? You don''t have abat-based ss, and your Endurance and Strength stats are far too low to say ites from repeated hard physical work."


    Felix stared at Eiro with tears in his eyes that he immediately tried to get rid of, and the Demon himself just grumbled to himself quietly, "Why do I have to... Urgh.." He muttered, and then spoke louder again, directly asking Felix a question he actually wanted an answer to, "Does your father make you approach random women like that?" Eiro asked.


    He was pretty sure that when Enka kept telling Felix about ''How to treat a woman'', it was more about ''How to trick a woman''.


    With a slow, nervous nod, Felix kept staring at the ground. He wasn''t sure what Eiro would do to him now. But instinctively, Felix nodded his head, "H-He said that I have to do this... I don''t know why, but I have to find young, attractive women and... prepare them to be kidnapped... I don''t know what happens to them after that, but... I just had to, I-I couldn''t..."


    Slowly, Eiro stood back up from the bed and stepped in front of Felix, who was simply crawling up into a small ball ofplete and utter fear. It was how he was raised, after all.


    "I''m sorry, I''m sorry... I''m sorry... I... I... I''m sorry..." Felix repeated all over again. It seemed like he wanted to say something else at some point, but he ended up just saying the same thing again because he most likely couldn''t properly think.


    Both Rudy and Sammy looked at Felix with bitter, worried expressions, and Eiro just stared at him with a deep re.


    "Why should I ept your apology? You just admitted that you were nning to have my daughter kidnapped. You know I should probably jut kill you for that, right?" The Demon asked as he squatted down in front of Felix, slowly turning his head over toward Sammy.


    "But in the end, I''m going to be a bit nicer. I''m going to leave the choice to Sammy." He pointed out, and the young woman looked at Eiro in confusion and shock.


    "What? You want to have me make the choice of whether or not you''re going to kill him? What the fuck?!" Sammy asked loudly, "First you don''t tell me that he''s tricking me, and now this? What''s wrong with you?!" She yelled out, and Eiro just slowly ced his hand onto Felix''s head to make sure he couldn''t turn it to look at him somehow and instead just kept staring at the floor. And with his other hand, Eiro then took off his mask to look at Sammy directly.


    "I... am sorry. I really am... I just didn''t realize that it would affect you this much." Eiro said genuinely. He still didn''t properly understand why she was so upset, but that wasn''t something he could change this soon. Eiro hurt her, and he was really sorry about that. That was the truth. It seemed like Sammy wanted to say something, but before she could open her mouth, Eiro continued to exin what he actually just meant.


    "And I wasn''t asking you to just make a choice between life and death. In total, I''m giving you three choices. One, I kill him, of course. To me, that''s still a viable choice." Eiro exined to her, but immediately moved to step two before anyone could protest.


    "Two, we throw him out and let him fend for himself without caring for what Enka does to him." The Demon said, and both of these options seemed to scare Felix just the more. And with a deep sigh, Eiro came out with the third possible choice.


    "And three... We save him from Enka and take him with us for a while until we find a safe ce for him to stay."


    Neither Rudy, Sammy or Nelli believed what they just heard him suggest, and Felix suddenly stopped, petrified by confusion. With a deep sigh, Eiro looked back at his daughter.


    "So, what will it be?"

 Chapter 129 - Option Three

    Both Sammy and Rudy stared at Eiro in confusion as the Demon finished speaking. Felix himself was just speechless, he really didn''t know how to react to that third option.


    "You''re considering helping him?" Rudy asked, before Eiro just slowly nodded his head, "I do. He acted out of line because of fear of his father. And while in my eyes that isn''t a viable enough excuse to avoid punishmentpletely, he''s not fully at fault either." The Demon exined, slowly cing his mask back onto his face as he released Felix''s neck.


    "So, what will it be? One, two, or three?" Eiro asked once more, and with a nervous expression, she just said what she was thinking, "...Th-Three, of course..." Sammy muttered as she looked at Felix, who was still sobbing on the ground. He was pretty pathetic at the moment, but that was just because he thought he was about to die. She understood how he felt, really. Sammy still didn''t forget what had happened to her in the first nine years of her life, after all.


    "Alright then. Felix, go on and take this bed. I''ll be staying up tonight just in case, but I doubt anyone should be able to get in here with all those scouts anyway" He pointed out as Eiro just made his way to the door to the other room and opened it up to call Clementine and Arc over as well.


    "Oh, you''re back!" Arc eximed, "Can we, like, take some time to hunt a bit tomorrow? Please?" The boy asked excitedly, still holding his new weapons in his hands with a broad grin.


    "Sure, but that''s not what I want to talk about right now. And be quiet, Leon and Avalin are sleeping, aren''t they?" Eiro pointed out as he pulled Arc into the other room and Clementine quickly followed behind, "Oops, sorry. I''m just really excited, hehe." He muttered quietly, and Eiro just sighed as he pointed at Felix, who was currently being helped to stand up by Rudy.


    "From tomorrow on, he''s going to be with us for a little while. I''m going to be keeping a close eye on him, so don''t worry about his skill." The Demon exined to them, and Arc just looked at Felix with a smile.


    "Coolio. Finally some other guy to hang out with!" He eximed, although Rudy stared at him confusedly in response, "Hey, what''s that supposed to mean?!"


    With a light chuckle, Arc just walked up to him and swung his arm around Rudy''s shoulder, "You''re my bro, but I know you don''t always want to hang out with me either." Arcughed loudly, and soon the whole conversation between those two descended into continuous banter.


    With a slight sigh, Eiro just looked out the window and tried to spot one of the scouts that seemed to belong to Solomon, and then opened the window up for a moment. "I''ll be right back. One of you please stay with Leon and Avalin." The Demon said, and then quickly pushed a lot of his Life Force into his legs and cloaked his body in air magic, swiftly pushing himself off the edge of the window to jump as far along the street he could.


    Of course he couldn''t traverse the whole street with a single jump, insteadnding on the roof of a carriage for a moment and then jumping along to the side of the building on the other side to climb up there. And then on the roof, he stepped up to the chimney to approach the scout that was hiding there.


    He seemed to be rather surprised that Eiro was able to find him so easily, but since the scout was aware that he was amongst those they were supposed to be guarding, he didn''t try to keep hiding from Eiro.


    "How can I help you, Master Eiro?" The scout asked as he kneeled on the ground in front of the Demon, and Eiro just slightly scratched the back of his neck, actually feeling quite ufortable through the word ''Master''. But he didn''t want to bother with correcting him either, so he just let it be. They wouldn''t be speaking to each other much more than this, after all.


    "I was told that your King was going to prepare something for us. Do you know when it will arrive here? We want to leave as early in the morning as we can."


    "Yes, Master Eiro. It should be here before dawn so that you can get ready for departure." The scout exined, so Eiro just nodded his head in satisfaction. "I see, good to know. Thanks." The Demon replied. He was actually pretty curious what kind of gift a King would be giving them. With a satisfied smile, he turned back around.


    "Tell Solomon that I appreciate it. And thanks for looking out for us tonight." Eiro said and then quickly jumped off of the roof to make his way back into the Inn through the window he jumped out of before.


    "All of you, try to get to sleep. We''re waking up before sunrise." The Demon told them as he closed the window again, and the others looked at him confusedly.


    "What do you mean? Why are we going that early?" Arc asked, about to heavily protest, and Eiro quickly exined it as he started lightly knocking on the walls with his knuckles in different positions.


    "Oh, Enka''s definitely trying something. I want to leave as soon as we can, and the gift from Solomon will be ready just before dawn, so that''s when we''re leaving. Apparently it''s going to help us on our trip, so we should really wait for it." Eiro exined, before he found the entrance into the hollow space right behind the wall and started pushing one of his chisels into the ce where the ''lock'' seemed to be to crack it open from this side by pushing the chisel inbetween the wooden boards.


    It seemed like everyone was rather surprised at what Eiro was currently doing, although Felix for a different reason from the others. Either way, Eiro soon managed to force the hidden door open and was then looking into the hidden corridor behind the wall.


    "How did you-"


    "How did I know that there''s numerous hidden passages inside of this building? It wasn''t that hard to figure it out." Eiro interrupted Felix, who had managed to calm down a little bit again, but was still just baffled at how Eiro was able to find it this easily.


    Either way, the Demon then turned around and looked at the others again, "Go on, sleep. All of you. I''m going to stay right here, so don''t worry." Eiro said, and then sat down cross-legged inside of the hidden hallway, and as if this was rather natural, Sammy made her way into the other room, where Clementine was already preparing for bed, and Arc and Rudy got ready for bed as well while Felix was still just nervously sitting on the free bed.


    Meanwhile, Eiro was trying to concentrate on the way these hidden corridors were built. Sure, he was able to figure out that there were hidden passages even from outside, but he wasn''t able to figure out how intricately they were constructed.


    He wanted to see where they connected to, but he didn''t want to leave the kids alone, so he went for it like this. "Nelli, make sure that Felix doesn''t try to look in here." Eiro told the Naiad. Since the bed that Felix was going to sleep in was on the same side of the room as the hidden passage, he couldn''t look inside that easily, so Eiro figured he could freely take his mask off.


    As Nelli floated there in front of Eiro like that, continuosly watching Felix, she spoke to Eiro after slipping into the halfway-space where only Eiro could see and hear her.


    "Why do you want to take him with us?" Nelli asked, and the Demon sighed deeply in response before whispering out, "I''m not a big fan of the idea either, but that''s how it is. Just think of it this way. Our little Gnome here wasn''t sold piece by piece, but instead forced to attack and kill people despite not wanting to. Would that be much different from the situation Felix is in?" Eiro asked Nelli, and the Spirit slowly turned her eyes toward the Demon.


    "That''s an unfairparison. The Gnome is literally just a kid... Felix is... what, eighteen, neen?" Nelli pointed out, and Eiro nodded his head, "As such he was groomed into this position for the past eighteen years. As I said before, he can''t push all the responsibility off onto Enka, but seriously, you saw him out there. He was genuinely terrified when I mentioned the first and second, and genuinely relieved when I mentioned the third option. He was actually most scared with the second one, since that would probably mean he would have to face his father tomorrow."


    Nelli quietly looked at Felix and then at Arc as he wasying in his bed, instantly having fallen asleep, "I see... If you hadn''t saved... or rather, kidnapped them back then, they would also be quite different people now, huh?" The Naiad muttered. With an immediate reaction, Eiro replied, "Exactly. They would have been raised into tools of war instead. I don''t think Felix is an inherently bad kid. It''s not like he was lying when he called Sammy beautiful either, or when he was saying that he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible."


    "Eh..?" Nelli asked all of a sudden, "How do you know?"


    With a slight frown, Eiro looked at the Spirit and slighty chuckled, "After all the practice with Sammy to help her prepare for her unsealed skill, I understood how lies work at least a little bit. I can''t always say for sure, but I can at least tell when someone is serious about something or not. That''s how I knew that I could trust Solomon for caring for his son that much, and I also could tell that Felix was telling the truth when he spoke to Sammy." The Demon exined, although Nelli looked at him with even more confusion than before.


    "Then why were you getting so upset? I thought you were angry because he was ying with Sammy?" She asked him, and Eiro looked at her with a sigh as if the answer should be rather obvious.


    "He was still using a skill to get his words through to Sammy more intensely, and most of all..." Eiro exined, hitting the ground he was sitting on just so slightly, "He was flirting with my daughter. That really pissed me off."


    With a wry smile, Nelli just kept looking at Eiro as if she honestly hadn''t expected that sort of answer, although she then justughed lightly, "Well, I guess that''s something scary that parents have to go through, eh?" Nelliughed, and Eiro stared at her with a light frown.


    "Scary? No, no, more like disgusting. I''m not letting anyone with bad intentions ever get close to any of those children."


    "And how''re you going to judge which are bad, and which are good intentions?" Nelli asked with a quiet chuckle, and Eiro just closed his eyes in preparation for trying to sense the inside of the hidden passages in this Inn.


    "I''ll make those choices case-by-case, obviously." The Demon pointed out, although Nelli was pretty sure she already knew which result those ''Case-by-case'' choices would mostly end up having anyway.


    Either way, while this was definitely something important that Eiro had to keep in mind, for now he had to properly figure this ce out already.. Letting his mana flow through his body in circr streams, Eiro tried to elerate his mana-regeneration as much as he could, and then kept pushing air-magic infused breaths out of his body to try and figure this ce out as much as he could.

 Chapter 130 - Mark Of Wrath

    Eiro concentrated on the way that his breath caused quiet whistles inside of this hidden hallway as well as the vibrations in the air that he strengthened to be able to figure the shape of this ce out. The footsteps and voices from other patrons and the Inn-Workers helped with this even more. It took him around a quarter of an hour topletely understand this building and the mechanisms of the hidden passages, but there was a space that he still didn''t quite figure out perfectly.


    It seemed to be a fair bit underneath this building and had numerous tunnels spreading out in any direction. Knowing about those might be pretty useful, but Eiro hoped that they would be able to leave before needing to use those.


    With a slight grumble, Eiro breathed out deeply once more to collect his thoughts and pushed his body off the ground as he ced his mask back onto his face and stepped out of the hidden hallway, closing the door behind him. It seemed like the others, beside Felix, were currently sleeping, while Felix himself was far too nervous to be able to even attempt falling asleep.


    Thinking that it was useless to try and ''cheer him up'', something that Eiro wouldn''t want to do even if he could, the Demon sat down on one of the chairs in the room and pulled one of his books out of his Treasury and started reading it.


    They weren''t able to get any items other than the stuff that Armodeus gave them, so they would have to stop at some other town to get new books. If they had the time to, of course.


    As Eiro was reading, the Gnome was just floating right next to him and staring at him curiously, although the Demon didn''t really know what exactly he was supposed to do to entertain it. The whole time, numerous small crumbs of dirt and rock dropped down the Gnome''s body before falling apart into mana and rejoining the Gnome''s body afterward.


    Nelli also had some water droplets floating around her, although she had them under control so well that they didn''t fall apart into mana. It seemed like this Gnome would get a pretty strong power-up once it found its name. Eiro actually hoped that was rather soon, because that otherwise meant they had to find the Gnome a ce to see as its ''Home'' soon. Since not any ce was good for that, it might be quite bothersome to find one of those.


    Thinking that it was no use to continue thinking about that for now, Eiro kept reading for a while, maybe an hour two, until he noticed that Felix slowly stood up from the bed he wasying in.


    "Something wrong?" Eiro asked quietly, trying to make his whispered voice carry over toward Felix with Air Magic, and the young man looked at Eiro with a light startle.


    "O-Oh, yeah... I don''t know... I..." Felix muttered, obviously unable to properly gather his thoughts, "I wanted to apologize, I think..."


    With a light frown and grumble, Eiro closed the book he was holding and ced it back into his treasury before turning toward Felix, "You think?" Eiro replied, before sighing deeply and opening the door to the real hallway and waving Felix over so that they could have a proper conversation.


    "Alright, now tell me." The Demon started, "What exactly do you want to apologize for?"


    Felix slowly turned away and held his own arm nervously, "For trying to charm Samantha to have her kidnapped..." He exined surprisingly bluntly, and Eiro just slightlyughed in response at how ridiculous this was, "Don''t worry about it. Not like I would have ever let any harme her way."


    Felix slowly turned back and looked at Eiro again with a seemingly surprised expression, "You aren''t angry with me..?"


    "Huh? When did I say that?" Eiro asked with a slight frown, "Obviously I am, I''m so pissed that I could still rip your head off this very moment without any sort of remorse. But for the hundredth time, while you can''t escape the whole me, most of it lies with Enka." The Demon pointed out, "Since it could have very well been those children in there in your position, I don''t think I should be just as harsh on you."


    Now, Felix grew even more confused, just staring at Eiro to figure out what he meant, "What do you..." He asked quietly, and Eiro turned toward Felix and sighed.


    "You know those six that look nothing alike and are mostly within a few months'' age of each other aren''t my biological children, right?" Eiro pointed out, but Felix just looked back at the Demon as if this was a revtion he never would have expected. Although, now that Eiro mentioned it, Felix figured he should have figured that out a bit earlier.


    "They... They know, right?" Felix asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "I picked them up seven years ago, of course they know." The Demon said, and it seemed like Felix was feeling ratherplicated about all this all of a sudden.


    He grasped his chest and started breathing heavier as the rate of his heartbeat grew faster. Confused at what was suddenly going on, Eiro looked at Felix as the young man slid down the hallway''s wall and hid his face behind his knees while looking downward.


    "They''re not even your real children, and you still treat them like that..?" Felix asked as he started to freak out even more, "You''ve got to be joking with me..." He practically sobbed, and Eiro just looked down at him.


    He couldn''t believe this was happening, but he actually felt bad for Felix. Since he really didn''t like what he was feeling for this kid that he couldn''t even really stand, Eiro wanted to make him just shut up. Eiro squatted down in front of him and ced his hand onto Felix''s head.


    "Don''t worry. You won''t have to be scared of Enka any more from now on." Eiro said reassuredly, "We''ll bring you somewhere safe."


    Slowly, Felix raised his head and looked at Eiro again, his eyes red from crying, and the young man''s body just suddenly went weak. It seemed like he really wasn''t doing too well. With a quiet grumble, Eiro sighed and sat down right next to Felix.


    Eiro remembered that a few years ago, there was a time where Clementine had immense nightmares every single night for a period of a few weeks, where he was just sitting right next to her bed the whole night to make sure she wouldn''t freak out in the middle of the night. They never really figured out why she suddenly had those nightmares, so all that Eiro could do was sit there and make sure that Clementine was doing alright.


    The Demon really, really, really didn''t like Felix. He felt so much anger at the idea of what could have possibly happened to Sammy if Eiro hadn''t been careful. And even if in Eiro''s opinion, Enka was mostly to me, Felix was still infuriating. But he also felt bad for Felix. He was just a scared kid, and if he imagined one of the others in such a situation, he knew what he wanted whoever was there with them to do.


    Eiro extended his hand to the side and pulled on Felix''s shoulder to pull him over toward Eiro, "As I said. You don''t have to be scared anymore. I won''t let anything happen to you." The moment that this demon said these words of reassurance again, it seemed like a bit of a weight dropped off of Felix''s shoulders.


    While trying his best to make sure his cloak wouldn''t be stained by Felix''s tears and snot, the Demon just sat there and made sure that Felix could properly calm down. But with every moment that they were sitting there like that, one specific emotion kept growing stronger inside of Eiro.


    It was really just a spark to begin with, but as if one of those sparks finally managed to create a kindle on dry hay, it turned into a raging me that Eiro was barely able to keep under control. He just became so angry, and that for this dumbass kid next to him.


    With a deep grumble, Eiro looked to his side and noticed that Felix fell unconscious from exhaustion, so the Demon slowly stood up and pushed his hands under Felix''s body to pick him up before carrying him back into the room. After locking the door once Eiro was inside, he pulled open the door to the hidden hallway and slowly stepped inside.


    But as he stepped through this hidden hallway, Nelli appeared by his side curiously, "What are you going to do?" Nelli asked, and Eiro just slightly turned his eyes to the side and grumbled, "I''m just going to practice a bit to cool off." The Demon exined, soon descending some creaking stairs until he reached a hidden door leading to the backyard.


    The backyard itself really just included a bit of grass, gravel, the stables, as well as a small well in the corner that they seemed to use to supply the stables with water.


    "What are you going to practice?" The Spirit asked once more, but Eiro just shrugged, "Anything, really. How about we start by refining some water from the well? As much as we can, really." The Demon said, and Nelli swiftly floated over there and started pulling water out of there before getting started on the refinement.


    In the meantime, it seemed like the Gnome that had followed them as well wanted to do what Nelli was doing right now too, and started scooping up some of the dirt on the ground to refine it into a little bit of rock. It had learned how to properly refine things through Nelli''s help, after all.


    Although, since it seemed to Eiro that the Gnome wasn''t able to manage this all so easily just like that, he simply pushed out some of his mana and tried to feed it to the Gnome like this without a contract. The Gnome gratefully epted and kept going.


    Soon, there was a bubble of highly refined water with a diameter asrge as Eiro''s height floating in front of him, while there were a few clumps of roughly refined rock scattered on the ground. Eiro slowly extended his hand forward toward the bubble with his wooden hand before the water started practically devouring him.


    The Demon now stood there in a bubble of water, one that soon started to bubble from the inside out due to the immense heat it was taking on. Somehow, Eiro was able to think aboute everything quite well inside of this boiling hot water.


    Slowly he sat down cross-legged and turned the outermostyer of the water-bubble into ice while the inside kept boiling. Of course, this was only possible since this was highly refined water. Eiro just sat there inside of this bubble, staring through it into the outside while deep in thought.


    ''Piece of shit'' Eiro thought to himself, ''I want to kill you...'' He added to that.


    ''Disgrace. Abomination. Atrocity.'' Slowly, Eiro''s thoughts started to pick up in speed andplexity. His usually so collected mind was slowly growing more and more overwhelmed in this state of concentration as he tried to get rid of exactly those thoughts through meditation.


    But it didn''t matter. No matter what he did, he just kept feeling worse and worse, angrier and angrier. It was as if he wanted to rip his whole body apart just to get rid of it, or better even, do just that to Enka''s. Eiro wanted to kill him, destroy him, make him absolutely miserable. He wanted Enka to feel all the pain that he had brought to Felix and anyone else he may have treated even worse all at once.


    And after Eiro''s chest kept heating up in a way that wasn''t caused by the boiling water he was sitting in, he suddenly felt a deep stab right into the center of his heart.


    [Foreign Mana stored inside the body has been fed to the <Mark of the Devil>]


    [<Mark of the Devil> produced <Mark of Wrath>]


    [Infinite hatred exists inside of your body. You have the clear mind to control it now, but be careful not to be blinded]

 Chapter 131 - A Gift To Repay

    Eiro didn''t care for these notifications in the slightest. He just let them float in front of him inside of the water, ripping through them with his fingers.


    And then, all of a sudden, the bubble of ice surrounding the boiling water shattered apart and the hot water started covering the ground as Eiro just stood there, looking around himself as the ice melted immediately and the hot water cooled down to fit the surrounding temperature. It was highly refined, after all, so such changes happened quickly.


    As Eiro looked up into the sky with his teeth grinding against each other, Nelli went ahead and pulled all of the water out of Eiro''s clothes to properly dry him, before the Demon pushed a deep breath out of his body. It was rather hard to control his temper somehow, and his magic seemed to lose control simrly. After all, his breath had been heated up enough to create incredibly thick steam despite it not being all that cold right now.


    And then, all of sudden, Eiro noticed something else. The moon was at apletely different position. For some reason, just seeing that helped Eiro snap out of it at least a little, so he turned toward Nelli. "How long was I in there?" The Demon asked, and Nelli slowly replied.


    "Three hours, I think." She exined, and Eiro just so slightly narrowed his eyes down as he looked back at her, "Three hours without breathing?" Eiro replied, but Nelli simply shrugged.


    "You were inside highly-refined water, and you''re not exactly a regr being. Maybe the mana gave you what you needed to survive instead?" Nelli suggested, "It''s not like I breathe air, and I''m still alive."


    Slowly, Eiro looked down onto the ground and then waved his wooden hand to the side to gather the highly-refined water up again. But this time, he also gathered up the roughly-refined rocks that the Gnome made.


    Eiro made the rocks slowly cover his right, wooden hand so that he was basically wearing a rock-gauntlet, and then proceeded to create a thick pir of ice in front of him out of all the water he had avable.


    While manipting his life-force to give him as much force as he could spare, Eiro took up a stance and just swung his rock-covered fist into the ice pir. He literally had not the slightest idea why he was doing this, but Eiro then just proceeded to continuosly beat this pir of ice as hard as he could, as if he wanted to let out all of his leftover anger and frustration out of his body.


    He couldn''t do this to Enka, after all. Enka was an enemy that Eiro couldn''t even dream of beating anytime soon. He knew that, but that didn''t get rid of his incredibe hatred of him. Until now, there was only one other being that Eiro felt such anger and disgust for, and it was Zaragon.


    They were the same in one thing, and that was that they were untouchable to Eiro. Sure, he got stronger over the past seven years, but that didn''t mean that something like Zaragon was an easy match for Eiro now. He would still be killed nearly instantly if he tried to face Zaragon. And Eiro was sure that the situation wouldn''t be all to different if he were to face Enka.


    But that wasn''t necessarily the point where Eiro''s thoughts of them ovepped. Enka''s very existence was a threat to Eiro''s peace, those that Eiro cared for. Obviously that didn''t mean Felix just yet, but rather the fact that Felix was meant to kidnap Sammy.


    Everyone else that dared to even think about something like that quickly ended up dead, but Enka had to keep running around. That caused Eiro immeasurable anger, grief, and frustration.


    Again and again, Eiro kept pummeling the ice-pir while trying to keep his senses concentrated on the double-room that the children were sleeping in as much as he possibly could, until something else entered his perception.


    At the front of the Inn, a carriage arrived drawn by beasts that Eiro didn''t really recognize from here, and it seemed like one of the hidden scouts, actually the one that Eiro spoke to in the middle of the night, approached the man driving that carriage.


    From what Eiro could hear, the driver was instructed to bring the carriage behind the Inn, and swiftly did so so while apanied by that scout. The Demon swiftly let the ice-pir turn back into water while letting the rocks drop off his fist as he looked toward the entrance to the backyard.


    Once Eiro was able to properly see the carriage, he was actually quite surprised to see what it was. He noticed that something was weird about it already, but he couldn''t really tell what that weird thing was all too well.


    The carriage''s main body was actually rather inconspicuous. Sure, there were a few decorative carvings on it, but its color was just a dark brown and it didn''t have any weird metallic decorations on it like expensive carriages like this usually did. It seemed like the most special things about the carriage itself were the wheels and axles, however.


    Eiro wasn''t sure what exactly it all meant, but there were some faint runic carvings all over them. He hadn''t been able to find that many books about Arcane and Runic inscriptions so far, so all he could really do was spot that they were of that kind, and when he turned toward Nelli the spirit quickly confirmed that there was magic running through the wheels and axles.


    And then, there were of course the two most obvious things in front of the carriage. The two creatures currently drawing the carriage.


    They were both dark red in color to the point of nearly being able to call them ck, and they were bipedal reptilian creatures. Of course they weren''t humanoid, but rather just what you might expect from a small dragon if it had massively prominent hind-legs that it walked on, with rather small forelegs. It weirdly reminded Eiro of the sight of a rabbit standing on its hindlegs, stature-wise at least.


    With a silent stare directed at the scout, Eiro just chose to wait for an exnation, one that he soon received. The scout walked up to Eiro with a light smile and then turned toward the carriage and two creatures.


    "Master Eiro. This here is the gift that King Skyhart wishes to bestow upon you." The scout exined with a light bow, and Eiro looked at him rather confusedly, "He wanted to give me a carriage? We actually already have one." The Demon pointed out, and the scout immediately nodded his head and chose to exin.


    "We were aware, yes. But this here is something specially put together for long trips." The scout started, "For one, the most important part for that are these two beauties. These are specially-bred lesser magic beasts of the ground-dragon variant. They are called Aria." He exined, and Eiro immediately grew a bit intrigued.


    Magic beasts were quite special things, really. They were incredibly strong, and definitely inhuman. They were something that was a step above regr animals, while not being monsters. They were a whole other entity. Of course that didn''t mean that they were all good-natured, they could simply be seen as animals that posses magic. That''s where the name came from as well, they were all beasts so they couldn''t be humanoid either.


    Magic beasts grew up like regr animals and had neither the benefit of sses like people did, nor that of evolution like monsters did. They were more like spirits, if anything, since they could often possess incredibly strong magic that represented and even transcended nature.


    They were rather rare, so Eiro hadn''t seen any of them before. "So this is what a magic beast looks like..?" Eiro asked quietly, and the scout nodded his head, reliefed that Eiro didn''t immediately refuse this gift.


    "I see, so what is their benefit over my horses?" The Demon asked, and the scout swiftly exined, "Their greatest benefit is of course their overwhelming speed and strength. Depending on the terrain and the state they are in, these Aria can run roughly twice the speed of regr horses while pulling the carraige. Of course, this is heavily increased when you are just riding them. Saddles are also provided in the carriage."


    Immediately, Eiro opened his eyes wide. If they were really that fast, then Eiro didn''t have to worry anymore, now did he? They would be able to surely reach the ce they needed to get to without worries. All the anger and hatred that had gathered inside of him before now just disappeared instantly at hearing these great news.


    "Then, there is also the fact that they will need far less rest than horses. While a horse will need a break every three to four hours, on top of the time they need to sleep, an Aria can keep running for up to 10 hours before needing a short break, on top of the time they need to sleep, which is simr to that of a horse. The only downside is that they need to eat more than a horse does." The scout exined, "But as they are omnivores, you can feed them virtually anything. They were bred to have strong stomachs and have high resistance to poisons and such, so you can even feed them things you wouldn''t want to eat anymore."


    "This is amazing..." Eiro muttered quietly, unable to suppress a broad smile underneath his mask as the scout continued in a rxed fashion now that he was sure that Eiro would ept.


    "It truly is, Master Eiro. Of course, the carriage itself was simply modified to withstand the speed and force that these two will put it under, while also being made to have a stronger grip on rough terrain. And you will need this if you choose to travel with this carriage hereafter." The scout exined and then looked at the man that drove the carriage here, who handed Eiro a small wooden box.


    The demon quickly received it and opened it up, before finding a decorative brooch inside of it. He slowly grabbed it and took a closer look before turning toward the scout again for an exnation.


    "Since Aria are quite rare and superior, you can only travel with them if you are of nobility or if you are travelling in the name of one of those nobles. This here is a brooch signifying that you are travelling in the name of King Solomon Sigurd Skyhart. As it is impossible to fake such an item, you will have no issues travelling through thends. The box it is held in is one specially enchanted with Stealth magic to miss the eye of those that don''t know of it so that you may not have it stolen." The scout exined, but Eiro quickly shook his head.


    "That''s fine, I don''t need the box." He exined, before slowly running his hand to the side as if he was cing the brooch down somewhere, before it simply disappeared inside of his treasury, "I have a safer method." The Demon said, and with a surprised smile, the scout still just nodded his head.


    "I see. You can still keep possession of the box. It maye in useful at another time." The scout exined, and Eiro just lightly smiled, "Alright, not going to say no to another gift." Eiroughed lightly.


    "Then I can just thank you. And please, thank Solomon as well. I know he said he''s in my debt, but now I''m in his. With this, he may have just saved the life of two of my children, after all." The Demon pointed out, before turning his head over toward the stables.


    "Do you have an idea what we can do with our current carriage? We don''t have much time left to stay here and sell it, and I don''t want to just abandon it." Eiro exined to them, and the scout immediately nodded.


    "Yes, Master Eiro. King Skyhart instructed us to take this carriage with us back to the King''s personal domain. It will be stored there, and your horses will be taken care of. As such, the King would like it if you came to visit in the capital of Skyhart when your business has been taken care of."


    With another light smile, Eiro just looked back at the scout, "Of course."

 Chapter 132 - Departure

    All of the things that were in their old carriage were now carried over toward the new one. Because there were more ways to store some of the heavier things outside of the carriage with this new one, there was more space for everyone inside of the carriage. Since Felix would now being along, that space was actually heavily needed.


    Eiro quickly made the puppet get inside of the carriage while neither the scout nor the coachman were looking, and then pulled Lugo out of the stables as well, "Wait here, I''m getting the kids." The old man said as he ran his hand over the snout of his familiar, although just to be safe, he also looked at the scout.


    "Please make sure he doesn''t run off or anything." He asked him, and the scout slowly nodded his head.


    "Of course, Master Eiro. It is your familiar, I assume?"


    "Yep, and he''s an idiot, so seriously don''t let him run off." The Demon repeated and then made his way back into the building, stepping into the secret passage-system as soon as he could before making his way to their room again.


    It seemed like Arc and Clementine were awake already, although Rudy, Sammy, Felix, Avalin and Leon were still asleep. As Eiro pushed the hidden door open, he saw Arc currently getting dressed for the day.


    "Good, you''re up. Wake these two up, I''ll get the others. I want you all to be ready to go in five minutes." Eiro announced, and while Arc was fine with it, Clementine overheard him as Eiro was currently opening the door to her and the others'' room, and immediately started toin.


    "What? Five minutes? But we haven''t even had breakfast yet!" Clementineined, before Eiro lightly grumbled to himself and approached Leon and Avalin''s beds, "We have some things to eat in the carriage. Just hurry, please, I don''t think we should stay in this town much longer." Eiro exined as he finally got the two youngest children to wake up and proceeded to help them change so that they didn''t have to wait for them, while Sammy also woke up and tiredly got dressed as well.


    Once everyone was ready in both rooms, they gathered at the room''s door and hurriedly made their way outside toward the backyard. On the way, Eiro exined to them that they had a new, better carriage now, and that they would get to their destination far quicker. This made Sammy incredibly excited, of course, and she happily picked Leon up from the ground while the tired boy just rubbed his eyes to try and wake up.


    Felix was walking at the back of the group, although Eiro tried his best to make sure Felix wouldn''t just suddenly stop following them for some reason. He actually ended up stopping once, but that was probably because he was starting to freak out again. So, Eiro stepped up behind him and pushed Felix forward some more while trying to reassure him that everything would be alright.


    Once they all made their way into the backyard, Eiro started noticing something else going on in the distance. Seemingly there were some guards gathering not too far away from the inn they were staying at, and that gave Eiro an incredibly bad feeling.


    "Get into the carriage immediately, all of you." Eiro told them, and they all quickly did as asked while Eiro pushed the gnome into the carraige with them, and even Arc who was supposed to drive the carriage at first got in there. Slowly, Eiro turned toward the coachman, "Could I ask you to drive the carriage for us until we''re out of town? I don''t want to identally injure someone in this rather busy ce." The Demon exined, and with a light smile on his face, the coachman just bowed forward just so slightly.


    "Of course, Master Eiro. Allow me." He said as he climbed back onto the bench at the front of the carriage and proceeded to take the reigns, waiting for Eiro to get ready.


    The Demon quickly jumped on Lugo''s back and then nodded at the coachman to get him to start driving, before looking down at the scout, "Thank you for looking out for us. If there is one more favor I could ask of you..." Eiro exined, and the scout slowly nodded his head.


    "Anything within my power, Master Eiro." He replied, so Eiro just lightly smiled and exined, "If a group of guards should head to this Inn soon asking for where I am, please tell them that I''m heading toward Armodeus'' ce on the thirdyer again." The Demon told him, and the scout, rather confused, still just nodded his head.


    "Of course. Now, please have a safe trip, Master Eiro." The scout said before Eiro nodded his head as a recement for a smile, since he was currently wearing his mask and the scout wouldn''t be able to see it anyway. Then, the Demon hurried to follow the carriage in front of him toward the closest exit they could take.


    Just a few minutester, just what Eiro thought would happen did actually happen. The guards were looking for Eiro. They didn''t say why, but it seemed like Guards in the whole town were trying to find him. But luckily, since Eiro still had his old mask and a cloak that he bought just in case before, he could quickly switch that out to make sure they couldn''t recognize him.


    Of course, that most likely wouldn''t help when a guard was already suspecting Eiro to be the one they''re looking for, but since they should be searching for a man with a white mask and a ck cloak that covers his whole body, this light brown mask and cloak that basically was just a cape with a hood should help disguise him at least a little bit.


    On top of that, they would be taking the entrance for special people now, so the guards might pay less attention to him if they thought Eiro was just an attendant to someone in the carriage or something.


    To Eiro''s luck, they managed to get out of town without being recognized, although Eiro was able to gather enough information like this to figure out what he was being used of. It seemed like sometimest night, Irensen was stabbed with a dagger, and the worker at the shop said to have clearly seen Eiro kill him.


    Obviously that was nonsense, even if it wasn''t too far off from what Eiro wanted to do to Irensen, but luckily the scouts and guards were there to testify that Eiro never left the Inn''s property, and even spent a few hours ''practicing'' out in the backyard.


    It seemed like the town guards didn''t care about this too much, however, and still just tried their best to find Eiro, although they soon made their way out of the town to a safe spot where Eiro doubted they would be found anytime soon as long as they kept moving immediately.


    He nodded his head at the coachman and thanked him, and he swiftly made his way back toward the town on foot while Arc stepped out of the carriage and cracked his knuckles as he climbed up on the bench instead.


    "Alright! These were called Aria, right? I''m excited to see what they can do!" The boy eximed, and Eiro sighed slightly in response, "Just try to get them to move first. I was told they know the samemands as horses do, and because they''re a fair bit smarter than the regr horse, it should be pretty easy." Eiro exined, before Arc immediately nodded his head.


    "Okay! Then... Walk." Arc told them with a smile, and the two Aria soon did as told and started walking forward with ease. Their regr walking pace was already a fair bit faster than that of a horse. Arc tried to make them speed up a little bit until they were at a seemingly good speed for these two. It seemed like Lugo was actually surprised that he had to rush this much all of a sudden, but it was also a good idea for this stag to get some more excercise like this.


    "They''re only going to need a break in roughly ten hours, so let''s get as far away as we can and then take a break for a bit then." Eiro suggested, and Arc swiftly nodded his head, "Aye aye, Cap''n."


    With a light frown, Eiro looked at Arc with a bit of confusion, and the boy just chuckled slightly, "Nevermind, sorry."


    For now, the group continued on moving into the direction they had to to get to their destination, managing to get far further than they had nned. Once the first ''shift'' of ten hours was over, they had travelled nearly two times further than they would have usually been able to, and that was on rtively rough terrain. The fact that they needed to take far less breaksbined with the extra speed was just really working out amazingly for them.


    With a broad grin on his face, Eiro couldn''t help himself but immediately grow relieved when he detached the Aria from the carriage to let them drink and eat something for a while. Everyone from inside the carriage slowly stepped outside to just walk around a bit and get rid of their stiff legs after sitting for so long, before Rudy immediately started to try and cook something.


    And then, thinking that this would be a good chance, Eiro approached Rudy with a curious expression, "So..." He started, and Rudy, who had by now grown to be a fair bit taller than Eiro, looked down at the Demon, "Yeah?" Rudy asked, so Eiro just lightly smirked, even if the young man wasn''t able to see him do so.


    "The others'' sses are fairly straightforward, honestly. They have regr sses with an extra part attached to it. But yours is apletely different ss. What''s the ability you got through that ss?" Eiro inquired curiously, and Rudy scratched his cheek with a wry smirk and immediately started to exin.


    "The ability is called ''Castle'' too.. I don''t actually know what it''s all about myself, there''s no real exnation for it." Rudy pointed out, and Eiro raised his brows just so slightly as he took a closer look at Rudy and what he was doing. He was really just trying topare his movements to what they were before.


    "Hmm, from what I can see, it at the very least passively increases your dexterity?" Eiro suggested, "At the very least, your hands are moving a bit more skillfully today." He pointed out, and Rudy looked down at his hands surprised, "Heh, really?"


    "I think so..." Eiro pointed out, and although he then spotted a bit of a familiar scent within Rudy. It was something that he knew from himself, actually. And that was...


    "Ah.... Rudy, I think it might be a storage ability."

 Chapter 133 - Abilities

    "A storage ability?" Rudy asked, actually growing kind of excited after the incinuation of this, and Eiro nodded his head immediately, "Yes, I think so... You kind of have that scent to you, at least. The same kind that I have myself, and that my bag has as well." Eiro exined, and then closed his eyes and leaned in a bit closer, trying to smell again, "Although yours is a lot more concentrated... not stronger, just... clearer." The Demon pointed out, and Rudy kept preparing the food on the small makeshift table built out of some boxes and a wooden board as he slowly furrowed his eyebrows.


    "Hmm... How do you usually use your treasury ability?" Rudy asked, and Eiro quickly exined.


    "It''s pretty easy, actually. I basically have this image of a room in my head, and that room has some bookshelves, disys, a table, and so on. And then, when I want to take something out of that room, I just imagine myself in front of it and try to grab it from where I put it downst time." The Demon exined and quickly disyed this by pushing his hand forward to grab one of his books out of his treasury as if he was pulling it out of a bookshelf.


    "That''s it, basically. After I was using it for a while, I just kind of got the hang of it and pretty easily understood the rules of how everything works. So just keep at it." Eiro suggested, and then looked down at Rudy''s hands with a smile, "Need me to help with anything?"


    Slowly, after a bit of thought, the young man nodded his head and turned around toward the carriage, "Yes, actually. Could you get me the metal rack and pans from inside?" He asked, and Eiro swiftly did just that and stepped into the carriage and pulled out these metal items from underneath the seats before bringing them outside, and then noticed Felix just leaning against a tree next to where they stopped.


    Arc and Clementine were currently taking care of the two Aria, Rudy was cooking and Sammy was looking after the children, but Felix didn''t really have anything to do right now. So, with a slight sigh, Eiro looked at the young man.


    "Hey, make yourself useful, will you?" The Demon said, and just so slightly startled at being pulled out of his thoughts, Rudy looked back at Eiro with a nk expression, "Could you collect some firewood? Don''t worry, there''s no monster or dangerous animal around here, and I''m not noticing any people either." Eiro said reassuredly, and Felix just slowly nodded and then took a few steps forward before walking a bit further into the forest while looking at the ground.


    And meanwhile, Eiro already set the metal rack down on the ground and prepared the rock-border for the campfire, setting the pots down next to that campfire. And once he noticed that Felix was really far enough away, Eiro hurried over toward Avalin.


    "Come on, sweety, let''s take those contacts out again. Sorry that you had to wear them immediately this morning." Eiro said apologetically, but Avalin just shook her head with a broad grin, "That''s okie! I don''t mind~!" She exined, so Eiro just lightly ran his hand through her hair and smiled as he helped her take the contacts out again before cing them into their thin box, which he then stored inside of his satchel again.


    "But won''t Felix see it like this?" Sammy asked with a bit of concern, and Eiro just nodded his head, "He will. But it''s not good for Avalin to be wearing these the whole time like this. Don''t worry, I''ll do my best so that Felix won''t notice." The Demon pointed out, and Sammy nervously looked down at the young girl with a slight frown.


    And just then, Leon started slightly groaning and looked at Eiro, "Daddy... It''s scratching again..." He muttered quietly, and with no hesitation whatsoever, Eiro pushed his hand into the satchel by his side and pulled one of Leon''s bottles he had in there out of it. Right now, they split it up so that everyone here had easy ess to at least one bottle for either Sammy or Leon at any time, with Eiro carrying the rest of them with him for safekeeping.


    It''s been seven days again since Leon had to take the concoction thest time, so the Demon was already waiting for Leon to say something like this. Eiro pulled the bottle open and then looked at Leon, who was as ready toin as ever.


    "No! That icky thing..." Leon protested, but Eiro slowly took off his mask and looked at Leon with a light smile, "Don''t worry, you just have to drink this a couple more times and then never again, alright?"


    "Hmm..." The young boy groaned and tiredly looked at the bottle with the dark liquid inside of it, "Can I drink it for all the times I need to right now so that I don''t have to again?" He asked, but with a slight chuckle Eiro shook his head.


    "I wish you could. Come on, just to make the itch go away, alright?" Eiro told Leon, and he slowly nodded his head and had Eiro slowly held it up to Leon''s mouth. The boy''s face crumpled up in anticipation of this concoction''s taste, before Eiro slowly poured the bottle''s content into Leon''s mouth.


    Once it was all in there, Leon immediately held his hands in front of his mouth, but Eiro could tell that the concoction was still just sitting in there, "Come on, swallow, Leon." Eiro said reassuredly, and Leon slowly nodded his head and as if he had to force his whole body for this, quickly had the liquid flow down his throat.


    And after Eiro confirmed this was really the case, he smiled at Leon and rubbed his hand through his hair, "Good job. Here, have some water as well." Eiro suggested and pulled out a sk filled with water from his satchel before handing it to Leon, who quickly poured it into his mouth to get rid of the bad taste.


    "Thank you." Leon said after handing the sk back to Eiro, who simply ced it back into his bag and then put his mask back on.


    "Now, go back to ying with Avalin, alright?" The Demon suggested, before Leon just nodded his head quietly. At this point, it seemed like Felix managed to get a little bit of good firewood and brought it back to them.


    Eiro quickly received it and chose to ce it down properly in the firece he made, before grabbing the firesnappers that Armodeus gave him yesterday, cing them on his wooden fingers. With a loud snap, sparks flew outward that then turned into small mes that were simply pressed into the fire by Eiro.


    This received a little bit of attention from Felix, however, "How... How is your hand not catching fire? Or at least turning singed?"


    With a light shrug, Eiro looked at his wooden hand as he controlled the fire in the firece to slowly grow, "It''s a special type of wood. The same kind you use for some sorts of staffs. If you were a pyromancer with a mmable staff, that would be no good, right? But even then, the greatest staffs are still always made of wood." EIro pointed out, "It has a little bit to do with the mana that was poured into it to make the tree this woodes from grow in the first ce. Since mana is something that can be used to defy thews of nature, this same princible applies to this wood. It''s wood that doesn''t react to fire. Although, the only actual reason it''s like that is because of my affinity with the fire element, and..." The Demon kept exining, although he soon noticed that Felix was a little bit overwhelmed at hearing Eiro ramble on like that. So, he stopped and scratched the back of his head with a light chuckle.


    "Sorry, sorry, it''s a habit." Eiro apologized, but Felix immediately shook his head, "It''s fine, I-... I don''t mind, really." He replied quietly, and Eiro slowly nodded and turned around to head toward Rudy to see if he could help him any more, "Just ask anyone if there''s something you can help with if you get bored." The Demon suggested as he left, and Felix quietly just stood there, feeling as if everyone in the group was currently staring at him.


    Eiro knew that Felix was feeling ufortable, but the Demon would prefer him to be ufortable than dead. Weirdly enough, considering that just yesterday, Eiro was the one that wanted to kill Felix in the first ce.


    Either way, for now, Eiro just chose to help Rudy prepare food some more. It didn''t take them that long either, although it was a little bit prolonged throug Rudy trying to store whatever he could inside of the storage space he didn''t even know how to ess yet. Storage abilities were incredibly rare, so it was hard to find information about them. And especially since this was an ability that came from a Unique ss that Rudy could only get through hisbination of two extremely potent unique skills, there most likely was nobody that could answer any sort of question about this ability. They would just have to wait and see, basically.


    But either way, Rudy wasn''t the only one that got a new ability. And so, while they were eating, Eiro chose to ask everyone what their new abilities were.


    The first to speak up was Arc, who proudly exined the name of his ability, "It''s called Fadeout! I have no idea what it does, but it sounds cool!" He exined, and while Eiro thought that fadeout actually sounded weirdly like the ability of a berserker, which could be seen as fading out everything around you and attacking anything any everything in reach, he was sure it wasn''t going to turn out to be that... Or at least that''s what Eiro was hoping.


    Next, Sammy exined, "Mine is called ''Call of the Siren''. It''s obviously voice rted, but I don''t really know how..." She pointed out, and Eiro just slowly nodded. Even if she knew, she may not even be able to properly use it, since the skill that gave her that ss, and with that this ability, was currently not usable for her.


    "Mine is called ''Healer''s keen eye''!" Clementine eximed next, and finally there was an ability-name that seemed to exin what exactly the skill was about directly. Eiro slowly nodded his head with a relieved sigh that he could help somehow at least, "I''ve heard that some healers get the ability to discern different injuries from one another. It sounds to be something like that." The Demon exined, before Clementine just smiled at Eiro brightly.


    "Hehe, that would be great!" She replied happily, and Eiro just thought about it some more for a while. Maybe it would be something that lets her figure out what kinds of abilities would be troublesome to Clementine. Even if it should be nearly impossible for her to die even if she took over the wound of someone whose throat was cut, this was the kind of injury that brought a lot of other issues with it.


    Sure, she had an amazingpatibility with healing, so much that any of her wounds may be able to be healed instantly without any issues, but Eiro still didn''t want to see that cheerful young girl in pain like that.


    But while Eiro was still deep in thought, it seemed like Felix took it onto himself to try and integrate into the group, and then looked at Eiro with a nervous smile to try and start a conversation, "I know it might be none of my business, but what''s your ss? You seem to have gotten an interesting ability from it."

 Chapter 134 - Embarrassing?

    "My ss?" Eiro repeated after hearing Felix''s question, and the young man nervously nodded his head as everyone started looking at him, "Y-Yeah, or is that too much to ask..?" He inquired and Sammy, still mad from being messed with by Felix, immediately started ring at him.


    "You know what, yeah it is. Don''t ask about something that''s obviously none of your business." She said in an angry tone, and Felix slowly let his shoulders droop down as he looked at the ground. Eiro knew that Sammy was just trying to change the topic since Eiro didn''t have a ss, but it wasn''t like the Demon hadn''t thought about something like this before. And since Felix would be spending a fair amount of time with them from now on, Eiro didn''t want the kids to fight with each other all the time.


    "It''s fine, Sammy." Eiro said reassuredly as he looked over toward the girl next to him. He was aware that Sammy was also still mad at him, but at least she apparently tried her best to understand Eiro as well, "Thanks, though." The Demon smiled, even if Sammy couldn''t see it from under his mask, and Eiro then turned back toward Felix.


    "My ss is ''Collector''. It''s nothing special, really." Eiro exined, but it seemed like Felix was more than just impressed, "Collector?" He asked, obviously appreciating that Eiro answered him after all, and the Demon nodded his head in response.


    "Yes. From that, I got that storage ability." He pointed out. With a light smile, Felix nodded his head and then ended up looking back at the ground, "My ss-ability is something really unnecessary. It''s called ''Charmer''s Tongue''... It let''s me choose my words more easily, although it mostly just feeds me really embarrasing pick-up lines..." Felix admitted, and Eiro couldn''t help himself but slightly startughing.


    "Yeah, I noticed. They were quite... extraordinary." He pointed out, and Felix just started smiling wrily, "Hahah, yeah... I know, I''m sorry about that. That''s just how it ended up, really.. Despite that skill, I don''t actually have a highpatibility with the charmer-type ss." The boy exined, and to try and get him toe out of his shell that he hid in after yesterday, Eiro engaged that a bit more.


    "Really, then where is your real talent?" The Demon inquired, and with a light smile Felix kept looking at the ground, "Right, but... don''tugh, alright? It''s really embarrassing..."


    "Ahh, just tell us already!" Arc eximed, "It can''t be that bad!" Heughed a bit after seeing what Eiro was trying to do, seemingly attempting to help out a little.


    With a nervous expression, Felix nodded his head, "Erm... My biggest talents are in... p-painting and sculpting..." The boy exined with his eyes pressed shut, and it immediately fell silent, until Felix slowly opened his eyes just to seepletely confused expressions on the people around him.


    With a wry smile, Clementine looked at the others to see if they could confirm her thoughts, "And what''s embarrassing about that? I think that''s pretty cool, actually." She pointed out, and Felix was rather surprised to hear that before Rudy nodded his head immediately.


    "Yeah, definitely. I''m good with my hands, but I can only do things like cooking, sewing, basic carving, and so on. I''m not good at painting..." The boy pointed out, seemingly slightly jealous as he gave out a deep breath, and now Felix was the one that waspletely confused after hearing this.


    "What..?" He muttered out quietly, and Eiro quickly tried to get Felix''s attention. Underneath his mask, he was already frowning and ring immensely at the insinuation of what Felix just said.


    "Who told you that was something to be embarrassed about? If sculpting was embarrassing, then carving would be too. And I don''t feel embarrassed about what I do in the slightest. I don''t necessarily have a great eye for art, but from what I know, a good Painter is often seen as a treasure by nobles. I can''t see why it would be embarrassing, really." Eiro exined, and Felix immediately shook his head, trying to refute what he was just told.


    "No, no, but it''s really embarrassing, right? What you just said can''t be true, painters are just aughingstock to everyone, right? That''s what Fath...." Felix said, and then slowly stopped while trying to figure out which word to choose, "Enka said."


    "Should have figured." The Demon sighed deeply, trying to calm himself down again, "Just... We''ll figure something out so that you can work as a painter or sculptor if you want." Eiro suggested, but it seemed like Felix still wasn''t so sure.


    "Really..? Are you sure that it''s not weird?"


    "It''s not, don''t worry." The demon pointed out reassuredly and then slowly stood up from where he was sitting, "We''ll figure something out." He added, and slowly made his way over toward the carriage. Out of one of the boxes that were strapped on top of it, Eiro grabbed a small piece of wood and then made his way into the carriage to get a small carving knife.


    He made his way back over toward Felix and then just handed him the piece of wood and the knife, "Here. Whenever you want to, just try to carve into this a bit. As I said, sculpting and carving is pretty simr. So just try to figure out if it''s something you like doing." Eiro suggested and then sat back down, before Felix looked down at the two things in his hands and slowly turned back toward Eiro.


    "Thanks..." Felix replied quietly, before Eiro slightly sighed, "Don''t worry about it."


    From then on, it became a bit more quiet again, since the mood had turned slightly awkward after it was revealed to Felix that his dream-job actually wasn''t a useless and despised career-path, contrary to his prior belief, but a little whileter it seemed like everyone was done eating and the Aria were ready to go again as well. And so, they quickly started cleaning everything up while Arc and Clementine attached the two Aria to the carriage.


    But just when the others made their way back into the carriage, and Eiro carried the sleepy Avalin and Leon in there as well, Felix asked something that he was just so slightly concerned about.


    "You didn''t eat anything just now, right? Because of your mask?" Felix asked, and Eiro looked at him slightly surprised. He hadn''t expected that Felix would pay attention to something small like this, "I mean, you don''t have to hide whatever you''re hiding from me..."


    With a quick shake of his head, Eiro immediately refuted what Felix suggested, "Sorry, I just don''t think it''s something I can show you just yet. It''s better for both of us if you just don''t know anything about what''s under here, I''d say." The Demon exined, and Felix just so slightly nodded and frowned with a sad expression as he headed into the carriage as well. Why was Felix sad about not seeing Eiro''s face? Was it maybe that Felix knew Eiro didn''t trust him? It was obvious that Eiro wouldn''t immediately trust him, that would be the dumbest thing he could ever do, blindly trusting in someone that Eiro didn''t even know.


    With a bit of a grumble, Eiro just climbed onto the front of the carriage, since he would be driving during the night, while Lugo stretched a bit and stepped up right next to him, "Alright, try to keep up, alright bud?" The Demon asked with a smile, and once he received the bellowed response from the Stag, Eiro started to have the Aria move forward.


    It didn''t take too long for them to pick up in speed, although Lugo was obviously able to keep up more than just easily. So, Eiro started rxing a bit again and grabbed the small wooden box next to him where his food was currently in. Rudy had packed some of the leftovers from just now into it, and Eiro wholeheartedly enjoyed them after finally taking off his mask.


    And from then on, they just continued on for another six or so, incredibly uneventful hours until it was time for everyone to go to sleep. Arc and Clementine quickly made their way outside as well so that they could help Eiro bind the Aria to a nearby tree, before clementine headed back inside while Arc, Rudy, and Felix stayed outside and built a small tent onto the side of the carriage that they would be sleeping in tonight.


    Meanwhile, Eiro was just leaning against the rolled-up Lugo in front of a campfire and chose to stay up all night again to act as a lookout. He was the only one that could actually properly do so, after all. Considering the situation they were currently in, they couldn''t afford not to be on constant search for anything that might be possibly dangerous to them. Eiro was pretty sure they were going to be followed or something like that, after all.


    With his anger slowly growing inside of him again, Eiro could not help but think about what Enka might be doing right now, most likely just sitting there with a dumb expression on his face.


    ---


    "Are you kidding me? You lost them?!" Enka yelled out as he sat up properly after receiving the report from one of the guards, "That guy killed Irensen and kidnapped my own son, what the fuck are you talking about you ''lost them''?" He eximed and stood up as he hit the table in front of him.


    "Send out messages to any town in the country! There is a bounty on that guy''s head. Try and figure out what a good number is yourself." The man growled deeply, and the Guard nervously nodded his head.


    "O-Of course, Sir Markos! Dea-"


    "Alive! Preferably near-dead, I want him to suffer!" The Chief Warrior yelled out with anger in his voice, anger that none of these guards here could tell was absolutely fake. Sure, Enka was a little surprised that Eiro managed to get away like that, but that didn''t matter in the end. He would end up dead, and Enka could get Eiro''s cards, hopefully.


    Soon, the guards currently in the room left to let Enka get rid of his anger alone, and the chief warrior just groaned the moment they left, "Finally. How bothersome." He sighed deeply.


    "Ah, it''s pretty hard to keep the act of a caring father up, isn''t it?" The voice of a mature, but still quite young-looking woman pointed out. With a slight turn of his head, Enka soon spotted the one that this voice came from, "Oh, what a pleasure. What exactly do I have to thank for the sudden visit of the great bloodstone sorceress?"


    "Don''t you be that condescending with me, boy." The woman warned, but Enka just slightlyughed and turned toward her properly, "Condescending? I would never dare. It was a serious question, you see?" He asked, but the woman just looked back at him with an unamused smile.


    "You let a Demon run off with your son." She pointed out, "You can''t even take care of such a measly being on your own. I just wanted to see if there was any reason for this, or if you were truly as useless as I assumed."


    "Demon?" Enka chuckled, "Sure, he was a bit extreme in his actions, but in no means was he a demon. A title like that rather belongs to someone like you, doesn''t it?" The man pointed out with his artificial smile that didn''t change in the slightest the moment she entered the room out of quite literally nowhere.


    "I should have figured. You can control fools, but you yourself are not much better." She exined disappointedly, "I meant what I said quite literally. That thing was a Demon, boy. Or to be more specific, an Imp of all things.. You were tricked by a demon with intelligence that should be not much more than that of a fish."

 Chapter 135 - Spirit Barrage

    With an annoyed grumble, Eiro opened his eyes and sat up properly. He was currently leaning onto Lugo''s antlers and took a bit of a nap to make up for the sleep he didn''t getst night, "Morning!" Arc eximed from the carriage, and Eiro tiredly nodded his head, altough he soon grew rather surprised.


    "Why is Avalin out here with you?" The Demon asked, and the young girl immediately waved her tiny hand at him, "Hello daddy!" She eximed, and Eiro sighed deeply and slighlty lifted his mask to show Avalin a smile as well, "Hello there Avalin!" He replied before dropping his mask onto his face again and waited for Arc''s exnation.


    It was getting colder and colder at the moment, and it seemed like the first snow would being rtively soon as well, so Eiro didn''t necessarily want Avalin to be out here like this. She mostly had dresses and not that many thicker clothes, after all.


    "She just wanted to be out here for a while, and I couldn''t say no." The young manughed, before Eiro shook his head disappointedly, "Right. How far along are we?" The Demon inquired to change the topic. After all, he did kind of understand where Arc wasing from... He could have just told Arc to stop to then bring Avalin back into the carriage, but she just had such a happy smile on her face that he couldn''t bring himself to.


    "Ehh, we''re near thatrgeke that''s on the map now, I think. We could see it pretty well a while ago." Arc pointed out, before Eiro slowly closed his eyes and chose to figure out if he could notice theke, something that he managed to confirm nearly immediately after hearing the sound of the water from a river running into it, together with the slightly muddy, somewhat rancid smell of stagnant water.


    "Then we should be getting close to a town soon. We should stock up on fresh ingredients." The Demon pointed out, and then tried topare the terrain to what he remembered on the maps that he looked at of this area, "There should be a split in the path a couple minutes from now, just take the right path. There''s a town built right next to theke."


    "Got it." Arc replied quickly, and Eiro thought about how far away from the town they were right now. Luckily though, it seemed like Avalin was already wearing her contact lenses at the moment, so Eiro didn''t really have to worry about having to stop before getting to the town to put them into her eyes.


    The thing that Eiro was still worrying about the most, however, was something quite different. What he was worried about was the fact that over the past few days, he started noticing more and more that they were being pursued. A couple of times, there were some scouts that tried to find their position, and nearly did, but Eiro got rid of them pretty quickly and tried to hide their dead bodies.


    Sure, he managed to level up once, but other than that, all of this spelled out really, really bad news. He put the ten stat points he got from that level-uppletely into perception, which boosted the range at which he could notice others a fair bit more. It gave him a slight headache for a few hours, but by evening, it was all gone again.


    They just really had to hurry up and get to this town as quickly as they could, get whatever they needed to, and keep moving within an hour or two.


    Once the group reached the town, it seemed like news of the fact that Eiro was heading in this direction didn''t reach this ce yet. Or at least nobody really suspected Eiro of anything, despite him being quite hard to miss, really. Especially the carriage and the two Aria attracted some fair attention.


    Eiro had Arc park the carriage in front of a grocery store while he himself went inside and made the order, just so slightly rxing as he did so. The shop seemed to have all that they needed in store, so they would be able to get going even sooner than Eiro had hoped. But while the store clerk was getting the order together, the Demon noticed something else that was rather troublesome currently going on in this smallke-side town.


    He had noticed it before already as well, but there were seemingly quite a few naiads living in thiske, and they were currently making their way through the town toward where Eiro himself currently was. With a slight frown, the Demon turned over to the side to look at the spirit currently in the inbetween-space and waited for her to say something about it.


    "What? Eiro, you have a blessing from the former Naiad Queen and from the Lady of Winter, who corresponds to the water element. You think you wouldn''t be attractive to Naiads?" She asked, and with a deep grumble, Eiro turned toward the store clerk.


    "Just asking, but are Naiads some sort of special existence in this town?" Eiro asked, and the clerk looked back at him rather surprised. "Special existence? I wouldn''t say so, no... Not more special than spirits are anywhere else, I''d assume? We simply know more about them than other ces, since there''s so many living nearby." The clerk exined, and Eiro nodded his head with a relieved sigh.


    "Good." The Demon pointed out before turning around, "Just bring the order outside, if you can. I''ll be waiting there." Eiro announced and quickly made his way out to the streets again while annoyedly standing next to the carriage looking into the direction of where he noticed the maybe dozen or so spirits approaching where he was currently standing.


    "Eiro? Everything alright?" Rudy asked with a slightly concerned expression as he saw him standing there, and Eiro just slightly shrugged in response, "I don''t know yet." He pointed out. And just a few momentster, the people that were walking around on the streets until nowpletely stopped and just looked at the sight of all these spirits floating through town, something that was anything but natural for them to do.


    "Now, now, what do we have here~?" A female naiad, the one that reached Eiro first, asked loudly and slowly ran her fingers over his chest, "Hey boy, you interested in forming a contract?" She asked in a seductive tone, despite being only half a meter tall and made mostly of water.


    But the next moment, another naiad joined, this time a male naiad, that floated up to Eiro''s back and leaned over his shoulder as if hanging from it, "As if he would want to form a contract with a bitch like you! He needs a man to show him the way, doesn''t he~?"


    From then on, the ten other spirits as well all tried to cling to Eiro and convince him to form a contract with them, while the demon himself was just ring at the spirit that was constantly hidden from their sight whileughing her ass off.


    With a deep grumble, Eiro closed his eyes and started to speak, "If you keep touching me, I''m going to turn you into broth, you miscreant spirits." The Demon pointed out, immediately making the dozen naiads freeze up in their actions, "Wh-What..?" One of them asked confusedly. Seemingly nobody had ever spoken to them in this way before.


    "You heard me, fuck off and go sleep in your disgusting, stinking water and leave me alone. I already have a contracted spirit." Eiro announced, and the naiads slowly turned around and saw Nelli floating there.


    "Ehh...? You''re already contracted to a spirit...?" One of the naiads muttered disappointedly, although one of them was rather suspicious about it, "But then why are you speaking to us in such a disrespectful manner? We spirits are-"


    "Complete fucking idiots that can''t even tell if someone has an equal-basis contract already? Yeah, I know. Now leave us alone, or make yourselves useful and clean your home up a bit." Eiro told them, and all the spirits immediately stared at Eiro and Nelli confusedly.


    "Equal-basis? You really formed an equal-basis contract with a dem-" One of the naiads asked, but Eiro swiftly pulled his dagger beforehand and held it right in front of its body to interrupt it, "Don''t you dare finish that sentence. I know that you''re aware of who, and what, I am. But if you dare mutter a word of it, you won''t be turned into broth, but bathwater instead."


    "Alright, alright! I get it!" The spirit yelled out loudly, "Just ce that damn thing away!" It eximed angrily. "Damn... Really could have used such a useful contract... what a waste, an equal-basis contract with someone like that... I bet its mana tastes just amazing~!" Another muttered disappointedly, but Eiro just kept ring at them. However, just then, it seemed like one of the spirits had an idea.


    "Oh! I think there''s some people on the other side of theke looking for this guy..." The naiad pointed out, and Eiro immediately red at it, "Don''t you dare."


    "Hmm, don''t I dare what~?" The spirit asked cheekily, "I have an idea... how about you two break off the contract, and then you form a contract with me instead? Otherwise, a group of certain people might find out where you are~..." The naiad threatened, and Eiro grumbled deeply.


    "Ahh... You know what, fine. All of you spirits that are interested in contracting me, juste with me." The Demon said, just annoyedly looking over at Nelli to make sure she understood what Eiro was going to do, and then looked over at the children, "I already paid for everything. Get out of town once you have what I bought, I''ll be right behind you then." Eiro announced, "Lugo,e." He added, and then started to make his way over toward a ce that had a lot less people around, even if there were quite a few following them at the moment. The thing that Eiro cared about most was that there weren''t any Guards around.


    For maybe half an hour, Eiro tried to stall for time, simply telling the spirits random, bullshit tasks that they should do to be chosen as Eiro''s next spirit. From their perspective, one of them definitely would end up being contracted since Eiro didn''t want their position to be told to his pursuers, but from Eiro''s perspective... there was obviously no chance. He was just fucking with them because they annoyed him.


    But soon enough, the children rode the carriage out of the town again, and Eiro started lightly smiling.


    "Alright,st task for you that will decide on who gets to form a contract with me." Eiro said, and the one who all the spirits assumed to be in lead, the oldest amongst them, slowly moved forward toward Eiro, "Of course we all know who that will be. Come on, tell me what to do." The male naiad pointed out, and Eiro sighed deeply and grabbed his dagger from his side and just stabbed it forward into the naiad''s body.


    Something that not many people knew was that a spirit''s life force didn''t decrease no matter what, as long as they still had mana. Over the past half hour, Eiro had been trying to constantly decrease the mana they had in their bodies by giving them useless dumb tasks. Like this, they couldn''t attack him either since they didn''t have any more mana to spare. Since they were this far away from the actualke, they couldn''t easily replenish their mana either.


    And so, Eiro started rapidly attacking this spirit''s body, splitting it apart over and over again, while the spirit was struggling to keep its body together. It ended up using up thest bit of its mana and soon fell to the ground in the form of a puddle.


    [Lethal damage done to Narciss Nockt Narim]


    [You have leveled up!]

 Chapter 136 - Bloodlust

    "Hmm, Spirits give quite a lot of experience, huh?" Eiro muttered to himself quietly, and Nelli just groaned in response and looked at the demon as if it was obvious, "Of course, we spirits are special, you know? And usually it wouldn''t be this easy to kill a spirit, but... these guys are idiots, apparently." She pointed out, and Eiro immediately nodded his head and pushed his hand forward to grab an item out of his treasury, the spark-snapper, and then ced it onto his fingers.


    "Oh, definitely." The Demon replied, "Then let''s indulge a little, shall we?" Eiro suggested, and then just casually snapped his fingers to create some small sparks that immediately spiked up into proper mes that Eiro used to wrap the bodies of the leftover spirits that were too slow to properly react.


    And of course, Eiro didn''t just try to heat up their bodies with his mes, an action that would keep draining their mana more and more, but he also kept going in to sh at them with his two daggers. It was a little awkward to figure out the proper tactic to wielding two of them at once, but his body was soon just able to react on its own basically.


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have leveled up!]


    The notifications kept popping up as Eiro continued managing to kill most of the rest of the spirits, even if one of them was seemingly especially evasive. Eiro tried hunting it down as quickly as possible while evading the people that lived in this town as they were staring at the demon in horror.


    It didn''t really seem like the spirit would be able to reach theke as soon as it was probably hoping to, since Eiro could already start seeing the notifications that he was causing actual damage to it in front of his eyes.


    Eiro''s dagger was just about to stab through its body onest time, when the demon justpletely tensed up. It was as if he was suddenly hit by some petrifying attack, something that forced him to stand still.


    But in reality, it was just that Eiro picked up a tiny bit of a scent. A scent that somehow now made Eiro so disgusted that he was unable to keep his body from physically reacting to how bad it reeked. It was worse than anything that could and would rot, anything that Eiro usually couldn''t stand to be around. And this was many, many times worse. Although, it probably wasn''t that bad, it was just the smell of a ''regr'' person.


    It was just that exactly that smell made something boil up in Eiro. It was something that he really hadn''t ever experienced before. Wait... no, that was wrong. He actually experienced it many times before, there was just a rather big difference now.


    As Eiro''s chest starting practically burning and ripping up, he could spot thest naiad diving into theke while Eiro saw arge tower of mes spark up in the distance on the other side of the body of water.


    And that was just when he realized what scent made him so... angry.


    He was starting to hear whispers in his ears although he didn''t actually find the source of where exactly those whispers came from. Where they even really there? Was Eiro imagining them? Was someone here? What was Eiro doing here? Why was he... Why was he... why was he...


    [The Mark of Wrath is speaking to you. It''s telling you to get rid of the source of your anger]


    "Source of... my anger..?" Eiro muttered thoughtlessly as he looked at the notification,pletely ignoring the sound of Nelli trying to make him snap out of it while guards were approaching the Demon.


    But Eiro could only do one thing right now. His whole mind, his whole being was upied trying to figure out what the source of his anger was.


    And then, it simply clicked as one of the guards approached Eiro, thinking that his ''Rampage'' was over and he gave up. The guard''s weapon was lowered so that he could properly apprehend Eiro.


    But the very next moment, the guard instead found a sharp pain in his chest as the Demon stabbed his dagger through the thin cloth acting as the guard''s ''protection'' at the moment.


    "Ah, I know... I''m angry because I''m weaker than him... because someone stronger than me was trying to take everything away again..." Eiro said as a quiet chuckle took over his whole body and a broad grin covered half of his face, "Can you help me with that..." The demon started as he slowly turned toward the guard that was just standing there withpletely mad eyes that prated the guard''s self despite them being hidden by Eiro''s mask. It was like their whole existence terrified him. And that just grew more when Eiro finished his sentence, "...my little bag of experience?"


    The next moment, before anyone else knew it, Eiro pushed the dagger inside of the guard''s chest further inside until it basically got stuck inbetween the crack of the guard''s bones after Eiro pierced through them into his heart.


    Eiro naturally let go and held his hand in front of the guard''s face before proceeding to just snap. The spark-snapper that was still strapped into his fingers caused a spark to appear that was immediately sparked up intorge mes that practically devoured the guard''s face. And when his body slowly dropped to the ground, the smell of burnt hair and the sound of boiling blood and ripping skin filling the air, Eiro set his sight on a notification.


    And this one was rather weird. The box itself was blood-red, so much that Eiro for a moment was unsure if it wasn''t just some actual sttered blood, but he was soon pulled out of that thought when the royal-blue writing started sticking out to him.


    [The Mark of Wrath has set you into a state of bloodlust. Until this state subsides, you will start losing health if you don''t cause enough damage to others]


    [Bloodlust will cause all your stats and basic damage to increase considerably, but the damage you receive will increase simrly. The longer you are in a state of bloodlust, the higher the negative effects on your own body will be]


    In the end, while Eiro read through these notifications a couple of times, he didn''t really register it. Sure, there was a deep pain in the center of his body, and yes he did feel it, but at the same time he didn''t. It was like he knew it was there and how painful it was, but it was simply... numb. Beside the heat that felt like Eiro was about to burn up, there really wasn''t any pain.


    Eiro looked down at his body to make sure he didn''t really somehow take any damage to his actual body, but since he was fine, he just kept looking around, even if he felt that something rather annoying was obstructing him right now.


    With one hand on his mask, and the other on his cloak, Eiro just pulled both off of him and ced them into his treasury at the same time while unwrapping his tail from around his waist, "Much better..." The Demon muttered quietly and started pulling off his glove from his left hand while getting rid of his shoes as well. He just somehow felt like he didn''t need them.


    And he even let go of his satchel for a while, even if he simply strapped it onto the bag that Lugo was carrying on his body for a moment. The next moment, while the heat in his body increased, Eiro stepped up to the body of the guard he just killed and pushed one of his feet onto his chest to pull the dagger out properly.


    With a satisfied, crazed expression, Eiro looked around as a small card appeared in his hands before the card disappeared in a bright light and Eiro was suddenly wearing two rings on his left hand and two on his right hand.


    The ring around his left hand''s index finger was connected to the de of Eiro''s newer hollow dagger, while the ring around his right hand''s index finger was connected to his regr dagger. And as Eiro started looking around the guards of this small town, all of which were justpletely overwhelmed by such a situation, the Demon showed his teeth in a mad grin.


    This town was usually rather peaceful, actually. Especially because of the fact that there were so many spirits living in thiske, although that number had now dwindled a fair amount, not that many monsters approached this town anyway, so the guards were both inexperienced and low-leveled. Sure, at least they received some basic training and managed to level up a little bit through that, but the majority of these people was never in a real fight before. And now there was suddenly this blood-crazed demon standing in front of them? There was no way they would be able to instantly put up a good fight against Eiro.


    And without saying anything else, the Demon just started. He took one step forward and the water that used to make up the bodies of the naiads that Eiro killed gathered around him and started to bubble up while it floated above him.


    That boiling, highly magical water then immediately flew toward the three guards standing in front of Eiro. He tried his best to keep the water boiling while it was being pushed into guards'' bodies, of course, just because that would cause more damage than ice for now.


    But the moment that he managed to push through their skin, Eiro started freezing the water up inside of the guards'' bodies and had the ice spread through their whole being. Finally a few of the guards actually ran up to Eiro to kill him, but the demon was one step ahead of them. He already jumped toward those guards and started pushing the three of des into two of the guards'' bodies and jumped directly onto the third, andst, of this group of guards with his feet forward.


    The moment that his feet had a solid base on this guard''s chest, since he was the heaviest of them all, Eiro just kicked off backward while making his des swing upward. And as two heads were flying through the air, the Demon easily caught himself and used the next moment to jump toward the first of the three guards who he was trying to kill slowly with the naiads'' bodies, while Nelli was just there watching for a while to let Eiro do his thing.


    And the ''thing'' that this demon was going for right now was utter ughter. He moved two two rings from his right hand to his left and made the threads wrap around his fingers so that he had basically four literal dagger-sharp ws that he used to rip into the face of one of the guards while pushing his other hand to pull the ice out of the guard''s body.


    He was already dead, and Eiro just ripped right across the guard''s face one more time just because he felt like it and slowly started truly being swallowed up by his bloodlust at that point.

 Chapter 137 - Attempt Successful

    Skin was ripped apart, blood sttered onto the ground. Bones cracked and bodies fell. More and more, the air was being filled by the smell of burnt flesh and hair, while the histerical, panicking screams became less and less.


    But just when Eiro was about to rip into a corpse because it was still twitching a bit, the Demon noticed something else. The sound of metal rubbing against metal became louder, and in general there were a lot of footsteps suddenly approaching him. With a broad grin on his face, Eiro turned toward the source to indulge in the buffet of experience currently approaching him.


    Basically on all fours, Eiro climbed over the crates and barrels that people tried to block his path with and jumped onto the roofs to keep running on. The moment he saw the slightest reflection of light bouncing off of some metal armor, Eiro jumped toward the source of that reflection and pushed his ''ws'', which were basically just the des of the three of swords, deep through the thin metal of the armor.


    It was working perfectly with the guards from before, the few that actually wore proper armor, but now... Eiro''s and got stuck in the armor. He looked forward at the man the armor belonged to and soon saw him swing his arm downward toward him with a mace in his hand.


    The attack was heavily weakened by the shield of water that Nelli created for Eiro of course, but the Demon still had to think about what to do next. But he couldn''t think now. His body was just working on instinct at this point. So with his hand stuck in the man''s armor, the Demon used this safe point and swung his right leg over the man''s left shoulder, behind his head, and then over his right shoulder and then pulled him up so that he was basically sitting on the soldier''s shoulders.


    They were basically being encapsuled in a thickyer of water created by Nelli so that none of the attacks from other people could get through, but Eiro didn''t care too much about what was going on around him anyway. Eiro slung his legs around the soldier''s throat and pressed the fingers of his right hand into the slit in his helmet meant to make it so that he could look outside and pulled on it as hard as he could to take the helmet off, before proceeding to simply pull the mana out of the three of swords.


    Eiro''s two daggers kept being stuck in the armor, but for that he had both of his hands free now while reactivating the card again. The four des that appeared on Eiro''s left hand now immediately dug into the bottom of the soldier''s head, through his mouth into his brain, to make him fall down. And as Eiro ripped his hand to the side and blood sttered over his skin again, the Demon just pulled out both daggers that were stuck in the soldier''s body like this.


    But he didn''t get far enough with his thoughts to consider connecting the three of swords'' des with the two daggers again. Instead, he just held them normally in his hands on top of wielding the des from the three of swords, and his rampage continued.


    He jumped out through the capsule of water that Nelli created and ripped apart one of the mages that had stepped forward to try and counter that water shield nearly immediately, and while this gave some people a chance to attack Eiro, since he felt near to no pain at the moment he didn''t really care all that much.


    The Demon just kept attacking anything and everything in his sight.


    "Wh-What is this?!" One of the soldiers yelled out loudly, "Wasn''t it supposed to be an imp? An Imp can''t move like that!" He screamed, seeing his fellow men drop to the ground as their life was taken from them.


    "Priests, do something!" Another eximed toward the three people dressed in white and golden robes in the back of the group, who were already nervously praying and chanting. As if that soldier''s plead was something they needed to proceed, all three together held their golden staffs forward toward Eiro as a glowing magic circle started forming in the air.


    And the moment that magic circle was activated, a bright shine filled the whole ce they were currently in, and everyone looked away after being blinded. This was the first attack that even Eiro realized he had to be careful because of.


    The holy energy kept burning away at his skin just so slightly, but this kind of injury was one that could be healed rather easilyter on. But since for some reason, his bane didn''t stun him, he could get past this as long as he managed to kill the priests quickly.


    The thing that did mess him up even more, however, was this incredibly bright light that made it impossible for him to keep his eyes open. "Now, attack!" One of the priests yelled out, "He''s stunned!"


    The moment that one of the soldiers approached Eiro to attack him, he found that... Eiro wasn''t actually stunned. He was madly swinging his arms around into the direction where he remembered the priests being, and since these were attacks without logic made with the rather long reach and speed of the three of swords, the soldier was unable to defend against it properly and soon fell to the ground after his face was cut open.


    "N-No, but... how?!" The head-priest cried out while the other two were already starting to turn around to run away from this demon that was seeminglyrgely unaffected by holy energy. But soon, the head-priest couldn''t find out the answer anymore, as he had his chest ripped open by the three of swords and fell to the ground just to have his skull cracked open by a single strong kick by Eiro.


    The other two priests weren''t much better off, because neither of them died in a very pretty or pleasant manner either. As Eiro was standing there above the ripped-up bodies of these two priests, Nelli started to get to healing theyer of skin that was just singed away by the holy light, which had disappeared after all the priests were killed.


    Eiro''s heavy breathingbined with his broad grin only a lunatic could have in this situation seemed to really do a number on everyone. While they were well-trained and -equipped soldiers, not even they could ignore this scene of gore around them caused by this single being.


    But luckily, it seemed like they didn''t have to really worry anymore. With heavy steps that seemed to echo through the eerily quiet environment, a certain man stepped up toward the Demon.


    His sleeves were singed and his skin was covered in soot, while his messy red hair hung down into his face. It was the one whose scent initiated this whole thing in the first ce. So with an expression of disgust on his face, Eiro turned around and looked at Enka who was ring back at Eiro. It was obviously just an act, but the Demon didn''t care about it all that much.


    The very next moment, Eiro jumped toward him with all the force he could muster. But while Eiro was still in the middle of the air, it was as if the whole worldpletely froze up and the only one that was capable of still moving was Enka. Seemingly quite casually, he stepped forward toward Eiro and ced his hand onto the Demon''s chest.


    "Sorry ''bout this. But let''s y a little for now, shall we?" Enka suggested, beforerge mes surged up all around the man''s body and seemingly flowed into Eiro''s body.


    And you would have missed it if you blinked, but the next moment Eiro''s body was smashing into the wall of a building on the far side of the za while giant mes covered the path that the Demon took.


    [-25.125 Health]


    [Warning! You health is running low!]


    [Attempting to forcefully shut down Bloodlust...]


    [Attempt failed]


    [Attempting to forcefully shut down Bloodlust...]


    [Attempt failed]


    [Attempting to...]


    ...


    ...


    [Attempt failed]


    [Taking 70 from total of 290 avable stat points to increase willpower to 100]


    [Your Willpower has passed the 100 Point Mark! <Iron Will> Ability gained!]


    [Iron Will ¨C An ability that increases resistance against negative mental maniption]


    [Attempting to forcefully shut down Bloodlust...]


    [Attempt sessful. Bloodlust has been shut down]


    All of a sudden, Eiro''s mind cleared up again. His whole body was aching incredibly, to the point where he was practically unable to properly move right now, but at least he could think clearly again. Well, maybe it would have been better if he couldn''t think clearly. Like this, he now had to face the result of the murder-spree that he went on. And those results really weren''t pretty to see.


    The streets that were paved in gray rock were now basicallypletely red and ck from the blood. If there was enough free space to even see the ground underneath the dead bodies, organs, and loose body-parts.


    It really wasn''t a nice sight. Eiro didn''t really care that so many people died in the end, he had little to no sympathy for those that he didn''t know after all, but he didn''t like that he did it without actually being under control of himself. That part about it felt just incredibly wrong, and that was all that Eiro could describe it as.


    And then, there was of course Enka. Eiro was still feeling incredibly disgusted and pissed off just by seeing him here, but what was even worse was the fact that he so easily managed to injure the Demon like this. At least, he could immediately find whatever item let him attack Eiro like that as if he was slowing down time, it was the earring on his left ear. It seemed like Nelli also noticed that there was something going on with that and confirmed it immediately after she caught up to Eiro.


    But rather, the Demon himself managed to figure that part out in a different way. The earring had a weird feeling to it. It was simr to the feeling that others that had a card gave off, but it just came from the earring itself. Eiro didn''t like it in the slightest. He knew it was dangerous, but he couldn''t just run off and follow the others now. Now when Enka was literally in front of him. It was just too dangerous. Maybe he should get on Lugo''s back and ride in some other random direction?


    That was a good idea, there was just one fatal w with it. The stag was nowhere to be seen. At first Eiro wasn''t sure where exactly he was, which was weird because you usually had at least a vague idea of where your familiar was if you properly went through the ceremony. Although it didn''t take long until Eiro figured out where exactly Lugo was.


    He was near where the children should be right now, but there was something bothering Eiro. Lugo was currently not following the children, but he was returning to Eiro, and at an incredibly fast pace as that.


    "What''s that idiot doing?" The Demon muttered quietly to himself as he turned toward the direction were he sensed Lugo to be, although before he could somehow do anything else, Enka approached him again.


    "Oh? Ignoring me now? I actually feel kind of insulted..." He said with a light smirk. It seemed like all the soldiers had retreated a fair bit by now to treat those that were only injured by Eiro, so Enka simply chose to drop the act.


    "C''Mon, where''s the kids? If you just tell me, I''m going to let you go, you know?" Enka pointed out, but Eiro immediately red back at him while grinding his teeth against each other, making Enka simply chuckle, "Was worth a try. But honestly, I was pretty surprised when I was told you were actually an Imp.. You guys are supposed to be good at trickery, right? But I wasn''t aware you were the kind of demon that kidnapped kids."

 Chapter 138 - Upgrades

    Enka''s voice kept ringing through Eiro''s ears, as if he had been screaming right next to his head. But that was all it was, he really didn''t feel influenced by his voice all that much. <The Devil> mentioned that ''artificial'' monsters like Eiro were supposed to have a naturally high willpower value. Now that it was brought to 100, together with that extra ability, it seemed to be enough to resist Enka''s ''Charming Voice'' skill like this.


    "I don''t know what you''re talking about. Did we meet before?" The Demon asked with a light grin as he slowly stood up. When he ced too much weight on his left leg, he nearly fell down again though. Eiro barely noticed through all the pain that the Bloodlust had put him under, but it seemed like his leg was broken. The central part of the blessing''s mark that was on his chest waspletely gone as well, just reced by burnt up skin and blood.


    "Oh really? I didn''t think there''d be that many Imps with three cards around these parts. Weird." Enka replied with a light smile on his face, but Eiro just stared back at him with a deep re. He was aware that it would be useless to try and hide it, since Enka was obviously more than just confident in his information, "How do you know?"


    With a light smirk, Enka looked at Eiro and ced his hands behind his back, "Right, I was told you''d be quite knowledge-hungry. Then let me give you a bit of a treat for now." He pointed out, and then proceeded to exin something that made it obvious to Eiro that Enka''s ''promise'' from before wasplete bullshit. After all, there was no way Enka would let someone with such vital, obviously secret information go freely.


    "You see, the organization I''m part of has a lot of really great researchers. They were able to create mock-versions of the half-dozen cards we have. And of course, that means they would also be capable of recreating the most basic ability anyone with a card has, and that is to sense the cards other people have." Enka exined, and Eiro slightly narrowed his eyes. Then what he felt from that earring really was the vibe a card gave off. A card to stop time, huh..?


    "Well then, thanks for telling me how I can get six more cards in the future." The Demon said, and Enka seemed to be quite amused, "I think just to make this fair, I should give you some information about me as well." He figured, and Enka seemed actually slightly intrigued.


    "Hmm, interesting. Go on." Enka replied, and Eiro just lightly smirked.


    "My stats. 197 Strength, 98 Constitution, 181 Resistance, 245 Agility, 76 Evasion, 196 Dexterity, 159 Intelligence, 144 Wisdom, 102 Perception, 71 Willpower, and 265 Charisma." Eiro said in a clear tone, although he suddenly held his hand up to his mouth in shock, "Oh no! Sorry, I made a bit of a mistake there, those aren''t my stats, they''re-"


    "Mine..." Enka interrupted with a deep re, "How do you know my stats?" The man asked, seemingly slightly losing hisposure.


    With a light grin, Eiro just held out his index finger and pulled the skin on his right eye lower, "I have pretty good eyesight, you know?" He pointed out, and Enka immediately managed to realize what exactly was going on.


    "You''re trying to tell me that when you asked me to open my status, you used that chance to read the reflection in my eyes?" Enka asked, and with a bit of a grin, Eiro nodded his head, "That''s exactly it." He replied.


    "And now, let me tell you the conclusion I''vee to." The Demon said, "It seems to be a family tradition to beat your child into obedience. But because you were never allowed to, you have no idea how to dodge. You probably physically can''t. Trauma''s a bitch, aye? Your horrendously low willpower goes to show that you have some issues going on. Sure, you seem pretty smart, but that, together with agility, dexterity, and charisma are probably just the natural increases you get through your ss. ''Charming Pugilist'' seems to be a pretty interesting one, by the way."


    "Shut it." Enka said in amanding tone, but Eiro slightly shook his head in response, "I''d rather not, but thanks for the suggestion." He replied.


    While grinding his teeth, Enka just red at Eiro once more, "I said to shut your mouth." This time around, Enka''s voice made Eiro''s head justpletely dizzy. The world started twisting around, and the Demon had a hard time ripping apart his lips.


    But instead, Eiro chose to do something pretty different. He opened his status and immediately pushed thirty more points into resistance, his by far lowest stat so far, and increased it to 50, just to get a little bit more of an edge in that sense. It wasn''t by much, but resistance also helped out mental resistance a bit. However, the stats that by far would help him out the most in this situation were two others.


    Eiro pushed 90 points into wisdom, and 85 points into intelligence, and brought both of them to 200.


    [Your Intelligence has passed the 200 Point Mark! <Though Processing> Ability upgraded to <Fast Thought Processing>!]


    [Your Wisdom has passed the 200 Point Mark! <Speed Learning> Ability upgraded to <Speedier Learning>!]


    With a grin on his face, Eiro looked forward at the top of his status.


    [Name ¨C Eiro][Race ¨C Ice Blue Collector Imp][Level ¨C 35]


    [Health ¨C 6.423/30.750][Mana ¨C 40.135/77.500]


    He had nearly double the mana that he had this morning. Seems like despite the murderous spree he had no control of, he managed to get quite a lot of levels out of today. It seemed rather surreal to him how many he got, actually.


    But that didn''t matter right now. Because of his new stats, the rate at which his mana replenished was far higher as well. And the mana that he was pushing through his body in a circle with the help of his tail definitely helped with that as well. Eiro just had to hold on a bit longer so that he could figure out what he should best do to at least have a chance against Enka.


    His body was a mess right now, so there was no way that he would be able to actually do anything against him if it came to a physical fight. Nelli was doing her best to heal Eiro a bit right now, but even that would take a fair while.


    But luckily, Eiro already had a good idea of what he could use to fight. The water that used to make up the bodies of the naiads mixed together with the blood of the people that Eiro killed, making it a lot easier to manipte it all. The Demon kept pretending as if Enka''s words actually managed to control him, while the man himself seemed to slowly approach Eiro thinking that he had won this thing already anyway.


    "Now, as I said before, tell me where the fuck the kids are." Enka said in amanding tone, but his words just caused nothing more than a slight ringing in Eiro''s ears.


    Slowly, the Demon made sure to spread his mana out as much as he could, making it travel through the blood to reach any possible part while pulling anything that was further away closer toward Eiro and Enka already.


    "They''re... near theke..." Eiro announced, acting as if he was forced to, and Enka slowly turned around to look at therge body of water. However, Eiro used that chance for something else. He moved the tip of his tail directly behind his own back and then used it to take out one of his cards out of his treasury before activating it. The liquid inside of the ace of cups quickly was taken control of while Eiro made the cup itself disappear into the card again while the card disappeared inside of his treasury.


    And as Enka was still looking at theke, Eiro made the ck liquid move underneath the dark red blood while slowly mixing in with it.


    The man slowly turned around, even if he noticed something weird going on at the moment, "You just took out one of your cards, didn''t you? Answer me truthfully." He asked with a deep re with as much mana infused into his voice as seemingly possible, and Eiro just naturally replied, "No, I haven''t."


    It seemed like since Enka thought Eiro was actually under control, the man just figured something went wrong for a moment there. And while the blood from the corpses around herepletely disappeared from Enka''s perception without him realizing that there was supposed to be blood here, the Demon just lightly smiled as Enka turned back away from Eiro for a moment.


    "Fine. Come on, show me where exactly they-" Enkamanded and turned his head back to look at the Demon, although at that moment he had to notice that he was suddenly just gone.


    Eiro had covered his body in a thinyer of the mixture of naiad-water, blood, and the Ace of Cup''s potion. It practically just made him disappear from Enka''s sight, and that''s all that he needed for now.


    Seeing that Enka was freaking out over where Eiro suddenly disappeared to, the Demon turned toward his Spirit, who could still perceive Eiro as well as the special liquid he was covered in, and tried to let her know to do anything she could to distract Enka for a moment on the other side of the za.


    She quickly did as asked and floated over there just to cause a little bit of noise using her water by throwing it against a wall at a high speed. Enka turned around and stared at the source of the sound, and with an annoyed voice eximed, "I was gonna let you leave, but now you''ll just have to die. I''ll find those kids without needing your help!" He eximed, and Eiro just looked at Enka''s back as he made his way over to the other side of the za, and then quietly stepped along the side of the building to properly reposition to somewhere where he could get a proper advantage.


    Of course this was pretty hard to do while dragging his leg, but because he could somewhat help his movement out with the water and blood around him, it was fine. He made his way into a nearby alley and started spreading out the invisible water again before starting to form a magic circle in the air to be able to create some invisible ice-spears to shoot at Enka from here.


    It didn''t take long until the Demon managed to do so to an extent, and the liquid under Eiro''s control was used as the base for those spears, like he wanted it to happen, and the next moment, half a dozen of them were shot forward toward Enka.


    But the moment they were shot, Eiro of course tried to reposition again while the spears flew through the air, one after another digging into Enka''s limbs. The man fell down to the ground confused, since he still didn''t notice that the spears were there because of the potion mixed into the blood and water, but they definitely were there, there was no doubt about that. Eiro received the damage-notifications for it, after all.


    And while they didn''t do as much damage as Eiro wanted, they-


    The demon''s thoughts were suddenly interrupted. He hadn''t payed attention to it anymore, and it was actually pretty hard to sense the outside through theyer of this liquid even for Eiro, but it seemed like... Lugo had returned to the za. With Arc and Felix on his back.

 Chapter 139 - Punishment

    Eiro stared into the direction that the Stag wasing from with a deep re. Why the hell would Lugo bring those two here? Or rather, why would those twoe back here at all?!


    The demon immediately pulled some more of the invisible liquids toward him and then just tried to use them to keep speeding up his movements some more. Although Eiro wasn''t sure that this was a good idea, because at this speed he wasn''t necessarily quiet, although he luckily was still invisible.


    "Hmm, so you''re using tricks, huh..?" Enka muttered quietly and then looked around toward the source of the sound that he heard in this quiet za, and just slowly raised his left hand to touch his earring for a moment. And the next moment, Eiro could see the world stop around him again while his body became stuck while Enka just started hitting his fists against each other repeatedly.


    The first explosion caused by this was only able to roughly grow to the size of a fist. The second one made it grow to the size of a head. The third then made it to berger than Avalin or Leon. The fourth made itrger than than Rudy.


    Again and again, the explosion kept growing immensely with the force that Enka was creating. The mass of mes grew and grew until it covered a quarter of the za. But then, near to instantly those mes shrunk down into small, incredibly hot mes that Enka was holding in his hand. And the next thing he did was just throw his fist forward into the direction where he thought to have heard the sound of Eiro moving.


    The mes slowly crept forward toward the Demon while the world sped up again. In the next moment, Eiro heard the sound of the mes hitting the water that was surrounding Eiro. The Demon was able to mostly block and avert the mes from reaching him through those liquids, but toward the end only very little of it was actually left.


    "There we go. Now let''s continue where we left off." Enka suggested and stepped closer toward Eiro, who was now at least partially visible to Enka, "Show me where the kids are." He said with clear dedication and force in his voice, but Eiro just looked back at him while ignoring the ringing in his ears.


    "Fuck you." The Demon replied, but that just made Enka re back at him. The man approached the heavily injured Eiro and just held his hand forward toward him, cing his fingers onto his face once he reached Eiro within what seemed to be just a moment somehow.


    "Then let''s try this another way. You saw my status, so I''m sure you saw my skills as well. You remember a particr one of them? A skill that lets me cause pain to you while causing minimal damage to your health?" Enka asked with a deep re as he pushed Eiro to his knee, something that was rather easy since one of his legs was broken.


    And with a light chuckle, Enka just continued once he saw that Eiro was this weak inparison to him, "You know, after my torture skill reached a certain level, I was able to notice something in other people, the essence of their Health, basically. By avoiding the ces where that essence gathers, I can do little to no actual damage despite causing immense pain, while the opposite is also possible." He pointed out, and Eiro immediately knew what he was speaking about. Life Force. So Enka had an ability to sense life force?


    "The thing is... You have way less of that essence than a monster of your caliber should have, you know? That makes my job far harder. But I don''t me you, it''s not your fault for being weak. Just don''t me me if I identally kill you, alright?" Enka asked and slowly started pushing his fingers into the Demon''s temple.


    No damage notification appeared in response to this, but what did appear was an immense amount of pain. Pain that travelled through Eiro''s whole body and caused any control that he had over the invisible liquids to disappear and his body became fully visible to Enka again.


    "Hmm, that''s an expression that I like to see." He said in a gleeful tone as the pressure, and in response to that the pain, increased manyfold. Eiro tried looking up at Enka with a deep re, attempting to think of any way out. But before he could do that, the sound of hoofs became louder and louder, and soon reached the za.


    The next thing that Eiro heard was the sound of footsteps rushing over toward where the Eiro and Enka were standing, "Let go of my father, you piece of shit!" Arc eximed as he swung his sword toward Enka with an expression that Eiro had never seen on his face before. But the moment that the Level 1 Samurai did so, his sword was simply casually grabbed by Enka.


    "Oh? So he''s good at brainwashing, huh?" Enka said with a smile and then started tough as he slipped his hand to the back of Eiro''s neck and simply held him up, causing the Imp''s face to twist in pain even further, "He''s a demon, kid. A monster. How about instead of following this thing here, youe with me instead? Seems like you''re already on pretty good terms with my own son." The man said and looked past Arc toward Felix, who was just climbing off of Lugo''s back and staring at Eiro confusedly.


    Eiro wanted to speak and warn those two to just leave immediately and let him be, but his voice couldn''t escape his body. He tried to instead let Nelli know about his thoughts somehow, but he noticed that she had left toward theke. Eiro waspletely confused about why she would suddenly go there, but he trusted the Naiad. There had to be a good reason for why she just left like that.


    "So what if he''s a monster? He''s a better father than that useless piece of shit that ''raised'' me until I was seven. Actually, he''s the best father someone like me could have hoped for. So let him go, you-" Arc said, but the next moment, Enka''s hand let go of the katana and instead moved around Arc''s throat.


    "Hahh... Kids these days... How dare you speak like that about adults? Especially the man who you owe your life to. How respectless." Enka red, "Let me teach you what a real father should act like. And after that, my own son will be re-educated as well." He announced, but Arc just kept ring at Enka.


    With a slight smirk, the man ran his finger over toward Arc''s chest, "Seems like you need to really experience the extent of pain. Let me show you one of my favorites. This spot here makes grown warriors scream like little kids whenever I make use of it." Enka exined, and just pressed his finger deep into the center of Arc''s chest at an immense speed. It seemed like there was a bit of a rhythm to it even, although Eiro wasn''t sure why that was so.


    But the thing was... Arc just kept standing there as his re slowly turned into a smile again. "Huh? That''s all you can do? That didn''t even tickle." The boy announced, and Enka looked at him confusedly.


    "How the..?" He muttered and chose to just try again, continuosly hitting Arc''s chest like that over and over again.


    There was no damage notification popping up in front of Arc, and since he was able to keep hisposure that easily, Eiro was sure that this really wasn''t enough to make Arc feel actual pain. Eiro still didn''t like it, but it was better if Enka kept being stuck on something like that for now, as long as-


    "F-Father! Please stop! I... I''ll go back with you, so just leave them be!" Felix yelled out, and the very same moment, both Arc and Eiro were thinking what an idiot he was.


    "Of course you''reing back with me." Enka chuckled quietly, "There was no other way than that in the first ce. That doesn''t mean I''m just going to leave these two be. Especially not this kid, he seems like a good... practice partner." Enka pointed out with a deep and devious re directed at Arc, who was simply smiling back at the man.


    "Yeah, about that, I don''t think that''s as good an idea as you''re making it out to be. It''s just going to be boring either way. I don''t feel pain, so neither of us gets anything out of this. You obviously can''t hurt me, if this is supposed to be one of your most painful techniques." Arc said provokingly, and Enka stared at him with a light smirk. It was obvious that he was falling for it, sine he soon let go of Eiro''s throat and ced his hands on both of Arc''s shoulders.


    "I hope you won''t regret saying that in a bit." Enka muttered while Eiro was still trying to recover from the pain that he was just put under. It just got way worse because of the pain he already felt due to the bloodlust wearing off.


    But the moment that his body could move again, Eiro grabbed one of his daggers from his treasury and immediately swung it at Enka''s leg. It passed through into his skin through one of the wounds that Eiro caused to him with the invisible ice-spears, but somehow instead of blood gushing out, mes shot toward him and slightly burnt his skin.


    "Ah, sorry, just wait a bit longer. I''ll get to you in a bit." Enka said before raising his left hand to touch his earring again. When time slowed down and a crack formed in the earring, Enka started repeatedly trying to cause pain to different parts of Arc''s body, although it didn''t seem like he was actually directly injuring him all that much. The only damage notifications that popped up were worth damage in single or double digits, after all.


    When time sped back up, it seemed like Arc''s body suddenly arched over a bit in response to the sudden influx of ''pain'', although it still didn''t seem to be all that serious. Arc was probably just acting right now. But with augh, Enka, whose ego had been slightly hurt by Arc, didn''t notice that and justughed in response and turned toward Eiro after letting go of Arc for good, thinking that the boy would copse any moment now.


    "Well then, so much about him not feeling pain, huh?" He asked, and then suddenly opened his eyes wide, "..Huh..?" He repeated and then looked down at the de that was being pushed through the side of his body. It wasn''t a perfect hit, but since there were rtively little muscles and bones in this spot, Arc probably chose to go for this spot to be able to actually pierce through.


    "Just kidding~!" Arc eximed with a slightugh, but the very next moment, Enka pushed Arc away while the de was still sticking in him. And Eiro was able toe to a conclusion over Enka''s me-based ability through all of this.


    But while Arc was sliding across the ground, something that Eiro really didn''t expect happened.


    Felix tried to hold his father down and wanted to push him away, "Please, let''s just leave. Th-They''re no match for you anyway, so let''s just go..."


    With a deep grunt, Enka pulled the katana out of his body and threw it to the ground before mes came out of the wound and burnt it shut shortly afterward, "You know what? Fine. We''re leaving in a bit. But first..." Enka said and then pulled his son closer toward him, holding the boy in front of his body. Enka had both of his hands ced onto Felix''s ears, "It''s time for a punishment." Enka announced.


    And the next that Eiro knew it, he stared into Felix''s eyes as they became filled with pain, and Eiro knew exactly why.. Felix started screaming out loudly while his own father pushed me magic into his ears.

 Chapter 140 - Bye Bye

    The Demon couldn''t believe what was happening. Felix was standing there, having his ear canals bepletely obliterated. He was writhing in pain, twisting his arms over his head to grasp his father''s face while he wasn''t even able to scream. The pain made it impossible for him to even breath.


    Just a couple of momentster, Felix dropped to the ground after being let go by Enka, just falling to his knees while grasping at his head. Soon after, he simply fellpletely forward while both Eiro and Arc were looking at the young man in shock. Of course Eiro immediately tried to have a look at him to see if he could be healed but... Felix''s ear canals had been burnt so badly that they werepletely fused shut. Eiro himself couldn''t heal something like this.


    His heartbeat sped up as anger came over him. What kind of father would do this to their own child? The Demon raised his head and pushed himself off the ground with his broken leg and basically obliterated body, just ignoring the crippling pain in his body. It wasn''t possible for the mark of wrath to take him over again now, though. At least not without him wanting it to. And there was no reason why he would deny the power-up that the mark of wrath would give him now.


    "Oh? Angry now? Sorry about that, but that''s the kind of punishment that we put on betrayal of your own flesh and blood. Not that you would understand anything about that, your kids were just brainwashed into being with you." Enka said with a light smile, thinking that he had already won all this.


    Obviously Arc wanted to refute what he just said, but Eiro just raised his hand a bit to signal him to stop while turning his eyes to the side where he finally saw Nelli returning from theke. And with her came a mass amount of highly refined water that was just flowing through the air as if gravity wasn''t a thing.


    Then, the Demon looked over toward Lugo. It seemed like he didn''t simply go to the carriage because he was scared. He actually went there to get something. Some of the staffs and wands that Eiro had in the carriage were in the stag''s mouth, while there seemed to be even more magic stones stuffed into the satchel together with a lot of roughly refined rock from the gnomes.


    As a light smile formed on Eiro''s face, Lugo stepped up behind Eiro, his antlers towering above him while Lugo dropped all of the things he brought onto the ground in front of the Demon as Nelli managed to bring the water there too. But Enka was just amused.


    "Heh, right. Sorry, but all that seems like a lot of useless preparation for no reason. You''ll be done before you know it." Enka pointed out and started raising his hand toward his earring, although he was interrupted by Eiro starting to speak.


    "Did you know..." He started, "That staffs have a limit?" Eiro asked with a light smile, and Enka stopped his hand from moving. He seemed confident enough to listen to Eiro''s rambling for a bit.


    "A staff can sometimes be overloaded. It''s hard to do with pure mana, but if it''s actual elemental magic you put into them, that''s another story. When a staff overloads, it will create something like an explosion of magic. There are mages that actually make use of that fact in troublesome situations, because that explosion of magic is much stronger than magic the staff usually can handle. It''s pretty dangerous, though." Eiro exined to Enka with a slight chuckle. Of course, he only read about this, he never witnessed it.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro managed to circle some deep breaths through his body, "And then, there''s also that ''health essence'' you spoke about. It''s true that there is something like that, but it''s actually called ''Life Force''. While mana holds your spiritual body together, life force does so with your physical body. Mana can be used to control magic, and life force to control the physical ne." Eiro exined, and then looked at Enka with soft smile, although the man didn''t exactly know what Eiro was getting at here.


    "So? Why are you telling me that? I heard the thing about staffs, but I''m not sure if everything you said about this ''Life Force'' is true." Enka pointed out, "Well, nevermind. I''ll look into it, thanks for the info. Now, goodbye." He chuckled and just slightly tapped his earring.


    Or... he wanted to. But his earring wasn''t there anymore.


    With a slightugh, Eiro held his hand forward to reveal the small round earring that held a round gem in it, "Probably shouldn''t have made your son learn pickpocketing, huh?" He asked, and then took out his dagger out of his treasury before cutting into his wrist, making deep red blood that was heavily infused with life force gush out over the dozen or so staffs and wands that wereying on the ground.


    Eiro luckily still had enough life force left, even if it was just in the hundreds after this.


    "Well, this wasn''t your only mistake. Your greatest mistake was doing something that showed me that even if their identity is hidden, I will need to make sure my kids are safe. But even then, I''m not the bad guy here, so I wanted to do you a favor." Eiro said as he forcefully started speeding up his breathing and bloodflow to make his heart beat faster while not letting any blood flow out of the slit in his wrist.


    And then, Eiro just started pushing his teeth together and thought about anything and everything that he was pissed about. How weak he was in the end whenpared to people like Enka, how he couldn''t save them back then, how he lost two people he cared for, and how he lost even more of those just now. And of course, how much he despised Enka. A notification with a red base and blue text appeared in front of him.


    [Manually ced into a state of Bloodlust]


    [You are still under control, but the effects and costs of Bloodlust stay the same asd ever]


    With a broad smirk as anger turned into ecstacy, Eiro squeezed the earring tightly and pushed his mana inside while Enka started freaking out. But before anything else happened, the world slowed down to a halt. Well, notpletely. It was still moving, just very, very, very slowly. And Eiro could move like normal as a notification appeared in front of him, actually just slowly appearing as if being put together by slight mist that Eiro had never really noticed before until now.


    [Time has been slowed. This magic item''s durability will run out after the effect has been made use of for a total of 5 Minutes and 43 Seconds from your perspective]


    "Hm... That''s fine, I guess." Eiro muttered quietly and just slowly ced the earring into his mouth so that he could keep it on his person, just in case that was a necessity for it to work, and then slowly pulled his card out of his treasury. This actually worked at the same speed as usual, which was quite nice as far as Eiro was concerned. He activated it and then had five rings around his fingers. It seemed like this was how far he could go now with his heavily increased willpower stat.


    And what Eiro did next was simple. He made the des fuse with staffs or wands. Luckily this kind of thing was possible with them too. They could basically fuse with any sort of weapon or tool, even with shields or Eiro''s carving tools.


    Either way, next Eiro held his wooden hand up to the water that Nelli had brought him and started using it as a base to draw different magic circles using these one dozen staffs. They were all just supposed to be types of attack magic to do as much damage to Enka as absolutely possible.


    Once all the water waspletely used up to make theseplex magic circles, Eiro grabbed the mass amount of magic stones that Lugo brought him and started to use them to push out as much raw magic into these things as possible.


    At some point, the staffs or wands just wouldn''t take any more magic into them, it was kind of like someone stuffed dirt into a bag. If you pushed and more dirt in it, the bag would rip at some point. That''s what Eiro was hoping for.


    After this happened to any of those staffs or wands, the Demon moved on toward the next one until this applied to any and alll of them. Of course they were all properly ced into position and floating in the air, because that''s just what happened when Eiro let go of something here.


    Eiro turned to the side and saw that he still had three minutes left, so he figured to keep going. The blood was already covering all the staffs and had seeped deeply into them together with Eiro''s Life Force. He tried to make it so that there was a slight bit of a focus on the tip of each staff right at the point where the magic would usually leave it, and then just walked over directly to Enka''s body Eiro let go of the magic stones that Lugo brought and started cutting through them with the three of swords'' des.


    After all, when a magic stone was cut, it would result in arge feedback explosion as well. Eiro wanted to make use of any sort of damage he could. And as a second-tost step, Eiro just started pushing everyone that was within range right now as far away as possible so that they couldn''t be damaged by anything at all, and then, he had another minute left.


    Using the roughly refined rock in the satchel that Lugo brought, he covered his fist with it in a thickyer and then walked up to Enka. Like he ''practiced'' with the ice pir in the Inn''s backyard, Eiro started swinging at Enka with as much force he could muster.


    Hit after hit, Enka''s body was pushed in just so slightly. His cheeks caved in, his arms started twisting around, his back arched, and more and more, Eiro started growing more satisfied.


    Eiro made his way over toward the others again, and spat out the earring while watching the countdown hit zero.


    "Bye bye, Enka Markos." The Demon said with a light smirk, and in the next moment, the world sped back up and the gem connected to the earring shattered into dust while all that could be heard was the sound of a massive explosion followed by rubble hitting the ground even a fair bit behind Eiro.


    A pretty heavy shockwave hit everyone''s body afterward as well, but Eiro''s focus was on something else entirely.


    On the numerous damage notifications in front of him that kept appearing one after another as if they were rain droplets in a storm. And at the end of them, they were followed up by the notification that Eiro really wanted to see right now.


    [Lethal Damage done to Enka Juviad Markos]


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have leveled up!]


    ...


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have 265 Stat points avable]


    A bright smile grew on the Demon''s face as he cut through these notifications with his dagger. His mind calmed down and he exited the state of bloodlust as he peeked around the corner and stared at the crater in the middle of the street that just had a puddle of blood and flesh-sludge at its bottom.


    With a slight chuckle, Eiro looked forward at Nelli, Lugo and Arc. "We''re fine now. We can keep going...." Eiro muttered, before copsing forward onto the ground toy right next to the unconscious Felix.

 Chapter 141 - Putting In Points

    The sound of carriage wheels turning and crushing pebbles and dirt underneath them filled Eiro''s ears while his whole body was just so slightly shaken up here and there.


    He wasying on something soft, although he couldn''t see anything even when he opene his eyes. Although then he noticed that he just had a wet piece of cloth on his forehead that slightly slipped down onto his eyes. The demon raised his hand and pulled the cloth away as he sat up.


    The moment that he started moving, Eiro felt a weight on his body as Avalin just jumped onto him, "Daddy!" She eximed, and the Demon looked down at the young girl as she was pressing her face into his chest with teary eyes. Eiro looked around and soon spotted Felix just sitting on one of the seats while looking out of the window. His ears were covered in thick bandages, just like Eiro''s whole body was at the moment.


    "How long was I out?" Eiro asked with a slight groan, since his body still ached all over, and Clementine looked at him with a bright smile, "Two days..." She said, seemingly just happy that Eiro woke up again at all. It seemed like Rudy and Arc were sitting on the bench in the front of the carriage, and Clementine, Sammy, Avalin and Leon stayed in here to take care of Eiro and Felix.


    Lugo was running right next to the carriage, while Nelli and the Gnome were floating right above Eiro, "I see..." The Demon muttered quietly, and then proceeded to raise his voice a bit, "Arc, Rudy. I''m up!" He yelled out, and could immediately hear the two of them shift around in the front before making the Aria stop.


    The carriage slowing down seemed to have gotten Felix''s attention as well, and he slowly turned his head toward Eiro with apletely emotionless expression. He had dark rings under his eyes, and really didn''t seem very healthy at the moment.


    "Ah... you''re... up..." Felix said quietly, although he seemed to be straining himself to speak. And that wasn''t because he couldn''t physically do so, but probably because he couldn''t hear himself speak.


    The carriage came to a halt and Sammy opened the door a few momentster to step outside, before Eiro tried pushing himself off the ground as wel. His broken leg had apparently been mostly healed using magic, but it was still hard to ce all his weight onto it.


    Eiro dragged his body out of the carriage and proceeded to take a deep breath once outside.


    "You scared the shit out of me!" Nelli announced, albeit in the in-between-space so that the kids couldn''t hear her swear, and Eiro just looked at her with a light smile on his lips.


    "Sorry about that. I''ll try to make it a safer win next time around." He replied to her, before he found himself being embraced in a tight hug by the others, "I swear, if you pull something like this again, you''re done for." Sammy told Eiro, who just slightly chuckled and returned the hugs happily. It hurt him a fair amount, but Eiro could deal with it.


    "Just..." Eiro said, and then slowly turned toward Lugo with a deep re, "What the fuck were you thinking by..." The Demon started, although he stopped in the middle of the sentence because something was really different all of a sudden.


    "Don''t be mad at Lugo, he just came to grab those staffs and magic stones, but Felix and I wouldn''t let him go without us. It''s not his fault." Arc told Eiro before looking at Felix again, "I know that it didn''t necessarily turn out well, but... still... Could you have beaten Enka without Felix stealing that earring?"


    The Demon slowly thought about it but then shook his head, "No, I couldn''t have. I know that it was a help in the end, but that doesn''t mean I like it." Eiro said and then extended his hand toward Lugo.


    Instead of flinching like the others expected, since Lugo was usually pretty cowardly, he just epted the touch. Eiro ced his palm onto Lugo''s forehead and had a status appear in front of him, although Eiro really just cared for the very first line.


    [Name ¨C Lugo][Race ¨C Forest Deer][Level ¨C 1]


    "How the fuck-" Eiro started confusedly and turned toward Nelli, "How does Lugo have a level all of a sudden?!" The Demon asked, hoping that the three-hundred years old spirit had some sort of answer for him, although she immediately shook her head and approached Eiro.


    "I have no idea how... He was just an animal before, right?" Nelli asked, and Avalin, who was still clinging to Eiro''s leg, looked up at him, "Daddy, animals don''t have levels?" She asked, but Eiro immediately shook his head


    "They don''t. It''s as if a person never got a ss, they just... live, grow up, and never level up... When I first met Lugo, I thought he was a Magic Beast, sure, but he didn''t have a level when he became my Familiar. Then why now..?" The Demon muttered quietly, and Nelli quickly floated in front of him, "Well, the woman we''re going to to have Leon and Sammy''s skills unsealed might now. She''s really knowledgeable about this kind of thing." The Spirit pointed out before Eiro just slowly nodded his head.


    "I see... Alright, then let''s just see if she can help us..." Eiro muttered, and then kept running his hand over Lugo''s forehead, "But seriously, bud. Never do this kind of thing again. I''m d that you didn''t run away out of fear, but you can''t just bring the children into a situation that even I have trouble with. Not yet, at least." The Demon told Lugo, who just slowly nodded his head in response before pushing its head into Eiro''s chest.


    Eiro had to lean back a bit so that Lugo''s antlers wouldn''t pierce his eyes, but after that, it was mostly fine.


    "I think this is a pretty good time to eat a bit, huh? I''ll get everything done." Rudy suggested, before Eiro slowly nodded his head. Arc and Clementine meanwhile went to detach the Aria from the carriage as well.


    "Sammy,e with me for a bit, please." Eiro said, and then looked down at Avalin and Leon that were standing right in front of him, "You two stay with Nelli for a bit, alright?" He suggested, and a bit hesitantly the two of them did as asked while Sammy and Eiro took a few steps into the other direction.


    Eiro leaned against a tree to make it a bit easier to stand right now, and then looked at Sammy, "I am sorry." Eiro said, and Sammy looked back at him confused.


    "What do you mean? Sorry for what?" She asked, although Eiro was aware that she knew what he was talking about, "For letting Felix charm you before. I was just thinking about how to teach you how you can use your voice after we unseal your skill, because I was scared that it would change you if you didn''t know, but I didn''t think about how messed up this method was." The Demon told her, "I really, really am sorry, believe me. I messed up, it was thepletely wrong thing to do. I hope you can forgive me."


    With a light smile, Sammy pushed the fingers of her hands together behind her back and shook her head, "Don''t worry about that." She told Eiro, "I thought about it for a bit, and it really was a good help to figure out how voice-based skills worked. So don''t worry, I''ve forgiven you already." Sammy announced, and Eiro sighed deeply as he looked back at her.


    "Thank you." He said, and Sammy just quickly turned around with a smile on her face and helped Eiro make his way back to the carriage where the others were waiting. While they were eating, Eiro kept averting his eyes to look at Felix. He seemed surprisingly calm about everything that happened. That Eiro was a Demon, and he even saw Avalin''s eyes like they really were. But he just sat there and quietly ate while staring down at the ground.


    Well, a lot had happened over the past few days, really. He had most likely been crippled for life, his father was killed in front of his eyes, and he was suddenly staying with a demon and a bunch of kids that he didn''t even know. Most people would need to think about everything for a while to properly adjust to it.


    "Hm..." Eiro hummed quietly, "There was that one book, wasn''t there?" He muttered, trying to remember back onto a book that he had briefly read maybe two or three years ago. It was mostly illustrations, so it didn''t take too long and didn''t stick in Eiro''s mind too long.


    But from what he remembered, it was a signnguage book. Maybe he could help Felix get through this by teaching him some signnguage? At the very least, Eiro didn''t think that just dropping him off somewhere like he was at the moment was a viable option anymore. A deaf kid couldn''t just survive alone in another town like that after all, without any ability tomunicate with others properly at that.


    With a slow nod, Eiro chose to do it like this, and also try and teach him lip-reading if it was possible for him to do so that easily.


    Before then, Eiro had to deal with something else, though. And that was the fact that he leveled up another 25 times after he killed Enka. Eiro probably should leave a reserve of stat points forter, maybe fifty or so, that he could assign to whatever he needed to in an emergency, but for now he should assign the other 215 of those.


    First things first, Eiro ced another few points into perception to finally bring it to 100. His Agility and Dexterity were both also increased so that he could hit 100 with each of them.


    [Your Perception has passed the 100 point mark! <Keen Senses> Ability Gained!]


    [Your Agility has passed the 100 point mark! <Quick Feet> Ability Gained!]


    [Your Dexterity has passed the 100 point mark! <Skilled hands> Ability Gained!]


    After confirming that all of these simply seemed to be a basic passive buff to Eiro''s senses, footwork, and hands respectively, he started thinking about what else he could need and then increased his agility by another 25 points. Being fast was really important, after all.


    Next, came Eiro''s constitution. He had generally low health for a demon of his level, that was already known, so he really had to do his best to increase it as much as he could for now, and just brought it to 100 as well.


    And then, 25 points went into both Strength and Resistance. Six points went into evasion, and now he was left with 50 points that he would spend some more time to think about how to use and to have a basic reserve.


    [Your Constitution has passed the 100 point mark! <Vigorous Body> Ability Gained!]


    [Vigorous body ¨C Ability that increases your health as if your constitution stat value was 0.1 higher than it is]

 Chapter 142 - How To Cope

    Eiro looked at the description of this new ability and was pretty happy to see what kind of ability it actually was. It was literally a boost to his health, something that he actually really needed.


    The Demon ran his finger through the notification to make it disappear and then looked at Arc. "Where exactly are we right now?" He asked, because he wasn''t sure exactly how long he was out, other than Clementine''s ''two day'' statement, and how long the breaks they had taken were.


    After a bit of thought, Arc swallowed his food and replied, "We passed by close to that ''Zugberg'' vige a couple of hours ago." He exined, and Eiro opened his eyes wide in response.


    "Wait, really?" He asked, "We''re that far along already?" With a bright grin on his face, Eiro couldn''t stop thinking about how much he was really in Solomon''s debt now. This carraige and the two Aria were really amazing. More amazing than he would have expected, even.


    "Then it won''t take that long to get there, huh?" Eiro smiled lightly and looked at the ground. Soon, he noticed the Gnome floating next to him. He seemed a bit weaker than he did before right now. It seems like they would have to help the Gnome out a bit more with ''finding its name''.


    Eiro started thinking about what they could be doing from now on during the trip if they could allow themselves to be more leisure about some things. If they continued like this, they would end up reaching their destination within the next two or three weeks, after all.


    "Alright... Everyone done eating?" Eiro asked as he slowly stood up and saw that everyone was seemingly finished or at least close to finishing, "We''re training a bit. Let''s make use of your new sses a bit. Your skills should be boosted through it, after all." The Demon pointed out as he slowly made his way to the carraige, basically dragging his legs behind him as he was doing so.


    "Eh? Wait, now?" Clementine asked confusedly, "But shouldn''t we get moving a bit first? And you should definitely rest!" She pointed out, but Eiro just smiled at her, "Don''t worry, this is the perfect ce. There''s nobody around here at all, and I''m not noticing any monsters either." The demon exined as he slowly started stretching a bit, making his joints crack a bit in response.


    "And I feel the fact that I''ve beenying around for two days in my whole body. Bothers me even more than the pain. Come on, get your things, we''ll clean upter." Eiro announced to them, leaving them not a single chance at denying him.


    They stood up and made their way over to the carriage to get their new weapons and even their armor, considering that they knew they would be doing some sparring instead of just general ''practice''. And while the others were standing up and walking to the carriage all of a sudden, Felix followed them, thinking that they would keep going again. But instead, Eiro had something else in mind for him.


    "Come." The Demon said and pulled Felix over behind him. Eiro looked around a bit, staring at the different trees standing right here, and then found the perfect specimen for what he had in mind.


    Eiro ran his hand over the bark a bit before pulling out one of his tools out of his treasury, just taking off a square-meter of bark off of this tree before smoothing the actual wood down a bit to be easier to work with. He then handed Felix one of the carving knives that Eiro had just picked up from the carriage.


    "Carve into it." Eiro told Felix, and then grabbed the boy''s hand and brought the dagger to the wood, "Carve." He repeated, and Felix looked at Eiro confused before forming a wry smile on his face.


    "You want me to... cut into the... tree?" Felix asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, before Felix just stabbed the knife into the wood with frustration, "Don''t fuck with me!" He yelled out, something that made him even more frustrated somehow. Even when he was as loud as he could be, his voice didn''t reach his own ears.


    "How can I just... sit here and... do this shit if... If he cane here any moment..? I''m terrified!" Felix eximed, "He crippled me! Wh-What if he finds us again?! I... Please, we need to... leea... leeaf... leaea..." He yelled with frustration. It seemed like he was thinking too much about what he was saying again, and his words just becamepletely messed up in response to it.


    Felix started staring down at the ground and squatted down, his whole body shivering. With a sigh, Eiro pulled out the empty notebook that he had in his treasury together with his ink-pen before writing something onto one of the empty pages.


    Eiro squatted down and held the open book in front of Felix. The boy slowly read the message, which was hard to do with the tears in his eyes, and then slowly turned his head back up with a smile of mixed emotions.


    It seemed as if he was happy about it in part. Another part of that expression was actually still bitter about it. And another part of it was an expression of self-hatred that came from the first part. After all, he was just told that Eiro killed his father, so what kind of person would he be if he was happy about having a dead father.


    "You... really? He''s.... he''s dead?" Felix asked, his body both slumping down and weirdly tensing up. He seemed both relieved and scared, just judging from this.


    Eiro quietly nodded his head, and a few momentster, Felix started actually processing all of this. "He''s dead...? He''s dead... He''s actually dead..." Felix muttered quietly. He startedughing for a short moment, but then supressed himself from continuing with that, even if it took him a bit topletely get thatmand through to himself.


    "Stand up." Eiro sighed as he pulled on Felix''s arm to get him to stand up, and then ced the young man''s hand onto the handle of the carving knife again before he wrote something down in the notebook again.


    ''Use your emotions for work'', he wrote. Sure, it could be seen as Eiro just saying ''Stop whining and get to work'', but that wasn''t it at all. Eiro truly believed that any sort of emotion could be turned into something productive. Whether it be glee, anger, grief, anything really. He didn''t like being controlled by his emotions, so he wanted to control his emotions like that instead.


    Of course, that didn''t mean that he supressed his emotions, but rather that he didn''t let his emotions do whatever they wanted.


    Slowly, Felix nodded his head and wiped the tears out of his face before pulling the knife out of the wood, and then just started to cut into it a bit here and there. It seemed like he wasn''t sure what to do, but that was fine. At least Felix was trying to actually do something instead of just staring at the wood, which was a good enough start.


    Eiro turned back around and then looked at Nelli, "There''s a river over there, can you prepare a couple buckets'' worth refined water for me and bring it here?" He asked, and Nelli swiftly nodded her head.


    "Sure~!" She said and then floated into the other direction, while Eiro turned over toward the children who had gotten ready by now.


    "All of you, first things first, do your regr practice with your new items. Sammy and Clementine, you two partner up. So clementine, just try making small water-based targets for Sammy in the air. Maybe make them move around a bit. And switch it up where you have to sometimes make arrows stop that Sammy shot into the empty air and you have to hurry up." Eiro suggested to them, and the children quickly nodded their heads.


    "We''ll try magic infusion with these items in a bit. Just don''t do it before Nelli or I are there to directly watch you, to make sure nothing goes wrong." The Demon said, and everyone slowly nodded their heads and got started, while Eiro looked at the Gnome that was floating behind him.


    Eiro sat down cross-legged on the dirt and called the immature spirit over. "Alright, I know we don''t have a contract just yet, but just do what I tell you for a bit." Eiro told the Gnome, and it just floated there for a while, which Eiro took as a ''yes''.


    The Demon ced both of his hands onto the ground and started pushing pulses of mana into it to make it spread through the area, "You can feel this, right?"


    Slowly, the Gnome let its body sink down so that it was touching the dirt where Eiro currently had most of the mana focused onto, "Good. I want you to do the same thing as I just did using your own magic." The Demon exined and then proceeded to pull the mana that he had pushed into the ground back out of it and then made it focus around the Gnome''s body instead so that Eiro could feed it to him. Eiro had to try and exin it to the Gnome a couple more times after this, but rtively soon, it understood what Eiro was trying to tell it and started just ''standing'' on the floor. It basically just pressed its stiff, barely humanoid legs onto the ground, but that was good enough for Eiro since the gnome then proceeded to push mana out of its body, as was confirmed by Nelli soon after.


    Eiro looked at the immature Spirit and then kept giving it instructions, "Good. Now, since you have the ability to perceive mana, this should be pretty easy for you, shouldn''t it?" Eiro started, "Simply see the mana you just pushed out as an extension to your own body. Act as if this part of the ground wasn''t just the ground you are sitting on, but that it''s you yourself." Eiro told the spirit before he pressed his own feet against each other.


    "Then make your mana flow through the ground in a spiral that both flows outward and inward." The Demon instructed, before he started moving his own mana through his body to speed up his mana regeneration so that he had enough mana to feed to the Gnome.


    Soon, Nelli told Eiro that the Gnome was following what he was saying, and Eiro nodded his head in satisfaction. He was d the gnome understood him that easily, since it seemed somewhat dumb most of the time.


    "Let the mana from the ground''s inward spiral move into your body, make it flow through your core, and then make it flow back out through the outward spiral under you. And keep increasing the size of the spiral more and more with the mana I''m giving you. But don''t waste any of the mana." Eiro said as he took a deep sigh so that he could rx properly.


    And from then on, for roughly an hour, that''s basically all that they did. While the children were practicing their own things, and Felix was carving into the tree to cope with hisplicated emotions, Eiro and the Gnome were working together to spread the Gnome''s perception of nature out as far as possible.


    Of course this didn''t work well enough so that the Gnome could find its name right off the bat, but it seemed to be a lot more energetic after this. d that it at least seemed to do a little for the Gnome, Eiro figured that they should keep going this whenever they stopped for the night from now on. Like this, it surely wouldn''t be that hard for the Gnome to find its own name.. Nelli seemed to agree with that too, of course, and actually didn''t even make a sarcasticment about it for once.

 Chapter 143 - Goblin Village

    Eiro slowly opened his eyes and let out a deep breath as he looked in front of himself at the Gnome that was just floating there. Over the past week, he had progressed a fair amount. It seemed like Nelli agreed that he was sure to find his name soon. And Eiro was actually rather hopeful for it to happen within the next day or two, since they had to pass through a mountain-range soon.


    That meant that they would really be entering the natural habitat of this guy. Most Earth Spirits lived in this kind of ce, after all. Hopefully they would be able to find a ce where other spirits live, or a ce where natural mana was especially dense at the very least. Either of that would be incredibly helpful.


    Eiro pushe himself off the ground and stretched a bit. It was morning soon, so the others should wake up just about now. In the meantime, Eiro figured he should take another closer look at his wounds from a week ago.


    He walked up to the carriage and ced his satchel down on top of the bench at the front of the carriage, before quickly taking off his mask and cloak, cing both of them into his treasury. The first things that he did was to simply get started with cleaning the general cuts on his body a little after taking the bandages off. He tried his best to make sure that there was no dirt in them or anything.


    For the most part, his wounds were healing pretty well, especially considering that he had Nelli heal him a little bit every day. Once his wounds were cleaned, the Demon took out a small leather-sk out of his bag and opened it up. Using water magic, he just pulled the liquid out of the bottle.


    This liquid was highly refined water made by Nelli that Eiro then ced a few different herbs into that were supposed to help with natural healing of your body. The highly refined water absorbed these qualities pretty quickly, and as such turned into a liquid that could easily be used to enhance the basic healing capabilities of healing magic.


    Eiro spread a little bit of this onto each of his most serious wounds and then looked over at Nelli, who quickly started to use it as a conductor for healing magic. And while Nelli was helping him out like this, Eiro poured the rest of the liquid that he didn''t use with this just now back into the sk and ced it back into his satchel. The parts that Nelli was using to heal him couldn''t, or rather shouldn''t, be reused after all. They would just spread it around the side of the pathter, and then it would be fine.


    The Naiad finished what she was doing just a couple minutester, so Eiro picked the water up using magic and threw it behind the carriage that was ced down at the side of the road at the moment.


    Then, he simply dried himself off and put new bandages onto his wounds before putting his cloak and mask back on. Around then, the others seemed to have woken up and gathered together to eat. Eiro said good morning to everyone and then looked over toward Felix.


    The Demon held his hand t and stretched out, with his fingers pressed against each other, and then ced the fingertips of his three middle fingers onto the right side of his chin, before pulling his hand away again, directly away from his face. And when Felix repeated the same gesture, Eiro just lightly nodded his head.


    He was d that this signnguage thing was kind of working out. Just now, both of them were doing the sign for ''good morning'', but other than that, Felix seemed to know the basics of how a couple more of them worked.


    After all, both Felix''s and Eiro''s learning-speed was slightly increased by the Sign-Language Comprehension skill that they both got. Well, Eiro''s more so because of his ''Speedier Learning'' ability he got from increasing his Wisdom stat to 200. Felix''s because he was doing nothing but study signnguage using the notes that Eiro took for him to help him learn it. Beginner-Grade skills didn''t really do all that much for you, after all.


    Either way, for now, Felix was able to at least somehow ''speak'' with someone else at least in a simple manner. It seemed to help him calm down a bit, as far as Eiro noticed.


    After they all had breakfast, the two Aria were connected to the carriage again and Arc sat down at the front of the carriage to start driving. Pretty soon afterward, they entered the mountain-range and things became pretty steep. This slowed them down a bit, but less than Eiro had honestly been expecting.


    The carriage was able to turn pretty quickly, and the Aria had a good grip on the ground, so they were able to proceed pretty quickly anyway. However, since the Aria had to pull the heavy carriage up a slope, they had to take a break a bit sooner than normal, albeit stillter than if they had travelled with horses, and stopped by a spot that was rtively t.


    There were some remnants of a couple of fireces around here that Eiro noticed, so this was probably a pretty popr resting-spot for people that travelled through these parts.


    That actually came to a surprise to Eiro, since he noticed a couple of Monsters around here. To be fair, they didn''t necessarily seem all that strong, but they should still be pretty bothersome to the average person, as far as Eiro could tell.


    Although, then again, Eiro was pretty curious about this. It seemed like there was a vige of goblins around here. You couldn''t ess it through the regr paths, and it was built inbetween two cliff-walls that you had to specifically climb toward to see. There was only one specific path that led out of it, and that seemed to go through a small cave system.


    The goblins would surely be able to let him level up a bit if he went there and killed them all, but he didn''t really feel like it because of the disgusting stench that goblin-blood had. Although just when he was thinking that, he noticed that the Gnome was interested in whatid in that direction as well.


    "Nelli, do you see anything over there?" Eiro asked and pointed into the direction where the Gnome was looking, and Nelli slowly turned her head and squinted her eyes.


    "Hm... There seems to be a lot of natural mana there, yeah. But I don''t think it''s anything special. Why?" Nelli replied, so Eiro just crossed his arms in thought, "There''s a Goblin Vige over there. And I''m not sure if it''s a coincidence that there''s a lot of mana there. Maybe there''s something interesting that made them gather? The Goblins do seem to be a variant of regr goblins as well." Eiro exined, at least that''s what he thought from their behaviour and the faint smell that actually reached him here, and Nelli thought about it some more and kept looking over there.


    "Then maybe, yeah. It could be worth checking out if the Gnome is interested." The Naiad pointed out, and Eiro immediately nodded his head.


    "Just my thought." He said, and then looked over toward the children, "You guys, stay here. We''ll be gone for a little while, maybe an hour or two at most, so just rx a bit for now. But make sure that if you notice anyone approaching, you help Avalin put her contact lenses in, or have her hide in the carriage." Eiro told them with a smile.


    He didn''t have any issues with leaving them alone for a bit anymore, since they weren''t actually being pursued anymore! Maybe a day after Eiro woke up after killing Enka, he had received a letter from Armodeus that he sent through some kind of mechanical bird. It didn''t smell like something that Armodeus made, though. Either way, that letter told them that Solomon and Armodeus could convince the guards that Eiro definitely didn''t kill Irensen, no matter what his employee told the guards.


    Since the literal king of a country and the best craftsman in town were a bit more influential than the top employee of the second-best craftsman in town, the matter was quickly settled. Eiro was pretty d about that, because that meant he could actually go ahead with things like these and leave the kids be for a while, instead of having to be around them 24/7.


    Eiro climbed up the rock-wall behind the carriage, quickly followed by the Gnome and Nelli, and then proceeded to make his way over toward the top of one of the cliff-walls that the vige was built in between of, so that he could scout it out properly first.


    It took him a while, maybe fifteen minutes, to find a good path and spot to watch the whole vige from. But once he found that spot, Eiro stared down onto the ground and immediately noticed a few peculiarities.


    For one, the Goblins really were pretty obviously a variant. Instead of dark green skin, these goblins had more like green-brown skin, although it was more like it was different from each individual to another. One could have skin in a shade that was a bit lighter than the regr goblin-green, and another one could have skin that was so dark brown that it was nearly ck. They all smelled the same though, so the color of their skin seemed to be an unimportant difference between them. In general, all of these goblins seemed to be a bit stronger and more well-fed than regr goblins that Eiro had met in some forests before.


    The houses they lived in didn''t seem to be that badly constructed either, even if most of them were just holes in the wall. But inbetween those hols in the wall, there were some properly constructed bridges that seemed stable enough for a dozen or two of them to walk on at once.


    Then, amongst these one or two hundred goblins that seemed to be gathered here, Eiro noticed that there were nine of them that were a bit stronger, taller, and less disproportioned than the other goblins, making their figure look more like that of a human or elf.


    Eiro figured that those nine specimens were Hobgoblins, a higher evolution of regr goblins. These guys seemed to be in power here, and were directly feared by the lower goblins.


    But one of these Hobgoblins seemed even stronger than the others. Eiro wasn''t exactly sure what it was about him that was so different, since he didn''t smell all too different from the others at least, but he was taller, bulkier, and seemed to be feared by the hobgoblins.


    Really, he didn''t seem all that strong to Eiro. But maybe after facing and killing Enka, his standards had risen a little bit.


    Either way, there was one thing in this town that Eiro was paying special attention to. And that was whatever the leader of all these goblins, the strongest Hobgoblin, was sitting on. It was something like a decorated, carved b of rock that the Gnome seemed to be staring at intensely.


    "Nelli." Eiro said, and the spirit quickly nodded her head, "Yeah, that b is the ce where most of the mana I noticed before is focused. It might help the Gnome out a bit." She suggested, so Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "Sounds good." The Demon said and looked around these cliff-walls for a bit to find a good route, and Nelli looked at him curiously.


    "So? What are you nning on doing?" She asked, so Eiro just smirked at her, "Oh, I''m simply going topletely eradicate the hierarchy of this goblin vige."

 Chapter 144 - Gobo

    Eiro climbed down the side of the cliff while he turned into his shadow-mode and tried his best to stay hidden from any one of these goblins. It wasn''t actually that hard to do, to be fair. Goblins weren''t all that smart, and their perception wasn''t the greatest either. And so, Eiro very easily found himself inside one of the small Goblin-Houses.


    It did really reek like Goblin in here, even if the smell was actually far, far more tolerable than what he was used to from regr Goblins. And to his surprise, there seemed to be an attempt at actual ''furnishing'' in here. A straw-bed, something like a rock table, and even a personal small firepit. None of it was of amazing quality, but it was better than what Eiro expected at first.


    It seemed to him like the other ces were pretty simr to this. But then, Eiro noticed something else that he had been somehow ignoring the whole time.


    Most of the Goblins were wearing nes. And those nes seemed to be raw Magic Stones that simply had some thread pulled through them. Immediately once Eiro noticed this, he chose to investigate where they actually got those from.


    And then he found the spot that he was looking for, where the smell of magic practically poured out of. "Nelli, down there, what do you see?" Eiro asked and pointed at one of the holes in the other cliff, and Nelli just squinted her eyes, "There''s a lot of mana there... And even elemental mana of different sorts... It''s pretty dense, but most of it is just being absorbed by that rock b we found before." She exined, and Eiro couldn''t help himself but smirk.


    "Is that so? Elemental mana that is pulled throughyers ofyers of this rock..." Eiro muttered quietly and then quickly chose to make his way further through this Goblin Vige. He kept hiding wherever he could so that he wouldn''t gather immediate attention, all the whilst continuing to investigate whether or not his thoughts were right.


    He made his way over toward the other cliff and climbed into one of the holes that he had noticed the scent of magicing from. Once Eiro climbed in a bit deeper, he soon found what he was looking for. With earth magic, he scraped away at the surface of the rock to reveal a yellow crystal underneath.


    "Wait, don''t tell me-"


    "It''s a Magic Stone mine. Change of ns. Instead of just killing all these guys, I might have a better idea." Eiro announced, and quickly climbed back out of the hole before looking around. It seemed like a coincidentally pretty good time to get started with this.


    The Demon kept climbing across the cliff-wall and made his way over toward the ce where the nine hobgoblins were currently sitting. A lot of other goblins seemed to be gathered there as well, fighting each other while the hobgoblins were watching and enjoying themselves.


    Eiro figured he could just watch for a while to see what these guys could do. It seemed like there was something like a duel going on at the moment, made up of two pretty frail goblins fighting each other, seemingly until death.


    He couldn''t help himself, so Eiro just took off his mask to press his nose shut from the disgusting stench of their blood. Eiro really didn''t know why goblin-blood smelled so horrible, but if he was going to go through with this idea, he had to have them all evolve soon to get rid of that stench in their blood. Because while Hobgoblin blood also smelled pretty bad, it was still pretty bearable. It wasn''t as bad as... this.


    Soon, one of the goblins finally died, and one of the hobgoblins stood up and stepped over toward the corpse of the goblin that lost. It pushed its fingers into the goblin''s chest and pulled out its heart with its bear hands, before holding it up above its head to let the green, murky blood drip down its arm.


    It yelled something out, in thenguage of Goblins, but it didn''t seem to important for now. Maybe Eiro would try to learn it soon, though, because he doubted that any of these Goblins would be capable of learning the Commonnguage anytime soon.


    With an annoyed sigh, Eiro watched as the Hobgoblin handed the heart to the winning goblin, which immediately devoured it without a second thought. While it was eating, the goblin corpse was thrown into the crowd of other goblins that started to take it apart before it evennded.


    While the winning goblin finished eating, another stepped up into the small ''arena'', and the fight began from new.


    "Hmm. All the goblins that are fighting seem pretty weakpared to the others." Eiro muttered quietly, and in the end simply shrugged before climbing down onto the ground. And with a casual step, Eiro simply made his way through the group of Goblins and just lightly smiled at them as he pushed his way through.


    "Sorry, could I get to the front for a moment? Yes, thank you." Eiro said, while the Goblins were staring at the sudden intruder, that then proceeded to just jump into the arena.


    The two goblins standing in there interrupted their fight and growled at Eiro, while the eight ''weaker'' Hobgoblins stood up, seemingly ready to kill the Demon.


    "Haha, I doubt you want to do that." The Demon pointed out, before quickly pushing his Life Force into his legs, hip and lower back and then hit his foot into the ground. He used the force to expell extra mana and crack the rock that they were standing on open to loosen it up.


    Then, those rocks were quickly taken control of by Eiro and were then floating above and beside him. The Goblins seemed to hesitate for a moment through this, but the two Goblins that were supposed to fight right here still chose to attack Eiro nheless. And the next moment, with absolutely obliterated skulls, the Goblins fell to the ground after they were attacked through Eiro''s earth magic.


    [Lethal Damage done to Mountain Goblin]


    [Lethal Damage done to Mountain Goblin]


    "Oh, Mountain Goblin!" Eiro eximed, "So it really was just a variety to a regr Goblin, huh?" The Demon pointed out as he continued pressing his nose shut.


    But while Eiro was reading the notifications, he was quickly attacked by one of the Hobgoblins. Of course, it was still far, far weaker than Eiro was. Even if Eiro had himself be hit by the Hobgoblin, he probably would have taken very little to no damage. But instead, Eiro simply covered his hand in rock and chose to give the Hobgoblin a quick punch to the jaw, which was thenying a couple of steps further away on the ground, while the Hobgoblin started screaming.


    "Sorry, you''re a bit noisy, so shut up please. I want to get this over with quickly." Eiro suggested, before covering the Hobgoblin''s head in rock and making it crush it to a pulp with numerous cracks sounding out as its skull was obliterated.


    [Lethal Damage done to Mountain Hobgoblin]


    [You leveled up!]


    [You have 55 unused stat points avable]


    With a satisfied smile at randomly leveling up despite not expecting himself to, Eiro stepped over the Hobgoblin''s body and casually walked over toward where the others were. At this point, the regr Goblins were too hesitant to attack Eiro. After all, he just easily killed one of the beings they thought were the strongest in this world, so there was no way that they would be able to find the courage to attack him.


    The other Hobgoblins still needed to find that out for themselves, however. "Sure, I think I can spare half of you to set an example." Eiro pointed out, and then immediately proceeded to split the rock up into smaller pieces that were floating next to Eiro''s hand.


    And the next moment, the Demon threw rock after rock toward the heads of these Hobgoblins. One of them was hit right at the side of its head and fell to the ground unconscious, but not dead, another one was blinded, and another one lost most of its teeth.


    Without hesitation, Eiro then stepped up to those Goblins and smashed their heads with the rest of the rocks that were still floating next to him.


    [Lethal Damage done to Mountain Hobgoblin]


    [Lethal Damage done to Mountain Hobgoblin]


    [Lethal Damage done to Mountain Hobgoblin]


    Eiro looked around, and soon saw that even the other Hobgoblins were stopping to attack him, "Oh, you all really are smarter than regr goblins, huh?" He eximed, "At the very least, you realize that you''ll die if you dare attack me!" Eiro pointed out. And that''s what he assumed, although the very next moment, he found that there was still one that was dumb enough to try just that.


    And that was the top-dog of these guys. The ''Lord'' of this vige. He stood up from the rock b and stepped into the arena. He was actually a bit taller than the other Hobgoblins, so that he was just a bit shorter than Eiro himself.


    "Hello there! Nice to meet you, I''m taking over your spot from now on!" Eiro eximed with a bright smile, and the Hobgoblin simply stared at him with a deep re, "Redskin... no scare... Gobo. Gobo... strong. Redskin... weak."


    With a surprised expression, Eiro raised his brows and started to look this thing up and down a bit more closely, "Hmm, you know how to speak Common, huh?" He asked, and instantly spotted the thing that showed Eiro what exactly was going on. At the back of the Hobgoblin''s neck, the Hobgoblin had the remnants of a tattoo that had been cut through unevenly by ws. Eiro recognized the pattern, it was the kind that some tamers used to bring monsters under control.


    "I see, I see." Eiro muttered, and then just started to smirk as he realized what this meant, "Seems like that''s why you''re the leader. You know what a terrifying, controlling leader is like. Seems like through you, this ce progressed pretty nicely as well."


    The Hobgoblin took the rusty sword that it had in its ripped-apart sheath and chose to try and swing it at Eiro, but the Demon had another idea. Without hesitation, Eiro simply punched him in the center of the chest while pushing a slight pulse of mana into the Hobgoblin''s body. Immediately, the Hobgoblin''s body stopped moving and tensed up, while he dropped the de to the ground.


    "At least Enka was good for this kind of stuff. Seems to be really painful, huh?" Eiro asked the Hobgoblin, even if he knew that he wouldn''t be able to answer anymore.


    The Hobgoblin fell to the ground in writhing pain without taking any actual damage, and Eiro chose to just press its foot right onto the back of ''Gobo''s head to press it to the ground. "Sorry, little fe.. This ce is mine now."

 Chapter 145 - Golem

    Eiro looked at the Goblins and Hobgoblins around him, and simply grinned a bit as he did so. The strongest Hobgoblin in this vige, Gobo, was simply writhing underneath his foot. It seemed like these guys were obviously quite scared of Eiro. Usually, even then, Goblins would attack someone despite being scared. It was like their main reaction to fear was aggression.


    But it seemed like it was quite different here. Maybe this Hobgoblin trained them into submission through fear, or this was simply what Mountain Goblins were like. Either way, Eiro liked how easy this was.


    "Hm, let''s try this a little, huh?" Eiro suggested and stepped off of Gobo, before kicking him toward a spot where everyone could see him. It seemed like he managed to control himself a little after the pain subsided. Gobo stared up at Eiro with spit running down at the side of his mouth and slowly tried to push himself off the ground to fight against him. But Eiro simply pushed air magic into his throat and then spoke, so that all the Goblins in this vige could hear themand that he was about to teach them.


    "Kneel." The Demonmanded, his voice carrying through the area. The regr goblins became a little rowdy and more of them gathered around the ''arena'', just staring at Gobo as he tried to stand. But instead, Eiro simply grabbed him by his shoulders and pushed mana out of his fingers while pushing him down.


    Gobo''s eyes twisted around and only his white could be seen for a moment before he dropped to his knees. Eiro simply repeated himself, "Kneel." He said again, and Gobo simply stayed in ce, kneeling in front of Eiro.


    Seeing that Gobo managed to do so properly, Eiro turned toward the Hobgoblins and deeply red at them, "Kneel." Hemanded them one more time, and the Goblins, seemingly connecting the sound that Eiro made with how their lord was sitting, they did just that, kneeling down behind Gobo.


    And then, Eiro looked at Gobo again, "Bow." The Demonmanded them next. Gobo, still under a lot of pain, slowly bowed forward and basically pressed his palms and forehead against the ground he was standing on just now. The rock-floor that was covered in the green, disgusting blood of these mountain goblins and hobgoblins.


    After Gobo bowed forward, immediately, one of the Hobgoblins tried to follow and also bow in the same way, "Oh~. You seem like a smart one." Eiro grinned, and then looked at the other Hobgoblins that didn''t follow their example.


    "Bow." The Demon told them again, pressing his foot back onto the back of Gobo''s head, and the three other Hobgoblins finally understood and pressed their foreheads against the ground, with the exception of one of them.


    After Gobo, he was actually the strongest amongst the Hobgoblins, as his physical body also showed. He seemed to be just a slight bit shorter than Gobo. He kept staring at Eiro, his anger obviously not hidden too well. So, the Demon stepped up to him and quickly pulled out his Dagger. The hollow one, that was still filled with some water.


    Without hesitation, Eiro stabbed it into the center of this Hobgoblin''s chest, the same spot that he had attacked Gobo at to make him writhe like that before. Eiro pushed mana into this Hobgoblin''s chest followed by making the water flow out of some of the small holes and right into the wound.


    In there, Eiro immediately made it freeze and spike up. The Hobgoblin tried to endure it somehow, but instead, all that he did was fall backward in pain. He tried ripping the ice out of his chest, but before he could continue, Eiro pulled his hand away and crushed it underneath Eiro''s foot. Not like this still made any difference, since this Hobgoblin was already screaming a fair amount just because of Eiro''s initial ''attack''.


    Eiro was thinking that this was a good chance to stare into this Hobgoblin''s eyes and read its notifications. It was still a regr red notification telling it about damage, but the words were simply different. They were written in the Goblins''nguage, so Eiro couldn''t understand them just yet. He could just have some of them do things that would trigger notifications to appear and then read them, that seems like a good way to get the skill to start it off with.


    Sincenguage skills first supported verbal understanding and only after that written understanding, Eiro should be able to understand what these guys are saying pretty quickly if he learned thenguage through text.


    Either way, this Hobgoblin wasn''t the only one that had a notification appear at this moment.


    [<Torture> Skill Learned!]


    ''Hm, I was more out for another skill... Whatever'' Eiro thought to himself quietly and cut through this notification with his dagger before putting it away.


    At this point, all of the Goblins saw and heard Eiro do this to these Hobgoblins, the ones that they feared and respected.


    And then, the demon slowly stepped up to the front of the arena to look at the mass of regr Goblins. Making his voice carry as far as he could make it, the Demon held his hand forward and pointed at the ground.


    "Kneel." He eximed, and it seemed like most of the Goblins didn''t understand what he wanted from them, even if some followed hismand. So, he repeated himself, "Kneel."


    This time, more of the Goblins listened to him and fell to their knees, even if not all of them. Onest time, Eiro said themand. "Kneel."


    There were some that didn''t listen to Eiro''s words, and they were quickly turned into experience with a simple ice bolt spell. Now that everyone was kneeling, and were even more scared by Eiro, the Demon continued.


    "Bow." He eximed, and this time, with only the exception of a few, bowed down and pressed their heads against the ground.


    "There you go." The Demon smiled, although that wasn''t directed at these Goblins, but rather at the notification that appeared once all the Goblins bowed to him.


    [<Leadership> Skill Learned!]


    With a satisfied expression, the Demon turned around and stepped past the Hobgoblins. He walked up the steps that were carved into the ground, and then made his way over toward the b, finally acknowledging Nelli''s expression.


    "What is it?" He asked her, and the Spirit simply sighed a bit, "I''m just a bit surprised. You saved the Gnome because it was definitely in pain through its body being taken, and then torture and dominate these guys?"


    With a slight chuckle, Eiro nodded his head, "Yeah, why not? The Gnome was a defenseless child, you know? And it was being treated like an object, something to be purchased. Sure, I used fear to control these guys right now, but that''s because that''s what that ''Gobo'' guy used. If he used love to control them, I''d be making them food or something. I don''t n on treating them bad. Well, it''s not like I care if they die, and the ''torture'' was really just minor." Eiro pointed out, and Nelli looked past the Demon at the Hobgoblin writhing around after having ice ced into the center of its chest.


    "Mhm." She hummed sarcastically, and Eiro slightly shrugged, "He''s pretty strong, so he''ll be good manpower. No way am I going to waste that. He''s barely taking any damage, it''s just keeping pressure on that point. It shouldn''t hurt him too badly if he doesn''t move around, so it''s his own fault."


    "Oh. Well, fair enough... But why exactly do you need ''manpower''? You n on taking over as Monster King in the future?" Nelli asked, and Eiro just stared at her with a light frown, "Of course not, why would I? I just want to get the Magic Stones from here, and I''m not going to stay here and mine them myself." Eiro exined to her, and at that point, Nelli understood.


    "Got it, got it!" She eximed, and Eiro simply nodded his head. There was a pretty specific reason why Eiro wanted to take advantage of thisrge source of raw magic stones. At some point, Magic Stones ran out of ''Magic''. The more you used them, the less potent they would be until they couldn''t be used anymore at all. And normally, you wouldn''t be able to just buy a magic stone from a shop, since most Magic Stone mines were monopolized by the countries they were in.


    Because of that, only high-tier mages or people in positions of power would be allowed to have them. Meaning, Magic-Stones were mostly a noble-only ressource. The only reason that Eiro had so many was that he took them with him from the Lord of Greed back then.


    Since simply using a magic stone let you get proficiency in a magic skill, it was the perfect ressource to train with, but Eiro never wanted to use them too much in case of emergencies.


    He even had to rece the magic stone ced onto his dagger a couple of times already as well. A Magic Stone mine was really something big that he could make use of pretty well if he managed to make sure this ce was going to stay hidden. Who knew, maybe Eiro could even find some other uses for these guys at some point?


    But for now, there was something else that needed to be done first. Eiro turned his head and looked at the Gnome floating next to him. It was just continuosly staring at the rock b without reacting to anything else, so Eiro figured that this really was the perfect ce for the immature spirit.


    "Go on." The Demon told the spirit, and it slowly approached the rock b in response. It basically was just floating above it before pressing itself down on the surface and repeating what Eiro and the Gnome had practiced together for the past week.


    And before Eiro knew it... the Gnome''s body fell apart into fine dust.


    "...Huh?" The Demon muttered quietly, just turning toward Nelli. But it seemed like the Naiad was pretty rxed, so he simply assumed that nothing actually went wrong just now.


    And as if responding to Eiro''s thoughts, the dust gathered together again and clumped up, turning into thick, dense rocks. On top of that dust grew more rock, making it all expand to the size of a boulder that simply sat there on top of the carved b.


    It didn''t take long for something else to happen after that either, since the boulder quickly had cracks forming on its surface that spread out until the boulder shattered into small pieces. And at its center floated a small figure. Some pebbles were still floating around its body, but otherwise, it was a humanoid figure the same height as Nelli. Covering its arms, legs, back and neck was hard rock, although the rest of its body was covered in simple regr skin.


    And with a surprisingly deep voice, the male Golem spoke. "Thank you for your help, Eiro.. I have found my name."

 Chapter 146 - Gondos

    Eiro looked forward at the earth spirit, curiously staring down ever part of its body. With a grin on his face, the Demon crossed his arms, "Is that so? Then will you tell me your name?" He asked, before the Golem immediately nodded his head.


    "Of course. My name is Gondos Holmstir." The Golem exined.


    "Gondos, I see. Then it''s nice to formally be introduced to you." Eiro smiled, and Nelli slowly floated toward Gondos and looked at him curiously, "Not bad, not bad..." She muttered quietly, and Gondos simply turned his head to look at the Naiad.


    "Thank you. I can only say ''likewise''." Gondos told her, before quickly turning back toward the Demon in front of him, "But that doesn''t matter for now. Eiro, I promised you that I would form a contract on equal terms with you after I matured, and this is a promise that I would like to follow up on. Soon, preferably, it doesn''t seem like I will be able to stay like this much longer without a source of mana." The Golem exined, and in response, Eiro simply nodded his head.


    "Got it. Then let''s do this right here, I suggest." With a quick smile, Gondos floated up to Eiro and ced his hand onto the center of his chest. Eiro remembered the way that his first contract with Nelli went, so they managed to get through this one pretty quickly since it was mostly the same. There were a few differences, for example when it came to the specifics of what the earth element entails, and what one would ''pledge'' to in connection to that. But for the most part, Eiro could just make use of what he remembered and what he was then told from Nelli about the contracts in general to speed this whole thing up.


    Of course, during the whole process, Eiro and the Golem gave mana to each other, just like in the other contract with Nelli. And then, a little whileter, a notification appeared in front of Eiro.


    [You have formed a Contract with the Golem, Gondos Holmstir]


    Eiro smiled and ran his fingers through this notification before slowly turning around toward the Goblins who were still bowing to the Demon ever since he firstmanded them to. Thinking that this was a good enough chance to finally get this stuff over with, Eiro simply sat down on the rock b for a while and leaned forward, staring directly at the former lord of this vige.


    "Gobo. Stand up." Eiromanded, once more making his voice carry further using wind magic, and the Hobgoblin immediately raised its head and stared at the Demon. It slowly stood up on its two feet and stared at Eiro with a bit of nervosity.


    "Come." The Demonmanded next, and Gobo slowly followed themand, albeit with some hesitation. He stood in front of Eiro, who just pointed at the ground, "Kneel." He told Gobo.


    Now that Eiro was looking down onto Gobo again, the Demon simply started to speak to the Hobgoblin, "Why do you mine Magic Stones here?" Eiro asked him, and Gobo quickly raised his head to reply.


    "...Shiny stones strong. Gobo not want ve. Gobo want strong. Gobo use shiny stones to strong." With a light frown, Eiro looked at the Hobgoblin in thought.


    If he thought that magic stones were a symbol of strength, then that meant he was probably tamed by a mage sometime before. And that wasn''t so umon either, for mages to tame humanoid monsters. After all, like that they had an assistant that they could treat however they wanted and that could take care of tasks nobody else would want to do. On top of that, since Goblins have a natural resistance against different poisons, especially they may be used for testing things like potions or other concoctions.


    "Hm. Then keep mining them for now, Gobo." Eiromanded him, although it seemed like the Hobgoblin was pretty surprised. He probably thought that he''d be killed now, and couldn''t continue what he wanted to do, so this came as something quite pleasant.


    And then, all of a sudden, Eiro moved his hand to the side and slowly took out a couple more magic stones that appeared out of thin air and handed them to Gobo. "Take these as a small ''reward'' for now. You will get more of them when I return and I see that you did a good job."


    "More? More shiny stones?" The Hobgoblin asked, and Eiro simply nodded his head. "Yes, more shiny stones. These are different from the ones that you find here, right?" Eiro pointed out, and then held the magic stones up to the ne around Gobo''s neck. Immediately, the Hobgoblin nodded its head excitedly.


    "Then I hope you''re going to do your job. Make sure that you don''t disappoint me, Gobo." The Demonmanded, slowly pushing himself off of the b of rock again.


    He walked past Gobo and just so slightly red at the Hobgoblin in passing, "I''m sure you know what''s going to happen if you do disappoint me, right?" Eiro announced to the Hobgoblin. It seemed like this guy didn''t somehow manage to break out of his situation, but instead was either abandoned or his original owner simply died.


    Gobo may have a scratch that split the taming-tattoo in half, but Gobo was listening to him so well that he doubted he had any major willpower. He was just a fair amount stronger, and seemingly more intelligent than the other goblins and hobgoblins here.


    And then, after stepping past the other inhabitants of this vige freshly dominated by Eiro, the Demon made his way over toward the single cave system that led back away from this ce. It seemed like some goblins were trying to follow him, and actually managed to do so pretty skillfully, but with Eiro''s high-level stealth skill it was impossible for them to actually keep watching him for too long if he wanted to directly hide from them.


    Not to mention that Eiro was far, far quicker on his feet as well. Once Eiro squeezed himself through the rather thin gap that made up the exit of this cave system, the Demon climbed down this ce and soon found himself on the road that he was traveling on before.


    It was just a five minute walk away from the ce the kids were, so Eiro chose to simply walk a bit and leave the kids for themselves a bit. He could still perceive them perfectly like this, but they could act as if Eiro simply wasn''t there a little while longer.


    And then, Eiro slowly turned his head and looked at the notifications that appeared in front of him a couple minutes ago as he was leaving the vige.


    [You are now the owner of the Mountain Goblin Vige]


    [Leadership Skill leveled up!]


    [Leadership Skill leveled up!]


    [Leadership Skill leveled up!]


    "Hm, neat." Eiro smiled lightly before moving his fingers through the notifications to make them disappear "So, why exactly did you do that?" Gondos asked curiously, just watching the blue mist disappear into nothingness.


    The Demon raised his brows and lightly turned his eyes to the side to look at the Golem, "You were there when I told Nelli, right? It''s for the Magic Stones. They''re hard to actually buy, so I want to have a good source of them."


    "Even if that may be the case," Gondos started, "in any way, it''s not exactly true for you, is it? I don''t understand much about it, but a King must be one of the people that can actually get Magic Stones, right?"


    "Oh yeah, definitely." Nelli agreed, "And especially, I think there''s only one major kind of magic stones there. Earth. You just made a contract with an earth spirit, which is a thousand times better than any kind of magic stone out there, even if it can help you practice magic."


    With a slight sigh, Eiro nodded his head, even if he looked at Nelli a little disappointedly, "I thought at least you would understand." Eiro pointed out, and then immediately started to exin. Or at least he tried to, although he was interrupted by a theory that Gondos just came up with.


    "Ah, so you do simply enjoy the act of dominating those weaker than you? If that''s so, then-"


    "No." The demon interrupted immediately, "Just because I sometimes enjoy killing others, doesn''t mean that I..." Eiro started, but then slowly turned his head away, "...nevermind, it was actually kind of liberating, confusingly."


    Eiro quickly shook his head so that he could get his thoughts on track again, "But that''s not it. Nelli, do you remember back then, when we tested everyone''s affinities at home the first time?" The Demon asked, and Nelli just nodded her head.


    "Yup, what about it? What does that have to do with this?"


    "Everything, maybe? It wasn''t much, sure, but I did have a slight affinity for the shadow element. I''m pretty sure I wasn''t created with that affinity somehow, otherwise it would probably be more potent, but I grew that affinity myself. It''s like how I grew my fire affinity in the boiling water."


    "Oh wait, so those shadow magic stones you sometimes use actually increase your shadow affinity?" Nelli asked, and Eiro simply nodded his head, "That''s my guess, at least. And so, it seems like a pretty good idea to try and get my affinity up in another element with the help of those magic stones back there. Or rather, to let me awaken an advanced affinity." Eiro exined, before Nelli slowly opened her eyes.


    "Oh! Right! Nature Magic Stones!"


    Immediately, Eiro nodded his head in response to the spirit''s realization, "That''s exactly it."


    However, it seemed like Eiro''s second contracted spirit was a little bit confused at hearing all this, and quickly turned to the Demon, "So you''re doing all this just because you think you maybe can get Nature magic?"


    "Mhm. An important person to me had that element, and now that I have both a water and earth spirit, which are the two basis elements for the nature element, it should hopefully help. Since especially in ces like this, where ambient natural mana is strong and dense, Nature Magic Stones are pretty likely to appear in magic stone mines. They''re technically the mostmon type of magic stone because there''s some in any magic stone mine, but they aren''t sold anywhere, because some kind of idiotic forest kingdom has imed monopoly over them. It''s like the church, they somehow have the power to do that." Eiro sighed annoyedly, before scratching the back of his neck.


    "I saw a couple of unrefined magic stones that smelled a little different to regr earth magic stones, and the smell reminded me of that important person, so I knew that there definitely were some of them here." The Demon kept exining, "I hope that by the time we''re back, I can get started on growing my nature element a bit."


    "You''ve really thought this through, didn''t you?" Nelli chuckled lightly, before Eiro just smugly shrugged, "What can I say, it''s what I do. Oh, and by the way..." Eiro said, after remembering something important, "If either of you mention the fact that I have the torture skill, the two of you are going to be mud together, alright?"


    With that threat, Eiro continued walking, while Gondos started slowing down while floating behind him. Nelli obviously noticed it was just a joke, but Gondos hadn''t been with Eiro all that long yet. With a slight sigh, the Naiad floated up next to the Golem and pulled him after them, reassuring him that Eiro wasn''t serious.


    And while rolling his eyes, Eiro soon managed to spot the carriage again.. The demon approached the ce with a light smile, and just waved at the group when he saw that they noticed him.

 Chapter 147 - Monk

    "Wait, so the Gnome became a Golem now?" Arc asked curiously as he stood up to take a closer look at Gondos, before the Spirit immediately nodded its head and just so slightly bowed forward while floating in the air.


    "Nice to meet you all. I am indeed the Gnome that had been apanying you until now. My name is Gondos." The Golem exined, and Avalin excitedly jumped up and made his way over toward him, "Cool!" She eximed and tried to grasp at the Spirit, although Eiro quickly squatted down and picked the young girl up.


    "Now, now, stop that. He''s not a pet." Eiro told Avalin, and the young girl quickly nodded her head, "Alright~!" She eximed, before the Demon slowly made his way over back toward the carriage while looking at the others.


    "Is everyone ready to leave again?" Eiro asked them, while the little girl on his arms just slung her arms around the Demon''s neck and snuggled up to him. Everyone seemed to be somewhat ready to go for now, so Arc and Clementine quickly made their way over toward the Aria. But when the others tried heading into the carriage, Felix just looked at Eiro for a second and held his hands up in front of him slowly.


    It seemed like he was trying to remember how to say a word in signnguage, but when he managed to, Eiro just read it in his mind.


    ''What I did, huh?'' He thought to himself, and Eiro lightly smiled back at him and started to exin, out loud so that the others could hear as well, of course.


    "I just dominated a vige of monsters to get a source of magic stones." The Demon exined to them, trying to go through with the hand-signs as slowly as possible so that Felix could properly understand. This was actually pretty hard to do, especially considering that he was still carrying Avalin at this point in time. But once Eiro finished speaking, the others immediately stared at him confusedly.


    "You just did what?" Rudy asked confusedly,pletely in disbelief, while Felix was trying to figure out if he somehow read the hand-signs wrong and was looking around at the others.


    "Yeah, there''s a small vige of Mountain Goblins around here. There was very dense mana there that Gondos was interested in, and then I took interest in the magic stone mine in that ce. So, I dethroned the Hobgoblin ''Lord'' of that ce and took over. Pretty smart fe for a goblin, actually. His name''s Gobo."


    With a slightugh, Arc hooked one of the Aria up to the carriage, "You''re joking, right?" He asked, but Eiro simply looked back with a light frown, "Of course not. I''mpletely serious. The best part is that there''s a pretty big town that''s not even too far from here. And since we''re in Skyhart right now, I can just head back here after we visit Solomon and that brat again." Eiro pointed out to them, and then looked at Felix with a light smile. He just quickly signed ''Tell youter'', so that he could take his time exining everything to him some other time.


    "Isn''t it pretty dangerous to try and lead a vige of Goblins?" Sammy asked with a slight bit of concern, before Eiro slowly thought about it.


    "Sure, but only if I let someone find out about it. If someone should spot me in that ce ever, I''ll just ''abort the mission'' and kill the Goblins instead, and the problem''s solved."


    "I think she wasn''t talking about your identity being found out..." Clementine pointed out, "But Goblins themselves are pretty dangerous, right?"


    "Hm, they didn''t seem that strong to me, to be honest." Eiro replied, "There were a lot of them, but otherwise... Goblins were the monsters I killed to rank up when I was just a Lesser Imp, so I don''t think they should be that strong?"


    "Eh... Fair enough..." Rudy muttered quietly, before Eiro simply smiled at them, "And even then, monsters like that are pretty easy to deal with. Once they be a little bit smarter, they''ll stop being so feral and can be controlled more easily. As long as none of them somehow get unique evolutions, it should be fine."


    That being said, Eiro did want to try and guide those goblins into umon or rare evolutions by giving them things that Goblins wouldn''t usually get their hands on. Since some monsters could evolve depending on what kind of ''profession'' they had, actually giving them things like pickaxes or something like that to help them mine the magic stones could produce Mining Goblins.


    Or if there were some others that were useful for different things other than mining, then it might be worth investing in trying that kind of stuff out. Training some of them to be pretty strongbat-wise would also be a good idea, so that they could defend the vige while Eiro was gone.


    So he did also need a couple of weapons... Either way, Eiro figured that he could spend some of the rest of the trip trying toe up with ideas for such things, so for now, he simply helped get the carriage ready for the rest of today''s trip.


    Arc started driving the carriage forward and Eiro got on Lugo''s back, just cing his mask back onto his face while following the carriage. The path was rather narrow at the moment, so Eiro couldn''t ride in front of them the whole time.


    But that time was quickly used by Eiro speaking to Gondos to ask him to try and refine some rock that Eiro scooped up from the road using earth magic. After all, ''refining'' was nothing but a skill that only spirits could learn. And even if Gondos ''grew up'' now and wasn''t an immature spirit anymore, his skill level and grade was still pretty low. He had to practice some more to be able to go through with the kind of refination that Nelli could do.


    After all, all that Gondos could do was practically ''pull out'' certain things from a mass of earth, but soon, he should be able to change what the rock was like in itself. Eiro read somewhere that refined dirt was the perfect soil for nting things, so he really wanted to try that out sometime. The Demon really couldn''t imagine what kinds of things he could grow.


    nting something in refined soil, and then watering it using refined water. Somehow, he was getting really excited about it. Maybe it was just him being excited about the idea of having a new ce to stay long enough to even nt something properly. They couldn''t go back to their home of over seven years anymore, after all.


    With a slight sigh, the Demon started looking around the area, trying to make sure that no monsters or troublesome people were near them, and then took out a book from his treasury to start reading a bit.


    And like that, the trip to pass this mountain-range continued.


    ---


    Looking down at the map in his hands, Eiro could really barely believe it. Just now, he managed to spot the ce that they were looking for. They were right in front of a giant mountain, and all they now had to do was ascend that mountain to get to the temple at the top.


    But Eiro had been able to just barely spot some golden decorations ced around its walls. The Demon was really excited to see this. This meant that they could simply drive up this mountain and be done with it! Sammy and Leon would have their skills unsealed, and Eiro didn''t have to worry about them being in such pain anymore!


    At the foot of this mountain, right where the path to get up to the peak started, was a small vige. It didn''t really seem all that special to him, and the people were pretty quiet. Especially at the moment, really.


    They were up north, so during this time where winter was approaching and the first snow was falling, everyone was raelly just preparing to properly get through this cold season.


    Eiro lightly smiled and looked in front of himself as they entered through the vige-gate and made their way to the far side to the ''gate'' immediately.


    But for some reason, the carriage simply slowed down, just before the Aria set foot onto the brick that started the ''road''.


    "Huh? What''s going on? Go!" Arc eximed, trying to somehow get the Aria to move, but they simply resisted Arc''smandspletely, at least when it came to walking through the stone-brick archway in front of them.


    Eiro slowly stepped down from Lugo''s back and walked up to the archway and see what was going on. And right when he tried to, he felt shivers go down his spine. He turned around, and soon noticed what was going on with the Aria. They were simply scared. It was simr with Lugo, he was simply nervous about heading up this mountain.


    But it was weird, Eiro didn''t notice anything at all until he stepped up in front of the gate. However, the feeling was something rather familiar. It was a simr to when Eiro was still under control of the original Avalin, when they entered the floating town above theke.


    It seemed like there was a monster underneath that town that was strong enough that its mere existence scared monsters enough to stay away from it.


    But this time it was different. There was literally nothing if Eiro stepped a couple meters away, but the moment he was within distance of a single step of the archway, he could feel the pressure that whatever being was in here gave off.


    "Ah, yeah, I''m afraid you won''t be able to bring that carriage up there with you." A man exined. He was wearing robes that Eiro only saw in an illustration before. They were the robes of a monk, and Eiro just slightly turned toward him when this man approached.


    "Something is sealed here, right?" Eiro asked with a slight re, and the monk raised his brows surprised, "That is indeed the case. Not many people know about this, however. May I ask why you are here?" The monk asked Eiro, and the Demon slowly turned toward the carriage.


    "There is someone up there that is supposed to be able to help my children. But we really can''t take the carriage?" The Demon asked, and the monk simply shook his head.


    "I''m afraid not. That ce is one that requires immense willpower to approach. The being that is sealed there is a dangerous one. Magic beasts in particr can sense such things easily, but it is hard for even some people to fully climb the mountain."


    With a deep frown, Eiro turned over toward Nelli, but she simply shook her head. It seemed like even she didn''t know about this. "Fine, then we''re going on foot." The Demon announced and was just about to tell Arc to move the carriage to the side of the road until they found some stables to keep it, although the Monk quickly stopped him.


    "I would suggest not leaving something as important as that carriage and those two magic beasts alone. Is there anyone you could leave it with instead?" The Monk asked, and Eiro just sighed. He was right, a carriage and magic beasts like this were worth enough to kill over for some people. This ce seemed pretty safe, but it was still risky.


    "Yeah... Arc,e on. We''re bringing you guys to an Inn. Sammy, Leon and I are going up there alone." Eiro announced, and the Monk simply smiled after hearing that, "I see. I can show you to an Inn, if you wish. I was just about to head up the mountain again as well, so you three may apany me.. I do not mind guiding you there."

 Chapter 148 - Guided

    "Oh?" Eiro asked as he just kept staring at the monk, who simply smiled at the Demon and nodded his head, "Yes, of course. There is no reason not to guide travelers in need if they require it." The Monk exined, and Eiro simply shrugged.


    "Fine. I guess if we need to, then we''ll take your help." Eiro told him, before the Monk slowly nodded his head and started showing the group the way to the single Inn in this small vige.


    On the way, Arc just looked at Eiro, seemingly feeling a little bit concerned, surprisingly, "You sure that''s a good idea? We have no idea who that is, and didn''t he say that there''s something really strong sealed there? Isn''t it-"


    "Arc, don''t worry." Eiro told him with a slight smirk underneath his mask and simply kept looking forward as they followed the monk. It didn''t take them long to get to the Inn, and Eiro swiftly made his way inside so that he could pay for a room and a spot in the stables.


    He then helped Arc and Clementine quickly bring the carriage to the back of the Inn and then properly instructed them on what to do in case of an emergency, even though that was probably the hundredth time that he told them the exact same thing.


    "We know, now just hurry. I don''t think we should wait that long with those two, right?" Rudy pointed out with a slight frown, and Eiro simply nodded his head as he picked Leon up off of the ground and held him on his arms, "Just be careful down here while we''re gone, alright?" Eiro said, and the others immediately just nodded their heads.


    Once Eiro turned around, he spotted Sammy standing there by the door, nervously waiting to climb up this mountain. It was something that she literally needed to do to survive, after all.


    "Let''s go." The Demon said as he looked at his daughter, and Sammy just nodded her head and followed him as they made their way out toward the Monk that was waiting on the street.


    But right as they were walking over toward him, in a voice that was basically a whisper, Eiro told something to Sammy that really surprised her. "When I tell you to, immediately hide what I''m going to do to that guy from Leon, please." Actually, it went beyond shock, since she didn''t understand Eiro''s reasons behind wanting to do something like that. But even then, Sammy tried to hide that shock for now. After all, there had to be a reason why he was acting this way, right?


    "Are you ready to go?" The Monk asked, before Eiro nodded his head in response, "Of course. Lead the way." The Demon said.


    And as such, they just followed the monk toward the gates again and quickly stepped through there. A wave of pressure flooded Eiro''s body the moment that they did, however, and even Sammy and Leon seemed slightly affected by it.


    "It''s quite overwhelming when you enter through here the first time, isn''t that right?" The Monk asked with a slightugh, in response to which Eiro just quietly chuckled, "Mhm, it is. Slightly nauseating even."


    "Oh, then you must have a quite high perception stat." With a pleasantly surprised expression, the Monk slightly turned his head toward Eiro, "And those two are those that need our help?" He asked next. With a light frown and a bitter smile, Sammy looked back at the Monk, "Yes, we''re here to have something unsealed." She exined, and for not a single moment did Eiro avert his eyes from the Monk to see his reaction.


    "Then you''re at the right ce, youngdy. The High Priest of our temple is an expert when ites to sealing." He exined with a simply smile as they all started stepping up the slope in front of them slowly but steadily.


    Eiro was actually slightly unnerved being here. The constant pressureing from whatever being was sealed on this mountain was clouding his sensespletely. It might only be clouded whenpared to before, though. It did seem like he was still able to see, hear, smell, and sense things pretty well for the most part. Just not as well as Eiro had be used to at this point in time.


    But that didn''t matter much anyway, since Eiro just kept all of his focuspletely on the monk the whole time through without a single moment of hesitation. He knew what that monk really was, after all.


    Either way, for now, Eiro figured it might be a good idea to get as much information out of this ''man'' as possible.


    "Can you tell us what kind of being it is that''s sealed here?" Eiro inquired, since he was actually kind of curious about it, and the monk slightly looked toward him and then shook his head, "Sorry, I can''t do that." He exined, and Eiro raised his brows suspiciously.


    "Why not? Is it something that has to stay hidden or something?" He asked, but once more, the monk looked toward him and quickly shook his head, "No, no, that''s not what I meant. I can''t tell you, because I don''t know. Only the High-Priest knows what exactly is sealed here. We others simply know that it''s something that can never be allowed to roam around freely."


    Somehow, this made Eiro even more suspicious... and curious. He really wanted to know what kind of being it was now. Who knew, maybe Eiro could somehow convince the High-Priest to tell him. Depending on how it went, Sammy might be able to... ''suggest'' it to him. Although, that would probably be a bad lesson. She shouldn''t use that skill of hers so freely without bounds.


    "I see." Eiro replied, and then thought about what else he may want to know, "Then could you tell us about the temple itself? What do you guys do up there, do you simply sit there and make sure that the seal isn''t somehow opened up?"


    With a slight chuckle, the monk shook his head, "Of course not. After all, the temple has existed long, long before that being was sealed there. We study an ancient art of sealing developed in this temple, and many monks produced by this temple head out into the world to then vanquish spirits or other strong, dangerous beings by sealing them in safe ces until the onees that can truly destroy whatever being they sealed." The Monk exined to him.


    "The art of sealing, hm? Is there any way for an outsider to learn it?" The Demon asked, but the Monk just slightly turned his eyes toward Eiro, finally revealing the kind of expression that Eiro wanted to see. It was really just minor, but the Monk''s expression changed for a split moment there. His eye twitched, his lips quivered, and his pupils dted a fair bit due to what Eiro could only assume to be anger.


    But he managed to quickly get himself back under control, and as such replied with a light smile, "I''m afraid not. We are d to help, but if you wish to learn the art of seals, then you need to have dedicated your entire life toward it already. I was born and raised in that temple, you see? As were all the other disciples and masters for any generation since its existence."


    "Hm... I see." Eiro said, slightly disappointedly, and then just looked forward. The path they were on right now was rather steep, and it would take maybe seven or eight reach the pake. It would be an exhausting trip, but he was sure that Sammy and Leon could handle it. He just knew they would.


    For maybe two or three hours, they continued walking up the regr path, until they reached a spot that was rtively even. The Monk slowly turned around and looked at Eiro, "Should we take a break? We need to make sure we can truly reach the peak by tonight, after all."


    "Right." Eiro replied, and then turned toward Sammy while letting Leon down onto the ground, since Eiro had been carrying him the whole time up until now, "Can you watch him for a while? I want to have a word alone with our dear friend here." Eiro told Sammy as he turned around, but just when he did, Sammy did something that Eiro didn''t really expect.


    "S-Stop!" She eximed, "Why can''t you just do it here?" Sammy asked, "Is there any reason to keep secrets from us?"


    With a light frown, Eiro turned toward Sammy confusedly, "Of course not. I want to exin the situation, and I don''t want you two to be stressed out even more." Eiro told Sammy reassuredly, even though the young woman didn''t really buy it.


    "M-Mister, how about you just sit down here for a while? I can do the same, it''s totally fine." Sammy told the monk, trying to somehow signal him that he was in danger if he went with Eiro, although the Demon just kept staring at her with a deep frown.


    "You really trust me that little?" The Demon asked, and Sammy looked at him nervously, unsure what to say. After all, Eiro was about to murder this monk that only wanted to help them! What else was she supposed to do but that?


    "I... I-"


    "I wasn''t going to kill him right off the bat. Maybe I would have cut off a limb or two, maybe stabbed him a little. But he should be able to take it. Ain''t I right, mister monk?" Eiro pointed out with a light smile underneath his mask, and the monk slowly turned his face toward Eiro, keeping up the same fake expression as before and slightly chuckled.


    "What may you be speaking about?" He asked, but Eiro just continued without responding to him, "Although, depending on what this guy''s n actually is I may have to kill him, sure. If he turns out to actually want to help us, which I truthfully doubt, I would have let him be, really." Eiro sighed deeply, but once more, the monk simply kept staring at Eiro with the same expression.


    And then, to Sammy''s surprise, Eiro just ced his hand onto his mask, "Come on, you don''t need to try and hide it. Let''s have a conversation, bud. From Monster..." Just as the Demon started thatst sentence, he took off his mask and pulled down his hood, revealing his identity.


    The Monk''s eyes opened wide, unable to contain the surprise that he felt, although the surprise grew even stronger when he then had a rock-spike inside of the center of his back, piercing through its whole body until it stuck out the stomach. Of course, meanwhile, Nelli made sure that Leon was looking away.


    "...to Monster." Eiro continued, and just as he did, a translucent, viscous liquid started dripping down from the ''wound'' that Gondos had created with that rock-spike that didn''t seem to have affected the monk in the slightest.


    With a deep, grumbling sigh, the face of the monk turned nk and all the colorpletely disappeared from its body.. But not only the color, the skin itself, until it was only a slightly translucent mass of white slime standing there.

 Chapter 149 - Bottled Core

    "Hm..." Eiro hummed quietly as he looked at the being in front of him, "I think your race-type was called ''Slime''? Judging from what I''ve read about those... you should be a Shapeless Slime?" The Demon asked, and with a voice that sounded as if someone was speaking with water in their mouth, just gurgling through it, the ''Monk'' replied, "How did you-"


    "How did I know? You just have the scent of a monster. Besides your outer ''Shell'' there was nothing ''human'' about you. No blood, no heart, or any other vital organs. You were just like that inside of that shell."


    The moment that Eiro finished speaking, the shapeless slime just seeped out the bottom of the clothes it had been wearing before throwing itself toward Eiro. And just as it was doing so, parts of its body turned into sharp des that were supposed to injure the Demon. But since he had the Golem Gondos, Eiro didn''t have to worry about that. Because before anything happened, ayer of rock appeared in front of Eiro''s chest that blocked the attack.


    Well, Eiro would have been able to dodge easily, but that would have most likely made the slime think that it was actually pushing Eiro back or something. The Demon wanted to just show the overwhelming difference between them for now.


    "It gets pretty cold around here, doesn''t it? That must be hard for slimes like you." Eiro pointed out with a slight chuckle as he waved his hand to the side and took control over some of the water that Nelli prepared for him, just making it thin out into tiny droplets that were floating in the air. This was pretty easily done using Air-Magic, of course.


    But on top of that, Eiro simply heated this slight cloud of water up immensely, until it was basically just vapor that the Demon was holding down, "Let me warm you up a bit." The Demon added, doing his best to use this vapor as a carrier to heat the shapeless slime''s body up a bit bybining water and fire magic to cause especially high temperatures directly around the slime''s body.


    This seemed to just freak it out even more, though, and it started attacking even more rapidly until it had to stand down for a while. It seemed like quickly changing its shape and state like that was pretty exhausting to its mana.


    "Oh, sorry, you don''t like the heat?" Eiro asked apologetically, before taking a deep breath, "I''ll make up for it." He suggested, and then pushed out freezing cold air out of his mouth bybining air magic with ice magic. Immediately, the vapor was cooled down immensely and turned into thick, dense mist that Eiro had gather right around the slime''s body.


    Eiro knew that beings without sensory organs like slimes used other methods to see the world, which was usually something like magic perception. It was mostly just a lesser version of what Spirits could use to see mana around, basically.


    The vapor that had been created through magic was already blinding enough to the shapeless slime, but this was even worse now. And on top of that, its body was starting to slightly freeze too. The slime really had to be careful not to-


    "There we go." Eiro said with a happy expression as he pushed his hands into the center of the slime''s body while holding a bottle. Usually, a slime''s body was highly corroding to any and every substance, but since the focus of a shapeless slime was the control over the physical form and its high intelligence, this wasn''t really the case. It was just a bit more corrosive than regr stomach acid of a human. It would only turn out to be an issue if you bathed in it for a while.


    But since Eiro wasn''t nning on that, he was able to pretty easily go through with his n, and trapped the slime''s nucleus, or core, inside of a small ss bottle. And without its core, which was basically the thing controlling the mass of slime that acted as its body, that slime simply dropped to the ground. And since it was technically a liquid... it was quickly scooped up by Eiro and frozen so that he could keep it with him more easily for now.


    "That..." Sammy muttered quietly, "...was a monster..?" She asked, and Eiro slowly turned his face toward her with a deep frown.


    "Yeah, it was. And I think we really, really need to talk. Preferably before you regain the ability to coerce anyone using your voice." The Demon growled slightly as he sat down on one of the rocks at the side of this path as he dropped down the block of frozen slime onto the ground while holding the bottle with the nucleus inside tightly.


    "Why did you think I would end up killing a random person that actually seemed to want to help us out?" Eiro asked Sammy, but the young girl just kept staring at the ground, "I... I don''t..."


    "Is it because of what happened at thatke town? Or simply because I''m a monster?" The Demon asked, and Sammy immediately raised her head, "No, of course not! It''s not because you''re a monster, I don''t care who or what you are! But what do you expect me to think when you make such insinuations! I didn''t know that he was a monster, and you just went and told me ''I''m going to hurt himter''!" Sammy eximed, and Eiro slowly looked down at the ground. She did have a fair point with that, maybe Eiro should just choose his words a little better in the future.


    "I see." Eiro muttered quietly. He still felt a bit upset at the fact that Sammy didn''t trust him not to be horrible as to kill a random being for no reason. It made sense that she was more epting of Eiro killing monsters, though, since most Monsters were horrid beings that lived to kill.


    "Sorry about that, then. I''ll try to stop doing things that make you think I would resort to useless, random ughter." Eiro pointed out, and then just stood up while grabbing the mass of ice again, "Just take a break for now, we''ll keep going in a bit. I''ll have a bit of a talk with this guy." The Demon exined, and just made his way away from Sammy and Leon, albeit while making sure that he could still hear and smell them. This was actually rather hard to do right now, because Eiro''s senses were still dulled because of the pressure the sealed monster gave off.


    Sammy just pressed her face into her hands sourly after Eiro left. It was a pretty unsatisfying ''fight'', after all. Eiro simply left after hearing what Sammy had to say. He did think that she was right, but he still felt slightly bad about knowing that Sammy didn''t really trust him that much anymore.


    "Lady trouble, huh? You know, I may not look it, but I''ve had a lot of experiences with basically all genders! I can help you out with that little lover''s quarrel!" A voiceing from inside the ss bottle muttered quietly. Eiro probably wouldn''t have been able to hear it if it wasn''t for his highly-tuned senses.


    "She''s my daughter, you disgusting bag of shit." Eiro red deeply, and could soon notice the bottle shivering and quaking lightly.


    "Hah! Daughter?! Don''t make meugh, she''s just a human girl, you''re a demon! What kind of delus-"


    "She''s not my blood-daughter, but I raised her since she was seven. And now stop annoying the shit out of me even more before I kill you. You realize that won''t be hard for me at the moment, right?"


    "...Right..." The Slime core replied quietly before Eiro just looked forward and sighed.


    "Tell me, why is a Shapeless Slime guiding us up the mountain? Especially after you came down to ''eat''?" He asked, "And most importantly, why are you literally unaffected by the pressure from that creature?"


    "Well, I never lied to you, so figure it out yourself!" The core eximed, and Eiro slowly nodded his head in thought. He stayed quiet for a few seconds while trying toe to a proper conclusion, before cupping his chin.


    "That temple is one made up of monsters, instead of people. You were a monster that was born up there and raised toward the race you are now, but you came down here to eat a person anyway. I don''t think that''s something normal though, since there''s not a single speck of human blood anywhere in the town, and nobody seemed to be too worried about the fact that there''s a temple of monsters up there. I doubt the people at the vige even know about it." Eiro suggested, and noticed that the slime core just stayed silent for a little while.


    "Good guess..." It replied, and Eiro slightly chuckled and grasped the bottle more tightly, "I see. So there''s monsters up there, huh? Makes it feel kinda more troublesome to be honest." Eiro pointed out. Considering Leon''s skills, everyone up there is probably going to justpletely go mad. But Eiro didn''t really care about that all too much, as long as the three of them managed to get back out as soon as they possibly could.


    "Then I guess there''s no need to worry for now. We''ll see what''s actually going on once we''re there. It''s not like I can just blindly trust you, after all." The Demon pointed out, but the core in the ss bottle started rapidly shaking in response.


    "Don''t you dare step foot into that ancient temple, you demonic piece of-" The slime core yelled out as loudly as it could, creating enough pressure to even nearly press the cork out of the bottle, so Eiro simply let out a little bit of that pressure and then closed the bottle before the core could escape.


    "Right. Too bad, but we''re going to do that." Eiro pointed out and then kept pressing his thumb onto the cork to keep it in. For now, he chose to simply take a break like this as well until Leon and Sammy were good to go again.


    It took just another five to ten minutes for that, really. With Leon in her arms, Sammy came back up to Eiro, who quickly picked up the young boy to help him up the mountain again. In his other hand, he was just carrying the sphere of ice while Nelli carried the bottle with the slime core.


    For the next three hours, they kept walking up this mountain, took another break, and then kept going again, until the steep dirt path turned into a long set of stairs.. And at the end of it, Eiro could see the temple in question.

 Chapter 150 - Temple

    Eiro looked forward and sighed in relief. He was d that one of his biggest worries would soon be dealt with. Although that might create a few more worries, Eiro was sure that it would turn out fine. He hoped.


    "We''re nearly there." The Demon said as he turned around to Sammy, but the girl just quietly nodded her head while continuing to follow him. At the same time, Leon looked up the mountain and soon spotted the temple as well.


    "Daddy, where are we going?" He asked tiredly, and Eiro just looked at him and smiled, "The ce where we can get rid of that annoying itch that you mentioned." The demon exined to the young boy in his arms, who simply started to grin broadly and happily.


    Eiro nearly would have called him energetic, but somehow Leon was just generally very low-energy, so that would probably be a false statement.


    "I''m going to warn you one more time, don''t you dare step in that sacred ce!" The slime core eximed as loudly as he could, even thought it seemed like neither Leon nor Sammy were actually able to hear it through the bottle.


    From then on, it simply kept shaking more and more,pletely throughout the next while that was spent trying to reach the temple. They stepped up the rock stairs, until red and gold pirs appeared next to the path. They were simpler than Eiro imagined them to be, really. Sure, they were carved into and decorated in a pretty way, but while it was surely metallic, the ''gold'' that Eiro saw before didn''t actually seem to be gold. It was apparently just dyed somehow, or just a metal that was simr in color anyway.


    Soon, the group of three, plus the two spirits and the slime core, stepped through the gate at the front of the temple into the courtyard. And immediately, Eiro noticed the pressure from before growing much, much stronger. It was as if he was actually physically standing in front of whatever was sealed here. It wasn''t overwhelming him, but it left a bad taste in Eiro''s mouth nheless.


    Sammy and Leon, on the other hand, seemed to be affected a surprising amount. Sammy''s face went pale, and Leon immediately became droopy. He usually was, but most of the time it wasn''t a split-second change.


    "Anotheryer of whatever seal is holding that thing in?" Eiro asked as he looked down at the bottle in his hand, but the slime core simply stayed silent.


    "Alright, then don''t tell me. I''ll ask someone else." The Demon pointed out and looked around, trying to spot someone. It was really ufortable in here, his senses were even more clouded. It was as if any sort of miasma or energy was given off by that thing simply umted in here and became far stronger than it should have ever be. It was like a thick mist in front of all of Eiro''s senses.


    But soon, Eiro saw someone exiting the door on the other side of the courtyard. It was a humanoid monster wearing a simr outfit to what the slime had been wearing before, even if slightly more decorated with moreyers on it.


    From what Eiro could tell, this monster was a Lizardman. It was dragging its tail on the ground behind it and its dark green scales looked pretty clean for a monster. It seemed pretty calm for the most part, so Eiro figured that the monsters here weren''t all too aggressive.


    When the Lizardman stood in front of Eiro, it slightly bowed forward.


    "I greet you humbly. If it is not too rude to assume, your reasons foring are the seals ced onto these two?" The Lizardman asked, in a calming and quiet voice. Slowly, Eiro nodded his head, "Yes, that''s it. And sorry, but I kind of had to put one of your monks out ofission on our way here..." The Demon told him, just holding forward the bottle and the ball of frozen slime.


    "I see, thank you for safely bringing him here nheless." The Lizardman replied, and soon grabbed both the ball of ice and the bottle and held them in its arms.


    "Please, follow me so that we can more closely inspect those seals."


    With a slow nod, Eiro agreed and then turned around toward Sammy, telling her toe follow him. Together, they made their way inside, with Eiro trying to make sure that Sammy wouldn''t suddenly keel over. She didn''t seem to be doing so great up here. The same was the case for Leon, of course, but since the young boy was already in Eiro''s arms, the demon didn''t have to worry about him falling over.


    "Do not worry, that is a quite natural reaction for those that are not used to this ce. If I can, your case is more concerning than theirs." The Lizardman pointed out, although it quickly shook its head and corrected itself, "Excuse me for that choice of words. ''Concerning'' is not quite right, it is more ''intriguing'' than anything else."


    Eiro quietly nodded his head and looked forward as the Lizardman led them into the building in front of them. Soon, two figures that werepletely hidden by white cloth came up and took the bottle with the slime core and the ball of frozen ice from the Lizardman and quickly disappeared into the adjacent hallways.


    He couldn''t tell much about those figures, just that they smelled literally identical to each other. There didn''t seem to be any sort of difference. And even in the way they were carrying themselves, including posture, footwork, and speed, was the same. As if they were a copy of one another.


    When Eiro looked forward into the main hall they were currently in, he spotted another few monsters, all of different races. Some were shapless slimes like the one that Eiro ''caught'', some were lizardmen, some were goblins, kobolds, or gnolls. It was pretty weird seeing them be ''civilized'' like this.


    But at the same time, all of these guys smelled simply off to Eiro. As if something was missing from their scent. Something very, very basic. It was as if they weren''t even monsters anymore.


    Eiro kept following the Lizardman and they were then led into a small private room with nothing but a long table in the center. The Lizardman kneeled down in front of that table, and then pointed to it.


    "Young woman, shall we begin with you? Please, remove your robes and show your seal to me." It told Sammy, and she just looked at it for a few seconds and then nodded her head. She seemed pretty hazy, as if she wasn''t really capable of thinking about it too much.


    So to maybe change that a little, just when Sammy started taking off her jacket, Eiro let Leon down onto the ground and grabbed Sammy by the shoulders, turning her toward him.


    "Look at me." He told her, and then soon sent a few pulses of mana into her body through her shoulders. He didn''t want to make it intertwine with any of her energies, because that was the method for torture that Enka practically ''taught'' him, but rather just wanted to support the flow of her blood a little bit.


    He wanted to use magic to make fresh air without all that miasma in it gather in her lungs while the old one left her body. It didn''t take long until her pale face became rtively rosy again, and she looked at Eiro after blinking a few times.


    "Hm? What''s going on?" She asked, surprised at what Eiro was doing, and the Demon quickly exined the situation to her, "He wants you to show him your seal so that they can figure out how to remove it. I''ll be here the whole time and make sure that nothing happens, but when I stop constantly controlling the air and blood in your body, you''re going to be hazy like before again, probably. I just don''t want you to be scared." Eiro told Sammy, and the young woman just slowly nodded her head, quite nervously closing her eyes.


    "That''s fine... Let''s just get this over with then..." She muttered quietly, and Eiro slowly let go of her shoulders. And while she was still fully conscious, Sammy started taking off her clothes and handed them to Eiro, who was just holding Leon in his other arm again. The young boy fell asleep, so he had no other choice, really.


    Eiro soon watched as Sammy hazilyid down on the table with all of her body exposed, and Eiro stared at the Lizardman with a re that just announcedplete and utter ughter if the Lizardman did anything wrong to Sammy. It seemed like the Lizardman didn''t really mind all too much, and just started his work.


    He looked down at Sammy for a while, staring at the ck patterns and tattoos on her body that had been stretched out due to her physical growth.


    "I see." The Lizardman muttered quietly, and then slowly ran one of his ''fingers'', or rather ws, over Sammy''s stomach where some of the patterns seemed toe together, "This is a quiteplex Seal. I am not sure if I am capable of removing these seals myself."


    With a deep frown, Eiro looked at the Lizardman and took a step toward him, "Then bring me to the High-Priest already. At least he should be able to get it done, right?"


    The Lizardman slowly nodded his head, "Of course. The high-priest is capable of unsealing close to anything. But he is not a presence that one such as yourself may be allowed to face."


    "What does that mean?" Eiro asked, and the Lizardman looked up at him.


    "That a savage Demon like you is a danger to the existence and purity of this temple just by being here. Laying his divine eyes on you will simply taint his abilities. And without an offering, you will not be able to request his services anyway. If you want either of them to survive, you need to sacrifice the other to-"


    The next moment, the Lizardman''s jaw only hung on by a few pieces of leathery skin as blood sttered over the ground, "If that guy want''s a sacrifice, then I''m going to give him one. But it won''t be either of my children. If he needs to, I''m going to sacrifice every single creature in this ce to him. Who knows, maybe I can even give him his own arms or legs as an offering, how does that sound?" Eiro asked, his heart beating strongly and loudly as anger overcame his whole body.


    This ce seemed to be the worst one for him at the moment. With his high perception, Eiro had to concentrate heavily on not suddenly dropping over and throwing up due to all that pressure. So he didn''t have enough concentration left on trying to not let the Mark of Wrath take his mind over. It still didn''t manage to force his state into another one like with the first time he went into the bloodlust state, but he was still getting really pissed off really easily.


    And then, Eiro had the hazy Sammy get up and helped her get dressed again while having her walk behind him as he dragged the lizardman out of the room by grabbing onto the teeth on his upper jaw.


    Luckily Sammy didn''t seem to notice anything going on around her, and Leon was deep asleep and had his eyes pressed against Eiro''s chest, so Eiro didn''t have to worry about what those two were thinking about what he was doing right now.


    Eiro simply made his way over toward the room where the strongest presence seemed toe from, all the whilst all the other monsters in this ce just looked at Eiro with disgust. But at the very least, they didn''t try to avenge the lizardman.


    And just before Eiro could open the door to the ce the High-Priest most-likely was at the moment, the door opened up on its own. Until now, Eiro could contain his anger. But then he saw the figure of a four-armed creature. Its skin was as white as the purest white you could imagine, and it was tall enough to tower over any other creature in this temple.. And it just stared at Eiro with its deep ck eyes that made Eiro''s anger and hatred boil over.

 Chapter 151 - Hyjun

    "What are you doing here?!" Eiro yelled out in a deep and loud growling voice, one that waspletely and utterly filled to the brim with Eiro''s anger. This figure in front of him looked near to identical to Zaragon. It was obviously not actually Zaragon, but just something of the same race. But with his deep anger, Eiro didn''t care about that.


    All he wanted to do was kill! Kill that thing! Rip it apart into a million pieces! It had to suffer, it had to cry, it had to beg for mercy! It had to disappear! And as if it listened to Eiro''s wish, it did. It fell apart into ck mist and a shiver overcame Eiro''s body.


    But before he knew it, he felt a hand creep up behind him and grab him by the chin to pull his head up, while another hand pulled his arms together so that he couldn''t fight. And two other hands then moved toward Eiro''s chest. Eiro couldn''t fight whatever this creature was, it was simply far, far too strong for him. That didn''t mean that he didn''t try, of course.


    The two hands moved around in front of Eiro''s chest and all of a sudden, something like magic circles appeared in front of his chest. It wasn''t entirely like magic circles, but it wasn''t all to different either. But in the end, when the magic circles were activated, a notification appeared in front of Eiro.


    [The Mark of the Devil has been temporarily sealed]


    [The Mark of Wrath has been temporarily sealed]


    All of a sudden, Eiro calmed back down a fair bit. Obviously he was still pissed off and confused at why such a creature as this thing was here, but at least he wasn''t ovee by his emotions anymore.


    "Now, I hope we can discuss this like normal." The creature said, and soon disappeared into ck mist again.


    "Please, I would appreciate it if you let go of that Lizardman." It said the moment it reappeared on the other side of the room, and Eiro looked down at the corpse and did as the thing said.


    And then, Eiro stepped further into the room. Once he passed the doorframe, the pressure from before was stronger than ever, and Eiro couldn''t help himself but stop for a moment to adjust to this. But he was also pretty worried about Sammy and Leon. The former was still just standing there hazily while Leon kept sleeping. This change didn''t seem to affect them much more than what was happening before, so Eiro just led Sammy further into the room as he stepped up to the creature.


    "Are you the High-Priest?" Eiro asked, and the figure looked at him with a slight nod, "Such I am." It replied, and then continued, "It seems you have met one of my kin."


    "I have. And it wasn''t all that pleasant."


    "I wouldn''t expect it to be. My Kin can be quite hostile. But not all of us are. Each of us has a reason to exist, and mine is to be right in this temple. And do not worry about the monsters here. I have sealed their monstrosity, so they are not aggressive toward anyone." The creature exined, and Eiro red deeply at the thing.


    "Down in the town I met one of the Shapeless Slime eating here, and he still reeked of human meat after eating one of them. And on our way up here, he became quite hostile in his choice of words. Can you seals wear off?" Eiro asked it, and the creature stared at the Demon in surprise.


    "A shapeless slime? If that is so, then it must have been... I see, that child." It muttered quietly, before then slowly shaking its head, "Before I continue, it seems you truly are Eiro, the Demon that Jura informed me about in a letter?" It asked, before Eiro quietly nodded his head.


    "Then I wee you in this temple, and wish to truly apologize for any rudeness that may have befallen you here. My name is Hyjun, the High-Priest of this temple as you already guessed." The thing, Hyjun, exined to Eiro, who just kept standing there and staring at it.


    "You wish to have the seals ced upon those two removed?" It asked, and once more disappeared into ck mist before taking a closer look at Sammy, "I see. While it is a vile one, it is the only way to seal skills. But nheless, I will be able to remove both seals quite easily. Come, bring them here." Hyjun transported itself back over toward the other side of the room and waved Eiro over there, so the Demon just took Sammy''s hand and made sure that she was following behind him.


    "I excuse the miasma. It is simply impossible to fully contain the creature sealed here." It apologized, but Eiro just still stayed silent. True, that pressure was really sickening, but it wasn''t that bad now that Eiro could concentrate all he could on keeping the overwhelming feeling he got from it away.


    Hyjun moved its hands quickly and helped Sammy undress again before having hery down on another table. The creature ran its hands over her body and the markings before closing its eyes. Eiro really had to try his best not to freak out at this sight... His daughter wasying defenselessly in front of a creature nearly identical to the one that induced the greatest Trauma of his life into Eiro.


    But he had to keep it together. He really did, there was no other way but to. Otherwise, Sammy and Leon would both die.


    Hyjun stretched all four of its arms outward and started moving them in different patterns, creating some more of those weird, special magic circles that it used before. Those then formed arger magic circle, and then an evenrger one, until numerous smaller magic circles appeared between thatrge one and the center of Sammy''s body.


    Eiro could feel some of the pressure subsiding when this happened, weirdly enough. It was a minscule difference, but it was enough to make Eiro realize something. Hyjun was using that miasma in order to remove the seal ced on Sammy.


    It took her roughly an hour or so to finish, but at some point, the tattoos on Sammy''s body slowly started to fade while her body went limp. Her heart was still beating like normal, so she seemed to just be sleeping, but Eiro was still worried.


    "Did it work?" The Demon asked, and Hyjun slowly nodded its head, "Yes. The seal has been removed. The skill <Liar''s Truth> has returned to her." Hyjun replied and then started to use its arms to quickly put Sammy''s clothes back on her before picking her up and sitting her down against the wall where she seemed to be okay for now.


    "The boy, please." Hyjun said, and Eiro quietly nodded his head as he did as asked. The thingid Leon down onto the table and undressed him as well, before repeating the same process all over again.


    The seals soon disappeared, and Eiro started feeling something rather ufortable in the back of his head as his heart sped up, "What... is this?" Hyjun asked quietly, and Eiro simply ignored the thing and went to put Leon''s clothes back onto him.


    "No! I cannot allow this! The skills this boy possesses are too dangerous!"


    "Don''t worry, I''ll take care of him." Eiro replied as he picked his son back up and then walked over toward Sammy to try and wake her up. But before he could, Hyjun appeared in front of him.


    "He is not a danger for himself! He is a danger for-" But all of a sudden, Hyjun was interrupted. Nelli and Gondos had been quiet the whole time, as they had also both been affected by the miasma, but even they spoke up now s


    "Something is happening..." Nelli eximed, and Gondos turned over toward the older spirit next to him, "This looks like-"


    "The seal is weakening..." Hyjun said, and then stretched its hands out toward Leon, but Eiro immediately summoned his three of swords and had all five of the the des surround the creature. Without hesitation, the creature just disappeared into a mist, that Eiro just cut into. And all of a sudden, the mist that was appearing right behind Eiro at the moment faded and a notification appeared in front of the Demon.


    [Hyjun -142 Damage]


    As ck blood dropped onto the ground where the ck mist was before, Eiro heard Hyjun gasp in the other corner of the room.


    "H-How did you..?" It muttered confusedly, and Eiro just red at it.


    "Five of Pentacles. It enables ultimate perceptive abilities, which extends beyond the regr five senses. For one, I have something like a sixth sense now, it''s like I simply know where you are at the moment. I would know without any of my normal senses. But on top of that, it improves my regr senses by letting me notice things that would usually be impossible to notice. I can smell race, age, and sometimes even mood. I can feel mana touching my skin. And most importantly, I can touch notifications to an extent." Eiro started and kept moving the des around his body while protecting Leon and Avalin as much as he could with them, and continued to exin.


    "And the three of swords is basically just a direct extension of your body. While one of its features is that it canbine with any sort of weapon or tool, other than that, it works as if these five des were just any other limb. That means that my perception extends to them. Like that, I''ve grown capable of cleanly cutting through notifications. Your mist seems to be simr to what the notifications are made up of..." Eiro pointed out, and just slightly smiled at the creature.


    "That means that I''m capable of injuring you no matter what state you''re in at the moment." The Demon announced to it, "So let me tell you one thing. If you dare touch my children, this room will turn pitch-ck.


    "You don''t understand! If I don''t re-seal that child''s skills, the creature sealed here will escape! I cannot allow that to happen! A single child''s future is not much of a sacrifice to ensure this!"


    "Oh, on the contrary. I would sacrifice everything else in return for the future of these children. Even the measily existence of this temple. Sorry about that." Eiro told Hyjun. But before anything else could be done, the Demon heard the sound of something shattering. As if someone broke a bottle or window.


    And then, he noticed Nelli and Gondos'' scared expressions.

 Chapter 152 - The World

    "Nelli, Gondos. What''s happening?" Eiro asked, and the two spirits immediately turned toward him with clear nervosity. Although Nelli just seemed to be a bit agitated, Gondos was really freaking out.


    "Th-There''s something there... Something ising out of there..." The Golem muttered quietly, and Eiro just turned his head as he watched the b of carved rock in the front of the room. There really were some cracks in there. It seemed like a good idea to just get out of there already, or else this would turn out pretty bad for Eiro.


    Although, just when he thought that, the b of rock shattered into a million pieces. As if it just turned to dust then and there. And at the ce where that b was before, stood simply a figure. A figure made up of... nothing. It stood there, and Eiro could definitely see it there, but it was simply invisible.


    "Do you two see it?" Eiro asked the spirits, and they immediately nodded their heads. Slowly, the invisible figure stepped forward. As it was doing so, the invisible figure was picking up parts of the rock b that had shattered just now. The rocks were spreading throughout its body and making its physical shape look clearer.


    It currently had the shape of an androgynous child, even younger than Leon. It was frail and was moving around slowly as it kept picking up more parts that integrated into its body.


    Once there was no more space for the rock to fit into its regr form, it slowly started to grow in size, as if aging rapidly. And at some point, the figure was just grasping at its face and trembling, as if in an immense amount of pain. Hyjun immediately fell apart into ck mist and appeared in front of the figure made up of rock.


    Hyjun attempted to grasp it and seemingly somehow ce a seal onto it, but it was apparently toote. Whenever Hyjun tried to grab it, it make the part where contact would have been move out of the way, and instead soon ced its hand onto Hyjun''s chest. That was just before some of the rocks suddenly were pushed to the side from inside of the body. And just through some of the gaps in between the rocks, Eiro could see the slight golden glow of a card together with the vibe that was pushed off it. The card itself soon disappeared and turned into whatever item its real form was.


    That item slowly travelled through the rock-figure''s arm before appearing in its hand and recing its rock index finger. It was a small, golden key. It was as if its shape was shifting around constantly, so every few moments it turned into apletely different form.


    The figure pushed the key into Hyjun''s chest, but it didn''t cut into its white flesh. No, instead it simply created a light glow in that ce and Hyjun''s body froze uppletely. The next moment, things like the magic circles that Hyjun had been creating appeared around the spot the key had been pushed into and just faded away.


    "Did it just remove the seals Hyjun ced on itself..?" Eiro muttered quietly, confused, before he saw something else happening. It seemed like the card was the seven of wands. The key that could open everything and anything.


    It was a gift that the Arcane Dealer gave to a man imprisoned in the deepest level of an imprable and inescapable prison. And with its help, the man could open the locks of any door, gate, and even shackle with only a single twist of the key.


    With a deep re, Eiro looked at the figure and Hyjun and thought, ''At least it''s not a dangerous card...''. Although, Eiro noticed something else. All that the figure did was push the key into Hyjun''s chest, it didn''t twist it yet. It so easily removed the seals... as if they were dirt that was stuck inside of a lock that needed to be removed.


    Suddenly, the figure did just what it hadn''t done before. It twisted the key, and something happened. The key-hole widened, and seemed to have turned into an actual hole. But Hyjun still didn''t bleed, it was just as if there was an incave in its body that had always been there as part of its natural body. The hole continued growing until there was just a small space inside of Hyjun''s chest that seemed to be modeled after this very temple. Quite literally. The walls were clothed in the same wood and carvings, the windows were the same as well and even showed the outside world.


    But inside of that space stood numerous small figures that all had Hyjun''s shape. One was made of Hyjun''s ck mist, another one currently had its gaping central mouth open. The same that Zaragon had . Another was holding a book and reading, while another one was just currently forming one of those magic circles. There were many, many more of those.


    It was as if that figure had opened up Hyjun''s very being. It stretched its rock-hand out and grasped one of the figures, the one with the vertical mouth on its chest agape. It didn''t seem to be struggling at all, and the rock-figure just pushed the tiny Hyjun into its face and had the rocks practically swallow it up.


    Just a few momentster, a slit opened up on the figure''s chest and turned into a gaping mouth with sharp teeth made of rock.


    And then, Eiro realized what was going on. He tried to read up on some different Royal Monsters before... There was something that surprised Eiro a fair amount. One royal was not amongst the current generation. Thest one disappeared maybe a hundred years ago. It was the royal with the ability to pull everything into itself and make it part of its own physical body. <The World>.


    So it was sealed here? It seemed like Eiro really just fucked a lot of people... this thing was dangerous... far, far too dangerous...


    Eiro immediately picked up Sammy and Leon, trying to hold on to both of them more easily through the use of the three of swords'' threads. The Demon immediately tried to run out toward the door as quickly as he could. <The World> was too preupied with feeding on Hyjun''s self at the moment, after all.


    As fast as he could, Eiro made his way through the temple until he was all the way back at the gate leading into the courtyard. He was going to try toe up with a way to bring these two down the mountain as quickly as possible, although the quickest way was to make a direct path using earth magic. It would take a lot of mana, but Eiro didn''t care about that anymore.


    <The World> was dangerous, Eiro couldn''t let it get to these two under any circumstances. But at least he understood why Hyjun was so desperate to reseal Leon''s skills. It was a monster, so as weakened as it seemed to have been, it was most likely influenced by Leon''s unique skills. Even Eiro was feeling the effect, even if it didn''t seem to be too bad for him somehow. Maybe it was his high Willpower, or just because he had been with Leon for all of his life. Eiro was simply feeling a little nervous.


    But somehow... just when Eiro thought that, he felt something approaching from behind him. It was a strong pressure and very obviously the source of the miasma that had been given off in this ce for the past 100 years.


    It seemed more collected, somehow, but it wasn''t able to get out past the secondyer of the seal nheless. But it had changed a lot since Eiro left that room. In that mere minute.


    The figure had taken on the shape of Hyjun with its four arms, and its gaping mouth was slowly starting to move as ck blood was flowing in between the cracks of the rocks.


    "Give me your abilities. They are... tasty." It said, and Eiro stared at it with a deep growl, "No way in hell, youplete piece of trash!" He yelled out, and the thing just stared back. It tried to extend its hand forward. The rock went past the gate, but it was no longer part of <The World>''s Body and just fell to the ground together with some blood.


    "Why isn''t it using the key?" Gondos muttered quietly, and Eiro kept staring back at it. Honestly, Eiro had a pretty good idea why, "It probably has something like a cooldown, or some usage restriction right now... Or maybe it takes a lot of mana that it doesn''t have to use it..." The Demon muttered quietly, "Or maybe seals can''t be opened that easily after all?"


    "Let''s go. We need to..." Eiro said, before he noticed something else happening. The ground underneath them was tremoring and cracking. Why didn''t he notice this beforehand? There were monsters underground! They were attracted by Leon''s skills and were now going on a rampage underground!


    And to top it off, they not only started destroying the path itself, but also the gate that was holding <The World> in the temple.


    "Gondos! Help me out here!" Eiro eximed, and the spirit looked at him with a nod as he started to take control of the ground underneath them to somehow stabilize it while Eiro was starting to just run away down the path while carrying both Sammy and Leon. Both of them seemed to be slowly waking up at the moment, which didn''t really help Eiro all that much in trying to get them down the mountain as quickly as he could.


    "Hm... stop it..." Sammy groaned, and Eiro felt a ringing in both of his ears before his whole bodypletely tensed up. His whole body stopped moving and he wasn''t even able to breathe anymore. To him, it seemed like everything stopped for a moment. The whole world simply frozen in the moment. But it seemed like there was one entity that wasn''t affected by this. One that didn''t have ears to listen to Sammy''s words.


    <The World> stepped through the broken-down gate and made its way past the cracks in the ground until it stood right behind the Demon. With a deep groan, Eiro tried to somehow force his body to move and then averted his eyes toward Nelli and Gondos, "Get... these two out of... here..." Eiro muttered quietly and made the three of swords disappear while trying to hand the children off to the spirits in front of him.


    Sammy was slowly waking up by now, so she was somewhat able to walk even if she was still pretty hazy, and Leon was seemingly light enough to carry. Either way, the two spirits quickly followed the request the Demon made of them and pulled the children away. They were sure that Eiro was going to be able to survive this.


    After a little while, Eiro regained his ability to move, which was when he was forcefully turned around by <The World>.


    Eiro looked into the face of the creature in front of him, even if it wasn''t really a ''creature''. It was just made up of ck blood and rock, and was holding Eiro down while trying to press the key into his chest. And that quickly disproved Eiro''s theory of the cooldown, because it went into his body without a hitch. The seals ced onto the mark of the devil and the mark of wrath were lifted, and Eiro could feel his stuck-in-ce body cave in in his chest.


    But just when that happened, something else appeared, and that was right behind <The World>. A pulsating gate made of flesh, blood and bones that seemed to lead right to hell.


    And out of that gate stepped a well-dressed Devil.

 Chapter 153 - Battle Against A Royal

    Eiro stared at <The Devil> as he stepped out of the gate that appeared behind <The World>. The supreme Demon just slightly smiled and approached his fellow Royal.


    "Now, now, who allowed you to y with my toy? That''s not very nice, you know?" The Devilughed, and slowly extended his hand toward the World''s arm. But the part where he would have touched it simply turned into ck mist.


    "Oh? So you want to do it the hard way, huh?" With a deep re, the Devil took a step back before pointing its index finger toward the World. And then all of a sudden, the body of the world was flung back toward the gates of the temple, and Eiro''s chest slowly started closing back down after the key was removed.


    "Hmm, what an interesting Card that is." The Devil said with a smile as he leaned forward, "I want it... Now, dear little Toy, will you get it for me? I''ll even give you a reward if you can sessfuly do so."


    Angrily, Eiro stared back at the Devil. It was as if his marks were going crazy just by him being around, which most likely was actually the case.


    It seemed like after the seals on them were removed, the devil was able to grasp the situation instantly... And Eiro wasn''t sure if he was lucky or unlucky anymore.


    "And if I don''t? Are you going to kill me?"


    "Kill you? Why should I? I''m preparing a perfect ymate for you at the moment, dear Toy. I don''t want all that work to go to waste." The Devil chuckled lightly, "No, no. If you don''t want to, then you can just leave. Well, a slight bit of a punishment is appropriate, of course... Let''s see..." The Devil muttered and leaned forward again, staring at the room inside of Eiro''s chest that was still slightly open. He pushed his hand inside and slowly pulled out some aspects of Eiro that was probably the worst to lose in this situation.


    [Your fear was robbed from you]


    [Your empathy was robbed from you]


    [Your fatherly instincts were robbed from you]


    And then, all of a sudden... Eiro looked back at the Devil. He knew that he definitely wanted to get those aspects back, but he wasn''t feeling passionate about it either.


    "Now, if you fight the World for me, which you should be able to do, as it has been considerably weakened, I''m going to give you two things. For one, I''ll take the key and use it to return these parts of yourself to you. Should you leave, or be unable to beat the world, I''m going to cut these three apart and forever destroy them." The Devil pointed out, and Eiro stared back at the Devil. Just from that, he had more motivation to go and fight that thing than to leave. But there was something else that Eiro was wondering...


    "What''s the second thing?" Eiro asked, and the Devil just smirked, "We Royals are symbols of strength, you see? But that doesn''t mean we really are the strongest of the strong all the time. If you kill a royal, you can take its ce by taking the Major Arcana card it holds. I don''t have any use for it, I can''t even touch another Major Arcana card. But you, dear Imp, might be the perfect candidate for the new World."


    "So you''re going to let me take that Major Arcana card after I kill it? Just like that? Why?" Eiro asked the Devil, who just kept smiling broadly.


    "I''m curious to see what''s going to happen, what else?" The Devil replied, and Eiro just returned a chuckle as the hole in his chest closed down fully and he was able to move around again.


    "Fair enough." Eiro said and just moved his hand forward before pulling a card out of his treasury, the Ace of Cups.


    "Nope, you''re not using that one. I want to be able to actually see what''s happening, you know? And remember, I have hostages~!" The Devil pointed out, and with a click of his tongue, Eiro looked back at him, "Fine. I''m not going to drink it, but can I at least use it in another way as long as I don''t activate the main effect?"


    "Hmm... sure, why not? Just remember, if I don''t like what I''m seeing, then you''re dead." He exined, and Eiro just shrugged, "Fine." The demon muttered quietly, and in addition to his Ace of Cups took out his three of swords. He pushed the tips of the five des he could summon into the ck liquid making up the ace of cups and picked it up using water magic, all the whilst making it spread out and somewhat activating it using his mana. Like that, the des and the thread belonging to it became invisible, all the whilst Eiro grabbed his two daggers in both of his hands. He moved two of the three of swords'' rings toward his left hand, kept two on his right hand, and moved one to his tail as he properly prepared for the fight.


    The World was moving rtively slowly, after all, so it was fine to do so for now. But then, all of a sudden, as if noticing that Eiro was done, the World fell apart into ck mist that soon appeared in front of Eiro as well. But knowing that this was about to happen, Eiro swung both his arms forward, trying to sh at the mist not only with the three of swords but also with the two daggers, and basically just cut that mist up.


    [<The World> -29 Damage]


    The World appeared there, but at the very least, Eiro knew that he damaged it a bit. It didn''t have a full form, so its body, and with that its health, was dependend on what it was using as its body.


    The Demon immediately jumped backward and quickly snapped his fingers, with the spark-snapper on his thumb and middle finger, and made mes explode outward toward the world.


    He made the mes constantly surround the world so that he could cause the ck blood making up part of its body boil away and maybe harden. If it could turn sticky somehow and make the rock parts stick together a bit and hinder the World''s movement, that would be even better.


    With hopes like this, Eiro kept running around the path as quickly as he could while trying to avoid any attacks that the world might try to attack it with, but before he knew it, the world fell apart into mist once more and approached the Demon again.


    But he already managed to cause a fair amount of damage to it through this, a couple hundred Health worth, so Eiro was sure that he would be able to steadily lower this thing''s health and beat it like that. It was somewhat underwhelming for a Royal Monster, if he had to be honest.


    For a couple of minutes, this was exactly what had been happening over and over again, and Eiro managed to reduce the World''s health by a couple thousand points so far. But at some point it seemed like the world had enough. There were still some of those underground monsters here, so the World dug into the ground with its rock-hands and made one of those monsters surface. The first thing that it did was open the monster up, in the same way that Eiro and Hyjun had been opened up before.


    The World proceeded to take basically everything that the monster had. Its abilities, its senses, everything. It seemed like this particr monster was blind, like most monsters traversing the underground were, so it had other senses that were particrly strong.


    After this monster''s abilities were devoured and the world''s body had changed just so slightly again, it proceeded to just go ahead and take its body as well. The ws that it used to dig through the ground, the nose that it used to navigate, and the World''s biggest mistake... Its eyes.


    Now, Eiro was actually able to see notifications that the World could see. It wouldn''t help Eiro too much necessarily, but it was a good enough start.


    The world''s body grew a slight bit after taking in the monster''s flesh, although it seemed to have reced parts of its rock body. Internally, it seemed to be mostly made of muscles now, since that most likely seemed like the better idea whenpared to rock all the way through.


    But to Eiro, that just made it easier to damage it as long as he managed to heat the area up. Since the Demon still had a little bit of water with him, he could just start boiling it as he continued running around the path, swinging his tail in seemingly random patterns.


    Bybining air and water magic, Eiro could pretty easily turn all the water into steam while making sure that it couldn''t escape. While condensing the steam into one ce around the world, Eiro also added even more mes to the mix, trying to make everything spike up and burn up as much as possible. The steam travelled through the thin gaps of the rock further into the World''s body to steam it from the inside, while Eiro was just heating up the rocks on the outside to turn it into something that could basically just be called an oven.


    Eiro was going to kill this thing no matter what. Sometimes, the World tried to transport itself away using the ck mist, but whenever it did, Eiro''s steam and mes travelled with it. It seemed to have been considerably slowed down by having foreign magic technically inside of its body. But then, it did something that Eiro was a slight bit bothered by. It dug into the ground and travelled through there. Although, that was probably a pretty bad idea for it...


    It would be digging around in there and could resurface anywhere, but since Eiro knew exactly where it was, he was able to predict where that ''anywhere'' was, and when exactly the World would reappear. So, like that... Eiro could even somewhat lead it around in a good way and use it for what he wanted to do.


    Eiro didn''t have many magic stones left at the moment, but he was still willing to sacrifice them to be able to kill the World.


    It resurfaced a couple of times over the next few minutes, each time exactly where Eiro wanted it to be. And while running around the path, to all four exits that Eiro practically made it create, he pushed as much of his mana as he could push out all at once into the magic stones and caused explosions to travel into the holes.


    But to avoid that, the World had to do one thing. It had toe out in the center of the square that all four of those holes formed.


    It dug its way out while taking some more damage from the mes, and Eiro just slightly smirked all the whilst stretching, "Finally. Let''s finish this up quick, I think the kids might be waiting for me." Eiro chuckled, and all of a sudden, something that even surprised the Devil appeared.


    Using rocks and pebbles, water, steam, even some mes, Eiro had been creating arge magic circle the whole time. That''s what he had been using the de connected to his tail for as he was fighting the World, trying to manipte all this stuff while turning it invisible for the final attack.


    "Oh, as I thought. Truly interesting." The Devil smirked, and Eiro just snapped his fingers for a second and made mes appear once more.


    The magic circle activated, and a deep tremor travelled through the air right toward the center of the magic circle. With a strong impact, all parts that used to make up the World''s body were spread around, including even the numerous small ''aspect'' versions of Hyjun and those underground monsters.


    Eiro tried to make sure he could find them properlyter on... He was pretty curious about what could be done with them, after all.


    After the World''s body was once more reduced to nothing, it just stood there in its child-like, invisible form that Eiro just stepped up to slowly. With a swing of his arm, he cut through the invisible body.


    [Lethal Damage done to <The World>]


    [You have in a royal. Experience multiplied by 10]


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have leveled up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have 420 unused stat points avable!]

 Chapter 154 - Candidate

    Eiro stared down in front of himself, at what was left over of <The World>. Two golden cards. One of them showed a golden, decorated key, while the other showed a circle with blue, green, brown and white parts, simply sitting there in an ocean of ck.


    <The Devil> appeared right next to Eiro and quickly picked up one of those two cards, the one with the key. "Now then, that was quite a pleasure to watch. Truly, I did not expect you to be forming a magic circle of all things." He chuckled, and Eiro just stared back at him.


    "Now what?" He asked, and the Devil just kept smirking, "You can try to be the next world. But rest assured, just because you have the card and killed a royal monster doesn''t mean that you can truly be a royal yourself. You are most likely too weak to be one right now, so don''t take too much onto yourself." The Devil advised. And Eiro had to admit, he did feel somethinging off of that Major Arcana card that made him feel reluctant to pick it up, but he wasn''t sure if it was because it was a card of the major arcana in general, or because he was, as the devil said, too weak to make use of it.


    "Well, nevermind that." The Devil said, and with a slight smirk looked past Eiro for a moment, "Let''s just get started with this." He added as the Devil quickly quickly turned the card in his hand into a key that he then pressed into the center of Eiro''s chest.


    It opened up a hole while the Demon just stood there as if frozen, and the Devil pushed the three things he took from Eiro back inside there.


    [Your fear was returned to you]


    [Your empathy was returned to you]


    [Your fatherly instincts were returned to you]


    Eiro still just stood there as the Devil leaned forward and just took a look at what he could see, "But it''s quite cluttered in here... you should do some spring-cleaning, don''t you think? There''s your cards over there justying on the table, magic stones on the shelves, even some toolsying on the ground... And those books are nearly falling over, how annoying." The Devil pointed out as he waved his hand to the side and made the portal that he came here through appear once more as he pulled the key out of Eiro''s chest, "Oh, not to mention that little extra... surprise in there. No wonder you''re so different from the rest if you have that left over."


    With these words, <The Devil> departed and the gate that he created disappeared as if rotting away. And Eiro was just left to stand there. The hole in his chest slowly closed, and even though he just had three important aspects of himself returned to him, he still felt empty somehow. As such, when the Demon regained the control over his body, he looked around himself and once more stared at the card that <The World> left behind.


    Eiro tried extending his hand toward it, but when he did, something surged through Eiro''s body and made him flinch the moment he thought ''maybe I shouldn''t''. It seemed like Eiro still was somewhat affected by Sammy''s ''Truth'' even now. It was probably weakened, but throughout the whole time he had been fighting <The World>, his body felt lethargic, and his mind slow. At least whenpared to normal.


    But together with that surge of... whatever that was, something else crossed Eiro''s mind. And that was the fact that if he actually tried to do this, he would die. There was definitely a reason why the Royals were the strongest of the strongest. And it wasn''t because of the major arcana cards. It was because the base monster was strong.


    For example, Eiro remembered the story that Armodeus told him about the current Monster King''s father, the ''Goblin Lord'' that then turned into <The Emperor> after getting the corresponding card. While regr Goblins may be an example for weakness, they were actually amongst the monsters with the greatest range of strength. They could be as weak as a frail child, or strong enough to bring a country to ruin, just like a Goblin Lord was. And that was without a card.


    The only reason that Eiro was able to beat <The World> just now was because it was trapped inside of a seal for at least a hundred years, which weakened it considerably. Actually, the more Eiro thought about that fact, the more his body started to shiver and shake due to the fear that he was given back by <The Devil>.


    But once more, this just showed that while Eiro was surely stronger than many... Many still didn''t mean ''all''. This just showed him that even in situations where he just wanted to help them, the children might end up in danger. And this time, it waspletely his fault.


    Eiro wasn''t sure if it was because he may have been affected by Leon''s unique skills more than he thought, or if it was because of the miasma or the instinctual distrust of Hyjun because of what he looked like, but because of his stubbornness, Eiro nearly cost the children their life.


    But that only showed Eiro more that he had to be careful with what he was doing. Despite the fact that he needed strength, he couldn''t just do whatever he wanted in case it might benefit him. And then, something popped into Eiro''s mind, that might be a good chance to make it up to the children.


    So for now, Eiro slowly touched the Major arcana card of <The World>. He was sure that it wouldn''t work differently to the other cards, and he had to actively activate it using mana. Otherwise, random monsters might be able to activate it, and that most likely wouldn''t be a good thing.


    And the moment his fingertips touched the cold golden surface, a notification appeared in front of him.


    [Due to theck of overall strength, full activation of the card is inadvisable]


    [Instead of a true Royal, you are now a candidate for <The World>, and will gain a miniscule portion of its true abilities]


    [<The World> Pairing Survivl Probability ¨C 1%]


    [<Minor Elemental Fusion> Ability Gained]


    [Minor Elemental Fusion ¨C Ability that enhances the fusion of elemental magic with your body]


    Slightly startled, Eiro dropped the card again, scared that he just made an incredible mistake, but in the end, it seemed like it didn''t change too much. It just gave him another ability... But still, at least now Eiro knew that he was right. He would probably die if he properly activated the card.


    Slowly, he touched it again and quickly ced it into his treasury as he stopped squatting. But it was a bit weird, the ''Minor Elemental Fusion'' ability sounded just like what Eiro could already do... When he coursed the magic from a magic stone through his body and it slightly changed his body around. Maybe it was different after all..?


    "Nevermind that, first... Nelli, Gondos, you can stop. I beat <The World>. Don''t bring Leon outside thest barrier yet, maybe it can hold off some of his skill''s effect as well if we''re lucky. We need to wait until he''s awake." Eiro tried to convey to his two contracted spirits as he stared down the edge of the mountain, soon spotting the group who had already made it halfway down the side of it.


    The two spirits looked up toward where Eiro was and quickly gave him a sign that the understood, before Gondos seemingly tried to create a t surface for them to safely rest.


    "I''ll be there soon, I just have to take care of something else as well." The Demon exined, and slowly turned toward the broken-down gate leading into the ruined courtyard. The temple itself was still seemingly mostly standing, and from inside there, Eiro could sense a lot of stuff going on. As <The World> was leaving, it seemed to have somehow unsealed some of the seals ced on the monsters that were supposed to suppress their ''Monstrosity'', as Hyjun called it before.


    And whether it was because of Leon''s unique skills or just because it was the nature of monsters, the number of living beings inside of the temple had been cut down to a tenth of what it was before Eiro got here today.


    The Demon jumped over the cracks in the ground and made his way into the temple, trying not to step into the blood or pieces of flesh that were justying all over the ce. Eiro could see some monsters right at the end of the hallway feeding on one other monster together, and the Demon just stepped through the crowd of monsters that didn''t even seem to want to pay any attention to him.


    Eiro made his way back into the room where he had met Hyjun, and just saw its bodyying there on the ground. Parts of it had been crushed or ripped apart, and it seemed like close to all of its blood was missing.


    The Demon stepped up to the corpse with his heart starting to beat faster and faster every time one of his feet hit the ground.


    He still couldn''t look at it without feeling absolute anger and disgust, but there was still something Eiro had to do. The Demon put his weapons away and slowly grabbed the figure by its hips, and chose to carry it outside into the hallway.


    Eiro was the one that caused its death, despite it being one of Jura''s trusted friends. The least he could do to show remorse was give it a proper burial, or at least that''s what Eiro thought might be the right thing to do. It''s what Jura wanted to happen to him, so he figured it was a good thing to happen.


    The Demon brought Hyjun out into the courtyard and using earth magic quickly excavated a hole that Eiro let Hyjun down into, before covering his body with dirt and rock again.


    "Sorry." Eiro muttered quietly, and then turned around to get something else done in the temple. He wanted to get the thing that seemed to have the only seal that hadn''t beenpletely destroyed.


    In one of the rooms, Eiro soon spotted one of those figures that had their bodies covered in cloth that took the slime core and its frozen body with them before trying to chew up and eat the frozen slime. This time, it seemed to have tried paying attention to Eiro, although it quickly turned away again when it saw the ck blood on Eiro''s hands that came from handling Hyjun''s body just now.


    But Eiro didn''t care.. He just went up to the small ss bottle that was leftover from the concoctions that Leon had been drinking to keep the seal from breaking his body apart, and was now housing the slime''s core, and with it in his hand, Eiro left the temple again and started his descent of the mountain.

 Chapter 155 - Descent

    "What happened out here?!" Eiro heard the Slime-Core asking him, and the Demon just grumbled slightly. If it wasn''t useful to him, Eiro would have killed it already because of how annoying it was alone.


    "I identally released the monster that you''ve been sealing here for the past 100 years. But don''t worry, I killed it already." The Demon exined, and for a while, the monster in the bottle just stayed quiet for a while, until it finally replied again, "...What..?" It asked, and Eiro just ignored the slime core for now. The Demon just ced the bottle into his satchel so that he wouldn''t lose it and then started cloaking his body in Air Magic and jumped down the side of the path. As his body descended, Eiro aimed for a rock that was sticking out the side of the mountain tond on. The moment he did, Eiro used earth magic to make it split off of the rock-wall it was hanging off of and then tried to control it so that he was able to basically just use it as a way to safely glide down the side of the mountain for now.


    It took a little while, but soon, Eiro managed to get to the spot where Nelli and Gondos were already awaiting him, protecting Leon and Sammy from any monsters that were going crazy through Leon''s unique skills, although none of them actually dared get close to them.


    "You actually beat it? You killed a Royal?" Nelli asked confusedly, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, I did. It was weakened, and... I''ll just exin it to youter." Eiro started, while his body just grew more and more lethargic around here. His heart was beating quickly, and the Demon just felt ufortable here.


    "Sammy, you''re up, right?" Eiro asked after a while, wanting to at least get rid of one of the aspects making him feel so ufortable. The young girl slowly raised her head in response. It seemed like she was feeling quite exhausted as well, and looked at Eiro.


    "Hmm..? What happened..?" She asked quietly, and the Demon squatted down in front of her with a light smile on his face, "We managed to get your skill unsealed. But you identally used it on me... Do you know how to dispel the effect?" Eiro replied, and Sammy seemingly didn''t have to think too long.


    "Mhm..." She replied, "...Sorry... I lied..." Sammy muttered with her eyes closed, nearly dozing off, and all of a sudden all the lethargy that Eiro had felt throughout his body was just gone near to instantly, "So you just need to admit to lying, huh..?" Eiro asked quietly, and smiled as he ced his hand onto the girl''s head for a moment as she fell asleep again.


    Now that Eiro was at least able to move properly again, Eiro stepped over to the side and looked at Nelli and Gondos, "Alright, for now, we''re staying in here until they''re both awake again. One of you go see the kids at the Inn and tell them toe over here. The Miasma is mostly gone, so it should be fine for the Aria to enter."


    "Speaking of..." Gondos started, "Wasn''t it pretty weird that there were monsters underground despite all that miasma that even affected you, Eiro?"


    After a bit of thought, the Demon slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, I guess it was..." Eiro pushed his hand into the satchel and took out the bottle with the slime-core. It seemed like while it was slightly shaking and confused, it for the most part wasn''t really affected by Leon''s skills too much. The Demon wasn''t sure why exactly that was the case, but he had some theories at least.


    "Come on, tell us. Why were there monsters in this area besides the ones at the temple?" Eiro asked, and with a shaking voice that still sounded as if someone was speaking with water in their mouth, the slime core replied, "It... Was like with u-us... We got used t-to it, so did other m-monst-ters in the area..."


    "Fair enough. But why are you this scared of Leon if you can handle miasma like that?" Eiro asked next, noting how the slime even started stuttering a bit.


    "It... That... That thing is different... We feared the sealed be-being due to its strength... But thi-this thing terrifies me in a di-different way... But at the same time, I... don''t want to leave..."


    With a slight frown and anger at hearing Leon be called a ''thing'', Eiro stared at the slime core in the bottle, "Try being a bit more respectful, you''re not in a position to insult my son."


    "Sh-Shut it, you ru-ruined the temple! Let me be dis-disrespectful!"


    "Fair enough..." Eiro had to admit, and then looked over toward Nelli and Gondos again, "Alright, as it said, the monsters in the area got used to <The World> Miasma, that''s why they were here. Now, can one of you go get the others?" Eiro asked them, and Nelli quickly chose to take on that role, even though she had onest question.


    "You really think that''s a good idea..? Because the monsters don''t seem to be too happy at the moment, it might be dangerous." She asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "I know, but even if there are any monster that will try attacking... I''ll just kill them. I''m only three levels away from 100, so I''ll be able to evolve again." Eiro exined, and while Nelli seemed quite surprised, she figured that it did make sense, considering that Eiro just killed a Royal Monster.


    "I see... Well, as long as you''re confident, it should be fine. The monsters around here don''t really seem to be all that strong. I''ll be right back, then." Nelli pointed out as she quickly stared floating into the direction of the town, while Eiro swiftly stepped over toward Sammy.


    "Gondos, pick up Leon again. He wasn''t too heavy for you, right?" The Demon asked, and the Golem swiftly shook his head, "Absolutely not. We Golems are quite physically strong, it seems."


    "I''m d to hear that." Eiro replied, as he watched the spirit swoop his arms underneath Leon''s small body and wrap it with some extra rock. Meanwhile, Eiro just picked up Sammy and carried her piggyback-style, using his satchel''s strap as well as his own tail to keep her body safely up against Eiro''s back.


    "Alright, and now..." Eiro muttered quietly as he stepped up to the side of the path and started looking down the rock-wall underneath him, "Make sure not to drop Leon. Keep close to the walls and use them to support yourself and Leon''s weight if you need to." Eiro suggested, and then proceeded to slowly lean forward until he was able to just kick off the edge.


    The Demon fell and fell until another part of the path started appearing underneath him that he would be crashing into soon. Using air-magic, Eiro pushed his body closer to the rock-wall and tried to slow himself down by pushing his feet into the rock and slowly gathering a mass of rock underneath his feet.


    At some point, the pressure of Eiro rapidly slowing down became too much, so the Demon kicked off again so that he was moving more horizontally than vertically now, immediately reducing his speed manyfold.


    And while this did cause Eiro to fly forward a fair bit, using air magic, he was able to move his body back toward the path. Since he wasn''t that high up anymore, as he basically started falling as if he jumped just from a couple meters high up, he was able to catch himself easily without waking or disturbing Sammy too much.


    It seemed like Gondos had been fairly surprised to see Eiro just jump off the side of the mountain and instantly traverse a height of a couple dozen meters, but he was able to follow Eiro pretty soon, "Eiro! That was insane, and dangerous! Why would you do that?!" He eximed, and the Demon slowly turned his head over toward him. Sure, it was dangerous, but it wasn''t that bad, right? Eiro had his body under control perfectly, after all. Although... Gondos probably had a point...


    "Status." Eiro muttered, and quickly had the screen appear in front of him. He had 420 stat points left to assign at the moment. Putting them into his stats before continuing this shouldn''t hurt too much.


    First, since they were quite lowpared to his other stats, Eiro increased his strength, resistance, and evasion to 100 each, spending a total of 100 of his currently avable points.


    [Your Strength has passed the 100 point mark! <diator''s Strength> Ability Gained!]


    [Your Resistance has passed the 100 point mark! <Rock Skin> Ability Gained!]


    [Your Evasion has passed the 100 point mark! <Adrenaline Rush > Ability Gained!]


    [diator''s Strength ¨C Ability that passively increases your body''s strength]


    [Rock Skin ¨C Ability that lets you harden your skin]


    [Adrenaline Rush ¨C Ability that temporarily increases the speed of perception while reducing pain in danger situations]


    With this, Eiro should be able to handle impact far more easily, at least. It should definitely help with this. Now, Eiro had 320 more stat points left. He increased his agility to 200 as well, since agility was his most important physical stat in general. And of course it also helped him here.


    [Your Agility has passed the 200 point mark! <Quick Feet> ability turned into <Swift Feet>]


    Eiro appreciated the new ability and then chose to ce 50 points into each intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, and perception. With another 76 points remaining, Eiro figured he shouldn''t try and be stingy, and then put 26 points into charisma. Charisma should also be able to increase his Leadership ability in the Goblin vige, after all. Now, Eiro once more had 50 points left over, which he would save for an emergency again. And so, this was now his status.


    [Name ¨C Eiro][Race ¨C Ice Blue Collector Imp][Level ¨C 97]


    [Health ¨C 55.000][Mana ¨C 105.500]


    [Strength - 100][Constitution - 100][Resistance - 100]


    [Agility - 200][Evasion - 100][Dexterity - 150]


    [Intelligence - 250][Wisdom - 250]


    [Perception - 150][Willpower - 100][Charisma - 56]


    [50 Stat Points Avable]


    With his stats properly assigned now, Eiro was able to more safely keep on going. And so, the Demon continued climbing down the side of the mountain. Although, he did have to admit that he was probably being a little reckless before, so he did slow down a bit. But since it was prettyte anyway, Eiro still wanted to get down to the foot of the mountain before dusk started.. The Demon kept sliding down the slopes made of rock with the young woman on his back and the Golem next to him.

 Chapter 156 - Fusion

    It only took roughly another half-hour to get to the foot of the mountain again, where Eiro swiftly sat Sammy down at a safe spot and then took Leon from Gondos, before Eiro just looked toward the gate leading out toward the town.


    Seemingly, the others were already heading over here. At the very least, Eiro heard the Aria moving around while pulling the carriage, so as long as they didn''t do that on their own, this should be probably the case.


    Just a couple minutester, the carriage drove through the gate, and while the Aria were definitely a bit upset at the moment whileing in here, due to the leftover miasma, it seemed like they were just a bit agitated. They should get used to it pretty quickly like this.


    Soon, the carriage stopped in front of them and the children stepped out of it, while Arc jumped off the front bench of the carriage, "Is everything alright with them?" He asked immediately. Eiro just quickly nodded his head, "Everything is fine, it just seems to be a side-effect from the unsealing. Isn''t that right?" The demon asked as he took out the slime-core in the bottle out of his satchel and looked at it. A few momentster, he heard the reply.


    "Yeah, that''s wh-what it is... It''s quite ha-hard on one''s body... B-But they should just be ex-exhaust-ted..." The slime-core exined, so Eiro swiftly nodded his head, d to actually have such a confirmation. This was the greatest reason why Eiro chose to take the slime core with him, so that he could have an ''expert'' on sealing and unsealing around for this first little while.


    He might end up killing itter on, or he might find another use for it, but either way, Eiro was d that Leon''s skills made it more submissive.


    Avalin quickly came running up to Eiro to give his leg a tight hug, so Eiro just squatted down to quickly pick her up. Although, he noticed that the others were looking at him confusedly.


    "Oh, right, sorry. You can''t hear him, I forgot. This in here is the ''Monk'' we met before. In reality he turned out to be a slime that was raised at the temple. It should know a bit about seals, so having it around might not be too bad an idea." The Demon exined to them, "An just now it told me that it''s a normal reaction to having a seal like that removed. Their breathing and heart rate is normal as well, so they should really be fine."


    "It was a slime? But..." Rudy muttered quietly, "He lookedpletely like a person, didn''t he?"


    "Mhm, he is a special evolution of slime that can shapeshift to an extent. But don''t worry, it can''t get out of the bottle." Eiro exined to them reassuredly, before he looked at the two who were still sleeping.


    "We''re going to spend a little bit of time here, until we can make sure that Leon can control his unique skills. Otherwise we''re going to cause a fair bit of damage wherever we go." The Demon pointed out, and then slowly turned toward Felix. After all, he couldn''t hear what Eiro just told them, so he had to try and exin the situation to him through writing probably.


    So the Demon swiftly pulled out his notebook from his treasury and flipped it open while holding it toward Avalin, "Could you do me a favor and hold this for a bit?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, and the young girl quickly did as asked so that Eiro could quickly take out his pen from his treasury and then write into the book properly.


    "Can you show it to Felix?" The Demon looked at Avalin, and the girl quickly nodded her head with a weirdly smug smile. After the writing was in front of the young man, Felix read through it as quickly as he could and then raised his head to look at Eiro.


    "So they''re... okay?" Felix asked him. Without hesitation, Eiro just nodded his head, making Felix seemingly quite relieved. And then, Eiro continued writing into the notebook to ask Felix to do something for him.


    "You... what?" He muttered surprisedly, "You want me to... help Samantha... practice?" Felix asked, seemingly struggling with his words a bit more again. Once more, Eiro just nodded his head and wrote something into the notebook.


    ''Don''t worry, you''re going to be fine. You won''t be affected by her voice, and you have experience with such skills.'' Eiro wrote, and when Felix raised his head, Eiro was already doing the hand-sign for ''Please'', making Felix lightly grimace before he silently nodded.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro then turned over toward Rudy and Arc, "Can the two of you head out an buy us something to eat? You don''t have to cook tonight, so don''t worry. And take Gondos with you, he can help you carry everything." Eiro suggested.


    "You sure you don''t want me to cook?" Rudy asked as he looked down at Sammy and Leon, but Eiro just shook his head, "I''m sure you''re exhausted too, so really, it''s fine if you just buy something for us." The Demon told him, and the young man slowly nodded his head.


    "Alright... Thanks." He said with a smile, and then looked over toward Arc, who was currently trying to bind the two Aria to a tree despite them being so rowdy right now. It seemed like Lugo was actually acting pretty simr to those two. It was like he was nervous inside of this barrier. And so, Eiro tried to make him justy down for a while so that he could get used to this.


    And as Rudy, Arc and Gondos made their way out the gate again after being given some more money from Eiro, the Demon looked at Clementine, "Can you take Avalin for a moment? I want to try a few things out." Eiro exined, swiftly handing the little girl off to Clementine, "Noo! I wanna stay with daddy!" Avalin eximed, trying to reach out to Eiro again, although Clementine looked at Avalin with a sad frown.


    "Awe... So you don''t like me..?" She asked quietly, and immediately, Avalin turned around and stared at Clementine, "Nu! I love you too!" Avalin yelled out, swiftly proceeding to hug Clementine''s neck and face.


    Since Avalin was distracted now, Eiro could properly test out what he wanted to. He swiftly took off his cloak and put down his satchel, so that he could get a good look at his arms and easily pull up his shirt to look at his chest as well. And then, he just thought of activating that new ability of his.


    Slowly his skin became slightly more gray in color, and its texture changed considerably as well. The whole sensation of touching something was quite different too, and his clothes seemed as if they were practically stuck to him now that his skin was this rough. But somehow, even though this was the case, Eiro''s movement wasn''t hindered in the slightest. The only thing that maybe changed was his weight, but even that wasn''t such a huge increase either.


    Mostly, it was something that simply allowed Eiro to give out heavier attacks while increasing his basic defense... Especially cutting him should be far, far harder now.


    "...What did you just do..?" Nelli asked confusedly, and Eiro turned toward her with a smile, "Ah, my Resistance stat reached 100, and the ability I got through it is called ''Rock Skin''. I''m sure you can guess what it does, right?" The Demon exined. Nelli floated a bit closer and ran her hand over Eiro''s arm before slowly nodding her head.


    "Yeah... It seems like a pretty rare ability though. Maybe it''s..." The Naiad started, although just when she did, something else weird happened. It was as if her hand was stuck to Eiro''s arm all of a sudden. She could pull her hand away pretty quickly, but it was still weird. And immediately, the reason for this came to Eiro''s mind.


    Eiro quickly looked at Clementine and Felix, and told them, "Wait here." While also signing this sentence with his hands for Felix. Eiro and Nelli immediately made their way over to step behind one of the nearby trees while the Demon deactivated his ''Rock Skin'' ability.


    "What just was that? What did you do up there?" Nelli asked him, and Eiro slowly exined what exactly happened. How <The Devil> appeared and weirdly ''helped'' Eiro, and how <The World> left behind the Major Arcana card.


    And of course, how Eiro became a candidate for the next <The World>.


    "You... Are you feeling alright? Nothing changed about you? You don''t feel the urge to destroy all life on the?"


    "Of course not, don''t be ridiculous. I don''t know, I just feel a bit more... connected to everything? As if the world around me is just part of myself. Gondos said it before, but I was a bit too reckless climbing down the mountain with Sammy on my back." The Demon exined to Nelli, and then slowly stretched his hand out to the side to pick up a small marble out of his treasury. It was just a simple shadow magic stone, since it was the main one that Eiro actually used to fuse with his body.


    He pushed his mana inside and then made the shadow magic flow into his hand. And immediately, Eiro could tell a difference. Usually, with his shadow magic stone, it would basically just cloak his skin in a thin ck mist, but now... Eiro slowly turned his hand into a fist and hit the tree next to him. What proceeded to happen was that Eiro''s fist turned into ck smoke after he hit the bark. His fist didn''t fully disappear of course, it was just as if it was slightly ''squished'' together. Eiro could also feel the bark hitting his fist like normal.


    When the Demon pulled his hand back instinctively, the shape of his hand returned to normal. "It''s a new ability..." Eiro started, "It''s called ''Minor Elemental Fusion'', and just what it sounds like, I can-"


    "Actually properly fuse with elemental magic. But if that''s the case, then that thing just now, was that basically you and I trying to fuse with each other?" Nelli asked, and Eiro slowly looked back at the Spirit.


    "Maybe, it definitely sounds pretty intriguing. I mean, just imagine if it''s actually possible. It would make fights a lot easier."


    "Yeah, but it''s not permanent, right?" Nelli asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "I doubt it. I don''t feel anything like a ''residue'' on my skin from before."


    After a bit of thought, Nelli looked deep into Eiro''s eyes.


    "If that''s so, do you maybe want to try? Fusing, that is?"

 Chapter 157 - Demonic Spirit

    Eiro looked at Nelli with a purely surprised expression. That was something he really hadn''t expected her to ask.


    "You want to try fusing with me?" Eiro asked her, just to make sure he understood her correctly, and Nelli just shrugged, "Well if you don''t want to, then don''t bring it up in the first ce." She replied to him, and Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "Oh, it''s not that at all! I just expected you to be against it." The Demon pointed out, and Nelli lightly raised her brows, "Well, amongst anything and anyone currently living on this, you''re the one I trust the most. I know you wouldn''t want to actually injure me, so since you seemed so excited, I doubt it''s harmful to me too much."


    The Imp smiled back at the Naiad and nodded his head, "Well, thank you. I also do trust you to that extent... Then do you want to try?" Eiro then asked, and Nelli swiftly floated up to his chest.


    "Sure. I guess this is the best ce for that, huh?" She suggested, as she pulled Eiro''s shirt up so that she could actually touch his skin, and then pressed her back against Eiro''s chest.


    Before either of them knew it, Nelli''s body practically fell into Eiro''s, and the Demon felt the surge of cold water travel through his body as a notification appeared.


    [Your body has merged with the Naiad, Nellissa Arigata]


    Eiro''s arms, legs, and parts of his back were covered in a thinyer of water. Underneath that water, the blue parts of his skin had spread outwardpletely, so that even the parts that weren''t covered in water had blue spots creeping up on them, although it mostly stayed the same crimson red as always.


    Despite the water covering Eiro''s limbs, it didn''t necessarily look all that unnatural, even. It wasn''t like what Eiro did when he covered his body with water magic normally, but it actually took the shape of Eiro''s own body. His hands could be used normally, and his palms did actually still have their skin revealed, although it was just wood when it came to his right hand, and the same seemed to be the case for the soles of his feet.


    To top it off, while Eiro''s clothes were obviously pressing right onto the water, the cloth didn''t be wet at all. It was like the water was ''dry''. Well, it was how Nelli''s magic water did usually work, it couldn''t be used to do things like water nts either, so it made sense.


    And right around Eiro''s body, the demon could see some droplets of water floating around him, just like they did with Nelli''s body.


    But there was something else that Eiro could see. It was somethingpletely new, something that mixed into all of his senses at once while being uniquely different to any of them. He was able to see, smell, feel, hear, and somewhat even taste the mana around him.


    It was an amazing new feeling to an extent, although the actual mana was quite sickening. It still had the miasma that came from the original <The World> mixed into it. Since Eiro was feeling bad about it even without this new sensation, it was obvious that he would be disgusted by it like this.


    ''This is amazing...'' A thought popped into Eiro''s mind, although it wasn''t his own by any means. It was a thought produced by Nelli''s consciousness, which currently existed inside of Eiro''s body beside the Demon''s own.


    "It really is, isn''t it?" Eiro replied with a smirk on his face.


    ''Can we try something out? Could you try and create water yourself without me?'' Nelli asked him with another thought, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. He raised his hand forward and it was as if knowledge simply poured into Eiro''s mind.


    It was simr to what Eiro experienced whenever one of his skills got to the Intermediate grade. How he got a deeper understanding of Water magic, of how to properly use his dagger and how to deeply interact with wood he was carving. And of course, the sudden knowledge of different words that Eiro hadn''t even heard of before at that point.


    The knowledge that Eiro gained through this was the knowledge on how to create water on his own. Mana poured out of the demon''s body like a river and cumted in front of his palm. Bit by bit, and drop by drop, a small amount of magic water was created in front of Eiro.


    [Apprentice Spirit Magic skill leveled up!]


    [Apprentice Spirit Magic skill leveled up!]


    Eiro looked at the notifications in surprise. Sure, with two spirits, it seemed like it was rather easy to level this skill up, but... It still took Eiro at least a couple of days of intense practice to level this skill up normally at this lower apprentice stage.


    But just when Eiro thought that... He became incredibly tired, and he was overwhelmed by a strong, stinging headache. And the moment that Eiro realized what was going on, both his and Nelli''s consciousness made the active decision to split up again, and so Nelli swiftly appeared in front of the Demon''s body again, floating there simrly exhausted.


    "Seems like it takes a bit too much mana to do this for now, huh..?" Eiro pointed out, and the Naiad looked at him with a silent nod, seemingly thinking for a little while.


    "Yeah, but... really, that is an amazing ability! And... tell me when I''m wrong, but your understanding of water magic should be a fair bit higher now, isn''t that right?" Nelli asked, seemingly quite excited, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "I still remember how I managed to create the water. I doubt I can reproduce it in the same manner just like this, but I definitely feel closer to it."


    "And to top it off, it''s only ''Minor Elemental Fusion'', right? What would happen if you had the full version, or even a ''Major'' one?"


    "I don''t know, but... My guess is that I''m going to get more abilities the stronger I get. Right now, my chance to survive activating the card is 1%, so my guess is it works simr to the three of swords, or maybe even my prosthetic. The higher the percentage rises, the more I''ll be able to make use of it."


    After that exnation, Eiro started stepping over toward the others again with Nelli floating right next to him. And while Eiro was rubbing the bridge of his nose, annoyed at the headache he was feeling, he heard the slime core say something from inside the bottle in the bag.


    "S-So you really are <The World>... now?" It asked, and Eiro stared down toward it with a light frown, "As I said before, I''m a candidate. I''m not actually <The World>."


    "Where''s the di-difference?! You''re the closest to... to being <The World> th-there is!"


    "Hm... that might be true." Eiro muttered quietly as he turned over toward the carriage and then toward Felix. Getting his attention wasn''t too hard, since Eiro could simply blow out a little bit of air and push it toward him with some air magic. It usually startled him a little, but it wasn''t as bad as when Eiro just stepped up to him from behind.


    When Felix looked at him, Eiro quickly pointed at Sammy and Leon, then at the carriage, and then did the handsigns for ''make space'' to tell Felix to push things around a bit so that Leon and Sammy couldy down in there.


    As Felix nodded his head and stepped into the carriage to get started, the Demon pushed his hands under Leon''s body and quickly picked the child up before bringing him to the carriage. There, he quickly put him down on one of the cushioned seats where he could properlyy down. Leon luckily didn''t really move all that much whenever he was sleeping, so Eiro didn''t worry about him falling off too much.


    And then, Eiro swiftly helped Felix clear out enough space so that he couldy Sammy down on the ground properly, before making his way outside to go and get her.


    Eiro put her down on a nket that Felixid onto the ground and then covered her in another, different nket as well. On his way out, Eiro grabbed a small piece of wood that he kept in here to keep carving whenever he could, and then just stepped up to the front of the carriage, where Clementine and Avalin were currently sitting on the front-bench of the carriage where Arc was usually sitting when driving.


    "Are you two alright?" Eiro asked, wanting to make sure that the two of them were actually handling the bit of miasma in here properly, and Clementine quickly nodded her head, "Yeah, I''m fine! But... what about you? You seem to be a little bit in pain..?"


    "Hm?" Eiro replied as he looked at the young girl surprised, and then slowly realized what she was talking about. Running low on mana usually had this kind of effect on him, where he got incredibly tired and it took him a while to properly follow even his own thoughts. That, and the headache that Clementine was seemingly sensing from Eiro.


    "Right, yeah... Just a bit low on mana, I overdid it when testing out a new ability. Nothing a little bit of rest can''t fix." Eiro reassured her, and watched as Felix came stepping out of the carriage as well, closing the door behind him.


    The Demon quickly told him to go ahead and sit down next to Clementine and Avalin, to which the young man swiftly agreed while Eiro pulled his carving knife out of his treasury and started carving into the block of wood that he just grabbed. He wanted to get used to his increased dexterity properly some more, just to make sure that he wasn''t somehow going to mess up when he tried fixing his hand up.


    It was fine for the most part, but there were still a few cuts and notches in it that were somewhat annoying because basically everything got caught on them. That wasn''t necessarily useful when trying to kill a dangerous monster.


    Of course Eiro had recement-parts for his hand, but he also had a few pieces of wood just like that. It was a waste to rece its parts just because of a few nicks, after all. So, Eiro just wanted to cut small pieces and splinters of wood off some of the wood he took from his own tree back then to fill everything in.


    Hopefully it would end up as good as new. After Eiro made sure that his hands were working properly, Eiro got out a small piece of his own light blue wood and scraped away a tiny piece, before pressing it into the cut he made it for to see if it properly fit.


    Eiro pushed his other hand into his satchel to grab the glue he had and then tried to pull the splinter off, before he noticed.... the splinter had merged into the wood of his prosthetic just like that, without needing any sort of adhesive.

 Chapter 158 - Control

    "Concentrate, Leon." Eiro said in a strict tone, and the young boy sat in front of him with a quiet groan, "But Dad, I-"


    "You''re trying, I know that. That''s why I don''t want you to slip off and suddenly waste that effort. Soe on, properly do it as I''m telling you." The Demon said, "Close your eyes and concentrate, alright?"


    "Okay..." Leon replied quietly. Currently, Eiro was trying to help Leon get his skills under control by teaching him different mana-maniption techniques that he could use while meditating.


    As far as Eiro could tell, Leon''s skills worked somewhat like an aura. Something that constantly surrounds him. And if that was the case, if it was that sort of energy, then it should be possible for Leon to control it as well.


    "Now, inside of your head, form an image of yourself sitting here like you are. But, look at yourself from my position." Eiro exined, and a few momentster continued, "Then in the center of your body, imagine a small ball, from which water flows outward and fills your body out. As if you were a cup."


    Noticing that Leon''s heartbeat somewhat slowed down, Eiro was pretty sure that he properly activated the meditation skill that Eiro practiced with him over the past year in preparation for this kind of thing.


    "Floating around you is even more of that water. It just has a different color. Can you tell me what that color is?" Eiro asked Leon, and the young boy didn''t take long to respond quietly. It was nothing more but a whisper, but luckily Eiro was able to hear it without any issues.


    "There are two... colors... ck and... red..." Leon muttered quietly, and Eiro sighed in relief. That meant that Leon was actually able to sense the effect of his unique skills. When it came to such image-training, the colors weren''t really that important, though. It was simply something of a visual representation your mind formed when something wasn''t actually visible like that.


    Leon was slightly scared of the dark, so Eiro figured that the ''ck Water'' represented the ''Feared by Monsters'' skill. And since red was Leon''s favorite color, Eiro figured that the ''Red Water'' represented the ''Loved by Monsters'' skill.


    "That''s not good, the water is flowing around without you letting it, right?" Eiro asked with a slightly bitter tone, to more easily guide Leon''s in his meditative mind. It seemed like Leon''s heart was starting to beat faster, as if he was somewhat starting to panic.


    "Don''t worry, you can fix it. You just need to make all the water flow into your body." The Demon advised. And even before he really knew it, something changed. It was as if the feeling of fear was suddenly gone, and all that was left was a pull toward Leon. He heard the slime-core in the bottle mutter something as well, but it wasn''t important. It was really just something that confirmed to Eiro that one of the skills had practically been deactivated.


    It didn''t take long for the same to happen to the second skill either, though. Even the slime core calmed down. And with a smile on his face, Eiro slowly stood up and rubbed his hand over Leon''s head.


    "Good job. Come on, open your eyes. You finally did it." Eiro said with a smile on his face, and the young boy slowly opened his eyes and blinked a few times.


    "I... did it?" He asked surprised, and Eiro swiftly nodded his head, "Yes you did. Feels good, huh?" Eiro chuckled as he squatted down and helped Leon stand up properly again.


    "It does!" Leon eximed, and Eiro justughed a bit again as he took the hand that Leon was stretching toward him and stepped over toward the carriage. And as that was happening, Eiro also heard Sammy''s voice in the distance.


    She already technically managed to properly control the ''intention'' in her voice so that her unique skill didn''t activate yesterday, but she was still trying to practice a bit more so that she wouldn''t identally lose control at a bad time.


    "Everyone,e over here." Eiro eximed to gather everyone together, and everyone stopped their own practice or work and stepped over toward the Demon.


    "We''re heading off, Leon managed to deactivate his skills." The Demon announced when they came close enough to hear him. And immediately, Clementine walked up to Leon and gave him a congrattory hug.


    "Arc,e on. I''ll help you bring the Aria over." Eiro said and held his hand outward to take the swords the young man was carrying from him to put them onto the carriage for now, and Arc slowly nodded and ced them into Eiro''s hands. But when he did, he seemed a bit confused and startled.


    "What happened to your hand?" Arc asked confusedly, and the Demon looked down at his prosthetic that had numerous cuts and notches in them at the moment.


    "Ah, that''s... Don''t worry, I''ll show you." Eiro said with a light and awkward smile as he pushed his hand into his satchel to pull out a small piece of his own blue wood, before also taking his carving knife out of his treasury and cutting off a small splinter off the wood as everyone was watching. Eiro then took that splinter and pressed it into one of the grooves he had on his prosthetic.


    A few momentster, that splinter had already merged with the prosthetic and closed the whole groove up, "It''s something that my hand can do now. After the fight I''ve had up at the mountain, my connectivity with the prosthetic went up to 70%, so I guess that''s why it can do something like this now." Eiro exined to them, "So I took this chance to cut away some parts that slightly deteriorated through fighting."


    "Ah..." Arc said with a slightly relieved expression, although just when he was about to turn around toward the Aria, something else came to his mind, "Erm... I know that your level increased a lot, but what exactly did you fight up there that made it possible, even?" The young man asked, and slowly, Eiro''s smile disappeared.


    "...I''ll exin." Eiro said, and then looked around at everyone to make sure they were listening, "Up there, a monster was sealed. And that monster was a royal, <The World>. It was weak enough so that I could kill it, but through that, I became a ''candidate'' for the next <The World>. I got a special ability because of it, and some general improvements, one of which was the high increase of connectivity with my prosthetic." The Demon exined, and everyone beside Gondos and Nelli, who Eiro already told about this, as well as Felix, who couldn''t hear Eiro''s words, looked at him surprised.


    Eiro was a bit nervous at what their reaction would be. After all, that he might actually be one of the most feared beings in this world wasn''t necessarily something easy to ept.


    With a slightugh, Arc just slowly shook his head as he held his hand up to his face, "Holy shit, that''s awesome." Heughed, "Seriously, you''re getting ridiculously strong. I''m definitely gonna win any ''My dad can beat up your dad'' arguments in the future." Arc pointed out, and Rudy swiftly tuned in.


    "Ignoring that nonsense from Arc, I have to say... That is actually pretty cool, isn''t it? I mean, it''s not like you''re just going to be an evil overlord all of a sudden." Rudy added, and Eiro immediately grew relieved that that is what they were thinking.


    Sammy and Clementine seemed to agree as well, and Leon and Avalin didn''t really understand what they were talking about yet. Actually, only Sammy was a little conflicted. After all, she was the one amongst everyone here, beside Felix, that distrusted Eiro the most. He saw that when they were climbing the mountain. However, it seemed like she wasn''t conflicted for the reason that Eiro thought she was.


    "So just because of us you literally fought a Royal monster? Seriously?" She asked quietly, and Eiro swiftly nodded his head.


    "Of course. I did it so that I could continue being with you all like this, because I didn''t want to lose you." He said. At first, Eiro did want to just run from <The World>. It was dangerous, sure, but there was no reason to put himself in danger if they could have just ran away. Eiro wanted to be stronger, but not at the cost of the life of his children.


    The only reason that he actually did end up fighting <The World> was because <The Devil> took everything from him that would ruin Eiro''s current life without actually touching the children at all. Without Eiro''s fear, empathy, or fatherly instincts... he didn''t know what he would have done to these children after a while. It actually terrified him. But luckily, Eiro managed to get everything back after killing <The World>.


    "But don''t worry, Sammy. I would fight anything for you guys." The Demon told them, "And as Arc said, it made me a fair bit stronger through the ability I got. Gondos, want to demonstrate?" Eiro suggested, just to try and show Sammy that everything was fine. The Golem slowly nodded his head and floated up to Eiro.


    The Demon lifted his shirt up, and Gondos pressed his back against Eiro''s chest and practically fell into him. And before they knew, Eiro and Gondos merged together.


    [Your body has merged with the Golem, Gondos Holmstir]


    In practically the same ces where there was water when he merged with Nelli, Eiro''s skin was now covered in a thinyer of rock, and Eiro''s skin became slightly more gray, simr to what it was like when Eiro activated the ''Rock Skin'' ability.


    Eiro''s tail in particr was different to what it was like when he merged with Nelli though. With her, it was simply covered in a very thinyer of water, but with Gondos, it became incredibly thick. Thicker than Eiro''s arms, somewhat simr to what a Lizardman''s tail was like, just that it was made of rock.


    With a slight smile, Eiro looked at the incredibly surprised children in front of him, "I can be one with Nelli and Gondos now." The Demon exined to them, although Gondos quickly left Eiro''s body again, "It''s hard on my mana, but it definitely makes me much stronger. And I can use spirit abilities as well, even if just for a second, really. When I merge with either of them, I can sense mana, I can create elements, and we even tried some refinement.... Although I wasn''t entirely sure how well it worked, because I nearly instantly ran out of mana to spare."

 Chapter 159 - What About School?

    After the carriage had been properly prepared and everyone was ready to leave, Eiro first told them what he was nning on doing next.


    "We''re heading off to see Solomon now. We''re mostly going to bring back this carriage, but I guess I could also check in on that boy''s leg." Eiro pointed out, and Arc slowly leaned back against the side of the carriage, "And what then? We gonna live in Skyhart from now on?" The boy asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "I was thinking of letting you guys attend school there. The one that Solomon mentioned." He exined, and the children stared at him with a mixture of confusion and excitement.


    "School? With other people our age?" Clementine asked with a broad smile, one that Eiro quickly returned, "That''s the idea, yes. I could continue teaching you whatever you need to know myself, but even I don''t know anything. From what I gathered, a school is a ce where you can study up on anything, right? I want to give you guys the chance to do that."


    After the first major excitement subsided a bit, Rudy looked down at Avalin, who was getting second-hand excitement despite not really knowing what was going on, "But that means we would all have to live in a big town, right? What about Avalin? The rest of us can hide our abilities, because they don''t change anything about what we look like, but... If it''s exposed that she''s the Holy Priestess, that''s going to be realy bad, right? And even if she has those contacts, what if she forgets to put them in one day in the future? It just needs to happen once, and we''re screwed! That''s way too risky, right?"


    "Of course it is. But I already have an idea for that." Eiro exined, pushing his hand into his satchel to take out the small box with Avalin''s special contact-lenses in them, "Last night, I tried to Merge with Nelli again, and then noticed that these lenses work with magic. That was a bit obvious, to be fair, but now I know that they work with Light Magic specifically. The only school of Light Magic I know that could do that would be Illusion Magic." The Demon pointed out and looked over toward Clementine.


    "It was simr to Clementine''s Light Magic, after all. And I also tried to figure out Leon''s and Avalin''s affinities yesterday. Leon''s affinities are with Darkness and Earth Magic, and there seems to be a specificbination for them that he''s got a talent for. I don''t know which, though. And Avalin has an affinity for general Light magic. So, I''m thinking of teaching her illusion spells so that she can hide her eyes herself. Of course the contacts will always be an amazing option, but just in case she ever gets into a situation where she can''t wear them, I think it would be better to have magic to fall back on."


    After a bit of thought on this idea, Nelli nodded her head and floated up to the young girl, "Yeah, illusion magic should definitely help. And she does have a great amount of mana... She is the Holy Priestess, after all. Ah, by the way, you should also teach her how to control that part. Or else there are going to bepletely different ways to find out who she is."


    "Hmm, that''s true. Well, we have a little bit of time to worry about that, I think. For now, we should probably head off. But just to make sure, all of you are alright with going to school, right?"


    "Of course we are!" Clementine eximed. She seemed to be mostly excited about the parts about school that weren''t study-rted, though. Either way, since everyone was agreeing with her, Eiro figured that they should just get going. They''ve spent a couple of days inside of this ce, so now it was time to leave.


    Eiro didn''t really get the chance to kill any more monsters and level up, but that wasn''t really that big a deal. He could just do that whenever he wanted anyway. There were more than enough monsters in the wild to get experience from if the demon actually went out of his way to go and look for them.


    The Demon climbed onto the back of Lugo, slowly rubbing his hand over his head, although it didn''t really seem to be thatfortable for him. After all, Eiro still had cuts in his hand that he didn''t fix yet, but he would spend some time doing that now.


    "I''ll go first, so just follow me." Eiro instructed Arc as the demon ced his mask onto his face. Lugo started walking forward toward the gate leading to town while the two Aria did the same. And like that, their trip toward their new home begun.


    ---


    Over the next week, the group made their way toward the capital of Skyhart as quickly as they could while stopping as little as possible. Whenever they had the chance, Eiro helped Leon practice the activation of his skills, then helped Sammy get her voice under control some more, or tried to instruct Felix on the basics of woodcarving, and with that sculpting.


    Of course, if there was the chance to, Eiro also used the ''Minor Elemental Fusion'' ability to fuse with either Gondos or Nelli, and even managed to increase the level of his Spirit Magic skill by another 5 levels! The first of those times he could level it up twice with all of his mana, but for thest couple ones he only managed to level it up once with all the mana in his body. It was kind of annoying, but gaining five levels in a skill really wasn''t that bad if he thought about it. It was at the level of a very low-leveled beginner-grade skill that you had a high talent for, after all. Like when Eiro learned the ''Common Language Comprehension'' skill.


    And Eiro was doing that with a low-mid-leveled Apprentice-Grade skill, and that even without . It was obviously pretty amazing. But at some point, Eiro couldn''t continue this sort of practice as easily anymore. That was because they managed to get through the first wall of Skyhart''s capital.


    The way that this huge town worked was actually pretty simr to Argberg, the dwarven craftsman town they were at just a couple weeks ago, but at the same timepletely different. The whole town was built on tnd, but it also had three yers'' to it. But they weren''t necessarily split up by status, but more by functionality.


    The outermostyer was the one that had the most space, and was upied mostly by farnd. There were buildings scattered across the ce here and there, but those were just the ces that a few of the actual farmers lived at. Either that, or barns for different animals that were raised out here.


    There were alsorge areas upied by forests so that wood could be procured safely without the threat of monsters, as well as windmills that seemed to be there to grind things like wheat down into flour. Basically, out here, any sort of material or animals that was needed in the otheryers was produced here.


    Then there was the secondyer, which was where the actual town was supposed to start. Here, the majority of people lived. Of course, it was still somewhat split up into sections of where you could go, but it wasn''t like people were forced to leave. It was just the kind of natural grouping of people that were alike. Nobles stayed in one area, the scum of the earth in another.


    Thestyer was actually once more split up into two areas. One area where the royal castle stood, and another where the world-famous Skyhart Academy stood, overlooked by that royal castle.


    Eiro could already see those tworge structures climb into the sky in the distance, but they were obviously still a fair distance away from there. First, they had to get through the outermostyer and to the town. After that they had to maneuver through the town safely and then get up to the castle. This really wouldn''t be an issue, since he had the brooch that Solomon gave him.


    It was getting prettyte in the day when they finally reached the gate, and through the fact that they were driving a carriage drawn by Aria, they were immediately let to the front of the line of people wanting to enter town, and even got in without too much of a checkup after Eiro showed them the brooch.


    "Arc, there''s a lot of people here, so watch out with those two." Eiro suggested, pointing at the two Aria, and the young man slowly nodded his head.


    Eiro kept leading the carriage toward the royal castle, although the Demon was a bit annoyed by what was going on around them at the moment. They were being followed by a group of different people. And most of them didn''t even seem to be in the same group or organization, so it most likely was just because of the carriage and the Aria, rather than because of Eiro or the children. A couple of them were actually carrying Adventurer''s Guild cards with them. From what Eiro was told by Tom back then, a lot of adventurers actually doubled as informants, so of course someone presumed to be a noble suddenly appearing with the king''s brooch was something people would be interested in.


    But the Demon still didn''t like the feeling of being watched, so with a rather annoyed expression, Eiro looked at Gondos and asked him to create a number of small rocks.


    Small rocks that he then shot in front of the feet of each of his pursuers to let them know that he was more than just aware of them being there. Some of them seemed to be scared off by that alone, although there was still a handful of them that kept following. It seemed like those guys were actually more interested in what they were doing in this town than before... So maybe that actually wasn''t the best tactic, but it was enough for Eiro.


    It wasn''t like they were going to follow them to the royal castle anyway, so thosest few people would end up having to leave as well.


    And so, the pursuers stopped the moment that Eiro showed the brooch to the guards at the front of the castle-gates, and Eiro and the children were led up to the actual castle soon thereafter.


    After all, now it was time for a little audience with the King, Solomon Sigurd Skyhart, himself.

 Chapter 160 - Audience

    "Wee. You are Sir Eiro, I assume." A man in a ck formal suit and slicked-back hair said with a light bow forward the moment that Eiro stepped off of Lugo''s back. The Demon slowly nodded his head, "I am. I''m here to return the carriage and the two Aria to the King. And if possible, I''d also like to speak to him." He exined, and the man standing in front of Eiro simply kept smiling, "I am afraid that will be something quite hard to arrange. His Majesty is currently quite busy. If it''s not of immediate importance, then I suggest waiting a few days and we will inform you when you can speak to him."


    With a light grumble, Eiro stared back at the man, "I have a hint toward what happened to the prince as he was attacked. That of enough ''immediate importance'' to you?" The Demon asked bluntly, and the man opened his eyes wide and immediately nodded his head.


    "I would assume so, yes. Then please,e in. Those children in the carriage cane with you as well, although they will have to wait in another room." The man exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he turned his head to look at the carriage.


    And then, he let out a loud whistle out of his mouth, "Kids,e out. We''re heading inside." Eiro told them, and the door of the carriage quickly opened up to reveal Sammy stepping outside first. Right behind her were Avalin and Leon, then Clementine, Rudy and Felix. Eiro was actually pretty surprised that Leon was this energetic. He did seem a bit more excited about basically everything ever since the seals were removed. Maybe they had a pretty bad effect on his body, then?


    Either way, the only one that was really nervous here was Felix, who was turning his head to look at everything somewhat anxiously.


    "N-Now, driver, please follow the stableboy there." The man instructed next. He seemed a bit surprised at how many children Eiro had with him, although Eiro stared at the man with a light re. Of course, it was hidden behind Eiro''s mask, but it seemed like the man still noticed it to an extent.


    "That ''Driver'' is my son. Have the stableboy drive the carriage himself, please. But don''t enter the carriage, we''re going to clear it out ourselvester."


    "Excuse my insolence, Sir Eiro!" The man eximed immediately, but the Demon just lightly sighed, "Don''t worry about it, just don''t let it happen again." Eiro replied, and then started stepping up the stairs leading up to the actual entrance to the castle''s interior.


    When Eiro reached the top of the stairs, therge doors were opened up by some servants inside of the castle and the Demon just stepped through it without hesitation. Once in there, the man from outside followed as well and stepped in front of Eiro again.


    "Now, if those children would please follow these maids. We will prepare some tea and pastries during their wait." He exined, and Eiro quickly nodded to the children to tell them it was okay, although he quickly waved Sammy over toward him.


    "Lying isn''t always bad." He whispered into her ear, and Sammy looked at him confusedly. It was the ''signal'' that Eiro told Sammy before. Like this, he basically said that she should be careful and use her ability if she needs to. She was capable of easily calming a dangerous situation down, after all. Simply by telling an attacker ''You don''t want to fight us'', she could turn them into a pacifist. As such, Eiro chose to leave the protection of everyone to her for now.


    "Alright..." She replied quietly, and then went with the others to follow the maids while Eiro was led up the stairs on the other side of this hall by the man that greeted them before.


    "If I may ask, why did you tell that woman something like that?" He asked, and Eiro slightly sighed, "One of those guys isn''t a kid of mine. The one with bright red hair and a hood. He''s a rather ''close'' friend of hers, Sammy, if you get what I mean with that. They got into a small fight, and I wanted to tell her that she shouldn''t be too mad at him." Eiro told him, "Young love, huh?" He added to it, and the man slowly nodded his head.


    "Ah... I see." He replied. But Eiro knew that it didn''t really convince him. He was just as suspicious of Eiro as before.


    A little whileter, Eiro stood in front of arge door that was then pushed open by two royal guards. On the other side of the room sat Solomon Sigurd Skyhart, in full royal attire, smiling brightly when Eiro stepped into the room.


    Thinking that this whole situation waspletely ridiculous, Eiro stepped further into the room to stand properly in front of the man sitting on the throne.


    "Yo." Eiro said, "Nice to meet ya." The Demon added, and Solomon slightlyughed, "Haha, Sir Eiro, what are you saying? It is nice to see you are just as well-humored as ever." He said, and Eiro stared at him with a re.


    "What are you talking about? We never met before." Eiro told him, and Solomon slowly stared down at Eiro, "What-"


    "Hey, didn''t I ask you guys to bring me to the King? It''s nice that you showed me an illusionist, I was taking an interest in illusion magictely anyway, but I don''t like having my time wasted like this." Eiro pointed out, and the man from before, who Eiro assumed to be the head butler or something like that until now, quietly scoffed in response.


    "Do you really expect us to bring the sessor of one of the greatest traitors in this world''s history to see the King of this country?" He asked, and at this point, Eiro realized how the other servants in this ce were acting around him. And not only the servants, but also the knights, and even the fake king''s attitude. This guy obviously had a quite high position in this ce.


    But Eiro didn''t really care about that stuff, "So you don''t want to hear the information about the attack on the King''s son after all?"


    "Of course we do. I had hoped you were simple-minded enough to be tricked like this, but it seems like that was a major miscalction on my side. I wanted you to tell it to us without everying eyes on his Majesty. But well... I guess we have to do it this way now. I don''t like this n, but... you realize that we have your children confined now, don-"


    "You don''t." Eiro replied clearly, "And this situation will quickly be turned around anyway." The Demon told them- and looked right toward the door that was currently opening up.


    And into the room stepped the true Solomon, dressed in ratherfortable, even if not fancy, clothes while Nelli floated next to him.


    "What is going on here?" He asked in an angry tone, and soon spotted Eiro standing there in the center of the room. Then, he saw the startled man looking at the door and the fake king on the other side of the room.


    "What did I tell you, Jordan? No matter who he has connections with, that man is my benefactor! I will not let you disrespect him!" Solomon eximed and rushed through the room to get to Eiro, and immediately grasped his hand with his own, "I greet you here in my domain, Eiro, and I apologize for this treatment. Please,e with me to a more appropriate ce where we can speak in peace."


    "Nice to see you again, Solomon. Let''s just wait a little bit longer, though. They should be here any moment now." Eiro replied and kept looking at the door, while the man from before, Jordan, took a chance to intervene.


    "B-But your Majesty, you cannot trust that man! Can you not see how he is walking around? Not a single spot of his skin is openly visible! He-"


    "Excuse our intrusion." A calm, quiet voice said, interrupting Jordan as he was speaking. It was one of the maids from before that led the children away. And now, they led them here.


    "What are you doing here? I thought I told you to keep them locked up in that room!" Jordan eximed, and the maid looked at him with confusion, "But... wasn''t I supposed to bring these children back to their father?" The Maid asked confusedly, and Jordan just stared back at her with a just as puzzled expression.


    "Alright, now we can go." Eiro said to Solomon with a smile, all the whilst Avalin came running up to Eiro, "Daddy, they promised pastries but didn''t give us any!" Avalin eximed, and Eiro looked down at her with a light chuckle and quickly picked her up, "Don''t worry, we can get some of those another time."


    "But..."


    "You, please arrange something to eat for us and these children. Bring the food to my study, please." Solomon said in amanding tone as he looked at the maid, and she quickly bowed forward and nodded her head before turning around and doing as she was told.


    "Now follow me, Eiro." The King said, and Eiro quickly nodded his head and looked at the others. With a smile directed at Sammy, he said, "See? Like this, everything worked out without anyone getting hurt or troubled too much." Eiro told her, and Sammy slowly nodded her head.


    She was still trying to stay as silent as possible whenever she could, but Eiro was still trying to teach her that depending on the situation, her using her ability was the best possible way to get out of such an unfavorable situation. She seemed hesitant to use it, though, probably because of her experience with the skill when she was a child.


    Either way, the group followed the King through the castle and were led into his study by him. And to Eiro''s joy, it was basically filled to the brim with numerous books. This ce really seemed like a paradise to him, if he had to be honest.


    "Please, take a seat, all of you." Solomon said with a smile as he pointed at one of the couches standing in the center of the room surrounding a small table, while Solomon himself sat down at his desk further back in the room, and offered Eiro the seat opposite to him.


    The Demon let down Avalin and asked her to sit down on the couch next to Sammy and Clementine, and then sat down on the chair he was offered.


    And without hesitation, the Demon exined the situation, "So, despite it not being the main reason foring here, I do owe you for giving me that carriage and the Aria. Like that, we were able toplete the journey much, much quicker than I had ever anticipated. That''s why I''m going to tell you the reason for why I know that the three of swords isn''t the weapon used to injure your son." Eiro exined.


    Surprised, the King nodded his head, "Please! I trust you, of course, but having proof may remove any doubt in my mind."


    Slowly, Eiro stretched his hand forward and pulled out a small golden card out of his treasury, holding it forward so that Solomon could look at it, and before he could react, Eiro activated the card. Five rings appeared around Eiro''s fingers and then formed floating des connected to them through thin threads.


    "The reason is that the three of swords has been in my possession for the past seven years." The Demon said in a clear tone, and Solomon opened his eyes wide in confusion.


    "Then... then it really can''t have been the three of swords... But there are not many divine cards that have such effects.... Effects that make the user go mad like that." Solomon muttered, and Eiro just stared back and bluntly said, "Then what if that teacher didn''t go mad, and simply wanted to create chaos?"

 Chapter 161 - Sealed Memories

    "Simply wanted to create chaos...?" Solomon asked with a slight, concerned frown as he looked at the table in front of him, "That... I knew the lecturer, I had spoken to him many times before the incident. He was an intelligent, kind-natured man. I can not imagine such a person to act that viciously." He pointed out, and Eiro quietly sighed in response.


    "You really aren''t your average King, now are you?" He muttered, "And don''t get me wrong, I like that about you. You are willing to throw away your own dignity as a ruler to kneel on the ground and beg, just for the slightest hope of helping your child recover. That, and you trusted the apprentice of the ''greatest traitor this world has seen'' enough to do just that. As far as I''m concerned, that makes you someone I can rely on." Eiro exined.


    With a puzzled expression, Solomon looked at Eiro and was just about to speak, before Eiro continued.


    "But at the same time, such naivety seems a bit out of ce. You can''t decide what someone is like with just a single look." Eiro said, and then slowly turned around to look at Felix and quickly got his attention, "Come here." The demon told him with handsigns while speaking the words out loud as well. Nervously, Felix nodded and stood up to walk over toward the desk where Solomon and Eiro were sitting.


    "You''ve met him before, right? He was there in Armodeus'' shop back then. He is not one of my children, but rather, he is the son of Enka Markos. Argberg''s former chief warrior." The Imp said bluntly, "Outwardly, Enka was a nice guy that came with us to help us out a bit. But just when we wanted to leave town, he tried to frame me with murder and chased me halfway through the country. In the end, I had to kill him. Just before that happened, however..." Eiro said and pulled the hood off of Felix''s head and asked him to show Solomon his ear.


    "He crippled his own son like this. And as far as I can see, there is little to no chance of recovery for him."


    Solomon stared at Felix and slowly stood up as he stared at the young man''s ear, "This... this is something a father did to their own flesh and blood?" The King muttered quietly.


    "It is. So, what makes you think that a horrible person like that couldn''t have infiltrated the Academy?" Eiro asked him, and Solomon simply dropped down onto his chair with a despaired expression, "But... But no... he was a good person... There is no way that he..."


    With a light frown, Eiro stared at Solomon and stood up. He walked around the table and pressed his hands onto Solomon''s shoulders, "Nelli." The Demon said as he slowly turned his head toward her, and the spirit immediately understood what he wanted her to do. She floated over toward Eiro''s back and slipped underneath his clothes, swiftly fusing with him.


    [Your body has merged with the Naiad, Nellissa Arigata]


    And as Eiro felt the cool water envelop his skin, the Demon stared deeply at the principal. He smelled his scent, he looked into his eyes, and he felt his skin.


    "Hm... So that''s it..." The Demon whispered quietly as Nelli left his body again, "Gondos, give me the bottle in my bag. You know which one." Eiro said, and the Golem quickly floated over toward the satchel that Eiro ced down onto the ground next to the desk and picked up the bottle with the slime core in it.


    "What is going on?" Solomon asked, and Eiro looked at the King with a light grimace hidden behind the mask, "Seems like you were toyed with." The Demon said, "There''s a cluster of some sort of magic in your head. It seems simr to sealing arts, but I just need to make sure. Because if it is, then your memories might have been manipted somehow. That reaction of yours just now is exactly what it''s like when you realize something you''re supposed to be held off from realizing."


    "My memories were sealed? What are you even saying, how could that be? I would-"


    "Remember that happening? Try again." Eiro interrupted Solomon as he removed the cork from the bottle and poured the contents onto his palm, just to reveal the congealed slime core.


    "Oi, you piece of shit! Where the fuck are we?! I''ll kill you, you motherf-"


    "Sorry about that. Only recently, he lost a seal that detained his Monstrosity. He''s a little..." Eiro started, although he couldn''t really think of the right word, and the others chose to tune in, "Annoyed?" Rudy offered.


    "Ah, or was it ''agitated''?" Arc asked, and Rudy stared at him with a frown, "Isn''t that literally the same thing as what I said?"


    "Nah, mine sounds fancier." The boy replied, and Eiro sighed and shook his head, "No, I think the word I was looking for was ''bitch'', but those are fine too. Sorry, anyway... He was brought up in a temple specializing in sealing arts, so he should be able to tell if it''s a seal or not."


    "Eh? You want me to help you, you bastard? What do I get in return? If I can make suggestions, then it would be to have you crawl on the floor in front of me like a dog, you mutt!" The slime core yelled out, and Eiro just squeezed it a bit tighter.


    "If you help, I won''t kill you. That enough for you?" Eiro replied, and the slime core stayed silent for a few seconds, "So? Ya gonna let me analyze ''im or nah?" The core asked, just as rudely as ever. Eiro didn''t know why, but the weirdly well-mannered, even if man-eating and still kind of rude, monk that he met a while ago had now declined into this utter piece of shit after the seal slowly started ''unwrapping'' after the temple was destroyed. But whatever, this would just make it easier, and far more satisfying, to kill him.


    Eiro held the slime core toward Solomon''s confused face, before a number of sealing-art magic circles appeared in front of the core. Just a few momentster, the slime grumbled annoyedly.


    "Yup, definitely a seal. Wanna remove it?" The slime core suggested, and Eiro looked at Solomon, "So? Do you want to find out what''s really behind that attack, or not?"


    Without a single moment of hesitation, the King nodded his head in response, "Of course I do! Please, unseal those memories!" Solomon eximed, grasping the armrests of his chair tightly in preparation, and the slime core quickly responded.


    "Hm. Then we''ll need a river snake''s liver, a giant vampire-bats saliva, some red swamp cress, a little-" It started, and Eiro looked down at it, "What are you doing?" Eiro asked, "Just unseal it now."


    "Eh? Are you an idiot?" The core asked in response, "I''m tellin'' you what I need to unseal it."


    "...Exin..." Eiro said, and the slime core started to seep down into the gaps inbetween Eiro''s fingers and groaned annoyedly, "Sealin'' and unsealin'' is a hard thing, ya know? Not everyone can wave their hands around and undo any seal they see. The only reason Hyjun could do that was because he could control the miasma from <The World>, but you had to go and fuck it all up!" The slime core eximed, and Eiro slowly stared at the wall in front of himself with a nk expression, "So that means..."


    "Sealing Arts are arts that don''t only rely on magic! It''s made up of abination of medicinal arts and magic! Like alchemy, you fucking-"


    "Fine... Just tell me how much you need of everything, and I''ll get it for you." Eiro said in an annoyed tone. He thought it was just like any other school of magic, but apparently Sealing Arts were more simr to Alchemy rather than just pure magic.


    "What... Eiro, what did that core just say? <The World>? As in that, <The World>?" Solomon asked with a scared expression, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, that <The World>. The royal monster."


    "Are you saying it was sealed somewhere and you freed it...?" Solomon asked, and Eiro scratched his neck in response, "Yeah, technically I did." Eiro pointed out, and the king just deeply stared at Eiro withplete and utter fear.


    "<The World> is one of the monster dangerous amongst the royal! Step aside, I need to warn everyone!" Solomon eximed and stood up, although he was quickly stopped by a certain motion Eiro made. The motion of pulling something off a table.


    And just when Eiro did that, arge golden card appeared in his hand, disying the in a simple manner.


    "You don''t need to worry about that anymore." Eiro pointed out, and once more, Solomon dropped down onto the chair he had been sitting on, "You... you killed <The World>..?" Solomon asked, and to get rid of the ufortable feeling he was experiencing right now, Eiro quickly ced the Major Arcana card away again as he nodded his head.


    "Yes. So don''t freak out. I made a mistake, but I made up for it."


    "You made up for it? How the fuck did you make up for destroying-"


    "Just shut up already." Eiro growled as he pushed the slime core back into the ss bottle and pressed the cork down onto it.


    "Sorry about that. I''m going to get everything ready so that we can properly unseal your memories. And please keep the thing about <The World> secret, yeah? Oh, and the thing where I somehow just merged with my contracted spirit, that would also be nice." Eiro said, and just took a step back as he looked at Solomon''s expression.


    "Ei...Eiro..." Solomon muttered quietly and stared at the figure in front of him, "Next summer, there will be a tournament in this town... a tournament to look for the strongest person in this country to apany the hero on their quest to kill the Monster King. Please, take part in that tournament... I will give you anything you want to, just please. You killed a royal on your own, you will definitely be an amazing asset to that war!"


    Eiro looked at Solomon with a nk expression. He definitely didn''t expect to suddenly be asked something like this. He didn''t want to get involved in things like that, and he definitely wasn''t strong enough to actually fight against royals. But on the other hand, a position like that might give Eiro the opportunity to meet those that could help him find out what he actually was.


    Well, he was a being created by the Monster King, but he was pretty sure there was more to it than that. Because he doubted every single being created by that thing had such a broken system. If all of them were able to assign their points like Eiro was, then it would definitely make them a much higher threat than they actually are at the moment.


    But there was a reason why he couldn''t. Or rather, two reasons.


    "I can''t. I''m not going to leave behind my children to go on a suicide mission. I don''t know if I''m the strongest in the country, but on the off-chance that I am..." Eiro said and slowly turned toward Leon and Avalin sitting on the couches, "I want to see those two grow up. Sorry." Eiro said, but without hesitation, Solomon jumped up.


    "Of course! And you can do that! The current Hero is around the same age as those two little ones are, and the quest will not begin until he became an adult! So if you be the hero''spanion, then you don''t need to worry about not seeing them grow up!" The King exined, and Eiro stared at him with a light frown.


    "...What...?"

 Chapter 162 - Checkup

    "The Hero is that young? Then why is there a tournament to choose hispanions already?" Eiro asked confusedly, and Solomon quickly exined, "It is so that the Hero can properly be trained. He was found only recently, in a small ind kingdom to the west. It''s always been a neutral and quite safe ce, so there are not many strong people there, so they asked for help from other countries that can not only train the hero to properly control his own powers, but to apany the hero during his journey."


    "That means if I win the tournament, I''ll have to go to that ce? It would be too risky to send a child like that to another country without appropriate bodyguards, after all." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon slowly nodded his head.


    "Yes, that is indeed the case. But the Hero''s training can not begin until he bes 10 years old, due to multiple circumstances, so it will still take a few years nheless."


    After a bit of thought, Eiro turned around and looked at the children behind him before sighing deeply. He was actually a bit conflicted now. There were definitely benefits as well as disadvantages, although thetter obviously outweighed the former. Usually, Eiro would have probably declined, but there was a way to make sure he could get what he wanted without issues. After all, he couldn''t ask Solomon to let the children into the Skyhart Academy right after declining what he was asked to do.


    But instead, on the off-chance that Eiro should actually be the strongest in this country, which seemed incredibly unlikely in the first ce, Eiro could just y weak and drop out during the semi-finals and act like he did his best. Solomon couldn''t me him then, now could he?


    "Alright, fine. I''ll take part in the tournament, but I would like a favor from you in return." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon immediately nodded his head without even a moment of hesitation, "Of course! Whatever you wish for!"


    "I want you to give the children a spot in the Academy for a course of their choosing. Then, I would like a ce for us to stay at inside of this town. I can even pay for it, but I just need you to help me find a safe ce."


    "Huh..?" Solomon asked with surprise, "That''s it? I had expected you may ask for arge sum of money, or equipment made from the world''s greatest craftsmen..."


    "We met while I was trying to pick up equipment the world''s greatest craftsman made for us, and I coincidentally am quite wealthy. So I don''t need either of that." The Demon pointed out, and Solomon quietly chuckled and slowly nodded his head.


    "I guess that is true. But of course they can be students at the academy. Due to the incident back then, thest semester had to be postponed, so the sses for the newest students will be starting soon after the turn of the year." The King exined swiftly, "And if you wish, I can give you a property to make use of without you needing to pay for it. There is a manor that has been vacant for a few years now. While the building itself may not be toorge, it has a ratherrge property surrounding it that can be easily used for different training."


    Eiro slowly crossed his arms and looked at the King in front of him, "Is there a reason why it''s been vacant for so long?"


    "It used to belong to a rather... unliked man. He was a researcher, a mage to be exact, and he made quite a few enemies for himself. After his death, his children tried to sell it, and in the end the town had to buy it because nobody else wanted to. I would guess you don''t care about things like that, though." Solomon exined.


    Eiro lightly smiled and nodded his head, "I don''t. Then I would dly take that property, thank you." The Demon said, even lightly bowing forward as he was doing so.


    "I will have staff prepared right away as well. I will introduce you to themt-"


    "That''s fine, I don''t need things like maids, butlers, or chefs. Or rather... I would like to look for some trustworthy people myself." Eiro exined to Solomon, and the King slowly nodded his head, "I understand. Then I will have you brought there soon. First, let us eat something." Solomon suggested, something that Eiro dly agreed to. Although just when Eiro was about to sit down on the couch, he heard something else out in the hallway that seemed quite familiar to him.


    "Just a second." Eiro muttered and stepped up toward the door. With a quick pull he opened it up and revealed none other than the prince standing there with a crutch under his armpit, "Well, hello there." The Demon said. The prince stared back at him with a surprised expression and lowered his hand, as it seemed like he was just about to knock on the door.


    "H-Hello!" He eximed nervously, and Eiro took a step away from the door, "Perfect timing. I wanted to check on you today anyway." Eiro exined and then looked at Solomon, "I doubt you mind himing in?"


    "Of course not! I actually wanted to have him called here, so that he can properly thank you himself."


    Slowly, the prince came into the room with the help of the crutch under his arm, which already seemed to be an incredible advancement for him. From what Eiro could tell just like this, his wounds healed pretty well after all.


    "Arc, Rudy, scooch over." The Demon said and then pointed at the prince, moving his finger toward the spot that the two boys just opened up, "Charles, right? Go ahead and sit down there for a second, and pull your pant-leg up as much as you can."


    "Yes! Thank you!" He eximed and slowly sat down on the couch. Eiro took the crutch from him and leaned it onto the back of the couch for now while the prince, pulled his pant-leg up like Eiro asked him to.


    The Demon squatted down in front of him and slowly ran his wooden fingers over the area where Charles'' leg-prosthetic had merged with his flesh and then ced his finger onto the wood of the prosthetic, "Say ''Now'' when you can feel my finger on your skin." Eiro told him, and then slowly started running his finger up the leg until he reached a spot a few centimeters above the merging-line, "Now." Charles said, and Eiro slowly nodded his head in satisfaction.


    "Alright, good. Show me your arm as well, please. Same thing, say ''Now'' when you can feel my finger." Eiro told him, and Charles quickly nodded his head. There didn''t seem to be any issues here either, so Eiro stood back up in satisfaction.


    "So, how does it feel? Does it hurt sometimes where the prosthetics connect to your limbs, or do you randomly receive a little damage in the single digits?" Eiro asked as he slowly kept looking Charles up and down. The color of his face definitely improved. Still pale, but not deadly pale. And he seemed to have gained a little weight as well, even if he was still not really close to being average weight. Charles still had a lot of work ahead of him, but he was on the right track, at least.


    Nervous because of those questions, Charles turned his head over toward his father, who quickly answered for him, "Both of that happened, actually. Is something wrong? Is his body not made for them after all..?" Solomon asked anxiously, and Eiro looked at him with a bit of thought and then shrugged.


    "Yes and no, really. Obviously anyone''s body isn''t made to connect so closely with artificial limbs. There''s going to be some minor issues. But neither of those things is too big a problem. As long as its not numbingly painful you''re alright. It''s just that your body is still always kind of changing to more closely connect to the prosthetic, especially early on. So particrly when you put too much weight on the leg, for example, it''s going to hurt a bit."


    "Ah, so the damage is part of the healing process? Like when you had to cut off parts of his skin to attach the prosthetics?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "The pain is, the damage isn''t. That''s a bit of a different issue. The limbs are made to be actual parts of your body. You won''t feel anything with that leg right now, but it can still take damage. It takes a while to get used to it, but soon enough you''ll stop treating the prosthetics so rough subconsciously and it will be fine." Eiro exined, and Arc quickly tuned in, since he had a lot to say about that as well.


    "Oh yeah, at some point, you just learn to treat your body with care even if you can''t feel anything." He pointed out, and Clementine stared at him with a wry smile, "Says the guy that identally bit off parts of his tongue more than just once..."


    "Hey, that''s not my fault. It was your turn to cook that night, so-"


    "You little..." Clementine interrupted Arc with a death-stare, although Eiro couldn''t help but groan to himself as Solomon asked, "Eiro, does that child also have a prosthetic?"


    With a slow shake of his head, Eiro started to exin, "I guess I should tell you so that no surprisese up when they start attending school. You see, these children all have-"


    "Wh-What are you doing? I thought we''re supposed to keep it a secret!" Rudy eximed, and Eiro shrugged, "Yup, but both Solomon and Charles also have unique skills, so it''s fine. I''d think."


    Startle and confused, both of the ones mentioned stared at Eiro confusedly, "What, how do you..?" Charles asked, and Solomon added, "Did you say ''also''?"


    "Yes, I did say ''also''. All of these children have unique skills, and I saved them from being exploited for them years ago. As you might have guessed, they''re not my real children. And Charles, to answer your question... In everyone''s scent, there''s minor details revealing things like that. What your race is, which sort of magic element you may have, which sort of skills you make use of, and how strong you are. Especially when I did that thing before, Solomon, I was able to confirm that it was really the case." Eiro exined, "And when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. Your family name is the same as the country''s name, so you are probably descendants of those that founded this country.. It only makes sense for a person like that to have special abilities."

 Chapter 163 - Time For Trouble

    "Actually, Unique skill might be the wrong word. It''s more like a bloodline skill, right?" Eiro asked as he looked at Solomon, and the King just stared back at the demon for a few seconds before starting to quietlyugh, "I truly should not be surprised anymore, should I? Yes, the royal family of Skyhart has always been in possession of a Unique skill passed down amongst the generations. However, it does not give us any special powers as is, we need a special type of familiar to truly be able to make use of it. I can not divulge any more than that."


    With a slow nod, Eiro replied, "That''s fine. I didn''t expect you to either. But as this is the case, I don''t think you would try to exploit these children for their own unique skills. I still think that it''s necessary for you to know so that you can make the proper arrangements within the Academy to make sure these skills aren''t publicly revealed."


    "Of course, I''ll try my best. But what are their unique skills, then?" Solomon asked with a light smile. Eiro didn''t notice anything changing about Solomon''s heartrate, breathing, pupils, or anything else that might indicate deceit. So, Eiro turned toward the children with a nod to tell them to exin their skills.


    Once all of them, except Leon, exined what their skills were and what they did, Solomon stared at Eiro with clear worry.


    "A boy that can neither deal nor receive damage. Another one that can''t feel pain or suffering of any kind. A girl that has to inflict wounds onto herself by taking them from others so that she won''t starve. Someone whose any words will be another''s truth. Those are quite... extraordinary abilities." Solomon pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "You won''t have to worry about Rudy''s and Clementine''s abilities in the first ce. Clementine knows not to use her ability publicly like that, and she can control her hunger a bit. But if anything happens during the day where her hunger bes too strong, she needs to be sent home immediately so that we can take care of that hunger and heal her immediately. If I''m not at home, then send her to a trustworthy healer and call Arc over as well so that he can take over my role." Eiro started, and then looked over toward Rudy.


    "And Rudy won''t be entering abat division anyway, isn''t that right?" The Demon asked. With a slow nod, Rudy exined, "Yeah... Besides being a shield for everyone, I''m useless inbat. So I want to train in other disciplines. Meaning I want to enter a crafting division."


    "Exactly. The ones that you will, however, have to worry about the most is Arc. He''s going to enter abat division, but he won''t know if he gets injured in things like mock-fights or spars. So there needs to be someone that can keep an eye on him. Because even if he gets red notifications, he often will confuse small scratches on his arm with gashing wounds somewhere where he can''t look." Eiro exined with a light, annoyed re directed at Arc, who just winked at Eiro and stuffed his mouth with a pastry.


    "Then atst, there''s Sammy... Sorry, Samantha. I trust that she''s going to be able to control herself well enough not to cause any problems with her voice, and she''s smart enough to know how to easily get rid of any problems she causes, but her skill has only recently been unsealed. There might be parts about it that we don''t actually know about yet, so I think it''s necessary to prepare for that possibility." The Demon pointed out.


    "I see... I will keep all of that in mind, of course. But if I may ask, do these two young ones also have special abilities, perchance?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "They do, but neither of that is something I can currently reveal, sorry."


    "Then..." Charles slowly spoke up, "Can you tell us what your unique skill is? You obviously must have something like that too, right?" He asked, and Eiro quietly chuckled and shook his head.


    "Not at all, actually. I was born with above average mental stat values, but below average physical stat values. Other than that, I had to work toward all these abilities myself. Of course, I got lucky and had some of them practically handed to me. But if I had to say, besides my extraordinary perception, I have two special abilities. One that helps me remember things, and one that..." Eiro said and slowly pulled out a small magic stone out of his treasury, "...helps me keep things. Other than that, I''m not too special." The Demon exined.


    Obviously there was more to him than that, but most of it was kind of hard to exin without revealing that he''s actually a monster that''s been artificially created by the Monster King. And to top it off, he already revealed a lot of things today. He trusted these people to keep it all secret, but it was still a risk nheless. He didn''t want to increase the risk by exining what his abilities were piece by piece. Eiro was thest line of defense in front of the children, after all.


    Either way, from then on, the conversation became a bit more peaceful, and just simply about different things regarding the actual capital. Like where the manor that Eiro and the children would live in would be, where some good bookstores were, where Eiro could buy things for food or materials like wood for his own personal work.


    And that continued until Eiro heard something annoying going on outside by the stables. He pushed himself off the couch and rubbed the pastry-crumbs that Leon and Avalin dropped onto his cloak as they were sitting on hisp off of himself and started stepping toward the door.


    "I think it''s about time for us to leave. Is the Manor ready to be moved into?" Eiro asked, and Solomon looked at him rather surprised, "Actually, it is not. I had assumed you would be staying here in the castle for a day or two, until it is ready to be moved into."


    "Hm. Then did you give the order for our luggage to be unpacked?" The Demon asked, but the response was exactly what Eiro had expected it to be, "I did not. You said you did not want it to be touched by others, after all."


    With a deep groan, Eiro opened the door up, "Everyone,e on. We''re getting some clothes out of the carriage then. Before they get covered in blood." Eiro said, "Solomon, you might want toe as well. There''s going to be some annoying things happening otherwise."


    "I see... What is going on at the moment?" Solomon asked, nervous ever since Eiro just mentioned ''blood'', and the Demon scratched the back of his neck, "I''ll exin when we''re there." He said and stepped out the door, swiftly followed by the others.


    It didn''t take long to find out that there was truly something going on outside, since there were a couple of guards moving toward the area the stables were in, "Guess we should hurry a bit as well." Eiro pointed out and quickly picked up the pace a bit. He rushed forward first ahead of the others to check the situation out first, quickly overtaking most of the guards that were also running toward the stables.


    Soon, Eiro saw that there were guards surrounding the wooden puppet that Eiro always had protect the carriage when the others weren''t in there. It was obvious that they wouldn''t be able to actually damage it with the tokens that Eiro set into its chest, both of thebat-based ones, but it still was a little bit risky with so many people at once.


    Either way, the Demon didn''t really have to worry too much anyway. In the end, he just jumped when he was close to one of the guards pointing his spears toward the puppet and proceeded to press both of his feet onto the guard''s back. Of course, Eiro did this with his life-force manipted so that he could kick the guard as strongly as possible, and immediately pushed him to the ground while Eiro took the chance to step in front of the puppet.


    "Well hello there. Can I help you somehow?" Eiro asked with a gentle tone of voice, despite beingpletely annoyed and pissed off. And then, he turned his head toward the stableboy who was holding his chest in pain, most likely after being hit by the puppet, although Eiro was quickly met with a piece of metal held in front of his face.


    "Is that thing yours?!" One of the guards yelled out, and the Demon just stared back at him before basically immediately grabbing the spear he was holding toward him.


    "Yes it is." Eiro said, "And is this thing yours? It seems kind of dangerous, don''t you think? It could hurt someone." The Demon pointed out, before quickly proceeding to twist the spear along its length in a way that the guard that had been holding it lost his grip on it. Eiro then simply pushed the spear against the guard''s chest as hard as he could to push him back a bit.


    "See? Pretty dangerous, right?" Eiro pointed out as he watched the guard try to keep his bnce up while other guards pointed their spears toward Eiro as well, "By Lady Win- You''ve got to be fucking with me." The Demon groaned, "I know you don''t trust me, but I literally only had the puppet guard my property. The stableboy opened the carriage up without permission. The puppet literally can''t cause damage beyond the single-digit range. What is the problem here?"


    "That you had a worker in the King''s vicinity attacked!" A guard eximed, and Eiro just closed his eyes and squatted down onto the ground annoyedly, "Hmm... This is tough, isn''t it? Who''s in the right here, and who''s in the wrong? Solomon, can you help be the tiebreaker?" Eiro asked in an annoyed tone before the King quickly proceeded to push the guards to the side to step up to the Demon.


    "More than dly." He replied, and instantaneously the Guards dropped their weapons and bowed down to Solomon as the King stepped up to Eiro, followed by the prince and Eiro''s children, as well as Felix.


    "All of you, leave immediately. This man is my personal guest. Any offense directed at him is an offense directed at me." Solomon eximed, and the guards immediately did as told and left.. The stableboy wanted to do the same, but both Nelli and Gondos swiftly chose to stop him from leaving.

 Chapter 164 - And Make It Double

    Eiro walked up in front of the stableboy and deeply stared into his eyes, "Who told you to search through the carriage?" The Demon asked with a clear tone, and the stableboy simply took a step back and shook his head.


    "N-Nobody did, it was out of my own curiosity!" He eximed, and Eiro sighed deeply. That was obviously a lie. And Eiro didn''t even have to analyze the boy''s physical changes to figure that out.


    "I''m going to give you one more chance." Eiro said, "Tell me, who is it that told you to search through the carriage?" The Demon took a step closer to the young man in front of him, the two spirits just floating over his shoulders. The stableboy looked around and soon saw a deep re from him as well. Out of nervosity, the boy cracked.


    "L-Lord Birdrick! It was Lord Birdrick! I''m... I''m sorry, I didn''t have a choice, I..." He admitted fearfully, and Eiro slowly turned toward Solomon, "Birdrick? Let me guess, it''s that Jordan guy from before, right?"


    "Yes." Solomon replied quickly, "Jordan Arsit Birdrick. My royal advisor. He''s a good man, but his stance on things is quite different to mine. And you can''t deny that there''s a reason for it, can you? For many who have lost friends or family through the Monster King, your teacher was someone that enabled exactly that Monster King to attack them." Solomon exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    He guessed it made sense logically, even if it was still really fucking annoying, "Did he tell you to look for anything in particr?" Eiro asked as he looked down at the stableboy.


    "I was supposed to find anything that proved how wi-wicked you truly are. No matter what..." The boy replied, and Eiro scratched the back of his neck, "Hm... There''s nothing incriminating in there, really. A couple weapons, some foodstuff... The regr, really." Eiro pointed out, and the stableboy immediately nodded his head, "Th-Then I will inform L-Lord Birdrick of this immediately!" The boy eximed, and Eiro nodded his head.


    "Good, do that." The Demon said, and quickly let the stableboy run off, while Solomon looked at him with a deep frown, "Why did you let him go? Such action can not be allowed, no matter what." The King pointed out, and Eiro sighed a bit in response.


    "Obviously not. But it''s not the kid''s fault. Look at how terrified he was. If you want to punish anyone, then punish that Jordan guy, but not a kid that he forced to work for him." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon slowly raised his brows in surprise.


    "You have quite a weak spot for children, don''t you?"


    "Children, and those forced for work." Eiro pointed out as he slowly looked over at Gondos with a light smile on his face, "I experienced that part myself, so."


    Immediately, Solomon once more looked at Eiro with confusion, while the Demon told the children to get some of their clothes out of the carriage, together with whatever they needed to practice their skills. "Forced to work? Eiro, were you..." Solomon asked, and Eiro turned toward him with a shrug, "If you want to ask me if I was a ve before, then basically yes. I mean, it was the thing that brought me here, otherwise I would have died during those huge monster-horde attacks like seven or eight years ago."


    "Monster Horde..? Wait, were you in the Holy Empire at the time of those attacks?"


    "Yup, I was. I actually saw <The Sun>''s huge fireball attack a couple of times." Eiro exined, "And soon after, I managed to escape the very and met all these children." The Demon told him, somewhat nostalgically.


    After a bit of silence, Solomon looked at Eiro curiously, "Eiro... would you like to hold some public mock-fights with the royal guard?"


    With a surprised expression, Eiro looked at him with his arms crossed, "What? Why would I want to do that?"


    "It''s part of an idea I have that can maybe make Jordan trust you. As I said, he''s a good man, and an even better strategist. I will obviously punish him because of this, but I do not want to lose him. He is someone I would even call a friend, after all." Solomon exined. With a bit of thought, Eiro looked forward in thought and then slowly nodded his head.


    "Fine. Under a few conditions, of course. One, I am allowed to keep wearing my mask, cloak, and glove as I am right now. Two, you let me choose who I want to fight. Three, the fights happen the day before we can move to the manor." Eiro said, and the King didn''t need to think too long.


    "Of course, the first and third sound reasonable. But about the second, I am not sure if I can allow that. Part of my n is to let you fight very specific people, so that would be rather counterproductive."


    "Fine. Then I''ll trust your judgement." Eiro pointed out, and then looked over at the puppet, "Solomon, it''s fine if we bring it into the castle, right? I want it to keep guard of the kids while I''m off."


    "''Off''? Where exactly do you want to go?" Rudy asked surprisedly, "We just got here..."


    "Ah, I just want to head down to the Guild and see if I can have a message sent to Tom, and see if I can find anything interesting to fight to level up a bit." Eiro exined, "A little training here and there can never hurt, right? Also, I need to get the things for..." Eiro started, slowly turning his eyes toward Charles, "...for Solomon''s head. That thing, you know?"


    "Ah... Right. You''ll be back tonight though, right?" Rudy then asked. The Demon slowly nodded his head in response without hesitation, "Yeah of course, don''t worry about that."


    "Then I''lle help you bring everything inside and then I''m going to head off for a bit." Eiro told them, and swiftly took some of the heavier bags from Clementine and Sammy, "Lugo, wake up youzy fuck, we''re heading off in a bit."


    With a loud groan, the stag did as told and stretched out a bit as he stood up, just looking at Eiro with an annoyed expression, "Hey, don''t look at me like that. You were here, and still let the kid into the carriage. You''re on a diet from now on." The demon said with a deep re, and Lugo immediately replied with a loud bellow of disapproval.


    "Shut it and wait here." Eiro said with a deep re. He followed Solomon and Charles into the castle again and helped the children settle into their rooms. After that, he made sure that Leon was feeling good enough that he could sleep a bit if he needed to, because Eiro didn''t want him to freak out and suddenly lose control over his unique skills. And on top of that, Eiro also made sure that Avalin stayed around Sammy and Clementine the whole time. She sometimes wanted to randomly take off her contacts once they started feeling a little ufortable to her.


    "I''ll be backter. The puppet is still here as well. And just head toward the window and call out my name if anything should happen, I''ll try to pay attention to this ce especially. I''ll be backter." Eiro told them, and then made his way over toward the door. He stepped out and rushed along the hallway before he reached the door that led to the stables again. There, Lugo was already waiting for him. Eiro quickly climbed onto the stag''s back and rode him toward the castle''s gates, where the guards swiftly let him out toward the streets.


    It seemed like the people that were pursuing them before were now gone, so Eiro chose to just leisurely make his way over toward the first ce he wanted to get to. The Adventurer''s Guild.


    He wasn''t entirely sure where it was, but it didn''t really seem hard to find either, despite how loud it was in this part of town. As he was riding through the town, he was able to spot some pretty interesting shops that might even have the ingredients that they needed for that potion.


    Eiro could already hear the slime corein from inside of the bottle in the satchel, but the Demon quickly chose to ignore him. He was told the list of things that they needed beforehand, so he had it all in his mind.


    There were actually some that he had never heard of before, though, so Eiro should head off to some bookstore or pharmacistter on to see if he could find some information on those herbs or monsters, or whatever they were.


    But for now, the Demon really just wanted to contact a man that he was sure he could actually trust. The Adventurer''s Guild receptionist Tom. He hadn''t revealed any information about Eiro after he basically massacred a couple dozen people in front off the whole town, so he had to thank him for that somehow.


    Eiro soon found the local adventurer''s guild and rode Lugo over there without hesitation. The Demon jumped off of Lugo''s back and stepped up to therge door. It was actuallyrge enough for Lugo to fit through, and this wasn''t exactly the kind of ce where the Demon wanted to leave his familiar alone.


    Especially not after finding out that Lugo apparently wasn''t just a simple stag, but rather something very, very different, even if he couldn''t exactly say what he was.


    Eiro pushed the doors open and stepped into therge space. It was pretty loud in here. After all, most adventurer''s guilds doubled as a meeting and hangout spot for adventurers, so this ce was the guild, a bar, and a restaurant at the same time.


    The Demon swiftly stepped through the room and made his way to a receptionist that didn''t seem too busy.


    "Hello, how can I help you today?" The young man behind the counter asked with a smile, "Also, just to make sure, but is that Stag your familiar? Otherwise I please ask you to leave him outside." He exined, and Eiro swiftly ced his hand onto Lugo''s forehead, making the familiar-mark appear there with a dim glow.


    "Yep, he is." Eiro replied, "And I would like to send a message to another guild. That''s possible, right?"


    "Of course it is. I''ll be right back with a form to fill out with information of the recipient and guild in question." The employee said with a smile on his face, and Eiro just nodded his head as he slowly turned around. It seemed like the eyes of the people in here were on him. Especially of those that pursued him before.


    But there was one more issue here at the moment. There were two people in here that Eiro hadn''t seen in a fair while.. Krog and Jess, James''panions.

 Chapter 165 - Pleasant Surprise

    Eiro waited for the Guild receptionist to bring the right form over to him, while trying his best to avoid pulling any sort of attention toward him. He was more than just positive that Krog and Jess saw him, as they were also whispering to each other about Eiro, trying to figure out if he really was who they thought he was.


    While Eiro''s clothes as well as his mask werepletely different to what they saw him in before, they did see Lugo before as well, and he barely changed. Although, now that Eiro looked at him... It seemed like Lugo got a little fatter despite the fact they''ve been on the move for so long. Maybe the diet wouldn''t actually be that much of a punishment after all... it would most likely end up helping him, after all.


    "Sir?" The receptionist tried getting the Demon''s attention, and Eiro quickly turned toward him, seeing that he was holding the form to send messages to other guilds, "Here you go, please fill out all the information in the required fields. I also need your guild card for processing, please."


    Without hesitation, the Demon pushed his hand into his satchel to pretend as if he was pulling his guild card out of it, but instead just pulled it out of his treasury before handing it to the receptionist. Eiro quickly took the penying on the desk and wrote the recipient''s information as well as the message, before returning the form to the receptionist.


    A few momentster, the receptionist looked it over and seemed a little surprised, "Oh? You''re sending a message home, I see? I heard there was a pretty big incident in that small town." He pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, I know. It''s why I left. After... you know, that happened, I felt it was a bit too dangerous for my children."


    "Ipletely understand that. Especially in small towns like that, something like that makes you rethink everything, huh?" The receptionist said with a rather unfitting smile on his face, "Now then, a G-Rank, I see? Would you like to take a request today as well?"


    "Yes, please. Could you show me the highest extermination-requests I can take?" Eiro asked, and with a quick nod, the receptionist stepped up to the front of the desk, "Of course. Please follow me. In smaller towns, this may not be the case, but inrger ces like these, you will see that the requests are disyed along the cork-boards here. They are sorted ording to the suggested rank. The G-Rank requests are here." The receptionist exined, pointing at one of the cork boards with thergest amount of requests on it. Eiro had been an adventurer for a couple of years now, but since he always only worked on gathering and animal-hunting requests, his rank didn''t get to rise above G-Rank at all, sadly enough. As


    All these requests were just that as well. Requests to gather nts in safe areas and kill small animals like foxes or rabbits.


    So, since it was all a bit easy, Eiro moved on and looked at the F-Rank requests. The hunting requests were still just for animals, just that they were along the lines of having to hunt wolves, or young peasant monsters.


    The E-Rank requests were the ones that were starting to look a little interesting, where it was about hunting groups of wolves at once or fighting small groups of goblin-level monsters. But what Eiro first took an actual interest in were the D-Rank requests, where most requests were either about gathering rare or hard-to-get herbs or exterminating monsters that were either great in number or strength, at leastpared to a normal person.


    Eiro stretched his arm out and pulled down a request about hunting Swamp Slimes, although the receptionist quickly stopped him.


    "Sir? The G-Rank requests stopped over here, that''s a D-Rank request. It''s many, many times harder than what we rmend you take." The receptionist exined, and the Demon looked at him with a light frown hidden behind his mask, "But that''s just a rmendation, right?"


    "Yes, and we ask that you take our rmendations seriously. If you take a request above your own rank and fail it, in the worst case, your guild membership will be revoked indefinitely. Of course, there may be worse problems than that. Especially a request about monster extermination can result in heavy injury or death."


    "I''m aware." The Demon pointed out, "I just don''t care. I want to take this request."


    With a deep frown, the receptionist nodded his head, "Then pleasee with me, I will process it properly." He exined, and Eiro quickly followed him to the reception-desk.


    As the receptionist was getting everything ready, someone stepped up behind the Demon, "Yo. We just heard all that." A man said. He was a little bit taller than Eiro was and was wearing heavily scratched-up metal armor together with apletely oversized metal sword hanging on his hip. Behind him were two more guys, one of them was seemingly an archer, and the other a scout with two daggers and a crossbow with him.


    "So? Want me to congratte you for having ears?" Eiro asked bluntly, and the man stared down at the demon annoyedly, "No, I would just prefer if you stopped fucking around. This is our job, ya know? It ain''t fun seeing some kinda newbie taking it so lightly."


    With a deep sigh, Eiro replied, "I''ve been an adventurer for close to five years, and I''vepleted 164 requests without failing a single one. They may have all been simple gathering and hunting requests for rabbits and the asional boar, but that doesn''t mean that I''m weak. The ce that I lived at simply didn''t require high-rank requests, which is why I couldn''t advance. In no way am I taking this lightly, I''m simply confident in my ability." Eiro exined, and the warrior looked at him surprised.


    "Huh..? I... I didn''t expect that, not gonna lie. Sorry about that then, but let me give you a bit of a hint at least, amongst adventurers. Swamp slimes are super corrosive, they''re gonna ruin any sort of weapon you have within seconds. They''re super slow though, so if ya can, I''d try takin'' a bit of a detour through the forest. If ya look long enough, you should find some good sturdy branches to get rid of their core in one fell swoop without any cost." He exined to Eiro, and the Demon looked up at him just as surprised as the man was just before.


    Eiro really expected him to be more rude than he ended up being. That was actually pretty useful information, even if Eiro was already aware of it, "Thanks, I''ll keep that in mind. Say, how long have you been here?"


    With a light chuckle, the man crossed his arms smugly, "Born and raised, bud. Why, need a guide?"


    "I might take you up on that sometime, but it''s not why I''m asking. There''s a party of adventurers here at this guild, two of them are here right now. Jess, Krog and James. What do you know about them?"


    "Oh, those guys! Why''d you wanna know something about them?" He asked, and Eiro simply shrugged in response, "Old acquaintances, even if we haven''t really been on good terms. I''d like to know how they''re doing at the moment."


    "Ah, that''s nice of ya! Well, Jess is a cutie, but she usually doesn''t go out too much, so I can''t say much about her. Bookworm, mage, recently she''s been kinda obsessed with monster socie... socio... sociol..."


    "Sociology. She''s been really interested in Monster Sociology, and she''s been making the other two take a bunch of requests based around monster settlements and stuff." The Archer pointed out, "Krog usually was a really loud one and has always been up for fights a lot. Maybe he doesn''t seem like it, but he''s kind of a goody-two-shoes, as you should know. He would always start fights with people he didn''t like, but for a while now, he''s been trying to... well, talk with them?" He exined to the Demon.


    "And then there''s James." The scout added, "Barely changed ever since I''ve known him. A bit less broody, maybe, but he still hangs out at the bar over there every night and gets drunk beyond logic."


    "Hm, I see. Then I''m d they''re doing well, at least." Eiro pointed out, although he wasn''t entirely sure whether it was a lie or not.


    Back then when everything with those guys happened, he was terribly angry at them. After all, they tried to attack Eiro and the children. But when Jura came out and stopped everything that was going on, they all just left and never did anything like send people there to get rid of Eiro either. Eiro wasn''t sure if he should kill them, or if he should thank them.


    He probably wouldn''t mind the former, although he felt a bit conflicted about thetter option. It was obvious that at least Jess and Krog had been influenced by Eiro. Jess started looking into monster sociology to figure out if a case like Eiro was possible, and Krog started actually thinking about whether or not someone had reasons for their actions.


    Maybe Eiro should try talking to them once to see if he had anything to worry about with them. Eiro wouldn''t like it if they suddenly revealed the demon''s identity, after all.


    Eiro waited for a while and was then handed back his guild card and the request sheet, which he swiftly pushed into his satchel and inside of that satchel into his treasury.


    "I''ll speak a bit to those two, and then I''ll head off. Thanks again for the tip, and nice to meet you three. I''m Eiro, by the way." Eiro exined, and the warrior smiled broadly in response, "The name''s Donny. The archer here is Craig and the scout is Loyd. If ya ever need help somehow, let us now." Donny said with a smile, and Eiro quickly nodded his head. He was d that these guys didn''t turn out to be worth killing. It might be useful to have contacts in this ce, if just for the information he could get through it.


    But after he spoke to those three, he turned his head toward the stag next to him, "Lugo,e." Eiro said, and then stepped up through to the ''hangout'' area where he had seen Jess and Krog before. He told Lugo toy down on the ground near the wall where Eiro could make sure nobody was touching him, and then stepped up to the table where those two were sitting.


    "Long time no see, you two.." Eiro said, and nervously, both Jess and Krog looked up at the Demon who just took a seat at their table.

 Chapter 166 - Party Up

    "So it really was you..." Jess muttered quietly as she looked at Eiro, and the Demon slowly nodded his head in response, "Mhm. Seems like you guys are doing pretty well, huh?" Eiro pointed out, and Krog just stared at him with a deep re.


    "What do you want? You here in this town to finish us off? We heard what happened back then during the Autumn Equinox." Krog basically growled. Eiro slowly shook his head, "That''s not why I''m here. It''s a coincidence, really. I had no idea this is where you lived."


    "Not gonna react to the equinoxment, eh?" Therge warrior noticed, in response to which Eiro simply shrugged, "Why should I? I did nothing wrong back then."


    "You- You did nothing wrong?!" Jess eximed loudly, and then lowered her voice when she noticed some other adventurers were drawn to them through her loud voice, "You killed dozens of soldiers from the Holy Kingdom... as well as a noble from there... And you call that ''nothing''?"


    "Hey, I didn''t say that I didn''t do anything at all. I''m just saying that I didn''t do the wrong thing. Especially Rumia was not a good person. He wanted to drag the Ladies into this bullshit war with the Monster King, and I didn''t want that to happen. Also, Rumia just really, really pissed me off." Eiro pointed out clearly, "So what? Should I feel sorry for killing them?"


    "M-Maybe a little...?" Jess suggested, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward her, "Would they have felt bad killing me? I live for my family. To get stronger in order to be able to protect them. That''s why I''m here now as well, so that I can get my children to attend the academy and get a good education. I will not hesitate to get rid of whoever threatens that." Eiro pointed out and folded his hands together on top of the table as he deeply red at both Krog and Jess.


    "That used to include you two, as well as James, you know?" He exined, and Krog raised his brows confusedly, "Used to?"


    "Yes, ''used to''. You guys tried to kill me, because you thought I was like others of my kind. But you saw my family and I, and realized that I didn''t brainwash them, and then left. You didn''t tell anyone about me, and you seemed to have changed through meeting me as well. In my book, that makes you much more trustworthy than most beings I''ve met." Eiro exined, and Krog scoffed in response.


    "So what? You wanna be part of our party now or something?"


    "I was thinking we''d start with a bit of sparring and training to get you guys up to par, and then we''ll see what happens next." Eiro said, "And of course... I''d like to have a word or two with James. Did he tell you anything about me after that?"


    Rather confused and startled by what Eiro suggested, Jess thought about it for a little bit and then shook her head, "No, not... not really. But what do you mean, get us up to par? We''re a B-Rank party... We''re pretty strong."


    "B-Rank party... That means you''re all C-Rank adventurers?"


    "Y-Yeah, so what?" Jess asked, and Eiro just shook his head, "Nothing, nothing. That is fairly strong, I think. C-Rank requests would be what... small groups of Orcs? That''s nothing to scoff at."


    "So why did you?" Krog asked, basically feeling insulted by Eiro''sments, and the Demon sighed deeply in response as he held his hand forward and snapped. All of a sudden, droplets of water formed out of thin air and gathered together to form Nelli''s body, while dust was pulled together to form Gondos''.


    "Because I can confidently say that I could beat you guys easily without even relying on both of these guys." Eiro exined. It seemed like Nelli and Gondos pulled the attention of a fair amount of the adventurers in here toward them, "Could you maybe not use us to prove a point next time?" Nelli asked the Demon, who just turned his eyes toward her with a light shrug, "Then stop being such good proof for my point."


    "Spirits? How did you... How did you get two spirit contracts in a single year?" Jess asked, and Eiro just slowly stood up from the table and turned around, "Be here tomorrow at noon. We''re getting one of therge training rooms in here so that I can show you what I mean. Tonight I''ll be here to try and speak to James as well. I was told he''s usually here to have a drink in the evening."


    Krog quietly groaned and looked at Eiro''s back, "Mhm. And we''ll be here, so don''t you dare bete."


    With that, Eiro swiftly left the Adventurer''s Guild building and quickly climbed on the back of the stag that was following him. It didn''t take too long for them to reach the closest gate, and with that the outermost area of the capital town. There wasn''t anyone around anymore, so both Nelli and Gondos looked at Eiro curiously, waiting for an exnation.


    Nelli had been telling Gondos the story in the inbetween space while Eiro started speaking to Jess and Krog, so they were both pretty curious to figure out why exactly Eiro would all of a sudden want to party up with them. It didn''t seem like something he would usually do, after all.


    "I know what you want to ask, and the answer is simple. I nearly died before I even got to fight <The World>." Eiro said, "The only reason I survived was because <The Devil> appeared there. And then before that, during the fight with Enka. If Felix didn''t manage to steal the earring, I never would have been able to kill him. I may be strong, and you two are an immense help, but you two are basically a part of me. The same with Lugo. We are one, and ''one'' is not enough to beat every enemy." Eiro exined.


    Nelli stayed silent for a few moments and then floated up in front of Eiro''s face, "I see, that does make sense... But why those guys of all people? Especially James, he hates your guts, doesn''t he?"


    "That''s exactly why I think he''s worth trying to trust. He hates me, but still left without another word. He was angry because he thought I killed Avalin, and before then, he probably had a fair reason to hate monsters. Most people do, after all. Of course, that doesn''t mean I''ll let him trample all over me again, but James is the kind of person that would throw away their life for their friends. I think it''s worth a try." The Demon exined.


    "But before then, we need to take care of those slimes." He added.


    "Speaking of, that warrior was surprisingly nice despite looking like an ass." Nelli pointed out, and Gondos reacted kind of surprised, "He looked ''like an ass''? I thought he seemed quite charming." Gondos pointed out.


    "Charming? What kind of taste do you have?" Nelli replied with a wry smile. Gondos slightly shrugged, "He was quite strong, was he not? It is obvious that he worked hard and long to gain such a fine, strengthened body. A determined person like that can''t be too bad, can they?"


    "You''re a muscle-freak, are you kidding me?" Nelli asked quietly, and Eiro just sighed and stretched his arm into his satchel to pull out the ss bottle with the slime core in it, "Anyway, we''re heading off to find the swamp slimes. You said you can change other slimes'' bodies into your own to an extent, right? If you need anything else, tell me now."


    "Fuck you." The slime replied, and Eiro stared down at it with a deep re, "Then I''ll just kill those slimes without trying to save some of their bodies for you." Eiro pointed out and pushed the bottle back into the satchel, although the core quickly yelled something out.


    "Wait, wait! Fine! You need to try''n somehow split off impurities from the slime, and then I can transform it into my body! But ya can''t really do that with swamp slimes, can ya?"


    "Nope, we can. We have Nelli and Gondos. Spirit refinement can do a lot, you know?" Eiro pointed out, "Also, don''t make me regret giving you a body again, you hear?" The Demon said, and the slime scoffed in response.


    "Yeah, yeah, I''ll be your trusted vassal after ya give me a body, and all that shit. I mean, you freed me from my obsession for that piece of shit Hyjun, so I guess I owe ya one. And having someone like you protect me is a lot better than bein'' out in the wild alone."


    "You know I''ll kill you if you be useless or annoy me too much, right?" The Demon pointed out, and the slime stayed silent for a while, "You got it, boss..." It replied, and Eiro just sighed annoyedly and kept riding Lugo toward the nearby gate so that they could move to the swamp that was supposed to be near the outskirts of town.


    It didn''t take too long for him to reach the gate and quickly make his way outside the town again, and the demon quickly searched for the swamp area. It didn''t take too long, after all, it had a fairly unique scent to it usually.


    Eiro stepped off Lugo''s back and searched for nearby slimes while he had Nelli refine the muddy swampwater. Nelli and Gondos were actually working together for the first step to make it easier to get the mud out of the water so that Nelli could move on to the second refinement step.


    Once the water was properly refined, Eiro quickly turned them into small bolts of ice so that he could easily shoot them at the swamp slimes. Eiro heard the bubbling sound of the slime''s movement and could smell the scent of the slimes mixed into the scent of the swamp itself. It didn''t take long until he found his way over toward a small group of slimes that were just oozing around the terrain, mixing in with the muddy ground.


    And near to instantly, Eiro shot at the slime cores and pushed them out of the slimes'' bodies with the help of the ice-bolts and immediately took control of the slime using water magic while both Nelli and Gondos quickly started the refining-process to turn it into ''pure'' slime. Eiro picked up the slime cores themselves and put them into ss bottles that they couldn''t dissolve and then moved on to the next slimes.


    Within roughly an hour, Eiro finished up the request three times over, and could still sense slimes nearby.

 Chapter 167 - Proof Of Strength

    Eiro looked over at the two spirits that were turning the murky, dark green slime into a pure white version of itself while Eiro made sure to gather it all in a bowl of ice until the slime core was ready to get started.


    Meanwhile, the Demon managed to properly capture the slime cores of two dozen slimes in bottles. Usually, what you were supposed to do was destroy the slime cores and gather the leftover, crystal-like substance as well as the small marble-like beads. They could easily be used in some different concoctions, apparently. And what Eiro was supposed to bring back for this request were all of those beads.


    It was technically a pure extermination request, and even if it said that there would be a bonus reward the more intact the slime nuclei were. Usually Eiro would have wanted to actually split the beads off the nuclei so that the slime would be killed to gain some experience, but it didn''t seem like these guys would give him enough experience to level up anyway.


    That, and this was an investment. The request was for five swamp slimes, and Eiro already managed to perfectly capture nuclei ounting for nearly five times that. There were still more slimes around here, and even if Eiro didn''t have any more bottles to keep them in. So, while Nelli and Gondos were refining the slime some more, Eiro started actually killing some of these slimes to just gather the beads.


    Usually the slimes hid in crevices, underneath rocks, or inside of tree-stumps, making them rather hard to find, but Eiro was able to easily find them with just a twitch of his nose. And just as Eiro thought, even after actively killing two dozen more of these slimes, he didn''t level up. It was a bit annoying, but at least Eiro should be closer to leveling up now, even if just a bit. So it was worth it to an extent, at least.


    And so, with a small bag filled with the beads in his hand, Eiro returned to where the others were.


    "I think we''re ready now. If we refine it any more, then it''s just going to turn into water." Nelli pointed out when she saw Eiro, and the Demon slowly nodded his head.


    "Got it." Eiro said, and pulled the bottle with the slime core out of the satchel, trying to actually choose the right one instead of one of the other two dozen bottles in there, and then pulled out the cork while pouring the slime core onto his hand. In aining voice, it started to speak.


    "Eh... never put me back in there, that''s so fucking gruesome... How would you feel if I put you in a bag filled with a dozen Imp heads?" The slime asked, and Eiro slightly sighed, "Sorry. But screw that for now, just turn this into your own slime now."


    With a quiet grumble, the slime said, "Fine. Just throw me in there, I guess." It told Eiro, who quickly did just that and ced the slime core in his hand into the translucent slime in the bowl made of ice.


    A few momentster, the slime started shaking a bit and created waves, before it gathered in the center of the bowl and took a roughly humanoid shape, "Finally, a body again. Now, what do you want me to do? Turn into a human, animal... item?"


    "First, how small can you turn?" Eiro asked, and the slime seemed rather annoyed before basically most of the slime was sucked into the core and it just turned into a small hummingbird, "This is the smallest I can go, but it''s a bit fucked. If possible, I''d prefer something a bit bigger."


    "Got it. Then for now, turn into the shape of a staff, but one that''s wrapped in cloth so that nobody could actually see you and figure out you''re not really a staff." Eiro said, and the hummingbird fell apart into white slime that immediately spread out and took exactly that shape. Eiro fine-tuned it a bit to make sure it actually looked right and didn''t seem suspiciously big for his height, and then grabbed the cloth-wrapped staff and held it up to his back.


    "Now add something like a strap so that I don''t have to carry you." Eiro said, and he soon felt a leather-like strap wrap around his chest, "Good. When you want to speak to me, create a small mound on the inside of the strap around my shoulder, and I''ll let you know when you can speak. Otherwise, stay quiet." The Demon said, and the slime just quickly replied, "Yo, got it, boss."


    Confusedly, Eiro climbed on Lugo''s back and looked at Nelli and Gondos, who were just as surprised, "Just curious, but why exactly are you being so... submissive?" Eiro asked, and the slime quickly replied.


    "I dunno. Just being a core is fucked as shit, so now it feels a lot better and I''m not as mad anymore, right? And I somehow just don''t feel like being an ass to you right now." The slime exined, and Eiro immediately had Nelli and Gondos move into the inbetween space so that they could have a ''proper'' conversation, although Eiro would really just be nodding and shaking his head while the two spirits would be doing the speaking.


    "So... Do you think it might have to do with the fact that we used your mana to refine the slime he uses as his body?" Nelli suggested, and Eiro thought about it for a while and then slowly nodded his head. That seemed to be possible, but Eiro also had something else he was thinking, which Gondos seemed to have been thinking as well, "He might also just be faking it to get Eiro to let his guard down and then either run away or kill Eiro."


    Once more, the Demon nodded his head. That was exactly what he was thinking as well. And the problem was that, since the slime didn''t have a regr body, it was near to impossible to figure out whether or not it was lying through the regr methods Eiro made use of in the past while.


    In the end, there were different possibilities, but he definitely preferred the first one over anything else. Because if the slime became somehow attached to Eiro because of that, then that would definitely make things far, far easier for sure. Either way, for now, Eiro just had to continue on forward and soon returned to the gate to let him into the town''s outer ring.


    And once there, it didn''t take long for Lugo to run all the way to the next gate as well. He was pretty quick, after all. And so, just a couple of hours after first taking the request, Eiro already returned andpleted it literally ten times over. Actually, more than ten times over, since the full nuclei were worth much more than just the beads.


    Eiro climbed off Lugo''s back, quickly cleaned the stag''s hoofs of the bit of mud and dirt that gathered on them in the swamp, and then pushed the Guild''s doors open, heading straight for the desks on the other side of the room. The moment he saw Eiro, the employee that helped him before took over for his colleague so that he could speak to the Demon.


    "Back so quick, I see? Did you change your mind? Listen, if you want, we can make an exception and let you get the help of other adventurers, alright? I know a few people that could help out." The employee said, waving over a group of three. The group of three that tried to ''Help out'' Eiro before and gave him the tip with the branches. Even if he didn''t make use of it.


    "Yo. I know we''re all just D-Rank, but I''m sure we can help you out a bit." The warrior, Donny, said with a broad smile, and Eiro just shook his head.


    "Thanks, but I won''t need your help." He pointed out and pushed his hand into the satchel to pull out the bag with the two-dozen slime beeds, and then, with two hands at a time, pulled out the two-dozen ss bottles holding all the whole slime nuclei.


    "25 of each." Eiro exined, and the employee confusedly looked at all of the bottles and beads in the bag, "B-But... But how..." He muttered, not having expected this at all, and Eiro slowly snapped his fingers and had Nelli appear beside him. She quickly created some magic water, that Eiro then turned into ice bolts floating around his hand.


    "I know I may not look like it, but I would say I''m a rather skilled mage." The Demon pointed out, "With the right magic, it''s easy to split off the cores off the slime bodies. Seems like I have the right magic."


    "R-Right... But... Sorry, we need some sort of way to verify that this is legitimate. It seems a bit unlikely that you would be able to finish off, or even find, that many Swamp Slimes in this short amount of time. Even getting to the swamp takes an hour."


    With an annoyed sigh, Eiro shook his head, "With my familiar, it takes twenty minutes. And slime-cores hold magic, making it rather easy for spirits to find them using their magic perception. But if that''s not enough for you..." Eiro said, and then pushed his hand into his satchel, to once more hide the fact he was pulling something out of his treasury, before he ced Solomon''s brooch down on the table, together with another item that Solomon handed him in corrtion to his promise to fight in the tournament.


    "I am backed by King Solomon Sigurd Skyhart, and have recently been chosen as his personal special candidate for the tournament next summer. The tournament to choose the Hero''spanion." Eiro exined. The fact that he had the brooch had already been revealed anyway. He was pretty sure that some scouts were able to see him show it to the guards back then.


    And the small pin that Solomon gave him for the tournament was a good way to prove that Eiro was strong enough for these things. He could have shown it before taking the request, but Eiro figured it was better this way. Like this, he was able to show the employee that he could easily beat numerous enemies seen as incredibly troublesome even to skilled adventurers to prove his own strength.


    "...Huh..?" The employee muttered, "That... There''s..." He slowly held his hand over both the brooch and the pin and pushed his mana into both of them, causing them to lightly glow, showing their validity.


    "Excuse my rudeness! I will immediately process all of this!" The employee eximed and quickly went to get help from some other employees, before Eiro pushed the brooch and pin back into his treasury through his satchel, and then turned toward the three adventurers staring at him confusedly.


    It seemed like Eiro''s n worked out perfectly.

 Chapter 168 - The Offered Collar

    Eiro looked at the group of three adventurers that was standing there speechlessly, "So? What was that about helping me?" The demon asked with a light smile on his face, hidden by his mask, and Donny just started tough all of a sudden.


    "Man, that''s a huge fucking surprise... We kind of heard that you were a noble or something, but that you were the king''s candidate for the tournament... shit, you really must be strong, huh?" He asked with augh, but in response, Eiro quickly shook his head, "I''m not a noble." Eiro pointed out, "I would say I''m pretty strong, though."


    Immediately, Donny, Craig and Loyd looked at each other for a moment before the Archer Craig spoke up, "What do you mean, you''re not a noble? Then how are you so trusted by the King?" He asked with a light scoff, "Come on, tell us your family name, that might exin it."


    "Or tell us your name in general, we haven''t heard it yet." Loyd pointed out, and Donny quickly nodded his head, "Right, but well, a lot of adventurers like to keep their name secret from others, so no need to tell us if you don''t-"


    "Eiro." The Demon said, and Donny swallowed the rest of his words, basically choking on them, "Hm..?" He asked, not able to say anything else. After he said that word, others that had been paying attention to Erio the whole time anyway after he brought in those slime cores and nuclei were even more intrigued and confused.


    "I just told you my name. Eiro. I don''t have a family name or anything." He exined, and Donny stared down at him.


    "Hey, hey, that''s a bad joke. First off, if you choose an alias, then that''s one that''s going to get you in a lot of trouble. And I earnestly don''t believe you don''t have a family name. Someone like that couldn''t even hope to meet the king."


    "And still I did." Eiro replied, and then slowly turned around as the Guild Employee returned to hand him his guild card back. The Demon just held the card forward toward the group of three to show them that it really was his name.


    "Holy fucking... What kind of parent names their child Eiro these days?!" Loyd eximed, "That''s fucked up, there must be so many people that hate your guts for having the same name as the great hero!"


    "A handful. But well, just wait a second, I have to get my request reward." Eiro pointed out and turned around toward the desk behind him, before the guild employee looked at Eiro with a light smile.


    "We were able to turn the items you handed in into separate requests. You see, gathering whole slime nuclei like that is usually a C-Rank request, at least for this sort of slime. As such, forpleting twelve C-Rank requests and five D-Rank requests while at G-Rank, you have now been promoted from G-Rank to D-Rank, congrattions! Here is the one leftover slime nucleus that we couldn''t turn into a request." The employee exined, and Eiro just stood there and stared at him.


    "Hm? Promoted to D-Rank that quickly?" Eiro asked, and the employee quickly nodded his head, "Yes, of course. There are many things that y into how much requests will help you promote your rank. If you are solo or a member of a party, how long it took you to finish requests, and of course how many ranks the request is above your own. In this case, it all yed into your incredible jump to D-Rank. You are currently not eligible for it, but I would still like to inform you that once you will have to take part in a skill evaluation in order to be a C-Rank adventurer." The employee exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. He was still surprised, but he wasn''t opposed to this all in the slightest. Why would he? That would just make it easier for him to get all the information that he wanted to get.


    Of course, since he was close to Solomon, he got information on a whole other level than what these guys could find out, but that was exactly it. It was on a whole other level, and with that, the information had a different perspective. Solomon only truly had to care for things that were a direct threat to towns, regions, or even the whole country. Even he didn''t know about the breeding grounds of every single monster in the country. However, there were a lot of adventurers that did.


    And so, Eiro hoped to be able to gain information that was directly useful to him in leveling up as well as gathering. Right now, what Eiro was looking for was a certain ce he had to get to in order to find the special type of seed that Eiro used for his own tree back then as well so that he could have Charles grow the tree on his own. It was the best way to produce a proper prosthetic, after all.


    Those seeds were kind of hard to find, so Eiro had to really look as best as he could for a while, meaning he needed all the information he could get.


    Either way, for now, Eiro pushed all the bundles of money he got, as well as the extra slime nucleus, into his bag. He looked at Donny, Craig and Loyd, who were more than just excited to see someone''s rank promoted that quickly. Eiro smiled at them, but then said that he was going to sit down at one of the tables and wait for an acquaintance. Donny offered to wait with him for a while so that it wouldn''t get as boring, but Eiro quickly shook his head.


    "Sorry, I need to talk to him about private things." The demon said, "Thanks for the offer, though." Eiro added, and then turned aorund to head toward an empty table in the corner of the room. Donny, Craig and Loyd seemed a bit disappointed, but in the end they just sat down somewhere at the bar and hung out together.


    And so, Eiro was left to just wait. He pulled a book out of his treasury without letting anyone see where he pulled it out from, and slowly flipped it open. Eiro figured he could just read a little while he was waiting for James toe here tonight.


    Although, Eiro barely had time to read two pages. Because when he started with the third one, Eiro noticed James'' scent. Not too long after, the door to the guild opened up. James stood there for a while in the entrance area and looked around, soon spotting the stag sitting on the ground next to the table Eiro was sitting at.


    In a straight line, James made his way over toward Eiro, the two exposed daggers on his hip slightly nking against the metal parts of his belt. With a deep re, James smashed his remaining hand on the table in front of the Demon.


    "What the fuck are you doing here?" James asked, grinding his teeth together as he stared at Eiro, "Take a seat, and I''ll exin." The Demon suggested, and James, without moving his eyes away from Eiro, sat down opposite to Eiro.


    "Now tell me why the fuck you''re in this town, or I''ll rip your fucking head off, got it?" The Light Elf said in a growling,manding tone, and Eiro just lightly smiled underneath his mask as he pulled something out of his treasury.


    It was a leather cor with a gem ced into the front. It had been cut through on the side, and the gem had a few cracks in it. Confusedly, James looked down at it and then raised his head to look at Eiro, "What is this? Why would you-"


    "You know exactly what it is. The ne you guys tried to use to control me. It''s just that it wasn''t made for demons, so I was able to escape the control. Do you want to know when I escaped that control?" Eiro asked, and James just red at him, "The control disappeared when Avalin died, didn''t it? And then you just left after stealing her stuff."


    With a light sigh, the demon shook his head, "Such control works differently. When the one who controls dies, the one who is controlled dies as well. No, do you remember back then? Before we traveled through that floating ind, in the Inn, you made Avalin weaken the control to try and prove a point. After that, escaping was easy. It finally worked when we were running away from <The Sun>, while we were still on the bridge."


    Immediately, James ripped his eyes open and stared at Eiro, "What the fuck do you mean? No, after that Avalin made you gather wood, and you brought that pheasant back for us. And we travelled together for a week after that..." James pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "Mhm. Listen, James. I''m not a normal Imp, that''s quite obvious, isn''t it? Before I met you guys, I lived for roughly a week. Sure, I was a ve to you guys, but Avalin was still kind to me. James, I named my daughter after her." Eiro exined to James, who was just sitting there, and then just started tough quietly.


    "You... you think you should speak about that in a guild filled with people that kill monsters for a liv-"


    "Look around you. Do you think anyone cares in the slightest? No, because I used a special spell that basically forces people to ignore us as if we weren''t even here. Of course, we''re here, they can still see us out of the corner of their eye, but that''s all. If they try to focus on us, they''ll just lose focus immediately. They can''t hear us, they can''t fully see us. I could even take off my mask, and nobody would care." Eiro pointed out. While he was reading the book, he had also been preparing a spell that made use of the Ace of Cups in that way. It was a different method than just using the potion after it''s been turned into mist. It focused on a whole other aspect of the Ace of Cups to that method, but it was one that was just as useful.


    Although it might lose its effectiveness inbat, it would be useful in situations like this for sure, where Eiro didn''t want to be bothered.


    "That''s got to be a joke, right?" James said with a puzzled expression, but Eiro just shook his head, "It''s not. Now, let''s continue. Trust me, I didn''t want Avalin''s death. And while I''m aware you hate monsters, you obviously deeply cared for Avalin, more so than a regr friend would."


    Once more, James opened his eyes wide, "How do you-"


    "How old were you back then? 18, 19? I''m not an idiot, I have children around that age. A bit younger, but I still learned to read between the lines. It just makes sense, looking back on it. And so, this brings me to the other reason why I showed you the ownership cor. As a Light Elf, you have the highly magical body of the elves, but the incapability of actually casting magic of dark elves, right? In return, Light Elves have developed magical senses simr to that of Spirits, albeit far weaker. James, inside of this cor, there is still some of Avalin''s magic left. I don''t know how much that''s going to help, but I want to give it to you as a peace offering in the hopes of forming a party with you and your twopanions."


    James stared deeply at Eiro, and just started to re at him, "And why would you want that?"


    As if it was obvious, Eiro looked up at James and pulled the three of swords out of his treasury, activating it immediately and making the five des press against James'' throat without him even being able to react, "Because otherwise, it would mean I have to kill you. And I don''t know why, but despite it being the case when I first met you, as well as when you destroyed the statue at the hut back then, I can''t bring myself topletely despise you.. So I''d like to see if I can make use of those feelings for once."

 Chapter 169 - Befriended

    "What the fuck are you even saying?" James asked quietly as he stretched his hand out toward the cor and slowly picked it up. With a bitter expression, he started rubbing his thumb over the gem ced into it.


    "This really is Avalin''s mana, isn''t it?" He whispered, and then slowly raised his head to look at Eiro, "Listen, man, I... I don''t know... what to think anymore." James pointed out, "My whole life I''ve been taught that monsters are a force of absolute evil, that they''re darkness to the light that are the people of this world... That''s why I became an adventurer. It let me get rid of that darkness. I wanted to be like the hero, who could protect others... But then, I was shown that I couldn''t protect anyone, and I thought it was your fault. For years, I built up a grudge, especially against demons... I even bought that demon mask for when we''re on trips in ces where people don''t already know me. I tried to be the darkness to get rid of it... And then..."


    "You saw me again." Eiro finished for James, and the Light Elf slowly nodded his head.


    "Exactly. You stood up to us for the people of that town, you basically befriended everyone there. And fuck, you even have a family that would put themselves in danger for your sake. It''s what I always wanted, but now the demon I thought took my friends from me gets to be this happy? It felt... unfair. And now I''m even speaking to you like you''re some regr person, what the fuck is with that?" With apletely jumbled mind, James stared down at the table and involuntarily formed a grin made of anguish and surprise.


    It took a little while for him to get his thoughts back in order, and then he raised his head again, "Fine. I''ll think about it. Just tell me, what can you offer me? Why should I form a party with you? Besides the fact you''ll kill me afterward."


    With a slight nod, Eiro pushed his hand forward and pulled out another card out of his treasury beside the three of swords that he already had out, the ace of cups. The two cards wereying there next to each other. "I have three cards. Ace of Cups, from Zaragon''s shop. Three of Swords, from a mercenary, adventurer, or whatever, after I fled the capital. And then, the Five of Pentacles, from my teacher and the man I consider to be like my father. I have been given the blessing of the former queen of naiads, as well as the blessing of thedy of winter, together with a gift from thetter to allow me to make a contract with a daughter of winter in the future. I have equal-basis contracts with two spirits, and am carrying items exclusively made by the King of Craftsmen, Armodeus. And to top it off..." Eiro said, before pulling one more item out of his treasury. A ss bottle filled with a pure ck liquid.


    "This is the blood of a being that belongs to the exact same race as Zaragon. And before you ask, no, I didn''t kill one of them. I killed the thing that killed it, but I was able to injure it. I''m positive I could have beat it if given the chance." The Demon stared at James, who was just looking back at him withplete confusion as he slowly grew nervous.


    "Are... are you trying to threaten me?" James asked, and the Demon shook his head, "Of course not. I''m just trying to tell you one of the reasons why you should party up with me. I have power, I have contacts, and I have immense capabilities for growth. Something that I can give to you as well. So, James... Won''t youe and kill Zaragon with me?"


    James looked back at Eiro, and a few momentster, just started tough, "That... that''s ridiculous. You want to kill Zaragon? For what, some dumbass revenge?"


    "Yes." The Demon replied without a moment''s hesitation, "At least in part. And is there something wrong with that? It''s not something I pursue with every fiber of my being. It''s not my reason for living. It''s just something that I''d like to get over with, to prove to myself that I''m capable of killing that being that utterly traumatized me."


    "I won''t be able to help you, you know? That fucking piece of shitpletely crippled me. He ripped my arm out, including most of my shoulder. My main role in my party with Jess and Krog is to be a scout. I haven''t been in a proper fight for years now."


    "I know. And I can change that." Eiro pointed out. He hadn''t really been keeping it hidden, but he didn''t really fully expose it until now either. But now, Eiro stretched his right hand forward to show it to James, "When we met back then, you were looking for Jura the prosthetist to make a recement for your arm, right? Well, that man was my teacher. This hand was made by myself, and it basically works as aplete recement for my actual hand. I will make a new arm for you, don''t worry. It might take a while, but we''ll have to make sure you get used to a prosthetic like that in the first ce." The Demon said, and James'' eyes slowly opened wide as he rapidly stood up and leaned forward.


    "What?! You- You''re that man''s apprentice?! Are you kidding me?!" James asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. James actually seemed to be getting excited somehow, although that excitement soon turned into suspicion.


    "Why are you telling me all of this? I literally haven''t told you a thing, but you revealed all of this information to me... What do you want in return?" The Light elf questioned, and Eiro just stared back at him.


    "I want you to be a person I can actually trust my back on so that I don''t die before seeing my children off on their wedding days." Eiro said, and James stared back at him, "Huh...? W-Wedding..?"


    "Yeah, that''s something important for you guys, right? I''ve read many stories about people falling in love and living happily ever after. I saw how happy others were when they were with their spouse. Of course, it doesn''t matter to me whether or not my children actually marry someone or not. It just seemed like a pretty nice goal to work toward. I just want them all to lead a happy life, even without me."


    Even more than before, James was startled by Eiro''s tone of voice. It wasn''t the kind of thing you''d expect from a literal demon, after all. But in return, the next thing that Eiro said made up for that, "And don''t get me wrong... If you should try to fuck me over here, I can literally kill you, stuff your whole body into this bag, and use the ace of cups to make sure nobody remembers that we ever met. And if I don''t kill you right here and now, considering that I''ve memorized your scent, you won''t be able to run away from me for the rest of your life."


    "How can you switch from something so kind, to something sopletely fucked up?" James asked with a sigh and slightugh, "Fine. Let''s see how it works out for now. Jess and Krog told me you wanted to meet in a training room here tomorrow at noon? I trust that you''ll be punctual."


    "Of course I will be." Eiro said with a light smile underneath his mask, and then stood up after cing all of his items back into his satchel or treasury. He picked up the slime that had turned itself into the shape of a cloth-wrapped staff and ced it onto his back, before waving his hand to the side and dispelling the spell he ced around him and James.


    And then, before leaving, Eiro pushed his hand into the small pouch hanging on his belt and pulled out a bundle ofrge copper coins, "The drinks are on me tonight." The demon said and ced the bundle on the table before making his way toward the door after telling Lugo to follow him.


    Once they were outside again, Eiro climbed onto the stag''s back and rode him back to the castle, while the demon''s contracted Naiad was staring deep into his soul. Eiro couldn''t just ask about it right here, because there were too many people, but once he stepped through the castle''s gate, he finally looked at Nelli. And with an annoyed tone, he asked "Is something on my mask?"


    "Hm? Oh, not at all, I''m just trying to figure out what the fuck''s going on..." The Naiad pointed out, "I mean, it doesn''t happen every day that you just suddenly end up being a good guy to someone that tried to kill you presumably multiple times. Or well, that you end up being a good guy. Period."


    "Ouch." Eiro replied with a deep sigh, "Listen, you heard me back there. I can''t exin it, it''s just how it is. What, you expect me to be cold and calcting all the time? You should know that there''s more than enough asions where I''m not that. I''m not just a murder-machine"


    "You literally ughtered half the inhabitants of a town a couple of weeks ago, what do you mean?"


    "And you know exactly that I didn''t do that on purpose... I didn''t exactly have myself under control then. You''ve been with me for nearly eight years, you know exactly what I''m like. Just... Don''t think that I wouldn''t kill him if I needed to. I somehow would just prefer if I didn''t have to."


    But then, Nelli floated up in front of Eiro''s face and stared deeply into his eyes, despite not actually seeing them because of the mask the demon was wearing, "There''s still a big difference between ''preferring not to kill somebody'', and ''trying to befriend somebody''. I mean, as long as you''re sure that it''s because you really, legitimately want to turn them into people you can trust, then it''s fine with me, really."


    With a slow nod, Eiro looked back at the Spirit, "Don''t worry, that''s all there is to it. They''re going to be useful, and they don''t seem like the kind to betray others easily. And I feel like especially James is going to be a fun guy to have around." The Demon said. It was actually genuinely how he felt. Nothing that he told James before was a lie. Eiro felt things he didn''t understand that made him want to befriend James. He didn''t hate or despise him somehow, and there was a weird sense of trust already there.


    But all that was pushed away by the fact that something else was in the center of Eiro''s thoughts right now. That was because there was one lie in what he said just now.


    ''That''s all there is to it''... There was far, far more to why Eiro was trying to get closer to humans besides the children. Because there was something he really had to figure out.. And the more he thought about it, the more he started gripping the cloth of his cloak in front of the center of his chest.

 Chapter 170 - Needles

    The first night inside of the castle was pretty uneventful. Eiro didn''t really sleep all too much, even leveling up his exhaustion resistance skill once. He wanted to make sure that really nothing was going on, so he kept trying to focus on the children''s rooms for the night.


    But luckily, Eiro had no reason to worry, and the children were able to have a good night''s sleep in really high-quality beds. The next morning, they all enjoyed a hefty breakfast prepared by the King''s personal chefs, and they even ended up letting Rudy follow them around for the day to teach them a thing or two about cooking.


    Of course, this made the young man more than just excited. He seemed to be incredibly interested in things like this, and couldn''t even properly bring himself to eat the food in front of him because he was so curious about it.


    After the breakfast, Eiro made sure that everyone had something to do, and that in a safe environment as well. Sammy and Felix chose to stay with Leon and Avalin for the day, all the whilst Felix would help Sammy practice controlling her unique skill again a little more, while Felix himself started sculpting using some y just to get the actual ''sculpting'' skill.


    Arc and Clementine, both of who were quite happy and outgoing people most of the time, ended up quickly befriending Charles as well as his younger brother and sister, fourteen years old twins, and were just staying with them for the day, ying and messing around a bit.


    And so, Eiro was able to head out again to punctually meet Jess, Krog and James at the guild at 12. But before then, Eiro had something else to take care of... Now that he had a ce to actually stay at again, he had far, far more space to store things. Meaning, that he could finally buy more books!


    He had been a bit hesitant when buying new ones over the past little while, since it would mean he would have to get rid of the old ones. It would have been a waste of storage, after all... But he hated throwing away, so he actually stored most of them in his satchel instead of leaving them on the side of the road.


    And so, he would now indulge in buying a lot of new books because he was unable to properly do so before! He still had roughly an hour left before he had to get to the adventurer''s guild, so Eiro just stopped by the bookstore first. It was just a minute or two away from the guild, so Eiro could spend a fair bit of time here.


    He stepped through the store''s front door and looked around, immediately trying to read the titles of the books. There were a bunch here that he''s read before, but there were also far more that he didn''t read yet. There was such arge amount of variety that this ce seemed like some sort of heaven to him.


    Eiro thought about it just for a little while, until he went around and started picking up a couple of different books that he thought were interesting. Most of them were things rted to general local information that woulde in useful, now that Eiro would live here in this town. But there were also the odd books that were simply about different methods of mana maniption orbat techniques that seemed interesting.


    The demon carried the stack of books to the counter standing near the door and turned toward the employee, who stared back at the Demon with a bit of surprise, "That''s quite an amount. We''re open nearly ever day, so you cane again, you know?" Sheughed while she started calcting the cost for these books in her head, and the Demon slowly nodded his head.


    "I know. I''ll being back to buy more in a couple days, so." Eiro pointed out, and the employee slowly raised her head from the piece of paper she was taking notes on.


    "Hm? Ah, are you a researcher and these are for your team?" The employee figured. But Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, I just really like books. There''s quite a lot of interesting ones here, so I most likely will be a regr here after this." After that exnation, Eiro quickly ced the right amount of coins for the books, which he had already calcted beforehand using the information on the tags ced on the actual bookshelves, and then stuffed the books into his satchel.


    "Now then, see you in a couple of days." Eiro said and turned around to head toward the door, just feeling the stares of the employee in the back of his head.


    And as the Demon stepped out onto the streets that were covered in a thinyer of snow, while fresh one was currently dropping around him, he stopped moving for a moment and started grinding his teeth in annoyance.


    "By Lady Winter..." Eiro growled and quickly climbed on Lugo''s back to make him hurry toward the Guild. He only had a couple minutes left until it was noon, and when he stepped into the adventurer''s guild, he already spotted the party of three on the other side of the room, waiting for Eiro together.


    Seeing the Demon step into the building with the stag behind him, Jess chose to wave at him, "H-Hey there! Had a good morning?" She asked, trying to do some simple Smalltalk, and Eiro silently nodded his head while still grinding his teeth.


    "Mhm. Let''s get into the private training room." Eiro barked, and Krog looked at him with a frown, "Oi, don''t need to be such an ass for no reason."


    But in response, Eiro just red at him and followed Jess and James as they started walking toward therge training room they already booked for the rest of the day in the very back of the guild where they would have as much privacy as possible.


    "Hey, I''m talking to you." The warrior said angrily, and Eiro, without even turning toward him, rushed past James as he opened the door to the room up and immediately pulled therge staff slung to his back away from him.


    "I know already, you fucking piece of shit!" Eiro yelled out, and without a single moment''s hesitation swung the cloth-wrapped staff against the wall repeatedly. James, Jess, and Krog were just staring at him.


    "You called us here just to insult us?" Jess asked annoyedly, and Eiro immediately turned toward her and shook his head as he threw the staff to the ground, "What? Of course not, I wasn''t talking to you guys." The Demon told them, "Now close the door already." He said in rather angry tone, and the moment the door was closed, he pulled off his mask and cloak before snapping his fingers.


    "Seriously, if I didn''t have a use for you, I''d have literally killed you just now." Eiro said while Nelli appeared and sighed as she covered Eiro''s skin in some water, since it had started lightly bleeding all over.


    "...Are you actually crazy..?" Krog asked confusedly as he tried to turn to James and Jess for some kind of opinion, but Eiro ignored the warrior''s question as he looked at the cloth-wrapped staff and the strap connected to it before it slowly turned translucent and gathered together to take a roughly humanoid form.


    "The fuck was all that for?!" The Shapeless Slime asked, and Eiro just deeply red at it, "You''re seriously asking me that? I know your body is mostly water, and you already told me you don''t like the cold, but you grew up on a fucking mountain top! So don''t freak out that much! I told you to make a small bump near my shoulder, not turn the whole inside of the strap into motherfucking needles!" Eiro yelled out, and the Slime stayed silent for a few moments.


    "Oh, that''s why. Yeah, makes sense." It agreed, and Eiro just sighed annoyedly, "I swear, I''ll enjoy the day where I can finally kill you oh so much..."


    Now, Nelli finally healed the small wounds that the slime inflicted all over Eiro''s body. They didn''t really damage him, but hundreds of needles all over Eiro''s chest, shoulder, and side really weren''t that pleasant when all your senses, including touch and pain, were raised to iprehensible levels.


    "What the fuck is that?!" Krog asked with his axes in his hand as he saw the slime just ''stand'' there, and Eiro turned toward him with a bright smile, "You three, meet this piece of shit. Piece of shit, meet James, Jess, and Krog." Eiro told them as he sighed annoyedly. He didn''t really bleed at all because he could manipte his blood not to let that happen, but it was still really annoying, so Eiro checked all over his body, shirt, and cloak to see if there were anysting damages anywhere.


    But luckily, the needles that the slime formed had been so thin that they just slipped right in between the threads of the cloth. After checking that everything was fine, Eiro turned toward James, Jess and Krog again.


    "Sorry about that, I get angry pretty easilytely." Eiro tried exining, and Jessughed awkwardly, "H-Haha, stress from moving to a new ce, huh?" She suggested, and Eiro just looked back at her for a few seconds before finally cing down his satchel and letting Lugo sit down as well.


    "...Sure..." He replied, and then walked over toward the table ced into thisrge training room, sitting down on one of the chairs.


    "Come on, first, let''s talk a bit." Eiro said, "I''ve asked you three about a lot of things, but I didn''t really give you the chance to properly ask me questions. So, ask anything you want. I may or may not answer, depending on whether or not I want to."


    "Thanks, how kind of you." James replied as he sat down on one of the other chairs, and Eiro soon heard the first question from Krog.


    "Well, let''s ask the obvious first, eh? What actually are you? I know you''ve been saying you''re an Imp, but in no way is that true... I''ve never heard of an Imp as tall as you, and especially not of one so weirdly..." The warrior started, and Jess quickly finished for him since he seemed to be struggling to find the right word.


    "...handsome?" She suggested, and Krog quickly snapped his fingers and nodded his head, "Yup, that''s it. Or is it? It''s so fucking weird. You''re not an ugly fuck like this guy''s ''Imp Mask'', and it ain''t like you look like a human, but in a very weird way, you''re a pretty handsome guy."


    Eiro lightly shrugged as he looked back at them, "Well, I can just tell you that I''m an Imp, even if I''ve gone through two consequent unique evolutions."


    "Say what now?" Jess asked, "Unique Evolutions? But-"


    "I have three cards, what did you expect? First, I was a Lesser Imp, that''s when I first met James as well. Then after that, I evolved to be a ''Schr Imp'' and got an ability that gives me perfect memory. Then, I evolved to be what I am now, an ''Ice Blue Collector Imp''." Eiro exined to them, and James raised his brows surprised.


    "But you''re not blue." He pointed out, and Eiro sighed as he pushed off the shoes off his feet and then pulled off his socks and the glove on his left hand, before lifting his feet to ce them onto the table while he stretched out his two hands toward the three adventurers, "I''m partially."


    And then, Eiro swiftly stood up and pulled off his shirt, exposing the pale blue mark that came from his ''blessing of winter''s lonely naiad'', "The ''Ice Blue'' part mainlyes from this."


    While Eiro showed them this, Jess couldn''t help but keep staring at Eiro''s chest confusedly before she yelled something out in a way that surprised both James and Krog, "You have a motherfucking blessing?!"

 Chapter 171 - Sparring

    "Blessing? What do you mean, blessing?" Krog asked as he looked at the pattern on Eiro''s chest, which had spread out to nearlypletely cover his torso. Jess turned toward him with an expression as if she just went mad, "You don''t know what a blessing is?! It''s something that can be given by beings of extreme might! For example the Spirit Queens and Kings, or Deities!"


    "In this case, it was both, apparently." James said, leaning his head on his palm as he crossed his legs, and Jess stared at the Light Elf confusedly, "Wh-What do you mean?"


    "I don''t know, yesterday night, he told me he received a blessing from both a spirit and somedy, which I''ll guess to be a goddess." James pointed out. Eiro immediately nodded his head.


    "Yes, exactly. I was blessed by the former Naiad Queen, as well as the Lady of Winter. She''s technically neither a Spirit nor a true Goddess. Well, she''s a Nature Goddess, but apparently that''s just a name for them? She''s the incarnation of Winter, basically."


    "..." Jess silently stared at the Demon who proceeded to pull his shirt back over his head, and then leaned back in his chair, "Anyway, that''s that. And before you ask, I have no way of contacting either the former Naiad Queen or the Lady of Winter." Eiro pointed out, "Now, next question." The demon suggested, and James quickly spoke before Jess could startining and saying she wanted to hear more about the blessings.


    "Why are you like this? Monsters don''t usually end up just being... good guys that can raise children like that. And the same with that slime, it seems way too civilpared to normal slimes."


    "Ah, for that guy, it''s simple. He was raised somewhere where his Monstrosity was sealed for his whole life. I guess that just made it possible for him to not have a direct hatred for people." Eiro suggested, although he couldn''t say for sure, and the slime in question quickly tuned in, "Yup, I don''t have a major hatred for people. Instead, it spread out so that I have a minor hatred for everything. Now give me something to eat, you piece of tra-"


    With a snap of his finger, Eiro froze the outeryer of the slime''s body, making it impossible for it to keep moving normally, "Sorry about that. Now, when ites to me..." Eiro started, "It''s not something I''ll divulge just yet. All I will say is that I''m by no means a normal demon, or even a normal monster. For one, I''m a variant. I was born with higher intelligence, but less physical capabilitiespared to other Imps.


    "Hm. I remember." James pointed out, and next, Krog asked something again, "Then tell us why you''re really here. Do you want to kill us after all?" The Warrior asked, but Eiro just sighed annoyedly and shook his head.


    "Not if you don''t reveal anything about who or what I am. It was just an honest coincidence, or maybe fate, that brought me here. I became acquainted with the King, so that''s why I''m here. To send my children to the Academy with Solomon''s support and to grow stronger myself while I''m here." Eiro exined, and Jess, quickly distracted from her curiosity about the blessing, immediately spoke.


    "So it wasn''t just a rumor after all? You''re actually here with the King''s support? And what do you want to be stronger for, for that tournament people have been saying you''re taking part in?"


    "Yes, and No. Yes, I''m here with the King''s support, and no, I don''t want to get stronger for the tournament. I guess it won''t hurt not to disappoint Solomon too much, but no... I want to be strong for other reasons. I also won''t speak about all of those reasons directly, but I can tell you one. To protect my children." Eiro said, and then pushed himself off the chair before walking into the center of the room.


    "Speaking of strength, let''s get started for now. I want to see what you guys can do." Eiro said as he looked at the three adventurers.


    "Do you want us to fight you?" Krog asked with a slightugh as he stood up, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Mhm. But don''t worry, I won''t be too hard on you guys. I won''t use magic or any of my weapons, just hand-to-handbat. Well, at least when going against Krog and James, it would be a bit unfair with my speed to go against a mage. Jess, for you I''m going to simply match your type of casting and won''t make use of Nelli or Gondos." Eiro pointed exined to them, and with an annoyed groan, Krog stood up and stepped up in front of the Demon.


    "Fine, I''ll stuff your fucking mouth and then you''ll stop being so damn rude to us." Krog said and stood in front of Eiro with his hands in front of his body, "Thene on, fight me. I''m pretty good with hand-to-handbat myself, you know?"


    "Really? But back then, you were fighting with arge sword, and right now you have two axes with you. Don''t you think you should fight using those?"


    "Fight an unarmed man with weapons? Hah, who do you take me for?" Krog scoffed, as if insulted by what Eiro suggested, and the Demon just looked down at the ground with a groan.


    "That''s quite honorable of you, but you can only do that kind of thing when you''re actually stronger than your opponent. Now go on, take those axes of yours and fight me as if you want to kill me." Eiro told him with a deep re, and Krog actually slightly flinched in response.


    While grinding his teeth, therge warrior stepped over toward the table and picked up the two axes he leaned against it, "Don''t me me if you lose another one of your hands."


    "Mhm." The Demon replied, and quickly took on his stance. One of his hands was formed into a fist and held directly next to Eiro''s chest, while the other one was open while the palm was held toward Krog.


    "Attack me." The Demon said, and Krog kept grinding his teeth before just doing as he was told. With a swift attack he just threw himself at Eiro and swung down both of his axes toward the ground at once. Luckily, Eiro didn''t need to dodge that much. He simply had to turn to the side, press his tail against his body, and wait for the moment that Krog would start pulling his axes up again. After Eiro slipped through the two axes and exactly that moment came, the Demon jumped and stepped onto the two axes.


    The slight boost through the axes moved by Krog''s high strength propelled Eiro upward enough to let Eiro jump over Krog''s shoulder. He gripped the big man''s throat and swung himself around until he could press his feet into the center of Krog''s back while holding onto the underside of his chin from over his head.


    And so, when Eiro pulled on Krog''s chin and pressed into his back, he lost his bnce due to the momentum of his own two axes dragging him around a bit anyway. And when he started losing his bnce due to his upper body, he instinctively tried to make up for it using his legs.


    But at that point, Eiro already slipped down and grabbed Krog by his neck from the back while using the drop''s momentum to kick right into the back of his knees. Since he had only been focusing on his legs after he first lost his bnce, now that those weren''t an option to support him anymore, Krog just fell backward. Of course Eiro managed to slip away properly and then just gripped onto Krog''s stomach from behind with his legs while wrapping his arms around his neck, to take him into a proper grip that was hard to escape.


    At first, like normal, Krog fought against Eiro and tried to rip him away from himself, but soon he gave up and just hit the ground a couple times to try and let Eiro know that he gave up, since he wasn''t able to speak right now.


    The Demon loosened up his grip and quickly stood up before extending a hand toward Krog, who was just rubbing his neck after all this, "See? Underestimated me a bit, huh?" Eiro said with a smirk on his face as he pulled Krog off the ground, and the warrior slowly nodded his head.


    "...Yeah, I did for sure... Just... how did you do that? You sure you didn''t use magic or somethin''?"


    "I didn''t use anything. All I made use of was the hand-to-handbat technique taught to me. Anyway, in general, you seem to have pretty good control over your axes. There might be some bnce issues here and there, but I know how to fix those. This technique was only possible because this was a one versus one, usually you would have Jess and James to cover your back, but I''d still try and do some perception and intelligence based training to increase your reaction-speed. Because if you had reacted quickly enough, you could have stopped the movement of your axes so that you wouldn''t have given me the extra boost, making it harder for me to actually get into position for this." Eiro started exining.


    "But let''s have another proper fight again in a bit. Just wanted to get rid of that ''don''t underestimate me'' mindset you have." The demon exined, and Krog just looked at him a bit embarrassedly as he picked up his axes.


    And before Eiro knew it, Jess stepped up to the Demon next, "Now me!" She said, actually pretty excited to see the Demon''s magic again, and Eiro looked at her with a nod, "Alright. How do you cast your magic?"


    "Well, since I usually have these two to fight in front, I take the time to draw magic circles. But I am actually pretty talented with all four basic elements, so I sometimes try to simply do direct maniption..." Jess admitted, so Eiro nodded his head.


    "Got it. Alright, then instead of a regr duel, this will be a speed-casting contest. You start drawing any magic circle you want, and I will attempt to finish it before you." The Demon told her, and Jess looked at Eiro with a slow nod. It seemed basically impossible, but a lot about this demon seemed impossible, so she shouldn''t be too hasty.


    "Alright, then take out your staff and let''s start."


    "I already have my staff. Also, Nelli, Gondos,e out and provide us with materials. Just in case it''s going to be a spell making use of any of the four elements..." Eiro said, and then quickly took out the spark-snapper out of his treasury and lit a me that he made just float in front of them while making it so that Jess could take control of a small part of the mes.


    "Here, now you have everything." The demon exined, but Jess just looked at him confusedly, "But... erm, where''s your staff?"


    "Hm? Oh, right. My whole right hand is a staff, basically. But don''t worry, I''ll only be using one finger for this to make it fair."


    "...huh...?"

 Chapter 172 - Clear Superiority

    "You know, that attitude of yours can get pretty annoying..." Jess muttered quietly as she ground her teeth, "Fine, but don''t cry when you lose! The first to three first spell casts wins!" She eximed, full of determination, and Eiro just lightly smirked as he stood on the opposite side of the room to her.


    "Just start already." Eiro said, and watched as Jess held her staff forward before a line of glowing light appeared in the air in front of her. And without hesitation, Eiro started copying exactly what she was doing, without any dy visible to Krog or James.


    Jess was silently moving her lips, a bad habit that many mages had. Even when not making use of chants for a magic circle, very often, they still subconsciously connected the action of casting a spell with audibly chanting it, despite it not being a direct necessity for casting low-tier spells, which Jess and Eiro were restricted to.


    Using the movement of Jess'' lips, Eiro was able to very quickly narrow down what kind of spell she was trying to cast by simply reading her lips.


    And soon, Eiropletely figured it out after remembering the patterns of the spell and the chant usually used to enhance the effect of the magic circle. Without hesitation, Eiro started moving his hand around rapidly and James and Krog were nowpletely focused on Eiro, who finished the magic circle within a few moments and started to smirk.


    "Wind spiral, I see." Eiro said after activating the spell, causing a literal horizontal spiraling tunnel of wind to appear in front of him, sting air into Jess'' direction, albeit rather weakly. Obviously Eiro didn''t push too much mana into this magic circle, this wasn''t supposed to be an actual fight, after all.


    "Wh-What, but how?" She asked confusedly as she interrupted her casting, making the magic circle in front of her disappear. But Eiro just smiled at her, "I''ll exin afterward. Now continue." The Demon told her, and the mage slowly nodded her head before re-adjusting her hair that was slightly pushed to the side through the wind spiral just now.


    And then, the Demon spotted Jess'' eyes slowly moving toward the bucket of water standing in front of her as well as the mes floating right next to it. Already, Eiro had a rough idea of what she was going to do. She didn''t just nce over those two things, but she switched inbetween them for a while before she started moving her staff around. Eiro of course started moving his finger at the same time again. This time, figuring it out was even easier than before, after all, he was already trying topare what Jess was drawing in front of her with any spell he knew about that used either fire, water, or both. And soon, he could already narrow it down to thest of those three options, because he saw parts that were meant to ess both mes and water.


    Soon, Eiro also noticed that the dominant element for this spell was fire, at which point he immediately started finishing the spell up. The moment he did and activated the spell, the room was filled with steam after both mes and water were absorbed for this, and he heard Jess groan annoyedly on the other side of the room.


    "Seriously, again?!" She asked, and Eiro just chuckled as he moved his hand around and started pulling all of the steam in the room toward him, swiftly turning it back into water that he dropped into the bucket in front of him within a few moments.


    "Mhm. But good choice, really. That''s a pretty nice spell in my opinion." Eiro pointed out with a light smile, and Jess started grinding her teeth even more, "How is this so easy for you?" She asked annoyedly, and Eiro just sighed and shook his head.


    "I''ll tell youter. Now, continue. And finish it off with a bang, it''s thest round, after all." The Demon said with a smirk on his face, and Jess just kept on getting more and more annoyed. She took especially long to figure out which spell to use this time, and since that was the case, Eiro slightlyughed after seeing that, "What, out of ideas?" Eiro asked, and the young woman just stared at him with a deep re.


    "Shut it!" She eximed, and Eiro simply kept on smirking. Soon, Jess started drawing the magic circle.


    Instead of being harder than before, like Jess was nning, this was simply much, much easier to figure out. Jess basically swung her staff around while trying to draw the magic circle as quickly as she possibly could, all the whilst Eiro more than easily followed her actions. And she simply became more careless while trying to hide what magic circle it was supposed to be, and soon, Eiro could overtake her again and had a small rock be absorbed from the rocksying on the ground in front of him.


    It crumbled into dust and was then propelled forward toward Jess. And now, while Jess just let her arms drop to the side of her body in disbelief, Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose with a deep groan.


    "One. Remember the scenery around you and think about what to do without looking at your materials. Two. Get rid of that annoying mage-tongue. Three. Realize when your opponent is deliberately trying to piss you off into getting careless." Eiro told Jess, whose light re quickly disappeared after hearing all that advice.


    "Huh..?" She asked, and Eiro lightly frowned, "What, are those concepts so hard to understand? In a fight, a mage needs two things to not be a burden to theirpanions. They need to be as prepared as possible, and they can''t let their opponent find out about the spell about to be cast. You can''t only start thinking about what spell you can make use of during the fight, but long before you even get close to your opponent. And seriously, that damn mage-tongue is just far too annoying, I don''t know why you people all have such issues controlling your own bodies that much."


    Before Jess could say anything, James quickly asked something that seemingly all three of them wanted to know, "What the hell do you mean with ''mage tongue''?" The Light Elf asked, and Eiro turned his eyes toward him and then scratched the back of his neck.


    "Fair enough, usually it only happens in stressful situations likebat, so it''s not surprising you guys don''t know. It''s simply something simr to muscle-memory. Krog, James, you two must know about how it gets easier and easier to do a certain move the more you use it, right? That''s because your body gets used to doing that motion."


    "We know what muscle-memory is, we ain''t idiots." Krog replied with his arms crossed, and Eiro quickly shook his head, "I didn''t say that, I just wanted topare it properly. Mage-tongue is something simr to an extent. It''s not actually muscle-rted, it''s more habit-rted. Magic casting is supported by your mental image. The more you cast a spell, the easier it will get to cast it because your image simply gets morepleted over time. But things like an image will usually have the words of a chant be part of it. It''spletely subconscious, and pretty normal, but at some point not only does your mana affect your spellcasting, but your mana will also affect your body." Eiro exined as quickly as he could, "And that''s what mage-tongue is. Chanting bes part of your image, and you will start moving your lips even if you try not to chant. It''s rtively easy to get rid of when you actually try to though."


    Rather surprised, Jess looked at Eiro while holding her hand in front of her mouth, "I didn''t even know I did that!"


    "I figured. Not many people do. It''s just a bad habit, like biting your nails for example." Eiro replied, and then slowly looked toward James.


    "Anyway, I think thest one would be you, then." Eiro pointed out, and James slowly stepped up to him and pulled out his dagger. He took his stance and properly prepared to attack, and Eiro took his fighting-stance as well while Jess and Krog moved out of the way.


    "Go ahead." The Demon said, and James immediately jumped forward. Eiro stared at every spot of James'' body to figure out if his movements and habits were still the same asst year when they fought, and seeing that this was the case, Eiro just chose to quickly finish this.


    The Demon slipped past the dagger-attack and toward the side of James'' body. And of course, it was the side that was missing an Arm. Or at least, that''s what James thought, because Eiro started moving his feet into that direction. Rapidly, as if in a panic, James swung the dagger toward Eiro, but the Demon''s movement stopped rapidly as he kicked himself off the ground and jumped over James'' attack.


    He reached down and grabbed the Light Elf''s hand before pushing it in the right ces to make James drop his dagger. Mid-Jump, Eiro wrapped his legs around James'' shoulder and immediately used his own body-weight to pull him down.


    This was something that was achieved extremely quickly. James dropped to the ground and was unable to free himself from the grip that Eiro had on his arm, meaning that he immediately had to give up. Once more, Eiro slipped away and stood up before helping his opponent stand up, in the same way as he did with Krog, and then looked at the Light-Elf.


    "In general, you have an extremely good form, but you''re too self-conscious of your missing arm. Other issues, like bnce, moves you can''t make use, and so on are also the result of your missing arm. We''ll be able to fix that, though." Eiro pointed out pretty quickly.


    At this point, all three of the people here had a few questions that they really, really wanted to ask.


    "What... are your stats at right now?" James asked as he tried to move his arm around a bit to get rid of the slight pain in his shoulder after that fight.


    "Is that important?" The demon asked, and Krog immediately nodded his head, "Of course it fucking is! Sure, you''ve got amazing technique, but those stats of yours are even more insane, right?" The warrior eximed, "Come on, at least tell us that!"


    With a slight sigh, Eiro scratched his neck and in the end gave in and agreed, "Fine. My lowest stat is charisma at..."


    "Heh, who''d have thought..." The warriorughed lightly, and Eiro immediately red at him, "Do you want to know or not?"


    "Right, right. Go on."


    Annoyedly, Eiro continued, "Anyway, it''s my lowest stat at currently 56."


    "Hm?" All three of the others, James, Jess and Krog looked at Eiro surprised, "All my other stats passed the 100 point threshold. Strength, Constitution, Resistance, Evasion and Willpower are all around 100. Dexterity and perception are around 150, and then my other stats passed the 200 threshold. Agility just barely, but my Intelligence and Wisdom are both around 250." The Demon said, Of course, he wasn''t lying. Technically they were all ''around'' that... he didn''t need to mention that those numbers were actually the exact state of his stats.... Maybe he should make them seem more natural in case someone can appraise him? It would seem a bit weird if he had such pretty stats, after all.


    "O-Oi, that''s a joke, right..?" Krog asked with a wry smile, "My highest stats are Strength and Resistance, and only my strength passed 100 until now..."


    "My highest stat is agility, and it''s the only one that passed it..." James muttered, and Jess also slowly nodded her head.


    "...for me it''s the same, just with intelligence instead..."


    Slowly, Eiro stared back at these three with immense surprise. He knew he was stronger than them, but he didn''t expect.... this.

 Chapter 173 - To The Village

    With a light groan, Eiro started rubbing the bridge of his nose in thought and annoyance. He had to figure out a good way to help these guys level up as quickly as possible to increase their strength properly. Because right now, they wouldn''t end up being as much of a help as the Demon wanted them to be.


    "What are your sses right now?" Eiro asked them, and Jess quickly responded for everyone.


    "I''m a Mage, James is an Assassin, and Krog is a Heavy Warrior." Jess said, still baffled at how high Eiro''s stats were.


    "What''s your guys'' ss history then? Let me guess, Jess, you were a Mage Apprentice, James was a rogue, and Krog was a regr warrior?" Eiro asked, and Krog quickly nodded his head.


    "Yup, but how''d you know?" The Warrior asked, and Eiro slowly closed his eyes and started thinking.


    "I''ll tell youter, but for now, we''ll have to get you guys to level 100 so you can change your sses again. Jess, sorry to tell you, but I think you should get back to being an apprentice. Krog, you should get a specific weapon-based ss. And James... We''ll see about that, I don''t know your skills and abilities that well yet."


    "Wait wait, what? Why should I be an apprentice again?"


    "And why should I restrict myself to just one weapon?"


    Jess and Krog immediately protested, and Eiro just stared at them with his arms crossed, "Since you have four basic elemental magic skills, you should have all the apprentice sses, right? Apprentice Water Mage, Apprentice Fire Mage, Apprentice Earth Mage, and Apprentice Wind Mage, right? You need to go through all of those and then get the advanced versions of those sses." The Demon told Jess and then looked at Krog.


    "And you really need a ss that actually supports your usage of different weapons. You don''t stick to just one, right? Sure, a warrior can probably handle himself well with all kinds of different weapons, but it''s just not efficient. If I had the choice to return to former evolution paths like you guys have with sses, then I''d do it as well." Eiro pointed out.


    "We''ll go out hunting soon to get you guys to level up. But before then..." The Demon muttered, "Have you three ever heard of Life Force?" He asked them.


    James immediately shook his head with a light frown, "Isn''t that the thing that Life Magic uses?"


    "That''s Life Energy, something actuallypletely unrted. No, Life Force is another term for your Health. Basically, it''s a sort of energy in your body just like mana is. Depending on how you manipte it, you can increase your strength considerably." Eiro exined as he started stepping over to the corner of the room while picking up one of the training dummies.


    "What are you even saying? ''Life Force''? ''A sort of energy''? This is starting to getpletely ridiculous. Are you just ying around now?" With an angry expression, James looked at Eiro and stared him down, trying to figure out if what this demon said was true or not.


    Eiro just side-eyed James and ced the training dummy down onto the ground and properly attached it there. He stood in front of the dummy and took up his regr stance, "This is a normal punch." Eiro said, and with all the force and speed he could muster, Eiro hit the dummy''s chest. It was pushed back a fair bit and a light snapping sound was created by just this already. Everyone stared at Eiro at the power he was able to produce.


    "This is a punch where I manipte my life force to strengthen my shoulders and arm." The demon exined, and then repeated the same motion, simply with his life force manipted in the way he described.


    And instead of just being pushed back, the dummy''s strengthened chest was ripped open and the whole thing fell to the ground, together with a loud whistling sound created through the speed of Eiro''s fist.


    "See the difference?" Eiro asked, "I don''t care if you believe me. But if you''re so against trying to listen to what I have to say, I''ll leave right now and this whole party deal is over. Right now, you''re too weak to be of any real help to me, but I know that you all have the talent to be very, very strong as long as you properly work for it." The Demon told them in a clear tone. It was a fair surprise to hear that the stat growth of these guys was so low so far, but it was fine. He would help them figure it out. He would help them get stronger.


    ---


    "Hurry it up already. I want to get there before the sun starts setting." The Demon groaned as he slowly turned around and looked down the mountain-path behind him.


    "Shut the fuck up!" Krog yelled out annoyedly, "You''re not the one literally carrying a fucking boulder!" The warrior yelled as he slightly adjusted the straps digging into his shoulders. That was because on his back, he was currently carrying, as he justined, a literal boulder that was just held up by some cloth and chains.


    "I told you, this is important. Your natural stat growth is based mostly around strength, so you need to know how to best support your greatest asset using Life Force maniption. And stopining,iher James nor Jess are." Eiro told the warrior, and then looked at the Light-Elf man and Human girl in question.


    James was currently trying to solve puzzle-toys with not only his regr hand, but also the wooden hand that the Demon made for him. Due to James'' willpower, dexterity, and overall health, Eiro could basically instantly give James an advanced prosthetic that he could try and use properly.


    It wasn''t nearly as capable as a prosthetic at the level of Eiro''s hand to begin with, but James could still increase its dexterity the more he used it and got used to it. After all, he didn''t have a hand for the past seven or eight years.


    And in the meantime, Jess was practicing to circte her mana throughout her body to learn more about her mana veins and increase her proficiency at manipting her mana in general. It was pretty hard, especially since she had to climb this mountain while she was at it.


    "That''s because you let those two wear warm coats, but why the fuck can''t I?! Even the fucking stag has nkets on ''im!"


    "One, because it helps with your resistance growth. Two, those nkets aren''t for Lugo, they''re for Avalin and Leon." Eiro replied immediately, and Krog just kept ring up at Eiro.


    "Speaking of..." James finally spoke, "Why are those twoing along?"


    "Because it''s too dangerous to leave these two alone. I trust the others, and they''re taking basic tutoring to make sure they''re up to par for the academy all day anyway, but it''s too risky with these two. They wouldn''t have anyone I trust taking care of them, and there are things that can''t be revealed about them or else bad things will happen." Eiro exined quite clearly, before he finally spotted the cave entrance a bit away from the path.


    "Also, you guys, stop practicing. We need to climb a bit. And Krog, you can leave the rock here." Eiro said as he reached up to grab Leon and Avalin off of Lugo''s back, while the three others sighed in relief at being given at least something simr to a break.


    Eiro pushed his leg against the rock-wall in front of him and created steps that he could quickly climb up. With just a few jumps, Lugo also made it up the rock-wall, before Eiro squatted down in front of the children while the others also climbed up.


    "You two are good, right?" Eiro asked, and the two of them quickly nodded their heads, "Mhm!" Avalin eximed first, her face nearlypletely concealed in the thick children''s coat she was wearing, while Leon just looked around a bit, "But what are we doing here?" He asked, and Eiro pointed toward where the cave entrance was.


    "We need to go through a tunnel to go meet a few people that I need you to use your skills on a bit, yeah?"


    "There are monsters there..?" Leon asked, "Bad ones..?"


    "Don''t worry, not even all of them together can go up against me. And I have a n to make sure they won''t be bad ones for too long." Eiro pointed out while rubbing his hand through Leon''s ck hair before turning toward the rock-like substance wrapped around Lugo''s antlers, "Isn''t that right?" Eiro asked the slime.


    "Fuck you..." It muttered quietly, and Eiro just loudly groaned, "Why does everyone keep swearing in front of my eight years old children...?"


    The demon stood up and walked over toward Lugo before pressing his palm onto the slime''s hardened body, "Now, tell me, what were we going to do again?" He asked, slowly starting to scrape away at the rock with one of his daggers, and nervously, the slime spoke up again, "E-Erm, we''ll try to seal their monstrosity?"


    "Exactly, buddy! And then we will do what..?" Eiro asked next, and the slime thought for a little while, "We... we will use the boy''s skill to train them not to be inherently violent against other creatures, and then remove the seals off of some of them to see if it worked?"


    "Good job, buddy!" The Demon eximed with a sarcasticugh, before just patting the slime''s body a couple times and turning back around.


    "Wait..." Jess groaned as Krog helped pull her up the rock wall, "Where exactly are we going? You just said something about monsters, right? Are we heading to a monster nest to level up?"


    "Something like that, I guess." Eiro replied, before realizing that giving them such an idea would be rather bad, "Wait, actually, not at all. Don''t even think about attacking any of those guys over there, I still need them." The Demon told them, "I''ll exin it when we''re there, I think it might be hard to exin otherwise."


    Once everyone was up there, Eiro just put Avalin and Leon back onto Lugo''s back and started walking toward the cave entrance ahead of them. He slightly widened the entrance using earth magic and let everyone get inside, before closing it back down once everyone was in the cave.


    The closer they got to the other side of the passage, the more everyone heard sounds that made them creeped out, while Eiro himself was just getting a bit annoyed. Well, they did their job, in the end, but they were justzing around right now.


    When they stepped into the Mountain-Goblin vige, they saw numerous goblins sitting around arge fire, eating different kinds of animals while ying around with the magic stones Eiro told them to mine in the first ce.

 Chapter 174 - Magic Stone Offerings

    Without a moment''s hesitation, James, Jess and Krog took on theirbat stances after seeing the mass amount of Goblins in front of them.


    "What''s going on here?" James asked immediately, and Eiro just stepped further into the vige, "That''s exactly what I want to know..." Eiro muttered, albeit for a pretty different reason to the others. He wasn''t confused about the mass amount of monsters, but instead about the fact that they seemingly gave out all the magic stones to the Goblins themselves, instead of gathering them for Eiro.


    "Put your weapons away." Eiro said, "We came here to meet these Goblins, but to think they''re fucking around like this..." The Demon stepped along the path followed by the others and then slowly took his mask off while removing his tail from his hips.


    All the Goblins were gathered in some kind of central area of the town, and Eiro slowly turned around, "Stay here." He told them, and then stepped right into the crowd of distracted goblins. At first, the goblins that noticed Eiro growled at him, ready to attack, but the moment they remembered who he was, they jumped to the side in fear.


    Currently, Erio was walking up to Gobo, the Hobgoblin that ruled this vige before Eiro first got here. He was enjoying having others ''offer'' magic stones to him. So of course, Eiro figured he should give him a little bit of that pleasure as well. Eiro ripped the magic stones one of the other goblins was carrying out of its hands and stepped closer toward Gobo, whose sight was focused on the magic stones in his hands.


    And then, Eiro slowly reached forward and added another magic stone to the mix, with his pale blue wooden hand, "Here you go. You like these a lot, don''t you?" The Demon asked with a calm voice, and Gobo''s whole body froze up immediately.


    "Hm? You don''t have anything to say?" Eiro asked, "I thought you''d at least know how to say ''Thanks''." While hearing these words, Gobo raised his head and looked directly at Eiro, "M-Master, back! Gobo get shinies. Master shinies!"


    "Oh? So you''re saying that you got these for me? That''s why you were gathering them?" The Demon asked, and Gobo quickly nodded while his whole body was shaking in fear at the sight of Eiro''s figure, "Shinies for Master!" He eximed, and Eiro looked at Gobo while grasping his light brown skin tightly, "Good. Then stand up and show me what you got for me." Eiro told him, and Gobo''s fearful expression became a smile as he jumped up and ced all the magic stones in his hands onto the ground, while Eiro took a seat where Gobo was sitting until now.


    What Gobo showed him was a real, proper haul. Numerous yellow Earth Magic Stones, the asional dark green Nature Magic Stone, and even a handful red me Magic Stones. And inbetween the small mounds of magic stones was one more that Eiro thought to be quite interesting. It was a small purple crystal, obviously also a magic stone, but Eiro didn''t know what exactly it was for. He would take a look at thatter.


    "I''ll take the green ones and the small purple one. You can keep the rest for yourselves." Eiro said, and Gobo looked at him with a broad smile, "Gobo keep shinies?"


    "Some of them, yes. Just the red and yellow ones. Bring all the others to me, alright? Ah, and now that you did bring them to me..." Eiro muttered while pushing his hand into his satchel, grabbing a small pouch filled with a couple different magic stones that he had. They were small, and didn''t have much magic left in them, but they were most likely still a good gift for Gobo.


    There were things like Water and Wind magic stones, and even light, holy energy, or darkness magic stones in there. The moment that Gobo looked at them, he seemed to understand what they were as well.


    "Shinies! New shinies!" Gobo yelled out before starting to dance happily with the new magic stones in his hands, all the whilst Lugo with Avalin and Leon on his back, as well as Jess, James and Krog, also got closer to EIro.


    "Eiro, what''s going on? Where did all those magic stonese from?" Jess asked with a deep frown, and Eiro just smirked back at her, "This is a magic stone mine, what else? And these guys are all mountain goblins, and a couple mountain hobgoblins. I took this ce over a little while ago and made them mine magic stones for me."


    "Holy gods, seriously... You''ll be rich if you can sell these!" Krog eximed, his loud voice even making some of the goblins flinch, and Eiro just started tough, "I won''t sell them, of course. I have a much better use for them." The Demon said as he quickly picked up all the magic stones that were now his own. He wouldn''t use them right here, of course, but he just quickly put them away into his satchel forter.


    "We''re going to stay in this area for a while. As I said to the slime, we''ll train them into behaving properly, teach them the Commonnguage as well as manners. Make sure they can actually use tools and maybe even weapons for those that don''t have a talent for mining. And at the same time, we will use this ce for training. Since we''re in the wild, there are many different, quite strong monsters around here that are perfect to have you guys level up some."


    Nervously, Jess grabbed the overhanging cloth of her robes and pulled it over her chest a bit, "B-But that means... We''ll be sleeping in a vige of Goblins..?"


    "Don''t worry. They''re a variant race of Goblin, Mountain Goblins. They''re smarter, less aggressive, and don''t have as strong a libido. I''ll be here to protect you." Eiro said reassuredly. Jess slowly nodded her head, although she obviously was still quite nervous about this.


    "But wait, what if you end up evolving again? You said you fell unconscious during your evolution once, what if it happens again?"


    "It is possible, but I highly doubt it. And should something like that happen... we have a bit of a secret weapon." Eiro pointed out and slowly smiled at Leon. But it seemed like through this short conversation, Gobo remembered something.


    "Evo... looshun..." He muttered in thought, and then slowly turned around to look through the crowd of goblins, "Looshun!" Gobo yelled out and pointed at a group of a couple different Goblins, who Eiro had already paid a little more attention to himself.


    They were goblins who managed to evolve, most likely by killing the monsters that these goblins here were feasting on. And to Eiro''s surprise, none of them turned into Hobgoblins, instead, they turned into different Mountain Goblin subraces.


    Eiro had them open their statuses and then copied the content he saw in their eyes onto some paper before having Gobo trante it for him. In total, four of them evolved. Three of them became Mountain Goblin Miners, while one of them became a Mountain Goblin Swordsman. It seemed like thetter of those was the one that actually did most of the fighting amongst these Goblins.


    "Bring them here." Eiro told Gobo, who immediately jumped up and dragged the four recently-evolved goblins over toward Eiro, something that was pretty easy for this bulky Mountain Hobgoblin.


    "Gobo, give each of them one of each magic stone... sorry, shiny. And exin to the goblins that it was because they evolved." The Demon said, and quickly watched the Hobgoblin follow hismand without any hesitation. With a satisfied expression, Eiro stood up.


    "Good job, Gobo." Eiro said with a grin on his face, "You can keep celebrating if you want to. We''ll find a ce to stay for the next while." With that announcement, Eiro stepped away and toward the others that were part of his group.


    With a nudge of his head, he told them to follow him before guiding them toward the very back of the vige, right where the carved rock-b was. The one that Gondos had made use of to find his name and mature.


    Right behind it, Eiro remembered a small cave being, even if the only entrance to it was a thin slit too small for anyone to fit through. Eiro should be able to open it up and turn it into a ce to stay, though.


    "Seriously, why exactly are we here? We''re not going to just kill these Goblins to level up?" Krog asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, you''re not. Those guys are mine, and I still have ns for them. As I said, we''re going to use this ce to help you level up and get stronger. For one, you will simply hunt monsters around here. This area is full of them, and the ressources here are pretty important as well."


    "Yeah, we get that, but why did we have toe here for that? We could have just done it near the town." James pointed out, saying exactly what Krog and Jess were thinking.


    "The monsters as close to the town as that are too weak to be of any use to you. We''ll be fighting other monsters, monsters that are supposed to be a fair bit stronger than you stat-wise. Also, I figured it would be easier to motivate you guys here." Eiro pointed out as he pushed his fingers into the slit in the rock-wall to properly use his earth magic on it to open the entrance up enough for them to step through.


    "What do you mean?" Jess asked. With a slight sigh, Eiro pushed the three of them to the side, "Stand here." Eiro said, and then quickly used some air magic to get rid of the worst of the dust, bugs, and things like cobwebs that were inside of this small cave before Eiro stepped inside.


    He ced his palm onto the carved piece of rock right next to him on the wall in here and pushed his mana into it, causing numerous runes to light up all around here before activating light magic stones ced at the roof of the cave.


    "Well, I''ll be teaching the Goblins some things too. I thought it would be a good way to make you try and learn everything more quickly. After all, it would be embarrassing if you lost to goblins, right?" Eiroughed, although right now, the three of them were looking around this room and at the furniture ced in here. Someone lived in here, and he was a capable enough magician to create such magical arrays.


    "Ah, right. Well, this ce here is another reason why I wanted to keep this ce.. The fact that it''s a magic stone mine isn''t the only interesting thing here."

 Chapter 175 - Nature Magic

    "It''s pretty old, and I''ll have to see to repairing the furniture a bit, but it should still be better than nothing at all." Eiro pointed out as he stepped further into this space, tryint to take a closer look at everything. Thest time he was here, he didn''t really have the time to look around this ce at all, but now that he was really in here and could take a look at all the carvings a bit more, he waspletely convinced that the person that used to live here was the one that created that mana-collecting b out front.


    "Damn... This is lookin'' pretty nice. Who''d have thought we''d find a ce like this in a goblin vige?" Krog asked with a slight wistle, and Eiro just sighed in response, "I''m pretty sure this ce is the reason this vige even exists. Whoever built this ce built the b out front, and it''s pulling mana toward it. That most likely was meant to strengthen the growth of the magic stones out there. Most monsters are attracted torge amounts of mana, and coincidentally the ones that got here first were Mountain Goblins." The Demon exined, "It would have been more surprising to see this area bepletely abandoned."


    After a bit of thought, Krog just shrugged, "Sure." He replied. Eiro slightly rolled his eyes and then started moving over toward the outside, "Nelli, Gondos, watch the kids. Slime, figure out what exactly you need to seal the monstrosity for all those goblins. And you three, just settle in and take a bit of a break. Lugo, youe outside with me." With those words, Eiro made his way back to the front of this small cave, before he used magic to quickly get rid of the snow that was on and around the carved b of rock.


    Eiro sat down cross-legged on the b and then looked at Lugo as he sat down right in front of him, staring at the Imp''s face.


    "Come a bit closer." Eiro told him, and Lugo slowly pulled himself closer toward the b until Eiro could easily grab Lugo''s antlers, something that Eiro quickly did.


    "Alright, Lugo. I''m going to be pushing nearly all my mana into you now, alright? I want you to circte it inside of your body like you did before. Since you''re my familiar, you should be able to do that as if it was your own mana." The Demon exined, and Lugo slowly tilted his head to the side with a quiet bellow.


    "For one, to help your flow of mana. If you''re some kind of Magic Beast, that''s how you should be able to level up, after all. And, I need to get rid of my mana to open up space topletely infuse myself with the Nature Magic. Got it?" Eiro asked, although he quickly turned out rather annoyedly and looked at the cave entrance, "Jess, anything wrong? I don''t want to be interrupted."


    Slowly, the mage girl stepped out of the cave with an awkward smile, "Hehe... sorry about that. Just... what do you mean? You want to infuse your body with Nature Magic? But why..? And why after getting rid of your mana? And especially, how will you even create nature magic with the magic stones without your mana?" Jess asked, seemingly just incredible, incredibly curious about what Eiro wanted to do.


    "It''s pretty simple." Eiro said, slowly letting go of Lugo''s antlers for a little while to turn toward Jess properly, "I have a special constitution, so my body can fuse with magic pretty easily. I''m doing this so that I can awaken my Nature Magic talent into the proper skill more easily." Of course, this was aplete lie. Eiro didn''t have a talent for Nature Magic to begin with. Rather, he was trying to gain exactly that talent right now. And there was a pretty different reason for this all as well.


    "So, the thing about infusing yourself with magic is... Hmm..." Eiro said, trying to think of a good way to exin it. "Let''s say you have a bottle filled with water. The bottle is your body, and the water is your mana. Usually bottles like that aren''tpletely filled, right? There''s still a little bit of air in there."


    "Mhm?" Jess slowly nodded her head after listening to that part of the exnation, and Eiro quickly continued, "And then, let''s say you have some juice from a berry. That juice is a sort of elemental magic. You fill up the empty space in the bottle with that juice, and then you mix it with the water. That''s normal infusion. Now, just think about what happens when there are only a few drops of mana in the bottle to begin with?"


    "The bottle getspletely filled up with the juice?" Jess asked quietly in thought, and Eiro quickly nodded his head.


    "Exactly. By getting rid of your mana, you can fill your body with even more elemental magic. But since you can''t mix your own mana with mana of other people, you can''t ask someone else to pump magic into you. But rather coincidentally, I found that my body can indeed take in ambient mana somewhat safely. So, I will make the surprisingly refined, clear ambient mana gathering in the b below me create nature magic with the magic stones that I will then pull into my body."


    After a bit of thought, Jess just nodded her head and scratched her cheek, "Can I... maybe watch?"


    "Sure. And in case anything happens and I go out of control or something, make sure to help Lugo push me off the b and take away the magic stones. Alright?"


    "Yup! Will do!" She eximed excitedly, while Eiro once more grabbed Lugo''s antlers. Slowly, the Demon started pushing his mana into the stag''s body. His headache grew stronger and stronger until he was able to barely concentrate or even open his eyes properly. But then, Eiro pressed one of the nature magic stones onto the b beneath him and tried to use the little bit of mana that he could still use before he would be in danger to create a starting-flow between the b and the magic stone.


    From then on, the ambient mana that had nowhere to go, actually had a new path leading through the magic stone. Immediately, Eiro tried to make it flow into his arms, and just watched as his skin became slightly wooden, although his right hand didn''t change too much.


    Since such strong mana could jump short distances like this easily, Eiro slowly started lifting the magic stone off of the b and then pressed it against his chest so that he could actually properly make it flow into his heart. And the moment he did, nature magic started flowing through his whole body.


    [Your body has been infused with Nature. Your mana will flow more smoothly and your understanding of mana rises]


    Eiro could feel things all over his body change just so sligthly. It was harder to move his body because his skin became thicker and bark-like, and his crystal-like horns started growing out like branches. But soon, the changes slowed down. There were still some constant, miniscule changes going on through growth all over Eiro''s body, but it wasn''t anything that would be visible to the eyes of a normal person.


    That very moment, something else happened as well, though. The ''Mark of the Devil'' had absorbed part of the ambient mana that gathered in Eiro''s chest after he tried to use his tree as a staff, but it didn''t absorb all of it.


    There was still a small ''lump'' of it in his chest. A lump that simply continued to grow now that Eiro brought more ambient mana into the y. And at some point, a new notification appeared in front of the Demon.


    [Your mana is mixing with foreign mana]


    [Due to an overwhelming amount of foreign mana, your body is slowly changing]


    ''Good''. Eiro thought as he slowly closed his eyes. This is basically exactly what he wanted. Eiro was aware thatst time the situation was rather dangerous, but it wasn''t because of the foreign mana, but rather because it was too much mana for his body to handle. The changes that his body underwent were positive ones back then, really.


    The flow of his mana slightly increased, he felt a bit more agile in the long-term, and it felt like the build-up his muscle-memory was supported much more than before. Of course, the changes were miniscule back then, because Eiro didn''t do it for a long time. But now, it was different. Now, Eiro specifically wanted to get as much of this ambient foreign mana into his body as possible and make his body change even more.


    And why he was doing this while also infusing his body with the nature element? Well, it was quite simple. It wasn''t the only element he would infuse his body with, just the main one. He knew what the nature element was good for. It increased how well he could control mana in the first ce.


    Nature Magic was a kind that was more connected to the essence of mana as any. Simply because it increased the flow of mana this well, Eiro wanted his body to be influenced by it. It would surely passively increase how well Eiro could control his own mana.


    That, and he figured that it would also help him gain an affinity for the element if his body was directly influenced by it like that.


    The Demon felt the flow of the mana like never before while not fused with Nelli or Gondos, so he knew that it worked pretty well to an extent at least. Sure, the fact that the ''lump'' of foreign mana was increasing inside of his body wasn''t perfect, mostly because it felt a bit ufortable, but Eiro was pretty sure that he could make use of it in a few interesting ways.


    And like this, Eiro now continued to meditate like this. Instead of having mana flow through his body, he made the nature magic flow through him in a circle.


    More and more, the wood on his body kept growing. The branches atop his head grew longer and thicker, and roots grew out from his limps, crawling along the ground like snakes.


    Eiro continued this for a few hours, until he felt someone tap his shoulder, "What?" Eiro asked with a light growl, although he already immediately noticed what was wrong. On top of the cliff were a couple of monsters gathered. They were spider-like, and Eiro noticed them a couple times while they were on their way here in general. They probably followed them all the way here.


    "What are we going to do with those? We don''t have an archer, and they should be too quick to safely cast magic." James pointed out, "And I can''t reach them with my throwing knives either."


    With a light groan, Eiro sighed deeply and stood up, having to pull away his overgrown body from the b, "I''ll take care of it." Eiro said as he breathed out deeply and slowly got rid of the elemental mana inside of his body.. But even then, his body had changed a fair bit over the past few hours of absorbing foreign mana while circting nature magic inside of his body.

 Chapter 176 - Day Stalkers

    The length of Eiro''s horns had increased by maybe a pinky''s length, and his whole body feltpletely stiff. The flow of his mana was incredible, truly, but after having his body be under such direct influence of nature magic for that long didn''t do him well. Otherwise, the changes that Eiro underwent weren''t necessarily visible. He was pretty sure he grew around a centimeter, and his skin was a slight bit tougher than it was before.


    Despite the fact that his muscles were too stiff forfort, Eiro was pretty sure that his overall strength increased, even if it wasn''t by much. It was probably only enough to let Eiro lift a few kilos more than now. But even then, it was still a positive change, and the stiffness would disappear soon too. So the timing at which Eiro was woken up by James was perfect, really.


    The spiders had been following them the whole time, and were stalking Eiro from atop the cliff the whole time he was sitting there, but they still didn''t attack for some reason. Maybe they wanted to wait until Eiro was alone. Either way, Eiro chose to just get started and tried his best to climb up the side of the cliff with the help of Earth Magic, and once he was close enough to the top, one of the wolf-sized spiders actually tried to jump at the demon.


    Eiro pulled out his dagger and immediately shed at the spider, causing pale blue blood to spray out of the leg that Eiro managed to cut through instantly. "This weak, huh..?" Eiro muttered, and then pulled his spark-snapper out of his treasury. Quickly, he created a spark that soon turned into mes that immediately devoured the spider.


    [Lethal Damage done to Giant Day Stalker]


    Eiro watched the figure of the burning spider drop down, although Nelli quickly managed to extinguish it before it even hit the ground. The Demon quickly climbed up the rest of the way until he stood at the top of the cliff, surrounded by the other spiders.


    He extended the mes that were covering his hand to the dagger he was holding, and then proceeded to quickly get rid of these monsters. They weren''t particrly strong or anything, but there were a lot of them, so Eiro progressed a fair amount within the 99th level.


    "Perfect. Just a little more until I can evolve then. But I kind of wonder... what is it that lured these guys here?" Eiro muttered. At first he thought that it was some sort of residue of Leon''s skills, after all, these spiders had a quite great sense for things like magic, but at some point he figured out that they were after him instead.


    He was pretty curious about what they were going to do if Eiro let them follow them, but after a few hours of sitting there and watching Eiro, they didn''t even have the patience to stay hidden. Even James was able to find them at some point, after all.


    "Hm... is it because I''m a royal candidate..?" The Demon muttered quietly as he continued killing these spiders until none of them were left, "I doubt they would go after me just because of that... That''s too well-organized... Someone or something seems to be pulling the string..." As Eiro was trying to figure out what exactly was going on, he just started cutting off some of the tall grass growing at the top of this cliff to tie together the bodies of the spiders.


    Day Stalkers were pretty troublesome monsters after all, and getting the materials off just one of them was a D-Rank request at the guild. The materials off all of these should push him up within the D-Rank.


    And so, Eiro slowly climbed back down the side of the cliff after he gathered all of them up, trying to carry them with his tail and by hooking them up to his hips and elbows so that he wouldn''t need to climb up and down ten times.


    Soon, the roughly two-dozen day stalkers were down at the bottom of the cliff again. He quickly got rid of the pale blue blood sticking to his hands and clothes, and then ced all of the day stalkers onto the ground.


    He stepped over to the side and then just pushed his bare foot onto the ground, creating a small round hole, "James,e over here for a second." The demon said as he pulled over some of the Day Stalkers, and the Light Elf slowly approached while looking at the spiders'' dead bodies pretty impressed. They were mostly in pretty good condition, despite the burn-wounds covering most of them.


    "I''ll show you how to take them apart properly. This counts as butchering, and getting proficiency in any skill that may end up helping your dexterity is the most important thing right now." Eiro pointed out quickly, and then proceeded to do exactly what he said, while trying to give James some more lessons.


    Out of James, Krog and Jess, James was definitely the one that had to rely on direct technique, speed, and precision the most, being an assassin. It was important for him to be able to kill monsters as efficiently as possible.


    "With these sorts of monsters, you have to watch out. I know your instinct may tell you to go for the legs first and foremost, since they''re usually their main weapons and only way of proper defense, the carapace covering them will usually be able to withstand blows very easily. However, if you just straight-up attack the abdomen, you''ll end up damaging the materials. So, what else do you do?" Eiro asked James, and he just slightly sighed in response. It felt like Eiro was kind of looking down on him a bit here, despite having many years of experience as an adventurer.


    "If it''s a lot weaker than me and I''m properly prepared, I''ll try to attack ces like where the legs connect to the body, or better even, I try to disconnect the abdomen from the main body somehow. If it''s an actually risky situation, I''ll stop giving a fuck and attack wherever I can."


    "Yup. Perfect. I figured that would be your answer, but I just wanted to make sure. Now, do you know why I attacked them without any care for the carapace?" Eiro asked, and this time, James actually had to think about it a little. It didn''t directly make sense to him, since Eiro was obviously far stronger than these spiders. And then, he looked at the bodies of the spiders again.


    The only parts that were actually directly burnt up were areas covering the abdomen. James ran his hand over the carapace there once, and saw that it immediately started crumbling away.


    "Because... it''s too weak anyway?"


    "There we go." Eiro said with a smile on his face, "The only parts of a Day Stalker that have any direct worth are the blood, the venom, the legs, and the internal organs. Day Stalkers aren''tbat monsters, they''re just scouts."


    "Wait..." Krog intervened, "Aren''t those day stalker carapace things super expensive? I heard you can make really good stealth-boosting armor out of them."


    "Those are... Night Stalkers, I think." Jess pointed out, "Night Stalkers have the ability to blend in with their surroundings, but Day Stalkers don''t have that. What was their main ability again..?"


    "Analysis. Night Stalkers arebat types. Basically assassins. As I said, Day Stalkers are scouts, they''re just there to gather information. They''re a lot smarter than Night Stalkers. Their legs have a strong flow of mana, so they''re sometimes used for staffs or offerings. The rest is really just for potions, poisons, and medicine, like normal." Eiro exined, and then proceeded to teach James what he really needed to do to safely take the spiders apart.


    Like this, James could practice finding the weakspot of arachnid-type monsters, while also practicing the generic usage of his prosthetic.


    "But wait..." Krog pointed out, "If they''re scouts, then there must be actual attackers somewhere? But where''re those?"


    With a grin, Eiro stood up and let James finish everything alone, making him pour the blood into the hole Eiro made in the ground after covering it in a thinyer of ice to make sure the blood wouldn''t get dirty.


    "Perfect Question. We''ll look for them soon, there''s probably a nest somewhere around here. It''s a good ce to get you guys to level up a bit."


    After Eiro announced this, everyone thought about it for a little while, "There''s not just going to be Day Stalkers though, right? You think it''s really going to be safe?" Jess asked with a frown, and Eiro quickly nodded his head.


    "Mhm, I do. Otherwise I wouldn''t suggest it. In the first ce, I''ll be there as well, so I can help out of it gets too hard for you guys alone. Either way, it''s needed. James is an assassin, a ss that relies on stealth. Trying to get through stealth-based enemies and taking them out one by one is the perfect way for him to level up. For Krog, the best way to level up as a heavy warrior is to take on a lot of weaker enemies at once and letting them do light damage to him, since he''s both an offensive and defensive fighter. And you, Jess, are going to be able to make use of different types of magic for this depending on the situation, which will be needed a fair bit. Fire Magic for attack, wind magic for sound concealment, earth magic for move obstruction, things like that."


    After a little while of thinking about this, everyone seemed to agree to the idea of going in there and trying to level up like that. Due to the fact that they could now use Life Force maniption, and that James gained a new arm, theirbat prowess would increase considerably, allowing them to take on more enemies way safer. And having someone like Eiro there would also help their confidence in taking on a lot of monsters.


    At the end of the day, these three have only been really active as adventurers for the past two years, ignoring the few months that James was an adventurer eight years ago. For one, James had to recover properly while trying to adjust to his damaged body. He also had to figure out how to live with his grief.


    And Krog and Jess simply only started out as adventurers two years ago.


    For that, their growth-speed within the adventurer''s guild may not have been exceptional, but it was definitely still pretty good as far as Eiro was concerned. Krog and Jess were just around 18 or 19 years old, after all, despite the fact that Krog looked far older, and they both only had one or two sses before bing adventurers.


    But now that Eiro was there to push them a bit more, none of those excuses would be of any use.. Because Eiro would make sure they could all be worthwhile party members.

 Chapter 177 - Gravity

    While Eiro had James take the spiders apart properly, the Demon once more sat down on the stone b. He looked at Lugo in front of him and opened the stag''s status window.


    [Name ¨C Lugo][Race ¨C Forest Deer][Level ¨C 1]


    "Still level one... and no more progress within the level at all?" Eiro muttered with a light frown, "It seems like whatever you are, you''re not a Magic Beast... And you''re also not a monster, otherwise you would have made some progress within level 1 as well... You did help me out a little bit with that monster on the way to the swamp slimes before."


    Deep in thought, Eiro tried to figure out what exactly this could all mean, and what kind of creature Lugo actually was. Eiro had never heard or read about something like this.


    "Maybe the practice technique is wrong?" As Eiro mentally went through some possible reasons, Jess took a closer look at the pile of magic stones in front of the demon, and soon grew rather curious.


    "Eiro, what''s that purple one? I have never seen one like that before." She pointed out, and Eiro slowly turned around toward her, "Hm? Right, me neither, actually. It looks a bit simr to a spatial magic stone, but the shade ispletely off." Eiro said, "I guess there''s only one way to find out."


    And with that, the Demon picked up the small purple magic stone in front of him and pressed it against his chest. He made mana pour out of his hand, through the magic stone, and into his chest right into his heart. Immediately, Eiro''s body was put under different forces. He grew lighter for a few moments, before basically being forcefully pressed onto the b underneath him.


    Sometimes it felt like his body was going to be pulled to the side, or backward and forward, but it all somewhat settled a few momentster when a notification appeared in front of Eiro.


    [Your body has been infused with gravity. You will able to manipte the force acting on your body]


    Eiro looked down at himself, seeing basically not the slightest difference in his outer appearance, although he was positive that his body was actually being infused with... gravity magic. The Demon slowly stood up, and as he did, the weight of his body decreased for a while before going back to normal.


    When Eiro squatted back down, his weight momentarily increased again, before also returning to normal.


    The Demon thought about what exactly this could mean, before simply trying to manipte this magic inside of his body.


    Eiro made it all move upward inside of him to make his weight lighter, before he simply jumped up, reaching twice the height whenpared to normal. But that wasn''t the only effect of this, but his body was also falling far, far slower than normal.


    "Wait, you can fly?" Jess asked confusedly, "Is it because of that magic stone?"


    Eiro slowly pulled the magic stone away from his chest and tried to dispel the magic for now as he exined, "It''s gravity magic. I wasn''t flying, I just jumped like normal, and that ''gliding'' there was me falling down again."


    The Demon slowly looked at the magic stone in his hand while trying to think about what to do with it. Right now, it would probably be smarter to try and keep it like this so that he could infuse his body with it, but... It would be far more useful to actually have gravity magic as a skill.


    It would be impossible to get it without having more magic stones, because the growth in his affinities is justpletely miniscule even when directly infusing himself with magic directly, even when Eiro was making use of the fact that foreign mana would change his body. Eiro was positive that he had to use up all of these nature magic stones and probably more to be able to even get to a point where he might be able to train to awaken nature magic, without even awakening it as a skill yet.


    Either way, for now, trying to use this gravity magic stone up to increase his affinity was useless. The Goblins might find more of this in the mines at some point, so if that happened, Eiro might consider it.


    "It''s surely going to be useful. Here, you can take a closer look at it if you want, but try not to use up too much of the magic inside of it." Eiro told Jess as he stretched his hand out and gave the gravity magic stone to the young woman.


    With a happy and excited expression, Jess took the light purple magic stone into her hands and then started to take a closer look at it, all the whilst Eiro grabbed another nature magic stone. Just like that, he chose to simply continue pushing this magic into his body so that he could gain nature magic as soon as possible. It would definitely be quite an amazing asset.


    Eiro continued on doing this for the next few hours, until right after sunset, and at that point, ended up using up two whole magic stones. He grew around another centimeter in size, and his horns especially became ratherrge. Annoyingly so, actually. Hopefully that would change after Eiro evolved one more time though, or else it would be tough hiding his horns in the future.


    He already figure out that by infusing only his horns with shadow magic, he could simply ''fold'' them down a little and make them press against Eiro''s head. He would most likely have to resort to that for a while until he figured something else out.


    "Daddy..." Avalin muttered quietly as she looked at the Demon who just sat down on one of the nearly-broken wooden boxes, "Why are we here..?" She asked while tiredly rubbing her eyes, "I want to see Sammy and Clemmy... And Arc and Rudy..."


    With a light smile, Eiro just picked the young girl up and sat her down on hisp, "Don''t worry, we''ll be going back in a few more days."


    "But I want to go back now..!" Avalin whined slightly, while Eiro just rubbed the top of her head a bit, "Are Leon and I not enough for you?" He asked, and Avalin, with tears in the corners of her eyes, pressed her face against Eiro''s chest while shaking her head. "You are, but I want to see them too..."


    Eiro slightly sighed while he tried to figure out the best thing to do to cheer her up a little, before turning his eyes toward Nelli, telling her to make some of her water appear.


    With just a few movements of his hand, Eiro started to take control of that water. Avalin and Leon were still wearing their thick winter clothes, so Eiro could do this without worries, but he swiftly spread the water out around the room and turned it into ice. To be exact, ice in the shape of small flowers that were covering the ground, exactly like Winterblossoms.


    "You remember these, right?" Eiro asked with a smile as he slowly made Avalin turn around toward the ice-flowers that appeared near to instantly, "Mhm... From the forest, right? During winter soll... sols... solstace?"


    "Exactly right, during winter solstice." Eiro replied, while Avalin slowly became distracted while looking at the flowers and remembering their old house, "We''ll be back home with the others before the pretty lights appear in the sky, alright? This year, we''re all going to watch them together. I heard that the capital city has a huge festival as well. Do you want us all to go there and have fun together?"


    For a few moments, Avalin thought about it before starting to nod her head excitedly. She still had some tears in the corners of her eyes from before, but Eiro quickly rubbed them away, before noticing the expressions Krog, Jess and James.


    Jess seemed to be gushing over how cute Avalin was while being more than just impressed at the ice flowers that Eiro basically instantly made. Krog was just rolling his eyes at that rather embarrassing disy, while James had a quite bitter expression on his face. This was something that Eiro didn''t miss either. It was obvious that James would be reminded of the ''original'' Avalin through things like this.


    Luckily, someone quickly came to interrupt all this a bit, getting rid of the somewhat troublesome atmosphere.


    "Master! Gobo here! Gobo speak Master!" The Hobgoblin eximed from outside, and Eiro slowly let Avalin down on the ground and walked over toward the exit, where Gobo was currently waiting for Eiro.


    The Demon stepped out of the cave and sighed as he looked at the Hobgoblin Chief, "Mhm? What is it?"


    "Gobo want... want fire!" It pointed out, and Eiro slowly raised his brows, "You want fire? You have a big one going right over there, right?" The Demon asked, and Gobo quickly shook his head.


    "Not big fire! Shiny fire!" Gobo said excitedly. It seemed like he saw Eiro make use of the magic stones in different ways before, and now wanted to know how he could use the fire magic stones in particr.


    The Demon sighed and held his hand forward, telling Gobo to give him the magic stone he was holding, and them immediately pushed his mana inside.


    mes shot forward the moment this happened, and Eiro made sure to properly control them, but Gobo still flinched in response to the sudden fire floating through the air.


    "Is this what you mean?" Eiro asked the Hobgoblin, and he quickly nodded his head with pure excitement, "Shiny fire! Yes!"


    After a bit of thought, Eiro simply handed the magic stone back to Gobo and nodded his head, "Tomorrow morning, when it''s bright again,e over here with the other Hobgoblins. Then I will teach you how to make this fire. That, and many other things." Eiro said in a clear tone, all the whilst Gobo showed his dirty, yellow teeth in a bright smile and turned away excitedly before running off.


    With a bit of a groan, Eiro stepped into the cave again, before looking at the slime, "Do you know what we need to seal away the monstrosity of the hobgoblins?"


    "Yes, and we have all of it as well. It''s like I guessed." The slime replied immediately, albeit while obviously being rather annoyed, and Eiro turned away in satisfaction, to look at Jess.


    "Come, help me prepare some affinity tests for five people." Eiro told her, and Jess lightly tilted her head to the side in thought, "Five people? Wait, do you mean the hobgoblins? Do you want to teach them magic?"


    Quickly, Eiro shrugged in response, "If they have the right talent for it, then maybe. But no, my main focus is to find out what kind of skill talent they might have. We can''t test those things too easily, so I at least want to try and figure it out using magic affinities and talents. If they have talents for nonbat things, I''ll teach them some smaller crafts or try to make them better miners, if they have talent for magic-orientedbat, I''ll teach them magic, and if they have talent for non-magic-orientedbat, then I''ll teach them to fight.. As easy as that."

 Chapter 178 - Ancient Names

    In the morning, Eiro waited outside of the cave together with Jess and the Slime. Eiro was trying to make sure that he kept the Slime warm, because he didn''t want him to mess the sealing of the hobgoblins'' monstrosity up because he was too cold.


    Soon, the five hobgoblins made their way over toward Eiro, while Gobo smiled broadly, "Gobo bring Hobs! Give shiny fire!" He eximed, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Sure. In a bit. First,e over here, Gobo." The Demon told the Hobgbolin Chief, who quickly came over and squatted down in front of Eiro. The slime crawled up Eiro''s arm, and then looked at the Mountain Hobgoblin.


    "We made the concoction already, now you need to do the rest. We slimes never did the direct application, but I can walk you through it." The Slime pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Fair enough. Then what do I need to do?" Eiro asked. The Slime quickly exined.


    "Pick up the concoction, preferably with water magic so that you ain''t gonna dirty it somehow, and then apply it on its chest in this pattern." As the Slime spoke, it turned part of its body t and then painted a pattern of some sort of magic-circle, or rather sealing-circle, onto its own body. Eiro nodded his head and then looked at Gobo.


    "Lay down on your back." Eiro said, and without hesitation, Gobo did as told. It was good that he knew how to followmands. Eiro wasn''t entirely sure how such a submissive Hobgoblin ever became the chief of this ce and then became as arrogant as he was the first time they met, but he didn''t care too much either. As long as he was submissive like this now, Eiro didn''t care.


    The demon pushed his finger toward the wooden bowl filled with the liquid, which had a tone of red so dark that it nearly looked ck and then created a small stream between the bowl and his finger. He pulled it over toward Gobo''s chest and drew exactly what the Slime showed him. And despite the bowl meant for Gobo not being empty yet, the slime stopped him.


    "Oi, that''s enough. I made more just in case we needed it, but overdoing it just because we have enough isn''t good, especially when ites to this kinda stuff. Too much medicine is gonna kill you as well, you know?"


    "Mhm, got it." Eiro said, and then just stopped, making sure that the sealing-circle really had an equal amount of the concoction everywhere, and then looked back at the Slime.


    "And now... hold the Hobgoblin down as tightly as possible so that it can''t move." It told Eiro, who quickly did just that using Earth Magic, wrapping some rock around Gobo''s arms, neck, hips and legs.


    "Repeat what I say while pushing mana into the concoction. And make sure the mana is evenly spread around." The slime said, and then started, "Sird harr requim, partus harr requom. Urtur krus harr orgum, urtur..."


    Eiro started repeating the chant that the slime was saying while pushing his mana into the concoction, and then saw the reason for why Gobo had to be held down like this. The concoction literally dug itself into the Hobgoblin''s skin in a rather painful manner. The Hobgoblin''s skin sizzled like Eiro''s skin did when he came in contact with Holy Energy back in the day, parting like someone pushed a hot metal rod through loose snow.


    But the moment that the concoction dug itself deeper into the Hobgoblin''s body, its skin and flesh grew back and covered the concoction up. At that point, the chant was finished as well.


    [You have sealed Gobo''s Monstrosity]


    [Beginner Sealing Arts skill learned!]


    [Beginner Sealing Arts skill leveled up!]


    [Beginner Sealing Arts skill leveled up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [Beginner Sealing Arts skill leveled up!]


    Just like this, in one go, Eiro learned a pretty useful skill and leveled it up to level 8 instantly. How nice. Gobo was breathing heavily as the pain in his chest slowly subsided and Eiro removed the ''rock shackles''.


    The Hobgoblin slowly sat up and held its chest in a bit of a panic, "Gobo no pain?" He asked, surprisingly calm after all this, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Mhm, no pain. Sorry about that, we had to do this." The Demon told him, and then pointed at a spot over to the side.


    "Sit down over there for now. We''ll do the same to the other Hobgoblins now, and then we''ll try to teach you how to make that ''shiny fire'', alright?" Eiro asked, and Gobo slowly moved over there and just sat down. It was weird, usually Gobo still looked around and especially red at the people here, but now he was just calmly observing what Eiro was doing.


    Who knew, maybe a monster''s monstrosity was the main thing holding them off from easily getting more intelligent? After all, up to the median noble area, most monsters wereplete and utter morons. But above then, they were mostly quite smart. This just showed that at some point, you couldn''t gain more strength without being smart enough about it.


    Either way, for now, Eiro repeated the same process with the other Hobgoblins. And sure, they were screaming while it was happening because of the pain, but it simply disappeared the moment the process waspletely done and they were calm and somewhat excited, so it most likely always made the other hobgoblins think that it wasn''t that big a deal, and they readily followed Eiro''smand because they were more scared of him than what he was doing to them right here.


    "Alright, we''re done." The slime said, "Can you let me get back inside to the fire now? I''m cold as shit." The slimeined, and Eiro just nodded and went ahead to throw the slime through the cave''s entrance, quickly trying to ignore the insultsing from the slime afterward. Instead, he paid attention to Jess, who was currently staring at the five surprisingly calm hobgoblins sitting in front of them.


    "Did this really happen? They''re basically just not monsters anymore?" Jess asked, but the Demon quickly shook his head, "They still have monster-abilities and instincts. The only thing that they can''t ess right now is this part about them that simply forces them to be aggressive. To kill. To hate. That kind of stuff."


    "Ah... I see. So they''re good guys now?"


    "What, you think every person is a good guy?" James asked from the cave entrance, as he came out to check up on Jess and Eiro after the slime was thrown in there, "They''re still monsters. Even without the thing that forces them to, they lived their life so far with that thing inside of them. They''re calmer now, but I doubt they''re ''good guys'' now. I mean, there''s more than enough bandit subjugation requests at the guild at any time, right?" The Light Elf pointed out. Eiro slowly turned around and nodded his head. James basically said what Eiro was about to say as well.


    They weren''t just pacifists all of a sudden, they were still dangerous. It was just that it was now possible to train them to resist their monstrosity.


    "Anyway..." Eiro started, "Let''s test their magic affinities now." The Demon pointed out, and one by one called the Hobgoblins forward.


    The first of them was the Hobgoblin that was second-tallest right after Gobo. He had a talent for earth magic to be used inbat, although it didn''t seem to be the caster-variant. Meaning, this Hobgoblin wasn''t an Earth Mage, but rather something like a heavy warrior that could take in a lot of damage. Eiro already figured something like this just through this Hobgoblin''s health.


    "Your name will be Clypt." Eiro said, and the Hobgoblin seemed confused at what Eiro said before seeing the notification in front of it. Of course, Eiro quickly remembered what was written there to cross-reference it.


    Either way, slowly, the Hobgoblin nodded his head, and now had the proper name ''Clypt'', "Wait, you''re naming them? And why Clypt?" Jess asked as she prepared the next affinity test, and Eiro looked at the freshly-named Hobgoblin.


    "Makes it easier to call them. Better than just saying ''You'' all the time. And ''Clypt'' is the Ancient-Language word for ''Shield''. He will train to be a Heavy Warrior, so he will be the shield." Eiro exined quickly, and Jess slowly raised her brows, "You''re that familiar with the ancientnguage? I only barely remembered spells so far... Somehow, whenever I try to learn the ancientnguage''s words themselves, it just never sticks, you know?"


    "I understand what you mean. The only reason I remember it is because I have my ''Memory of a Schr'' ability. And even though I''ve been studying the Ancient Language for a couple years now, I still didn''t get anything like a skill. My guess is that there''s something missing to all of it. I couldn''t figure out what it is just yet though." Eiro pointed out, before he took a look at the results of the next Hobgoblin''s test.


    It was one of the two female ones, and it seemed like this one had an affinity for fire magic meant to be used inbat, in a simr way as Clypt did. So it seemed like this one here was meant to be a swordswoman.


    "Your name will be t." Eiro said, and the Hobgoblin quickly epted. She was given the Ancient-Language word for ''Sword'' as a name. Then there was the male Hobgoblin with an affinity to be a wind mage, so Eiro called him ''Vent'', for ''Wind''.


    The fourth Hobgoblin, the second female one, had minor affinity forbat water and wind magic, but not to be a mage. Eiro thought thebination was good enough to have this one be an Archer, so he called this one ''Sagit'' for ''Arrow''.


    And then atst, there was Gobo. Surprisingly, he actually had multiple affinities. His greatest was for Fire, and he seemed to have the possibility to awaken advanced elemental magic for it, but he also had a strong affinity for the Darkness element. Both of them werebat-based, so Eiro just nodded his head in satisfaction.


    "Then I guess we should really get started, shouldn''t we?" Eiro suggested, "Teach Gobo how to manipte his mana. And Gobo, you listen to her, or I''ll seriously kill you. I''ll go ahead and try to teach these guys the Commonnguage to be up to par with Gobo at least.. So that they can start speaking to each other a little, and then next time Ie here, I can start teaching them how to read, maybe."

 Chapter 179 - Goblin Language

    Eiro sat down in front of these four Hobgoblins with Leon on hisp. The young boy was currently practicing to only extend one of his two auras outward, the ''Love'' aura. Of course, this practice also included weakening the aura. Surprisingly, Leon was able to control this incredibly easy, a little too easy as far as Eiro could tell.


    "You''re a little genius, aren''t you?" The demon concluded, and Leon just looked up at him with a broad smile, "Hehe." Heughed, and Eiro looked forward at the Hobgoblins who werepletely and utterly focused on Eiro and Leon due to the boy''s aura.


    The Demon pointed at himself and said "Eiro." multiple times, trying to make the Hobgoblins say what he did. Surprisingly, it actually worked out pretty well, and the four of them soon said Eiro''s name. Whether or not they understood what it meant and that it really was Eiro''s name was to be debated, but at least this was a start. Then, Eiro pointed at the Hobgoblins one by one and made them say their own names until they seemingly made the actual mental connections and one after another learned the ''Beginner Common Language Comprehension'' skill.


    Of course, thest amongst the bunch was Clypt, the one who Eiro expected to be something of a meathead amongst them. It would probably turn out to be a slight bit of a bother to teach him especially. Either way, now that Eiro knew a few more words in the goblinnguage, he could finally get started properly. One by one, Eiro repeated the words he had been reading in the Goblins'' notification whose actual meaning Eiro knew by now. First, he wanted to make them understand what their status said, so he went ahead with that.


    At first, Eiro wasn''t entirely sure if this would be as easy as he hoped it would be, but as heard Gobo speak a couple of times already, he was able to somewhat learn the pronounciation of the Goblin-Language''s Letters.


    He made the Hobgoblins repeat the words in theirnguage once first, and then in themonnguage. They would do this a couple of times before moving on to the next word. And soon enough, rather after the first word, a notification appeared in front of the Demon as well.


    [Beginner Goblin Language Comprehension Skill learned!]


    With satisfaction, Eiro ran his fingers through the notification to make it disappear again, and then continued on teaching the goblins. The speed at which the notifications telling Eiro about the fact that this Language Comprehension skill leveled up was actually rather annoying if Eiro had to bepletely honest.


    Either way, for now, Eiro just continued teaching these Hobgoblins how to speak. It took a while to get them to even get the gist of it, but their levels all rose rtively quickly. It seemed like because they knew the Goblin Language Comprehension skill, they were able to learn themonnguage pretty quickly as well. After all, a lot of parts of anguage could just be transferred knowledge-wise, so it might have been easier for them to learn than Eiro expected.


    The same seemed to be the case with Eiro himself, as his Goblin Language Comprehension skill level rose very quickly. Of course not as quick as his Common Language Comprehension skill level did after Avalin used that ''skill boost'' on him. Actually, that did remind Eiro of something.


    "James." The Demon eximed as he slightly turned around, and the Light Elf came back out of the cave a few momentster, "Mhm?" He asked with a slightly annoyed tone, and Eiro just looked at him curiously.


    "Back then, where did you get that Spell Tome? The one that you, Thomas and Avalin bought together? The skill boost from that was pretty useful." Eiro pointed out, and Jess looked at the Demon confusedly.


    "Wait, skill boost? You got your hands on a spell tome with the skill boost spell in it? How?" Jess asked as she moved her sight over toward James, and the Light-Elf shrugged.


    "Bought it at Zaragon''s. That piece of shi-..." James started, although he soon saw Leon sitting on Eiro''sp and then sighed annoyedly, "Eh, sorry... But well, that guy did have pretty useful things like that. It was technically illegal to buy stuff from him, but it didn''t only happen once that we ran into guards or nobles that were also looking for Zaragon''s door. And not to ''arrest'' Zaragon or something." James exined, and Eiro sighed out annoyedly. It would be bothersome if that ce was the only one you could find a tome like that. It would definitely be more than just useful to get his hands on more skill boosts.


    But then, Eiro remembered something important, "Wait, the things that Zaragon had didn''t fit a theme or anything like that... Did he just pick up random things to sell them?"


    "Not really, I heard that he can''t ever leave the room he''s in. Apparently he has a basically infinite amount of money on him at all times or something, so he could just always buy up anything that people had to offer." James exined, and Eiro slightly sighed.


    "I get the situation. It makes finding and killing Zaragon a bit more bothersome, but at least there''s good news in there. It should be possible to find spell tomes like that, or at least someone that can make spell tomes with skill boost spells in them." Eiro pointed out.


    It seemed like James was a little confused at what Eiro meant. Of course the second part made sense, but the first part didn''t really, "What do you mean it''s going ot be a bit more bothersome to find and kill him?"


    "Well..." The demon started, "When <The Sun> attacked the capital and we were caught up in it, part of the building waspletely obliterated. I remember the view from back then. Everything after that is a bit hazy because that''s just how it is when you use the ace of cups, but I still remember the rough position of the room itself. The door led me back to where we entered, but... Zaragon''s room or domain or whatever was inside of the castle, I''m pretty sure. It seemed like some kind of side-tower, so it wasn''t hit by the attack directly, but it was still hit by the attack a little at least."


    After a bit of thought, James seemd to want to try and remember the view from back then as well, but actually miserably failed to do so. Whenever he tried to remember what happened then, he just started to panic and lost control of his breathing.


    "Eiro, listen, I-"


    "Don''t." The demon said immediately, "You''ve had that expression every single time while you''ve been somewhat reminded of that time. You keep looking at me simrly anyway, but it''s unbearable when you''re like that. If you want to say something, do it after you calm down." Eiro said with a light re.


    And so, James simply quietly turned around, leaving Eiro quite annoyed. Honestly, he didn''t want to hear it. He didn''t want to hear any sort of ''apology'' from James. Sure, he didn''t necessarily have a grudge against James from back then. They surely had their reasons to sell Eiro, and especially James seemed to have reasons to hate him like that. But even then, Eiro was positive that he would get absolutely pissed off the moment that James tried to apologize for acting the way he did, which he surely wanted to do just there.


    He didn''t know why, maybe it was because of the mark of wrath, or he just had some kind of grudge that he didn''t want to admit. Either way, if Eiro were to ept any sort of apology, it wouldn''t be one that was voiced out of a mixture of panic, fear and guilt. Rather, Eiro would prefer it to have the apology wait until he could actually trust that James was genuine about it.


    In order to ignore the awkward stares from Jess, Eiro just looked forward at the Hobgoblins to keep teaching them a bit ofmon. Vent, the soon-to-be wind mage, in particr learned rather quickly. It seemed like he would overtake Gobo pretty soon, actually. It kind of made sense, since Gobo most likely wasn''t directly taught like this, but just picked up parts ofmon after being around his owners for a while.


    Eiro was a special case, not everyone would be able to make such connections as quickly as he did. Either way, Eiro tried to bring theirmongnguageprehension to a simr ce as Gobo''s for now. They were still at roughly a third of Gobo''s skill''s level, so they would have to keep going for a day or two more to properly get to the same point Gobo was at.


    Luckily, the Hobgoblin''s attention didn''t wane in the slighest due to Leon''s ''Love'' aura, and Eiro could keep teaching them for the whole day like this. But his n wasn''t to just teach themnguage. At some point, they were able to understand Eiro to an extent, so he could get started with teaching them how to use their weapons tomorrow. Eiro had been working on simple wooden training weapons while he was teaching them themonnguage. Arge sword and tower-shield for Clypt, a bow for Sagit, as well as a regr sword for t. The biggest issue was what he was supposed to give Vent and Gobo.


    With Vent, Eiro just chose to make a simple small wand with a wind magic stone set into it that Vent could practice with. Eiro didn''t have a lot of wood that could be used for staffs or wands with him, so he didn''t want to use too much of it.


    And when it came to Gobo, it was simply that Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what he should make him. Just judging from Gobo''s sizepared to other Hobgoblins, it was obvious that he wasn''t supposed to have talent for being an assassin or scout, which one might expect from someone with affinity for the darkness element.


    Rather, to Eiro it seemed like Gobo would simply be capable of being a rather uniquebatist as long as he properly made use of his darkness ability. And just to y around with the idea, Eiro made abat-pole for Gobo. He would probably make a few more different weapons to see which Gobo had the most innate talent for, and then they would see if they could figure anything out.


    In the end, while Eiro was gone, these five had to take up the role of protecting the Demon''s precious magic stone mine, after all.

 Chapter 180 - Spider Subjugation

    "t. Straight back." Eiro said, holding onto the Hobgoblin Swordswoman''s shoulder and pushing it back while lightly pressing onto her lower back. Since she seemed to adjust to this rather quickly, the demon moved on. "Sagit. Hand on your chin." He told the archer, making sure that the hand that she held the bowstring with was positioned properly.


    "And you, Gobo..." The Demon looked the Hobgoblin''s stance up and down and tried to figure out if there was anything wrong with it in particr, and then smiled in satisfaction, "Abat-pole was perfect for you, huh?" Eiro muttered, "Well, all five of you, keep doing this all day until we''re back." Eiro told them, and the five Hobgoblins didn''t even seem to think about doing anything but follow the Demon''smand.


    Seeing that this was the case, Eiro closed down the entrance to the cave that he and the others had been using as a small base and then lifted Avalin and Leon up to Lugo''s back.


    "Can we go?" Krog asked impatiently, already eagerly waiting to leave, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Mhm. Then lead the way. I''ll take over when we''re outside again."


    And so, the group swiftly left the Goblin vige again and went on their way to the nest of the spiders that followed them before. On their way, Krog inquired about something that he seemed to be quite curious about.


    "So, about the Life Force maniption thing..." He started, "How long did it take you to reach the point we''re at right now?"


    After a bit of thought, Eiro looked the others up and down to see how they were doing. Eiro instructed them to try and concentrate their life force onto their legs and back for this, since that would make the hike a bit easier. At the same time, it let Eiro figure out how well they could manipte their life force at this point.


    "Hm... I think it took me a couple of hours, maybe." Eiro pointed out, "But be aware, with my schr ability, I am able to relive anything I have ever done as if I was doing it again nearly instantaneously. So basically, I was able to instantly figure out what mistakes I made and where I might be able to change something for the better. At the beginner stages, it''s not really necessary to do physical training to increase your control of life force, after all."


    With a confused expression, Krog started slowing down, "Wait, then why was I carrying a fu-... really heavy boulder around on our way here? You said it was to help me with the maniption training."


    "Yeah, I did. And it probably did. I said it''s not necessary to do physical training, not that physical training is useless. My method isn''t necessarily viable for someone like you." With that exnation, Eiro looked at Jess and James, "For those two, it did make sense. So, I showed Jess a training method simr to the mana maniption training I''m having her do simultaneously. And James just had to fill his prosthetic up properly, because it''s really hard to manipte the life force of others. I thought this way was a good practice fitted to your individual needs."


    "Eh... Are you calling me too dumb to use that kinda training?" Krog muttered, since that''s what he understood from what Eiro said, and the Demon just shook his head annoyedly, "Despite the fact that this was an incredibly dumb question, no, I don''t think you''re dumb. But out of everyone here, you simply have the least talent for any sort of magic casting or maniption, as most warriors like you do. And there''s nothing wrong with that, but since Life Force maniption is somewhat simr to mana maniption, I''m pretty sure that you would struggle with that method. So instead, we''re using this different method for you. And it''s working perfectly, you''ve made very simr progress to Jess and James." Eiro exined, "So stopining already, it''s annoying."


    It seemed like Krog properly understood what Eiro was getting at with this, so he ended up rather satisfied, although this all opened up more nervosity from someone else.


    "Actually, why am I learning how to manipte my Life Force? Do you want me to start fighting? I mean, like... Hitting others with my staff or something?" Jess asked rather nervously, and Eiro slowly shook his head. And then he realized that he forgot about a pretty important part of the exnation aboutbat making use of Life Force.


    Without hesitation, Eiro bit into his index finger to make a little bit of bloode out, and then froze that blood and turned it into something like a w. He looked at Lugo and made him stop, and then made James, Jess and Krog gather around him.


    He grabbed each of their arms and just so slightly pricked their arms with that small w.


    "This is how it normally is, right? Just one damage done to each of you, like the slight prick of a needle. It''s damage that recovers nearly immediately." Eiro exined, and then went ahead to just prick their arms again. This time, however, it was when he had Life Force in the w and pushed it into the others during the pricking.


    "What the..? It did five damage?" James asked with a deep frown, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Mhm. In order to increase the damage that I did to you guys, I used up some of my life force just now. It was worth roughly 10 Health for each one of you. That means it''s something fairly dangerous inbat, since it costs more than it brings, but it''s something that can change the tide of a battle." Eiro exined to them, and then chose to start walking again to exin the rest while they were moving.


    "This kind of thing is definitely useful, but it''s simply not possible for most meeleebatists, because their health is their greatest ressource during a fight, and because it''s hard to find a good way to make use of this ability that wouldn''tpletely negate the damage your weapon would normally do, because you need a part of your body for it, for example blood. It''s different for a mage, as long as you can manipte water, you can make use of these sorts of attacks as well. That''s why you''re learning it as well, Jess."


    "So... Instead of wanting me to start fighting people in close quarters, you want me to cut into my hand and basically sacrifice my own health in return for doing more damage?"


    "Yes, and no. It''s ast straw, really. As I said, it can turn the tide of a battle. You don''t need to turn the tide if it''s flowing in your favor already." Eiro replied, "That, and being able to use more physical strength than others would expect should also be pretty useful in many situations. In case someone tries to overwhelm you when you don''t expect it. I heard of that kind of thing, which is a huge reason for why I''m going to teach it to my girls as well."


    "Right..." James replied with a wry smile as he looked at Avalin on Lugo''s back, while she was simply looking around excitedly as if it was her first time opening her eyes ever, "A girl like that, running around with disproportionate strength... Sounds about right."


    With a light smile, Eiro just moved on and looked forward. They were getting somewhat close to the spider-nest, so he chose to wrap it up for now, "Anyway, for a week''s worth of practice, I''d say all of your guys'' progress is pretty good. So go ahead and show me that progress. We''re nearly there." Eiro told them, and it really only took a few minutes to find the first proof of the fact that the demon waspletely right.


    Cobwebs were spread around the trees and it was nearly impossible to walk a single step without making some sort of contact with some of them. Numerous small, unthreatening spiders were crawling around the trees, and Eiro could already notice the firstrger spiders, the monsters, approaching. And so, Eiro turned toward Leon.


    "Alright, so instead of your red aura, we''ll try the same with the ck one, alright?" Eiro asked, and watched as Leon slowly closed his eyes. Step by step, Eiro walked the boy through this, and soon felt light goosebumps on his skin.


    The small spiders on the ground were already avoiding Lugo now as well, so it really all seemed to work properly. They would just need to adjust it a little so that the spiders wouldn''t end up attacking Avalin, Leon and Lugo but would still approach Jess, James and Krog. They would be walking in a slight distance to each other anyway, but this was still a pretty useful practice for Leon.


    These abilities were really incredibly useful as long as Leon was able to actually control them. They were obviously also quite dangerous, but Eiro trusted that his son wouldn''t just go on random rampages without any reason, so it was fine.


    "You three, from now on, I won''t be helping you except when it gets life-threatening for you. I won''t help you find your way to the nest, or warn you of enemies. Just do your best." Eiro announced to them rather clearly, and since the three of them were already prepared for this to begin with, they just nodded their heads and got ready forbat, while Eiro did his best to at least somewhat distract the children so that they wouldn''t have to see fights like this for a whole day.


    Soon, the first spiders approached, and they were taken out rather quickly by the party of three while they were working together. It might have even been a little faster than the time it took Eiro to kill the spiders at the top of the cliffst night.


    Either way, the fact that these spiders were now killed meant that Jess, James and Krog gained the attention of the whole group. And so, without stopping, the three of them just fought and fought and fought. They stayed surprisingly silent, as they were mostly able tomunicate without words, as if they had some sort of telepathic bond.


    It was pretty impressive, and Eiro could tell that after just an hour, all of them actually leveled up at least once. James actually managed to level up twice. At first, Eiro thought that with two arms James'' strength was far, far higher than he remembered, but then, he noticed the James was actually overdoing himself a little.


    He was fighting like he really had two proper arms, but it really wasn''t like that. James wasn''t used to fighting like this anymore, but he himself dind''t notice this.. To Eiro, it seemed like this subjugation would get rather interesting.

 Chapter 181 - Use Your Fists

    From the backlines, without lifting a single finger, Eiro watched Jess, James and Krog fight against masses of dog-sized spiders.


    Of course, he was a bit busy making sure that Leon and Avalin didn''t see anytihng that was going on, but Eiro still sensed everything that was going on around here nheless. Eiro thought about how exactly these three would fare against the masses of spiders inside of the ce they turned into their nest.


    After all, even if they were doing well right now, that was only the case because they had rtively much space to fight. The tightly-knit system of trees, rocks, and underground tunnels that was the spiders'' nest had none of that. There would be monsters all around them from any possible direction, and they would need to fight their way through there ording to Eiro''s instructions if they wanted to get stronger. Each for their own reasons, of course.


    Eiro crossed his arms and looked through the area. It didn''t seem like there were too many spiders around at the moment, and the ones that were were simply scouts that didn''t think they could survive attacking them. They would probably still do so at some point, but for now, this was a good chance.


    "Update me." Eiro eximed toward them, and with breaths that showed that they were far more exhausted than they were when they first came here they slowly opened their statuses, and Eiro quickly got the update he asked for by looking into their eyes.


    James had leveled up four times in total, and Jess and Krog three times. It was surprisingly quick, really. But this just showed just how little these guys had actually been concentrating on gaining strength. Money was probably their priority, so they took requests that brought them money even if it meant that they couldn''t grow too much stronger with that method.


    Eiro was a bit disappointed, but he figured it wasn''t that unreasonable in the end. With a wave of his hand, the Demon started extracting the blood from the different types of spiders, "Gondos, Nelli, clean this up alright?" Eiro asked, and the two spirits quickly did as asked. Since they also knew that they could calm down for a little bit, the others inquired about something they were wondering about for the past few hours.


    "Why do you..." Jess asked before trying to swallow with her dry mouth, "... collect all that blood? And then refine it?"


    With a slight sigh, Eiro pointed at the sk at Jess'' side, "Drink something first. You use chants while spellcasting, so don''t let your mouth and throat dry up." The Demon said, and while Jess quickly did as told while Eiro started to exin, "And well, it''s rather simple. Clean Monster blood is really useful. So Nelli and Gondos are removing any impurities in it so that I can use this blood to y around a little."


    As Eiro exined this, he moved the bits of blood that Nelli and Gondos just finished to the orbs of blue blood of different shades and amounts above his body, "What do you mean you want to y around with it? As in like... Witchcraft offerings?" James asked with a light frown.


    "Heh? Where did you get that from?" Eiro replied immediately, "Of course not. Sure, I''m trying to read up on witchcraft, but it''s illegal everywhere I go so I can''t find anything on it anywhere. No, what I mean is that monster blood is a good fodder for seeds."


    "Seeds? What''d''ya mean?" Krog asked with a confused expression as he kept looking around to make sure they wouldn''t be approached. Eiro wouldn''t warn them right now anymore, after all.


    After a bit of thought, Eiro just shrugged and exined, "I know that all you''ve seen me do is carve wood for practice, but you know that I''m not a carver, right? I''m a prosthetist, I learned that profession for years. Being a prosthetist doesn''t just mean carving prosthetics, at least not to me and my teacher. It means imbuing a piece of wood with life. It''s like the prosthetic bes your child, so you care for it from the moment it is born to the moment you hand it off to another person. And of course, you make sure that the other person is a good fit for it as well." Eiro exined, but Krog still didn''t fully understand, something that Eiro could tell immediately.


    "Alright, then let me say it more clearly, sorry. The skills that I currently have in rtion to my profession amount to three. Intermediate grade carving, as well as apprentice botany and zoology. My first goal is to bring botany and zoology to intermediate as well. I''m trying to achieve both at the same time. I take the lives of Monsters to learn more about them, and then take both that knowledge and their bodies to create new life in the form of my work." The Demon said, trying to be more clear this time around, "So, once I get my hands on the right seeds, I''m going to feed this blood to them to create the right trees. Then I will use the wood from those right trees for prosthetics." Eiro added, and finally, they all understood.


    "Then what kind of seeds do you need?" James asked the demon, who thought about it for a few moments, "I''ll tell you when I find it."


    "Wait, you can''t just use any? You need specific seeds, but don''t even know if they exist?" Jess asked, and Eiro just looked at her with a light smile, "Technically, yes. But I''m pretty sure that seeds like the ones I''m looking for exist. And if not, then I''ll improvise a bit." Eiro pointed out and then slowly turned his head over toward James, "And yes, it''s the same with you. We need a specific seed to grow a tree that would be a good prosthetic for you. It has to align with your being, so it might take a while to find the perfect fit."


    "Hm, I''m doing pretty well with this one though, don''t you think? Why do I need a perfect fit?" James asked, and Eiro started lightly frowning, "Because I made the choice to help you, and I don''t half-ass things. I''m going to make you a limb that even you can''t distinguish from your arm back then. For you, I already have a rough idea of what might fit, but I don''t know its in-depth scent because I didn''t have this ability when Ist saw it." The Demon exined, "So I''m just going to find that seed and see if it works for you. If it doesn''t, I''ll look for a new one until we have a match."


    A bit surprised at Eiro''s rather aggressive reaction, James raised his brows, "Listen, I just told you that even this arm is an amazing fit. Who knows, maybe Light Elves just have a good adaptability for this kinda thing. Either way, I''m just saying that you don''t need to stress yourself out to make something unnecessarily ''perfect''. Just because you disagree doesn''t mean you need to be such a bitch about it." James told Eiro with a deep frown, and the Demon stared back at him annoyedly.


    He could feel that he was getting angrier and angrier, somehow. Maybe it was because of the lump of ambient mana inside of his body, but his anger was amplified many times more than normal.


    Eiro wasn''t entirely sure why that was happening, but he was convinced that it wasn''t a good thing. Hopefully his body would really use that lump during his evolution like Eiro wanted, or else this would be pretty bothersome. Maybe he should just put all his extra stat points into willpower, because this was a bit too annoying. But before Eiro could actually do anything, his mouth moved and he spoke without properly thinking about it.


    "James. For the next encounter, you''re not allowed to fight with your daggers. Fight bare-handed. I know that you have the skill, it''s the main way you used to fight back then." Eiro told James, more than just annoyed "Don''t worry, I know the risk. I''ll intervene if it gets too bad, but I want you to realize that your arm is anything but a good fit at the moment." The Demon said clearly, and James ground his teeth angrily as he stared back at him.


    "Are you fucking with me? Do you want me dead or something? You want me to fight them with my fucking fi-"


    "Quiet. Don''t swear in front of the children." Eiro interrupted, and James just pushed the two daggers in his hands into their sheaths, "Fine. Just watch me. I''ll show you that you''repletely wrong." James said with a confident grin on his face. He turned around and started to continue walking, practically announcing that the short break was over.


    With annoyed groans directed toward both James and Eiro, Krog and Jess followed behind the Light Elf and prepared for any sort of attack from the spiders. An attack they didn''t have to wait for for long.


    There were only few spiders this time, just three of them, but they were probably three times the sizepared to all the spiders before.


    "Huh, now, let''s show him." James said with a grin and stormed ahead, while Krog quickly followed behind. Jess prepared to cast a spell while they were doing so, and soon, James just jumped straight onto the body of the first one.


    He kicked its face right above its mandibles and just below its eyes, seemingly doing a fair bit of damage to it just like this. The spider squeezed its eyes closed while James proceeded to climb over its body onto its abdomen.


    With a quick punch with his prosthetic, James hit directly onto the abdomen numerous times. It was rough and just seemed unpracticed. James probably didn''t use hand-to-handbat for years either, so it became just as rough as Eiro expected it to be. At some point, therge spider''s abdomen cracked open and blue blood sttered onto James'' wooden hand, something that he was lucky and skilled enough to avoid as much as possible until now.


    But at the moment, it seemed like James didn''t care. He just wanted to show off and show Eiro that he was wrong, while the demon was simply watching silently. After he broke through the exoskeleton, Krog came in and swung at the opening, cracking everything open further and just causing immense damage by directly attacking the internal organs.


    Soon, this spider fell down dead. In the meantime, Jess had been casting spells on the other two spiders to keep them in check, and the mes had been doing fair amounts of damage to them. She extinguished those mes for one of them to let Krog and James attack, but without waiting even a moment, James jumped onto the smoking spider''s body and repeated practically the same thing as before.


    This time, the exoskeleton broke nearly instantly after damaged this much by the fire, so James hand travelled right through and ended up being covered in blood even more.


    He practically ripped out the spider''s organs and killed it, while Krog changed the direction of his attack and instead swung his heavy axes at the next spider and shattered its abdomen as well. After these three spiders were dead, James stood up triumphantly and stepped over to Eiro.


    "See? It all worked out perfectly, right?" James asked smugly from afar, and Eiro slowly approached James. Without hesitation, he stared into James'' face with an angry re, "Get your shit together already? Worked out perfectly? Look at your arm."


    Confused, James turned his head toward the prosthetic, seeing that it was coveredpletely in the blue blood.


    "What, you''re angry I got it dirty?"


    "It''s not the blood, you idiot. I mean the fact that you dislodged the joints of your index finger and didn''t notice. And that you let hot blood slowly congeal around your elbow joint, which would end up clogging it up within maybe ten minutes.. And most importantly, that you didn''t treat it as a hand, but as a weapon."

 Chapter 182 - Spider Capture

    "Now sit down and let me repair your arm." Eiro said with a deep re directed at James, who just ground his teeth together and sat down on the rock that Gondos made for him just now.


    Eiro squatted down and started to first clean James'' prosthetic up again, "Do you understand what I mean now, James? In your mind, you might think that this arm is perfect for you, but that''s just because you were never able to make use of your skills ever since your arm was taken. Now that your skills work a bit better again, you think everything is amazing. But in the end, this arm is nothing but a first step."


    "And what are the next steps?" James asked with a light re, since he was more than just annoyed at this whole situation. Eiro grumbled to himself for a moment and grabbed his carving knife out of his treasury before cutting a small wedge out of his own prosthetic. And then, he just pressed the piece that he cut out back onto his wooden hand, "This is one of them, at least. When I first got this hand, I was given a percentage of how well it could connect to me. The higher it rose, the better I could use my hand and it became more like a real one. At some point, it started being able to regenerate in this manner."


    James looked at Eiro''s prosthetic and then at his own. With a light sigh, the Demon started fixing the joints that James messed up, "James, but seriously, stop it. You''re really pissing me off right here, and if you don''t just shut up and listen to me while I''m talking to you, I''ll rip that useless brain of yours right out of your head." Eiro whispered and after fixing James'' arm stood up.


    "Get moving now. You''ll fight for another two or three hours and then take another break. After that you''re going to continue until night." Eiro said as he started returning to Lugo, although Jess quickly voiced herints, "What? That long?! But we already killed dozens of these spiders! We leveled up this much already, can''t we just stop for the day?"


    "...What?" Eiro asked with a light frown, "You leveled up ''this much''? You know, I leveled up more than a dozen times in one go once. Literally, after beating just one enemy." Eiro exined, something that made Krog, Jess and James more than just confused.


    "A dozen times? When was that? What kind of enemy did you beat? Was it when you were freed?" Jess asked confusedly. Eiro just turned around toward her and shook his head, "A few weeks ago. The chief warrior of Argberg tried to frame me for killing someone that I wanted to kill but didn''t. We were pursued by numerous forces, and in the end, I managed to get rid of Enka. The way I did was a little like cheating, but you know. He was also cheating in the same way, so I don''t mind."


    "You..." Krog muttered quietly, "You killed that man? Enka Markos?"


    "Mhm, that''s what I just said." Eiro replied, "You have a problem with that?"


    "No, it ain''t that, but... You really are that strong, huh?" The big guy asked with a broad grin. It seemed like he somehow got excited, and Eiro lightly raised his brows, "I mean, I wasn''t at the time. My stats now are higher than his were, sure, but back then they were far below his. I grew rather rapidly in these past few weeks."


    "Amazing... That guy, Enka... he was supposed to be one of the strongest men in that country, right?" Jess asked as she turned toward Krog, who just nodded, "Yep, he was. Insanely so. People thought he might''ve been able to be part of the hero''s party. And Eiro killed him and even became stronger than him..?"


    "What are you talking about? He wasn''t that strong." Eiro replied with an immediate frown, "He was at mostparable to a B-Rank adventurer, I would guess."


    "What are you talking about..? B-Rank adventurers are strong, sure, but not that strong..." James pointed out with a frown, and Eiro sighed lightly.


    "Right, I guess it''s not necessarilymon knowledge. I am, or was, friends with the guild master back where we lived. He told me the few things that he knew about. From Rank C onward, the difference in strength bes insane. The average C ranker is ten times weaker than the weakest B ranker, and the adverage B ranker is a hundred times weaker than the weakest A ranker. And the average A ranker is a thousand times weaker than the weakest S ranker." Eiro exined, and the others looked at him confusedly.


    "Then we''re ten times weaker than Enka..?" Jess asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "Of course not. I would say you''re pretty high up within the C-rank abilty wise. And just to make it clear, it''s obviously not all about stats. Talent, values, and skills y a big role in such things as well. Your guys'' stats are half of what Enka''s were, but that doesn''t mean he was twice as strong as you are now. Once you get to his stat-level, you''ll be stronger than he was when he died, I assume."


    It seemed like Eiro''s words somehow made all three of them rather excited. After all, it seemed like Enka was rather famous. Obviously he wasn''t as strong as all those rumours said he was, it was most likely a part of his charisma and charming ability that people looked at him so favorably. Maybe Eiro should increase his charisma a bit more after all... it might be a bit useful to have people look up to him a bit more, after all.


    Either way, for now, the others kept on going and fighting the spiders, far more motivated than they were before. They killed the spiders, and Eiro collected their blood while taking them apart for their other parts. They would be good materials to hand in at the guild to rank up a little there, after all.


    For the most part, Eiro tried his best to collect the parts that were actually useful, like the eyes, the venom, and parts of the exoskeleton, but there were other things that Eiro was considering doing.


    It was a rare type of request, because not many people required such specimens for their work, but sometimes it happened that live monsters needed to be caught for a request. Eiro figured that depending on how things went, it might be a good idea to capture some of the spiders. Not just so that he could quickly increase his guild rank, but also for the goblin vige.


    Eiro was actually discussing the possibility with the slime a little bit, and it seemed both promising and troublesome.


    "Hm... Yeah, it''s gonna be pretty annoying to deal with those. Since they''re dumbasses, it''s easier to seal mental traits and stuff in general, but at the same time, exactly that makes their instinct and monstrosity wilder. We can probably do it, but we''ll need to y around with those bugs a bit." The slime exined.


    Eiro didn''t necessarily mind, the issue was just that it didn''t seem like something that could be done quickly. And Eiro couldn''t just spend all his time in the goblin vige, at least not for now. Not until he found people he could actually trust to keep Avalin and Leon save in town while he went off to do his own thing for a week or so. He couldn''t just take them with him all the time either, that would be too stressful for them at the end of the day.


    So, in the end, Eiro had just one choice. He would handpick a couple of these spiders to take back to town and then specially train them within his manor. There was supposedly more than enough space to do something like that there after all. And having a couple of wild monsters there for a while might be useful for Leon''s training as well.


    And so, the Demon made a decision, "When I tell you to, stop fighting and let me take over for the current encounter. I want to try a few things out." Eiro announced to the three people in front. They looked at Eiro rather confusedly, but in the end just epted the Demon''s choice.


    For a good while, Eiro didn''t find anything that he had any proper interest in. The footsoldiers were weak and nothing special. They were a good base to y around with when it came to getting them to evolve somehow, but Eiro couldn''t think of a proper reason to get them even then.


    What he was most interested in were Day Stalkers, Night Stalkers, and the big guys like those that James attacked with his bare hands before. Eiro could sense some of all of those around here, but they were somewhat avoiding the group, it seemed. Maybe they just wanted to gauge their strength a bit more using weak soldiers? If that was the case, then the one controlling them was definitely rather intelligent. Maybe a highmoner, or a knight-rank noble. Either way, it would most likely be too hard for James, Jess and Krog to deal with, so Eiro could use it as a good means to level up one more time. It would be preferable if Eiro were able to get his hands on that spider-queen or whatever it was itself, actually.


    It was most likely actively breeding these other spiders, so having it would give Eiro a nearly infinite source of spiders to sell or use as mules for the goblin vige.


    Either way, at some point, Eiro did find some spiders that he took a bit of a liking to. Exactly those sub-races that he wanted. In total he managed to capture two of the big guys, and stopped at a dozen of each the day stalkers and night stalkers. Thetter were especially annoying, actually.


    The big ones were slow and really not that agile, so after flipping them on their back with earth magic, Eiro was able to easily make it impossible for them to escape using a little bit of ice on their limbs.


    For the day stalkers it was simr, they weren''tbat-types after all, so they weren''t able to resist in the slightest and could be easily captured just like that.


    The night stalkers however had especially bothersome limbs. They were stronger and more nimble than those of other spiders, so they often managed to cut away on the ice a little to free their legs. Of course Eiro stopped them whenever they tried to do it, but it was still annoying.


    With a bit of trickery with Leon''s ''Loved by Monsters'' skill, he was able to make it so that the big spiders were actually just following them, so Eiro didn''t have to worry too much as long as he paid proper attention, and he could just have them carry all of the live-spiders and spider-materials as well.


    Eiro had some other stuff at the goblin-vige that would make it easier to deal with them as well, but he actually had his eyes on a whole other spider at the moment. He definitely noticed some of its threads around here, so he knew that he could find it, and through the smell of the threads he would know when he found it, but in the end, it seemed like a quite evasive one. Weirdly even more so than the day and night stalkers, which were specifically meant to be evasive.


    Either way, once the group got close to the nest and the encounters became more frequent and troublesome, Eiro finally managed to spot one. A small, fist-sized spider that was reflecting the light of the setting sun.


    A rare sort of spider that wasn''t often found in the wild, and if it did, only if it was a spider that evolved after feeding on the equipment of dead adventurers or wares that merchants identally dropped while fleeing from other monsters.


    It was the Rust Eater.. A spider capable of spinning metallic thread.

 Chapter 183 - Cheating

    "You three, take care of things here. Make sure that nothing even dares touch the children." Eiro said as he started running forward. He didn''t want the Rust Eater get away, since it was a rather precious specimen. With the metallic thread that it could produce, he would be able to easily bind all the spiders up.


    Metallic thread was an amazing material for protective clothing as well, which Eiro maybe should order sometime. The stuff that Armodeus made for Eiro and the children only included things meant specifically forbat, but not for times outside of that. And since you always needed to be careful, Eiro thought that it would be a good idea to have clothes made using metallic thread.


    And to top it off, metallic thread was rather precious, and a material that was often requested at different guilds. Eiro couldn''t let this chance slip up.


    Eiro climbed up the tree where he was able to sense the spider currently being. He even saw the spider and reached for it, but before Eiro knew it, the spider just jumped away and climbed onto another tree.


    It was a bit annoying, but Eiro figured that it wasn''t that big a deal. He just followed the spider by jumping after it. And from then on, the attempt to capture the spider really just declined into a simple cat and mouse chase.


    The Rust Eater was incredibly quick, and due to its small size it was able to climb into ces that Eiro couldn''t ess that easily. He was rather annoyed by its behavior, but this already showed one more reason why it would be worth it to get his hands on this spider and somehow tame it.


    A Rust Eater''s intelligence was superior to that of their brethren, and if they happened to evolve in certain directions, it was even possible for them to use magic.


    Eiro was rather excited to see where he could possibly go with this Rust Eater. Either way, for now, Eiro had to even catch it. The Demon ran, jumped, crawled, and so on, but was always annoyed by other spiders or by the fact that the Rust Eater went ces that Eiro himself couldn''t go.


    But in the end, he managed to somewhat figure out its pattern, and even slightly controlled the way it moved around by chasing it in particr ways. At least that''s what Eiro figured, but at some point, the spider did something he didn''t expect. It started digging a hole in the ground.


    Of course Eiro immediately tried to reach into it to get the spider out, but instead, the spider just reached the caves underneath. And with that, Eiro had it. He wouldn''t let that little piece of shit run away from him anymore.


    "Nelli, Gondos, tell Jess, James and Krog that I''ll go into the nest and take care of the spider queen and a few of the regr spiders. There''s still enough out here to get them to level up a few more times, but have them wait for me first. And after you told them,e here, both of you." Eiro told them with an annoyed groan, trying his best to keep his attention on the Rust Eater down there to make sure it couldn''t hide somewhere.


    A few momentster, the two spirits appeared next to him. Eiro extended his hand toward Gondos, who quickly chose to dive into Eiro''s arm, and only his arm. This was something they figured out after a little bit of practice as well. It was of course not as efficient as going for the ''full dive'', but it still extremely enhanced the strength of Eiro''s magic.


    And so, the Demon was able to push his hand into the small hole in front of him again before immediately opening it up enough to let him into the caves before Gondos split up from his arm again. It was still pretty mana intensive, so they couldn''t do this all the time either.


    "Why aren''t you just using fire magic?" Nelli asked as Eiro jumped down into the caves, and the Demon looked at her with a light frown, "I don''t want to kill the Rust Eater." Eiro pointed out, and then continued through the tunnel system. For now, Eiro just continued through the tunnels, killing spider over spider using Nelli''s water to freeze them to death while he worked together with Gondos to make it easier for him to traverse these tunnels.


    Soon, however, Eiro actually managed to catch the small rust eater. It was a bit annoying, and had razor-sharp hairs on its body, but after Eiro just held it using some cloth that didn''t matter anymore either.


    For now, he just had to make his way outside through the masses of frozen, dead spiders that Eiro barely got any experience from, he remembered something.


    Experience-sharing was a thing... when someone damaged something even a little, they would get a bit of experience if that damage helped in killing that enemy, "I can see another reason why Life Force is kept as such a secret now." The Demon said with a broad grin, although he felt slightly idiotic about the fact that he didn''te up with that idea beforehand. It was a rather good one, really.


    Eiro ran out of the cave system and met back up with Jess, James and Krog, as well as Lugo and the children. Eiro made sure that Leon included the metal spider in the ''love aura'', to stop it from being aggressive, and then tied it up a little more as well.


    It was constantly pushing out metal thread out of fear right now, which Eiro immediately used to tie the Rust Eater''s own body up itself. He would need a little more of it to do the same for the other spiders.


    But that wasn''t the most important thing right now.


    "You three, do you want to reach the point where you can change your ss once we''re back in town?" Eiro asked, and the three of them looked at each other before turning back to Eiro, "Yeah, of course we do. Why wouldn''t we?" James asked with a frown, and the Demon then slowly turned toward the tubs of ice that Eiro made to keep the spider-blood in before.


    "Then I would need a little something from you guys. A mug full of blood from each of you, infused with as much life force as possible." Eiro announced to them, and the three looked at the Demon as if he was crazy.


    "What the- Why would we do that?!" Krog asked rather annoyedly, and Eiro sighed lightly, "Then let''s start with a small droplet. Krog, bite into your finger and give me a droplet of blood infused with as much life force as you can." The Demon said, and with a light frown, the Heavy Warrior did as suggested.


    Once Eiro was sure that he really pushed life force into it, Eiro used water magic to pick the blood up together with the life force inside of it of course.


    And then, he proceeded to turn it into a thin needle that he used to prick his own arm.


    [-1 Health]


    Instantly, a blue notification appeared in front of Krog, saying that he did one damage to Eiro, and the warrior seemed rather confused.


    "But how the fu-" Krog said, and quickly stopped himself from swearing after seeing Eiro''s expression.


    "It''s simple. ''Health'' is ''Life Force''. As far as I can tell, the biggest reason why we can damage other people''s health is because we have life force as well. Life Force is what makes you a living being. So, anything that has your life force in it is an extension of yourself. And as such-"


    "It is seen as an attack that we worked on as well as long as our life force is involved..?" Jess asked quietly, and with a broad grin, Eiro nodded his head.


    "That''s exactly it. And that way, we can cheat a little bit. I''m going to help you extract a little more of your life force for this to really maximize the damage you guys do. And then, since the three of you aren''t that far away from level 100 anyway, this might be able to push you at the very least within two or three levels of that point."


    "Is... Is that so..?" Jess muttered quietly, and then sighed a bit in response, "It kind of feels like cheating..."


    "It does, but who cares? Not like you''re doing anything bad." Eiro pointed out, and offered his dagger to Krog first of all while making a jug out of ice that he could store the blood in.


    "Come on, big guy. Let''s try this." Eiro suggested, and Krog slowly nodded his head. He cut into his wrist to make as much blood flow as possible, and Eiro immediately proceeded to try and assist Krog with manipting his life force to push it into the blood that was pouring into the jug.


    The moment that he got enough blood, he and Nelli properly healed Krog''s wrist up. Then, they did the same with James and Jess, until Eiro had threerge jugs of life-force infused blood in his hands.


    "Alright, thene on. There''s an entrance into the nest not too far from here." Eiro pointed out and swiftly went ahead as he started carefully mixing the blood together with some water that he had Nelli currently refine just for this.


    He made sure not to damage the Life Force in any way, which was a little tough, but Eiro managed to do it in the end.


    Once they stood in front of the cave entrance, which luckily was rather central in this area, as they came close to the main part of the nest already, Eiro had Gondos open the entrance up a little more and then immediately proceeded to push the blood-water mixture toward the entrance to the cave system. But of course that wasn''t it. Instead, Eiro made use of a spell that Jess had only recently reminded him of.


    He turned the mixture of blood and water into thin mist that was able to spread throughout the whole cave system. Of course, Eiro tried to spread it out as much as he could, but it still didn''t reach every ce. At the very least, the smell of the blood made spiders actually gather inside of that mist.


    Either way, since this was now the case, all that Eiro needed to do was to use that mist made of blood and water topletely freeze those hundreds of spiders inside of the cave''s tunnels.


    And luckily, this happened surprisingly quickly. After freezing the first couple to death, Eiro raised the temperature instead to damage them with heat, before immediately freezing them again. Then he raised the temperature, and then dropped it again. Over and over again, Eiro repeated this process, while Jess, James and Krog behind him were just looking at the glory of these numerous damage notifications appearing faster than they could tell.


    And of course, the same was the case with their level-up notifications. Soon, Eiro stopped everything going on inside therge cave system, when he stopped damaging anything, and instead looked at the one notification that mattered to him right now.


    [You have leveled up!]

 Chapter 184 - Spider Queen

    [You have reached Level 100]


    [Possible Evolutions]


    -[Greater Ice Blue Collector Imp]


    -[ck Ice Collector Imp]


    -[Element Collector Imp]


    -[Spirit Collector Imp]


    [As a Card Owner, you have ess to a Unique Evolution. Do you want tomence Evolution into a Unique Subspecies of Ice Blue Collector Imp?]


    Eiro smiled as he looked at the notifications in front of him. He was satisfied with the way things were going at the moment. With this new evolution, he would grow far stronger once again.


    He quickly opened his status and looked at his leftover 80 Stat points that he didn''t assign yet. He figured that it wouldn''t make much sense to wait with these now. Without much hesitation, Eiro pushed another fifty into Intelligence to bring it to 300, and then put the other 30 into Wisdom to bring it to 280.


    [Your Intelligence has passed the 300 point mark! <Fast Thought Processing> Ability became <Quick Thought Processing>!]


    With a satisfied expression, Eiro ran his fingers through that notification as well as his status to make them both disappear, and then looked at the evolution message.


    For now, he would get rid of it. He didn''t know exactly if he would fall unconscious this time around again, but he didn''t want to risk it. Eiro would just wait, and then when they were back in town, he would make sure that the manor was actually ready this time, because there were seemingly a fewplications with the original n of getting it within two days, and then he would start his evolution.


    With a slight sigh, Eiro ran his fingers through the notifications, and then turned toward Jess, James and Krog. He was able to see the reflections of their statuses in their eyes, so he was able to quickly figure out the changes.


    "Good. I think that''s enough for today. I''ll go get onest thing. You three head back into the direction of the Vige again. Nelli, you make sure that you help Leon properly concentrate and keep his flow of mana under control. It''s important that he manages to keep his skill focused on only the spiders for the whole trip."


    "Yeah, yeah, we get it." Nelli replied a bit annoyedly as she floated up to the young boy, while Gondos looked at Eiro curiously, "And what shall I do?" He inquired, and Eiro simply smiled at him, "You''reing with me. There''s something I want to test out."


    While Gondos excitedly floated over to Eiro''s side, Jess sighed deeply, "Somehow, I can''t get excited over leveling up this much after seeing that..." Sheined, and Eiro raised his brow in response, "What do you mean?"


    "What do I mean? How can I get excited over leveling up when there''s someone next to me that managed to befriend spirits?!" Jess asked with her arms crossed and a light pout, before Eiro slowly turned his head over toward the others in confusion, before James grumbled annoyedly and replied.


    "Spirit Mages usually don''t treat spirits like that. They''re more like tools. And vice-versa. So seeing someone actually be this close to a spirit is pretty weird."


    "Is that so?" Eiro muttered, slowly turning his head toward Nelli, although she simply shrugged in response. She probably wasn''t a good person to ask, since she spent a long time just being contracted by people that treated her like family. She probably didn''t have much other experience with contracts.


    "Well, it is how it is. I wasn''t aware it was something this special." Eiro pointed out as he slowly turned around, "Either way, for now, head off already. I''ll be with you before you reach the vige again." The Demon started making his way back to the cave entrance that he was in before. It wasn''t hard to find, after all, the scent of blood was omnipresent in there now. He split off from the others, and once they left, he properly stretched out and got out his three of swords so that he would be able to really fight properly and without hesitation.


    But once everyone was out of range, Gondos seemed to want to inquire about something he was curious about, "So..." He started, "What exactly do you require my assistance for?"


    The Demon lightly smirked as he started to run through the forest and dove into a part of the cave that would allow him to gain direct ess to what Eiro mentally dubbed the ''throne room'' where he could find the thing that birthed all of these spiders.


    "I need your help to actually confirm something in a bit." Eiro exined, "I''ve been getting a slight card-vibe from all of these spiders. It was very, very faint, but it was there. If it is really so that this whole nest was created with the help of a card, we need to fuse for a moment so that I can better figure out what sort of card it is or how it helped create this nest."


    With a light frown, Gondos continued following Eiro through the caves as he fought off the few spiders that dared actually fight him at the moment. They became more and more the further Eiro proceeded into the center of the caves, but it was fine.


    Eiro continued through the tunnels, until the one he was currently in became too steep for someone to walk on, so he made use of the three of swords to help him dig his hands into the walls for better grip. He slipped down the tunnel, until he reached the ce he was looking for. It was the ''throne room'', with the spider queen right in the center of the room, continuosly birthing numerous spiders.


    Without hesitation, Eiro pulled out his spark snapper and created a me in front of him that he used to draw a magic circle in front of him, with the mes as the actual lines. And when he was done and activated, mes spread out through thisrge underground space and spiralled around, leaving nothingpletely unharmed.


    Obviously Eiro wasn''t able to kill everything just like this, but at the very least, he could damage them a fair bit.


    There were a couple spiders in here that actually seemed a bit bothersome. They weren''t roughly half as strong as Eiro was, he would say. Stat-wise, at least. Eiro''s skills gave himplete superiority over them.


    Eiro climbed around inside of thisrge open space and flung around mes, rocks, spells, really anything that could damage and kill the spiders from afar. He couldn''t attack them in closebat all at once, after all, even if it may seem like he was trying to.


    The biggest issue were the eggs that were particrly close to the spider queen''s body. They were seemingly fire-resistant like this, so they somewhat protected the queen from damage. Then again, it didn''t matter much in the face of boulders flying around toward them, but in the end, it still made it a bit harder to bring the queen''s health down.


    At some point, Eiro reached the point where there were barely any spiders left here, and the only ones that were were freshlyid eggs that would take a fair while to hatch. Obviously Eiro tried his best not to damage the eggs, since they were worth a lot of money and were also a popr item to be requested at the adventurer''s guild. He did break some of them if they annoyed him too much, but for the most part, there were more left than he could carry anyway. Eiro''s satchel was already filled nearly to the brim with other spider-parts, so he would have toe up with a good storage space for these.


    "Hmm, there''s a lot of thick, durable cobwebs here... Maybe..." The Demon muttered as he started approaching the spider queen, although there was something else he wanted to do first. He stopped for a few moments and let Gondos dive into his body. The moment he fused with Gondos, Eiro''s senses expanded.


    Eiro took a deep breath and tasted traces of magic in the air, which is just what he was looking for. He looked at the spider queen, and started sensing a trace of a card when looking at it. Obviously it itself didn''t have a card, but it was influenced by one. It was like it was carrying a shard of it with it.


    The vibe that he got from this spider was quite weird, really. It was like it had a card, but at the same time it wasn''t. It was an extremely artificial feeling that Eiro had felt once before. During his fight with Enka.


    "So that''s it, I see?" The Demon said with a light grin on his face, "You''re a bit too big to take with me anyway, so..." The Demon said, and with the help of the increased strength he got by fusing with Gondos, he easily jumped on top of the spider queen''s body. He pushed the three of swords'' des directly into the connective part between the abdomen and the head, simply ripping through it without hesitation.


    Eiro looked down at the spider queen''s body as it dropped onto the ground after Eiro continued pumping fire magic into her to damage her internally enough to kill her.


    Soon, luckily, he reached that goal, and he just looked down at the spider queen''s smoking dead body. It was a bit of a waste that he didn''t get any experience for this, but it didn''t matter for now. First things first, he had to take this thing apart for its materials.


    He already had a rough idea of where the ''Mock Card'' item was inside of the spider queen''s body, so he had Gondos leave his body again. Eiro moved around therge spider and cut off whatever parts of the carapace that he could. He pulled out itsrge eyes and tried his best to save some of the venom. And then, Eiro cut open its abdomen to get out the spider''s heart. Inside of it, he found a small metal orb with carvings on its outside, which was obviously the source of the ''Mock Card'' vibe.


    Eiro would take a closer look at itter to see what it did, but that cameter. For now, he ced it into his treasury. The only thing that was left was to gather some of the webs that didn''tpletely burn up and turn them into something like a proper that he could use to carry the egg and the other materials.


    It wasn''t thatplicated, he saw someone weaving things like this together before. Just like that, Eiro managed to gather more than enough items up to give a proper impression at the guild.


    Surely, he would be able to take the advacement test to reach C-Rank after this.

 Chapter 185 - Arcane Runes

    With all of the parts from the spider queen as well as the numerous eggs that he gathered inside of the made by weaving cobwebs together, Eiro made his way back out of the caves, although this time around he didn''t go through the same tunnels he went through before.


    Instead, he climbed up other ones that immediately brought him to the center of this spider-infested area, therge hollow tree that was directly connected to therge cave underneath. There were still some spiders around here, so he quickly got rid of them with some mes before just cing the filled with precious materials onto the ground. Because there was something else in here that was more than just useful to him.


    Eiro climbed up the inside of this hollow tree until he reached the top, which didn''t truthfully take that long, and then climbed along one of the branches. It wasn''t in its best state, but there were some leftover parts of the tree''s seeds attached to the branch. He had to clean it up a bitter and have another look, but he had a feeling that these seeds were the perfect fit for making the spider-blood trees that he collected the mass amount of blood for.


    Even now, he was making the blood from the spider queen float behind him. Either way, after collecting some of the seeds, Eiro packed them away into his satchel where there was still a little bit of space left and then climbed back down.


    "Alright, let''s go." The Demon said as he looked at the Golem floating next to him, who swiftly nodded his head. Eiro tried his best to start actually running with all of the things he was carrying around with him, although it was rather hard to do, especially since he garnered theplete attention of any spider currently left in this area.


    But they weren''t really enemies worth mentioning, and Eiro didn''t even properly pay attention to them. Without their queen, they werepletely and utterly unorganized and even dumber than before.


    It didn''t take too long for Eiro to catch up to the others either, and he just had to live with the fact that they were more than just confused and wanted to know how Eiro managed to kill and take apart something that was obviously incredibly strong andrge.


    For now, however, Eiro didn''t care. He just wanted to be able to let all of this stuff down somewhere. Like, make arge tub of ice to keep everything in that could rot or decline in quality over time. Luckily, Nelli and Gondos at least refined the queen''s blood a little and made it slightly easier to control, so it wasn''t that big a deal.


    Either way, like this, the group made their way all the way back to the Goblin vige before sundown. Eiro sat everything down inside of the ice tubs like he wanted to and then trapped the spiders in parts of the mines where he didn''t have to worry about them escaping somehow.


    And after he then brought Leon and Avalin to bed, as both of them were pretty tired, he stepped back outside and made sure that the Hobgoblins were at a good point. Eiro would keep the seals on them a little longer so that their monstrosity could weaken even more over time while sealed away. Like this it would also be easier to get them to continuosly practice the things that he told them to.


    The Demon tried his best to ingrain whatever he could into their thick heads, and then made his way into the cave as well to sleep.


    Eiro was sitting there with the metal orb in his hand and simply cleaned it up properly, trying to get rid of the dried-up blood that covered it. He scratched his hand over the carvings, but he couldn''t really notice anything that could give him any sort of hint.


    "Do you have any idea which suit it''s from at least?" Nelli inquired, although she was inside of the inbetween-space between the spirit and mortal ne at the moment, where only Eiro and Gondos could see and hear her. They didn''t necessarily want the others to find out about what exactly this did until they weren''t entirely sure what it actually was.


    With a light frown, Eiro just whispered, although it wasn''t really speaking. It was a spirit magic spell, the kind that one always used tomunicate with their spirits over long distances anyway. Like this, as Eiro was whispering, his regr speech became too distorted to properly hear or understand, while he could give Nelli and Gondos answers that the two of them could regrly understand.


    "I think we can exclude the Suit of Swords. If this was some sort of experiment by that organization, they would have tried to maximize the effects, so they would have changed its body itself. It didn''t seem to have any extraordinary abilities, the queen was simply slightly... disfigured. That''s all. So it probably wasn''t the suit of pentacles either..." Eiro muttered quietly.


    He wanted to figure out what exactly this did, but he didn''t just want to randomly activate it either. It could have a pretty dangerous effect when used outside of specific situations, after all. As far as Eiro knew, it could very well be the Eight of Cups. The absolute poison that could turn a flourishing Kingdom into a wastnd if one wasn''t careful with it. Or even worse, the five of wands. The artifact capable of creating a space in which everything simply disappeared without a trace as to where it may have ended up.


    If it was either of that, and Eiro activated it like this, then he would be dead immediately. The spider queen was definitely experimented on, since its body was not natural in any possible way, so this metal ball inside of its heart might have just been something to assure that it couldn''t get out of control. Or rather, that the people that experimented on it could easily get rid of the spider if it did get out of control.


    Eiro definitely had to be careful and do a little research on it. Maybe he could get some sort of clue as to what card this was based off of if he could figure out the carvings on the outside.


    It seemed like they were runic in nature, but they weren''t runes belonging to the ancientnguage at the very least. It really annoyed Eiro that he had no recollection of what these symbols could mean, although they obviously had some sort of meaning. It did make him feel a bit better that Nelli didn''t know about them either though.


    But then, James asked something that Eiro didn''t notice before, "Hm, that another one of the things the person that lived here made?" He asked as he stepped into the cave after properly cleaning himself up after today. It seemed like James was just trying to make small-talk, but Eiro was still curious.


    "What makes you think that?" Eiro inquired, and James raised his brows a bit, "Eh, the carvings are the same type, right? I think I saw them somewhere before, they''re like, Arcane Runes? I think that''s what they were called." James pointed out, and Eiro immediately looked down at the metal orb again, trying to see ces where the patterns might be the same.


    He didn''t remember anything like that directly, but he did have to admit that there were a few rather obvious simrities between the carvings on the b outside and this metal orb.


    "How did you see that?" Eiro asked, and James lightly shrugged in response, "I don''t know, I just kinda did. My mom was an Archaeologist, I picked a couple things up."


    "And how did an Archaeologist''s son be an Assassin?" The Demon inquired, and once more, albeit this time with a rather annoyed frown, James shrugged, "Fuck off." He said with a light grumble and then slid down against the wall next to Eiro to sit down next to him on the ground.


    For a few moments it became rather tense and awkward, so much that even Eiro was able to notice this, but before he could mention it, James did.


    "Alright listen, man. I don''t... like you." James started, "I get that you''re not a normal monster by now. I get that you weren''t the one that killed Avalin. You''re a bit extreme at times, but in the end, I think you''re a good guy. But I still can''t... you know.."


    "Stop hating my guts?"


    "Basically. Well, it ain''t like I feel seething anger every time I look at your mug, but I can''t help but get annoyed, you know?" James said with a light sigh, before Eiro turned toward him with a smirk, "Likewise, bud. It''s a weird feeling. I don''t dislike you, but I don''t like you either. But it''s different to how you feel toward random passerby''s. For example, I do trust you. I think, I''m probably not the most emotionally stable person to ask at the moment. You know, Demon of Wrath kinda thing."


    For a few moments, James looked at Eiro a bit confused before understanding what he was saying, "Right, because most normal demons have a sign assigned to them. You think you''d be a Demon of Wrath if you were a normal one?"


    "No, I know. It actually happened rather shortly after I left you guys back then. I had Avalin with me, and I was trying to figure out how to feed her. Then I met Arc for the first time, my oldest, and he led me to the carriage where he, some priest, a mage and the guy that had the three of swords before me were. My kids are all a bit special, as you probably noticed. Well, I killed the priest, was nearly killed by the former card owner, was saved by the former Naiad Queen, watched the former card owner be taken over by the card, killed the card owner and the mage, and then kidnapped the children to have them help me out finding my way to the monster king''s castle." Eiro exined, before James just stared at the demon rather confused at what happened. He knew there was obviously more to it, but hearing that Eiro literally kidnapped the children was more than just surprising.


    "And well, I evolved for the first time, got a bit smarter, and started kind of getting attached to the kids. Well, we stopped in a town for the night, and that town just happened to be part of an experiment conducted by <The Devil>, meaning that every night the town became infested with demons of all sorts while all people indulged in their sins. Some shadow bastard transported the children away from me to the demonic lords of the town ording to each of their ''sins'', and then I went around town to get them back. They were mostly stronger than me at the time, but somehow I don''t get stunned when Ie in contact with holy energy, so I could overwhelm them somehow using a holy energy magic stone I got from the priorly mentioned priest''s staff."


    James looked at Eiro with a light frown. This seemed ridiculous, but somehow, James believed it, "You fought using holy energy? You, a demon? And you don''t get stunned by your bane?" He asked with a light frown, and knowing that James wouldn''t believe him, Eiro already took out the white-golden magic stone out of his treasury. Eiro held it in his left hand and activated it. It caused his skin to lightly sizzle, although only to the extent that Eiro could hear it. James probably didn''t. Although that just showed how strong the holy energy Avalin''s body naturally gave off was. They should properly keep that in check soon as well. Maybe Eiro should reveal this information to Solomon..?


    Either way, after showing this off to James, he put the magic stone away again, "I have a level 78, apprentice grade holy energy resistance skill. I didn''t back then of course, but by now, this much doesn''t damage me anymore since my resistance stat went up this much. Either way, through the way I was fighting and how reckless I was, not only did I have my finger ripped off after falling off a tower with Leon in my arms, trying to slow my fall, but my handpletely died off the next morning after I saved the children.. That''s when I met Jura, and the children named me Eiro."

 Chapter 186 - Unique

    "You did that for children? For human children?" James asked, unsure how exactly he should react to hearing these things, "Well, at least you managed to get them out of there unscathed."


    "I wouldn''t necessarily say unscathed. Avalin and Leon were too young to remember anything about it now, but as for the others... I made sure they were kept out of such situations until now, but a lot happened to my older children. Clementine has a special healing ability that lets her take wounds of others onto herself. The Lord of Gluttony used that to keep eating until its body was literally ripped apart, and then had Clementine take his wounds." Eiro exined, all the whilst James kept sitting there listening while holding his hand up to his face,pletely hiding it.


    "Well, I managed to get Sammy out before anything too bad happened. But obviously she''s still not doing too well with it. She was with the Lord of pride, and I think I sometimes remind her of that guy. Then there''s Rudy. He was with the Lord of Envy, who continuosly threw Rudy off the tower before pulling him back up. Over and over again. Rudy can''t take damage through normal means, so he had to go through that over and over again. He''s still scared of heights to this day. And then, there''s Arc... He... He was with the Lord of Lust. I''m sure you know what happened."


    "And..." James slowly muttered, "What does that have to do with what you said about being a demon of wrath..?"


    "Ah, right, sorry. Well, when I left to find the children, I ended up being brought to the Lord of Wrath. He apparently hated everything and anything, and as such tried to kill me immediately. Iter made it so that the Lord of Pride and Lord of Wrath would fight against each other. A lot of stuff happened, but either way, the town was in havoc and most of the Lords were dead. As that town was used by <The Devil>, I was being watched by him constantly. Then the whole ordeal with Rumia from the Holy Empire happened where I killed him and his troupe, and because I did so while rather upset, <The Devil> found me. He gave me the ''Mark of the Devil''. Then a whileter, after I encountered Enka, my anger boiled over and it produced the ''Mark of Wrath''." The Demon exined, "And since then, I be angry far more easily. It actually ended up in me bing so angry that I ughtered half the inhabitants of a whole vige in bloodlust without control over my own body."


    For a few moments, it waspletely silent. All that Eiro could hear was the soft breathing of Leon and Avalinying next to each other on the bed, the goblins messing around on the other side of the vige, and Lugo messing around with some random magic stone outside. And of course, James'' heartbeat and breathing, before the Light Elf slowly started to speak.


    "I suddenly feel really ridiculous." He pointed out, "Compared to what you and those children went through, my life seems like child''s y... well, child''s y of normal children, I guess, not yours. I never knew my father. My mother was a good person, but I was never that close to her somehow. When I was 15, I made the choice to leave to be an adventurer. I trained under a former B-Rank, and he introduced me to Thomas and Avalin. I had good contacts, and I didn''t have to strug-"


    "James." Eiro interrupted as he pushed himself off the ground, "Stop lying like that." The Demon said with a light re, "I don''t know why you would do this, but I can tell that what you said just now was not the truth. At least not the full truth."


    Out of nervosity, it seemed like James'' heartbeat elerated, and he started to quietlyugh, "You''re pretty annoying sometimes, you know?" James asked, "Fine. Then I''ll tell you the full truth. My mom was a Dark Elf. Incapable of using magic, shunned by regr elves, and quite evil in nature. Usually, at least. My mom was pretty naive, which is why at some point, as she didn''t seem to hold much other value, she was sold to illegal ve traders and passed around here and there. I actually have a few siblings, three that I would like to acknowledge at least. A Dark Human, a Dark Beast, and a Devilkin. So children of a Human, a Beastman, and a Demonkin. After she gave birth to me, the five of us were sold again. To ab. I got off scot-free because I was too young, but my older siblings were experimented on. My mom became a breeding machine. So, I have numerous half-monster siblings. We ended up being able to escape, but my mom never spoke again, and my half-monster siblings became horrid beings of attempted mass-destruction. Is that what you wanted to hear?" The Light Elf looked up at Eiro, and the Demon looked back at him with a nk expression.


    "I don''t know." He replied clearly, while James just sighed and leaned back against the wall, "Either way, it''s not really like anything happened to me directly. I don''t remember any of it, I just heard stories about it. I was taught to always hate monsters because of this stuff. Really, all that I said was true." James pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "I get what you-"


    But suddenly, Eiro waspletely interruped as he heard the sound of something cracking and crunching from outside. He turned around immediately and stepped through the cave entrance, "Lugo, what the fuck are you doing?" The demon asked as he ran up to the stag, that currently started crushing up one of the nature magic stones Eiro had prepared here forter already, "Spit it out." Eiro eximed immediately and held his hand down under Lugo''s mouth, "Spit it out you fat moron."


    But no matter what Eiro told Lugo, he simply kept chewing, so the Demon quickly stuck his hand into Lugo''s mouth and pulled it open as quickly as he could. It wasn''t that hard with his strength either.


    Eiro quickly pulled out the leftovers of the magic stone out of Lugo''s mouth, although it was only roughly a third the size that it was before Lugo started literally eating it.


    "You have to be fucking kidding me, Lugo you goddamn moron!" Eiro yelled out, "Throw it up immediately, it''s not good for you!"


    Eiro started cing his hands around Lugo''s throat in specific ces to try and make him throw up, but Lugo quickly shook his head and tried to escape from Eiro. With a loud bellow, he pushed the demon away from him using his antlers.


    "What is wrong with you? Do you actually want to die?" Eiro asked, but Lugo just shook his head without hesitation. And although the Demon was about to rip open Lugo''s mouth once more to push his hand down his throat and pull the magic stone out of Lugo''s body like that, Nelli and Gondos quickly stopped him.


    "Wait, Eiro! It''s... It''s gone!" Nelli eximed as she floated up to Lugo''s side, cing her palm onto the side of his stomach area, while Eiro looked at her with a deep frown, "What do you mean, ''It''s gone''?"


    "Exactly what I said, the parts of the magic stone Lugo swallowed are now gone. Simply... dissolved." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro stared at Lugo with a deep frown, "Actually... the reaction from cutting or crushing magic stones without special methods should have literally blown his head off..."


    Eiro looked at Lugo with a deep frown and then pulled up the stag''s status page. So far it didn''t change at all since thest time he saw it, with a single exception when he checked on Lugo''s experience within his current level. He was still level 1, but his experience went up from 0% all the way to 43%.


    With a broad grin, Eiro looked at Lugo and held him by the sides of his face, "Lugo!" Eiro eximed, and quickly picked up more of the nature magic stones off the ground, "Eat these too! Hurry up!"


    Rather excitedly, Eiro held the magic stones up to Lugo. The stag was a little hesitant, until Eiro quite literally pressed the magic stones into his mouth and started making him chew by moving Lugo''s jar up and down.


    "Wait, what are you doing? You just got mad, so why are you actively feeding him magic stones now?" Jess asked with a frown as she looked at Eiro, thinking that he finally just lost his mind, but the Demon just smiled.


    "Lugo is a special being. He''s not an animal, since he has levels. He''s not a monster, since that would mean he would level up simply by killing creatures. And he''s not a magic beast, since that would mean he would level up by using his mana. He didn''t progress at all doing either of those things. But now..." The Demon pointed out and watched as Lugo''s status quickly updated. The numbers updated by turning into light and Lugo''s stats were increased as his level became 2.


    "But now, he leveled up by eating magic stones!" Eiro eximed while staring at Lugo excitedly. At least he now knew that Lugo could actually level up and get stronger alongside him.


    "He''s leveling up by eating magic stones? Isn''t that kind of... insane?" Krog asked with apletely confused expression, and Eiro turned toward him with a broad smile and immediate nod.


    "Yeah it is. It''s more than just insane, it''s something a maniac woulde up with. But it is how it is. Lugo, it might be expensive, but now we actually have a pretty good use for the other magic stones. A source of fuel to get you to level up!" Eiro eximed excitedly, although Lugo just tilted his head to the side.


    Eiro tried to think about what magic stones he could spare, although soon, his excitement subsided. Because then, he realized that there would surely be other effects. There was no way that Lugo wouldn''t end up getting imbued with some of the magic stones'' elements after eating them, so maybe he should think about what he should give Lugo a little bit.


    Eiro could probably figure out Lugo''s affinities and then try to only give him magic stones in tune with those affinities. That might actually help him level up a little faster as well.


    Either way, now, Eiro knew that he really didn''t imagine anything from back then.. Lugo was really a unique being.

 Chapter 187 - Stop Swearing

    It was rtively early in the morning, and Eiro was just sitting there while trying to make more nature magic flow through his body so that he could make use of this special b as much as possible. He would need to wait a little while and then do another affinity testter to see how strongly his nature elemental affinity increased by doing this. It probably did increase quite a bit, but Eiro couldn''t bepletely sure.


    Either way, he was soon ''woken up'' as someone tapped on his shoulder. Eiro slowly opened his eyes with a ripping sound as the bark that had covered his eyes broke apart.


    "Yes?" Eiro asked, looking through the thin slits before cing the nature magic stone onto the ground and letting the nature magic simple disappear from inside of him. Because the one that tapped on his shoulder was Jess, who was there to let him know that everyone was ready to go by now.


    The Demon stood up and stretched out properly, trying to get rid of that stiffness that he already gotst time by infusing himself with nature magic, "Alright, then let''s go." He said and stepped down from the b, before putting on his cloak and mask. Eiro picked up Leon and Avalin and put them onto Lugo''s back again.


    "But how are we doing this now? We can''t just waltz all the way back to the Capital with all these materials and living monsters. That would be basically impossible." James pointed out with his arms crossed, but Eiro just looked back at him with a smirk on his face, "You think so?" The Demon said, "Well, good thing that we''ve got an extra carrier with us." Eiro pointed out as he looked over toward a certain one of the Hobgoblins, and Krog groaned loudly.


    "You don''t seriously want to take it with us, right?" Krog asked, and Eiro looked back at him and spoke without hesitation, "Yes, I do. The spiders are a bit risky, since they''re currently only kept under control by Leon, but it shouldn''t be an issue with Gobo. We''re just heading to the nearest town, and then you three will head inside and get us some transport carts."


    "Oh... Fair enough then." Jess replied, "What exactly will we need?"


    "I think we should be with a singlerge cart. And then we just need individual cages for all the spiders. I''ll leave the size-judgement to you, it shouldn''t be too hard. But make sure you get a cart with enough space to also put all the other materials in there. Then we can head back to the capital like that." Eiro pointed out, "Oh, and obviously we''ll also need some tubs for the blood. Get as many of those as you can, I''ll make do with magic for the rest."


    "We''re not putting Gobo in a cage?" Jess inquired, and Eiro just shook his head, "No, we''re not. I want to see how he can handle being around people. If I need to, I''ll tie him up before we enter the capital, but otherwise he''ll walk."


    As Eiro was saying that, he quickly handed Gobo his old cloak and made sure that he had the hood over his head so that his ugly goblin face was harder to see, and then looked at the other Hobgoblins.


    "You four, protect this town, and keep talking to each other in ''Common'' as much as you can." The Demon told them, and the four other Hobgoblins quickly nodded their heads while the group started heading off. They picked up the spiders on the way, and then left through the caves.


    Once they were outside, the group split into two. Since it would take a little while to properly make sure the spiders were really following behind properly, which would consequently slow them down, James, Krog and Jess went ahead toward town to buy the cart they needed already and have it brought out to a slightly hidden area right ouside of town where they could meet up with Eiro again.


    As their stats increased a bit through them leveling up this much, they would get to town rather quickly. They actually managed to get there quickly enough that both groups were at the meetup spot at roughly the same time. Eiro and the others got there first, sure, but only a few minutester the others got there as well. It seemed like Krog was actually pulling the cart for now, since they would make use of Lugo instead of a horse for pulling the cart, and Lugo was still with Eiro, so they had nothing to pull the cart back to the meetup spot.


    Krog did a pretty good job at it, though, so it wasn''t really an issue in the end. All that they then had to do was properly load everything onto the cart. The spiders were a little annoying after they were put into the cages, since Eiro let Leon stop trying to manipte only them and instead helped him deactivate his skills altogether again.


    That meant that there was nothing keeping them calm anymore, so they slowly started freaking out. But it wasn''t an issue, they just covered the cart in arge sheet of cloth and then it was fine.


    All that they now had to do was really just have the cart pulled toward town. They could cut down on the time a bit by having the children and Jess sit on Lugo''s back and having him elerate, while Eiro, James, Krog and Gobo were just running.


    It was pretty good practice for Gobo as well, since he never had to run like this. Instead he was usually just sitting around somewhere in the Goblin vige. The most he did was during the asional hunt.


    Either way, like this, they managed to reach the capital within the next few days. Eiro was d that they managed to get back this quickly, since Avalin was getting a bit more cranky the longer they went on. She wanted to be back with the others, but when Eiro could start telling her that they would be there soon, she calmed down a bit, which made the rest of the trip a bit more bearable.


    And then, they finally reached the capital again. At the gate into town, they were stopped so that they could take a look at the cart.


    "So, why exactly are you here?" One of the guards asked suspiciously, since he could hear some sounds from the cart. It was the spiders being even more bothersome than usual due to the monster-repents usually incorporated into town walls. Even Gobo, despite his sealed monstrosity, was a bit bothered by it. Although that made Eiro just the more impressed of the slime, since he didn''t seem bothered by this in the slightest. He was just being annoying because of the cold again.


    "We''re adventurers that live in this town. We just came back from a trip, and came back with a few things we want to hand in at the guild." James said clearly, while Eiro was trying to calm down Gobo properly so that he wouldn''t cause any issues from here on out.


    "Aha... And does that include monsters?" The Guard asked with a frown as he started lifting up the cover on the cart, and James quickly nodded his head as he openly pulled the cover off the cart, seemingly surprising the guard a fair bit.


    "Yes, actually. We prepared a full list of our materials beforehand. You can double-check if you want, but I doubt you''ll find any mistakes." James added, and the Guard took the piece of paper into his hands and looked it over with a frown, before turning toward the cart.


    "Well there''s a mistake right here, it says you have a ''Mountain Hobgoblin'' with you, but that''s obviously not the case." The Guard said with a frown, "Or is that masked fe over there it?" Heughed, and his colleague swiftlyughed together with him.


    "Seems fair, look at''im! Someone hiding their face must be as ugly as a motherfucking Goblin!" He eximed, and Eiro sighed annoyedly and stepped up to the guards.


    "Heh? What''d''ya want, little guy?" The guard, who stood a head taller than Eiro, asked with a light grin, "Listen, we can''t let you in either way. To get monsters into town, you need a special permit, and that ain''t the kinda thing some low-rank adventurers like you can get. So bugger off now." The Guard said quickly, and without a moment''s hesitation, Eiro pushed his hand forward and punched the man in front of him into the stomach, making him fall over while heaving for air.


    Once the other guard realized what was happening, he properly held his spear toward Eiro, but when he did, he could already see the King''s brooch being held toward him, "This a good enough permit for you?"


    "I-I''m sorry, my Lord! Please, proceed!" The Guard eximed, and Eiro looked at him with a deep re. The others just proceeded through while Eiro stayed there for a little longer. The two guards were a little confused, although the one that just barely managed to stand up again after being punched so painfully without even being dealt that much damage just red at Eiro.


    "Hey, Moron." Eiro said with a deep re from under his mask, and both of the guards immediately looked back at Eiro, "Yes?" Both of them replied as they stood up straight, and Eiro just smirked a bit, "Since you two know that you''re morons, I''m sure you''ll appreciate it if I educate the two of you a little, right?" Eiro asked, "For one, alcohol is mmable, so be careful not to make your liver instantaneouslybust while you''re supposed to protect the town that my children live in. Two, if either of you even thinks about causing random issues like this that are going to reflect badly on my friend and benefactor, your King, then make sure that you''re really doing it to people without the power to kill you and your whole families without anyone knowing, or even caring. Andstly..." Eiro said, before extending his hands upward to grab the two guards by their armors'' cors, pulling them down and hitting their heads together.


    "Stop swearing in front of children. What is wrong with people these days? Don''t you know that especially a child''snguageprehension skill will develop poorly when they only hear damn idiots like you speak the few words they actually know? You''re better off not saying anything in front of children from now on. Do I make myself already?" The Demon asked with a re, and the two guards slowly nodded their heads.


    With a satisfied expression under his mask, Eiro let go of the two guards and then started heading through the gate himself.. It seemed like his <Mark of Wrath> got a bit stronger again.

 Chapter 188 - Promotional Examination

    Eiro managed to catch up to the others pretty quickly. After all, they were just on a straight road toward the next wall right now so that they could get into the actual urban area of the town. Just getting through there would take roughly an hour just on foot, although it seemed like this group would manage to do it in just half an hour, luckily. Sure, they had a cart, but most of them were still travelling on foot nheless.


    "What did you do back there?" James asked with a light frown once he saw the Demon run upx to him, and Eiro just turned his head a little and smiled underneath his mask, "Nothing special, I just made sure to educate them a little. And don''t worry, I didn''t injure them any more than what you already saw."


    "Right..." The Light Elf replied, and Eiro just looked forward again. It''s not like he cared for James'' opinion when it came to things like this, so he just ignored the obvious discontent that James seemingly had a hard time suppressing in his voice.


    After a while, the group reached the next gate. There wasn''t really that much trouble here, and this time Eiro had the chance to show Solomon''s brooch before the guards made any insultingments, so they were simply let through without any further issues.


    The spiders were being a little annoying inside of their cages, but since Eiro specifically chose to take streets without many people on it, it was fine. Gobo was a bit bothersome as well though. He was obviously nervous, as if on edge. It might be that he was just scared of all these many people, or that it was the effect of the monster-repent materials inside of the walls and the castle itself, but either way, the Hobgoblin managed to behave. Although Eiro still kept an extra eye on him the whole time.


    Soon, the group managed to finally reach the adventurer''s guild again. They pulled some of the materials off of the cart to carry them inside, already garnering quite a few surprised looks from other people due to the sheer amount of materials. They ced the cart somewhere where they wouldn''t bother anyone and where they were hard to spot, but that still didn''t mean that nobody saw them at all.


    "You two. Better wait out here with the cart, who knows what might happen?" James pointed out before Eiro and James made their way into the Guild, carrying therge bags ands filled with materials from the spiders. The living ones were a little to precious to hand in as a request, actually.


    It didn''t seem too busy at the moment, and as such, the two of them reached the counter rather quickly. And to Eiro''s pleasant surprise, the receptionist that Eiro spoke to the first time he was here once more came to the front. It seemed like they wanted to make sure that people always had the same receptionist handling their cases, to make things a little easier to organize.


    "How can I help you today?" The receptionist asked with a smile on his face, and without hesitation, James and Eiro ced the bags onto the counter, "I''d like to hand these materials in." Eiro exined. The receptionist slowly nodded his head and opened one of the bags up. He pulled the leg of a Night Stalker out of there and then turned back toward Eiro.


    "Did you hunt these together?" The receptionist asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "No, actually. Those materials alle from monsters hunted by me alone." Eiro said. It might sound a little bit annoying to do it like this, and rather selfish to top it off, but this was the best way to do it for now. Eiro was still a D-Rank adventurer, so they all made the choice together to let Eiro hand in some of the materials he got alone on his own so that he could get to the top of D-Rank to take the promotion exam to C-Rank. It seemed like it wouldn''t take too long, since it was just a test of strength, so he would quickly take it, officially join James, Jess and Krog''s party, and then they would hand in some of the rest of the materials. Still not all of them, though.


    "I see... Then please just let me process these mateis." The receptionist said and then took out the materials one by one. Some others came and helped him out to try and figure out the quality of the materials and what they were actually from, and soon, the receptionist returned with a light smile.


    "As I am quite sure you are already aware, this is more than enough to show your validity as a D-Rank adventurer. If you wish, we can have you take the promotional examination while we prepare the mary reward?" The receptionist suggested, doing a rather bad job at hiding his doubt, "I just need to inform you that if you fail the promotional examination, you will be banned from taking it for one month. And in the worst case, if it is found that you may not actually hold the strength to back up the fact that you brought us these materials, then you may receive a penalty, which could include Rank Demotion."


    "Mhm." Eiro replied in a rather bored tone as he looked at James, "Then you wait here and keep the rest of the materials safe. And you can take the money in case it''s ready before Ie back."


    "Sure. But hurry it up, I really need to take a proper nap." James replied as he stepped over to the side and sat down on a chair at a table right next to the counter, and Eiro just followed the guild receptionist.


    He brought Eiro through the building to the back, to an open space. It was rather cool here, since the sun didn''t reach in, but it was still rtively bright due to therge open space showing the sky at the roof of this area.


    "As the first step of your promotional examinations, we need to gather a little information about you and your skillset. Don''t worry, we are aware that skills are anyone''s greatest weapon, we aren''t actually using appraisal tools on you. We just need you to inform us of any skills and abilities that you make use of duringbat, which will be tested today. Should you use any ability that you didn''t inform us of, or we sense any sort of other deception in your description of an ability, it will lead to your disqualification this exam and you will be banned from taking it again for a month. Understood?" The receptionist asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head in response.


    "Mhm, I understand. Inbat, I mostly make use of Hand-to-Handbat and Dagger Mastery, with which I wield either one or two daggers depending on the situation." Eiro started, and the receptionist slowly nodded his head and noted this down, "A Rogue-type, I see... But wait, didn''t you have two spirits apanying you?"


    "Yes, I wasn''t done yet." Eiro replied with a light groan, "When ites to magic, I make use of physical casting or magic-circle-based casting. I''m not a fan of chants, but I use them sometimes too. The elements I make use of are Air, Fire, Earth, Water and Ice. And as you mentioned, there is Spirit Magic as well." The demon exined swiftly, and the receptionist slowly noted all of this down, although he was more than just suspicious of this.


    "Then this will be split into two. It is hard to demonstrate physical meleebat without a partner, so you will spar against one of our employees only making use of Hand-to-Handbat and Dagger Mastery, please. For Magic, I ask that you try and copy spells that we will show you at a simr or higher level. If you don''t know the spell, a simr one at the same strength will suffice. We sadly do not have an Ice Mage with us, but I hope that you will understand the rough level of magic strength we would like to see after the first four tries." The receptionist exiend quickly.


    Eiro slowly nodded his head. That shouldn''t be too hard. This would most likely finish rather quickly, then.


    "Alright, how are we starting?" Eiro asked, and the receptionist slowly looked up from the sheet of paper he was noting things down on, "You are positive you want to proceed? You do not want to make any edits to your statements?"


    "I don''t. Please, let''s start." The Demon said, and with a deep sigh, the receptionist nodded and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He waved his hand toward one of the people standing at the side of this training area. It was seemingly a rogue that Eiro would be fighting against for now.


    "C-Rank promotionals, I see?" The rogue asked with a rather cheeky grin, "Take that mask of and let''s see what you can do, bud." He chuckled, but Eiro just shook his head without hesitation.


    "Sorry, I won''t be taking my mask off. But it shouldn''t be an issue, I''m not restricted by this mask in the slightest."


    "How can you say that?" With a light scoff, the rogue crossed his arms, "There aren''t even any holes for your eyes in there. What, are ya blind?"


    "Could we stop this? In literally a minute you will realize that this smack-talking had absolutely no affect on me. Now take up your stance, I want to get this over with. My kids are waiting at home." The Demon said with an annoyed tone, and the rogue justughed and started taking up his stance.


    There was just one peculiar thing about that stance. It was very, very simr to Eiro''s own. It was too simr to be a coincidence, but there were obvious mistakes in there. This would be more interesting than Eiro thought.


    But the moment that he took up his own stance with one dagger in his hand the other ced t onto his own back, the receptionist already intervened.


    "Lord Eiro, please, do not just imitate our-"


    "Shut the fuck up, brat!" The rogue yelled out loudly, making the receptionist flinch immediately, "As I thought, you''re fucking interesting. That name, the royal brooch, and now that stance! Who the fuck are you, huh?" The rogue asked with a mad grin on his face, and Eiro just looked back at him, "I''ll tell you if you can beat me. In return, once I beat you, tell me about how you know about this style."


    "Aye, deal." The rogue said, and without hesitation after the match started jumped forward toward Eiro. The Demon was a little annoyed, since he was shown just more and more mistakes in this imitation of a Master''s Style. Eiro was a bit annoyed by this, actually. Without a moment''s hesitation, within not even 20 seconds of the start of the match, Eiro threw the rogue to the ground and grappled onto him,bining his dagger mastery with his grapple-heavy hand-to-handbat style, in which he enveloped the rogue''s upper body with all of his limbs and pressed the tip of his dagger against the underside of his chin.


    And with a deep sigh, he started thinking about what exactly he was supposed to do to calm this guy down, whose whole body was seemingly starting to get overtaken by anger and frustrationpletely.

 Chapter 189 - Ranking Up

    "Hey." Eiro said in a loud voice as he looked at the guild receptionist, "I won this fight, right?" The Demon asked, and the receptionist slowly nodded his head.


    "Y-Yes, of course... Truthfully, it is quite umon to see someone beat an instructor like this. That alone is enough to show your strength to be more than high enough to be a C-Rank. But we still need to confirm your statements that you are capable of wielding five different types of magic like that. But that can be done in a simple demonstration of any level instead of what I suggested before." The receptionist said, all the whilst Eiro slowly let go of the rogue, who was just continuosly ring at Eiro with seething anger.


    At least that''s what he thought at first. But no, instead of anger... the rogue felt excitement. At the very least he had that kind of smile on his face that Eiro didn''t notice before. It was weird, and more than just ufortable. Either way, Eiro just turned back toward the receptionist.


    "Alright then..." The Demon said and extended his hand toward Nelli. The Naiad moved her hands around and slowly created some water that Eiro immediately took control of. He made the water easily flow around his body, controlling its movement with his hands and fingers. After that, he simply started to make the water heat up to a boil before he shot it forward toward one of the dummies ced up against the wall, making the hot water freeze around it immediately.


    The next moment, Eiro pushed his hand into his satchel and pulled out his spark snapper out of his treasury, pretending he pulled it out of the satchel itself. Eiro snapped his fingers and created arge spark of mes out of it that filled out the whole area and even melted the ice on the dummy before the water disappeared and fell apart into mana.


    And then, with a quick movement of his hand, Eiro pulled all the mes toward him and extinguished them before they came in contact with his hand. Making use of the movement of the air created through those mes, the Demon made the wind itself speed up even more.


    The wind turned into a small tornado in the center of this area, pulling up dust and bits of dirt from the ground, before Eiro, with a swift movement, just pulled arge block of rock from the ground while dispersing that tornado. And just like that, Eiro finished showing off his five elemental magic skills in simple manners. He didn''t really show of proper techniques of his besides boiling the water to freeze it more quickly, but that wasn''t necessarily a concept you could do much against anyway.


    Either way. Eiro slowly turned back toward the receptionist, who was noting everything down, more than just impressed at what he saw.


    "I... I see, I must admit, I did not expect something at this level. ''Physical Casting'' is usually something that people make use of to cloak their bodies in something, like an extra protectiveyer of rock on their skin, or cloaking their fists in mes for more damage, but this... this is quite extraordinary. But even then, could we still possibly see you try and create a simple Magic Circle? After that we can get back to the front and finalize your rank-up." The receptionist exined, so without a moment''s hesitation, Eiro nodded his head and stretched his hand out in front of him.


    He moved his fingers around and quickly created a magic circle within just a few seconds, before he shot out a fast gust of wind with its help.


    "Hm?" The receptionist asked, raising his head from looking at the piece of paper, "What just happened?" He asked, turning toward the other guild workers, who were staring at Eiro with a mixture of confusion and awe.


    "You didn''t see it?" Eiro asked, and the receptionist turned back toward him, "See what?"


    "I just made a magic circle."


    "No, you didn''t..."


    "Yes I did."


    "Sir, if you-" With a deep groan, Eiro interrupted the receptionist again by simply repeating the same process again. Within just a few seconds, the magic circle appeared in front of Eiro''s hand again, once more creating a strong gust of wind.


    "That... I see... Then I apologize for the inconvenience. You passed perfectly. Congrattions, Sir." The receptionist said with a nervous smile, before Eiro sighed lightly and started stepping back toward the door together with the receptionist.


    But just before he left, the rogue that Eiro fought against before tried to grab his shoulder, "Touch me and I''ll cut your dirty fingers off." The Demon said without turning around or stopping, and the rogue just slightly started tough.


    "Hehe... Of course you would..." The rogueughed, making Eiro even more ufortable. Rather annoyed, the Demon turned around toward the Rogue and looked at him.


    "So? What do you want?" Eiro asked. With a broad grin on his face, the rogue extended his hand forward, showing Eiro a small metallic card. It wasn''t a Guild Card, but something else. Eiro took it from the rogue to get a better look without the rogue''s finger''s covering half the card, and then turned back toward him with a light frown.


    "What is this?" Eiro asked, and the rogue looked at the demon with a broad smile, "It''s an invitation...! For those like us that enjoy exciting fights. I leave it to you to figure out where and when the next meeting is." The rogue smiled and stepped into the hallway ahead of Eiro and the receptionist.


    It seemed like none of the others really heard what the rogue told Eiro, although a couple people saw Eiro being given that card, the ''invitation''. It actually seemed pretty interesting, so maybe Eiro should look into it sometime.


    But for now, it didn''t matter. Eiro followed the receptionist to the front again, only a few minutes after they went to the back.


    With a slightugh and a pitying expression, one of the other receptionist looked at Eiro, "Back so quick, I see? Don''t worry about it, it happens to many. Better luck next time~!" She said, and Eiro stepped past her with a deep re, "Shut up, dumbass. I passed." Eiro replied, not wanting to let anyone like this receptionist speak to him like that. He would have liked to push his dagger into her throat just for that, but in the end it didn''t matter either way, so Eiro just walked past her only with thatment.


    "H-Huh? Who do you think you''re talking to, that''s uneptable!" The female receptionist eximed, and Eiro turned toward her with a deep sigh, "Listen here, your job probably doesn''t include being a fucking bitch to me. That was just my way of declining that little extra service. So shut it and leave me be. There''s other people that need your help over there." Eiro sighed annoyedly.


    "Now, now, please don''t fight with our employees, Sir." The receptionist taking care of Eiro said with an awkward expression, and turned around a couple times to deeply re at his coworker while mouthing insults toward her.


    "Oh, back already?" James asked, downing the beer that he ordered while Eiro was gone, and the Demon just nodded his head, "Mhm. It was pretty easy, so that was to be expected." The Demon pointed out as he received the bag filled with bundles of coins from James that they got for the materials. Eiro would distribute them evenlyter. After all, he wasn''t really in need of money at the moment.


    A few momentster, the receptionist came up to Eiro and handed him his guild card back, which had now been updated to verify that Eiro was actually a C-Rank adventurer, "There you go, Sir. Do you need my help with anything else?" He asked, and James quickly took over.


    "Yep. He''s joining my party and taking over as party leader." The Light Elf exined, and the receptionist raised his brows in surprise, trying his best not to let go of the customer-service smile on his face, "I see... Then I need your two Guild Cards please. It will only take a minute. Please go ahead and take a seat." The receptionist said, and Eiro quickly turned around and starting heading to the entrance, "I''ll go get some more materials now." Eiro said. The receptionist was seemingly a little annoyed, but Eiro and James didn''t really care too much.


    The Demon made his way out of the guild building while watched by the other adventurers curiously, before heading off to the ce where they kept the cart at the moment.


    With Krog and Jess'' help, Eiro picked up a majority of the rest of the materials, just leaving behind the blood, venom, and roughly a quarter of each type of spider egg that Eiro had gathered. The rest wasn''t really of use to the party at the moment.


    And so, after also quickly grabbing Krog and Jess'' guild cards to let them be updated properly with all the information of passed quests as well, Eiro made his way back inside of the guild carrying even more materials than before.


    It was a bit annoying because there were a fair amount of people in here and it was tough to get through the room while carrying all of it, but people soon made way when they saw that it was Eiro and what it was that he was carrying.


    Eiro ced everything down on the counter in front of the receptionist who only just returned with the updated Guild Cards, and once more had a rather tough time perfectly hiding his clear discontent.


    "More materials... I see?" The receptionist asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yes. This time materials collected from the whole party."


    "...Understood." With a quiet groan, the receptionist started sorting through the materials, until he stumbled across the first egg. And then the second, and then the third. He looked down at the hundreds of spider eggs in the bags in front of him, and then raised his head to look at Eiro again.


    "These are extremely high-quality materials, where did you get them?" The receptionist asked, and Eiro just looked back at him as if it was obvious, "In a spider-invested forest in the mountain-range a few days south."


    "You''re telling me you went into that ce and got out again with these many materials in the few days you were gone?" The receptionist asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Mhm. What about it?"


    "Nothing, nothing, I was just thinking that this is perfect! You can maybe give us information vital to find and kill the Noble Monster that''s giving birth to all those spiders! You see, you got really lucky, people say that it''s a Baron or even Viscount rank Noble!"


    "Viscount?" Eiro asked with a wry smile under his mask, "That thing was a Knight at best. Maybe even just a highmoner. It wasn''t strong at all, it just gave birth to a lot spiders. With a bit of fire magic those were easily dealt with."


    "...excuse me...?"

 Chapter 190 - The Bloodstone

    "...excuse me..?" The receptionist asked with a wry smile on his face, "I''m speaking of the monster that gave birth to all the spiders in that forest."


    "Yes, so am I." Eiro replied with an annoyed tone, "You don''t even need to seem that surprised bud. It''s not a misunderstanding. I did kill that monster. You literally have some of its carapace in front of you. If you want, you can send someone to confirm it, I''ll draw you up a map to let you know where it was. Either way, that spider is dead now."


    "A single B-Rank party... made up of four C-Ranks... actually fought against waves and waves of spiders and a noble monster?" The receptionist asked, rather suspiciously, and Eiro loudly groaned. He pulled out a piece of paper and a pen out of his satchel and ced the paper down t on the counter in front of him. He quickly started sketching up a simple map of where the Spider Queen was before. The cadaver was still there right now, after all. Eiro didn''t really take that much of it.


    Once he was done making the simple map, he handed it to the receptionist, "There you go. Send some people to check it out if you want." The Demon pointed out. And after looking down at the piece of paper, the receptionist nodded his head.


    "...We will, yes. Either way, due to this mass amount and variety of materials, I don''t think we can get through everything today. Come again tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, by that time we''ll also have verified your ims." The receptionist exined, in response to which Eiro simply nodded his head and looked at James.


    "You heard him. Then let''s go." Eiro said, turning around and making his way over toward the door already. James followed him outside while the guild workers were grabbing all of the materials that Eiro ced down in front of them and tried to preemptively sort through it.


    When Eiro and James were outside, they met back up with Krog and Jess, telling them what was going on, and gave them back their Guild Cards.


    "What? We need to wait for the materials to be sorted through?" Jess asked annoyedly, and Eiro lightly shrugged, "I''m not so sure. I think they may be able to get through it in an hour or so, but they probably just really want to make sure that the materials are actually from the Spider Queen."


    "Ah..." Jess muttered quietly, and Eiro looked further down the road, "Well, anyway, we''ll head to the castle for now. I think you three will have to wait outside with the cart, since I doubt they''re going to let me through with it. I should have a ce ready where we can bring it, but I need to make sure first."


    "You''re not just getting a storage lot?" James asked, and Eiro shook his head, "Why would I? The ce we''re moving to is more than big enough to keep everything."


    Hearing what Eiro was speaking about, Avalin excitedly turned her head around toward them, "Mhm! We went to see it once before, and it''s huuuge! It was bigger and better than anything I''ve ever seen!"


    "But the castle is bigger?" Leon pointed out in response, and Avalin turned toward him with a light re, "I said. It was bigger. And better." She said with a light squint. Eiro lightly sighed and looked up at Avalin sitting on Lugo''s back, "Of course it is. It''s a pretty nice ce. You three are going to see what we mean." Eiro pointed out.


    It didn''t take long for the group to reach the castle''s gate, at which point Eiro just grabbed Avalin and Leon from Lugo''s back and grabbed their luggage off of the stag''s body as well, "I''ll be right back. Lugo, Gobo, behave." And while hearing an annoyed bellowing from behind him, Eiro stepped up to the gate. He showed the brooch to the guards and was quickly let inside together with the two children, making his way to the castle itself.


    At some point, Eiro started sensing his children all around the castle. Arc was outside, practicing some of his sword swings, Rudy was in the kitchen cooking, Sammy was in the library with Felix, and it seemed like Clementine was alone with the young prince Charles.


    Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what they were speaking about, but Eiro was still a bit curious. And nervous. He didn''t like that a boy he didn''t know too well was alone with his daughter. Felix was a different case by now, since Eiro had the chance to observe him for 24 hours a day during their travels, so he could make sure that Felix was actually a pretty good kid, but he still wasn''t sure about Charles. It was said that he was a rather unlikable person, after all.


    The Demon climbed up the stairs in front of the castle and stepped through the doors as they were opened to him by a servant. Eiro looked down at Leon and Avalin with a smile and helped them climb up the stairs to the second floor.


    Eiro walked up to the room that the children were staying in until now and opened the door up, directly walking in on Charles and Clementine simply speaking to each other.


    "Don''t worry, I purposefully didn''t listen to what you were saying." Eiro eximed the very next moment, and Clementine jumped up before he could even finish his sentence.


    "You''re back!" She yelled out, rushing over toward Eiro and enveloping him in a tight hug, "Yep, I''m back." He replied, and Avalin clung onto Clementine''s leg before anyone knew it, "Don''t only hug daddy, I''m also here!"


    "Of course you are! Sorry,e here, you two!" Clementine said with a bright smile on her face as she let go of Eiro and knelt down on the ground and hugged Avalin and Leon instead.


    Meanwhile, Eiro turned his head over toward Charles, "Nice to see you too." He said, and the prince quickly stood up. He still had a few issues with his new leg, but that waspletely fine in the end. He was handling it well enough, as well as Eiro expected. His body was really messed with, after all, energy-wise. Whatever curse was ced onto Charles seemed to have made it that he was able to adjust to things far worse as well, and at the moment, the rest of that curse were still showing a fair amount.


    "Nice to see you again as well." Charles said with a light smile. Eiro never really saw him smile genuinely like that before, he was usually just so slighty tilting the corners of his mouth upward, but it was never a hearty smile like this. That was nice progress, as far as the demon was concerned.


    Either way, Eiro turned back toward Clementine, "Either way, I''m sorry, but can I ask you to take care of these two for a bit? I want to see Solomon and ask about the Manor."


    "Right, of course! He actually came to us and said that it should be ready for us to move in while you were gone!" Clementine eximed excitedly, and Eiro lightly smiled, "Really? That''s good to know. Thanks for telling me." The Demon replied, simrly excited. He was d that they would have a ce that they could potentially call home again soon.


    "Well, then I''m heading over there now." Eiro said and turned around again with a smile that was hidden under his mask, but Charles quickly stopped him, "Wait! There''s someone with my father at the moment. I don''t know who exactly it is, though. She seems to be quite important though?" Charles exined, and Eiro looked back at him with curiously.


    "His mistress?"


    "What? No! Not his mistress! My Father doesn''t have a mistress!" The young man eximed, so Eiro lightly shrugged.


    "Then there shouldn''t be an issue if I barge in. Thanks." And with that, Eiro turned around and left, closing the door behind him. He made his way through the hallways of the castle, soon reaching Solomon''s office. But Eiro was incredibly suspicious of the woman inside.


    Because it was far, far harder to sense herpared to Solomon. For a little while, actually simply didn''t sense her, despite the fact that she didn''t seem to be doing anything that could cause that. She was simply standing there, even slightly walking around here and there. She was moving and speaking more than Solomon was, but Eiro had such a hard time noticing her presence.


    And so, the Demon just knocked on the door, "Solomon. It''s me." Eiro said, and without really having to wait at all, the door was opened up by the woman in question while Solomon stood up at his desk.


    "Eiro! Nice to see you''re back! Perfect timing, actually. There''s someone I would like you to meet!" Solomon exined, and pointed at the woman that was holding the door open for the Demon.


    "That is Evelyn James. Simr to you, she is one who will be joining in the tournament next summer, and is also a prime candidate for the top." Solomon exined. Eiro stared at the mature woman in front of him. Eiro didn''t know why he thought of her as mature, as she just looked to be around 25 or so years old, but that was just what he instinctively thought. She was just a bit shorter than Eiro was, and had a body of proportions that Eiro didn''t really see that often. The term ''Seductress'' came to mind, and Eiro continued wondering if she maybe wasn''t actually Solomon''s mistress.


    "I see..." The woman spoke. Her voice also had a mature, but pleasant and melodic tone to it, "Another Card Owner. Interesting."


    Eiro red at the woman, looking all over her body. He instantly knew that she had a card herself when he saw her, and he also knew that she had the card on her body in its activated form. There were small differences to the feeling of cards when they were active to when they were not, and this was definitely active.


    And then, Eiro spotted the amulet that Evelyn was wearing.


    "The Queen of Wands, the Bloodstone. I don''t think it was supposed to be an amulet." He pointed out, and Evelyn slowly shook her head with an impressed chuckle, "It is not, but I have contacts that were able to arrange this. It makes it far more efficient and easier to use, you see? I need to make sure that it''s in top form. I''m a Bloodstone Sorceress, after all."


    "Bloodstone Sorceress, is that so?" Eiro repeated. He didn''t really care all that much about what she was calling herself.. He knew that he had to keep close to this woman, since the amulet she ced the red bloodstone gem into was covered in the same Arcane Runes as the small metal ball that Eiro found inside of the Spider Queen''s body.

 Chapter 191 - Preparing For The Daughter

    Eiro looked at the woman right next to him, Evelyn James the Bloodstone Sorceress. Until now, whenever he heard of any person or group making something to directly influence or experiment with cards, it was the same organization behind it. And Eiro was sure that it wasn''t some sort of coincidence, Evelyn was most likely part of the same organization.


    But as he still couldn''t be entirely sure how strong she was, Eiro couldn''t just ''challenge'' her. Enka was incredibly strong, far stronger than Eiro was at the time he fought him. But even Enka just had a replica, a ''fake'' card item. The feeling that Evelyn gave off was indisputable, however. She was the actual owner of a card.


    It may just have to do with internal diplomacy, but it would make sense for Evelyn to be insurmountably strongpared to Enka. And Eiro wasn''t that much stronger right now than Enka was. He didn''t want to risk anything.


    "You see something you like~?" Evelyn asked, holding her hand up to the amulet around her neck, although she was obviously insinuating that Eiro was looking at something a little bit lower than that.


    With a low groan, Eiro turned back toward Solomon, "So, is there another reason why you wanted to introduce us?" The Demon inquired, and Solomon slowly nodded his head.


    "Yes, there is, actually. You see, in just another two weeks, it''s time for the Winter Solstice. It''s an important festivity here. Since you two are the most talented Ice Elemental Mages I know, I thought it would be a good idea to have you two as representatives when Winter''s Daugther arrives here on the day of the Solstice."


    "What?" Eiro asked immediately, walking up closer to the desk without hesitation, "A Daughter of Winter ising here?" The Demon asked with a bright, excited smile underneath his mask, and Solomon slowly nodded his head, "Yes, although it is only the case during the Winter Solstice. The first King of Skyhart, my ancestor, received the blessing of the Lady of Winter. As such, as long as our family is ruling, we will be visited by one of her daughters."


    "Is that so..?" Rather happy that he would be able to see at least a Daughter of Winter every year he was here, Eiro took a step back and turned toward Evelyn, "You can leave, if that''s the case. We only need me." Eiro said, feeling weirdly giddy about hearing these news. Solomon looked at Eiro rather confused after hearing him speak.


    "Oh? I know you often speak of your strength, but I didn''t realize that you can look down on others in that way as well. Miss Jameses from a family of some of the greatest Cryomancers in history. Would it be possible toy it open to Eiro?" The King asked, and Evelyn lightly chuckled, "I think you already did, your Majesty. I''m sure Eiro already knows who I am after that little hint."


    "I don''t." Eiro replied bluntly, "But I don''t really care either. There''s a reason why-"


    "Oh? Amoner brat like you thinks that they''re better than me, I see?" Evelyn asked, and Eiro looked at her with a deep re hidden under his mask, "What? I just don''t care about anyone that has no use to me. Again, there''s a reason why I''m saying we only need me-"


    However, it seemed like Evelyn didn''t really care. Eiro weirdly couldn''t tell whether or not she was acting like it or if she was legitimately upset, but she soon voiced herints, "I will let you know that I am part of the Frosthearth family. The soon-to-be family head, even."


    Hearing that name, Eiro turned toward Evelyn actually rather curiously. That name sounded pretty... weird, "Frosthearth? Are you in any way rted to the Stinehearth family?"


    "Of course we are. Both the Frosthearth and Stinehearth families are those that split off the Heroic Eldhearth family. The one that the greatest hero of them all, the first great Hero Eiro was leading. Eiro Edwin Eldhearth." Evelyn exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Interesting. And in the Eldhearth family, was there someone also called Evelyn? Or someone with a simr name or pronunciation?" The Demon inquired. This was too much of a coincidence to be unrted.


    Solomon took it on him to answer that, "Yes, it was the Hero Eiro''s child, Evelyn Eid Eldwin. She was a great mage that impressed with her feats even after her father''s death. It is quite... umon to see someone named Eiro, but many heads of the Hearth families tend to name their daughter a form of ''Evelyn'' or simrly, ''Avalin'' to hint at their own greatness." The King exined, although he was a little confused, "You named your child Avalin without knowing that? That seems like a weird coincidence."


    "Something like that. I gave her the name of a Woman I owe to a lot. I wanted her to live on a bit. Well, anyway, thanks for that little history lesson, but we still don''t need you, even if you are part of the Frosthearth family. I don''t know why you go around calling yourself ''James'' if you''re from a noble house anyway. I don''t really care either, but it''s still weird. Anyway, we don''t need her, because-"


    "Eiro." Solomon said, seemingly not in the mood to discuss any more than this, "I said that I want you two to act as representatives. As far as I''m concerned, you two may as well be the ones that are closest to receiving the Lady of Winter''s blessing in this generation. If you keep saying that we don''t need Evelyn, then you''re the one that can stay behind during the Solstice." The King said in a clear tone, but Eiro sighed deeply and replied in a way that neither Solomon or Evelyn seemed to have expected.


    "That''s exactly why I''m saying we don''t need her, because I already received the Lady of Winter''s blessing long ago." The Demon exined. Solomon stayed silent for a while and then looked at the Demon confusedly, "Wh-What? But how?"


    "The town I used to live in was the ce where the four Ladies came during every Solstice and Equinox. My Teacher and I were their guides. The Lady of Winter took a liking to me and gave me her blessing." Eiro exined, "I would love to speak to the Daughter of Winter, but I don''t want someone that doesn''t know what they''re doing there with me." Eiro exined, slightly turning toward Evelyn as he was doing so.


    "Something like you has the blessing of a nature goddess...? You''re getting more and more interesting, Imp..." Evelyn whispered, too quiet for Solomon to hear, but Eiro still understood her. He turned toward her, and tried to suppress his anger as he did so, while his heart was beating quicker and quicker. But for some reason, Evelyn also seemed to grow a little confused when she was looking at Eiro now.


    "Ah, I get it. Your bloodstone lets you sense another being''s bloodpletely, is that it? Then how about this?" Eiro asked with a light smile as hepletely turned toward Evelyn. Eiro influenced the flow of his blood to gather in his his chest a bit more than normal, and then specifically made it gather in different ''lines'' unnaturally to pain the picture of a middle finger using his own blood.


    "You little..." Evelyn growled under her breath, while Eiro just continued smiling. ''This is fun'', he thought to himself. Eiro turned back toward Solomon, who was still trying to process what Eiro said.


    And since Eiro was still a little angry and just wanted to get rid of Evelyn as quickly as he could for now, the Demon tried to move on, "Well, you don''t have to believe me just yet. We can both be there to first greet the Daughter of Winter, but if she can confirm that I have the blessing, then Evelyn will leave and I get to have my private conversation with the Daughter of Winter."


    "Wait..." Solomon muttered, "A private conversation? What do you mean?"


    "Hm? Like... Asking her how the Lady of Winter is doing, for example. There''s a few things that I need to ask the Daughter of Winter to tell the Lady as well, so speaking to her in private for a little while is pretty important. Where exactly does she appear every time? And who is guiding her?"


    "Erm... Guiding? Why would we need to guide her?" Solomon asked, and Eiro looked at him with confusion, "Good manners?"


    "Really? The guy that''s speaking to his Royal Majesty like he was some kid is speaking of good manners?" Evelyn asked with a scoff, and Eiro showed her the middle-finger again, just this time not in the form of his blood, but just by acively holding his hand toward her and flipping her off.


    "Fine, I''ll take care of it. I just need to know where she appears then." Eiro exined, and Solomon didn''t have to think for too long, "Usually she appears in the forest to the north. But we need to be careful, there''s going to be a lot of people gathering the special herbs and flowers there that grow during the Solstice."


    "Ah, good, at least you''re giving her offerings, then." Eiro sighed in relief, although he noticed that Solomon just stayed silent for a while, "Wait, you''re not giving her offerings?" The Demon asked, and Solomon slowly shook his head, "We have never done so... But how should we know about that, the Daughter of Winter never speaks a word. She enters town, stands in the townsquare for an hour, and then disappears again. It is quite a beautiful sight, but... was she waiting for offerings?"


    "Of course she was... I can''t believe this. You can call yourselves lucky that the daughter visiting you seems to be a good child, otherwise this town would have already been buried in snow and ice." Eiro sighed deeply.


    "Alright, first things first, stop anyone and everyone from gathering those ''special herbs and flowers'', and only let a certain few people gather them to give them to the Daughter as an offering. I''ll help, don''t worry. And never touch any of the things that grow directly around the Daughter as she walks, ever. Like, ever. It''s more than just rude." Eiro exined, and tried his best to remember not to mention that he did exactly that and still got the Lady''s blessing, "I''m going to be there to greet the Daughter. If possible, you shoulde with me, Solomon. But alone, without any guards in sight.. If I even sense one person there, you have to leave."

 Chapter 192 - The Mansion

    Eiro stood in front of his new manor together with his children as well as his party. They just arrived there after Solomon confirmed that it was ready to be moved into, and the King sent someone with them to make sure they actually got there and knew about everything that was a part of the ce.


    The man that was sent with them was currently unlocking the front door while the children were starting to carry their luggage up the stairs leading to the doors, while Eiro''s party just stood therepletely baffled, "Th-This..." Jess muttered, "This is your house now?" She asked, and Eiro turned toward her with a light smile and nodded his head.


    "Seems like it. Anyway, we''re going around the back for now to the gardens. There''s a good spot where we can leave the cart for now and then bring everything insideter." The Demon exined, and then turned over toward Rudy, who was currently closest to him, "Can you guys handle things over here yourselves? I''ll be right there as well, we just have to get this to the back."


    The young man nced at the members of Eiro''s party and slowly nodded his head as he looked back at Eiro, "Yeah, it''s fine. Take your time." Rudy said, and then carried some of the kitchenware they had up the stairs, while Eiro led the others around the back.


    They stopped the cart at a part of the manor that seemed to be ''temporary stables'', where one could leave their horse or carriage while inside of the manor for just a short time so that you didn''t have to bring it all the way to the stables.


    After they made sure that the cages were in good condition and the spiders weren''t too cold right now, Eiro walked up the stairs to the back-entrance and just walked inside. There was still someone cleaning the room here, and they had opened the door to let a bit of fresh air inside.


    The woman cleaning was startled and looked at the group confusedly, "Excuse me, but can I help you somehow?" She asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "No, that''s fine. But it''s nice to meet you, I''m Eiro, the new Master of this house." The Demon exined, extending his hand toward her, and quite startled, the maid looked back at the man in front of her.


    It seemed like she didn''t really believe that Eiro was actually the one he said he was, after all, he didn''t necessarily look like a noble, and a regrmoner wouldn''t usually be able to live inside of this kind of ce.


    But a few momentster, the man that Solomon sent with Eiro and the others entered through the other door from the hallway and confirmed Eiro''s words, "It''s true, that man is now the new Master of this Manor. Treat him, hispanions, and his children with honor if you will. He is a personal friend of his royal Majesty."


    Immediately after hearing this man of influence who the woman seemed to know of speak, she bowed forward in front of Eiro, "Excuse my rudeness! I will finish my job and then take my leave!" The woman eximed before turning around without shaking the hand that Eiro was still offering to her, so the Demon just shrugged and sighed and moved on.


    "Master Eiro, are you sure that you do not wish to keep some of the personnel that his Majesty has offered you?" The man asked, but Eiro could reply to that question without a moment''s hesitation, "I am sure. I don''t want anyone I can''t trust here, sorry. I''ll look for people that I want to work for me myself." The Demon said bluntly, and the man slowly nodded his head, "I see. Then we will respect your wishes."


    Now that that was taken care of, the group continued further into the manor. It seemed like the children were already choosing their rooms and exploring the rest of the house now that everything was properly prepared and cleaned up, which it really wasn''t thest time they came here.


    Eiro was also looking through this ce, and was d to see that the more hidden parts of this manor weren''t discovered. The reason why Eiro could move into this manor was simple. Nobody else wanted to move in here, and there were multiple reasons for that.


    For one, it was one of the few nobles'' manors that wasn''t actually inside of the middle part of the town, where the actual urban areas were, but inside of the outermost part. That meant that in the case of a monster attack, this manor would be one of the first to fall, and that was a slight bit too risky for most nobles. But Eiro didn''t care.


    This outermost area was really enormous, sorge that there were even actual forests in here. Sure, they weren''trge forestspared to what could be found outside of the town, but the forest surrounding Eiro and the others was still enough to give them the privacy that the Demon wanted to have. And that was also part of what led to the second reason why others didn''t want to stay hereing into existence.


    The person that lived here before was rather keen on performing different magical experiments. It seemed like he was a person that many knew about as he was rather entric, or as Eiro actually heard him be described, ''batshit crazy''. After he died through one of his own experiments, nobody really wanted to live here because of what might lurk inside of the hidden passages and areas that every single manor usually had.


    They were mostly meant as emergency escape pathways, but when people were known to do rather shady things, these hidden passages were immediately connected with ''evilirs'' or boratories of mad magicians'' or something like that.


    Well, in this case they weren''t necessarily wrong, although they couldn''t know that. Technically it was confirmed multiple times that there weren''t such rooms underneath this manor, so publicly, these were all still just petty rumors.


    The fact that these rumors were actuallypletely correct was probably unknown to even Solomon, since all these hidden rooms and passageways were hidden with the use of special magic. In particr, the hidden part of the library was something that Eiro was rather curious about. He just didn''t have the chance to explore all these ces yet, something he would get to as quickly as he could.


    Either way, somehow, the parts that deterred others from wanting to move in here were actually the things that Eiro found to be perfect for him. They were far away from the town and couldn''t be bothered, so Eiro could just walk around without his mask, or have the children practice their Unique Skills in the gardens without having to worry about anyone noticing. Because like this, if there was anyone that might know that shouldn''t know, Eiro would be able to find them. Otherwise there might just be neighbors or townsfolk that could identally notice that Eiro didn''t pay attention to at all.


    And the reason why Eiro found the hidden passages intriguing was obvious, there were a lot of things that Eiro wanted to hide away himself, so this was perfect. The only issue was that Eiro would have to clean up all the hidden rooms alone, because the things in there seemed to be a little too dangerous to have the children help him out a bit.


    Well, Rudy and Sammy, maybe, he could trust those two not to mess around, but as for the others... It was too risky. Even with Felix it was too risky, although Eiro knew well enough that he wasn''t the type to make jokes like that or screw around like Clementine and Arc may, but because of his current state, there might bemunication issues that could cause quite a lot of havoc if they weren''t careful.


    And in the end, even if one was careful, there might still be things happening nheless that Eiro didn''t want to expose any of the children to. So, he would rather do it on his own.


    Just when Eiro was trying to think about what these different rooms could be used for, Krog voiced how impressed he was, "This is so fuckin'' crazy, holy... Why do you get to live in this literal mansion, and we have to stay in some shitty rented apartment in town?" Krog asked, and Eiro looked at him with a light frown, "Shitty rented apartment? I came there with you guys once before, and it was two timesrger than the whole house that the children and I, plus an old grumpy man lived in together for seven years. Stopining. But if you want, you can stay here as well." The Demon said with a light sigh, and the three of them immediately looked at Eiro in confusion.


    "...What? You want us to live in this manor with you?" Jess asked, and Eiro simply shrugged, "Sure, why not? There''s more than enough space in here."


    "That is indeed true. There is afortable amount of living space here." The man that was sent by Solomon confirmed, as if he still had to sell this house to them, and James kept looking at Eiro with a light frown.


    "You sure this is a good idea? I mean, I''m not gonnain about getting to live in a mansion, but what about your kids? Besides just now, we''ve met them once, and it doesn''t seem like they have great memories about us from that time." The Light Elf pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yeah... I''ll have a talk with them for now about that. But I doubt it''s going to be an issue. For the next while, you''ll all be here a lot anyway, no matter if you actively live here or not."


    "Ah, that''s true..." Jess replied, and Eiro slowly nodded and then continued walking through the mansion, shown around a little by the human man in front of them.


    For now, Eiro was trying to spread his mana around this ce as much as he could so that he could use the same magic detection method as he usually used before like this to gain more information on the different secret passages inside of this house. He knew that they were here, he just didn''t know exactly what they looked like. Any sort of information helped, really.


    For now Eiro was trying to do this with the help of wind magic, but he would be d once this man would finally leave so that Eiro could actually actively explore everything himself.

 Chapter 193 - Hidden Passages

    The man that was sent to make sure Eiro and the others properly arrived at the mansion and got inside without worries just left together with thest of the cleaners and workers that were there to make sure everything was really spotless. And now, Eiro could finally get started exploring everything in here to find a good ce to keep the monsters.


    "You three, bring the spiders inside through the back already. I''ll let you know when I figure out where to bring them." The Demon said quickly as he looked at Jess, James and Krog, who were still thinking and speaking about the offer that Eiro made to them about moving into the manor as well.


    "Gobo, you help them as well." Eiro added as he started looking around in the inside of this room for the proper entrance to the hidden passageways, and the four of them in question slowly made their way outside to do what Eiro asked them to do.


    The demon made use of air magic to spread gusts of wind throughout the halls and rooms while using the effect of returning a bit of a ''signal'' whenever the air hit anything. Like that, Eiro was hoping to figure out where exactly certain entrances were through things like thin slits in the wall. Of course Eiro would be able to find them immediately when he stood in front of them, but he knew about types of hidden passages or rooms that required visual angles to be found, and Eiro didn''t really want to bother trying to find everything that had to do with the secrets of this ce in that fashion.


    Soon, Eiro found the entrance to the first passage that he was looking for. It seemed like one of the ones that had the highest likelihood of leading to arger space underneath, since there was at the very least an underground tunnel connected to it. Well, this manor also had a basement of course, so it might just lead down there, but Eiro wanted to make sure anyway. There might be some hidden passages inside of the hidden passages as well that he couldn''t notice just like this.


    Eiro didn''t know what exactly it was, but there were many things inside of this manor that were messing with his perception. They were mostly things like special magic spells meant exactly to do that probably. Usually that wouldn''t really have too much of an effect on Eiro due to his high perception, but ever since he started fusing with Nelli and Gondos more often, he also started developing a slight bit of a sense for things like mana and magic in general. It wasn''t much, it was just that he could naturally differentiate between spaces that had a lot of mana and spaces that had little mana now.


    He could do that before as well, just that this time he was sensing it in different ways. Either way, for now, the demon stepped up to the entrance to the hidden passage that he just found and tried to somehow open it up. It was rtively straightforward for now, probably because it was supposed to be. None of the ''normal'' hidden passages were actually that well hidden, especially notpared to some other ces that Eiro managed to see. At the very least, they were more obvious than the ones at the Inn that Felix brought them to back then.


    And worst of all, this ce was actually filled with them to the brim. There were hidden passages basically in every room. This probably helped the rumors that the former owner was aplete nutbag.


    Eiro pushed against the wall just so slightly and it already gave in, letting Eiro step into the hidden tunnel, "It just makes him seem like a really paranoid guy." The Demon muttered quietly. The two spirits floating next to him seem to agree, "Yeah, you can say that again. Seems like a real freak, honestly." Nelli pointed out, although Gondos just quietlyughed.


    "Do you think so? I wouldn''t say ''freak'' directly, rather entric. And I wouldn''t call him paranoid either, otherwise he would have never chosen to live this far out here, would he?" The Golem pointed out, to which Eiro immediately agreed, "That''s exactly it. It doesn''t make sense. You would think he''s paranoid because of the number of hidden passageways that might mean he wants to be prepared for any sort of invader at any time, but he chooses to live in a ce like this without any sort of policing? It doesn''t really make sense, so it directly feels... off." Eiro suggested as he climbed down the steps inside of this tunnel that immediately brought him into the basement like he figured they would. Although this again made Eiro wonder about something.


    "The way these are built is quite weird as well. None actually lead to a ce that would be any safer than the one you came from. I don''t think I noticed any that were actually leading outside."


    "Now that you mention it..." Nelli replied, while Eiro continued looking for hidden passages. Inside of cer made for alcohol-storage, the library, the individual bedrooms, and so on. Just as he thought, basically all of the rooms here had hidden passages. Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what they were for, but at least they might make it more convenient to get around the ce if he needed to quickly get from one end to another.


    Either way, after Eiro was done checking out the regr hidden passages, Eiro chose to take a look at the actual ones. Those that were hidden with the use of magic instead of physical means. Even Eiro had a hard time figuring those out at first. He noticed that something was off, but he didn''t actually realize what it was until Nelli and Gondos pointed it out to him. Although, that was only the case for the first time. After that he managed to figure out where those special ces were by himself, to an extent at least.


    The one that Eiro first wanted to explore was the hidden room beyond the library. Eiro took off his mask and extended his hand toward Gondos. Out of the two spirits, Gondos was better at sensing mana, while Nelli was better at using magic, so for this kind of task, Eiro preferred fusing with Gondos.


    Eiro looked around the room, soon seeing the flow of the mana inside of here. The library itself was rather big in the first ce, having two floors inside of this one room, and at the very back of the second floor was the entrance into the actual hidden room. Eiro stepped up to that wall and ced his hand onto one of the books that was obviously part of the system and pushed his mana into it.


    Just a few momentster, Eiro could hear the sound of a lock clicking and something crumbling beyond the bookcase in front of him. Gears were turning and twisting close to silently, and then stopped a few momentster.


    With a satisfied expression, Eiro stepped up to the bookshelf again and pulled one of the books out, before stretching his hand to the back of the shelf and pushing his mana into one extra rune. And once Eiro ced the book back onto the bookshelf right where it was before, the bookshelf simply split in half in the center, each half simply dropping into the ground as if the floor disappeared. But as far as Eiro could tell, the parts swallowed be the floor just disappeared instead of now reaching out into the first floor of the library.


    Either way, Eiro could now see the actual hidden room of this ce and stepped inside of it, and the demon was more than just impressed. The books were all at the very least decades old, and there were different models of monsters or constructs made by people standing all around here. Skulls, cores of artificial beings, ws and eyeballs of monsters! It was more like a museum than a library.


    And beyond that, this space seemed muchrger than possible, although Eiro should have expected that. Because right beyond the bookshelf that Eiro entered was another guest room. The difference shouldn''t have been more than two or three meters. But this room was evenrger than the original library that Eiro was in.


    "By the queen..." Nelli muttered quietly, "The guy that lived here before must have been a really, really skilled Choromancer! This is amazing!" The Naiad eximed.


    "Do you think every hidden room is like this?" Gondos asked, and Eiro stayed quiet and in thought for a little while, "Maybe..." He muttered.


    "Well, if he was such a great Choromancer, then he wouldn''t have needed the ''regr'' hidden passages anyway. He could just teleport outside or to town and be good." Nelli pointed out, and Gondos added, "If those passages were just for show anyway, then why didn''t he make them a bit more realistic? As Eiro said, there were no passages leading outside." Gondos said, and immediately, Eiro started to realize what exactly was going on. And he couldn''t stop grinning broadly.


    "I get it." Eiro said with a broad grin, "Of course there''s nothing leading outside. Did you ever see a Magic Circle with loose ends like that?"


    It took a few moments for them to realize what exactly Eiro was talking about, but soon, Nelli and Gondos looked at each other and the Demon in even more confusion than before, "You can''t be serious..." Gondos muttered, and Eiro immediately nodded his head.


    He pulled out his notebook and pen out of his treasury and ced the notebook down on one of the desks around here before starting to sketch everything out. Each floor of the manson individually like the ns that Eiro was shown said. And then, he added the hidden passages of each floor.


    He marked everything down and with a broad grin once he was done, pulled out his spark snapper and created a me. A me that Eiro held up behind the thin pages of the notebook that he sketched the manor in.


    And what revealed itself through the thick lines representing the hidden passages wasn''t a jumbled mess like one would expect. It wasn''t random, but it didn''t have the sort of order to it like you would expect either.


    Each and every hidden passage led together and formed the image that Eiro was seeing right now. They created a giant magic circle. And not only when seen from above. When seeing the building from the side, from an angle, anywhere. Eiro recreated all the hidden passages with ice next so that he could get a proper look at it, and in the end, he couldn''t do anything to make the broad, dumb smile on his face disappear.


    He really hit the jackpot with this one.


    He was allowed to live in the house of a man that might have had a Master grade Magic skill.

 Chapter 194 - Grandour

    Eiro didn''t manage to properly contain his broad grin. This was an amazing, extraordinary find. With a satisfied expression and mind, the Demon stepped along further into the room, just making the ice model of the magic circle that the hidden passages, rooms, and walls seemed to createpletely disappear.


    "So you think that the passages are part of a magic circle?" Nelli asked, "It doesn''t really look like one, now does it?" The Naiad pointed out.


    Eiro didn''t have to think about it for a long time before he simply shook his head, "That''s actually not true. It might seem chaotic at first, like basically everything here in this mansion, but there is a weird sense of order to it. There are patterns in this, the kind that I recognize from magic circles. I think I may be able to find out more things like that in here." Eiro looked around at the books, running his fingers over the leather of the old, or even ancient, scriptures ced into the bookshelves around him.


    He wasn''t sure if it was the scent of the paper or the slight bit of dust being pulled into his nose and mouth with every breath, but he felt like he was reallypletely enveloped in the books themselves.


    If Eiro was able to stay awake again during his next evolution, he would really just spend most of his time in here, trying to take a look at all of these books.


    But the books weren''t everything that impressed Eiro. In particr, there was one thing that caught his attention. There was one monster that at first may seem rather inconspicuous, but was instead incredibly dangerous and kind at the same time. A special being. The monster that wasn''t really a monster.


    Hundreds of years ago, they first came into existence after a race of monster and a race of magic beast ended up in the same territory, mostly split off from the surrounding world. Why this happened was unsure, whether it was a spell or some natural disaster, but either way, after, presumably, a lot of either side was killed, they also started to breed with each other.


    As both races were rather fruitful, the resulting creatures soon overtook their parents in numbers. And while those parents died out, the creatures continued to live. Contained inside of that rather small territory, they ended up killing each other to keep their numbers down, feeding on their brethren to keep themselves alive, while the rest were cared for with as muchpassion as they could offer.


    Then, at some point, the contained area was opened up. Again, whether this was through some magic spell or natural disaster was unknown to this day, but the creatures were able to escape. They spread through the continent, and due to their low numbers, soon were reduced to rather low numbers.


    But the important thing was that these creatures had aspects of both Magic Beasts and Monsters. Every hundred levels, not only did they evolve, but their very being was strengthened on top of that. Very little beings had evolutions as abstract or extreme as them due to this.


    The beings that were near to indistinguishable from the small, innocent, and rare magic beast known as Fairy Dragon turned into enormous, threatening, and kind magic dragons.


    And past that, following that evolution copying dragons that just a few dozen of this special creature turned into, came another step. They shrunk down, as ifpressing all that might into another new form.


    They still had the form of a dragon, but were now merely the size of the average horse instead of arge building. Instead of scales, their bodies were covered in hardened fur. As far as Eiro heard and could tell looking at this being, if you turned the fur into cloth, you would be able to protect against numerous sword strikes from skilled individuals without even having to try.


    And to top it off, the fur was said to be an incredible conductor for magic, meaning that it may end up increasing the strength of your magic and the speed of your mana recovery.


    This legendary being that was said to only have existed 5 times to this stage of evolution, the Grandour, now stood in front of him in the form of a taxidermied corpse. It was rather beautiful, honestly, but Eiro was still craving the materials from this creature. Obviously, it would create incredible defensive equipments.


    Eiro slowly ran his fingers over the Grandour''s dead body, feeling its cold air seep into his very bones. With an excited and satisfied smile, Eiro took a step backward and took a look at the small book in front of the taxidermied body.


    He flipped through it, and soon found not only the information that he already knew from different bestiaries about legendary or mythical beings, but also extra information that Eiro never even heard of before.


    Detailed sketches of their internal and external structure on different levels, so muscle, bone, or organs, and anything else of importance. Even things that weren''t actually important, at least not to Eiro himself. And there were seemingly a couple of possible ideas on what exactly caused the creation of the Grandour in the first ce. In particr, the Choromancer that used to live here was seemingly thinking that it wasn''t actually a coincidence that the Grandour came into existence.


    That maybe some kind of superior being intervened and yed god. It seemed like they were rather confident in this theory. Eiro didn''t have much information besides what this book said, but there wasn''t necessarily any reason topletely deny this possibility. Eiro himself knew about powerful beings making use of their abilities for experiments, even if it was just for fun or out of boredom.


    For now, Eiro chose to take this book with him. It was pretty interesting, and if he would find some good ways to make proper use of the materials from the dead Grandour, it would be a good use of his time. There were a lot of other great things in here. Staffs, wands, gems, crystals, magic stones, even grimoires, basically a buffet of items that Eiro would love to indulge in using and studying.


    But most importantly, behind an extra barrier that Eiro had no idea how to get through at the moment, the Demon could see arge tree just standing there. He couldn''t find any sort of description, and whenever he tried to step through the barrier he would end up on the other side of the cylindrical space, as if anything contained by it was actually nonexistent. Eiro really, really wanted to figure out what this wood actually was... and he would love to make something out of it.


    But knowing that he wasn''t in a rush for now, Eiro made his way over toward the entrance of this hidden library again, climbing up the stairs. Once he was in the regr library again, he pushed his mana into the same book that he started the short ''unlocking sequence'' with before and watched as the bookshelves behind him were raised up again, soon standing in the same ce as they were before, without revealing the space that was beyond it.


    Once more extremely excited to see all this happen, Eiro made his way to the entrance of the library, soon noticing his party membersing his way. Eiro turned into their direction and waited for them toe closer.


    "Yes?" Eiro asked when they were close enough to hear him, and James crossed his arms when he stood there in front of the Demon, "What are we supposed to do with the spiders? We can''t just leave them over there out in the open. It''s a bit dangerous, right?"


    "Of course it is. But we''re not just keeping them there." The Demon pointed out, "There should be some space in one of the basement rooms."


    "The basement rooms? Like, the cer or something? Sure, when that guy from before showed us around, there was definitely enough space down there." Krog pointed out with a light grin, ready to turn around and get started immediately, but Eiro quickly stopped him.


    "Wait, wait, that''s not what I''m speaking of. I mean the dungeons, actually." Eiro exined, and Jess slightly tilted her head to the side confusedly, "I don''t know what you''re talking about, there weren''t any dungeons in this mansion, were there?" She asked.


    With a light grin, Eiro just shrugged, "Sure, if that''s what you think. Well, it shouldn''t really be something like a dungeon. I doubt it was really a prison, it probably was the same thing as we''re going for. Like a ce to keep monsters. But we definitely noticed something with cages going on, right, you two?" The Demon asked as he looked at his two spirits, both of which were quickly nodding their heads.


    "Hm... Fine, I guess it should be just about time for me to show it to you guys anyway. I know that you won''t spill my secrets by now, so it''s fine." With that in mind, Eiro stepped through the hallway and pushed his foot against one of the bricks in the wall. It was pushed deeper in and then a simple hidden door opened up, showing a round staircase behind it that was leading straight to the basement.


    "Then follow me, you four." Eiro said with a smile on his face, speaking to the three people as well as Gobo, who had just really been quietly following. He seemed to be somewhat intimidated in this environment, something that the demon didn''t really expect from him. Eiro hoped that he would be able to train Gobo to befortable in any circumstance. If he was ufortable in ces he wasn''t used to, then not only would hisbat ability dwindle, but so would his concentration in general. And depending on the situation, especially those that should make Gobo ufortable, that wouldn''t be something that Gobo could really afford to happen.


    Either way, once they got to the bottom of the stairs and made their way into the wine cer, Eiro took a look around at therge barrels that were standing around here. They wererge enough for everyone in this group to stand infortably at once. And so, the Demon simply ced his palm on one of the barrels and pushed his mana inside.


    While telling the others to be quiet, Eiro just so slightly moved his hand around, twisting the lid of the of the barrel at the same time.


    He always just twisted it just so slightly, as if he was trying to unlock some kind of code-lock on a safe. At some point, the things that would let Eiro know that he was doing the right thing nearly disappeared, making it harder for Eiro to properly know what he had to do, so he slowly nced at Gondos.


    The spirit once more dove into his body, showing off this fused Demon form to the members of Eiro''s party for the first time ever. And now, Eiro was capable of unlocking this properly without any issues, since this was a sort of magical lock.


    At different positions, Eiro pushed in the right amount of magic as he figured it would be ording to the logic of the lock, and then continued. With a smile on his face, Eiro watched as the lid of the barrel started spinning around on its own. As if it was something being screwed down somewhere, the lid disappeared inside of the barrel, until it stopped at the point where the other lid should be. But instead of really stopping, it dropped forward into a room beyond it.


    And so, Eiro turned around and extended his hand toward the room beyond the barrel.


    "There we go, Lady and Gentlemen. This mansion''s dungeons.." And Eiro just couldn''t help butugh at the confused expressions of James, Jess and Krog after Eiro fused with Gondos.

 Chapter 195 - The Dungeons

    "What the fuck just was that?" Krog asked without a moment''s hesitation, while James and Jess were still just staring at Eiro and his rock skin. With a light smirk, the demon just started to exined, "Another ability of mine, that''s what. I can fuse with spirits. Pretty neat, huh?"


    "Pretty neat? Pretty. Neat?" Jess started, "It''s insane, it''s absolutely,pletely insane! Eiro, how can you actually do all these crazy, impossible things?" The young woman asked, trying not to go mad over what she was seeing in front of her, and Eiro simply smiled as he crossed his arms and had Gondos move out of his body again.


    "I don''t know if I can tell you why exactly I can do this just yet, but I''ll tell you as soon as I feel like I can. It''s just an important ability to me that I will make use of a lot in the future, so there''s no way to really avoid having you guys find out about it." Eiro started, and then stepped into therge wooden barrel in front of him, which had been basicallypletely ignored by the others the whole time until now.


    Seemingly rather confused still, the others just followed Eiro into therge space beyond the barrel, the size of which even surprised Eiro. That was far beyond what the demon expected. There were cages everywhere, and Eiro really wasn''t sure if this was a prison or a zoo. There seemed to be cages for both people and monsters, at least.


    Luckily, there were more than enough ces to keep monsters of any size, so all the spiders should have a nice spot here. It was a little dark and cold here, but that wasn''t that big an issue as far as Eiro could tell. It wasn''t like he wanted to give the spiders 5 star service. Because why would he? They probably didn''t even care whether or not they sat on tiny needles or wool.


    The others that were mindlessly following Eiro were really just staring at the demon and the two spirits next to him, too busy to actually process what this space was.


    "Good, I think we should be able to use this ce. I''ll clean up a bit, you four go get the cages." Eiro said with a satisfied expression, and while Gobo immediately started making his way back through the barrel to grab the cages from upstairs, the others didn''t really listen to Eiro at all.


    "You guys?" Eiro asked with a light frown, "Snap out of it." He told them all, pushing some wind magic into each of their faces to get them to wake up a little.


    "Hm?" Jess asked, and Eiro pointed at the barrel, "Come on, grab the cages. I''ll clean up here." The Demon said, and the mage slowly looked back at Eiro, before she started actually processing the space around them.


    Cages with bones and parts of formerly living creatures that were so rotten it was barely possible to even acknowledge them as anything that every lived at this point in time. And of course, there was the mere scale of this ce, because this room was roughly asrge as the ball room of this mansion. If Eiro wanted to, he would probably be able to capture every inhabitant of the Goblin vige in here without any worries.


    And soo, James and Krog also started noticing what this ce was, although it was still hard to ept it. Eiro exined his theory about what this mansion actually was at its deepest level, a magic circle most likely meant to support all of the spatial spells that were obviously the most important things in here.


    And at the end, James closed his eyes in thought and crossed his arms, "So you''re trying to say that this room here isn''t just some underground room that was skillfully hidden from people outside, but instead a space created by a Choromancer?" James asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yeah, that''s exactly what it is. This space is impossiblyrge, and the same should be the case with all the other extra hidden rooms." The Demon exined.


    "But again, just go ahead and grab the cages, please. I''m going to clean up here, and I don''t think it will be all too pleasant for you to be in here while I do that." Eiro added. He swung his hand around a little and used Air magic to increase the strength of the gust, causing thick dust to cloud up and cover the sight of everyone.


    "Holy shit-" Krog eximed immediately, holding his arm in front of his face, and Eiro sighed lightly. He pulled the air over to the side and made the stirred-up dust follow behind, "Sorry about that." Eiro said with a light smirk on his face, but Krog just stared at Eiro with a light re, "Oh, you''re not sorry at all, are you?" He pointed out with a bit of a growl, and Eiro simply shrugged, "Who knows?"


    And then, the others finally chose to do it like Eiro suggested, leaving through therge wooden barrel again to go get the cages with the spiders. The moment they were all actually gone, Eiro started pushing out deep breaths of air infused with magic out of his body to create strong gusts that Eiro could easily take control of.


    He twirled and twisted the air magic around the room, making it pick up any sort of dust that was there, whether it was inside or outside of the cages, or rather, cells. After he picked up enough of it, Eiro pulled all the dust toward him, trying to make the air magicpress the dust into a small ball that Eiro just pushed into the corner of the room for now.


    After he got rid of all the dust, Eiro stepped into the first cage to get rid of the remains of whatever was in here before. The scent was really disgusting, and the grubs digging through the little bits of leftover flesh weren''t all too pleasant to look at or listen to either. For now, Eiro just scooped it up using water magic and brought it along with him. The same thing with the other monster or human remains. There were parts that Eiro took a little bit of interest in, like some of the monster parts that didn''t decay over time, like ws and horns and such, although the bones weren''t really that interesting to him.


    Eiro brought everything but the things that he was interested in with him using water magic and put the actual parts that he was interest in onto one of the tables after cleaning them up, and then stepped outside of this hidden room as well. Meanwhile, the others came with the first few cages, nearly gagging at the sight of all the rotten meat and bones floating in front of them, while Eiro just sighed and made his way through one of the hidden passages to get to the ground floor.


    He brought the flesh outside into the gardens and ced them down onto the ground on an extrayer of rock so that he wouldn''t mess up the grass, and then tried to remove all the extra water that he just pushed into this rotten. Eiro looked at the now more dry flesh and pulled out his spark snapper before creatingrge mes that he pushed right onto the flesh.


    Eiro proceeded to just burn it up until literally nothing was left, trying to magically increase the heat as much as he could while keeping full focus on every part of the flesh. It only took around twenty to thirty minutes until everything turned into dust, and Eiro quickly burried the rest of the dust and things that didn''t really burn up that well right in front of him under the soil.


    The Demon turned back around and made his way inside again, and on his way back to the basement grabbed thest cage that still stood there. He stepped into the hidden room and saw that everyone was waitingfor him.


    "Alright, perfect. Let''s just set these guys free inside of the bigger cages here. They don''t seem to be hostile to each other, so we can probably keep each kind in a cage together." Eiro pointed out, "Oh, the only exception is this little guy." Eiro said, picking off the small wooden birdcage that the Rust Eater was sitting inside of. This one was the only one that Eiro wanted to keep with him for a little longer so that he could make it get used to him properly. And so that the slime could figure out a way to seal its monstrosity more easily. Once he managed to figure out a way for any of these spiders, it probably wouldn''t be hard to do it for the other spiders either. But Eiro really just wanted to make use of the metallic thread that the Rust Eater made after being fed metal, so that''s also why he wanted to keep this guy with him.


    Eiro and the others started carrying the cages over to the cell-like ones and then released them into those cells.


    With a satisfied mind and expression, Eiro looked at all these spiders, d that he now had a proper ce to keep them, "This is working out pretty well." The Demon said, and James lightly scoffed at the rather casual way that Eiro spoke, "Yeah, you could say that. This is mostly just insane, isn''t it? I mean, how lucky are you, to have such an already giant mansion just given to you, and to top it off, it''s probably like twice the size it was said to be because the guy that used to live here was a fucking Choromancer."


    "Exactly, how fucking lucky are you?" Krog added, and Jess slowly squinted her eyes as she looked at the Demon.


    "If there was a Luck stat, you''d probably have it maxed out..." Jess sighed, and Eiro just slightlyughed in response, "I get what you mean, really." Eiro replied, and the Demon looked at the people in front of him before crossing his arms.


    "And either way, don''t push it all onto luck. I did actually work for what I did a little, you know?" Eiro pointed out, stepping back through the barrel, swiftly followed by the others, "Well, either way, for now let''s just take a look around at some of the other hidden rooms. I''d like to see what other useful facilities I have in here." Eiro pointed out. He went ahead and made his way over toward the stairs on the other side of the room, since this time, they were actually the quickest way to get to the nearest magically hidden room.


    And Eiro just started looking through the whole house one more time, looking for these extra, magical spaces.

 Chapter 196 - The Metal Ball

    Eiro sat in his library and was reading up on the Arcane Runes that James recognized the runes on the metal ball to be. The Demon hoped that he would be able to find some sort of clue toward what exactly the metal ball did. Luckily there was a book about these runes here in the library. The hidden one adjacent to this just had lots of books about spells and hidden history, as well as numerous notes on different monsters and organizations. The Demon would read through those in due time, but this kind of thing was more important at the moment.


    "Hm..." He hummed lightly,paring the runes that were sketched in this book with the ones he remembered from the rock b, the light-activation te from the Goblin Vige, as well as this metal ball. He mentally connected all of this, and with his ''Quick Thought Processing'' ability from reaching 300 Intelligence also helped with that quite a lot.


    And just when Eiro thought he was putting everything somewhat together, he was interrupted, "Master. What this word?" Gobo asked, holding a children''s book toward Eiro and pointing at the word ''Duck''.


    With a slight sigh, Eiro looked back at the Hobgoblin while pulling out his notebook and quickly starting to sketch up a simple duck so that he could show it, because Eiro wasn''t entirely sure if Gobo ever actually saw one of those, "This. It''s a type of bird."


    "Bird... So, duck food?" Gobo asked, and after a bit of thought, the Demon just shrugged, "Yeah, definitely. But don''t go around trying to eat them, alright? In general, don''t eat anything that I don''t approve anymore. I could smell your spit on one of my books." Eiro growled lightly, and Gobo looked at the Demon with a bright smile.


    "Book smell like food!" He eximed, and Eiro stared back while rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Slime."


    "Yo." The shapeless slime quickly replied the next moment. He was currently in a human-like form, although he didn''t really have any sort of details to him, it was just to make it easier to move around right now, and was flipping through a beastiary to find more forms to possibly take. Eiro looked at him and pointed at the Hobgoblin next to him.


    "From now on, answer all his questions rted to reading. Tell him about what the written words mean, and if he doesn''t know it, show it to him." Eiro said, crossing his legs as he ced his notebook to the side and returned to the book about Arcane Runes.


    "Eh? Why the fuck do I have to do that?" The Slime asked, and Eiro slowly nced at him, "Because otherwise I''ll kill you."


    "Heh, you think those threats''re still gonna work on me? You''re gonna kill me one day either way, so why''d I let you use that to scare me into doing shit for you?" The slime asked with a smug tone of voice, and Eiro looked back at him with a sigh mixed with a groan, "The stick doesn''t work, I see? Then let''s try the carrot. If you do this for me, I''ll finally give you a name."


    "Huh?" The slime asked, immediately staring at Eiro confusedly, "A... A name..?" It muttered, seemingly rather flustered at the idea, and Eiroughed a bit.


    "Just get going already." He suggested, and the slime, trying not to show that he actually really wanted to be given a proper name, scuttered over and moved over right next to Gobo, "Oi, fuckin'' dumbass, let''s get this over with already. I was just gettin'' to the part about unique slime evolutions."


    Exactly that moment, Eiro ripped his eyes wide open, "Unique... evolutions..." The demon muttered. It was as if this was thest piece to the puzzle, and everything else fell into ce. The book he was reading had a fewmon runic words written in it together with their trantions, but not all too many. There were still a few missing that he needed topletely understand the b, panel, and metal ball.


    "That''s it! That rune over here means ''intake''... then that one could mean ''mana''... Ooh, that''s ''output'' and then that means that the rune right next to it would be the ''Effect'' of the output! The one with the b apparently means ''Storage'', and the one on the panel means ''Transfer''!" Eiro eximed, excitedly flipping through the book.


    There was some sketch of another runic b inside of the book, but it didn''t have a perfect trantion connected to it. One sentence was tranted as ''Change wille about'', but context-wise, as it was seemingly speaking about monsters, the rune that was tranted as ''Change'' most likely meant ''Evolution''.


    If that''s how it was, then Eiro just figured out what exactly this metal ball did. It wasn''t that it had the effects of some specific card infused into it, but rather, that it had one basic effect of every card infused into it. This metal ball was an Evolution-Enhancer!


    "That''s it, it just makes sense! That''s why the spider seemed so weird, it was a special evolution!" Eiro eximed with a bright smile on his face.


    "This is just perfect!" With a broad smile on his face, Eiro jumped up and quickly made his way out of the room, "You two, stay here!"


    With that, the Demon made his way through the mansion, basically just jumping through the easy-to-open hidden passages to save time, jumping down one that was basicallypletely vertical. A few momentster, Eiro reached the bottom of that hole andnded on the dining table down in the room below, where currently Jess, James and Krog were sitting and discussing something about possible requests to take in the future, now that they had Eiro.


    "What the-" Krog eximed reflexively, "Dude, the fuck are you doing?" The warrior asked, and Eiro just smiled broadly, "I just need to ask James something. You sure you barely remember anything about Arcane Runes, right?"


    After a slight sigh, James nodded his head and leaned back in his chair, "Yup. Why, you need my help after all?"


    "Yes, I need you to confirm something for me." Eiro said with a grin on his face, and grabbed one of the nk pieces of paperying on the table, before starting to write on it. He noted down all the important runes he hoped to have just figured out together with their trantions, and then held it in front of the surprised Light Elf, "Can you tell me if this is correct?"


    "Hmm... output, input... Wait, wasn''t that one something else, not Evolution? It was ''change'', right?" James asked. Eiro quickly nodded, "Yeah, it is. Evolution is a sort of change too, right? It might just be a term that changes meaning slightly depending on the situation." Eiro said, and James slowly looked at the metal ball that Eiro was holding in his hand and then formed a wry smile.


    "Wait... you''re not trying to suggest that that thing is something that helps you evolve, right...?"


    With a broad grin, Eiro just looked at James with a broad smile, "You think so too, huh? That''s good enough for me." The Demon waved his hand to the side, trying to open the screen about evolution options, and just stared at the sentence asking him if he wanted to go for a Unique Evolution.


    "Yes." He said, and the next moment, some notifications appeared.


    [Commencing Evolution. Evolution will be over in 13 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds]


    [You are unable to open your status during evolution]


    After cutting through those with his fingers, Eiro looked at the metal ball in his hands and pushed his mana inside of it. It was simply supposed to take in mana for the effect, so it was clear either way that it wasn''t some sort of ''emergency kill'' system like Eiro thought it was. After all, it was constantly being supplied with mana by being inside of the queen spider''s heart, and that would have been rather fatal if that had been the case.


    That was really the only reason why he just straight-forwardly poured his mana inside of it instead of testing it out first.


    [Monster Evolution detected. 1 Charge will be used to enhance evolution. 2 Charges left. Evolution can only be enhanced once]


    With a broad grin on his face, Eiro stood back up, "You''re looking for some requests to take, huh? Choose some extermination requests." The Demon said clearly, all the whilst his three party members were just looking up at him as he was still squatting on the middle of the table.


    "What? At least tell us what happened first! You just poured your mana inside, right?" Jess asked, and Eiro quickly turned toward her with a smile, "Oh, yeah. I started my unique evolution and managed to further enhance it with this little one. But there''s still two more in this ce that need to evolve a little."


    "So it really was an evolution enhancer? Really?" James asked, feeling weirdly proud that he was able to understand what Eiro was getting at when he showed James the sheet of paper, and the Demon just nodded, although Krog had something else to say, "Wait, nevermind that shit. Most importantly, are you saying you wanna use that ball to make the slime and goblin evolve into better things?"


    "That''s exactly it. I mean, what else are we gonna use it on? A monster''s evolution means changing everything about it. For the most part, the basic stat value of every stat increases, and that is especially the case for rare or unique evolutions. So, we can make Gobo much, much smarter hopefully. And the slime''s ability to transform will definitely increase as well. It''s going to be really useful."


    The moment that Eiro said this, the three others were looking at each other across the table, and soon after, James spoke up about something that they all seemingly wanted to know about.


    "By the way... You keep saying how ''Useful'' the Goblins are going to be to you in the future. But you never mentioned what exactly you want to use them for." The Light Elf pointed out, and Eiro started to look down at them.


    He slightly nced at Nelli and Gondos, who were both looking at him with expressions that said they were also somewhat waiting for him to answer it. The Demon figured that it wouldn''t hurt to just say it out loud at this point. That would maybe strengthen his resolve about this a bit more as well.


    "Hm... It''s actually pretty simple if you think about it. Although, I guess it''s not if you don''t know about me that much... I''ll juste out and say it.. I want to kill the Monster King."

 Chapter 197 - The Heroic Monster King

    "You... want to kill the Monster King..?" Jess asked in a slightly confused tone, "So you''re on the side of people after all?" She asked, forming a light smile, although Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "Oh, absolutely not. If possible, I w ould like to kill the Emperor of the Holy Empire as well, but the Monster King is currently a bit of a higher threat, I''d say." The Demon pointed out, and the others looked at Eiro even more confusedly.


    "But why would he be a threat to you directly? You aren''t directly rted to the Monster King, right?" James asked with a frown, and Eiro slightly sighed.


    "I guess I should tell you, huh?" He muttered, and finally stepped off of the table. Eiro sat down on one of the chairs. "Before I continue, I need you three to swear to me that you will never, ever reveal what I am about to tell you to anyone. Or else, despite me now acknowledging you three aspanions, I will have no choice but to kill you and anyone who found out about this through you." Eiro said in a clear tone, and the three people in front of him looked at each other and then nodded their heads in the end.


    "Fine. Just tell us already." Krog said, "We figured that you''re hiding far more than we could guess anyway." The Warrior pointed out.


    Eiro slightly smiled and nodded his head, "That might be a bit of an understatement, actually. You three, I''m not a regr Imp. I''m a being artificially created by the Monster King just a few weeks before I first encountered James, specifically to be part in that horde. Something went wrong with me, and I became a Variant with higher intelligence but lower physical strength." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, and the three of them stared at the Demon confusedly.


    "Wait, what..? You''re an artificial being?" James stared at Eiro with pure confusion, and the Demon nodded his head without hesitation, "Yes, I am. I''m the result of a spell, simr to how a spirit can be called a result of a spell cast by the world."


    Soon after Eiro said this, Jess stared at the Demon as if she finally understood soemthing, "So that means... When you were infusing yourself with nature magic, you weren''t trying to awaken the skill, but rather raise your affinity for nature magic?"


    With a slow nod, Eiro replied, "Yes. Exactly. Spirits can raise their affinity with their element by spending time in the right environment and surrounded by the right magic. Personally, I awakened my Fire Magic skill by bathing in boiling water." Eiro exined with a slightugh, although the others seemed to have a slightly tough time believing him, before James asked, "So... you want to take revenge on the Monster King or something? For messing up while creating you? Or for creating you in the first ce?"


    "Eh? Why would I do that? Did any of you kill your parents because you''re alive? Of course not, no, I want to kill the Monster King because he''s a threat to my life and my children. In particr, Avalin." Eiro exined, "You see, back then, after I first used the Ace of Cups, my consciousness nearly faded along with my body. I was directly controlled by themand that the Monster King imnted in every single monster that was part of the Horde. To kidnap <The Fool>."


    "<The Fool>? Wait, don''t tell me that the Monster King turned the Holy Priestess into <The Fool>..." Jess muttered, with fear in her eyes, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "Of course not. Well, he wanted to, but a certain Lesser Imp got in the way of that n."


    Slowly, it doomed on them. They started to put the hints that Eiro dropped together, and just stared at him in utter disbelief, "Avalin is the Holy Priestess?" James asked as he ground his teeth together angrily, and Eiro just slightly smirked.


    "Bullseye. She is. I picked her up, and when the effect of the Ace of Cups wore off, I had an Intermediate Grade Holy Energy resistance skill. And then, I received a notification telling me to bring Avalin to the Monster King. I didn''t do it in the end, even if I nned to at first. I just couldn''t give her up anymore. But even so, I can still feel that little voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me to bring Avalin to the Monster King. So, if you know me, I''m sure you''re aware of what I do to voices like that. I rip their source apart as violently as possible and watch as they slowly and painfully die. That''s what." Eiro said with a light grin on his face, seemingly getting a little too excited, although the next moment, James stood in front of him and was close to just punching him in the face.


    "Do you even know what you''ve done? The Holy Priestess is one of the greatest assets of the war against the Monster King! She''s on the same level as the hero! Do you not understand what the fuck you did?!" He yelled out, angry beyond what Eiro had seen from him since meeting him again here in the capital, and the Demon slowly stood up and looked at the Light Elf with a deep re.


    "I saved an innocent child from being used as a weapon before she can even walk, that''s what I did. If you think that the way you damned people handle the war against the Monster King is right, then who is the real monster here? You''re sending innocent ones into a war that they don''t have anything to do with. They''re being raised into weapons that are doomed to die as chess-pieces even if they fulfill their role. And I''m going topletely obliterate that sentiment, James." Eiro exined, and the Light Elf stared at him with a deep frown, although he seemed to have calmed down a little. He could see that Eiro was serious, and with the way that he worded it, not even James could defend the actions of people that well, "And how do you think of doing that?"


    "It''s pretty simple, actually." The Demon replied, and pulled out a golden card out of his treasury, one that wasrger than the regr cards he had. He held it in front of him toward James, Jess and Krog, before James took a step backward in literal fear. Instinctively, as a being that was naturally talented at sensing things like Magic, he immediately understood what this was, "I''ll use this to be strong enough to kill a second Royal and take the Seven of Wands from him, the key that unlocks everything. Then, I''ll use that key and my future status as <The World> to be the Hero. And after that..." The Demon said with a light smile, "I''ll kill the Monster King myself, and end this idiotic war by bing the next Monster King. At that point, I should be strong enough so that no Royal can easily oppose me, and since I''ll be the Hero, as long as I don''t die, a new Hero won''t be born."


    Eiro just stood there and ced the card of the Major Arcana away again while the others weren''t sure what they were supposed to say. James seemed to feel like throwing up after sensing that Major Arcana Card, Jess was scared of thinking about what Eiro just suggested, and Krog simply felt like killing Eiro right now.


    "And... And then..?" The Heavy Warrior asked, "What are you gonna do then, huh? Just rule over the world and kill anyone and everyone you don''t like?" He asked, and Eiro just stared back for a few moments before shaking his head.


    "That sounds like a nice idea, but no. That''s not what I n on doing. Obviously, I won''t be able to live a regr life after that anymore. This n requires leaving my children behind, so that they can live the life I think they deserve to live, which either way will be hard to do with me around. Rudy wants to be a chef, Sammy always dreamt of being a singer. Arc is a free mind that''s hard to tie down, so he might be the closest to just bing an adventurer. And Clementine is surely the kindest little girl I''ve ever seen. She told me she wanted to be a healer for the people at some point. And I don''t know what Leon and Avalin want to do, but I''ll do my best to support them in every way I can. But how can that happen if they''re the children of the man that opposed the Monster King? I know that I''m a target because of that betrayal, and I''m sure so are the children." Eiro exined with a wry smile as he sat back down on his chair.


    "Maybe I''ll find a better way to deal with this all in the future, but this n simply feels right to me. Like I have to kill the Monster King either way." The Demonughed awkwardly and looked at the people in front of him, "And after I be the Monster King... I want to forever abolish this ridiculous system. Hero, Monster King... That won''t be a thing anymore. Sure, the fights between people and Monsters will continue, but they will calm down. That pure hatred may disappear, and either side will see less losses, and my children will be able to live in peace." Eiro exined, and slowly, the three people in front of Eiro calmed down. They understood that Eiro was serious. He wasn''t joking or wanted to do any harm to a particr side in this war, which is why he wanted to bring it to an end.


    "I don''t know what exactly is going to happen. I might find a way, way, way better n, one that doesn''t include me bing the direct enemy of mankind, but either way, I''m going to do everything in my power to make sure that I can live a nice life with my children. I want to see them happy, no matter in what way it is." Eiro exined. Jess, James and Krog were looking at Eiro, once more confused about what exactly they should think. After all, it wasn''t exactly the kind of thing you heard everyday, and even if someone told you about this, you would think they were crazy. But weirdly, this n didn''t seem like anything that this demon couldn''t achieve.


    Eiro looked down a bit, before starting tough quietly, "Honestly, this might all just be another side-effect of the <Mark of the Devil> and the <Mark of Wrath>, but nheless, it seems like it''s what I have to do."

 Chapter 198 - Fuel For Evolution

    Eiro sat on his chair and kept looking at his party members. They seemed to have calmed down a little after all these revtions from Eiro. They were still nervous, but they were also aware that they wouldn''t be able to just get away from here all too easily even if they did want to try and fight Eiro.


    But then, Jess slowly looked at Eiro and opened her mouth nervously, "I have to admit... I think that maybe, if anyone is the Monster King, then wouldn''t it be the best possible oue if it was Eiro?" She pointed out, and the demon in question lightly smirked. Meanwhile, James was staring at Jess, thinking about what she just said.


    "I think..." James muttered, "I think you may be right? I mean, apparently, you don''t have your monstrosity, or whatever it is that you spoke about that makes monsters monsters." James said, "Sure, you''re doing a lot of pretty fucked up things a lot of the time, but there''s a fair amount of people that do that act simrly to you, if not worse." The Light Elf added, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "d you think that way." Eiro said with a smile on his face, "So, how about it? Are you going to help me?" The Demon asked, and the three of them looked at Eiro nervously, before James asked, "We''re still aiming for Zaragon as well, right?"


    "Oh yeah, of course we are. That''s going to be our first target. He seems to be a fair bit weaker than a Royal, so he should be a good stepping stone." Eiro pointed out, and Krog stared back at him, "That Zaragon''s weaker than a royal?"


    "Mhm, he is. I think I mentioned it before, but I met someone that was of the exact same race as that guy. The exact same being, or at least, it spoke of Zaragon as one of its ''Kin''. A few momentster, that guy was killed by <The World>, a heavily weakened <The World>. They have special abilities that are hard to ovee, but once you reach that point, I don''t think they''re all too strong." Eiro pointed out, and he slowly turned toward James, "So don''t worry. We''ll get strong enough so that we can make him suffer very easily. We''ll crush Zaragon like a bug."


    James stared back at Eiro, feeling somewhat nervous because of the vibe the Demon was giving off. It was one of definite bloodlust. Even if it wasn''t strong enough to take Eiro''s control from him, it was still at the level as back then when he was first taken over by it. His Willpower increased a lot since then, so he could easily control emotions like that at this point.


    "Fine. As long as we can get that guy, I''ll do what you want." James said with a sigh, "And it''s really not like finding this new stuff out changes anything. You''re obviously genuine with your feelings for your children, and just because you''re apparently a Royal now shouldn''t change anything. You already were when we met you again, so..." The Light Elf pointed out.


    "Hah, thanks. But you''re not actually correct, I''m not <The World> yet. Otherwise that Card would have probably disappeared inside me already. No, I''m just a candidate. Apparently, right now I have a... Oh, it rose! I have a 2% chance to properly be <The World> if I try to activate this card." Eiro exined, "So I still have a long way in front of me. I think I need to be at the level of an A-Rank, if not S-Rank, Adventurer if I want to be able to safely be a Royal."


    "...That''s a joke, right..?" James asked, but Eiro simply shook his head, "It''s not. I killed <The World> surprisingly easily, just because it was weakened that much. It had been sealed for the past 100 years, and it seemed to be a unique sort of monster, probably a Ghost-type, since it didn''t have a physical form on its own. It took on parts of the world around it to be stronger, mainly by using the Key that I mentioned before. It would take others'' abilities and fuse them into itself to get stronger. I managed to kill it before it got hte chance to gather up too much stuff."


    Jess curiously looked at the Major Arcana Card that Eiro was holding, and then slowly nodded her head, "That''s so interesting! So, part of <The World>''s abilities is to take things into itself?" Jess asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yep." He said, and quickly pulled a small shadow magic stone out of his treasury, before infusing his hand with the shadow magic from it.


    "Look here, usually, you would just have your skin be covered in it a little, right? But when I fuse with it now, it bes like this." Eiro exined, and then pressed his shadow-fingers onto the table, making a good inch of them disappear before there was any sort of resistance.


    Immediately, Jess jumped up and walked over to Eiro to get a closer look, "So that''s why it looked so weird when you fused with Nature Magic!" She eximed, and Eiro simply shrugged, "Probably, yes. Either way, in addition to this, I can also now do this, as I''ve already shown you." The Demon exined, and had Nelli quickly fuse with him before soon pulling back out.


    "So yeah. Any other questions?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, and soon, Krog nodded his head, "Mhm. The Monster King... do you remember anything about him?" He inquired. Eiro leaned back in his chair and thought about it.


    "Kind of? With my <Memory of a Schr> Ability I can basically ''travel back'' to the point when I was created." Eiro exined, "The thing is, when I see the Monster King, all I see is some kind of shadowy figure. I don''t know if it''s because I simply can''t remember the Monster King, because of the fear imnted into me by him, or because that''s what he looks like. I know that he''s the child of a Goblin Lord and a Shadow Creature. They were both Royals, respectively either the holder of the <The Emperor> or <The Empress> Major Arcana Card. He became some sort ofpletely unique creature, so I have no idea what he could look like. Well, I''m sure it''s not entirely what he''s like, since he had to have some kind of limbs that Jura could make prosthetics for."


    "Hm... It would be good if we could at least figure out what kind of creature the Monster King was to begin with..." James sighed annoyedly, and the Demon slowly turned his head toward Nelli, "Stop looking at me like that, I already told you I never met him." The Naiad sighed, and Eiro leaned back in his chair, "Right, right."


    And then, just as everyone in the group rxed a little more and it became pretty quiet, Eiro''s stomach cut through this silence with a loud grumble.


    "Urgh... That''s what I hate most about Evolutions..." The Demon sighed as he pushed himself off the chair, "I''ll go see Rudy, he should be in the kitchen. You guys just keep looking for some requests." Eiro suggested as he scratched the back of his neck. Evolutions took up a lot of energy, and as such, Eiro quickly grew hungry while he was undergoing Evolution. Not to mention that he would have to bother with all that annoying as shit aching all over his body while it changed from the ground up.


    Luckily, with the timing that he had for his evolution, he would get through it just before the Winter Solstice. He wouldn''t want to be agitated and on edge because of it when meeting the Daughter of Winter.


    "You really think that was a good idea?" Nelli asked with a nervous frown as she floated up right next to the Demon, and Gondos couldn''t help but agree, "It was indeed a bit risky, was it not?" He added, but Eiro simply shrugged.


    "Of course it was. But in the end, they aren''t really a threat to me either way. They don''t have any definite proof about anything, and I''m the one with better contacts in this situation. Not to mention that I could easily kill them if I wanted to, even if I would prefer if I didn''t have to. If I can get them to trust me while they know everything there is to know about me, it''s going to make it a lot easier to get along and fight alongside them." The Demon pointed out while he pushed his foot against the wall in front of him, and it simply flipped around and let Eiro into the hidden passage behind it, which the Demon used to get to the Kitchen in a straight path.


    "But now, quiet. Let''s not talk about this near Rudy." The Demon suggested. He stepped into the kitchen with a smile on his face and looked at Rudy, who was currently experimenting with a few of the ingredients Eiro bought for him. Right now, he was baking in therge oven. They never really had something at this size or quality before, so it was obvious that Rudy would want to try it out.


    "Hey!" The boy eximed with a bright, excited smile, "Oh, look at this! This stove is so amazing! And that firece, and oven, not to mention all this equipment!" Rudy eximed, and Eiro slightly smiled.


    "I''m d you''re happy about it. Just tell me if you need anything, I''ll get whatever you want." Eiro pointed out, feeling happy because Rudy was feeling happy, and the Demon then just leaned against one of the counters in this big kitchen, while Rudy looked back at him. "Thanks, Dad!" Rudy eximed, and Eiro immediately raised his brows and crossed his arms with a light smirk.


    "''Dad'', huh?" Eiro asked, and Rudy just lightly scoffed, "So what? The mentor that King Skyhart introduced us to was teaching his son at the same time, so we kept hearing him say ''Dad, help me with this'', and ''Dad, how do I do this'' the whole time... And after Leon and Avalin came back, they kept speaking about what cool things you did, and you know that they call you ''Dad'' and ''Daddy'', so... Something wrong with that?"


    "Haha, of course not. I''m actually rather happy to hear you call me that. I knew that you guys thought of me as your father, but I never had any of you older four call me ''Dad'' regrly." Eiro pointed out, "But now, Son, that''s not why I''m here." Eiro said, genuinely still excited about being called ''Dad'' by Rudy, "I could use a little bit of food. Doesn''t need to be anything specific, just high-calory if possible. Sugar, fat, anything." Eiro pointed out, and Rudy stared back at him confusedly, before realizing why he wanted all of that.


    "Ah, you''re evolving right now?" He asked, "Why didn''t you tell us beforehand? But well, you chose that Unique Option again anyway, right?"


    "Yup. So I don''t know what''s going to happen either way." Eiro pointed out.


    Rudy slightly shrugged and opened his cookbook, ready to cook for the Demon next to him.

 Chapter 199 - The Little Guy In The Castle

    Eiro watched Rudy work. He really was rather skilled with a knife at this point. He seemed to have a rather high Dexterity stat value, or else movements like that really would never be possible. Either way, the Demon just looked around the kitchen a little more, until he saw the knives that were neatly lined up on the counter next to Rudy.


    They really weren''t able to figure out all too much about Rudy''s ''Castle'' ss ability yet. They figured out that Rudy was able to give basic recovery boosts for people''s health, mana and even stamina, and was even able to increase the efficiency of any production-type skill. They were rather weak, and Rudy had to concentrate on everything happening heavily while consumingrge amounts of mana, but it wasn''t everything yet. After Eiro started exploring all of the special sub-spaces ced all around this mansion, he became even more convinced that one aspect of Rudy''s ability was spatial-storage rted.


    The Demon slowly picked up one of the Knives that wereying right next to his son and flipped it around a little bit. It was of high quality, but that was to be expected. It was made by Armodeus, after all.


    While Rudy was getting everything ready for now and ced everything onto the stove or into the oven that he needed to, Eiro thought that this was a good a time as ever. He grabbed Rudy''s arm, flipped his hand over, and tried to stab the knife right into his palm. But of course, the tip of the knife merely pressed his skin down a little, it didn''t even put a scratch on Rudy.


    "Err... What are you doing?" The young man asked, and Eiro slowly raised his head to look back at Rudy, "Just listen to me. Now, just imagine. You already managed to figure it out before. You are a castle, you protect and nurture the people that surround you. They are the townfolk, the knights, the farmers. But none of them have reached the castle just yet. Imagine arge space inside of your body." Eiro started, and Rudy slightly sighed and nodded his head. He ced the spoon in his other hand to the side and took a deep breath to concentrate on his mana.


    "Good. On your palm, create a gate. Large and glorious, the first thing anyone sees when entering your castle. The Knife is something you need. Just let it seep into your body." Eiro said quietly. Rudy followed Eiro''s words to the dot, but no matter how hard he concentrated, nothing happened, and Eiro didn''t understand it either. Rudy was doing everything right, Eiro was sure of it. His mana was flowing in the same way as Eiro''s did whenever he tried to store things inside of his body. Eiro couldn''t imagine that the principle was very different to Rudy''s ability, considering everything he learned about spatial magic the past few days.


    And then, it suddenly clicked with Eiro.


    "Wait... What if your ability isn''t actually a storage ability...?" Eiro muttered, and Rudy slowly opened his eyes with a deep sigh, "See? I said it all along. Maybe you just made a mistake?" The young man suggested, but Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "Oh, no, you definitely have something simr. But I was looking at it the wrong way. Sure, a castle holds many things. Treasuries, food storage, libraries, and so on... But those things aren''t the main reason a castle exists. Rather, they''re the result of that main reason. A castle is supposed to house others." The Demon muttered, and Rudy looked at him with a wry smile.


    "What, you want me to try and store other people now?" Rudy asked, but Eiro justughed and shook his head, "No, of course not. I want you to try and let out the people that are already inside of you."


    "Alright, I know I gained some weighttely, but that''s not fair!" The young man protested. Eiro looked at him with his brows raised and shook his head, "That''s not what I mean, and you know it. No, I''ve briefly read about an ability in that hidden library I told you all about. It''s like a summoning ability, and I think it may be simr to what your ability actually is. Let''s go back to imagining your body as a castle. Create anything you need. A throne room, hallways, a kitchen, bedrooms, anything that you can think of. Just let your intuition guide you." The Demon said. Rudy closed his eyes while Gondos dove into Eiro, letting the Demon properly inspect Rudy''s mana and its flow.


    It seemed like he was really condensing the mana in different ces ording to the way that a castle may be built, with his heart being right in the throne room.


    "Good. Now, imagine people inside of that castle. Maids, Butlers, Chefs. Guards and Knights, Gardeners, anyone that might be needed." Rudy once more followed Eiro''s words. And all of a sudden, the Demon noticed clumps of Rudy''s mana actually moving along the hallways that he created inside of his body. There were quite a lot of them, too many to assume Rudy was actively controlling them. This just showed that they were finally on the right track.


    Eiro grabbed Rudy''s arm and ran his finger across his skin, leading from his elbow to his hand, "Imagine one of the people following this touch. He is looking for the exit, because he has to go and get something out in town. And then, right at the end of the hallway is a door that he knows leads outside." Eiro said, circling the center of Rudy''s palm.


    And before he knew it, Eiro felt a little bit of resistance. He pulled his own hand away and just looked at what was happening on Rudy''s hand. Slowly, patterns were appearing on it, that seemed to simply form the shape of a wooden door. It wasn''t overly fancy, but it did its job. Literally.


    The small wooden door, asrge as Rudy''s thumb, was slowly pushed open. And revealed beyond it was a small humanoid figure. It was pure white, and it had an Androgynous form, not even wearing anything like clothes. It didn''t have things like a mouth, nose or eyes either. It was like the base for a person that was yet to be created.


    With a light smile on his face, Eiro extended his finger toward the door to create a ce for the humanoid figure to stand. It was maybe 5 centimeters tall, and carefully stepped onto the Demon''s steady finger.


    "Open your eyes." Eiro said excitedly, and Rudy slowly did just as he was told.


    "...Heh?" He muttered the moment he saw the small figure held by Eiro, "Did... Did thate from me?"


    "Yes, yes it did. Look down at your hand." Eiro added. Rudy looked at his palm, and just barely managed to see the wooden door close down and disappearpletely, simply leaving behind Rudy''s skin again, "What the actual fuck!" He yelled out, "What just happened? I thought it was like figuratively, but I''m LITERALLY a freaking castle?!" Rudy eximed, unsure what exactly he should feel about this revtion.


    With a slight smile on his face, Eiro handed Rudy the small humanoid, "Yes, yes you are. But there''s nothing wrong with that, now is there?"


    "Of course not, but... Just why? What kind of use do these guys have? Or do they have any use at all?"


    "I guess you''ll just have to find out. Explore that ability a bit more, and just try to use it as much as you can. The more intuitive it bes to use it, the more you will naturally find out about it. There are plenty of skills and abilities that simply give you knowledge you didn''t have before, likenguageprehension skills. That ability of yours might also give you knowledge about how you should actually use it." Eiro pointed out.


    The young man slowly looked down at the pure-white humanoid figure that was standing on his finger. With a slight smile on his face, he just nodded his head, "Yeah... And even if I can''t figure it out for now, as long as I can create more of them, they might be useful. A single ant can''t lift a strawberry, but if the whole colony helps out, then possibly so."


    "That''s the right mindset." Eiro pointed out with a smile. The mood became pretty light and cheerful, even though it was quickly cut through be the sound of Eiro''s stomach grumbling again.


    "It''s going to be ready in another five minutes, just wait already." Rudyughed, and Eiro slightly shrugged, "Hey, it''s not my fault. Comin to whoever made it that evolutions make me hungry." The Demon pointed out.


    He watched as Rudy started to try and make the small humanoid figure disappear inside of him again. After just a few moments, he sessfuly managed to create another door and let the figure back inside. With a satisfied mind, Rudy turned back toward the stove and just continued cooking properly for Eiro, while the Demon and Gondos split up into two again.


    "That''s a pretty unique ability in and of itself though, isn''t it..?" Nelli pointed out quietly, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Definitely. Rudy''s ss ability might have the greatest power in and of itself, but that''s because it works over a long period of time. It''s not like the others'' abilities that are mostly useful just in specific situations. Rudy is a nonbat all-rounder, and that really seems to shine through this unique ss of his."


    "...Fair enough. Well, as long as it helps him with what he wants to do so that he can level his ss up some more, all''s fine, right?" Nelli said with a light shrug. Eiro immediately nodded his head in agreement.


    "Exactly." The Demon said. Just a few minutester, Rudy ced down a te of food, as well as freshly-baked bread, down on the table in front of Eiro, and the Demon immediately went ahead and ate it. He really needed to eat a lot for now. Maybe he should just go out and hunt somerge animals, roast them over some fire, and eat thempletely. Because of his overeating skill, the food that he ate that was too much for him was basically ''stored'' until his body needed it. That ''stored'' food wasn''t as efficient at giving him energy as food he just freshly ate, but it was better than nothing, really.. The next two weeks might be a bit of a bother to get through, because Eiro could already feel that he needed a lot more energy for this than for his prior two evolutions, but in the end, it would all hopefully turn out just fine.

 Chapter 200 - Second Step Infusion

    Eiro was once more sitting in the library, just reading a book he took an interest in, when someone came into the room to speak to him.


    "Eiro?" Arc asked, and the demon slowly turned his head toward the young man, "Yes? Everything arlight?" He repied. Arc immediately nodded his head and stepped over toward Eiro, as he was sitting in one of the chairs with a book on hisp. Gobo and the Slime were both just on the ground, with the Slime helping Gobo out with understanding the words properly.


    "I think I need your help with some magic. Can youe outside for a moment?" Arc asked. Eiro quickly nodded his head and ced the book to the side, "Sure. What''s the issue exactly, though?"


    Arc scratched the back of his neck annoyedly, although that annoyed expression soon turned into a light smile, "I just somehow can''t get my mes to stay on my sword. It was specifically made for it, and I managed to get it to work with the wooden sword you made for me before, but it''s way harder with this one somehow."


    "Hm... That so?" Eiro asked, and Arc quickly nodded, "Yup, it is."


    A little whileter, the two of them reached the gardens, where Arc had been practicing the whole time. There were some scorch marks on the ground, like Eiro had expected. This just showed that Arc was continuosly practicing to finally get this done.


    Eiro extended his hand forward toward Arc so that he would be given the Katana. It wasn''t specifically made for Eiro, so he wouldn''t be able to fight with it perfectly, but for this kind of demonstration it should be fine.


    There was a small piece of metal ced right next to the handle. Basically, it was a recement for the spark-snapper that Eiro usually used, so that Arc could actively create mes to make use of.


    Eiro created a small spark and then first had the mes envelop the de, "Let me guess, you didn''t get further than this step?" Eiro asked. Arc quickly nodded, "Yup. And sure, that works too in a fight, but it''s not the way that we''ve been doing it before, right?"


    "Yes, exactly. Basically, this is a way of physical casting. Practicing like this is a good idea as well, and you should never forget about getting a little bit of time with it in. Even without the sword, just with your hands. Your own mes won''t damage you, so you''ll be fine in that regard."


    "I know, I know, I''ve been practicing that like you told me. But I just can''t get the damn actual infusion down. It''s frustrating. And that means somethinging from me!" Arc eximed with a lightugh, to which Eiro could only agree. Emotions like ''frustration'' were also seen as a negative to Arc''s skill, and so he didn''t usually feel things like that. But usually, for Arc, emotions tend to stack up and then slowly flow over the edge. It was never anything like a huge flood, but a little bit here and there did happen. At those times, Arc''s skill leveled up pretty quickly, so he wouldn''t feel things like that for a while anymore. Either way, it seems like right now was a time when Arc''s frustration was flowing over after continuosly failing what he wanted to do. Eiro should help out so that Arc''s ''negative emotion resistance'' skill wouldn''t level up further.


    After a bit of thought, Eiro nodded his head, "Alright... it''s pretty simple, actually. It''s exactly how you did it with the wooden sword, but much harder. The wooden sword was made specifically to let you infuse it easily. To get the basic practice down. It actively assisted you and pulled in your fire magic into itself for the infusion. This de isn''t like that. It has great capabilities for being infused with fire magic, but it''s harder to break through into its interior." Eiro started to exin, "Now tell me, what exactly did you do to try and infuse it?"


    "Well..." Arc started, "I tried to steadily infuse it first, but then I started focusing on specific spots and it started working somewhat with a bit of force. But never too well, it was just super unstable."


    "Ah, of course it was." Eiro said. He handed the Katana to Gondos for now, while he then quickly created a thin wall of ice in front of him.


    "Let''s say this is the ''wall'' that''s stopping your magic from being infused into the de." Eiro started, and then drew a small line into the dirt about two meters behind the ice-wall, and then stepped over to the other side of the wall again, "What you''ve been doing is basically this." The Demon pointed out, and without hesitation just punched the ice wall. A hole appeared in its center, that Eiro quickly squeezed and climbed through before getting to the other side of the line.


    "You forced your way in through a specific spot." He said, and with a wave of his hand repaired the ice wall, "But what you have to keep trying is this." The Demon started. He took a step toward the ice wall and pushed his leg through. Slowly, he melted the parts that he needed and repaired them after passing through. Soon, he reached the other side of the line while the ice-wall was in a perfect state.


    But Arc didn''t seem to quite follow.


    "So... What exactly does that mean?" He asked with a wry smile, "I just have to try and do it steadily, right?"


    "Yes, and no. You''ve been doing it right to an extent. Some people try to infuse themselves or their weapons with magic by infusing all of their body at the same time. On the other hand, it''s more efficient to push it all in through one spot, move it into your heart, and let your body naturally do the rest. That means that you were on the right track with focusing on one spot, but you still didn''t find the right way to approach that. You were doing it with force, possibly damaging the de in the process. Don''t worry, it''s not that easy to damage it, so it''s still in perfect condition, but if you keep doing it that will be another story. You need to wlessly move your magic through central areas, and then spread it out once you''ve reached beyond the ''wall''." Eiro exined quickly. He took the katana back from Gondos.


    "That''s the difference between this..." While Eiro spoke, the de was once more enveloped in the mes like before, "...and this." All of a sudden, the mes disappeared, as if being sucked into the tip of the sword. A few momentster, it seemed like the de itself was starting to heat up. The metal wasn''t melting, but it was starting to move around, the edges lightly waving around.


    And then, not long after, it seemed like the metal itself turned into mes. Eiro took control over those ''metal mes'' and straightened the edges up. The de was incredibly hot and sharp, to the extent that just holding it toward the ice-wall started melting the ice down.


    "That''s... That''s infusing something? It looked way different for me the whole time..." Arc muttered quietly, and Eiro slightly started to smile, "It''s a type of infusion, yes. This is a way that''s more focused on enhancing the de itself using the essence of the fire magic. It''s a step beyond what you know so far. The way that you''ve been doing with the wooden sword so far, and trying to do with this, isbining the de with the power of fire magic."


    The next moment, all of a sudden, mes started appearing around the de. They weren''t just being controlled to stick to the de, but the metal itself seemed to be the source of the fire this time, "Like this. It''s easy to switch between that once you know how." Eiro pointed out.


    Although then, he just had a sudden idea. He had been doing it so naturally with this katana, and to some extend with his daggers as well, but why did he never try this method out while infusing himself anymore. Instead ofbining himself with the magic, just enhance himself with it. He did try this out before, but that was when he first learned how to change the way to infuse weapons or tools with magic. It didn''t work then, and just ended up damaging him.


    Eiro got rid of his magic inside of the katana and handed it back to Arc. He seemed to have understood a few things by watching Eiro. The Demon fused with Gondos and quickly watched Arc as he tried to control his magic, giving him a bit more specific instruction on his control of the mana.


    And then, once Arc seemed to get a hang of what he needed to do to practice, Eiro started practicing a little bit on his own. So far, he didn''t infuse his body with magic that often for actualbat uses. But whenever he did, then he did so using magic stones that he controlled so that the rtively pure magic would flow through his whole body immediately.


    Whenever he used his own magic, he just cloaked his body in it for the most part, just lightly infusing his body, if at all. It was a quick and easy method that produced pretty high quality results. The reason for that was that he was never really capable of infusing his body with his own magic like with the magic from magic stones. It was always much harder, and sometimes actively damaged him when he wasn''t careful... And even then, using magic from magic stones, that ''second tier infusion'' as he just showed to Arc was basically impossible, it could only be done with your own magic, so that never worked on his body either. It just felt like he was ripping his own body apart.


    But now, he was able to even fuse with spirits easily. Eiro pulled out his spark-snapper and quickly created mes using his magic. He tried to properly make sure that every part of the mes was under his control, and then pushed it into his left hand. He didn''t want to break his prosthetic somehow, so using it with his real hand was safer for now, since that could be healed with healing magic in an emergency.


    Eiro pulled the magic into his hand, and had it transform like he knew from infusing himself with me magic from magic stones. It was like his body itself had turned into mes to an extent. And then, Eiro tried to push past that. He made the magic seep into Eiro''s very being.


    Soon, the mes disappeared and all that was left was Eiro''s left hand. It was slightly waving around still, and when he tried to touch it with his right hand. There was barely any resistance, as if his flesh was made of foam. But it was still more solid than when his hand had turned into actual mes just now.


    With a slight breath to get his thoughts and breathing under control, Eiro took a step toward the ice wall that was still standing so that Arc could practice a bit using it. He ced his hand onto the ice, but before he could make contact with it, it simply melted.


    It seemed like Eiro seeded in doing what he wanted to do.. He had gone beyond the regr magic infusion he was used to, and enhanced his body itself with the power of fire magic.

 Chapter 201 - Ripple Technique

    Eiro looked at his hand with a rather curious expression. He wanted to see what else would happen if he infused himself with the different types of magic that he had skills for. First, he got rid of the fire magic that he used to infuse his left hand with just now, and then pulled out his sk from the satchel he was carrying with him at basically all times.


    He opened it up and pulled out the highly refined water that was inside of it. With a quick flick of his wrist, the water streamed out of the open sk and moved around the Demon''s hand. Eiro made sure to properly infuse the water with his mana, and then pressed it onto the skin of his hand. Slowly, Eiro took a deep breath to calm himself down a little, and tried to go through the normal process of infusing himself with something.


    It was very different to when he was infusing himself with magic from magic stones, since he was able to create it in its raw ''magic essence'', it was like it was just elemental mana in itself, rather than the physical element. With fire it was a different deal as well, because Fire in itself was just something like an energy, much like mana was. Simply creating heat without mes could also be considered fire magic, so he could rather easily infuse it into his body.


    But when it came to water... Right now, it merely felt like Eiro was going to pierce his skin trying to push it in any further. And then, Eiro thought about what it felt like when he fused with Nelli or Gondos. It was a very different feeling to infusing himself with magic through a magic stone as well.


    "Just slowly..." The demon whispered quietly to himself. He tried to simply take the water into himself, as if he was drinking it through his skin. He wanted to mix it with every fiber of his being. Slowly but surely, the water that was touching Eiro''s skin started to disappear after being absorbed by the demon that was controlling it.


    And soon, Eiro could open his eyes, "It worked..?" He muttered quietly. Eiro moved his hand around, and was rather surprised to see this actually rather... confusing thing happen. It was like Eiro''s hand was some bag filled with water. It was creating small waves with every motion of his hand. It was a rather weird feeling, really, and Eiro wasn''t entirely sure if this had any sort of use to it. And then, he slowly noticed something else.


    Eiro took up a simple hand-to-handbat stance, forming his right hand into a fist right underneath the side of his chest, and stretching his open hand forward, facing in front of him with the t palm. Slowly, the Demon then changed the positions of his hands, moving his right hand forward as a fist, and his left hand to the side of his body, the palm still open. He slightly twisted his body to the left side as he was at it.


    And then, with a swift motion, Eiro rapidly pulled his right hand back and pushed his left hand forward while twisting his body to the right to give an extra boost to the speed of his hand. Of course, nothing happened directly, but Eiro was able to realize the perfect use for his hand being in such a state.


    Because of the quick movement of his t, left hand followed by the rapid stop, it was like all the ''liquid'' making up his hand moved forward all at once in small waves, gathering in the center of his palm, creating a bit of a ''spike'' right there. Those waves didn''t only carry Eiro''s water-like flesh with them, but at the same time also his mana. All at once, it gathered there on his palm and was propelled forward, as if forced out of his body in a small,pressed lump. And at a speed that was rather hard to achieve normally, even for Eiro.


    With a bit of curiosity, Eiro ced the spark-snapper onto his right hand and created a small me, that he then gathered in front of the center of his left palm using magic, before starting to repeat the same motion as he did just before.


    He had gathered his mana in his left hand for this so that even more mana would be used for that pressed lump''. And so, after Eiro pushed his palm forward again like before, the mana was pushed out of his palm through the mes. But of course, Eiro was anticipating that, and at the right time made his mana the ''fuel'' for the mes. And before he knew it, an incredibly fast, albeit small, ball of magic mes shot forward in front of the Demon.


    "...What did you just do...?" Jess stepped down the stairs she was standing on toward Eiro. Her, as well as James and Krog, had been watching Arc practice a little bit and were trying to help them out, but the only one that had an affinity for the fire element was Jess, the mage, so none of them were really able to help out beyond showing Arc what they could do with their own elemental magic skills and weapons, which didn''t seem to be of particrly much help. So after noticing that, they simply held back a bit and watched Eiro try and teach Arc, but this was simply something that Jess could not ignore.


    "Did you... just cast a Fireball spell without drawing a magic circle?" She asked from far away. Jess knew that Eiro was capable of drawing magic circles at immense speeds, but this was definitely way too fast for even Jess to see through. But Eiro simply turned toward her with a light grin on his face.


    "I didn''t. That was physical casting, Jess." The Demon pointed out, but the young mage just stared at him in disbelief, "No way in hell was that physical casting... That was way too fast for physical casting!"


    "I know, but that''s just because of this new technique." Eiro exined smugly. He held his hand forward toward Jess and showed her what exactly he did to create this effect. If he was able to get enough practice in to get through the infusion process within a few moments, then Eiro should be able to properly make use of this ability inbat.


    Even James and Krog understood how amazing the things this opened up were, "Isn''t that considered cheating at this point...? What the actual hell is this?" James asked, and Krog slowly extended his finger toward Eiro''s palm and slowly poked it, just watching it wiggle.


    "Hm... Ain''t that like... you know, like a slime? Those guys are pretty much immune to blunt damage, right? If you do that to your whole body, it''d make your defense go up, right?" Krog asked. Eiro thought about it for a few moments, and then slowly nodded his head.


    "I think it might... But well, really only when fighting against people using blunt weapons, if they have swords or spears, that would make me easier to injure. Although..." Eiro thought about this kind of use for this ability as well, and then started to activate the ability he received after bringing resistance to 100, the ''Rock Skin'' ability. To Eiro''s surprise, it seemed like this heavily-altered and rigid skin didn''t really change anything about the way Eiro''s hand worked right now. He should rely on this ability more often, there was literally no reason not to do so in the end. It made him a bit heavier and slightly slower, but it wasn''t by much.


    "Interesting." Eiro thought about what exactly else he could do, and in the end just chose to take this ability a step further. He deactivated the rock skin ability and then started to infuse himself with highly-refined waterpletely, from top to bottom. It was a rather... interesting sight, to say the least. It seemed like the others had a lot of fun just poking Eiro''s body in different ces and watching the ripples travel all over him. Even Arc took a little break in his training.


    Either way, Eiro tried what he did before again, this time much more intense than before, however. He created a condensed ball of hot mes in front of his right palm and took on the proper stance. The water infusion worked perfectly fine with the wooden hand as well, which is why Eiro figured he should try it with this one now. After all, as the wooden hand could act as a wand or staff, it might end up increasing the potency or amount of the mana.


    And then, with his right palm pulled back and his left fist pushed forward, Eiro started. He pulled his left fist back, twisted his upper body to the left side, took an extra step forward with his right foot, and pressed his right palm forward all the whilst controlling the water magic that he infused his body with to increase the strength of the waves.


    Before Eiro knew it, a small lump of verypressed mana was created through this and shot through the mes at high speeds. It was too fast for the others to even follow at first, as they didn''t expect this speed. But that wasn''t all, as the ripples had continued traveling over Eiro''s body. There were a few more lumps of mana afterward, but the speed and power at which they were travelling went down considerably each time. It was a bit disappointing, but it wasn''t an issue in the end either.


    In the end, Eiro still managed to find a new technique that only he was really able to make use of, a new technique based off ofbining martial arts with magic that may have never been seen before.


    Eiro was satisfied, extremely satisfied really. And shooting that ball of mes forward wasn''t all that this would be useful for. At the same time, it should also be possible to control his own body in a way that was practically impossiblepared to before. In general, Eiro''s movements were weird now. It was like a part of his movement was dyedpared to before. He moved his hand to the side, and the water infused into his body would then flow in that direction and make his hand move further over there. It was possible to move in ways that may have no been possible before. This was a chance that Eiro simply couldn''t let up.


    "Oi, you damn doll. Come over here!" Eiro said with a broad grin as he stepped over to a more empty area of the garden. But at first, it seemed like Jess became rather upset.


    "Wait, he''s not calling me ''doll'' right now, right?" She asked with a wry smile as she looked at James and Krog, but a few momentster, Arc reassured her that this wasn''t the case, "Nope. He''s talking about a literal doll. Well, it''s a puppet technically, I guess."


    James, Jess and Krog seemed rather confused at what Arc was saying, but they were even more confused when they all of a sudden saw a wooden doll with the exact same build as Eiro make his way over toward the Demon.


    "What... is that?" James asked with a wry smile, and Eiro extended his hand forward and pulled out the ''Stealth'' token out of its body so that only the hand-to-handbat one would remain.


    "My training partner. Jura made it for me before he died. I don''t know how he made it at all, but it seems to be able topletely match my stats and even grows in height alongside me. This way, I can practice different techniques with my mirror image, basically." Eiro exined, and Krog slowly took a step closer and leaned forward toward it.


    "This thing''s supposed to be able to face off against you? You kiddin''?" He asked, and extended his finger forward to poke at the puppet''s face. But before Krog knew it, his whole body was flipped upside down and was thrown a few meters behind the puppet. Of course, Krog wasn''t damaged by it at all, it just hurt him a little without decreasing his health by much.


    "Well, yes. It''s what taught me all my techniques. You see, I have some tokens that I can put into its body, each representing a skill. Hand-to-Hand Combat Mastery, Dagger Mastery, Freerunning, and Stealth. They''re hold techniques stemming from people who reached the Master Grade in those skills."

 Chapter 202 - Magic Infusions

    Eiro used magic to get rid of all the snow in the area that Eiro and the puppet would be fighting in, and then took up his stance and looked at the puppet right in front of him. He knew exactly what kinds of moves it had, but they would be faster and moreplex than what Eiro was used to so far, considering that its physical capabilities seemed to have risen together with Eiro''s own.


    For now, he would just try and fight it with only the Hand-to-Handbat token. He still needed to be able to properly ''beat'' the puppet while it had just one token in it before moving onto trying to do it while it was making use of two of them.


    With a deep breath, Eiro nodded his head, "Let''s start." He said. The next moment, the puppet started to move. It didn''t jump toward Eiro or anything, but it simply started walking sideways while keeping up its stance properly, as if trying to circle around the Demon.


    It did this a lot, when it knew that Eiro wouldn''t attack right away. The Demon slowly listened to the puppet''s footsteps, the close to silent sound of its wooden joints rubbing across its limbs. And that was just when Eiro managed to figure out when the puppet would attack, because its whole body would tense up before it did. It was always this way.


    Eiro twisted his body around all the whilst preparing a counter-attack. Due to the rapid movements, rippled were created all over Eiro''s body, and the demon was trying his best to make it so that they would all be focused onto his arm.


    He pressed his palm onto the puppet''s arm and tried to wrap h is fingers around it. It seemed like due to the extra force created by the movement of the water ''in'' or ''on'' Eiro''s body really did manage to create effects that usually wouldn''t be possible. There was a bit of extra force there, with a nearly unpredictable pattern to it, and so even the puppet was slightly put off.


    But just a slight bit, as it soon reacted by grabbing Eiro''s arm with its own and then wrapped its legs around it as well. All it weight was now on Eiro''s arm. The arm that was actually heavily weakened after being infused with the ''essence of water''. Eiro was able to move in quite agile ways, but his basic physical strength seemed to have gone down a fair bit.


    The puppet pulled on Eiro''s arm and artificially created ripples in his body that would then end up affecting the Demon''s grip on its arm. And the moment that it loosened up, the puppet simply let go of Eiro''s arm all at once and dropped onto the ground.


    It caught its fall with its arms, but instead of resetting its stance right now, it just pressed itself off the ground again to press its feet, which were still higher than the puppet''s center of gravity, and kicked Eiro into the chest.


    But luckily, while Eiro miscalcted how well this would all work now that his body had changed like this, the puppet seemed to have done so as well. Instead of making it possible for it to easily kick off of Eiro''s usually rather hard torso while pushing him back, Eiro''s body absorbed a lot of the force and slowed the puppet''s body down considerably without affecting him too much.


    Eiro tried to move the ripples caused by this kick to both his arms and grabbed the puppet''s legs. Using the extra force created by the ripples traveling through his body, Eiro pressed the puppet''s left leg down and its right leg up to twist its whole body into a screw-motion.


    Of course, the puppet tried its best to then just kick Eiro into his face by using this motion, but as he anticipated this, he had already been falling back and rather naturally kicked the puppet''s body as it was still suspended in air. But obviously, much like the puppet''s kick was weakened by his body absorbing the shock, his own kick was also weaked. It did its job to an extent, however, and the puppet was interrupted as it was trying to catch itself.


    Meanwhile, as Eiro was fighting the puppet, the others were looking at this fight with awe. All of this happened within just a few seconds, and they weren''t even able to properly keep up. For different reasons, of course. Jess was able to process the actions quickly, but her dynamic vision wasn''t good enough really see every bit of the movement that Eiro and the puppet were going for. Krog and James, on the other hand, had pretty good dynamic vision, but weren''t able to process what waas happening that quickly from a viewer''s position and were just staring at everything with a nk mind.


    "It''s pretty crazy, huh?" Arc asked with a bit of augh, "The worst thing is that this might either take a minute, or an hour. And we have literally no way to tell which it''s going to be."


    "Can..." Jess started, "Can you really follow what they''re doing?" She asked. Arc''s stats were pretty low, so she somewhat doubted it, but she was really surprised when Arc just shrugged.


    "Kinda. My ss'' ability lets me focus super hard on specific things while fading everything else out. So if I focus on observing them, I can somewhat follow. But really, right now I can''t at all." Arcughed loudly, turning back toward Eiro and the puppet. And to his surprise, they already finished. But not because either side lost, but because Eiro just interrupted the training.


    "This is way too bothersome..." The Demon sighed, taking a few deep breaths after this, and the others looked at Eiro curiously, "Why? Wasn''t it a good fight?" James asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "Not at all, actually. I was able to handle myself somewhat, but I would have lost pretty soon. I need to y around with this technique a bit more for now. See if I can fix some things up." Eiro looked at his hand with an annoyed sigh, although he was quickly reminded of a whole other fact, "You know that the onle element you really tried to do anything with properly was water, right? Just go for your others now." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro slightly grumbled as he looked over toward her.


    "Right." The Demon replied, and Nelli just smirked at him, "Heh, don''t tell me that Eiro the great schr with the perfect memory forgot something like that?"


    "Evolutions mess with me, alright? My body is aching all over, I''m dizzy, and the system probably isn''t working properly either. I mean, I can''t even open my status. So cut me some ck here, alright?" Eiro grumbled, although Nelli simply kept smirking, "Of course, of course~!"


    Eiro took a deep breath and then first things first, started trying to freeze the water magic inside of his body. The change between those two types of magic was constant and rather smooth for the most part, so Eiro was sure that this would work without an issue.


    And soon enough, Eiro''s body hardened all over again.


    Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what he could use this for, though. He was far slower than usual, it was like when he used to sit out in the snow during winter all day, and his body was effected by it then.


    "Did it work?" Jess asked curiously, and slowly touched Eiro''s arm, before quickly pulling back because she didn''t expect him to really be that freezing cold.


    "Hm..." Eiro muttered, before turning toward Arc, "Melt some of this snow for me." The Demon suggested, as Arc currently had his katana cloaked in ayer of mes, and just held it down for a moment. Eiro quickly took control of it and moved it toward his hand. And really, like he expected, the water froze immediately the moment he made skin contact with it.


    "I guess that''s somewhat useful in fights, but I don''t need it on my whole body. Maybe my palms and feet if I''m fighting bare-soul." Eiro pointed out, and Krog slowly crossed his arms, "What, you wanna freeze them to death with cold hands?" The heavy warrior asked, and Eiro just lightly sighed and pressed his palm onto Krog''s neck. Even this rather experienced warrior flinched a bit in response.


    "People that aren''t used to it will have issues with any sort of extreme cold, especially if they don''t expect it. And depending on if I manage to grapple them and hold them down for a while, I should be able to do good damage simply through skin-contact that I''m making anyway. I can''t freeze other people just like that yet, after all."


    "Right, I get it..." Krog said with a wry smile as he held his hand to his neck, and Eiro quickly got rid of the ice magic that he used to infuse his body. He stretched out a bit, and then proceeded to take off his shirtpletely, cing everything on him besides his pants to the side.


    The others were a bit surprised, "What are you doing?"


    "I''m infusing myselfpletely with fire magic now. What, you want me to burn up my clothes?"


    "Of course not..." Jess replied.


    Eiro pulled out his spark-snapper and created mes again, before pushing them right onto his chest, feeding them into his body like that, making the fire magic spread through him via his heart. And the moment that he second-stage infused his body with the fire magic, the snow right around Eiro''s bodypletely melted up and his body gave off a little steam at the same time.


    The demon moved his arms around a little bit. It seemed like Eiro''s body was a little bit quicker now, but beyond that, there wasn''t a direct change by doing this beside the heat that Eiro was giving off. He would really just have to y around with this.


    Then, when Eiro made the fire magic disappear from his body, he just waved his hands around to gather the air around him with magic, and then tried slowly but surely pressing it into his body as well. Simr to how it was with the water, it was a bit hard to do, although it was easier now that Eiro managed to get the hang of the basics. Doing it with Earth Magicter would be a bother, though...


    Either way, Eiro soon infused himself with the ''essence'' of Air Magic. His body felt basically weightless, and when he tried to run a little, he was able to do so at speeds much faster than when he just cloaked his body with wind magic. It was just that due to his light body, Eiro''s attacks would most likely be pretty weak, and it would be harder to counter heavy attacks.


    And then, atst, when Eiro tried it with earth magic using highly-refined rock prepared by Gondos, he had to really concentrate for a while. The whole concept of just ''absorbing'' the rock felt pretty foreign to him somehow.


    But soon enough, the rock''s mass became less, while Eiro''s became much higher, much more than he used up from the rock. Eiro''s body became much heavier, of course, and his movements were pretty slow. Although, Eiro''s skin was quite literally rock-hard, which reached even deeper than Eiro''s rock-skin ability, andbined with just that rock-skin ability, it was like his skin was imprable.


    Now, Eiro just had to figure out how to use all of this.

 Chapter 203 - Confrontation

    Eiro sat on the ground cross-legged. He second-stage infused his whole body with water magic again, and was currently trying to transfer the vibrations from the ground into his body as practice. He wanted to figure out good ways to increase the range of his perception of this kind.


    Just due to the increase in his mental stats, that range already increased an incredible amount, but Eiro still wanted to reach further than that, with as much uracy as absolutely possible. And so, the demon made use of any magic that he could to bring anything that could cause some sort of sensory reaction to him. The vibration of the footsteps of everyone in the house, the small bugs, rabbits or rats scattering around. The sound of everyone breathing, their blood flowing through their bodies while their hearts beat continuosly.


    The flow of the air as it moved around the trees and walls. Eiro had an image in his mind that was basically a perfect representation of his current property, that included the mansion, its garden, and a part of the forest directly around them. Of course, Eiro mixed the things he ''sensed'' with the memories he had of this ce visually in general for this, so everything became much clearer in the first ce. And slowly, Eiro tried to open his eyes again. Because he had been concentrating on this perception of different sense this much, his sight had been heavily influenced as well.


    Eiro saw numerous colors floating through the air in the form of ripples, spirals, and simple lines, each of which were the representations of Eiro''s other senses that he mixed with his sight.


    "Gondos..." Eiro muttered quietly, as white ripples spread out from Eiro''s mouth together with lines that soon started to fade after travelling a few meters, which was a mix of Eiro''s voice and the breath he used to create it.


    The Golem in question slowly pressed himself agianst Eiro''s chest, diving right into his body. He changed in a rather weird way, as the Spirit-Fusion mixed with Eiro''s water skin. But it didn''t matter too much anyway, since Eiro wasn''t really moving. Any sort of ripples on Eiro''s body were created by the strengthened tremors of the ground that the Demon was sitting on.


    But now that Eiro fused with Gondos, he gained another level to his perception. The perception of magic. And all of a sudden, the colors of Eiro''s sight shifted. It changed from dark to bright, and from bright to dark, all depending on whether or not there was any sort of magic in that area. He was still able to see everything else perfectly, but the spots that had mana or magic gathered in them were particrly bright and vibrant, basically sticking out to Eiro.


    This really was a new level of perception, a kind that Eiro really would have loved to be able to experience earlier. Either way, just seeing this wasn''t exactly what Eiro was going for. No, instead, he was actually trying to find something. The puppet had just hidden somewhere within Eiro''s property, and the Demon had to find it.


    It was tough, much much tougher than it was before, despite the fact that the puppet still only had the same stealth token active. Eiro took a deep breath, spreading more ripples and lines throughout the space around him, and then slowly pushed himself off the ground until he stood on his two legs. He was trying to make sure he would keep this level of concentrated perception up at any point, trying to remember literally everything that he was sensing at the moment. Eiro looked around himself, turning and twisting his body a few times.


    And then, he simply started to get moving. Eiro started walking around his property. This was so that Eiro would be able to find the hidden puppet. But actually not only that, but at the same time it was a good way to really figure out if there were any more hidden secrets inside of this ce that Eiro was simply unable to find just yet.


    After he moved through the outsidepletely, Eiro stepped into the mansion. With slow and steady steps, Eiro moved through the house, looking at everything that he could while trying not to let his concentration slip.


    He saw the hidden rooms he already knew about, the slight flow of mana through the hallways and passages of this mansion, as it was really just a huge static magic circle. But now only that, Eiro also saw the flow of mana inside of the bodies of the children. He let them know that he would be doing this today, because it didn''t actively require him to use his body to massive extents, which was good as it felt like his whole body was being ripped apart and put together ten thousand times in one moment.


    Eiro thought it would distract him, but this kind of thing actually made him a bit more sensitive to small changes in the air or the minor tremors of the ground. It was pretty useful, really. Somehow, doing this made it possible for Eiro to rx despite the physical aching he was feeling, because that way, the aching actually came in useful someho-


    "Yoo, Eiro,e out here!" The voice of Krog echoed out from outside the mansion, causing numerous ripples to cover Eiro''s sight while it felt like his eardrums were about to rupture from just this.


    The Demon immediately lost his concentration, and for Eiro''s and Gondos'' safety, the two of them made the choice to split up into two again.


    "What the fuck... are those morons doing out there?" Eiro asked with a slight groan as he slowly turned around. He was in the second floor right now, and so he just looked out the window facing in the direction where they were standing while putting his mask on. After all, there was apparently someone else with them, although his mind was a bit too confused to figure out who exactly it was just yet.


    And then, Eiro saw here. A woman with dark burgundy-colored hair, wearing an ne with a bright red stone set into its center.


    With a deep groan, Eiro took a deep breath that he used to fill his lungs with air magic that he used to infuse his body. And then, Eiro simply climbed out of the window and jumped, using magic to stop the fall of this illogically light body of his with a strong gust. It stirred up the dust and dirt on the ground around Evelyn, but Eiro didn''t really care about that.


    "What do you want?" Eiro asked with a deep re as he stood there, taking his mask off, "I''d prefer to have you leave again as quickly as possible, so let''s get to it."


    Surprised, or rather, shocked, James and Krog, who were currently the only ones here, as Jess seemingly had some other business to take care of in the urban area of town, "Eiro, what are you doing?" James asked in response to seeing that Eiro simply revealed his demonic face to Evelyn, and Eiro just groaned.


    "She already knows." Eiro said, and Krog looked at her with a light stare, "So that means that she''s someone close to you?"


    "Not at all. She just knows, I don''t know how." The demon pointed out. He was rather pissed off about it to be perfectly frank, but there wasn''t much he could really do anymore. After his evolution, he hoped to be able to level up a bit so that he could kill her rtively soon. But that would still take a while. Until literally the day before the winter solstice, Eiro would be undergoing evolution.


    "I would just like to have you return something that''s mine. I heard you killed the spider queen in that monster nest, did you not? Then surely, you must have been the one that stole that special artifact." She pointed out, and Eiro looked at her with a light sigh, before flicking his hand to the side. A momentter, Eiro was holding the metal ball with its carving on the outside, "You mean this?" He asked, and Evelyn simply nodded her head.


    "Indeed so. Now please, hand that to me." Evelyn said, extending her hand forward, but Eiro just let go of the metal ball and made it drop back into his treasury.


    "Yeah, I don''t think so." Eiro replied bluntly, "But it''s not like you really came for that anyway, right? You''re a horrid liar despite being such a two-faced bitch, Evelyn." The demon grumbled, and the face of the woman right in front of him turned bright red as she opened her eyes wide.


    "What are you sa-" She started, but was quickly interrupted by Eiro, "I''m not in the mood for this. That moron just there nearly just killed me with his lungs that are the size of my whole body, I''m in the middle of evolution and I''m in such a huge amount of pain all over, because for whatever reason, my bones and flesh are slowly disintegrating and turning into something different. My head is killing me because my horns are changing their shape as well, and I absolutely do not like you or enjoy yourpany, so just out with it already." Eiro said with a light growl, and Evelyn looked at Eiro with a wry smile.


    "You''re just an imp... Who do you think you''re talking to..?" She asked, "But fine, have it your way. You''re right, I''m not here for that artifact. We have dozens of those. No, I''m here to try and recruit you."


    "Eh?" Eiro asked, "I just said I''m not in the mood for this. ''This'' includes jokes and tant stupidity. I''m not joining you, screw off."


    "Oh... Is that so..?" Evelyn asked with a quiet tone, "Then I guess I''ll just have to resort to force." She pointed out. Evelyn stretched her hands forward and pushed blood out of the tips of her fingers. It was too much blood for a normal person, really. Many times more. The bloodstone probably increased blood-recovery to the extreme. Evelyn turned her blood into spears that she then immediately froze and had float around Eiro.


    Meanwhile, the demon just snapped his fingers with his spark-snapper on and created mes that he absorbed into his skin instead of the wind magic. His whole body was giving off high amounts of heat now. Some of the tips of the ice-blood spears were already melting just through this, as Eiro generally tried to pump up the heat as much as he possibly could.


    But the moment it started to melt, Evelyn used Magic to reverse it. Seeing this, Eiro just sighed deeply, "Fine. Come in. I really am not in the mood for a fight right now." The Demon pointed out.. He figured he could at least hear her out.

 Chapter 204 - Rage

    Eiro brought the Bloodstone Sorceress into the mansion, making sure that she definitely wouldn''t encounter any of the children. He just had to make sure that she wouldn''t be able to gather any sort of extra information rted to them.


    The group sat down in a small room that was seemingly a study before, and Eiro leaned against the desk while Evelyn sat down on one of the chairs while Krog and James just stayed by the door for now.


    "Alright, then tell me, why should I join your little organization?" Eiro asked with an annoyed expression, and Evelyn slowly crossed her legs, "For one, simply because it would be worth it. We can give you things that you would never be able to attain otherwise. We can enhance your body, and make it possible for you to reach a height never seen before by an Imp."


    "I think I''ve done that myself, thanks. Give me a serious reason. Don''t tell me the benefits, but rather, why you want me there. What you guys do. And how I''m supposed to help you reach your goal." The demon said clearly, and Evelyn lightly chuckled, "Heh, so you really think you''re smart, I see? Fine, I''ll y along with you for a while to feed into your ego." She said in a tone that more than just pissed Eiro off, but he was still able to hold himself back.


    "You see, it''s simple. We are a group founded by a certain few people that simply wanted to get stronger in order to escape the system of this world. Of course, not the true ''system'', but rather, the order of this world. The way things are supposed to be. People being stuck with their inferior base forms, and monsters being limited in the skills they can learn. You know, we have managed to give a Sea-Slug Advanced Languageprehension. We gave it skills that you would usually need limbs for as well. Skills it should never be able to attain." Evelyn exined in a smug manner, and Eiro slowly stared back at her with a light frown.


    "So you''re trying to convince me by saying that if they could do that to a sea-slug, they can do it to me? Basically putting me in the same, or a lesser, ce as said sea-slug. Fuck off." Eiro replied bluntly, but the woman in front of him just lightly ground her teeth.


    "That is not exactly what I was saying, and you know that."


    "Of course I do, I''m not an idiot."


    "Then stop acting like one."


    "And you stop acting like a little brat. My seven years-olds are more mature than you right now." Eiro replied with a deep sigh, and Evelyn simply ignored what he just said and continued.


    "Ehem. Either way, I think your ideals would fit perfectly into our organization. We support you with whatever you need, and in return, you do us a few favors. Like requests at the adventurer''s guild, basically." Evelyn exined. Eiro thought about it for a while, and then scratched his cheek, "Yeah, I don''t think so. You''re the organization that produced Enka, a person that would cripple his own child rather than admit defeat."


    "What are you talking about?" Evelyn asked with a frown, "Enka was a piece of shit, but even he was better than that."


    "Tell that to Felix. His ears have been injured to the extent and in a way that not even high-tier healing magic can help him anymore. He''s deaf for life, or at least until I find a way to reverse that crap." Eiro pointed out, and Evelyn stared at Eiro with a deep frown, "Right. Well, either way, I wouldn''t use an exception to the rule to judge the whole organization."


    "Toote for that." He replied bluntly. Evelyn sighed deeply, and then looked up at Eiro again, "Fine, then let me give you a few examples for what we can give you. Mock Card-Items like the ones you''ve seen Enka use, probably. We can enhance your current cards as well in return for letting us copy the cards'' effects every once in a while. That''s something to advertise to your ''normal'' side." Evelyn said, and with a smug grin continued.


    "And then there??s something for your ''real'' side as well. As many men and women to do whatever you want with, if you know what I mean. They won''t fight back if you want to do them. Or they will, if you''re into that. You can eat them alive, you can use them for experiments. You can use them as ves to fulfill your every desire. I mean, that''s all that you demons want, isn''t it?" Evelyn asked. At first, Eiro would have still let it go, despite beingpletely and utterly pissed off. But then she said something she shouldn''t have said, "That way, you won''t have to use those poor children to fulfill your desires anymore either. It''s a win for everyone, right?"


    After now hearing these words, the anger in Eiro''s body simply boiled over. It was harder to control himself because of his evolution anyway, but this was Eiro''s weak point at any point in time. His children.


    The whites of Eiro''s eyes turned dark red as a notification appeared in front of the demon.


    [You have been forcefully put into a state of <Rage> directed toward the individual <Evelyn Simone James>. Stats will be temporarily increased if you are facing this individual, but will be heavily decreased if you are facing anyone else]


    [You have managed to get your <Rage> under control. Benefits and penalties have been slightly decreased while you are in this state]


    "What... the fuck did you just say..?" Eiro asked, taking a slow step toward Evelyn, while the young woman was rather confused, "What, did I say something wrong? You''re not trying to tell me that you actually think you''re their father, right?"


    With pure, deep hatred inside of his body, Eiro pulled out his three of swords and activated it, making five des float around Evelyn''s face. Eiro made two of them hit against each other to create a spark that he then turned into mes before second-step infusing his hands and the des with them.


    "Puppet..." The demon grumbled, and from the ceiling of the room, the wooden doll dropped down toward Evelyn, while Eiro threw the hand-to-handbat token toward James, who ced it into the puppet''s chest. As Evelyn couldn''t really move because of the three of swords pressed up against her, before she could even really react with her low physical stats, the puppet had already slung one of its arms around her throat from behind while using the other one to hold her head in ce, forcing Evelyn to look right at the enraged Eiro.


    "Let me make this clear. Those kids are my children. They may not be my blood, but they are the most important thing in this world to me. The mere fact that you are insinuating that I may be doing something harmful to them is enough of a reason to kill you. And then there''s everything else you said. One, I don''t even have a sex drive. Even if I ripped off your clothes and had your spread yourself out right in front of my with lube all over your body, I wouldn''t feel a thing. I wouldn''t want to eat you either, as I haven''t eaten human flesh for roughly seven years. Wanna know why? Because most of you taste absolutely disgusting. I can already smell how rotten your personalities are, so obviously I would taste it as well." Eiro said with a low growl, while his voice simply seeped into Evelyn''s ears.


    "Now, do you want me to tell you what I think of you?" Eiro asked, but obviously, without waiting for an answer, he just continued, "You''re nothing but a horrible, rotten being deep down. I don''t even want to kill you, because it feels like I won''t ever get the smell of your muddy, disgusting blood out of this room. And honestly, I like this ce. You''re purely deceitful, and have not told me the truth a single time today, except when you were actively insulting me. Isn''t that right? Whatever you were doing to disce my perception on you has simply disappeared. Poof. Gone. Like it was never there. So, I can seepletely through you today."


    Eiro stared deep at the person in front of him, cracking his own knuckles as he was trying not to instantly kill Evelyn, who was just sitting there with a confused, calm expression.


    "That''s... weird. You have no sex drive? You don''t want to eat humans? That''s just hrious." Evelynughed, "I don''t know who convinced you that that was even possible for digusting lesser beings like you, but they did a good job."


    "Go to hell." Eiro growled, and pushed the three of swords'' des right toward Evelyn''s face. But all of a sudden, their advance forward was stopped. By ck blood that was seeping out of Evelyn''s face.


    "You think you''re that smart, but everything you showed me today was how easy it is to actually trick you." Evelynughed loudly. With a wave of her hand, that ck blood pushed back the three of swords'' des and moved right behind her, covering the puppet''s skin. Like that, the puppet was literally forced into submission, being directly controlled by Evelyn.


    With a slight sigh, the woman stood up from the chair and stood in front of Eiro, who was still staring at her in anger and disbelief.


    The demon ground his teeth as he tried to get rid of Evelyn''s ck blood, but she simply used it to twist Eiro''s body around in unnatural ways. And before he knew it... Eiro heard a loud crack.


    [Warning! Your right arm has been broken]


    "You piece of shi-" Eiro yelled out in pain, but the moment he did, the ck blood flowed into Eiro''s mouth and deep down into his body.


    And then, she simply let go of Eiro and the puppet, before turning around with a light smile, "I hope you''ll think it over again. I think a good time for your decision would be in... well, let''s just say two weeks. The winter solstice sounds pretty good, right? I hope you''ll make the right decision." Evelyn said with a light wink and then made her way out of the manor in a straight path.


    Meanwhile, Nelli had started to try and heal the Demon''s arm, while Eiro himself was just staring down at the ground. His anger wasn''t letting up. He hated that woman. He truly, absolutely despised her. And just like that, Eiro figured out his first stepping-stone to gain enough strength for his goal.


    Without Nelli even having finished, Eiro made his way toward the door, where Krog and James were rubbing their skin wherever Evelyn had used the ck blood to restrain them as well.


    "Come back here on the evening before the winter stolstice... Until then, leave me be. I need some time for myself.." The Demon said, and started making his way through the hallways of the manor with his deep red eyes.

 Chapter 205 - Elemental Imp

    The sound of pale, wooden knuckles knocking on a door echoed through the silent hallways of the manor, quickly followed by something that cut through that silence.


    "Yo, Eiro. Come out here already, youzy asshole." James yelled out, standing in front of the room that Eiro had basically locked himself up in for the past two weeks. Just a few momentster, the door opened up without either James, Jess or Krog being able to hear any sort of footsteps before it happened.


    But that eery detailed disappeared from the group''s mind rather quickly when they saw Eiro standing in front of them. They couldn''t see a major way in which he had changed, but he indubitably did. For one, instead of just having two colors for his horns, Eiro had five.


    The two pairs of horns that were intertwined with each other until now had untwined, and more pairs grew, one pair for each color. Dark blue, pale blue, red, yellow, and green. In the order of the strength of Eiro''s affinity with each of those elements, they were slowly losing size, with thergest one currently being the dark blue horn for water magic, presumably.


    While the horns weren''t spiraling together into onerge horn on each side of Eiro''s head, they were still somewhat intertwined with each other, but in a seemingly chaotic way. But that wasn''t all, the shape of Eiro''s face had changed just so slightly in minor ways. His nose wasn''t just as stuby, his eyes seemed sharper, and he had a generally more angr face.


    He seemed to have grown a little more, albeit not by much, and stood now at roughly 1.9 meters, just two or three fingers'' widths taller than before. The patterns on Eiro''s chest had spread out to now cover his whole body, and the only ce they didn''t reach was the upper half of Eiro''s neck, so his face waspletely free. The blue areas of his arms had spread up to his shoulders and groin area respectively.


    But that wasn''t really all that stuck out at the moment, especially once Eiro slowly turned around and stepped deeper into the room with steps that were almost silent. The demon now had tworge bat-like wings on his back. Their base color was red, but even they had the blue patterns from Eiro''s chest on them. Right now they were folded up and pressed against Eiro''s back, but they were just so slightly twitching around, so everyone was able to see what exactly they would look like roughly when unfolded. They would definitely have an immense reach to them.


    It was pretty much unnoticablepared to that huge change to Eiro''s body, but it seemed like the demon''s tail also changed. It was slightly thicker than before, and tip had changed into something like a scorpion''s stinger. All of this just made Eiro look even more dangerous and demonic.


    "It''s time already?" Eiro asked. His voice became slightly deeper, albeit not by much. You would still recognize it to be him immediately.


    Slowly pulled out of her trance-like state as she was staring at Eiro''s new form, Jess nodded her head, "Y-Yeah, the Solstice is tomorrow, so we''re here to pick you up like you asked us to. Just... erm, how''re you going to hide those?" The young woman asked, pointing at Eiro''s wings, and the demon lightly shrugged as he rubbed his eyes a bit.


    "Because of how thin they are, as long as I infuse them with magic, I should be able to press them against my back. I''ll do the same with my horns, they''re just way too big for my regr hood now. I was thinking air magic, but it would be bothersome if they blew away my cloak, so I''ll just deal with it using shadow magic stones for now. Or I''ll get some kind of special ability to hide them once my evolution isplete." Eiro suggested, "It''s just going to take another hour, so go ahead and sit down."


    "You perfectly timed it, huh?" Krog asked with augh as he sat down on the couch ced against the wall, and Eiro just slightly shrugged, "I guess so. It was a bit of a coincidence, really." Eiro pointed out before flipping open one of his books and continuing to read it. It was quiet for a while, until James couldn''t handle the awkwardness anymore.


    "Alright, could you actually tell us why the fuck you locked yourself up like that?" He asked, and Eiro slowly raised his head, "Right, sorry. I''m kind of out of it at the moment. But for one, I simply spent thest two weeks infusing myself with magic out of magic stones as much as I can. I actually used up all of the nature and light magic stones and the majority of my shadow magic stones. And beside that... I was really, really pissed off back then. I didn''t really get out of my rage until two dayster. If any of you had been talking to me, I might have injured, or even killed you. And I didn''t want that." Eiro exined.


    "I really didn''t leave this room as you noticed, but I still asked Rudy to bring me some food every once in a while. He did a great job, really." The demon pointed out, and Krog immediately added, "Fuck yeah, the kid''s a genius chef!"


    "I hope you told him that as well. He''s always happy to be praised for his work. Who isn''t?" Eiro quietlyughed as he returned back to his book, just to be interrupted by James again, "But was that really all? You could''ve at least left your room after your rage died down."


    Eiro thought about it for a while before simply nodding his head, "True, I definitely could have. But I figured I should spend these two weeks training in any way possible. You heard it two weeks ago, my body was taking itself apart just to put itself back together. I used that fact and used my ''Memory of a Schr'' to train my techniques and moves as much as I could. And I did go out a handful of times, in the middle of the night, when I wanted to train freerunning. Basically, I tried to increase my leg strength by sprinting to town and back a couple of times. It helped my stamina as well, obviously."


    "Eiro, you''re insane..." Jess said with a wry smile, quietlyughing as she was doing so, and the demon in question simply shrugged, "Probably, but it was worth it. My muscles are definitely more defined and strengthenedpared to how they used to be. I''ll test the difference out once my evolution is properly over." Eiro exined.


    After staring at Eiro for a while, Krog grumbled loudly. The demon turned his head toward him with a light frown, "Krog, even I don''t understand you right now, could you speak up?" He asked, and Krog just stared back with a loud groan.


    "I said that I''m kinda jealous of ya. You can super easily increase the strength of yer muscles in just two fuckin'' weeks. I had to work for years to get these mountains." The heavy warrior eximed, pulling up his sleeve and flexing his actually impressive and superhuman arm.


    Eiro slowly stepped up toward Krog and pressed his palm onto the center of Krog''s chest, "Want me to show you what my training was like?" The Demon asked, and Krog just chuckled, "Sure, show me, dude."


    Eiro huffed air out of his nose lightly, since it seemed like Krog was thinking that the demon would somehow magically transfer an image of how he was training into his mind, but the reality was very different. Slowly, Eiro pushed his mana into Krog''s chest, using the torture skill to try and replicate the pain athat Eiro had been feeling over the past few weeks to an extent at least.


    The moment that it spread through Krog''s body, he arched his back and his whole body tensed up in pain, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. He basically jolted up through the pain despite not meaning to do so at all. Of course, Eiro immediately pulled his hand back.


    "Are you alright? Sorry, I didn''t mean to go that hard on you. Toward the end of evolutions, it''s weirdly hard to control mana. It''s kind of fluctuating all over the ce, so it came out a bit less... stable than intended. But still, it should be around what I felt during my training." Eiro exined, trying to spread cold air around Krog using his ice magic so that he could cool him down a bit after this jolt of pain, and Krog slowly calmed down.


    "Fuck off..." He muttered, "No way in hell did you feel that and train at the same time..."


    "Oh, I did. But of course, it was a bit different for me. For one, it was a gradual increase, so it was easier to get used to it. But mostly, I think it''s because I tried to use my torture skill on myself to create numerous types of painful sensations all over my body that were far exceeding what I was feeling at the time, and then reminded myself of them over and over again with my ''Memory of a Schr''. Sometimes I felt it at 10% of the pain I made myself feel, and at the end at 100%, to increase how much I could tolerate mentally. Because of how my ability works, I managed to pretty effectively train myself against torture in a day or so. I still can''t do anything against physical reactions to pain, though. I''ll just be able to work against those reactions more easily because I can keep a rtively clear mind now."


    "Of course you went through training that most people that need it have to work years to go through." James said with a wry smile, but Eiro quickly shook his head, "Don''t worry, it''s not at the same level as that. My abilities aren''t able to cheat that much. I have the torture resistance skill, but it''s just at beginner grade, around level 30."


    "It took me a day to even get that skill." James sighed, and Eiro just slowly turned back toward his book with a smallment, "I see... You ever consider that being an assassin is the wrong path for you?"


    "Of course it is your moron, I don''t even take hits, the specialized stat growth and ability are just way too good to pass up."


    And so, the group of four simply continued speaking for the next hour, until a small blue notification appeared in front of Eiro. He quickly ced his book away and took a closer look.


    [Congrattions! You Evolved and became a Unique Species! You are now an Elemental Imp!]

 Chapter 206 - Two Abilities

    Eiro looked at the notification in front of him with a satisfied smile, "Elemental Imp, I see." The demon muttered, and slowly ran his fingers through the notification. It''s been a while since he''s actively seen any notifications, and when he did he never really paid attention to them, but now that he did, Eiro noticed that the resistance he was feeling right now when touching it had increased considerably.


    With a light smirk, the Demon opened his status.


    [Name ¨C Eiro][Race ¨C Elemental Imp][Level ¨C 1]


    [Health ¨C 116.925][Mana ¨C 317.925]1


    [Strength - 100][Constitution - 100][Resistance - 100]


    [Agility - 200][Evasion - 100][Dexterity - 150]


    [Intelligence - 300][Wisdom - 280]


    [Perception - 150][Willpower - 100][Charisma - 56]


    [125 Stat Points Avable]


    "This is..." Nelli muttered with a wry smile as she looked at therge, blue, translucent pane in front of her, "Incredible?" Gondos finished for her, "I can just agree. Double the health, and nearly triple the manapared to before the evolution." The Golem pointed out, and James, Jess and Krog couldn''t help themselves but wonder.


    "Wait... How high are those for you now exactly...?" Jess asked, and Eiro slowly turned toward her. "Health around 100 thousand, mana around 300 thousand."


    "I despise you..." Jess replied instinctively, while Eiro just looked at her with one of his brows raised, "Oh?" Eiroughed lightly, "It''s not my fault that I-"


    "Just die already..." The young mage groaned in disbelief, "I literally can''t believe that this is happening..." She muttered quietly, staring at the ceiling with a nk expression, while Eiro just kept looking at his status. He had 125 stat points to assign as another bonus for his evolution. There were two things that he was going to put them into first. First, Eiro put 44 points into Charisma to bring it to 100, as well as 20 points into wisdom so that it was at 300 alongside Eiro''s intelligence.


    [Your Charisma has passed the 100 point mark! <Eloquent Tongue> Ability unlocked!]


    [Your Wisdom has passed the 300 point mark! <Speedier Learning> Ability became <Quick Learning>!]


    And then, the leftover 61 points were put into willpower, because it was one of the other stats that Eiro needed to be a fair amount higher for now.


    Just like that, all of Eiro''s bonus stat points disappeared. He took a quick look at the ''Eloquent Tongue'' ability, but it seemed like it was really just an ability that made it easier for him to speak in a convincing and eloquent manner. That would hopefullye in pretty handy in the future.


    Either way, for now, Eiro stretched himself out a bit and looked out of the window, "The sun''s setting soon, huh? I guess it''s about time for us to head to town. I''ll let the children know and properly show them my evolution first, though." Eiro suggested, and then slowly made his way toward the door. The others quickly stood up and followed him.


    Eiro made his way through the hallways toward the ce where everyone seemed to be gathered at the moment, luckily. They were just eating a bite together. And so, Eiro interrupted dinner by stepping into the room with his new body. A few moment''ster, the ttering of the silverware hitting the tes could be heard.


    "You have wings?! How awesome is that?!" Arc eximed with glittering eyes, "Can you fly? If you can, can you lift me up once?"


    "I can probably fly, yes. My wings seem bat-like in structure, so if I copy those, I can probably manage it rtively easily." Eiro figured, and slowly stretched the leathery red wings on his back outpletely. Either of those wings was at least 2 meters long, so Eiro now had a reach that was roughly 4 to 5 meters long. If he used magic as well, he would probably be able to manage this pretty easily.


    But it seemed like one of them paid attention to something else. In a slightly awkward, but more fluent than usual, way, Felix pointed at the tail waving back and forth behind Eiro''s back. "More importantly... Can you... use poison now?" He asked, and Eiro slowly turned around and had his tail move in front of him, and the Demon just took a closer look at the stinger.


    "It does seem that way, right? If I do, then I haven''t started producing anything like it yet." Eiro muttered, slightly pressing onto the small bulbous growth at the end of his tail, "It does seem like there''s something like a venom nd, though. I''ll have to test that out as well. Thanks for reminding me." The demon said, slowly following along with his words using signnguage for Felix as well.


    "You be weirder and more dangerous every single day, don''t you?" Rudy pointed out, and Eiro simply smirked in response, "Hey, I was always dangerous. It''s just that my body is following along with that now." The Demonughed a bit.


    He made his tail wrap around his waist agains and pressed his wings onto his back. He ced a small shadow magic-stone into a small indent on his new stinger, that seemed to be just made for this, and then made mana flow through it and into his stinger and wings.


    At first, Eiro thought that something was wrong, simply because it felt off... But then, he tried to reach out and ran his fingers through the ck mist forming his wings and stinger now. There was no resistance. None at all. They had turned intoplete ck mist now. This definitely wasn''t how it was when Eiro infused them just yesterday. There was still always a little bit of resistance. Maybe it was because the evolution was now officially over?


    It was pretty surprising, but in the end, it seemed to be pretty useful. It was still weird though... And so, Eiro tried to open the list of all the abilities that he currently had. His new racial ability was just marked as <???> at the moment because he still didn''t ''awaken'' it, but...


    "What the actual..." Eiro muttered quietly. He stared at the screen in confusion.


    [Racial Abilities]


    <Memory of a Schr>


    <The Collector''s Treasury>


    <???>


    <???>


    [Stat Abilities]


    <diator''s Strength>


    <Vigorous Body>


    <Rock Skin>


    <Swift Feet>


    <Adrenaline Rush>


    <Skilled Hands>


    <Quick Thought Processing>


    <Quick Learning>


    <Keen Senses>


    <Iron Will>


    <Eloquent Tongue>


    [Special Abilities]


    <Absolute Perception>


    <Basic Elemental Fusion>


    "What''s wrong?" Sammy asked with a slightly concerned frown, and Eiro simply ran his hand through the information screen, "Well, for one... The ability I had called <Minor Elemental Fusion> became <Basic Elemental Fusion>, so that would exin this on my back, but most importantly, it seems like I have two new racial abilities instead of just one." The demon exined to them, and the next moment, Eiro felt someone tap his shoulder. Without turning around, he said, "Yes, Jess?"


    "Die in a fire." She replied bluntly, before turning arond and making her way to the couch standing in the corner of the room. Ignoring her, because Jess was acting a lot weirder than usual right now, Eiro slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose.


    "Well, we''ll see what''s going to happen with this, right?" Eiro pointed out, and then slightly thought about how he could best figure this out, and then scratched the back of his head, "Well, double the new abilities should half the time it takes me to figure out one of them, right?" The demon figured, and then slowly pulled out his cloak out of his treasury. He pulled it over his body, and because of the state his wings and his new stinger were currently in, they were basically fully pressed against Eiro''s skin and there was no clue on them outside of the cloak at all. With a satisfied expression, Eiro ced another shadow magic stone onto his head, trying to make sure it was properly attached to his horns there, and then filled his horns with shadow magic as well. This was pretty bothersome, so Eiro really hoped that one of his new abilities would make life easier for him with his new body parts.


    But for now, everything worked out alright, and after Eiro pulled his hood down, his horns weren''t a bother anymore either. The Demon ced his mask onto his face and looked at the children.


    "I''m heading for now. As an exception, you guys can stay up a little longer and sleep as long as you want, so that you can stay up longer tomorrow night. Use the carriage to drive to the castle with Jess, James and Krog as escorts. If everything went well until then, you can head off into town with these three and take a look at whatever stalls you want, but be at therge square in front of the castle''s gates when the Daughter of Winter gets there with me. Afterward, we''ll spend the rest of the night together to celebrate as well, alright?" Eiro exined to everyone, and they quickly nodded their heads rather excitedly. They never really had the chance to celebrate the Winter Solstice together with Eiro, after all. Or celebrate it officially in general, since they were never at town during the celebrations.


    "I''ll leave everything to you guys, then." Eiro said with a smile on his face as he looked toward his party members, "Oh, and take Gobo with you, but have the slime disguise him somehow and keep him under control. He''s not as wild anymore, but it''s still a good idea to have something to make sure. And if the slime says something about a promise... just ignore him."


    "We get it already. Just go." James sighed, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. He quickly hugged the children before leaving and then made his way out of the manor with Lugo. The demon jumped onto his familiar''s back and then quickly started to ride him toward town.


    While Eiro was on his way, he actually tried to take a look at his body. The thing was that evolution worked in weird ways. His physical body changed gradually over the time of the evolution, but there was something else that changed rather rapidly over thest few hours of the evolution. It was what made Eiro''s mana and body way harder to control because it kept fluctuating around. They were the things hidden behind the stats, the stat values.


    You could quite literally see them as the value of a single stat point. Of course, more things went into their performance. Let''s say two people had the same strength stat at 100. One of them had a strength value of 0.5, and the other had a strength value of 2. The one with the strength value of 0.5 spent his life honing and training his muscles, while the one with the strength value of two had physically thin, frail arms while never trying to increase his muscle mass or definition. The one that trained his body, despite effectively only having 50 ''full'' strength stat points would be able to exert more strength than the one that effectively had 200 ''full'' strength stat points.


    But nheless, the value was still important, and Eiro''s stat values increased rather rapidly whenever he evolved, as far as he could tell. That meant that despite his physical stats not changing in the slightest, Eiro was still physically stronger than he was before his evolution, and that by quite a lot.


    It probably wouldn''t be enough of a change to be able to easily defeat Evelyn all of a sudden, but it was definitely closer to him now. That''s what he figured out during this ride, at least. Hepared the way he could move his fingers or his mana, or how much strength he could exert to before his evolution, and had a rough idea of how much the values changed. Not by too much, but it was still an incredibly positive change.


    As long as Eiro did his best to level up, the future in which he could painfully ughter Evelyn wouldn''t be too far away.


    Dots to make it easier to read in high numbers, for those that didn''t seem to understand..


    100.000 is easier to read as 100 Thousand than 100000

 Chapter 207 - Winter Monstrosity

    Soon, the sun went down beyond the horizon and the forest where the daughter of winter would arrive came closer and closer as Lugo crushed the snow underneath his feet while in full sprint.


    Eiro was able to start hearing the soldiers that were apanying Solomon in the distance inside of that forest. It seemed like most of them were justzing around somehow. The demon was a bit annoyed at seeing that, noticing how they were crushing the special nts underneath their feet or equipment. But it didn''t matter much anyway, since Eiro soon made his way over toward where Solomon was. He quickly just had to show the brooch to the soldiers so that they would let him through, so it didn''t take too long with the help of Lugo''s running speed.


    Once Eiro was able to see the King, he jumped off the Stag''s back and chose to approach Solomon on foot for the rest of the way.


    And of course, Solomon wasn''t alone there either. Together with more soldiers, there was one person there that nearly pissed Eiro off enough to go into rage again just by them standing there. Evelyn was standing there, next to Solomon, just casually speaking to him.


    "Ah, Eiro!" Solomon eximed, "How are you? I haven''t heard of you in a while, is everything alright?" The King asked with a bright smile, and Eiro simply nodded his head in response, "Of course, I''m feeling great. More than great, really." Eiro pointed out as he slightly turned his head to the side to re at Evelyn through his mask, while the Bloodstone Sorceress was just standing there smirking at him.


    With a satisfied expression, Solomon pped his hands together, "Alright, so, what next? What are we supposed to do? Summon the Daughter of Winter?"


    "Hm? No, we''ll just be waiting. She could arrive at any moment during the day. It''s usually prettyte, but sometimes thedies woulde in the morning or shortly after midnight already. It''s rare, but it can happen. If it does, we''ll have to entertain the daughter for a while until it''s time to leave." Eiro exined, and Solomon looked at the Demon surprised.


    "Oh? Interesting. Then this will take quite some time, won''t it?" Solomon asked. Eiro simply shrugged and looked toward the clearing where the daughter would arrive, "Yes, it will. And I suggest that your soldiers take their leave before midnight, the Ladies and their daughters are never too keen on seeing things like weapons."


    Hearing Eiro say this, Evelyn looked at the Demon with an intrigued expression, "I see, so you wish to be alone with the King of this country for a whole day? I think that may be a bit... risky, wouldn''t you say, Mister Chief Guard?" The sorceress asked as she turned toward the man in heavy te armor standing behind Solomon, who was just ring at Eiro with a slow nod.


    "I must agree, your Highness, we cannot allow this. I am aware that you may trust him, but we cannot simply abandon you in such a situation." The guard said, and Eiro lightly shrugged, "That''s fine, as long as you don''t carry any weapons on you and don''t directly approach the Daughter yourselves, I may be able to convince her." Eiro pointed out, "But I really do suggest that you don''t touch your weapons after midnight. If our guest is anything like her mother, then you''ll be frozen to death before you know it."


    The Guard slightly ground his teeth, and Eiro just looked back at him with a nk expression. He didn''t want to bother with those guys. They were just too annoying right now.


    "Do what he says. After midnight, I do not wish to see any sort of staffs, swords, or other weapons from any of you." Solomon said in amanding tone, and the chief guard slowly nodded his head, "Yes, your Highness." He replied reluctantly, and Eiro simply turned around and slowly squatted down onto the ground with a smooth, quick motion.


    "Excuse me, then. I''ll go ahead and take a look to see if I can find some extra offerings we need." Eiro suggested, and slowly let his mana seep into the snow to use his sensory abilities to see if he could find it. But seeing that, Solomon slowly squatted down next to Eiro as well, and with a slightugh said, "And how are you going to do that while sitting down like that? Come on, don''t bezy, Eiro. We don''t have too much time, now do-"


    "Found them." Eiro replied immediately and pushed his body back off the ground, "I wasn''tzing around, Solomon. It''s a special technique. If you''ll excuse me. Please take care of my idiot for a while." The demon asked of them, and Solomon slowly looked past Eiro to see who he was talking about. Meanwhile, Eiro could just hear Lugo bellow smugly behind him while side-eyeing Gondos, but the Demon just pat the stag''s back as he made his way into the direction of the first offering.


    "I was talking about you, moron." Eiro pointed out, and slowly pushed his foot into the snow blow him. He pressed the snow together with a bit of a cracking sound, as Eiro was used to from snow, but now he quickly froze it to give himself a good enough footing for this. Once he had that footing he was looking for, Eiro took a deep breath through his mask and second-step infused, or ''essence infused'' how Eiro came to call it over the past two weeks, his body with air magic.


    Of course, he was making use of some snow that stuck to his cloak through the very light snow on his way here to make sure that the strong winds wouldn''t make the cloak float around like that. And with Eiro''s incredibly light body, the Demon dashed away faster than most here could actually properly realize. It seemed like even Evelyn was kind of surprised, something that Eiro was more than just d to see.


    The demon made his way deeper into this rtively small forest and swung his three of swords around him, quickly gathering all the roots, mosses, and flowers that he needed as offerings for the daughter of winter.


    It didn''t take long until he found everything that he needed, but just when he did, something else bothersome happened. It was pretty small, goblin-sized, but a Frozen Monstrosity appeared. "Ah... Back home, it''s basically impossible to get through a solstice or equinox without a Monstrosity or two appearing, but really? Even now?" Eiro groaned loudly, and quickly turned around again.


    He ran into the direction where he sensed the Winter Monstrosity, which luckily was right on the other side of where all the soldiers had gathered. Like this, Eiro could just deposit all of the offerings he gathered with Solomon.


    Without Solomon or even Evelyn actually noticing, Eiro jumped over their heads and used air magic,bined with ice magic to make the snow fluffier, to catch the drop of the materials. Then, the demon swung across the branches and the logs of the trees and their wet, frozen surfaces and soon reached the ce where the monstrosity currently was.


    But it seemeed like he wasn''t the only one that noticed it.


    "Monster!" one of the soldiers eximed and pointed his spear toward it. They werepletely outside of the town, so they had to be prepared for monsters in the first ce. It seemed like they didn''t even notice that this was a special sort of monster. And as such, Eiro figured this would be a good chance to observe the current state of this town''s guards and soldiers, and just squatted down on one of the branches.


    Eiro didn''t want to trouble Solomon, so he would jump in before anything actually happened to them, but for now this should be a pretty good way to pass some of the inevitable downtime. As far as Eiro could tell, this one was a smaller version of the first Monstrosity that Eiro encountered and killed. It had white fur on its back, two small white horns on the top of its head, and was somewhat ape-like.


    But it really wasn''t anyrger than a goblin, so it probably wouldn''t be an issue. At least that''s what Eiro thought at first. But then, the Monstrosity sloppily swung its fist toward the spearhead pointed at it. Without even touching it, the metal froze up and shattered the moment there was any sort of contact, due to the sudden extreme change in temperature and most probably strong blow directed against it.


    The demon really hadn''t expected something like this to happen.


    "It''s a lot stronger than the ones I was used to, huh?" Eiro muttered quietly, and Nelli slowly stared down at the monstrosity, "Yeah, it definitely is. Which doesn''t really make sense, since it''s just a daughter of winter here. Although..." Nelli looked at the figure of the magically-uring monster with a light re before remembering something.


    "Ah, I think it happened once before! There was one of them that was really extremely fast one year. Jura wasn''t able to catch it in time, and it disappeared together with the Lady of Summer again. Then the year after that, the same one came back. It still had a scar that Jura gave it on its body. But it was a bit stronger, ording to Jura... It might be that they simply get stronger over the years if they aren''t exterminated."


    "Well, that would exin it. It seems like these guys know nothing about this." Eiro groaned lightly, and then jumped down the tree. It was obvious that these guards wouldn''t be able to handle this, so he had to intervene.


    The monstrosity just slightly punched one of the soldiers and sent him flying a couple of meters away. Eiro of course skillfully dodged the body and made sure that the soldier really survived before looking at the figure of the monster in front of him.


    "Oh... It looks kind of cute up close like this." Eiro pointed out and slightly leaned forward toward it. It swung its fist once more, but Eiro simply caught it with ease.


    The onlooking soldiers and guards, who saw their colleague being thrown away like he was a pebble, simply stared at Eiro in astonishment. Eiro slowly squatted down and looked at the figure of the monster with a light smile underneath his mask, all the whilst slowly crushing its fist in his hand.


    "Ah..." The demonughed, "Your horns are going to be a good addition to my collection." He muttered, the effect of his voice strengthened by his Charisma stat-ability. Not only the onlookers got shivers, but even this monster did. It was far weaker than Eiro was, after all. And it knew that.


    And so, Eiro let go of this monster''s crushed fist, and then slowly pulled out his dagger, pressing it into the basically petrified monster''s chest with ease.

 Chapter 208 - Fractured Frost Walker

    Eiro stabbed the monstrosity''s heart and stared deep into his eyes, and soon saw the notification behind it. At first, it just was the regr damage notification in anguage that Eiro didn''t understand. It was probably the ancientnguage though, the symbols seemed simr at the very least.


    Either way, as the white, slightly blue blood of the winter monstrosity dripped onto the ground and flowed out of the corners of its mouth, Eiro pushed it down further onto the ground. He pressed its body down with his foot and made sure that it wouldn''t be able to move anymore at all without fully damaging its body.


    Of course, the whole time, Eiro was staring into the monstrosity''s eyes so that he could properly see the notifications that it was seeing as well. This was pretty boring, but it would be over rather quickly. The monstrosity was already about to fall unconscious due to the blood-loss andck of oxygen in its brain. Eiro kind of wanted to avoid damaging its body too much beyond the singr stab to its chest, since the materials that could be stripped from it were rather useful.


    The Demon looked at the figure down below him and then heard steps that caused the snow to crack down behind him, "You have in it that easily..?" One of the guards asked, and Eiro turned around toward it, "Well, it''s not dead yet, but yes. What about it?"


    "Oh, nothing, Sir!" The guard eximed, not wanting to insult Eiro, and then he awkwardly scratched the side of his cheek, "But that monster is a special kind that appears every year. There should be a couple more of them around here in the forest. I''m d that we managed to y one of them before they could gather."


    Eiro stared at the man in confusion, "Say what now? There''s more of them? How many?"


    "Ah, we don''t exactly know. They usually start as small creatures... maybe toddler sized? Well, if they end up gathering, and one of them feeds on another one, they grow stronger. We can handle the small ones, but a medium sized one like this is rather troublesome. And they have amazing camouge during this time of the year."


    Eiro slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose and then pulled away his foot from the monstrosity, "Of course, of course it wouldn''t be this fucking easy." The Demon grumbled quietly, "And why the fuck are those so far away that I can''t even sense them?"


    Eiro leaned downward toward the monstrosity that was slowly dying underneath his foot, and then simply used ice magic to patch it up so that it wouldn''t be dying anytime soon after all, "Come on, bud. Call them." Eiro suggested with a light re. He wanted to use this one to call them all together to make it easier for him. Even if they gathered, Eiro should be able to beat them rtively easily using fire magic.


    But of course, the guard that just spoke to Eiro had something to say about that as well, "S-Sir, what exactly are you doing? Why do you want it to call the others of its kind?"


    "Huh? It''s pretty simple-" Eiro started, but before he could finish his sentence, the monstrosity that he was holding by the neck let out a loud screech. It was annoyingly loud to Eiro, but at the very least it seemed to work. Just a few moments after the screech started, Eiro could hear something like ''replies'' in the distance, from others of its kind. And soon, he could sense them even normally. They were getting closer, and luckily wouldn''t be walking into too many guards and soldiers on the way. It would be a bother if any of them died after Eiro called these monsters here.


    Either way, Eiro slowly turned toward the Guard, "As I was saying, it''s pretty simple. If we don''t kill them this year, they''lle back even stronger next year. As simple as that." The Demon pointed out. And then, he threw the monstrosity he was holding onto into the direction that the others wereing from.


    "But really, tough luck, huh? This type of Seasonal Monstrosity is kinda bothersome to deal with." Eiro pointed out, "Would have been better if it had been just a single dumbass that you could have dealt with by using a little bit of your brains." Eiro pointed out, "But if you don''t have an overwhelming advantage in strenght, not even arge group of you guys could fight against them and win. That''s because their priority isn''t to feed on their brothers and grow, but rather to fight enemies. So you would be targeted first and... Hey, are you listening?"


    The demon looked at the figure of the guard, who was just staring at the mass of flesh and fur that was forming just a little distance away from Eiro as the monstrosities were gathering. Eiro would like to let these guys know about this. It would be nice if he didn''t have to bother with the monstrosities anymore in the future, just because they were extremely fucking annoying to Eiro.


    "Oi." Eiro said with a deep frown, once more using his new charisma stat-ability, and the guard turned his eyes toward the Demon immediately, "Good boy. Anyway, right now, they abandoned their priority, which is to fight enemies, because they''re aware they can''t kill me if they don''tbine and grow stronger."


    "A-And why would you throw that away?!" The guard asked, "If you can kill them like this, then why would you allow them to get stronger?!"


    "Oh..." Eiro muttered, "That''s a fair question. Well, if they''re like this, they''re an easier target. Oh, and the experience I get from killing them is a lot greater as well. If they''re allbined, it should be maybe... 20 to 30% more than if I were to kill them invidually? I don''t know why, but it probably has to do with how their strength increases illogically as well." The demon exined quickly, and then looked back toward the monstrosity-mass near him.


    "And there''s something interesting that''s created if all of those guys get together. It seems like a good chance to act as an apology for all of you guys beingplete and utter morons in the past." Eiro exined. This was the main reaosn, really, although the extra bit of experience wasn''t anything tough at either.


    Now that Eiro thought about it, that this was the kind of monstrosity that appeared here was kind of lucky. Especially considering the strength that it seemed to have. That should make the result pretty great as well.


    Either way, Eiro just looked at the figure and made sure that they were all properlybined. Once onest one of the group joined the body of the creature, a pale blue gem appeared on its forehead, framed by its thin, spiky horns.


    "Perfect." Eiro said with a smile on his face and approached the monstrosity. With a broad grin, as if it had won now that it got the chance tobine its body with its other parts, it swung its fist toward Eiro again.


    Of course, the force and speed was extraordinarily higher than before, but with Eiro''s physicality, he was able to dodge the attack rather easily. He jumped to the side and just tried to make the monstrosity attack him a few times so that he would be able to figure out how strong it actually was. Just out of curiosity. Eiro looked at therge humanoid figure. It towered over the demon quite a bit, standing at roughtly twice his height, if not more than that.


    It had a fair amount of strength and speed to its movements, but it was at just the right level of intelligence where it wasn''t able to act purely on instinct like most monsters, but couldn''t properly utilize proper techniques either or tactics either. It was pretty easy to beat this kind with at least a little bit of patience, really.


    Eiro continued to dodge, and in the end just jumped up and over the creature''s fist. He approached it as quickly as he could and soon stood in front of it. With a quick flick of his wrist, Eiro pulled out his three of swords and activated it, immediately pushing the des as deep into the monster''s chest as possible. He ripped the heart apart a bit to make it die quicker, and then just watched when it copsed on the ground in front of him.


    And now, before it actually did die, Eiro climbed over its body and ced his dagger onto its forehead. He pushed his dagger right under the edge of the gem that had grown on the monstrosity''s forehead. It would disappear when it died, so he would need to get it out before then. The Demon carved into the skin a bit, and soon managed to push his fingers underneath the gem so that Eiro could simply pull it out.


    And when Eiro was actually holding it in his hands, he looked down at the dagger that was still stuck in the monster''s forehead and ced his foot onto the handle, and slowly ced his weight onto it. The dagger slowly slid deeper into its head, and when it reached the skull, Eiro jumped a bit and lifted his leg up a bit. And then just when it was about to hit the handle again, he pushed his foot down with full force as if trying to kick off from there, but in the end he just wanted to push the dagger deeper into the skull.


    And it worked perfectly. The skull cracked into pieces and the monster died.


    With a satisfied expression, Eiro looked at the notification in front of him.


    [Lethal damage done to Fragmented Frost Walker]


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have 10 unused stat points]


    ''Hmm... no increase in my level-up stat points, huh?'' The demon thought to himself, slightly disappointedly, but it was really fine in the end. Eiro ran his fingers through the notifications and then looked back at the body of the monstrosity. With quick movements of his hands and his knives, Eiro cut off the creature''s horns and ws, and even chose to try and salvage a little bit of the blood. He didn''t see this kind of white blood before, so it might have some neat properties.


    Hopefully the daughter of winter wouldn''t mind, though... Either way, at least he now had a good present for her, in the form of the gem that he was now holding in his hand.


    Eiro turned around, and looked at the guards, "Clean the rest up for me, will you?" The demon asked of them, and then slowly made his way toward the clearing where their ''guest'' would arriveter.

 Chapter 209 - Blood Of A Monster

    On his way back to the clearing, Eiro looked down at the gem in his hand for a little while. It was pretty high-quality, as far as he could tell at least. He didn''t know too much about how to determine the worth of gems and crystals, but he knew when he saw a precious kind, at least.


    It was clear and beautiful, had a strong physical form that made it nearly impossible to break, and it was good at letting magic flow through it, especially ice magic. It would be an amazing material for a staff as well, but for now it should be something that Eiro should make use of to properly apologize to the daughter of winter. Even they appreciated things like that, after all.


    But just as he was about to get too close to the king, someone stood in front of Eiro, "What is it?" The demon asked with a growling voice. He couldn''t calm down when he had this woman right in front of him.


    Evelyn simply chuckled and shrugged as she crossed her arms, "Nothing, nothing. I would just love to see what you have there, exactly." She said with a light smile, and Eiro raised his head, "Oh, you want to see what I have here? It''s just a dagger, really, would you like to see it up close?"


    Not feeding into Eiro''s words, Evelyn continued tough and started toe closer to Eiro. She looked down at the gem that he was holding and extended her hand forward, "Give it to me." She said, as ifmanding Eiro to do so.


    "Why would I?" The demon retorted, and simply stepped past her, "Oh... You really think that''s a good idea?"


    Hearing the tone of her voice, Eiro turned around and stared at Evelyn with a deep frown on his face, "I do, but you''re probably too simple to understand that."


    Eiro tried to continue walking toward Solomon, but once more, Evelyn stopped him. "That''s not what I mean. It''s just that if you do go ahead and go there, you will have to live with the consequences, you see?"


    "Is that about the ck blood you made me swallow?" Eiro asked immediately, and Evelyn slowly started to smirk.


    "Good, you realized~. Yes it is. If I wanted to, I could control you however I want. I can make you drop to your knees and beg me to forgive your existence, or I can make you attack that Lady you love so much." Evelyn pointed out with a smug expression.


    Eiro raised his brows curiously, "Oh, that blood has spatial attributes?"


    "Of course not, what are you even sayi-" Evelyn replied with a deep re, but she was quickly interrupted and met by Eiro''s stares.


    "Then shut the fuck up before I actually get mad. It''s embarrassing enough you don''t know the difference between a Lady and her daughters, so at least try to act like it. Fuck off." Eiro slowly turned around and made his way further toward Solomon again. He spoke to the king a little, telling him about what each of the materials that he gathered were and why they were going to be offered to the Daughter.


    It did seem like Solomon was rather interested and invested in this, which was a good thing. It just seemed like he was never properly educated on what he was supposed to do in regards to making thedies, or their daughters in this case, happy.


    Hopefully in the future, he wouldn''t keep messing up like this. But Eiro was rather curious about something else as well. Why did the Daughter never do anything despite being treated so ''rudely''? Thedies that Eiro knew would go on a rampage if they were treated like that, but this one simply let it happen. Maybe she was simply a kind or shy one. The daughters did tend to be very different to each other sometimes, and they often had very human personality traits.


    Eiro looked at the center of the clearing with pure curiosity in his eyes and then squatted down onto the ground again, "Well... Either way, wake me if you see anything happen in the clearing." Eiro told Solomon, before sitting down cross-legged in the snow and closing his eyes. He just wanted to meditate a bit so that he wouldn''t end up wasting this time that they had to wait.


    It seemed like it took quite a while. The sun went up and rose to the top of the sky, and even then the daughter didn''t appear. But around evening, albeit still a little too early, the daughter of winter seemed to slowly appear in the center of the clearing in front of Eiro.


    Onest time, the demon made sure that only Eiro and Solomon were here. It seemed like Evelyn wouldn''t leave either. It was really, really bothersome, because it was clear that she was nning something.


    Either way, for now, that didn''t matter. He was prepared for anything she could throw at him, so Eiro would cross that bridge when he got to it.


    The demon properly stood up and approached the daughter of winter, who was looking back at him with interest. Solomon was right beside him, also carrying a few of the preemptive offerings that they would give her.


    Eiro stopped in front of the daughter. She really did look exactly like the Lady, just that she was the size of a regr person. Her clothes were a slight bit lessplex and decorated, but she still gave off the feeling of nobility and divinity that Eiro could feel off of the Lady. It seemed like there was a reason why this daughter was chosen as one to represent the Lady on her own.


    "It is nice to see you, Daughter of Winter. I am Eiro, one chosen by your Lady." The Demon exined, but it seemed like that was pretty unnecessary to do, "I know who you are. Who doesn''t, after all?" The daughter asked with a light chuckle.


    "Rather, I am surprised that this year there are offerings. I was getting rather fed up not receiving any." The daughter exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "I understand. I deeply apologize for the way the people of this ce have acted toward you over time. This man here next to me is Solomon Sigurd Skyhart, the King of this country and descendant of one chosen by your Lady. Together, he and I came to apologize for the misconducts you have been exposed to."


    With a slight chuckle, the daughter looked down at Eiro and shook her head, "Oh, don''t worry. The offerings are mostly important for my mother. I can live off of simply seeing the beauty of the people I pass, albeit I would still prefer to receive an offering. You can''t exclusively live off of gratitude, after all."


    "Of course. Here, these are offerings for you. One offering for each year that you were mistreated." Eiro exined, andid out the different materials in front of him. Meanwhile, Solomon was staring at Eiro with wondrous eyes, excited to see that he had been telling the truth and really did seem to be the one chosen by the Lady of Winter.


    The daugher took a look at all the offerings Eiro gave to her, and nodded her head in satisfaction, "These are beautiful. I thank you. It seems to still be rather early to make our way to the town, is it not?"


    "Yes, it is. So instead, I would like to simply converse with you, if you do not mind."


    "Of course not? How could I refuse that of the man whose words and demeanor were one of the reasons he was chosen by my mother?" She asked curiously, and Erio slowly nodded his head.


    But just at that time, it seemed like Evelyn was moving her hands around slightly, seemingly trying to go for some form of maniption. Eiro figured it was supposed to be the ck blood inside of his body. Eiro immediately got rid of most of it, but there was still a little bit in him. It didn''t mix with his own blood or anything, it simply stuck to different parts of Eiro''s body from the inside. But because it wasn''t all too much anymore, Eiro felt nothing but a slight tug in the direction.


    He immediately realized what Evelyn was nning on doing, and simply chose to y along.


    "I think to begin with, I owe you to truly show my true form." Eiro said as he slowly ced his hand onto his mask, "The same is the case for you, Solomon. But please trust me that no matter what I am, I am exactly the one that you havee to know over the past little while. There was no deceit in my personality. Just in my exterior." The demon warned, and then just pulled off his mask, cing it into his treasury the next moment.


    Eiro''s red face was exposed to the air, and the Demon pulled off his hood. He grabbed the shadow magic stone ced inbetween his horns and removed it, properly causing them to return to their original form again.


    Solomon couldn''t help but stare at Eiro in confusion as the demon grabbed his cloak and pulled it off his bodypletely so that he could show his true form to the Daughter and Solomon at the same time. Eiro showed it to both of them out of respect. He respected the Daughter as she was the child of an old friend, and Solomon because he was a new friend. Both equally deserved to see him like this.


    The light blue patterns on Eiro''s red skin reached outpletely to the equally light blue parts of the demon''s skin. The shadowy mass on Eiro''s back slowly disappeared, just to show that they were truly wings, and a threatening-looking tail was now waving back and forth right behind Eiro.


    Obviously, Solomon would be surprised by that. And not just surprised, but rather shocked. Eiro understood that. But he still didn''t expect Solomon''s reaction. Because the next moment, the King started tough loudly.


    "You were a demon this whole time? That is why you had been wearing that cloak the whole time? Do not worry, my friend, such things matter little to me. I myself have the blood of a monster in me, the blood of a dragon. It is rather weak now that we came to my generation, but nheless, the blood of a monster flows in me. I know just too well that being good is more important than what you were born as." Solomon exined, "And while I have heard of you do rather extreme things, I believe you had your reasons. I trust you, there is no need for you to worry."


    With a light smile, Eiro nodded his head, "I see... Then I must thank you for epting me as I am, Solomon."


    "Of course, my friend." The King said with a light smile on his face, that Eiro quickly reciprocated. Meanwhile, a certain Bloodstone Sorceress was staring at Eiro, Solomon, and the Daughter of Winter in confusion. She didn''t expect both of them to simply not care about the fact that Eiro was in reality a monster.


    And with a light smirk, Eiro turned his head toward Evelyn, showing her his deep re for the first time after his evolution, "And now to you, littledy."

 Chapter 210 - The Daughter’s Guide

    Eiro slowly stared at Evelyn, and took a few steps toward her, but the bloodstone sorceress simply looked back with a confused expression and slowly moved backward away from Eiro.


    "That ck blood... You can only use it once, right? It was basically just a special sort of blood with a high amount of mana ced into it so that you can still control it from further away, but now, all the mana was used up." Eiro guessed, and the woman slowly opened her eyes wide in shock.


    "How do you-" She asked, although she couldn''t even finish the sentence before Eiro interrupted her, "Because I''m not an idiot."


    Hearing this short conversation, Solomon grew curious about what they were speaking of, "Eiro, Evelyn, what is the meaning of this? What kind of ''ck blood'' do you mean?"


    Eiro stared deep into Evelyn''s eyes and with a deep re, while turned away from the King, said "Ah, don''t worry Solomon. Evelyn already knew about what I am. Probably through sensing special properties of my blood, or my form through my blood or something. It seemed like she was trying to stop me from revealing this to you using some special substance." The Demon exined. The tone of his voice insinuated that he wasughing about this, but his face, which only Evelyn could see, was filled with pure and utter anger and hatred.


    And then, Eiro''s face turned into a broad smile as he turned around, "She was probably worried about your reaction." Eiroughed as he slowly made his way back toward Solomon and the daughter of winter, while Evelyn just stood therepletely perplexed.


    There were a few reasons why Eiro didn''t just reveal what Evelyn did. For one, if he pissed her off, she may end up just killing Solomon and Eiro, get rid of Eiro''s body, and then tell the guards that couldn''t see this ce that well at the moment that Eiro was the one that killed Solomon.


    Eiro wanted to kind of avoid that, somehow. Well, since the daugher of winter was here, it would probably be pretty hard for Evelyn to do that anyway, but in the first ce, Eiro didn''t want to fight in front of that Daughter. It felt disrespectful.


    "I see... Then you truly are getting along after all, are you not? I am d that you are! Then Eiro, does that mean that you-"


    "Oh, you and I will lead her to town without her, Solomon. My choice still stands with that." Eiro exined immediately, simply interrupting Solomon, and the King slowly nodded his head, "I understand. It is a true shame, but if that is your choice, then I won''t overlook that choice. I am sorry, Evelyn. Please, head off toward town before us."


    The bloodstone sorceress red at Eiro with pure anger in her eyes, and then slowly nodded her head, "Of course, your majesty." And with that, Evelyn turned around and made her way out of this forest ahead of the others.


    Eiro would have loved to kill Evelyn right now, but just because he wanted to and managed to evolve doesn''t mean that he would be able to. Either way, it would be risky. But to Eiro''s luck, his stat-growth per level up was rather highpared to others. His stats would end up growing incredibly as long as he just went out and tried to hunt for a while.


    Although, the fact that the ''Fractured Frost Walker'' only gave Eiro one level already seemed like a really bothersome thing. That would mean that Eiro would need to start looking for far stronger monsters than you would normally find, but that was something bothersome in itself. He wasn''t sure if there were any ces like the one he was thinking of right now. At least not around here.


    It was bothersome, but it was something that Eiro had to live with for now.


    "So..." The Demon started as he slowly prepared to put his cloak back on by infusing his wings with shadow magic again, and then looked at the daughter of winter, "Did thedies find a recement guide?"


    With a slow nod, the Daughter smiled at Eiro, "Yes, there is a young man that seemed quite interested in the position. When a scout was sent out to look for a good new guide, that man was practically already waiting to be able to take on the task of Guide."


    "Oh, really? Interesting." Eiro pointed out, "Then let''s hope he does a good job, right?"


    "Of course. However, I doubt that thedies will find him as fun as you and Jura." The Daughter chuckled quietly, and Eiro returned that chuckle himself, "I see..." Eiro started as he tried to think of a few topics that the Lady of Winter would usually like speaking about, which her daughters would usually also be pretty curious about, so that Eiro would be able to hold a proper, smooth conversation with her as they were waiting on being able to make their way to town, and while actually walking to town, of course.


    And in the end, it seemed like that idea worked perfectly, as it didn''t take long for Eiro to find a good topic for now. It did mostly have to do with the different nts that usually had to be collected for thedy and daughters, like what kinds of used they had beyond what Eiro knew, or rather guessed, what they were used for in the Spirit Realm that the daughter of winter would return toter.


    But that wasn''t all, they also briefly spoke about Skyhart some more, and the ancestor of Solomon who had also been blessed by the Lady of Winter. Solomon never had the chance to speak to the Daughter, as they never were aware of what they had to do for her and of course as such never came closer to her, simply looking at the Daughter as if she was some kind of piece of art or performance that shouldn''t be interrupted.


    That''s why the King in particr was rather excited to talk to the Daughter, and was incredibly d that Eiro was there to make it possible. At the beginning, Solomon had been incredibly tense, but once they actually started to move toward town, he was not too dissimr to how he was when just speaking to Eiro.


    He was probably a little too rxed at times, but it wasn''t anything that Eiro minded. Just because he was rxed didn''t mean he was an idiot or too naive. He seemed like a rather good judge of people, and always looked beyond the surface, which could be seen with the fact that he simply didn''t mind the fact that Eiro was a demon.


    The Daughter of Winter was slightly startled when she noticed that there were a lot of soldiers and guards following them, but after Eiro exined that this is how humans worked and that they couldn''t just let Solomon walk around without any sort of trusted protection, she seemed to understand and let it be for now as long as they didn''t threaten or bother her.


    It seemed like Eiro''s decision to make them get rid of their weapons was a good idea. As the group was walking and the sun was going down, Eiro could already see the beautifully colorful lights waving through the sky far above them.


    It was incredibly stunning, and one of Eiro''s favorite parts about the Winter Solstice in general. Soon, they entered through the first gate, and saw some of the people living in the outer circle gathering at the side of the road to watch the Daughter of Winter walk by. Some of them ended up following Eiro, Solomon and the Daughter of Winter as well, just so that they could look at her longer and be there when she was in town as well.


    And like normal, the time that it took them to reach their destination felt much, much shorter than it should, and they soon got to the main part of town. Here, Eiro could immediatley smell the scent of numerous dishes, fried, boiled, roasted, anything really. The sounds of peopleughing and speaking echoed through the streets, and numerous people were gathered all around.


    The only ce where nobody was was the central street leading directly to the za in front of the castle that the Lady, Eiro, and Solomon would pass through. The moment that the Daughter came into the range of everyone''s sight, the oh so busy, loud, cheerful streets became dead silent as everyone was just staring at the Daughter of Winter walking in front of their King and a masked, unkown individual.


    After a few moments of the silence spreading through this part of town, some people started to whisper amongst themselves again. Some people were talking about how beautiful and majestic the Daughter of Winter was, some people were speaking about why the King was walking behind her and not beside her, and instead walking beside this ''random guy''.


    And of course, there were a lot of peopleining about the new rules that were put into ce this year, where it wasn''t allowed to gather certain nts anymore during this time, and where some certain people had to gather things to offer to the Daughter.


    Soon, they reached the actual za, where arge amount of people were waiting. Those that were chosen to present extra offerings stood near the castle''s gates together with Charles and Eiro''s children. The three members of Eiro''s party seemed to be standing somewhere on the sidelines, as they weren''t allowed to be there right in front of the gate. There were plenty of people actually speaking about Eiro''s children and why exactly they were there.


    There were some ridiculous theories like ''Maybe those kids are the offering'' or ''maybe the king had some bastards'' or something like that, but in the end, that didn''t matter too much.


    As they entered the za, the Daughter of Winter continued to the center, the ce that seemed to be specifically made for her to stand. There seemed to be some carvings in the ground just for this. The runes were once more in anguage that Eiro simply didn''t understand or recognize, which was more than just annoying. There were so many different ancientnguages... Either way, Eiro figured that those carvings were created by the Daughter of Winter, or Solomon''s ancestor with the blessing of the Lady of Winter was instructed on how to do it.


    Either way, Solomon and Eiro took another path around the za instead of walking straight through it, as the za itself was currently reserved for just the Daughter. The guards seemed to be against it, and especially some of the onlooking nobles were staring at the Daughter angrily, but Eiro would deal with those moronster.


    But it didn''t matter either way, as Eiro was just focused on the Daughter as she stepped into the center of the za.. With a satisfied expression, she kneeled down on the ground and waited for Eiro and Solomon to arrive at their spots.

 Chapter 211 - Blocked

    Soon, Eiro and Solomon reached the ce where the others were also waiting. Solomon took a seat on the mobile throne that was prepared just for him, while Eiro walked over to his children.


    "Daddy!" Avalin eximed loudly and jumped toward the Demon, who quickly picked her up from the ground and held her up, "So, did you have fun here today already?" Eiro asked, and Avalin immediately nodded her head.


    "Mhm! There were soo many tasty treats! So much super duper colorful candy!" She eximed, and Eiro stared deep into the girl''s eyes before turning over toward Leon. Even he seemed to be a little bit hyper right now and was holding onto Eiro''s hand, leaning back so that his hand was the only thing that was actually keeping him from falling down.


    The demon turned his head toward Sammy, who was already awkwardly looking away from Eiro, "How much sugar did they have, exactly?"


    "I... I don''t know what you''re talking about..." Sammy said, "I didn''t give them any sweets..." She pointed out. And to Eiro''s surprise... there was no power behind her words, meaning that the ''truth'' didn''t have to be twisted. Sammy was pretty good at suppressing the effects of her voice already, but there was still a little bit of a rest leftover, although all it did was make people more inclined to believe her words, and didn''t actually ''control'' them.


    But even then, while she was suppressing everything and was already telling the truth in the first ce, there was basically no residue of her power in her voice. So, with a deep groan, Eiro looked at Sammy again, "Then who gave it to them?"


    "Erm..." Sammy started while scratching her cheeks, "That woman, Jess... She went off to a stall with Avalin and Leon for a moment, and then they came back and were already eating candy... And we didn''t want to take it away again."


    Immediately, Eiro turned around and stared deep into Jess'' direction. She was looking at Eiro at that moment as well, so she turned away after being startled. Jess wasn''t actually able to see Eiro''s expression due to his mask, but the Demon was sure that she still knew what he was thinking.


    "This is going to be a bothersome night... Let''s hope they don''t crash too early tonight." With Avalin sitting on one of his arms with her own wrapped around Eiro''s neck for stability and Leon holding onto Eiro''s other hand, the Demon turned back around to look at the Daughter of Winter again.


    It seemed like the people that were chosen to present the offerings to the Daughter were currently walking up to her and cing them down in front of her. Surprisingly, Eiro noticed that some people were actually somewhat convinced that this was working out after all, despite the same people voicing theirints just moments earlier. The main reason for that seemed to be that the Daughter of Winter was currently smiling.


    During the many years before then that she had been visiting this town, it seemed like she usually had a rather... well, cold expression on her face. People thought that it had to be like that, as she was the Daughter of Winter and represented the cold itself.


    At least they were changing their opinions, so everything was fine. But nheless, Eiro was still curious about what exactly Eiro was supposed to wait for. He had tried to give the Daughter the gem that he harvested from that Fractured Frost Walker, but she quickly said that Eior should wait untilter, where something special was supposed to happen. Solomon seemed rather confused at the time as well, so she was probably not referring to some normal event that happened every year.


    It took a little while for everything to be over, and once it was, the Daughter of Winter slowly leaned forward. It seemed like it was time for that event. Usually, right around now, the Lady would disappear from town, so it was probably the veryst thing that the Daughter would do today.


    She ced her palms onto the ground in front of her, right onto two specific parts of the carvings covering this whole za. Slowly they lit up from underneath the thinyer of snow covering the ground. From exactly that snow, numerous winterblossoms sprouted upward and covered the za in a mysterious shine and glitter as the ice flowers reflected the lights of the carvings.


    But that wasn''t all, because the very light snow that had been falling until now increased to an incredible amount, exclusively within the za. It didn''t even reach the people encircling it. It was like arge pir of snow simply appeared there out of nowhere, and it was close to impossible to see through there.


    And then, all of a sudden, the blizzard-level snow started twisting around in the form of some sort of tornado. The pir shrunk in width and soon only covered the center area of the za, before in one fell swoop, all the snow was blown away and disappeared without another trace.


    To Eiro''s immense surprise, so much so that he had no idea how he was supposed to react, a figure that Eiro hadn''t expected stood there in the center of the za, right in front of the Daughter.


    It was Lady Winter, in all her glory, as she looked around the ce, "Oh? I was called here, I see?" The Lady asked in a surprised tone, "That can only mean that..." She started and slowly turned around, just to spot Eiro standing there.


    "...that you are here." The Lady said with a light smile on her face, while Eiro slowly let down Avalin and let go of Leon''s hand, so that he could make his way closer to Lady Winter.


    "It is an honor to be able to see you again, my Lady." Eiro pointed out as he knelt down in front of the Lady. He could hear a few people that knew Eiro be surprised that he was bowing down to someone, including a certain three party members that Eiro would need to have a bit of a talk withter. With a quietugh, the Lady nodded her head.


    "I can only share that sentiment. It is not possible for me to appear somewhere beside that ce often. I am happy that today was such a day. But I must admit, I am surprised to see that you are here, dear Eiro." The Lady pointed out. Eiro immediately nodded his head.


    "It was honestly a pure coincidence. I happened to meet the ruler of this Kingdom during my travels. Now we live in this capital town. I only found out a few weeks ago that this ce is visited by one of your daughters."


    "You truly experience as much luck as ever, do you not?" The Lady asked with an amused tone, simply chuckling into her hand. Eiro couldn''t really deny that either. And then, he remembered that he still had something to give to the Lady.


    "Ah, sorry, but in the past, the people of this town were quite uninformed of how your daughter was to be treated. I have now shown them the right customs, but I still wish to offer you something as an apology." Eiro started. With a flick of his wrist, a gem appeared in Eiro''s hand. It was nearly translucent and was freezing cold, as if it was a chunk of clear ice.


    The demon held it forward toward thedy, who slowly stretched her own hand forward and received it happily.


    "How wonderful, I have not seen such arge gem as this in centuries." She eximed with a happy voice, "Do not worry, the people of this town have been absolved, as long as they treat my daughter with the respect she deserved from now on."


    "Of course. I will ensure that-" Eiro started, but he was quickly interrupted in the middle of his sentence. He snapped his neck around. Without hesitation, Eiro activated his ''Rock Skin'' ability and slid across the ground toward Gondos. The spirit and the demon fused, and Eiro''s defense increased considerably.


    Before anyone else noticed anything or could even react, a boulderrger than Eiro flew toward the Lady at high speeds. Eiro wasn''t able to push her out of the way, simply because he wasn''t sure if he was physically strong enough for that.


    And he obviously couldn''t just let the boulder hit her either. Eiro manipted his life force to support his receptive strength as much as he could, while also trying to use earth magic to slow the high-speed,rge rock down.


    The moment that the boulder impacted on Eiro''s palms, a strong gust of wind spread out through the za as a notification appeared in front of Eiro.


    [-30.185 Health]


    [Warning! Your arms have been broken!]


    Eiro''s prosthetic exploded into pieces along the joints and fell to the ground, with just a few smaller parts left connected to Eiro''s skin. All of his fingers were gone, and really just half the palm was still there.


    The demon ripped his eyes open wide in response to the pain permeating through his body while the sound of his bones cracking echoed in his ears. And the next moment, Eiro and Gondos were forcefully split apart, because the damage was too much for them to take while keeping the fusion up.


    "My Lady..." Eiro growled loudly, "Go!" The demon eximed. That attack was very obviously faced at the Lady, and not at Eiro. At first he thought that it was meant for him, but Eiro noticed the source of this attack soon after.


    It was some man holding fist-sized rocks in his hands. He was speaking about how ''some asshole blocked the attack'', so it wouldn''t make sense for Eiro to have been the target. He obviously had an incredibly high physical status, and probably a special ability as well. Because this boulder that Eiro ''caught'' was just half the size it was now before it entered the za. It was actually still growing right now and was pushing Eiro back a bit as he leaned up against it in pain.


    This was bad... this was really, really bad.


    But luckily... the Lady was already in the process of disappearing when the boulder came flying toward here, and the daughter of winter was gone in the first ce. The Lady had taken her ce when she appeared here.


    "I am sorry that I can''t stay to help." The Lady said apologetically, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, it''s fine! Just leave! Please!" Eiro yelled out and the Lady stared back at him, "Then let me leave you a gift behind.", and then, the Lady of Winter disappeared from behind Eiro. It seemed like she didn''t have as much power as Eiro thought she did at the moment, having been transported here against the n.


    Eiro let his arms hang down by the sides of his body and slowly turned around. He had to get himself healed as soon as possible. But just as Eiro was walking, with Nelli and Gondos picking up the parts of his prosthetic behind him, he stumbled across the gem that Eiro had given the Lady. But something was different about it.. It now had a light glow to it, and basically pulled Eiro toward it.

 Chapter 212 - Throwing Rocks

    The gem wasying there on the ground, and Eiro''s focus was pulled toward it whether he wanted it to happen or not. It was like his head was forced into its direction, and there was nothing he could do about it.


    Eiro pushed his foot under it and kicked it upward, as he wasn''t really able to easily pick it up right now. In the end, he caught it by just making a small ''nest'' with his arms in front of his chest. The impact hurt a quite bit as his arms were broken right now, but in the end, he could get through it.


    Quickly the demon made his way over toward the others so that he could get some healing. The guy that threw that boulder into his direction most likely just left right away after the Lady disappeared. Or that''s what Eiro thought at first, but then he turned around as another boulder wasing. This time he wouldn''t be able to block it, but he couldn''t just dodge either... the children were right behind him.


    But before Eiro could finish his thoughts, he could feel something pull on his cloak as his feet were pulled from the ground. Rudy had grabbed Eiro and then followed up by throwing him behind his back.


    The young man ced his hands in front of his body in a simple defense stance so that he could stand there in a stable position. Rudy would definitely be thrown away! He wouldn''t take damage, but he wasn''t strong enough to make the boulder stop either!


    But just when Eiro wanted to use magic to somehow help Rudy out, the boulder already reached him. It pushed onto Rudy''s arms, and Eiro thought that any moment now, he would be flung away, but instead something else happened.


    Rudy had positioned himself so that he wouldn''t catch the boulder on the height of its center of gravity, but rather so that he would be able to get it far below it, at the lowest point possible. Sure, Rudy was pressed onto the ground and slid across it into the guards standing behind him, but that wasn''t all. Because of his positioning, the boulder was pushed up a bit and missed everyone standing behind Rudy. And to top it off, Rudy wasn''t thrown away nearly as much, because the force was more of a downward force rather than a straight one, a lot of it was pushed into the ground itself.


    With a loud groan, the boy stood up and scuttered over toward Eiro, to the surprise of everyone in the crowd that witnessed this happen. Seeing Eiro block the first one and stop its movementspletely was impressive enough for them, but seeing such a young man handle it like this and be unaffected was also a sight to behold.


    "Are you alright? What can we do to help?" Rudy asked immediately, staring at Eiro with worry in his eyes, and the Demon just sat there, looking at everyone for a moment, "Rudy, protect the others, including Solomon and Charles. Sammy, tell the townsfolk to get back into their houses. And Arc, you grab Avalin and Leon and bring them somewhere safe. Clementine, can you-"


    And just as Eiro turned his head toward the young girl, she was already staring at Eiro intensely. She had a certain expression on her face that Eiro really didn''t like. The Demon clicked his tongue and turned toward Gondos. Providing him with as much mana as necessary, he made Gondos create a capsule justrge enough for Eiro, Clementine, and the two spirits. Arc, Rudy and Sammy already knew what was going on, but basically everyone was confused and startled.


    Clementine''s hunger was going wild. Recently, she really hadn''t been surrounded by people that were injured in a major way, and this was right during the time where they were trying to help her practice keeping that hunger under control, so she was more sensible to feeling that sort of hunger. And Eiro was really in a lot of very pure pain right now, which had to seem delicious to Clementine.


    The demon ground his teeth together and stared at the girl, "Clementine, you can wait a few moments, right? I really, really need you to wait." Eiro told her, trying to help her get her mind under control, which Nelli was assisting with as much as she could herself. Eiro threw the gem he had been holding onto the ground and then tried to enter a quick meditative state to increase his mana-flow. Meanwhile, Nelli was wrapping his arms in magic water to assist him.


    Eiro didn''t have any particr talent for healing magic, but broken bones like this should be able to be healed in roughly 10 minutes. Time that they didn''t have. But at the very least, Eiro was able to do something else.


    He himself used water magic to control his blood so that he was able to push his bones properly into ce, trying to at least make some of the fractured and splintered parts heal back together. But the major cracks were still there. Really, Eiro had wounds like this in his bones all over his arms right now, which was really, really infuriating.


    The Demon ground his teeth together to try and get through the pain when he heard another loud m outside, followed by Rudy falling to the ground and another m a few momentster, which was probably another boulder impacting on the ground after being diverted by Rudy.


    The next moment he-


    "Eiro." The demon heard Solomon''s whisper outside of the hull he was in, and slowly focused his attention on him, "I won''t let anyone cause chaos inside of this town like this. Everyone else will be leaving in a few moments, so I ask of you. Help us in whatever means possible. I will cover up anything that needs to be covered up. Just do me this favor."


    And before Eiro had any chance to react, Solomon followed the guards as they helped him flee from this attack.


    "Clementine..." The Demon muttered quietly as he pulled his cloak off his body and got rid of the two shadow magic stones he used to conceal his ''true'' nature. He extended his arms toward Clementine, and before he knew it, the young girl ran her hands over them. For a moment, the Demon felt the pain of the touch before he felt his bones being corrected. Clementine''s hunger disappeared, but instead she was now in immense pain after having her arms broken apart like this after healing Eiro.


    "Shh..." The Demon hushed quietly as he enveloped the girl not only with his arms but also with his wings while Nelli dove right into his back. Eiro''s body changed as he merged with this spirit, before the Demon slowly proceeded to use magic on Clementine''s arms. She was too upset to do it herself right now after all.


    But luckily, despite Eiro''s low skill when it came to healing magic, due to Clementine''s immense receptiveness for it, he was able to finish mostly healing her in under a minute.


    Clementine sat there on the cold ground, exhausted by what happened, while Eiro and Nelli split apart again, so that Clementine could finish fixing herself up now that she managed to calm down. Meanwhile, Eiro pulled out his three of swords and made the desbine with the different parts that used to make up his wooden hands. Eiro recently found that they were able tobine with much more than he thought, and not just weapons or tools, but also things like this.


    Using this ability, and the fact that Eiro was able to perfectly manage using these five des separately all at once, Eiro managed to fix his wooden hand for the most part within just a few moments. Luckily he basically prepared parts for a whole new recement hand, so he was able to get it done without having to make new parts.


    But to Eiro''s surprise... while he was putting the hand back together, some of the parts that were broken actually ''healed'' themselves. Sometimes the pieces were practically pulled back into ce by Eiro''s hand itself without him needing to actively bring them there. It seemed like this wooden hand had really be a part of him now.


    Once the demon was done with this, he quickly scanned the area around him to make sure that everyone was gone or hiding.


    And the only ones left on the streets right now were Rudy, a few guards that didn''t want to leave Rudy alone, as well as some random scouts trying to gather information on this attack.


    With a deep sigh, Eiro took off his satchel and gave it to clementine together with other things that may reveal his identity when he was seen.


    He pulled out the ace of cups and poured the contents on his skin and tried to infuse his body with it.


    [The power of the Ace of Cups flows through you. For the next 1 hour, you will avoid the world]


    The moment Eiro turned invisible, he removed the rock capsule around him and jumped into the air as strongly as he could. Luckily the effect was somewhat activated. Others wouldn''t be able to notice him at all, probably, but he wouldn''t receive the ''luck'' that he had whenever he usually used the ace of cups, where any sort of attack wouldpletely avoid him. It seemed like others didn''t forget about him either. The effect was obviously massively weakend, and the time it was active was lessened by a lot too.


    But at least it was enough for what Eiro actually wanted to do. For the first time, Eiro pped his wings, trying to control the air around him with magic. Immediately, he shot up further than he expected. These wings had immense power to them, that was for sure.


    And now after he was at the highest point, he let himself drop a bit and twisted his body around before stretching his wings out. He made himself glide into the direction where those thrown, growing boulders came from.


    Soon, he spotted who it was. It was a young man, wearing gloves and sitting on a small pile of fist-sized rocks. He pushed his hand back and then with a swift motion threw the rock forward. It was basically travelling in a straight line, and its speed was insane. It even audibly made the air crackle.


    Immediately, Eiro dove toward that rock. Right now, it was only head-sized, and it seemed like the weight was proportionate to the size of the rock. So, Eiro was able to pretty easily kick the rock down onto the ground.


    It slid further for a while, but stopped before it even entered the za, and then grew to its full size. Slowly, Eiro stopped the ace of cup''s infusion and poured the rest into the actual cup before putting the card back into his treasury.


    "Hey, you brat...." Eiro growled deeply as he stared at the young man that was standing there, full with pure anger in his eyes, "Didn''t your parents teach you not to throw rocks around?"

 Chapter 213 - Kill Reward

    "Hey, you brat... Didn''t your parents teach you not to throw rocks around?" Eiro growled angrily as he stepped up in front of the guy that had been throwing the boulders into his direction before.


    He looked at Eiro and opened his eyes wide in surprsie, "Ooh! So it''s true, you''re really a demon! Haha, this is really amazing!" The man eximed with a loudugh. He seemed to be rather childish in his demeanor and speech, "Hey, can you call that Lady back here? I want to get the kill reward~!"


    Eiro ripped his eyes open and ground his teeth together as he stared at the man, "What do you mean, ''Kill reward''?" The Demon asked, and the man looked back at Eiro rather surprised.


    "Eh..? You don''t know? You get ability rewards for killing supreme beings like that! Like the Kings and Queens of elemental magic spirits! I think it''s the same with Elder Dragons, and of course anything with a true Divine nature! You don''t get chances to killdies all too often, but she seemed so weak right there, so I gave it a shot!" The man eximed with a broad grin, acting as if this was the most natural thing in the world and it was weird not to want to do something like that.


    "But I must say, I''m impressed you were able to catch that first one! And that kid over there''s also pretty interesting! Hey, do you mind if I y with him a bit~?" The man asked with a loudugh that stung Eiro''s ears.


    The Demon stared back at him and ground his teeth, "Don''t you dare even think about touching him." With a deep growl, the Demon smashed his foot into the ground, immediately breaking apart not only theyer of snowying there, but also the rock making up the streets.


    Without hesitation, the Demon pushed everything he could right toward that man. But with a casual expression, he just ''caught'' nearly all of them. It seemed like he had incredibly high dexterity to be able to do that.


    But even if he was able to catch them, that wasn''t the only thing that stopped him from taking any damage. The moment that the rocks and chunks of ice touched his gloves they shrunk down to the size of pebbles and lost most of their power.


    Eiro looked at the man with a deep frown and tried to observe the surroundings. Right now, nobody was watching him. He was keeping a smallyer of the Ace of Cup''s potion around him right now to make sure that even if people were to look outside, they would have a hard time spotting Eiro except if they had immensely high intelligence, wisdom or perception.


    The only reason why the man right in front of Eiro was able to see him was because Eiro only activated this after he was already seen by him, so he was aware of Eiro from the start. But even he seemed to be struggling to keep his attention on Eiro. Whether this was because of the potion or simply because he was a moron was not something that Eiro was really able to judge.


    "So you''re part of ''that'' organization, aren''t you?" Eiro asked while keeping his nce focused on the man''s gloves. These were a mock-card item imbued with the power of another Cup-Card, or at least that''s what Eiro assumed when seeing this effect.


    The three of cups, the potion with the ability to change one''s size to whatever you may wish, although there were of course limitations depending on how well your body could handle extremelyrge sizes.


    Eiro didn''t know much about these special gloves yet. He knew that they were capable of shrinking things they came in contact with, but Eiro wasn''t particrly sure what other effects they may have. For example, was this man able to shrink himself as well, or just other items? Was the mock-card item''s ability limited to shrinking things, or was it also able to grow things?


    These were both important things to know, but he had an answer for neither at the moment, which was rather troublesome, considering that Eiro was about to fight this person. Eiro figured that the man at the very least hadn''t been using the ability to make things grow so far, but rather nullified the effect of shrinking something after he had used it to make the boulder return to its normal size after use. His mental reasoning for that was simply that he wasn''t in contact with the boulder as it was returning to its size. It was still small in his hands, but then grew in size again after it stopped being in contact with his hands.


    And with a light smile, the man picked up another one of the rocks that he was sitting on, and set himself up for another throw. With a deep breath, the man stared at Eiro. All of a sudden, he had a serious expression on his face.


    The man threw the rock forward with such force that the air once more audibly cracked. But the air wasn''t the only thing that cracked, but the rock itself did as well. It shattered into pieces, most of which flew directly past Eiro and crashed into the stalls or buildings around him, causing immense damage to them within just a single moment.


    "Oops. Guess that throw was a bit too strong~." The man pointed out with a light smile, "Let me try again, shall I?"


    With that, the man picked up another one of the rocks, but Eiro didn''t want to give him the satisfaction of getting another attack in. The demon infused his body with air magic for just a moment and then jumped forward as quickly as he could. It seemed like even this man with his own high speed was able to react in time, before Eiro pushed both his hands onto the rock and did his best to use earth magic on it.


    And just like that, he managed to confirm his suspicion. As he tried to use magic, it became warped, as if its area was being shrunk down as well, as if this rock was the same size of the boulder before. He wasn''t able to affect it all at once like he normally would be able to with a rock this size.


    Eiro pushed his tail with his new stinger in front of his body and tried to push it into the man''s skin, but before he could do that, the rock that the man was holding split perfectly into two pieces as he grinned broadly.


    He pulled his arms to the sides as far as he could and then tried to m the two halves together again right where Eiro stood, just that he was increasing their size at the same time.


    Immediately, the Demon used his magic and his wings to jump out of the area where those two halves of the boulder were about to meet, but if he hadn''t, this would have definitely done an immense amount of damage to Eiro and maybe would have done more than just crack a few of his bones.


    And then, before Eiro knew it, the man had already picked up another one of the rocks and threw it at Eiro, trying to increase its size at a more rapid ratepared to the times before, and Eiro was soon once more hit by one of the boulders. Just that this time, it was a bit different. Eiro had expected the hit and started using his magic as much as he could to slow it down. He pushed his three of swords'' des into the boulder and tried to fuse them with it so that he would have even better magical control over it, and then just split it apart into pieces.


    Eiro infused magic into them directly to make therge shards of rock usable as proper weapons, which mostly involved sharpening them with earth magic and cloaking them in wind magic for extra speed, sharpness, and cutting ability. And on top of that, they would have the weight of the rocks they were based on, so that made these even better weapons, even if one ignored the ''Card effect'' support from the three of swords, which were immeasurably sharp at any time. This helped increase their cutting ability as well.


    Eiro changed the position of these special rock-des so that they were basically five giant ws, each one the size of Eiro''s arm floating around Eiro''s left hand while he started to cast proper magic spells with his right hand.


    "Oi, oi, isn''t it kinda cheating to take your enemies'' weapons from them during a fight?" The man asked with an excited grin on his face, but Eiro was simply floating there, pping his new wings as he stared down at him, "What do I care? As long as you die, I''ll cheat in any way I need to."


    "Whooa! So harsh!" With a loudugh, the man simply tried to continue hauling rocks at Eiro. It was a very, very simple attack pattern, so he probably wasn''t even all that experienced with fights. Eiro simply couldn''t imagine this person being an important enough part of the organization to be able to receive that kind of item as he was using now.


    But most importantly... he just couldn''t believe that this attack was as ''in the moment'' as this man was saying it was. It just didn''t make sense.


    With a deep breath, Eiro activated a magic spell that was supposed to cover the area in a thick cloud of dust to disrupt this man''s ability to see. He dove down toward him and swung the five ws at him, but the moment he did, his arm was simply stopped. As if his speed immediately disappeared just like that. The dust disappeared with a single strong gust of wind, and Eiro saw what exactly happened.


    The man simply caught Eiro''s attack. It was like he had shrunk down the rock-despletely and with that slowed them down immensely as well. The distance that they had to traverse was much, much longer now, somehow.


    "Heh... You think that''s enough to-"


    But that didn''t really matter to Eiro. Even if he had more than one trick up his sleeve than just shrinking things down, since this obviously involved more than just that, Eiro also had multiple tricks. While the man was trying to speak, Eiro pushed his stinger directly into his right eye while pulling the three of swords out of the rocks.


    The size-changing effect was dispelled, since a regr card was stronger than a mock-card, and the des continued to travel forward. The rock bits had been shrunk down, but the des couldn''t be stopped. And just like that, Eiro cut through the man''s fingers and destroyed glove.


    The magical effect that had kept the rock-ws shrunken down was dispelled with that and they swung forward at the man all at once.


    His hand was cut off, one of the des shot right through his right shoulder, another one cut through the side of his throat. The other two simply missed, but either way.... This man just lost this fight.

 Chapter 214 - Goons

    Eiro looked down at the figure of the young man as he grabbed his throat with his remaining hand while gasping for air. He was spitting up blood, and was trying to somehow say something to Eiro. But all that the Demon did was grab the man by his cor and pull him up with him as he started to fly. Before the demon knew it, he was already on his way to his mansion. Although, just then... something else happened.


    At an incredible speed, an arrow was shot toward Eiro. It was an unnatural speed, really. Impossible, rather.


    Eiro was able to somewhat dodge it, but just barely. It slid by his body, and then... slowed down to a regr speed, "This fucker..." Eiro growled and proceeded to let go of the man he was holding by his cor, mming him down onto the ground as quickly as he possibly could. Now it was clear to him. Beside just being able to change the size of things, he also had some special item holding the same effect as Enka''s earring. He was able to alter how time time worked.


    But soon, just as Eiro thought, the effect disappeared from him and he was able to see the man drop to the ground in slow-motion while there were people down below trying to catch him. It seemed like they were other people from the organization, or at least they were all wearing the exact same outfit. They were probably just random goons.


    One of them shot at Eiro, which was probably only possible because the demon was carrying the man in the first ce, which made the effect of the ace of cups a bit weaker and made him easier to notice. With a deep sigh, Eiro dropped down to the ground and started to fight these people. There was already plenty of red snowying on the ground, a little more probably wouldn''t hurt anyone as long as Eiro got rid of the bodies.


    These guys were obviously really just goons. Eiro was able to kill them within a few moments each. They didn''t even give Eiro enough experience to level up even once, although he did get close. Once everyone here was dead, Eiro scratched his cheek and looked up at the man, as he was still falling down in slow-motion. It would probably take a minute or so for him to get down here, so Eiro had enough time to figure out what to do.


    Soon, he was reminded of the hand that was cut off the man''s arm, and quickly scuttered over to it. He pulled the glove, which was missing three of its fingers, and pulled it off. It was actually roughly around Eiro''s size, coincidentally. He ced it onto his hand and pushed his mana inside of it while pressing his palm onto the three people he just killed. Just a few momentster, they were all shrunken down to the size of a finger.


    "Huh... This is a useful one... Maybe I should try and steal that card from the organization, maybe I can figure out how to make use of the effect in this way as well." Eiro muttered quietly. Either way, it would be pretty easy to get rid of these corpses now. Eiro would just bring them to the mansion with him to figure out if there was anything on them that would be of use in any way.


    And then, Eiro turned over toward the man right next to him, who was rtively close to the ground by now. With a slight smirk, the demon got an idea. He used his his three of swords and wrapped them around the man''s limbs, using them to easily pull the slow-motion man around. Honestly, Eiro had no idea how this even happened to him. Most likely, the item with the slow-motion effect broke somehow while Eiro fought against him, and it just started affecting the man himself. Obviously that wasn''t the actual effect.


    Or... maybe it was? It could be some safety system. Like this it would be easy for these goons to get to him quickly for first-aid. That was an interesting idea, really, maybe Eiro should look into trying to get that time-card as well. Although... Eiro may have to get a fair bit stronger for now. If anything, then Eiro should try and steal the data on how to enhance card items from the organization.


    "Hmm... That also sounds like a good idea..." The demon muttered, while keeping his eyes on the shrunked-down goons in his hand.


    ---


    Eiro stood in front of the castle, once more wearing his full cloak and mask, hiding his true identity, and was about to go inside when he was stopped by the guards.


    "Halt, criminal scum!" They eximed, pointing their weapons at Eiro, who just stared back at them with a wry smile, "...what..?" He asked, and the guards slowly looked at each other, quickly nodded once, and looked back at Eiro.


    "It has been determined that you have attempted an assassination on his Majesty, King Solomon Sigurd Skyhart!" The two guards yelled in unison, and Eiro sighed deeply and squatted down on the ground with a loud groan.


    "...surrounded by fucking idiots..." The demon grumbled, before one of the guards seemed to have seen an opportunity to arrest Eiro and proceeded to push his spear toward him. But of course, all that happened was that Eiro grabbed the spear before it even hit him. He pulled it out of the Guard''s hand and instead hit him over the head with the blunt end of it.


    Obviously, the Guard was injured, but it wasn''t anything serious. He would just be unconscious for a few seconds, enough for Eiro to knock the other guard out as well and start dragging them into the castle with him.


    It didn''t take long for Eiro to find the ce where Solomon and the children were already eagerly waiting for Eiro. Of course, Jordan, Solomon''s royal advisor was also there, staring at Eiro in shock. Without hesitation, he jumped in front of Solomon to protect him, "Your majesty, watch out! This man must have been the one trying to assassinate you!"


    The other guards in the room immediately stared at Eiro as well and lifted their weapons toward him, before Eiro groaned loudly and threw the guards he was dragging behind him in front of him.


    "How narcissistic do you have to be to think that your King was the target over a literal nature goddess?" Eiro asked with a deep re, "I''m not saying Solomon''s life isn''t important, but he clearly wasn''t the target. If you''re too dumb to see that, then I advise you to step down from your position to advise him. I have not, am not nning to, and will never try to kill Solomon. He''s a friend that I trust. Do you understand?" Eiro asked with a deep re toward Jordan, making him just so slightly flinch in fear.


    With a deep groan, Eiro pulled an extra mask out of his treasury. One of the masks that the goons from before had been wearing. They were simr to Eiro''s, as in that they covered the whole face, even the eyes. It seemed like the eye-holes were simply filled in with a special material that only allowed sight from one side, but it was different to the mask Eiro was used to. It had the rough shape of a simple male face, without any particr features. It was as average as it could be, as normal as one would expect from most men anywhere in the world.


    Eiro threw it on the table in front of him and then walked over toward his children, "The one that attacked the Lady of Winter was part of an organization aiming for superior strength. Not as an organization as a whole, but it seems more like the organization is really just made up of researchers and goons. The ones with real strength in the organization are probably not directly part of it, but are just supplied by it and in return supply it in some way, shape or form as well. They are in the possession of multiple Minor Arcana Cards, and they''re taking their effects and cing them into artificial artifacts that can be used by anyone with an ounce of mana." Eiro exined, and Jordan looked away from the mask and back toward Eiro.


    "Really? Where''s the-" Jordan started, before Eiro slowly pressed his palm onto the table and immediately shrunk it down, "If you want proof, here it is. It''s unstable because it''s broken, so be careful with it, but here, try." Eiro said as he pulled the glove off and handed it to solomon while the table increased back in size.


    "That''s what was used to attack the Lady. Boulders were shrunken down and someone with incredible throwing-capabilities threw those fist-sized boulders at incredible speeds, had them return to their normal size mid-air, and with that managed to do immense levels of damage." Eiro exined, "But if you''ll excuse me, I''m going to tend to my daughter for a moment."


    With that, Eiro turned toward his children, as well as Felix and Charles, who were huddled around Clementine who was still more than simply teary-eyed after feeling the pain of Eiro''s broken bones. He squatted down in front of her and rubbed his hand on her shoulder, "Are you alright? I''m sorry that you had to do that..." The Demon whispered, and Clementine slowly shook her head.


    "N-No... it''s not your fault, I c-couldn''t control my hun-hunger..." Clementine replied in a way that was practically inaudible to the others with the exception of Eiro, with his great hearing, and Sammy, who was right next to Clementine. Hearing her words, Sammy tried to rub her own slight tears out of her eyes. Sammy was a really empathetic person, so even as a child, she would often cry when someone else cried. She tried her hardest to be strong and not to, as the second oldest of the bunch. Arc was the oldest, but he wasn''t necessarily the most reliable amongst them.


    "Clementine. If a child is starving, it''s not the child''s fault. It''s the fault of their parent. I won''t ever let this happen like this again, alright?" Eiro asked with a light smile on his face, and Clementine slowly nodded her head as she pulled Eiro into a hug.


    Eiro tried his best to help his daughter calm down after this, all the whilst listening to the voices of the guards, the few nobles here, and of course Jordan speaking about the children.


    "Did that girl manage to heal his wounds all on her own within minutes?"


    "What about that boy? He was able to take on those boulders and came out of it without a scratch."


    "And how did the other girl make everyone leave so quickly?"


    "Personally, I''m more impressed with that blonde boy. Even while everyone else was panicking, he was cool and collected. He might be a good asset in the military."


    Slowly, Eiro let go of Clementine and stood up. He turned around and stared at all the people standing here in this room, a thick aura of pressure enveloping everyone standing there, "I have abstained from doing so until now, because Solomon asked me not to cause a ruckus, but I''m going to say this once, and only once.... If any of you bastards daree close to my children in any way, shape or form, I''ll make you regret ever being born."

 Chapter 215 - Let Me Introduce To You

    All of the important people here in this room stared at Eiro in confusion after he made that rather unexpected announcement. After a few moments of them trying to figure out if what Eiro said was actually serious or not, one of the nobles just clicked his tongue.


    "Tsk, who do you think you are, you brat? Did nobody ever teach you manners?" He asked, and Eiro red at him with deep anger ingrained in his body, his heart beating at a quick pace. Eiro took a deep breath and started walking forward in a slouching manner.


    "You want manners, huh?" Eiro muttered as he stood right in front of the noble that just spoke up, who was ring down at the Demon with a smug expression. Instantaneously, Eiro straightened his back and hit his heels together before he ced one of his hands behind his back, pressing the back of his hand onto its center, and ced his palm right onto his heart.


    "If that''s the case, then excuse my oh so rude behavior, my Lord. I was merely insinuating that I do not wish for you to make such thoughtless statements about my children. Especially in this situation, while they certainly deserve the highest sort of praise there is, trying to choose their future paths before any of you even know their names is quite disrespectful, don''t you think?" Eiro asked in a clear tone, making the noble in front of him take a step back in surprise. But in the end, it seemed like his opinion didn''t change.


    "Their names don''t matter. They should be proud to be able to serve this country with their lives! In no way does it matter who you or they are, as long as this country needs them, they are to-"


    "Ah fuck it, I really can''t keep this up while this fucking moron is talking..." Eiro growled quietly to himself and stared deep into the nobleman''s eyes. Eiro''s words surprised everyone here, but as Eiro said it in just enough of a whisper that he was able to keep on going while they were trying to figure out if they really just heard what they thought they did, "Again, my Lord, I think that is quite a thoughtless statement, is it not? Especially in front of a person that could easily ughter every single person in this room and not leave any kind of evidence behind."


    "Wh-What are you-"


    "What I am saying? Oh, excuse me, I assumed that as a nobleman with such a high position in the royal army you would be quite intelligent. Seems like that was a wrong assumption, I sincerely apologize, my Lord. Then please let me say it in words that you may be able to understand more easily." Eiro said and pushed his hand away from his heart, before out of nowhere a dagger appeared in his hand. At the same time, without anyone realizing, Eiro slid over the ground to get closer to the noble in front of him and held the dagger in his hand right in front of his throat.


    Out of nervosity, the man swallowed the saliva in his mouth, and his Adam''s apple moved up and down, scratching right across the dagger''s tip. And before anyone could properly react and pull Eiro away from this nobleman, he spoke up in a way that ensured that nobody would even have the ability to move.


    Eiro copied the way that Felix''s skill worked, where mana was infused into his voice itself. Of course, Eiro didn''t have any sort of special skill for it, but still, it should probably increase the effect of his new Charisma stat-ability.


    "If you lowlife dare go against me or my children, merely think of touching a single hair on their bodies now or in the future, that very moment will be thest one you''ll breath. Understood, you damned pig?" With a deep growl in his voice, Eiro red right at the nobleman. His eyes weren''t revealed, but Eiro was still basically making direct eye-contact with this man.


    The guards in the room froze up before they were even able to ready their weapons, and nobody dared to make a sound, even going so far as to hold their breath.


    With a deep sigh, Eiro let go of his dagger and before it fell even a few centimeters, it disappeared into nothingness. The Demon turned around and walked back over to his children, and on the way started to speak, "Well, I hope you''ll keep that in mind in the future. I can''t stop you from trying, but in return you can''t stop me from returning the favor in my own way." Eiro pointed out, "Anyway, let''s move on to the whole reason why I''m even here and still talking to you useless lot. I want all of you to pretend that today''s attack was caused by some sort of monster that was able to make its way through the walls. Don''t let the fact that such an organization is a thing leak out of this room."


    With hismanding tone, Eiro stepped back over to the children and slowly helped Clementine stand back up before helping her walk over to the door with the others right behind him. Just before he was about to leave, Solomon, the only one that was really able to calm down after what Eiro just told them, looked at the Demon curiously.


    "And why is that? Why can''t we speak about this?" The King inquired, and Eiro simply smirked underneath his mask with a quietugh, which weirdly enough made Solomon rx and tense up even more at the same time. Meanwhile, Gondos was flying over to one of the Goons'' masks that Eiro threw on the table before and picked up that mask and grabbed the special glove Solomon was holding at the same time.


    He brought them over to the Demon who quickly grabbed the mask and held it in front of his own, "I can''t have them be on guard, now can I?" Eiro pointed out with a broad grin as he turned back around and made the extra mask and glove disappear inside of his treasury.


    Eiro brought the children over to the carriage and then had Arc drive the others home already, while Eiro stayed here in town, as he still had something to take care of.


    "Be careful, alright?" Arc said with a nk expression as he stared at Eiro, who just slightlyughed and made his way toward the castle''s gates, "Haha, what, are you worried about me?"


    "Shouldn''t I be?" The young man replied, and Eiro just looked at him with a light smile underneath his mask, "Of course not. There''s no way I''m leaving any of you behind after that speech I just held in there."


    With a slightugh, Arc nodded his head and got the horses to start walking, "Alright, fair enough. Just be home on time, yeah? We couldn''t spend the day here in town together after all, so we should at least make up for it a bit."


    "I''ll be right behind you. It won''t take long." Eiro exined as he climbed onto Lugo''s back, and the stag quickly started running toward the gates while Arc and the carriage also slowly got moving. First things first, Eiro had to meet up with the others.


    He already had a rough idea of where they were, so it didn''t really take too long to find them. Before Eiro''s feet even hit the thinyer of snow on the streets, he could already see them approaching him as well.


    "What the actual fuck just was that?" James asked with a deep frown, "What kind of bastard actually tried to kill you?"


    "Nobody. They were aiming at the Lady." Eiro pointed out, and the Light Elf stared at him in confusion, "Heh? What kind of moron would willingly try and fight a literal goddess?"


    With a slight smirk, Nelli floated up to Eiro and leaned onto his head, "Exactly~! What kind of moron would even think of that?"


    Eiro waved his hand over his head to shoo Nelli away as he turned his head toward her, "First and foremost, the Lady of Autumn is a bitch. Two, I didn''t directly fight her, I went against her will and made her watch while I ughtered dozens of humans. Three, they''re not technically real goddesses, they''re Supreme Spirits and Nature Goddesses, there''s a difference. They''re not really ''divine beings'', even if they''re close to it."


    "I''m not even going to ask what the fuck you''re talking about. But just answer me, who did that shit?" James asked again, and Eiro sighed lightly, "I''ll exin on the way. We''re heading back home, we have a bit of a guest." The demon pointed out, and turned over toward Gobo while he was at it, "This is a good chance to teach you a bit more as well, bud. I can teach you about the internal structure of the human body, about their weak points, about which points to avoid in a fight, and so on, all I want." The Demon pointed out.


    It seemed like the Hobgoblin was rather excited about it, but due to Eiro''s weird voice that was both calm and excited at the same time, James, Jess and Krog felt shivers all over their bodies.


    The group made their way to the manor, and as Eiro had promised, they didn''t arrive muchter than the children did.


    "Ah, there you are! You really dide back quickly." Arc eximed with a broad smile, as he barely finished bringing away the horses just now, and then turned toward the others, "d to see you''re here as well... pretty crazy day, huh?"


    "You can say that again..." Krog replied with a wry smile, "I thought we could rx and eat super delicious food today!"


    "Haha, don''t worry, Rudy said he''d cook something up to calm down his nerves. Felix and Sammy are preparing some tables in the garden so that we can look at the lights in the sky anyway." Arc pointed out, and Jess opened her eyes wide excitedly, "Ooh, that sounds nice! Eiro, is that why you told us toe with you?"


    "Actually, no, I didn''t know about this yet. Arc, tell the others we''ll be right there. I just need to show these guys something." Eiro said, and Arc simply shrugged in response, "Gotcha. Again, don''t bete!"


    And with that, Eiro brought his party, as well as Gobo and the slime, into the mansion.


    He brought them down the stairs, and to the back of the basement. He pushed things around on the wall, using mana for some parts and avoiding it for others, before the magically hidden wall in front of them disappeared.


    "We''re in the... dungeons? But why are we..?" Jess asked confusedly, and Eiro simply stayed silent as he brought them over to a specific cell.


    "It''s simple, Jess. I''m introducing you to our guest." Eiro pointed out as he stopped in front of a single cell. In front of that cell were three tablesid out, each holding the naked body of three dead people, two male and one female. They were right within sight of the man currently chained up inside of that cell, who was struggling to regain his consciousness.


    "Let me introduce to you, the moron."

 Chapter 216 - Forces Of Nature

    "Moron..? Wait, is this the guy that attacked the Lady?" Jess asked with a deep frown, ncing over toward the three corpsesying on the tables in front of the cell, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yes, that''s him. He''s part of the same organization as Evelyn. He seemed pretty strong, but he was apparently quite an idiot and wasn''t aware of what I could do, so I was able to beat him rtively easily. I think stat-wise he''s strong, but he''s not particrly skilled, if that makes sense."


    "I... I guess it does? But what about these guys? Why are they here?" James asked with a concerned expression, "They''re not just random people, are they..?"


    With a slight sigh, Eiro shook his head immediately, "I''d have thought you would notice. But no, they''re not just normal people. I was the one that killed them, but that''s because they''re part of the same organization as this guy. Albeit, on a far lower level. They''re small-fries, really. Any of you could take on ten of these at once."


    "I see... But why did you think I would have noticed?" The Light Elf asked confusedly, looking at them, "Am I supposed to know them or somethin''?"


    Eiro stepped over toward one of the bodies and lifted the arm of one of them up, before spreading mana around this man''s skin. A few momentster, a white, glowing pattern with a slight blue tint appeared on the man''s wrist, "This is a special spell meant for identification purposes. It''s technically simr to the system that''s been imbued into our Guild Cards, just a bit of a variation." Eiro exined, "This stuff can''t be faked, sadly. And this one won''tst too long anymore either, so I can''t just cut off a strip of skin and pretend I''m this guy."


    "Right, sorry that I didn''t pay attention to the subtle spells ced onto their wrists instead of the fact that there are random dead bodies in front of me." James replied as he clicked his tongue with his arms crossed, and Eiro just shrugged a bit in response, "Fair enough. Well, either way, we just have to wait a bit until-"


    And just as Eiro was speaking, the thing that he had been waiting for happened just at the right time. The man in the cell woke up.


    "Eh...?" He groaned loudly, immediately trying to grasp his arm and neck in pain, but Eiro just smiled broadly as he squatted down in front of the cell, "Ah, don''t worry, I made sure to heal you right up! Just that I''m not particrly amazing at emergency-treatment, so it might still sting a bit." The demon pointed out, and the young man slowly turned his eyes toward Eiro in confusion.


    "Wh-What did you do to me, you lowly-" He eximed with a deep, hateful re and a raspy, broken voice that came from his half ripped-apart throat, but Eiro quickly interripted him by slightly manipting the rock ceiling and floor above and below the solid steel bars in front of the cell to make the bars creak loudly to interrupt him.


    "Hah, you really are an idiot. How did you even get to a stage where you were given two of those special items? Gloves that let you shrink down anything you touch as well as a ring that lets you slow down time, as well as a special imnt that slows down time for you in case you die, so that people cane to help you out. That''s about it, right?" Eiro asked with a slight grin on his face, and the eyes of the man in front of him took on a rather pleasant form. A form of shock, fear, and despair.


    "Well then, seems like you''re speechless, huh? Finally, I thought you were being a bit annyoing before. Let me exin the way we''re doing this to you in very, very, very simple ways that even aplete and utter piece of trash like you will understand to you. You will answer my questions, or else you will experience a lot, and I mean a lot, of pain." The Demon pointed out, but the man just red back at him, "I''m not gonna tell you a-anything!" He yelled out, and Eiro sighed loudly and scratched the back of his head, "Hm... Shit, I really didn''t expect that answer." Eiro pointed out, "But well, I guess I can give you some time to think it over first. I''ll leave these guys so that you''re not as lonely, alright?"


    With that, Eiro slightly propped up the upper bodies of the three corpses on the table, and positioned their heads so that their dead eyes were just staring right at the man''s face.


    "Ah, and by the way, tell those guys to make that damn time-slow item a bit weaker... It was pretty annoying to catch enough of them to meet the limit perfectly..." Eiro pointed out, as he grabbed a cage that was standing behind the tables and brought it over toward the cell the man was sitting in. He opened the cell door and stepped over toward the man. With a slight, subtle smile, Eiro opened the cage in his hand up and emptied it out over the man''s head, before pulling the cage away from the things currently dropping toward the man.


    They were roughly two dozen rats, that were falling toward the man inplete slow-motion, "Ah, and I emptied out their stomachspletely and gave them a little bit of a... well, it''s a drug that made them super hungry and aggressive, haha. Don''t worry, you won''t be affected by the item''s effect, I made sure of that."


    Eiro pointed out as he looked at the pile of angry, hungry rats falling toward the man. There were just a few metallic threads connecting all of them together, and one of the beads had the ''safety slow-motion'' item connected to it, which was spreading it out toward all the rats. It seemed to have a limit to how many things it could slow down at once, and it seemed like these two dozen rats perfectly hit the limit.


    "Hm, I think they should be able to at least nibble through your skin by the time I''m back. Don''t worry, I''ll know when they go too far, so I''ll stop them. You won''t die here tonight." Eiro exined with a slightugh, and then went ahead and left the cell again.


    He made the others leave the room in front of him and then quickly followed, listening while the man was pleading Eiro toe back before these two dozen rats would begin to start feeding on him in utterly painful slow-motion.


    And when he left the room, he realized that Jess, James and Krog were staring at him in disgust, so it seemed like Eiro had to make something clear, "What, you would prefer having psychos like that run around all over the ce? Don''t worry, those rats weren''t drugged and they''re not hungry at all. They''re docile rats that the slime and I were running some tests with two weeks ago. They can be perfectlymanded. I told them to scratch him, but in the way they''re experiencing time, it''s just going to be like they can scratch him three or four times before being pulled away again."


    "But... it''s still torture... Isn''t it...?" Jess asked, and Eiro looked toward her with a nod, "Obviously. Psychological torture. I''m trying to make it so that he''s so scared of me that he will tell me whatever I want to know. I can''t do that with hugs and kisses."


    With a groan, Krog looked at Eiro and walked toward the stairs, "I think her point was that torture is wrong, one way or another. It''s just..."


    "Inhumane?" Eiro asked bluntly, "Heh, you know, I get what you mean. But you know what''s also inhumane? Making a Lesser Imp that was exhausted to begin with walk for hours without any rest, before practically hanging him by a tree so that the only way he wouldn''t choke to death was by standing on his tip-toes the whole time. A single slip would have killed him, most certainly. That''s not torture?"


    With a deep stare, Eiro looked at James, who slowly realized what he was talking about while looking down at the ground, "That was different, I was just thinking of all the things you probably did to other people at that point, and I-"


    "At that point, I had never dealt a single point of damage to anything. I was a simple level 1 Lesser Imp. The worst thing I did at that point was spit on another Imp behind me. I didn''t even kill a bug, as far as I''m aware. I was the literal definition of ''innocent creature''." Eiro pointed out. Honestly, he wasn''t particrly angry about what James did to him back then anymore. He got over it, really. But what did piss Eiro off was the way that these guys kept pretending like Eiro was worse than every criminal that people have ever produced.


    With a deep growl, he looked at the Light Elf, "You''re right, this is different. You know why? That man in there is pure and utter trash, that''s part of a trashy organization. Those three dead peopleying in there... I took a look at their bodies, they were experimented with beyondpare. Externally they''re fine, but internally, they don''t have anything human about them. No human organ, not even human blood. That symbol I showed you wasn''t a member-ID, it was a way for those guys to differentiate their tools from one another. Their ves. He tried to kill a nature goddess in the middle of town, and nearly killed me and my children. Had you fought against him, you may as well be dead right now as well. Now tell me, out of these two paths, which is worse? The one where a conceited little brat tortures an innocent living being for self-gratification or the one where a pissed off asshole tortures literal scum in order to get rid of even more scum for the sake of the next generation?"


    James stood there, at a loss for words. It seemed like he literally didn''t know what to say anymore right now. Eiro expected James to get angry and fight back, which may have been more satisfying than what happened next instead.


    "Yeah... you''re right. I''m sorry." James admitted, "I have no right to judge you. I''m not a good person myself... I do have the torture skill, even if I never really wanted to have it. I''m not a hero, I''m not the good guy in this. But at the very least, I want you to admit that neither are you." With a genuine tone in his voice, James looked at Eiro, who now in turn was at a loss for words.


    He didn''t expect this kind of response. It was in a tone that Eiro heard only once from James, and that was during that conversation about Eiro and James'' pasts they had in the cave in the Goblin Vige. He sounded sad, and somewhat scared.


    "I know I''m not the good guy in this, trust me. I''m not the hero, but I don''t think I''m the viin either. Rather, I would like to be a third power in this world. I told you before, but I want to abolish the system of Heroes and Monster Kings. The former has his party of the strongest people in the world, thetter has a group of strongest monsters in the world, the royals. And I want to be a third force of nature like ''Hero'' and ''Viin''. I won''t force you to do anything that''s against what you think is right, so I''ll just ask the same of you three, so..." Eiro started, and the three people in front of him stared back at Eiro, prepared to listen to the suggestion he was about to make, "....won''t you be forces of nature along with me?"

 Chapter 217 - Dialect

    "Forces of nature...?" Jess repeated as she looked at Eiro, who was just standing there as still as rock, waiting for these three to answer him. She turned her head and looked up at James, expecting him to be making some kind of angry or startled expression. He had never really been all too emotional ever since she knew him, but since Eiro came along, she had seen him make all sorts of expressions.


    But now, James was just staring back at Eiro without any sort of emotion on his face. This went on for a few more moments, before he suddenly pulled his foot over the ground, "Don''t you dare make me regret this." James said, making his way over toward the stairs while Jess had her eyes fixated on the Light Elf''s face. And when she turned around toward Eiro, he was just standing there with a light grin on his face.


    "Yeah." He replied immediately, as if he had been expecting this answer from James, before Eiro turned toward Krog and Jess, "So, what about you two? Just because James is now my underling doesn''t mean that you two have to-"


    "Did you just fucking call me your underling, you lowlife Imp?" James asked with a loud growl, his cool air from just nowpletely dissipating. Eiro scratched his cheek with a puzzled expression and tried again, "Sorry, how about... Minion? Inferior? Subordinate? -"


    "I swear, if you don''t shut the fuck up right now, I''ll leave." The Light Elf pointed out with a re, before slightly turning his head toward Jess and Krog while leaning against the wall next to the stairs, "But no matter how much this guy pisses me off, he''s right. Just because I''m sticking around doesn''t mean that you two have to. Obviously I''d like you to stay, but you have your own things to deal with and goals to achieve. This ce might not be the best starting point for that."


    Krog and Jess turned their heads toward each other for a moment, trying to figure out what the other was thinking, before Krog just groaned out loud, "Ah, fuck it! Count me in!" The heavy warrior eximed, and now, everyone was staring right at Jess, who was fiddling with her own fingers to try and figure out what she was supposed to do, before she slowly nodded her head.


    "I''ll... I''ll st..." She started muttering, although she wasn''t particrly sure if her words were the right choice, and Eiro interrupted her after noticing her thoughts, "You don''t have to choose right now if you don''t know what to do. You''re still a member of the party like you always were, don''t worry. Take your time, I don''t want to force you." Eiro said, surprising the others, as they really didn''t expect him to be as understanding as he ended up being.


    While Jess slowly nodded her head and started following the others, someone else spoke up to make a choice, "If you''re cool with it, can I leave?" The slime asked all of a sudden, and Eiro turned his head to look at the nearly translucent blob currently hanging onto his shoulders, "Of course not, Bavet. You''re my pet."


    "Oi, I''m not a fucking pet you...! Wait... What did you just say?" The slime started screaming, but his words ended up slowing down, and Eiro looked at him with a surprised expression, "''You''re my pet''?"


    "Fuck off, you know what I mean! What does ''Bavet'' mean?! Is that some kind of insult?"


    "Heh, of course not. I thought you''d have remembered my promise." Eiro pointed out, and all of a sudden, the slime''s body hardened up and gained quite a bit of weight on top of that, "Y-Y-You mean that..."


    "''Bavet'' is the Ancient Language word for ''everything''. Quite a good fit, huh? You may technically be a ''Shapeless Slime'', but it''s more like you can turn into everything. Thus, ''Bavet''. A nice name, isn''t it?"


    "So that''s... that''s my name? D-Doesn''t it sound kinda cool..? Like I''m omnipotent or something?" The slime, Bavet, muttered quietly, and Eiro turned toward him with his brows raised, "We can still change it to something else."


    "No! No, I like this one!" Bavet eximed, and Eiro just shrugged, "Alright, then let''s go with that one. Your name''s ''Bavet'' now, alright?"


    "A-Alright..." The slime replied quietly, before the group continued to make their way through the mansion to get to the garden, where everyone was already sitting while looking at the Sky and the lights subtly moving around like waves.


    Eiro turned toward Rudy to ask him if he could help, but it seemed like the young man had everything perfectly under control. He seemed to have practiced enough with his ss ability, and was now able to have the tiny humanoids help him with things like seasoning everything, at the very least.


    The demon sat down on an empty chair, before proceeding to take Avalin and Leon from Sammy so that she could properly rx a bit now as well.


    "Hey, girly... Erm, Sammy, right?" Krog then said while Eiro helped the two tired kids onto hisp, and Sammy turned her head around to look at the heavy warrior, "Y-Yeah?"


    "Next time when ya wanna get others'' attention, do it with yer whole body. Your voice is pretty loud and strong enough as is, but if ya use your body together with your voice and have the proper technique for screamin'', then ya can handle situations like today even better." Krog exined to her quickly, and Sammy looked at him a bit surprised. Krog may seem pretty intimidating on first nce, but he was actually pretty caring and liked to help others around him out.


    Well, he did get pissed off pretty easily when ites to people he didn''t even know, as Eiro experienced first-hand back when he first met him, but usually he was pretty nice. Slightly confused, Sammy turned her head toward Eiro, who quickly exined.


    "Ah, out of those three, Krog actually has the highest Charisma, believe it or not. Amongst other things of course, his role is to ''taunt'' monsters into paying attention to him. That''s why you can trust his advice, he knows what he''s talking about." Eiro exined, and Krog just started to smirk smugly while Sammy turned her head toward him.


    "Alright then... But how do I actually do that? How can I get others to pay attention to me properly?" Sammy asked. Today while she was trying to make others leave the streets because of how dangerous it was, she did really notice that there were many that simply didn''t notice her. And if they didn''t notice her, then her ability didn''t really work either.


    After a bit of thought, Krog simply exined, "Hm, since you''re not an adventurer, I''d suggest... Wearin'' bright colors. And then, ya just kinda need to move rapidly so that people turn their heads toward you. Yer voice should naturally get louder the more you practice for it, but I''d suggest not overdoin'' it or you''ll just lose your voice altogether for a day or two. When I was practicin'', I''d usually drink some rxing, hot tea with a bit of honey."


    With a wry smile, Sammy looked up at therge man sitting next to her. Even now he seemed truly enormous, despite the fact that he was just sitting, "You really don''t seem like a tea drinker..."


    "Hah, I get what ya mean. Well, it be a habit I picked up from my mum." Krog exined, "She was a herbalist, so we drank more tea than even water when I was growin'' up! Me ol'' man never really took to it though, called me a wee lil'' bitch more than just once, aye he did!"


    "Krog, your dialect''s peaking out again." James warned Krog with a smirk, who just turned his head over toward him, "Tsk... You always have toin, don''t ya?" Krog asked after fixing his tone a bit again, although Arc seemed pretty curious about this.


    "Why''d you go and hide it, though? Doesn''t seem like anything bad to me." The young man pointed out, and Krog simply shrugged, "It''s not, but you never know who you meet, right? It''s a deep Dwarvish Dialect. Not even that many dwarves speak it anymore, but my mum ''n gamps did it, so I took it on a bit."


    "Wait, does that mean that you..." Arc asked with a wry smile, and Krog slowly nodded his head. "Hm? Ah, yeah, I''m quarter-dwarf. My nanna was a human, so my mum''s half-human. My pop''s a Goliath though, so I''m still bigger than most people around."


    "Wait, what..?" Eiro muttered quietly as he looked over at the heavy warrior with a slight frown, "Half Goliath..? What are Goliaths like?"


    "Ah, well, basically they''re just bigger, stronger humans, I guess? They get like 7 or 8 feet tall. My mum was barely 5 feet tall... Ya must be able to imagine how-"


    Immediately, Eiro stood up and had Avalin and Leon sit on the chair alone for a bit, while Eiro quickly pulled out his dagger out of his treasury and pressed the tip into Krog''s arm to draw just a little bit of blood.


    "Holy- The hell''re you doing?" He eximed. It seemed like Eiro deliberately chose a point that would cause as little damage as possible, and he obviously didn''t have the intent to attack Krog, but it was still weird so he was just looking at Eiro in confusion.


    "Just got to test something..." The demon pointed out before he practically cleaned the tip of the dagger with his tongue, "I wasn''t able to tell just through smell, so I figured taste might help..." Eiro pointed out as he slowly walked over toward Rudy while trying to keep the bit of Krog''s blood on his tongue. He tried topare Krog''s scent and ''taste'' with Rudy''s scent, which Eiro knew basically perfectly already, and soon after just came to a simple conclusion.


    "I figured it out..." Eiro muttered quietly, and Rudy looked at him with a deep stare, cing down the cooking utensils and stepping away from the fire and grill that he was cooking on, "You figured what out?" He asked, somewhat hopeful that it was what he thought it was.


    "What you are. I''m sorry I was so insensitive before, but now I''m sure... Rudy, you''re definitely a human. There''s no doubt about that. And you''re a full human as well, it''s just that you''re from a human n." Eiro exined quickly, and Rudy slowly stared at Eiro, and at Krog sitting at the table behind him, "Wait, you mean that-"


    "Yes.. Rudy, you''re a Goliath."

 Chapter 218 - Superior Elemental Affinity

    "Are you sure? A Goliath? But wait, no, I''m tall, but I''m not THAT tall! And I don''t think I''ll be growing that much anymore, right? Not two more feet, at least!" Rudy eximed, unsure how he was supposed to think about this. Sure, he was somewhat excited that he was apparently a human after all, and from such an awesome-sounding n as well. Luckily, Eiro had read up a bit on Human ns! Although in the end, he was only able to really exclude certain ns to narrow it down a bit, but he wasn''t able to narrow it down to just one. There were more than just a handful of Human ns, and they were mostly pretty simr to each other, "Actually, on average, Goliaths live around 20 to 30 years longer than regr humans, and that seemed to have affected their speed of growing up as well. A Goliath will really only stop growing in the first half of their 20''s. So you still have plenty of time left to grow!"


    With a slight grin on his face, Rudy nodded his head. Being a Goliath sounded pretty awesome!


    "I think..." Krog started, "That may exin how the kid ended up here as well. You said you don''t know your parents and grew up in an orphanage, right?"


    "Yeah, that''s right... Why?" The young man asked, confused about what Krog may want to speak about. And then, Krog stood up and took off his thick jacket, revealing his muscr arms, "These''re tattoos that Goliaths give newborn kids. My mum didn''t allow that then, so my pops just gave ''em to me when I became an adult. That''s normal with half-Goliaths, though. But full goliaths have these sorts of patterns tattooed onto their whole body. It''s like... their baptism. Brings them closer to the gods of war, but further away from the gods of magic. Goliaths despise magic, for the most part. A whole bunch of dumbass brutes, really. Most of''em, you''re brighter than most people I know, kid." Krog exined, and then put his jacket back on because his arms were getting cold, while the others listened to what he was trying to say.


    "Anyway, for those that put deep value on that kinda stuff, luckily my pops didn''t care too much, a child not having those tattoos is practically cursed, and a bad omen for the tribe. Eiro said that two of you had their skills sealed away, but they couldn''t do that with you, right? Cause they couldn''t tattoo yer skin? If that''s the case, then..." And with that, everyone understood what Krog was trying to say.


    Rudy simply stared back at Krog with a nk expression, "That means that my parents just... threw me away? Because they were scared..?"


    "Maybe. Kid, listen. You should be happy that it happened. You''ve got amazing siblings and a dad that would probably destroy a whole country for you if he had to. You''re bright, kind, skilled... That stuff doesn''t fit in with Goliaths." Krog exined, "Even if ya weren''t... well, given away, you wouldn''t know who your parents are. Family doesn''t fuckin'' matter in a tribe of Goliaths. They''re literal brutes, actin'' like cavemen. Wanting to settle down with one person ain''t a thing. They kill even their brothers if they''re pissed off, take any women they want against their will, and literally just live for the hunt. My pops was pushed away cause he fell in love with my mum. It was hard for ''im at first, but after my pops left the tribe, he became a city guard. He started wanting to protect people. That ain''t somethin'' normal goliaths would ever think about. I''ve heard they throw their kids toward monsters as bait sometimes."


    All of a sudden being anything but proud of being a Goliath, Rudy turned his head over toward Eiro with a wry smile, and the demon figured he should say something to calm him down, "Rudy, I''m an Imp. A species of the literally dumbest, weakest demons there are. Now, I''m father to the one being on earth meant to destroy me with a single touch, and in a couple of months will fight in a tournament to be the Hero''spanion. What you are doesn''t matter. What matters is who you are. And even if you have impulses to ughter and kill someday... you literally can''t hurt a fly, I think you''ll be fine." Eiro said reassuredly, looking at Rudy with a light smile on his face, before crossing his arms with a grumble, "There is something pretty bothersome about the fact that you''re a Goliath, though."


    Surprised, Rudy looked at Eiro nervously, before the Demon simply stared at him, standing up straight so that Eiro would end up being slightly taller than Rudy, who was roughly the same height as Eiro at this point, "That you''re going to be way taller than me not too long from now." With a slight grumble, Eiro looked somewhat ''down'' at Rudy, who just started tough, "Hah, right... Well, I''ll patiently wait for the time where I''m looking down at you."


    With a light smirk, Eiro started tough a bit as well, "I probably shouldn''tin about height too much. After all, I have another advantage that none of you have, which is going to make it possible for me to reach heights numerous times higher than any of you can think of." The demon said smugly, and Arc looked at him excitedly.


    "Ooh, are you aiming for an evolution where you can be a giant?!" Arc asked, but Eiro simply shook his head, "Of course not." And with that, Eiro slowly pulled his cloak off his body and spread out his wings, getting rid of the shadow magic he was infusing into them.


    He moved them forward as a fast speed and caused a gust of wind to spread out on the ground while Eiro was pushed up. With a smug expression, Eiro tried his best to stay afloat at the same spot while staring down at the others, "This is what I mean."


    Immediately, Arc jumped up and looked up at Eiro with an amazed grin, "Holy shi- That''s so awesome!"


    "I know, I know, isn''t it?" With a broad smile, Eiro dropped back down onto the ground and pulled his wings back together, before pulling them together behind his back again.


    With a slight nce directed at Rudy, who was just smiling back at Eiro with a grateful expression, since he seemed to need some time to think about this all instead of having the fact that he was a Goliath be the center of attention all night.- He seemed d that Eiro pulled the attention away a bit.


    "Actually, isn''t it kind of ufortable to do that with your wings? Like, press them into your cloak to fit your shape?" Jess asked with a slightly concerned frown, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "Not really. It feels more like I''m wearing something skin-tight, if that makes sense. It''s not that ufortable, although it did feel good to stretch my wings out a bit right now." The Demon exined, and just pressed the shadow magic-stone against the center of his back with the help of his tail and stinger again. He once more infused them with shadow magic and then stretched them out fully.


    The shadowy ck mist just waved around against the air. It looked pretty neat actually, especially in contrast to the perfectly white snow behind Eiro. And then... something else happened.


    [Aptitude with the Shadow Element increased]


    [Beginner Shadow Magic Skill Learned]


    [Elemental Imp''s Racial Ability unlocked ¨C Superior Elemental Affinity]


    "...Hm?" Eiro muttered confusedly, "How in the... Thest time I checked, my shadow affinity was not even close to letting me..."


    The demon made the shadow magic stone disappear in his treasury before cutting through the notifications with his finger, and in the same motion pushed his hand out toward the shadow underneath his feet that was created due to the light of the mes Rudy was using to cook.


    "Eiro, what''s wrong?" Jess asked, but without answering her, Eiro simply made use of his new skill. It was like Eiro''s shadow was increasing in size, slowly spreading out over the areas where logically, no shadow should be cast right now, until the ground waspletely covered in Eiro''s shadow.


    "I just learned the Shadow Magic skill. Without even working toward actively awakening it." Eiro exined, and Jess ripped her eyes open in confusion, "Then that means that... that it was awakened just because your affinity was high enough?"


    "That''s exactly what that means, yes." Eiro replied, and Jess simply red at him, "So, how many are that now? Six magic elements that you have at such a high affinity?"


    "Mhm."


    "I said it before, and I''ll say it again. But I hate you."


    "I know." Eiro replied, "Just that this time, it''s a natural result of what I am. It seems to be because of my racial ability... It''s called ''Superior Elemental Affinity'', so it probably boosts how quickly my affinities grow somehow."


    "The fact that your affinities can grow ispletely ridiculous in the first ce! Eiro, can you not like... share that extreme luck with me?" Jess asked with a disappointed groan, and James stared at her with a light frown himself, "Says the girl with affinities for the four major elements and capabilities of awakening a ridiculous amount of advanced and special elements, right next to the guy that can literally feel and sense magic but is cursed with the fact that he can''t cast it."


    "Oh... erm... sorry..?" Jess asked with an apologetic wry smile, and James leaned back with a smirk, "All good, don''t worry. But well, she''s right. That''spletely ridiculous. The good thing is that you don''t need to worry about using up your shadow magic stones anymore. You can just infuse your wings and horns with that stuff without them."


    Eiro slowly raised his head and stopped using magic on the shadows around him. It was fun ying around with this, but he first had to figure out what all this meant, what this ability actually did, and how he was able to make use of it. It would be fine if it was just some sort of passive boost like it seemed to be, but there might be some active aspect to it as well, just that Eiro may not be able to figure it out just yet.


    Either way, the others were right. This was an extremely strong ability that would help him incredible amounts in the future, there was no doubt about that in the slightest. But that just made Eiro wonder even more.... What was the second racial ability that he got after evolving this time around?

 Chapter 219 - Hobby

    Eiro sat in the library, ying around with his new shadow magic a bit. It was hard to really do anything but manipte the two-dimensional form of the shadow at the moment, but at the very least, Eiro was still able to properly infuse himself with shadow magic, so he could really stop using the Shadow magic stones and could instead use them for other things. Like give them to Gobo when he was too annoying to deal with and he needed a bit of a bribe to just shut up for a while.


    The demon looked past the shadow that he was currently trying to cast onto his skin while surrounded by multiple light sources, trying to increase the level of this magic skill rather quickly, and stared at the two monsters sitting in front of him on the ground.


    "Gobo, Bavet." Eiro said, and the two monsters'' attention was immediately pulled by the demon, who just slowly stood up and got rid of the mes that he was using as light sources, "Come with me." He told them as he stood up, immediately making his way toward the hidden passage inside of this room so that he could quickly get to the basement.


    Bavet climbed up Gobo''s leg while the Hobgoblin rushed to follow Eiro, and then asked, "What''re we doing?"


    "Checking on our Guest. That''s what." Eiro exined, "Let''s hope he''s going to feel like talking to us today at least."


    The Demon, the Hobgoblin, and the slime soon made their way to the basement, and Eiro managed to open up the magically hidden room pretty quickly, now that he got a little bit of practice in for this particr door.


    Eiro stepped inside and walked through this room filled with numerous cages and cells, before he found the cell that the young man from the organization was sitting in. John Hawley. After the two dozen rats very, very slowly scratched him all over his body, Eiro chose to give him a little bit of a break for at least a night.


    Obviously it wasn''t a ''real'' break, just something that he said. Eiro was actually using that chance to practice his shadow magic a bit, since he was able to create shadows that seemed like Eiro was doing absolutely horrid things to someone else. Luckily, Bavet could recreate basically every voice that he heard before, so they pretended that Eiro was horridly torturing and killing Evelyn, someone that this man should probably know about, being a part of the organization.


    Sure, Eiro wasn''t actually strong enough to beat her that easily just yet, but at the very least he was able to convince John that this was the case. He didn''t actually know Eiro''s stats, after all, so there was no way that he didn''t already think that Eiro was really strong after beating him that easily.


    Sure, he was only really able to beat John within a minute of actually trying to because John was an idiot, but he himself seemed pretty conceited, so it wasn''t a surprise that he thought Eiro was that much stronger than him. Eiro just wanted to deepen those thoughts in him, so that he wouldn''t even get the idea of trying to escape.


    Either way, now that everything was done, Eiro stepped up in front of the cage, looking into the one proper eye that John had left, since Eiro destroyed the other one with his stinger before.


    "Hey there. You alright? Sleep well?" The Demon asked with a bright smile on his face as he sat down cross-legged in front of the cell, staring at the man sitting inside of it, "Wh-What do you want from me...? Listen m-man, I''ll do whatever you want if you just let me g-go..."


    "Sorry, that''s not happening." Eiro replied bluntly, without even having to think about it. It was clear that he would say this at one point or another, "The reason you''re here is pretty simple. You attacked us, and you hurt me. Then you attacked my son. You can be happy that you''re not dead yet. Although, in a few days you''ll wish you were, haha."


    "Please... I''ll give you mon...money or... women... I-I heard you''re into li-little kids, right? I can br-bring you-"


    "Why do you people keep thinking that I''m ''into kids''? One, I have no sexual urges in the slightest. Two, the children your organization knows about are my children. As in, I am their parent, and I try my best protect them from any sort of harm."


    "B-But you''re a demon, you-" The young man in the cell eximed, and Eiro just rubbed the bridge of his nose as he stood up, "Fine, then let''s do it this way..." Eiro sighed as he turned around toward the three tables with the bodies of the three goons. Weirdly, they didn''t really start rotting at all, which seemed to be a side-effect from all of the different substances they were injected with. But either way, no matter if their internal organs, blood, and numerous bodily fluids were switched out with other things, one part stayed the same. The flesh. They still had human flesh.


    Eiro used his dagger to cut off a thin strip of flesh from the woman''s arm, and then brought it over to the cell again, while Gobo and Bavet were simply watching Eiro do all this.


    "You don''t seem too knowledgable about a lot of things. For one, the fact that I''m not disgusting trash like you." The demon pointed out, "Well, I might be, but I''m another sort. Let''s take some rotten food that''s been left out on the dumps for two weeks, was then eaten by some wolf and then shat back out. You''re the hairy white mould that grows on that shit. I''m just garbage that someone threw onto the side of the road. You are far, far more disgusting. In my opinion at least, others may disagree." With that, Eiro slowly opened the cell and stepped inside. John was chained to the wall, so he couldn''t reach Eiro right now, so the demon just casually sat down there.


    "Since you don''t even understand something so basic, I have to assume that you''re an idiot. And as an idiot, you may not know about this. But do you know what exactly happens when a person eats another person?" Eiro asked with a slight re, and John looked at Eiro with a terrified expression, "Th-They get the... the ''Taboo'' skill..."


    "Good job! That''s exactly it! And do you know what happens to a person with the taboo skill?" It seemed like after Eiro asked this, John was actually a bit too terrified to reply, so the demon just continued for him, "Well, it''s pretty simple. Throughout the beginner grade of the skill, you simply be an animal. Of course you''ll still be fully conscious, and your personality will be mostly intact, at the start at least, but you won''t be able to control your body like before. You''ll start hallucinating. And at the end, you will listen to whatevermand you''re given by anyone. Then, in the apprentice grade, not your mind, but your body will change. You''ll lose your hair, your skin will dry up and thicken to be like leather. You will hunger for more and more flesh from other people, and you will not be the same person as before. And then, at intermediate grade, the highest I know about right now... You will be nothing but a monster." Eiro exined quickly.


    "I would like to see how that change actually happens, but for now, I''m only really aiming for the beginner grade skill. You''ll be very easy to convince to tell me things, at maybe... well, level 20 or 30 sounds about right." The demon pointed out with a smile, "Ah, and the best thing is, the taboo skill makes you want to continue eating the flesh of people more than anything else. It''s kind of insane actually, at least ording to what I''ve read before. Anyway, now, after that bit of an exnation I have good and bad news for you. Which do you want to hear first?" Eiro asked with a smile, and John nervously stared back before pulling his lips apart.


    "Th-The-" He started, but Eiro justughed and shook his head, "Yeah, I don''t care. Let''s start with the bad news. You can''t get the Taboo skill unless you actively choose to eat the flesh of people! Since it''s basically a curse bestowed by gods, and sadly those gods aren''t idiots, so they only ruthlessly judge those that end up actively choosing to eat others. So, you won''t be getting that skill anytime soon." Eiro exined, and John immediately had a sigh of relief on his face, although he soon realized what Eiro said at the start of this.


    "Hm? Ah, you''re wondering why that''s a bad news, right? Well, as I said, I''d have loved to see your taboo skill increase in level ever so slowly, so it''s bad news for me. But hey! At least the good news is for you!" Eiroughed, "You still have a little while left until you go so mad from hunger you''ll voluntarily eat the human flesh. In that time, you still have the chance to tell me about everything while I torture you regrly. Sounds like a fair deal, right? At least you wouldn''t turn into a mindless monster. That would be just a shame, now wouldn''t it~?"


    Eiro stared at John with a slightly pleased grin on his face that he couldn''t properly hide anymore. Sure, Eiro often said that he neither a monster nor a person, but fact was that he seemed to have parts of a monster after all. He also had parts of a person, so it was more like he was both a monster and a person, but that''s beside the point.


    In times like these, when Eiro saw a person he truly despised make an expression of horror, fear, and disgust, he simply felt so... good. He didn''t feel this when it was a person he liked, didn''t know, or even just somewhat disliked. The only times when he felt like this was when he observed this on someone hepletely and utterly hated. Like this Johnny-boy right here.


    And it seemed like he noticed that Eiro was enjoying this. And thus, he hurled the bit of saliva he had in his mouth right toward Eiro, who just stopped it with some water magic and flung it right back into John''s mouth and down his throat. He figured this was a good enough chance.


    "That was a bad choice, bud." Eiro chuckled, but the young man just red at Eiro, "Fuck you!" He yelled out, trying to practically rip the chains off of him however he could, but the demon just kept staring at him before he snapped his fingers.


    Immediately, John stopped what he was doing and ripped his eyes open wide before he started squirming in pain as Eiro froze the saliva John spat at him. Of course, before that happened, Eiro did his best to spread the saliva out around his throat. Breathing became hard as ice-crystals formed and tightened the paths the air could travel, while he was experiencing intense frostbites from the inside.


    Any attempt at speaking just caused even more pain as John basically ripped his own throat apart by pulling the parts that were stuck together because of the ice away from each other. And of course, that pain just made him scream more. It was truly an infinite cycle!


    Well, two, actually.


    One direct cycle where the pain inflicted on John caused him to move around, which in turn hurt him even more.


    And a more subtle cycle, where the pain and suffering that John was feeling made Eiro even more excited, making him want to hurt him even more.


    It seemed like Eiro found another hobby for the next few weeks.

 Chapter 220 - Taking Over From The Inside

    "Gobo, look here. What was this part called?" Eiro asked while looking at the Hobgoblin, who leaned in closer and looked at the open, gaping wound that Eiro had opened up on John''s hand. Gobo thought for a little while before looking down at this own hand, rubbing it with his fingers a bit.


    "The... Trique... Triquetral bone?" Gobo asked nervously, but Eiro immediately shook his head, although he did have a smile on his face, "Close, but no! This is the ''Pisiform'' bone. It''s directly connected to the Triquetral, though, so I''ll let that pass." The Demon said with a light smile on his face, and Gobo looked back at Eiro with a bright smile.


    "Thank you, Master!" He eximed excitedly. Over the past little while, Gobo had be surprisingly good at Common, at an incredibly fast pace. Well, it was one of the main things he was trying to learn, and he still spoke like an idiot most of the time, mispronouncing words wrong, or simply using the wrong words. He had improved considerably, though. Possibly even faster than Eiro could have without the skill boost he was given by Avalin back then.


    Either way, next, Eiro pushed one of his tools into the open wound in John''s hand to swiftly remove both the Triquetral and Pisiform bones, which he then reced with a special piece of magical wood that he specifically prepared for John. It probably wasn''t a perfect fit like Eiro''s hand was for himself, but it should still do the part. This was really just a bit of an experiment, after all.


    "It... It hurts... Stop... just s-stop..." John stuttered quietly, with a weak voice, but Eiro just looked at him with a light smile, "Hm? Do you finally feel like telling me now?"


    John slowly turned his eyes toward Eiro and just looked at him with a deep re. It seemed like just looking at him infuriated him at the moment, so he was even more keen on not telling him about anything right now, "Fu..ck you..." He muttered. Eiro shrugged and continued putting the wooden bones into ce. These two were thest ones that he needed to switch out in the hand that was leftover.


    Really, Eiro just wanted to see how well this would work, and how stable these pieces of wood werepared to regr bones while inside of the body. Oh, and of course if there would be any change to the dexterity after the hands were properly healed.


    For now, Eiro quickly changed the flow of John''s life force and poured it into these two extra wooden bones before taking some of the highly-refined water that Nelli made for him and started to try and heal this wound.


    Really, John''s hand waspletely covered in scars now, but for the most part everything had healed pretty well. "Alright! Seems like everything''s done." The Demon pointed out, "C''mon, try and move your hand for me."


    Eiro said and slowly let go of it, but for now, it simply hung down. With a slight sigh, Eiro grabbed John''s wrist and slightly pressed down onto it in some parts, forcing the hand''s muscles to tense up in specific ces so that Eiro could see it was moving properly at least.


    It apparently didn''t hurt more than it should after just barely being healed a little bit, and the movements worked out properly. Eiro was a bit worried that there would be issues and certain parts would move around in ways that Eiro didn''t want them to, but in the end it seemed pretty normal.


    Eiro slightly sighed, so he moved on to the next step. Thest step of this initial test. He got rid of the life force that he just put into the wooden bones a few moments ago. Usually, that would cause parts of one''s body to simply die off, but these were never parts of his body in the first ce. Since the body of a living being didn''t move because of the bones, but through the retraction and extension of muscles, it shouldn''t change the way the hand could move either, something that Eiro confirmed after pressing down onto the wrist again a few momentster. The main reason why he put Life Force into the wooden bones in the first ce was so that the healing process would work properly, making sure that they were fixed into ce even after the wounds were closed up magically.


    Anyway, as Life Force didn''t naturally flow into inanimate objects, they would end uppletelycking life force. And since they were such inanimate objects, Eiro could do something else. He pulled out his three of swords andbined the five des with different wooden bones inside of the hand.


    Luckily, the des didn''t cut up the flesh while this was happening, but simplybined with the wooden bones by just turning into something mist-like and gliding into the skin. And now, Eiro could freely control John''s hand.


    Sure, while the bones didn''t usually control the movement of a living being''s body, that was just because they had no way of actually moving on their own. If the bones were capable of moving, as long as the body didn''tpletely resist those movements, it was possible for the bones to move the body around.


    Eiro actually just had a little bit of fun with this now.


    While it was surely annoying that Eiro had to control every bone as it was now individually, that would change with practice. For example, there was one tool that Eiro had that could flip open. If hebined a single one of the three of swords'' des with it, he was now able to not only move the tool around, but also make the tool flip open.


    That meant that if Eiro practiced enough, he should be able to at some point control this handpletely just bybining it with a single one of his des. And if he scaled that up even more, he may be able to control a whole person''s body perfectly like that, something that simply wasn''t usually possible with any sort of magic. The only one that Eiro could think of that allowed such fine control was the type where you created an artificial form with magic itself and then specifically controlled it, but most other kinds were those where the body was moving on its own and was simply givenmands. Like necromancy or charm magic, for example.


    Like this, Eiro would be able to have people with these special bones walk around on their own, and then take control of thempletely if he needed to. As he was able to manipte the length of the three of swords'' threads, as long as he concentrated on a single one, he should be able to control someone from a fair distance while Eiro was safely watching and trying to figure out a possibly dangerous enemy''s skills and abilities.


    Of course, Eiro was mainly nning on using this on monsters, and not really people, since beasts wouldn''t even know that such a change happened if Eiro knocked them out, but it was harder to pretend with people, especially if they were warriors. They may notice at some point if their broken bones stopped healing. And of course, there were some nerve-based issues as well that they could figure out. So as long as Eiro didn''t have a solution for that, it would be hard to figure out ways to use this on people. There probably wasn''t anyone that would let Eiro do this kind of thing to them willingly.


    Eiro already thought about creating different wooden puppets that he could freely control, but then there really wasn''t any choice but to control them at all times. He couldn''t just disconnect from them if he had to, so it would be bothersome and could only be used in specific situations.


    Either way, for now, Eiro figured he had done enough to John for the day. He had practiced his mana-based torturing on him earlier in the day, so John was probably too exhausted to go on anyway. It would be boring if he ended up falling unconscious at some point.


    And so, Eiro disconnected the three of swords from John''s wooden bones again and then made his way out of the cell.


    "Sleep well, Johnny." Eiro said with a light grin on his face before walking out of this hidden room and stretched out a bit, "This is actually getting a bit bothersome. He really won''t speak no matter what I do. And he stopped screaming as much, so he seems to grow used to the pain."


    "That, or he physically just cannot scream anymore because of how much he has already done it." Gondos suggested in response, but Eiro just shrugged, "Maybe, but his throat doesn''t really seem too irritated at the moment, so I don''t know. We''ll have to see. His body seems to be reacting to his hunger at this point, he''s looking pretty thin. It shouldn''t take that much longer."


    "Good... Those three corpses just reek like shit." Bavetined, and Eiro turned his head toward him, "You think I don''t know that? Obviously I know that, but it''s part of the process. The way those bodies are decaying is irregr and particrly nasty because of how they''ve been experimented with. Since John constantly has to look at them when his eyes are open, which they usually are out of fear of what might be around him at this point, it''s putting constant strain on him mentally even while I''m not there to actively hurt him. And eating rotten flesh increases the taboo skill''s level even more quickly." Eiro pointed out, and Bavet stared at him intensely. Well, he didn''t have eyes, but Eiro could just feel it.


    "There''s something else, isn''t there?" He asked, and Eiro looked down at him with a slightugh, "Heh, you know me too well at this point. Honestly, just imagining him eating that rotten, disgusting flesh makes me kind of happy." The Demon pointed out with a broad grin on his face, while Bavet just groaned loudly.


    "You sure you don''t feel lust? That sounds exactly like what a pervert would say."


    "Haha, don''t worry, this doesn''t fulfill me sexually at all. It''s more of a... spiritual experience." Eiro pointed out, "Anyway, speaking of experience, let''s go out a bit again. The two of you are actually pretty close to evolving, so it would be a shame not to pursue that as quickly as possible. We can''t really waste too much time on this whole thing after all. There''s kind of a time limit on how long we can wait until the people at the organization think that John''s dead. And if that happens, it''s going to be hard to infiltrate the ce. Before then, I would like you two to be a bit stronger."

 Chapter 221 - Toxin Resistance

    Eiro looked around himself, trying to find the nearest Ground-Crawler, a stealthy bug-like monster that usually had a carapace covered in things like rocks, dirt, moss, and small nts. They had pretty potent paralysis venom, and since they attacked anything they could see using that venom, they were a threat to even high-level people, since even they didn''t usually have amazing resistance against things like poisons or venoms. And since they were incredibly hard to spot before it was toote, this was a request that wasn''t taken all too often except in special cases.


    And this time was a quite special case, since Eiro was the leader of the party. Eiro had already proven multiple times within the guild that he had incredible perception and could see through things like stealth quite easily, so the people at the guild actually came forward first and asked Eiro and the others top take on the request. These Ground-Crawlers recently became rather troublesome and increased in numbers quite a bit, so as many of them had to be taken out as possible.


    Honestly, this came in at quite an amazing time. Monsters that only they would end up fighting. And of course, they could spend as much time on this as they needed. They didn''t even need to hand in any sort of special materials for this, they just had to prove that the Ground-Crawlers were killed. That meant that Eiro could cut these bugs open and store their venom somewhere.


    This would definitely be useful for the infiltration of the Organization. Because there was a bit of a problem. While Eiro knew that he should be able to produce things like venom in his stinger himself, no matter what he tried, it simply didn''t work. And so, until he figured that out, he would need to rely on external sources.


    Of course, there was also another benefit to this. Eiro slowly pulled out a little bit of the paralysis venom out of the bottle he kept it in and then quickly led it to his mouth before ingesting it. It was a very small amount, enough to only somewhat restrict Eiro''s bodily functions, but it was still enough to give him a bit of practice for a certain skill.


    [You have been affected by Minor Paralysis. All physical movements will be restricted by 30%]


    [Beginner Toxin Resistance has leveled up!]


    "Perfect." Eiro muttered quietly as his body shuddered in response to the venom travelling through his body. It was a good idea to switch between ingesting it and pushing it into a cut in his arm, since that was really the main difference.


    If a toxin took effect through ingestion, touch, or inhtion, it was a poison. If it took effect by contract through a wound, for example after being bitten by a snake or stung by a bee, it was a venom. Sure, there were more minor differences, but the system seemed to be happy with the first exnation.


    Because when Eiro first swallowed this substance, he received the ''Beginner Poison Resistance'', and when he pushed it into a small cut he created on his arm, he received the ''Beginner Venom Resistance'' skill.


    Those two thenbined and became the ''Beginner Toxin Resistance'' skill. Really, Eiro should have just done this sometime earlier. Sure, he was never really met with things like poison or venom, as he was usually able to avoid it, but now that he yed in the big leagues and would continue meeting people with rather unique, diverse skillsets, it was only a matter of time until he met someone or something that was capable of using poisons.


    Having a resistance against those shoulde in useful, definitely. Especially if he would end up using venom himself. It would be a bit bothersome if he ended up somehow injuring or infecting himself using different substances. He wasn''t sure if he was going to be innately resistant against those.


    With a wry, disgusted smile, James stared at the Demon, "The hell are you doing, you masochist? Won''t you stop finally doing that? What if something happens and we need you?"


    "Oh~? Does that mean you''re scared without me? I mean, it makes sense for a minion to be useless without their master." Eiro chuckled lightly, but soon had a ck dagger held in front of his face, "I''ll kill you, you know?" James growled, but Eiro just continued to smile.


    "Heh, go ahead and try, my dear minion." The Demon replied. And soon, he heard someone elsein simrily, "Oi, I''ll help him if you don''t stop this! I know venom doesn''t work on my like normal, but it''s still not pleasant!" Bavet eximed loudly, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward the slime that was currently enveloping a Ground-Crawler with his body.


    "...What are you doing?" Eiro asked him, and Bavet just stopped for a moment. Despite the fact that he didn''t have eyes right now, the Demon could still feel the Slime staring at him intensely, "I''m killing this thing, but you said I can''t transform, so it''s going to take a while... You want me to strengthen my acid, right?" Bavet asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "Theplete opposite, actually."


    Eiro quickly made Bavet ''spit out'' the Ground-Crawler and then looked back at the slime, "What I meant was that you should keep the base shape of a slime. Or rather, the shapelessness of a slime. I want you to strengthen your transformation abilities."


    "Then how the fuck am I supposed to kill that thing while I''m in the shape of a slime? And how''s that gonna strengthen my transformation? Are you an idiot?" Bavet asked, but Eiro just slightly red at him, "Just because I''m a bit nicer to you doesn''t mean you can speak to me like that, you know?"


    "...right, sorry..." The slime apologized nervously, but the Demon just sighed, "Don''t worry. Just start properly listening to me from now on. I said to keep the base form of a slime, not that you can''t transform. Change your shape into things that aren''t specific objects you''ve seen before, but rather... concepts. You''ve done it before, when you were leading me, Sammy and Leon up the mountain. You shed a part of your slime body toward me and turned it into a sharp de, but it wasn''t a particr object. You just took the concept of a de and applied it to yourself. That''s what I want you to do."


    "Oh..." The slime muttered, "So that''s it? You want me to practice changing different parts of myself intopletely different things, is that it?"


    "Amongst other things, yeah. I just want you to get your control up as much as possible. These things will influence your possible evolutions, after all." Eiro pointed out. The slime slowly wiggled his body, probably his equivalent of nodding his head, and then concentrated on the Ground-Crawler again. Once more, Bavet enveloped the bug-like creature with his own body, but instead of trying to dissolve it like before, he did something else.


    He turned parts of his insides into needles that he then pressed right into the Ground-Crawler''s weaker areas, quickly killing it before spitting it back out, "So that was what you wanted me to do?" Bavet asked, and with a satisfied expression, the Demon nodded his head.


    "Mhm, that''s exactly it. Good job. Just keep doing that, and try toe up with different, new ways to kill them that don''t require you to change your base shape into something else entirely."


    "Sounds bothersome though..." Bavet slightlyined, but at this point, Eiro already stopped paying too much attention to him, and instead turned over toward the second one that really needed that attention. Gobo.


    Eiro was trying to make sure to teach him in differentbat-based disciplines depending on what kinds of things he had talent for, but somehow he didn''t understand that he didn''t need to try and do everything all at once, but instead should just try and switch between different abilities to make everything a little more efficient.


    For example, trying to cast a spell while swinging your de toward someone may seem like a pretty good idea to save time, but in the end that''s just going to turn into sloppy spellcasting and swordsmanship. Those that had a hard time multitasking would never be able to do this kind of thing, and while Gobo certainly was intelligentpared to other Goblins or Hobgoblins, he still wasn''t that smart.


    Eiro was able to do this kind of thing at this point in time, but even then that would mean that he had to concentrate really hard, and often Eiro would even make a small mistake. They were never at the level of costing him his life or something, and Eiro was able to judge the situations properly for when he could and couldn''t make use of this, but Gobo was different. He really wasn''t capable of doing that, and didn''t particrly seem too interested in it either. Instead of focusing on the big picture, he was concentrating on the details. He didn''t let his eyes move away from the target, his main enemy.


    To an extent that was a good thing, but it was something that could cost him his life if he was fighting against multiple enemies at once. And considering the time that Eiro already put into trying to raise Gobo into a proper fighter and asset, it would just be aplete and utter waste to let something like that simply happen without even trying to do something about it. After all, Gobo was supposed to be the leader of the Goblin vige. A leader that wasn''t capable of properly paying attention to others wasn''t necessarily the greatest thing there was.


    And so, just while Gobo was trying to attack one of the Ground-Crawlers that Eiro revealed for him, the Demon threw a small rock at him. Not hard enough to cause him any proper damage, but still enough to annoy and confuse him for a moment or two.


    "M-Master, what are you doing?" Gobo asked with a slight jolt, but Eiro simply kept staring at him, something that Gobo for some reason reciprocated, simply staring back into Eiro''s eyes. Meanwhile, the Ground-Crawler jumped at Gobo, although Eiro quickly threw a rock at it, this time pretty hard, to stun it for a moment or two, at which point Gobo turned back toward it. He really seemed to have an issue with tunnel-vision.


    "Gobo, keep paying attention to that Ground-Crawler.." The Demon eximed, and after making sure that Gobo at the very least heard him say this, he continued throwing small rocks at Gobo''s body, until he would be able to properly dodge, or at the very least react to them. This would really take a while, wouldn''t it?

 Chapter 222 - Transformation Slime

    Just a few hours after they started the subjugation request to take down a few of the Ground-Crawlers spreading out in the forest, the party, plus Bavet and Gobo, managed to kill roughly ten times as many as were required in the request. And at this point, there were two news that Eiro was rather happy to hear.


    "Yes! Finally! Level 100!" Jess eximed happily as she grasped her staff tightly, and Eiro looked at her with a light smile on his face underneath his mask, "Congrats. Then I guess we can have you change your ss after we head back to town."


    "Hehe, alright~! Ah, and you said to choose the Apprentice sses for the specific elements one after another for now, right?" Jess asked curiously, and while the Demon squatted down and extracted the venom from the Ground-Crawler Jess just killed, he looked back up at her, "Yes, that''s exactly it." Eiro replied quickly, and Krog turned toward Eiro with a curious expression.


    "So, why is that, really? Wouldn''t it be possible to get stronger much quicker if we just choose higher-tier sses? It''s been proven that the growth-rate of those is higher, even if they''re harder to level up, right?" The heavy warrior asked, and Eiro simply let out a deep sigh.


    "I already exined it before, didn''t I? Jess should get abilities that make it easier to control each specific element from those. And since you keep the abilities from former sses, once she goes through all four specialized mage-apprentice sses, she should choose the ''Apprentice Elemental-Mage'' ss that she apparently unlocked before. That one should give her an ability to make it easier to manipte all elements, andbined with the specific abilities from the apprentice ones, the effect will be much stronger. It''s the same with the stats, they''re going to add onto each other much more to give you higher stats in the end."


    "Yeah, I get that." Krog replied immediately, "But wouldn''t it be quicker to choose higher-tier sses to get a stronger base, and then choose the lower-tier sses to rush through them?"


    Eiro didn''t even have to think about that too long. That was because he was under such an assumption before himself, although he soon found out why that wasn''t the case, after reading a few special books and connecting the information he got through that with the things he was told by Jura before. "In theory, sure. Just considering these basic things, though. As you said yourself, sses have different tiers. The ss ''Apprentice Fire Mage'' will be of the same tier as the ss ''Apprentice Water Mage'', but of course they will both be of a lower tier than the simply ''Fire Mage'' and ''Water Mage'' sses. Those, in turn, are of a lower tier than the ''Pyromancer'' and ''Hydromancer'' sses. And whenever you have a ss of a specific kind, the kind being ''Mage'' in this example, all sses that are on a lower-tier than that ss will be harder to level up and will give less growth-benefits while doing so. At some point, you wouldn''t even be able to switch to lower-tier sses anymore. An Archmage can''t return to being an apprentice mage. So just get the lower-tier sses out of the way first." Eiro exined as quickly and easily graspable as he could, and it seemed like everyone did understand him with that.


    The demon picked up the corpse of thisst Ground-Crawler and added it to the bag that the group was using to haul them back to the guild in a bit, "How far along is everyone else?" He asked, and everyone slowly opened their statuses in response to that question, letting Eiro grasp all the information immediately.


    James was surprisingly far away from reaching level 100pared to the others, being level 97 right now. Krog was at level 98, and both Gobo and Bavet both were at level 99.


    "It''s still pretty early... Gobo, Bavet, you two, Lugo and I will stay here and hunt for a little longer. Jess, James, Krog, you three can go ahead and get back to town already. I''ll give you my guild card, so hand the request in properly." Eiro said before he held the small, thin card over toward the three party members.


    Quickly, James grabbed it and nodded his head, "Got it. Come to the ce we rented when you''re done, we have to get things ready for the move so we''ll head back there afterward." The Light Elf told Eiro, who just nodded his head.


    "Sounds good. Then I''ll see youter." Eiro told them, and the three party members slowly started to make their way through the forest to get back to town. It shouldn''t take them too long now, and since it was still just afternoon, they had a bit of time left for now anyway.


    "Err... What exactly are we going to fight now? More of these bugs?" Bavet asked annoyedly, and Eiro immediately just shrugged, "We''ll just hunt whatever we can find. So if that means we''re hunting more Ground-Crawlers all night because we can''t find anything else, then so be it."


    Eiro could simply feel Bavet radiate annoyance right now, although he didn''t really care. All they had to do for now was hunt more monsters so that they could increase their level some more. Eiro himself managed to level up to level 4 after killing all of the ground-crawlers that he took on himself. The stat points that he got from leveling up so far, Eiro quickly invested into his statspletely randomly, to finally follow his long-overdue n of making his stats seem a bit more ''natural'' in case he encountered someone with some sort of appraisal ability.


    They would find out he was an Imp either way in that case, but at the very least they wouldn''t realize that something waspletely wrong and weird with Eiro''s stats. It was easier to deal with the information of Eiro being an Imping out than it was to deal with people figuring out that Eiro was able to assign his stats however he wanted. At least that''s what he figured, he didn''t particrly want to find out what was going to happen if this information was leaked somehow.


    Either way, for now, the group of four creatures continued their way through the forest, trying to kill whatever they could. Well, at least Bavet and Gobo were killing things. All that Eiro was doing was stand there in case of an emergency, since this was all so that Bavet and Gobo could each level up one more time. Eiro didn''t necessarily need to level up right away. Meanwhile, Lugo was simply carrying the bags filled with monster parts that Eiro was filling up after the other two killed them. It would be a waste not to collect them to hand them in at the guild, after all.


    And so, they just continued what they were doing for the next few hours, until something happened. Bavet finally stopped moving, as if surprised, and Eiro immediately realized why he did so, "You leveled up, huh?"


    "Yup." Bavet replied quickly, so Eiro swiftly pulled out the special metal orb out of his treasury and gave it to Bavet, "Good, then push your mana inside before you choose something."


    "Before I choose something? Doesn''t it enhance evolutions or somethin''?" The slime asked, and Eiro just shrugged, "I don''t know exactly how it works yet, so just try it like this first." Eiro sighed, so Bavet did as asked and pushed his mana into the metal orb. Quickly, he read the notification that appeared in front of him.


    "Well, it says that now, my next evolution will be enhanced. So, what now?" Bavet asked curiously, and Eiro slowly looked at Bavet''s liquid figure, soon spotting the part where the notification was reflected. He read through the options and then thought about it.


    In total, Bavet had three different options. One, the ''Weaponry Slime'', which would probably cause an enhancement in the area ofbat for Bavet. Then there was the ''Copy Slime''. It seemed like this one would make it possible for Bavet to copy things that he''s seen before in much more detail and precision, and possibly even copy abilities. These two things surely seemed pretty useful and strong, but in the end, both Bavet and Eiro were more interested in the third evolution-option.


    "It''s fine if I go for that one, right? The ''Transformation Slime''..?" Bavet inquired, before Eiro immediately nodded his head without a moment''s hesitation, "Of course, go for it." The Demon said wiht a light grin, and Bavet then quickly chose that option.


    His whole body wiggled a bit and it seemed like Bavet was feeling a bit weak, as his body was slightly seeping down right now, "All good?" Eiro asked, and the slime simply replied, "Yup... Just somehow don''t like the feeling of evolution..."


    "Don''t worry, it makes sense." Eiro said reassuredly, "After all, technically your body is just the slime core in the center. The rest is just stuff you''re controlling. And since the slime core is just a single substance, it will be like every single part of your actual body will change from the grounds up. You think you can transform right now?" The Demon inquired, and Bavet stayed silent for a little while. Parts of his body were changing texture and color, but soon reversed to the base state, so it seemed like that''s just how it was.


    "Nope... no chance..." Bavet replied, "It''s going to take three days, apparently... Three days of this shit? Really?"


    "You''ll just have to live with it. Don''t worry, we can wait for another couple days. Well, anyway, for now I''ll split off your core from the rest of your body. I don''t want you to suddenly transform into random, dangerous things because you can''t control your whole body. You can change it into your new slime after your evolution is over." Eiro said before he pulled out a ss bottle out of his satchel that he then slowly pushed Bavet''s core into, simr to how he did it when the two of them first met.


    "Urgh... never thought I''d return to this voluntarily... But be careful with my slime, alright? I took care of it super well, so it''s really high-quality!" Bavet eximed as loudly as he could, although most of his voice was still deafened by the ss bottle. Meanwhile, Eiro just stored the slime in another separate container as tightly as he could. He came prepared for something like this, so it was fine.


    Anyway, now that Bavet was also in the process of evolving, there was just one of them left that needed to go start their evolution.. Gobo, the Mountain Hobgoblin.

 Chapter 223 - Perfectly Focused

    Now, all the focus was put onto Gobo, since he was the only one that still needed to reach level 100 so that he could start his evolution. He continued on fighting many different monsters throughout the day, all the whilst Eiro did his best to make sure that he would end up being able to concentrate on different things at once.


    At least that''s what Eiro was trying to achieve. In reality, it didn''t even remotely work out how the demon wanted it to. In the end, Gobo just kept on concentrating on the one enemy that he was currently fighting, and if he had to pay attention to something else, he would shift all of his focus over toward that ''something else'' and then forget about the enemy that he was fighting before.


    Seeing how this was the case despite Eiro continuosly trying to change it so that it wouldn''t, the demon realized something, "That''s somewhat like Arc''s ss-ability, isn''t it..?" Eiro muttered. If he thought about it, it may be possible to use this to their advantage instead of trying to get rid of this trait altogether. Obviously it would have some uses, seeing how well Arc was able to make use of it, but it also had obvious disadvantages. Once Eiro realized that this may not be all too bad, he stopped trying to distract Gobo to test something else out.


    Gobo was currently fighting against a single enemy. There was nothing else around, nothing that he would need to pay attention to other than that single enemy. Eiro observed Gobo''s action while he was fighting this monster, and soon realized the benefits of this. Gobo was seeing everything that his enemy was doing. Every small movement, ever twitch, every physical decision it made. And that''s why he was able to actually overwhelm the enemy rather easily.


    Eiro thought about it for a little while, trying toe up with the decision of whether or not Gobo should really focus on increasing the strength of this ''tunnel vision'', or if he should try and get rid of this altogether.


    And to figure this out, Eiro tried to do something else the moment he noticed that Gobo stopped specifically paying attention to the now dead enemy. He took a rock and, in Gobo''s dead angle, threw it a bit of a distance away.


    The very moment that Gobo heard that sound, he found what he was supposed to pay attention to next and stared at it intensely, although he quickly realized that it was just a rock and then let go of that again.


    "Oh... So that''s it." Eiro muttered, "This tunnel-vision is really a strength after all, now isn''t it?" The Demon pointed out with a grin as he walked up to the Hobgoblin and ced his hand onto his shoulder.


    "We''ll do a bit of a practice, alright? I''m going to throw three things into the air at once, and you have to tell me where exactly each of themnded, alright?"


    The Hobgoblin looked at Eiro nervously, but in the end just nodded his head. He had been listening to everything that Eiro told him for thest little while, after all, so he grew used to the fact that Eiro was usually trying to improve Gobo in one way or another. He knew that he should listen to Eiro if he wanted to be a better Gobo, so that''s why he tried to listen to him perfectly, even if he couldn''t always execute themands amazingly.


    And so, Eiro quickly threw the three rocks he was holding into the air, and Gobo tried to follow all three of them. And because of the way that Eiro threw the rocks, they wouldnd on the ground one after another, and not at the same time.


    Gobo snapped his neck into the direction of the first rock once itnded on the ground and tried to remember where it was immediately after before focusing on his surrounding again. Then, the second rock hit the ground, and Gobo repeated the same thing.


    And now, Gobo just had thest of the three rocks left. And for that, he looked around and then took a quick step back after ncing up for a moment. Because thest of the rocks had been right above him. Immediately, Gobo managed to dodge the rock, and then turned toward Eiro to tell him the positions of all the rocks. But before he could speak, he noticed that Eiro seemed rather happy about something.


    "Right, so that was it after all!" Eiro eximed, and the slime core in the bottle that Eiro was currently holding was a little bit confused, "What was it? You happy that he finally managed to dodge one of the rocks you threw?"


    "Mhm, that''s exactly what I''m happy about." The demon pointed out bluntly, although it was just something that Bavet said without actually being serious. And then, he received his exnation for why exactly Eiro was this happy, "Gobo is horrible at concentrating at two things at once. But when he concentrates on one thing, then he goes all in. He gathers all the information he needs, does all that needs to be done, and doesn''t waste any time at it. At first I would have thought that he would just keep focusing on the first rock that fell down, just to be hit by the third one, but no. I told him to remember where the rocksnded, and that was all the information that he gathered from them individually before trying to focus on the next one." Eiro pointed out, "It seems like Gobo is actually pretty great at being able to distinguish between the raw information he gets in his peripherals, and then sorts through it to see what it is that he should focus on instinctively. This might actually be pretty good." The Demon added with a broad, excited grin, "I''m d to see that you''re not useless as a leader after all, Gobo."


    The Hobgoblin stared back at Eiro with a confused expression before tilting his head to the side, "Thank you... Master?" He asked, because he wasn''t entirely sure if it was apliment or not, and Eiro immediately proceeded to start trying to think about how he should use Gobo.


    "Either way, you wouldn''t be able to work alone. We need someone or something that can help you with anything that you can''t do. Something that will tell you to switch your focused attention to something else, that has everything else around you in view..." Eiro muttered quietly, before suddenly getting a pretty good idea for that.


    "Heh, I think we should get you a familiar, Gobo." That was the conclusion that Eiro came to. There were many different types of familiars, really. The kind that would be useful inbat because they were particrly strong, the kind that was able to support you outside ofbat with your everday tasks, or the kind that would be able to fill in for the things that you yourself missed. It seemed like Gobo would need one that could take on all those positions. A true partner that Gobo would trust without hesitation so that he would be able to really listen to his words withinbat.


    Eiro thought about it a bit more intensely, but in the end, he couldn''t reallye up with a good familiar just yet, "Maybe Solomon has an idea where we can get some..." He muttered, before turning back toward Gobo who seemed simply puzzled at Eiro''s words.


    "Master... what is a familiar?" He asked, and Eiro slightly raised his brows, "Ah, right, I guess I didn''t exin yet. A familiar is a being that''s directly linked to you. A partner that you can always count on. Lugo is my familiar, for example." Eiro exined as he stepped over toward the stag and rubbed over his snout, before Gobo slowly nodded his head.


    "Gobo wants.... I want a familiar." He replied quickly, before Eiro just smiled back a bit, "Good, because it''s not up for debate anyway. I definitely can''t leave you to fend for yourself with that tunnel-vision, and I can''t be there all the time myself."


    It seemed like Gobo already understood how important a good partner would be for him. The way that his personality changed from the chaotic way that he was before was rather pleasant, if Eiro had to be honest, so he turned toward Bavet in the bottle, "Hey, I think we should try and unseal Gobo''s monstrosity after his evolution. That should definitely be something like a ''fixed'' state afterward. It would only be harmful if we keep this up for too long, don''t you think?"


    "Oi, what do you mean harmful? I''ve had my monstrosity sealed my whole life till you came, and I''m perfectly fine!" Bavet eximed, and Eiro slowly looked down at the bottle with a light smile on his face, "Yup, perfectly fine." He replied, "Well, my point still stands. I think it would be good to unseal it. It''s not like we can leave it sealed forever, that wouldn''t be a really good idea." The Demon pointed out.


    "Well, first things first, he''s gotta evolve, right? So just shut it and let''s keep going!" The Slime screamed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head while he proceeded to shake the bottle because Bavet tried tomand him around, and then looked over toward Gobo.


    "Alright, you need to kill just a few more monsters. Let''s get your evolution started before the sun goes down!" Eiro suggested, and Gobo slowly turned toward him and somewhat excitedly started looking around him to find monsters to fight. But luckily, Eiro already did that for him, and then proceeded to guide Gobo into the rough direction of where they were, so that the Hobgoblin could find them on his own. It didn''t seem like there were any particr issues with it this time, despite the fact that Gobo was fighting against two enemies at once. Individually they seemed to be rather weak, so Gobo was able to simply take one that he was focusing on first out nearly immediately, and then could focuspletely on the second one, finishing the fight within only a few moments.


    In the end, it really did seem like Gobo was a talented fighter, there was no doubt about that, so they should all make sure to properly support him in that area as much as possible. Either way, now that Gobo killed thesest two monsters, there was something else that they needed to focus on as well.


    And that was Gobo''s evolution. It seemed like Gobo also had three choices that he could make.


    He could specialize in magic, he could specialize in physicalbat, and he could simply continue being a mix-match like he was now. It was obvious that both Eiro and Gobo would be alright with choosing that.. Gobo pushed his mana into the metal orb and received thest of the ''evolution-enhancements'' ced into it, causing it to crumble into dust while Gobo chose the evolution he wanted to go for.

 Chapter 224 - Unexpected Visit

    Eiro, Gobo, Bavet in the bottle, and Lugo made their way back to town. In particr, Gobo was being a little bit annoying. It seemed like his evolution would finish in three days, just like with Bavet''s, but he was beingpletely lethargic right now, which made it rather hard to get him back to town. Over and over again, he was nearly falling off of Lugo''s back, so in the end, Eiro had to make him sit in front of him instead of behind him so that he could make sure he wouldn''t fall off and crack his skull open on a random rock.


    Just like James suggested they should do, Eiro rode the stag directly toward the ce that Jess, Krog, and James were renting inside of this town, the second floor of a small building on the outskirts of the urban districts.


    Eiro knocked on the door and just waited for someone toe open the door for him. Usually he would just climb up the wall and get in through the window, but he didn''t want to leave Gobo unatteneded right now. Who knew what he would do? He was acting like he was drunk or something.


    "Yes?" Eiro soon heard Jess'' voice as she cheerfully opened the door up, and then looked at Eiro with her brows raised, "Ah, there you a-"


    "Let me take a look." The demon said immediately, and Jess was already grinning broadly, so she quickly opened her status so that Eiro could read through it a bit.


    "Ah, so you also get some bonus stats if you switch your ss?" Eiro asked as he looked at all the numbers, "But either way, Apprentice Wind Mage is a good choice for now. Let''s practice a bit once we''re at the manor." The Demon suggested as he stepped inside and swiftly removed the snow from his feet using his ice magic, doing the same thing for Gobo, while Lugo simply had to wait outside for now. Eiro would notice if anything would happen to him, and he trusted Lugo not to mess around, so he didn''t mind leaving him alone out there for now.


    "Mhm! I can actually already notice a little bit of a difference already with my wind magic in particr, although it''s not really a big difference." Jess exined excitedly while she walked up the stairs, quickly followed by Eiro and Gobo, "Well, that''s good, that shows that you have good senses for your magic if you can notice small things like that." Eiro pointed out while Jess opened up the door to the apartment that she shared with Krog and James. Most of their belongings had already been packed up, not that there was particrly much to worry about. Thergest space was definitely taken up by different weapons, staffs, and pieces of armor that everyone had for different particr purposes.


    Eiro could see a couple of things like ''Trophies'' around here as well, but it was just a minor thing like a specially-encased horn or w or something like that, quite different to Eiro''s collection of ''Trophies''. After all, he was a Collector Imp until just a little while ago, so having a habit like that was just obvious, wasn''t it?


    Either way, for now, Eiro quickly helped them out in properly getting everything ready while exining the situation with Gobo and Bavet''s evolutions, before he carried a few of the bags filled with everyone''s belongings down the stairs and brought them to Lugo already. These bags were filled with things that they wouldn''t immediately need for now, and they would just move the rest tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.


    Either way, the three of them would gradually move into the manor from now on. There were more than enough rooms for something like that, after all. Eiro made his way back to the manor immediately after departing from the others'' ce, but he was rather surprised to see an unexpected visitor awaiting him.


    Eiro quickly cleaned Lugo outside and then had him carry everything inside so that Eiro could just put the things down somewhere around here temporarily, before he quickly made his way to the room where his guest was already awaiting him.


    The Demon pushed the door open, and within moments, the guests stood up for him, "Ah, Eiro! Great to see that you came back so early!" Solomon eximed with a bright smile on his face, but Eiro just nodded his head as if it was obvious, "Yeah, I''m usually back before the children head to bed. But what brings you here, you two?"


    Eiro slowly turned his head toward Charles and nodded at him as a quick greeting as well. All of the children were in here as right now as well, all seven of them, including Felix of course. Just out of habit, Eiro made sure that they were all doing alright before he looked back at the King in front of him, who swiftly spoke up, "There are a few different things I wish to speak about, actually. One of those matters would be the Academy, which the children will attend quite soon." Solomon exined, so Eiro quickly nodded his head and stretched out a bit.


    "Sounds good. Oh, and thank you for making your guards stay outside of the property, you don''t even have your ''shadow unit'' following you. So I just have to ask one thing... Can I trust your brat? It''s ufortable to walk around so... well, restrained all day."


    Solomon thought about what Eiro was trying to say, and then turned his head toward Charles, who seemed to be a little bit confused, "Ever since you helped Charles out like you did back in Argberg, I have noticed that he changed from the grounds-up. I guarantee that you can trust him. If necessary, you may ask Samantha and help her make him simply forget."


    "Huh..." Eiro muttered, "That''s true, I didn''t even think about that yet. That would definitely work. Well, here goes nothing." With that, the Demon pulled the mask off his face and took off his cloak. Underneath the cloak, he was now wearing a special shirt that Rudy had sewn for him. It had an open back right around where the roots of Eiro''s wings were, and as long as Eiro infused them with shadow magic beforehand, he was able to stuff his wings through that hole rather easily as well.


    So now he didn''t have to walk around shirtless if he wanted to stretch his wings out a bit. Something that Eiro immediately did. Having his wings infused with shadow magic and then constantly having something press against them wasn''t particrly pleasant in the long run. So after shaking his wings around a bit, Eiro sat down on one of the chairs, while Charles was just staring at Eiro in confusion.


    "Y-You... h-he... What is... Did you know about this?!" Charles yelled out as he started breathing heavily and looking over toward Rudy, Arc, Clementine, Sammy and Felix, all of which, beside Felix who didn''t manage to read Charles'' lips, looked at each other and nodded their heads.


    "Yeah, of course we know, it''s kind of hard to hide in the long run." Arc pointed out bluntly, "He''s not a scary monster, don''t worry. He''s mostly just embarrassing, like any father." The young man pointed out, although Sammy slightly turned her eyes toward him.


    "Ooh~? I happen to remember a certain one of us pissing their pants the first time they saw Eiro..." She pointed out, and Arc immediately turned his head, "Oi, I wanted to run away from people that wanted to sell us to be weapons of war, and then suddenly came across a literal fucking Demon with a bloodied dagger towering over a newborn. What''d you expect from me?"


    Slowly, both Solomon and Charles turned their heads toward Eiro, who just sighed and figured he had to exin the situation a bit, "A person I owe to a lot died while holding that dagger, and that newborn was Avalin, who I saved from that town. I ran into Arc, helped them out, they helped me out in turn, and then we met Jura and he took us in. But that''s not why you''re here, you''re here because you wanted to talk to us about school." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon slowly nodded his head. He would definitely ask about thister, but Eiro was right, they came for something else.


    "Right, sorry. Well, for one, we brought the uniforms with us. They all have the same design, but the colors are different depending on the course everyone wants to attend. Other materials for the sses will be handed out on the first day or during the semester. Otherwise, I just wanted to let you know that everything worked out and we managed to make special arrangements so that the children''s unique skills won''t be revealed right away. Of course they still need to be careful depending on the ss, but the responsible teachers have been properly informed."


    "Oh, that''s good to know, thank you. I was a bit worried about that, truthfully. You yourself heard what those nobles said the other day after seeing what the children did, and they didn''t even properly see it. If they do figure it out, it''s going to be much more bothersome, even if you tell them to stop." Eiro added, "We''ll hopefully be able to handle everything well, tho-"


    "Wait, wait, wait, are we actually just skipping over all this? We''re not speaking about this anymore? The fact that Eiro is a literal DEMON?!" Charles interrupted, "Why are all of you acting like this ispletely normal?"


    With a slight sigh, Eiro moved his hand to the side and created a gust of wind that pushed Gobo''s hood off of his head, revealing his ugly Hobgoblin face that was somewhat hidden so far because he was just staring down at the ground. And otherwise, Eiro slowly pulled out the ss bottle with Bavet in it, and quickly poured his slime core into the container holding his actual slime. As if he already knew what he was supposed to do, Bavet transformed and turned into a human form that was just squatting on the ground while his body was practically melting because of how... exhausted and out of control he was.


    "Urgh... I feel like throwing up... And I don''t even have a stomach..." Bavet groaned loudly, and Gobo just dropped onto the ground face-first with a loud thump and grumble, "Don''t worry, Gobo will throw up for you..."


    Immediately, Eiro coughed a bit, and Gobo slightly turned his head, "Hm? Oh... ''I'' will throw up for you... Sorry, Master..."


    With a slight sigh, Eiro turned away from those two and then looked at Charles, "I thinkpared to those two, even I look pretty normal, don''t I?"

 Chapter 225 - Why?

    "I thinkpared to those two, even I look pretty normal, don''t I?" Eiro asked with a light smile on his face, and Charles couldn''t do anything but slowly nod his head as he stared at the Hobgoblin and the slime in humanoid-formying on the ground in the corner of the room.


    "Truthfully, now that I get the chance to have a better look at you, you do not look like what we know of normal Imps. Your face, I mean." Solomon pointed out with a slightugh, and Eiro just turned toward him with a bit of a smirk, "Yeah, it definitely looks much more like that of a person. If I had a different skin-color, I may even pass as one, ignoring my horns and the fact I don''t have hair."


    With a quick nod, Solomon immediately agreed, "Right, that''s what I was thinking! That brings us to another topic, actually, how do you-" The King started, although he then realized something else as he slightly turned his eyes to the side, "Ah, sorry, there was something else we needed to speak about in rtion to the school first. I think that other topic may be a bit more appropriate to speak about only with the two of us."


    Since Eiro already had a rough idea what Solomon wanted to mention, he just nodded his head and waited for him to continue.


    "It is about Felix, and in what way he could attend the Academy if he just so wishes." Solomon exined, before Eiro raised his brows and turned over toward the young man, who couldn''t fully catch what the King just said. So, Eiro looked at him and tried to exin it through hand-signs as well as he could, before Felix started to freak out.


    "A-Ah, I... I don''t think I will be able to attend school, y-your Majesty..." Felix replied nervously, but Solomon immediately shook his head and started to speak, with Eiro constantly interpreting for him through signnguage, "As I said, that is exactly why I am here. You see, there is a quite skilled man that works as the Academy''s head-librarian. He was born deaf, and is quite a fan of any form of art that he can actually consume. Initially, we intended to hire him as an Arts-instructor, but due to his condition, it was rather hard for him to work with the students, even with the assistance of an interpreter. But the moment I heard about your condition and the things you have talent for, I simply couldn''t ignore this as just some coincidence. It seemed like fate to me." Solomon exined.


    Once Felix realized what Eiro was telling him through the hand-signs, he started getting quite nervous, "A-Are you sure I could... attend the Academy?" Felix asked, and Solomon immediately nodded his head, before Felix turned his head over toward Eiro to see what he was thinking.


    The Demon was just lightly smiling at Felix, before making the handsigns for ''Your Choice''. In the end, the young man just nodded his head before slightly bowing forward to Solomon, "It would be an honor. Thank you, your Majesty." He said, and Solomon slowly turned toward Eiro with a smile, "Now that that has been dealt with, I think you and I should speak about that other thing. Charles, please try and inform everyone of the conduct inside of the Academy while we''re gone." Solomon suggested before he stood up, following Eiro out of the room.


    And thus, while randomly walking through the hallways of this manor, they started to speak about other important things. One of them being the thing that Solomon wanted to talk about before.


    "When you came to the castle on the day of the Solstice, you were speaking of some kind of organization, weren''t you? You are nning on infiltrating it, are you not?" Solomon inquired, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "That''s what I''m nning, yes. They''ve been doing quite a few troublesome things so far, and they have different artifacts that are going to be quite useful to possess."


    "Could you possibly borate on that a bit further? What did they do, and what do they have that you want?"


    For a moment, Eiro thought about what he should tell Solomon and what he shouldn''t tell him, but in the end he just figured that there was no reason to hide anything in regards to this, "You see, Argberg''s Enka was part of the organization, as was the person that tried to kill the Lady of Winter the other day. I''m trying to find out why exactly he tried to do that as well as a lot of other information on the organization, but it''s a bit harder than I thought it would be. Well, anyway, their main goal is to simply get stronger and stronger, and people like that are obviously going to turn out rather troublesome in the future, especially since they''re seeding. They have multiple cards, and they can somehow create artificial artifacts from them with simr effects to the normal cards. That is definitely something I want, especially because they apparently also know how to enhance cards to be stronger and better than before."


    "Enhance cards..?" Solomon asked, "Wait, then does that mean that-"


    "Yes, Evelyn, the Bloodstone Sorceress, is part of the organization. The amulet she wears is something meant to enhance the main stone set into it, which as you already know is the actual ''Bloodstone''." Eiro exined swiftly, but Solomon just couldn''t believe it. It seemed just extremely unexpected to him.


    Noticing this, Eiro continued, "That''s the reason why I said that we don''t need her for the Solstice when you introduced us to each other. Then, another time, she came here and tried to get me to join the organization, so that I could ''more easily fulfill my sick desires'', all of which she obviously made up herself in her mind. And during the actual Solstice, she wanted to manipte me and make me reveal my demon self, which I yed along with and showed it to you, but she assumed that it would have made you order the guards to kill me or something like that. Either way, as far as I''m concerned, she''s a horrible person."


    "I see..." Solomon muttered quietly, "It is hard to believe that a member of such a great family would be part of an organization like that, but it would make sense with the things I''ve seen." The King pointed out as he just looked down at the ground, and then turned over toward Eiro again, "But what sort of n do you have? What will you do after infiltrating the organization?"


    "Hmm... I''m not entirely sure just yet. I don''t have a set n." Eiro replied, "But that''s just because there''s still too much I don''t know about it. I don''t know the structure of the organization, nor do I know which areas and people are the most important. I don''t even know where they meet up." The demon exined.


    "But you must have some sort of rough idea of what you want to do after infiltrating that ce, right? What is your end-goal?" Solomon inquired, and Eiro finally understood what he was asking, "Ah, right. Mostly, I just want information. I want to be able to see what the members are doing or are nning on doing, and if it''s troublesome, I''ll figure out a way to stop them. At first I was thinking that I should maybe destroy the organization, buttely I''ve been considering just taking it over. If I just destroyed it, then all those people would be running around without anyone stopping them from anything, and we would have no way to figure out where they are and what they''re nning. Well, depending on what I find out, I may just end up destroying it after all, but I''m not entirely sure. First, I''ll get to the point where I can rece the top-dog, anyway."


    Solomon slightly sighed out and nodded his head, "I see. I should have expected something like this from you. So, then how are you nning on doing this? Would it not be troublesome if they ended up figuring out your identity?"


    "Of course, which is why I''m working on a way to disguise myself. I might try and rece someone with a high standing within the organization right away like that." The Demon exined, "That disguise will be ready in a few ways, so don''t worry about that. If I need to, I''ll just get rid of anyone that might be able to figure out that I''m actually a Demon instead of a person. It''s as simple as that."


    "Right, it''s as simple as that." Solomon replied with a slightugh, before he moved the topic elsewhere, "Well, I would rather appreciate it if you kept me up-to-date on this topic in the future. But there is something else we may need to discuss, as I''m not entirely sure what I should think about it. Eiro, are you currently a Royal, having killed the former <The World>?"


    Eiro slowly turned toward Solomon before smiling and shaking his head, "No, I''m not a royal. I''m a candidate for bing one, but I''m not strong enough to safely be the next <The World> yet."


    With a sigh of what could only be relief, Solomon nodded his head, "I see. I am not sure if that makes me feel better or not, however. Eiro, can you assure me that your intentions will not change even after you do be <The World>? I do not know what happens to Monsters after they be royals, but it must be something that has quite the impact on them and their mentality, is that not right?"


    "Hm, I don''t think so, actually. Mostly it''s just that they get so much stronger that they can indulge in whatever they always wanted to do, but couldn''t because they were too weak to actually go through with it. A lot of people do the same when they receive a card of the Minor Arcana, isn''t that right?" Eiro pointed out, "Don''t worry, amongst my stats, the one that has the naturally highest value is Willpower. My perception is just strengthened through one of my cards. You can rest assured that there isn''t much that can sway me. The opposite, rather. Growing stronger through bing a royal will only further increase my willpower."


    "I see. Then I really have no reason to worry, do I? Sorry if I offended you just now." Solomon exined, and slowly ced his hands behind his back, "Then, there is just onest thing that I need to ask you about."


    "Sure, what is it, Solomon?" Eiro asked with a light smile on his face. And sure, he knew that Solomon trusted him, but the question that the King asked next was still rather shocking to him.


    "Why are you, a Demon, raising the Holy Priestess as your daughter?"

 Chapter 226 - Truth And Justice

    Eiro stopped in his tracks and stared at Solomon intensely, clenching his wrist as he was trying to figure out why exactly Solomon was asking him about this. In the first ce, how did Solomon know that Avalin was the ''Holy Priestess''? There was no way the others told him about it, and considering how much they''ve been practicing how they should best hide her identity, he definitely didn''t see her eyes either.


    "How did you figure it out?" The Demon asked, and Solomon turned toward him, simply waiting for a proper answer, "I''ll tell you if I can understand your reasons."


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, but at this point, he obviously couldn''t hide it anymore. He looked Solomon deep into his eyes and let out a long sigh. "I''m not a true Demon." Eiro exined, "At least not a normal one."


    "I noticed, considering that you''re actually conversing with me like this."


    "No, that''s not what I mean." Eiro replied, "I''m not ''normal'' in the way that I was artificially created by the Monster King. Something went wrong with me, and I became a variant, which led me to straying onto a path like this. But nheless, themand of the Monster King was, and to an extent still is, part of me. Now I canpletely suppress it, don''t worry, but back then, I couldn''t. When I first used the ace of cups, I wandered into the castle in the Empire''s capital. <The Sun> was threatening the knights there and wanted to get Avalin himself. Instead, I picked her up, and brought her with me to bring her to the Monster King. I was supposed to bring Avalin to the Monster King so that he could turn her into <The Fool>. But, I resisted and instead raised her myself. And I think it was a good choice, because when I then first met a Baron from the Holy Empire a year ago, I found out that she would have already been aplete weapon of war."


    Solomon looked back at Eiro with a deep stare, and just for a moment, Eiro could see the King''s pupils turning into a ck slit while Solomon''s whole aura changed rapidly, giving Eiro deep shivers all over his whole body.


    Slowly, the corners of the King''s mouth curled upward before he nodded his head, "I see. I''m d. I knew that you were a good guy, but I simply needed to be sure about this. I know I can fully trust you, the man who is raising the one being that is meant to be able to kill him instantly, and was ready to divulge all this to me." Solomon pointed out with a light smile, and then turned back around, "There is a ce we could speak about this a bit more privately, is that not right?"


    Eiro lightly smirked and nodded his head. He knew there had to be more about Solomon than met the eye. The Demon quickly led him across the hallways of the manor and brought him to the library, before walking up the stairs to the room-internal second floor, before he swiftly opened up the entrance into the secret section of the library.


    "Is this what you had in mind?" Eiro asked as he led the way inside, and Solomon quickly started to nod his head, "Of course it is." Solomon looked around the room with curious eyes, although he was anything but surprised.


    "You knew about this ce?" The Demon figured, and Solomon slowly nodded his head, "I knew there was an extra special ce connected to the library, and many other rooms of this manor, but I wasn''t directly aware of what was hiding here. Although it certainly is no disappointment."


    Eiro walked over toward the corner of the room, where there was a specific area where people could sit down and spend their time reading, withfortable chairs, couches, and tables. He sat down on one of the chairs, and waited for Solomon to do the same, before he waited for an exnation.


    "So..." The King Skyhart started, "It is time to return the trust you have shown me. You already know about the Unique Bloodline skill that both Charles and I possess, but I doubt you know what exactly it is."


    "You''re right. I was wondering if it was a skill that let you turn special beings into your familiar, considering what you said back then, but that doesn''t seem to be the case after all." Eiro pointed out. With a quietugh, Solomon shook his head.


    "Actually, you''re not too far off." He exined, "While it has certainly happened that those without this skill have been able to form Familiar-contracts with these beings, it is quite rare. After all, if you don''t have a strong connection with your potential familiar, or the difference in strength is toorge, there are heavy repercussions for forming Familiar contracts. With this being in particr, the rules are strict, and failure in forming the contract usually results in death. Amongst other things, the bloodline skill I possess makes it so that most of those rules are simply unnecessary. Of course, a strong connection is still needed, but it is easier for us to form such a connection with them in the first ce."


    Patiently, Eiro listened, growing more and more curious the more Solomon was speaking. He had some rough ideas of what this ''being'' may be, but he wasn''t entirely sure if he was correct or not. And then, Solomon continued, "This ''being'' is nothing but the noble race of Dragons. Magic Beasts of immense strength and authority."


    "Ah, so that was it, huh? So, you currently have a Dragon as a familiar?" Eiro asked, and Solomon quickly nodded his head, "Yes, in particr it is the Dragon of Truth and Justice, Lognir. As he is currently my familiar, I have gained some of his power. It is greatly weakened through the current distance between us, but I am nheless able to see through lies. You saw it just now, didn''t you? I noticed that you were telling the truth. I cannot use this ability too often, however, and it''s quite weak as well now. Otherwise, I can see through illusions. That is why I truly did not know that you were a Demon, so don''t even think that I tricked you." Solomon exined with a slight chuckle.


    All of a sudden, everything just made sense to Eiro, "That means you saw through Avalin''s contact-lenses?"


    Solomon immediately nodded his head, "Yes, albeit just recently. The illusions they make use of are incredibly potent, you know? You must tell me where exactly you received those special things from." The Kingughed slightly, trying to loosen up the somewhat dense atmosphere, "It was actually during the Winter Solstice. Strong emotions of any kind tend to amplify these abilities randomly, and that day I certainly was feeling rather strong emotions."


    "...I see. Could I ask why exactly you and that dragon, Lognir, are so far apart right now?" The Demon inquired, and the answer was actually quite simple.


    "He left my side for a while in order to breed with a female dragon. He came back once to inform me of how things were going, and it seems like he will have to stay and protect the eggs and the dragoness for a while at the very least until they hatched."


    "Both of you are quite dedicated parents then, it seems." Eiroughed slightly, and Solomon looked at the demon with just a smirk, "You''re one to talk."


    "I know, I know. Well, I''m d that you entrusted me with this. Then I should probablyy open some further information you don''t know about as well. First, I was marked by <The Devil>. A certain situation produced another mark from that one, and ever since then, I''ve had the tendency to be angry pretty easily. Sometimes it has its benefits, but for the most part, it''s just annoying. But you don''t need to worry, <The Devil> has no intention of causing me any harm right now, and it doesn''t seem like he would care about attacking a ce like this either. So we''ll be fine for now." Eiro exined bluntly, and that was something that Solomon really didn''t expect to hear about all of a sudden.


    "A mark by <The Devil>? Are you sure you are alright?" Solomon asked with a light frown, before Eiro just immediately nodded his head, "Of course, I''m totally fine. For now. Don''t worry, I''m working on it."


    "If you say so, then I will trust that for now... But please, keep exining this to me some more." Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. He figured that was a reasonable request. After all, it was something that may as well affect Solomon in the future, and just Eiro saying ''It''s fine'' would obviously not be enough to rx Solomon after hearing something like that.


    After hearing the whole story of how the mark has affected Eiro so far, Solomon wasn''t entirely sure what he was supposed to think, "Truly, so far, it seemed like that mark has be rather helpful to you. But if it bes harder and harder to suppress, despite you being able to even suppress the Monster King''smands... Then you should try and get rid of it quite soon, is that not right?"


    "Of course, I''m trying to look into it. But it''s not exactly like this is something easy to get rid of..."


    "I see... But I trust your judgement. Of course, over the years with Lognir by my side, I have grown to be capable of judging people pretty well. Although I now obviously know not to trust that judgementpletely..." Solomon said, obviously thinking about the incident involving Charles right now.


    "Ah, speaking of judgement." Eiro started, trying to change the topic somewhat, and Solomon raised his brows a bit, "Yes?"


    "Do you coincidentally know of any trustworthy, good, preferably outlying people of the Humans'' Goliath n?" The Demon inquired, but Solomon wasn''t exactly sure if he understood why he wanted to meet such a specific type of person, especially in abination that should be rather hard to find.


    He thought about it for a moment and then shook his head, "I don''t think I do. If you''re trying to find ''outliers'' amongst Goliaths, it shouldn''t be hard. Most Goliaths that are traveling around alone are outliers in one way or another, and most of those outliers don''t belong to a direct tribe. That does not mean they act differently as if they were part of a tribe, however. But why are you looking for one? Are you thinking of having him join your party?"


    "Hm? Oh, no. Rudy is a Goliath, and after hearing about what they''re like, he wasn''t feeling too great.. So I wanted to let him meet a Goliath that deviated from the ''norm'' as much as possible, to make him feel a bit better."

 Chapter 227 - Fever

    "I see, I see, so then what happened next?" Solomon asked with a slightugh, his legs crossed over each other while he was sitting on his chair in a rxed manner, while Eiro just continued with a broad smile on his face, "Arc grabbed the rabbit meat from his te and then threw it toward Jura with full force, before-"


    "...What are you talking about..?" The young man in question asked with a wry smile as he just stepped into the hidden library through the open entrance. With a slight smirk, Solomon turned his head toward Arc, "Oh, your father was just telling me the ''Flying Rabbits'' story."


    "..." With a wry smile, seemingly actually feeling a slight bit embarrassed from this for at least a short moment, Arc turned his head away, "S-Seriously? Do you need to tell the literal king of this country that old story..?"


    "Of course I do, it''s one of my favorites." Eiro replied bluntly, but seeing that this just embarrassed Arc even more, Solomon chose to move the topic elsewhere, "Well, was there a specific reason why you came here?"


    Slowly, Arc nodded his head and scratched the back of his head as he approached Eiro and Solomon before dropping himself down onto one of the free couches right next to them, "Nothin'' specific, but the girls are changing into their uniforms, and I kind of already got mine a bit dirty, so Rudy said to leave him alone while he cleaned it. Thus, I''m here."


    "Wait, what about Charles and Felix?" The Demon asked, since those two weren''t ounted for in that story, so Arc just shrugged, "I think Felix is showing Charles around a bit or something. Felix has been having trouble sleepingtely, so he''s been going on walks around the mansion in the middle of the night and found some neat spots apparently."


    "And you weren''t allowed to join them?" Solomon asked, but Arc just shrugged, "Nah, I could''ve, but I think Felix is a little ufortable around me, so I figured I''d leave those two alone. Anyway, any interesting topic I can join in on?"


    For a moment, Solomon and Eiro looked at each other, before the King seemed to get an idea, "Yes, actually! I was wondering about something, rted to your unique skills. The timing may have been quite bad on their side, but what one of my men said on the day of the solstice wasn''tpletely false. I think due to your unique skill you can easily keep your cool in any situation, something that is an important quality for a leader to have." Solomon exined, and Arc slowly sat up a bit more with a smug grin.


    "Heh, am I really that awesome~? I mean, I kinda knew I were, but hearing it from a literal King feels kinda neat." The young manughed, constantly keeping up that grin, while Solomon continued, "Yes, actually, you really are quite amazing. But that is not why I brought this up. At the academy, they offer special sses to a select few who are known to take up leadership positions within the royal army in the future, like the children of higher nobles. Of course, I am not asking you to be part of the army, but it is still a valuable chance. They do teach leadership inbat sses when ites to working together with others, but this is the only ss specifically meant for gaining knowledge about leadership. Tactics, general conduct, the morals of a leader, and much more. No matter what path you take, whether in the army, as an adventurer, or simply as aborer if you so wish, these are invaluable experiences you may never be able to get your hands on again."


    After Solomon''s exnation, Arc slowly turned his head toward Eiro, who simply nodded to tell him that he also thought this may be a good idea. So, in the end, Arc just shrugged, "Sounds neat, I''m in."


    "Haha, I am pleased to hear that." Solomon quietlyughed, before he slowly pushed himself off the chair that he was sitting on, "Well, I think it may be about time to return to the children. It is getting ratherte, so Charles and I will have to leave soon."


    Eiro quickly agreed with that and stood up as well, before pulling Arc off the couch, because he exactly knew that he wouldn''t stand up out of free will, but would try to stay inside here for whatever reason. Either way, the Demon made sure that this wouldn''t be the case, even if he had to drag Arc out of the hidden part of the library. Once they were all outside, Eiro closed the hidden door and then turned over toward Gondos, "Could you go get Charles and Felix. They''re in the east-tower right now." The Demon exined, before the Golem swiftly nodded, "dly."


    And so, Gondos floated right into the direction that he was asked to, while the ohters all quickly made their way back toward the ce where the others were currently waiting. Eiro slowly pushed the door open and soon saw Rudy, Clementine and Sammy sitting there in their uniforms.


    While they were certainly rather simple, they still had quite a pleasant, unique style to them that made it easy to recognize anyone that wore something like this as a student of the academy. Mostly, the bases of their outfits were the same, with the main colors being the colors of Skyhart''s g, Sky-Blue and White. And then, the main things that were changed depending on the department that their specific course was part of were the ents, with small metal pins on the cor showing the main-course one was attending.


    There were still a few differences between the uniforms, for example the materials that Rudy''s were made of were quite durable, hard to stain and breathed well, but they wasn''t materials that were a good fit forbat use simply due to the special properties of the beasts the leather parts came from as well as the nts that the cloth parts were woven from. It was easy to take off certain parts of the uniform, while it was designed that it would still keep its integrity even if every modifiableyer was removed, to make it easier to work in.


    It seemed like Clementine''s uniform was specially made for those that attended a magic-based department, as it apparently helped with the flow of mana inside of one''s body.


    And as for Sammy''s uniform, it was light, thin, easy to move in, but still quite durable, at least for the clear limitations put onto it due to the form it took. It seemed like each student''s uniform was custom-made depending on the courses one attended, so Sammy''s were great for her as an Archery student, on top of being great for her for her Music and Singing sses.


    Arc''s were probably made so that he could move with them easily while also helping the flow of his magic, since he did sign up for full physical- and magicbat sses.


    Eiro was d to see that these were such a good fit for everone just material-wise, although the children probably didn''t even notice that part of it yet. They mostly seemed to have focused on the way that the uniforms looked on them.


    Soon, Gondos brought back Charles and Felix who had been wandering around the manor, and it seemed like the two young men were also only focusing on the way that the uniforms looked on Clementine and Sammy, so Eiro quickly threw small pebbles that he had Gondos create at their heads to make sure that they stopped staring at them like that.


    "Arc, get into your uniform as well." Rudy suggested as he picked up the, now once more clean and folded, uniformying next to him and handed it to his brother, and Arc just nodded and sighed a bit as he stepped into the hallway to change, although Rudy couldn''t help himself and add something as he was doing so, "This time, please don''t get it dirty right away, alright?"


    "Yup, you got it!" Arc replied before closing the door behind himself, "Ah, and Eiro..." Clementine started with a worried expression, "I''m not sure if those two are really doing alright... They seemed to be exaggerating a bit before, but now, I''m not so sure anymore." The young woman pointed out as she looked over at Gobo and Bavet, who were at this point just quietly sitting in the corner of the room.


    Eiro had tried his best to somehow ''phase them out'' for a while because he didn''t want to listen to their constant whining no matter where he was in the manor, but now that he was closer and actually did take a look at them... Clementine was probably right.


    Eiro stepped up to the two of them and squatted down. He pressed his palm onto Gobo''s head to lift the Hobgoblin''s head up so that Eiro could look into his eyes for a moment, to make sure that there was no emergency or damage notification there or something like that.


    "Hm, sped-up heart-rate, high temperature... Yeah, I think Gobo definitely has a fever." Eiro sighed, "And Bavet..." The Demon turned his head to look at the formerly humanoid figure that had by now just turned into a flesh-colored blob with a few random other colors and textures sprinkled across Bavet''s surface.


    "Well, it seems like the range of his control over his slime is much less than before. And the slime is slowly falling apart... Maybe it''s somewhat transforming into a wrong sort of substance..." Eiro whispered with a worried frown, and then pushed his hand onto the flesh-blob, "I''ll be grabbing your core again, so don''t be surprised."


    The demon pushed his hand into Bavet''s body and grabbed his slime core, which was basically burning up as well. And when he said ''burning up'', he meant it. It seemed like they both had a sort of fever, and both of their temperatures werepletely off the scales. Gobo was probably about ten degrees celsius hotter than he normally was, and Bavet could probably give someone actual physical burns, he was that hot right now.


    It was obviously because of the evolution, seeing how they usually would both be dead already with such temperatures, "Yup... This is going to be an annoying three days." With a deep sigh, Eiro picked up Bavet''s slime using magic while holding Gobo up in both his arms and holding Bavet''s core in his hand, before he looked at the others.


    "I''ll bring them somewhere where they can recover a bit.. But they''ll probably be perfectly fine, don''t worry."

 Chapter 228 - Not Quite Human

    Eiro was holding a book in his hand and was reading through it, just like he normally was whenever he didn''t have anything else to do, before he slowly turned his head over toward the side to his bed, where Gobo was currently resting with his incredibly high fever that should have already killed him long ago.


    Bavet had toy in a special container because he ended up bing hotter than even boiling water. Eiro noticed that his own temperature had risen rtively high during the time of his evolution this time around as well, just that it still wasn''t this bad. It was probably a natural result of the boosted evolution, then. Both Gobo and Bavet were physically weaker than Eiro, so they were most likely more easily affected byt things like this.


    But that didn''t matter, since the two of them were already cooling down again. The three days were nearly over now too, and it would only be a few more hours until then.


    "It''s been a while since you''ve just been able to sit around like this without doing anything major, right? Even while you locked yourself away during your evolution you were constantly meditating to try and make use of your changing body." With a rxed tone of voice, Nelli appeared right next to Eiro. The Demon flipped the page over to continue reading.


    "So?" He asked, and Nelli just shrugged, "Hey, I''m notining. I''m used to things being slow like this anyway."


    "Fair enough. Jura was never the kind of person to do all too exciting things all the time."


    With a qucik nod, Nelli agreed with Eiro, "Exactly, so all the things that we''ve been through over the past little while is more than enough for me. You can stop causing a ruckus everywhere you go now."


    "It would honestly be great if I could, Nelli. But the both of us know that that is not really the case." Eiro smirked slightly, and Nelli loudly groaned while rolling her eyes, despite the fact that Eiro could obviously very well see her right now. Well, that was probably the exact reason why she chose to do so in the end, just to annoy Eiro a ltitle bit.


    For the next few hours as well, there was not much happening. Thinking that he should try and get everything that he needed to do before infiltrating the organization over with, Eiro made his way into the basement. Gobo and Bavet were already doing a little bit better than they were before, and they probably wouldn''t die from this anyway.


    On the other hand, the one that Eiro was going to visit now may be dying quite soon, or at least he should be pretty close to dying. Eiro stepped into the dungeons and made his way over toward the cell that John Hawley, Eiro''s prisoner and torture-victim was in.


    Over the past few days, Eiro had done his best to speed the process of extreme hunger up as much as possible. One, he gave him just the absolute minimum amount of water that he needed to survive. Well, a little less than that. He just gave him enough so that he wouldn''t die of thirst before going mad of hunger. Eiro tried his best to somehow put some of John''s organs into a state where they would be working too much instead of practically shutting down to use as little energy as possible, because in this way Eiro could make John''s body use as much energy as it could and make John more hungry even quicker.


    Within the first day, John''s organs were about to fail because he didn''t have enough energy to keep them running. Then, Eiro let them slow down and fed John just the tiniest bit while manipting his mana and life force to make sure he was still extremely hungry, but not dying just yet.as


    And since then, Eiro made sure to keep him in a state that was practically bordering on death, while trying to continuosly convince him to just eat the flesh.


    When Eiro left him be yesterday it seemed to be working pretty well, but now he just had to make sure that it really did work outpletely. Of course, Eiro also made sure that he couldn''t suddenly start eating his own cheeks or tongue or something. And in a pretty simple way, at that.


    For one, Eiro pulled all of John''s sharp teeth that he could use to cut into his tongue and scratch flesh off them and his lips. And besides that, Eiro also added some neat little pieces to John''s jaw, recing some others with wood just like with his hands, to make sure that he couldn''t move his jaw in any way while Eiro was gone and somehow crush his cheeks and tongue with his other teeth.


    It was somewhat unlikely that he would resort to that, but you never knew what might happen. And so, Eiro slowly made his way into the cell and pushed his three of swords into the wooden parts of John''s jaw, practically taking subtle control of it. That way, Eiro could stop him whenever he noticed any sort of intention of John trying to hurt himself. Of course, so that John could properly speak, and eat if he intended to, Eiro also pushed some wooden teeth he made into the small ''sockets'' he already prepared inside of John''s jaw, so that he could easily put them in and take them out.


    "Johnny, Johnny, what will I do with you? You''re breaking my heart, Johnny? Do you think I genuinely enjoy this?" Eiro asked with a bitter tone in his voice, while John just stared back at Eiro with exhausted, practically dead eyes.


    With a bad attempt at creating any sort of tone toe out of his throat, John started to speak. If Eiro didn''t have his special hearing, he may not even have heard that John even tried to say something.


    "Hung... hungry... I need... need food... water... so... thirsty... hungry..." John muttered quietly while staring at Eiro, and soon proceeded to try and push his wooden teeth into his tongue. Eiro would have tried to stop him, but it seemed like he didn''t even have the strength left to do something like that.


    "Guess I worried needlessly." The Demon sighed, and soon stood up to turn around. Slowly, the Demon approached the three corpsesying in front of the cell, which have been rotting inpletely uneven ways. The organs, which were barely alive in the first ce and partially rotting already, were basically already a mush and were filling the insides of the corpses with gas that was making their bodies bloat and disgusting scents pour out of every orphase of their bodies.


    Slowly, the Demon ran a knife over the skin of their legs to get especially big, juicy pieces of their flesh off of them, and then brought it over to John.


    Eiro squatted down in front of the starved young man and held the flesh right in front of his mouth. If Eiro really wanted to give John the Taboo skill, then John had to eat the flesh himself. If he was forced to, then it was something different.


    Honestly, Eiro was pretty d that this kind of situation apparently didn''t count as ''forced'', weirdly enough, at least ording to what Eiro read about that special skill. As far as Eiro was concerned, the gods may just have the kind of mindset of ''if you were really devoted, you would rather die than sin''. And that honestly came in quite handy for Eiro.


    Especially now that John was seemingly going for it. He leaned forward a bit, at least the amount that he could with the way his head was chained to the wall behind him, and tried to scrape away a bit of the human flesh Eiro was holding toward him. To just help him out a little bit more, Eiro increased the concentration of life force in John''s jaw. And so, the Demon watched as John started to chew up the rotting human flesh.


    He was about to throw up from this, but luckily he didn''t have anything to throw up, so he could continue eating it. And so, the human flesh started slowly gliding down John''s throat. For a few moments, Eiro waited for something to happen, before he did really notice something. It wasn''t a notification in John''s eyes, but rather, they became alive again. It seemed like John was bing more energetic after finally having eaten a little bit again. After the first taste, it was seemingly not so bad after all.


    Just like that, John just continued vigorously feeding on the human flesh that Eiro was giving him. More and more, he just kept eating, so much so that Eiro had to even get more from the dead bodies.


    And then, soon, a notification did appear in John''s sight, and the horrow grew on the young man for just a moment as he sat there basically petrified.


    [You have abandoned the gods, so they have done the same to you]


    [Beginner Taboo Skill learned]


    There weren''t any immediate changes to John just yet, but at the very least it seemed like they would being soon.


    And so, Eiro started to smile a bit as he picked up one of the three bodies, one of the two men. He would save the woman for when John satisfied his hunger a little bit. After all, the ''Taboo'' skill was one that heavily amplified any sort of ''Taboo'' desire, which included necrophilia. Eiro did find something like a weak ambrosium inside one of the hidden rooms here, although it was just a discarded experiment by the former owner of the manor as he was trying to find a way to easily control monsters for different purposes.


    And so, if Eiro wanted to, after John couldn''t continue eating, he could make him increase his taboo skill''s level in another way than just cannibalism. But for now, that was good enough for Eiro, and he slowly ced the body he was carrying down in front of John, before somewhat loosening his restraints up. And before Eiro knew it, John knelt in front of the body and slowly dug his remaining hand''s nails into the flesh, before ripping part of it away and stuffing it into his mouth.


    Slowly but surely, it seemed like John''s taboo skill was leveling up and taking over John''s mind more and more, until he basically just pushed his teeth into the corpse like some beast.


    For now, Eiro sat down in front of the cell and continued to watch John as he slowly turned into something that wasn''t quite human anymore.

 Chapter 229 - Knocking

    "Oh, interesting, interesting... so that''s how the organization works, huh? And how is your position decided?" Eiro asked with a genuinely interested smile on his face, and the being in the cell in front of him slowly nodded his head, wiping away the blood from the sides of his mouth with his hands before proceeding to vigorously lick them clean with his elongated, forked tongue.


    "Yes, yes... We are ranked by strength... The stronger you are, the more rights you have... There are numbers and then letters... If someone reaches the ''Number 1'' spot, they can challenge ''Letter Z''... if they win, they be a letter..." John slowly exined while he started to chew on one of the bones on the ground in front of him. He had really changed quite a bit, and extremely rapidly at that by the time his Taboo skill reached level 20.


    His formerly tan skin had turned pale white like he was a corpse, it was dry like sandpaper. John''s teeth, finger- and toe-nails cracked and together with the whites of his eyes took on a strong yellow color while his hair turned white and heavily thinned out. And to top it off, it seemed like John was barely closing his bloodshot eyes anymore, and the color of his irises seemed to be slowly changing to something else as well.


    Really, it would be tough for anyone to recognize him like this. It was a truly monstrous curse to have ced on you. Eiro was d that monsters were hated by the gods to begin with... Otherwise he would have been cursed like this long ago. Either way, the good thing was that John was really easy to influence now. It was like he had be incapable of lying, and was now simply answering any question he asked in the most true and genuine way it was possible for him.


    "Then what ''rank'' were you?" The Demon inquired, and John looked at Eiro with a bright smile, "I was number 9!" He exined, before Eiro raised his brows, "I see... Do you know about two other members? Evelyn, the bloodstone sorceress, and Enka, the former chief warrior of Argberg."


    "Yes! Yes!" John immediately eximed with pure excitement written on his face, "I know! They are both letters! Evelyn is Letter ''H'', and Enka was Letter ''X''!"


    "Hm... So there is such a big difference even amongst ''Letters''? It should be easy to get through the number ranks, then... Alright, how can you join the organization, and what are the requirements?" The Demon asked. This was really the most important thing for now. It seemed like if everything was strength-based, he would be able to jump through the ''Number'' ranks pretty easily.


    "You need to kill a number, or be invited by a letter! But monsters can''t join, only people, only people! Monsters like you are used to make minions!" John exined, although he was quite monstrous right now himself, although Eiro just had to think of something else.


    "You''ve got to be fucking kidding me, that dumb bitch really was trying to trick me..." Eiro growled, trying to remember when Evelyn was trying to invite him into the organization, "How dumb does she think I am? Fuck, I really want to kill her!"


    "Calm down, calm down, you''ll get your chance, just don''t let your mark take over. Keep asking more questions... There''s one more thing you need to know about, right?" Nelli quickly interrupted Eiro, trying to calm him down again, and the Demon slowly nodded as he took a deep breath.


    "You''re right... sorry. Alright, John." Eiro said as he approached the cell again, with the being in front of him crawling on the ground looking up at the Demon curiously and excitedly, "Why did you try to kill the Lady of Winter? What is the reward you were speaking of?"


    "You don''t know? You really don''t know?" John asked with a bright smile, but Eiro just red at him. Immediately, John flinched, pure fear of Eiro having been ingrained into him. Even though he was slowly losing his personality, that fact was still present in his subconscious.


    "Th-The reward... For killing supreme beings... Spirit Kings and Queens, or ancient beings of surreal strength... Knocking on the doors of the heavens or hells... If you kill them, you get strong abilities..."


    Eiro looked at John, waiting for him to continue, although it seemed like that was it, nothign more was following, "I see. I guess technically, the Ladies are sorts of Spirit Queens, although maybe a bit more powerful. But what other beings are there? How do you even know about this?"


    "We have a special artifact!" John eximed immediately, and Eiro sighed deeply, "You guys have even more cards? I thought you only had three or four..."


    "It''s not a card! The cards are not the only artifacts there are!" John eximed, and Eiro raised his brows before slowly nodding his head, "Fair enough. And what is that artifact?"


    "A book... A book filled with tasks! Like at the guild..."


    Slowly, Eiro simply started to smirk, "Is that so? Then I guess that''s another thing I should get my hands on sometime." The demon smirked, and then looked at John with a smile, "Last question. Where do I need to go if I beat a ''Number''?"


    ---


    At the end of the seventh street north from the center of the slums. Turn right into the alley, right on the first fork, left on the second fork. There''s a dead end. Step up to the wall and knock onto the central one of the coal-ck bricks. One knock. Break. Two knocks. Break. One Knock. Break. Three knocks.


    Slowly, that central ck brick started to move back and beyond it, all that could be seen was a pair of eyes staring through the gap.


    "Do I know you?" A voice asked, but the man standing in front of the wall in the alley just lightly smiled back. He had a rtively average face, there was really nothing special about it. It was somewhat memorable, sure, but not because this man was particrly ugly or handsome. He simply had a unique, easy to remember face. His skin was pale, and he was wearing a pitch-ck hood. It seemed like despite this man''s height, his capabilities in the area of stealth were quite impressive.


    Slowly, he opened his mouth, "I don''t think so."


    "Then why are you here?"


    "I found a runaway dog, and its tag said toe here."


    "What else did the tag say?"


    "That it was the ninth dog of the batch."


    "Did you kill it yourself?" The man behind the wall asked, but the one in front of it just smirked and shook his head, "I think there''s a misunderstanding. I didn''t kill the runaway dog, I captured it." He exined as he took a step to the side.


    Behind the man stood another figure, slightly hunched up, biting his nails out of nervosity after not being able to eat for a while. It seemed like the person that this... thing used to be was rather well-known around here before, so despite the fact that he would be hard to recognize for most, someone whose job it was to recognize members immediately noticed who was standing there.


    "...You subdued him? What did you do?" The man behind the wall asked, and the man standing in front of it just pushed his own face in front of the gap, staring back at the person in front of him, "I think it may be better if I exin it inside, don''t you think?"


    The man behind the wall took a step back, just before the wall shifted back a little and slid to the side, making it possible for this man and the thing to step inside.


    And soon, two spirits that had been floating next to the man, of course unseen by the man who stood behind the wall before, spoke to the pale man, "It really worked, huh...? But Eiro, are you sure that nobody will be able to see through your... ''disguise''?"


    The demon who currently physically looked like a person just turned his eyes and smirked a bit. He couldn''t answer right now, after all. But still, Eiro was pretty confident that this would work. After all, he had the help of a master of transformation right now. He had beenpletely physically transformed with the help of Bavet.


    After his evolution finished, he had grown capable of different new things. One, his ability to transform into anything he wanted to had been increased considerably. If he transformed into things like steel, even many craftsmen would probably end up being confused by him, thinking that he was true, real steel.


    And two, the most important part, Bavet''s new ability. It was even better than Eiro had ever hoped it could be. Instead of just connecting to a specific slime-substance, Bavet could connect to anything. As he was technically never transforming himself, meaning that the slime core usually stayed somewhat the same, and was just changing the slime itself, the concept was the same. It was limited if it wasn''t the slime though, of course. Mostly, things that could be changed were shape, color, and texture, but the material itself would stay the same.


    They already tested it with furniture, weapons, and dead bodies... And right now, Bavet''s slime core was somewhat fused with Eiro himself. Once they split up, Eiro''s body would return to normal without any effects on him at all, but right now, he was reallypletely like a human. No horns, tail, or wings, a normal skin color, and a few more changed details about his face and body.


    Of course, Eiro knew how thorough this transformation was, so he was sure that not even Evelyn would be capable of finding out the truth just by looking at Eiro. She had initially found out about Eiro through the shape that his blood took inside of his body, after all, but now she couldn''t even do that. Really, this was the perfect disguise Eiro was hoping for.


    Eiro and John, who was led along by Eiro by a thick metal chain tied around his neck like he really was a dog, followed the man that let them through the wall. This area was a ''secret street'' of this town, seemingly. It was apparently pretty well, hidden, small, and only had one entrance. There were different buildings here, all of which belonged to the organization. And at the end of the street was the entrance to a slightlyrger structure.


    "Go in there..." The man told Eiro, and the Demon slowly nodded his head.. He pulled John behind him, while the dozens over dozens of organization-members currently scuttering around here were just staring at them curiously.

 Chapter 230 - Initiation

    Eiro pushed the doors to the building in front of him open and stepped inside without a second thought. He could tell everything that was going on around him anyway, so there was no need to stop and take a look around. And it seemed like his confident demeanor came in quite handy, especially in an organization like this where everyone was trying to be the strongest and most impressive one around.


    The building that Eiro just entered was something like a central hangout space, apparently. At the very least, there were quite a few people just sitting around tables, talking to each other,working, making deals, and caring for their weapons or tools.


    It had multiple floors which were all open, letting people from above look down onto the center of the room that Eiro was currently walking through. He noticed that many of them were doing so, actually, staring down at the Demon as he was walking along there.


    "Talk to that guy. He''s gonna help you through it. And behave yourself, you hear?" The man that was standing behind the wall before told Eiro, staring deeply at him while he made his way back outside. And so, Eiro stepped over toward ''that guy'', who was sitting behind a messy desk with a ss of liquor in his hand, flipping through an old book.


    For a moment, that man looked up from his book and then turned his eyes back toward it, "What d''ya want?" He asked in an annoyed tone, "I''m busy, ya know?"


    "Do I look like I care? I''m here to... well, sign up or whatever it''s called here." Eiro replied, and this time around, the man slowly ced down his book, "Listen here, bud, I don''t know how you got in here, but you can''t just ''sign up''. Were you rmended or did you take one of our guys out?"


    "Neither." The Demon replied bluntly, before the man sitting behind the desk just red at him, "Then how the fuck did you even get in here? You know that this is probably the worst ce to invade, right?"


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose as he shook his head, "Not what I mean. I just didn''t ''take one of your guys out''. I turned him into my... well, pet, I''d say." Eiro said as he took a step to the side and grabbed John by the cor before pulling him in front of him, holding his face toward the man that was sitting behind the desk.


    He squinted his eyes and stared at him, before slowly opening his eyes wide. He jumped up and looked past John and at Eiro, "This... This is John Hawley, right? Number 9? What did you do to him?"


    "Oh... well, nothing much. I just gave him some food to eat, and all of a sudden, he started going crazy, you know?" Eiro exined with a light grin on his face, before the man behind the counter stared at the Demon with a deep re, "Sorry, but no matter what you did, since he''s still alive, he''s keeping his position in the organization... Even if he''s like... that, it doesn''t count. So get out of here, you hear?"


    "What? So I would really need to kill him? I mean, it''s a shame, I wanted to see this progress a bit further..." Eiro sighed annoyedly and slowly looked at John. But before he could do anything, a stroke of luck appeared.


    "Yo, buddy, he just said to piss off. So I suggest you do that, before I turn you into a bit of experience." A man stepped up behind Eiro,rge and bulky. Muscles exposed, arge sword at his side, and a deep re faced at Eiro. He ced his hand onto the disguised-demon''s shoulder and tried to squeeze as hard as he could. And that ''as hard as he could'' was embarrassingly weak.


    "Oh?" Eiro smiled lightly as he saw the ne around the man''s thick, log-like neck, and then saw the number written onto it. 561. There were only a few thousand members of this organization, and considering this, this number may seem a slight bit impressive, but... It was anything but impressive, apparently. Because this guy seemed more than just weak. Eiro''s party members would definitely be able to beat this guy individually if they just tried hard enough. It seemed like what was most important when it came to recruitment was something like ''drive'' or ''vision'', rather than actual strength.


    "So I just need to kill any one member of this organization, and I''ll be a member?" Eiro asked, and the man behind the desk slowly nodded his head, "Yes, and once you''ve proven that fact to us, you''ll be a member. Now, get out of-"


    But before that man could even finish his sentence, Eiro grabbed the wrist of the tall, bulky guy behind him and squeezed it tightly. So tightly that it actually loudly cracked and broke the next moment. It turned blue and purple, and the man looked down at Eiro with a deep re. But before he could even say anything else, Eiro pulled the sword out of the man''s sheath and proceeded to stab it into his face.


    He dropped to the ground with a loud thud, and Eiro turned toward the man who was standing behind the desk with a startled expression, since it was apparently quite hard for even him to see what exactly just happened. If he had blinked, he may have missed itpletely.


    "Is it enough proof to have a couple dozen eye-witnesses?" Eiro asked with a soft smile on his face, and the man that stood behind the counter slowly swallowed the saliva that gathered in his mouth while he wasn''t paying attention. He stared at the dead body with the impaled head and slowly nodded his head.


    "Fine. You''re good enough, I guess." The man clicked his tongue as he walked over toward the dead body.


    He squatted down a bit and grabbed the ne around the dead guy''s neck, before just pulling it off of him. He then handed it to Eiro, "Here, it''s yours now. Come with me, we''ll deal with all of this without this many people staring."


    With a smile on his face, Eiro followed the man, dragging John behind him while he was at it. They stepped down some stairs at the back of the room and soon reached a separate, smaller room that was nearlypletely empty.


    "You know, usually it''s not allowed for members to kill each other here. But I guess you technically weren''t a member yet, so you''re lucky. Now..." The man said with a slight sigh as he stood in the center of the room.


    "I''m a special member, an ''Exmation Mark''. I''m outside the regr ranks, and I''m the one that actively tests new members to assign them a position." With that, he slowly pulled up his sleeves, "Obviously I don''t know every member, considering that especially the ones in the four-digit range have the tendency to change every couple weeks, but I know about everyone in the two-digit range. John was a prime candidate to be a letter, but I guess that''s in the past now. I doubt he''ll be even able to keep his rank up like this for much longer."


    Eiro listened to the man curiously and watched as he seemed to prepare for a fight, stretching a little bit and taking off his jacket. After he was done, he looked at the disguised demon and ced his hands behind his back.


    "To give you a brief introduction... strength is everything in this organization. If you''re not strong, then you''re garbage, that''s the philosophy in this ce. Outside of this special street, or inside here in specifically organized and sanctioned duels, you may kill other members of the organization to quickly increase your rank. Once you kill that member, a Letter will be assigned to recruit a new member. Once you reach rank 1, you will be allowed to challenge the Letter Z. Being in the single-digit range, or being a letter, give you special privileges, of course. Everything else will exined when necessary."


    "Alright, sounds good to me. Should we get started already then?"


    "Of course, of course." The man, the ''exmation mark'', replied, "You may fight me in however way you wish, but you will not be allowed toin if you are unhappy with the rank you receive afterward. I will be fighting using my bare hands."


    Eiro looked at the special member and then just shrugged, "Then I''ll do the same." And with that, he took up his stance, although the special member just slightly scoffed, "Do not expect everyone to be as weak as the man you just killed. Every special member is required to be at least strong enough to be a single digit."


    "A single digit like John, who I turned into ''that''?" The Demon asked with a slightugh, but the special member just stared back at him, "I do not know what methods you used, but you will not be able to repeat it this time around. It will be a fair fight where you will be unable to make use of any unfair tricks. Now, let us start. In three... two... one... now!"


    The man seemed to be eager to fight Eiro somehow, but despite insinuating that Eiro was underrestimating him, the man seemed to be the one that was underrestimating their opponent. Because the Demon immediately infused his body with air magic to give himself an incredible speed boost, and managed to get behind the man nearly immediately. With that speed, he tried to grab onto him, but the man managed to slightly shift away from Eiro to avoid this.


    But just when he did, Eiro released all of the air magic in his body and focused it onto the man, and the strong gust actually caused him to have to stand still to resist the force for a moment. In that time, Eiro kicked the man''s shin and immediately caused a loud cracking sound to appear. Obviously, Eiro had manipted his own life-force to give himself an advantage, but this kind of difference in ability was even beyond his expectations.


    And while the ''special member'' stared back at Eiro while trying to ignore the pain in his leg, Eiro sighed out annoyedly, "You know, we can just stop and you give me the highest rating you can, and I won''t break any more of your bones today."


    "Sorry, but that''s not how it works." The man replied with a re, so Eiro just shrugged, "Suit yourself.. Just don''te crying to meter because you made a wrong choice."

 Chapter 231 - Air Bullet

    "Hey, could someone possibly help me out here?" Eiro asked with a broad smile on his face as he stepped up the stairs after returning from the underground room. And to the Demon''s surprise, the desk not too far away from here had a new person sitting at it, a young woman. Instead of a number on the tag around her neck, there was just a small exmation mark.


    "Ah, perfect! So there''s multiple of you, thates in handy. I think I broke mine." The Demon pointed out with a slight grin as he properly stepped back up the stairs, revealing the man from before being dragged up by him. Both of his legs and both of his arms were broken and twisted around in unnatural ways. It would most likely heal after he was just treated with a little bit of healing magic, so it probably wasn''t a big deal.


    The woman stared at Eiro in surprise before looking down at the ''Exmation Mark'' that he was literally dragging around, "You just took part in the initiation evaluation, right?" She asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "That''s right." He replied immediately, and the woman slowly stepped up to him before squatting down and checking on the other special member, "I see, then please pour your mana into the tag you were given before and hold it forward." She said, slowly taking off her ne with her own tag while Eiro did as asked.


    The woman tapped Eiro''s tag with her own, and then looked the Demon into his eyes, "I wee you in this organization. I assign you the number 100 due to your... impressive results in the evaluation."


    "Awe, just 100? I thought you ''special members'' were supposed to be strong enough to be in the single-digit range... Not to mention what I did with that guy." Eiroined as he pointed at John, but the woman in front of him simply shook her head.


    "The highest rank any joining member can achieve is 100. You are obviously strong enough to reach the single-digit range rather quickly. As you are rank 100, you are allowed to either take part in special quests to raise that rank, or you may participate in duels against other members. Just be aware that even if you beat the currently number 1 ranked member, you will not be the new number 1 member. Instead, your prowess will be automatically evaluated through the artifact connected to your tag, and your new rank will be assigned. From now on, it has nothing to do with our possibly biased opinion." The woman briefly exined to the Demon, who just slowly listened and nodded his head. That seemed fair enough. Eiro looked down at the tag and now saw the number ''100'' engraved into it, before he ced the tag into his pocket, quickly making it disappear in his treasury.


    "Got it. Thank you." Eiro replied, and then stepped past the woman, just leaving the ''Exmation Mark'' from before on the ground. Then, Eiro stepped into the center of this room and coughed loudly to get everyone''s attention.


    "Excuse me! If anyone, truly anyone, within the two-digit range is here, I would love to take part in a duel right now. I''m sure there are benefits to this for you as well." The Demon suggested, and for a moment, it became a bit quiet in this room while people were seemingly trying to evaluate whether or not this would be worth it.


    And before Eiro knew it, he heard someone stand up on the top floor. That person walked up to the railing and simply... jumped over it. It seemed like he was using air magic to catch his fall, and proceeded to glide down toward the ground until he stood next to Eiro. He pulled out his tag and held it in front of Eiro, letting him see the number.


    "54, huh? Well, good enough. So, where can we fight?" Eiro asked, and the man in front of him slowly red at him with a broad grin, "Hah, so you''re not scared?"


    Immediately, the Demon became annoyed. This would be a troublesome encounter. But these were to be expected in an organization meant for those that truly just wanted to be strong. A lot of conceited people would gather here.


    "I''m shitting my pants, actually. So let''s get this over with quickly so that I can change, alright?" Eiro replied bluntly as he turned around to the female exmation-mark, "So? Where can we fight?"


    "Oi, listen to me when I speak to you! The fact that you turned the number 9 into... that despicable thing doesn''t matter to me. I was always far stronger than him anyway, and I am also far stronger than you are. So just stop-"


    "And how about you take your own advice, shut the fuck up, and let the mentally sane speak for a second?" The Demon snapped back at the man, this number 54, before the female exmation-mark started to speak.


    "If you go outside, you should be able to see arge red double-door. Enter through there, and you will find a ce to hold your duel. There should not be one happening right now, so you can probably start immediately." The woman exined, so Eiro slowly turned away and started making his way toward the door.


    And then, he made a choice that would allow him to hopefully get this done as quickly as he needed to. He insulted everyone in the room.


    "If any of you pathetic weaklings think you can beat me, thene to the building with therge red double-door. I will be there all day." Eiro announced, and then turned his head to the side to look at John and make him follow him again. And while Eiro stepped out of the building, he heard that it was getting rather noisy in there, as plenty of people were falling for Eiro''s words. This was easier than he thought, if all of those guys were this easily angered. Luckily, judging from the two that Eiro knew of, this even tranted to the ''Letters'', so as long as he got strong enough, he should be able to practically slide through that.


    And luckily, he could kill two birds with one stone using this tactic. By killing the other members, he not only rose in rank within the organization, but he would also gather experience so that he could level up and get stronger while he was fighting.


    d that this was the case, Eiro pushed open the red double-door that was described by the woman from before. And in front of him, all that Eiro could see was a staircase, leading down into another space. It wasrge and open, and seemingly quite perfect for things like duels, as the ground, walls and the ceiling were easily manipted through earth magic, meaning that the terrain could be changed however someone wanted. Well, this would definitelye in handy during the fight as well.


    And so, Eiro and the Wind-Mage from before made their way into the center of the dueling area, while the Demonmanded John to stay by the sidelines.


    The Wind-Mage took out his tag and held it toward Eiro, "Come on, will you? Let''s get this over with quickly, I have a reservation for Dinner tonight."


    "Hm... what bad luck, guess you won''t be able to enjoy an excellentst meal." The demon replied immediately, but the mage in front of him just scowled while Eiro got out his tag as well and copied the man''s actions.


    The man poured his mana into the tag and then tapped it against Eiro''s while he had his mana poured into his own. And just like that, the number on the two tags simply disappeared.


    "We have ten seconds. Get ready." With a slight scoff, the mage turned around and stepped away to get a bit of distance between him and Eiro. He got out a small wand out of his pocket and stared at the Demon.


    But weirdly... after six seconds, the mage already attacked with a broad grin on his face, "Tricked ya!" He eximed as he held his wand forward, and nearly instantly a specific spell appeared. Eiro was surprised to see this, really. Sure, this man seemed rather skilled with magic, and not particrly unintelligent, but he still didn''t expect to see that he was capable of casting spells instantly. For that, a simple ''Tricked ya'' was simply far too simple.


    Either way, it seemed like this spell in particr was one thatpressed arge amount of air into a small space and then shot it forward like an arrow at an incredibly high speed. It didn''t require a lot of mana and was hard to avoid, so the only weak point of it was that the magic circle was ratherplex, making this all even more surprising.


    At least that''s what Eiro thought at first, but then he noticed the carvings on the man''s wand. They were the same sort of weird, ancient runes that Eiro had seen on all of the artificial artifacts. It was probably a special wand that allowed him to instantly cast this spell in exchange for some more mana. Eiro read that this kind of thing was possible, in theory at least.


    Either way, this spell was troublesome in more ways than just one. On top of being so fast, a short moment after impact, it would suddenly expand all the air back to what it was before nearly instantly, shredding away everything around it instantly. So if it pierced someone''s body, it would do incredibly amounts of damage.


    But luckily, Eiro immediately realized all of this and was able to react adequately. And that was by simply shifting his body a bit to the side before the mass ofpressed air hit him. Sure, it was fast and hard to avoid if you had a bad reaction time, but considering that Eiro''s intelligence was at 300 and his intelligence-stat ability increased the speed at which he could process information considerably, Eiro was able to avoid the attack just barely, and it hit the wall behind him.


    "Ah, that so? Good to know?" Eiro replied as he held his hand forward and immediately started to create another spell as well. One that was based off of the one that this mage just cast, albeit a little bit more advanced.


    The whole time, Eiro analyzed when the shots of this spell woulde in and kept his distance to have a slight bit more time to react to the shot.


    But it didn''t take long for Eiro to finish his spell either, and that was just at the time when some of the other members of the organization entered the building as well, following the Demon''s suggestion from before.


    They came just at the right time to notice theck of air as dust, loose leaves or paper and even some cloth from the members'' clothes was pulled in toward the magic circle in front of Eiro, having immediately collected all of the air in the room, and even a little bit from outside that caused the door to be quickly pulled shut with a loud m.


    Without anyone beside Eiro being capable of even seeing it, the spell shot forward and pierced the side of the mage''s body.


    The half of the corpse that was still intact hit the ground and the Demon turned toward the other members, while the number 67 appeared on his tag.

 Chapter 232 - Quests

    "Who else would like to try their luck? It would be great if I could make it to the single digits today, you know?" Eiro pointed out, slowly ncing down at the tag that he was holding in his hand, which at this point read the number ''23''. Well, that made sense to an extent, considering that Eiro killed 9 different people in a pretty short amount of time without taking a single point of damage. And two of those people were actually of a better rank than Eiro at the time. And while this was happening, Eiro even leveled up a few more times, and even reached level 8!


    He continued assigning his stat points somewhat randomly into his stats so that it would seem more like they grew to that point naturally. And of course, that still increased Eiro''s power a bit, considering that he still increased his stats by a total of 40 points.


    A ratherrge amount of people had gathered here, after hearing that the guy that literally just became a member today was already close to reaching the single-digit range, something that others didn''t manage to achieve even after many years of hard work.


    "Really? Nobody?" Eiro asked with a sigh, "Yeah, I figured, you all seemed like scaredy cats anyway. Out of my way, I''ll take care of this in another way, then." The Demon told them as he slowly made his way toward the exit of this space, while the corpse of thetest person that Eiro killed was being carried out of the room by some of those ''minions''. Simrly to the three corpses that Eiro had at the manor, which had been reduced to one and a half corpses at this point, their internal structure had beenpletely modified and changed. Eiro was surprised that they were even able to function like this, but it probably had something to do with the special research that was going on in this organization.


    But just as Eiro was walking through the crowd, followed by John, he noticed that there was someone else here. Someone with something a bit surprising written on their tag.


    "Oh, what are you doing here, Mister Z?" Eiro asked as he turned his head over toward the man, who just smirked back at him, "Figured I''d check out this rookie. Someone told me I''d probably have a new challenger soon."


    "Information travels quickly, I see. Let me guess, there''s no ways for us to hold this kind of duel already, is there?" Eiro asked bluntly, and the man, the ''Letter Z'', stared back at the demon with a light smirk, "I''m afraid not, bud. Not even outside. If a Number just kills a Letter outside, they''re sadly banished from the organization, so I don''t think that would be worth it to you."


    "I''m d to see that you''re already acknowledging the fact that I would kill you." Eiro smiled lightly. The man grinned and stepped to the side to let Eiro through toward the room, "I ain''t conceited enough to think there''d be no chance for me to be killed, ya know?"


    "Hm... Well, at least not everyone here''s aplete moron." And with that, Eiro swiftly made his way out of the building and went straight for the building he was in before, where he basically ''signed up''. That was because this organization weirldy enough worked a lot like the Adventurer''s guild, at least if you were in the two-digit range. Because at that point, you were able to work on those special requests that John mentioned before.


    The Demon made his way inside and quickly stepped up to the desk that the same female exmation-mark from before was sitting at, "Wee back." She said with a nk expression, and Eiro immediately got to the point.


    "Show me what kinda ''quests'' or whatever there are right now." Eiro told her, and the woman slightly sighed and nodded her head. She got out a small booklet and handed it to the Demon, "This is a special notebook that has been directly connected to the central ''Tome of Quests'' that we hold. In there, you will be able to find 100 random currently active quests. Choose up to three that you wish to take and rip the page out of the book, if you please."


    "How often are these requests taken?" The demon asked, and the exmation-mark slowly shook her head, "Amongst those that can actively take quests, only 13 have actively taken on a quest in the past week. Others are simply not interested and prefer finding ways to increase their strength rather than their rank."


    Eiro slowly flipped the booklet open as he listened to the exmation mark exin the system, and soon noticed that this may be a bit more annoying than he thought. At first, he thought that there would be proper exnations like he was used to from Adventurer''s Guild requests, but instead, all it said were the ''names'' of the quests. They gave Eiro a rough idea of what they may be about, but none of it was really specific.


    In the end, he figured that he would get more information from the exmation-mark after making his choise. He ripped three pages out of the book with titles that didn''t seem too troublesome, and then all of a sudden, all three of them turned to dust andpletely disappeared before they even hit the ground. And then, notifications appeared in front of Eiro.


    [You have taken three Quests from the <Tome of Quests>]


    [Murder the Murderer]


    [Time Limit] 1 Week


    [Description] A young woman was viciously killed and gutted in the slums aroundst midnight. Fine the murderer and dispose of him.


    [Reward] 1rge Gold


    [Penalty] Murderer bes aware of your existence and will try anything in their power to get rid of you


    [Dispose of the evidence]


    [Time Limit] 1 Day


    [Description] The house of an important merchant has been broken into, but evidence possibly leading to the arrest of the perpetrator has been left at the crime scene. Get rid of it.


    [Reward] 5rge Silver


    [Penalty] The Merchant bes aware of your existence and starts believing you are the one that broke into his house


    [Prison Rat]


    [Time Limit] 1 Week


    [Description] There is a rat hiding out in the prisons. It stole the Warden''s precious possession. Retrieve the possession and return it to the Warden without him noticing it was gone.


    [Reward] Copy of the central prison key


    [Penalty] The Warden bes aware of your existence and starts believing you stole his precious possession


    "Alright... What actually is that ''Tome of Quests''? Can it create things out of nowhere, or what''s going on?" Eiro asked with a deep frown as he ran his fingers through all the notifications in front of him, while the exmation-mark looked up at the Demon from her seated position.


    "I am afraid you cannot find out more about the ''Tome of Quests'' until you are a Letter. For now, all you need to know is that you should better finish those quests. Usually, the penalty for failing and the reward for seeding are quite... unbnced."


    "You can say that again, although they all follow a pattern...?? The Demon groaned, "At the very least tell me if I can get all these quests done here in town."


    "Of course. All quests are created to fit the ce they are taken. Usually they don''t extend outside the town. Also, a small sidement, since it is something you may be able to find out through conversation with other members anyway... The quests'' penalty depends on the things you don''t want to happen. If you have something you can never let go of, the penalty for an especially important quest may be that that ''something'' simply breaks, gets lost, or ceases to exist in the first ce."


    "Hm, that so?" Eiro asked, "Well, that''s good to know then. They penalties are certainly quite... motivating, to say the least."


    "That''s the point." The exmation-mark replied bluntly, and Eiro looked down at her once more, "Also, how exactly will my rank increase after I finish these quests?"


    "It happens automatically. Just finish the quest, and your rank will increase. Simple as that." She replied swiftly, and Eiro soon turned around to be on his way to finish the more troublesome one, the ''Dispose of the evidence'' quest, "Interesting." Eiro muttered to himself as he left the building and walked along the streets, before leaving through the single exit.


    And as he walked through the slums, he was starting to think about what exactly was going on at the moment, and the fact that a lot of these things just didn''t really seem to fit together. There is more behind all of this, and Eiro really doesn''t like it. But for now, he had to deal with it. Once he managed to be a letter, then he would be able to figure out more information to confirm his suspicions.


    "Those quests..." Nelli soon said once she made sure that Eiro could really respond this time around, "Do you think..."


    "That Enka got one of them, and that was the reason why he tried to pin the murder of that craftsman on me? Yeah, excatly my thought." Eiro pointed out, "But really, this is getting more and more bothersome. If I''m unlucky, then there''s already a quest about finding the ''odd one out'' in the organization. Honestly, there''s just so much that''s justpletely weird about this."


    "Hm, weird, in what way exactly?" The naiad asked, and the golem next to her soon showed simr curiosity, "Do you think you are being tricked, somehow?"


    "Well, that''s notpletely off, I guess. I can''t bepletely sure, but it all feels so wrong. Quite literally, actually." Eiro pointed out, and Nelli and Gondos slowly looked at each other a bit confused, before even Bavet asked about something. He hadn''t been ''allowed'' to speak until now in case someone would hear, but now that they weren''t around anyone troublesome, it was fine. He practically whispered into Eiro''s ear.


    "Was it that thing from before? After we fused, I started feeling something a bit as well... There was something off about the notifications, right? Those ''Quest Notifications''?" Bavet asked, and Eiro slowly started to smirk as he looked down at the tips of his fingers on his left hand.


    "Exactly so. Usually, the mist from the notifications is the same temperature as the surrounding space. The only thing that somewhat changes it is the slight air movement because of my fingers. But the mist from those notifications was different. It was cold." Eiro exined, "It was maybe... ten degrees celsius or so? It was just like that for a second, and incredibly weak in the first ce, but I could tell that the whole notification was slightly, well, cold."


    "And what does that mean?" Bavet asked, something that both Nelli and Gondos also wanted to know about, and the Demon groaned deeply at the fact that they didn''t realize it themselves.


    "It''s simple, isn''t it? While we were told that the organization just has three or so Cards, it seems like they have a few more than that."

 Chapter 233 - The Slums

    Eiro climbed through the window of the merchant''s home and looked around. It really wasn''t all that hard to figure out what exactly this ''evidence'' was, and it also wasn''t hard to even figure out what ce was broken into in the first ce. After all, the guy that broke in here was an obvious amateur. He left more than just a single piece of evidence.


    A piece of his clothes got stuck to the broken window together with a few drops of blood, some hair was scattered around the room, and there was literally a hand-imprint in the dust on one of the shelves. So, Eiro basically just quickly used air magic to gather all the hair up, get rid of all the dust alltogether, and grabbed the shard of ss that some of the blood was stuck to while also gathering up the piece of cloth that was hanging onto it before.


    Immediately, Eiro made his way outside before proceeding to use fire magic to burn the cloth and hair and buried the ss ten feet underground using earth magic. And the moment that he did so, another new notification appeared in front of Eiro.


    [Youpleted one of the <Tome of Quests>'' Quests]


    [<Dispose of the evidence> Questpleted]


    [You have received 5rge Silver coins]


    At the same moment, Eiro felt something change on his tag that he kept in his pocket, so he slowly grabbed it. First things first, Eiro noticed that it changed to Rank 22, so it went up by one.


    "Wasn''t a hard one, so fair enough." The Demon sighed, and at the same time, as if out of nowhere, a bundle of 5rge silver coins appeared in Eiro''s hand. He had seen the process in which these coins were ''created'', which just strengthened the idea that the organization had a few more cards than Eiro thought they did at first. Although this obviously wasn''t something that others were really aware of, since they didn''t particrly have all the information that Eiro did. They wouldn''t be able to notice these small differences and things that were literally wrong about all of this. The more that Eiro saw it, the more he was just annoyed by everything.


    "Anyway, next one..." Eiro muttered to himself. He would just try to finish these as quickly as he could. It shouldn''t hurt in trying to increase his rank to finish everything as quickly as he could. And on top of that, it would mean that he would be able to take new quests on pretty soon.


    "...I can detach now, right?" Bavet asked, and Eiro slowly looked down at his chest before nodding his head, "Go ahead."


    Eiro already put on his mask again, and he would be able to quickly react with magic to make sure that his clothes wouldn''t be ripped up by the ''reappearance'' of his tail, wings and horns. Soon, they were all pressed back onto his body with the help of shadow magic, while a small, bead-sized crystal core slipped out of Eiro''s clothes. The moment it hit the ground, the core took over a little bit of dirt and turned into a small, lower-arm-sized monkey as it climbed up Eiro''s leg.


    "So, what we doing next?" Bavet asked, which was rather confusing while he was in the literal form of a monkey made of dirt. Bavet couldn''t change the texture or material like this all too well, so it really was just like a doll made of rock and dirt, not much else.


    "As I said, we''ll head to the next one." Eiro replied as he properly ced his mask onto his face, while Bavet the rock-monkey seemingly rolled his eyes, "You know, why didn''t you just take John with you? Or rather, why didn''t you let me stay at home when you went to bring him back before?" Bavet asked annoyedly, but Eiro just grabbed the rock-monkey by the head and used earth magic to make the whole body crumble to dust before he caught the marble in his hand.


    "Because I might need you. And John is far, far more annoying than you, so I''d rather have you around to keep mepany than him." The Demon exined, and the slime core itself slowly transformed and changed back into its ''normal'' jelly-like form. But of course, due to the small mass, the ''Transformation Slime'' couldn''t do much else. But amongst the things that Bavet could do was to attach to Eiro''s hand and turn into a small mouth so that he could properly speak.


    "Don''t say that and then basically kill me, you piece of garbage."


    "Shut it before I feed you actual garbage." Eiro replied immediately, and Bavet soon stayed silent again, "Let''s go for the murderer one first. We still need to figure out where that guy is even hiding..." The Demon sighed.


    "Well, there''s not directly a small amount of death happening in the slums, even considering how peaceful it generally is in this town, so are you sure you''ll be able to figure out which death-scene is the right one when you''re lookin'' for it?" Bavet asked, and that was a question that Eiro himself wasn''t entirely sure about either at first, but it shouldn''t be too bad.


    After all, the victim was apparently literally guttedst night, meaning that it clearly wasn''t just some drug-overdose or petty-murder, but instead something withpletely vicious intent. And since this happened in the slums, obviously the ones that had to find the victim were people actually living in the slums, so it should have be a bit of a rumor by now. At the very least, he should be able to find a single person speaking about it.


    On his way to the slums as Eiro headed to the organization''s ce in this town, he already faintly overheard someone speaking about a woman being gutted, but he didn''t pursue it yet because he didn''t know that it would be important to him yet. Either way, he knew that there were people speaking about it, so it was fine.


    Either way, now that Eiro made his way into the slums again, he chose to take a direct look around, and tried to spread his perception out toward any living person that he could find.


    But to the Demon''s surprise... when he actually did that, he didn''t find a single person talking about it to someone else, or even muttering about it in their sleep or drug-filled delusions. It was weird, really, this shouldn''t be something that happened quite often, after all.


    And so, Eiro figured that if he couldn''t hear anything, he may have just had bad luck and simply nobody in the area was thinking about the situation for whatever reason. With that in mind, Eiro stepped up toward a random person that seemed to be living here in the slums while still being of a semi-sane mind. There certainly were quite a few people around that weren''t sane.


    "Excuse me, could you answer a question for a second?" The Demon inquired with one man, who was sitting at the side of the road, just staring down at the ground while holding onto an old, rusty sword with a half-broken de. Even the sheath was slowly falling apart. This man was missing a leg, so most likely, he was a former adventurer that simply became physically incapable of continuing their work. It was a sad sight, but it didn''t matter too much to Eiro.


    "D''ya have a coin to spare? Cause if ya do, I might be able to answer ye..." The exhausted, weakly man muttered quietly, and Eiro just nodded his head as he dropped one of the fiverge silver coins he got from that quest just now into thep of the man, "I have a little change, yes. Now, please answer me. Have you heard of anyone being killed around herest night?"


    "Last night? Ya mean two nights ago? There was that kid, ya know, and some other brat came in here ridin'' on a horse in the middle of this part of town, and swung heavy hammers ''round. Split that kid''s head right open, two other were knocked out. One of''em was that kid''s mother. What a shame, t''was a bright kid. Might''ve made it outta here sooner or-"


    "Sorry, that''s not directly what I mean. Last night, a young woman was killed here in the slums and was literally gutted. You haven''t heard anything about that?" Eiro asked, and the man thought about it for a second.


    "Dun'' think so... Heard of a guy wakin'' up without his arms one day though, just cut off while he was asleep. Includin'' the shoulders, even. T''was a horrible sight, and he was a good craftsman too..." The man slowly stared down at the ground, ncing at his own stump, "Can''t imagine what''d be like to lose everythin'' from one moment to ''nother. At least I could''ve continued if I tried hard''nuff..."


    The Demon started to frown deeply in response to hearing this man''s words. What was going on in a ce like this? This was unbelievable. Sure, he came here to find out something about that gutted woman, but he would be able to find the killer within the time-limit anyway, so Eiro may be able to try and go slow about this to figure out what else was happening in this part of the town.


    "Solomon may want to hear this..." Eiro muttered, although Nelli had a fittingment for even this situation, "Wow... one moment you torture a guy and make him literallymit to a lifetime of cannibalism, and in the other, you feel bad for random people. Can''t you choose if you want to be the good or the bad guy already?"


    "That''s different." Eiro sighed as he dropped anotherrge silver coin onto the man''sp, "John is infuriating. These guys didn''t do anything to me. And Jura did teach me to be neutral and help whoever I think may need it with my craft. So if I hear something where I can do just that, I will try and hear more about it."


    "Still kind of weird." Nelli pointed out, not really caring for Eiro''s response all too much. The Demon grumbled to himself and looked back down at the man.


    "Tell me about anyone you know that has been treated in this way. Tell me about whoever is doing this to you. Tell me about who needs a hand or two during these times." Eiro said, and the man slowly looked up, "Why? So that ya can make fun of us too?"


    "No, so that I can help.." Eiro said bluntly, "And you''ll be amongst the first."

 Chapter 234 - The Collector

    Eiro sat there on a small block of rock that he created with earth magic so that he could have a proper ce to work, all the whilst taking a look at the homeless-man''s stump and other leg. He wanted to figure out what the prosthetic had to look like, and especially what kind of wood it should be to make sure that the prosthetic wouldn''t be rejected somehow.


    In the end, the Demon had a pretty good idea about what it had to be, and slowly looked at the man''s face again, "Where do you live, or sleep, or whatever?" Eiro asked, and the homeless man slowly nced up at him, still confused about what this random masked person was even doing.


    "Wherever the fuck I want, aye... I dun'' have a ce to stay..." He pointed out, so Eiro slowly raised his brow with a light grin, "Hm, I see." Eiro replied.


    "Then I''ll try and find you again. In a day or two at the verytest. Don''t leave town until then." Eiro suggested, but the man just scoffed. He rubbed his arm under his nose before pulling his rusty, old, broken sword more tightly toward him, "Heh, where the fuck would ya expect me to go other than ''ere?"


    "Keep makingments like that, I don''t care as long as you don''t waste my time and just stay here until Ie meet you again." With that, Eiro stood up and ced his foot onto the stone-seat that he created before, practically pushing it back into the ground, "Anyway, you said that a lot of people with physical injuries were gathered where exactly? Somerge, old, run-down building? Is it different to any of the other old, run-down buildings here? Can you give me at least a direction?"


    The homeless man clicked his tongue and slowly swung his arm to the side, "Go to the walls... ye''re gunna find it there, ya ain''t gonna miss it... lotsa people scutterin'' around outside ''f it..." The man muttered, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he made his way into exactly the direction that the homeless man mentioned.


    And he was right, it really was quite hard to miss. There were a lot of people gathered there. If he had just started searching around the area properly, he probably would have found this spot sooner orter. And so, the Demon figured he should do a little bit of asking around if anyone knew anything about the murdered girl, while seeing if there was anyone else that he could help. In particr, Eiro was interested in finding the man that had his arms, including shoulders, literally removed while he was asleep.


    James'' arm had been ripped off together with his whole shoulder, and as far as Eiro could tell when interacting with him and checking on his prosthetic every once in a while, it was horrible to be restricted to that extent. Having both arms removed like that must have been even worse.


    Although, the other people here weren''t all too well-off either. Most of them were either on drugs, or selling stolen goods or even themselves for the night for money to actually afford those drugs. Sometimes even both at once.


    It wasn''t a great sight... Eiro should probably speak to Solomon about this sometime. Even this Demon that literally ughtered half a vige in bloodlust was feeling bad about seeing all this. Although, Eiro was kind of interested in who made those drugs... There might be some knowledge in such things that might let Eiro create things like poisons.


    He did already know a little bit about it, considering that he did have medicinal knowledge rted to creating things like anesthetics that he was taught by Jura, but it couldn''t hurt to find out more about it. Maybe it would help him figure out what some of the weird concoctions, powders, and pills that Eiro found in one of the hidden rooms in the Manor did without having to take them or feed them to someone or something. Not to mention that Eiro still didn''t manage to produce Venom in his tail, so any knowledge about things like that could help him figure out what he had to do for that.


    Either way, Eiro was sure what he had to do after seeing all these things. One, help some of these people out by practically giving them a second chance at life. And two, keep Clementine and Arc away from here. Clementine because she would simply be overwhelmed by all the pain that could inevitably be found here. And Arc, simply because... Well, a lot of the time, people took drugs to ''feel'' something, some other emotions than what they usually did. Someone that was basically cursed into feeling happy all the time might be weak to things like this. Not to mention that the rules of Arc''s skills were sometimes rather... questionable, so who knew? It might actually do something for him if he did end up taking drugs, and if he did... He most likely wouldn''t feel the negative parts of them. He wouldn''t feel them destroying his body, and would only experience the pleasure that came with taking drugs. It really wasn''t something that Arc should ever experience, if in absolutely any way possible.


    Eiro slightly ground his teeth as he stepped through the area and stopped in front of a group of five people, two women and three men.


    "Huh? What d''ya want?" One of the women asked, and the fattest of the three men started tough while looking at the Demon, "What kind of mask are you wearin''? Can you even see, you dumbass?"


    "Well enough so that I can see that your face looks like someone smashed it in with a bat, yes. But that''s not why I''m here, I want to ask about a murder that happened heres-"


    "Oi, the fuck are you saying?!" The fat guy asked, before proceeding to swing his fist at Eiro. His pupils were unnaturallyrge, so it was obvious that he was also on whatever drug that all these people were taking. Since that was the case, Eiro figured he shouldn''t kill this guy, but just knock him out. It wasn''t really his fault that he was acting like this, and he simply felt bad for all these people, so he figured he should give them the benefit of the doubt for once.


    And so, Eiro caught the man''s fist and twisted it around on his arm before pulling it behind the man''s back, swiftly pressing him onto the ground while the others apparently didn''t even notice when Eiro started talking. They might not be too helpful, but Eiro figured it couldn''t hurt to ask anyone that he thought may have any kind of information at all.


    While he was pressing onto the man''s back with his foot, the Demon looked around at the other four people, "As I was saying... Last night, a young woman was killed and gutted here in the slums. Do you know anything about that?"


    The four of them looked at each other for a moment before one of them shook their heads, "Nah, but I know someone if you wanna have a fish gutted..."


    Eiro stared back at the young woman before pulling his foot away from the man he was pressing down, and then slowly turned around, "Thanks, I''ll keep that in mind."


    Seeing as how nobody seemed to have reacted to Eiro''s question in the way that he needed them to at all, they obviously didn''t know anything about this. And the same thing was the case with the next group he approached. Even if there were some sober, reasonable people, nobody seemed to be reacting at all. Their heartrate didn''t change in an unnatural way. Of course, everyone that he mentioned this to had a small spike in their heartrate, but that was just natural considering that he was telling them a young woman was viciously killed and gutted.


    But nobody reacted beyond that. Some seemed genuinely sad, others tried to hide that sadness by acting disinterested, and some were simply disinterested beyond that initial spike. But in the end, everyone reacted somehow.


    At least, that was until Eiro stepped into the building that the homeless man from before was speaking of. He asked a couple of people there, but it was all the same, with the exception of a single man. He was the only one that seemed somewhat groomed, the only one that apparently took a bath in the past 24 hours. He was wearing clothes that weren''t dirty, and really, he just seemedpletely out of ce from top to toe.


    Eiro looked at him and mentioned the murder, and immediately, he jumped up. He had an immense reaction to hearing about this, more so than anyone else Eiro spoke to. And that was including the young woman that literally started sobbing after being told about it.


    "What did you just say?!" The man asked, "She was gutted? Were the organs simply removed and then thrown away, or were they taken along?"


    Eiro stared at him with a slight stare before shrugging, "I don''t know any more beyond what I told you just now. I found out about this murder, but my source isn''t readily avable, so I''m trying to find out where the murder happened to find the killer." Eiro quickly exined, so the man stared back at Eiro while grinding his teeth.


    "Let me help you! If the words your source used were ''gutted'' specifically, it must mean that the organs were taken... Then I may know who the killer is!" The man said, and Eiro immediately raised his brows.


    "Oh, that would be quite handy! I really only need to get rid of this killer, that''s all. What''s his name?" Eiro asked. This man apparently wasn''t lying and seemed somewhat trustworthy. He seemed to be here for a simr reason to Eiro, to find this particr killer.


    But it may still turn out harder than expected.


    The man slowly turned his head away, "I do not know his name, but I do know about him! A vile, disgusting man that repeatedly creates disfigured stitchwork-monstrosities for fun using parts he took from others! Some he lets live, others he does not... It is truly horrifying, and I have been searching for him for a long time now... You see, he used my wife and daughter as parts for his sick toys... ever since then, I have been hunting hi-"


    "Sorry, I really don''t care about your sob-story. Just tell me anything that can help me find him. Where is he, how does he do things, and how frequently does he take parts from people?"


    "Yes, I will tell you...." This man said, although Eiro was a bit annoyed by the nickname this killer received, "I will tell you everything I know about this vile being! The ''Collector''!"

 Chapter 235 - Investigator

    "He''s called ''Collector''? Really?" Eiro asked with a wry smile on his face underneath his mask, and the man in front of him slowly nodded his head with a bit of surprise, "Yes, have you heard of him before?"


    "No, it''s not that..." With a shake of his head, the Demon crossed his arms, "One of the sses I had before was called ''Collector'', so it''s weird to hear someone with a nickname like that."


    "Ah..." The man replied, "Well, that''s an unlucky coincidence, isn''t it?"


    Eiro nodded, "You can say that again. Anyway, in the end, it doesn''t matter. He''s going to be the ''former collector'' soon anyway."


    "I see, so you are dedicated to catching him as well!" With a bright smile on his face, the man looked at Eiro with an excited expression, but the Demon just shrugged, "Rather than ''catch'', I just want to kill him."


    With a slow nod, the man looked back, just slightly smiling, "I see... Would you coincidentally be interested in working together on this?" The man inquired. He was looking at Eiro with a serious, dedicated expression, and Eiro figured that there was no reason not to let him help. After all, his help mighte in useful.


    "Sure, having another card holder around could help a bit." Eiro said bluntly, and the man stared back at him and smirked slightly, "And I thought I was imagining it since you barely reacted. Indeed, I am a fellow card holder. I am d that you''re not thinking of hiding it."


    "Not like it would work out anyway, right? Come, I think we might be able to speak a bit better about this outside." The Demon suggested, and the man in front of him just nodded his head and chose to follow Eiro outside of this building.


    They made their way over toward an area where nobody was around, and Eiro proceeded to lean against the wall before staring at the man again, "Let''s start with the basics for this. First, as you should know through the strength of the ''Vibe'' you should get from me, I have more than one card. I will only reveal the one that I will make direct use of around you, the Three of Swords. I have five despletely under control, and am bordering on getting the sixth. Second, my name is Eiro. It''s my real name, don''t question it. Third, I will not reveal any other sort of information about myself, including my reasons for hunting the ''Collector''. You don''t need to tell me your card, your real name, or anything about you either, as long as you give me something to refer to you together with proper information about the killer."


    It seemed like the man was alright with all of this, although really, in the end Eiro was already trying to figure out what exactly his card was. He didn''t have the actual physical card on him, so it had to be in its item-form. Except if it was a card of the Pentacle-suit, of course. Then, it would just be an ability. Although there didn''t seem to be anything too special about him as far as Eiro could tell, so maybe it wasn''t an ability.


    Well, that''s what Eiro thought, until he was told otherwise, "I think I should at least tell you my card in exchange for you telling me your card. It will maybe help you trust my words a bit better as well. My card is the Knight of Pentacle. The-"


    "Invastigator..." Eiro finished with a deep frown, "You know, ites over a bit hard to believe that you have such a card, considering that you epted help from aplete stranger and didn''t question him in the slightest."


    "Are you sure about that, Mister Demon?" The man replied, "I know quite a lot about you. You''ve been rushing around this area of town the whole day, speaking to different people not only about the killer, but also about themselves if they seemed like they required help. You seem quite kind, despite the fact that one of your spirits seems to be ring at you constantly. I''ve seen you move your hands, and while your right hand seems at least a bit injured, you are incredibly skilled, and not only in the field ofbat. Sure, you move around while barely making a sound, and most people don''t be aware of you until you actively speak to them or stand in their way, but from the way you carry yourself, you probably prefer a more straight-forward style ofbat if you can fight in that way." He summed up.


    "I could also mention the fact that everything you carry with yourself, be it your apparel or your bag and the things attached to it, are of incredible quality and each hold special aspects. And I could also mention that you seem to be hiding parts of your body magically. There are a lot of things I already know about you."


    Immediately, Eiro stretched his hand out toward the man and pulled his dagger out of his treasury as he was at it, holding the tip against the man''s throat.


    "How long have you been following me?" Eiro asked, "And most importantly, how did you hide yourself from me?"


    With a bit of augh, the man just shook his head, "It is fact that the first time either of us became aware of the other''s existence was a couple of minutes ago. But that is the power of my card. It allows me to make connections in my head instantly, recall knowledge for a moment to connect it to what I am trying to figure out, and much more. Face cards are quite amazing, are they not?"


    Eiro stared back at the man while grinding his teeth together, and then slowly pulled his dagger away. This was really what the Knight of Pentacles was supposed to do, but he didn''t expect to meet two people with face cards in such a short amount of time. Both Evelyn, using the Queen of Wands, and this man, using the Knight of Pentacles. While there wasn''t a direct difference between the cards from Ace to ten, the face cards often were more versatile, albeit harder to control. They wouldn''t make a card holder inherently stronger than any other random card holder, but the face cards did often have a bit of a unique twist to them sometimes.


    But that wasn''t really Eiro''s main focus right now. Rather... the fact that he found out about all this was troublesome. He knew there were some that trusted even monsters, but-


    "I can see that you''re troubled. Don''t worry, I don''t base my judgement on things like your race, age, gender, or things like that which you simply do not have any influence over. I make my own judgements." With a bit of a wink, the man extended his hand forward, "Otherwise, I wouldn''t have revealed that I know your true identity and have simply waited for a chance to run or ambush you, wouldn''t I?"


    "How did you even figure it out? Do you have ''Appraisal'' abilities because of that card?" Eiro asked, but the man quickly shook his head, "I actually do not, although many think so. What the Suit of Pentacles in general does is simply enhance the abilities you already have. From ace to ten, they enhance the basic stats, the only one that can''t be enhanced being willpower, whereas the face cards affect concepts. And in my case, it''s the concept of investigation. I didn''t have any appraisal abilities in the first ce, so there was nothing to enhance there. Ah, but I did not have this card for long, so I may get an appraisal ability if I manage to get my unique ss after I reach level 100 the next time." The man exined in a stream of words.


    With a smile on his face, he continued, "Either way, I realized it in a quite simple way. The outlines of whatever you''re trying to hide. I assume they''re wings and a tail? Of course, immediately that meant that you couldn''t be a person. There is a race of bird-like people with wings and something simr to tail, but the former is directly connected to their arms, while thetter is short and stubby. Your tail seemed to be wrapped around your waist, and your wings were not connected to your arms. So, you had to be a monster. Together with the fact that you seem to also be hinding some horns up there, youpletely covered your skin so as to not reveal anything, you seem perfectly humanoid, besides those extra parts, and even chose to hide your eyes somehow. Your ears do also seem to be slightly pointy judging from the outline I can see there... As such, the conclusion was simple. A type of monster with a different skin-tone to any type of person, with potential for wings, horns, and tails, with eyes and ears that are different to that of people as well, and to top it off the potential of incredible intelligence and dexterity as you have already shown me. The first thing that popped into my mind was ''Demon''. So, I tried my luck."


    Eiro looked back at the man before grumbling and sighing, feeling a bit overwhelmed by this type. He seemed to be the kind of person that continuously rambled on and on and on. Sure, Eiro had the tendency to do that as well, but the way that this guy was speaking was still at a whole other level.


    "Fine, I''ll believe that for now, because everything you''ve said ispletely correct. I don''t know if I can trust you that much, but for now, I definitely need your help and would prefer not to kill you to just get your card, since you have other information that I don''t. I have a lot of other questions, but for now, just tell me what to call you, and let''s get started on this damn investigation. Also, tell me why you couldn''t figure this out on your own despite being able to deduce that I''m a demon from a two-minute interaction."


    "Haha, wonderful! It is quite intriguing to be working with a being from another realm like you! You should be able to give me a whole other sort of input!" The man eximed, "But nevermind that, as you wish, you can simply call me Bahlsen."


    "I''m not from hell, I spent my whole life in this realm. But nice to meet you, I guess, Bahlsen. For now, do you have any ideas where we should start looking?"


    "Oh, of course, I do! Right here, actually!"

 Chapter 236 - Memory Manipulation

    Eiro looked at Bahlsen with his arms crossed, waiting for him to properly exin how this alley was the ce they had to start looking for the ''Collector''. And he swiftly did just that.


    "You see, the Collector has a few different habits. The most important one to take notice of being that he picks his victim seemingly at random. Some of them have vague connections to each other, while others couldn''t be more different. That''s because he doesn''t care about things like social status, age, gender, or how his victims look... simply about their parts. As if he was shopping, simply picking out the best of the best as hees across it."


    "Hm, that does make sense... If he wants to create some kind of abomination, using the strongest and highest-quality ingredients would make quite a lot of sense." The Demon pointed out with a slow nod, although he was surprised to see that Bahlsen shook his head.


    It seemed like there was more to it, "''Best'' doesn''t mean ''highest quality'' in this case. His victims do often follow something like a theme, albeit a very, very subtle one that many could never pick up. But I managed to by now. In retrospect, the theme during which my wife and daughter were killed by him was simple. They were startled by a shell-rat running over the ground in front of them while they were at the market. The collector saw, and chose them. He already picked out three targets this time around, excluding the one you are looking for, so I managed to figure out the theme this time around. And it''s just as arbitrary as ever."


    Eiro looked at him with a light frown, curious about what it might be. What it was that caused that man to kill all these people, "...They sneezed." Bahlsen exined, "That''s all they did. It''s the only connection I coulde up with."


    The Demon stared at Bahlsen with a frown. "How do you even make connections like that? How could you possibly know that?"


    "Ah, it''s simple. The collector always looks for his victims in highly-popted ces. It seems to be a thrill to him of sorts. So, all that I had to do was to talk to people in the ces that the victims frequented in day-to-day situations. You see, before I took on this ''position'' of mine, I worked for a foreign nation for a rather... secretive part of the government. Most specifically, I was specialized in memory-maniption. Usually I was supposed to make people forget, but I could also make them remember. Since questioning potential witnesses is part of an investigation, and making them speak surely is an ability an investagor should have, this ability was also enhanced incredibly. It became harder to make people forget, but so much easier to make them remember. And so, even details like a sneeze from a stranger could be pulled forward."


    "You have quite a loose mouth for someone that I''m trusting one of my greatest secrets with." Eiro grumbled to himself, but Bahlsen simply smiled in response, "Do not worry, I have never spilled another''s secret. And again, if I want you to believe the information I can give you, I must tell you how I got my hands on that information."


    "So? Continue." Eiro replied while rubbing the bridge of his nose, and Bahlsen quickly grinned, "Of course! You see, I actually just finished investigating people at that ce we just met at. And, it led me into this direction, because the woman that was most probably thetest victim lived around here. The collector likes killing his victims in their own homes, as something like a ''power move'' of sorts. Killing them in the ce where they used to live may just be symbolic. I never managed to speak to him before, so I can''t say too much about his personality toe to aplete conclusion as to why he does things this way."


    The Demon crossed his arms with a suspicious frown. That sounded kind of... weird. "If that''s the case, then why are you even letting mee along? You nearly got him by now anyway, right? You don''t need me."


    "Ah..." Bahlsen replied, "That''s not true. I''m not a fighter, you see, but it seems like the Collector very well may be. He is extremely talented at evading me, so a second person, which on top of that is a seemingly quite powerful fighter, may very well be an important and vital addition." The Investigator quickly exined, "And I knew I could trust you, simply because otherwise, there would be no way that you would manage to contract two spirits and have formed such a powerful connection with both of them."


    "Speaking of, how do you even know about them? Can you see them?" Eiro asked. He was feeling unsure about this, as if something was wrong despite Bahlsen seeming like a good person. It was like a part of his instincts were screaming at him that Bahlsen was trustworthy, while in the back, another, hidden part of his instincts was whispering that Eiro should hurry up and just run. It seemed illogical, but it was how it was.


    Bahlsen just smiled and slightly turned his head toward where Nelli and Gondos were currently floating in the space inbetween this realm and the spirit realm, where only Eiro was supposed to be able to see them, "I can see any sort of connection where others can''t, and that includes those of arcane, divine, or otherwise magical natures. I can see the thread connecting you with two beings floating beside and around you. The only case where I''ve seen something like this before was when I was speaking to a spirit mage, but the connection was weak, as if it could rip at any second if even a bug sat down onto it. But the connection between you and your two spirits is different. It is like... a thick rope that would be able to hold up five of you."


    "...I see." Eiro replied before scratching the back of his neck. He slowly turned to the side and looked at Nelli and Gondos, who were staring back at him, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Gondos asked, simply wanting Eiro to be careful with thsi guy, since he seemignly felt the same things that Eiro did. But Eiro probably didn''t have much of a choice, and he didn''t particrly want to just let this guy run around while he knew about Eiro. He could kill him of course, but somehow, Eiro was just feeling a bit bad for this guy.


    "I guess there''s not much else to speak about then, huh? Just use your powers to find the corpse, and then I''ll take it from there." The Demon suggested, and it seemed like now Bahlsen was the curious one, seemingly wanting to know how exactly Eiro was thinking of finding the killer.


    But for now, he seemed to have pushed those thoughts away and simply proceeded to look around this ce. This was the first time Bahlsen was silent for more than ten seconds while nobody else was speaking. It was like he was suddenly hyper-focused on the world around him, trying to look for anything that might be of help to him.


    Of course, Eiro did his best to keep Bahlsen''s eyes in sight so that he could figure out what exactly he was looking at the whole time. Maybe he could pick up a thing or two. Either way, for now, Eiro just waited a little longer. He still had a week left, so it wasn''t really an issue if Bahlsen took his time.


    Although, just then, Eiro''s thoughts started to drift. He was thinking about Bahlsen''s words. The killer was a fighter, which made sense if he liked violently killing people for fun. But it seemed like he was a rather capable fighter as well, probably a pretty strong one. And right there, Eiro noticed something that was off, and added onest mental connection to figure out a small mystery on his own, while Bahlsen did his thing.


    Two of the quests would have resulted in Eiro being hunted publicly. Neither a merchant nor a warden should have immensebat prowess or even the time to leave to hunt Eiro themselves. So, they would make this public and put out a bounty for Eiro. Depending on the information they received when they became ''aware'' of Eiro, they may also reveal that he is actually a monster. These are definitely things that he would like to avoid. He didn''t want his secret to be revealed, obviously.


    However, when it came to the Killer, it was different. If he was so strong, then he would probably directly kill Eiro, which is what the quest penalty sounded like anyway. But surely he wouldn''t end up revealing information about all this, since it may reveal his identity as the killer. So, he would go hunt Eiro himself. That meant that the reason for this penalty were different to the reason for the other two penalties. Rather than being inspired by the fact that Eiro wanted to hide who, or rather what, he was, it should be inspired by something else. By the fact that Eiro didn''t want to die, and his fear of death that he has carried with himself ever since he first saw his fellow Lesser Imps spread thinly over the forest ground all the way back then.


    So, it was clear that the Killer was an incredibly powerful person. Who knew, they may even be part of the organization already, although it seemed a bit unlikely for that to be a quest then. On the other hand, Eiro didn''t really know how the quest-system worked, so it could be something like that.


    But just as Eiro was thinking about this, Bahlsen started to leave this alley as if in a trance, simply following an invisible trail. They continued through the streets of the slums while the investigator was continuosly looking around himself to find as many clues as he was walking as absolutely possible.


    And so, Bahlsen and Eiro soon stood in front of the front door of a run-down building. Eiro pressed his palm onto the wall making it up and mmed his foot into the ground while closing his eyes and trying to ''sense'' anything around him, before he started to frown deeply.


    "That''s weird..." The Demon muttered. He pushed the rotten wooden door open and made his way through the small, dirty rooms, quickly followed by Bahlsen. And then, Eiro soon stood in another room, before once more pressing his palm onto the wall. But this time, instead of trying to sense the things around him again, he revealed something that was there until just now. The figure of a young dead woman hidden in in sight. The issue was that the dead body was perfectly hidden using stealth. The sort that let you blend into your environment.


    The same kind that Eiro was trying to learn from the stealth token he always put into the puppet.

 Chapter 237 - Abrupt Stop

    The moment that Eiro saw the corpseying on the ground in front of him, he pushed out a wave of mana out of every single ce in his body that he could, manipting anything that he was capable of right now so that he could start sensing every detail of this space around him.


    "The ''Collector'' has incredible skill in the area of ''Stealth''. That might be why you sometimes having a tough time with him. Luckily I''m the worst opponent a stealth-based fighter could ever ask for, but still, it''s troublesome. Very much so." Eiro pointed out as he squatted down in front of the dead body. It was mostly in peak condition, and if Eiro didn''t know any better, at first nce he might think that this woman was just taking a nap. Outwardly, she didn''t have any visible wounds, and her torso was covered in a thick shirt that was hiding the fact that it waspletely caved in where there were no bones.


    The Collector had taken out every single internal organ that he could find inside of this woman. Eiro ground his teeth and turned around toward Bahlsen, "Look for whatever clues you can. If you can give me anything that has even the slightest trace of the Collector''s scent, I''ll be able to find him." The Demon announced immediately. He didn''t know why, but Eiro felt... disgusted by this sight. Despite the fact that he watched a man slowly devour corpses by ripping them apart with his teeth, and that while feeling emotions akin to pleasure or delight.


    But seeing this woman like this,ying there without the slightest possibility of life, Eiro felt... a sort of emptiness. As if his body had a deep gaping abyss inside of it just like this woman. It wasn''t a feeling he liked experiencing, but it was something that he definitely had to deal with.


    "Sure, but calm down first. We don''t want you to somehow make a mistake just because you''re upset, now do we?" Bahlsen pointed out with a light smile directed at Eiro as he approached the dead girl. Immediately as he looked at her, he furrowed his brows and took a deep breath himself. He was also being affected by this, probably being reminded of his family.


    The Demon waited for a while as Bahlsen did his thing, and after not even having to wait for too long, he soon seemed to have found something that could help Eiro out.


    "While I don''t think I found something that you could use to pick up his scent, I can give you other information. Like normal, he used an incredibly sharp knife that should be around 7 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. It is a one-edged knife, most likely one that was repurposed from being a simple kitchen-knife. Compared to older wounds that I''ve taken a look at, these seem slightly more... messy. Not incredibly so, justpared to the state they were in before. And with ''messy'' I mean that the edges of the cut are not as clean as they were before. That means that the knife should be slightly worn-down at this point in time. While I can''t be perfectly positive, for the longest time, I''ve had the assumption that he also used a sort of magic to help him out, maybe something that let him decrease the bleeding or simply make it easier to cut through the skin. Obviously he is capable of using magic, but I couldn''t be sure that he did make use of it here, although I do think he did."


    "I get it, I get it..." Eiro replied with a slight grumble. To him, the cuts seemed incredibly clean. Sure, there was a little bit of irregr ripping instead of regr cutting, but it was so small that Eiro was surprised Bahlsen was even able to see it. In the first ce, Eiro couldn''t imagine that it was really possible to cut any more cleanly than this. Even more than before, Eiro was impressed with the skill that the Collector was showing. He was obviously an incredibly strong person, there was no doubt about that in Eiro''s mind anymore, not that there was all to much doubt in the first ce.


    Either way, Eiro stood there and tried to find anything else that Bahlsen maybe didn''t see, and started to try sorting through the scents in this room. Maybe he would be able to figure out the lingering scents in this building just like that.


    Eiro did hear that it was possible for people that had an incredible level in the stealth skill to reduce their heartbeat to a point where it nearly wasn''t beating at all, slow down their breathing to where it wasn''t far away from simply not breathing, and nearlypletely erase their bodily odors. Most likely, this Collector was also capable of things like this, as he was also able to even disguise things like others'' dead bodies after killing them, but the thing was that there was nearly no way topletely get rid of all traces. And it would help him find the specific scent he was looking for as well, since it was unnaturally weakpared to anything else.


    But still, just because it was so weak, Eiro wasn''t really able to get a good grasp on its properties. He knew that it was there, but he just didn''t know what it actually was like fully. It was like the feeling of a word being stuck on the tip of your tongue, just with scents.


    However, as things like erasing one''s odor were something absolutely unnatural, a certain force had to be used in order to achieve this. And that force was mana.


    Eiro turnedh is head toward Gondos and extended his hand toward him. The Golem immediately understood what Eiro wanted and pressed up against Eiro''s palm that he quickly chose to expose. Gondos traveled through Eiro''s body and fused with him, giving Eiro the ability to sense mana far more intensely than the tiniest bit that he learned bybining with his spirits prior to this.


    Either way, the aspect of ''mana'' was put over everything that Eiro sensed. And while erasing one''s scent was a good way to make one untracable by physical means, it made one the perfect target for being traced by magical means, since it took up a lot of mana. Basically, the mana fused with parts of the scent and conceiled it perfectly. Just like this, Eiro was able to properly pick up the scent left behind by the Killer, and would now be able to find him.


    With a grin on his face, Eiro turned toward Bahlsen, "Follow me. We''ll report this to guardster, or just leave her body here if we need to. For now, we''ll go ahead and track the collector." Eiro said immediately,pletely ignoring the fact that Bahlsen was trying to question him about what he just did, why he slightly grew in height, why his voice changed and why he was bulkier now, but Eiro just ignored him for now, as it was rather unimportant.


    The Demon followed the scent and the trail of mana with the obvious source of it being the killer. First, it led Eiro and Bahlsen through the streets of the slums. Eiro was trying his best not to ignore others around him while he was focusing on this magical aspect of things, but it was hard to do especially the more time went on. This was actually amongst the longest times that Eiro spent fused with either Nelli or Gondos. It definitely was the longest use in a real situation, anyway. The only times where Eiro and Nelli or Gondos went past that was when they were practicing to specifically increase the time that they could spend fused togetherfortably. As the fusion was anything but perfect, that was something really rather important to try and figure out.


    Eiro followed the floating trail of the killer''s scent through the streets, until the trail simply led out of these slums into the regr areas of town. At first, it seemed as if the collector had been running around aimlessly, but it was more like he was kind of looking for something. Possibly, the next victim, Eiro thought. That was, until Bahlsen stopped him.


    "Is this where the trail is leading?" He asked, and Eiro slowly turned around and nodded his head, "Yes, it is. Does this give you any clues?"


    The investigator slowly turned his head toward one of the buildings adjacent to the street before he nodded his head without saying anything. Eiro looked at the building a bit confused, before realizing what this was about.


    "That''s the Inn you''re staying at, isn''t it?" The Demon asked. Without hesitation, Bahlsen looked at Eiro, "Is it leading in there? Tell me, is it?"


    Eiro took a deep breath and tried to continue following the scent, visualizing the trail in his mind. As far as Eiro could tell, it was exactly like Bahlsen assumed. The scent-trail led right into the building. Without hesitation, the two of them made their way inside there and continued following the scent. It led up the stairs, to the back of the hallway.


    "It''s... stopping here..." Eiro muttered confusedly as he stared in front of him. Bahlsen stood in front of the door with a nk expression, "This is my room... He came herest night? Is that bastard toying with me?"


    With pure anger welling up inside of Bahlsen, he kept staring at the door, "I didn''t notice anything off when I woke up this morning, and I definitely would have noticed. So you said it stops here? Do you mean it leads inside of the room? Did the son of a bitch watch me sleep?!"


    Slowly Eiro turned toward him and shook his head, "No, it''s just like I said. The trail stops here. It just disappeared right in front of the door. It is quite strong right here, but it doesn''t go anywhere else. Not inside the room, not further down the hallway. The only thing I could imagine he did is that he walked back the exact same path that we just took, all the way back to the victim..."


    The problem with this was simple. This was just tantly impossible. It wasn''t improbable, it was impossible. The only logical exnation Eiro could think of was that the killer suddenly stopped using his mana to hide his scent, and instead used some other means to make it disappear to the extent where even Eiro couldn''t notice it.


    The only way this was possible was if the killer had the Ace of Cups, which would literally make him just disappear from this world for twelve hours. But Eiro had the ace of cups with him, so again, it was just tantly impossible.


    "Whoever the ''Collector'' is, he''s insanely strong...."

 Chapter 238 - FailSafe

    Eiro was flying back toward his home while trying to figure out how exactly he should try and find the Collector. It probably wouldn''t be too bad if he simply chose to wait and let this quest fail, simply preparing for the fact that he woulde and try to kill him. There would be a few issues that he would have to ount for, like that he had to properly hide the children until the Collector was dead so that he couldn''t use them somehow.


    But in the end, while it surely would be helpful to have his rank in the Organization increased a little, in the end, the greatest thing that he would get out of this, which would happen no matter if he seeded or failed, was the fact that he would level up quite a bit. Considering the apparent strength of the Collector, there was no doubt in Eiro''s mind that he would end up leveling up a fair bit after killing him, and that was a lot more valuable than simply raising his rank in an organization. That was something that he didn''t even fully know if it waspletely worth it or not.


    Nheless, of course Eiro would still like to find him before the one week was up, and the main reason for that once again wasn''t even the rank-increase within the organization, but rather that Eiro would be able to get the advantage of surprise, or so he hoped. Eiro had no idea to what extent the killer would be aware of him and what he would find out, but if it went as far as telling him everything about Eiro''s ability''s, strengths, and weaknesses, then that would be an immense disadvantage, considering that all that Eiro knew at the moment was that he was skilled in the area of stealth, and could handle a knife.


    "Are you alright, Eiro?" Gondos asked a while after noticing that the Demon was eerily quiet, as he often was while thinking intensely, and Eiro turned his head over toward the Golem, "I''m fine, don''t worry. Just trying to figure out how exactly the killer managed to just tantly disappear like that. It just doesn''t make sense that he would just be able to...pletely erase his scent, except if he was far, far, far more powerful than I thought. But if that was the case, then the quest to kill him would be impossbile, so I don''t think that''s the case." Eiro exined, trying to put his thoughts into words, something that always helped his process, whether it be through speaking or writing.


    "But what if you were never supposed to be able toplete the quest? Maybe they figured out who you were and deliberately gave you a quest that was way too hard for you to solve?" Hearing Eiro''s words and noticing how worried he was about this, Nelli gave her insight into this situation as well. But in the end, Eiro just shook his head in response to that.


    "I''m pretty sure they would have much easier ways to kill me if they wanted that. Ways in which they could use me for their means. If they had someone else kill me, then that would mean that they would lose three cards. I doubt it." Eiro exined bluntly, before slightly raising his brow, "But actually, I just got an idea. In the worst case scenario, I can just use my Ace of Cups. It only cuts out when I actually kill people, so I can do as much damage to him as I want. The 1 year penalty will be a bit troublesome, but it''s better than dying..."


    "Actually, why have you never been really using it besides in... well, ''wrong'' ways? You never just drink it." Bavet pointed out from Eiro''s palm, as he was still fused into it for now, and the Demon slowly nodded, "I don''t. Because I don''t need to. For the most part, I can solve a situation without it. Sure, if ites to the point where I will die if I don''t, as long as I still have the full potion, I will definitely use it and basically throw it away for another year if the only solution is to kill someone or something."


    Bavet stayed silent on Eiro''s palm for a few moments, most likely trying to figure out what kind of situation Eiro would need to actually use that card in the right away, and why he just wouldn''t use it to make his life easier, until Nelli exined. She most likely understood exactly what Bavet was thinking.


    "Right now, the Ace of Cups is arguably Eiro''s strongest card. It has a lot of drawbacks because of that, but just as Eiro said, he can practically kill anything with it if he so wants. He can get out of any situation, save anyone he wants, and probably even destroy a whole town somehow. But he doesn''t, simply because it is his strongest card. It is literally the ace up his sleeve. In an emergency, it will definitely save his life, there is no doubt about that. And you don''t want to use your fail-safe willy-nilly."


    Eiropletely agreed with what Nelli was saying. She was absolutely right, that was his mindset and reasoning behind why Eiro wasn''t using this card of his. It seemed like even Bavet soon understood why Eiro did it this way, and the rest of the flight was spent in silence once more, although it wasn''t even a particrly long flight.


    As such, Eiro soonnded in front of his manor, and soon made his way inside after this rather long day. It seemed like the children were all in their rooms doing their own thing, working on their own small projects, reading, practicing some skills, or just trying to prepare for school that was set to start in just a little over a week from now. It seemed like especially Felix was rather nervous, seeing how he didn''t even think he would be able to attend an academy like that.


    And so, Eiro chose to just take a short break himself as he went to his own room and just fell down onto his bed after dropping off Bavet''s core into the tub of slime ced in the library so that he could take on whatever form he wanted to right now. He closed his eyes and chose to take a nap, something he actually didn''t do all too often.


    Soon, Eiro was woken up by someone knocking on his door. There was no lighting through the curtains anymore, so it seemed like night came while Eiro was sleeping. The Demon slowly pushed himself off his bed and with a loud yawn said, "Come in, you three."


    The doorhandle was pushed down and the door opened up before James stepped inside, quickly followed by Krog and Jess, who were all looking at Eiro with an expression of curiosity.


    "So?" Jess asked, since nobody else was, "How''d it go?"


    Eiro scratched the back of his head, trying to think about it properly, before answering in a pretty simple way, "Good, I guess? I became a member, rose in the ranks a fair bit, and took on some quests." He exined, "Speaking of, how did it go for you guys today? You had a meeting with a former client, right?"


    The three of them looked at each other with a light grumble before they nodded their heads, "We did, but it''s a really annoying and paranoid one. So, when we had to tell ''im that James wasn''t the Party Leader anymore, he startedpletely freaking out and thinking that his ''old enemies'' were taking over those close to him... He''s a bit sick, if you didn''t notice. He gave us a request to find some kind of trinket that was stolen from him. The problem is, he didn''t want to tell us anything about the situation because he thought we could sell the information and not help him." Krog exined in a clearly annoyed tone.


    Eiro figured that he should ask about that a bit moreter, but it was obvious that the three in front of him wanted to know more about what happened with the Organization today.


    And so, the Demon started to exin the little extra information that he found out about the organization today, like what kind of people were there, how exactly the structures inside of the organizations'' base were built, and things like that. Otherwise, there was really little to tell that Eiro didn''t already tell them from the things that he found out by questioning John.


    Besides that, Eiro of course exined the quests that he received, as well as his assumptions about the background of those quests now that he got a proper first-hand look at them. That, as well as the issue that he had with one of the two quests he still had leftover, and his encounter with Bahlsen.


    "Another Card Holder? And the Knight of Pentacles, at that..." James muttered quietly, "It sounds like a pretty useful card, doesn''t it?"


    "It sure does, especially if it wasbined with Eiro''s perception."


    "Wouldn''t that make it impossible for anyone to keep any sort of secret from him?" Krog asked as he agreed with Jess, and Eiro just slightly shrugged, "Sure, it sounds useful, but I don''t think I''ll take it from Bahlsen. He seems like a good guy, and not like the kind I''d want to kill. With that kind, I may even feel kind of bad about it. And since the only way to get a pentacle card is to kill the one that owns it, I just doubt it."


    The three stared at Eiro a bit surprised, "Really? You''d actually feel bad if you killed him?"


    "Of course I would, I don''t particrly enjoy killing innocent people. And even if I don''t show it, I also feel horrible about the rampage where I literally decimated half a vige in cold blood. And at the end, I was literally covered in the cold blood of the innocent people I killed. It''s not a great feeling, you know?" Eiro pointed out, "Even if I did go as far as torture John and turn him into a monstrosity like that without feeling particrly anything but pleasure, I do still have something like a ''person''s emotions''."


    "It still seems weird that you do..." James admitted, "But nevermind that, we''re not trying to insult you here, sorry if we did. But either way, do you think you''ll be fine going after the guy like that?"


    "I do think so, yes. Or well, I hope so. I''m already preparing for the worst-case, really.. I''ll finish the other quest in the prison, and then I''ll focus my whole attention on the case with the Killer."

 Chapter 239 - Sword Practice

    Eiro slowly made his way out of his room for now to check up on the children before everyone would head to bed. Arc and Rudy were sitting together in the main sitting room of the manor, talking to each other about the Academy.


    "You think we''ll be alright there? I don''t have much experience with school, but I was never particrly popr with other kids..." Rudy pointed out nervously. Hearing this while he was still outside the room, Eiro stopped for a moment, since he didn''t want to intrude on this moment that the two of them were having.


    With a slightugh, Arc wanted to cheer Rudy up, "Don''t worry, you''ll be fine! In the first ce, there aren''t just kids there, the Academy is for people of all ages! It''s more split up into ability, isn''t it? I mean, Felix is also going to attend, and he''s three years older than all of us."


    "I... I guess so... But even then, there''s plenty of people that aren''t particrly nice to people of my... size..." Rudy exined, and Arc slightly raised his brows with a smirk on his face, "You''ll be seven or eight feet tall, Rudy. There''s no way anyone''s going to make fun of you just because you''re a healthy eater. And by the way,pared to what you used to be like, you''re already a lot thinner! You''ll grow, keep being active physically, and then you''ll be totally fine! Rudy, you will be even hotter than me once that happens." With a loudugh, Arc told his honest feelings to Rudy, who just kept smiling with a bit of nervosity, seemingly not totally believing in what Arc was saying.


    And then, it seemed like even Arc stopped being overly cheerful, since this was probably a bit more serious than he initially thought it would be, "Rudy, you can believe me. You''re my brother, I wouldn''t lie to you about something like this. I don''t think you''ll have any issues at the Academy. You''re kind, you''re skilled, you''re smart, there''s really no reason to assume you''ll be messed with. Kids are mean, but people at our age should hopefully be able to see beyond things like your body."


    It seemed like slowly, Rudy was bing genuinely happy in response to Arc''s words, and Eiro figured that he should leave those two alone for a little while and instead went to see the others for now. Sammy just brought Leon and Avalin to bed while Clementine wasying in her room all alone. And so, the Demon figured he would go see Sammy first, since she was closer to him right now, and Clementine seemed like she had to think about a few things, although Eiro didn''t know what exactly it was.


    Eiro approached the young girl as she quietly left the children''s room and just smiled at her, and Sammy quickly started to smile the moment she saw him, "Eiro!" She said, in something like a ''whispering yell'', where she was excited to see him but didn''t want to wake Leon and Avalin up. Especially considering that they would want to speak to Eiro after hearing that he was here and would probably be a bit too excited to go to bed for the next hour or so.


    "You were gone all day, is everything alright?" Sammy asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head without a moment''s hesitation, "Of course everything is alright. I just had to take care of something, it''s rted to the attack on the Lady of Winter before."


    "Ah..." Sammy said, her smile quickly disappearing, "Do you know why that man did it by now?"


    "I do, yes. Although I don''t exactly know the whole situation yet, so I will exin it to all of you once I have all the information? That''s fine, right?" The Demon asked with a light smile on his face, and Sammy slowly nodded her head.


    "It is, yeah. So how have your preparations been going?" Eiro started to slowly step down the hallway with Sammy soon walking right next to him with both her hands behind her back, "It''s been going... alright. I''m just really nervous... It''s my first time attending a proper school..."


    Eiro slowly turned his head over toward the young woman next to him, "Didn''t you say you took lessons in different areas shortly before you were... well, transported away?"


    "I did, but they were in the form of private lessons, with only myself being taught by my tutor. My ''friends'' attended a prestigious school for noble children, but my parents were too scared that I would... you know, do something..."


    "I see." Eiro slowly muttered, "But at least you''re not the only nervous one. I think the only one that''s not nervous out of all of you is Arc."


    "Sounds about right." Sammy agreed with a slightugh while looking down at the ground slightly awkwardly, "Do you want to see them again? Your parents, that is."


    Without a moment''s hesitation, Sammy stopped walking and formed a deep frown as she red at Eiro because of the sheer idea, but just when she slightly opened her mouth, Sammy choked up, "I... I don''t know..."


    "If you ever do figure out that you want to meet them, then tell me. I think it''s a good idea to show them what they''ve missed because they treated you like they did, instead of caring for you properly." Eiro said bluntly, and Sammy just looked back at the Demon with slightly teary eyes before she nodded her head and wiped those tearspletely away.


    "Sure, I would like to see their dumb faces when I tell them that I have a way better father now." She said with a smile, and Eiro nodded while quietlyughing, "That''s the spirit."


    All of a sudden, before Eiro had any chance to speak to Sammy for too much longer, he noticed Gobo standing at the end of the hallway, just looking toward him with his arms behind his back and apletely nk expression.


    The demon let out a long sigh as hje walked up to the evolved Hobgoblin. Gobo stood there with a straight back, and while he didn''t actually grow after his evolution, his body still changed quite a lot. The tone of his skin was still yellow-brownish, and his teeth were still sharper than those of a person, but other than that, his proportions changed to be more like that of a human. His face became less ugly, his torso changed so that he didn''t have such an extremely blown-up belly while his ribs could be seen, and his limbs simply became more human-like proportionally as well.


    Really, at this point, since Gobo''s skin tone did slightly change to be a more natural brown-tone, he could probably pass as a person as long as he kept his mouth shut. A somewhat ugly person, but a person nheless.


    With his arms crossed, Eiro looked at Gobo, "You want something?" He asked, and Gobo slowly nodded his head, "Yes, Master. If you have time. I wish to get more instructions. I am not happy with my swordy."


    Eiro quietly grumbled to himself and turned around toward Sammy, "Sorry, we''ll talkter, alright? I''ll take care of this real quick and then I''lle see you again."


    "That''s fine! Take your time." Sammy said with a light smile on her face, before Eiro just smiled back and turned toward Gobo again. The two of them made their way through the hallway, before Eiro made sure that none of the children were around, before hitting the brick wall next to him.


    One of the bricks was pushed deeper into the wall and one of the actually far too many hidden doors opened up. Eiro stepped inside and quickly made his way to the library, where he soon found Bavet sitting around and looking at Bestiaries to find monsters that he could practice turning into. Right now, he was a three-headed albino python, and turned one of his heads toward the two monsters as they entered the room.


    "Hm? What''s wrong, why are youing through there?" The transformation slime asked, and Eiro slowly sat down on his armchair and looked at Gobo, "That''s what I would like to know. Alright, Gobo, what''s up? Why''d you use that ''signal''?" Eiro asked with a slight frown, and Gobo held his hands together behind his back.


    "I was in the gardens today. Practicing the things that Master told me to. I thought I was being watched. By many different eyes. For one hour, it continued. I kept sensing myself being watched. after that one hour they simply disappeared."


    Immediately, Eiro jumped up from his armchair and stared at Gobo, "What?! When was this?!"


    "It was after you brought back John into the Dungeons, Master. I apologize for only telling you now. I tried to inform you before, but you were asleep. I could not wake you up then."


    Eiro slightly grumbled and nodded his head, "I have been barely sleepingtely, so I guess I just crashed there... But where exactly was this? And do you think they just watched you? Did you see anything, or did you just sense that you were being watched?"


    "I only sensed that I was being watched. Acted like I didn''t notice them. Because may they would want to fight then. Then they left. I looked at the ces I sensed them. But nothing was out of ce. Not as far as I remember. But everything seemed weirdly off. I cannot describe how exactly." Gobo exined, and Eiro quickly cracked his knuckles with an annoyed grumble.


    "Alright, if there''s people scouting out my home while I''m gone, then this is gonna get ugly." Eiro practically growled as he made his way over toward the path that would lead on the quickest way outside, and was swiftly followed by Gobo and Bavet after exining what was wrong.


    "You''re going to see if something is different, right?"


    "Of course I am." Eiro replied to Bavet, "I trust Gobo''s instincts. As a Magic-Warrior based evolution, I trust his senses to find changes in the air like that. If they used skills to hide themselves to an extent, there had to be changes in the mana filling the air. Even if he didn''t notice it directly, I think that''s where that feeling of something being ''wrong''es from. And either way, better safe than sorry. If someone might be snooping around, I want to know who it might possibly be.." Eiro pointed out bluntly as he looked at the slime behind him, and then while grinding his teeth said, "I won''t let anyone try to mess this ce up, there''s no way."

 Chapter 240 - The Prison

    Eiro looked around the gardens, trying to find anything that was possibly out of ce. And in order to do that, the Demon even fused with Gondos to make sure that he was able to see if there were any unnatural parts about the mana in the area that could exin why Gobo was feeling that something was weird before.


    And immediately, Eiro could see that the flow of mana really was a bit off. Not by lot, but it was a bit more erratic than normal. Sure, there were times when this happened naturally as a result of random chain reactions of some magic. It could have just happened because all of the magically hidden rooms in the manor were being made use of again.


    However, that wouldn''t exin why Gobo felt watched. It exined the weird feeling that something was off, but that really didn''t feel like being watched. Even Gobo said that they were two very different things to experience, even to him.


    Eiro spread out his mana through the area, through the air and the ground, and soon managed to see something that one of the people seemingly left behind. It was a trace of magic.


    Like Gobo said, on the surface, there really wasn''t anything that was out of ce. No footprints, no broken sticks, not even a hair that wasying around on the ground all of sudden. But instead what was there was the trace that someone used magic on the ground, probably earth magic to get rid of at the very least things like footsteps.


    It didn''t snow since yesterday, and everyone that wanted to practice out here, although mainly Eiro since his magic was the strongest, got rid of the snow using fire magic or fire magic stones. The extra moisture was then pulled out of the ground in the areas where they would actually practice, and instead was pushed out toward the surrounding areas, so they were especially muddy.


    That meant that there was no way that people wouldn''t have left behind at least a little bit of a trace in that mud that Eiro might have been able to figure out. But luckily, they didn''t realize that any kind of magic had certain patterns to it. They were uniquely different for everyone, which was why it was possible to differentiate between different people using their mana in specific situations.


    Usually, these patterns were practically impossible. Regr mana couldn''t be seen by most in the first ce, and they would just disappear for things like Air, Water, and Fire magic immediately anyway, since those were things that were very easily in constant motion. But when it came to things like earth or even ice magic, and generally magic that dealt with things in their solid state, that was a different story.


    And sure, the ground was still a bit muddy, so the patterns were probably a little bit distorted by now, but that didn''t matter. It would be close to impossible for Eiro to identify someone through their mana patterns anyway. If he had Bahlsen''s investigation-card, maybe, but not with just his extreme perception. But even then, Eiro was able to at least tell when there were mana patterns left in certain ces.


    So, the Demon soon saw that Gobo was telling the truth, as these mana patterns were spread around the whole area surrounding the ce that Gobo was training at, everywhere in the bushes and at the bases of trees.


    And so, the Demon took a deep breath in and picked up the scent of a few of the people that were most likely the ones that were watching the Magic-Warrior Hobgoblin, and immediately made sure to keep those in mind. Not that he would be able to forget them anyway, but he was somewhat trying to filter through his memories to see if these scents ovepped with those of others that Eiro ever met before, and that would take a little while.


    After all, Eiro figured that there had to be a certain reason why they were doing this. But for now, Eiro figured he should just go back inside and spend some more time with his children. If he was lucky, they would end up trying to snoop around a little again, and he would get better traces on them so that he could easily find them.


    "Alright, let''s go back inside." Eiro said and looked at Gobo and Bavet, although Bavet in particr was confused, "Wait, what? Why''d you even bring me out here with you two if all you''re gonna do is go back inside?!"


    "You won''t follow them?" Gobo asked with simr confusion, although obviously about a different part of this topic, and Eiro just looked at the two of them with a light smile on his face.


    "I won''t follow them, no. I brought both of you out here in case I had to, so that I could leave it to you to inform the others properly. Or in an emergency, I would''ve had one of youe with me. But it''s fine for now. I just want the two of you to keep watch here for a little while. Well, Gobo, at least. Bavet has toe with me for a good while every time anyway."


    Hearing Eiro''s words and following behind him, the two Monsters slowly understood Eiro''s decision, although the slime in paritcr had another question. He was still in the form of that three-headed albino python, and slithered up to Eiro''s side before jumping off the ground and turning into a small falcon as he sat down on one of Eiro''s more horizontally-grown horns, "By the way... Why exactly do you want me to be with you the whole time?"


    "Just in case... I''m always trying to be careful, is there something you don''t understand about that concept?" Eiro asked, "I''ll make myself apletely new mask to rece my normal one. Like a fifth of the people at the organization before were wearing masks somehow, so it won''t be a surprise to see that I am as well. But if I get into a situation where I need to act the part of the organization-member, I need your help."


    Eiro quickly made his way back inside with the Falcon-shaped slime sitting atop his head, with Gobo following like an obedient dog like he always did. For now, there was very little else to take care of. Eiro checked up on the children again, spoke to them a bit, and then said goodnight to them.


    Eiro also went to bed for a few more hours, since he didn''t manage to sleep all his exhaustion away before being woken up by his party before. But that was fine, really, like this he was able to talk to the children at the end of the day, and he still woke up rather early in the morning to let him spend the time until sunrise just reading a few books about the prison here in the capital.


    He managed to figure out things like a basicyout, average power of the convicts in the different wards, the average power of the guards patrolling that prison, and the countermeasures that they had against many sorts of magic that might mess with them.


    And really, none of that information was hard to figure out, since the prison''s Warden practically used it to advertise for the prison to have more nobles invest in it. Solomon actuallyined to Eiro before that he thought the prison system in Skyhart was a bit messed up, since it was mostly focused around mary gain instead of the convicts'' rehabilitation. He was having a pretty hard time trying to figure out how to reform it properly. But that was somewhat unrted.


    The most important part was that Eiro managed to gather all the basic information that he needed with absolute ease. And in the first ce, he was d to see that even the things that the Warden was bragging about in newspapers was rtively easy for Eiro to ovee. After all, there was no way that he didn''t over exaggerate how well-prepared the prison was while under exaggerating how strong or problematic the prisoners were. Eiro wouldn''te in contact with the prisoners, hopefully, but if the prison would end up being less well-prepared than they were bragging, and even that bragging sounded like Eiro could easily ovee it... This would be aplete breeze, there was no doubt about that in the Demon''s mind.


    And so, after reading up on everything that he needed to, Eiro prepared for the day. He ate breakfast with the others, and then said goodbye to them for the day after making sure everything would be under control here. Jess, James and Krog said they would be staying here today to settle in a bit more and prepare for the request they were given by that paranoid client. Staying home was a rather easy choice to make after Eiro told them that there were apparently people watching Gobo in the gardens yesterday. So, the three of them stayed home to protect the children just in case.


    That meant that Eiro had time to take care of his own things. Eiro really wanted to ride to the prison on Lugo, but he couldn''t risk being seen around the Stag right now while he was wearing his disguise of the organization-member, something that he did in case higher-ups from the organization were watching the prison to see what Eiro would end up doing.


    He couldn''t let anyone find out who he was just yet, so he had to deal with things like that in this manner. And so, Eiro was flying to the area around the prison instead,nded in an area without any people, and then chose to run the rest of the way. For now, what Eiro had to do was to find some kind of good entrance into the prison as well, and then he had to find whatever rat stole the Warden''s ''precious possession''.


    He chose to slightly disguise himself with a thinyer of his ace of cup potion to get through the prison more easily. And luckily, getting inside first and foremost wasn''t so hard. The prison was set up so that it was quite literally just set into the ground, using a natural cliff at the side of a river to detain the convicts.


    By simply sneaking in together with some provisions, Eiro made his way into the prison, and soon found out that the warden wasn''t even currently here. That was probably why it said to get the ''precious possession'' back before he noticed it was gone. He would probably return in a few more days and then slowly notice.


    The first thing that Eiro then did was to make his way to the Warden''s office, so that he could figure out what his precious possession was in the first ce.

 Chapter 241 - Perfect Disguise

    Eiro sneaked through the halls of the prison, trying to make his way to the Warden''s office as quickly as he could without being noticed by anyone. In the end, it was quite straightforward to navigate through this ce, and just as Eiro thought, the security was definitelycking inparison to what the Warden was advertising the whole time.


    There were a few people that were indeed quite skilled, and might even give Eiro a bit of a tough time, but they were just the odd ones out in the whole prison. The prisoners themselves, on the other hand, were another story. There were plenty of them that were strong, incredibly so.


    They were locked up in special cells, created in ways that would make it impossible for them to get out of them using magic or brute strength. And as far as Eiro could tell, there were far worse people deeper down in the prison, protected much stronger. In some cases, Eiro couldn''t even properly see into the cells from this position by using the vibrations of the ground.


    This kind of thing made Eiro wonder why exactly he would get a copy of the central prison key, which Eiro assumed would let him open a lot of the doors and sometimes even cells in this ce. If the penalties were made to fit the one that took the quest, then maybe the rewards were too? Was it in Eiro''s best interest to open one of the cells?


    He kept thinking about that, and he did really want to find out more about all of this, but it seemed like he may be able to actually figure that out while looking for that stolen precious possession. So, he figured he would put that to the back of his mind for now and then quickly made his way through the prison to the Warden''s Office.


    And to Eiro''s surprise, it really wasn''t hard to get to at all. Even if he hadn''t turned himself invisible, or if he had a very low to no level in the stealth skill, he may have been able to get through there if he had just been careful with where the Guards were at the moment.


    Eiro slowly tried to open the door, although it was locked, and quietly sighed. So, Eiro looked down at the small bead that was set into the back of his hand right now, "Bavet." He whispered, and the Transformation Slime, who was currently only with Eiro while in the form of his marble-like slime core, quickly responded and slid over his hand, travelling to his fingertip before turning into a small, thin metal rod.


    Eiro pushed that metal rod into the keyhole and waited for Bavet to get to work. It only took a few moments for him to properly see through the actually pretty simple mechanism, and then changed his shape into that of a key. With a small twist of his hand, Eiro then swiftly opened the door and stepped inside.


    "Good job." Eiro told Bavet, and the slime core simply slithered back down his skin onto the back of his hand and turned into a small mouth, "Yeah, it''s kinda like you should treat me better... Because I''m so useful, you know?"


    "Bavet, shut it. I let you live in a literal mansion, give you as much food as you need, and give you a shitton of freetime in return for just helping me out a little bit every once in a while." The Demon replied bluntly, and Bavet''s mouth slowly closed down before the slime just turned back into the bead form that was ced into the back of Eiro''s hand, not saying anything else.


    The Demon sighed a bit as he closed down the door and immediately started to look around the room. Immediately, he could tell what kind of person the Warden was. He had a big painting with an intricately carved, gold-painted frame of himself hanging on the wall. There were a lot of expensive things here as well, packed into this room all the way to the top.


    Newspaper articles were hung up on the walls as well, those that the Warden himself appeared in. Eiro remembered there being a lot more articles about this prison, but it seemed like the Warden was a bit of a narcissist and only hung up the ones that were about himself.


    Immediately, Eiro took a look around in this room, just ncing at everything from every perspective for a moment. And after he was done with that, he revisited that memory with his ''Memory of a Schr'' ability so that he could see this scene a thousand times in a matter of seconds.


    Without even having to think for long, Eiro soon figured out a few different things. One, there was just a single spot free in this whole room where the precious thing could have been. It was right on the Warden''s desk, and Eiro could see definite differences in the level of deterioration the desk received between the spot where that thing seemed to have stood before and the rest of the desk. On top of that, there was even a small imprint in just that ce.


    As if it was something rather heavy that stood there for a long, long time. The rest of the desk was nothing like that. It was still covered to the brim with random things, but it seemed like they were frequently moved or switched out, but just that one thing always stayed in the same spot.


    There was no doubt about it in Eiro''s mind, that was the ce where the ''Precious Possession'' that was stolen from the Warden used to stand.


    Now that he at least had somewhat of a clue, he was able to somewhat figure a few things out. Since it stood on the desk right next to where documents would be handled, it obviously wasn''t all that big. Something that could easily be held in a hand just from the size.


    Weight-wise, it was probably on the heavier side, so it seemed to be mostly made of metal. Other than that, Eiro could see that the base that it stood on was round, since the same was the case with the imprint.


    The demon thought about if he was able to figure out something that might fit this description and this room.


    But there was something else weird. There was no free space anywhere else in this room, every ce to put something up for disy was covered beside that one spot. Nothing else was taken, and there were incredibly expensive things there. There was even a wall-safe filled with a lot of expensive things that made Eiro realize that this wasn''t some random guy trying to steal something for money.


    It was clear from the moment that Eiro stepped inside here that it wasn''t a real ''rat''. There was no ce that it could crawl through in here. In the first ce, there weren''t any rats here at all. The sewers were specially made to not let through things like rodents, or inmates, trying to escape or get in, so there was no way that this could have been a proper rat. Especially not if the stolen thing was as heavy as it seemed to be from the imprint on the table.


    So, the ''rat'' was metaphorical. It was an intruder, someone that simply wasn''t supposed to be here, that snuck in, and stole something that he knew meant a lot to the Warden. This was a personal vendetta.


    Obviously this wasn''t something that could incriminate the Warden, otherwise it wouldn''t stand in in sight of everyone that entered the room. It was simply taken from here in order to hurt the Warden, there was no way anything but that was the case.


    But the thing was that the intruder must have had some sort of key, even if they just stole it. There weren''t any unnatural scratches on the lock, and the door didn''t seem to have been forced open either. So in the end, Eiro figured that he should start by trying to figure out if someone''s key have been stolen, or if some keys went missing somewhere.


    The biggest problem was that Eiro didn''t even know when exactly it was stolen. The thief could really be anywhere. After a bit of thought, Eiro came to a simple conclusion of what he should do. While making his way through the prison, he heard someone speaking about how they just started working here, and Eiro figured he should go ahead and try to make use of that fact.


    The Warden had apparently been gone for three days now, and this guy started working here one week ago, so they were definitely here at the same time before.


    Eiro quickly left the room, and quickly locked it with Bavet''s help again, before starting to make his way through the prison again. And the moment that he saw him, Eiro started to do something else. He started stalking that new guy again. His voice, his behavior, the way he carried himself, all the way through to awkward habits that he resorted to out of nervosity.


    And soon, he went on break, and for that, made his way to an area of the prison only essible for the Guards, where he was able to catch a breath of fresh air. And the moment that Eiro noticed that nobody was around or was watching from far away... He stepped up behind the new Guard, opened up a hole in the wall of this cliff using earth magic, and pulled the guard inside.


    With fire magic, Eiro quickly made a light for them while he dragged the young man through a tunnel that Eiro was continuously creating with earth magic, bringing him to a ce where he could just pick him upter and bring him somewhere for... well, ''safekeeping???, for ack of a better word.


    And then, Eiro stripped him down and put on his uniform, seeing how he already was roughly Eiro''s height and build. The rest just had to be done by Bavet, whopleted the whole disguise by making Eiro look exactly like this Guard.


    "Wh-Why are you doing this?!" He eximed, and Eiro slowly looked down at him, "To protect myself. It''s as easy as that. But don''t worry, once this is all over, you''ll return to your normal life without ever remembering this encounter." Eiro exined quickly, "And no, I won''t kill you, so don''t even ask."


    Slowly, Eiro felt as Bavet started to affect his vocal chords as well, and slowly started to speak again, "Imma head back to work then, bud.. See yater."

 Chapter 242 - Memento

    Eiro, in his disguise as this young man, made his way out of the rock wall that he hid the Guard in, and then stepped back into the prison. He always kept the exact way that the new Guard had been moving in his mind. Usually it wasn''t the bigger things, like if people heard Eiro say something wrong or if they saw him do something he wasn''t supposed to, since a lot of the time you could simply exin it as an awkward mistake on his part, or he could simply try and lie about it in a casual way.


    The things that often made people feel that something was wrong were the little things. If Eiro''s mannerism ornguage used were off while he was trying to copy the Guard, he may not be found out right away, but it would be harder to get away with anything at all. People would double-guess certain things that they wouldn''t if Eiro had just added these smaller things into the mix believably.


    And as far as he was concerned, it worked pretty well. Other guards greeted him with casual nods and smiles, and Eiro kept walking through the hallways of the prison in a calcted way. He could sense exactly where different people were, especially those that Eiro needed to make use of for his n.


    Slowly, making sure that no wrong people were going into that direction, Eiro made his way over toward the Warden''s office again. Without hesitation, Eiro pressed his palm onto the metallic lock. It wasn''t actually all that high-quality, so it wouldn''t take long to break it like this. He heated it up using Fire Magic until it was glowing in a bright yellow color. He pulled his three of swords out for just a moment, and then pushed the de around a bit in there topletely mess the lock-mechanism up, shift things around in unnatural ways, before proceeding to rapidly cool it down.


    The few parts of the mechanism that weren''t broken yet were so now, and Eiro was able to easily push the door open. And that was all that he really needed to do, for now.


    "Three... two... one... now." The Demon whispered to himself and started running down the hallway at a very specific pace. A pace that led him to run into the man supervising the person Eiro was pretending to be.


    Eiro looked at the man with a fake panicking expression while the supervisor took a step back with a deep frown on his face, "Christler, was it? Can''t you look where you''re going, dammit?!" With a stern tone, he practically stared Eiro down, but the Demon just swallowed out of fake nervosity as he looked back.


    "Ah, S-Sir, I''m sorry! But this is an emergency! Someone broke into the Warden''s Office, Sir!" He eximed as loudly as he could, and the supervisor opened his eyes wide and immediately ran past Eiro into the direction of the office, quickly followed by Eiro and two other guards that had been around the supervisor.


    He pushed the door open, noticing the destroyed lock, and stepped into the office, "What the? Who messes up a door like that and then doesn''t even do anything? This ce is in peak condition!"


    The supervisor was looking around for a few moments, while Eiro faked confusion and looked over at one of the other two regr guards, whispering to him, "I haven''t been here for long, ''n I only was in here once, but wasn''t there somethin'' else on the desk there?" Eiro asked bluntly, and the guard looked at him with a light frown before turning his head. He took a step closer into the room and then ripped his eyes wide open as all color drained from his face, "S-Sir..." He muttered closely, and pointed his finger at the space that was missing whatever the Warden''s precious possession was.


    He turned his head and looked at that spot, "What are you trying to-"


    The moment that the supervisor saw it too, his reaction was quite simr to that of the guard, "You three, shut your mouths ande in here immediately."


    With confused expressions, Eiro and the other guard stepped further into the room. It seemed like the other one was also somewhat new, "Is something wrong, Sir?"


    "Heh, is something wrong? Is something okay?! Christler, did anyone else see the Warden''s office in this state beside the people present here?"


    Immediately, Eiro shook his head, "Not as far as I can tell, Sir! I found this room in this state and went to find someone that could help, and then I ran into you, Sir!" He eximed, and the Supervisor slowly ground his teeth while grumbling to himself, "Shit... For now, none of you will speak of this incident. You will help me find whoever took this, but if you mention this to anyone you will immediately be fired. Harlon, go and get Stephanson to get the lock to this office reced. Zimmer, you head to the Supervisors'' ward and get the superiors, this is a serious issue. And Christler, you''re staying with me, you''ll tell me everything you know."


    Immediately, both of the other guards quickly turned around and went on their way, and Eiro was left alone with the supervior. The demon was being stared down by someone that didn''t even realize that he was a demon. But the weirdest thing was that it seemed like the supervisor was actually kind of scared.


    "Alright, Christler. Go over it again, what exactly happened. How did you find this room in this state? Are you sure you did not notice anyone?"


    "Yes, Sir! I just returned from my break, and I thought something smelled weird so I went to investigate. Then, I noticed the door and the state that the lock was in. I made sure that nobody was inside anymore, and then immediately tried to find a superior." Eiro exined swiftly and clearly, and the Supervisor was frowning as he was listening to the Demon, trying to figure out if he was telling the truth.


    "Fine, I will believe you for now. The lock is still hot, and there is no way that you would be able to hide that thing on your body. You most likely didn''t hide it anywhere with the little bit of time you would have had. But I will not let you out of my sight, understood? You will wait here with me until everyone else has been informed, and we will thoroughlyb through the prison without the warden ever finding out. Understood?" The supervisor exined, weirdly as if trying tofort Eiro with thatst bit in particr.


    Eiro looked at the supervisor with a fake nervous expression and swallowed along with that nervosity, "Sir, if I may ask... What exactly was it that was stolen? You seem to be quite worried... Is it a dangerous item?" He inquired, but the supervisor just shook his head and crossed his arms.


    "I guess you should be told. Everyone in this prison knows about it anyway, including the prisoners. Don''t worry, nobody would ever trust the Warden with anything of any danger, even a knife may be too much for him. No, it''s something more... sentimental than that. You remember how you swore on the gods to not ry anything that happened in this prison to outsiders when you formed your contract?"


    Eiro slowly nodded his head. The supervisor slowly looked to the side, "It is something that others should not see... It is a memento of his deceased son."


    "Hm? Oh, that is actually quite nice, isn''t it?" Eiro asked surprised, "Then it makes sense that you want to find it again. Everyone would be mad if they had something like that stolen from them, right..?" Eiro asked, and the supervisor looked to the side while grinding his teeth.


    "Y-Yeah, of course. Ah, and since you seem to have impressive perception, please watch out for any sound of a ticking clock. The memento has been integrated into a table-clock."


    "I see. I will try my best." The Demon replied. Immediately, he had much more information than he had before. And leads that would help him figure this out as quickly as he needed to. Eiro just had to try and find a ticking clock somewhere. The issue with that was that there were numerous clocks here in this prison... It was a bit annoying, but at least it narrowed everything down a lot.


    For a little bit longer, Eiro and the Supervisor just stood there in this office, rather awkwardly at that, and waited for others to arrive. Soon, more of the superiors of the guard that Eiro was impersonating showed up. There was nothing special about them, really. They were boringly... average. But at the very least, they all seemed dedicated to find that memento.


    It seemed like the Warden was a much scarier person than he seemed to be inside of the painting on the wall and the articles Eiro read about this prison. Extremely so, if nobody dared to say anything to anyone in fear of the information getting to the Warden.


    And so, the Demon just listened intensely to the words of everyone here and how desperate they were to figure out where this memento was. Some were literally drenched in cold sweat, and Eiro got the feeling that there was a lot more about this than it seemed like. Soon, Eiro got themand that he was waiting for, "Christler, you''re dismissed for now. Do not speak about this to anyone. We wille and get you if you''re needed. Understood?"


    "Yes, sir! Understood!" Eiro eximed, and then quickly turned around before heading back toward the door. The Demon stepped outside the room and really couldn''t help himself stop grinning because of how easy this was. Not only did he get new information about what he was even looking for in the matter of thirty minutes, but he even managed to get new people to help him out in his quest without their knowledge. This seemed a bit too easy, really.


    Immediately, Eiro made his way over to a central ce in the prison that he already scouted out before. There was a great structural flow that should be able to help his magical perception reach even deeper depths of the prison.


    So, Eiro just stood there, tapping his foot while his arms were crossed, releasing mana into the ground whenever he did so. Eiro was able to quickly figure out a few ces that seemed like someone may be hiding out in, or at least ces where Eiro would try and hide out if he was the thief.


    And so, the Demon got properly started with his work.

 Chapter 243 - A Rotten Scent

    Eiro tried to properly sense every tiny ce that he could reach inside of this prison. He peeked into the cells, private rooms, offices, anywhere where there was even the slightest hint of ticking. Of course, it was possible that the clock was just somehow turned off and that it wasn''t actually ticking right now, but it was Eiro''s best clue for now.


    And since there were clocks all around the prison in the first ce, he would have to make his way to all the corners of this ce anyway. Eiro looked around the ce, and then at some point, managed to figure out that the memento was nowhere in the areas that Eiro could currently actually reach.


    It wasn''t anywhere in the cells, it wasn''t with any of the other guards, and it wasn''t with anyone else that might be able to get into the Warden''s office just like that.


    At first Eiro considered that the one that stole it must have some sort of key to get into the warden''s office, meaning that he could have narrowed it down a fair bit, but considering that Eiro got inside with just as little effort and without an actual key as well, he figured that it was possibly that whoever stole it managed to pick the lock.


    Eiro figured that it was an inmate anyway, so that would work out pretty well with that idea too. If the guards here had a contract about not being allowed to speak about anything going on inside of this prison, then there surely would be some kind of use about stealing things as well. And magic contracts were extremely vicious a lot of the time, so very few people would actually risk going against them if they valued themselves.


    And if the perpetrator was an inmate with enough skills in lockpicking to not leave behind any sort of trace on the lock, then it would make sense that they were capable of just leaving their cell as well. But since nobody seemed to have broken out, they must still be inside if Eiro''s guess was really correct.


    So, the Demon figured that he had to do one thing. Go to the area where even he wasn''t able to lookpletely. Deep, deep underground into the areas where the high-security inmates were kept.


    Eiro slowly made his way toward the entrance into that area, the onerge metal gate at the very bottom part of the main area. The only thing that led down was a staircase that was heavily reinforced by metal, and that had three separate gates installed inside of it that you would need a key to get through.


    But hopefully, Eiro would be able to get through easily enough with Bavet''s help and his perceptive abilities. If he had to, he would just break the locks and make his way deeper into the prison, hopefully find wherever the memento was, and then bring it back to the Warden''s office without any issues.


    And honestly, considering how scared even those supervisors were of the fact that the memento was gone, Eiro was positive that they would keep anything any everything that happened in connection with this even a secret from the Warden. Or at least, they would try to keep quiet about it as much as they could.


    Either way, for now, Eiro just made his way to the first of those gates and stood around casually in a spot where he could be with the position that Christler, the guy that Eiro was impersonating, had. From here, he was able to see the entrance properly. It seemed like it had a ratherplex mechanism inside of it that would be a bother to work around.


    All the lower floors were protected by thick sheets of metal that Eiro wouldn''t be able to get through with earth magic either. It was a bit annoying, but that was how it was.


    Eiro wasn''t actually all too sure if he would be able to bust through that door all too easily either. It was a bit bothersome, actually. What he would need in order to break this door was arge amount of pressure building up from inside in very specific ces. All-around pressure actually wouldn''t do with this, so he couldn''t just try and heat it up or fill it with a lot of water, since he actually couldn''tpress that all too well.


    What he would need was something that would grow from inside, something with a lot of strength an power behind it. Of course, that was only if he didn''t find some other way to get in... Like an anxious supervisor getting the same idea as Eiro and trying to make his way to the lower areas to check on the inmates there.


    Immediately, Eiro cloaked his body in ayer of the ace of cups'' liquid and quickly made his way to a position where he wouldn''t have any issues just sprinting in through the door while it was briefly opened.


    Eiro managed to get a short glimpse inside just before, and it was incredibly dark inside of there, so once he got in, he would be able to use shadow magic to properly hide himself without any sort of issues.


    The Demon counted down to the point at which he had to sprint forward while he already chose to infuse his body with shadow magic from a shadow magic stone on top of using the ace of cups'' effect, to make sure he couldn''t be noticed by anyone.


    "Three... two... one... now!" Eiro whispered to himself and ran forward the moment that the door opened up, entering through the metal door the moment it had been opened. It seemed like because of his rash movements, the supervisor, with a bit of a higher status was able to notice him to an extent. Although he only heard a small sound that he quickly dismissed after not seeing anything afterward. He had something more important to take care of right now, after all, and if nobody else noticed it might have just been nothing. That was probably his thought-process.


    With a light smirk on his face, Eiro returned the rest of the ace of cups'' potion into the actual cup and returned the card to his treasury together with the shadow magic stone he just used, before infusing himself with the shadows inside of this stairway that formed the moment after the thick metal door was closed.


    Eiro slowly followed the supervisor down the stairs as he entered through the other doors as well, and swiftly made his way to the next ce where he had to start looking. Immediately, Eiro was able to figure out hte position of some new clocks ticking in the distance everywhere here.


    Since Eiro couldn''t actually use earth magic properly here due to the fact that everything was made out of metal, he was having a hard time using the vibrations of the ground to figure out theyout. He was still able to somewhat do so because of the echoes from the inmates'' and guards'' voices, but beside that, he would need to be capable of using Metal Magic if he wanted to sense things through the vibrations of this ground.


    Although it wasn''t like he couldn''t use it at all, since he did feel a little bit of the vibrations and was able to analyze them to an extent, since Earth was the base element for the advanced Metal element. But it didn''t really work out all too well when it came to anything further away than ten meters.


    And so, Eiro slowly rushed through the ce whilepletely infused with the shadow element so that he could somewhat push himself into the shadows of the dark hallways and hide from anyone that was trying to pass. Luckily, he was able to find the clocks in this area just through sound.


    But for the most part, they were just simple, normal clocks with nothing to them at all. Eiro was slowly getting a bit irritated at how long this was taking him.


    And that was just when Eiro reached a weird sort of special cell. It seemed very... diffe. For one, the cell was one huge room, and the actual ''cell'' was suspended in mid-air through a few different chains as well as a special sort of magic, it seemed. The people stationed here were some of the strongest that Eiro had seen inside of this whole prison. They were constantly standing at the bottom of this room, at the sides of this space that the actual cell was suspended in.


    Then, a weird part was that the cell was just a single block of metal with not a single opening. At first, Eiro wasn''t even sure if this was an actual cell or just some sort of weird exhibit at the weirdest ce for such an exhibit to be, or if this ce was under construction, but he heard people specting about what kind of weird person was kept inside of there.


    It seemed like beside the metal, there were numerousyers of different materials to make sure that whoever or whatever was in there couldn''t get out, or so Eiro figured from the numerous conversations focused just around this ce.


    Apparently, this was the most important cell in this whole prison, and if the one inside of it got out of there, then they would most likely cause more than just a little havoc. Although it did confuse Eiro why such a person was inside of a prison like this instead of a specialized high-security prison. It made it seem like this was the reason why Eiro would end up needing the central key, although he kind of doubted that it would help him get inside of that cell. If he even wanted to do that...


    Either way, for now, Eiro had to keep looking for the memento. And somehow, he had already found the next clock, although he doubted that it would really be the thing he was looking for.


    But then, he noticed a slightly off... scent. It was like something was rotting, so the Demon made his way over there. It felt like this would be different to the other clocks he found until now.


    And then, the Demon passed the corner and at the end of the current hallway saw something that he didn''t expect. It was the source of the rotten scent, and it quietly stood there holding the ''memento'' in its hand.


    The source of the scent was an undead, a Zombie that was created using one of the guards.


    And the memento that it was holding was a cylindrical ss container with a clockwork mechanism magically suspended inside of it. At first nce, to most it would probably seem like just a magical clock or something. But any guard working here, as well as Eiro right now, knew what it really was.


    It was a child''s heart that keeping a clockwork mechanism running that was there, magically suspended inside of the ss cylinder.

 Chapter 244 - Cigar

    Eiro stood there, staring at the other end of the hallway at the figure that was standing there. At that Undead that was holding that horrifying object. There was no doubt in Eiro''s mind that this was the thing that had been standing on the Warden''s desk the whole time. A dark, grim object that was turned into some kind of artistic piece.


    The Demon ground his teeth and stared at the Undead while his heartrate elerated. His eyes became bloodshot and were dyedpletely in the color of this Demon''s blood.


    "Eiro? Eiro, is everything alright?" Nelli asked nervously, just worried for him, but the Demon didn''t reply. He just raised his hand forward in front of him, running his hand through the notification warning him about his state of Fury that was caused by the ''Mark of Wrath''.


    He held his index finger forward and pushed his thumb into the air with the rest of his fingers squeezed against his palm. He used his thumb as a guide to make sure that the shot was in line and then started creating a magic circle that was wrapping itself around his index finger.


    Somehow, he couldn''t move his legs right now, so instead, he had to resort to something like this. An urate, strong shot from a distance. The moment that Eiro slowly created this magic circle with nothing but his thoughts instead of supporting movements, one of the first times that he actually managed to do this, the glowing white lines of the magic circle that he created disappeared as the spell was activated. A vacuum was created right in front of Eiro as a lot of air was sucked up from this space. It gathered at the tip of the Demon''s finger and shot forward at a speed that was iparable to a regr ''Air Bullet''.


    An instant after it started shooting forward, the Undead had a hole in its head and slowly dropped to the ground, dropping the ss cylinder down so that it started rolling toward Eiro.


    But even beyond that, the metal wall behind the Undead had a small hole in it after being hit by this powerful bullet, enhanced through Eiro''s state of fury.


    Slowly, the Demon started walking forward. He didn''t care about hiding himself anymore. He didn''t care that this air bullet broke the sound barrier and caused a loud crack that echoed through the halls of this part of the prison and numerous guards had been alerted.


    Eiro simply made his was toward the ss cylinder and silently picked it up. It was heavy, heavier than a mostly empty container should be. But that made sense, considering that it seemed to be packed with magic that Eiro had never sensed before.


    Both Nelli and Gondos seemed to be practically disgusted by all that this magic was, as if it was naturally repelling them. Eiro stood there and listened. He listened to the sound of the heart beating, causing the clock to tick. Eiro felt the vibrations of the heart that were pushed out to all edges of the container, through Eiro''s skin into his whole body.


    And he feltpletely and utterly disgusted. Somehow, the sort of rage that he was feeling right now was different to what the Mark of Wrath usually did. Usually, Eiro still tried to fight it, and that fight caused everything to go haywire. But now, he embraced the anger. There was nothing good about this, there was no way that he would be able to justify an object like this with all the information that he had so far.


    A clock made using the memento of the Warden''s dead son, the disappearance of which terrified even rather strong men. And then, a clock made out of a child''s heart wrapped in wicked magic, carried by a vile undead.


    This was the heart of the Warden''s son, kept moving through necromancy. There was no doubt about this in Eiro''s mind. And so, he just stood there. Before, he tried to hide himself, but now, he didn''t. Eiro ced his cloak into his treasury and stood there, his wings spread out and his tail slowly waving behind him while his colorful horns were like a nest at the top of his head.


    He stared at the closest corner and watched at the supervisor that he followed down here passed it with a longsword in his hands. The man slowly looked at the corpse of a guardying on the ground with bits of his brain sttered on the ground and wall, while a demon was standing there with the one item that had been stolen right above that corpse.


    "You! What d-"


    "Be quiet, you absolute lowlife." Eiro interrupted him, "I know what you''re thinking. I did not steal this. Just like you were, I was looking for this to return it to the Warden for my own reasons. This man here had been turned into an undead and made to bring this thing somewhere, probably someone that was meant to use this for specific means that I can''t seem to figure out." The Demon exined bluntly, and the supervisor stood there, staring at Eiro in a mixture of fear and confusion, unable to stop himself from subtly shaking all over his body.


    "Don''t worry, I won''t kill you. Under one condition, at least. You??re going to help me return this piece to the Warden." Eiro said bluntly, and the man stood there staring at him with clear worry, "B-But why would you return it to the Warden''s Office if it angers you so..?"


    Eiro slowly took a few steps forward until he stood in front of the man holding the sword. Eiro pressed the center of his chest against the tip of the de, because he knew that nothing would happen anyway.


    "I think you may be misunderstanding me. I did not say I would return it to the Warden''s Office. I said that I would return it to the Warden. Let''s hope that not everyone in this ce is as useless as it seems." The Demon said bluntly, but it seemed like the supervisor-guard was a bit confused at first. But then, it caught up to him and he understood what Eiro was trying to say.


    ---


    The moon stood high in the sky and an eery silence filled this small rural town that wasn''t all too far away from Skyhart''s Capital. It was a ce that would make many wonder how it was even able to subsist for so long, since the whole ce was practically nothing but a singlerge slum. People were suffering and starving, dying on the streets, and doing anything to survive.


    That was, with the exception of the people that were currently celebrating their own life in the manor standing in the center of this town.


    "Oh, how wonderful that sounds! You must tell me more about that!" A noble Lady eximed with fake interest masterfully woven into her voice as she dragged away a fellow Lady, leaving behind two Lords to speak to each other.


    "While our wives are busy, would you join me on the balcony with one of these? They are made with special Tabo leaves importet from the south. The only ce you can get them is a small Ragashi Tribe where they''re used as currency, even. They are more than just impressive." One of the two Lords said as he held a cigar over to the other, a short, plump man with rosy cheeks that happily epted.


    "Oh, there is no way I would ever decline." He said and quickly grabbed the cigar that he was offered as the two Lords made their way to the balcony that was connected to this manor''s party ballroom.


    "So..." One of them, the one that offered the other the cigar, said with a curious expression while he got out a special magic item to use to create a small me before lighting up the other''s cigar, "How is it going at the prison these days?"


    "Ah, it is going perfectly. We did not have any incidents after I changed things around there. They should have just let me take over earlier, and nothing ever would have happened to anyone." The man said with a sigh that had a slight undertone of disappointment, and the other man quietlyughed, "Of course, I think so as well. If you remember, I was one of your most avid supporters in these events."


    "Of course, I know that! There would be no reason for you to try and remove me from my position altogether, after all." He replied with a light smile on his face. The two of them were practically just lying to each other the whole time.


    But just before the other man could light up his own cigar, a servant or butler came outside and called for him, "There is someone that would like to speak to you, my Lord."


    With a deep sigh but a slightly smug expression at how ''important'' he was, the man ced the cigar and the small magic item into his suit and stepped toward the door, "Excuse me, I will have to take care of this real quick."


    "Take your time." With a slight smile on his face ,the man turned back toward the view from this balcony and kept smoking the cigar, simply trying to enjoy this sight for a little while as the other Lord went back inside of the manor''s ballroom.


    For a little while, he just kept smoking the cigar, but then at some point, he just furrowed his brows and threw the lit cigar at ground under the balcony, "Tastes like shit."


    After making a bit of spit follow the cigar down to the ground, the man turned around and was just about to head back inside, but when he did, he saw something in the corner of his eye. A slightly glowing ss cylinder.


    He snapped his neck toward it, seeing the magical object ced inside before ripping his eyes open in shock, "Wh-Wh-What?! How did this get here?!" The man eximed, but then immediately pressed his hand onto his mouth to keep himself quiet.


    He stared at the ss cylinder and took a step closer and slowly touched the object to see if it was real or some kind of trick. But really, he could feel the freezing cold touch of the ss the moment his finger came in contact with it.


    "Ah, perfect. The Quest really has beenpleted with this, huh?" A calm, chilling voice pointed out from behind the man, and he immediately turned his whole body around in shock. The moment he did, he had the lit cigar that he just threw down the balcony pressed into his right eye. But somehow, he couldn''t really scream, since his lips were frozen together and he was feeling pure pain while trying to open his mouth.


    So, he just grasped his eye while the figure in front of him pulled the cigar away from him and ced it into his mouth. The cigar was somehow stillpletely lit as the Demon took a puff of the cigar, "Heh, you''re right, Mister Warden.. It tastes like shit."

 Chapter 245 - The Death

    The Warden stared back at Eiro with a terrified expression. After all, the Demon was standing there with his wings loosely hanging behind him, just twitching around every once in a while, and his horns were reflecting the moonlight. The noble man pressed his palm against his eye due to the burning pain he was experiencing after this being in front of him pushed the lit cigar into it.


    He took a step back with his teeth grinding against each other, "Wh-Who are you?! What are you?!" He eximed, and Eiro leaned back against the railing of the balcony while he took the cigar out of his mouth, "I''m just the guy that''s going to kill you tonight, not much more than that." The Demon exined with a light smile on his face, and the Warden''s immediately turned a pale white like the snow that wasying on the ground around the manor.


    "B-But, you-" He stuttered in a panic, "What do you want from me?!" The warden interrupted himself, simply asking the question that was most on his mind right now.


    "You''ve already seen that I have your little ''Memento''. All I want is to ask a few questions about it, and then slowly and painfully rip you to pieces. Of course, to make it clear, it would be painful for you, not for me. Just so that we understand each other."


    "This has nothing to do with you! Leave! Leave me be!" The Warden yelled out, and tried to slowly run toward the door of the manor to lead him back into the Ballroom, but his feet were soon stuck to the ground due to a thickyer of ice that had grown around them out of nowhere.


    "Don''t even try. They can''t even hear you, you know?" Eiro pointed out as he slowly closed his eyes, the whites of which were still dyed blood-red, "Now answer me, or I''ll have to resort to torture. And trust me, you don''t want me to torture you." The Demon said with a slight grin.


    The whole time, the Warden had already been nervous and panicking due to the aura of pure fury that Eiro was giving off despite the calm tone of his voice. It was eerily creepy and terrified the shit out of him.


    Nervously, the Warden slid his hand over toward the ss cylinder holding the heart that had been turned into a clock, before picking it up and pulling it to his chest, "I-It''s mine... This is all I have left from my son, you know?!"


    "Well, that would be fine and all. Honestly, even I would keep simr things as something to remind me of my children, not that I like to think about the fact that they may die before me. But usually, that would be in the form of their ashes, and not of their hearts that were kept beating using necromancy. Not to mention how you''re disying it freely after turning it into some kind of sick magic-item." The Demon said bluntly, not ying around with his words at all. To Eiro, it seemed like this kind of thing, that what the Warden was doing with a child''s literal heart, was beyond sick.


    But the Warden himself thought otherwise. Although he said something else that was quite interesting as well, "You don''t know anything! Do you know what it''s like to lose your son?! Do you?! What was I supposed to do, let him be taken from me forever?!"


    The words that the Warden chose were slightly... weird. It was kind of like... "What happened to your son? What did you do to him?"


    The Warden''s shock and fear slowly started to turn into pure anger that he was nearly unable to control, "I know it! I did something horrible to my son, but what else was I supposed to do, just let him die right in front of me?! He was sick, not even expert healers were able to help him! It was the only way to make sure he wouldn''t die on me! I didn''t know it would turn him into that... that... that... thing!"


    Slowly, it doomed on Eiro what exactly was going on. What exactly the Warden had done. Everything started to fall into ce, "Death is timeless. Death is forever. Death does not waver no matter after how many ticks of a clock." Eiro muttered quietly, his whole body tensing up, and the Warden''s anger immediately disappeared again. It was like the anger he had built up just now to be able to answer Eiro''s questions was just a lie. And it was justpletely reced with despair.


    The Warden dropped down onto his knees and stared up at Eiro, "Wh-Where did you hear that...?"


    And that was the one confirmation that Eiro needed to tell him that his one horrible suspicion really was correct.


    Amongst the cards of the Major Arcana, there were only two that could affect those that were non-monsters. One, <The Fool>. It was a card that any living being could connect to, without exception. Monsters, Magic Beasts, People... one of the former owners of <The Fool> was an old oak tree that the card was wedged into at some point in time. Not even a Dryad, just a normal oak tree.


    And this worked by turning whoever or whatever may be able to pair with it into a monster. No specific one, really. Usually, it was a monster that simply fit the being in question the most. Other times they were turned intopletely unique species.


    But there was one other card that worked with a simr principle, but it didn''t turn the user into a monster itself. It requires the user to have been turned into a specific kind of monster just before, and that was a sort of monster that any living being could turn into.


    That card was the Major Arcana card <The Death>, and it requires to have been turned into an Undead being, and after connecting to the card, it would turn them into a fearsome Lich.


    Or so, that''s what many thought. But Eiro knew that this wasn''t the case directly. Eiro found a book in the magically hidden library of the former owner of his manor. It was probablymon knowledgepared to some of the other secrets Eiro read about there, but the truth was that there have only been three beings that ever held the title of <The Death>. The first held it for a few hundred years, but was killed by the Pope to the church of the God of Life.


    The second ''Death'' held it for a thousand years, but became bored of unending life and ended himself. And the third... Has held it ever since. And it has been more than just a few thousand years.


    The only reason why this was the case was because of the type of monster that had connected to the card. Actually, it wasn''t impossible to be a living being while holding the card <The Death>, it was simply hard due to the seemingly infinite stream of necromantic energy that you would be suspect to.


    And surprisingly, the being that held the card of <The Death> right now was a ''Mind Robber''. A vile being from a realm of darkness that was capable of literally taking over others'' beings.


    It was technically a sort of slime that simply dug itself through its victims'' mouth, nose, or ears before dissolving and recing the brain before taking control of its whole body.


    A Mind Robber was unable to cause much damage, cast magic, or really even think on its own. It was ironically nothing but a mindless being that fed on brains and then took over someone''s body before it inevitably broke apart. But on top of that, it would take over different abilities of whatever body it was in. Personality, knowledge, skills and abilities, basically everything there was. Just that over time, all of that was warped into the worst possible direction. A kind and loving person would often turn into a vile killer.


    And then, once the body broke, the Mind Robber would leave its former host''s dead body and then make his way to the next. The only thing that would be carried over were a few loose memories in the form of dreams, as far as Eiro knew. Most of the time, after some living being with a brain was taken over by a Mind Robber, they wouldn''t even know that they were ''infected'', or that they technically were the Mind Robber themselves. They would act like normal, as if nothing ever happened. And after a Mind Robber switched to a new body, all that was left from the former were loose memories that would show themselves in the form of dreams, more often than not, they were like nightmares.


    But after bing <The Death>, the Mind Robber changed. Instead of just taking over others with the abilities they had while they lived, the Mind Robber gave them incredibly strong necromantic abilities. In the end, this led to the Mind Robber being discovered and killed rather quickly.


    However, the moment it died, something else interesting happened. Since it was alive until then, it had now been turned into an undead version of itself, a ''Mind Robber Lich'', practically.


    And from then on, whenever it took someone over, it turned them into Lichs themselves, with the heart of the creature being turned into the Lich''s Phctery. On top of that, it didn''t lose all knowledge anymore, but was able to take certain bits of knowledge as well as certain abilities into itself and to the next person.


    The Phcteries started to take on a certain theme over time as <The Death> took on an obsession with the concept of time. The state of what seems to be the current Lich''s Phctery is just a sign of that.


    It seemed like the Warden had let <The Death> take over his son''s body.


    Eiro looked at the man in front of him with a nk expression. He took one step toward him. Then a second. Then a third. Until he stood right in front of the Warden while he was sitting there on his knees inplete despairing fear.


    The Demon slowly reached down and grabbed the Warden by his throat before pulling him up and staring deep into his eyes, "And then, you imprisoned <The Death> inside of that giant, suspended cube in the lower area of the prison, huh?" Eiro asked, and the Warden slowly made the effort to nod his head, but couldn''t speak due to the hand that was currently crushing his throat.


    "I see." The Demon slowly replied.. And then, by tightening his hand for just a moment, Eiro snapped the Warden''s neck.

 Chapter 246 - Cooling Down

    Eiro left the Warden''s body behind at the manor, since he really didn''t want to deal with it anymore. He was somehow too disgusted to really touch him even more, now that he was dead. But for some reason, while the Demon thought doing this would make his fury subside, it didn''t. Eiro still felt angry, and he didn''t know why.


    He didn''t want to fight it anymore and risk turning mad again because of it, so instead, Eiro chose to just follow his anger for now and guide it into the directions that he wanted to avoid that anything bad could happen if he wasn''t careful.


    For now, the Demon just grabbed the heart that had been turned into a clock, <The Death>''s phctery, and then started to fly back toward the Capital. It was ratherte at this point, but Eiro really didn''t care all that much anymore. As long as he would be there to greet his children in the morning, he was fine being out all night.


    Eiro made his way toward the castle andnded in an area that was currently unobserved by anyone, simply disguising himself with his regr mask and cloak before making his way to the castle through the main gate.


    The Guards were a bit hesitant to let him go inside at this time, but after Eiro told them that this was an emergency that he had to discuss with the King right now, they let him through at his own risk. But of course, Eiro didn''t give a shit about any sort of ''risk'' rted to any of this. He knew that Solomon wouldn''t end up having him beheaded just because his sleep had been a little disturbed.


    Eiro made his way into the castle and then soon reached Solomon''s private study, where the King was still sitting at this time of day, something that Eiro actually didn''t expect. Mainly because Solomon just seemed rather carefree most of the time that Eiro interacted with him, but that was probably just because the contrastpared to that first meeting in Argberg was so immense.


    The Demon slowly knocked on the door out of courtesy, and then soon heard Solomon call him in from the other side. Eiro pushed the door open and slowly stepped inside, removing his mask when he was in the room after making sure that nobody else was around.


    The dim lights that Solomon was using to give him enough light so that he would be able to read the important documents on the table were just bright enough to reveal Eiro''s blood-red eyes. The King jumped up from his chair and walked around the table the moment that he saw his friend in this state.


    "Eiro! Is everything alright? Are you injured?" He asked withplete worry, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, I''m fine. I''m angry, or rather, furious. But it''s nothing beyond that."


    "Furi- Do you mean it''s that mark of yours acting up again?" Solomon asked with a concerned frown, before Eiro slowly opened the satchel at the side of his body up, "Something like that, I guess. It''s not really acting up, I have it under pretty well control this time. Although, I did end up killing that Prison''s Warden just an hour ago."


    Solomon stared at Eiro for a moment while trying to process the Demon''s words, before turning around with an angry expression himself, "You did what?! Eiro, do you even know what you did? Sure, when I told you about the issues with that ce, I said I disliked him, but we can''t do something like that without knowing what exactly is going on at that ce! All the guards signed a magical contract that makes it impossible for them to reveal any information, and the prisoners are forced into simr situations. We were-"


    Before Solomon finished speaking, Eiro pulled out the cylinder of ss containing the Phctery, "Solomon, that guy gave his own child up to <The Death>, who took over that kid''s body and turned his heart into this item that the Warden was proudly disying on his own desk. <The Death> is currently imprisoned in the bottom of that prison, but it seems like they don''t fully have him under control. A Zombie created by <The Death> was trying to bring the heart to its master so that it can regain its full power, most likely."


    The King turned his head toward the glowing, beating heart that had cogs and clock-hands imbedded in it, before he slowly dropped down onto his knees while staring at it, "You''re... you''re saying that man did that to his own child?"


    "Yes. The kid''s been turned into a Lich, Solomon. The Warden treated this phctery as a sick memento." Eiro said bluntly, and Solomon''s facepletely paled.


    "D-Do you think you can kill <The Death>? Having that thing here is... horrifying." The King pointed out, and Eiro slowly looked at the Phctery, "Considering that I have that with me, I think I might be able to somehow. But we need to consider what might be next. You see, if someone ipatible with a card of the Major Arcana kills a Royal, the card just disappears and re-appears in a random location in the world. So, that''s why people were never able to get their hands on them. But on top of that, if a royal kills another royal, usually the same thing happens. I''m hoping that it won''t be the case since I''m only a candidate, but we''ll have to be prepared for the possibility that the card could simply disappear when I kill <The Death>."


    "...It''s worth the risk, I think. If the card disappears, in the worst case scenario, it will instantly find its way to a fitting owner and create a new royal. But a new royal is weakpared to the current <The Death>. And on the other hand, if the card doesn''t disappear... I trust that it will be safe in your hands. Like that, we will have taken the force of two incredible forces from the side of the monster king."


    "If you say it like that, then sure. Let''s go ahead and try." Eiro replied bluntly, although Solomon sighed deeply after he heard the Demon''s tone.


    "Don''t act like you didn''t n on this all along anyway." Solomon said as he slowly pushed himself up again, his eyes still focused on the phctery without a single break. Seeing this, Eiro was actually kind of worried. It didn''t seem to be a natural behavior for Solomon, so the Demon picked the ss cylinder up and packed it into his satchel again.


    "Sorry, I''ll try to hide it better next time." The Demon suggested, before the King in front of him justughed awkwardly, "Sure, do that. But for now, just go and prepare for your fight against <The Death> and don''t worry about anything else. As long as you didn''t leave him in the middle of the streets, I''ll be able to handle the situation with the Warden somehow."


    While slowly turning around, Eiro just stayed silent, since he wasn''t particrly sure how he was supposed to react. And it seemed like Solomon actually picked up on this to an extent.


    "Eiro, where did you leave the Warden''s body?" The King asked with a deep frown, before Eiro ced his mask back onto his face and pulled the door open again, getting ready to step outside, "Not on the streets, don''t worry."


    And with that, something that technically wasn''t a lie, Eiro left Solomon''s study and slowly made his way out of the castle so that he could return to his own manor.


    ---


    "So, what are you going to do now? It doesn''t seem like you''ll stop being angry anytime soon." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he ced the phctery into a safe location, an extra protective safe created with spatial magic inside of the hidden library in the manor, "I know. I guess I should just cool down or something while I think a bit." Eiro suggested, but Bavet, who had justbined with his slime again and turned himself into a humanoid form again looked at Eiro with a slight frown.


    "I think she was asking about how exactly you''ll cool down, man." Bavet pointed out, and Eiro stared at the slime with a frown himself, since he was practically unable to make any other expression right now, "I know, dumbass. That was my answer. I''m going to ''cool down''." Eiro replied as he made his way out of the library.


    He climbed through one of the hidden passages until he reached the hidden room ced into the very top of the manor''s tower. It seemed to be something like a ce to research magic, specifically the elements.


    Eiro hadn''t been able to figure out what exactly this ce was for for the longest time, until he tried analyzing the magic circles carved into the walls and realized that they weren''t meant for the spatial distortions inside of the manor that were creating the hidden rooms, but instead something that was a whole lot different.


    The Demon climbed up the magically hidden stairwell that soon closed behind him and sat down in the center of the room. The space waspletely empty, which made Eiro confused over what it was for even more, but it had a good reason, at least.


    Eiro hadpletely unclothed for this, since he didn''t want to ruin his outfit, and let his wings and tail just loosely hang behind him. For this, not Bavet, nor Nelli and Gondos joined Eiro since it was simply a bit too dangerous for those three.


    But as Eiro stood there in the room, he took a few deep breaths before he pushed mana out into the magic circles and runes carved everywhere in this room and caused the whole ce to start glowing in a white light. And that white light soon turned into a pale blue as Eiro started using Ice Magic specifically. Or so he tried, so the nature of his mana itself changed, amplified by the carvings all over the room.


    Immediately, the temperature inside of this room dropped to temperatures that would kill any normal being instantly, but Eiro still felt it somewhatfortable.


    Slowly, as the temperature reached the point that Eiro wanted and he could feel his physical functions slow down due to the low temperature, heid down on the ground and enjoyed the cold as he felt his fury slowly fade due to the fact that he was physically incapable of bing riled up right now.


    And so, the Demon just enjoyed the cold for a little while as he let different thoughts drift through him.

 Chapter 247 - Lowering The Threshold

    Eiro slowly stood up, his body heavily slowed down due to the extremely cold temperatures he had been exposed to for the past few hours. At the very least it seemed to have worked, and Eiro''s fury disappeared for now. That didn''t mean that he wasn''t angry about this whole situation anymore, just that he didn''t need to worry about losing control as easily anymore.


    And so, for now, so that he could properly get rid of the side-effects of freezing his body to temperatures that would kill anyone else, the Demon stopped pushing Ice Magic into the runic carvings and instead used Fire Magic.


    Nearly immediately the cold air disappeared and instead started to burn, Eiro''s whole body practically catching on fire. But Eiro didn''t want to switch from rxing in Ice to doing so in Fire, he really just wanted to warm himself up a little. And so, Eiro stopped with that and made his way out of this particr hidden room. When he was outside, he made sure that he could move alright, and especially that his prosthetic hand was doing alright after being subjected to such extreme temperatures.


    While he was just standing there, Nelli floated up to him and tried to make sure that he was really fine, basically checking up on every inch of his body to make sure he didn''t get some kinds of burns all of a sudden. Meanwhile, Gondos was interested in something else, "Actually, what do you think the former owner of this ce did with a room like that? You two seem to have a simr level of entricity, but I doubt you were so simr that even he benefitted from exposure to the elements to the same extent as you did."


    "You''re right, he didn''t. This was for somethingpletely else." The Demon pointed out, "While I didn''t find any documents pertaining to this room specifically, I have read about a few things rted to permanent elemental infusion. Or something like ''nature transformation'', where the literal nature of an object or material is changed. I don''t know if it worked out, but the theory was that it would be possible to make the infusion of certain elements into some physical form permanent."


    "Permanent infusion? Does that not sound just impossible? Infusing something requires a mass amount of mana and control over it, so having something permanent in the way that I am imagining seems like some mad dream." Gondos added, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms as he got dressed again, "Well, I thought the same at first, but then I did a little bit of thinking. Such permanent infusion may not be impossible if you think about it to an extent. You see, the theory is based mainly on a single concept. And that is the ''lowering of the threshold''. Basically, it says that certain objects have a certain threshold that needs to be ovee to infuse them with magic, and that threshold for a specific sort of magic bes lower by a miniscule amount the more it is infused with that specific sort of magic. At some point, it would end up being fully infused with the natural magic of that sort that lingers in the air, at which point it will start absorbing more of that kind and basically start being infused permanently. It''s as if you would set the point at which wood starts to burn to room-temperature. It would justbust out of nowhere, right?" The Demon exined. It was a concept that Eiro was pretty interested in.


    After all, if it was possible to create certain objects that were constantly infused with magic, it might be possible to do something simr to living beings, and that way, Eiro would be able to gain some sort of naturally boosted agility, strength, and defense depending on what kind of element he would try and permanently infuse himself with.


    While Nelli and Gondos were thinking about what this theory would mean if it could be used, Eiro continued, "ording to the former owner of this ce, this is what happens with specific monster evolutions. So if a monster evolves into an elemental variant of itself, like a Spark Wolf can evolve from the simple Magic Wolf, the lower limit to be infused with a specific element is lowered or practically removed, and the infusion reaches a new level and depth at the same time."


    "So..." Gondos started, "That room was meant as a ce to test that theory?"


    "Yes, exactly. Actually, it seems to be something a bit more than that, something more developed. Right now it just creates an environment that represents that element, but it doesn''t really infuse anything. I think it might be broken somewhere, or it was neverpleted, and it was meant to focus a huge amount of elemental magic right into a specific point for incredible levels of elemental infusion. I was already hoping to turn that into a new ce to infuse myself to make that even more efficient than it already is."


    After hearing Eiro''s hopes, Nelli was reminded of something else, "Actually, when do you think you''ll finally get the Nature Magic skill? I mean, you have both the Earth and Water Magic skills, and you even managed to do something as insane as awaken the advanced shadow element before even having any affinity for the darkness element, so..." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms in thought.


    "Yeah, honestly, that would be nice to know. I''ve been waiting for it, actually. You would think that I should already have it, considering how much I''ve infused myself with it already. But on the other hand, elements based off of two other elements are a lot harder to get than things like the shadow element. We don''t even really know how a lot of this stuff works yet, so it''s all just kind of chaos. It might be a coincidence now, but in a hundred or so years, it might be normal to get the shadow element first." The Demon pointed out, trying to justify himself somehow. But in the end, all three of them knew that this absolutely wasn''t the case, and that Eiro was really just saying whatever came to his mind right now.


    But either way, before doing anything else, Eiro made his way into the room that he picked out as his study. And it really was just a normal room. It had plenty of bookshelves, storage space, a nice desk and other furniture that the children could sit on when visiting, and there was just a pretty nice view outward.


    Well, from inside. The room wasn''t just a ''normal'' room, as it turned out. Of course, Eiro knew this before picking it out as his study, but it was a ce that was basicallypletely immune to any sort of Divination Magic or physical means of spying on whatever was going on inside.


    Even the windows just showed an empty room when someone tried to look in from outside. As far as Eiro could tell before, that was even the case when looking through the keyhole of this room. And sound didn''t seem to travel outside either, although sound could still travel in, and Eiro could see everything he wanted outside the window from in here.


    In the end, all windows seemed to have some kind of simr distortion effect where it would be hard to really see what was going on inside from outside, but this was a bit stronger than in the rest of the manor, and Eiro really didn''t mind. Here, he could just rx, concentrate on his projects, and do whatever he felt like.


    And since this ce had a slightly nicer arrangement for reading as far as Eiro was concerned, he preferred just grabbing a few books from the library and bringing it here instead of just reading it there. For the most part, Eiro was really just being distracted by all those different amazing things in the hidden library to fully concentrate on what he was reading.


    That became far worse after Eiro''s intelligence stat passed the 300 point range and Eiro''s internal thought-processes became faster. It also made him better at multitasking, but it didn''t let him have two separate lines of thought.


    This led to Eiro being able to passively notice everything going on around him, but when something in particr beside his book caught his eye, he would pay attention to that instead and his reading would be interrupted.


    And since Eiro didn''t want that, and instead wanted to fully dive into his books whenever he could, he chose to make this study the ce where he would spend most of his time. On top of that, while it had good ces for reading, the library didn''t have any particrly amazing ces to take notes as there weren''t any tables there.


    On top of that, Eiro didn''t want to just start randomly carving his practice figurines inside of the library. He still made those whenever he had the time, trying to either create carvings of new creatures or bring old ones to a whole new level of realism.


    And that was Eiro''s whole goal with this. He wanted to truly fulfill that which Jura wanted to give him, the ability to create life. Somehow, Eiro still had a slightly hard time creating things that seemed truly alive, probably because Eiro was focusing mostly on the actually physical aspects that Eiro could sense instead of what went beyond that.


    Of course, to any other onlooker, these wooden figurines might look extremely life-like versions of different monsters, but in the end, they weren''t perfect. People still instantly recognized them as what they were, figurines. And they definitely still would even if Eiro created life-size versions of those figurines, there was no doubt about that.


    But what Eiro wanted people to think when they saw the figurines was that they were truly alive, that a wild beast was about to jump at them. And Eiro still wasn''t able to do things that manipted the ''vibe'' of the figurines.


    He had to be able to change the energy around them, and basicallypletely change their nature to the eye of the beholder.


    But just as Eiro thought that, he realized something else.


    "That''s it! That''s part of that stealth ability, to change the vibe someone gives off! He must have used that ability to get away from Bahlsen''s door!" Eiro eximed, as if he had solved some kind of riddle. In the end, it really didn''t help him all that much in figuring out where the ''Collector'', that serial killer, truly was right now.


    For that, Eiro had to meet with Bahlsen again and ask him a few more things.

 Chapter 248 - Encounter With The Collector

    Eiro ran through the town after he flew to its outskirts just to save a little bit of time. First things first, he had to find Bahlsen somehow. Of course, while he was doing so, he was constantly fused with Gondos so that he could find the Collector''s scent if possible and if he ended up trying to hide it again like he did before.


    Soon, the Demon reached Bahlsen''s Inn and made his way inside. Eiro climbed up the stairs and soon reached the investigator''s room. But when he did and was just about to knock on the wooden door, he noticed a slight, sudden shift inside of the room.


    And it wasn''t one that came from Bahlsen, that was for sure. It was justpletely different to him. Eiro pushed his hand onto the lock and slowly had Bavet help him out by turning into the right key for this lock, before Eiro slowly twisted Bavet around and opened the door up.


    Somehow, the person that was inside didn''t even try to hide for whatever reason. But there was no doubt about it in the demon''s mind. This person was the Collector. His scent drove into Eiro''s nostrils, and the whole vibe that he was giving off was exactly like how Eiro imagined it to be.


    He stood there, in a long ck trenchcoat on top of a pitch ck suit. The only parts that weren''t ck where the few bits of silver and red that were added as details for the outfit. Even the hat that he was wearing waspletely ck with just a few red and silver stitchings.


    That man''s hair was raven-ck and tied into a ponytail. Both his hair and his clothespletely contrasted his baster skin that seemed to practically glow in the darkness, while his red iris seemed to shine on Eiro as if they were spotlights.


    "Ah, so you are Bahlsen''s little assistant, are you not? You have quite a handy set of abilities, you know?" He pointed out. His voice was hard to pick up and narrow down. Somehow, Eiro wasn''t even exactly sure if his voice was low or high-pitched. It was just hard to pick up, somehow.


    Eiro stood there, thinking about how to attack the Collector. He soon figured out a good way. But it really didn''t matter that he did, because the moment Eiro tried to adjust his body for the setup of that attack, the Collector started to move.


    His feet slid over the ground while it seemed like the rest of his body was just stuck in a single position. Immediately, Eiro pulled out his dagger out of his treasury and stabbed it forward at the man''s chest. But the moment that it was supposed to push through his clothes... Eiro realized that there was nobody there. No, instead, the man was standing right behind the Demon and slowly grabbed his chin with his hand.


    His strength was overwhelming, so much so that Eiro didn''t even have a hope of starting to move. But somehow... this reminded him of a trauma that Eiro didn''t ovee yet. He hoped that he had, but he didn''t.


    It reminded Eiro of that time in Zaragon''s shop. The Demon''s heartrate skyrocketed and he felt himself descend in a panick that he dind''t want to experience ever again. Instinctively, without having control over his own body, Eiro stopped infusing his tail with the shadow element and pushed it out from underneath his cloak before using it to stab the collector.


    He managed to dodge somehow, but still... Eiro couldn''t ignore the quiet sound of a wooden button dropping down onto the ground. The Demon managed to hit him a little bit, so the Collector wasn''tpletely unkible for Eiro. And now that he managed to calm down a bit, the Demon might actually have a good chance to kill this guy.


    Immediately, Eiro tried to jump forward, using his two daggers as well as his stinger to try and attack him as much as possible. His focus really wasn''t to cause a lot of damage at once, a little bit would be enough. As long as Eiro was able to injure him a little, he would get the Collector''s blood. And then, he would never be able to run from Eiro ever again. At that point, he would have far too much information on him.


    But somehow, no matter how hard Eiro tried, he was unable to hit the Collector again. He dodged every single of Eiro''s attacks. The Demon was being yed with. Eiro ground his teeth and pulled out his ace of cups, immediately activating it.


    The range of Eiro''s des might have surprised him a little, but they still didn''t hurt him. Sure, the Collector seemed to have a slightly harder time, but he still didn''t lose that creepy smile of his. Or at least Eiro thought that it was a smile, he really wasn''t sure anymore at this point.


    All of a sudden, however, the Collector just looked at Eiro with his glowing red eyes, "Was nice ying with ya. I have to go, get another piece for my puzzle."


    And without a moment''s hesitation, the Collector turned around and stepped toward the door, before crossing around the corner and walking down the hallway. For whatever reason, the thought of following the Collector didn''t even cross Eiro''s mind until it was toote. He ran out into the hallway and turned to the right where the Collector went, but instead of seeing him still walking there, Eiro saw something else.


    He saw Bahlsen''s face up close, because for whatever reason, he was standing there.


    "Erm... Eiro, what are you doing here? I don''t remember inviting you in... Considering that I was out getting breakfast, at least." Bahlsen pointed out with a wry smile, but Eiro just pushed him to the side and stared past him. But it was toote.


    "The Collector was here." Eiro said in a clear tone so that Bahlsen could perfectly understand him. Without a moment''s hesitation, the investigator stared at Eiro and stepped into his Inn-room and took a look around. There were slight damages caused to the furniture, walls, and decoration, so he just turned around toward Eiro with a slight frown while just ring at the des floating right next to him mid-air.


    "Could you be a bit more careful next time? I don''t have all the money in the wor-"


    "Literally just shut up, look around the room for clues, and let us find that inhuman son of a bitch." Eiro growled at Bahlsen as he pushed his hand into his satchel before pulling out a couple of coins that should be more than enough to cover the bill for the damages in this room, and then crossed his arms while trying to regain hisposure a bit.


    But after Eiro''s words, Bahlsen was concerned about something else, "What do you mean ''inhuman''?"


    "Hm? Nothing special, he just didn''t give off the feeling of just any other person. But the thing that made it clearest to me was the fact that his irises were red. With the exception of albinos, there are no humans that have eyes like that. And he had pitch-ck hair that didn''t seem particrly dyed. And other than that, from his proportions and general features, he seemed to be a human instead of something like a high-elf. Those sometimes apparently just have naturally red eyes. So I think he either used something to artificially change the color of his eyes or hair, or he''s at least part monster." Eiro exined to Bahlsen quickly, who was already looking through the room looking for clues that might help him figure things out about the Collector.


    And then, the investigator squatted down on the ground and picked up the ck wood button that wasying there, "Hm..? This isn''t a material I know... I think it might be something otherworldy..."


    "Huh? No it''s not." Eiro replied bluntly, and the investigator stared back at him with a frown, "Listen, I get that you want to help, but after destroying my room while I was gone, the least you can do is let me do what I do best. This wood is obviously a highly-magical sort. But I''ve already studied numerous different woods, and there are no kinds that are as inherently magical as this in our real-"


    Before the investigator could finish his sentence, Eiro pulled off the glove off his right hand and held the wooden prosthetic over toward him.


    "If you want to discuss wood, then I''m your best fucking bet. Yes, you''re right, that''s a piece of highly-magical wood. Seems to be made from a Hurthan-Teardrop that was infused with high levels of pure mana as well as an ent of darkness magic. I think the wood was taken from one of the branches of a three-month old one. Those particr trees grow in the depth of the the Pallendian Desert around a Dark Oasis created by the mana still seeping out of a shut-down gate to the Darkfall. It''s a highly-protected ce that only few people can even find, and less can go as far as take wood from the trees without being killed by a Drikasi."


    The investigator stared back at Eiro with clear surprise at a couple of things, "How do you know so much about a random type of wood?"


    "I know I may not seem like it, but the profession I''m hoping to be actually established in in the future is that of a Prosthetist. Coincidentally, my teacher was one of the few that were allowed ess to that special kind of wood. I have some with me, and I''m actually preparing to have someone guy get all my other kinds of woods from my old home." Eiro exined, "If they''re still there, that is."


    The investigator looked back at Eiro with a wry smile, "Yeah, that''s not something I expected. But that''s... That''s kind of a coincidence, don''t you think? That you would find two people with ess to that kind of material in the same ce... Eiro, your teacher isn-"


    "He''s dead and was literally like a father to me, so if you mutter a single word more I''m killing you and taking that fucking Knight card from you to do this myself. Got it?" Eiro grumbled, although he had to admit, Bahlsen was right. It was a bit of a weird coincidence.


    Eiro stretched his hand out and grabbed the wooden button, and stared deeply at it with the help of Gondos to sense even things like mana, and to especially sense life energy more easily.


    And the moment that Eiro did, he nearly destroyed the button in his very hand, "That piece ofplete garbage. He took that child''s fucking tail?"


    Bahlsen looked back at Eiro with confusion, while the Demon just ground his teeth.. Eiro couldn''t believe that the collector would, or even could, take the prosthetic tail from a young Dragon of Death, like the one Jura helped out.

 Chapter 249 - Copied Collector

    Eiro held the button in his hand and started to grind his teeth together. He was annoyed. He was frustrated. He was angry.


    "Eiro, calm down! Calm down, everything''s alright!" Nelli told the Demon, trying to reassure him and calm him down before he drifted off into being influenced by his mark of wrath again.


    The demon stood there and took a deep breath that he cooled down heavily with the help of magic to physically cool himself to help him do so mentally as well, "Now that I''ve told you all this information, do with it what you will. If you''ve got any sort of clue, let me know immediately, and we''ll investigate it." Eiro said, closing his eyes as he handed Bahlsen the button back.


    The Demon slowly turned around and walked out the door just to take a bit of a breather while trying to think about what just happened himself. In his mind, to distract himself, Eiro chose to run through what just happened over and over again to see it from every angle possible for him.


    How was the collector able to trick Eiro''s senses like that, how was he able to literally predict what Eiro would have done? He tried see every detail about him that he could, and in the end, he realized something else important.


    "Bahlsen. Did you ever actually... see him at all?" Eiro asked, and the man from inside the room slowly stepped toward the door, "Never actually. It makes me wonder if this was meant as a way to mock us, know that he knows we are coborating in this current investigation."


    "Not the point. Do you want to see him?" The Demon inquired, and Bahlsen immediately nodded the head, "Of course I do! It would make it possible to narrow down the suspects incredibly!"


    "You have suspects?"


    "Not specific ones, but the list of all possible ones will be narrowed down."


    "Of course..." Eiro sighed. He stepped into the room and looked at one specific piece of furniture. Eiro pushed his hand into a pouch, pulled out some more coins to hand them to Bahlsen, and then destroyed that table without hesitation just for the table-leg.


    "...What are you doing?" Bahlsen asked with a frown, and Eiro turned toward him, "Did you not listen at all? I''ll let you see him."


    "I see, so you want to carve a wooden figure of him. That might truly help."


    "Well, not exactly... I just sent someone off to grab something for us to help us with everything." the Demon said bluntly, "He should be back when I''m done with this figurine."


    Since Bahlsen already saw the Three of Swords, Eiro just took out his toolbox and quicklybined the des with the specific tools, and then started to quickly carve into the small piece of wood in front of him.


    Eiro wanted to replicate the Collector as much as he could. He recreated everything in the exact way that Eiro remembered it, and the moment that he was done, Eiro stood up and ced the wooden figurine to the side onto one of the chairs.


    The Demon walked over toward the window and quickly opened it up before taking a step to the side. Bahlsen seemed a little confused, before arge bird just shot right into the room through the window, hitting its wings on the windowframe while it was at it. The wings were obviously broken, and Eiro sighed loudly as he looked at therge eagle-like creature.


    "You''re a dumbass. Here." Eiro grumbled. He picked up the wooden figurine and gave it to Bavet. The slime slowly transformed into its normal form and quickly enveloped the wooden figure, "Shut it." He replied.


    After a little bit of waiting, Bavet started to transform. His translucent slime body turned flesh-like and then became the shape of a rough humanoid figure. Eiro just stood there and waited for a good while as Bavet properly formed his body into the right shape.


    Soon, after the humanoid base was done, he added things like the clothes, although Eiro immediately tried to help him adjust the color and the details a little bit since things like that were hard to see on just a in colored wooden figurine.


    And then with the rest, like for example the face, Eiro quickly helped out as well, as if he was molding Bavet''s face to be exactly like that of the Collector. He instructed the Slime on how to change certain parts and on how to proeprly color a few other things, and then even added things like posture and expression.


    And in the end, Eiro figured that it was done. Physically, Bavet now looked perfectly like the Collector did, or at least how Eiro remembered the Collector. Somehow, it was hard to focus on him, but the demon figured that at the very least his perfect memories wouldn''t end up fooling him.


    Eiro slowly turned around toward Bahlsen and crossed his arms, "This is what he looked like. We can''t really replicate his voice, because it was obviously changed somehow. Although I actually don''t know how exactly it was changed." The Demon exined, "Sorry."


    "Don''t worry..." Bahlsen muttered as he slowly approached Bavet with a slight frown on his face, "So this is what he looked like? I was kind of hoping that he would look a little more... a little..."


    "More crazy?"


    "That''s one way to put it, yes." Bahlsen immediately replied to Eiro, and the Demon just waited for the Investigator to finish taking a good look at Bavet''s current form, "First of all, I''m not even going to ask how you managed to get your hands on a tamed shapeless slime..."


    Quickly interrupting Bahlsen before he could say anything more than that, Bavet stared at the investigator, "Fuck off, I ain''t tamed, bitch. I''m wild as shit." Bavet said with a grin on his face, but in the end, he just saw Eiro standing right behind Bahlsen and soon stopped as he turned his head to the side, "S-Sorry..."


    "You better be." Eiro sighed, "But you heard him, he''s not really tamed. I think he might be too dumb to be tamed, if I have to be perfectly honest. Anyway, continue."


    Bahlsen slowly turned back toward the pale face that Bavet wore right now and continued to think, "I can definitely see what you mean with him being inhuman. You know... This kind of looks like he might be some kind of Undead. I was already wondering that, as plenty of Undead have the ability to create others of their kind. Zombies, Vampires, and things like that. Of course, it''s always a bit different depending on the exact type of undead, but it would make sense. The creatures that the Collector makes are Undead as well, after all. Hm, maybe he could be some kind of Lich-level creature?"


    "...Say what now?" Eiro asked with a deep frown on his face. Undead? Wasn''t that... a bit too big of a coincidence? There was no way that it was just that. One day, he finds out that the literal king of undead creatures, <The Death> is currently trapped here in this town, and the next day, the Collector is supposed to be some kind of Undead as well? What was this bullshit?


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose in thought as he looked down at the ground. This was too much of a coincidence at this point. With a loud groan, Eiro just stared up at the ceiling, "Fuck this. Why can''t things just be simple anymore? Why couldn''t this just be something where I had to kill some fucking random pitiable weak killer? Instead, I have to deal with someone that''s obviously rted to a Royal?"


    The Demon muttered loudly, loud enough that Bahlsen was able to hear him. But of course, Eiro didn''t have the intention of hiding this anyway. Telling Bahlsen about this was the best course of action, considering that he would be able to piece things together much more easily than Eiro would, probably.


    And so, that''s what Eiro did. Of course, he didn''t tell Bahlsen the whole story. He didn''t tell him where <The Death> was, or what form he took. All that he did was tell him that the King of the undead was currently here in this area, and that he thought that he was the reason why the Collector came here right now.


    "I see... That would certainly make sense... But... are you positive that <The Death> is truly here? That sounds even more troubling than just the Collector, if I have to bepletely honest with you. After all, the collector kills in controlled ways, and in small amountspared to what something like <The Death> could do. He was always said to be rather aggressive, after all." Bahlsen pointed out quickly, and Eiro just nodded his head. Hepletely agreed, but that wasn''t the point Eiro was trying to get at.


    He didn''t want to shift their attention from the collector over to <The Death>, but rather keep it on both of them, since it was obvious that they were somehow rted to each other.


    "I can''t exactly say how long it has been, but I think it''s only been a few months. Not longer than a year, that''s for sure."


    "Hmm... Then it has been quite a long time already. Maybe the collector only now found out where exactly <The Death> was?" Bahlsen suggested, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms in thought, "Maybe so, yes. But let''s hope that the collector and the death are somehow mortal enemies, and that they''ll try to kill each other the moment they may encounter each other. If we''re lucky, the collector is just strong enough to maybe weaken <The Death> a bit, and then we could more easily get rid of him." Eiro grumbled quietly.


    He was slightly annoyed at this situation. It was something he didn''t expect he would have to deal with, and it wasn''t something that he particrly wanted to deal with all of a sudden. But at the very least, Erio would still have the same kind of benefit as if he was fighting <The Death> considering that he had ess to a pretty special sort of material that he could make use of. One that would be able to rather easily kill undead.


    But even then, Eiro would need to be able to even hit the Collector, which he didn''t manage to do even in such a small, narrow space as this Inn room.


    Eiro sighed deeply and looked at Bahlsen with his arms crossed, "Either way, this is more than you''ve figured out about him in a while now, huh?"


    And without hesitation, Bahlsen nodded his head, "That is for sure.. I am d that I was able to meet you, Eiro."

 Chapter 250 - Zoemancy

    Eiro made his way back home, because at this point, he had one more reason to finish up his anti-undead preparation as quickly as possible. The Demon flew up to one of the open windows and folded his wings up as he did so, just jumping inside.


    But of course, Arc, who was sitting in there reading something and just needed a little bit of fresh air, was startled by this, "Holy fucking- What are you even doing?" Arc asked with a wry smile as he slowly closed his book, and Eiro turned his head toward him as he took off his mask, "Sorry, it was just quicker thannding in front of the door. I figured you''d be in here, anyway."


    "Yeah, but still... Bavet did the same thing just before, it''s kinda annoying. Even to me." The young man pointed out, and as Eiro took off his cloak, he turned toward his son, "I''ll try not to do that again then. Do you know what Rudy is up to right now?"


    Arc slowly leaned back in the armchair he was sitting in and thought about it for a little while, "Erm... I think he wanted to work with his hands a little bit? And at the same time practice using his ''Castle'' ability? I''m not entirely sure, though, why?"


    "I need his help weaving something. Thank you."


    "Eh, yeah, of course, I guess?" Arc replied with a slightly wry smile, before Eiro just stepped out the door, although he soon stopped and turned back around, "Want to tag along?"


    "Fuck yeah, this book is boring as shit." Immediately, the young man jumped up and ced the book back into the shelf next to him. Eiro looked at the name on the cover and then turned toward Arc with a slight frown, "What do you mean, it''s boring? It''s pretty interesting, it brings up a few serious issues that are pretty fun to theorize about. I always wanted someone to discuss about it, so if you end up finishing it, then-"


    "Of course, I''lle to you then." Arc sighed, "But why do you even need to read about ''Person-Monster rtions and the deeply-rooted societal their current state stems from''? You know exactly that this isn''t just some kind of racism stuff, it''s literally just rted to most Monsters having a literal force in them that turns them into what they are."


    "Oh yeah, I know. That part of the book isplete bullshit. If we''re going to be living in a society like this, we still need to know about things like that. But what I mean is more some of the sub-points that the author brings up, which is that people also possess some sort of monstrosity in them. There are plenty of people that are far more brutal, murderous, and terrifying than most Monsters, but in the end, people would still save someone like that over a monster. It is kind of interesting to think about what it might take to change that."


    "Well... Changing Monsterkind, I guess?" Arc suggested, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yep, that''s honestly the only way to change all of this. That''s something that''s basically impossible though, so there''s no real reason to hope for anything like it to happen anytime soon." The Demon pointed out.


    Arc just kind of shrugged, "¡äBut that''s exactly it. It''s just kinda... fucked, I guess. People are honestly underestimating the issue a lot of the time. You can''t change this kind of thing from one second to another."


    "That is definitely true. But nevermind that, I didn''t really want to delve into that topic right now."


    "Fair enough. But well, what are you trying to do right now, anyway?" Arc asked curiously, and Eiro opened the door to his room as they were making their way to where Rudy was right now, "Just something that I need to deal with. I just can''t really do it myself."


    "And what is that ''something''?"


    With a slight sigh, Eiro squatted down and grabbed a small, special wooden box that he had hidden underneath his bed. He pulled it out and ced it down on the desk ced into this room, and slowly opened it up.


    The moment that Arc saw it, he looked at Eiro with a disgusted expression, "Wh-What, why would you ever keep this stuff? That''s disgusting! Wait, you didn''t keep our''s, right? Please don''t tell me that you''ve got a box like that under your bed for me... You know what, actually do, I''m honestly kind of curious now..." Arc pointed out, and the process of one of his unique skills taking effect could very easily be seen.


    Eiro slowly closed his eyes and shook his head, "No, because none of you others are giving off a constant, steady amount of Holy Energy. We were able to suppress the Holy Energy from leaking out too much from Avalin directly, but that doesn''t take effect for other things like hair or finger and toenails. I know that it''s not something you''d like to see, but we couldn''t just leave themying around. Even burning them would result in ashes that were filled with extreme amounts of Holy Energy."


    Eiro tried to justify himself as much as possible as he looked down at the contents of the box in front of him. It was something that anyone would call creepy and disgusting, but it was a collection of hair as well as clipped finger and toenails that Eiro had to literally collect so that they wouldn''t leave behind any sort of evidence of Avalin anywhere. But there was a second reason to at the very least keeping all of the hair bundled up. The nail-clippings were basically just kept in anotheryer that was sealed up again in a box that would slowly drain them of the holy energy, at the rate that a normal priest may normally give off, so that Eiro could then dispose of those clippings sooner orter, but the hair was something else.


    Avalin''s hair held a lot of Holy Energy in them and could easily be used as ingredients for numerous different potions or spells, and it wasn''t even nearly as creepy. If some strains of Avalin''s hair were woven into cloth, that would be something that would enhance any priest''s abilities while deflecting any sort of ''Unholy'' creatures like Demons or Undead. And of course, it would also do an incredible damage to those two groups.


    Luckily, due to Eiro''s prosthetic, he should be able to avoid damaging himself as long as he only wrapped any sort of cloth around his hand or in ces where it wouldn''t directly touch his skin.


    "...What kind of enemy do you need to fight?" Arc asked with a nk expression on his face, although there was the slightest hint of worry, sadness, and anger shining through behind it. Or so Eiro thought... Maybe he was just imagining it.


    "It''s a quite evasive Undead. Don''t worry, I can take him on. Undead are just annoying because they''re immune to a lot of different sorts of damage. They aren''t too bothered with piercing, shing, or blunt damage unless it does any sort of major physical damage like remove a leg. They don''t care about the cold or extreme heat, except in a few cases. Fire should work as well, but they usually don''t feel pain and should be able to extinguish themselves pretty easily. Especially this sort, since it can probably use magic itself... I can''t poison him, or win in a fight of stamina. So in the end, ites down to having to use an Undead''s weakness against it. To be honest, Zoemancy may be even better, but you know... Even harder to find those than Necromancers." Eiro exined as he carefully got the thick bundle of hair out of the box in front of him.


    While it probably wouldn''t hurt him too much, considering that direct skin-contact with Avalin while hugging her didn''t bother Eiro at all, Eiro still wanted to make sure he wouldn''t somehow mess up with this. He already lost one of his limbs through extended contact with weaker Holy Energy.


    "Zoemancy... That was Life Magic, right? So the exact pr opposite to Necromancy, which is Death Magic?" Arc asked, in a rather weird way of formting his sentence.


    Eiro looked at him with his brows raised, "Yes, what about it? I thought you''d ratherment on the Undead part."


    "Oh, don''t worry, I''m getting to that... I was just wondering... ''Death'' is an advanced element to darkness, then ''Life'' must be an advanced element to light, right?"


    "Mhm, that''s how it is. Although Zoemancers don''t really need to have amazing affinities for the Light Element. It''s more like... being in the rough ''Life'' domain, like healing for example, that gives you the possibility of awakening the Life element. Having an affinity for the Light Element is just subsequent of that. But..." Eiro started, and all of a sudden, he realized what Arc was trying to get at.


    "First of all, even if she does have the possible affinity for the Life element, she doesn''t have it yet, and this fight is happening soon. Even if she did have Life Magic right now, I wouldn''t take her with me to a fight that I currently have so much trouble with that I have to resort to employing my own bane."


    "So the fight is hard after all?"


    "Well, I''m not speaking of just some kind of Zombie or Skeleton. It''s pretty strong, but nothing that will kill me. But still... You might be on the right track. I didn''t think about this yet at all, since none of you have shown any signs of awakening your advanced elements yet. But even then, that''s not our focus right now."


    "Although..." Nelli chose to quickly intervene, since she thought she should add something to it, "Considering that she''s a healer, having Life Magic is a really strong tool to have. For the others, their advanced element should be just a stronger version of their current ones, I''d assume, but Zoemancy is more than that. It''s very simr to Necromancy in that it unlocks a whole different array of abilities. You should try and help her so that she can be taught at the academy after awakening it."


    Eiro looked over at the spirit with a nk expression before just audibly grumbling, "Please, can''t you just leave me at least ONE of my children that''s so much like she was back then? If she suddenly starts creating artificial life through Zoemancy, how am I supposed to treat her like my little girl anymore?"


    Eiroined loudly in an annoyed tone, although he definitely knew that this was something she had to be taught, "Just leave me a little more time with my cute old Clementine before then, alright?"

 Chapter 251 - In High Spirits

    Reluctantly, Eiro knocked on the door of his daughter''s room, where Clementine was currently justying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She had been doing that for a good while now, and that didn''t just mean that she did it for a few hours today.


    For a good while, Clementine had been practically stuck in her room just trying to be alone. Eiro was obviously worried about her, but there were also other things that he needed to deal with. He was embarrassed to admit that he didn''t pay that much attention to the children over the past little while.


    "Come in..." Clementine said from inside the room with a loud groan as she sat up on her bed, and Eiro slowly pushed the door open, "Everything alright with you?" Eiro asked, and the girl slowly nodded her head.


    "I''m good, yeah." With a light smile on her face, Clementine looked ack at Eiro, and the Demon slowly returned her smile, "That''s good, then."


    Somehow, the tone of the room soon became rather awkward. It was something that Eiro had been trying to avoid as much as he possibly could, but in the end there were still situations like this that he found rather hard to avoid sometimes.


    He grabbed one of the chairs as he made his way into the room and then pulled it up to the table. Eiro sat down on it so that he could look straight at Clementine.


    "I think we need to talk a bit." Eiro suggested, and Clementine slowly raised her brows, "Weren''t you busy..? I overheard you and Arc heading to Rudy''s room so that you could ask him to help you with something?"


    "Ah, yes... Well, those two said they would take care of it themselves for now. I''m good with carving, now with sewing, so..." Eiro looked back at Clementine and then rubbed the side of his neck. He didn''t really want to bring this up, because he still saw a bit of reluctance in giving Clementine an ability like that.


    She was already an incredible healer, but if she suddenly gained the ability to use Life Magic, practically turning into a Zoemancer, Eiro wasn''t sure if he could still pass her off as just ''a girl with a talent for healing magic''. Eiro knew that she was more than just that, all of his children were special, he just didn''t really want others to know that.


    The Demon sighed out deeply and then looked straight at Clementine, "We need to try out a special advanced element test. I already asked Bavet to fly over to Solomon disguised as a small bird to ry the message so that we can get the materials together."


    "Hm?" Clementine asked surprised, "An advanced element test? What do you mean?" It seemed like Clementine was really rather surprised that this was really a thing, rather than being curious about what kind of element they would be testing for.


    "Well, it''s what it sounds like. It''s a test to check for your advanced element. It''s basically just a ''yes or no'' answer, so you need specific materials that are pretty hard toe by to test for a specific sort of Element. In your case, it''s Burrow-root, Reddrop, and Almesian Morning Dew. They''re the materials needed to test for Life Magic."


    Completely not expecting a sudden mention of Life Magic, Clementine leaned forward a bit, "Wait, what? You think I might have Life Magic?"


    "I think it might be a possibility. But we''re just going to test for it, and we''ll hopefully end up doing that before school begins for you all, depending on how easy it is to get Almesian Morning Dew around here. And then, if you do have an affinity for that element, or rather the possibility to awaken it as an advanced element, you will get special private lessons to help you do so."


    Eiro looked at Clementine, waiting for her reaction to all of this, and the girl stayed silent for a while. She just looked down at the ground inbetween her and Eiro''s feet, before looking back up and scratching her cheek with her index finger, "Ehm... What can you even do with Life Magic?"


    Immediately, Eiro looked back at her and sighed a little bit, "Well, it''s actually pretty easily to exin. You know how I use Life Force a lot? Life Magic is very simr to that. While a lot of elements have an actual physical, tangible form to them, like Earth, Water, or even Light Magic, things like Life and Death magic works a bit different. In those, you''re imbuing the specific sort of magic into those physical, tangible things."


    "Wait, Death Magic? Necromancy?" Clementine asked with a slight frown and nervous behavior, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yes, exactly. Necromancy is more well-knownpared to Zoemancy, which is Life Magic, but the principle is very simr at times, butpletely prizing at others. Necromancy deals with that which is dead. Spirits, Undead, there are even spells where Death Magic is used to create moving dolls out of things like dirt and rock. Life magic deals with that which is alive. Animals and nts for example. Mostly, it could just be seen as a superior carrier for healing magic. You know why I don''tpletely remove Life Force from ces in my body, right?"


    Clementine slowly looked down at Eiro''s hand and then slowly nodded her head, "Yeah... because then it''s just going to die off and even if Life Force is returned, it won''t...e back to life?"


    "Mhm, that is exactly why. With Life Magic, however, you could return life to those ces, to an extent, at least. It requires a lot of mana and ability, but powerful Zoemancers were capable of perfectly resurrecting people shortly after they died."


    Immediately, Clementine opened her eyes wide and stood up, "Wait, does that mean I could-"


    "No." Eiro interrupted her. He knew where she was trying to go, "You wouldn''t be able to heal my hand for me, and you most likely wouldn''t be able to heal Felix''s ears either. Healing Magic is mostly still restricted to healing things that may be capable of healing on their own. And even the sort of magic where you can end up healing full limbs, that can only happen before the outermostyer of the soul crumbles away. In my case, thatyer crumbled before I even lost my hand. It''s why I lost all feeling in it and was just inplete pain. It would have started to rot sooner orter as well. It was practically already dead. And... as far as I can tell with Felix, the outermostyer of his soul has been warped instead of crumbling. Healing Magic may only make it worse, but it most likely won''t be able to make it better. Not even Zoemancy."


    Clementine stood there for a few more moments and then sat back down on her bed with clear disappointment. Eiro wasn''t aware that she was really worried about this part of things. To him, the fact that he was missing a hand had bepletely normal and natural, and he really didn''t mind it at all. His phantom pains were practically nonexistent at this point in time, and having such a powerful staff as his hand was something that became a really important part of how Eiro fought.


    It didn''t even cross his mind to get his hand healed, even if it had been possible somehow. And that was something that he immediately exined to Clementine just like he thought about it. She seemed a bit surprised, and honestly confused by the fact that Eiro would rather live with a prosthetic instead of a real hand, but to him, it really wasn''t a big deal.


    "I can move this hand however I wish, it can heal to an extent, and I might even be able to feel touch through it sooner orter again. At that point, this will just be a real hand that I can use to cast powerful spells. So really, don''t worry." Eiro said reassuredly as he rubbed his hand over Clementine''s head, "However, there is something else you might be able to heal if you end up having a possible affinity for Life Magic. Charles'' wounds."


    Seeing that Clementine became excited again after hearing this, Eiro grumbled a little bit to himself at what this hinted at, and then looked back at her, "Yeah, Zoemantic Healing-Magic is incredibly powerful. It should be able to work for Charles'' wounds as well. But honestly, that''s not even the most powerful part of Zoemancy. It''s the area where it opposes Necromancy the most, as Necromancy is capable of doing a lot of damage instead of healing, basically causing one to decay more quickly instead, but where Zoemancy itself shines the most is in the ability to imbue life into things. I mentioned that Necromancers can use death magic to create dolls of rock and dirt somehow. They do so by manipting the souls of the dead, pushing them into those materials, and causing them to awaken as forms of Undead. Necromancers are masters of Undeath, while Zoemancers are masters of Unlife." Eiro exined.


    "Undeath is Death, just not quite. Unlife is Life, just not quite. Obviously it is not a true form of life, there is much more connected to Life than just that, but it is very, very close. While Necromancers use souls to manipte physical objects, you can simply imbue life into physical objects andmand them. You are basically creating something like a Spirit, in a very loose sense. It is incredibly powerful, as you can basically create as many pawns as you want at some point. It takes a lot of concentration and power, however, so don''t imagine you would be able to fight whole armies on your own. The extent that most Life Mages reach is... creating one or two beings with artificial life to fight for them orplete tasks for them at once."


    With pure excitement in her eyes, Clementine looked at Eiro as she started to smile brightly, "That would be so cool! When can I start learning that?"


    With a quietugh, Eiro stood up and rubbed his hand over the girl''s head, "Not so fast, we don''t even know if you have the possible affinity for the element yet. In a few days, we''ll know, don''t worry." Eiro said reassuredly. He was a bit nervous about telling Clementine all this, although he himself didn''t even know how it might end up turning out, but in the end, Clementine regained her regr, bubbly personality for at least a little bit.. Of course she was a bit disappointed about a few things Eiro said, but overall, she seemed to be in pretty high spirits.

 Chapter 252 - Court Magician

    Eiro and Clementine soon reached Rudy''s room, where the young man was currently working on weaving strands of Avalin''s hair into different pieces of cloth and string so that he could create something that may help Eiro with the Undead that he was set to fight.


    "Is everything going alright?" Eiro asked, and Rudy slowly turned around and then nodded his head, "Yeah, everything is going pretty well, I''d say. It''s a bit weird, but Avalin''s hair is super strong despite how thin it is, and it''s not dried-out or anything. It''s basically perfect for this kind of thing."


    The young man looked at his father with a smile on his face, and Eiro walked up behind him, just cing his hand onto his shoulder. On the table, Eiro could see some regr pieces of cloth that Rudy was weaving the hair into.


    And while Rudy himself was doing that, there were his small ''Citizens'' created through his ''Castle'' ability on the table currently weaving some of the hair together with regr, strong thread. This was in order to create slightly thicker string that could be used for a few other things, like being integrated into items and weapons more easily.


    "Those guys are pretty skilled themselves, huh?" Eiro asked, and Rudy turned his head back around with a smug expression, "Heh, hell yeah they are! I''ve been practicing a bittely to get them to do different things that help me out. I can actually channel my ''buff'' abilities through them to make the buffs a lot stronger as well. But for the most part, these guys can currently just do smaller things like this, or I can have them tie together loose ends when I''m sewing. Oh, wait, there''s one more type of these guys, actually..." Rudy pointed out with a light smile.


    He quickly grabbed his own spark-snapper that he hadying in the corner of the table and quickly created a small me with his own fire magic. Unlike Arc''s, Rudy''s mes weren''t useful forbat, but instead were incredible at other utilitarian things.


    Rudy practically attached this small me to the fingertip of his right index finger, and then held his left index finger toward the table surface. And out of that finger crawled another small figure, although it was different to the ''Civilians''.


    "This is the first real specific kind that I created myself! I called them ''Court Magician''!" Rudy exined, and Eiro took a quick look. There were two main differences between this one and the civilians. While the Civilians were pure white humanoid figures, this specific ''Court Magician'' had a slight red tint to it.


    It walked up to the me that Rudy was controlling with his finger and just grabbed a small piece of it. Rudy then made his own me disappear while the ''Court Magician'' kept the piece that he grabbed, and used it to walk over toward the string that the ''Civilians'' were creating in order to singe the end of the string and fuse it together so that there weren''t any real loose ends.


    "Pretty neat, huh? And yes, I know that it''s a bit useless, since I could just do this myself, but it''s still kinda cool to y around with."


    "Actually..." Eiro replied, "It''s not all that useless at all. Sure, right now you may not see the use for it yet, but you will once you get stronger. It might make your life a lot easier if you can power these guys up individually or if you can increase the number of the Civilians and Court Magicians. So just keep at it. Amazing job with how far you brought these guys so far." The Demon smiled at Rudy, who just slightly embarrassedly, but still happily, looked back at the project in front of him.


    "Urgh... Fatherly love, you''re gonna make me sick." James groaned as he stood in the doorframe after having overheard some of the things that everyone was speaking about, and Eiro justughed quietly.


    "It''s not my fault you have daddy-issues."


    "Oh, I have daddy issues? Come on, Eiro, tell us about your father again, will you?"


    "Touch¨¦." The Demon replied as he slowly turned around, "Is something up?"


    James slowly shook his head as he came closer into the room, "Not really, just finished my gear-maintenance for the day, so I figured I''de and tag along when I heard you guys walk past my room. But now that you mention it... Could youe with me for a second?"


    Eiro slowly nodded his head and looked at his children with a smile, "I''ll be right back." The Demon made his way over to James and followed him out of the room. Together, they chose to walk down the hallway so that they could speak with each other without the others hearing.


    "So, you gonna tell us what this is all about?" James asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Of course, of course, don''t worry. This is just a little hard to deal with at the moment. It''s directly rted to the situation with the Organization, and I don''t know how much they know and control yet. I don''t want to put all of you into danger, and especially I don''t want to endanger my infiltration into the Organization." Eiro exined, and James just stayed silent for a few moments, although in the end, he seemed to understand Eiro''s reasoning.


    "Fine... But if you need us, then let us know. We''ve been training a lottely, you know that. I don''t want you to just treat us as if we were weak kids or something like that." James told Eiro, who just turned his head and smiled at the Light Elf.


    "Of course not, don''t worry. If I need you guys, I''ll let you know somehow. I''m going to ask Rudy to reserve some of the string and cloth for you guys as well just in case you need it." The Demon suggested, and James slowly looked at him with a frown, "What are you actually fighting? Another Demon?"


    With a deep sigh, Eiro shook his head, "Sadly not, otherwise this would be a lot easier. Then, I could just quickly stun him with some Holy Energy and then finish him off. No, it''s an Undead. A pretty strong one at that."


    "Urgh, Undead..." James groaned loudly, "Yeah, those guys are really horrible to fight sometimes. But it just gives you so much trouble that you have to prepare this much?"


    Eiro slowly looked down at the ground and nodded his head in response, "If I''ll have to be honest... He could have easily killed me when I met him. I don''t know why he didn''t, but one thing I know for sure is that I wasn''t able to cause a single point of damage to him."


    "What?" James sasked, stopping in his track as he stared at Eiro with a deep frown, "What do you mean you weren''t able to do damage to him at all? Are you insane? Isn''t he way stronger than you?"


    Eiro sighed in response and nodded his head. "Yes, he is, but there''s no unkible enemy. If I have to, I''ll use my Ace of Cups to kill him and get this over with." The Demon announced, and James slowly approached him, "Not only for your own good, I hope that you know what you''re doing. If you leave these kids behind, I swear that I''m getting my hands on some bullshit necromancy spells and raise you from the dead myself if I have to, just to kick your ass for that."


    "Oh? Well, I would actually kind of like to see you casting spells... Maybe I-"


    "Eiro." James interrupted the Demon as he started to joke around a bit, "I''m serious."


    Eiro looked back at James and slowly turned his head away, "I know. I''m not nning on dying, but as I mentioned, there''s no unkible enemy. That counts for me too. I know that you just said you''d kick my dead ass if it happened, but... If I end up dying, I want you three to protect the kids for me. I don''t want anything to happen to them. They''re more important to me than I myself."


    James looked back at Eiro with a nk expression, not showing any sort of emotions in the slightest. It was obvious that he was unsure what he should say in this situation. But in the end, the Light Elf just closed his eyes and turned around, starting to walk down the hallway, "You got it. Let''s hope it doesn''te to that. For now, head back over to them."


    With a light smile on his face, Eiro turned around and made his way back toward the children. Despite his and James'' differences, Eiro was really more than just happy to have someone like him that he could trust in. Someone that he could tell his secrets to, and someone that would just take care of things when he was gone.


    "I''m kind of insulted you never asked us for anything like that." Nelli pointed out as she appeared around Eiro, practically slithering around the Demon''s neck and floating closely in front of his face while Gondos appeared right next to her. The Demon sighed and waved his hand through the Water Spirit, pushing her out of the way and forcing her to reform herself in another location, "Right, right, as if I''d have to tell you to do that. I don''t expect Gondos to do so, since he hasn''t been around them that long, but there''s no way that you''ll just abandon them at this point, Nelli. You''d have to die yourself before that happens."


    Noticing Nelli''s light sigh, Eiro just smirked as he headed back to Rudy''s room, where the young man had a few things to show Eiro by now. He stepped into the room and watched as Rudy quickly walked up to him.


    "I have to measure your hands now. I want to make you a new pair of gloves out of this material." Rudy pointed out, and Eiro slightly raised his brows, "A new ''pair''? You know that I won''t wear them on my left hand, right?"


    "Hm? Oh, right, I forgot to tell you... This cloth isyered, the inside of the gloves won''t have any of Avalin''s hair in them, so you definitely won''te in contact with it. There might still be some residue Holy Energy though, so I get it..."


    Eiro thought about it for a while, but in the end, he just shrugged, "Well, that''s fair enough. I think it might be useful to be able to use both of my hands to damage him a bit more."


    "Yup, that''s what I thought."

 Chapter 253 - White Flames

    Eiro pulled his two new gloves onto his hands and tried them out by moving his fingers around as far into any direction possible. He was still a bit worried about his left hand. Despite telling Clementine a while ago that he really doesn''t mind having lost his right hand, he would still prefer if he didn''t have to lose his left hand either.


    After all, right now, he couldn''t even feel touch in his right wooden hand despite the fact that the connection between him and the prosthetic had risen quite a bit, and that wasn''t anything that he really wanted to lose out on.


    But it actually seemed like there wasn''t any issue with these gloves, as far as the Demon was concerned, at least. Of course, he would still not wear these two gloves whenever he could, but he could easily put them on instantly using his treasury, so it wasn''t really an issue.


    Beside that, there were the strings that had Avalin''s hair woven into them. These were things that Eiro would try to make use of a bit more directly, albeit also in different ways.


    For one, he would wrap them around the bases of his daggers. If he did manage to stab the Collector, then it might cause a little bit of damage like that, and Eiro didn''t want to lose out on any possible damage for now.


    Then, he would keep a few different sets of this string in his pocket. It was enough that Eiro might be able to choke someone out using these, and if he managed to get into that position with the Collector, then it was something that he might have to make use of somehow. And these were good to just have as spares.


    Eiro also had a small bag filled with some of Avalin''s hair that was simply chopped up into tiny pieces that he could control using Air Magic if Eiro needed to, as if poisoning the air around the collector.


    This was kind of risky, however, as it would heavily restrict Eiro as well, although that was a risk that he was willing to take.


    But now, there was onest thing that Eiro wanted to gather for this. He honestly didn''t particrly like the idea of it, but it was something that woulde in more useful than anything else, considering that it was a part of Avalin that held the highest amount of Holy Energy in her small body.


    Eiro went over to the room where Sammy and Jess were currently ying with Leon and Avalin, and slowly squatted down next to the young girl while everyone greeted him. Of course, Avalin threw herself at Eiro like she usually did, but Eiro wasn''t particrly in the mood for it, considering what he was about to do. It wasn''t like he was about to cut off one of her fingers, but it still felt somehow wrong to Eiro to exploit his daughter like that.


    "Sammy, could you maybe take Leon and go outside for a bit?" Eiro asked her, and the girl looked at Eiro with a light frown, "Is something wrong?" Sammy asked, and Eiro quickly shook his head.


    "Don''t worry, it''s nothing that bad. I''ll exin it to youter." The Demon said reassuredly, and Sammy slowly nodded her head as she took Leon''s hand, "Alright then... Leon,e with me, we''ll y outside a bit."


    Once Sammy and Leon both left the room, Avalin was looking at Eiro curiously, "Daddy, what are we doing now?"


    With a smile on his face, Eiro turned over toward his party member, "How about you sit on Jess''p? It''s nothing bad, I just want you to sit there, close your eyes, and listen to my voice the whole time. Yeah?"


    With an even more curious expression, Avalin nodded her head and crawled over the ground to sit on Jess''p as the woman sat there on the ground cross-legged, "Err... Thanks for asking, I guess?"


    "Hm? But I didn''t ask?" Eiro pointed out as he ced his satchel down in front of him, and Jess turned away with a wry smile, "Nevermind..."


    Eiro did exactly that and moved on. He grabbed a small ss bottle out of his satchel and pulled out the cork put on it. With a swift motion of his finger, he pulled the liquid out with Water Magic as he grabbed his daughter''s hand and stretched out her arm. He spread the strong-smelling liquid on the inside of her elbow while Jess was helping Avalin keep her eyes shut, since Eiro didn''t want her to know what exactly he was doing.


    It seemed like the cold, pure alcohol was tickling Avalin, since she was giggling a bit, so Eiro figured it was a good time to get started.


    He used the rest of the alcohol to disinfect a small needle and then, with an energetic voice, spoke to Avalin, "Alright, now, we''ll y a little bit of a game that Jura taught to me. Well, rather than a game, it''s something like... showing how smart you are. First, I want you to squeeze your hand shut as hard as you can, and then you have to cough as hard as you can. And then, you need to remember to stop doing both afterward at the exact same time, alright?"


    "And doing that makes me smart?" Avalin asked, and Eiro chuckled quietly in response, "Of course not, you''re the smartest little girl there is already. I just want to see how smart you are exactly so that I can brag about it to all my friends, alright?"


    With a light grin on her face, Avalin nodded her head while Jess kept her hands tight on the little girl''s eyes. She knew exactly what was going on and was trying not tough at that ridiculously bad trick.


    "Okay! Then you can brag about me all you want!" Avalin eximed smugly, and squeezed her hand shut into a fist before taking a deep breath.


    And then in a slightly violent fashion, Avalin pushed all that air out of her body again in the form of a few coughs. And those coughs were the perfect distraction for Eiro to push the tip of the needle he was holding into one of Avalin''s veins.


    The hand-squeezing tensed her muscles up and pushed the vein further to the front, making it easier to see and hit, while the coughing was just something meant to distract Avalin from being poked with the needle.


    And immediately afterward, Eiro rubbed his hand through Avalin''s hair while praising her for how well she did while drawing some of her blood and putting it into a small empty bottle. After Eiro was done, he used some of Nelli''s magic water to heal the small poke-wound.


    Eiro put the small bottle of blood away and instead pulled out a small piece of candy as he signaled Jess to let go of Avalin. He ced the candy into her hand with a bright smile, "You did perfect! Here, have this."


    "Yaay!" The girl eximed with a bright, excited smile, and Eiro just returned it as he kept ying a bit more with Avalin for a few minutes until she finished her candy and he made sure that she was doing okay after having her blood drawn. It seemed like she really didn''t notice.


    And a few minutester, Eiro stood back up and let Sammy and Leon back into the room, while Jess came up to the Demon with a confused expression. She pulled Eiro out of the room without a moment''s hesitation, "Why did you just do that? What do you need it for?"


    Jess looked at the woman with his arms crossed as he leaned up against the wall, "I''ll be fighting against an Undead, so I need something with a high amount of Holy Energy in it."


    "...Wouldn''t Holy Water have been even better?"


    "It wouldn''t have been. At least not any old Holy Water. The only kind that''s stronger than Avalin''s pure blood right now is Holy Water blessed directly by a pope. And even then, Avalin''s blood may be stronger."


    "That''s kind of hard to believe... But if that''s the case, why didn''t you just tell Avalin that you needed some of her blood? Exining it would have been better than whatever that just was..." Jess pointed out, but Eiro immediately shook his head as he got out the small bottle filled with blood.


    "Except it wouldn''t have been. While she''s alright with the blood of every other person, she''s deathly afraid of her own blood. Well, luckily I was able to convince her it''s not an issue while it''s inside of her body, but other than that, she''s still too scared." Eiro exined. He pulled the cork out of the small bottle and pulled a single drop out of it using magic, since he already saw that Jess was incredibly confused over why she was scared of her own blood.


    And then, Eiro just let the small drop right onto the back of his hand. The moment that the small drop of blood touched it, the Demon''s skin started to hiss loudly as smoke rose off of the wound that was spreading out as Eiro''s flesh in that spot was basically rotting away at a fast pace.


    Before Jess could even properly react to this, a small white spark was created that soon ignited into pure white mes that would end up spreading out all around Eiro''s skin if he didn''t stop it.


    But luckily, the Demon had a small item he prepared just for this. It was a small piece of smooth, round wood that looked like it basically was just a ck rock that was giving off incredibly eery vibes all around it. Eiro rubbed the piece of wood over the wound and immediately extinguished the white me as the sizzling stopped as well.


    "A few years ago, when Avalin started running around as much as she could... She just tripped all of a sudden. She scraped her knee open. Well, it''s something that kids just do, right? That''s what I thought as well, since I had to treat Arc constantly for these scrapes. But when I went to clean Avalin''s knee up, some of her blood got onto my finger and the exact same thing you just saw happened then. For a girl as little as she was, and still is, that is terrifying. What would you think seeing your father literally go up in mes for trying to help you?"


    Jess looked back at Eiro with a worried expression, although the wound was already healing pretty well, as all of Eiro''s wounds did. He never needed healing all that much.


    Either way, Eiro held the ck piece of palm-sized wood over toward Jess, who reflexively took a step back, "This here is wood from a tree that grew out of the corpse of a fallen angel. It is practically producing Unholy Energy. While Holy Energy is my bane, Unholy Energy is practically what Holy Energy is to you, something that can heal you. I always have this in my treasury in case something happens with Avalin. We had this at the hut because Jura was working on something that could suppress Avalin''s ever-growing Holy Energy from seeping out into the world. You just don''t notice it because they''re both canceling each other out.. I''m afraid that without it, I may not be able to even hug Avalin anymore without going up in mes."

 Chapter 254 - Bone Powder

    Jess stared at Eiro with a confused expression. After all, just having something like that unloaded onto her all of a sudden really wasn''t something you could prepare for.


    She took half a step forward and stared into Eiro''s eyes, before letting her sight wander down onto the small, ck piece of wood that Eiro was holding, "That''s... That''s a joke, right? You can''t be serious... You being around Avalin is that dangerous? Wood from a tree that grew out of a fallen angel''s corpse? This whole situation is just so... so..."


    "Ridiculous? Yeah, I know what you mean. I''ve been thinking the same thing for a good while now." The Demon pointed out with a light, awkward smile on his face, but Jess just looked down at the ground with a light frown on her face, "More than that, it''s... unfair. Why do you need some kind of legendary item just so that you can be around your very own daughter? You treat her so well, but you would die from doing so without the intervention of a literal Unholy Artifact? What''s with that?"


    "As I said, I''ve been thinking the same thing for a good while now. It is how it is, and I can''t change anything about it. Well, except if Holy Energy just suddenly stops being my Bane, I guess. At that point, it''ll be fine. But before then, there''s nothing we can do about it." Eiro told Jess, "And I say ''before then'', but both of us know that something like that is never going to happen in the first ce."


    "But..." Jess started, but Eiro looked back at her with a smile on his face. He pushed himself off the wall and started to walk down the hallway, cing his hand onto Jess'' head for just a moment as he was doing so, "It''s fine. I''ve known about this for years now, there''s no way I wouldn''t be prepared for it."


    Eiro walked past Jess, and the conversation between them ended. Simply because he didn''t want to discuss something like this any longer. It''s not like he didn''t already have all the thoughts that Jess was having right now.


    It''s not like he didn''t try and figure out any possible way to reverse this, or just nullify his fatal weakness to holy energy.


    But it was also fact that his Holy Energy resistance skill simply hasn''t been rising anymoretely. Maybe once a month or something, and the only way that Eiro could keep it advancing into higher levels was by literally destroying his body. That was the fatal weakness of the skills that were supposed to get rid of such weaknesses. You couldn''t level them up without exposing yourself to them.


    And resistance skills against someone''s bane were so rare that many thought they were impossible to get in the first ce. After all, usually, a being wouldn''t survive long enough to be able to unlock a resistance skill against a Bane. Eiro was just a lucky case.


    Or rather, he was a freak in every sense of the word. Eiro stepped further down the hallway and looked down at the back of his hand as it was still healing a bit right now. His health didn''t recover yet, like normal, but at the very least this rapid mass-healing was something quite convenient.


    But either way, for now, Eiro had to get thest piece of his n that was meant to be a trump-card against the Collector, and if possible, against <The Death> himself.


    Eiro made his way into the hidden library and opened one of the boxes that he had ced down on one of the tables here in preparation for this. Eiro opened the box and pulled out the small leather pouch, before pouring the contents down onto the table.


    Small, white-yellow bones poured out of the bag, and Eiro took a deep breath as different figures appeared around him. For one, Nelli and Gondos, who were always watching what Eiro was up to, but also Bavet and Gobo wanted to see what exactly Eiro was doing here.


    "Wait, whose bones are those?" Bavet asked, immediately recognizing the small pieces for what they are, and Gobo slightly tilted his head to the side, "A snack for thinking?"


    Eiro sighed and shook his head immediately, "No, they''re my own bones. When Jura removed my hand, he kept the bones for me to keep and do whatever I want with. And the thing that I want to do with it right now is..." The Demon grabbed another set of items that he put down here on the table before. He ced some of the bones into the bowl that was part of that small set, before crushing them up into a fine powder, "...this."


    It seemed like both Nelli and Gondos understood what Eiro wanted to do with these immediately, considering that they just watched the demonstration of the effect that Avalin''s blood had on Eiro.


    When Holy Energy came in contact with a Demon''s skin, flesh, blood, or bones, literally anything that was part of a demon''s body, it would try and ignite Sacred White mes, and in the process just burnt away everything before those mes could appear. But in a case where a high concentration of Holy Energy hit a Demon, it would simply go up in mes, whose potency was far more wild and concentrated than the Holy Energy that ignited it. The Sacred mes would end up burning the Unholy mass that was a demon''s body and use it as fuel to create Holy Energy out of basically nowhere.


    Well, that was at least at the start of it. After the Sacred mes were ignited, while their nature was certainly that of something Holy... They were still mes.


    Eiro pinched a little bit of the bone-powder in front of him and ced it down on a t surface away from all the other bone-bits so that no ident could happen.


    Then, Eiro pulled out the bottle filled with Avalin''s mes and carefully opened it up. He took another small drop of the blood and ced it directly onto the ground-down demon-bones.


    Nearly immediately, they ignited, creating the Sacred mes out of Eiro''s ground-down bones. Slowly, he created a string of mana and detached it from his body itself, just to see what would happen. He moved it up to the mes, and immediately, Eiro''s mana ignited and started to burn. It was exactly like Eiro thought.


    Not only the physical parts of a demon''s body were susceptible to this kind of effect, but so was their mana. And now that the Sacred mes were using Eiro''s mana as their fuel, there was practically no difference to regr Fire Magic.


    Slowly, and far more carefully than normal, Eiro started to feed more mana to the white mes in front of him as he used the ck wood to extinguish the me that was created with the bone-powder.


    And then, Eiro proceeded to do a regr, basic fire-magic practice using mes that were capable of killing him close to instantly.


    "Wait, how does that even work? If your mana is also vulnerable to Holy Energy, how were you able to even control Avalin''s blood with Magic?" Gondos asked. It seemed like he was quite curious about this, and having this sort of knowledge was important for especially young Spirits, so Nelli took over and quickly exined.


    "Well, it''s simple. Eiro''s mana doesn''t have enough traces of his demonic nature in it to cause that ignition effect on its own. Maybe if Avalin was at her peak in power and actively fought against Eiro, then maybe it would be possible, but not like this. However, when the me is already ignited, it''s like a mixture of Holy Energy and Fire Magic, so it can use Eiro''s mana as fuel since it still has those miniscule traces of his demonic nature in it. As simple as that."


    "Ah... I see. That is something I should remember, then. Thank you, Nelli." Gondos replied to Nelli as he turned away from her and looked back at the Sacred mes that Eiro was somewhat nervously controlling right now.


    "That''s kind of weird, isn''t it? Turning your own bane into a weapon in the indirect sense that I thought you had nned before, using special gloves and such, but actively doing it like that? Can''t you just... cast spells using it if that''s the case?"


    "That''s the n, at least. If I had more time, I would have tried my hands at something else... but I don''t know if I have that time right now, so I''ll have to use this way instead." Eiro exined, "Seriously though, why did this kind of enemy have toe NOW of all times? Guess it''s a good practice for him..."


    "Him?" Gobo asked confusedly. Since he still had a bit of a struggle with understanding object permanence to the fullest, it seemed like he thought that Eiro was speaking about one of the people here in this room or the manor. Eiro turned around toward him and just nodded his head.


    "<The Devil>. Who else? You know, I didn''te up with this n for <The Death> or the Collector, but for him. But since I don''t have ess to anything else right now that I could use against the Collector in particr, I had to pull this n to the front. I just hope that <The Devil> doesn''t see through it... But well, by the time I''ll be able to face him, the thing I want to make should be finished."


    The Demon pointed out before he slowly started to pack the bone-powder into small packs that he made with some cloth, so that he could make them practically ''explode'' into Sacred mes whenever he needed to. But he didn''t say much more about that thing that Eiro wanted to make in order to kill <The Devil>, and it wasn''t anything that anyone had heard about yet. Not even Nelli and Gondos knew about it yet. So, they stood behind the demon and looked at him intensely.


    Eiro sighed lightly and turned around. "What?"


    "Well, won''t you tell us?"


    "Tell you what, Nelli?"


    "What you wanted to make to kill <The Devil>!"


    With a slight sigh, Eiro stood up and walked to the other side of the room, still trying to keep the sacred mes lit passively a bit of a distance away from him to practice his control over it, since it was still a bit different to regr fire magic. And then, the Demon opened a closet that random objects were ced in, and he pulled out a specific orb.


    It was a surprising sight, but what was inside of thepletely airtight ss orb was a floating sphere, and Eiro announced this part of his n.


    "I wanted to get into Artificing so that I could create a me like this that constantly burns.. Just that the me in that case would be a Sacred me, so that I always have ess to it when I need it."

 Chapter 255 - Escapism

    "A sacred me that''s always burning?" Nelli asked with a slightly curious expression on her face as she looked at the ss orb that Eiro was holding, and the Demon just nodded his head, "Yes, exactly. You see, the man that used to own this building before was not only a skilled Choromancer, but also an amazing Artificer. It''s practically impossible to create such special hidden rooms and passages without that. They actually work in a very simr way to this ''Everburning me'', as far as I understood."


    Nelli looked at the ss orb in though, crossing her arms in thought, "So it''s like... creating infinite fuel for the magic to use?"


    "Well, in theory, that would work too, I guess. Just that it''s impossible to create infinite fuel without literally making use of dead people''s souls. Souls are the only thing that can produce mana. I''ve heard that there''s some ''Vile Artificers'' that do that, though. But no, what this does is actually much more impressive. This works by making fuel unnecessary." Eiro exined quickly, "It''s a bitplicated and requires a lot of different runes and stuff... I honestly didn''t figure it out yet, so I can''t even start exining to you how it works. Otherwise I might be able to quickly create one of these filled with a sacred me already. I mean, I didn''t even get the ''Artificing'' skill yet. It might be far harder than I think it is, I don''t know. Either way, I''ll start working on this when I''m done with this."


    The Demon exined, and the Naiad seemed to be fine with that suggestion, "Sounds fair enough. I mean, you''ll probably be able to pick up on this kind of stuff pretty easily, right? There''s no way you wouldn''t, actually."


    "Let''s hope so, honestly." Eiro said as he took a deep breath. He ced the ss orb back into the closet and then closed it back down, before he focused back on the Sacred mes that were floating a little distance away from him.


    Eiro closed his eyes and squeezed his hand shut, immediately extinguishing the white mes. The Demon made sure that there was no spark somewhere around him that he would identally end up burning himself on, and then made his way back through the room. He continued making these small bone-powder packs and refilled Avalin''s blood from the bottle into small ss vials that were able to really only hold a few drops.


    Eiro could just push these vials into the small bags of bone-powder and keep them in there, and if he needed the sacred mes, all he needed to do was either throw the bag on the ground or control the blood inside of the vial to break the rtively thin ss.


    Of course, until then, Eiro would keep these bags somewhere where they couldn''t randomly break and kill him in his sleep or something.


    And once Eiro used roughly three quarters of his bones, he figured this was enough for now. Eiro would keep the rest of the bones as a reserve, or for some other project, while he would try and use Avalin''s blood as a weapon directly, like freezing it and shooting needles of it at the Collector.


    Now, all that Eiro had to do after this was... improve his abilities. And that was meant in the area of magic, of course. He would spend all of today just preparing for this, and hopefully, he would be able to get the two new types of elemental magic skills that he wanted to have.


    And so, Eiro made his way back into the room at the top of the tower, that he was capable of fully infusing with a particr element. He was fully unclothed again, and slowly pulled out one of the two magic stones that he wanted to make use of.


    Sure, this room was somewhat ''broken'', or ''unfinished'', but that didn''t change anything about the fact that it was able to enhance and basically increase the amount of elemental magic that was coursing through the area. If Eiro could basically actively pull it all toward himself and infuse it into him, then it wasn''t an issue at all.


    First things first, Eiro started with the Nature Element Magic Stone. He pulled it out of his treasury before pressing it down onto the center of the floor in this circr room. Eiro poured his mana inside, feeling the magic pouring into the runes. They started to glow with a dark green light, before the space around Eiro somewhat started to change.


    Well, it didn''t really. It didn''t physically change, in the slightest. If there were things like small seeds in here, they would have rapidly grown already, but due to Eiro''s ''rxation session'' from before, where he first cooled the room down and then heated it up, both to ranges that would kill most other living beings, anything that had the possibility to sprout here was already dead. Which was good, since Eiro didn''t really want to deal with that.


    No, the way that this room changed was mostly in the feeling that it gave off, the ''vibe'' as Eiro liked to call this sort of feeling. Things that couldn''t really be fully exined with words. These vibes took the form of emotions and raw ideas for the most part, instead of something proper and tangible.


    And the ''raw idea'' that poured into Eiro''s head right now had a rather simple concept... If Eiro had to choose th cloest word that fit it, it would be ''Forest'', although there was so much more to it than just that.


    It was like Eiro was able to smell the air, feel the light breeze on his skin, and hear the rustling of the leaves above him. But in the end, all of that was just the Demon''s imagination, and none of it was real in the slightest.


    And then, Eiro finally got started. He could feel all this magic fill the room to the brim and grow more and more concentrated. And since this magic''s source was technically Eiro''s mana, he could control it, even if it was a bit harder than normal. But that was totally fine, it didn''t need to be all that amazingly easily controble. Eiro didn''t want to use it for some kind of spell after all. He just needed it to infuse his body properly.


    The Demon pulled the magic into his body in any way possible. Simply by absorbing it in through his skin, or by breathing it in, and anything else that came to mind right now.


    Eiro would then infuse his body with that magic while pouring his mana out through the magic stone he was pressing down onto the ground. He felt his skin grow thicker again, like it did when Eiro did this kind of thing on top of the stone b in the goblin vige.


    Eiro''s skin became rigid and darkened a bit, as if it was just turning into bark. His horns, fingers, and toes were stretching out a bit and were moving around a bit more wildly, as if they were roots or branches stretching outward.


    In the end, this was exactly what Eiro wanted, so it was fine. Butbining this with the whole ''Forest'' Vibe that Eiro was getting from this space that was filled to the brim with Nature Magic, a feeling stronger than what Eiro could feel from actual forests, it was really like Eiro had be a tree that was standing in the center of an ancient forest.


    He felt the ground underneath him as his roots burrowed through it more and more, his branches swaying in the wind. Eiro could feel moss slowly climb up onto his body. But none of this was actually happening. Eiro wasn''t actually a tree, he wasn''t actually in a forest.


    Weridly enough, it took a lot to make sure that Eiro really understood all of thatpletely and didn''t forget about it midway through the whole infusion process. As if he deep down truly wanted to believe that it was as simple as that. That he didn''t have to worry about anything anymore. That he didn''t have to fear for his life constantly. That he didn''t have to hide who he was to protect himself and his loved ones.


    That he was amongst others that were truly like him. A tree in a forest was never alone. And while Eiro wasn''t alone either, being surrounded by so many other people that he cared for and that in turn cared for him, it still wasn''t the same. They weren''t the same. Eiro was a being that seemed to be simply... unprecedented.


    A Monster might be able to understand some of Eiro''s troubles, but not even nearly enough.


    A Monster in control of his monstrosity would be able to understand even more, although there were more things to it.


    A Demon in control of his monstrosity on the other hand, was already quite close to what Eiro was, but it still wasn''t just there.


    There were many things you could add onto that without even going into things like personality or circumstance, just looking at what exactly the basis of Eiro was.


    Eiro was an artificially-created Demon that was in control of his monstrosity while being capable of growing his Stats in a way that no other living being he knew of seemed to be. That''s the basis of what Eiro was. Then you could add onto that the fact that Eiro was raising the one being that would be able to kill him instantly if she wanted to as his daughter, living amongst people that would all want to kill him, while being Blessed by the former Queen of Naiads and a current Nature Goddess, all the whilst also plotting to take both the title of Monster King and Hero onto himself.


    Honestly, considering all that, who would be able to sympathize with him? Who would be able to understand him?


    Compared to that, being a simple, boring tree in a forest of other trees that were exactly like him didn''t sound all that bad.


    Eiro just sat there for a while, dreaming of what a life like that, a life without troublesome parts to it, may be like. What it would feel like to be able to truly rx at all times, what it would feel like not to be concentrating on a one-kilometer area directly around you at all times in case someone was trying to kill you or your children.


    Would Eiro be satisfied with that? Would he truly prefer a life like that over the life he was currently living?


    Obviously, the answer to that was ''no''. He loved his children and he loved his friends and allies. He wouldn''t want to change anything about the current situation.


    Still, even an unprecedented being like Eiro had to indulge in escapism every once in a while.

 Chapter 256 - Small Flower

    Slowly, Eiro opened his eyes. He had to practically rip them apart because his eyes were grown shut because of his bark-like skin. But by simply getting rid of the magic in his face, he was able to open them up easily without any worry.


    Either way, what was most important was that Eiro saw a certain two notifications right in front of him.


    [Aptitude with the Nature Element increased]


    [Beginner Nature Magic Skill Learned]


    The notifications were more than just wee. This was an element that he wanted to receive for a good while now. With this, Eiro would hopefully be able to follow in Jura''s steps even better than he already was trying to. And of course, a lot of Nature Magic spells were rted to restraining people, so thsi was something that would definitelye in any sort of fight anyway.


    Slowly, the Demon stopped pushing his mana into the nature magic stone and ''neutralized'' the magic that was already filling the room. Slowly, Eiro stood up and stretched properly. He felt pretty stiff after that one, but that was pretty normal as far as Eiro''s experience with the Nature Element told him.


    "Okay, then I just need to try it with the other one as well... Let''s hope that this works out and doesn''tpletely destroy this room..." Eiro muttered to himself. But just to make sure, he still tried to remember every little part of this room so that he might be able to replicate it in case it broke. It was incredibly useful, after all.


    Eiro took out the purple magic stone that was found in the magic stone mines in the goblin vige. The Gravity Magic stone. Slowly, Eiro pressed this magic stone down onto the ground and poured a little bit of magic inside. He wanted to start it slow. But the moment that Eiro did this, he could already feel pressure building up all around him.


    It was kind of ufortable, truthfully. But then, Eiro remembered what it was like when he first infused himself with this type of magic. He was able to directly manipte the way it acted. He could make himself heavier, but he could also make himself lighter.


    So, to get rid of that pressure, Eiro tried to basically ''get rid'' of the gravity. And the moment he did, his body felt practically weightless. His body even slowly lifted off the ground because he was shifting around just so slightly.


    It was an even weirder feeling than before, but it wasn''t unpleasantly so. It actually seemed kind of fun to be weightless like this.


    But either way, Eiro had to keep himself on the ground, so he made it so that gravity wasn''t gonepletely, but he still had a little bit of weight to him.


    It became a bit harder to control the more of this magic filled this room, since it reacted far more strongly to the slightest stimulus the more concentrated it became. Eiro had to really be careful that he didn''t rip apart this room... or himself.


    Once he was able to properly stabilize everything, Eiro started to pull the magic into himself again. It was a bit more ufortable doing this, but it wasn''t that bad as long as Eiro concentrated properly... although he wasn''t sure if he would have been able to do this if his intelligence stat wasn''t as high as it was.


    Now that the gravity magic was coursing through Eiro''s body and he was making it flow through him in circles, he was feeling basicallypletely prizing to what he felt when being infused with the nature magic. Instead of feeling calm, the gravity magic made him feel incredibly on-edge, probably because it felt like it would be able to kill him instantly if he messed up.


    The few hours that he tried to save for this felt so much longer than Eiro would have expected. And once he was done, it didn''t seem like he would get Gravity magic anytime soon, despite the Gravity Magic stone not having all that much more magic inside of it. Hopefully they had found more of these in the Magic Stone mines.


    "Now that I think of it, we really should head back there again... Let''s hope they didn''t randomly go rogue or something like that." Eiro quietly muttered to himself, "All the ingredients to get rid of the monstrosity of some more of the goblins should be here soon as well, and we also have some of that for the spiders... Really, let''s just hope this works."


    The Demon slowly groaned as he got rid of all the gravity magic in this room, feeling as if he just wasted way too much time for no reason. He left the room and put his clothes back on while Nelli and Gondos returned to his side.


    "So? How was it?" Nelli asked curiously, and Eiro looked over at her, "I got the Nature Magic skill, but not the Gravity Magic skill."


    "Hey, it''s something at least, right?" Gondos pointed out, and Eiro slowly shrugged, "I guess so. Could you two let the others know that I''m heading out soon? I''ll first try out my new magic."


    "Alright, I will do that." Gondos said with a slow nod, before quickly floating away down the tower to get to the others. Meanwhile, Eiro opened the nearest window and jumped out. He caught himself with air magic and then made his way to his garden-area. It really seemed like before, there were different flowers growing here, but now, everything waspletely withered and dead, and all you could see were bare traces.


    Eiro stretched his hand out forward and slowly released some of his nature magic toward the area in front of him. There were seemingly a few things growing here already, some of which were new flowers that were trying to sprout out of the dead, old ones, and others were just random weeds.


    Immediately, Eiro tried to practice how specific he could be with this magic and tried to make only the flowers sprout again while leaving the weeds alone.


    It was a bit hard at first, because this was a whole new sort of magic to him, but at the very least he was able to make use of experiences he didn''t expect he would be able to use in the slightest. To an extent, it was a lot like Earth and Water magic which this element came from in the first ce, since he was dealing with something directly physical and tangible.


    But then again, it was a lot different as well in the way that it acted, since it didn''t actually rely on directly controlling things like trees or nts and moving them around like other base elements. Sure, that was part of it, and you certainly could do that to an extent, but mainly this element relied on making nts grow in a certain direction.


    In that way, it was a lot like Fire Magic, where you needed to use your magic to increase the volume of the mes you were using to actually cast proper spells.


    So in the end, the base parts of what Eiro was doing weren''t anything new, but this specificbination of things was rather unusual. Slowly, Eiro squatted down toward one of the specific nts that he wanted to help grow, and focused all of his attention directly onto it.


    He let his magic flow through every small bit of the nt, from the roots to the tip, to hopefully get it to grow. And from what Eiro could see, it seemed to be working. His Nature Magic skill was leveling up pretty quick, as most beginner grade level 1 skills usually did.


    Soon, the small nt, the flower that Eiro chose, soon managed to grow a little bit. It wasn''t incredibly fast, and a normal person wouldn''t be able to even see that it was growing, but with Eiro''s eyesight he was able to see this and notice that it was working without any doubt in his mind.


    It was really incredible, actually, although Eiro was wondering why exactly it was growing this slowly. After all, advanced magics like Nature magic should have quite a lot of power to begin with. Thinking that maybe he was doing something wrong, Eiro focused his attention on something else. One of the weeds growing next to the flower. And the moment he did, the weed started growing at a rather rapid pace, so quickly that everyone would be able to see it.


    It grew taller, thicker, and even the nts around it were affected. But somehow, that one small flower barely grew at all.


    With a deep sigh, Eiro squatted down and looked at the sky, "Please don''t tell me that this is another ridiculous thing from that Choromancer?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself. Actually, he wasn''t entirely sure if he wanted that to be the case or not. For one, it would definitely be quite interesting to see what kind of flower this would be, considering its seemingly quite special properties, but on the other hand, it would be pretty hard to hide the fact that something weird was going on here if Eiro had some crazy magical flowers in his garden.


    After exining these thoughts to Eiro, Nelli pointed something else out, "Eiro, should I remind you of your special tree ntation where you are currently growing trees with the blood of different monster-spiders, and where you are trying to grow trees from the mana of one of your party members as well as the Crown Prince of this country so that you can make prosthetics from them?"


    With a slight re directed at the Naiad, Eiro pointed out, "Yes, but at least I was prepared for that and it''s not actually anything I have to hide that much. I mean, I''m a Prosthetist, what kind of wood do they expect me to use? Oak? Birch? Spruce?"


    "Probably, yeah." Nelli replied bluntly, "You know, Jura''s kind of Prosthetist isn''t the ''normal'' kind. Not every Prosthetist is like you and can create prosthetics that can actually move and rece lost limbs perfectly."


    "...They can''t?"


    "No, of course they can''t!" The Naiad yelled out, surprised that she even had to point that out, and Eiro slowly scratched his cheek, "Well, then I guess I''ll have toe up with a better excuse than ''I am just trying to increase my variety''... And maybe I''ll have to warn Solomon about the wood under the hut a bit better as well?"


    "That sounds like a good idea, yes. By the way, I still don''t understand how you can trust someone else to get all that for you..."


    "Oh, I''m not in the slightest, actually. I''ll give them a wrong location. I''ll fly ahead when I have time so that I can use magic to move all the wood to that wrong location to have all those guys bring the wood all the way back here safely.. I''m not giving them the location of our home, of course."

 Chapter 257 - The Trap

    Eiro was sitting on the ground looking at the flower that simply wouldn''t grow all that much no matter how much of his magic he focused onto it directly. He would have to figure this out sometimeter then. What was more important was that he had to get a little bit of practice in with the Nature Element so that he could possibly try and restrain the Collector, or even just trip him up somehow by creating an uneven ground.


    Eiro managed to make other things grow pretty easily, like the weeds or the grass, luckily. He was able to control them somewhat, like making them il around or grow into a spiral, and that seemed like he would be able to at least somehow use this magic already, even if it wasn''t actually all that strong yet.


    "Should be strong enough..." Eiro muttered quietly as he stood up properly and then cracked his knuckles as he mentally went through all of the information that he had on the Collector while trying to figure out a good way to find out his current location so that he may get the jump on him.


    Maybe Bahlsen also figured something out by now, and already knew where the Collector was, so Eiro should check in with him first.


    Eiro stretched his wings out and pped them, quickly flying over toward one of the open windows at the backside of the manor, and climbed right through into the room that was there. Sitting there on the ground was Bavet, who slowly turned his head toward Eiro and just groaned, "Are we really going already?"


    "Yes, we are. Stopining." Eiro said bluntly and stretched his hand out toward the currently humanoid figure. Bavet stood up from the ground where he was currently reading, and then held the Demon''s hands beforepletely changing andpressing his body into a form that seemed rtively normal.


    Bavet wrapped himself around the satchel and basically added onto its outer form, creating something like arge backpack that was hanging off Eiro''s back. Like this, they could keep Bavet''s slime around, since it would probably end uping in quite useful.


    And on top of that, like this, Bavet could act as anotheryer of protection for Avalin''s blood and Eiro''s bone-powder to make sure the small constructions wouldn''t randomly break in the satchel.


    And then, Eiro jumped away from the window and started to fly immediately toward the direction of town. Up ahead, he was able to see a few dark clouds, so it seemed like it would end up stormingter. Eiro heard that there were pretty strong snowstorms around here sometimes, and considering how strong it had been snowing over thest little while anyway, that might end up being the caseter as well.


    Actually, that mighte in quite useful for Eiro, although he would need to try and heat Bavet up with a bit of fire magic... But through a thick snowstorm, Eiro might be able to send out pulses with his Ice Magic to figure out everything in his direct perimeter immediately. He managed to do something simr with rain before, so it might work out if he concentrated well enough.


    Either way, Eiro looked at the town ahead and continued to fly over there at a quick pace. Not too long afterward, he managed to fly over the town gates.


    Luckily, it seemed like the window in Bahlsen''s room was open right now, so Eiro quickly picked up his speed a bit more and then wrapped his wings around his body as he shot down, trying to hide himselfpletely using a bit of shadow magic.


    And immediately after Eiro shot through Bahlsen''s open window, he spread out his wings. It created a rather strong gust and sent literally all the notes that Bahlsen took over the past little while flying all around in a flurry, but it was still a perfectnding on Eiro''s part.


    "Ah..." Bahlsen said with a wry smile, "Listen, I''m d you''re here and all, but can''t you just take the door..? Now I have to put all of this up again..." The Investigator grumbled to himself, and Eiro took a look around at all the papers.


    "It''s fine, I got a good look at everything." Eiro pointed out, and Bahlsen looked at him with a frown, "Even if that was possible in that split-second, it doesn''t help me figure everything out in the slightest... Bute on and help me."


    With a slight sigh at noticing that Bahlsen misunderstood him, Eiro pped his wings to create a strong gust of wind again, but this time around, he was contolling that wind with air magic. And as the pieces of paper started floating around again, it seemed like Bahlsen finally understood what Eiro was getting at.


    He ced all the pieces of paper roughly back into the position they were in before, and then looked directly at the investigator, "So, what''s all of this? It''s all just spection on what the Collector is and where he''s from. Is this really going to help us find him?"


    "Yes, I think so, at least! It filled up a lot of gaps that I had in my mind, and I think I have a rough idea of an actual victim-profile for the first time! Or at least, I have spections on what he''s looking for in his victims that makes them interesting for him!"


    "Well, I guess that would help narrow it down a bit?"


    "Certainly so!" Bahlsen eximed, "So, as far as my theories go, Bahlsen is a Demi-Lich. As if stuck inbetween Life and Lich-hood, practically. Still an Undead, and an incredibly powerful and dangerous one at that. A Lich''s powers and abilities will be a warped version of what they were like during the life of the one that became the Lich. That is not the case with a Demi-Lich just yet. So they have the same vulnerabilities as regr Lichs, but their abilities aren''t innately infused with necromantic energies, making it easier for them to blend in with a regr popce. But at the same time, it means their powers aren''t much stronger than when they were still living. They probably now have a greater array of abilities, however."


    Eiro thought about Bahlsen''s words and thought about it for a little while, trying toe up with some kind of tactic, "Good that he''s a Demi-Lich and not a regr one, then. A Demi-Lich doesn''t have a phctery, right?"


    "Indeed! That is the main difference in the nature of a Demi-Lich and aplete Lich!" The Investigator eximed with a weird sense of excitement, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms, "Alright, now that I know what I''m going to fight, what''s the ''victim profile'' you mentioned?"


    "Ah!" With a light smile on his face, the Investigator started to speak, "You see, it''s quite simple. As a Monster, you must know what it''s like to have a Bane, right? I heard that a monster is innately capable of sensing their bane to an extent. In an Undead''s case, that would be the ''Life Element'', right? Well, I was already ying around with this idea before, but what if all living beings have some kind of instance of the Life Element in them? Possibly, in a wicked way of showing his superiority, the Collector is trying to take parts of people that have an extremely high amount of this Life Element inside of them to create the ''Dolls'' he is making. As if he''s trying to say, ''Not even my own bane can hurt me, as I am fully in control of it''."


    Immediately, Eiro crossed his arms in thought. That might actually be possible somehow. Sure, Life Force and the Life Element weren''t the same thing, but they were quite simr to each other. He did read about Undead beings in particr having the ability to sense Life in a simr way to how Spirits are able to sense Magic. It might be a far stretch, but if that was the case, then maybe Eiro was able to cause even more damage to the Collector by infusing his attack with his Life Force. It most likely wouldn''t act like Life Magic would, but it would probably help him a bit anyway.


    Now, at least, Eiro had some good way to actually damage the Collector properly... If he managed to get a hit on him. And for that, Eiro would need to figure out a good way to find someone with high amounts of Life Force in their bodies.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he started to think. What exactly caused Life Force to gather in specific ces of one''s body? If they were especially healthy or if Life Force was being manipted somehow.


    "The woman that was gutted by the Collector, do you know anything about her? Why were her organs taken specifically?"


    "That''s what I was trying to figure out! I don''t exactly know why yet, but I''ll-"


    "I know." Eiro said bluntly, having a rough idea of why it could be, "I think she was poisoned somehow. There''s a specific kind of herb that acts this way. I know a little bit about healing arts and herbology, and there''s one specific nt that in the right dosis can increase the natural recovery speed of certain wounds, or help you fight against diseases. The rest of your body suffers under that, however. In the right amounts that''s not an issue in the slightest. When we saw her, the woman had especially dirty hands and a strong smell to her. I didn''t recognize it then, but I think it was the smell of that herb. It''s rathermon, so she might have broken into an Apothecary''s garden, thinking it was food, and then ate that herb. It has a pretty good smell and taste, actually... She probably poisoned herself with that, Life Force gathered in her internal organs, and the Collector took notice of that." Eiro figured, and the Investigator looked at Eiro rather surprised.


    "Oh, how did you figure that out?"


    "I literally told you my process. Just because you have a card that increases your ability doesn''t mean you''re the only one that can make connections like that. Now, if that''s the case, then I think I have a good idea on how to set a bit of a trap for the Collector..." The Demon exined with a light smile on his face, hidden by his mask, and the Investigator crossed his arms.


    "I see... You want to somehow increase this ''Life Force'' in someone and lure the Collector toward that person?"


    "Exactly so. What body parts did he not ''collect'' yet?"

 Chapter 258 - If You Will

    Eiro stood at the side of the road and closely and attentively watched the people around him as they were on their way home in the heavy snow. And amongst those people who were suffering in the cold weather, subsequently decreasing the strength of their Life Force, was one figure that was practically overflowing with it after ''borrowing'' some from Eiro as well.


    Bavet, disguised as a random person pretending to fit into the crowd. Eiro had specifically increased the amount of Life Force ced into Bavet''s eyes, and it seemed like in the form of a human, the slime was somewhat fine in this kind of weather. It seemed like some kind of extra effect after his evolution, that he wasn''t as fully vulnerable to extreme colds anymore, as long as he was in a form that could withstand the weather, since he was literally changing his slime to flesh now.


    Bavet had be capable of copying living beings to a level where it was impossible to distinguish between him and a regr person. Since part of his abilities was to copy the behavior of others as well, not even Bahlsen was able to pick Bavet out in the crowd, perfectly fitting in.


    At some point, Bavet reached a point where he was outside of the Demon''s visible range, but he was still able to sense him to an extent, especially because Bavet had some of his Life Force inside of him.


    And so, the Demon just entered a random pub and acted like a normal customer together with Bahlse, while Bavet pretended to be a homeless person that had to stay out in the cold tonight as all the other people were clearing out the streets as the heavy snow picked up.


    This was possibly one of the best nights for the Collector to act. There were no crowds around, and not even many guards were standing outside right now. In this area that was practically a freezing wastnd devoid of life, it would be rtively easy to pick out those people that had impressive amounts of Life in them. And even if they were inside of buildings, it was still a lot easier to kill someone while they were alone in their homepared to out in public ces.


    And while Bahlsen and Eiro were sitting in that random pub, an employee walked over to them, "So, you two gonna order anythin'' or not? You''ve been sittin'' here for about twenty minutes already."


    "Just waiting out the snow for a little while." Eiro replied bluntly, and the employee looked at him with a sigh, "Listen, man, I get that the weather''s shit and all, but we''ve got a business to run. The boss is a bit peculiar about that. But as long as you order something, anything, I can convince ''im to let you stay till the snow is over. So, will you have anythin''?"


    Eiro turned his head over toward Bahlsen, who just smiled at the employee, "Of course, then I''ll take a cup of Jasmin, if you will."


    The employee looked at Bahlsen with a confused frown, and Eiro sighed, "Sorry, my friend''s not from around here. We''ll take two hot metheglin." Eiro said, and swiftly held up his left hand, showing two fingers to the employee since it was a bit loud in the pub right now.


    "Comin'' right up." The Employee said, and quickly turned around before heading off to the bar to get the orders. Bahlsen looked at Eiro, and before he could speak, the Demon already interrupted him.


    "You know, tea''s not that popr around here. At least not amongstmoners, some pretentious nobles maybe, but most people don''t even know what tea tastes like. Hence, pubs don''t serve shit like tea." Eiro exined bluntly, and Bahlsen raised his brows before slowly nodding.


    "I see, that exins the reaction... But what exactly was metheglin again?" Bahlsen inquired curiously, and Eiro leaned back in his seat, "Mead vored with herbs and spices. Mead''s one of the few things that''s bearable to be drunk hot around here, so everyone does. Metheglin''s a pretty wee variety for a lot of people as well. Figured it would be more to your taste than regr mead."


    "Oh, right, right, that was it! It did sound familiar... Sorry, I''m somewhat forgetful, I''ve got such a huge influx of information that it''s overwhelming sometimes. Ironic, huh? Considering that I used to work with memories..." Heughed wrily, "I''m sure you know what that''s like, with your strong senses and all."


    "Actually, I don''t." Eiro replied immediately, "I havepletely perfect memory. I can''t ess all my memories all at once, but it''s pretty easy to call on specific memories if I try."


    The Demon slowly turned his head and looked over at the employee that was returning with two big steins of steaming hot metheglin. Eiro quickly payed him, and the employee went on his way.


    "So..." Bahlsen said, "How are we doing this? Wouldn''t it be pretty weird if we don''t drink?"


    "Hm? Why wouldn''t we drink?" Eiro asked with a frown, although Bahlsen obviously couldn''t see it due to the Demon''s mask. But it seemed like he understood from Eiro''s tone of voice anyway, "Well, for one, we''re in the middle of an investigation, so getting drunk isn''t a great idea... And you''d kind of need to take off that mask to drink, right?"


    Slowly, Eiro held his hand up to his mask, simply pressing down at the spots where his jaws meet. With a click, a small slit formed between the upper half of Eiro''s mask, including his nose, and the lower half that was covering his mouth.


    Still connected around the ces where Eiro pressed down, the Demon could pull the mask down a bit and just slide it under his chin. This mask was something that Eiro specifically made for dealing with things rted to the organization, so he added a few neat gimmicks in that he wanted to try out. This was one of them.


    And one of the other neat gimmicks was the small pouch of seeds that was built into the very bottom of the mask, where Eiro was now able to use nature magic to start infusing his skin for a simple reason. Through Nature Magic, Eiro''s skin became somewhat bark-like in texture and a lot darker than normal. And so, his rigid, roughed up red skin really just looked like a nasty burn-wound that was covering his whole face.


    People around here knew not to pry about things like that, and masks weren''t anything umon especially due to things like nasty injuries like Eiro had. Attacks from random monsters weren''t all that umon, so a lot of people had parts of their skin burnt away by slimes, for example. Some might stare, especially when drunk, but as long as it looked somewhat convincing, very little people would end up asking.


    And even if they did, after Eiro said he didn''t want to speak about it, people would usually stop. Eiro did try this out a few times while infusing his skin with nature magic stones to have something like a provisionary disguise, just in case he needed it, like now.


    Eiro took up the stein in front of him and held it to his lips before gulping a mouthful of it down his throat, "I can drink yours if you want. I have a Toxin Resistance skill. Just beginner grade, but it''s enough for a few rounds of mead."


    "...right, makes sense." Bahlsen said, simply epting Eiro''s exnation. He probably simply wasn''t surprised anymore that Eiro had a wide array of skills avable to him.


    Well, it wasn''t like that was all there was to it. Eiro was actually practicing something else right now. He was making specific parts of the mead in his body heat up to boil away the alcohol in it, and was then circting the fumes in his stomach using air magic.


    What Eiro was trying to test out was a process that he was actually trying to copy from Dragons. It was a mock-version of fire-breath.


    Basically, the Demon was trying to figure out ways to create mes out of ''nothing'' instead of having to use spark-snappers. In the middle of a fight, that was something rather inconvenient, after all.


    And so, Eiro wanted to try and use something that was actually mmable. Obviously he wouldn''t try igniting it right now, he was just keeping it forter. If he had to somehow use Nature Magic to make things he ate rot and create certain mmable gases atrge concentrations, then Eiro didn''t really mind. It was one of his reasons, a minor one, but nheless, why he wanted to get the Nature Magic skill, so that he could do this. Not only did it allow you to make things grow, but also cause them to rot to an extent, so Eiro wanted to be able to do both perfectly.


    Like that, if he needed to, he could quickly swallow a seed, grow it into a nt in his stomach, and then cause it to rot immediately as if to create something like alcohol immediately so that he could find something tobust.


    And of course... me Breath was something that most wouldn''t expect a random person to do, and it woulde in quite useful in situations when Eiro couldn''t use his hands to pull out his spark-snapper.


    In general, he was just trying to catch the Collector off-guard in any way possible.


    And so, Eiro was drinking the mead and keeping most of the alcoholic fumes inside of his body. And all of a sudden, Eiro noticed something goin on outside around Bavet. Luckily Bahlsen was able to analyze the location-patterns of where the Collector looked for his victims already and was able to suggest this ce.


    Eiro immediately ran toward the door and pulled every part of his mask into the right ce. He ran out the door into the snow, pushing two people out of the way as he was at it.


    Immediately, the Demon ran through the thick snow toward where Bavet was, and there was a man wearing the exact clothes that the Collector did standing right in front of Bavet, just speaking to him. Eiro pulled out his dagger and was about to stab it through the side of the Collector''s head, when all of a sudden, he noticed something.


    "It''s... It''s not him." Eiro muttered quietly as he looked at the figure in front of him. They turned their head over toward Eiro. In the end, this man didn''t even look remotely simr to the Collector, and he just had an empty, dumb stare on his face.


    This person wasn''t an Undead, so not a puppet created by the Collector, but... Somehow, this person was still under control of the Collector. While grinding his teeth in anger, Eiro just pushed his hand forward and grabbed the man by the throat.


    "Where the fuck is he?" Eiro asked with a growling voice. The man stared back at Eiro with the same empty expression, but all of a sudden just started to grin madly, "Oh deary me, look who we have here? And before you mistake this for direct control, this is just something ''pre-recorded'', if you will. I am nowhere around here. Rather, I am already on my way to my next puzzle piece. Luckily, I have found a nice, remote ce that is basically a treasure chest filled with beings that brim of life!"


    A cold shiver ran down Eiro''s back as the man that was being controlled continued to speak, "Truly, these puzzle pieces were expertly raised by you, my dear friend."


    The words that this man was using sounded weird to Eiro, somehow... not that there was magic infused into them, it was just that his choice of words was umon, and incredibly familiar to be just a coincidence. And then, it hit Eiro.


    He twisted his body around and tightened his hand, ripping apart the throat of the man that was being controlled just now.


    Instead of trying to figure out where the Collector was, Eiro was now trying to find Bahlsen.


    Because he was nowhere to be seen within the whole range of Eiro''splete perception.

 Chapter 259 - Split In Two

    "Wait.... no, wait... but..." Eiro muttered quietly. Slowly he went through everything that happened so far in his mind, "Bahlsen was the Collector...? Or is he being..." The Demon thought about what exactly was going on. It just didn''t make sense. Bahlsen wasn''t lying with anything he said, not a single time did he utter even a miniscule lie. Or he was just really good at hiding the truth, somehow.


    "But everything about Bahlsen and the Collector is just so... different..." Somehow, Eiro was unsure what he was supposed to do next, and was really just stunned by all of this. He thought that his senses couldn''t be fully tricked like that, but it seemed like that absolutely wasn''t the case...


    And then, the words that this manipted person just uttered finally caught up to Eiro, "But that means that..." Immediately, Eiro ripped the cloak off his body and spread out his wings, not even caring for the fact that he identally pulled his mask off together with it as he did so.


    There was a group of random people walking by the alley that Eiro was in, and they were just staring at the figure of this angry demon spreading out his wings. Due to the sheer pressure that he gave off merely standing there, two of them fell to the ground and the rest werepletely stunned at this sight through the thick snow.


    But Eiro didn''t care, he just turned around toward Bavet, and the slime knew what to do immediately. He changed his shape and jumped right onto the Demon''s body. Bavet''s slime core fused with Eiro''s skin the moment that he did and travelled to the center of his chest while the slime just covered Eiro''s wings. The two of them fused like never before and the size of Eiro''s wings increased immensely.


    With a single p of Eiro''s wings, the snow was pushed away and the people got their first proper sight on this being as he radiated a thin light that only one of them recognized.


    He was a monk, a practitioner of Ki-based Arts. He recognized that what was surrounding Eiro was a literal aura of pure power that had built up around him, and it gave off pure emotions of anger.


    Eiro was able to see some notifications flicker in and out of existence in front of him, but he really didn''t care enough to pay them any mind, and they were blown away in the strong winds surrounding Eiro immediately.


    The Demon infused his body with Air Magic and pushed himself off the ground at the quickest speed he could possibly manage. He was practically cutting through the thick snow that was filling the air, and with every p of his enormous wings was causing the storm to be stirred up.


    But Eiro didn''t care. He didn''t care that he was pushing the tiles off the roofs of the buildings he was flying over, or that he was shattering some of the windows of those same buildings. Only one thought crossed his mind right now.


    That he had to get home. Quicker than ever before, Eiro found his way home. And luckily, James was standing there by the window having a drink while deep in thought, contemting about his current situation.


    Eiro pushed him out of the way, and the ss shattered on the ground, staining the ground in alcohol.


    "What''s the big fucking deal, ma-" James yelled out angrily, but he choked up the moment he truly took notice of Eiro.


    The Demon slowly turned his head and stared the Light Elf deep into his eyes, "Get the children and bring them to the safe-room in the basement''s treasury. Immediately." The tone of Eiro''s voice was echoing through the room, and James was unable toin or really react in any other way beside just grinding his teeth and doing as he was told, trying not to freak out at the magic and vibe that Eiro gave off. Especially James, due to his racial abilities, was heavily affected by this.


    As Eiro stood there, the notifications that Eiro basically didn''t allow toe into existence until now just appeared in front of him again.


    [You are under the effect of Wrath]


    [Others around you will feel your emotions in their purest form]


    [Your basic abilities will be temporarily enhanced by 10%]


    [As a gift from <The Devil> for achieving this, you will not feel any repercussions]


    Eiro stared at the notifications and ground his teeth in anger, so much so that he was afraid of having them shatter all of a sudden, "Ah, you''re watching this, huh? Having fun, you son of a bitch? I hope you''ll enjoy this show, because you''re next."


    Eiro slowly stepped toward the door and made his way through the hallway, ignoring the fact that heavy snow was pouring into James'' room through the open window now that it picked up a bit more.


    He could hear all the others running toward the basement''s treasury as James opened the secret room in there and everyone stepped inside. The moment that those doors closed, Eiro felt weirdly relieved through this, but at the same time could not deny the nervosity he was feeling from not being able to sense the children.


    Eiro made his way through the entrance hall of the building, and the moment he stepped onto the carpet, therge wooden door in front of him opened up.


    "Oh, what a surprise. You were able to find your way here a lot quicker than I thought you would. But I don''t mind, it just spices things up a bit more." The Collector, the Demi-Lich, said with a bright smile on his face, and Eiro looked at him with a deep stare, "Turn around and leave, Bahlsen."


    With a slightugh, the Collector shook his head as he took a step forward. It seemed like this time, he wasn''t trying to make Eiro''s senses hazy somehow, and his voice could be clearly heard. But somehow, it still waspletely different to Bahlsen. Everything was. Seeing the Collector, Eiro was once more unsure if this really was Bahlsen or not.


    "I think you are misunderstanding something. My name is not Bahlsen, I go by Edward Henricus."


    "Why would you lie to me? Was it fun ying around like that?"


    "Once again, I think you are misunderstanding something. I never lied to you. Neither did Bahlsen. Through and through, we are two fully honest beings." Edward exined in a grim, but somehow also cheerful tone, "Both of us are separate people. Just that we can''t truly exist at the same time as each other."


    "What do you mean?" Eiro asked bluntly. He was confused, but it''s not like he was really interested. He was just waiting for a chance to attack the Collector to kill him. With augh, Edward stepped forward a bit as he looked deep into Eiro''s glowing red eyes.


    "I guess I should exin a bit... I am a sucker for good stories, after all, even if I tell them myself. You see, a lot of people are under the misconception that the Knight of Pentacles increases investigative abilities, even those that used to hold it in the past. But in reality, it simply opens up the domain of ''Truth'' in oneself, however it may manifest. In most people it is the ability to ''Find Truth'', so it is no different than the ability to investigate well. But in our case, it was a bit more unique than that." The collector exined, "You see, Bahlsen was a happy man, with a seemingly perfect life, although he still was in the grasps of his rather vile job as part of a militaristic nation''s government. When he tried to give up that job, he was disposed of instead of being allowed to simply leave. And in response, my lord foundh im, the one and only being that truly transcends and maniptes the realm of life and-"


    "<Death>." Eiro said bluntly, and Edward smiled brightly in response, his disgustingly pale and wrinkled face twisting into a horrid visage, "Exactly so. Either way, my Lord gave two gifts to him. The gift of Undeath, turning him into the Demi-Lich you see in front of you, and the gift of Truth, as he handed the being that was now me the Knight of Pentacles. Usually, Undeath corrupts the mind of the one being risen, but in our case, something else happened. Our ascendence into Undeath had not yet beenpleted. With the ''Domain of Truth'' added into the mix, two things happened. One, I regained all memories of Life. Two, I was split into my ''True'' selfs. And that means the true self of when I was alive, and the true self of when I was not. Into the personas of Bahlsen and Edward. Somehow, Bahlsen had been unable to know what I knew, but I was able to know what he did. Maybe it was just him rejecting his own death, although I fully epted my time in life and my time in death."


    "...So you killed your own wife and child?" Eiro asked in a clear tone, and Edward justughed, "Of course not, don''t be ridiculous!" He eximed. For a moment, Eiro was confused, since Edward said that neither Bahlsen nor him ever lied to the Demon, but then, he understood that ''Truth'' was really just in the eye of the beholder as the Demi-Lich in front of him spoke again.


    "I was reborn into Undeath, I am a wholly new person. I have my memories, but no connections to my time alive. Those were not my wife and child, but Bahlsen''s. And how I enjoyed watching them squeal as I pulled them apart for my very first project."


    With a sick expression of pleasure on his face, Edward came up closer to Eiro, and the Demon just stared at him with pure wrath in his eyes, "You''re disgusting."


    "Haha, says the one that would stoop so low as to consume so much alcohol before such an important time. As if you wanted me to butcher your whole family."


    With a deep sigh, Eiro looked down at the ground, "Both of us know that that is not the truth behind that situation."


    "Of course, but without jesting every once in a while, life would be boring. Luckily jokes aren''t truly lies, am I right?"


    "Sure you are." Eiro said, and quietly red at Edward before he pressed his fist together tightly. A bit of smoke rose out inbetween Eiro''s teeth as all of a sudden, the Demon''s whole body went up in mes. Of course, Bavet and Eiro had already split up before this, or else the Slime would be rather heavily injured now.


    But luckily Eiro kept the alcoholic fumes in his body and created mes inside of himself that he used to infuse his body with immediately after creating them.


    And then, the Demon and the Demi-Lich fought.

 Chapter 260 - Burnt Alive

    Eiro tried to get the jump on Edward, but he was able to immediately see through what the Demon was trying to do, as if he was predicting his actions. The Demi-Lich just managed to dodge Eiro while making the least amount of movement possible, as if trying to mock him while he was at it.


    He swung his dagger forward toward Edward while his body was giving off steam due to the heat of the fire-infusion inside of him. At the same time, Eiro summoned his Three of Swords and quickly activated it, trying to get as many des going against this enemy as possible.


    sh, miss, sh, miss, sh, miss.


    Eiro was slowly starting to get fed up with this, but Edward seemingly just had fun, "Oh, what may be the issue here, my dear friend? You are moving around in a slightly... predictable way."


    "Shut it." The Demon growled loudly. Once more, he jumped at Edward and the Demi-Lich dodged, but all of a sudden, Eiro heard a sound from the other side of the manor. Something was shifting in the basement, the door to the saferoom was being opened.


    Startled by this realization, Eiro''s body jolted without him being able to do anything about it, and due to this sudden, rash movement he was able to cut a bit into Edward''s clothes.


    Eiro understood what was going on... Edward was using the investigative abilities he had shown in the form of Bahlsen to figure out what Eiro was going to do next due to the way that his muscles spasmed in anticipation or how he was looking at certain spots or trying to set certain attacks up.


    But this just now was nothing but reflex. It wasn''t anything that Eiro did on purpose, so it seemed like the Demi-Lich wasn''t able to see through it. And so, Eiro looked at the figure in front of him and stopped for a moment. He took a deep, deep breath and stared at the Demi-Lich while diving into one of his memories.


    A memory of when Eiro was still far more wild, of when he still didn''t know any skills. Slowly, the Demon tried to adapt the mindset that he had back then in this rudimentary, vile manner.


    Eiro mixed this purely instinctual movement in with his skill-based movement, and just wildly swung his arms to the side, as if iling them around.


    Luckily, Edward seemed to have been caught off guard by that. At least, he wasn''t able to dodge as easily as before, and Eiro was able to cut through a bit of Edward''s clothes once more. It meant that Eiro''s tactic worked, at least somehow.


    But maybe it was because the quality of Eiro''sbat style had been lowered considerably in exchange for a bit of that ''instinct'', but at some point, Edward was able to dodge Eiro basically perfectly again.


    But at the very least, one thing was clear. Edward had to concentrate on dodgingpletely, and he wasn''t really able to properly counterattack. So at the very least, the two of them seemed somewhat equally matched with how it was going right now. To an extent, at least.


    And so, Eiro had to use something to shift that bnce to his favor, and without hesitation, he chose to do so by taking a small white cloth pouch out of his treasury while making a swinging-motion.


    The bag hit the ground at an immense speed and all that could be heard was something shattering. Just a momentter, a white explosion appeared inbetween Edward and Eiro.


    "Well, that was rather unexpected... These are Sacred mes, are they not? You realize you are more vulnerable to those than I am, do you not?" Edward asked, but Eiro just smirked in response to that incredibly obvious statement.


    While one of the spiking mes was still in front of him, Eiro immediately made use of some of the snow that was gathering outside and melted it with magic before infusing his body with it.


    Immediately, he tried to go for his ''mana bullet'' trick and shot it through the sacred mes. Eiro''s mana caught fire and a bullet of sacred mes shot toward Edward at immense speeds.


    This was something that Edward definitely would have never been able to predict, and even though he may have realized what was happening in thest second, he was unable to react, and soon had white mes that were eating apart the Demi-Lich''s ck, silver and red suit.


    Eiro cut through the notification in front of him saying that he damaged the Demi-Lich, and then grinned broadly, "How the tables have turned."


    Immediately, the Demon pushed out more and more mana out of his body that he used to try and control the Sacred mes.


    He swung the dangerous white fire toward Edward as if it was a whip, and was trying to fill out this whole room around him with this weakness of the Demi-Lich.


    And at this point, Eiro was fully in control of the situation. Sure, his n was more than obvious, but Edward had no choice but to y along if he didn''t want to be massively injured. The Demi-Lich shifted through the mes trying to minimize his exposure to the sacred mes while slowly tightening the mes around Edward more and more, as if trying to put him into a cage that he simply couldn''t escape.


    And then, Eiro did it. Edward wasn''t able to move any longer without touching the mes, and with the same tone of voice that he had before, he spoke, "Seems like this is the end for one of us, does it not?"


    "Seems like it. But don''t make it sound like it could be me, because both of us know that it''s not me." Eiro pointed out as he slowly tightened the ''box'' of sacred mes even more as he started to slowly damage the Demi-Lich.


    "Yeah, about that..." Edward muttered quietly, and all of a sudden, Eiro could hear echoing footsteps from behind him that somehow only appeared just now. Usually he would have been able to notice them far earlier, but Edward might have done something about that to shift the way Eiro perceived the things around him. In the same way that the Demi-Lich managed to hide himself and his nature so well.


    "Eiro!" A familiar voice screamed out from behind the Demon, and Eiro snapped his neck around to look at its source. It was Clementine, just standing there in the doorframe, breathing heavily from running here.


    But it wasn''t just Clementine. It was everyone.


    Clementine, Sammy, Arc, Rudy, Felix, even Avalin and Leon. Behind them, James, Jess, Krog and Gobo. And at the very back, Eiro could see Bavet in his go-to humanoid form with an emotionless expression. It was one that Eiro saw just earlier today. It was the same expression that the man that was being controlled by Edward earlier had.


    While the Demon was staring at them in shock and confusion, and most importantly fear at what might happen to them, Edward seemed to have taken this chance.


    He jumped out of the cage of sacred mes, his clothes still burning with them, as he pushed his hand around the back of Eiro''s neck.


    The sacred mes jumped over from the Undead over to the Demon, and his flesh was immediately causing an immense spark of those white mes as Eiro''s whole body caught on fire as he was standing there.


    His unholy nature was fueling the holy fire that was set out to kill him.


    Slowly, but surely, the mes were feeding their way through Eiro''s body, and the Demon just had to stand there.


    Eiro fell to the ground as his legs were destroyed by the Holy energies, and his family and friends were watching this happen. They were just staring at Eiro as he was dying a horrendously painful death.


    He wasn''t even able to scream, as Eiro''s throat was one of the first things that had been destroyed by the mes. So all that he could do wasy there while the Sacred Falmes were devouring him.


    "So much about that, my dear friend. Now let''s get this over with quickly. I would like you to witness the creation of my most perfect piece of art... using the most perfect parts." Edward stepped toward the group of people in front of him after simply brushing off the rest of the sacred mes that were left on his own body.


    Edward slowly stepped up to the one standing in the very front, Clementine. Compared to everyone here, her Life Force was the strongest. It was even more potent than Eiro''s, despite him constantly trying to refine and strengthen it over the years. It was just naturally pure and powerful for her.


    Slowly, Edward leaned forward and looked deep into her eyes, "What a beautiful being you are. So disgustingly full of life. Oh, how much I wish to drain it from you and watch it wilt away."


    The Demi-Lich stretched his hand out toward Clementine as everyone in the room was stunned by the pressure that the Demi-Lich was giving off, while Avalin and Leon already passed out. Eiro was actually somewhat d, as it meant that they didn''t have to watch all this happen.


    But just a moment, a single moment before Edward touched Clementine, everything around Eiro froze. The mes were still burning and shifting, but they were only causing pain to him instead of still feeding on his flesh. They weren''t spreading anymore.


    "Ah... how disappointing." A voice muttered out. It sounded mature, but still young. Full of energy and strength, strenght that Eiro himself wascking.


    The next moment, he could feel his chin, or what was left of it, being lifted up to let him look at what was in front of him.


    It was a ck and white, glowing figure in glorious armor with a single sword at his side. He seemed to be a human. It seemed like he spoke up, although Eiro wasn''t sure. He wascking any sort of details, like a nose, eyes or mouth, to be sure. His whole face was just a nk te of skin. But it was a different voice, that was for sure. This time, it was more rough, more... experienced, as if this person went through a lot in their life.


    "Well, with what he was given, he sure did a lot. Don''t you think?"


    The person that held his chin was the one speaking, Eiro just knew, although he didn''t know how he knew.


    Then, another one came into view. This time it was a slim, rtively short man holding a staff that was about two feet taller than him while his cloak was sliding over the ground. This was the one that spoke first. He had slightly pointed ears, so he seemed to be an elf, or at least a half-elf or something. But again, his face was just a nk te of skin.


    And before Eiro knew it, a third one came into view. This time, it seemed to be a Rhida, a rather rare race of people that descended from Lizardmen, but with the same sort of face as the other two. He had somewhat scaly bits over his skin, although it was smooth like a human''s for the most part. He was wearing leather armor and had a bow strapped to his back with a dagger at his hip.


    His voice sounded somewhat viscious, and unpleasant to listen to, although Eiro wasn''t sure if it was just an aspect that Rhida had to them.


    "A lot? He simply wasted so many chances to rise to the top, exchanging power for something as useless as ''Family''."


    All of a sudden, Eiro could hear augh from behind himself, "Hey, Family isn''t useless, you know? It''s good to have somewhere to go back to." He said, quickly joining the others after walking over behind them, leaning onto the short mage''s shoulder. This one... was dressed pretty weirdly. It was a style that he had never seen before.


    The material of his clothes seemed to be cloth, or at least the pants... The shirt had a weird pattern on it while made with something weird mixed into it that Eiro didn''t recognize. The same with the buttons, some of them were something Eiro had never seen before.


    He was wearing a jacket made of leather with a cloth hood stitched onto it that the human man had pulled over his head. And he had a satchel hanging at the side of his body as well, although it seemed to be made using methods Eiro didn''t really recognize either. And once more, this man''s face was just nk.


    The man just stood there, "I mean, the enemy this time had a pretty unfair advantage as well, right?"


    "I guess you are right." The Rhida man said, and the weirdly-dressed man suggested something else, "So, what do you think we should do? Give him another go at this?"

 Chapter 261 - Legendary

    "You think he deserved another try? After all he did?" The elven mage asked, and the weirdly-dressed human shrugged, "Why not? We have the means, and let''s be honest, it will turn out better for us if he lives through this instead of dying like this."


    "...borate." The Rhida replied, and the man sighed slightly as all the others turned toward him. He moved through the room and all of a sudden leaned up against Edward as he stood there, frozen in time, "Come on, don''t act like you don''t know exactly what I''m talking about. You know why we''re here, don''t you? He may only have a splinter in him, but it''s basically the same size of that of the current official ---. Just look at ''im! He''s a Demon, with a splinter of a --- inside of him. And he even got a kid that''s from the same ce as me. Isn''t that insane? It would be fun to watch him some more, right? And well, the fact that he may be capable of taking the title of Monster King is also kind of neat, eh? It''d be a while since we''ve had two splinters in one body."


    The Rhida looked back at Eiro, before the armored human spoke up, "I vote to let him live."


    With a scoffing sound, the mage looked at the warrior, "When did this be something we just vote on?"


    "Just now, of course." The weirdly-dressed man pointed out, "I vote to give him another go as well."


    "I do not."


    "And neither do I." The Elf and the Rhida replied bluntly, "Would it not be better to simply reset this? While it is true that it is interesting to have someone like him with a splinter of a --- in him, but that doesn''t matter in the end. We can just let him pass on and give the splinter to someone else that is more deserving. We didn''t really have a say in it this time."


    "But that''s exactly the point!" The man eimed, "We have tried so long to reunite all the splinters in one form, but we have failed every single time! But for once, why don''t we let fate do its part? Maybe this was the right choice after all. How about we bet on this sort of coincidence for once? Giving people gifts is great and all, but not everyone turns out to be worthy of such gifts. I think this Demon here is more than just worthy. I mean, look at him!"


    With a sigh, the Rhida stared at Eiro, "Do you not realize how ironic it sounds to have you speak of not giving someone gifts, although it is all that you''re known for?"


    "Oh, and what exactly are you known for? For creeping around amongst trees and covering yourself in mud."


    "It is a valid method of disguise."


    "Of course it is, bud." The weirdly-dressed human said, "Come on, you two. Don''t you think this is exciting? Maybe all we needed is something to go a bit out of control for once. What do you think?"


    The Elf and the Rhida looked at each other for a moment before turning back toward Eiro. Now, every one of them was looking at him.


    "You have convinced me. Let us try again. If it was the wrong choice, he will be left to die sooner orter anyway. A few more years won''t hurt our cause too much, will they?"


    "Exactly!" It seemed like now that all four of them were on the same page, with even the two that were against it agreeing to ''give Eiro another chance'', the weirdly-dressed man walked up to Eiro and tapped his scorched forehead.


    With a broad grin on his face, the man stepped back as he slowly pulled something out of his pocket. It was a small, pitch-ck coin, that he then ced on the ground in front of Eiro.


    "Of course, we''re not gifting anything to you. You still have to work for it yourself. If you don''t manage to ovee this at least a little, then that''s all you could amount to in the end. Now... Don''t disappoint this gambler in front of you."


    Suddenly, the four figures in front of Eiro disappeared in a mist, a mist that was eerily simr to that which the notifications were made of. Time slowly proceeded, as Eiro suddenly heard a de being unsheathed.


    It was James, who was trying to push Edward away from Clementine, "Bavet, the hell is this?! You said that the fight was over already!"


    The slime stood behind the group, still with a nk expression on his face, "Did... I say that?" He muttered quietly, and James just ground his teeth as he pulled on Clementine''s shoulder. It was obvious that James was suffering the most under the vibes that Edward was giving off, as he seemed to be about to throw up, but he fought through it. It made Eiro feel relieved that he was hispanion.


    After James'' prompt, the others seemed to have been able to break out of this paralyzing state as well. Rudy jumped at the Demi-Lich and tried to push him away, but Edward just stepped to the side and kicked Rudy away, pushing him through the room in one single motion. The wall cracked a bit, even.


    Krog, James, Arc and Gobo all swung whatever weapon they had on them toward Edward, but all that happened next was that the Demi-Lich moved to the side and pushed Arc, the weakest of the four melee fighters, right toward the others to topple them over. They had still been standing near the doorframe, after all, so they didn''t have much space to attack and dodge through.


    The only one that really managed so was James, who swung his daggers at Edward together. But just before the des reached the Demi-Lich, Edward pulled his own body back in an unnatural way and kicked at James, who was still mid-air, and kicked him up into the air. The moment that James hit the ceiling, ethereal hands shot out from it and held him in ce.


    "You know, even if my very being isn''t tainted by necromantic energies, I can still use necromancy. I have a lot more tricks up my sleeve than what I showed you." Edward said with a light smile on his face. Eiro looked at the Undead standing there with his eyes that were forced open.


    Everything was going to hell, everything was-


    "D-Daddy..?" Suddenly, Avalin opened her eyes again after some of the pressure Edward was giving off let up. With a smile on his face, Edward turned toward the young girl who was held up by Sammy, who was still affected by her own fear, "Don''t worry, little girl. His suffering will stop soon."


    Slowly, Edward held his hand up to Avalin and looked into her eyes, "Oh... So this is how you were able to get your hands on such strong sacred mes. Interesting."


    The Demi-Lich tried to touch Avalin''s face, her eyes more specifically, but finally Sammy managed to do something. Her whole body was shaking, but she managed, "Don''t touch her!" She eximed, and the Demi-Lich''s hand froze up.


    "Oh? How interesting..." He muttered quietly, "You possess a domain of truth within yourself, and quite a potent one a that. Well, but in the end, words are words, not much you can do about that. Guess I can''t touch her for now. Let''s start with you then."


    "No! How about instead, you just di-" Sammy started, saying a phrase that Eiro had forbidden her from ever saying, but before she could, Edward snapped his fingers. A shadowy mass appeared behind Sammy, and once the shadows faded away, all that was left there was an animated skeleton that was using its hands to force Sammy''s mouth shutpletetly.


    "I don''t think so. But I must admit, this is a much better haul than I expected. I will be able to create truly beautiful dolls out of you." Edward pointed out, while Avalin was just staring at him, tears gathering in her eyes, "No... Stop it... Don''t hurt them..." She eximed. Avalin swung her arms around in fear, and pped Edward''s hand as she was at it. Immediately when they made contact, part of Edward''s flesh just disappeared, burnt away immediately.


    "...Huh?" Edward muttered quietly, "This... is not something I expected."


    Suddenly, Eiro could hear something break apart. It was wood. The things that Jura made to keep Avalin''s holy energy sealed away were starting to crack.


    "This is quite unpleasant, little girl. I''m sure you don''t want to hurt anyone, right?" Edward asked, but Avalin simply kept swinging her arms around, making it hard for Sammy to hold her. Although, the skeletal hands holding onto her mouth were slowly starting to be singed away as well.


    "Stop, stop, stop, stop! Leave everyone alone, you baddy! Bring me to my daddy! Show me daddy!" She eximed, tears and snot streaming down her face.


    Eiro''s heart that was barely even beating anymore ached at this sight. This was the breaking point. He couldn''t let this all happen to those he cared about. Eiro slowly scraped his hand over the ground, or that which was left of it at least... He didn''t even manage to pull it along that much, he just made it twitch a little.


    "Eiro..." Nelli muttered as she looked at the Demon she had known for so long nearly die, but Gondos realized something else. He noticed the coin that suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of Eiro. He noticed that nobody else, not even Edward, was able to see it. And so, he realized what was going on, and what Eiro wanted to do.


    Without a moment''s hesitation, he pointed it out to Nelli. The Naiad looked at Eiro''s eyes, or what was left of them. She looked at the barely living demon, and without a moment''s hesitation... She dove into Eiro''s back, through the sacred mes.


    Eiro''s gained a little bit of mass, but not a lot. But it was enough, just barely, for Eiro to grab the coinying in front of him. The Demon closed his hand around the coin, and he swore to be able to see the weirdly-dressed man smirking at the edge of his sight.


    And then, right in front of him, Eiro saw notifications appear.


    <strong>[You have received an Arcane Gift, the <Skill Token>]</strong>


    <strong>[The <Skill Token> will automatically be exchanged for a Unique Skill]</strong>


    <strong> </strong>


    <strong>[Extra Ability Unlocked ¨C Empowerment]</strong>


    <strong>[Extra Ability <Empowerment> has been absorbed by the <Skill Token>]</strong>


    <strong> </strong>


    <strong>[Instead of a Unique Skill, a Legendary Skill will be constructed]</strong>


    <strong> </strong>


    <strong>[The Legendary Skill <Supreme Demon> has been constructed]</strong>


    <strong> </strong>


    <strong>[The Skill <Supreme Demon> interacted and momentarily strengthened your <Memory of a Schr> ability]</strong>


    <strong>[Your body will now be reconstructed as it was in your most recent memory] </strong>

 Chapter 262 - Memory Of The Forgetful Demon

    The mes covering Eiro''s body slowly simply stopped feeding on the Demon''s flesh. For a moment, it was like Eiro''s very own time stopped for a little while, before it started moving in reverse.


    Nelli was forced out of Eiro''s body, with deep wounds all over her body from suffering together with Eiro, and the Demon himself slowly started to recover. It was as if everything that just happened to the Demon was slowly being undone in reverse order of how it happened to him in the first ce. It was like the mes were returning flesh to Eiro''s body, and instead of spreading out and growing, they were slowly shrinking and disappearing.


    Suddenly, the Demon''s body jolted up as the ash that had fallen off his body before returned to him. Instead of causing it to crumble, the fact that Eiro grasped his face now caused it to be rebuilt. He slowly moved around backward as his wooden hand slowly was rebuilt.


    The Demon soon stood in the center of the room, staring at the door, as thest bit of Sacred mes disappeared from his skin.


    <strong>[Your body has been reconstructed as it was in yourtest memory]</strong>


    <strong>[You have 9 Minutes and 59 Seconds until penalties will be applied. Until then, your body is incapable of shifting from its current state]</strong>


    Eiro stared at the notifications in front of him, while everyone in the room was staring at him. Not even Edward was able to figure out what exactly just happened, and for him especially it was a paralyzing sight, simply because he didn''t know what happened.


    "J-Just how-"


    "Shut up. I''m sick of this. If I can''t beat you otherwise, then I just need to do this." The Demon replied in a growling tone as he pulled out the Ace of Cups card out of his treasury and poured his mana into it. It quickly transformed into a decorated chalice, and without a moment''s hesitation, Eiro poured the ck liquid inside of his down his own throat.


    But instead of the effect activating... something else happened. Eiro felt his body cramp up in a painful manner before the ck liquid simply came back out of his mouth and re-entered the item in his hand.


    "...What...?" The Demon muttered quietly, and before he knew it, Edward started tough loudly, "Hahaha! Even if you did something insane just now, it seems in return, you have been punished! Face it, my dear friend, there is no way you will ever be able to beat me."


    Eiro slowly put the Ace of Cups away again as he read the notification in front of him.


    <strong>[Your body can not ept the Ace of Cups'' power, as it is incapable of shifting from its current state] </strong>


    The Demon realized what this meant. He ran his fingers through the notification and looked at the time he had left in this state. 9 Minutes and 37 Seconds. The Ace of Cups'' liquid stayed inside of him for around three seconds before he rejected it like that.


    And with that, Eiro came to a conclusion. That he had to make use of this to the fullest extent possible. Eiro pushed his hand into the satchel that had been thrown a bit away from him. He grabbed one of the small cloth bags inside of it, and without hesitation, Eiro ripped open his clothes and smashed the small pouch against the center of his chest, causing an explosion of white mes to unfold in front of him.


    The Demon stared at Edward, who was standing there even more confused than before, simply trying to analyze this situation while Eiro used as much mana as possible to control these mes. And immediately, he focused them to dig through his skin, which they did. Of course, soon after, his body rejected this from happening and tried to repair his flesh.


    The first attempt failed, but Eiro luckily still had the Sacred mes under control. And so, he had to do something else instead. Instead of digging through his flesh to get to his heart, he should just try and infuse it into himself immediately, something that he attempted without a second''s hesitation. Eiro didn''t have much time to do this, after all.


    The mes disappered in Eiro''s skin as the Demon infused the center of his chest with the the Sacred mes, a mixture of Fire Magic and Holy Energy. At first, only a part of his skin turned into a pure white color, but the moment that the infusion had been extended to Eiro''s heart, it coursed through Eiro''s body, pulled along by his mana.


    The Demon''s whole body turned into a pure white, and even his horns paledpared to before.


    Of course, Eiro''s body was fighting against this immediately. It was trying to reverse what was happening to him as quickly as possible, but at the same time, Eiro was elerating the spread of the Sacred mes inside of him. And the moment that this happened, the mes were rejected from him, and Eiro suddenly worked together with his body again. Instead of trying to infuse himself, he pushed all the sacred mes out after he had increased them this much using his own flesh. He was now basically cloaking himself in them, in a different manner to before, however.


    At some point, Eiro managed to establish a point where his health and flesh was regenerating just barely quick enough tobat the destruction caused by the Sacred mes, but not enough to stop the mes from burning, as he was constantly feeding them more and more mana to keep it going.


    This, however, didn''te without any consequences either, as Eiro was filled with the neverending, constant, high-level pain of his bane ripping him apart, on top of the paining from his very being rejecting the ''state change''.


    It was hard to focus at the start, but he was able to concentrate at a little bit after.


    Slowly, the pure-white, glowing figure of the Demon took a step forward toward the Demi-Lich, and his re focused on Edward''s eyes.


    It seemed like at first, he didn''t really take it seriously though. Edward just snapped his fingers, and a shadowy figure appeared behind the Demon. The Demi-Lich was summoning another Undead to restrain the Demon, just like how he did with Sammy, but the moment that the skeletal figure tried to touch him, it simply disintegrated. It wasn''t fully put-together yet, so that was probably the reson why it reacted so strongly just now. But was definitely effective, considering that Edward seemed to have started freaking out a bit.


    "Stop right there! Or I''m killing these children!" Edward eximed, somewhat desperately, so Eiro stopped walking like requested. Something was weird, though... It was as if... Edward was struggling to figure out what Eiro was about to do all of a sudden. As if this was something he wasn''t used to, something that was out of his control although control was all he really wanted. And so, Eiro gave it to him.


    "Fine." Eiro said. He stopped in his track and looked at Edward, who was even more surprised than before. He probably tried to read Eiro, but failed miserably again, not expecting him to do this of all things. But that didn''t matter to him anymore, and Edward slowly nced away to look at a different part of the room for just a moment.


    And that was enough for Eiro. He kicked off the ground and jumped at Edward, extending his range with the three of swords. Of course, Edward wasn''t hit by this attack, but he still had to dodge and was actually injured a little bit by the mes cloaking Eiro''s form.


    "H-How are you able to-"


    "... I wonder." Eiro replied bluntly, interrupting Edward. Whether it was the mes weakening Edward''s powers, as Holy Energy was a weakness of his, or whatever just happened to Eiro, it seemed to be working out.


    Enough to let him get a benefit against Edward, at least. The Demi-Lich looked at Eiro and slowly turned around, trying to regain some of his control, "Fine. You won this round. This is too much to bother truly dealing with this right now. This is not something you can do without consequences, anyway, so those wille soon, and at that time, so will I." Edward announced, as he tried to make use of his own stealth abilities to hide himself as he ran away, although he shouldn''t have stopped using his necromancy as he did. While James was dropped to the ground from the ceiling, the skeleton holding Sammy''s mouth shut also disappeared.


    Without hesitation, she shouted the one thing she thought she should to not cause any damage to anyone else, after collecting herself again from before, "Don''t hide yourself!" She eximed, and immediately, it seemed like Edward followed up on that.


    Eiro was able to see him, smell him, hear him, he was able topletely sense every part of this Demi-Lich.


    "Thank you, Sammy... Don''t worry, I will take care of this." The Demon eximed. He pped his wings and tried to fly out the door, since it would be faster than walking, and he flew into the snowstorm wreaking havoc outside, following Edward as he was at it.


    Eiro didn''t know why Edward suddenly ran instead of fighting. Maybe there was some kind of limit to his ability as well, although Eiro had no idea what kind it would be. But it didn''t matter. Eiro threw himself forward and tried to stab through Edward with as much Holy Energy as Eiro could muster in his body.


    Edward''s body cut open as if he was made of seafoam, and Eiro grasped at the Demi-Lich with his whole body, trying to destroy him with the holy energy he was giving off himself. Edward''s body was slowly reacting to the Holy Energy, slowly being damaged bit by bit.


    "This is it..." Eiro muttered, with a weirdly lifeless tone that he didn''t expect from even himself. As if he wasn''t controlling his own body, and it was on autopilot, going for whatever it could to beat Edward, even stupidly destroying itself.


    Eiro was grappled onto Edward, but just before he had been able to finish it, a notification appeared in front of the demon. A different kind, the fake one from the organization, notifying Eiro that he failed one of his quests. The one about killing Edward. The time limit was over.


    And with a slightugh, Edward turned the whole situation around once more, "So this is it, I see... Hah... Hahah..." The Demi-Lich, who had Sacred mes pushed against his skin,ughed loudly, not caring for the fact that he was about to die.


    This wild blizzard, strong enough to nearly start covering Eiro''s zing body in ayer of snow, slowly started having Edward''s ashes mixed into it. The snow turned ck in some parts, as the Demi-Lichughed. This wasn''t Eiro''s doing, after all.


    "I may not be able to kill you right now anymore... But I can surely end your life nheless..."


    <strong>[Lethal Damage done to Demi-Lich]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have 90 unused stat points avable] </strong>


    Eiro looked at the notifications in front of him with a slight frown on his face. What just happened? Why did Edward ept his death just like that, despite trying to flee in order to save it just now?


    "I should head home... for now..." The Demon muttered quietly to himself as he stood up, grabbing the golden card that appeared where Edward was just now, getting rid of the Sacred mes on his body as a notification appeared in front of him.


    <strong>[An enemy''s spell did not take effect, as your body is unable to change its current state]</strong>


    "Heh... And yourst try didn''t even work... Pathetic." The Demon muttered quietly to himself as he turned around and started walking, "Now, let''s get ho-"


    <strong>[The strengthened effect of <Memory of a Schr> has ended. Penalties will be applied]</strong>


    <strong>[For 6 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, and 59 Seconds, your ability <Memory of a Schr> will be reced by <Memory of the Forgetful Demon>]</strong>


    "-me... Wait.... where was it again?"

 Chapter 263 - Despair Of The Forgotten

    "Wait... Where was it again?" Eiro muttered to himself as his mind started to feel hazy. As if he wasn''t able to think properly all of a sudden, "What am I even saying, it''s right over there."


    Slowly, the Demon managed to remember the way back to his home, the manor, and treaded through the heavy snow into that direction, still as absent-mindedly as before. He walked up the steps as the snow covered his whole body and started to stick to him, creating a slightyer.


    Eiro walked up the steps to his front door and knocked on the wooden surface a few times, "Why am I not just opening it..?" The Demon thought to himself, but before he was able to figure this out for himself, someone opened the door up.


    It was James, who immediately stuck a dagger into Eiro''s face, nearly pushing it into his nose, "Who are you?!" He eximed, "Are you with the Demi-Lich?"


    Suddenly, a horrid premonition travelled through Eiro''s mind. Immediately, the Demon heated his own body up from inside and melted the snow that was covering him, "Wh-What are you saying, it''s me... It''s Eiro, James."


    Seeing the Demonic figure, simply standing there casually while announcing his presence, James... shut the door without a moment''s hesitation. Eiro could hear some rustling from inside as the children ran down the hallway toward the basement, and five figures stayed behind, facing the front door.


    Confusedly, Eiro pushed therge door open and stepped inside, before the Demon was faced with a magic circle being constructed in front of Jess immediately. It was a strong spell, as expected of her, but it wasn''t strong enough so that Eiro wouldn''t be able to immediately create a quick counterspell.


    He held his hand forward and... and... "How do I...?"


    While the demon was trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, Jess shot her spell at the Demon, a strong, bullet that was a mixture of air and rock. The former provided by the space they were in, and thetter... provided by Gondos.


    The mixture of air- and rock-bullet dug itself into Eiro''s shoulder as the demon stood there in thought, which was of course quickly interrupted by the gaping wound in his body, "Fucking- Why would you do that?!" The Demon screamed out, but before he could really react properly, the other four that were here attacked Eiro as well.


    James, Gobo and Krog jumped at the Demon with their weapons, while Bavet was turning parts of his body into bolts that he could shoot toward Eiro. The Demon managed to dodge, and even pushed James and Gobo away as they were rather light, but Krog was a different thing again. Due to his high speed and mass, it was harder to get rid of him, and Eiro had to dodge quickly to avoid being hit. At that point, though, Bavet had shot the next bolt at him while Jess prepared her next spell to shoot at Eiro.


    "Why are you doing this?! Stop it already!" Eiro eximed, but none of them really reacted, they just tried to keep attacking Eiro.


    Grinding his teeth, Eiro started to control the snow from outside and froze the floor that everyone was walking on. Eiro was able to keep moving perfectly, but the others were heavily handicapped. Immediately, the Demon, who was far stronger than everyone else here, knocked the others over and tied them to the ground with eyes.


    "Let us go, you disgusting fiend!" Krog yelled out angrily, the ice starting to crack under the sheer force of his strength, but Eiro kept him down for now, "Krog, what''s even going on? Why are you all attacking me?"


    "How do you know my name?! So you are working with that Demi-Lich!" Krog screamed loudly, and Eiro slowly turned toward Jess, who was trying to use fire magic to heat her surrounding up so that she could melt the ice and escape.


    With a deep sigh, Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "So is that what Edward meant when he said ''I will-''... Wait, what did he..?" Eiro''s mind slowly went hazy again as the Demon slowly held his aching shoulder and tried to clear out any splinters of rock before his flesh healed over them and caused permanent damage somehow.


    "What''s going on?" He muttered, but somehow, no matter how hard he tried to remember things about this situation, he couldn''t. Until he heard Bavet try and shift his form to something else to escape and attack Eiro again. The Demon pulled out one of his daggers and held it toward the slime, "And you! Why the fuck did you tell them toe out?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!" As if on instinct, Eiro cursed at Bavet for what he did, for luring everyone out of the safe-room.


    Jess stared at Eiro with a frown, "Why are you angry about that, you''re working with the one person that benefits from it!"


    "I''m not fucking working with that piece of shit, I just killed him, alright?!" Eiro screamed out. His anger, or more specifically the ''wrath'' state was obviously still there, still affecting him somehow. Or maybe it suddenly shifted into something else that would exin his sudden outburst... the ''Wrath'' state was weirdly calm, after all.


    "How do you have that dagger..?" Suddenly, James interrupted Eiro''s anger, and stared at the weapon he was holding. It was Avalin''s, the original''s, dagger that Eiro had kept with him all this time. He looked back at James with a deep frown, "...I thought we already spoke about this... I took it after Avalin died, to protect myself and remember her... I think at least." The Demon pointed out bluntly, although it seemed like Eiro''s wording and tone wasn''t something that James really appreciated all that much, "You fucking bastard, you were there?! You were there back then?!"


    "...I... Yeah, I was... But..." Eiro pointed out. What was going on? Why did James forget about this? Why did everybody forget about this? And... why was Eiro forgetting things?" The Demon thought about what happened just now, and he figured he might be able to exin what happened... to an extent, at least.


    "He said he would... end my life without killing me." Eiro managed to make the connection rather quickly, actually. It wasn''t that hard to figure out, after all, especially knowing that in life, Edward was a specialist in... In... "He was a specialist in..." The Demon muttered to himself as his thoughts trailed off. Eiro didn''t know why this was happening, only that it was and he wasn''t able to do anything about it for whatever reason. He tried, but he couldn''t.


    Somehow, instead, Eiro''s attention trailed off to something else, and he was soon looking at the small, light blue figure that Gondos was holding in his arms right now.


    "Nelli...? Nelli, what..? What happened, what..." Eiro said in an incoherent manner as he slid over the icy floor and approached the spirits, but Gondos just floated away from him, "I dare you to touch her, you disgusting Demon!" The Golem eximed. Eiro looked back at him with a confused expression.


    "Gondos, what are you saying...? You''re my contracted spirit, and so is Nelli, just... Just let me take a look at her, please."


    "What are you saying? Both Nelli and I are uncontracted to anyone, simply wild spirits. Why would we ever form a contract with a Demon?" He replied with a deep re, and Eiro ground his teeth together as he took a step closer, "You''re spirits, as long as you''re not contracted to anyone, you can''t be away from the ce you were born as a full spirit... right?"


    "Usually so, but we are special cases. I remember being close to my birthce only one more time, and that is when we met Gobo after I tagged along with James, Jess and Krog, and-"


    "No! That''s wrong!" Eiro screamed out, "Well, no, it''s technically not wrong but it also is! You are my contracted spirit! We met in Argberg, and you were owned by... you were... you were contracted to..." The Demon started trying to exin the story of how Gondos and him met, but the moment that he actually tried to start doing so, his mind drifted off again.


    Slowly, inplete despair, Eiro fell to his knees. After all, what else was he supposed to do? His loved ones forgot about him, and he was unable to remember his loved ones the more he actually tried to, "Why is this happening? What''s going on? Why can''t I remember already..? J-Just let me fucking remember!" Scream after scream, Eiro tried to figure out what exactly was going on, and what he was supposed to do.


    For most of his life, Eiro never had any trouble in regards to memories. He had been able to remember everything that he had ever done down to the second. He was able to remember every conversation, every scent, every taste, every touch. But now, Eiro was scared to try and think of it. Because what if he found out that he didn''t remember? What if he found out that he didn''t remember anything specific about his time with the children or with Jura?


    Eiro wouldn''t be able to live with himself anymore, "I... I have to go..." The Demon muttered as he slowly pushed himself off the ground. He slid over the frozen floor, "Please... please remember me..." Eiro whispered to himself as he started to run through the halls of the manor. The children weren''t fully in the safe room they were sent to again yet, so he should be able to catch up.


    The Demon tried to run as fast as he possibly could through the hallways. He slid down the stairs and probably even sprained his ankle while he was at it because he somehow slipped down the step because he was moving too quickly and was simply not careful.


    He wasying on the ground and looked up, seeing through the slit of the safe-room''s door that was currently closing down. And Eiro was looking straight at Avalin.


    "H-Hey sweetheart, everything''s alright, it''s just daddy... It''s just daddy, everything''s-"


    "Stay back!" Sammy screamed, "Be quiet!" She added, and Eiro stood there with his mouth basically forced shut. He wasn''t really in the right state of mind to resist hermands right now, "Leave and don''te back, Demon!"


    The moment that she finished hermand, Eiro saw the expressions of everyone in the room, looking at Eiro either in fear or disgust. But the Demon couldn''t help himself but turn around and slowly walk up the stairs with a nk mind and tears gathering in his eyes.


    Slowly, Eiro walked up the stairs and then walked through the hallways. And that wasn''t even because of Sammy''smand. He simply forgot how to open the door to that secret room.


    "Just what is going on..?"


    The Demon thought, and remembered the notification from before that had mostly escaped his mind until now.


    That weird, changed ability.


    <strong>[Memory of the Forgetful Demon ¨C Whenever you try to remember something, knowledge or memory, you will start forever forgetting about it] </strong>

 Chapter 264 - Wild

    Eiro slowly walked through the hallways of the manor and stepped toward the closest door that he could remember. He tried to not think about anything. Nothing at all. He didn''t want to use any of his knowledge, any of his memories, nothing.


    The Demon made his way through the snowstorm that was still wreaking havoc throughout this whole town and just walked. He walked and walked, until he simply didn''t anymore. Eiro sat down in the snow and pulled his knees toward his chest, "I''ll just wait it out... It''s just a week... And then, I can figure out how to make them remember me as well..." Eiro whispered quietly to himself as he closed his eyes.


    He sat in the snow, dedicated to just sit there for the next week without moving, speaking, or even thinking.


    The cold hit his body from all directions as he sat there without a single thought in his mind. He was just trying to meditate, to clear his thoughts and to let nothing happen around him.


    But just when Eiro was thinking that, just when he was about to drift off into something close to sleep, Eiro could hear a familiar bellowing-sound in the distance. Of course, Eiro knew who this was, but he didn''t want to admit to it. He didn''t want to think of this creature''s name, race, or even think about why he was there. Because Eiro didn''t want to lose anyone that was a part of him as much as Lugo was.


    Maybe they sent the Stag out to look for the Demon that ran away, or so he thought. But in the end, Eiro really didn''t care that much even if that was the case. He would just let it happen.


    Even if Lugo wanted to kill Eiro, it was weirdly fine with him. Better die at the hands of your best friend than at the hands of your worst enemy, or at least that''s what Eiro thought.


    The Demon slowly opened his eyes and turned his head around to look at the stag, and the moment that he did, he had the stag''s wet tongue rubbing over his face, before Lugo proceeded to rub his face against Eiro''s. Without hesitation, Lugo curled up around the Demon, as if saying that he wanted to wait alongside his friend.


    Eiro slowly turned around toward Lugo and grasped at his fur, before just burying his face in it, in the snow that had be stuck in it, "Thank you, thank you... Thank you for remembering me..." the Demon muttered, shaking as he grasped Lugo''s fur even tighter. Eiro was on the brink of breaking for so long. As if someone had taken a hollow ss orb and started evenly sanding down the outside, steadily removingyer overyer, thinning the ss in the process.


    The ss orb hade very close to shattering so often over the years, but now... it was like someone took a hammer and smashed it. And then hit down onto the shards again and again and again. It was painful, and Eiro had no idea how he was supposed to handle it.


    "Why do you remember me? Please, can you tell me?" Eiro asked with a pleading expression, but Lugo''s ck, beady eyes just stared back at the Demon for a few moments, "You don''t know either, huh? Well, what does it matter..? As long as you remember me, that''s all I care about... L...Lu..." Eiro started, but mid-sentence, he started to suddenly stutter, as if forgetting something really important.


    It was scary, especially after just thanking this stag for not forgetting about Eiro, and in return, the first thing he did was forget Lugo''s name, "I''m sorry that I can''t be as good a friend to you as you are to me."


    With a loud bellowing sound, Lugo just started to rub his face against Eiro''s again, and the Demon rubbed a tear out of the corner of his eye, "Thank you... I''ll try not to forget any more about you, my friend." The demon said bluntly. He didn''t know if this would really work out well, just sitting there and trying not to think of literally anything the whole time.


    In the middle of htis snow-storm, in the middle of this field. Eiro just sat there, thinking of nothing as Lugo had wrapped his body around him.


    But then, all of a sudden, Eiro heard Lugo bellow loudly, and the noise rang through the Demon''s sensitive ears.


    Eiro opened his eyes and was instantly able to figure out what exactly was going on. While the snowstorm was still ravaging the area around him, it had weakened quite a bit since before. Through the thick snow, Eiro could see some people approaching. They weren''t James, Jess and Krog, or even the children, they were... A group of adventurers, at least judging from the guild cards they had in their bags.


    They were surrounding Eiropletely, and all had their weapons pointed into his direction. It seemed like they had some sort of animal with them, or maybe it was even a magic beast.


    "Don''t move, Demon!" One of them, probably the leader, eximed, "Stop feeding on that innocent stag and face us!"


    With a loud groan, Eiro pushed himself off the ground. He was surprised they even found him like this... Lugo and him had turned into a small hill of snow. In this storm, he should have been basically invisible.


    "Still... how dumb of me to not make sure I concentrate on my surrounding... Or was it smart? Well, not that I care..." The Demon muttered quietly. He looked around himself without even really paying attention to anything in specific. As if he wasn''t truly taking notice of anything, but was still seeing it.


    That was because Eiro truly didn''t want to think of anything, or else he might forget about random things that he simply had to know about.


    "What is it muttering about?" One of the adventurers asked one of theirpanions, and Eiro just let his instincts do the work for him. His mind was shut down, he was basically in a state of half-meditation. He was conscious, but not really. So his instincts were essing his consciousness and doing all the work that had to be done in the most raw way that the Demon could express himself in.


    "I''m forgetting things... Forgetting... I don''t want to forget any more." He replied bluntly, and of course, this didn''t make sense to anyone here in the slightest. Eiro just kept standing there, before he felt something push against the center of his back as Lugo slowly stood up and pressed his snout against Eiro. Unsure what he wanted, Eiro just started to walk forward thoughtlessly.


    One of the adventurers jumped to the side as he did and screamed something out, "Beldron!" He eximed, and the wolf-like beast immediately jumped at Eiro and bit deep into his shoulder, throwing Eiro to the ground. He didn''t really prepare himself, after all, and Eiro hadn''t been standing there properly, but was just there ready to fall over at any given moment.


    "...Eh? It''s pretty weak, isn''t it?" One of the adventurers muttered seemingly disappointedly, as a red notification appeared floating above Eiro.


    He didn''t read what it said, but it didn''t seem that serious. This bite didn''t even hurt that much. Eiro ran his fingers through the notification, before one of the adventurersughed, "Heh, look, it''s being melodramatic. Like this is a y, or some shit. Well, who cares, killing a mad demon spotted in the middle of the city will boost us up quite a lot in the guild, right?"


    "Fuck yeah. Especially in the middle of a blizzard like this." Another one replied, "Well, let''s just finish it o-"


    Before that adventurer could finish his sentence, he could hear a loud yelp that startled not only him but all the others as well. The yelp was quickly followed by the sound of something ripping and being crushed apart.


    In this heavy weather, it was hard to see what was going on, but one of them just took a step closer. Just to see a red flood surrounding the Demon. Of course, that was to be expected, except... That most of this wasn''t actually the Demon''s blood, but rather that of the beast.


    Slowly, Eiro turned the situation around. He hadn''t eaten in a while, so he was feeling quite hungry. He figured this beast was the perfect snack to get rid of that hunger. Eiro bit right into therge wolf, quickly biting a fatal wound into its throat before he even cracked its neck with his teeth.


    Eiro started ripping away at the dead beast and slowly chewing the meat. It wasn''t really amazingly tasty, but it would do. Although Eiro thought that this seemed somehow... weird for him to do, he still did it anyway. He didn''t want to think about why this was weird, or what he should rather do instead of just feeding on the beast. Eiro didn''t want to forget, after all.


    The Demon slowly pushed the beast off his body and simply burried his face in its flesh. But just a few moments after he did, something was cutting through the air. Reflexively, Eiro snapped his body around and pushed his wooden hand forward, before just pulling it up.


    The snow that had gathered on the ground gathered together into a mass of ice that immediately pierced one of the adventurers from underneath. It didn''t seem to have immediately killed him, but he would die pretty soon. At the very least he was in quite a lot of pain.


    Immediately after Eiro did this, another one of the adventurers attacked, and Eiro tried the same thing. It cut the adventurer a little, but he was able to keep running toward Eiro, pushing his spear forward toward the Demon.


    The moment he did, Eiro subtly moved his body to the side and grabbed the spear, rapidly pulling it away while he kicked the adventurer into the stomach. As he pulled the spear back, its tip was rammed right against the tip of the nose of the adventurer impaled by the ice-spike.


    Eiro pulled it out again, shing to the side, and twisted it around. He cut through the throat of the adventurer that he took the spear from initially, before holding it in its center and just throwing it at the third one of the adventurers that seemed to want to attack Eiro immediately. It bored through the center of that person''s chest and cracked their ribs and spine on the way through the body, before the spear just impaled itself in the ground behind them.


    And Eiro just casually returned to his meal as the other three adventurers ran for their lives.


    After all, what were they supposed to do, now that Eiro had basically gone wild again?

 Chapter 265 - Continue, Demon

    "Ah... that was a good meal..." Eiro muttered to himself as he sat down right in front of the half-eaten wolf-corpse, ready to return to his purely meditative state. However, it seemed like there was someone who thought that this wasn''t a particrly good idea.


    Lugo tried to force Eiro to stand up by scooping him up with his antlers, trying to get him to walk forward. But once more, Eiro just let everything happen to him, following the Stag''s instructions as if they were the only thing that he really could do, as if he didn''t have anything like a choice at all.


    At some point, the Demon fell forward onto the ground and hit his head on a rock. The thing that really jolted him awake after that was just the fact that he couldn''t breath with his face buried inside of all the snow.


    "Where are we going..?" The Demon asked as he looked at Lugo right next to him, and the stag simple pointed his face into the direction of the center of town, "Why? Wouldn''t it be bad if I went there? I might forget a lot of things, right?"


    Immediately, Lugo shook his head and pulled his hoofs through the ground. In the snow, he drew a very rudimentary crown, although it was covered up by the heavy snowfall soon after anyway.


    "Hm? King..? You want me to see... Solomon?" Eiro asked, and Lugo nodded his head immediately, before scooping Eiro up and throwing him onto his back. The Demon grabbed onto his back and just held onto him. And then, Lugo quickly pressed his face into a small pile of snow, covering itpletely in it.


    "Ah... my mask, right. Thanks." Eiro said with a smile on his face. Luckily he had used this ability so often that it was like breathing to him at this point, and Eiro just moved his hand to his face and ced his mask onto it without any issue, while at the same time dropping his cloak onto his body.


    But since his wings and horns still weren''t properly hidden, Lugo was continuosly trying to bring that to his attention, and luckily after a little while, he realized what the Stag was asking of him. After just a bit of thought, Eiro managed to figure out that he was supposed to hide them by infusing them with Shadow Magic, as the shadows were supplied by the cloak he just put on.


    And then, Lugo started to run forward into the direction of town. He ran and ran through the thick snow until they reached the town gate not long after, and one of the guards stopped Eiro as he tried to enter the town.


    Luckily, people were mainly checked when entering through the outermost wall''s gates, so this one only checked people when they seemed suspicious or when times were tense. So, Eiro was let in without any issue.


    And so, Lugo brought Eiro all the way over to the castle-gates, and he tried to enter through them like he usually did. But of course, he was stopped here at this point by the guards.


    "Please step away from the gate, Sir! You should take shelter from the snow! I heard it will keep going for another few days!" One of them eximed, but Eiro just slowly jumped down Lugo''s back and approached the guard that spoke to him and looked him deep into the eyes, although the guard himself wasn''t able to see the Demon''s due to his mask.


    "Sir, please step away from the gate." But Eiro didn''t really care, "I have to get inside and speak to Solomon. Move."


    Of course, seeing as how Eiro spoke about the King so casually, and in as threatening a tone as that, the guard immediately prepared for anything that mighte by cing his hand right onto the handle of his sword that was sheathed at the side of his hip.


    "This is thest time I will say this, Sir, but please step away from the gate." The Guard said in a threatening tone, and now that was something that Eiro didn''t particrly appreciate. Good thing that in this heavy snow, even if there were any people around, they wouldn''t be able to really see what exactly Eiro was doing. And so, before the guard could react, he grabbed the man''s face and mmed it into the ground.


    He didn''t die, he was just knocked out cold. Eiro tried to hold back a bit in town, after all. He didn''t want to deal with anything that would require him to think too much, just in case, so he did try to go for the brute route, though.


    The moment that the man''s head crashed into the ground, the other guard reacted as well, but was put out ofmission just as quickly in a simr manner. And then, Eiro just opened the gate with a quick push and then made his way closer to the castle, with Lugo following behind him nervously.


    Of course, when Eiro actually entered the castle, there were plenty of other guards that saw him. He didn''t particrly try to hide himself either, so that was honestly to be expected.


    Once more, Eiro just knocked the guards out one after another in any way possible so that he could proceed with finding Solomon. But before he could even start trying to figure out the King''s position, Eiro was found instead.


    "Isn''t itmon courtesy to at least knock the snow off your boots when you enter another''s home?" Solomon asked in a blunt, cold tone, and Eiro slowly turned around toward the source of the voice. The King slowly stepped out of the room that he was just in, looking down at the carpet with wet spots on it due to the snow that had been sticking to Eiro and Lugo, "Not to mention that you would bring in a pet as big as that... It''s obvious you''re not an assassin, there''s no way someone as dumb as that would be hired to-"


    "Ah... I forgot to check the rooms as I was walking through here..." Eiro interrupted. That was really the only thing that he took out of all this right now, before he raised his head, "You''re... Erm, Solomon, right?"


    "That I am, but it is also quite rude to address the King by first name."


    "Oh, you''re the King? Congrats, I guess." Eiro said with a smile on his face as he stood there, in a state where he was barely even really thinking. With an annoyed bellowing, Lugo pressed his snout onto the middle of Eiro''s neck and pushed his mana right into the Demon. Having external pure mana interact with your own pure mana inside of your body was a rather unpleasant, if not painful, experience, so it was enough to properly jolt Eiro awake at least to an extent.


    The Demon ripped open his eyes and turned around toward Lugo, "Oi, the fuck was that for, you dumbass?" Eiro growled at the Stag in front of him, although he quickly realized who he was speaking to like that, "Ah... I didn''t mean to snap at you... I forgot your name... Sorry." The Demon said with an apologetic expression as he rubbed his hand over Lugo''s snout.


    And then, Eiro turned around. He didn''t have proper ess to his memories, but he did have it to an extent, and with his mental processing speed, he was able to quickly figure out the situation ande up with a rough solution for this situation with the things that he could remember about Solomon right now. And for that, the Demon took off his mask.


    "My name is Eiro, and you are a close friend of mine. I helped your son, by making him... by healing him, I think. You knew about me until yesterday, but a strong enemy used a spell and made everyone forget about me. And I... have amnesia... Or I''m slowly forgetting everything... And I need your help, because you have... Erm... It''s something about a card, some... knight, and a truth domain... Please... You need to help me somehow..." Eiro said as he fell to his knees and let himself drop forward, pressing his forehead against the ground as he tried to basically beg Solomon for help.


    The King was staring at Eiro with a deep frown and a confused expression. He slowly let his eyes wander over toward the Demon''s pale blue, wooden hand before letting out a deep sigh.


    "I hate that I can tell you''re not lying... There''s no way I can let this just pass." Solomon groaned as he turned back around and stepped into the room he was in before, "Come in. I''ll deal with whatever you did to get in hereter, first, tell me everything you can remember about the situation."


    Eiro raised his head before jumping up. He folloed Solomon into the room, his study, before helping Lugo squeeze himself in through therge door as well, "And you really had to bring that deer with you? Is it your familiar?"


    Eiro was staring at Solomon for a while before he turned back toward Lugo. He looked him deep into his eyes for a few moments before looking back, "I think so? I don''t remember too well... but I know that he''s the only one that remembers me, even my children don''t. And my... contracted spirits, I think, also don''t."


    Soon, Eiro received a nod from Lugo that told him that the was right with his assumptions, and Solomon stared at the Demon with a frown, "A family of Demons? If I''m really friends with you, howe I don''t remember them? Were they forgotten by everyone as well?" Solomon asked, but Eiro just shook his head.


    "No... I don''t think so at least. They''re people, humans mostly. One of them''s a goliath even, but one of them is a beastman child." Eiro exined without thought behind it, although he could feel this information already fading from his brain after mentioning it.


    "Goliath... and a beastman? I knew it. That Stag''s name is Lugo, isn''t it? Are you trying to tell me that you are the foster-father to those children? You, a Demon?" Solomon inquired, and without hesitation, Eiro nodded his head while Lugo did the same.


    Solomon rubbed the bridge of his nose and stood up from his seat before walking over toward the closet. He opened it up and grabbed a bottle and a ss that he filled with the alcohol inside of the bottle, before then taking a quick sip, "I had nned to stop drinking, but I think today''s not the best day for that... Now, Demon.... Continue."

 Chapter 266 - Racing Minds

    Eiro looked at Solomon with a serious expression, before he slowly let his eyes wander down toward the ground. With a bitter expression, he started to speak.


    "First, I must ask you to please listen to me as closely as you can, and remember everything you hear. Because I might forget about it after saying it once, and I may need you to remind me of some of the things I said." The Demon exined, and Solomon slowly nodded his head, ready to hear what Eiro had to say.


    And Eiro just let it flow out of his mouth without filter, "First, I need you to know that <The Death> is currently inside of the Capital''s Prison, and I have a key that should let me get down there. The one that''s currently <The Death> took over the former Warden''s son''s body. The Phctery is currently locked away in a safe ce in the manor you gifted me. It''s in the Library, behind the third shelf from the back on the lower floor, pull on the book ''Encyclopedia of Mutated ntlife III'', keep your mana inside of it at all times, and then push it inbetween the books ''Stories of a mad mastermind'' and ''The vile history of murder'' in the first shelf from the front on the top floor. Then you need to push on the-"


    "Listen, where is this going?" Solomon asked with a confused expression, but Eiro simply continued to speak because he didn''t want to forget to give Solomon the right instructions.


    "... push on the ss disy in the center of the room. You will notice a hidden door open, and behind that is an extra safe storage area. Try not to touch anything in there beside the ss cylinder with the clockwork-heart floating in it, I don''t remember what exactly all of the things in there did, but I know that most of them are pretty dangerous."


    Eiro instructed. The moment he was done exining all of this, he tried to recall the very same information that he just gave Solomon, but it was just too hazy and he felt somewhat ufortable trying to ess it. All the information was lost, and soon, Eiro even forget that he ever knew about it.


    "Now... what was I speaking about?" The Demon muttered, and slowly let his eyes wander around the room, before he saw the notification about his current state, the <Memory of the Forgetful Demon>, and remembered what he wanted to tell the man in front of him.


    "Ah, right... I used to have a skill called <Memory of a Schr>, which gave me impable memory, I could remember every detail about everything that ever happened in my life without a single mistake in there. Now, while I was fighting some strong enemy... Erm... he was an Undead, I think? He was very, very strong, and he nearly managed to kill me using Sacred mes I tried to use against him, but then time stopped and I saw four weird guys. One of them gave me a ck coin, and I grabbed it, and it was a ''Skill Token''. An extra ability I had after mytest evolution fused with it, and I received the Legendary Skill <Supreme Demon>, which enhanced that... erm, that memory ability I think I just mentioned... I managed to kill that enemy, but he used some weird spell that didn''t work on me, and then my memory ability became <Memory of the Forgetful Demon>. I will permanently forget every memory I try to recall, so now I need you to remember all that I said just now for me... Because I''m already having trouble remembering again."


    Solomon stared deep into Eiro''s eyes, and Solomon slowly let himself drop down onto his chair. He looked down at his drink and furrowed his brows, "A Legendary Skill... But how..?" He muttered to himself, before the King raised his head again a few momentster, "I''m going to ask you some questions, and I need you to tell me the answer quickly. I just remembered a few instances that I somehow connect to those children, but I don''t actually remember how they are linked to those children, or even how I ended up gifting them a whole manor. One... <The World> was killed, right? Do you know who it was?"


    "It was me. He was identally unsealed, and I killed him while he was weak. Now I''m a royal candidate." Eiro said. By now, he had determined himself to tell Solomon everything in detail. He knew that he trusted this man, and he knew that he would know Eiro was telling the truth. The Demon was positive that Solomon would hear him out, and that he would help him. Like this, he would be able to practically... ''Save'' the information in his mind somehow, so that it wouldn''t be lost by him just identally thinking of it. Eiro rather wanted to lose this information under his own control rather than have it be lost forever without being able to do anything about it.


    Solomon slowly nodded his head as he looked at the Demon in front of him, "During the Solstice, why did the Lady of Winter appear, and who got rid of the attacker?"


    "I am blessed by the Lady of Winter as well as the former Naiad Queen. The Lady of Winter came to meet me. I also got rid of the attacker and used him for my own purposes. He''s alive, for now at least." The Demon exined bluntly, and Solomon sat down his cup on the desk in front of him.


    "...Alright, then thest thing I want to know for now. Who saved my son?" The King asked with a deep stare, with which him and Eiro were locking their eyes with each other without stop. It was actually kind of ufortable, but Eiro knew that this was necessary for Solomon to make sure that the Demon was really telling the truth. Or at the very least, it helped with it.


    The Demon slowly looked down at the ground as he stared at his arm, "I made your son''s prosthetics, if that was your question. I learned from... I learned from Jura..." The Demon mtutered with a deeply bitter expression. Now that it went right onto Jura, Eiro would start forgetting things about him as well. And that wasn''t particrly something that Eiro wanted. He didn''t want to forget anything, of course, but he couldn''t help himself but feel especially bitter about a certain few topics.


    Solomon rubbed the bridge of his nose as he looked right at Eiro and stood up. He walked up to him and held his hands behind his back, "So, what you are trying to say is that you are one of the most incredible beings that I''ve ever met? It''s kind of risky revealing all this to me, you know? Why would you ever reveal this information to me in particr?"


    "Because... Because I know about the Dragon of Truth and your subsequent abilities..." Eiro pointed out. Solomon slightly frowned as he looked down at him, "You did mention something about a ''truth domain'' before... and the Knight of Pentacles? Did you want me to teach you about that card somehow? Sorry, but I''ve never hea-"


    "I came to you because... because you''re my friend, I think... I trust you... But you''re one of the few that I know will believe what I say..." Eiro exined, and slowly tried to see inside of himself to find the card that he had forgotten about until now. He slowly pulled it out of his treasury and held it forward toward Solomon.


    "I don''t know what it does anymore... But I trust that you do... I don''t know if this is enough to make you trust me, but I think you deserve it... I don''t even know how to use it anymore." Eiro exined, and Solomon looked at Eiro confusedly. Was he really about to just hand over such a card without any sort of condition? And especially to Solomon, who possessed abilities to see the true form of things, words, and people, this would be something of great value for sure. But even then...


    "I see... Then thank you, Eiro. I will ept it gratefully. To hand it to me, you need to pour your mana into the card first." The King exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. Luckily, it didn''t seem like he could forget how to control his mana, at least not for now. He let it flow out of his hand and into the card. It lit up in a golden light and then simply disappeared as the light seeped into Eiro''s skin.


    [You have activated and connected with the Knight of Pentacles. You are now its owner]


    [2/14 Cards of the Suit of Pentacles acquired]


    [4/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]


    [Aptitude with the Earth Element increased]


    "Huh...? Wait, but... Didn''t I just try to give it to you..?" Eiro asked, and Solomon immediately nodded his head, "Yes, you did. But such a thing is in better hands with you, I think... If you are truly as capable as you sound, then you should have it. Now that I... well, remember is the wrong word, but I at least know about you again. I can fill in the gaps somewhat as well. I knew that I had a candidate for the Tournament this summer, that''s you, right? I knew that I had deep conversations with someone, but I couldn''t remember with whom. I felt something change in the air a little while ago, and maybe because of my connection with the Dragon of Truth I was not affected as strongly and can still remember such details... But this feels right. It feels right that I am speaking to you like this, that I am trusting you like this. I hear you call me your friend, and I know that you are speaking the truth. I hope that this card may help you uncover what exactly is happening to you and around us." Solomon exined quickly, and Eiro just stared down at the ground.


    His eyes wandered around and kept sticking to random things. He noticed details that he didn''t notice before, or didn''t acknowledge at least, and the Demon''s mind was racing. It was actually giving him quite a headache. It was a weird sense of new stimulus. He technically didn''t perceive new things, he just never thought about a lot of them. As far as Eiro remembered at least...


    The Demon''s mind immediately started to race as he tried to figure out what exactly was going on. He came to one conclusion... That this was a blessing with a curse connected to it. He might be able to figure out what exactly was going on, but he would forget about it immediately.


    And so, Eiro looked straight at the man in front of him, "I''m sorry... I have forgotten your name, but listen to me closely... I need you to help me figure this out. Repeat information, remind me of why I''m here if I forget, and most importantly.... remind me of the children should I forget them as well."

 Chapter 267 - Library

    "The enemy cast a spell just before doing, and turned into dust instead of leaving behind a corpse." Solomon repeated to Eiro once more, and the Demon slowly nodded his head as he sat there on the couch in the King''s study.


    "Right... Erm... What happened to the dust again? Did it mix in with the storm outside?" Eiro asked the man next to him, who quickly nodded his head with his eyes slightly widened, "Yes, exactly! That''s what you said happened! Do you have an idea what that might mean?" The King asked, excited that they finally seemed to be making some progress.


    But in the end, Eiro wasn''t entirely sure just yet, "I think... the enemy might have cast a spell that mixed into the storm? Can we verify if others outside of this direct storm forgot about me?" The Demon asked as he looked at Solomon, while he already forgot about the conclusion that he himself just got to.


    The King, already expecting that this would happen, wrote Eiro''s guess down on a piece of paper so that it really wouldn''t be forgotten. And then, Solomon grabbed a small box out of his shelf that he quickly opened up.


    He grabbed the red feather that was in there and dunked it into the royal blue ink, before writing the recipient, the sender, and a message onto the parchment that was also inside of the box. Solomon quickly stepped over toward the window and opened it up, before he ripped the parchment in half. It created arge me that shot out into the storm outside, slowly taking the form of an eagle.


    "This is one of the few of these I have left, but if it is as important to know of this as I assume, then I cannot be scared to waste such items." The King exined. He looked back over to Eiro, who was sitting on the couch while looking down at all the notes that Solomon alreadyid out in front of him.


    "Let''s go with the... with this idea some more... If he affected the storm itself, then... How long is the storm supposed tost again?" The Demon inquired into the room, although he was actually weirdly startled by the fact that Solomon spoke up, as if he had forgotten that he wasn''t alone here somehow.


    "I heard it is supposed tost another six days. At first, the meteorologists I am in contact with told me it should be over within the next day or so, but they suddenly informed us that it willst much longer than it was supposed to this morning." Solomon exined to Eiro, who slowly closed his eyes so that he could properly concentrate.


    It was hard to use this new ability of his while constantly forgetting all the information that he uncovered in his mind, especially because a lot of it was hard to put into words. And while Eiro would try and put it into words so that Solomon could remember it for him, he would have already forgotten about the information and would need to uncover it from the beginning again.


    "The storm was maybe... enhanced by the spell? Maybe the enemy... is using it to cause the effect?" The Demon started, but Solomon thought that something was weird about that.


    "But it already took effect, didn''t it? Why would it be necessary for the storm to be dragged out like that?" The King inquired, and then came to a realization himself, "Unless the effect isn-"


    "Unless it''s not permanent..?" Eiro asked, and looked down at the pieces of paper on the table in front of him. Luckily, he had all the information there that he needed toe to his next conclusion based off of this one, "But at the same time, the storm isn''t there to make sure that the spell keeps its effect up during the storm... Otherwise you would have forgotten about me again as well, as it''s still raging outside." Eiro said as he slowly turned his head toward Solomon, trying to connect the name that he saw to be written on the piece of paper with an actual person.


    "So instead, the storm is there to make the effect permanent in the end?" With that conclusion that Solomon suggested, Eiro pushed himself off the couch and nodded his head, "I think so. That is the only thing that makes sense... right? Or did I... forget another solution to this issue already?" Eiro asked, but luckily, Solomon quickly shook his head.


    "No, this is the first real conclusion you came to. Does it feel right to you? Does it feel like the ''truth'' of this situation?" The King asked, and Eiro looked down at the pieces of paper in front of him as Solomon handed him one that had the actual conclusion he came to written down on it, and the Demon nodded his head without hesitation.


    "It does. It does feel right. That is the true form of this storm... It''s here to make this effect truly permanent. That means until then, I need to stop the storm somehow, so that I won''t be forgotten forever?"


    "Yes, that''s what it seems like. But how could something like this be dispelled?"


    Eiro closed his eyes for a moment and tried to figure it out as quickly as he could, and then let out a deep sigh in the end, "Three possible ways, I think. One, fuse a counterspell with the storm. Two, cause the storm to simply stop existing. Three... Move everyone that matters out of the range of the storm until it''s over. Right?"


    "But does that not sound a bit too easy? Would a spell with immense strength such as this truly be able to be stopped that easily? Simply moving out of its range seems possible, but-"


    "I was thinking the same thing... I need spellbooks rted to any and all memory-manipting spells as you can give me. This doesn''t feel right, it feels too easy..." Eiro replied to Solomon, who slowly nodded his head, "I figured so. The greatest library of this country is within the academy, and it is heavily protected there. But of course, as King, I have ess to everything that we will need. Come, let us hurry."


    Solomon grabbed the pieces of paper that wereying in front of Eiro while remembering to grab any sort of writing material that he could so that they could make sure to write any sort of information they uncovered down.


    Of course, Solomon had to remind Eiro what they were supposed to do now rtively quickly, and that he was supposed to wear his mask and cloak, while hiding his wings and horns with magic, but once they were outside, Eiro could just sit on Lugo''s back and have the stag take the lead for now.


    "But your majesty, I cannot allow you to apany such a strange man by yourself just after he broke into this castle!" One of the Guard Captains eximed as Solomon climbed onto Lugo''s back right behind Eiro, but the King just looked at that Guard with a deep frown.


    "I care little for what you do and do not allow me to do. Have guards follow behind, if you will, but it is of utmost importance that we reach the library at the fastest speed possible. This Stag here is faster than even the Aria, it seems, and much more intelligent at that." The King exined immediately. Lugo slightly turned his head with a smug expression, although he realized that it wasn''t a good time to feel happy about being called ''much more intelligent'' than some random magic beasts.


    Meanwhile, Eiro was just looking around himself. He had declined to a state where he wasn''t really thinking again, but before then, he managed to instruct Solomon on how to jolt him awake with a pulse of mana right into the center of his neck. This way, Eiro hoped to lose as little of his memories as possible while still making it possible to use his intelligence and new ability to the highest extent currently possible.


    After a bit more discussion, Solomon made the final decision and simply told Lugo to start running. The Guards obviously couldn''t do anything, in the end. They couldn''t restrain or injure their King, so they basically had to go along with his decision.


    As per Solomon''s instructions, Lugo ran toward the Academy, which took up a bit more than just half of the centermost part of Skyhart''s capital, while the rest of that center-part was taken up by the royal castle.


    They rode through the gates, and although the guards wanted to stop them, the moment that Solomon showed his royal authority to them, they stepped aside and basically escorted Solomon further into the academy.


    Lugo stopped right in front of therge building that led into the Library, and Solomon took the lead as he brought Eiro and the stag inside.


    "Y-Your Majesty, what a pleasant surprise!" The head-librarian said with a deep bow, although it was obvious that he was a bit confused by therge deer and thepletely cloaked man that were standing behind him instead of guards as you would usually expect, "Bring us to the part of the library that holds the spellbooks on memory-maniption at once." The King demanded immediately, and the librarian stared back at him confusedly.


    "M-Memory maniption? Right away, your Majesty!" The man eximed somewhat nervously, and quickly took the lead. He brought Solomon, Eiro and Lugo, as well as a few of the guards that finally managed to catch up to them, to the back of the library where more guards were stationed to protect this area of the library.


    In the rest of this ce, the parts that were more open and where you wouldn''t be directly obstructed by guards or special doors, many students seemed to be sitting and reading, whether it was for their studies or simply for pleasure.


    But of course, now that the King was stepping through these halls, everyone jumped up and kneeled down in the direction where Solomon was walking. Eiro was a bit confused by what was happening, until he looked down at one of the pieces of paper in his hands that exined that Solomon was the King.


    With that information, this situation made at least a little sense.


    Eiro followed behind Solomon, staring at some of the different parts of this library out of simple curiosity, before the man walking in front of him turned toward the Guards, "Do not enter this space under any circumstances, unless Imand otherwise. Anyone that dares defy this shall be punished ordingly.. That is all."

 Chapter 268 - I Don’t Want To Forget

    Eiro flipped through the books that wereying in front of him as quickly as possible. He was trying to register the information in his mind to use with the Knight of Pentacles, while not immediately forgetting it. It was a bit hard, but as long as Eiro was able to figure out which pages were the most important for now, he would be able to figure something out.


    In the first ce, there weren''t all that many books about memory-maniption here, so Eiro had to make sure he could squeeze every bit of information out of them that he could.


    He copied a few pages down whenever he found parts that were indubitably necessary for him to figure this out, and then, after about two hours of repeated reading of the same books, pages, and paragraphs, Eiro finally stood up and ced thest page that he copied down onto the ground.


    With his perception and his intelligence, Eiro was luckily able to see and truly perceive everything that he was looking at at once if he just so wanted. Like this, he would hopefully be able to use all this information at once andbine it together properly.


    The demon stood there in the center of his room, while Lugo wasying on the ground in the corner of the room so that he wouldn''t disturb anyone, while Solomon was trying to assist Eiro as much as possible.


    Eiro stood there and looked at the pages. He looked at the letters, at the sketches, at everything. The demon repeated all the information in his head, until something started to... change.


    From Eiro''s perspective, at least. From Solomon and Lugo''s, everything stayed the same. The Demon saw the sketches, the runes, and the words that were the most important suddenly start glowing. The moer he focused on them, the brighter they became until they were practically lifted off of the pages themselves.


    These glowing lines were floating around Eiro''s head as they were repeated in his mind over and over again. He connected certain things in a manner he had never done before, something that Eiro was sure of even with his currentlycking ability of remembering his life properly.


    The Demon stared at the glowing letters, and he started to figure out what exactly was wrong. All these spells, and all these theories helped Eiroe to a single conclusion.


    "Spells that manipte memories permanently all require an effect to be applied over a longer period of time. The sooner the effect is interrupted, the more likely it is for the memory to be recovered. But... Forceful removal from the effect without the spell itself being interrupted may or may not have catastrophic consequences for the affected person. Complete amnesia, brain damage, or simple failure of the spell is all in the range of possibility of spells dealing with memories." The Demon exined. It was as if he was reciting something written down in a book, although none of the texts that Eiro read said anything about this specifically. But Eiro knew that this was true after piecing everything together in his mind.


    Of course, Solomon noted exactly what Eiro said down without a moment''s hesitation, "So... that means we can''t just leave this storm after all. Rather, we should make sure that nobody does..."


    "It''s fine... We only need to worry about those that I''ve actively spoken to before. Those that have only briefly seen me or heard of me will have already permanently forgotten. I''m going to tell you anyone that I think might be affected by leaving the storm at this time." The Demon said. It was risky, but it needed to be done. Otherwise, random, unaffected, and innocent people may simply end up with immense consequences simply for knowing Eiro.


    Immediately, the Demon went through his memories of this town and exined the name, estimated location, and appearance of everyone that Eiro thought might possibly be affected. People from the Adventurer''s Guild. Merchants that Eiro interacted with on a regr basis. Different guards or soldiers that started recognizing Eiro when he was making his way in and out of this town, trying to make small-talk or just waving at him. In the end, Eiro mentioned everyone but those that Solomon could figure out himself, like the children, Eiro''s party, his contracted spirits, the monsters that he had ''tamed'', and of course Charles, Solomon''s son.


    And just when Eiro finished describing one person in particr, he had already forgotten about them. This town that had slowly started to be a new home to Eiro simply became cold and foreign in his mind. The only ce of this town that he could recognize as his home was the manor, and that was not something that Eiro really wanted to think about right now. He wanted to keep those memories as long as he possibly could.


    Once Solomon wrote down all the information about the people that might be strongly affected by this spell, he stepped out of this room and gave his guards the task to search for all these people and put them under house-arrest for their own safety, until further notice.


    And then, he returned back to Eiro, to then have him investigate the other two possible solutions for this spell. At the very least they already established that it would be impossible for a spell like that to affect the whole world, practically ensuring that it had been fused with the snowstorm. Solomon was still waiting for that magic-letter''s answer, however, just to be sure.


    "What if you were to try and simply stop the storm? As if dispelling it instead of the spell itself?" Solomon asked. Eiro did mentioned that he was blessed by the Lady of Winter, so he had to have incredibly potent Ice Magic that he might be able to control such weather with. Or at the very least, he could attempt it, maybe weaken the storm or shortening it so that the spell can''t be put under full effect.


    As Eiro was thinking about the question he was just asked, he started to flip through the pages of a certain one of the books again. Eiro had ces the pages that he copied down on the ground in a way that they would hint at in which one of the books he might be able to find which sort of information, and luckily, Eiro was able to figure it out with the help of the Knight of Pentacles.


    He flipped the book open and soon found a bit of the information that he needed before copying it down onto a piece of paper that he added to the others.


    Eiro did this a few more times, until he was finished, and the whole thing repeated itself like before. He essed all of this important information as quickly as he could and tried toe to a conclusion using it.


    "The spell and the storm seem fused together. That means that it will most likely be close to impossible to split either from the other... I may need to dispell both at the same time. Halt the storm, and halt the spell together. If I just stop the storm, it might be simr to bringing someone out of the range of the spell and could cause immense damages. And due to the nature of the storm, it is impossible to stop the spell itself without stopping the storm. So I need to dispell both at the same time, only then will it really work out." Eiro exined to Solomon, so that the King could note it down again so that they would remember.


    "But how would you possibly do that? It would be like casting two spells of immense power at once, is that not so?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he walked over toward a nearby table. He wrote something on a piece of paper, rolled it up, and pushed it inbetween the cracks of his prosthetic in a specific spot before rubbing his eyes for a moment, "Yeah... Yeah it does, I think. That in itself is not the issue, actually." Eiro said as he turned over toward the pieces of paper again to see what conclusion he came to, now that he forgot all this information just now again.


    "I see... A spell like this requires immense concentration from the caster. It is not something that can simply be cast and then have an effect like this that continues on. But nheless, the caster certainly died. I have seen the notification, and received the levels from killing him. So, there can only be one way that this is still happening. What that enemy did was not directly casting the spell, but he was creating something like a conductor... something that would keep this spell up for him. Simr in concept to a phctery." Eiro said, drawing this specificparison because he saw the note mentioning the phctery hidden in the manor.


    "I assume that it has taken a physical form of sorts... You showed me a sketch of the way that this storm works right now. It is practically cricling this town and its surroundings, not moving from its spot, correct?" Eiro inquired, and Solomon nodded his head, "Yes, that''s right." He replied. For a moment he thought that Eiro remembered something, but then he realized that it was just written on another note scattered on the floor.


    "Then it is simple." The Demon said, "That conductor must be hidden somewhere within this town. It may take any form whatsoever, though, although there will be arge amount of mana directly connected to it. I may be able to use thatrge amount of mana to create a spell that takes down this storm. At the same time, because the conductor iscking the necessary amount of mana, the spell will fail to continue and will stop being put out into the storm. I..." Eiro said, before sighing out deeply at the fact that he was about to give up this portion of his memories of Nelli and Gondos, "I can fuse with spirits, and have done so many times before. When I do, I gain the ability to sense magic in the same way that they do. I would be able to find that conductor in that way."


    After that exnation, Solomon raised his brows with a smile, "That is perfect! Then let us hurry to the manor to find Nelli and Gondos, and then-"


    "No." Eiro interrupted Solomon, "I''m not going back to the manor. Not when I''m like this. My mind is racing, and I don''t know how to make it stop in this state I am in. If I were to head to the manor, my memories about it will be pulled to the forefront of my mind, and I will forget it. I will forget the manor, I will forget my friends and my family. And I don''t want that. I forgot you and... and the stag already.... I don''t want to forget the rest of my loved ones."

 Chapter 269 - Escort

    Solomon looked at Eiro with a worried expression, "Are you sure that it''s a good idea not to just go back there and exin the situation to them? They might beli-"


    "I won''t go back there in this state, as I just said. It''s too risky for me... And... even if I were to go back, I don''t know what happens when I fuse with a spirit right now. Not only my body, but my mind merges with them... This skill might affect the spirit. It might be cruel to say this, but I don''t care about random spirits that I might find around here, but I care about... those two." Eiro said, trying to think of Nelli and Gondos as little as he possibly could.


    Hearing Eiro''s exnation, Solomon slowly nodded his head, "I see... Then you''re probably intending to somehow find a spirit to contract that you won''t care about, no matter the consequences? Just so that you can find this conductor?"


    Without hesitation, Eiro nodded his head as he continued to stare at the notes on the ground while writing even more so that he could properly remember the situation. By now, he was practically writing down as much information as possible, transcribing the events unfolding around him so that he could at least have ess to what was happening right now during this time in some way, shape or form.


    "As I said, it might be cruel to say. But that''s how it is." The Demon replied bluntly, "Where can we find spirits around here?"


    Solomon slowly crossed his arms in thought, "It depends... What Elements do you have a high enough affinity for that you could contract a spirit from that element?"


    "Fire, Air, Shadow, and Nature. Well, technically also Ice, but that situation is moreplicated..." The Demon exined. Solomon looked back at him with a wry smile, although he quickly regained hisposure as he started to think about the situation.


    "Shadow and Nature spirits are out of the question. They are even rarer than spirits of base elements. Air spirits could possibly be found in some ravines that have extremely strong air currents in them due to the extraordinary geography in that area... They are a day''s trip away by Aria. But I don''t know how risky it would be for you to leave the storm yourself... I don''t know of any ce that could house Fire Spirits around here either. I apologize." Solomon said in a genuine tone, but Eiro just shook his head in response.


    "It''s not your fault... But how about the ck market? When I was in the slums before and fused with one of the spirits to search for the Collector, I noticed something else that had a particrly weird scent to it... it was simr to the magical scent that a Spirit has on its own. I assume that it might have been that weird drug going around in the slums right now..." Eiro exined, and Solomon slowly raised his brows in response to hearing this.


    "Yes, I remember the fact that parts of Gondos'' body was sold in Argberg... That was probably simr to that, right? As if it had some sort of positive effect on people that held or consumed it. Do you think it might be addictive?"


    "Who knows? Magic is mysterious... With the exact same raw substance, some beings can conjure rocks out of thin air, and others can revive people. Its effects can be quite unpredictable..."


    "I see... Then we must make our way to the ck market." Solomon said, but Eiro turned his head toward him and shook his head immediately, "No, you''re noting with me. A king in the criminal underworld of their own country? That''s not a good idea. I''m going alone with the stag... With Lugo... that was his name, right?" Eiro asked after ncing on a piece of paper that had that name written on it, and Solomon bitterly looked down at the ground.


    "No. I''m not following just what you say without giving my opinion into this. One, I know something about Lugo that you may have forgotten. That he is quite a special existence himself. Even physically he sticks outpared to other stags. It would be too risky for him to go there as well. I''m assigning you an escort that I trust. Is that alright with you?" Solomon inquired, and Eiro looked back at him before slowly nodding his head.


    "I understand... But let me properly inspect that ''escort'' first... I want to see if they will really keep their mouth shut." After hearing the Demon''s demand, Solomon basically had to agree. It was reasonable in this situation, after all.


    First, what they had to do was leave this space again. They had all the information that they currently needed, and Eiro and Lugo just followed Solomon back out and back to the castle. The snowstorm had slightly picked up in strength again while they were inside of the library, but maybe that was just imagination because it was night, and as such colder anyway.


    Eiro and Lugo were waiting in the entrance hall of the castle, constantly observed by numerous guards, soldiers and scouts, until Solomon called the Demon up the stairs. He quickly rushed up there, ignoring the angry, hateful res from the people around him. Eiro slowly nced down into the book he was holding that was filled with information on current events, but was still as confused as he was before after reading through everything in there.


    Once the Demon made his way into Solomon''s study, the first thing he did was look at the King on the other side of the room as he tilted his head slightly to the side, "Hey, erm... Solomon, right? Did something happen with those guards of yours? I get the feeling that they practically despise me..." He pointed out.


    "They probably do. Earlier today, you knocked most of them out as you forced your way into the castle, after all." The King replied with a wry smile, and Eiro looked down at the book in his hand and wrote this information down inside of it, "Really...? I forgot, sorry..." He muttered.


    "It''s fine." Solomon said reassuredly. In reality, this whole situation was anything but fine, but Solomon really didn''t know what else he was supposed to say. After all, Eiro genuinely didn''t seem to have remembered any of this. And even if Solomon reprimanded him, Eiro would probably forget after just a few moments anyway.


    "Ah... Well, who is he? Is that the... Escort you mentioned?"


    Surprised that he was so easily seen, a man stepped out of the shadows as he looked at Solomon, "He is truly as impressive as you mentioned... To think he would so easily see through my Advanced Stealth skill just like that."


    "That was an Advanced Grade skill? Seemed like apprentice to me." The Demon replied bluntly as he wrote the information that he had until now down in his book, although it seemed like the man in question felt rather insulted by this statement.


    "Hey, who do you-"


    "I think that I''m someone with perceptive abilities of someone with four-digits in the perception skill, if not better, as well as someone that trained said perceptive abilities while trying to see through Master Grade stealth abilities. Just because I was able to see through your petty trick that you tried to execute using shadow magic, which I myself possess as well, doesn''t mean that you aren''t skilled. You very much are, more skilled at stealth than I am, but my perception is simply superior to your stealth. That''s all it is." Eiro said bluntly. Through the man''s reaction, he was able to figure out what kind of person he was roughly, and that he had a rather big ego. And topletely make the situation clear, Eiro told him about the situation straightforwardly instead of having to deal with a cranky escort the whole time Eiro was walking through the ck market.


    "Alright, I''m ready." The Demon said, while the escort that Solomon had picked out was looking at the King confused, "He was telling theplete truth right now, wasn''t he? Where did you find this guy...?" The escort asked with a wry smile, and Solomon just shrugged.


    "He found me, actually. But that doesn''t matter right now. Eiro, you can trust this man. I trust him fully, at least." Solomon pointed out, so Eiro nodded his head, "Good to know. I''m still going to see if I will trust him as well, if that''s alright with you." The Demon suggested, and Solomon simply nodded and let Eiro do his thing.


    Eiro stepped up to the man and pressed his palm on his chest, before sending a quick pulse of mana into his chest. He didn''t know why he did it, but he did. And soon after, he realized exactly why. By sending mana into this man''s body, Eiro was able to figure out every little detail of his body, inside and out.


    He was able to figure out how he reacted to sudden jolts of pain, how well-built his body was, and even how strong his magic capabilities were just by seeing how well the mana travelled through him, and if it did so mostly uninterrupted or if it jolted around suddenly after ''impact'' with strong internal mana.


    "Hm..." The Demon muttered while the Escort quickly held his hand to his chest, staring at Eiro with a re, "What the hell''s your problem, man? What was that just now?"


    "Erm..." Eiro looked back at the escort and thought about that question, before the Demon had to aready turn back to the book he was holding. He flipped the page around and then saw the information he needed, "Right, sorry. I was just inspecting you really quickly. It helps me figure out a lot of things about you through my abilities. Now answer a few questions, alright?" Eiro asked, and the escort slowly nced at Solomon who just shrugged in response.


    The escort sighed and nodded his head, "Sure, I guess so."


    And so, having received permission, Eiro started to ask seemingly random questions that might seem unrted to the whole situation right now. But they were questions that, in a weird pattern, would allow Eiro to figure out exactly the way that this escort was thinking without revealing even an ounce of who Eiro was or what the Escort was needed for.


    Of course, even with Eiro''s abilities, due to his current state of mind, it was just impossible to truly use these abilities how he was nning, but it was good enough for now at least. Especially since Solomon was also vouching for this escort.


    Just like that, Eiro gained a temporarypanion through which Solomon could make sure that Eiro wasn''t forgetting about why he was wandering through the ck-market.

 Chapter 270 - Junky

    "Are youing?" The Escort asked with a deep, loud groan, and Eiro slowly turned toward him, "Yes?"


    "I asked if you wereing. We don''t have that much time. And it feels weird to be down here..." The middle-aged, messily-groomed man said.


    Eiro really hadn''t paid attention to this kind of stuff before. Sure, he took it into ount, but he didn''t really think about it since it didn''t matter all that much, but this man seemed to have a quite leisure lifestyle. At least, he didn''t pay attention to his appearance all that much and seemed to be quite keen on alcohol and cigars.


    There was nothing wrong with that, it made him stick out from the crowd a bit better actually, but it simply ovepped with his apparent personality pretty well. He was walking around with a rather tired,zy demeanor, as if he wanted to get everything done as quickly as possible so that he could get back to whatever he was doing beforehand.


    It actually reminded Eiro a little bit of an older version of Leo-


    "Stop it." The Demon muttered to himself to interrupt his thoughts as quickly as possible, and the escort looked at him with a slight frown, "I didn''t even do anything, you asked me toe here with you!" he eximed, and Eiro turned toward him with his head slightly tilted toward him, "I didn''t speak to you though?"


    "Huh?" Visibly confused, the escort was trying to figure out what exactly was going on, but in the end, just gave up and turned back around as he kept walking down the narrow staircase that led to the literal ''criminal underground'' of this capital city.


    The entrance to this ce was hidden pretty well within the slums, pretty close to the ce where the Organization had been hidden, although it was still a separate entity. Either way, now that they were on their way down here, Eiro was trying not to get lost in all of these ''new'' sensations. Mostly, it was the smell that was making Eiro curious right now, since there were a lot of scents mixed in that he had never smelled before, although that was something that Eiro didn''t really expect to be probable anytime soon, and not in this amount for sure.


    Sure, Eiro might have just forgotten about a lot of things, but the point still stood. It was all very new to him, so it was exciting in the Demon''s mind. Hence, he was quickly and easily distracted.


    The Demon looked at the figure in front of him and continued walking down these steps, before Eiro could see and hear someone walking up this narrow, dirty staircase from the bottom. They were huddled over, and their whole body waspletely shaken. Even in this weather, they were wearing nothing but a sleeveless shirt and simple, thin cloth pants.


    There was a lot of scar-tissue gathered on the inside of their elbows, their teeth werepletely rotten, their skin was in a horrible state, and if this person ever submerged their head in some water, they would probably lose the little bit of hair they had left. Right now, it was only kept on their scalp through dried-up dirt.


    It was an honestly rather disgusting and overstimting sight, but it was the perfect person to ask in this situation. And so, while the escort pushed themselves onto the wall while making sure they kept their hands pressed onto their wallet and any valuable belongings, Eiro just stood in the middle of the staircase, waiting for the man to get there.


    The man had been looking down at the steps and seemed to be kind of out of it, so he quickly ran right into Eiro. Of course, the Demon didn''t budge while the man nearly fell down the steps again, if it weren''t for Eiro''s quick reaction-speed as he grabbed the man''s arm.


    "Oops, sorry about that. Did I hurt you? Is there any way I can make up for it? Literally anything, I''m even quite wealthy, so if you want some mo-" Eiro started, obviously just trying to trick this man. He waspletely empty-handed and had an expression of anger on his face that looked as if he was about to kill someone, so it was clear what had just happened down there.


    The escort was just looking at Eiro with a confused expression, while the junky stared up at the Demon, "Money! G-Give me money! As much as you can!" He screamed out, grabbing onto Eiro''s cloak, and the Demon just smiled underneath his mask as he pushed his hand into the pouch connected to his belt before pulling out a bundle of small gold coins.


    "Is this enough for the trouble?" He inquired insincerely, and the junky took it onto himself before just turning around and sprinting down the staircase again, bumping into Eiro''s escort on the way. And the man in question just stared at him annoyedly, "What was that for, now? Do you know how much money that is? Did you even forget that?"


    "Of course not. Well, not yet, at least. But that''s not the point, because surely, that''s enough to give that man a pretty good night. Due to a new ability of mine, I can''t make proper use of my perceptive abilities in a space like we''ll most likely find down there yet. It''s going to be far, far too overwhelming, I assume..." Eiro started as he wrote down all of this in the notebook he was carrying, and the escort looked at him strangely, "So?"


    "Well, of course we''re going to follow him so that we don''t have to search for the right ce ourselves. He experienced the same side-effects as the other junkies here in the slums."


    "...Really? You could see that here in the dark?" The escort asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Of course. Darkness is like daylight to me if I concentrate hard enough. But nevermind that, let''s continue, erm..."


    "rk."


    "Right, let''s continue, rk. He''s pretty speedy, but not too speedy for the two of us, right?" The Demon asked, as he just leaned forward and had himself basically fall down the stairs before kicking off the step to practically jump down the stairs. He used air magic to bnce his upper body as he continued kicking off the steps to reach the bottom of the staircase at an extreme speed.


    Meanwhile, the escort, rk, was just following behind Eiro annoyedly. Soon enough, Eiro reached the bottom of the staircase and found himself inside of a small room. He just saw a nce of the junky as the door on the other side of the room was closing, so he should not waste too much time here and hurry through.


    But as he tried to walk through the room, a rather big guy stopped him. He was ratherrge in height and width at the same, and was even holding some animal''s roasted leg in his hand, just ripping off of it with his teeth.


    "What is your purpose here?" He asked as he blocked the way to the door. But Eiro didn''t really listen to him all that much. Rather, his mind, as influenced by his recently acquired Knight of Pentacles, was focused on the physical aspects of this man''s body.


    A heavily protruding forehead, unhealthily pale skin with an umon tint to it... A quiterge overbite with prominent canines as well as slight tusk-like growthsing out of the lower jaw. Combined with the incredible height and obvious appetite, Eiro came to a quick conclusion as his natural curiosity shone through. Somehow, after all the stages he had gone through within this whole fiasco, his curiosity that had given him the ''Schr Imp'' and subsequently probably also ''Collector Imp'' subraces was growing rather strong again after subsiding a bit over the past few years. It was as if he was some kid right now, learning about new, exciting things over and over again.


    And so,bined with the curiosity... Eiro''s manners took a bit of a beating to them.


    "Oh, you''re a half-orc, aren''t you? What''s that like?" The Demon inquired. It was supposed to be a genuine question born out of curiosity, but somehow, it simply came out... rather offensive.


    "Pretty shit when there''s cunts like you runnin'' around." The half-orc pointed out with a growling undertone, and Eiro looked up at him with a smile under his mask, "Hey, would you-"


    "Stop running the fuck ahead you dumbass!" rk yelled out from the stairs, breathing heavily as he made his way down there into the room as well, seeing therge half-orc towering over Eiro, "Urgh... What did you do this time?"


    "...Good question, I think I forgot to write it down."


    "You''re so anno-" The escort said, although he managed to quickly shut himself up as he looked at the half-orc, "Sorry about this, he''s a bit messed up in the head. I''ll make sure he doesn''t mess around anymore. We''re here for business, and we have a lot of money to spend." rk exined, and the half-orc slowly nodded his head.


    "Not that I care." He grumbled and took a step to the side, before rk proceeded to pull Eiro out of the door, "Now, look for that junky and let''s go."


    Immediately, Eiro did as told, and soon managed to spot the man in question again. And so, Eiro quickly ran toward there so that he would be able to catch up, and rk followed as quickly as he could as well.


    And while that was happening, Eiro managed to get a good look on the area around him. It was basically like a huge market stuffed into a single huge underground cave. Some rooms were carved into the walls and had wooden tforms leading up to them, while others were just set up in the middle of the room like food-stalls. But some of them, instead of selling snacks, sold illegal weapons, foods, or even people.


    There were a few little things that Eiro was interested in scattered amongst them, but overall, they weren''t anything that Eiro was incapable of getting himself.


    Although... his eyes did end up getting stuck on a stall that had a bunch of books on it. He was a bit curious about what they were about, but at that point, rk already pushed him forward to make him keep the search up. Either way, Eiro wrote down a note about the stall and then soon looked forward, staring at the back of the junky from before.


    And he was standing there, in front of a ratherrge shop that seemed to be the main-supplier of this special drug that everyone in the slums had been taking for a while now.

 Chapter 271 - Burnt To Ashes

    "P-Please, just give me an-another shot! I have the mo-money!" Eiro stared at the back of the junky that he figured was the one he was looking for in the first ce, and listened as that incredibly dirty, sick man was basically just crawling on the ground. He was begging the man in front of him that was standing there with his arms crossed, with slicked-back hair and a high-quality suit.


    "Don''t touch me, you scum. Fine, show me how much you''ve got." The man groaned, and the junky immediately nodded his head, holding forward the bundle of gold coins. The moment that the drug dealer took it from him, the junky''s hands and arms basically just started to cramp up as he squatted there, waiting to be given his ''shot''.


    The dealer looked at the coins with a surprised expression, "Huh... How''d you get this much money? You kill someone?" With augh, he pushed the coins into his pocket before turning his head around and nodding at someone that was standing within the hut right behind him.


    Just a few momentster, one of the people there came out of the hut and held forward a small bag toward the junky. Although, at that point, Eiro interrupted.


    "So, are you the one in charge here?" The Demon asked as he stepped right in front of the drug dealer, still taking notes in his small notebook, and the man looked at him with a deep frown, "Who wants to know that?"


    "Oh, just someone that wants the spir-" Before Eiro was able to finish his sentence, rk the escort hit the demon''s shoulder, or at least attempted to. The Demon took a step to the side and looked at rk confusedly, "What was that for?"


    "Just shut up for a single moment. Let me deal with this." rk groaned, and then looked at the dealer, "Sorry about him... We''re just two people that want to make business. Can we speak to the guy that actually produces these drugs?"


    With a light smirk on his face, the drug dealer looked back at rk, "As if. There any reason for me to bring you to him? Lotsa people wanna speak to the boss, ya know?"


    "...Fine, how much money do you want?" The escort pushed his hand into his bag, and the dealer looked at him with his brows raised, "Sorry, my loyalty can''t be bought."


    "You work on the ck market as a drug dealer, and you''re trying to tell me you won''t ept a little pocket money in exchange for a favor?" rk asked sceptically, and Eiro, as he had his head turned toward the junky, pointed out, "I mean, what do you expect from a ve? Not like he can go against his owner''smands. Hey, just curious, but aren''t you guys kind of breaking a ta-"


    Eiro soon noticed the dealer try and grab his shoulder, so without hesitation, the Demon mmed his elbow into the man''s face. With a loud crack, his nose broke while he became unbnced, so the demon just sweeped his leg to the side and caused the dealer to fall onto his back while blood streamed out of his nose onto his suit, ???Don''t touch me." The Demon said bluntly before turning toward the escort next to him.


    "It''s fine, we don''t really need his help, I know where we can find his boss." The Demon pointed out as he looked into the middle of the air. There, he was able to see something that he had seen a few times until now, but never really paid attention to.


    It was some form of thread that was strung between the dealer and someone that was further in within this undergroundplex. This thread was simr to the thread that Eiro saw be connected to himself, linking him to Nelli, Gondos, and Lugo. But somehow, they didn''t give off an immensely new sensation whenpared to before, so Eiro just thought of the threads as the normal sort of connection he felt to those three and didn''t pay attention to the actual thread.


    But now, it was something external that he was able to see. This thread was a bit different then again, however. It was like there was constant tension on it, as if it was perpetually strained and was about to snap in half just like that. The same sort of thread was connecting all of the people in the hut to the same ce that this man here was connected to.


    "On a more important note... What''s in this stuff?" The Demon inquired as he grabbed the bag that one of the ves was still holding forward toward the junky. He slowly ripped a tiny hole into the bag and took a light sniff. Of course, it immediately attacked all of his senses to the extreme.


    The Demon was able to quickly get a rough idea of what exactly was going on here, "Ah... Interesting. So you guys are tricking the rules of the taboos, huh? I knew this side-effect was too simr."


    The Dealer stared up at Eiro while holding his nose in pain, "H-How do you-"


    "How do I know? Well, it''s a shame that I''ll forget about it, but for the matter of this conversation it might be helpful." The Demon pointed out, "Your boss knows exactly what''s going on here right now anyway, right? He can see and hear whatever you do? Then I''ll just let him know right away..."


    Eiro slowly squatted down right next to the dealer, and then proceeded to whisper a small secret into his ear. The man ripped his eyes open as his body started to shake as a reflex, and the Demon pulled back up, standing upright again.


    "I-Is that true?"


    "Don''t know, already forgot what I even told you." The Demon pointed out, "But nevermind that. Your scent is disgusting." Without a second of hesitation inbetween his words and his actions, Eiro lifted his foot up and proceeded to kick the dealer in the face. He was quickly knocked unconscious as Eiro squatted down and grabbed the set of keys that the dealer had in his pockets.


    And then, he suddenly noticed the junky from before trying to reach out to him, or rather, the small bag in his hand, "Th-That''s m-mine... I need it... g-give it to me!" He eximed, but Eiro shook his head immediately.


    "No, you don''t need it. This stuff is literally turning you into something horrible. You will not only lose yourself, you will lose every little bit that you''ve got left over. And then, you will slowly gain monstrosity before turning into a true abomination that can''t ever be counted as a person again. You will rot away with incredible pain and will feel constant hunger and your desires will be strengthened to an extent where you feel like dying if you can''t follow through with them. If you think right now you''re in a bad ce, just wait for that time toe. You willugh about right now as the ''good old times''." Eiro exined, in a clear and blunt tone. And not only this junky heard him speak, but all the others that were here to get more of this drug were also staring at the cloaked, hooded figure with wondrous eyes as his voice, so filled with determination and power, echoed through their minds.


    "If any of you find any worth within your lives, you will stop this right now. And if you can''t... Well, I''ll try ande by the slums in about a week. I''ll help anyone that needs and wants it. Until then, try not to die." Eiro said bluntly before slowly turning around, still holding the small bag from before in his hand. He was following the thin thread from the Dealer while rk followed Eiro, and soon asked the Demon a question.


    "...Why''d you offer help to those guys? I don''t think they really deserve it. I mean... just look at''em." rk pointed out with his hands pushed into his pockets, and Eiro slowly started to smirk underneath his mask, "Sorry, I forgot." He admitted. Truthfully, he still knew a little bit about why he did what he did just now, but he simply didn''t want to tell rk. Although, just after thinking this, Eiro did forget teh rest of what just happened. Luckily, he wrote a bit of it down.


    "Well, let''s just keep following this thread." The Demon pointed out bluntly as he continued to walk along this rather narrow, annoyingly busy path through the ck market. There were a few people following him because of what just happened, obviously, but they shouldn''t be too hard to deal with.


    "Could you exin to me what exactly we''re doing now?" With a deep stare directed at Eiro, rk inquired, and the Demon himself just turned his head around.


    "Finding the guy that contracted that Smander that''s used to make this stuff."


    "..." rk silently looked at the bag that Eiro was holding up, "How is a Smander supposed to help with that? Boil the liquids they use to make it?"


    "Hm? Oh, no, he''s burning the bones of people to a crisp until they turn into powder, before that''s then mixed in with whatever shit they''re doing to make this drug."


    "...What?" The escort replied in confusion, "What do you mean? How do you know that?"


    "Because I know the smell of the ashes of people, of course? What a silly question, erm..."


    "...rk..."


    "Right, rk. Why are you here again?" The Demon asked as he looked down at his notebook, "Nevermind, here it is. Well, anyway, we''ll be there soon."


    With a light grumble and a nervous expression, rk continued to follow Eiro through the ck market without any idea where they would end up. Although, he did figure that it wouldn''t really be an especially great ce to be, especially considering the way that Eiro was acting toward literally everyone right now. He wasn''t being especially subtle in any way. Rather, it was like he was getting more annoying by the minute.


    "Just don''t get me killed, you hear?"


    "I''ll try." Eiro said without hesitation, and then suddenly stopped walking as he turned to his right, directly looking at a rather unassuming wooden door set into the rock wall of this cave underneath the slums.


    "He''s in here, huh?" Eiro thought for a few more moments, before he slowly lifted his leg in front of the door.. And with a swift motion, he kicked down onto it. Or at least he tried, it if weren''t for rk, who quickly tried to pull him away, "What the fuck do you think you''re doing?!"

 Chapter 272 - Gasping For Air

    Eiro turned his way toward his escort with a confused expression, "Well, I just want to get in there. How else do you think we do that?"


    With a deep groan, rk held his hand up to his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he pushed Eiro to the side. And without another word, he knocked on the wooden door. A few momentster, it opened up and someone came to the front.


    "What''d''ya want?" The man that ''greeted'' them asked in an annoyed tone, and rk pulled a bundle of gold coins out of his bag and showed it to the man, "We''re here for a business deal. What else do you think?"


    "Hm... Aye,e in." With a light smile that appeared the moment he saw the light sparkle of the gold coins, the man stepped to the side and let rk and Eiro inside, "Keep goin'' till the end of the hallway. Someone''s gonna ask you why yer there, so just tell ''im then."


    "Thanks." rk pulled another separate gold coin out of his bag and threw it toward the man, who epted it with a grin, "No problemo."


    And so, rk and Eiro walked through the simple, carved-out tunnel. rk turned his head toward Eiro, "This is how you deal with something like this. It''s far less troublesome, right?"


    "Huh? Oh, not really. I could have just kicked the door down and killed the guy in one fell swoop. We probably would be at the end of the tunnel by now." The Demon pointed out bluntly, "That, and we wouldn''t have wasted a gold coin."


    "Says the guy that gave a random junky a full bundle of small gold coins."


    "I did?" Eiro asked surprised, "Doesn''t sound like me."


    "Really? To me, it soundspletely like you." rk groaned as he kept leading the way. He now understood why exactly Solomon wanted an escort for Eiro. Otherwise, he would have already been killed by now, most likely.


    And just as he was thinking that, they reached the end of the tunnel and found themselves in a ratherrge room. This was basically just like a hideout, with numerous members of some kind of gang, the one that was producing this drug in the first palce, sitting around here. But instead of looking at any of the members, Eiro''s eyes were focused on a door in the back. The glowing threads were leading him that way, after all.


    There were a few other people around here that had simr threads like that, but most of the people that were here were ''free'' instead of being ves.


    And just a few momentster, a woman came up to them. She had pure white hair and red irises. Her skin was nearly as white as her hair. The woman looked at Eiro and rk with a suspicious frown, "So? What''re you here for?" She asked with her arms crossed and deep stare on her face, and rk quickly started to speak, "We''re just here for a big deal with you guys. We have money, and would like to work as external suppliers in another town. There any way we can meet the boss of this ce?"


    "...How much money we talki-" The woman said with an interested expression on her face. But before she could finish her sentence, her head blew up in numerous pieces that sttered around all over the floor, some of the other gang members, as well as rk''s face.


    The escort took a step back in shock as he turned toward the Demon. But he already knew what he was about to be asked. Until now, Eiro always had a rather neutral look on his face and was speaking in a rather monotone, blunt manner.


    But now, it seemed like he was actually rather... angry. It came unexpected to the escort, so much so that even he had to take a step back. But then, Eiro took a deep breath and rk was able to rx some.


    "Sorry, I forgot that was a thing." The Demon pointed out, apologizing for the effects of <The Devil>''s mark that he managed to interrupt before they turned into a full-fledged status-change, "But well, let me put it blunt. I only wrote down all the memories I had of it before, so I can''t say that Ipletely remember... but there are bits and pieces that were still left in my head. So I''m sure of it. Plenty of people in this ce have the Taboo skill. I don''t know how they have such control over themselves, but I am rather curious about it."


    "T-Taboo?!" rk eximed in confusion, "How can you-"


    The moment that this whole situation was noticed by others, which actually took surprisingly long, everyone within thisrge space jumped up, ready to fight off the intruders.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro turned around toward rk, "Don''t worry, I can deal with this myself." Eiro admitted. He held his hand forward and created a magic circle in the air, a ratherplex one at that. He concentrated on every aspect of it as much as he could, and watched as it was created bit by bit within just a few moments.


    "Luckily, I have this little grimoire of mine~." With a satisfied expression, Eiro squeezed the book he was holding in his left hand tightly. While he had still been able to remember this stuff, Eiro wrote down all the information that he needed for spellcasting and magic-circle creation in this notebook, together with a few examples of spells that Eiro personally thought to be rather useful in different situations.


    Of course, right now, the most useful spell would have been abination of the spells ''Solidify Shadow'' and ''Manipte Shadow'', through which Eiro could do numerous things via his enemies'' own shadows.


    He could turn their shadows into ropes to the them down, spikes to pierce their hearts, or simply small bumpbs on the ground that they would trip over and end up being inconvenienced. But sadly, Eiro''s shadow magic wasn''t powerful enough for that yet. Instead, he had to do something simr using other elements of his.


    He turned the rocky ground uneven or turned parts of it into small spikes so that the enemies couldn''t walk around well. Eiro manipted the water in everyone''s drinks and used them to sh at them. And of course, after shing at them, he tried to freeze the liquids that were now covering them, if they weren''t too injured to fight already anyway, to further stop them from moving around.


    Of course, all these things were rather small actions, and nothing that could help Eiro finish the fight just like that, but at the very least they were helpful for the Demon.


    A few people fell to the ground, some even died, and a notification appeared in front of Eiro.


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have 100 unused stat points avable]


    For now, Eiro ignored this. He didn''t really care about this. Not like he needed these extra stat points right now, so it was better to save them for when he knew how to use them properly. Eiro ran his fingers through his notification before continuing to think of a good n of how he was supposed to kill everyone here.


    "Oh, how dumb of me. I can just do this." Immediately, Eiro pushed his foot into the ground with a loud m as cracks appeared all around him. Cracks that travelled through the ground and through the walls, and caused small rocks to drop off of those walls.


    And soon, even from the ceiling, small rocks started to drop off. But every time, those rocks became bigger and bigger, until some of them dropped onto the heads of the myriad of enemies in front of Eiro. A handful were killed, once more, but Eiro soon noticed that the Escort was staring at him intensely, "Alright, I realize that you''re powerful, but stop with this! Deal with this some other way, but if you keep doing this, you will cause a cave-in and we''ll all die, you dumbass!" rk eximed angrily, and Eiro slowly looked up at the ceiling, "Right. Forgot we were under the town."


    "...That''s not the problem. We''ll be crushed."


    "You mean that ''you'' will be crushed. I have earth magic, I''ll be fine."


    "Why are you like this?" rk asked. During their conversation, nobody made the active choice to just stand there and let these two people speak like that, and they started to run toward rk and the cloaked demon next to him.


    Eiro raised his hand and prepared for another spell, but before he could, rk pushed his hand underneath his own cloak and then rapidly pulled it back out. Eiro could see what was happening, but nobody else was able to, probably. rk pulled out a number of thin but long metallic needles and proceeded to throw them straight at the attackers.


    They pierced the center of their foreheads, and the people just fell straight onto their face after dying, considering they just had their brains pierced. It seemed like something else was happening as well, but Eiro couldn''t tell what exactly it was. Maybe rk filled the needles with mana and had it expelled when it hit the brain to really disrupt everything? After all, it didn''t seem like all the needles really pierced all the way through everyone''s skull, but even the big, tough guys fell to the ground just the same as all the others that were hit.


    It was an interesting way to fight for sure, but Eiro didn''t have much time to think about this as he continued casting his spells. But right as he was casting, he nced at his open book and read something else that woulde in useful.


    "Ah... Sorry, erm... rk, right? I forgot that I had a better way to do this. Step back into the tunnel for a bit and hold some cloth in front of your face, alright?" Eiro inquired. rk was a bit nervous, but he did as he was told, quickly pulling his cloak in front of his mouth and nose like he was being instructed to.


    Immediately, Eiro pulled out a certain small bottle out of his satchel and then started to cast a ratherplex spell. The moment it was activated, with a sudden gust, all the air in the room was pulled toward the center of the magic circle. Some pieces of paper and even some bags were slightly pulled toward him for a moment, as everyone suddenly stopped and tried to gasp for air while a small ball of dust twirled around above Eiro''s hand.


    He pulled all the air in the room toward him just now. But not only that, Eiro was trying something else as well, and quickly poured the bottle of paralysis poison into the ball of wind, turning it into a gas that mixed in well with thepressed air.


    And then, without a moment''s hesitation, Eiro pushed the mixture of air and paralysis gas back into the room. Everyone, as they had suddenly lost air without knowing about it, waspletely unprepared for this event and reflexively gasped for air to recover properly. But with that, they breathed in the paralysis gas. And so, everyone but five people fell to the ground in one fell swoop.. The only ones left standing where Eiro, rk, and three enemies that had remembered to keep holding their breath for as long as possible.

 Chapter 273 - The Perfect Body

    "Oh, what a surprise. Three of you weren''tplete idiots." Eiro said with a genuinely interested tone in his voice, "But well, that matters quite little. It should still seep into your skin rather soon. You should already feel a tingling all over the ce."


    The three people in front of Eiro were all people that had been enved by the boss of this ce. It seemed like either the boss was only able to givemands like that to three people at once, or these three were especially important to the boss somehow.


    Either way, it mattered quite little as Eiro slowly started to step forward. He pulled the dagger that he had ced onto the sheath by his hip, as he had one in his treasury and had to keep the second one, the one with the hollow core that Eiro could fill with water or poison if he wanted to, and then quickly ran forward toward the first of the three people that were still standing.


    Eiro immediately slid over the ground and sliced the dagger over the side of the first guy''s body, before stabbing it into the abdomen of the second. The third was trying his best to swing at Eiro, but he quickly had the handle of Eiro''s dagger smashed against his sr plexus. His body cramped up as he tried to gasp for air, but of course wasn''t able to. Well, it was better this way, because otherwise he would have already breathed in the paralysis poison. But it didn''t matter, since his mouth still opened, so Eiro quickly controlled the poison that he mixed with the air and pushed it into the cuts of the first two people while also pushing it into the open mouth of thest guy.


    The three of them quickly fell to the ground, and Eiro soon removed all of the poison from the air before pushing it back into the ss bottle that he took it from in the first ce. And as Eiro ced the bottle back into his satchel, he turned around and looked straight at his escort.


    "Are youing?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, although it was hidden underneath his mask, and before turning away again and stepping over one of the numerous dead bodies in this room.


    Somewhat nervously, rk followed him as he was unsure what exactly just happened here, "Are they... all dead?"


    "Nope. It was paralysis poison, not regr poison. Well... a couple of them died from an overdose of it, but most of them survived." Eiro pointed out as he continued through thisrge room to get to the other side, trying to reach the door that all the glowing threads within this room were connected to.


    "Ah, and don''t breath too heavily. I couldn''t pull out every bit of the poison." The Demon exined to rk as he ced his hand onto the doorhandle in front of him.


    "...How do you have magic like this, but at the same time can move like... that?" With a confused expression, after watching everything that just happened with wide open eyes, rk tried to figure out who he was actually escorting right now. And Eiro slowly turned around toward him with a smile, "Let''s not talk about that. You''ll probably see it soon enough anyway."


    And without hesitation, Eiro tried to pull the door open, although it seemed to have been locked. With a deep sigh, Eiro just pressed his foot onto the lock of the door and with a strong press caused the locks to bend and simply shatter apart as the door mmed open.


    And beyond thisrge door, Eiro could see something quite interesting. Interesting and rather infuriating at the same time. Beyond here was something that Eiro had never seen before in this capacity. Sure, he had been near the ''nest'' of some Naiads before, but he hadn''t seen it with his very own eyes. The center of the ce that spirits inhabited were supposed to be incredible spaces, spaces that were directly connected to the chaotic elemental nes that were omnipresent, simply offset a slight bit.


    These ces were supposed to be like the entrance-ces toward those nes that were opened up by mixing with the spirit realm. Of course, not every ce where spirits lived you could find something like this, but wherever you could find something like this you would end up finding spirits.


    And right here, it was a ming hot circr field, with a 100 meter radius with heat that distorted the air above it. mes were spiking up from the molten, magma ground. And inside of there, Eiro could see dozens over dozens of Smanders, mature Fire Spirits, as well as Vulcani, their immature version, just floating around.


    The whole area was encased in some sort of ss capsule with numerous glowing arcane runes carved onto them. This screamed just one thing. The organization.


    Eiro slowly turned his head toward the ce where all of the different glowing threads in the air were gathering. To the side of therge ss sphere encasing this ''spirit gateway'', a group of people was surrounding a single man. The one that Eiro was looking for.


    "Well, well, well. Look at what we have here. Two guys that think they are just so importa-"


    "Cut the crap, fatass, and tell me how the fuck you can make it that people can keep their sanity despite having the Taboo skill. Once you do, I''ll rip your head off quickly so that you don''t have to suffer too much, take over this ce, and protect those spirits that are in there." Eiro said bluntly, and the man in the center of the crowd, a heavily overweight man wearing a fine suit with disgustingly oily ck hair.


    "Hah, you think you can do that to me?! Well, who do you think you are?!" The man yelled out, and Eiro slowly slid his hand over to the side before a metallic tag appeared dangling inbetween his fingers.


    "A member of the same organization a you are, Mister S." The Demon said bluntly, and the man opened his eyes wide, "Oh! Oh, interesting! But it seems like you''re not even a letter... and you think you can beat me? How ridiculous!"


    With a deep sigh, Eiro slowly put the tag away again as the fat man continued talking. It seemed like he suddenly grew rather confident and pushed his way out of the group that was surrounding him, "No need to worry. For a weakling like this, I don''t even need you meat-shields to help me out." With a big, broad grin that revealed his yellow teeth, the fat man stepped forward, basically dragging his feet over the ground.


    Sure, Eiro could tell that he was pretty strong, but... He wasn''t insanely strong, "I guess ''strength in numbers'' is also a thing, huh?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself as he kept looking around the room, "Pretty nice ce you''ve got here. All that drug-money is treating you well, huh?"


    " ''Well'' is a slight understatement, dear intruder. It is treating me like a king. The sort of king that I deserve to be after I overthrow this country and take over that useless bastard Skyhart''s throne."


    In reaction to hearing the man speak like that about Solomon, rk was gettng quite riled up. His heart-rate was speeding up and he started grinding his teeth while pressing his hand into a fist. But that didn''t matter. Because Eiro felt quite simr, and that meant that it was already toote for the man.


    Eiro pressed his foot into the ground and used the holding he got on it to push forward at an incredible speed. The Demon grabbed the man by the wrist and twisted it around behind his back, twisting it around until he nearly broke it.


    "I''m going to ask again, how do you keep your sanity despite having the Taboo skill? In the end, this is just for a bit of convenience, I don''t really care too much. I can find it out some other way if I wanted to. Shit, I don''t know why I even want to know in the first ce. So I''ll give you the chance to-" Just as Eiro was speaking, he noticed something weird going on with the man whose arm he was grasping. His bones were turning soft, and his muscles stretched out in an unnatural way.


    The man that Eiro was holding onto, the Letter S of the Organization, was slowly turning his own body into something different, although Eiro didn''t particrly know why. And before Eiro knew it, theplete arm of the man was stretching out in length as he twisted his body around and tried to hit Eiro with his fist.


    Of course he wasn''t able to, considering that Eiro was able to predict everything that he was about to do. But that wasn''t Eiro''s focus right now, really. Instead, it was the fact that this man was able to change the very fundamental way that his own body worked just like that. It was interesting, and Eiro''s curiosity was nearly taking over. And that was when the man started tough loudly, "Hahaha, you are surprised, are you not?! About my absolutely perfect body! I have full control over it, unlike anyone else in this world!"


    "Really, now?" Eiro asked in a curious tone, and the man nodded his head as he swung his arm toward Eiro, "Of course!" With a loud yell, he swung it forward but Eiro simply jumped up with his dagger in hand, ready to sh through the incredibly soft flesh of this man.


    But just as he did so, he noticed the man''s body change once more. Instead of feeling his dagger slice through the man''s skin, he felt incredible resistance from it as a loud ''ng'' sounded out. Eiro quickly noticed what exactly happened.


    The man changed the way his body worked once more. Instead of being soft and stretchy, the man''s body was now hard and metallic. And the change happened basically instantly. It seemed like something that would be rather hard to deal with.


    Eiro settled back down and looked at the man in front of him, "You''re pretty interesting... How do you do that? What kind of magic is that? It''s not infusion, right?"


    "As I said, I simply have full control over my body. It''s as simple as that."


    "Aha..." Eiro replied quietly as he took a look around the room to figure out if there was something here that could give him a clue about this. And just a few momentster, Eiro came to a final conclusion.


    "It doesn''t actually matter, since you''ll be dead in a few minutes anyway."

 Chapter 274 - Melting

    Eiro looked at the man standing in front of him, trying to figure out what he was about to do. And then, the fat man just started tough loudly, "Hahaha, you think you can kill me?! Don''t be ridiculous!"


    With that, the man started to run forward toward Eiro. He slowly twisted his body around and slid over the floor as he prepared to hit Eiro with his open palm. His body right now was waving and shaking around, so he was probably trying to divert the force that his whole body was creating toward a single point that he could use to inflict a particrlyrge amount of damage.


    However, Eiro very easily stepped to the side and dodged the iing attack, trying to cut right into the man''s arm. But once more, before Eiro''s de managed to touch the man''s skin, it had been turned metallic.


    But somehow, while this was the case, these metallic areas were still waving around like normal, and the man turned his palm toward Eiro at a speed that the Demon didn''t expect this person to have. The man pressed his palm onto the Demon''s side, and Eiro was soon damaged and pushed away quite a distance.


    "Oh? How conceited... Naming their child ''Eiro'' while you are a peasant without even ast name. Disgusting." The man said with an expression that fit in perfectly with what he was saying, one that was twisted in disgust, "I''m going to enjoy killing you even more now."


    But while he was speaking, Eiro just held the side of his body and rubbed over it for a moment. Sure, it hurt, and it damaged him a bit but even then... "That was a super weak attack, wasn''t it?" Eiro pointed out. The fat man stared at him with a deep re as he started tough, "Haha, keep pretending! I know that I caused a lot of damage to you! More than 5000 Health being removed from you is not ''weak''! That must have been a good chunk of your total health!"


    "Huh?" Eiro replied bluntly as he started to think about what this man was saying, "Is it normal to have that little health... I have more than twenty times that."


    Eiro started thinking about what exactly this man was talking about, before realizing something important, "A right, right, Monsters usually have much more health than people."


    After Eiro bluntly said this within this room filled with people, most of which wanted to kill him, everyone slightly froze up, "What do Monsters have to do with this?" The fat man asked with a re, "Don''t tell me you somehow essed the artificial health-increase the organization is experimenting on! That''s unfair, I-"


    "They''re doing something like that? Interesting... I should remember that. But anyway, you''re a bit stronger than I imagined, and it doesn''t matter at this point anymore either. rk,e over here for a moment." The Demon eximed as he waved over his escort while pulling the satchel off of his body and handing it to the man together with the book that Eiro was still holding the whole time.


    "Hold these for me. Ah, and keep the book open at all times on thetest page so that I can recall certain things if I need to. Thanks." Eiro said bluntly as he pulled off his hood, revealing a shadowy mass right above his head that slowly disappeared and turned into colorful horns that were twisting around this figure as if they were a crown, before the Demon pulled the full cloak off, having tworge wings sprout out from his back.


    "This is always so ufortable." Eiro pointed out as he put the cloak away in his treasury while slowly taking off his mask. rk, understandably, was probably the most shocked right now. After all, why would the King of this country ask him to escort a demon like this on a mission to gain something that would only make him stronger than he obviously already was?


    But that didn''t mean that the fat man, the Letter S, was any less surprised. He took a step back in confusion as he stared at Eiro, but the Demon didn''t really care. He quickly pushed his shoes off his feet so that he could properly move around while fighting and pulled up his sleeves while his tail slowly unwrapped itself from around his hip, slowly waving around from left to right behind him.


    "This is much better." Eiro said bluntly. Because of the Knight of Pentacles, to an extent it was like his perception was increased manifold, even if it really wasn''t. He just gained a new depth to his senses that made everything feel rather overwhelming to an extent, and that even meant the clothes on his body or the shadow magic he was infusing himself with to hide his true form.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he slowly slid his foot over the ground, momentarily ncing at the page of the book rk was holding open for him. It was a page filled with spells that Eiro figured to be the most important for this fight in particr.


    Quickly, the Demon mmed his foot into the ground perfectly vertically, using earth magic to crack it up and slingrge rocks upward, that Eiro immediately shot right toward his opponent by kicking them directly toward him.


    And then there was thest of the rocks, instead of shooting it toward the man, Eiro jumped in the air and twisted his body around sideways and spiraled around, and when he kicked his foot into the rock, he immediately infused it into his body.


    His foot took on quite a lot of weight and Eiro used that to crack the ground up even more when he pushed it inside. With therge rocks that were now flung into the air, Eiro infused the rest of his body. And the moment that his full body was infused, he took it a step further. With a deep breath, Eiro got rid of the actual rock-like texture of his skin and flesh, but moved on to a second-step infusion that allowed Eiro a lot more mobility while still increasing his defense, especially once hebined it with his ''rock skin'' ability. On top of that, it increased the weight of his attacks, which seemed especailly important when it came to this sort of opponent.


    Eiro took a slow step forward toward his opponent, who seemed a little more hesitant now that he saw what Eiro was in reality. But in the end, the man was able to ovee that very quickly and just continued to fight Eiro nheless. It seemed like he was even more hyped up now whenparing him to before.


    The man seemed to attempt the same thing from before, trying to create a focus-point at the center of his palm for more power while the waves from his body poured toward that center-point. It was a technique that Eiro himself used as well when infusing himself with water, but he didn''t really have ess to that much water right here.


    As Eiro''s opponent swung his hand forward, Eiro pushed his dagger forward and kicked off the ground to really put all of his weight behind this. The moment that all the force focused on the man''s palm, Eiro pressed the dagger onto that exact point.


    The Demon could feel the dagger nearly slip out of his hands due to the force, but Eiro tightened his grip instead and managed to prevail. Due to the two opposing forces hitting each other, the result was that the brunt of the force was directed at the one whose attack was weaker. And in this case, this was Eiro''s opponent.


    So now, with the advantage that Eiro had, the Demon pushed the dagger further onto the man''s palm and tried to swing his body around so that he could grip onto his arm with his legs. Now, with all the force in his body and his increased strength due to his infusion as well as the disruption of the man''s attack, Eiro was finally able to pierce the man''s palm. And as he was wrapped around his arm, he of course could keep pushing it in even if the man tried to pull his arm back.


    Seeing his chance, Eiro cooled down the dagger in his hand to open up the holes inside of it, and then controlled the liquid he filled into it to pour right into the wound. It was a bit of a mixture of the different poisons that Eiro had gathered over time, and the moment that it mixed with the man''s blood, Eiro noticed that it took effect to an extent.


    The man''s arm softened up incredibly and started drooping down, stretching out as if the man''s body was slowly melting.


    With a satisfied expression, Eiro jumped away from the man and then swung the dagger in his hand around, controlling the poison-mixture to cast a spell using it. Eiro had managed to confirm that the man''s skin had been weakened considerably around the areas affected by the poison, but the man was trying to control his own body as well as possible to keep all of it only in his arm.


    So, Eiro figured he should make sure that this wasn''t possible. The Demon finished the magic circle in the air, and it immediately took the poison that was used to create it and turned it into a single, thin thread that shot forward toward the man and pierced his weakened skin. Once inside, it started slithering through his body as if it was a snake, and soon reached the man''s heart.


    "Wh-What, but h-how?!" He eximed, and Eiro sighed deeply as he stopped his infusion with the rocks that soon dropped to the ground around him. The demon looked at the man in front of him whose body was slowly falling apart as if melting. Of course, this wasn''t inherently an effect of the poison, it was just something that happened due to this man''s rather unique physicality.


    Seeing that their boss was no longer capable of fighting, rather obviously, all the others tried to fight Eiro. But they didn''t stand a chance. They were just small fries, so Eiro was able to quickly figure out the best pattern in which to kill them.


    He slid over the ground and stabbed their throats, hearts, or foreheads, and within half a minute, there were only three living beings within this room, excluding all the spirits of course.


    Eiro, rk, and the fat man who was somehow still clinging onto life.


    To Eiro''s surprise, the man was slowly crawling over toward the ss dome that was keeping all the spirits in, and Eiro figured he wanted to open it up for some reason.. And so, the Demon figured he should let him do it instead of having to find the way on his own.

 Chapter 275 - Unexpected Encounter With A King

    Eiro watched as the man in front of him slowly approached the ss at the side of the room. He was going to let him open it for now. For one, he was rather curious what he was nning on doing, considering that there was something rather weird going on with all of the spirits inside there.


    But since he didn''t know it, rk rushed up to the Demon and tried to pull on his shoulder to turn him around, "What are you doing? You can''t just let someone do whatever they want in a situation like that!"


    The Demon slowly turned his head around and red at his escort, "If you don''t like it, go ahead and kill him yourself." With his arms crossed, Eiro just turned back toward the man who was dragging his body that was basically slowly melting over the ground.


    He pulled his arm forward and stretched his hand out toward the ss. The moment that he touched the surface, it started to glow before arge circr opening appeared on the ss. And the moment that this happened, something that Eiro hadn''t seen before now was revealed to him.


    New threads appeared between the man and arge number of the Vulcani inside of the area that had been encapsuled like that. And of course, these weren''t threads that signified contracts, as you were only able to form a contract with a single spirit per element, but instead it was the same kind of magical thread that Eiro had seen between the man and his ves.


    Eiro squinted his eyes as he tried to figure out the situation, and soon managed to spot some glowing runes ced onto the chest of a Vulcanus. They had a cold air to them, somehow, which really opposed the mes rather intensely.


    "Ah... I got it... Elemental Spirits don''t have banes, but they still have weaknesses. And Smanders and especially Vulcani are especially weak against the Ice Element..."


    "No, isn''t the Ice Element weak against Fire, and not the other way around?"


    "They''re weak against each other." Eiro replied to rk bluntly, "But this guy... That Organization, rather... They created a specially altered version of ve crests that can be used against spirits."


    Eiro started to grind his teeth together as a deep growl was being formed within his throat, "Oh, how I''m gonna enjoy killing him." The Demon slowly took a step forward toward his enemy as the enved Vulcani streamed out of the ce they had been imprisoned in until now. But Eiro managed to quickly make them back away by just pushing the air in front of them to far below zero.


    Sure, Vulcani were easy to influence, and they were probably the only ones that you could enve like this, but on the other hand they were submissive to their instincts. And of course, their instincts still said to back away from things that could hurt them, which in this case was the cold of Eiro''s Ice Magic.


    Their bodies that basically just looked like solid mes with an incredibly raw humanoid form immediately backed away and slightly weakened, their mes even growing a bit darker.


    The Demon stepped up in front of the Letter of the Organization. He extended his palm toward the man who was staring up at Eiro in fear. And then, Eiro was thrown through the room at such force that the rock-wall formed cracks and the Demon lost more than half of his total health.


    His clothes were scorched away at the side of his body. It happened so quickly that Eiro wasn''t even able to react to what just happened to him. But the moment that he gathered his thoughts, Eiro peeled himself off the wall and stared at what was standing there, still only havinge into existence halfway.


    It was a male figure that was even taller than Eiro was, even if not by much. He had charcoal skin and ming hair atop his head that was waving back and forth. His upper body waspletely exposed and showed a rather muscr form, while the lower half of his body was covered in a pair of loose red pants.


    This figure''s arms were covered in cracks that mes basically poured out of as he stood there, having just pushed Eiro out of the way before he managed to kill the man in front of him.


    And to the Demon''s surprise... There was a thread connecting him to the fat, melting man on the ground. It was neither a thread of a contract nor that of envement, but something... inbetween. Something weak. Something that could snap at any moment, and looked as if it was just about to.


    "Oi... What was that for?" Eiro asked, but the man, this special spirit, stared back at the Demon and spoke with a pained voice, "I apologize... Even though I am aware of your connection to my dearest friend, I have little choice but to do this."


    "Hm... I wonder, how did a weakling like that manage to enve the Smander King?" The Demon inquired as he held the side of his body, but the spirit just shook his head, "I am not enved. This is nothing but a temporary contract. Or else, all these children of mine are doomed to suffer. The life of a single Demon is a lesser sacrifice than thousands of my own kind."


    "You know... If I kill him, all those envement things are going to disappear. You can just... let it happen?" Eiro suggested to the Spirit King in front of him, but he just red back, "Usually, not this time. If you kill him, they will all die under immense suffering. I assure you of this."


    Slowly, the Smander King slid his foot over the ground, creating arge wave of mes that shot toward the Demon at an incredible speed. And on top of that, the heat was something that Eiro wasn''t used to either. The ground itself was immediately melting just from touching them for a moment.


    Even with his physicality, Eiro would immediately die when hit by this. As quickly as he could, Eiro infused his body with Air Magic and pushed himself out of the way. But even then, the Demon''s foot was slightly scorched, rather painfully so.


    The Demon ground his teeth together as he tried to understand the situation. He had to get a good grasp on this. Eiro''s mind was racing, and he was aware that he had already forgotten his whole reason for even being here.


    "I need to get the book..." Eiro muttered to himself as he turned his head into the direction of rk, who was pressing his own hands against his stomach after keeling over onto the ground. Right next to him, Eiro could see his notebook going up in mes. The notebook in which Eiro had gathered a lot of his memories so that he could cope with the fact he was losing them all.


    The pieces of paper were slowly rising into the air due to the heat of the air as they were burning up, and the Demon slowly turned his head toward the Smander King.


    Eiro didn''t even care about the notification in front of him, and just waved it away while anger was building up inside of him. However, just as he did, he noticed the tiniest bit of resistance. He re-discovered that he was able to interact with things like this.


    And this managed to pull him out of his anger for just a moment, a moment that he was able to use toe up with a tactic. As his concentration hit the peak of what he could imagine, it was like time had slowed down. The Smander King once more slid his foot over the ground and Eiro could see the mes sparking up again.


    But at the same time, Eiro could see lights appear all around him. A phantom-like copy of the space around him appeared in his mind, and he went through exactly the one possible way that he would be able to pull this off.


    Once more, Eiro started to see threads, but different ones to those he had already been seeing. These connected outward from him, numerous threads that were going to pull him into the direction that he had to go.


    As if he had lost all control over his body, the Demon kicked off the ground and pped his wings as he controlled the air around him to cause his body to spiral at a quick speed. At the same time, his tail touched one of the ming pieces of paper floating through the air, and Eiro infused his body with them, increasing their volume immediately until his whole body had turned into mes. The same sorts of mes currently shot toward him.


    Pure mes, stronger and hotter than Eiro had ever been able to produce. He was taking damage just from infusing himself with them. But that didn''t matter for now. Eiro had to use fire to fight fire. The Demon kept spiraling around, using his wings like a shield from the wave of mes flowing toward him.


    And sure, they pushed him back a bit and hurt like a bitch, but Eiro was able to push through this wave. The moment that he got through, Eiro opened his wings. He pushed his feet and hands into the ground, kicking forward as if prowling like a wild animal. Eiro flew forward toward the Smander King, who was quite obviously going more than just easy on him.


    If he wanted to, he could have killed Eiro with that first attack. But it was like he knew what Eiro was going to try to do. When the Demon reached the Letter, the first thing he did was push his right, wooden hand toward a random thread in front of him.


    His hand had as much mana in it as Eiro could spare right now. Slowly, Eiro''s fingers ran through the thread, and he could see it slowly start to vibrate.


    "It works." Eiro whispered to himself, and at the same time, the Smander King seemed to have heard his voice. He grabbed the Demon by his neck and stopped his movement immediately, stopping his movement.


    A cold shiver ran down the Demon''s neck as he felt incredible heat running through his body. But then, he understood what was going on.


    The mes in his body had been focused for just a moment and became part of Eiro''s hand. He pulled it up as quickly as he could and once more ran his fingers through the thread. Instead of just shivering for a moment, the thread caught fire and burnt up.


    The special ve crest on the chest of one of the Vulcani disappeared together with the grip that the Smander King had on Eiro''s neck.


    Eiro nced at the Spirit King, noticing that his body was cramping up in immense pain. But that didn''t matter for now. Eiro pulled his own body around to move his hands through all the threads in front of him, and they all caught fire.


    The envement of the Vulcani had stopped.

 Chapter 276 - Freezing Air

    Eiro stood up straight and slowly turned his head toward the Smander King, "They''re free." The Demon said bluntly, and the King slowly stared back at him, still in pain but able to get himself together again.


    "Is that so? Then I guess there''s no need for me to uphold my side of the contract anymore." With a deep re, the Smander King walked up to the man that had practically forced him into submission by holding the Vulcani as hostages.


    He held his hand up and pointed his palm toward the man, but Eiro soon stepped in front of him, "What do you think you''re doing? This is my prey. I''m killing him." The Demon said bluntly. The Smander King''s ming hair seemed to spike up in response to hearing him speak to him like that.


    "This man has taken control over a gateway to the spirit realm, which he has been making use of to threaten and control me by enving my kin for over a year now. If anyone will kill that man, then it will be I."


    With a deep sigh, Eiro looked back at rk with a re. Eiro knew that it was important for him to kill this man, but he didn''t remember why anymore. He hoped that rk had been told about this in part.


    Seemingly understanding what the Demon was asking of him, rk rushed over to his side and kneeled down in front of the Smander King, while his face was still twisted in pain due to the burn-wounds on his hands, "E-Excuse me if I''m speaking out of turn, but if I may exin for him... He''s a bit of an idiot..."


    "Oh? Are you calling the child blessed by my fated friend an ''idiot''?" The King inquired with a stare, and rk turned his head toward Eiro in confusion, "I''m blessed by something called the... Lonely Naiad? When you say ''fated friend'' that means that she was the former queen then?"


    "You have been blessed by her without knowing?"


    "I''m a bit forgetful right now. But nevermind that. You... erm..." Eiro started and turned back toward rk, who sighed deeply, whispering to himself, "...I should just write my name on my forehead at this rate..."


    "That would be helpful, thanks." The Demon replied bluntly, and the escort grumbled quietly, "Either way, please let me exin. That man right there is part of an organization that has found its way deep into the underground of this country. That organization most likely supplied him with the means of doing this to your kin in the first ce. Eiro right here infiltrated that organization. As far as I was told, killing this man will help him get a higher standing there, so that he can more quickly obliterate it. As such, I think it will be to your benefit if you let Eiro kill this man."


    Eiro looked over at him and then nodded his head, "Yeah, what he said. That''s why we came here in the first ce."


    "No, we came here to find you a spirit to contract." rk sighed, and Eiro slowly raised his brows, "Really?"


    "Yes, really... These people have been seemingly using the Smanders and Vulcani here to add something to the drugs they have been producing, and Eiro noticed this through the scents of these substances." rk exined. The Smander King slowly turned his head toward the Demon. He crossed his arms as his muscles bulged up in annoyance.


    "Fine. I would prefer to kill him myself, but as long as he dies for his sins, I do not care who does it." The Smander King pointed out, "So just get it over wi-"


    However, just as the Smander King was speaking, Eiro noticed something change with the thread connecting him to the man that wasying on the ground, close to unconscious. It slowly became a chain instead of a simple thread, as if pulling the King toward the man. Of course, Eiro immediately tried to grasp at it to destroy it, but no matter what he did, he only managed to get it to shake a little bit. Nothing happened.


    The King keeled over and the mes covering his head were nearly extinguished. The man on the ground slowly pulled himself off the ground and jumped at the Smander King who was slowly being pulled back toward him as well.


    And as if the man''s body stopped being that of a human, it fell apart into a thick sludge and covered the Smander King all over.


    A process happened that seemed all too familiar to Eiro. It was something that was still briefly in his head until now. It was the kind of fusion that Eiro underwent when fusing with either of his two contracted spirits. Far more rudimentary and lower-quality, and so unstable that it seemed like this whole ce could be blown away any moment now, but nheless, it was a simr thing.


    "Hah... Hahaha..." A few momentster, different white runes appeared all over the Smander King''s body as he started tough loudly. Eiro immediately reacted and pulled rk away, quickly bringing him to a ce where he should be rtively safe.


    And just as he was done, the Smander King spoke with a voice that wasn''t fully his own anymore, but a mixture of his voice and that of the man, of the Letter S.


    "It''s working... It''s working! My former body was already amazing, but now, it is even better! I am the peak of existence now! I am truly the strongest now!" He eximed loudly, and gave off the sense that the Smander King had basicallypletely lost all control over his body.


    Without hesitation, the Smander King fused with that Letter S, or as Eiro called him in his mind ''King S'', jumped forward using the Smander King''s power. Eiro infused his body with air magic for extra speed as he jumped out of the way.


    "How bothersome..." Eiro muttered to himself. The Smander King was truly a strong being. It seemed like in this current King S form he didn''t have full control over his abilities, but that was to be expected. Although... It was still weird. How did he get this sort of ability in the first ce?


    How was it possible for that man to fuse with a spirit, a Spirit King at that. How could he do it? How did they figure it out? How was he keeping that transformation up like this?


    Numerous thoughts were crossing Eiro''s mind as he stood there and stared at the ceiling.


    "Ah... I''m so damn curious." The Demon muttered quietly, before he sensed the King S jump toward him again. It seemed like he was moving his body the same way that the man did while it was still fat like before, so Eiro was able to predict the movement surprisingly easily.


    King S pushed his foot into the ground and tried to let a certain force move through his body and focus on his palm. But instead of being a way to increase the impact of a punch, what happened instead was that a ray of mes shot forward toward Eiro.


    The Demon just didn''t care, though. It was easy to predict, and just as easy to dodge. The man''s physical abilities improved considerably, but since he took over the King''s mindpletely, his skill hit the bottom of the barrel.


    And so, the Demon was able to run by the side of the ray of mes. He slid over the ground for a moment and twisted his body around. Eiro raised his leg, he it toward King S'' face. King S reacted immediately and blocked the iing attack with his palm, grasping the Demon''s ankle.


    Eiro used this tight grip and jumped over King S'' body, rapdily cooling the air right above the mes atop his head so that he could try and extinguish them somehow. As it didn''t work, Eiro pped his wings and twisted his body around, and King S lost grip on Eiro''s ankle that he was trying to singe away with immense heat.


    It did hurt a bit, but it wasn''t that bad yet. Eiro pulled out the Dagger from his side, before he remembered something else important. It wasn''t directly rted to his other dagger, but a memory that let him figure out that he had another dagger right in his treasury. He looked into himself and soon found the weapon in him, before pulling it out of that space.


    And now, Eiro was nearly at his fullbat capacity. Of course, notpletely. The Demon ran forward and stopped rapidly, using his tail for extra bnce, and stabbed one of his daggers at King S. The huge figure simply reacted by pushing Eiro''s attack away and then tried to punch Eiro''s chest. Anticipating this, the Demon stabbed his other dagger down onto King S'' wrist. His skin was tough, but not as tough as it was before when ti was metallic like that.


    So, all Eiro had to do was push his knee onto the underside of King S'' wrist to help the force of the attack with his dagger.


    Just like that, he stabbed through the Spirit King''s arm, as his body was controlled by aplete dumbass.


    The blood that poured out of the wound actually seemed rather interesting, as if it was some form of concentrated fire magic. And a memory sparked into the Demon''s mind rather involuntarily.


    After a fight, he asked Nelli about Spirit Blood, and she told him about how there was no spirit that would ever let their blood be spilled like that. Even if they were injured, they would try their hardest to keep it within or around them at all times, since it held quite a lot of capabilities while a spirit was still alive.


    And so, since the blood hit the ground, it was obvious to Eiro that the current King S didn''t see the importance of Spirit Blood, and as such wasn''t controlling it. Trying to save as much of this blood as possible, Eiro had to use both Water and Fire Magic to move it around,pressing it into a small sphere as the Demon took a step back to observe this special liquid.


    And just as Eiro was staring at it, something else interesting happened. As if the Smander King was trying to finally fight back, he pulled away a bit and eximed something that would help him out quite a lot.


    "You have... been given a... gift from a Queen of Spirits... Use it already!" He eximed before the Letter S took over again. Immediately, Eiro''s mind started to race through the few memories he had left of spirits outside of Nelli and Gondos, and he soon figured out what he meant. Once more, Eiro looked within himself, and soon pulled out therge gemstone he was given by the Lady of Winter. Technically, she was also a Spirit Queen of sorts.


    And then, the Demon realized what he had to do. He encased the gemstone with the Smander King''s blood and pushed his mana into it as if to activate it. And all around the Demon''s hand, something sparked up.. Pale blue mes which were slowly being infused into his body, freezing the air around him.

 Chapter 277 - Freed

    Eiro suddenly felt these cold, freezing mes all over his body, deeply seeping into his very existence as he infused himself with them. He knew that he would forget this feeling quite soon, so he tried to savor it. Indulge in the feeling that this new thing gave him.


    With a deep breath, Eiro looked back at King S. He slowly moved his hand around and left a trail of mes in the middle of the air that stopped the impact from the mes that King S shot at him. Somehow, his mind was in a weird state right now.


    Whenever he was infused with mes or spent time inside of a space with a lot of heat, he would feel that his mind started racing. Eiro''s body itched to move. He simply had to do something in any way possible to get rid of the energy welling up inside of him.


    And whenever he was surrounded by freezing colds, he felt the opposite. Eiro felt lethargy ovee his body and mind, and it would take him a lot longer to finish his thoughts when this happened.


    But now, Eiro was in a state thatbined both of this. Eiro had full control over his thoughts, but his mind was able to race to whatever point he needed it to. To him, it felt like his body was heavy and hard to move, but the moment he tried, he did so with ease and he had an incredible level of control over himself. It trulybined the best aspects of both elements within Eiro right now.


    His movements lost all waste, and he reacted to anything that King S threw at him immediately. Even then, Eiro was still hit sometimes, but it was in areas where damage wasn''t that big a deal. In ces where it didn''t matter much in the slightest.


    King S pushed another ray of bright, incredibly hot mes toward Eiro. The Demon quickly pped his wings for just a moment and created a sphere of his freezing light blue mes around him that the regr fire was trying to break open.


    The moment that the mes let up, Eiro jumped out of the sphere of mes and attempted attacking the King S. Eiro slid over the ground and pushed his feet into the rocks underneath him, leaving a trail of blue mes behind that created light mist around them due to the immense cold mixing with the incredibly hot air from the Spirit Gateway.


    Eiro pushed his fist forward toward the overtaken King in front of him and let the energy flow through his body as if replicating water to some extent. And so, out of the Demon''s fist, a head-sized ball of pale blue mes shot toward the King S. He dodged easily and pushed his arm out toward Eiro for what seemed to be a simple punch in his face. It was simple, but if it hit, it would do an immense amount of damage anyway.


    And right as King S was twisting his torso to the left to speed up his right arm and get as much force behind his punch as possible, Eiro ducked out of the way and slipped his foot underneath King S'' right leg while burrowing his tail in the ground for more grip.


    Eiro immediately pulled King S'' foot upward with as much force as he could muster as he slid his hands onto the opponent''s moving arm. With the help of his tail, Eiro quickly managed to twist his body around and press his back against King S'' chest. The practically possessed Smander King''s body was forcing the right leg down as per the control of the Letter S.


    But the ground underneath him was already frozen with the help of Eiro''s frozen mes and a little bit of blood that he sacrificed from himself. Eiro pulled the leg he pushed King S'' up with back and instead ced it onto therge figure''s shin to kickly push it backward, using his own frozen blood to make the foot slip away and destroy his bnce.


    The moment that Eiro noticed this worked, he pushed the heavy body that his back was pressed onto up with the help of his wings and pulled King S'' arm to the front.


    The Smander King''s body mmed onto the ground with pale blue mes sticking onto it all over, before Eiro proceeded to do something else without a moment''s hesitation. He pushed his foot right into King S'' face with as much force as he could muster with his whole body.


    Blue mes were pushed out from underneath his soles right into King S'' face. He kicked down onto it again and again and again, trying to do as much damage as he possibly could. Eiro pushed as much of his mana into King S'' head as well with a few traces of this special magic Eiro was making use of, this fusion of Fire and Ice Magic. He intertwined the magic with the Smander King''s mana, which was basically just pure fire magic, and watched as his whole body tensed up in pain.


    Of course Eiro was trying to damage him, but for the most part, he just wanted to inflict as much pain onto King S'' to force the Letter S out of the Smander King again.


    It seemed to work to an extent, since the Smander King was able to take over his body for just a moment. A moment that he used to melt the rock ground around his hand and feet, before pushing them right into the hot magma that was created just there.


    Eiro immediately cooled the magma down, so that now the King''s body was basically trapped in the ground properly, literally fused into it. Eiro used earth magic to push more rock around the limbs and mound it up there, while pushing up right underneath a certain few ces around King S'' spine to make sure that he was unable to properly move.


    And the moment that this was done, Eiro stopped kicking onto the Smander King''s face, and moved into another spot. He slipped down onto his throat and pushed his mana and magic inside to try and torture the Letter S out of the King''s body. The Demon could see some kind of slime-like substance ooze out of King S'' mouth and the wounds that Eiro managed to inflict upon him so far. It was basically a recement of what King S would have otherwise bled.


    Of course Eiro assumed that this were the parts of that Letter S that happened to fuse with the Smander King. More and more, Eiro managed to practically torture the man out of the Spirit King as he seemed to get more and more angry outwardly.


    It seemed like Eiro wouldn''t need to ''extract'' much more of that slime out of the Smander King anymore, when suddenly, he noticed that something else happened. King S seemed to be heating his own body up immensely, to the extent where he actually nearly hurt Eiro. The Demon jumped backward a bit and watched as King S started melting the ground underneath him, and slowly pulled his body out of that magma.


    He pushed his body off the ground and stared at Eiro with a deep re and started to run toward him in what seemed to be a final effort. With his body still as hot as it was before, King S threw his fist at the Demon in front of him. This time, Eiro obviously couldn''t just throw him to the ground again due to the immense heat he gave off.


    So instead, he had to do something else. Eiro simply tried to keep dodging King S'' attacks for now. The Demon knew what happened when you fused with a spirit, and even if it might be different with a Spirit King, a few things must still count no matter what. Using magic, especially creating Fire out of nothing, should be something incredibly mana-draining for the Letter S within the Smander King''s body.


    As such, he simply had to wait out for a little while, and maybe do a little more damage here and there.


    He dodged the punch and slid to the side underneath King S'' arm, quickly punching the Smander King''s side with a quick jab.


    King S tried to elbow Eiro in the face, but Eiro leaned back and kicked onto the enemy''s leg to get himself away from him. While Eiro was flipping his body around, Eiro pushed this special Ice-me magic out of his stinger while running it over King S'' skin. As if he was injekting some form of venom, the Demon tried to damage King S as much as he could.


    But the moment after he did so, his stinger simply burnt up due to the heat given off by the Spirit King''s body. It was a painful experience, but it was luckily just a surface-level wound. Something that could heal rather easily after a bit of rest.


    Eiro pped his wings to turn his body around and immediately created a spiraling tower of pale blue mes that surrounded him, which he immediately pushed toward King S. Of course, he tried to fight back using regr mes, but someone else was also working together with Eiro again.


    The Smander King took the control over his arms and legs back and made sure that the Letter S couldn''t do anything, and instead just tried to ept the attack head-on.


    Just a few momentster, the Smander King''s body was covered in the pale blue, freezing mes, through which Eiro noticed a slime-like mass try and get out of the range of this attack. But the moment that it did, Eiro ran toward it and focused all of his mes right onto him. Slowly, the slime started to freeze up andpletely turned solid.


    With a deep breath, Eiro smashed his foot down onto the frozen mass and watched as a notification appeared in front of the Demon.


    <strong>[You have done lethal damage to Arthur Hermond Langester]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have 130 unused Stat Points avable] </strong>


    With a satisfied smile after seeing that the Letter S was now officially dead, the Demon turned his head over toward the Smander King, who was kneeling on the ground in pain.


    Eiro slowly stepped over toward him, extending his hand forward to help him up. The Smander King, with a light smirk on his face, epted the Demon''s help and soon stood back up onto two legs.


    "I thank you... for your help in this. Without you, we would most likely still be stuck under that man''s control. Anything you wish from me, as long as it is within my power, I will do it for you in return."


    Hearing the Smander King''s promise, the Demon raised his brows, "Really? Then form a contract with me."

 Chapter 278 - Blessing Of The Salamander King

    The Smander King looked back at Eiro with a deep stare after that unexpected request. After all, who would just blurt out that they wanted to form a contract with a Spirit King after the rare chance to actually be able to speak to them?


    rk, who had been watching everything while hiding himself in the shadows of the corner of the room, waspletely and utterly confused by what was currently going on. There were so many things happening that he wasn''t sure how he was supposed to react in the slightest.


    And then, something happened that surprised rk even more. A lot of Smanders were rather hot-headed beings, so most expected this to be the case with the Smander King as well. Especially since it was already known to be the case with the Smander Queen.


    However, in this case, the Smander King reacted incredibly calmly as he shook his head in response to Eiro''s request, "I apologize. I cannot form a contract with you, even if I would have dly done so when I was still a regr Spirit. But as King, I cannot simply leave behind my duties in order to fulfill the terms of such a contract."


    "...But didn''t you do just that because of a contract with this guy?" Eiro asked as he pointed at the pieces of ice on the ground, and the Smander King just looked back at the Demon with a bitter expression, "This case was a rather unfortunate one. I do not know how they were capable of such a thing in the first ce, but they transported a Spirit Gateway underneath this town and tried to take control of it. Hence, I came to investigate. When I did, I saw my kin being enved while these people were trying to figure out how to tap into the essences of the Spirit Realm to cause even more havoc. I was unable to stop them, as it would have meant killing my kin, and it would not have helped stop them from taking advantage of the gateway. In return for the promise that they would cease harming my kin and sapping the power of the gateway, this contract was formed out of necessity. It was one with terms that allowed me to break out in such a way, however." The Smander King exined to Eiro, who listened to him intensely.


    Although, it didn''t really matter, since he already basically forgot about this. At the very least it seemed like rk was trying to remember everything for Eiro while recovering the bits and pieces left over from the book with his scorched hands. He really took his job seriously. If Eiro was paying him in the first ce, he would give his escort an immense raise.


    But for now, while Eiro was able to get these thoughts together, he looked up at the Smander King''s face, "From now on, I will be the one that is supervising this space, including that gateway. You have my word that I will not let anything happen to it as long as I live." The Demon said with a clear tone, and the Smander King slowly raised his ming brows.


    "You would truly take that task onto yourself?"


    "Of course. Although, I don??t think I will be able to watch this ce constantly. I might be gone for extended periods of time." Eiro exined, and the Smander King just started to smile lightly, "Do not worry. My kin are not as weak as they might seem to you at the moment. It was only due to these special circumstances that something like this was able to happen in the first ce. But I think I know what I should give you instead of the contract you just asked for. It should be to your liking." The Smander King pointed out, and slowly ced his palm onto the Demon''s chest.


    Eiro felt a deep stinging right above his heart before it turned into a burning that spread throughout his body. But it wasn''t painful, it was rather pleasant actually. Empowering, nearly. And then, a notification appeared in front of Eiro''s eyes.


    [You have gained the <Blessing of the Smander King>]


    [Affinity with the Fire Element Increased]


    Eiro felt this power course through his body as he gained the blessing of this supreme Spirit standing right in front of him. With a smile on his face, the Demon nodded his head, "I never got the chance to tell this the former Naiad queen, so let me say it to you now. Thank you." The Demon slowly looked down at his chest where the mark of his Blessings seemed to focus. His torso was still mostly covered in the pale blue lines created by the <Blessing of Winter''s Lonely Naiad>, but now, in their center there were a few thing me-colored, so red, yellow and orange, lines intertwining themselves with the markings of Eiro''s other blessing.


    It was really only directly around the centerpoint of Eiro''s blessing. Most likely, it would take a little while for these lines to spread out, just like it was with Eiro''s other blessing.


    The Demon slowly turned his head over toward rk, telling him to remember exactly what just happened. He exined the exact events that just went down, in case rk hadn''t been able to properly follow along, before Eiro started to look up at the Smander King again.


    "Then excuse me now. There are other things we have to do now. Which would be to... To... Erm, you, escort, what is it that we came here for again?" The Demon inquired, and rk sighed deeply, "To find you a spirit to form a contract with."


    "Ah, so you did require a contract after all? Then please, follow along. In order to form the contract with the Spirit Realm to be the Guardian of one of its Gateways, you muste into its center with me. There, we can find a suitable Smander for you." The King exined bluntly. To Eiro, this seemed to make a lot of sense, although he didn''t know that he needed to create some sort of contract to actually be allowed to take care of the gateway.


    Eiro watched as the Smander King approached the broken-open part of the ss dome that was surrounding the Spirit Gateway. Eiro turned his head over toward his escort, "I will follow him for now. But I will be back soonter. Once Ie back, we will look for something that we can use to heal your hands." The Demon exined, and rk slowly nodded his head as he stared down at them, "...Sure. I nearly forgot..."


    "Hm? Ah, I injured you with my mes..?" The Smander King inquired with a regretful expression, and rk looked up at him with clear fear in his eyes, "I-It is alright, do not worry! I will be able to get them healed somehow!"


    "Nonsense. It is not alright, I should have been more careful in what I was doing. Please, give me your hands." The Smander King said in amanding tone as he extended his right hand toward rk, who reluctantly did as he was told. After all, what else was he supposed to do? Not do what this extremely powerful supreme creature told him to do?


    Soon after, the Smander King enveloped rk''s hands in his own. Eiro could feel that this Spirit was pushing out some form of heat out of his palms, although it of course wasn''t in the form of mes. And soon, he pulled his hands away and rk stared down at his own palms in disbelief.


    "Th-They are... They''re healed?" He asked with surprise, and the Smander King slowly nodded his head, "Of course they are. It would not do to let you suffer for my mistakes."


    Eiro stared at the Smander King as a sense of curiosity rose up in his chest that he couldn''t keep down, "How are you able to use healing magic with fire?"


    The Smander King turned his head toward him with a slightugh, "Oh dear me. I would have thought you knew already. No element has an innate capability for healing or destruction. Sure, it may be easier to produce these effects in certain elements to the point where it seems they have an innate connection to a certain side, but it is not so. The biggest factor are your emotions. Fire Magic on its base, chaotic level is strengthened through intensity and often-times anger. The effect of ''healing'' is something that requires serenity and level-headedness, however. It fits the water-element perfectly, so most of those capable of using Water Magic will be able to create healing-effects through it. But as you can see, even with the element seen as the most destructive of the basic four, it is possible to heal."


    Eiro stared at the Smander King intensely. This was somethingpletely new to him. Sure, he may have noticed that the use of certain types of magic affected his emotions to an extent, especially when he infused himself with them, but he didn''t realize that magic was affected by emotions to that extent yet. At the very least, it was nothing that he read about before, so it never even really crossed his mind.


    But considering that it did make sense, and he just witnessed it himself, it was obvious that it was a definite truth.


    Eiro slowly turned his head toward rk, who immediately nodded his head, "I get it, I get it, I''ll remember this for you. I''ll try to find something to write everything down on. Now, just get this over with, I don''t think we have forever, do we?"


    The Demon slowly shook his head, "We do not." He replied in a blunt tone, before he turned toward the Smander King, "My escort is right. We should get this done now... So just lead the way and keep reminding me of what it is that we need to do. On the way, I will exin why this is necessary." Eiro said bluntly, already having forgotten what exactly this Spirit King had told him that they had to do now.


    He slowly nodded his head, seemingly already understanding the gist of it, before stepping right onto the field of magma that was created by the Spirit Gateway.


    Eiro was a bit unsure about just stepping onto it, but the moment that he tried, he felt something... different. It seemed like this magma was different to what it should normally be, as if the recently acquired <Blessing of the Smander King> was protecting him within this field that was supposed to be under supervision of just that being.


    And so, Eiro stepped deeper into this area surrounding the Spirit Gateway.

 Chapter 279 - Infinite

    The Demon''s feet pressed into the hot magma as he walked through the space in front of him. The air in front of him was heavily distorted due to the heat in this ce, but that didn''t mean that Eiro wasn''t able to see what was happening around him.


    All of the Smanders and Vulcani were bowing down to the Smander King, gathering around him and starting to follow the two of them the moment that they passed. Eiro could hear the Smanders whisper amongst each other about who this Demon was, but he figured he should just ignore it for now. Thinking was useless at the moment, after all, he would just forget about everything anyway. So instead, Eiro exined his situation, or as much as he could remember about it for now, to the Smander King, "A wielder of a Legendary Skill... I knew that there was something special about you. These skills usuallye at a great cost, although this does seem rather extreme... All of this, with that <Memory of the Forgetful Demon> ability happened recently, after you received that Legendary Skill but before you evolved, is that not so?" The King inquired, and Eiro thought for a moment and nodded his head. That''s what he assumed at least.


    "If that is the case, there is no need to worry. As you already evolved into something Unique long ago, you must be aware. Only after you became a Unique being were you able to truly make use of those cards and the unique abilities you gained through them." The Smander King exined calmly, "A skill of such caliber needs to be supported by a vessel that fits that caliber to truly shine. The same is the case with that Legendary Skill. Once you get the chance to evolve once more, that skill will probably be actually usable to you, while not having such extreme repercussions."


    The Demon thought about what the Smander King told him, and figured that it made a fair amount of sense if that was the case... It was bothersome that he already seemed to be forgetting about this fact, but that didn''t matter for now. At least for now, Eiro knew that this Legendary Skill wasn''t something that doomed him.


    And exactly when Eiro was thinking about this and staring down at the ground in front of him, slowly shifting around underneath the weight of the King, the Demon stopped walking as the Smander King ced his arm in front of him.


    "We are here." He exined as he took a step to the side to give Eiro a proper view of this. However, the Demon wasn''t entirely sure what it was that he was looking at. It was like a focused,pressed version of those heat-distortions that could be seen in the air all around this area. As if the light was broken to such an extent that it seemed like another world. Eiro was even able to see his own distorted reflection in the middle of the air.


    "Step inside of that field. I will help you form the contract to be the protector of this Spirit Gateway." The Smander King exined, but Eiro turned his head toward him surprised, "Who exactly am I forming the contract with exactly?"


    With a smile on his face, the Smander King ced his hand onto the Demon''s shoulder, "Do you know what Spirits truly are?"


    "I... think I used to know, at least." Eiro replied quietly, and the figure in front of him just calmly replied, "That is fine, I will just exin it again, then. We Spirits are creatures that were spawned out of the innate magic that seeps through everything that makes up this world. That includes this ne, the elemental nes, the ne where all spirits may reside, and every other ne that maye to your mind. This world is alive, maybe not directly sentient, but alive nheless. It has a will and the power to execture that will. The being, or rather the force, that you will form this contract with is the world itself. You will swear to oblige by the will of the world to protect this gateway, and in return, you will be given power. Power that may help you on your journey. Power that may assist in finding what you have lost, or power that may simply allow you to live a calm life if you so wish. It may appear today, tomorrow, a year from now, or never. But when you need it the most, it will be there for you, worry not."


    "A contract with the will of the world..." Eiro muttered quietly to himself. The Demon took a deep breath to prepare himself for it, before he slowly pushed his hand into thepressed distortion in the air in front of him.


    Touching his reflection''s fingertips, Eiro pressed his way through the field, and slowly stepped into it, "Good luck." The Smander King said, as a deep shiver ran over the Demon''s spine. What did he need luck for?


    Eiro made his way into the space of this distortion and was overwhelmed by what he saw. The outside of this space that waspletely distorted of course. It was like everything was slowly merging together in front of the Demon''s eyes. As if you mixed together every color of paint you had ess to, creating a pitch-ck color.


    For a moment, Eiro wasn''t sure if his eyes were open or not. But then, he slowly looked underneath his feet and noticed that he was standing on a small white square. It was weird, it didn''t feel like he was standing on anything. Then, his senses caught up to what was happening. Eiro was falling, at an incredible pace, toward that white square. It kept growing in size rapidly until it took up the whole ground even beyond the horizon.


    And then, the Demon rapidly hit the ground. But it was as if he never really fell, but just stood there... He didn''t feel any sort of impact, at least.


    Eiro felt sick in response to how his senses were jumbled around like this. Eiro looked straight ahead to get his thoughts together again. There, he noticed something small rapidly approaching him, and he soon realized that it was... himself. It was his own back.


    When Eiro raised his hand, that figure raised his hand as well. When Eiro turned his head, so did it, but not only that... Eiro was able to see another version of himself in the distance to his right. As well as to his left, and even behind him.


    They were all rapidly approaching him as if they were all pulled toward each other, until they just as rapidly simply stopped about ten meters away from Eiro each.


    But just when Eiro thought he might be getting a slight grasp on what was happening, four more Eiros appeared around him, filling in the ''corners'' inbetween the other four Eiros. And then, even more came. And then more, and more, and more, until Eiro was suddenly in a field of infinite Eiros. Every ten meters in each cardinal direction, there he stood.


    Until the Eiros slowly changed. But always just so slightly, there was barely any difference to what he was like right now when he looked to the left, right, ahead or back. But after a while, Eiro saw that things were changing. In the distance he could see a version of himself that was probably ten meters tall and had six pairs of wings, and seemed to have lost his mindpletely. And in the other direction, Eiro saw a version of himself that was basicallypletely like a regr person. No horns, wings, tail... Pale skin, as well as hair.


    The Demon stared at all these versions of himself, versions that Eiro never even imagined as possible. Some had more limbs, others had less. But either way, they were all incredibly... different to Eiro.


    These other versions in front of Eiro were simply just standing there now, and the Demon slowly approached the version of himself right in front of him. When he did, nothing initially happened, but after Eiro blinked, he suddenly noticed that his perspective had changed. He was now inside of the body of the Eiro he had seen in front of him, and when he turned around, the Demon saw the body he was just in slowly fall to dust, together with some other Eiros that were directly next to that ''original'' one.


    As if his body understood what he had to do earlier than his mind, Eiro approached the next Eiro, the one that felt the most natural, and ced his hand onto his shoulder. Once more, he switched positions with that Eiro, and even more fell to dust.


    This continued on and on, but there was no end to this field of Eiros. He ran and ran, kept switching forms with the version of himself that simply felt right to him. This infinite field of Eiros seemed to be smaller and smaller in the Demon''s mind, although this obviously wasn''t the case.


    Eiro''s own body kept changing, shifting, and bing different. That was, until he suddenly didn''t know where to go else.


    He was inside of a body that was different to his current one. It seemed like Eiro was on the path of getting to this form, but the body he was in was much stronger, much more powerful than Eiro could currently imagine.


    But he didn''t know what he was supposed to do now. None of the other Eiros around him felt right. The opposite, they felt downright wrong. Eiro was panicking, he was unsure of what exactly was happening.


    His mind was overwhelmed... For a moment, he had forgotten what his original body even looked like to begin with.


    Eiro just stood there in confusion and became overwhelmed by hopelessness that coursed through his very being. He slowly looked down at the ground, then up into the sky.


    The Demon closed his eyes for just a moment while trying to arrange his own thoughts, and when he did, he suddenly heard a loud roar. Startled, he ripped his own eyes open and looked into the maw of a fierce beast that Eiro had neverid eyes on before, as far as he could remember, at least.


    It stood there, growling at the Demon. He himself looked down at his body. It was different again, but more like his original form was. Just a few steps away from that, or so Eiro thought in his mind.


    And the moment that thought crossed his mind, everything around him simply disappeared in dust, simply reced by a town. It was quite a weird one. Structures and objects he had never seen before, shadowy versions of people carrying things that he didn''t recognize either. And there, right in front of him, an enormous tower that pierced the sky.


    "No, it''s no tower..." The Demon muttered quietly to himself.. It was the giant tree that he had been shown by that Stag before meeting Lugo for the first time.

 Chapter 280 - Amalgamation

    Eiro took a step forward toward the enormous tree that stretched out beyond the clouds. People were walking past him, everything was just so noisy and incredibly hectic. Not only that tree was huge, but so were all the buildings surrounding the Demon, as if he had suddenly been shrunken down and that''s why everything seemed sorge. But that obviously wasn''t the case, seeing how nobody seemed to be that much taller than him.


    It was a woundrous sight, but at the same time frightening. Eiro had never heard of a ce like this, but he was seeing it with his own height.


    The Demon stared up at the sky, before he suddenly heard someone speak something that waspletely out of tune with everything else that was being said by all these people.


    "An incredible sight, is it not?" A sweaty man in a dark gray suit pointed out, smiling at Eiro as he walked past the Demon. The moment that Eiro looked at him, it seemed like he already stopped acknowledging even his existence. And then, another person spoke. A young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, looking down at some kind of thick card in her hands while walking next to a girl of simr age, "Oh, this is not real, so there is no need to attempt to speak to anyone but me."


    The Demon turned his head toward the girl and frowned deeply, "And who are you, exactly?"


    "You already know, don''t you?" An elderly man spoke with a weak voice from right behind Eiro, and the Demon turned around to look at him, but was already being ignored again.


    "You know, this is pretty annoying. Even if you''re this very world, I think it''s still a bit rude to y around like that." The Demon pointed out. It didn''t take long for the Demon to hear a voice from all around him.


    It was neither a feminine voice, nor a masculine one, while at the same time being both. As if twopletely different voices, or every single voice there was, or just the voice of a single ambiguous person, was sounding out all at once. Eiro was confused over what he was hearing right now. He was neither able to pin-point what exactly it was no matter how hard he tried, even with the abilities that he had.


    "You are right, I was quite rude. I apologize. It has just been a while since I have truly spoken to someone in this fashion." The voice spoke, and a few momentster, Eiro noticed that everything around him just stopped. He didn''t know when, just that everything was currently stopped, as if time had been frozen.


    And right from the center of the crowd of people walking through these streets, Eiro could see a man step forward. Or at least Eiro thought it was a man at first. The next moment, he thought it might be a woman. A child, to be exact. Or maybe an elderly one. This being''s appearance was just as confusingly chaotic as their voice was.


    "I assume you have a question or two for me to get out of the way before our negotiations?" This ambiguous figure in front of Eiro pointed out. The Demon looked back at it and slowly nodded his head, "I do. I was just told that you weren''t sentient, but that seems to be false." Eiro pointed out, and the figure in front of him nodded its head. At this point, Eiro noticed that the crowd that filled out this whole huge street before now suddenly disappearedpletely, although he didn''t notice them ever leave after being frozen in time.


    With augh, the being in front of Eiro started to speak, "Sentience is something hard to determine for some. Mostly, I simply am and know. The assumption that I am not sentient is true during those times, simply because it is unnessary for me to show myself in my true capability. It is rare for me to show myself to others, but you yourself are just as rare, so I thought it to be fitting."


    "Should I feel honored?" Eiro asked, and the figure quietlyughed, "You can feel insulted or honored, it matters little to me."


    "Then can I ask you what makes me so rare that you would show yourself to me?"


    "You already kno-"


    "Fine, let me rephrase." Eiro interrupted the being in front of him, "What am I? Why am I in control of my monstrosity without the interference of magic or others'' abilities? Why does my bane affect me differently to other creatures? Why do I have abilities that no others have?"


    "Those are excellent questions. Allow me to answer them to a certain amount. You are a Demon that has been artificially created by the Monster King, which currently has an ability that it has copied from me and which it uses to expand its army and own power. During your creation, a mistake happened to the Monster King, turning you into a variant monster. Although, even then you would have been specialpared to others of your kind if that did not happen due to the nature of your soul. It seemed to have worked in your benefit nheless, however."


    Eiro looked back at the figure in front of him. Those are things that he managed to figure out himself, with the exception of the bit about the nature of Eiro''s soul. Before he could speak, the being did so instead, "You have control over yourself to that extent due to your own power. Your will was strong enough to break through the fickle boundaries created by your birth. And now to yourst two questions, which can be answered in the exact same way." The being exined to Eiro, and he immediately understood what it was trying to tell him before it even finished speaking. This being''s voice was simply so full of intent that it was hard not to realize after hearing just a single one of its breaths.


    Eiro looked at the being with a deep stare, and it stared back just the same, or that''s what Eiro thought at least. It was hard to tell. The being stood there and slowly opened its mouth.


    "I do not know." It said bluntly, and Eiro looked back at the being confused, "What do you... Aren''t you supposed to be all-knowing or something?"


    With augh as if what Eiro just said waspletely ridiculous, the being shook its head, "Of course not, what gave you that idea? I am neither all-knowing, nor all-powerful. I simply am what I am, and know what I need to know. I am not a god, I am simple the amalgamation of the forces of nature. As you can see, I am not one. I am many, taking form as one. An intricately woven ofws that each exist as their own entity, creating the bigger picture. I am that bigger picture. There are a myriad of beings that are more powerful or more knowledgeable than I am. I was able to tell you what you are in the simplest form, what your physical body tells about you. I know your soul is special, but I do not know why or how it is special. I apologize."


    "...No, don''t apologize. I was still able to learn a few things... I think at least. I might forget them sooner orter again."


    "Truly so, but you must be aware that nothing is ever truly destroyed. What is lost can always be regained in one way or another." The being exined, and Eiro looked at it with a slow nod, "I understand."


    "I knew you would."


    Eiro turned his head and looked up at the giant tree, "Now, can you tell me what this is? Where this is? You wanted to show it to me, right?"


    "No, I simply helped out an old friend with a favor. See this as a message that has been ryed through me to you. I cannot see inside of you, my child. I can tell you where the first flower of spring will bloom, I can tell you how many spirits matured during our conversation, or I can tell you just what I love about what all life did with every aspect of my being. But I cannot tell you what this is. All I can tell you is that it is not a part of me."


    "...Not a part of you..?" Eiro asked confusedly, "What do you mean?"


    "I meant what I said. Ah, but it is different to that child of yours, that much I can tell you. This may not be a part of me, but it does not feel foreign, you see?" The being in front of Eiro exined as it stepped up next to the Demon and look at the crown of the giant tree together with him.


    "Now, I think it is time that we finally do what you came to me for. We have trailed off for long enough." It exined, and Eiro looked at the world in humanoid form with a nod on his, ready to face whatever was about to happen.


    "You wish to form a bond with me to make a gateway to the Spirit Realm, a gateway running through the elemental nes as a brdige of sorts, a part of you?" This being asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. This being seemed to word things in peculiar ways, but as far as Eiro could remember, that was exactly why he came here.


    "Then I must warn you, this experience will be a rather grueling one. It will be yours, but it will take a long time until it will truly be a part of you. Like you, the gateway will shift and change. It will be shaped ording to what you are, and you will in turn be shaped by what it is. Are you aware of this?"


    Eiro looked back and bluntly nodded his head, "Now I am, at least."


    With a smile, the being in front of Eiro nodded its head as it approached the Demon. It slowly ced its hands onto his chest. And then, Eiro felt a deep force hit him, and he was pushed back at an incredible speed. But soon, that force was stopped when he hit a tree, obviously stopping him for now.


    The Demon was in pain, but for now, it wasn''t that bad. He slowly stood up and rubbed the dirt and leaves off of his clothes, before taking a look around. Instead of that town, he was suddenly inside of a deep forest.


    And right above him, Eiro saw a sun darkened through an eclipse. But something was weird, simply off.


    The rays of light that were shining through the cracks of the seemingly recently shattered moon didn''t illuminate the world somehow.

 Chapter 281 - Gateway Of Flames

    The shattered moon in the sky was letting through little to none of the light of the sun right behind it, although it quite certainly should have done so. The Demon stared up at the sky at this wondrous sight and tried to figure out what exactly was happening here during this ''Shattered Eclipse''.


    Eiro slowly made his way through this thick-grown forest that seemed weirdly familiar to him, although he wasn''t able to remember anything about this ce. The dried-out leaves underneath Eiro''s feet were being crushed as he walked.


    He didn''t know where he was going, just that he was going in the right direction. And then, he reached a clearing in this forest. Or that''s what Eiro thought at first, until he stepped over therge mound of dirt that blocked his sight of the ground.


    Instead of a natural clearing in the forest, there was simply nothing here at all. A seemingly infinitely deep, perfectly circr hole stretched out underneath the Demon''s feet, until a certain few words flowed into the Demon''s mind.


    "Horr zhu lugo jir targh, horr targhar jir urtur as partus horr requom argor thurt tragh. Horr gol jir part as sird horr requom xarg thum unzhur dir." The Demon spoke these words, not knowing what they even meant. He vaguely recognized some of the words from spells, but nothing managed to give him a hint toward the true meaning of these words.


    But that didn''t seem to matter too much for now anyway. Eiro felt something touch the center of his back while he was practically mesmerised by the powerfulbination between these words, the infinitely deep hole in the ground, as well as the shattered moon.


    And then, the light touch to the center of his back became something stronger. It became a push as the Demon slowly fell forward without even fighting what was happening. He didn''t feel any sense of danger, and didn''t think it was necessary to start pping his wings in the slightest.


    Eiro''s body twisted around and he looked at the sky from within this hole. At some point when he fell for a little while already, he managed to see this moon in a new way. The sky itself had disappeared, blocked by the walls of this hole, and the only thing that he could see was the shattered moon through the circr hole he had been pushed into by that six-fingered hand.


    Everything was dark, as dark as it possibly could get, and the only thing that the Demon saw was the faint light shining through the cracks of the moon. But then, that very light started to shift. As if the cracks were changing, the parts of the moon shifting around.


    It took Eiro a while to realize that what he was seeing weren''t the cracks of the moon anymore, but rather somethingpletely different. They were thin threads of light that were reaching out to him, as if chasing him down the hole.


    Slowly, the Demon stretched his hand out toward the closest of those threads, and watched as it wrapped itself around Eiro''s fingers, then his arm, and then his torso.


    Soon, other threads caught up and assisted the first one in covering the Demon''s body. At some point, the threads stoppeding toward him, since all of them were already loosely covering his body. Now Eiro was just in the middle of a pitch-ck space while his body was the only source of light around.


    Then suddenly, the glowing threads became a bit thicker while their light began to fade. It didn''t take long until these threads became so thick that they really covered every bit of the Demon''s body, and they changed to be more like roots growing on top of him rather than simple threads.


    Even if Eiro tried to fight against this now, he was unable to. These roots had restrained him perfectly and there was little that he was really able to do about it. He somehow didn''t feel any imminent danger from this either.


    Soon, the roots had covered every part of his body with the exception of his left eye. And that was when Eiro noticed something. He was looking down, and in the distance, he saw something approach. It was the ground of the forest that he stood in before. And directly underneath him was the same hole that he had been pushed into.


    The Demon was rapidly approaching that ce and soon noticed that it seemed like he would fall right into the hole again. And so, he did. But the moment that the darkness of the whole surrounded him, the roots covered his eye atst and he was enveloped in deep darkness anyway.


    After that, Eiro was unsure of what was going on. He could tell that he was still falling and twisting around in the air, but it seemed like he was just never really stopping the descent. He could hear the air currents around him change as he continued to fell. Sometimes he was out in the open where the wind was sting, but somehow never affecting the way that this ball of roots was falling, and then he would suddenly notice a rapid change in the air currents due to him entering the hole again. And not too long after, he would start feeling the air currents change once more to show that he was outside again.


    Then it would change again, and again, and again, forming something like a hypnotic pattern to the Demon''s mind. It was the only thing that he could really focus on, or even sense at all.


    At first at least, sometimes Eiro felt changes in the temperature as well, it was something like a background pattern that was apanying the general tune the changes of the air currents were creating.


    Soon, Eiro was unable to really figure out how long he had been inside of this ball of roots. It felt equally like a minute as it felt like one, ten, or even a hundred years. It was the same sort of ambiguity that he felt when conversing with the will of the world earlier.


    As if it was just out of grasp, teasing the tips of his fingers. A word thatid on the tip of his tongue but that he couldn''t remember no matter how hard he tried. Something shifting around in his peripherals that disappeared after he turned his head.


    And at some point, Eiro''s mind simply stopped. He stopped thinking, he stopped reacting. The only thing that he did was focus on the patterns created by the very world around him, affecting him and everything else in subtle ways.


    The world''s time stopped, and meanwhile a thousand years had passed.


    And all at once, everything came flooding into Eiro. He stood there in the center of the shifting, distorted beam at the center of the spirit gateway. As if all of the time that he spent within that ball of roots, and all the thoughts that he missed thinking caught up to him, Eiro broke down and dropped onto his knees.


    He could feel something, a powerful force, enter his body from every angle with a speed and strength that felt like it was about to rip him into tiny bits and pieces.


    Eiro wasn''t even able to scream, as he didn''t have an ounce of control over his body at the moment. Conscious or sub-conscious, no part of him was able to interact with other parts of him. The Demon sat there in agony as he felt this burning heat within him that was singing away at the center of his body, creating a gaping hole within him.


    Not a physical one, of course, it was more akin to an emotional emptiness. Something that had no physical corrtion, but was still there nheless.


    Once more, Eiro felt time pass by without knowing how long it had been. But this time, it was different. Before, it felt like it could have been an infinitely long or an infinitely short amount of time just the same, and there was little to no difference between either of those two possibilities. Now, on the other hand, it felt only as if time was being stretched out to the longest that it could be. A single blink took a month, and single twitch took a year.


    Eiro was in agony. Now he understood why he had been wished ''good luck'' before. Surely, not everybody could withstand this. But Eiro did. Eiro withstood everything, simply because he had to. He couldn''t just die here for no reason, he still had to recover his own memories and those of the children as well.


    But that wasn''t the direct reason why Eiro was even doing this. Rather, this was all something preventative. Eiro wanted strength that he could rely on without it having toe to these extreme measures.


    Eiro wanted overwhelming strength with which he could crush his enemies. He wanted to have immediate ess to everything and anything he may ever need to beat anyone that stood against him. That''s why he couldn''t let a unique chance like this pass up. He couldn''t throw this away, and he certainly couldn''t give up midway through either.


    This Demon had to fulfill the nearly prophetic name of his legendary skill. He had to be a ''Supreme Demon''.


    And then, with a sudden realization, the Demon noticed that something had changed again. He was sitting in an empty, dark room with nothing but a light glowing from behind him Slowly, Eiro pushed himself off the ground with a sore body as he heard a voice behind him speak.


    "What did you just do? What happened to this spirit gateway?" The Smander Kingstood behind Eiro, watching all of this in disbelief. Many, if not most, of the Smanders and Vulcani already disappeared together with the gateway itself, it seemed.


    Eiro looked back at him a bit confused, "What... do you mean?"


    "What do I mean? You absorbed this spirit gateway, what exactly just happened?!" The King asked in a confused voice, and Eiro looked up at him before turning his head toward the notification that popped up when he did.


    "I don''t remember, I apologize." Eiro replied bluntly, but it seemed like the Smander King wasn''t exactly all too happy with that answer. After all, how could he? There was no way that he would end up simply epting such a powerful rift between the realms to simply vanish into thin air.


    But Eiro didn''t pay attention to the Smander King right next to him anymore. Instead, he kept staring at the notification floating in front of his eyes.


    <strong>[You have absorbed the <Gateway of mes>] </strong>

 Chapter 282 - Astral Body

    Eiro stood in the center of thisrge open space, looking at the notification that just popped up with a bit of a confused, unfocused mind. He wasn''t sure what exactly just happened, he just knew that it probably wasn''t what the Smander King initially had in mind.


    The Demon looked up at the seemingly quite upset face of the being in front of him, and exined the bits of pieces of what just happened that he could still even remember. And the moment that he did, the Smander King stared back and said nothing while holding the same nk expression for a few seconds, as if he was justpletely frozen.


    "You... spoke to the will of the world?" He then asked, believing the Demon''s words somehow, "But I thought... So you truly had a direct conversation with it?"


    Eiro slowly nodded his head as he looked back at the Spirit King, who seemed to have to deal with this revtion a little bit first. Eiro was d that he was immediately believed, however, something that he didn''t actually expect to happen.


    But either way, that wasn''t of importance right now. He still didn''t know what was going on and why he had ''absorbed'' the spirit gateway. Seeing that he was most likely thinking about this, the Smander King exined it without hesitation, or what he assumed to be the case, at least.


    "While I have never heard of something like this ever happening, I believe that it is how you say. I had suggested to simply make you the guardian of this gateway. To have you protect it and in return gain some form of increased power to your mes. However, it seems that it has gone beyond that now. Instead of bing the simple guardian of the gateway, the gateway has be a part of you. You should now hold a direct connection to not only the spirit realm, but also the elemental ne of mes, like us Smanders do."


    Eiro looked at the Smander King with his brows raised, "You are connected to the elemental nes?"


    "Of course." The King nodded, "It is how we conjure our elemental magic in the first ce. This connection to the Spirit Realm, specifically the part that has a strong connection to the elemental ne of fire, is what allows us to move into the Spirit Realm at will."


    "...So you think I can travel between the realms now?" Eiro asked, and the Smander King looked at him with aplicated expression, "I am afraid not. A Spirit''s body is made up purely of magic that has been given permanent form. While you may be an artificial being yourself, you are still a physical creature. Or more so than Spirits, at least. However... I think you may be able to visit the spirit realm through an outer-body experience of sort."


    "An outer-body experience?"


    "Indeed. It can be achieved through a specific method of meditation that has beenbined with ancient magic. Your conscious mind disconnects from your physical body and instead changes to your soul itself, creating an Astral Body. It will let you delve into the Astral ne, which oveps with this physical realm, and with your new connection to the Spirit Realm and Elemental ne of Fire, you should be able to visit either of those nes as well. Your physical body will bepletely helpless, however. I may be able to teach it to you, but in your current state, it would be too dangerous for you to attempt it. While after this, we may not meet for a long time, there are others in this world that still know of this spell. Speak to them, and we may see each other earlier than either of us will expect."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head in response to the Spirit King''s exnation. This sort of thing will definitely be helpful to Eiro in the future, quite literally having a connection with an elemental ne as well as the spirit realm was impossible to not have some sort of strength-increasing impact on him. At least as far as Eiro could tell so far.


    But just as Eiro was about to turn around, thinking that his business was over with this ce for now, the Smander King ced his hand onto the Demon''s shoulder.


    "There is one more reason you came here, is there not?" He inquired, and Eiro looked back at him surprised. Was there? Eiro couldn''t really remember, if so.


    "You were looking to form a contract with a spirit, were you not? Innately seeing magic is not a power you should have gained by absorbing the gateway, after all."


    And then, it popped into the Demon''s head again after he connected all of the dots of his leftover memories with each other again. He had to use a Spirit to see magic to search the one that was manipting the memories of the people with the help of the storm raging above.


    Eiro immediately stared at the Smander King and slowly opened his mouth, before he was interrupted, "I apologize, I still cannot form a contract with you." He pointed out, "No matter how intriguing it is, I still have my duties as King. Instead, I wish to introduce you to someone else that may form a contract with you. It is my sessor, the one that will be Smander King after me. Sarius Kitmagird. He is quite a powerful one, however, he only possesses raw power. There is little to no control within him, as he is actually the one being controlled by his own emotions."


    Eiro looked up at the Smander King a bit confused, before he sighed deeply, "Sarius has anger issues. He is ''bratty'' as many of you may say, unwilling to act his age of 500 years, and despite his capabilities, he has refused to learn much about this world. He spent most of his life in the Spirit Realm due to his privileges, only ever returning briefly to visit his birthce in this realm. Please, I ask you to take care of him and raise him into a worthy sessor."


    After that sudden request by the Smander King, Eiro was a bit surprised. For one, it wasn''t like he was the best person to ask about how to manage your anger, and his own future within this world was quite uncertain to begin with. Eiro stared up at the King and thought for a while, before finally replying, "I ept. Having a contract with an extremely powerful spirit can only be good especially after I help him control himself." The Demon pointed out, and the Smander King let out a deep sigh of relief, "Oh how d I am that you think that way. Please, I have to find and summon him, so until then please wait with yourpanion."


    "Mypanion?" Eiro asked confused, before he realized that he was supposed to have an escort with him, and that he was probably the one that the Smander King was speaking of.


    With a quick nod, the Demon turned around and made his way to the exit of thisrge hollow space, while all of the spirits that were currently here were looking at Eiro with mixed expressions. Some were happy that he was there, others... not so much. Eiro didn''t really know why thetter were a thing though. For now, he just made his way out to meet with his escort again, who was already waiting at the shattered-open part of the ss capsule that Eiro had been in until now.


    "Is something wrong?" Eiro asked as he looked at rk, who simply stared back at him in disbelief, "Is that supposed to be a legitimate question..?" He replied, and Eiro bluntly nodded his head, "Of course, why would I be joking around at a time like this?"


    rk groaned loudly as he took a step away and sat down on one of the few chairs that were still leftover after the fights that happened here in this area, "Can we leave soon, at least? So that I can... re-evaluate my friendships with the heads of certain countries?"


    "Yes, we just need to wait for the Smander King. He is getting a spirit that I can contract. Apparently he''s pretty powerful. A bit troublesome, but I don''t think he sounded all too bad when the Smander King spoke about him." He said in a clear tone without a single ounce of deceptiveness. Eiro didn''t lie, he simply didn''t remember all the bad things that the Smander King exined about him.


    And so, Eiro sat down right next to rk on another chair and looked at the open space in front of him. For now, the Demon was just thinking about random things while his heard was beating incredibly fast. So fast that it nearly felt like it was about to jump out of his chest, actually.


    "Erm... Why are we waiting again?" Eiro asked as he turned his head over toward rk, who proceeded to bury his face in his hands in frustration, "You know what? I just won''t answer you anymore. Solomon told me as long as I have the royal badge with me you won''t try and touch me. You''ll forget about this conversation in a bit anyway."


    "Hm... Is that so?" Eiro asked absent-mindedly as he turned his head around and looked at everything that came into sight, before he suddenly turned his head toward rk, "Say, why are we waiting here again? Shouldn''t we leave and get back to that king?"


    "Urgh..." rk groaned loudly, but all of a sudden, he realized something, "Wait, you remember Solomon?" He asked, and Eiro slowly turned his head and pointed at the half-burnt bookying on the ground near him with numerous pages of it scattered around. Most parts were burnt away, but Eiro was able to figure certain things out from context, at least. A lot of the parts seemed to be lostpletely, but the most important things were still there, "I just read it in that book there, sorry. I don''t really remember him."


    "It''s fine, I didn''t expect you to anyway..." rk sighed as he stood up. It seemed like while Eiro was inside there, forming that contract with the will of the world, he was looking around this ce. rk stepped over toward one of the nearby tables and picked up one of the booksying there.


    And when he came back, he handed it back to Eiro, "Here you go. Write down anything that you can figure out from those books. Let''s hope that it''s enough so that Solomon won''t rip my head off.... Ah, and write down all that I''m about to tell you as well, it''s important."

 Chapter 283 - Without A Trace

    "And I really did that all by myself? Interesting." The Demon muttered quietly as he wrote everything down in the notebook that he was told by rk right next to him. Of course, some information was still lost through the fact that rk was unable to remember every detail of what happened or what was written inside of the burnt-down parts of the book that Eiro had been using before.


    "Yes, you did. And it wasn''t interesting, it was annoying. Really, really troublesome, actually." The escort sighed deeply, before he suddenly heard a sound from inside of therge empty space beside them. He turned his head and saw the Smander King approach with a brightly-burning Smander in tow that quite obviously didn''t want to be there at all.


    Immediately, rk jumped up. Seeing that he did so, Eiro followed the example and stood up properly as well as he looked at the approaching Spirit King.


    "I have returned. Together with Sarius, of course." The Smander King exined, and the spirit in question that was floating behind him slowly peaked at the two figures standing there.


    "So, who is it? The boring old man or the obviously dumbass demon pretending to be smart be trying to read an empty book?" Sarius asked with a light smirk on his face, and the King turned his head around and red at him, "Sarius, speak like that one more time and I-"


    But before the Smander King was able to finish his sentence, Eiro had already taken over the punishment of Sarius. Without hesitation, he walked up to him and grabbed the spirit''s body with his hand. The mes that he gave off in distress were a bit annoying at first, but that was just the initial startle. Soon, Eiro didn''t feel hurt by these mes anymore. Most likely due to the Smander King''s blessing.


    The Demon stared at the Smander that was in his literal grasp and watched as mist was created due to the air rapidly cooling down around the ming Smander. Of course, he immediately started to shake due to this immense cold that he wasn''t used to. He obviously wouldn''t die, that was clear to Eiro from the start, but it should still hurt him a little bit. Or at least annoy him, if nothing else.


    "Wh-What are you doing, you fucking moro-"


    "Be quiet." Eiro said in a strict tone as he stared deep into the Spirit''s eyes, "Stop acting like a brat and recognize those stronger than you. You are going to form a contract with me. You will apany me. You will learn to trust me, and I will learn to trust you. You will learn how to control your power and learn the things that you need to in order to be the next Smander King." The Demon growled out before suddenly turning his head over toward the Smander King, "Wait, that''s why you wanted me to form a contract with him, right? I only remembered bits and pieces, but that was the conclusion that I managed toe to..." The Demon pointed out, and the Smander King slowly nodded his head.


    "Indeed. These are the reasons why I want you to form a contract with this child."


    The Smander stared up at his King with a confused re, "The fuck do you mean?! You want me to form a contract with this dirty, disgusting, violent demon?! No fucking way!" He eximed, the temperature of his mes rising immensely. So much so that Eiro had to let go.


    With a click of his tongue, the Demon red back at Sarius, "Fine, then you leave me no other choice." Eiro said bluntly, and the Smander simrly red back. He pulled both of his arms back and quickly swung them forward, creating thick rays of mes meant to directly hit the Demon''s face.


    But they didn''t, simply because Eiro dodged. However, this dodge wasn''t a reaction. It simply happened coincidentally. Because Eiro was now kneeling down in front of Sarius, apletely opposing tactic to before.


    "Please. I need your help." The Demon stated bluntly. He was kneeling in front of the Smander and started to exin his situation, trying to only say things that he would be able to fill in with the help of his notes again, although it was a ratherplex issue. But still, Eiro had to form this Spirit Contract, so it felt like it was worth it to forget a few more things in order to truly save his children from this violent spell.


    Sarius stared down at Eiro as he exined the situation, and not only the Smander himself, but also the Smander King and even rk were quite surprised to hear some of the things that Eiro was telling them. After all, neither had any chance to really hear that much about Eiro''s past, only the rough edges basically. So now that this much more had been revealed, they all had a different perspective on the Demon.


    Even Sarius had to admit to this, "So you''re sayin'' that you need my awesomeness to make your kids remember again? And ya specifically need me for that?"


    Eiro looked up at the Smander and shook his head, "Not really, any spirit would do, really."


    With a deep re, Sarius'' new opinion of Eiro had already been ruined again, "Oi, that ain''t how you ask someone for help, you fucke-"


    "Don''t misunderstand. I said that I don''t specifically need you specifically to form a contract with me. That doesn''t mean I don''t want you to. I was asked to help you, and so I will. I follow up on my words, even if I can''t properly remember them myself these days. And so, let me tell you the way that I''m going to fulfill my promise to your King. I will make you stronger. You may not gain more raw power, but the more control you get, the more you can use that power. I will train you in that control. I will teach you all that you need to know about this world. After all, I may have to re-learn a lot of them as well. I will turn you into a being that is worthy of being a Superior Spirit." With deep dedication within Eiro''s eyes, he locked sight with Sarius. For a moment he looked away a bit startled, but then he realized that Eiro was beingpletely serious.


    "You''re gonna make me stronger? Y-You sure you can do that?" Sarius asked with a wry smile as he stared back at the Demon, seemingly just trying to insult him, "A useless being like you that can''t even hold onto their own memories! How do you think you''re gonna be able to teach me anything, huh?!" The Smander eximed, and Eiro slowly pushed himself off the ground. He took a step to the side and looked around, until he found a good enough spot. Eiro walked up to the hole in the ss dome that had encapsuled the spirit gateway before. All the spirits inside had left for the Spirit Realm for now, so Eiro had the freedom to do this.


    He held his hand forward, and used a power that he hadn''t had for long, but already figured out how to use due to his abilities allowing him toe to such conclusions at an immense speed.


    The Demon opened a small rift between himself and the elemental ne of fire, and immediately used these raw, powerful mes to his advantage. He focused all this power in front of his palm onto a single point. In the end, even after a minute or two of constantpression, it was no bigger than a single small coin.


    And once he was done, Eiro slowly pushed thispressed orb of fire magic over toward the center of this ss dome as he stepped away, instructing the others to do the same, just in case. He wanted everyone to be safe, after all. The Demon kept concentrating on thispressed orb, trying not to let it blow up yet despite how hard it was. From a certain distance on, Eiro couldn''t even move around anymore and had to keep his eyes shut so that he could properly control this. As such, this obviously wasn''t viable for a fight... But it was still pretty useful to impress a bratty spirit.


    "Eh..? What''s that supposed to be? Isn''t that just a small spark or something? What, are you trying to impress me with how far away you can move that little spark?" The Smander asked. Obviously he knew that this wasn??t the case. He was just a bit nervous. He could see the amount of magicpressed into a single point, after all.


    Eiro slowly opened his eyes and red at Sarius for a moment, before lifting his arm up. Eiro pointed his index finger into the direction of the orb and stuck his thumb up to form a finger-gun, and then slightly smirked.


    "Bang."


    Immediately and suddenly, the tiny,pressed orb dpressed and filled out therge dome with powerful mes close to instantly. Arge amount of these mes funneled down the single opening created by the Letter L from before.


    This was why Eiro advised everyone to step aside. The Smander slowly stared at the Demon with a wry smile as he floated to the side, watching the storm of mes ravage within the ss dome. It seemed like even the Smander King was impressed of the amount of control over the absorbed gateway that Eiro was disying already, not even an hour after absorbing it in the first ce.


    "That all? That''s nothing, you know? Even I can create mes that strong!" Sarius eximed, and Eiro turned toward him with a smirk, "Really? Well, then how about you try and stop those mes for now? Don''t worry, I''m not controlling them right now." The Demon pointed out, and the Smander lightly red at him.


    "Hmph... Fine." Sarius said, slowly floating over toward the ce where he could ess these mes. For now, he simply tried to push them back into the dome to deal with them, and was seemingly trying to just push them back into a small orb. Eiro was actually surprised at how well he managed with raw power, before all the mes just shot back outward again.


    With a light smirk, Eiro looked at the Smander, "You know, if you can pull mes out of an elemental ne, you can put them back as well." The Demon pointed out as he took over.


    And just like that, instead of trying topress them again, he just pulled all of them toward his palm. This little disy took a majority of Eiro''s mana, but it was worth it as far as he was concerned.. Within a few moments, the mes allpletely disappeared without a trace.

 Chapter 284 - Sudden Encounter

    Eiro and Sarius were exchanging their mana with each other in order to form their contract, and a few momentster, the Demon and the Spirit finished this task up.


    "Aight, so what''re we gonna do now? Will ya teach me right away?" Sarius asked as he slowly rubbed his scale-covered neck with his slight ws. Until now, Eiro really didn''t get a good look at him, or at least he didn''t really try to anyway.


    He had a simrly charcoal colored skin as the Smander King, although Sarius'' body was covered in a lot of red scales. His legs, arms, and back were all covered in them. Most of his torso was just that charcoal-skin, though. His body was constantly enveloped in some mes as if he was wearing them as a sort of cloak himself, and on top of his head he had ming hair like the King. And then, in the center of his forehead, there was a single small horn poking outward.


    After a bit of thought once Eiro got a proper look at Sarius'' body, the Demon looked down into his notebook while actually trying to figure out the next part of the n, "Hmm... Not instantly, no. First, we need to get back up to the surface. We need to meet with Solomon and tell him about what happened. Right?" Eiro asked as he turned his head over toward rk, who slowly nodded his head, "Mhm, I''d like to have a word with him as well. No offense, but I would have appreciated to be told that I was escorting a Demon."


    "Wait, aren''t escorts supposed to be stronger than the one they''re escorting? Or else they''d be useless? And I mean, you''re pretty useless, ain''t''cha?" Sarius asked with a light smirk as he floated over to rk, who just grumbled quietly and crossed his arms, "No, an escort doesn''t have to be the stronger one. He just needs to make sure nothing happens to the escorted person and lead the way. If I hadn''t been here, I''m pretty sure Eiro would have just ended up destroying this whole underground space, and probably crushed everyone and everything. Including that Letter. So all those Vulcani would have died." rk pointed out as he slowly started turning around, "No need to thank me."


    But Sarius just shrugged, "Cool, didn''t n on it."


    "Sarius." The Smander King said in a clear tone, and the Spirit slowly turned around, "Yup?"


    "Behave."


    "Y-Yup..." Sarius replied nervously at the pressure he experienced from the King''s voice and re alone, before the Smander King turned toward Eiro again, "I must thank you. For many things. If you ever need my aid, I will do anything in my power to assist you."


    Eiro nodded his head, "Thanks. The same counts the other way around as well, but I doubt there is much that I can really do for you anymore."


    "That is not true. You are a powerful young man, with a bright future ahead of him. I am sure you will do great things, and reach great heights." The Smander King said, "I am positive that in the future, I will feel nothing but pride when I think of our meetings. But now, I must say farewell, until we meet once more." Slowly, the King turned around and was d in mes immediately after. And once those mes disappeared, so did the Smander King.


    And now, only rk, Sarius and Eiro were left inside of this space. But somehow, Eiro still had a weird feeling hidden inside of him. As if he hadpletely forgotten about a small important detail that would end up making him regret something very, very soon.


    Just as the Demon thought about this, the exit was violently broken open as a woman stepped into the room. For now, Eiro was able to recognize her. It was from that one time that Eiro was at the organization. She was the one that ended up giving Eiro his quests. And at that point, he realized that what happened to him must have also affected those at the organization. So they must have been informed of all this somehow, right?


    "Ah, you are that... Exmation mark from the organization, right?" The Demon asked surprised, and the woman frowned deeply as she stared back at him, "That I am. But I don''t know who or what you are, how a monster managed to enter the organization without our knowledge, and why you would dare break one of the few rules we set for you." The woman pointed out. Eiro slightly tilted his head to the side in thought, but he couldn''t remember any sort of rule no matter how hard he tried to.


    So, he simply asked, "What rule are you speaking about, exactly?"


    With a deep sigh, the exmation-mark exined, "Numbers may not blindly kill Letters. As you did so, you will now be exterminated." The exmation mark said as she stared at Eiro, simply snapping her finger without waiting for Eiro to do or say anything else. Her ring started to glow up a bit when all of a sudden everything around Eiropletely froze. The Demon had seen this before. Time had been stopped through an artificial artifact the organization created. If Eiro could get his hands on that... Then that would be more than just useful.


    With a deep groan, the woman took a step forward toward Eiro, "Alright, let''s get this over with. But really, how did a Demon join the organization? And how does he know me...?" The Woman asked, and Eiro just looked back at her. He couldn''t really use any other part of his body though. On the other hand, he did figure out something else that he could make use of. Since somehow Eiro''s mind was unaffected, he was able to still make use of his mana, which he spread out to the part that he figured the exmation-mark would touch in order to ''exterminate'' him.


    And just like he thought, she did just that, and ced her palm onto the Demon''s forehead. But right from there, Eiro was able to interact with the ring on her finger with his own mana to activate it as well. The moment he did, he pushed his hand forward at the quickest speed he could ever possibly manage. As this waspletely unexpected for the exmation-mark, she of course didn''t expect this. As she didn''te here without other sorts of countermeasures, however, something like a small barrier was formed right where Eiro tried to hit her. Usually his hand would have shot straight through her and probably killed her by breaking her spine and ripping her organs apart, but now, she was just shot straight to the other side of the room and broke a few ribs.


    "Could you not do that? I''m kind of busy, you know? If you''re fine with it, we can pretend this never happened. You let me work my way up within the organization, since my rank already increased after I killed that Letter anyway, and then I won''t kill you after I take over the organization''s top-ranks. How''d that sound?" The Demon suggested as the exmation-mark slowly pushed herself off the ground while she couldn''t really catch up with what just happened.


    "B-But... D-Don''t be ridiculous, I-"


    "Ah... So you won''t? That''s fine too, I can just kill you right here then. I don''t mind. Your dumb way to enforce this silly rule seems to be something you guys added in the first ce, so I can just end up killing whoever I want and work my way up thedder nheless until you can''t do anything to me anymore. Right?"


    The exmation mark stared back at Eiro with a deep re as she held her hand forward. It seemed like she was trying to cast a spell to shoot at the Demon, but Eiro didn''t really care. She was casting it through the ring on her hand, so it wasn''t affected by the time-stop at all.


    But it didn''t matter. Exmation-marks weren''t really all that strongpared to Letters. Rather, they were exmation-marks because they were too weak to be letters, but too strong to be simple numbers. At least that''s what Eiro concluded so far.


    And he was positive that he wouldn''t lose to someone that couldn''t even be a letter. He pushed his feet into the ground and pushed forward, and before the woman was able to cast her spell, the Demon hit her into the stomach again.


    Once more, the barrier stopped the Demon''s rather blunt, simple attack. As the woman had already been standing with her back against the wall, she wasn''t really pushed back that much and Eiro could keep hitting her as the force travelled through her body and into the wall. It would most likely crack into pieces once time continued, considering how often Eiro was hitting this organization-member right here.


    But no matter what he did, the barrier just wouldn''t break, even when the woman inside of that barrier became close to falling unconscious due to the blunt impacts of force that she still experienced despite not feeling the brunt of the attack.


    "P-Please st-stop it..."


    "No thank you." Eiro replied bluntly as he continued to pummel the exmation mark further and further. It was a bit troublesome that Eiro forgot about such an important rule... Otherwise he really would have let the Smander King finish the Letter off. But on the other hand, there was really something weird going on, and Eiro didn''t know exactly what it was.


    The tag that he had updated and gave him a higher rank after he killed the Letter. He was now actually Rank 2, and all that he had to do was kill the rank 1 to be able to be a Letter himself, officially at least.


    But why did the tag even update if he broke a rule like that? Shouldn''t it have just bluntly kicked him out instantly? Why would they sent such a weak enforcer after someone that literally managed to kill a decently-ranked letter? Probably, they just never had to deal with this since Letters weren''t killed by Numbers all too often anyway, but the rule was still quite annoying. It just didn''t make sense to Eiro.


    In the end, he thought about it over and over again, until he came to a conclusion that he figured made a fair amount of sense.


    "Ah... The organization is nothing but a branch of something bigger, isn''t that right?" Eiro asked bluntly, and the exmation mark stared up at him and shook her head, "Wh-What are you t-talking ab-about..?"


    "Hm..? You don''t know..? Well, if I remember in a few days, I guess I''ll investigate this. For now..." Eiro started and stood up properly before cing his foot onto the woman''s head. He increased his force more and more, and the barrier was glowing underneath his soles.. And the moment that the barrier shattered into pieces, so did the woman''s head as Eiro already forgot what exactly he was just doing.

 Chapter 285 - Gray Hair

    Eiro swung his hand to the side and got rid of all of the blood and bits of brain that were now stuck to it. It was a rather unpleasant feeling, if he had to bepletely honest. The gooey masses slowly sliding down his body.


    The demon looked around, noticing that time was still frozen. Eiro stared at the dead body in front of him and slowly reached down to the ring, which he pulled of the woman''s finger. And after pushing a bit of mana inside of it, time started to flow again. It seemed to have taken rk and Sarius a few moments until they figured out what exactly happened, and how Eiro managed to get to the other side of the room instantly, and rk just stared back at the Demon in confusion.


    "Y-You can teleport?" He asked, and Eiro just tilted his head to the side a little, "No? This woman stopped time, and for some reason that ability doesn''t fully work on me. I can still think when it happens, and I managed to interact with the ring through my mana because of it. Then I just killed her." The Demon pointed out. Somehow, that didn''t particrly help rk''s surprised demeanor in the slightest. Rather, it made it even worse. Even Sarius seemed a bit startled at this sudden confession. Either way, Eiro looked down at the tags that he himself was holding. He was still just rank 2... It seemed like these ''special members'' were outside the normal ranking. Either way, Eiro was pretty happy that he managed to get his hands on such an amazing item. He couldn''t remember every part about it anymore, but as far as he was aware, he made use of an item simr to this ring in order to kill an enemy that was overwhelmingly strong at the time. Using this, Eiro should be able to beat stronger enemies with ease.


    Well, if he remembered that he had it, at least. The Demon ced the ring away into his treasury, and then turned back around toward rk and Sarius, "Alright, let''s go."


    And without hesitation, Eiro opened the door in front of him, where he was met with the smell of quite a lot of dead, scorched bodies. He didn''t know what exactly happened to these people in here, but he didn''t care that much either.


    But before Eiro managed to take a further step forward, rk ran up to him and grabbed his arm, "What are you doing? Didn''t you forget something?" He asked. Eiro just looked at him with an obviously confused expression, and rk groaned loudly, "Sorry, of course you forgot. Put on your clothes and that mask of yours. Or else you''re going to be hunted pretty soon."


    "Hm?" Eiro replied, before he realized what rk was talking about. The Demon looked into himself and found the items that he figured to be the right ones, and soon was d in them once more, "Can we go now, or did I forget something else?"


    rk red back at Eiro, since this was usually something that people would ask in a rather sarcastic way, but the escort still had to get used to the fact that in this case, Eiro didn''t make use of any sarcasm. He simply genuinely asked about whether or not he forgot anything.


    "No, I don''t think so. But this time, please stick to me. And Sarius, you please pay attention to him as well, or he''s going to get himself, the two of us, and maybe everyone down here and up in the slums killed. Worst case... Even beyond that."


    "Who do ya think you are tomand me, bastard?" Sarius replied immediately, not ready in the slightest to take any sort ofmands or request from anyone, most likely not even Eiro in aplete way.


    rk started grinding his teeth annoyedly, the reasons for which were quite obvious, "Solomon, I know I owed you one, but now you owe me tenfold..."


    Trying to ignore rk''s grumbling, Eiro made his way out of the room and then through thisrge space filled with corpses. After that, Eiro only had to traverse the tunnel, and then was already back in the main-space of the ck market.


    Since Eiro already forgot most of what he saw in here, his extreme curiosity nearly got the better of him again, but rk chose to just ce his hand onto the Demon''s shoulder to make sure he couldn''t randomly run off, and so that he could jolt him awake if he suddenly started concentrating on something unimportant.


    But just as the pair made their way out the door, while Sarius made his way into the inbetween-space between realms where only Eiro could see him, a group of people made their way over toward Eiro.


    "Oi, you two. The fuck happened in there?" One of them asked. Eiro looked him up and down. He had some weirdly-patterned tattoos on his body, much like some of the others. They were probably part of some sort of religious group, if he had to guess.


    "Oh, I just destroyed everything inside there. It was kind of satisfying actually. I wouldn''t go in there though, the scent is horrid." The Demon admitted bluntly without a moment''s hesitation, and then stepped past the man that spoke to him. But of course, he wouldn''t just let that happen. He tried to touch Eiro''s shoulder, but before he managed to do so, Eiro turned toward him and kicked his right leg straight up. It knocked into the man''s chin and pushed him up a few meters, before he fell back down onto the ground with a broken jaw and lost consciousness.


    But just as Eiro did that, he felt a painful jolt in the back of his neck that made him turn around immediately, "Hey, what was that for?!" He asked, and rk just looked back at him with a wry smile, "So that you don''t kill anyone here. Now, let''s just go. Nobody will attack you for a little quarrel here and there, but don''t try to provoke anyone. You got that?"


    "...Alright. Understood." The Demon said bluntly as he looked at the man on the ground, who slowly managed to wake up again, "Urgh... What just..." He mumbled, and Eiro held his hand out toward him.


    "Sorry about that, you just startled me. You see, that group in there did something horrible to me, so I did what I had to and wiped them out." The Demon admitted. The man slowly extended his hand toward Eiro as an instinct because he wasn''t fully conscious yet himself. But when he realized what he was saying, it was already toote.


    Eiro grabbed the man''s hand and immediately proceeded to push arge amount of mana into him, intertwining it with the man''s own. The Demon knew that the man was in a lot of pain, that was the goal, after all. That''s why he focused his own mana around the man''s throat and cause immense spasms to that no air could travel through them.


    That way, the man could neither scream, nor breathe, both of which would cause him even more demise. Either mental or physical, both was great right now, "Understood? If anyone does anything to me, I will wipe them out without hesitation. That''s how it works in this underworld, doesn''t it? Kill or be killed, survival of the fittest. And you can be sure that in this ce, I''m the King of the fit." Eiro whispered, making his voice travel exclusively to the man so that only he was affected by this.


    And then, all that Eiro did was pull him up, but the man''s legs gave in as he once more fell to his knees and dropped down t ont he ground. Hispanions of course stared at Eiro in confusion, and even the onlookers became a little bit curious about what was going on all of a sudden. But then, Eiro immediately squatted down and grabbed the man''s neck, cing his fingers onto his veins as if to feel his heartbeat, "Don''t worry, he''s fine. I didn''t realize that I kicked him that hard. Here, take this and bring him to a healer."


    The man''spanions seemed a bit confused as Eiro swiftly pulled out a bundle of coins that he handed to them. Eiro noticed that in the end, money was the only thing that was as powerful as strength down here, and plenty of people were beat and then given money so that they didn''t retaliate. In the end, Eiro figured he should do the same, and the people quickly epted, especially after the reason that he told them. It was one that calmed them down more easily than Eiro''s other top choice would have, ''Take this and buy some brains before you try and take on someone obviously stronger than you''. Or so Eiro figured, at least.


    Either way, for now, this was dealt with more easily than a fight, which might have caused aggression, in the end. Eiro noted down the patterns that these men had on their bodies, just in case, and then turned around and was properly escorted out of this ce by rk.


    Eiro wanted to stop a few times to buy, or just look at something, but rk did a pretty good job at keeping him focused on where they were supposed to go. Soon, they started walking back up the long, narrow stairs to reach the slums again, where the group of three soon made their way to the ce where they said to meet up with Solomon, now that they finished their mission.


    Eiro formed a new contract with a spirit, and coincidentally received a blessing from a Spirit King and then took a Spirit Gateway into his own body. It went a bit off railspared to what Eiro had expected, but it did so in the best possible way, as far as Eiro was concerned.


    "So, did everything work out as nned?" The King asked with a slight, nervous smile on his face, and Eiro slowly looked to the side as Sarius appeared there, his body forming out of sparking mes, "I guess you could say that."


    "Perfect! A Smander. You must tell me how you came across it down there, and especially how you managed to form a contract with it." The King pointed out, before he turned his head to look at rk, "I hope he didn''t cause you too much trouble."


    rk red back at Solomon, "If I get gray hairs, it''s your fault."


    Confused, Eiro looked back at the escort, "What do you mean? You already have gray hairs, right?"

 Chapter 286 - By The Way

    Solomon sat fell down onto his couch, unable to respond in any way to what he was just told now that the group made their way back to the castle, where they were rtively safe from onlookers, at leastpared to outside.


    "A blessing... and you did... what exactly? You absorbed a Spirit Gateway?" The King asked,pletely perplexed. After all, this sounded like nothing but a ridiculous joke to him at the moment. But when Eiro at the very least revealed the patterns that were being interwoven with the patterns of his already existing blessing on his chest, he understood that at least part of it was correct. And since he got the testimony of all three of them, rk, Eiro and Sarius, there was no way that Solomon could just pass this off as a joke or a lie.


    "You know what? Let us deal with this after you solved this memory-issue for us. After that, everything should make a lot more sense, right?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "I assume so. You must know a lot of things about me that might make it easier to believe. Subtle things that are hard to put into words are the things that should help, mostly." The Demon replied, and Solomon slowly epted this. What else was he supposed to do but that, right now?


    "Now, what''re you gonna do? Fuse with that guy and then look for that strong source of magic, right?" rk asked with his hands ced behind the back of his head, and the Demon slowly turned his head toward Solomon, "Was that the n?"


    The King immediately nodded his head, "Of course that was the n. I do not know how that fusion works, however. You did not exin it to me." Solomon pointed out. Eiro looked toward Sarius and then extended his hand toward the Smander, who just looked back at Eiro a bit confused.


    "What d''ya mean, you wanna fuse with me? Are you a dumbass?" Sarius asked, and Eiro slightly sighed, "No, I''m not." He said bluntly. He pushed his hand forward toward the Spirit and tried to pull Sarius into his hand as if he was trying to fuse with some regr magic, and then released that effect soon after.


    Sarius flew backward a good bit and stared at Eiro with a startled expression, "The fuck was that?"


    "We slightly fused right there. Come on, let''s just do this. It''s not an unpleasant feeling, if I remember correctly." The Demon exined, and Sarius groaned slightly as he floated over toward Eiro''s chest. Even he was a little bit interested in what was about to happen. And with a quick push, Sarius pressed into the center of Eiro''s chest, and the Demon could feel as the two of them fused together. Eiro''s arms, legs and back became covered in scales. Some of them were a dark red, and others of them were a pale blue color, as if Eiro''s scales were forming some form of pattern.


    The rest of Eiro''s skin became many shades darker, as if one had simply rubbed some charcoal on him and didn''t wash it off properly. The Demon''s horns started to wave around before igniting into mes, and were now burning on their own. Or rather, they were the mes themselves, each burning in a different color that corresponded to the colors of the horns themselves.


    Eiro properly took off his cloak now that his body had transformed like this, and then spread out his wings. As he did so, they slowly changed and turned into a mass of mes. His bones were still there as a base, but the rest of Eiro''s wings were reced by fire. He wasn''t sure if he would be able to fly like this, but he didn''t want to try it out in this form.


    For now, the Demon just gently wrapped his wings around his body as if to cover it up, in the same way that Sarius had been using his me-cloak to loosely cover his body as if it was just an essory.


    Eiro was now able to see the flow of magic around him. The way that his own body, and especially the magically-created heat pushing off of him was just so slightly shifting the flow of the fineyer of ambient mana present everywhere.


    It was something that Eiro didn''t particrly remember ever noticing, but it was like every movement that anyone took slightly impacted this fineyer of mana. He wasn''t sure if he actually even noticed thisyer thest time he fused with a spirit, but he certainly did now. Eiro was able to see the slight muscle-twitchings of Solomon and rk''s bodies, he could see their heartbeats and their breathing, and all of that just through the subtle flows of the mana in this room.


    And then, the Demon stepped over toward the window, looking out into the snowstorm that was ravaging there, as strong as ever. Eiro took a deep breath as he prepared himself. The Demon turned around and looked at the two people standing there, "Take care of that stag while I''m gone, will you? Let''s hope we can end this all soon." The Demon said, and immediately proceeded to open the window up. Snow was pouring into the room, but Eiro didn''t really care, even when Solomon started yelling at him.


    The Demon climbed onto the windowsill and simply pushed himself off with as much force as he could. During the jump, Eiro started to p his wings, and luckily, he was actually able to keep himself up in the air with these wings, although it really didn''t look like it. Logically, he shouldn''t have been able to fly like this.


    Well, logically Eiro shouldn''t be able to do a lot of things that he does with rtive ease, so there was no reason try and be nit-picky about it.


    Eiro started to fly through the air, through this heavy snowstorm. The heavy snow was melting before it even touched the Demon, and he was sure that if someone was down there, they would most likely have ended up seeing Eiro flying there. Although they probably wouldn''t have seen who or what he is, so that wasn''t really that big of an issue.


    The Demon looked around the town, trying to find anything at all, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn''t find any particrlyrge mass of mana. Sure, there were a few hotspots, but they were ces where it was to be expected. Magic research-centers, nobles'' homes where magic-tools were likely to be used, and of course inns where a lot of adventurers usually were. A lot of mages tend to practice their magic if they don''t have anything else to do, and in this sort of weather, there was obviously nothing else they could do at all.


    And on top of that, the disgusting magic that was fused with this storm itself was kind of blurring the sight that Eiro had of the magic in this town. As if it put a coating on his senses. He knew that he had to get back down onto the ground to properly find anything, even if it would take a lot longer than if he was able to just do it from up in the sky.


    With an annoyed sigh, the Demon just let himself drop down onto the ground, and proceeded to swing his cloak over his body to hide himself again. Luckily, since his wings and horns became mes, Eiro was able to control them pretty easily, and basically just had to extinguish them a little to make sure he could wear his outfit properly.


    The Demon fell toward the ground and quickly used magic to halt his fall just before impact, before he just stood there in the middle of the street for a few moments, "...What was I going to do again?" Eiro muttered to himself quietly, and he soon heard the thoughts of Sarius inside of his mind, ''Looking for that high-magic source for the spell-conductor. Concentrate, dumbass. And look at that fucking book already''.


    With a deep breath, Eiro just stood there for a moment and tried to spread his awareness out toward any ce around him that he could reach like this. He could feel the fluctuations in the ambient mana a bit more easily like this. It was still pretty tough because of the spell that was intertwined with the snowstorm, but overall it was still easier. And then, Eiro realized an espect about this he didn''t even consider up until now.


    He shouldn''t try to look through the storm to see the town, but rather look at the storm directly. The thing that Eiro was looking for was the thing that was powering this strong spell in the first ce. That meant that if he looked at the storm itself and the way that it flowed, Eiro should be able to figure out where exactly that mass amount of mana was entering the storm in the first ce.


    With such thoughts, Eiro quickly ran through the storm, along the flow of this ufortable magic fused into it. The Demon linked his thoughts with this flow, and let himself practically be carried by it. He tried to analyze it, figure out how it worked and what sort of magic this was in the first ce, since it certainly was anything but pure. It was really quite disgustingly wicked, as far as Eiro was concerned.


    Eiro followed along with the flow of the magic, and in the end, he managed to at the very least narrow the location of the ''power source'' down to a specific area of the town. Well, to an area that was about 10% of the whole town right now. It was a lot smaller, but it was still quiterge in the end.


    The Demon tried to get into the center of that 10% area to spread his awareness out again. Maybe this time he would have some better luck. For this, Eiro just headed into some random bar and ordered something to drink for himself while waiting and just tried to spread his magic out from in here while Sarius did his best to keep the Demon in check. It wasn''t his fort¨¦, but he tried his best nheless. He didn''t want Eiro to mess up and be discovered to be a demon, after all.


    But just as Eiro started his work, it seemed like he caught someone''s attention. He was a rtively tall fellow, although shorter than Eiro still. He had really pale skin and seemed to be some sort of elf.


    "Yo. What do you think you''re doing?" He asked with a deep frown, and Eiro looked back at him, "Nothing much. Just practicing my magic. Can''t do much else right now, can I? Did I bother you?" Eiro replied, and the elf scratched the back of his head.


    "Ah, sorry, I guess. Just kind of on edge. This snowstorm''s making me fuckin'' crazy, there''s something off about it. And then there''s this fucking demon-report going around that I''ve gotta deal with..." The pretty much drunk elf pointed out as he sat down next to Eiro with a loud groan, "So? What''s your name?" The Elf asked.


    The Demon stretched his hand out toward him, but noticed that something was off. It was a prosthetic, as far as he could tell, but he moved it rtively well. Eiro didn''t notice when it was just hanging down. He did notice a light limb just now though, and on top of that, he had a nasty scar on half of his body. Must have been some sort of ident.


    "I''m Eiro. You seem sensitive to magic? Are you a high elf?" Eiro asked surprised, and the man slowly shook his head.


    "Nah. Light Elf.. Oh, the name''s James, by the way."

 Chapter 287 - Nearly Forgotten

    "Light Elf? Sorry, I''m not familiar." The Demon pointed out, trying to lead some subtle, useless conversations while trying to find arge source of mana in this area, while further analyzing the flow of the storm''s magic outside. Eiro did have a bit of a weird feeling at the back of his mind while speaking to this man though. As if there was something important about this man.


    But with a loud groan, Jamesid his head onto the table drunkenly, "Don''t me ya. Not many do. Just know that I can sense magic like High Elves." He pointed out, "Although these past couple days, some weird shit''s been happening. You happen to notice anything like that?" James asked, the tone of his voice giving Eiro the idea that maybe this man was subtly trying to question him about what he was doing even more.


    Of course, Eiro didn''t really like that all too much, "Of course I didn''t. But if you say that the storm is giving you an ufortable feeling, then why would you tread through it just to get a drink at a bar like this? Everyone else is trying to shut themselves in."


    "Sure, but I came here to deal with that shitty demon the guild informed me about. Killed some kids near where I live. I''m not gonna let that happen, there''s kids where I live as well." James pointed out blutnly, before he quickly pulled his head up and realized what exactly he just said. Eiro took notice of this, and his weird feelings inside of him welled up even more, "Alright, who are you? I''ve been feeling a bit weird about the the whole time, but why do I feel like telling you about things that don''t concern you? You just cast a spell just then, didn''t you?"


    With a deep sigh, Eiro stood up and chose to just walk away from this. He had to deal with other things. If this ''Light Elf'' was still trouble to Eiro once he managed to solve the storm issue and get rid of this weird, negative ability that made Eiro lose his memories, then he would just kill him, probably. But for now, it would only end up bothersome if he did.


    "Oi, I''m talking to you. Tell me what you''ve been doing, and depending on your answer, you can go."


    "Hm... You sobered up pretty quickly there, didn''t you?" Eiro asked bluntly as he slowly turned around toward James, who just shook his head, "Shut it, I obviously wasn''t really drunk."


    With a dagger pointed toward Eiro, James stared deep into the Demon''s eyes. Or well, where they would be underneath the mask, at least. With a deep sigh, Eiro just turned around again, but the moment he did, James chose to attack Eiro to try and incapacitate him. Or at least to figure out if Eiro was really a Demon or not, as James was imagining.


    The Dagger slid by Eiro''s side because the Demon simply moved his body out of the way subtly, and Eiro then proceeded to push his elbow into the Light Elf''s stomach. James was pushed back and immediately held onto Eiro''s cloak as he did. A piece of clothing was rather hard t o controlpared to parts of one''s body, so Eiro didn''t manage to pull it out of the way quickly enough.


    But luckily, all that happened was that part of Eiro''s left arm was revealed. And since his skin was currently rather dark in color, nearly ck, it was rather easy for James toe to a quick conclusion. And that this dark-skinned person in front of him couldn''t be the same red-skinned demon as he had specifically heard about in reports.


    But even then, James wasn''t going to let Eiro just go like this. He could feel a lot of magic from the being in front of him, too much to say that he simply had arge amount of mana within him. No, he had some sort of high-tier spell cast onto him, that was something that Eiro was practically sure of.


    "Alright, what really are you? Tell me, what kind of spell are you using?" And as such, the rather straightforward James didn''t hesitate to question Eiro this time either. The Demon turned around with a re underneath his mask, "I don''t believe this is any of your business, but I was tasked by his Majesty, the King Skyhart, to investigate this storm. If you do not believe me, here is the valid identification I received from him. His Majesty asked me not to il this around everywhere, but here we are." Eiro said bluntly. Luckily, Sarius managed to quickly help the Demon put a few thoughts in order, at least enough toe up with a good exnation as Eiro pulled out the brooch that he was given by Solomon some time ago that he didn''t really think of for a while now.


    James looked at it and ripped his eyes open immediately, "You were asked by Solomon to..." He muttered quietly, and then took a step back, "I truly apologize for attacking you. This situation is really messed up, in this whole town I mean, so I''m kind of on edge."


    "Right. If you''ll excuse me, then." The Demon pointed out, and then swiftly turned around to leave now. But just before he did, James stopped him again, "Wait. Let me help. I''m also someone that happened to get close to the King through different circumstances, and I''d like to help figure this out. My priority is finding the Demon I mentioned, but that''s pretty hard to do with this storm around. If we can at least get rid of the source of that disgusting feeling it''s giving me, that''d be fucking great!" James eximed, in a way that was far too enthusiastic than what Eiro was used to. Maybe this was the way that he would interact with Eiro if it weren''t for a certain few aspects in the past of those two that nearly made this impossible. After all, they did trust each other, and James did be someone quite important to him as well.


    "Hm..?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself after those random thoughts crossed his mind unexpectedly. Somehow, from what James just said, the Demon made an automatic mental connection. He filled in the gaps, basically. The Demon managed to subconsciously figure out the weird feeling that he had about James just now.


    He rediscovered that James had been part of his past, and especially what sort of past it was. Sure, there were plenty of things missing, but at least Eiro now had a person to connect to those empty feelings and concepts that were floating around Eiro''s mind for a while now. Well, at least for some of them.


    The Demon''s heart started to race and his fusion with Sarius seemed to be a bit unstable as Eiro seemed to panic at the realization that he nearly forgot about such an important person in his life.


    Sure, it was hard to call James a true ''friend'' considering theirplex rtionship, but at the same time, their connection was stronger than friendship, and was still ying in the same ballpark. James was certainly important to Eiro, important enough to risk his life for in some situations. Same as with the others as well, although Eiro was trying his best not to think about all of that.


    So that he wouldn''t forget any of this important information immediately again, Eiro of course wrote as much as he could down in his notebook.


    "Hm? What''s that for?" James asked a bit confusedly and suspiciously, and Eiro slowly raised his head again, "Just noting down things. I''m slightly forgetful, so I must write down all important things that I can for the report for his Majesty. And having someone join me on my task is certainly important enough."


    With a light grin on his face, James nodded his head, "You''ve got it. Now, where are we gonna start?" The Light Elf asked. In Eiro''s mind, it was still weird how cooperational James was with him. As if he was still aware of part of the connection that Eiro and James had, but no specific memories, parts that he could still ess despite not having any memories of Eiro to make use of at the moment. That was probably what James was referencing before, that weird ''urge'' to tell Eiro more details than he initially intended to.


    After all, James and Eiro didn''t keep any sorts of secrets from each other. The only one really was Eiro''s weird status and how he could assign stat points at will. Other than that, Eiro would say that the two knew everything about each other. Although currently, that was obviously a thing of the past.


    ''Oi, the fuck are you doing? Letting a random guye along.'' Sariusined to Eiro mentally, who quickly replied with, ''Shut it. I know him. I trust him.''


    And after that far too short exnation, Eiro looked at James and finally answered the Light Elf''s question, "We will start by further analyzing this storm and this weird, ''disgusting'' energy that is intertwined with it. That energy is a sort of magic, although I''m not directly allowed to choose to exin it to you right now. Magic needs an energy-source. In this case, it''s not a spellcaster, however, so we are looking for something inconspicous with a high concentration of magic hidden inside of it."


    After Eiro''s exnation, James slowly nodded his head, "Got it..." The Light Elf muttered quietly in thought, trying to figure out where exactly they could look for something like this while slowly rubbing his stomach.


    "I apologize if I injured you somehow." The Demon said bluntly, and James just looked at him and shook his head, "I attacked you in the first ce, so who the fuck cares? Come on, we gotta look for that source of magic. I''mma guess that it''s supposed to be around here if you''re at this ce to search for it, so I might have a good idea of where it could be." James pointed out. Eiro raised his brows curiously about what James might be able to tell him.


    The Light-Elf swiftly exined it to Eiro. At first he didn''t understand why exactly this ce could be a possible ce to put the conductor, since it simply felt out of ce there, but soon the Demon understood James'' reasoning.


    "Hm... It might be worth a try." The Demon said bluntly, and James lightly grinned as he nodded his head, "Of course it is. Better than what you have until now, huh?"


    With a slow nod, Eiro chose to not even reply.. They didn''t have any more time to waste, after all.

 Chapter 288 - Floral Exhibit

    Eiro followed James toward the ce that he mentioned and tried to figure out if the Conductor truly might be there somewhere. And sure, there was a rtively higher amount of raw magic in this specific area of town, but Eiro wasn''t particrly sure if this was enough to say that the Conductor might be here.


    Then again, he didn''t have any clue as to what it might look like in the first ce, so he should explore any possibilities that he came across.


    "Yo, we''re here. Been feelin'' a lot of weird shit from here." James stated as he stopped in a narrow alley where him and Eiro were rtively safe from the heavy snowstorm going on around them. He pointed to the other side of the street toward a small bookshop, and Eiro concentrated his re onto that ce. He looked around and tried to see if the storm was moving in any particrly special way around here, and while their certainly did seem to be some fluctuations, Eiro didn''t think that it was because there was a lot of magic power being pumped into the storm from here.


    Rather, it was like there was something in that bookstore that was simply so powerful that it ended up passively interrupting part of the storm''s magic.


    Eiro stared at the store and certainly did see the highly-concentrated magic right in there. It was the best clue that he had, in the end. With a deep sigh, Eiro approached the door of that store and slowly pushed it open. Or at least, he tried. The store had been locked down because of the weather, but soon, someone came to the door and swiftly opened it up.


    "Ah, excuse me. I don''t get too many customers these days, so I locked up a bit earlier than usual... Come in,e in..." An elderly, weak, and frail man pointed out as he opened the door for Eiro and James. The Demon slowly nodded his head and stepped inside, and simply let the snow on him naturally melt due to the high amount of heat that his own body gave off due to his fusion with Sarius. He was trying his best to suppress it so that people didn''t notice that something was off about him, but it came in useful in situations like this, at least.


    And after quickly melting the snow on James'' body as well, the two stepped into the bookstore. Eiro instnatly started to scan the books inside of this initial, cluttered room, trying to find the source of therge amount of magic in here. Quite soon, he found it.


    Eiro approached the source and picked it up, but it was nothing but a small, dirty leatherbound book. As There didn''t seem to be anything special about it externally, but it certainly had a lot of magic imbued into it. The nature of this magic seemed somewhat simr to that of this storm, so that was probably the reason why it ended up slightly causing the storm''s magic to fluctuate.


    "Any luck? Is that what you''re looking for?" The Light Elf beside Eiro asked, and the Demon slowly flipped the book open just to double-check. But when he found that the pages werepletely empty, he slowly shook his head, "It is not. It just seems to be a coincidental find." Eiro replied bluntly, and James scratched the back of his neck.


    "Really? And I thought it seemed a bit simr."


    "Oh, it certainly is simr. An aspect of this book is simr to that of the storm, and I already have a rough guess at what it might be." The Demon pointed out. And he didn''t lie either, he really did have a pretty good guess. The magic that was basically seeping out of this small book was a quite invasive sort. One that would dive into your very being and take something from you. It did seem a little too weird to be in the hands of the owner of such a small bookstore.


    "Old man. Why do you have something like this?" Eiro inquired immediately, and the man slowly looked into the Demon''s direction, "It is a book, is it not? I sell books."


    "Then you won''t mind selling this to me?"


    Immediately, the old man shook his head, and with a gentle smile on his face said, "Why would I mind?"


    Eiro sighed and concluded that this old man didn''t have any idea of why this book was here. Either he bought it without knowing what it was or someone nted it here for someone to randomly pick up and cause a bit of havoc. It seemed like it would be best if Eiro kept it for himself, so he quickly pulled out his pouch of money and bought it, before proceeding to ce the small book into his treasury.


    If this book had really been the conductor for the magic that fused with the storm outside, then something should have changed. And well, it did, but only in a subtle way. After all, this book had been slightly affecting the trajectory of the magic, so after that had been fixed, nothing else was changing.


    Although Eiro soon grumbled to himself in annoyance when he realized that he was in thepletely wrong part of town, and that this small book had affected his analysis to this extent.


    "The hell did you do?" James asked with a light, surprised frown, and Eiro turned over toward him, slowly ncing down at his book to make sure he remembered everything about this situation. Since James was able to sense magic to an extent, he definitely would have noticed such a strong source of magic as this book indubitably was, suddenly disappear.


    Eiro looked back at James and chose the simplest exnation that he should give at this time. He didn''t want to spend too much time just having to exin something that he hoped James would remember soon anyway.


    "It''s an ability of mine." The Demon said bluntly as he slowly made his way back over toward the door,pletely ignoring James'' confused expression.


    The two of them made their way outside again, and Eiro immediately started to try and figure out the patterns of this storm again. Somehow, it seemed like this book had a muchrger influence on the storm than the Demon assumed at first. As if the small immediate effect it had over here just became stronger due to different chain-reactions and ended up slightly shifting the way that things worked.


    That was an aspect that Eiro really didn''t take into ount so far, how the different magical objects in this town might affect the storm. Eiro thought about everything that might end up affecting the storm in any possible way. The few shops that actually sold magic items, all the artificial artifacts created by the organization in the slums, and of course all the research conducted in the Academy.


    Eiro thought about everything and tried to figure it out, and soon managed to narrow the ce down in a surprisingly urate way.


    "We have to get to the other side of the town. It''s in the floral-exhibit in the park." Eiro pointed out, and James looked at him with a frown, "The floral-exhibit? It''s winter, and we''re in the middle of the probably strongest snowstorm of the century, the fuck do you mean the ''floral-exhibit''? There is none!" He eximed, and Eiro stopped in his track and turned around toward him, "There''s something called a Greenhouse there, you know? Using magic, they can simte the exact weather that different nts need. ess is usually restricted to Nobles due to how expensive the different nts there are, so that nobody may steal them."


    James looked back at Eiro a bit surprised, and even the spirit that Eiro was fused with felt simrly surprised, ''You can''t fucking remember that this guy is your friend but you can remember this random bullshit?''


    ''Shut it'' Eiro immediately replied to Sarius, before the Demon proceeded to make his way through the town, while James quickly followed him toward that ce as well. Since Eiro knew a quicker path that they could take, it didn''t really take that long until the two of them made their way to that royal Floral Exhibit, and were soon let inside when Eiro showed the guards, the few of them that were still stationed here in this weather, the brooch he was given by Solomon a while ago.


    And now that they were here, Eiro and James could rx a bit again, since it was quite warm and humid in here. The snow immediately started to drip down their bodies after melting, and pleasant scents travelled through the air.


    "...This ce is really just filled with goddamn flowers?" James asked with a wry smile, and Eiro slowly turned toward him, "Not exclusively flowers. All sorts of nts, really. Trees, mosses, herbs, and flowers as well, yes, but not exclusively."


    After Eiro''s brief exnation, he proceeded to look around. This ce gave Eiro a lot of trouble with his perception as well. For one, his sense of smell waspletely overwhelmed due to the extreme amount of different ss that were filling the air here, although that was something that Eiro would grow used to soon.


    The thing that caused the most issues to Eiro were the magical nts in here, as well as the magic that was used to keep this ce running. One could argue that this floral-exhibit had the most focused andpressed magic in the whole town, hence why Eiro tried to ignore it in his search for a bit. He just didn''t want to get distracted.


    But now that he took a look at everything again, he noticed that this ce really strongly affected the storm outside, probably mostly due to the weather-manipting magic that was used to create artificial eco-systems in here. Either way, that was not the whole reason for this. It seemed like there was energy flowing out of here, although this fact became extremely obscured due to the very fact that this magic in here was messing with the magic out there.


    As if something was deliberately ced here in the hope that all this magic would hide it pretty well. And it worked, even for someone with Eiro''s abilities. Others most likely would have an incredibly hard time to figure all of this out. It was the perfect location to hide the conductor, as far as Eiro was concerned. Although, that fact alone should have led Eiro to suspect this ce in the first ce.


    Either way, the Demon made his way further into the Exhibit to try and find where exactly the conductor was hidden.

 Chapter 289 - The Ghost

    Eiro looked around inside of the exhibit and tried to find the ce that would hopefully turn out to be the conductor for this magical storm outside. Of course, James also tried to help him find the right nt, and quite soon, the two of them managed to narrow it down to a specific part of the exhibit.


    The Demon tried to step through the ss door to that part, but he was swiftly stopped by one of the guards, "Sorry, but nobody may enter this area at the moment. There is a rather dangerous nt in there. The pollen it creates are highly poisonous."


    "Hm, that so?" Eiro asked, and immediately tried to push his way through the door again. As the guard was much, much weaker than Eiro was, the Demon of course managed to get through the first door with ease, although the Guard still tried to hold Eiro off from stepping through the second door, "Please, did you not hear me, there are poisonous po-"


    "I heard you, I just don''t care. I have to get in there. Don''t worry, I can use air magic to make sure that nothing happens to me." Eiro said bluntly, "But you two better stay behind. I can''t promise that I can really stop the pollen from approaching either of you."


    The Guard, seeing that Eiro had the royal brooch with him, had little choice but to let Eiro do as he wanted. And James understood that it might be a bit troublesome if he insisted on getting in there together with Eiro.


    And so, the Demon made his way in there alone. He looked around this space, and soon noticed the pollen that the guard was talking about. But to Eiro''s luck, he immediately noticed that they weren''t just regr pollen, but rather that they were something fused together with magic.


    The magic in question was the same sort of magic that was fused with the snowstorm outside, so Eiro knew that he was about to find the conductor in here. Although, he had to be a little bit more careful so that he wouldn''t be randomly affected by this magic and suddenly forget everything that he still knew at this point.


    With a deep sigh to get himself to concentrate, Eiro looked around the space to find the source of the pollen. There were plenty of flowers that they may heed from in here, after all. And so, the Demon walked around the room, closely inspecting every nt that it might have been.


    ''Eiro.'' Sarius suddenly alerted the Demon, who slowly nodded his head, "I know." He whispered quietly, before he heard someone speak right behind him.


    "Beautiful, aren''t they?" A deep, weirdly cheerful voice pointed out from behind Eiro, who slowly turned around to look at him. He was in the end of his 30''s, and had a broad smile on his face, something that Eiro didn''t expect anyone that was standing in the center of a poisonous cloud of pollen to really have.


    "Who are you?" Eiro asked blutnly, not ying around at all, and the man in front of him sighed slightly, "Really, you don''t want to speak to me at least a little bit?" He asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "Well, then I guess I should just tell you. You knew me as Bahlsen. Or Edward, I guess. And to be blunt, I''m the one that caused this whole thing in the first ce." The man said bluntly. Eiro looked back at him with a deep frown. He was telling the truth, Eiro knew that much through his Knight of Pentacles.


    "Since it seems like you truly do not remember me, let me fill you in. I was the former owner of that newest card of yours. It was the one thing that kept my two personas, Bahlsen the Investigator and Edward the Demi-Lich split up. But now that I have died and my spirit is only kept here on this ne due to this spell, that is no longer the case. I know all that happened. All the animosity that I had built up toward the Collector was freed now that I figured out that it was hatred for myself all along."


    "Is there a reason why I should care for this? I can see that you''re not a normal living being. Rather, you were created by magic. I do not care for what the dead have to say about my actions." Eiro replied swiftly, before he approached the one flower that he assumed to be the one creating these magically poisonous pollen.


    "Of course there is a reason you should care for this." The spirit of Bahlsen exined, "You see, now that I was freed from this horrid way of living in the form of two selves, I realized a few things. For one, I understood my own worth quite well. And of course, I understood my own abilities quite well."


    "But aren''t you dead? You shouldn''t have any abilities left to begin with."


    With a light chuckle, the figure next to Eiro shook his head, "What a simple way of thinking. Quite unexpected for someone like you. Rather, due to the unnatural mixture of my Living and Undead nature, I managed to live on in this form. In the form of a Spirit. And you can be quite sure that I am still capable of many things that I was while I lived, and much, much more." The man grinned broadly, but Eiro really didn''t care. He knew that he was telling the truth, but this wasn''t Eiro''s focus at the moment. The thing that he had to do was figure out what the conductor was and somehow destroy it.


    Just as he thought about that, Eiro''s eyesnded on a certain flower. It was quiterge and bulbous, as if it was containing something within itself. And most importantly, it had thergest amount of magic power inside of it of all these flowers, and these magic pollen were rather obviously flowing out of it, which was the most important aspect of this.


    And so, without hesitation, Eiro ced his palm onto it, trying to properly sense what this was all about. But the moment he did, and the moment that he realized what was going on with thisrge flower, the Demon pulled his arm back reflexively.


    Not because he was hurt, or was about to be hurt, but rather because of what he sensed to be inside of the flower. Quite bluntly, it was not a flower.


    "You see... Myte wife was a Florist. And this sort of flower was her favorite. We even named her after it. You see, while my undead half, Edward, tried to control life to the fullest so that he was not to be controlled, he despised it with his very being, trying not to engage with anything life-rted. As such, the knowledge that I picked up from my wife stayed with my living half, Bahlsen. Both of these halves searched for a form of fulfillment. One was eagerly searching for a way to control life itself, while the other was eagerly searching for that which had taken its own life from him. As a father yourself, I''m sure you must understand." The Spirit behind Eiro pointed out, and the Demon slowly understood what he was on about.


    "And so, you did both? You used your abilities of controlling life, in order to create a new one that was taken from you?" Eiro asked, trying his best to suppress a deep growl. Of course, his anger was mixed with that of Sarius that the Demon was fused with. Since both of them had rather extreme anger-issues, it was hard for them to calm down instead of strengthening each others'' emotions even more.


    And so, Eiro tried to take a deep breath, which was hard since he was trying his best to keep the pollen away from him with air magic. At the same time, this was most likely the main reason why Eiro hadn''t been able to figure out what exactly was hidden inside of that giant flower-bud, which was about a meter in size, before touching it. With the ability or chance to properly breath, Eiro would have definitely figured out what was in there the moment he stepped into the room, if not earlier.


    "And why did you turn it into the conductor for this sick spell?"


    "It was simple! Due to the mass amount of magic flowing through that nubile body, it was the one and only perfect choice. It is truly as if the storm and the ''conductor'' as you call it are fueling each other. As long as one exists, the other cannot cease to do so." The ghost said quite bluntly, and Eiro just looked at the flower beside him as Bahlsen, or Edward, or whoever this being no was, continued to speak, "The moment I realized the truth behind your being, theplete and utter truth, I created the ''conductor'' for the spell, and fused it into the small seed that was to turn into this fine specimen."


    "You''re disgusting." Eiro said bluntly, slowly approaching the flower behind him. For some reason, this ghost wasn''t reacting at all, although it was obvious what Eiro was trying to do right now. He pulled out his dagger and cut through the flower''s stem. Due to its disgusting nature, it was still being supplied with life and didn''t die off right away, which actually was pretty good for Eiro in this situation. This way, he could try and figure out how to properly full dispel the spell on this flower while halting the storm.


    The thing that worried Eiro most right now, however, was that the ghost was simply letting him do whatever he wanted. He wasn''t trying to stop him in the slightest, as if he had already anticipated this. It was nothing but a favor to Eiro in the end, since he did not have to bother with fighting or convincing this ghost, but it was still quite unnerving. Maybe it was just the fact that Eiro had already forgotten about who the ghost was supposed to be, however. He had mentioned it a few times, but it was as if this information just slipped out of Eiro''s mind the moment he became a bit agitated over this, which happened extremely quickly. As such, the knowledge on this man left Eiro just as quickly as he got mad, causing his anger to disappear.


    And so, without even an ounce of knowledge about who this ghost was in reality, Eiro made his way out of this part of the floral exhibit, making sure that he was containing all the pollen this flower-bud was creating within a small bubble with the help of different kinds of magic.

 Chapter 290 - CounterSpell

    Eiro brought the flower-bud out of this small part of the flower exhibit, and soon looked at James who was surprised to see the Demon bring this object out of there, "...What is that?" he asked with a wry smile, and Eiro looked back at him and just stared back, "It''s the conductor. Now, I''m going to bring this to Solomon. You maye with me, or you may leave, whatever you want." Eiro exined swiftly.


    James thought about it for just a moment, but soon after just sighed, "I''ming along. If I can, I''ll speak to the King about the Demon that''s running rampant around here. Also... Were you talking to someone in there? I could hear your voice sometimes." The Light Elf pointed out.


    Eiro slowly turned his head toward the man next to him and slowly opened his mouth, but just when he wanted toe up with some random excuse, he had already forgotten the real reason behind it, "...I was just speaking to myself, don''t mind it."


    "If you say so." James said, simply epting it for now, although he certainly did keep it in the back of his mind for now. And then, all of a sudden, Sarius spoke to Eiro in his mind, ''Actually, who did you speak to in there again?''


    Surprised, Eiro focused his mind inward onto Sarius, ''You also forgot?''


    ''I think so... Weird fucking feeling, not gonna lie...'' The Smander pointed out. What exactly was going on? Did Eiro''s negative ability somehow affect Sarius because they were fused for a good bit now already, or was it some other reason? After all, Eiro couldn''t remember what exactly happened there in that room, so maybe it was something that caused both him and Sarius to forget about it more quickly? After all, this flower-bud was pushing out pollen that seemed to be able to manipte memories to an extent, so it wouldn''t be too far-fetched.


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, but in the end simply figured that it didn''t matter too much for now. He had to get this done, and he had to do it as quickly as he could. And so, the Demon and the Light Elf made their way through the flower exhibit again and made their way back out into the snowstorm that the two of them quickly tread through.


    The Demon used his magic to make it as easy for them as possible, and the whole time, he could feel James'' deep res at the back of his head. It seemed like he wasn''t as trusting as Eiro thought he was at first, or maybe he became a bit more suspicious after Eiro and Sarius came back out of that locked-off area.


    Either way, it didn''t matter. Eiro was sure that all of James'' suspicions would disappear once he managed to reconfirm that this Demon was indeed rather close to Solomon. At least that''s what he hoped, but he didn''t worry too much about it anyway.


    Soon, Eiro would hopefully manage to get rid of this whole storm and spell that was connected to it anyway, and at that point, James should remember Eiro, or so he hoped. It wouldn''t be an issue if everything worked out, and James and the others would remember all about Eiro. Although, then James would also realize that Eiro killed those kids in an extremely vicious way, which might not lead him to react in the best way.


    "Nothing I can do if that happens..." Eiro whispered quietly to himself as him and James were walking through the storm, and not that long after, the two of them reached the castle gates. They were led inside by the guards that had been informed of Eiro''s appearance already, and the Demon and the Light Elf quickly made their way toward the ce where Solomon was waiting for them.


    Once they reached the King''s study, Eiro immediately pushed down the handle and pushed forward the door to step inside, while James was staring at him in confusion, "Wh-What are you doing, why are you barging in like that?" He asked, and Eiro stared at him with a frown hidden behind his mask.


    "There''s no one in here but Solomon and that... That..." Eiro started, and from within the room, an annoyed voice could be heard, "rk! It''s rk!"


    "Right, and rk." The Demon said bluntly and then turned around before stepping into the study while James worried with his head lowered now that he was in the presence of the King like this.


    Eiro held forward the closed flower-bud that Eiro he enclosed in a bubble of ice to make sure that it was truly safe, and then exined, "This is the conductor I was looking for. It has a weird internal structure, as if this was some sort of artificial creation."


    "...Are you sure we should talk about this now?" Solomon asked with a concerned expression as he looked at James who was standing behind Eiro, and the Demon slowly turned around, "Well, I don''t really care. We can let him get his business over with first and then let him leave if he wants to."


    "R-Right, thank you." James replied nervously. Immediately, he stepped up closer to Solomon and knelt on the ground in front of him respectfully before starting to exin the situation. And when he was done, Solomon just stared deeply at Eiro with an anger-filled expression.


    "Thank you for rying this to me, James. I appreciate it. I had not heard these details about this situation." He admitted, and Eiro looked back at Solomon, who was focused on James for now.


    "Alright, could you please leave the three of us alone for a minute or two? Or if you want, you can leave right now, or we can call you back in a few minutes." Solomon suggested to James, who slowly looked at Eiro, who was obviously just looking back with his nk mask. The Light Elf thought about it for a moment and then replied.


    "I think I should check up on the others at home for now. Don''t want to leave Krog and Jess alone with those children for too long." James said, and Eiro''s body immediately tensed up due to the way that James was speaking about the kids.


    "...What children may you be speaking about?" Eiro inquired, and James looked at him surprised, "Oh, we''re just taking care of some orphans at the manor." The Light Elf pointed out. But the moment that he did, his heart started to beat a bit stronger and faster, as if he slowly realized that something was off. Although that feeling was gone immediateley after and James calmed back down, "I''ll head out for now." And so, James left the room, and the moment that Eiro made sure that he had left, Eiro took off his mask and cloak and took a deep breath as Sarius slowly dove back out of the Demon''s chest.


    "Urgh... Fuck, that feels... Weird." The Fire Spirit pointed out with a wry smile as Eiro started to swiftly p his wings around to loosen them up a bit after all the pressure put onto them in Eiro''s disguise just now.


    "More importantly." Solomon started, "Eiro, what did James just tell me? You did WHAT exactly to those young adventurers?"


    Eiro looked back at the King and shook his head, "I''m sorry, I don''t remember even meeting them. But since that''s not the answer you wanted to hear... Most likely, I did exactly what James just said. I killed and fed on some young adventurers in a mad frenzy."


    Solomon ripped his eyes open as he stared back at Eiro, "Do you even know what you''ve done? Do you even care about what agony tho-"


    "If I have to be blunt, no, I don''t. After all, why should I care right now? What happens if I feel bad for ten seconds, just to forget what I was feeling bad for? Remind me and punish me when my memories are recovered. Or at least when I stopped losing my memories instantly."


    Solomon red at Eiro while grinding his teeth. Eiro wasn''t sure if this King was actually all that angry at Eiro himself rather than frustrated at the situation. After a deep breath, Solomon collected himself properly again.


    "Fine. But I do not care for what our rtionship is or was, I will not let something like this pass by so easily." Solomon pointed out, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "I wouldn''t expect you to... What exactly are we talking about again?"


    "Urgh, so fucking annoying! That you ughtered those kids, you dumbass."


    "Oh... Well in that case, my point definitely stands." Eiro pointed out in response to Sarius who was floating around Eiro rather angrily, and at that point, rk finally pointed out the most important thing. Meanwhile, Eiro walked over toward Lugo to run his hand over the sleeping Stag''s head.


    "So... what is the conductor? And how do we stop the storm now?" The man asked, and Eiro turned his head toward him and thought about it for a moment.


    Immediately, the Demon looked at his notebook and flipped through it a few times, before looking at the flower-bud with a light squint of his eyes, "I''m going to analyze the magic ced onto the conductor and create a counter spell. I will then try and ce the counter-spell onto the conductor to stop it from supplying the raw magic, but will only activate it the moment that my ''counter-spell'' for the snowstorm takes effect."


    "...You make it sound so easy." rk sighed slightly, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "Oh, it''s not easy. Counter-Spells are quite hard to create. It''s as if you create the opposite of the spell used to cause something to just break apart, but then you need to still hold up certain rules that all depend on a


    lot of different aspects of the ce and object the spell is ced on in the first ce.


    "Also, that flower-bud creates a lot of poisonous pollen that will prolly cause you to lose your memory." Sarius pointed out, as if it was nothing but a side-note, and Eiro swiftly nodded his head, "Right, I nearly forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me."


    "...No problem." The Smander said with a wry smile, while the Demon got ready to work on the counter spell by fusing with Sarius again so that he could properly sense the magic with all of his senses. It didn''t take long for Eiro to sit down in a self-containing capsule of ice where all of the pollen couldn''t disappear from, and then made sure to try and stop the pollen from appearing in the first ce.


    And so, the Demon quickly got started on developing the counter-spell for this special flower-bud.

 Chapter 291 - Figuring It Out

    Eiro analyzed the magic flowing through the flower-bud, noting down as much of its properties as he could. He sketched down the different possible parts of the counter-spell, by first trying to figure out how this spell was cast in the first ce.


    "You won''t be able to figure it out." A voice could be heard from behind the Demon, although it seemed he was the only one that could actually hear it. After all, it was Bahlsen again. Or Edward. Or whatever name he was going by, although Eiro didn''t really know either of those names anymore. This Ghost had been haunting Eiro ever since he picked up this oversized flower-bud. As far as the Demon was concerned, his goal was just to annoy the crap out of him and nothing else. But since he didn''t seem capable of doing much beyond that, Eiro just chose to ignore him for now.


    The pen in the Demon''s hand ran over the page as if it wasn''t even touching it, just dancing slightly above it, as Eiro was sketching out different versions of possible magic circles. This sort of magic wasn''t something that he was particrly adept with, simply because it was very different to what he was used to in its very nature. This was the same as ''Buff'' or ''Debuff'' magic, basically. This took basic, non-elemental magic in the form of mana and transformed it into something that was capable of affecting someone''s mind. Through the magic circle, the mana was basically being infused with an artificial magical element, which is the magic that Eiro had been sensing the whole time and that was fused with the storm outside.


    But the actual magic that was making use of this specific element was different again, since it once more went through a transformation so that the specific use could be verified. Basically, this kind of magic was created by going through one extra step than what Eiro usually was when using magic-circles.


    Although, to an extent, it was simr to healing magic. You fused your intent into the magical element you were controlling and used it to heal someone. And in this case, you fused your intent into the mock-element that you created to cause any sort of effect that you wanted. It was quite hard to do, and required you to have actual talent in that field in order to achieve it in the first ce, much like it was with healing magic.


    But for now, that didn''t matter. As long as Eiro managed to figure out this counter-spell, then it would be fine. It was the first time that Eiro was actually creating a direct counter for a spell like this... An official counter, that was. Usually he would just try and quickly create the perfect defense for a certain spell, or copy it and use it to cancel the spell the other person casted out, but a counter was rather different.


    For one, because ''Spell Counter'' was an actual skill. A rare one that requierd a lot of practice to even attain, but a skill nheless. Luckily it was the sort of skill that you could make use of fully without having it at a high-grade, the only thing that it did help you with was analytical abilities to figure out theposition of a spell.


    And sure, that did seem useful, but Eiro figured that the benefit from a beginner grade skill would have a miniscule impact whenpared to the Knight of Pentacles, so he didn''t try to get the skill first.


    He had to spend all the time he could on this specific counter-spell, since this was possibly one of the most important things in Eiro''s life he had to do so far.


    "Wrong~." The Ghost pointed out while looking over Eiro''s shoulder at the spell that he had just sketched down in his notebook, but the Demon tried not to react, "Oh, how sad, are you ignoring me?"


    Eiro kept on not paying attention to him, although it was getting harder and harder. He was incredibly stressed and he still had the mark of <The Devil> influencing his anger. The fact that Eiro was fused with another being with extreme anger-issues really didn''t help that.


    But still, Eiro had a goal, so he managed to keep himself calm by just focusing on it as much as he could. He looked at the spell that he just sketched down and immediately got to work on the next best idea that hade to his mind when it came to the nature of this element. And just as he did, Solomon opened the door to the study and walked inside, apanied by some guards as well as James, all of which were carrying some books into the room that they ced down on the ground.


    Eiro turned around and looked at them before jumping up, "Thank you." He said as he took the first stack of books from one of the guards while the others just ced them down onto the ground or the table Eiro was working at.


    Once Solomon ordered the Guards to leave, James had something that he just had to ask about, "So, why exactly is he researching mental maniption magic? What exactly is that storm?" James asked. As he knew about the situation, Solomon looked at Eiro''s back with a bitter expression, "We''ll exin it to you once we manage to clear everything up, don''t worry..." The King exined. James slowly nodded his head, although he was still a bit awkward just standing next to Solomon like that and speaking to him in such a casual manner, although it was something that Solomon had specifically requested from him.


    Eiro immediately noted down some of the magic circles that had been shown as examples in the books so that he had them in one ce, and immediately analyzed what exactly the patterns between them were. And then, just as he was thinking this, a phenomenon that happened to Eiro before once more unfolded around him.


    The lines of ck ink on the paper started to glow in a bright light and from Eiro''s view, detached themselves from that paper. These magic circles were floating in the air in front of Eiro, and when he looked at one of them, he was able to figure out the effect as if it just flowed right into his mind immediately.


    And soon, Eiro was able to narrow the essence of these magic circle down to a certain point that seemed to be necessary in all of them. But at the same time... When he was looking at these magic circles floating in the air in front of him, he could feel something like the magic that they would produce. They were all slightly different to each other, just small differences in the ''vor'' of the magic.


    But if the difference between the vor of these instances of magic was something that could be something that could bepared to when too much of a single spice was added to a dish, then the magic that was ravaging outside was a whole other dish that simply used the same base ingredient.


    The methods of preparation werepletely different, theplexity, and the mere concept were at a whole other level. This didn''t particrly help Eiro figure this out.


    "Oh? How interesting, you''re grasping at straws now, I see~." The Ghost pointed out from behind Eiro, but this was probably the worst time for this sort ofment, "Will you be quiet already, you dam-" The Demon growled loudly as he slightly turned around, causing the few people, as well as Lugo, here in this room to flinch in response.


    "Is something wrong?" Solomon asked, concerned about what was going on. After all, what if something went wrong and Eiro just made it worse? That was something that was going through the King''s mind at the moment. But instead, Eiro came to another conclusion, "It''s... Necromancy." Eiro muttered quietly. The analogy he came up with was changing in his mind.


    "If regr mental maniption is fish, then this is pork... The base is different, not the method of preparation..." Eiro muttered quietly to himself with a broad smile that was hidden under his mask. He finally understood what exactly happened.


    It was something that he understood because he was feeling Sarius'' annoyance at the Smander King for practically forcing him into a contract with Eiro at the moment, while Eiro himself was staring at the Ghost behind him.


    The Smander King clearly used Fire Magic to heal, although it was something that many thought would be impossible to do. The effect of magic didn''t rely solely on the element of magic that was used. However, Necromancy, a sort of magic that was capable of manipting the soul of the dead and the living, would be able to help out mental-maniption magic quite a bit. After all, the soul and one''s memories were deeply connected with each other, as far as Eiro could tell from all the exnations of mind-magic he had read in these books so far.


    Eiro had managed to figure out this magic, finally, it just made sense to him now. It seemed like he would be able to figure it out no-


    "...Wait..." Eiro muttered quietly to himself, and the Demon slowly realized something else. If this magic had necromancy deeply ingrained within it, as it was the source of magic that was being transformed into magic that could be used to manipte one''s mind, then it was much more dangerous than Eiro thought.


    Regr mind-magic could be reversed even after the fact in rare cases, but with necromancy, it would be different. It would change the soul itself and make sure that there was no possible way for the memory to be recovered in any possible future. Eiro immediately started to try and figure this spell out in its effect some more, and then he realized what would happen if one tried to make someone remember.


    If one had fully forgotten because the soul was altered in that way, then it would cause the soul of those manipted to be damaged. Eiro didn''t know how far it went, however. This soul-damaging effect could be triggered if Eiro tried to use magic to make people remember, or it could be triggered when they simply saw the Demon.


    He might never be able to even speak to his children ever again if he doesn''t manage to create the counter-spell.


    "How about you just give up? The moment that I realized what you were, I was given all the knowledge about you as possible. Currently, I am the only one that knows every single detail about you. Every step you''ve taken, every memorable image imprinted into your brain, I know all of it. This spell was created to counter you perfectly. It has the greatest stakes for one like you." The Ghost exined to the Demon, and at that moment, it sparked up inside of him. He realized what he had to do.


    If that spell outside was created to counter Eiro himself, then he knew what he had to do to create the counter for this counter.


    Eiro had to create a spell that was an incarnation of himself.

 Chapter 292 - Four Routes

    If the spell that was ravaging outside in the form of the snowstorm was simply a spell that was supposed to counter Eiro, then it was clear what he had to do. This spell was created with the intention of making it impossible for Eiro to counter and stop it. That meant that there were two possible things Eiro could do in order to make sure that everything worked out.


    One, he could ask another mage that specialized on counter-spells for help. He already asked Solomon about this, however, and as far as he was aware, there was no mage like that currently in the capital. He sent out a request at the adventurer''s guild so that if there was someone like that they coulde help, but they couldn''t do much more beside that.


    And two, Eiro could develop a spell that was the direct incarnation of himself and use it to counter the spell that was supposed to counter him. After all, a counter-spell was supposed to nullify the spell it countered, so they would simply cancel each other out in this case.


    Eiro took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on thetter option for now. If he wanted to counter this spell, then he had to first create a basis that was a raw incarnation of the essence of Eiro himself. Then, he had to focus it onto the destruction of the specific spell outside, and then it should hopefully work out. Luckily, Eiro would be able to test this out on a smaller scale by casting this onto a random area outside and watch if it had some form of effect.


    If it did, then he was in luck, and if it didn''t, then he would need to keep trying. But there was one more issue with this. In order to create a spell that was basically the incarnation of Eiro himself, he would need to know everything there was to know about himself.


    Eiro did a pretty good job at keeping his core-memories until now, but if he wanted to create this spell, he would have to think about those memories... and then he would forget them.


    "I... Have to make a choice." Eiro concluded as he stood up and walked over toward the door.


    "What do you mean?" Solomon asked as he watched the Demon leave. Eiro turned around and looked at the King with a bitter frown hidden under his mask, "I''ll... I''ll tell youter." Eiro suggested as he walked out of this room together with Lugo who had been sitting in the corner of the room. It seemed like the stag was able to read the situation properly, and chose to follow Eiro to help him in his choice.


    And so, Eiro, the Stag, and the Smander made their way out of the castle so that Eiro could figure things out for himself. Eiro climbed onto Lugo''s back while he split up from Sarius, who was now just floating beside him. And they made their way out to an area where they could be alone, in the middle of the castle''s gardens.


    "Aight, what''s the issue, man? Just do what you gotta do." Sarius suggested with an annoyed frown that Eiro was wasting their time like this, and the Demon himself just slowly took off his mask and looked back at Sarius, "But I don''t know what I should do. It''s clear that I need to make a choice, but I don''t know which choice I should go for."


    "...Y''know, I can''t read your damn mind, so speak in a way I can understand, dumbass." The Smander groaned. And so, Eiro did just that.


    "Scenario one, using my remaining memories, I attempt to create a spell that''s an incarnation of myself. If that''s enough for me to seed, I will have countered the spell that''s making everyone forget about me, but I myself will have forgotten every single thing that I ever knew. In the worst case with this scenario, that ''incarnation of myself'' is not enough to counter the storm. Not only will I forget about myself, but so will everyone else in this town. Everyone here will forget about me forever, and it will be like I will cease to exist. After all, there''s only a handful of people that really know me outside of this town." Eiro exined with a bitter expression, and Sarius himself understood the risk of this.


    The Smander thought for a while, and then came up with another suggestion, "Then what if you just... don''t? You can just make new memories with everyone... or something."


    "No, we already established that. If I were to try to do that, the souls of everyone that used to know me will be affected. And then, even if I were to stay out of their lives... These damages might be unavoidable. That manor is a ce that those close to me connect with me. I have my belongings there, my materials, my tools. I lived my life there for thest while. Not to mention... They are my children... What if they remind each other of me? At the very least, Solomon and James will not get out of this without damages. After all, they have made new memories that are not affected by the spell..." Eiro exined. Sarius tried his best to understand the situation properly, although he had to get used to this sentimental Demon who was crying over his human children first.


    "Then-" The Smander started, but he was swiftly interrupted by someone else, "There is just one choice, is there not?" From behind Eiro, the Ghost spoke. It was most likely because they were fused when they first met him, but Sarius was able to see and hear him as well. Although somehow, Lugo was as well, and was wary of him the whole time.


    Eiro didn''t understand this part too well, but that was unimportant. The ghost was right, after all. After taking a deep breath, Eiro came to the conclusion that he didn''t want toe to.


    "This spell was created in order to force me to forget everything." the Demon muttered quietly, "I don''t want to y into it, but I don''t know what other choice I have anymore. And since this... Bahlsen or whatever he was called was an investigator that thoroughly searched this town, he must be aware that there is no other counter-spell mage in this town."


    Eiro looked up above him. He was using magic to form an area in which he, Sarius and Lugo were unaffected by the storm right now, "Maybe I should just do it. Even if I will never be able to remember my past, I would rather have that than put everyone else in danger."


    "So you''re just gonna take this? And let that bastard y around with you like that?" Sarius asked with a deep frown. Eiro looked back at the Fire spirit and nodded his head, "Yes. You can''t always win. And if I take this specific loss, it''s the closest thing to a win I can get right now."


    "...Seriously, a bitch like you was blessed by the King? What a joke..." The Smander growled, but to defend Eiro, his trusty Familiar jumped up and tried to push Sarius away from the Demon.


    "Yo, the fuck are you doing, you dirty flea-bag?" Sarius yelled out as he faded out of existence for a moment and just reappeared a few steps behind Lugo. It wasn''t teleportation, Sarius just made use of the space inbetween the realms where only Eiro was able to see him for a moment to move. With a loud bellow, Lugoined about what Sarius was saying.


    But meanwhile, the Ghost behind Eiro was making a whole other suggestion for a third scenario that Eiro had not known about until now.


    "Well, if you would like it, I could simply disperse the spell myself." He whispered into Eiro''s ear, and the Demon turned around toward him immediately, "What do you mean?" Eiro asked, and the Ghost just had a broad smile on his face.


    "It is as you said, from your position, there are only two things you can do. You managed to analyze myplex spell that I gave up my life for a bit too easily in my opinion, but that matters very little anymore. Make your choice, create that counter-spell and forget everything or make a deal with me." The Ghost suggested. Eiro was unsure what exactly he was talking about, but luckily, the Ghost immediately exined.


    "All I want is for you to act as a new vessel for my soul. We will share your flesh, and I will make sure to simply cause this spell to disappear." The Ghost said with a broad smile on his face. Eiro immediately jumped up and red deeply at him. He knew that the Ghost was telling the truth. If Eiro gave him his body, he really would go ahead and dispel the storm.


    "...borate." Eiro muttered, and with a broad smile that showed how happy the Ghost was that everything was working out like he had nned, he continued to exin, "We simply have to save my Master. You already know his whereabouts, and there is surely nobody that can stop you from freeing him if you try your best to. He will fuse my soul into your body, and we will simply share it. Or rather, I willy dormant within you. Then, during your next evolution, as you will have two souls within yourself, your body will split in two. One for you, and one for me. I will receive a new, far more powerful body, and you will be able to continue living your life as if nothing ever happened."


    Somehow, Eiro was unsure about this. He could feel that this Ghost was telling the truth, but it just seemed so... weird. So unrealistic. As if he was about to be tricked. But his mind, his very soul, was telling him that the Ghost was telling the truth. If it was possible to get through this so easily, then would he not be an idiot for attempting his own incredibly risky n that ended up with one party losing out on everything either way?


    Slowly, Eiro thought about this idea, and the Ghost knew that he had to just keep pushing a bit, "Come on, you know that this is the best oue, right? After all, you have already experienced what it''s like to have nobody remember you. You don''t want that to continue, do you?"


    "Hm?" All of a sudden, Sarius noticed something in what the Ghost was suggesting. And that there was something that they hadpletely forgotten about until now, "Wait... Ain''t this dumbass of a stag an exception here? I mean, he can remember you, right Eiro?"


    The Ghost ripped open his eyes and looked at Lugo in confusion, "What did you just say?"


    And what was exactly when Eiro realized that there was one more route after all. A fourth n that might as well be the best one yet.


    "That''s right... Even I was nearly affected by this spell, but because of my Legendary Skill, I wasn''t... But that skill couldn''t have affected Lugo... So somehow, he waspletely unaffected by the spell.


    "I just need to create a spell based on the one being that waspletely unaffected by it.... A counter-spell based on Lugo!"

 Chapter 293 - Mana Exhaustion

    Eiro led the Stag back into the castle''s interior and quickly brought him up the stairs to Solomon''s private study.


    "Y-You can''t truly believe that this dumb animal managed to remember you, right? There is no way that it did." The Ghost following Eiro pointed out, trying to get the Demon to form that deal with him, and Eiro thought about it for just a moment, "No, I do believe it. Right, Lugo?" Eiro said with a smug grin as he looked straight at the stag, at which point someone else joined the conversation about something that had bothered him for a while.


    "Alright, could someone actually exin to me why Lugo is here in the first ce, and why he is following around thisplete stranger?" James asked with a deep frown. It made sense that he would know Lugo, after all, even Solomon did. Since Eiro didn''t have any better exnation, he just looked at James, his face still being hidden underneath the mask of course, and said, "He''s my familiar, obviously he would follow me around. Now, don''t bother me. Lugo is the key to getting rid of this whole storm."


    "The fuck do you mean he''s your-" James eximed loudly, but Solomon rather cared about thetter part of the Demon''s exmation, "He is the key? In what way exactly?"


    "It''s simple. He is unaffected by the magic that is fused with the storm. So if I simply create a counter-spell that takes... erm... Lugo as a basis, then we can get rid of that magic itself. Then I just need tobine it with a magic that I can use to get rid of the storm, and then it should work out well." Eiro exined with a broad smile on his face.


    Lugo smugly sat down on the ground next to the desk that Eiro was working at, and the Demon slowly turned over toward him. He looked deep into his eyes in a determined way, "Alright, if we do this... I''m most likely going to forget everything about you that I''ve ever known. There might be some scattered memories I can pick up on more easily over time, but for the most part... Everything will be gone."


    The Stag looked back at Eiro for a moment and then slowly nodded his head in an understanding way, "I know I always call you an idiot, but you really are much smarter than any other of your kind, huh?" Eiro smiled softly as he rubbed his hand over Lugo''s forehead, and the deer simply looked up smugly, knocking a couple of things from a shelf next to him in the process, "Yeah, nevermind, bud." The Demonughed and then took a deep breath.


    "Ready?" Eiro asked. Lugo nodded his head. Immediaetly, the Demon stopped trying to restrain himself in his thoughts. He let them run wild and he focused his perceptionpletely on Lugo and the mana flowing inside of him.


    Eiro ran his fingers over Lugo''s fur, felt his heartbeat and his breathing. All the magic that seeped out of Lugo''s body or flowed through him at all times.


    Numerous thoughts ran through Eiro''s mind and then disappeared again, as if his touch pushed them even further away because he didn''t manage to grab on tightly enough. The Demon continued on and wrote all the information that he got from this down on the paper around him. It took Eiro hours to finish, hours during which Eiro did nothing but make different connections.


    After all, creating a normal spell was hard enough already. Creating a counter-spell for a uniquely created spell was much harder. And of course, creating that counter-spell in the image of a living being was astronomically harder once more.


    And then, while the moon stood high in the sky and theyers of snow climbed higher and higher outside, it finally clicked inside of Eiro.


    "I''ve... I''ve got it. I understand it." The Demon pointed out with a wry smile on his face as his body nearly gave up and slumped in while Eiro was only half-sitting on his chair,ing closer and closer to the edge the longer he had been inspecting Lugo like this.


    "You have it?" Solomon asked, "Really, you actually figured it out? You can stop this storm and this wicked spell ced into it?"


    Eiro turned over toward the King with a nod on his face, "I do. I''ll head outside and-" The Demon started as he slowly stood up, but his legs soon gave in and he dropped onto his knees due to exhaustion.


    "Careful!" Solomon eximed with worry in his voice, "What''s wrong?" He asked, and Eiro slowly looked up at him.


    "...Mana exhaustion..." He muttered quietly, and Solomon let out a deep sigh, "You''ve got everything noted down, right? And Sarius should understand it by now too, so there''s no need to worry. Just take your time and rest for now. And once you''ve recovered, you can stop this storm." Solomon suggested. Eiro looked up at him and slowly nodded his head.


    "R...Right..." But just as he said this, the world became dark around Eiro as he fell unconscious.


    ---


    "What do you mean?! He''s a demon! He killed those kids! He ate them!" Eiro could hear James'' voice fill the room as he slowly woke up again. Instinctively, the Demon looked around the room. It should have been maybe a few minutes at most that he''s been out of it. But at the same time, when this happened, hsi fusion with Sarius was interrupted.


    Since he was using the fact that his horns and wings practically turned into fire to hide them, the moment that the fusion wasn''t a thin anymore, the Demon''s wings and horns showed themselves to everyone in this room. And since it was James'' goal to hunt down the Demon that''s been ''terrorizing'' this town at the moment, it was clear that he would get angry like that. Eiro was surprised that he was even still alive.


    Although, since Sarius, Solomon and Lugo were all protecting him, it was to be expected that he would be safe.


    Eiro slowly pushed himself off the ground and tried to stand up properly. But the moment that he stood up, James seemingly didn''t care anymore. He pushed Solomon to the side and slipped past Lugo, while Sarius himself wasn''t much of a challenge right now.


    James tried to stab one of his daggers right into the side of the Demon''s throat, but Eiro just slowly raised his hand toward the de. With his ''Rock Skin'' ability active, Eiro slipped his fingers past the de just barely and then hooked the tips of his fingers onto the dagger-guard.


    With enough force, Eiro managed to push onto the guard in a way that James'' grip on it became weak, at which point Eiro simply pulled it out of the Light Elf''s hand.


    The metal de rubbed over Eiro''s hand as he moved it with a swift motion and soon held it himself, moving it right to the underside of James'' chin, "Nobody tell you not to fight with that prosthetic arm like that until you''re at least used to it?" Eiro asked with a loud groan as he rubbed the bridge of his nose while James was basically frozen in ce after that unexpected counter-attack.


    The Demon''s head hurt an incredible amount right now due to the little amount of mana left in his body. It was as if his head was about to explode, and any single motion of his might randomly trigger that explosion. Eiro looked around the room at everything that was around him. He felt a bit hazy right now, so he couldn''t really recall much about anything right now.


    But due to the high amount of information on the notes scattered all over the room, he managed to figure a few things out again. But something felt off, there was something that was... wrong on those notes.


    The notes spoke of a Ghost that was roaming around, but... "Where is it?" Eiro muttered quietly, "Where is the ghost?"


    "What are you even talking about? What Ghost?!" James eximed with an angry re. Eiro turned his head and red back, "A Ghost that only I was able to see. It''s not here anymore. Sarius, did you see it?"


    "...I don''t think so... It just randomly disappeared. I was kinda forced to focus on a dirty deer for a couple of hours, you know?" The Smander pointed out, and Eiro slowly looked at the spirit with a light frown, "...Do you have any idea where it might have gone?"


    "I dunno. But it seemed like you fought it before while it was still alive? He said he was a demi-lich or somethin''."


    Immediately, James snapped his neck around toward the Smander, "What do you mean, ''Demi-Lich''? What Ghost? What was its name?"


    "Eh... Bahlsen? Or Edward or something?" The Spirit suggested. Immediately, James turned back toward Eiro, "Tell me everything you know about that bastard!"


    "I would if I could, buddy. Listen, I don''t really know all that much right now anyway, I''ve got trouble remembering basically... everything. But I think I might be able to track it? Sarius,e on... let''s fuse again..." The Demon suggested and stretched his hand out, but the Smander immediately shook his head in rejection, "Oh fuck nah, I ain''t fusing with you when you''re like that! If you die while we''re fused, what''s gonna happen with me, huh?"


    "Sarius. Fuse with me immediately." Eiro practically growled, his annoyance and anger seeping out of his expression so that it affected everyone in the room. The Smander figured he had little choice but to do as he was asked, and dove into the Demon''s chest.


    Immediately, the world became hazy around Eiro once more, because he was still low on mana. The Demon took a deep breath and then looked around the room. He was able to see rough traces of where the Ghost had been before and where he had moved, so he would be able to track him down like this.


    It seemed like he flew straight out through the window, so the Demon quickly approached it. But once he saw the direction that the thin line of magic that the Ghost left behind led to, Eiro choked up.


    He recognized that direction. Eiro had the worst feeling that he could ever possibly have.. Immediately, he tried to fly out of the window again, but this time around he was stopped by James'' forceful scream, "Oh, don''t you dare fucking leave! Stay here and exin this to me right now, you piece of shit Demon!" With a deep re on his face, James tried to walk up to Eiro to hold him back here in this room, while that Ghost made his way over toward Eiro''s Manor where the children were right now.

 Chapter 294 - Mana Transfer

    James blocked the way that Eiro was trying to use to get out of this room, "You ain''t gonna go anywhere until I''m told what the fuck is going on!" He eximed. Eiro red at him with anger welling up inside of him. He had to get to the manor to help the children, but he didn''t want to hurt James in the process either.


    "...You want to know what''s going on? Then let me tell you what''s going on..." Eiro muttered quietly as he approached James more closely. But then, before the Demon said anything else, he had swung his tail forward and pressed the stinger into James'' neck, "...sometimeter."


    "What the-" He eximed, before the anesthesia Eiro pushed into him slowly caused his body to lose all sensation and strenght. A few momentster, James fell to the ground and grabbed his head nervously. Without him needing to ask, Eiro exined the situation, "Don''t worry, you''ll just fall asleep. By the time you''re awake again, I''ll have hopefully dealt with this properly and I won''t have to exin anything. Sorry, but there''s no time to waste." Eiro pointed out as he slowly turned toward Solomon.


    "The guy that cast the spell outside turned into a Ghost and is now on his way to the manor. I''m heading out there." Eiro announced to the man in front of him, who slowly widened his eyes in surprise, "Are you sure you''re in any state to do something like that right now?"


    "What does that matter at all? It''s-" Eiro eximed, before he suddenly felt a number of jolts all over his back, before hearing a loud thump behind him. Hot energy flowed through the Demon''s body, and he soon realized what was going on.


    <strong>[Foreign mana has found its way into your body]</strong>


    <strong>[Due to an external means, the foreign mana has been transformed into your own mana]</strong>


    <strong>[You have recovered 14.518 Mana]</strong>


    <strong>[Your mana generation ahs been increased by 50% for the next 59 Minutes and 59 Seconds]</strong>


    Eiro turned around immediately and looked at the Stag that copsed onto the ground behind him after pushing a mass amount of his mana into the Demon''s body all at once. Eiro didn''t know how exactly Lugo did this, how he transferred his own mana to Eiro, but he was certainly grateful. It was a small amountpared to his maximum mana, but at the very least, it was enough to let Eiro move his own body rtively normally again.


    Maybe this ability had to do with how Lugo was suddenly able to level up, or maybe it was somethingpletely unrted that he was simply able to do. Either way, Eiro knew that Lugo understood the importance of what was going on. The Demon squatted down and ran his hand over the deer''s forehead, making sure that he was really alright.


    Lugo seemed to be a bit exhausted, but after some proper rest, he should be fine, "Thank you, my friend." Eiro smiled softly as he slowly stood back up and walked over to the window, his fiery wings spread out from his back, "I''lle see you again when this is all over... Well, if I still can, at least." The Demon announced.


    With a deep breath, Eiro climbed out of the window and jumped away, as both Lugo and James fell unconscious due to different reasons, and both rk and Solomon were left behind, having to wonder about what exactly just happened.


    Eiro flew toward the manor as quickly as he could, the mes of his wings of his fused form melting away the snowkes that were rapidly falling all around him. The Demon stared in front of him the whole flight, trying to focus on the faint trail of magic that the Ghost had been leaving behind.


    After all, maybe he didn''t actually head to the manor and maybe just tried to make it seem that way. Eiro didn''t want to mess up. He wanted to find the Ghost, and just kill it as quickly as he could. With a bit of Holy Energy, he should be able to exorcize it properly. After all, it didn''t really seem all that strong just the way it was.


    ''Erm... So I''ve gotta wonder, but why the fuck did you bring that flower-bud?'' Sarius asked Eiro through a thought, and the Demon quickly replied, "Because I need it to counter the spell properly. You''ll see itter. Just shut up for now and let me concentrate."


    A bit annoyed, as far as Eiro could tell, Sarius did as he was told and stopped talking, or ''thinking'', to Eiro for now. And so, the Demon could concentrate on what was in front of him. The line of magic that was really leading straight to the manor, without a single curve or detour.


    Eiro ground his teeth in anger that he didn''t pay good enough attention. He should have realized that the ghost wouldn''t have let this happen so easily. The moment that he realized that Lugo had not been affected by the spell at all for some reason, he had started to act differently.


    "Or... Did he? I... didn''t really pay attention..." The Demon muttered quietly. And that was clear, of course. If he had actually paid attention to the Ghost then, he would have instantly forgotten about all of this anyway. The only reason he was even able to remember what he was doing right now was because Sarius was constantly reminding him what they were doing and he managed to put the pieces together again.


    In the distance, Eiro could see the manor. Some of the lights were on, as Eiro could see dimly through the snowstorm, but for the most part the ce waspletely d in darkness. Eiro dove toward the main entrance of the manor and didn''t hesitate for even a moment to kick it open. It was the same path that the Ghost went through, after all.


    Eiro looked around and tried to find the right ce where the Ghost went, but he seeme to have spread out his magic through the whole building once he was here. That meant that Eiro couldn''t rely on this anymore. And so, to save the little mana that Eiro had right now,pared to normal at least, he and Sarius quickly split up and Eiro used his shadow magic to hide his horns and wings instead while putting on his cloak and mask.


    "Sarius, stay on the lookout. There''s a Naiad and a Golem here as well. I don''t know how well they''re doing now that we haven''t really been together for a few days." Eiro pointed out, and Sarius groaned loudly, "Seriously? You a Spirit Collector or something?"


    "Shut it." Eiro replied immediately as he looked around. It was silent here, eerily so. And so, the Demon tried to spread out his consciousness through magic to figure out where everyone here in the building was, even at the risk of forgetting everything about this manor. This was all quickly re-learned, so it wasn''t really an issue.


    Meanwhile, the amalgamation of everything that was unnaturally stuffed into the flower-bud that Eiro was holding somehow distracted him, as if it was trying to intervene in this, "It''s that Ghost''s creation, so it would make sense if it set up a few ways to protect itself..." The Demon muttered quietly.


    But that didn''t matter. There was no way that it was able to create something that truly messed with Eiro''s senses that much. And he was right, in the end, Eiro was able to sense something. They were the heavy footsteps of someone rushing to the entrance, and the Demon quickly realized who it was. It was Krog, or so Eiro concluded at least.


    And the moment that therge figure stood there, Eiro saw that it really was Krog, holding his dual-axes right in front of him. He looked around for a moment and then stared at Eiro, "Who are yo-"


    "I''m an acquaintance of James. The person that broke into this house a few days ago came back as a Ghost and injured James heavily. He will be fine, but he can''te here, where the Ghost seems to havee. I came in his stead to defeat it." Eiro said immediately, and Krog slowly raised his brows, "R-Really? Well, then show me proof of that!" Krog eximed, and Eiro immediately pulled James'' dagger out of his satchel and threw it toward Krog. The Heavy Warrior caught the item and then looked back up, "Err... Yeah, that''s his... But how do I know that-"


    "Oh by Lady Winter, just let me search this ce for the Ghost already! There''s kids here, right? Do you want them to be injured, or even killed? No? Didn''t think so. Then step aside and let me do what I have to do." Eiro said in a clear tone, so that Krog could understand it properly.


    "...You can leave. We''ll deal with a ghost ourselves." Krog said, probably trying to make sure that an uninvolved person didn''t find out about the children by sending Eiro away despite knowing how dangerous it might be. Eiro wasn''t sure if he should be happy about this or not. At least Krog was kind of thinking of the children, and he most likely thought they could deal with a Ghost rtively easily with all the items they had here in this house.


    But at the same time, in this specific situation, it would definitely end up with everyone in this building dying if Eiro were to leave again, so it was just a tantly shit choice.


    Eiro took a deep breath and quickly infused his body with Air Magic, using that surreal speed to move up to Krog nearly immediately. The Demon pulled out his dagger and ced the tip onto the underside of Krog''s chin.


    Sadly, Eiro didn''t have enough poison prepared to knock out someone of Krog''s stature, otherwise he would have simply used his stinger. But right here, he had to use words.


    "Did you not hear me? I said that he managed to beat James. How do you think you''ll be able to easily deal with him while protecting the children?" Eiro asked as he quickly pulled out the Royal Brooch to show it to the Warrior next to him, "Here, you can trust me. James even already told me about the special abilities those kids have. So just stop this and let me deal with this, or I''ll have to force my way through."


    Eiro looked Krog straight into his eyes, and the heavy warrior stared back, before he slowly nodded his head.. And so, the Demon immediately went ahead ---and rushed through the building to search for the Ghost.

 Chapter 295 - Cease

    Since Eiro seemed to have convinced Krog for now, the Demon rushed through the building as quickly as he could. He looked around, trying to find any clue as to where the Ghost might be right now. And that''s when he suddenly heard it. On the other side of the building, there was an unnatural scratching over the ground. It was rather strong, which was the only reason that he was even able to notice it in the first ce. That, and the fact that he was coincidentally focused on what was going on in that direction.


    So of course, Eiro immediately stopped in his track and turned around. Within a few moments, the Demon made his way to the other end of the hallway, and then rushed up the stairway in front of him. He hit the underside of one of the paintings'' frames and caused it to open up, revealing one of the many hidden passages here in the building.


    Eiro jumped inside and rushed through, before rapidly stopping in front of this passage''s exit and pushing the tip of his foot against one of the bricks. The passage slowly opened up, and Eiro slipped through the very moment he could.


    And then, all that was left for him to do was to run through this hallway toward the door at the end of it, where he heard the scratchesing from. Immediately, Eiro used his momentum to press his foot against the lock and break the door open, pushing away a wardrobe that had been pushed in front of it. This seemed to have been the cause of the scratching. And inside of the room, Eiro saw his children.


    Arc, heavily injured, wasying on the bed while being treated by Clementine in coboration with Nelli. Sammy was trying to help Rudy get rid of what seemed like a lump of metal enclosed right around his hands, holding them together as if he was wearing shackles.


    Seemingly quite scared, Leon was sitting on Felix''sp on one of the chairs. The moment that Eiro stepped inside, Sammy reacted and stood up to look at the Demon, "Le-" She started to say, but before she could finish the first word, Eiro pulled the air around her toward him for just a moment. It wouldn''t injure her in the slightest, it would just cause her to be unable to speak for a moment.


    "I''m here to get rid of the Ghost, don''t worry. I''ll help you." The Demon pointed out. With a quick step, he walked over toward Rudy, who of course immediately tried to stand up and get away from this random man who forced his way in here. But Eiro immediately grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed Rudy back down onto his knees with ease.


    The Demon ced his hands onto the lump of metal enclosed around his hands and quickly caused it to heat up to the point where it actually started to slightly glow, to the surprise of everyone here. After all, nobody in their right mind would do something like this after saying they were here to help. Except if they knew about Rudy''s Unique Skills, of course.


    But just a moment after Eiro heated up the metal, he rapidly cooled it down. This wasn''t enough to break it just yet, but it did create a small crack, which was more than enough for Eiro''s purposes. He pulled out a small pouch out of his satchel and poured some of its contents into the crack of the metal before pressing his hand onto it.


    Immediately, the seeds sprouted and grew deeper into the metal, using raw force to crack it apart around Rudy''s hands, quickly freeing him from this within just a few seconds.


    "How did you-" Rudy asked, but Eiro immediately interrupted him, "I''ll exin it to youter." He said and quickly stepped over toward the Spirit that was floating next to Clementine. She was obviously incredibly weak right now, since she didn''t receive any mana from Eiro over the past few days. Hence, the process of healing Arc didn''t work out that well.


    And now that Nelli saw Eiro again, she must have obviously felt the connection of the contract between them. Something she didn''t remember forming. Clearly, this stunned her and gave Eiro the chance to press his finger onto her forehead and push some of his mana into her. It was enough to help heal Arc at least.


    "What happened to him? His broken bones are misaligned." The Demon asked as he turned toward Clementine. She stared back at the nk mask and nervously looked back at Arc with tears in her eyes.


    "H-He... That Ghost possessed him... And forced Arc to fight against Rudy... It didn''t work of course, but Arc was made to heat up the metal that the Ghost then somehow controlled to squeeze itself around his hands..." She exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "I see." He muttered. The Demon looked at the unconscious young manying on the bed in front of him, and then simply pulled on his arm and pressed down on his leg in different ces. With a loud crunch, Eiro aligned his bones properly so that Nelli and Clementine could heal him now.


    "Where are Gondos, Jess and Avalin?" Eiro asked into the room in a calm tone as he slowly walked over toward Leon and squatted down in front of him. With a wave of his hand, he pulled out a small piece of candy that he somehow had in his treasury, handing it to the boy, who slowly took it from the Demon.


    "How do you-"


    "I asked you where they are, please answer me. We don''t have time for this." Eiro said bluntly, replying to Sammy, and the girl slowly looked back at him, "...The Ghost... k-kidnapped Avalin... Jess and Gondos followed him... and told us to stay here... They''re still in the building, I think..." She pointed out, and Eiro ground his teeth together angrily.


    "Ahh... That damned piece of garbage..." The Demon muttered quietly to himself, just lightly ring at the notifications right next to him.


    <strong>[You are under the effect of Wrath]</strong>


    <strong>[Others around you will feel your emotions in their purest form]</strong>


    <strong>[Your basic abilities will be temporarily enhanced by 10%]</strong>


    <strong>[Instead of Mana, you will instead consume Health to use your abilities]</strong>


    Eiro could feel something inside of him shift just so slightly. It was as if his Life Force was slowly transforming into mana, or as if it at least got ready for this to happen at any given moment. As if his Life Force took on a new state that was neither mana nor life force. But Eiro didn''t care. He had plenty of Health right now, more than he had mana at the moment, at least.


    And Eiro was truly furious at the moment, there was no way that he would care for something like this after seeing his children in such a state. Especially Arc was something that Eiro didn''t want to see at all.


    The Demon took a deep breath and spread out his mana. Or rather, his Life Force. It coursed through the manor, bouncing back to alert Eiro of where everything was. And now, the Flower Bud didn''t really seem to be influencing the Demon''s perception all too much either, maybe because that perception didn''t function with mana anymore.


    Before he knew it, Eiro could feel something particr bounce back. As if he just injured someone with a raw pulse of this special Life Force. And there was only one being that Eiro could think of inside of this building that would be injured by Life Force. And that was the Ghost. Bahlsen, or Edward or whatever he was called now.


    Without hesitation, Eiro kicked off from the floor and rushed through the hallway, before jumping up just in front of the window. He kicked against the upper edge of the slighty ajar window and caused it to open up, before he pushed himself off of the window.


    With one swift kick off of the window, the Demon reached the next floor above, and then kicked off of the windowsill there to reach the rooftop, where he felt the response from.


    There was a small terrace up here that seemed to be a nice ce to be in summer, although it really couldn''t be used that much in winter. And right there, Eiro could see four figures.


    Jess and Gondos right next to each other, and Avalin with the Ghost towering right above her, bawling her eyes out. It seemed like Jess was trying to cast a spell, but the Ghost was preventing her from doing so.


    Eiro took a deep breath and filled his lungs with air, the little bit that he could get in this weather where you could barely breathe properly. He condensed the air in part of his lungs and then moved it back up his airpipe before letting it sit in his mouth, where it was protected from the snowstorm for now.


    In front of his mouth, as he slowly approached, Eiro drew a small pentacle. It was the simplest form of Magic Circle, meant to simply create a focus of a certain sort of element that was pushed into it by the caster.


    And in this case, it was mes. mes that Eiro summoned from within the Gateway of mes within him. The Demon created apression of mes that he slowly ced into his mouth. Combined with the air, the mes nearly blew up for a moment, filling out the Demon''s mouth. But due to the Smander King''s blessing, Eiro''s natural me resistance had gone up quite considerably, so it didn''t hurt him.


    Eiro moved the small pentacle closer to his mouth as he slowly opened it up, pressing the pentacle into the strong mes ravaging in the Demon''s own mouth. Through the pentacle, Eiro was able to help focus and strengthen the mes into a smaller point as he forcefully shrank down the pentacle. As if swallowing it, thispressed ball of mes moved down Eiro''s throat, right down to his vocal cords.


    And right there, the Demon made use of the fact that in this state of ''Wrath'', his voice had a lot more power than usual, and infused with these focused, strengthened mes.


    Of course, this all happened within a split-second, before anyone could even react to Eiro''s presence. And with clear determination, he red at the ghost, "Cease."


    The mes, infused into the Demon''s voice, caused the snowstorm to simply stop around him and the others for a moment, and since this was a spell cast with Life Force instead of Mana due to his state of Wrath, the Ghost let go of Avalin and started to give off smoke as it got heavily damaged in a way that it never could have anticipated.

 Chapter 296 - Again

    Eiro looked forward at the four figures standing there, while the Ghost was still hovering right above Avalin. The Demon was absolutely infuriated, and that seemed to show to them.


    While Avalin didn''t seem to be capable of really paying attention to anything right now, the other three certainly were, "Who are-"


    "Be quiet, Jess." Eiro growled quietly, his voice melting the snow that was rapidly falling from the sky. Steam rose up from all around him as Eiro stepped closer. Jess was unable to really speak due to the pressure that Eiro was giving off, especially after he had basicallymanded her to be quiet. The Demon nced at Gondos for a moment. The two of them locked eyes, and Eiro could tell that the Elemental Spirit had also realized the connection between them, and was staring back confusedly.


    But that didn''t matter, as Eiro just slowly held his hand up toward the Ghost. It seemed like he was freaking out over practically everything that was happening right now.


    "B-But how, this doesn''t... This doesn''t make any sense!" The Ghost yelled out, "How can there be a being that canpletely resist this spell, and why is it a damned deer? How am I being pushed back, how did you injure me, just how?!"


    "Oh... Right. You don''t have your investigative abilities anymore, now do you?" Eiro muttered quietly, "So you wouldn''t know. You just can''t tell. Well, if you were capable of it, you would have already given up in despair, since there is no way you will get away from here. Not after what you did to my children." Eiro said to the Ghost, slowly turning his head toward Jess and Gondos.


    "It''s a good time for you two to leave. I don''t know if I can protect more than one person right now, and the one that I will protect over anyone else here is my daughter." The Demon said with a deep re, and Jess simply fell onto her back in fear of the Demon. But soon, she understood what was going on and slowly turned away, rushing off of this rooftop terrace as quickly as she could together with Gondos.


    "Sarius, you should go too."


    "Heh, and leave you alone? What if ya forget again, you dumbass? I''m your temporary memory for now." Sarius smirked slightly, and the Demon nodded his head as he slowly took off his cloak and mask, spreading out his wings.


    The Demon gathered arge amount of mes in front of him. mes that he first summoned from the Elemental ne of Fire, and then had Sarius properly refine. Of course, all this took a fair amount of mana, or in this special case, Life Force. That''s what Eiro was betting on, really. To be able to create a single attack that might be able to take the Ghost out. Or at least damage it enough to get Avalin away from here.


    The Ghost, obviously quite scared, swung his arm upward in a panic. Eiro could hear something dig through the wood underneath his feet, but he managed to dodge quite easily. They were metal nails that the Ghost apparently manipted to try and get a sneak-attack on Eiro, although this was nothing more than a worthless trick right now.


    The nails were floating around the Ghost, being infused with necromantic energies, while he prepared to fight Eiro.


    "Interesting... Metal magic... Who''d have thoguht you''d have such a rare magic." The Demon muttered, not really as interested as he was pretending. In the end, he didn''t really care that much about it. Sure, it was a sort of magic Eiro had never gotten the chance to see before, but what use was it at the moment when he already forgot all about it after thinking about it like this for just a moment? Exactly. None at all. Eiro knew that, which was why he concentrated on the Ghost and Avalin instead of these useless things that he would be able to avoid with ease.


    Right now, this was like some sort of standoff. Eiro with a focused ball of refined mes that would heavily damage the Ghost when hitting it, and the Ghost with necromancy-infused, sharp metal nails floating above Avalin''s head and near her face. Eiro wasn''t sure if he would be able to go fast enough topletely stop all of them if it came to it.


    "S-Scared, huh? Yeah, of course you''re scared! There''s no way you wouldn''t be!" The Ghost eximed, "Do you know why you''re scared of me? Because you''re weak! You''re predictable! You are no-"


    Just before the Ghost could finish his small, useless speech, Eiro shot thepressed orb of mes directly at the center of the Ghost''s chest, where its body was most dense. Eiro figured it was something like a core, an energy-source of sort maybe.


    The me-orb shot through it and cleanly got rid of a circr area right in the center of that ''core''. As if the edges of that hole started to catch fire, the hole simply grewrger like it was burning away. But of course, like Eiro expected, this wasn''t enough to instantly finish off the Ghost.


    Instead, once it realized what exactly was going on, it swung down its arms and tried to push all of the nails either into Eiro himself or into Avalin, since the Ghost knew what she meant to the Demon.


    Eiro was able to rather easily dodge all of the nails aimed at himself, but it was a different deal with Avalin. This situation was a bit more worrisome.


    For one, after the fight that Eiro and this Ghost had before while the Ghost was still ''alive'', as alive as a Demilich could be at least, the ''shackles'' that Avalin had to wear to suppress her own Holy Energy were cracked, meaning that they couldn''t suppress the Holy Energy as well anymore. Eiro had to repair them when he had the time to, but he simply didn''t until now, for rather obvious reasons.


    Hence, Eiro wasn''t able to directly touch Avalin right now and move her out of the way. On top of that, the Ghost seemed to have restrained Avalin through magic somehow, as far as the Demon could tell. And so, in his mind, Eiro had only one possible choice of things he could do so that he could properly fight against the Ghost afterward.


    He knew that there would be some form of consequence, but he couldn''t concentrate well enough to figure out which it was at the moment. But still, he couldn''t just let Avalin be hit by rusty, dangerous, magically-strengthened nails. In her head.


    The Demon stretched his arm out as quickly as he could, and managed to ''catch'' the nails. In his own arm. Some of them just got stuck in Eiro''s prosthetic, but one managed to scratch the Demon''s actual flesh.


    And once the nail fell to the ground after that, the Ghost began tough maniacally, "You''re an idiot!" He eximed as Eiro could feel the tiny scratch suddenly burn with incredible vigor. He knew what was about to happen, but it might actually be a rather positive consequence. After all, since the Ghost was now trying to possess Eiro, it was impossible for it to flee.


    Through the small cut that the nail caused on Eiro''s arm, the Ghost tried to get into the Demon''s body, as if trying to fuse with him. But since Eiro had experience with fusing with other beings, he was able to prevent this from happening, at least somewhat.


    And of course, by then covering his body in mes created with his Life Force managed to hurt the Ghost quite a bit. But then, the Ghost did something that Eiro didn''t think about. It was a clear mistake on his part. After all, Eiro hadn''t slept for a few days now, and he was constantly trying to get his chaotic mind under control, so he was incredibly fatigued. It was just bad, horrid luck that this was exactly the point where his mind happened to slip up.


    The Ghost, for just a moment, controlled Eiro''s arm and grabbed the flower-bud out of the satchel, and threw it right onto the ground in front of Avalin.


    "You know how flowers work, r-right?" The Ghost asked, "The bud isn''t the final stage... They of course have to bloom at some point as well!"


    And just as the Ghost said so, the flower-bud started to slowly open up, revealing the sight inside of it. Those lumps of flesh, blood, and organs, even eyes and a brain, assorted as if they were some form of sick artpiece. The eyes of this flower, taken from a human, stared at Avalin, who slowly stared back in fear, overwhelmed by everything that was going on.


    Avalin broke down crying, her emotions running wild together with her Holy Energy. The ''shackles'' cracked even more, releasing an incrediblyrge amount more Holy Energy than before. And all of it was absorbed by the corpse-flower.


    At this point, Eiro realized what was going on, and a few momentster, he also felt it. He felt the slight burn on his skin as one of the snowkes hit him. Holy Energy was slowly starting to fill the air, and especially with Avalin right in front of him, Eiro was being heavily affected.


    "Don''t... screw with me...!" Eiro growled as he pulled his arm to the side and broke out of the possession of the Ghost. Or so he thought at least. Instead, it was as if the Holy Energy was forcing the Ghost deeper into Eiro''s body, as if it was forced to search for a ce to hide out.


    Slowly, the Ghost took over Eiro''s body, albeit just barely. It moved him closer toward Avalin, forcing him to take more and more damage. Eiro could feel the outeryer of his skin slowly singing off. And of course, that this demonic figure was approaching Avalin didn''t really help her fear either, obviously just strengthening it.


    "You can''t... I won''t let you... Make her... kill me..." Eiro growled deep within himself, but the Ghost, practically sacrificing its own life just to take Eiro with it to its true death and cause him all this despair, didn''t try to listen.


    Eiro was fighting against this with all he could, literally even breaking his arm and some ribs while trying to force himself out of this possessive control. The Demon could feel it. He was about to die. The town was being filled with Holy Energy, and Eiro couldn''t do anything about it. He basically had nowhere to run.


    Maybe that''s why the worst thing that could happen right now, did happen.


    <strong>[The Skill <Supreme Demon> interacted and momentarily strengthened your <Holy Energy Resistance> Skill]</strong>


    <strong>[Your body will now absorb Holy Energy and even be healed by it instead of being destroyed by it]</strong>


    <strong>[You have 9 Minutes and 59 Seconds until penalties will be applied. Until then, your body is strengthened by Holy Energy]</strong>

 Chapter 297 - Countered

    Eiro stood there, his body starting to absorb Holy Energy instead of being damaged by it. The penalties that would definitely soone to screw him over were quite horrible, but at the very least this was the perfect was to truly get rid of the Ghost.


    After all, while Eiro himself becamepletely immune to Holy Energy, and was actually strengthened by it, the same could not be said about the Ghost. He was still damaged by it, and was slowly being pushed away from Eiro''s form.


    "Wh-What, but how?!" He eximed in confusion, "It... it''s that ability again, right? That skill, that legendary skill?!"


    "Mhm." Eiro replied bluntly without any sort of care as he simply squatted down in front of Avalin, while he could feel the Ghost pulling away from his body. He was being injured, giving off clear signs that this was the case as his body was slowly falling apart, while Eiro''s body itself was being repaired.


    Eiro watched with a pleasant feeling inside of him as the Ghost slowly disappeared into nothingness, and died a second time.


    Eiro''s Health was replenished rather quickly due to the sheer amount of Holy Energy that Avalin was giving off. And on top of that, Eiro really absorbed everyst drop of Holy Energy that was around him, to the extent where that flesh-flower was no longer getting any of it.


    And since its whole purpose was for it to absorb this Holy Energy, the moment that it stopped getting any of it because Eiro was blocking the path this special magic, it started to slowly be damaged itself. Soon, it would die, luckily.


    Eiro slowly pulled his wings around the young girl protectively, making sure she wasn''t going to be hit by any of the snow, or that she would no longer have to look at the flesh-flower.


    The Demon embraced the young girl and rubbed her back, trying to calm her down as much as he could. Somehow, the Demon himself was put out of his state of wrath after the realization of what was going to happen soon. For a minute or two, this was all that Eiro was doing. His health was properly filled up, and when this happened, his mana was replenished instead.


    And when it became full enough, Eiro slowly let go of the young girl, having Sarius float above her so that he could stop the snow from dropping onto her.


    The Demon held his hand forward and gathered a mass amount of fire magic in front of him, while Sarius did still help him refine it for this as much as he could. Sarius wasn''t particrly good at refinining elements, it seemed, so it wasn''t like these mes were extremely pure, but at the very least he was able to refine arge amount of mes at once. ''Quantity before Quality'', in this case.


    But that was fine, as long as the mes were even a little better, Eiro would save some time and the probability of sess increased considerably.


    He gathered the mes properly andpressed them into a sphere, circling them it around. And then, the Demon started to form the proper magic circle right around this me-orb. It was like the magic circle encased the orb in multipleyers. The array became moreplex as Eiro created the magic circle that was supposed to represent Lugo himself,bined with the right magic circle to actually do something with that artificial magic, as well as the one that was meant to get rid of the storm itself.


    Eiro just had a few more minutes, so he would hopefully get this done soon. And so, the Demon grabbed the flesh-flower, and did his best to integrate it into the spell. Basically, he ced thepressed orb of magic into the center of it and tried to fold the different parts of the flower back over it, as if trying to close it back up.


    With a deep breath, the Demon looked at Avalin right behind him and smiled lightly as he slowly startedto p his wings to take off. He had to get as close to the center of the storm as he could, which in this case, was right above the royal castle.


    As quickly as absolutely possible, he flew over there and looked into the sky. He flew up and up and up, and just when he only had a single minute left during which Holy Energy couldn''t affect him, he threw it up into the sky.


    "Three." It started to slow down.


    "Two." It peaked and stood still in the sky for just a moment.


    "One." The special flower opened back up.


    "Now." And the spell took effect. In a huge explosion that travelled through the whole Blizzard, shattering it apart into pieces, mes travelled outward. The actual force of the explosion caused Eiro to be pushed away rapidly. Anticipating this, he actually tried to use it to his advantage. There were a few small areas where there was no Holy Energy in the air right now, or at least close to none. He had to get there as quickly as possible and find a way to reach the manor. There were some ces there that would surely end up being able to protect Eiro for a while, as far as he could tell from a distance. It was his safest bet, at least.


    And so, while the Demon made his way over there, he pulled out a small piece of ck wood out of his treasury and pressed it against his chest. His whole body turned into that exact wood as he finally reached the right area.


    [Your body has been infused with an Unholy Material. Your body will directly repell all Holy Energy]


    Eiro looked at the notification with a deep frown, nervous for what was about to happen. The Demon ran his fingers through the notification anxiously. He was staying afloat right here in this spot, waiting for the clock right next to him to count down to zero.


    And there it was, right as the sky cleared up right above Eiro and the sun shone down onto him.


    [The strengthened effect of <Holy Energy Resistance> has ended. Penalties will be applied]


    [For 6 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, and 59 Seconds, your Skill <Holy Energy Resistance> will be reced by <Holy Energy Vulnerability>]


    The Demon could feel the change happen around him. On his skin, in his lungs. The bit of Holy Energy that had still been in his body waspletely removed after he fused himself with the unholy ck wood in his hand. He didn''t quite remember the name of it, but it dide in useful. Without it, he would definitely be dead already right now.


    But there was an issue with this. Eiro couldn''t stay like this forever. For a while, sure. Another day, maybe. But beyond that? Impossible. After all, he couldn''t keep such transformations up while asleep, and it felt like he would fall forcefully fall unconscious if he stayed up for another day or two.


    The issue with this was that this whole town was nowpletely, or at leastrgely, filled with Holy Energy due to thest little while of this snowstorm that had been infused with Holy Energy.


    Eiro thought about what he was supposed to do... In this state he was in right now, he would probably be fine even if he was around Avalin for a little while. After all, this wood was specifically intended to counter her Holy Energy, so the Demon hoped that it would end up helping him out a little bit, so that he could at least make sure that everything went as nned. He wanted to make sure that everybody managed to remember Eiro properly.


    And for that, the Demon first made his way to the person that he figured to be most likely to remember him first, before all others would. And since he was already right above the royal castle, that was perfect. He let himself drop down and d himself in shadow magic to try and at least hide himself slightly as he climbed through the window of Solomon''s study.


    In there were three people, as well as Lugo of course. Lugo immediately jumped up and walked over toward Eiro, rubbing his head on the Demon''s chest, "Hey, bud... Did everything work out?" He asked as he pulled a small notebook and a pen out of his treasury and quickly wrote down what just happened, so that he knew that he already fixed everything.


    Right now, James was stillying on the couch unconscious, while even Solomon seemed to be a bit whoozy. But of course, for separate reasons to each other. James, because Eiro knocked him out on purpose, and Solomon because of the spell. Or so the Demon hoped.


    "That you, Eiro?" rk asked with a deep frown on his face, looking at the pitch-ck wooden figure that climbed through the window randomly. Of course, he nodded his head.


    "I am." He replied. Solomon raised his head nad looked at him, before he pulled his eyes open wide, "Eiro!" The King eximed, "It worked! I remember you again!"


    The moment that he heard Solomon say this, some weight dropped off of his shoulders. A lot of weight, really. Now, all that Eiro had to do was search for a ce that had aplete absence of Holy Energy, wait out for a week, and then figure out how to get the memories that he lost back.


    But before he could do that, Solomon rushed up to the Demon, and in a manner that Eiro had never seen from this usually soposed man, he chose to hug Eiro with a smile on his face, more than just happy to see that everything worked out properly.


    "But what''s going on, why do you look like this?" The King asked as he realized that Eiro didn''t usually look pitch-ck and as if he was made of wood. And so, the Demon just exined. He told Solomon what happened, and as he recited, noted everything down inside of the book that he was holding.


    Eiro looked at the King, who just stared back perplexed, "So you did that? You just shot a spell into that storm, and that''s what managed to destroy it?"


    "Of course it wasn''t any spell. It was one that I specially created for this. It even gave me the Counterspell Skill." Eiro exined, as he slowly turned back toward the window, "But excuse me, I''ll be back when I made sure that everything worked out at the manor as well."


    And with that, Eiro jumped out of the window and flew to meet his children.

 Chapter 298 - Tears

    The Demonnded in front of the main entrance of the manor and slowly approached it again. He slowly stretched his hand out to the doorhandle, but before he touched it, the door was already pulled open.


    The young girl that stood there looked up at this being''s wooden, pitch-ck face. The moment she realized who this was, tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She threw herself at Eiro and pulled him as close to her as absolutely possible.


    "I''m sorry, I''m sorry... I''m sorry for forgetting you, I..." Sammy cried out, "I didn''t mean to, Dad, I really-"


    Eiro slowly interrupted her as he rubbed his hand over the panicking girl''s back, "It''s fine. There''s no reason to worry. Not in the slightest is this your fault at all." He said in an understanding tone as Sammy ekpt crying into his chest for a few more minutes. And as this was happening, some others also joined the two of them.


    First, it was Rudy. Then it was Felix with Leon in tow. Krog stood in the hallway, watching as even Arc and Clementine made their way down there to greet their father again. They all embraced each other, and even Eiro was just barely able to hold back his own tears. He did it. He managed to beat this damned curse-like spell that nearly ruined his whole life.


    Eiro looked at the children in front of him and slowly took a step back. He rubbed his hand over his eyes to get rid of the tears that had gathered in their corners, before looking at the two small figures floating right behind them.


    The Naiad and the Golem both immediately made their way to the Demon and embraced him as well. They all apologized to Eiro about forgetting him, but he tried to keep telling them there was no reason to do that. He understood what exactly happened, after all.


    Beside the Ghost that first cast this spell, Eiro was probably the one that knew most about all of what had happened over the past couple of days. The Demon took a deep breath and then looked at the children as he pulled out his notebook, flipping it open to the most important page.


    And then, he proceeded to exin what exactly was going on with himself, and how he was also forgetting things bit by bit. Of course, he also mentioned how he already had forgotten most of this conversation.


    "That''s a joke, right?" Arc asked with a wry smile on his face. He wasn''t really supposed to move at all yet, but because of Clementine and Nelli''s treatment, the young man was already able to act like he normally did, in a very energetic manner. But of course, Clementine and Nelli had to constantly remind him how he was and wasn''t allowed to move, considering that most of his body was still injured and Arc himself probably just felt a bit more stiff than he usually did.


    But either way, Eiro immediately shook his head, "Of course it''s not a joke. I wouldn''t kid about such a thing right now. Although I do wish that it was just a joke..."


    "Well, is it rted to how you now look like... that?" The young man asked, and everyone stared at him with a light re, as if they had decided not to ask about this as if they assumed this to be some sort of insensitive topic for Eiro. But of course, he didn''t mind at all.


    And so, he also exiend the part about how he had to do this, because he would otherwise just end up dying rather quickly because of the holy energy that was all around this area irght now.


    "...Dad, how did that happen in the first ce?" Sammy asked with a light sniffle as she rubbed her hand across her face, and the Demon looked back. He didn''t really want to speak about this yet, considering the situation, but he had to head off into one of the manor''s magically hidden rooms soon, and there he would most likely be alone for quite a while. So it would probably be better to tell them about it now before theyined about not hearing about it from him.


    Eiro took a deep breath, "I received a Legendary Skill while I was fighting that Ghost for the first tiem the other day. Well, he was still alive then, but now he obviously isn''t. The Legendary Skill is strong, but it, at least right now, has extremely strong repercussions for using it. First, it caused me to lose my memories whenever I try to recall that memory at all, and then, just a bit ago... It made it so that I be extremely vulnerable to any sort of Holy Energy. So I''m just preparing for that fact." The Demon exined, and everyone immediately understood what that meant.


    "So basically, just being near Avalin will..."


    "Probably hurt me extremely, yes. For now, I will meet her and shortly make sure that everything is alright with her, and then I will head up to the tower. There, I''m going to infuse this same wood into that room to practically create a bunker for myself... to just wait all of this out properly. I cannot have any of you try and get in there. Any small amount of Holy Energy might be able to absolutely kill me."


    "For how long..?" Clementine asked nervously, and Eiro bluntly replied.


    "Seven days." He replied bluntly, "But don''t worry. Seven days will be over quicker than you think they will be. You should just get ready... Erm... get ready to..." Eiro started, when he suddenly lost the first of a lot of very important things in the lives of every single one of his children. And a few momentster, Sarius chose to speak for the Demon.


    "Was it the school bit?" The Smander asked, and Eiro turned his head toward him, "Right, that. You should get ready for school, and enjoy your time there as much as possible. In one week, we will definitely meet again while I''m in a form that at the very least isn''t... This."


    With a smile on her face, Clementine embraced Eiro again, "That''s fine, you''re the best Dad in every possible way no matter what you look like..." She said with a smile on her face, and Eiro turned toward her, rubbing his hand over the top of her head.


    "Thank you. But I think I slightly prefer my old look." The Demon pointed out with a smile on his face.


    "...Is that the most important part here? Who is this spirit?" Nelli asked confused as she looked at Sarius, who stared back with a broad grin on his face.


    "Who am I? Heh, I sure do wonder~..." The Smander, hoping to be able to show his ''superiority'',ughed with a broad grin. And since she asked, Eiro figured he should answer to Nelli for this Fire Spirit, "He''s the future sucecssor of the Smander King. I formed a contract with him while I was trying to figure out how to stop all this. He wasn''t particrly great at seeing the details, so it might have taken me a bit longer than it usually may have with either of you two, but he''s still a pretty kind Spirit." Eiro exined, and Gondos stared at the Demon confused.


    "Ah... I knew something was different to before. You received the blessing of the Smander King, have you not?"


    "What? That''s just ridicu-" Krog eximed, having overheard a bit of this conversation from across the room, but before he could even finish his sentence, Eiro nodded his head.


    "No, I''ve been blessed by the Smander King. And beside that, I have received something else as we ll, but it''s nothing that I can really exin right now. Sorry." Eiro exined. Nelli and Gondos most likely already understood what he was saying and what he was speaking about, but they were still more than just confused and surprised. Eiro would tell them about thister. For now, he had to do something else.


    He ced his palms onto the heads of Nelli and Gondos and supplied arge amount of mana, enough for the past few days and enoguh for the next few as well. After all, Eiro would not really be able to supply them with the mana they needed in that room that didn''t allow through basically all sorts of magic, including Holy Energy and Spirit Magic.


    Eiro took a deep breath and started to think. He could feel where Jess and Avalin currently were. Avalin was still freaking out ording to Gondos, so Jess didn''t feel like she should move her around too much for now, something that Eiro quite appreciated.


    Jess was focusing on Avalin''s health above all else! Eiro was d about that.


    For now, Eiro made his way up the stairs, so that he could get to the ce where Jess and Avalin were really just waiting for a while as the little girl calmed down properly.


    He turned his head toward Nelli and Gondos, "Also... wherever Bavet and Gobo are... Bring them to me, if you can."


    The two spirits immediately nodded. They seemed to have understood that they had made a mistake while Eiro wasn''t there to fix it. After all, the only connection to Gobo and Bavet that they had was through Eiro, and without that connection they were more like random monsters that just happened to be a bit more in control of themselves than regr monsters. But as they were still monsters, everyone in the house felt unsafe and thought they should restrain them somehow. As such, they had been locked up in the basement''s dungeon for the past few days, only to be taken out during an emergency where they woulde in directly useful.


    The others seemed to feel a bit embarrassed, even. They had forgotten about those two just because Eiro wasn''t here. But now that they remembered Eiro again, they also realized that Bavet and Gobo weren''t just monsters, but they were more than that. They would most likely be rather pissed about all of this after Eiro told them.


    He would go apologize to themter, but for now, Avalin was more important to him.


    Eiro opened the door to the room that they were in and stepped inside. Avalin raised her head and slowly saw this pitch-ck, winged and horned figure.


    But instead of being scared, like even Eiro assumed she would be, she immediately ran up to Eiro with full tears in her eyes.


    And so, the Demon rubbed his hand over the girl''s head and smiled back, close to being tipped over the edge of tears himself.

 Chapter 299 - The Unholy Room

    Eiro opened up the secret, magically hidden doorway. And beyond it, he could see a few things quite immediately.


    He was kind of worried about what was going on down there, with Gobo, Bavet, and the crazy John being trapped there together with a bunch of spider-monsters, but to his surprise... They were doing rather well. John was justzing around in a cell on the other side of the room, while Gobo was currently cleaning the underbelly of one of thergest spiders that Eiro and Bavet had already sealed the monstrosity of.


    It seemed like they had basically made all of the spider monsters thatcked monstrosity their pets. And the moment that therge circr door opened up fully and Gobo and Bavet realized what was going on, they stormed over toward the Demon, although he was still pitch-ck and wooden right now. They didn''t need to think for even a moment until they realized who stood there and opened the door up.


    "Eiro!"


    "Master!"


    Bavet and Gobo ran up to the Demon, who looked back at the two with a light smile on his face. He patted Gobo''s head for a moment as he looked at the two of them, "That''s me, I''d assume." The Demon said. It seemed like rather quickly, at the very least Bavet realized part of what was going on. After all, he was with Eiro for a lot of things that were rted to Bahlsen and Edward, and since he was a rather intelligent being, the Slime managed to figure out roughly what happened. At the very least, now that they had gotten their memories back, he did. Before then, he was obviously affected just as much as all the others.


    "But... What did you mean with that ''I''d assume'' just now?" Bavet inquired, and Eiro smiled back bitterly, "You''re rather sharp, huh? Basically, I received a Legendary Skill when fighting the Demi-Lich, but when it took effect, the repercussions were that one of my abilities was practically reversed. That ability was the ability rted to my perfect memory. Hence, whenever I think about something, I forget everything about that ''something''." Eiro exined quickly to the two of them.


    Gobo seemingly didn''t really understand what all this meant, but Bavet on the other hand figured it out already, "...Legendary Skill? Excuse me, what? How did you- Just- How?!" The Slime eximed, and Eiro shrugged slightly in response, "I don''t know, I don''t remember. Oh, and also..." Eiro started as he waved his hand to the side.


    Right next to him, bubbles of water gathered and formed Nelli. Then next to her, dust gathered and formed Gondos. And atst, sparks gathered and formed Sarius, "I formed a contract with another Spirit. Meet Sarius." The Demon said, and the Smander looked at the Hobgoblin and the Slime with a wry smile on his face, "Oi, the hell are these two? Your pets or something?"


    "Hm... Something like that, I''d say." Eiro said with a confused expression himself as he looked at the two of them. He didn''t remember everything about them, so a question like this was somewhat hard to answer for the Demon.


    Bavet wasn''t all that happy about being called a pet, though, "Who''re you calling a pet, you son of a bitch?"


    "Son of a bitch? Me? I''m the future King. Bow to me, you dirty peasant." Sarius scoffed. Bavet wasn''t sure if he fully understood what this Spirit just said, so he turned toward the Demon next to him, "The future King? What does that..."


    "Right, sorry, I forgot. I received a blessing from the Smander King, and he referred Sarius to me. He''s going to take over the position of Smander King at some point."


    "Don''t forget that I''m awesome and super strong."


    "Mhm, he also can''t control his own abilities properly, which is the reason that the Smander King asked me to form a contract with Sarius in particr.


    Eiro looked back at them, but as he was doing so, it was getting quite hard for the Demon to properly keep his eyes open. It was probably because Eiro did a lot of physically and mostly mentally exhausting things ove the past few days that he was unable to keep himself awake despite his exhaustion resistance skill.


    "I think I should head off to the tower now... I need to sleep..."


    "Hm? Why would you go to the tower for that?" Gobo asked, as Eiro slowly walked through the room so that he could lock the cell that John was napping in so that he couldn''t escape once he woke up.


    "The legendary skill took effect again today. This time, my holy energy resistance skill was reversed like that. Any amount of Holy energy might kill me. So, I''m hiding out in the tower while infusing everything with this wood while I''m in there." The Demon said, pointing at his own body as he spoke to the two monsters in this room.


    He stepped back outside and looked at Bavet, "I''ll be there for a week. If there''s an emergency, you maye speak to me. Otherwise, everyone should keep to themselves while I''m up there."


    "...Right..." Bavet said somewhat nervously. But Eiro just looked back at him and smiled, "Don''t worry. If I have to, I''ll be right there. Let''s just try to avoid any situations where you might have to rely on me for a week, alright?"


    The Slime slowly shook its body in understanding instead of shaking its head, which it in its current form simply didn''t have. And so, with a loud yawn, Eiro made his way out of this room and chose to make his way upstairs to see the others again one more time before not doing so for a whole week.


    He sat down with them at the table they were at for a while, and just spoke to them. Eiro made sure to reassure them that everything was going to be alright.


    In the end, Eiro didn''t actually know if everything was going to be alright. All that he knew was that he would probably forget a few things more, including smaller, less important things about his children. Of course, generally, to Eiro everything about the children was incredibly important, but if he had to choose, he would prefer to forget things that were more external. Things that he would be able to remember, or at least rediscover, really quickly. So Eiro tried his best to only focus on the children''s appearance, if he needed to focus on them at all.


    Otherwise, he would listen to their words in as neutral a way as possible and then answer by speaking to the room instead of them individually. So that Eiro could make sure he really forgot only the absolute minimum about his children, the minimum that was hard for him to avoid.


    But the good thing was that in just a few more days, thjs shifted, reversed ability would end, so Eiro would be able to speak to the others through the door of the tower-room he was going to head intoter on.


    "Are you sure you''re going to be alright, all alone up there?" Jess asked with a concerned tone, and Eiro nodded his head, "I''m sure. Don''t worry, I won''t die from loneliness." The Demon replied.


    And then, Sammy looked at the Demon as well, speaking in a mixutre of concern for Eiro as well as selfish worrying for herself, "Do you... Think you''re going to be able to remember us when youe back out?"


    "...I''m going to try my best, yes. I doubt that I will lose many memories in there, And if at all, they would be memories of myselfzing around in there without any consequence, and that''s nothing to really worry about at all. But... I won''t be able to easily remember the things I''ve already forgotten. I will try my bests to go for that as soon and as quickly as I can, but I can''t make any promises about how quickly I can regain my memories after this in reality."


    Sammy looked back at Eiro with a bitter expression, still upset at the fact that she let herself forget about him like that. Eiro already tried to exin to her that there was no way that she could have remembered him under any circumstances, but she still was quite negative in this regard.


    But, at some point, everything that had to be said was said, and everything that had to be asked was asked. Eiro slowly stood up and nervously made his way through the house, followed by the others.


    The Demon walked up the stairs of the tower until he reached the top. He opened up the secret, hidden door, or rather ''hatch'' in this particr case, and climbed into the room. From in there, he made sure to speak to the others a little more, before then finally closing the hatch for good for the whole of next week, if possible.


    The first thing that the Demon did, of course, was to slowly stop his infusion, pulling everything back into a small wooden piece on his hand. He was surprised that this small piece of wood wqas enough to infuse his whole body at first, but considering how powerful this was, maybe this was natural for this sort of material.


    But the moment that he did this... Eiro felt burns all over his body as it started to loudly hiss. His body became hard to move around, and it felt like he would soon catch fire if he didn''t do anything against that in particr.


    So, instantly, Eiro infused the room with this particr material, with all of this ''Unholy Magic'' that was stuck inside of that small piece of wood. Slowly but surely, the burning and hissing disappeared as the Holy Energy was properly disposed of duje to the Unholy Energy.


    With a deep breath, the Demon tried to inhale as much of this Energy as possible to get rid of anyst speck of Holy Energy inside of his body as he slowly started to heal from the burn-wounds he had just received from the Holy Energy.


    "...Was that just ambient Holy Energy, or did thise from Avalin having stood in front of this room for just a moment..?" The Demon muttered quietly, unsure about which of these two possibilities it really was in the end.


    "Well, it doesn''t matter, really. I just need to wait out... for a whole week." Eiro muttered quietly, before heid down on his back in this room. He had set it up so that the space would perpetually be in this ''Unholy State''.. And basically the moment that he had the chance to, Eiro closed his eyes and fell unconscious due to exhaustion.

 Chapter 300 - Look At Me

    Eiro looked up at the ceiling in thought, trying to connect a few more dots before he finally left this room again.


    After the first penalty was finally over, Eiro was able to properly think again, although there were clear and gaping holes in his memory. It was quite annoying, even more so, infuriating. He didn''t ask for an ability like this, and the repercussions were truly horrendous for him.


    "On the other hand... I would have died without this, wouldn''t I have?" The demon muttered as he turned his head and looked at the book that he brought in here with him again. It was the book that he noted down all that he could about what happened during the period of time where he was forgetting everything he thought about.


    The Demon grumbled a bit as he sat up, leaning against the wall. He wasn''t able to do all that much in the past week. The only thing that he had really been able to do for the past few days was read the books that Gobo and Bavet brought him every day, as well as increase his status with the stat points that had amassed in the time that he had forgotten about this part of his abilities.


    Luckily, Eiro was able to make the connection rather quickly again after going through all the memories of his life that he still had left bit by bit.


    And now that the Demon assigned the stat points properly to some of the stats he figured needed some improving at the moment, his status started to look a little bit more ''random'', like he wanted it to.


    [Name ¨C Eiro][Race ¨C Elemental Imp][Level ¨C 26]


    [Health ¨C 137.955][Mana ¨C 338.550]


    [Strength - 136][Constitution - 141][Resistance - 127]


    [Agility - 212][Evasion - 107][Dexterity - 158]


    [Intelligence - 315][Wisdom - 305]


    [Perception - 206][Willpower - 161][Charisma - 102]


    [0 Stat Points Avable]


    The worst part about this one week that was practically just confinement for his own safety was that he couldn''t even practice anything properly. Using any sort of magic would have disrupted the Unholy Energy in this room, which could have possibly just meant his death because of some sort of ambient Holy Energy flowing into this space through one way or another.


    "And that right after I absorbed a damned Elemental Gateway... I really have to try it out when this is over." The Demon said, staring up at the notification floating above him.


    In just ten minutes or so, his reversed skill <Holy Energy Vulnerability> would turn back into <Holy Energy Resistance>, and he''ll be able to leave again, finally.


    He watched the countdown continue, and the moment that it hit zero, Eiro stopped the infusion of this room with Unholy Energy and opened up the hatch as he could feel that his body was slightly changing again as his Holy Energy Resistance returned to him.


    The Demon jumped out of the room with a broad smile on his face. He took a deep breath of air that wasn''t infused with that wicked sort of magic and quickly walked down the stairs toward where the others were.


    But something... felt off. He wasn''t sure what it was, but it made him worry. He sped up, his excitement wavering as he stepped into the room everyone had gathered.


    Eiro looked at them, and realized what it was that was off. Immediately. After all, the things that were ''off'' were staring right at him. Faces of people that he didn''t recognize, trying to speak to him in voices that he couldn''t remember hearing. Their tones were genuine, filled with ''Truth'', Eiro knew that. They certainly were his friends and family, those most important to him, but he didn''t remember them fully. He didn''t remember anything about them, now that he tried it...


    While he was in the tower-room, he didn''t really mind that. He thought that it was the way that it was supposed to be, for some reason.


    "The Unholy..." The Demon started muttering. While Holy Energy was something that practically represented all the virtues of life, Unholy Energy was something that represented the sins of life.


    He had been hungry, but he was able to get past that. He was angry, but he close to always was, so he barely noticed. He was greedy for knowledge as he tried to recover his memories to an extent. But the one that was probably the most prevolent in him during the past week, considering the situation in which Eiro was incapable of moving out of this room, unable to properly stretch out... And since the first thing he did in there was to sleep... "That has to be a joke... Sloth?" Eiro whispered with a wry smile.


    He simply didn''t care enough to figure it out during that time, was that it? Did he live in blissful ignorance that whole week?


    Eiro tried to seem natural for now as he approached everyone and greeted them. He hugged and held them for a while, one by one concluding who was who from the things that he remembered from his book, and the few memories that he did still have about them scattered throughout his head.


    Slowly, Eiro''s panick subsided a bit as he realized that this maybe was just something like an overwhelming reaction. Maybe it was going to be fine.


    "So, how was it being up there for a whole week?" The boy with a broad, cheeky smile on his face who Eiro concluded to be Arc asked. With a smile, the Demon replied in a rather simple manner, "Well... Really boring, I''d say? There was not much to do... I was just sitting in there for a full week, nothing else but a bit of reading." Eiro pointed out as he turned his head toward the two single beings that he still remembered a bit. After all, they were the must unique here... A Hobgoblin and a Slime were rather easy to differentiate between the others.


    But even then, Eiro still had trouble recalling specific memories that had to do with these two at the moment.


    "Do you feel a bit sinful now, after bathing in Unholy Energy? Oh, can you use Unholy Magic now or something?" Arc asked, but Eiro justughed and shook his head, "No, no, I can''t. Well, I might have developed a small affinity for it. Maybe we should test that out, if there''s any way to do that."


    A man with a dignified demeanor started grumbling to himself a little bit in response to that. Solomon, Eiro assumed, then spoke up, "I''m not sure if it''s really possible to test for Unholy Magic. It''s that same kind of thing as with Holy Magic, where you need special materials for it. I don''t really know what that would be with Unholy Magic though. If you want I can search for it a bit."


    "Oh, that would be great, thank you." The Demon said. For a little while, they all just spoke to each other. Eiro was able to properly act as if everything was fine, at least as far as he himself was concerned at the moment.


    They joked around a bit, Eiro spoke to everyone individually some more, and made sure that he was getting everything right with who they were and what they were like personality-wise. Eiro wanted to be able to recover his memories about these guys as quickly as absolutely possible. It should be possible, he had written it down in the book numerous times that he should be able to remember things after his ability had be normal again.


    That''s what the Smander King told him, apparently, that nothing was ever truly lost. If that was the case, then he should be able to remember them as long as he interacted with them properly.


    Solomon had been able to slightly resist the memory-manipting spell due to his connection with that Dragon of Truth. And since Eiro had the Knight of Pentacles, the card that gave him ess to the ''Absolute Domain of Truth'', Eiro should be able to remember everything with ease, right?


    "Oh, how has the weather been since I was up there? There weren''t any windows there, and I could only sense things immediately around the hatch." The Demon pointed out. That room was made with extremely special means to be infused with magic, so it kind of made sense that he wasn''t able to sense anything outside of it with the use of magic, but it was still kind of annoying and made things a little bit more boring for him in the long run.


    "You''re finally back, and you ask about the weather?" Clementine asked with a slightugh. Eiro looked at her with a nod, "Of course. I want to know if you''ll all be able to properly attend school. It''s starting soon from now, right?"


    "Ah, right, about that." Solomon started, "It was dyed by a few days, but next Monday, they will be able to start their lessons. Some of the professors were unable toe back to town while I put it on lockdown because of that spell, but thest ones areing back tomorrow. Oh, speaking of ing tomorrow'', we''re getting another visitor as well. Do you remember that mess-"


    "Alright, that''s it. Eiro. Look at me." A voice said. Eiro raised his head and looked at him. It was a man with a pale skintone, and his arm was reced by a prosthetic that Eiro knew he himself made. He had been quiet the whole time, practically just ring at the Demon without break while he had been speaking to his children and Solomon. Eiro figured that this man was ''James'', then.


    "Nice to see you again, James." The Demon said, but James immediately proceeded to try and punch Eiro in the stomach, his face twisted with anger, "Nice to see me again? Don''t screw with me." James replied just after Eiro dodged the punch with a simple step backward.


    "Is... Is something wrong?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, and James red back, "Everything''s wrong. Just so you know, I''m quitting, Party Leader."


    The Demon stared back confused and in a panick, unable to figure out what was going on. Eiro knew that if this was James, then he was someone who he greatly appreciated. A close, trusted confidant.


    "James! What do you mean?" A woman asked. From her demeanor and age... Eiro figured this was Jess, probably.


    "It''s just what I said. Do you think I would want to spend a single second longer with him after what he did?" Everyone in the room was rather confused about what James meant with this, except Solomon of course. He knew what James meant. But even Eiro wasn''t sure exactly.


    So, he looked at the man in front of him with a frown and stepped out of the room, quickly followed by the Light Elf.

 Chapter 301 - Deal

    James and Eiro stopped once they reached a room where they could talk to each other in peace. While Eiro didn''t really know what this was about, he knew that James was seriously worried about it. The Demon looked at the Light-Elf with his arms crossed.


    "So... What is this about?" He asked, and James stared back with a deep re, "You really don''t remember?"


    "I don''t, sorry." Eiro said bluntly. James ground his teeth together as he started to exin, "When this whole thing started with us forgetting about you... You attacked a group of young adventurers and killed them, even eating them." He said, and Eiro looked at him with his brows raised.


    "Wait, what do you mean? Why would I do that?"


    "I don''t fucking know, why would you do that?!" James replied angrily, and the Demon slowly thought about it. He tried to think back on the events that he did manage to not forget during that time, but he didn''t know why he would ever do something like that.


    Eiro didn''t particrly like eating people. He used to, but that was back when he was more savage, still. The moment that he acknowledged the children as being his own was the moment where hepletely rejected doing something like this. The only situation in which Eiro maybe would devolve to this was...


    "Did... Did I go savage..?" Eiro asked with a shocked expression. He realized that in such a situation he was in, he would most likely try to not think about anything at all to prevent forgetting about things. And in such a case, his body would be led by nothing but instinct. If that was the case... Then Eiro most likely did what James just said.


    "Did I... Really kill random kids..?" Eiro muttered quietly with shock on his face. While he didn''t remember any particr details about them, Eiro still remembered his love for his children. And imaginig himself eating the kids of others for no reason just made him sick to his stomach.


    Sure, if they were the ones to attack him, he would have at least been somewhat justified to kill them in his mind, but... Eating them was something else again. It was different for such garbage as the goons from the organization that Eiro fed to John, but innocent kids? There was no way that he would be able to justify that in any sort of situation at all.


    "Is there... Is there anything I could do to make up for this..?" Eiro asked. He didn''t want to lose thisplicated friendship that he had with James, no matter how troubling it was.


    "Tsk... Can you bring them back to life?" James asked as he turned around, ready to leave the building. But just then, something sparked in the Demon''s mind.


    "I... think maybe I can..." Eiro replied, and James stopped walking for a moment.


    "What do you mean?" He asked, and Eiro slowly pulled something out of his treasury. It was a small, round, pitch ck bead, "This is something that the Ghost dropped when I killed it... It''s like a magic stone filled with a mass amount of Necromancy magic... Enough for a dozen, or more, regr magic stones..."


    "Eiro, don''t tell me that you''re suggesting-"


    "I am. What if I learn Necromancy and resurrect them with that? I know that there are some spells that undead can use to heal, so I could even repair their bodies..." The Demon pointed out.


    "You want to turn those kids into Undead servants? Are you fucking with me? How''s that supposed to be any better than killing and eating them?"


    "Because I don''t want to turn them into servants... I want to bring them back to life, by manipting their death... If that makes sense." Eiro said, "I won''t manipte them... I know that souls can linger for a long time depending on the situation they died in, and in that situation... Their souls are surely still there."


    "...With necromancy, you can speak to souls as well, right?"


    "I think so, yes." Eiro replied.


    "Then how about this... You learn necromancy. You speak to those souls and ask for forgiveness. If they forgive you, so will I. If they don''t, I will leave the party officially. And if they want you to turn them into Undead, then... That''s that."


    "Thank you for giving me this chance." The Demon said with a light smile on his face, but James just red back and then sighed, "It''s not like I didn''t know that you killed, and even ate people before... I was always well aware. I just didn''t wanna think about it, you know?"


    Eiro slowly nodded his head. Of course he understood. But he was also d that James tried to look past Eiro''s actions to an extent. However, this meant that Eiro now had two, or possibly three main objectives that he had to try andplete.


    One, he had to get his memories back, through one way or another. Maybe he could ask Solomon about how it felt when he realized that he had forgotten things, it could help him a bit.


    Two, get an Affinity for the Death Element to the extent where he was able to make use of Death Magic, so that he could converse with the spirits. It might be possible for him to speak to the spirits of the dead adventurers, not to be confused with Elemental Spirits of course, if he just tried to infuse his body with the death magic from the small magic-stone like bead that the Ghost dropped after dying, so that was something that seemed quite worth it to explore.


    And three, the one that Eiro thought to be the least imminent... Completely flip the Organization upside down. They were already aware that Eiro killed a letter despite not being allowed to do so, hence the moment that he tried to interact with anyone there at all, he would most likely just end up being attacked by them.


    But at this point, especially with his new deductive abilities that he received through the <Absolute Domain of Truth> from the Knight of Pentacles, there was no way that Eiro would end up having any troubles against anyone in the Organization.


    If he had to, he would just kill anyone that he found in that blocked-off, small area of the slums. Hence, he didn''t really worry too much about it right now.


    "Just don''t mess up again. Got it?" James told the Demon, who immediately nodded his head in response.


    "I''ll try my best. And if I do, I''ll understand any anger you''re going to feel toward me." Eiro replied. James slowly nodded his head, and the two of them made their way back to the room that the others were waiting in. But before they could both sit down, Solomon stood up.


    "Eiro. If possible, could we speak about something as well?" The King inquired, and Eiro immediately nodded his head. They walked out of the room, and after a bit of walking, Solomon exined what he wanted to speak about.


    "Did you remember everything after that skill''s effect subsided?" He asked, and Eiro turned to him before shaking his head, "I didn''t... Actually... I forgot a lot of things about the children, and even you, that I''m not proud to admit to."


    "...I see." Solomon said, "And I assume you want to remember?"


    "Of course I do. There''s no way that I wouldn''t. And I feel like there are some things I forgot that I need to really know, things that are incredibly important for me."


    "Then I have a suggestion to make, but I don''t know how much you''re going to like it." Solomon pointed out, "Once sses at the Academy begin, there is a period of three weeks that it would be more than just benefitial for the children to board there. It is something like a basic training camp, to help everyone get to the same level and to build something of amunity within the school. I already spoke to James, Jess and Krog about this, but they as well as rk, your escort to the ck market if you remember, can take care of Leon and Avalin during that period of time. As I tried to mention before, someone else ising to visit from tomorrow on. Armodeus received my message, and in worry, chose toe here as quickly as he could."


    Eiro looked at Solomon confused for a moment. Judging from what he was saying, there was only one real conclusion toe to, "You want me and Armodeus to head somewhere together during that three-week period? And I''m guessing it has to do with my lost memories..?" Eiro asked, although he already had a fair guess as to what the answer to that was.


    "Indeed. I want you to visit the Dragon of Truth that I formed my pact with. He will be awaiting you then. He will be able to help you recover your memories. The only way for you to reach the ce where he is waiting is to head through a town of Dwarves, which only Armodeus can help you ess."


    "I see. I figured something like that was the case." Eiro pointed out in thought, "It sounds like a good idea to me, then. When exactly does that three-week period start?"


    "In about two weeks, once all the students properly settled in and even theteers all arrived." Solomon said, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "That should be enough, then."


    "Enough? Enough for what?" The King asked with a light frown, and Eiro just replied in a blunt tone, "Enough time to fulfill my part of the deal I just made with James, and to try and take over the organization, of course."


    "...You''re still going to work on that?" Solomon asked.


    "Of course, why shouldn'' I?"


    "Because rk told me that one of the people from the organization attacked you for breaking their rules. I thought you would try a different approach now." The King pointed out. Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Well, I am. I''ll stop trying to rise to the top of the organization in the regr way. I''ll just get rid of all of the letters and the people even above them, so that I cane in contact with those that are actually leading the organization. Those guys are just a branch of arge organization. Their rules don''t make sense the way that they are now, so that''s what I concluded. I think it''s fair to assume that I''m right with this, by the way, considering my new abilities as of recent." The Demon said with a broad grin on his face.


    "And then, I''ll just take over that head-organization."

 Chapter 302 - The Feeling Of Death

    With a deep breath, Eiro let this new sort of magic flow through his body. Well, it wasn''t directly ''new'', it was just foreign to him directly. The moment that this Death Magic flowed through him, he could feel his whole body slowly decay. As if he was rotting, or mummifying, rather. His horns and along his bones in his wings,yers of thick bones formed.


    It was like his eyes slowly disappeared and he got dark rings around his eyes that just seemed as if his eyesockets werepletely empty. His body temperature dropped considerably, and his heart-beat was close to unnoticeable. Certainly, this was a perfect way to pretend to be dead if he needed to do so at some point, but for now, it just felt quite horrifying.


    For one, because this wasn''t the sort of transformation that looked bad but was incredibly strong, his physical body really became incredibly weak. It was ufortable, and it felt as if his bones could break just by taking a few steps.


    Of course this wasn''t the case, Eiro just didn''t feel this frail in quite some time. After taking another deep breath that Eiro used to properly get his own body under control while he wasn''t sure if it was really breaking down or not, the Demon looked in front of himself.


    He looked in front of himself, and immediately noticed the probably most important benefit of this sort of magic after infusing his whole body with it. And that was that he was able to sense something new around him. He was able to sense Life Force now, as it was the opposing force of that which was inside of his own body at the moment.


    Eiro could see the flow of Life Force through the bodies of the people in front of him, through the nts growing outside, and of course the vermin crawling around underneath the manor.


    And on top of that, Eiro noticed a sort of distortion a few steps in front of him. They were directly above the urns filled with the ashes of the two adventurers that Eiro killed and fed on not too long ago. The Demon stared at the distortions and extended his hand toward them. Once the tips of his bony fingers reached one of these distortions in the air, he noticed something change.


    It was as if a thin hand reached out toward him, wrapping its fingers around the Demon''s wrist to pull him toward it. And just at that moment, Eiro''s instincts overwhelmed him. He pulled his hand back immediately and let go of all of the magic that he had infused his body with before pushing himself backward.


    His heart, that had been so weak just a few moments before, beat so loud that it felt like everyone else was able to hear this as well. The world surrounding Eiro twisted around his head and all he could feel was nausea.


    If he didn''t have such great control over his own body, Eiro probably would have thrown up all over the ground right now.


    "Eiro, is everything alright? Are you sure you want to keep doing this...? Many of those that have the ability to infuse themselves with the elements have tried to do so with Death Magic, but it always resulted in their death or decline into madness..." Solomon pointed out, trying to warn Eiro once more, but the Demon just looked back at him with a slow nod.


    "I''m aware. And I know why... It''s the same reason why Necromancers in general always have a screw loose..." Eiro exined, "I''ve felt something simr before... I think... I see it every time when I kill someone." The Demon pointed out.


    "What? You feel regret or something?" James asked with an emotionless expression, but Eiro quickly shook his head.


    "No, that''s not what I''m talking about. When you die... Numerous notifications will float in front of your eyes, all telling you that you have died. As if an infinite barrage of information was overwhelming your mind in thest moment that it was still active. Whenever I see that message reflected in the eyes of another being, a simr feeling to what I just sensed creeps up on me." The Demon exined quickly, "It''s the feeling of stepping into a domain you are not supposed to be... You, or any other living being, at that. I can see how this can drive others crazy, but I won''t be swayed by something like this."


    Eiro pushed himself off the ground to take another deep breath, trying to get rid of that foul, rotten air that had gathered in his lungs just now, "Well... I still think I need a little bit of a break."


    "If you can''t take it, then just say so. Though, you know what''s gonna happen then." James pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Of course I do."


    And so, Eiro slowly turned around. He stepped toward the closest door that would lead him outside. Over the past few days, while waiting for Solomon to arrange it so that Eiro had ess to the ashes of those two fallen adventurers, the Demon had infused himself with the Death Magic through the magic stone that the Ghost dropped many times.


    Whenever he did so, he felt something simr as what had overwhelmed him just now, albeit in a much weaker sense, and not as focused and aggressive. Just now, it was as if the spirit of one of the dead adventurers had tried to attack him.


    But whenever he felt this sort of thing, this sensation of pure death, Eiro felt better when he surrounded himself with life. Like nts, for example. Or the children practicing outside, anxious and excited for their first day of ss at the Academy.


    Eiro stepped outside and walked onto the snow barefoot, before slowly melting some of the snow that had gathered around the flower that he had found here in this garden a while ago, the one that was hard to influence even with nature magic.


    He squatted down in front of it and stared down at it, letting his nature magic flow through it again so that he could feel the life that was inside of it properly. This was in a different way to how Eiro could sense Life while being infused with Death Magic, of course. Then, it was like his instincts were trying to tell him the position of everything that he felt ufortable, or that he should try to avoid. As if his danger-sensing systems within his body were screaming all at once.


    "You ying with that flower again? That''s kinda a weird sight, you know?" Arc pointed out with his regr smirk on his face as he squatted down right next to the Demon, "What''s so special about it anyway?"


    "I don''t know. It just is. I''ll let you know once I figured it out, but I think it has to grow a bit more before then." The Demon pointed out as he turned his head toward his eldest son, "So, are you excited for ss tomorrow on?"


    With a broad smile, Arc just started to chuckle, "Of course I''m excited! I''ll be the leader of that whole school in no time!"


    "...Leader?" Eiro asked with his brows raised, and before Arc could say anything, Clementine walked up behind him and replied instead, "Yup. He thinks that he''s going to impress everyone and get lots of girls to gather around him if he shows off how strong he is."


    "Oh?" The Demon replied with a light smirk on his face, "You want to show off how strong you are? Interesting. How strong are you, then?"


    "...Please don''tpare me to yourself, that would be unfair." Arc said with a serious expression, "I mean, I''m just starting my sses, and I think I''m pretty strong for my age. Right?"


    "Hm... Sure, I''d think so. At least, you''re more capable than the average person when ites tobat. That''s a good start. You didn''t get the chance to level up much, but at least your skill levels are quite high because of how much you have been practicing. All of you, I mean." The Demon pointed out, "So I have to say, I''m quite curious about what might happen once you establish yourselves at that school."


    "Do you really have to basically tell him that you want him to take over the school? I don''t think it''s good for his ego..." Rudy pointed out with a wry smile, and Arc looked at him smugly, "What ego? I''m the most humble person around!"


    "Sure you are... Erm, anyway... Eiro, Solomon called for you again." The young man pointed out, and Eiro looked back at him a bit surprised.


    "Already? It was barely a few minutes..." Eiro sighed slightly as he pushed himself off of the ground to head toward the inside of the manor, although after just a few steps, he already realized why it was that Solomon had called for him again.


    A guest that was supposed toe a few days ago already finally arrived, and the Demon was actually quite d to be able to see him again. He rushed inside and made his way to the ce where they were waiting. And without any further ado, Eiro stared at the Elder Dwarf Armodeus, who was actively reprimanding Krog for the state of his weapons, while also obviously being quite curious about who made these in the first ce, due to their apparent quality.


    But then, Armodeus noticed someone tap his shoulder and slowly turned around, and stared at Eiro in his newest form.


    "Y-Ya changed quite a bit,d..." Armodeus pointed out with a wry smile, and Eiro looked the Elder Dwarf up and down and shrugged, "You didn''t change at all... I think?"


    "You think? So ya really did forget, eh?" Armodeus replied with a deep sigh, "How''d ya let this happen? Seriously, ye were affected by the spell of a mere demi-lich? I expected more of ya,d!" The Elder Dwarf eximed, but Eiro looked back at him and shook his head.


    "Of course not, I wasn''t affected by that spell. My own memory issuese from the cost I had to pay through the activation of my Legendary Skill."


    "Aye, aye, right, keep makin'' excuses ya-" Armodeus started before realizing what Eiro really just said, "L-Legendary..?"


    Eiro slowly nodded his head, "It''s called <Supreme Demon>. The Smander King told me that during my next evolution, it would be more stable and the cost would be lower as well, so don''t worry about this happening again anytime soon."


    "S-Smander King..?"


    "Mhm. I met him while in search for a Spirit to contract because Nelli and Gondos both forgot about e as well. And after absorbing a Spirit Gateway, I formed a contract with Sarius here.


    "Yo." The Smander said with a smirk and a wave, and Gondos turned his head to look back at Eiro once more.


    "Lad.... Start from the beginning, will ya?"

 Chapter 303 - A Simple ’yes’

    Eiro exined everything that happened over thest little while to Armodeus, albeit only roughly. The Demon didn''t really remember enough to go deeply into detail in the first ce. Telling Armodeus about the rough happenings was enough, though.


    Enough to make the Elder Dwarfpletely freeze up in disbelief. After Eiro looked at him for a few more seconds and actually started to be a little concerned, Armodeus slowly opened his mouth.


    "A Demon... With four cards of the Minor Arcana... One card of the Major Arcana... Three Spirits, soon to be four, three blessings, a legendary skill, and a fuckin'' Spirit Gateway that he absorbed...? Oi, I think yer crazy..." Armodeus said with a wry smile on his face, as if it had suddenly be stuck like that.


    "If you say it like that, everything sounds ridiculous. A Dwarf with a card of the minor arcana, that rose to the top of craftsmanship and lived much longer than the lifespan of a regr Dwarf would allow, allowing the oh so rare racial evolution of people toe into fruition, turning him into an Elder. Crowned King of all Craftsmen so that he may even rival the power of true emperors. Rumored to have even made weapons for heroes before, weapons that are so great that not even they were able to truly master them." Eiro said in a slightly emotionless tone as he pushed himself off of the chair he was sitting on, "How is that any more logical than my existence?" Eiro asked bluntly, and Armodeus couldn''t help but looked back at the Demon slightly surprised.


    "If ya say it like that..." The Elder Dwarf replied, scratching his cheek a bit, "Also, it ain''t an evolution, ya know? It''s like-"


    "Your body increased in size, your physical capabilities improved manifold, and your natural lifespan increased simrly. Tell me, how is that different to evolution?" Eiro asked bluntly, and Armodeus slowly squinted his eyes as he looked down at his hands.


    "Ye''re right... It ain''t that much different..." The Dwarf pointed out, although just then, Arc had something to say about that as well, "Aight, ignoring all that, as usual, ridiculous shit that our father just revealed to us, the fuck is this about evolution? You mean that your actual race advanced somehow?"


    "Hm? Aye, yes it did." Armodeus nodded bluntly, "Ah, but it really ain''t anythin'' that most people can really make happen. One in a million, maybe. Ya need to be acknowledged by a higher being for that."


    Eiro raised his brow and crossed his arms as he looked at the Elder Dwarf, who just red back, "Yeah, yeah, I get it already."


    "The lowest condition for it is to have a Master-Grade skill, something that''s rare enough as is. But beside that, you need to prove yourself in random ways as well... In my case, it was..." Armodeus started, before realizing how ridiculous the statement he was about to put out actually sounded, and his voice slowly became more quiet, "...that a higher being took a liking to somethin'' I made, and in return for giving it to him, he sponsored my... ''Evolution''..." The Elder Dwarf exined, and Arc slowly turned his head to look at his Katana and Wakizashi justying on the table on top of each other.


    "How in the heavenly fuck did we ever get our hands on weapons made by you..?" The young man asked with a wry smile, "Wouldn''t a Master-Grade weapon be a national treasure or something..?"


    "Yup. But those ain''t Master-Grade weapons. If I had made them usin'' Dragon-bones maybe, or materials from Supreme Monsters... The piece that got me to this point was a warhammer made from a chunk of shell of one of thest Mountain Tortoises."


    "Mountain Tortoises? That''s so cool!" Arc eximed.


    "You''ve heard of ''em?"


    "Nope!" The young man replied bluntly, but let me guess, they''re huge, mountain-sized Tortoises, right?"


    "...Basically."


    "See? That''s really cool! Eiro, do you think we can ever see one of those?"


    Eiro looked back at Arc and slightly shrugged, "Probably. I''ve heard that these ''Supreme Monsters'' that Armodeus mentioned are usually something like protectors for certain special ces at this point. Like thatke-monster and the flying ind..." Eiro pointed out, "What was that one called? The Lake God, I think? I don''t know if I remember correctly."


    "Ah..." Solomon replied surpised, "Did you ever get the chance to see that ce? I only managed to travel through there briefly before the incident."


    "Incident? What incident?" Sammy asked a bit surprised, and Eiro looked at her while scratching the back of his head. He wasn''tpletely sure, but he could connect the dots with what he still knew and the different books he read over the past few days.


    "Well, a certain monster horde controlled by the Monster King attacked the town on the floating ind, and a few years ago it''s officially been designated one of the Monster King''s Strongholds. Actually, I think <The Sun> leads it these days."


    "Mhm." James said with a light stare at Eiro, who looked back at him with a frown, "Hey, don''t look at me like that. You know I wasn''t part of that attack. Also, even though it''s tough to remember that time, I do seem to remember that you were the one that suggested we should keep on moving instead of going back to help."


    The Light-Elf sighed in response, "Yeah, because we saw that huge me from <The Sun> above the town, ready to obliterate it. What did you expect me to do?"


    "Then what was that look for just now? I''m pretty sure I wasn''t even level 10 back then. A one-digit leveled lesser-imp, and my highest-leveled skill by far was ''Language-Comprehension''. I literally only barely started to be able to read at that point." Eiro replied bluntly.


    "I know, you would''ve died even quicker than I would''ve. But in retrospect, it does make me wonder why you had to be forced to enter the ind because of the Lake God, but all those monsters just entered without any issue."


    "What are you trying to say?"


    "That maybe it was a bit convenient that they were travelling the same way we were."


    "That was because they had the same destination as us." Eiro nearly growled, his anger slightly growing within him. James simply red back, "A destination they reached only a few hours after us, somehow."


    "By Lady Winter, are you trying to insinuate that I created some fucking portal for them to travel through, when I nearly died a few dayster just by circting my own mana?"


    Hearing that this fight between the two of them was getting a lot more heated than either of them seemed to want deep down, Solomon chose to intervene, "Both of you, stop this immediately! How unsightly of you to fight like that in front of children!" He eximed, "I understand that it must have been a traumatic experience for both of you, but there is no use in fighting about it."


    Eiro and James red at each other for a few more moments, before Armodeus spoke up, "T-To think that you were part of that particr monster horde... What a coincidence..."


    As if that word was something like a cue, both Rudy and Clementine opened their mouths to speak at the same time. They looked at each other awkwardly for a moment, before Clementine chose to give Rudy the chance to speak first.


    "Speaking of coincidence... Is it really just a coincidence that those Monsters are called ''Supreme Monsters'', and Eiro has the Legendary Skill <Supreme Demon>?"


    "Ah, that''s what I thought as well!" Clementine eximed, "I thought it was a bit weird..."


    Immediately, everyone stared at Eiro, before the Demon sighed out deeply, "You only just realized that..? Yeah, that''s the same thing. Those aren''t just Unique Monsters, those are Legendary Monsters, also called ''Supreme Monsters''. But don''t worry, I''m already preparing for some precautions for when that happens. Bavet is teaching me more about Sealing Arts so that I can seal off my aura after I evolve."


    "Wouldn''t that mean you have to get tattoos like Leon and I had?" Sammy asked, but Eiro shook his head, "Of course not. That was necessary to seal a skill like that. The Aura that one gives off can be sealed with a few arrays. It might weaken me, but I think at that point, that will be an issue... When ites to the point where I would have to fight with my Aura unsealed, I think there''ll be other issues than just some animals and monsters running away."


    "How can you speak of this so casually..?" Armodeus asked, and Eiro turned his head toward him, "Do you really want to start this again?"


    "Let''s not..." The Elder Dwarf replied immediately. For a few moments after that, it became a bit silent, as if nobody else had anything to say all of a sudden. There were definitely a lot of things that should be said, but these sorts of conversations were always so overwhelmingly stuffy."


    Thinking that this was a good enough time as any, Eiro slowly started to walk toward the door again, "Armodeus,e with me for a while. I think we should speak one-on-one about... you know what. And there are a few things that I want to show you anyway." The Demon pointed out, and Armodeus let out a deep sigh, "Lad, I just arrived, and after this sort of conversation-"


    "What a shame, so you don''t want to see the stuffed Grandour we have in the library." The Demon said as he kept walking, and immediately, he heard some cluttering from behind him as the chairs were pushed to the side and heavy steps approached Eiro from behind.


    "G-Grandour, you say? Truly? The real thing?"


    "Not alive, obviously. Taxidermied, and kept in peak condition through magic. It''s like it died just a few weeks ago." The Demon pointed out, and Armodeus looked back at him, unable to really hold himself back.


    "Lad, ya drive a hard bargain... Aye, I''min'' with ya. Let''s talk." Armodeus said, and the two of them slowly chose to make their way through the hallways, leaving behind that stuffy atmosphere.


    After a few moments, the Elder Dwarf said that which was just obvious, "You and that Elf have quite the history, aye?"


    "You could say that. He''s one of the ones that enved me back when I was still a lesser Imp, and while his friend and the girl he loved died, and he himself lost his arm up to his shoulder and was physically disfigured, I left with the girl''s dagger and lived a happy life while his loathing and hatred at himself continuously grew."


    "Lad... A simple ''yes'' would''ve sufficed..."


    "Oh.... Then, ''Yes''."

 Chapter 304 - The Safe Egg

    "I personally also only heard rumors about it, I''ve never seen it myself. Or a Dragon in general. I''ve seen simr things, but ya can bet I would smugly brag about seeing a true Dragon!" Armodeus eximed, and Eiro looked back at him with a light smile on his face.


    "Yeah, I''ve only seen illustrations or lesser dragons-variations before. Like ground-dragons, and I think I spotted a wyvern sometime before." The Demon pointed out. Armodeus looked back at him a bit surprised.


    "A wyvern? When''d you see one of those?" With a curious expression, the elder dwarf stared at Eiro, but he just looked back with a wry smile, "I really don''t know exactly... All of the direct memories I have in my head right now are unimportant ones, ones that I would never usually think of anyway, hence why they stayed behind."


    "Well, at least they were good enough to keep yer personality intact, right?"


    "...I wonder about that. I don''t exactly know if I was any different to this. I just know that right now, everything feels kind of... numb, I guess." The Demon pointed out, "I know that I should care about getting my memories back, and I certainly do to an extent, but at the same time it feels just so... unnecessary. What if my memories won''t change anything? The children are happy, and that makes me happy, happier than anything else I can think of at least. How dod I know that the memories that I''m going to get back are really more worth it than the time that I''m passing up on while I''m gone."


    The Elder Dwarf let out a deep sigh, "Lad, do ya know the average lifespan of a Dwarf?"


    "...I think maybe 150? But they can get up to 200 years old, right?"


    "Aye, that''s right. But me? I''m nearly 400 years old in a couple of years. At some point, the only thing that you''ll have of your loved ones are memories, especially considering that I doubt your lifespan is anything near that of your children... If ya don''t die in a fight, you''ll outlive them, most certainly. It is a horrible concept, I know, but when the timees, you will appreciate any sort of memory you can get. Seven years of memories are a treasurepared to a couple of weeks then, don''t you think?"


    "You have a point." Eiro replied, "I''ll trust you with this, then. You''re surely more experienced in this than I am."


    "...Mhm. Eiro, the way that you were talkin'' just now though... You''re like the son to one of my closest friends, you''re like family to me, even if I may disagree with some of the things you''ve done in the past. If you need an experienced shoulder to hang onto, you''ll know where to find me."


    The Demon looked back at Armodeus and smiled, "Of course, thank you. Now, let me unlock this door for a second..." Eiro turned his head toward the bookshelf in front of him, and although he had forgotten about it at this point, he was able to quickly figure out how to open this up without even fusing with one of the spirits to see the magic that has been used to hide this hidden door.


    It opened up, and Eiro and Asmodeus stepped inside. Immediately, the Elder Dwarf took a quick step toward the edge and looked down onto the taxidermied Grandour with glee in his eyes. He walked down the steps and approached the ss box that the Grandour was kept in, looking at it excitedly.


    But that''s just when Eiro noticed something else happen with Armodeus'' expression as the Elder Dwarf saw the slight reflection of one of the magic items lining the wall of this lower floor, that mostly acted as a trophy disy, really. Armodeus waspletely distracted, and turned his attention away from this rare sight that he had been so excited about until just moments before.


    The Elder Dwarf approached the cab that stood there behind him now, looking at the different items that wereying inside of there. Armodeus opened the cab up and reached his hand out toward one of the items. It was a small, decorative mechanical egg as far as Eiro could tell. He knew that something was supposed to happen when activated with a specific pathphrase, so much was easy to figure out from the parts themselves, but as Eiro didn''t know much about artificing, it was actually rather hard to figure out what was going to happen exactly. And since he didn''t want to break something that could potentially be dangerous by force, he figured he should wait until he actually got to learning the Artifice skill.


    "The Third eye of the snake, thest petal of the spider lily..." Armodeus whispered as he slowly twisted the egg around, as if trying to unscrew a part from it.


    And the moment that he did so, the mechanical egg practically exploded outward into shards, all of which dropped down onto the ground. At first it seemed like the small item broke, but that really wasn''t the case at all.


    Before all of the parts even hit the ground, Eiro noticed that the parts were going to form something, an image on the ground. A magic circle.


    The moment that it was properly formed, it started to glow a bit, and the light from the activation of the spell became brighter and brighter, so much so that Eiro was nearly blinded from it. Sure, with his senses, that wasn''t that hard, but considering how hard Eiro practiced to not let his senses be overwhelmed ever since he received this ability, it would have been a bit embarrassing if he was randomly blinded like this.


    Of course, at the same time, this speaks for the strength of the spell. It was as if a pir of light was created that suddenly and rapidly stopped at the height of two meters.


    Quite anxiously, Eiro assumed, Armodeus stretched his hand out into the blinding light. Somehow, Eiro couldn''t really sense what was inside of that pir of light. Nothing at all, it was as if sound waspletely swallowed up by it, as if there was just an absence of space there somehow.


    It was a feeling that Eiro was quite familiar with, considering that it was somehing he constantly sensed whenever he was in this building. It was Choromancy, powerful Space-Elemental Magic. It was somewhat different in feeling to all these rooms though.


    Rather, it was more akin to what Eiro''s Satchel felt like, considering that it was also an item that function with spatial-magic due to the special spatial-bag that Armodeus himself had integrated into it.


    Slowly, the Elder-Dwarf pulled his hand back out again, and was holding a thick leather book in his hand. It was decorated in a way that was both intense and subtle. It would stick out amongst regr books, but when seen between others of its kind, it would seem rather unsuspecting. As if it was able to blend into those, at least.


    "It''s his..." Armodeus muttered, and at this point, Eiro just let out a deep sigh, "Alright, let me guess, you knew the former owner of this house, but you didn''t expect to find all of these things here?"


    "...You could say that. I was unsure if it was truly him or not. Sure, Choromancers are rare, but there are still a couple dozen of them in this world that are powerful enough to create something like this. As I didn''t see him for maybe... Fifty or so years, I couldn''t be sure that it was him. But now I''m sure... This was Achidmedis'' mansion. A Master of his craft. Literally. Amongst the few mages that have ever managed to bring a magic skill to Master Grade, although he hid it from many others... He didn''t want to receive the title of ''Archmage'' as it was ''troublesome'' ording to him. He wanted to continue his research, y around, and live a life filled with adventure. Well, he certainly managed that..."


    With augh on his face, Armodeus turned around and looked at the stuffed Grandour standing in the center of the room, before looking back down at the book he was now holding as the pir of light disappeared and the shards of metal turned back into two halves of a mechanical egg.


    Armodeus squatted down and grabbed those two halves, screwing them into each other again, before he threw it over toward Eiro without much hesitation.


    "It''s a useful item. I made the parts, and Achidmedis and Johann coborated on creating the system. I should''ve known, these doors just reeked of that near-immortal bastard." Armodeus grinned broadly, and immediately began to exin the situation before Eiro could even ask,pletely filled with nostalgia at this point, "I mean, most of us dabbled in Artificing. Even Jura did back then. Johann was obviously the best of us, as he Mastered that Skill, but Achidmedis wasn''t half-bad either. He was taught by Johann in the first ce, and he always had a rather unique way of going at it."


    "Hm... They do seem a bit different to the few Artificed items that I remember seeing, I guess?" Eiro pointed out, and Armodeus immediately nodded, "Yup! Johann never cared for his own life, as it was close to impossible for him to lose it in the first ce, so he could afford taking a lot of shortcuts in his work that ended up helping him out in the long-run. It''s like he had crossed over a big hurdle in the field of Artificing, that could only be reached by putting yourself and everyone around you in immense danger! But after that hurdle in his research, it was like his work was even more stable than it usually would be! It''s a bit chaotic, but ya know what that''s like. You studied under Jura, after all."


    Eiro smiled lightly as he listened to what the Elder Dwarf next to him was saying. He looked down at the mechanical egg that he could vaguely remember inspecting so many times before, but he never would have expected for it to have this sort of power.


    "Hm, I''m pretty sure all of us had that sort of item at some point to protect something important to us." Armodeus pointed out, "For me it was a memento from myte master, for Achidmedis it was his grimoire, and... wait, no, I actually think Jura never really used it. He wasn''t one to keep things for sentimental reasons anyway."


    Eiro listened, but he was mostly focused on one important thing. What Armodeus just said.. The book he was holding was a Grimoire of Choromancy.

 Chapter 305 - Perfect Grimoire

    Eiro took a step forward to get a better angle while looking at this book that Armodeus was holding. With a curious expression, as he had never before seen anything like a true grimoire before, the Demon leaned forward to find a difference to a normal book.


    And rather quickly, he did find something. Although, it wasn''t the thing that he had intended on finding, really. What he happened to rather randomly uncover was a gut feeling of sorts. As if he had seen something simr before. And then, it clicked in his mind.


    It was something that he hadn''t really thought about all that much because his mind had to be focused on literally everything and anything else, so he could still remember it to an extent... But it was the book that Eiro had found at that store. The one that had an incrediblyrge amount of magic imbued into it for some reason.


    Slowly, Eiro extended his hand forward and moved his hands in a motion that was like he pulled a book out of a shelf, and the small, dirty leather-book appeared in his hand.


    "Hm? What''s that?" Armodeus asked a bit surprised. He thought Eiro would pull out some amazing item judging from his expression just now, but all it was was a small, tattered leather notebook, it seemed.


    "...I think it might be a grimoire. Although I don''t know if..." Eiro muttered quietly, and slowly turned his head toward the side, where he could see three figures floating casually next to each other. They seemed a bit exhausted for some reason, but Eiro didn''t really let them rest too much for now, considering how important this was.


    Well, at the very least, he didn''t let one of them rest.


    "Gondos,e please." The Demon said, and the Golem looked at him a bit surprised before nodding his head, "Of course..." He replied, although another one of the three became rather annoyed at that.


    "Oi, why''re you fusing with him? It works just as well with me, right? If not better!" Sarius eximed, and Eiro just red at him for a brief moment, "You all have your strengths and weaknesses. Nelli has extreme control over her abilities and a vast array of knowledge, but shecks in the Combat Magic department. Gondos has amazing perceptive abilities, which is why I chose him, but he has neither fine control over his abilities nor particrly strong Combat Magic. And you, Sarius... You''re powerful, but you''re neither very perceptive, nor do you have even an ounce of control over your own magic. On top of that, you''re a rash, angry idiot, and that''s not a very goodbo with my own personality. So, bluntly, for this, you don''t ''work just as well''." The Demon replied in a clear tone as he stretched his hand out.


    With a smug expression while looking back at Sarius, the Elemental Spirit fused with Eiro rather quickly, and the Demon was able to confirm his suspicions immediately.


    There were a lot of parts that were incredibly simr about these two books. If one of them was a grimoire, then without a doubt, so was the other. But still, the small, tattered notebook-like grimoire had something else about it that was rather interesting.


    Again, it was as if this book was supposed to pull in a part of the Demon''s body, mind or soul, although Eiro still couldn''t tell which of these it was supposed to even be.


    "Lad, what did you just- Ah, you know what, I''ll just stop asking..." Armodeus sighed deeply. He was a bit surprised when he saw that Erio fused with Gondos, but at this point, he just epted that he would continue seeing rather weird things if he kept sticking around Eiro. Hence, it became close to normal in this environment within a few seconds.


    "Could I take a look for a second?" The Craftsman asked instead, "Ya can take a nce at Achidmedis'' Grimoire, if ya want. You can''t use Space Magic, but at the very least, there should be some benefitial methods in there for you to use." Armodeus suggested with a smile on his face.


    Immediately, Eiro nodded his head. He didn''t get that many chances to observe a book like this more closely. As Armodeus said, it might be beneficial to him if he figured out how exactly these probably quite unique spells were created in the first ce.


    You can''t create abilities like that without immense dedication and time, so there has to be some sort of progress for that as well, that Eiro could potentially use for his own spells. After all, considering the amount of Magical Elements that Eiro could make use of, and the ways that he had learned to use them individually, Eiro would need some special spells to properly make use of them to the full extent. This grimoire might be an incredible help for that.


    Eiro was pretty d that Armodeus trusted him enough with this memento that one of his dearest friends had left behind, though. That was a pretty good feeling, as far as he was concerned.


    However, just as Armodeus was handing over the Grimoire to him while the Demon handed the small book over to the craftsman himself. The two books collided for just a moment, rubbing their leather surfaces together briefly. It was really just for a single moment, but it seemed like that single moment was more than just enough for what happened next.


    Eiro saw the magics that were infused into the two books suddenly fuse with each other. Or rather, the small, outwardly unassuming book absorbed the magic of the other grimoire.


    And a momentter... The grimoire that Armodeus wanted to give to Eiro just now became a regr old book. It still had all the regr information written inside of it, but it simply stopped working in the way that a Grimoire was supposed to work. It seemed like it had suddenly aged a couple of years as well, where parts of it suddenly dried up and crumbled a slight bit.


    As for the small booklet that Eiro had with him... That changed a bit more, albeit in a positive way. Before, the small grimoire looked as if it was about to fall apart into dust if one just blew on it. But now, while it clearly still looked to be rather aged and not in peak condition, it wasn''t as bad as it was before. The few colors that the leather was dyed with before seemed to slowly return into vibrancy, although it was just a miniscule change that most probably didn''t even notice in the first ce.


    "...Alright, what just happened? What did ya do?" The Elder Dwarf in front of Eiro asked with a deep frown, and Eiro looked back at him with a confused expression himself, "I don''t really know... I think this book absorbed the magic of that grimoire just now..."


    And then, it suddenly clicked with Eiro. Right now, the book was surely filled with magic, but not even close to the amount that it had been before. Back then, the book was like some sort of beacon, most likely after absorbing arge part of the magically-enhanced storm that was happening outside at the time. But now, while it still held a lot of powerful magic, it was far less than before. More reasonable, to an extent.


    Eiro stared down at the book and slowly flipped it open. The moment that he did, he noticed that there was suddenly writing in here. Writing that was supported magically, as if this was exactly the content that was supposed to be in the other grimoire. Like it was a copy, but the magic from the original piece was stolen instead.


    "This is kind of weird..." Eiro muttered quietly as he looked down at the book, and Armodeus asked something that was on his mind, "Can ya make use of the spells in there?"


    "Hm? No, I don''t have space magic, so I can''t." Eiro pointed out. However, Armodeus didn''t let up, "Yes, but Grimoires are something like shortcuts anyway. Spells that are inscribed into it can be used again and again. With a little bit more mana, but a lot higher efficiency. Of course, it''s not really that versatile either. In a real fight, adjusting your spell ording to the opponent is vital, but that can''t happen with a grimore."


    "I know what a grimoire does, thanks.??? Eiro replied with a deep sigh, "But again, no, I can''t use this at all, sadly. But I might be able to someday." The Demon pointed out as he continued flipping through the book, before he reached a surprising point toward thetter third of the grimore, this small one that became ''better'' after absorbing the Choromancy Grimoire, even. The spells that were in here now were a lot thicker in text, as if someone tried to make another person remember them.


    And to top if off, they were spells and forms that weren''t in that book that this one practically ''absorbed''. As if the bookpleted even more spells based on the type of magic infused into it.


    Of course beside that, the more Eiro flipped, the more confusing this became. For one, the Choromancy Grimoire was visibly four to five times thicker than the smaller, dirtier one, but somehow thetter still had much more pages than that. And weirdly, the book didn''t get any thicker either. It was as if the pages were slowly disappearing toward the front the further he read the end of the book, but he could still easily return to the first page at will.


    It was a bit weird, and confusing at times because of the sort of magic that seemed to be causing this. Eiro took a deep breath and started to think, before getting another idea. Slowly, Eiro chose to split off from Gondos for this to make it easier, and then started to gather air around his left hand. And then, he pushed the air magic against the book, and without much force having to be put into it, the magic was absorbed.


    The Demon opened the book up, and immediately ended up on the page he wanted to be on. The one about Air Magic that had suddenly been added to the end of this book. It started with a brief introduction into Air Magic in general, and after that, there was a very basic Air Magic Circle right behind it. One that Eiro knew, of course... But still, it made Eiro realize something.


    With this small book, he could create a Grimoire that was truly perfect for him, since it would be able to hold information on all magic that he was capable of using.

 Chapter 306 - Abnormal Materials

    "That''s really a Grimoire?" Armodeus asked with a light frown on his face as he stared at the small book, "I''ve never seen something like this before. Not only does this book change the more magic is infused into it, but it can write information down into itself on its own. How... is that even possible?"


    "Would you like to take a look? I feel kind of bad, since it turned the grimoire of your friend into a regr book." Eiro exined, and the Craftsman King in front of him slowly looked back at him with a confused expression.


    "Excuse me..? It did what..?" The Elder Dwarf asked, and immediately, Nelli proceeded to exin what happened, "That small book that Eiro hadpletely absorbed the magic inside of Achidmedis'' Grimoire, and it doesn''t seem like it can be used like one anymore."


    Immediately, Armodeus flipped the book open and flipped through the pages, trying to figure out what exactly happened. But somehow, the pages of this book were incredibly brittle, partly crumbling just to his touch. The pages of a proper, high-tier grimoire were able to defend against the sh of a sword. And Armodeus knew that this was the case with this item in particr, considering that he was the one that created the physical aspects of it.


    The base was created by him, and Achidmedis was the one that turned it into a grimoire. Armodeus stared at the small pieces of paper that had dropped onto the ground with a wry smile, "How is this even possible? What kind of book is that?"


    "...I don''t know." Eiro admitted immediately, "It''s like it can steal magic and make it its own. I have no idea what this book is... But either way, it''s certain that it''s some form of artifact, isn''t it?"


    "An artifact? One beside a Card... Haven''t those-"


    "Mostly been destroyed? Yes, I know. But I think this book might be an exception... I''ll have to speak to that old man at the shop I bought this book at to figure out where he got it from. But first of, can you maybe figure out all its physical properties for now? Like the materials and such, maybe they''re part of the reason why this is the way it is."


    Eiro handed the book over to Armodeus, who slowly nodded his head, "Aye... I''ll do my best." He admitted, before suddenly flinching back a bit the moment he held the book properly, as if he was zapped by static electricity.


    "Urgh, couldn''t you have told me if you''ve already bonded with this? My hands are gonna go numb at this rate." The Elder Dwarf pointed out. Eiro didn''t fully understand what he meant, but luckily, Nelli was there to exin it, "Right... ''Bonding'' is something that most do not know about, but for those that can actually do it, it''s something incredibly trivial. As such, I doubt you will be able to find much written information about it. Basically, it''s something simr to our contract, or how Lugo is your familiar. Usually it can only be done with powerful magic items, hence why it was possible with that book, if it''s truly a grimoire. Only you can use the magic effect of this item now, and if you strengthen your Bond with the item, you should even be able to summon it from wherever you want. And ''Bonding'' is kind of an umbre term, since bonds can act in a lot of different ways. A lot of the time, two bonds with the same effect can havepletely opposing natures, so it''s hard to define them, really."


    Eiro quietly listened to Nelli''s exnation and slowly nodded his head. That made sense to him, at least. He could feel some sort of vague connection between him and the book now, although he wasn''t able to see some sort of thread connecting him with the book like he could see with Nelli, Gondos, Sarius, and of course Lugo.


    "Well, it does seem pretty useful. Some sort of protection for my items seems like something that can only be positive, really." Eiro pointed out, and Armodeus looked at him as he flipped through the book to inspect the pages properly, "Sure, but can''t you already tsore this book inside of you whenever you wish to?" The Elder Dwarf asked.


    Eiro slightly shrugged as he looked back at Armodeus, who just let out a deep sigh, "Alright, I''ll inspect this a bit more, and then I''m going to tell you everything that I find out." Armodeus exined.


    Eiro looked back and simply nodded as he stared down at the book that he was just given by Armodeus. This used to be a grimoire just a few minutes ago, but now it was nothing else but a simple book without many uses other than to transfer information to those that cared enough.


    Obviously, Eiro looked at all of the pages of the original grimoire, trying to remember the pages of the new, small grimoire that Eiro had now that he looked at before. As far as Eiro could tell, from the purely physical aspects, meaning the things that were written or sketched into this book, had been copied close to perfectly.


    And now that he had done this, Eiro was wondering about something else as well. When he just infused some Air Magic into this book only a few minutes ago, it seemed like the book epted this magic. The Grimoire changed physically just so slightly, and it had gained another page.


    The page was really just rted to what Eiro himself already knew, and he quickly managed to figure out some sort of conclusion that seemed to make sense to him.


    "Hm, it may be that this book will continue to copy my own knowledge to ce it into this book. Granted, the magic that''s been infused into this did seem quite simr to the magic that Eiro had witnessed ravaging around outside for a couple of days. It was simr in that it was slightly rted to knowledge, since Eiro''s goal was to properly infuse this grimoire to make it grow better, more and more.


    If this grimoire would end up bing a powerful weapon to whoever used it by taking and enhancing the knowledge of everyone that had it, then obviously Eiro wanted to be the one that took care of this item properly.


    And so, to see what was going to happen, Eiro proceeded to infuse more and more air magic into this grimoire. Mostly because it was simply amongst the easiest things to procure at the moment, beside mes of course. But considering the raw nature of the item that the Demon was holding, a book with rtively thin paper pages, he didn''t want to risk identally burning this grimoire up because he wasn''t careful enough.


    Using air magic was easy and quick, and the more air that he infused into it, the more the book would change. Outwardly, its colors became more and more vibrant. Some of the small cracks that had grown on its surface over the years were closing down. As if the time on this object was being reversed, basically. The grimoire had spent years over years over years simply rotting away in the possession of others that didn''t appreciate its worth.


    And on the inside of the grimoire, Eiro could see something that quite surprised him, although he should have expected this already. On the pages toward the very back, numerous sketches for different spells had been drawn out. Some of them were regr magic circles, others were spoken aspects of spells that one had to use together with that magic. A few of them even had specific cadence or pattern written down underneath it that one had to be particrly careful of when casting the spell. Without such things, even though they certainly were minor details, if you didn''t pay attention to those ''minor details'' a spell could end up going terribly wrong because the spell was ''misunderstood'' while casting, or the spell would simply be weakened considerably.


    Since there were quite a few cases where people died through different,pletely magical means when they even messed up slightly like this, Eiro really did have to be as careful as he possibly could be. Even in their day-to-day life, many mages had to be careful. Their voice was one of their most important physical aspects, since it was simply needed to cast many different high-tier spells.


    Quite curiously, Eiro flipped through the pages, although he realized quite soon that there wasn''t any sort of new information inside of this book. He had been aware of most already, really.


    Well, that''s what he thought at first, but at some point, Eiro noticed a small peculiarity for a specific spell toward the end of the air-magic section of the grimoire.


    The spell had been just so slightly altered. In a positive, beneficial way it seemed, but this wasn''t an alteration that he had been trying to cause himself. It seemed to have simply happened when he infused his magic into the book. As if it had been using its own knowledge in order to fix or improve some of the spells just so slightly.


    And of course, this altered spell had its efficiency and strength increased considerably. It was one of the spells that Eiro knew that were basically ''example spells'' ones that Eiro didn''t really care for or use all that much in the first ce. It made sense that they could be rather easily improved upon.


    Since Eiro hadn''t used them in battle before, he didn''t have even the slightest need to improve or change parts about them in the heat of the moment to fit his situation. Hence, the variation of this spell that was in the book was one that seemed quite old already and still had a lot of parts that one could probably instantly fix anyway, which was why the grimoire took over that task with ease.


    "But this is truly amazing..." Eiro muttered quietly, while he raised his head to Armodeus. He had been trying to think about what exactly the materials used for this book were, since they didn''t seem to be regr ones, but no matter what he did, the Elder Dwarf seemed to struggle with this task quite a bit.


    Mostly, this seemed to be because of the fact that he simply never saw these materials before. He knew simr ones, but it would take him a while to mentally analyze the effects of the grimoire''s materials just through those rough memories that Armodeus still had in his mind about the times where he used the materials closest in simrity to the one that Eiro was currently remembering.


    But one thing was for sure.. Considering the fact that Armodeus had trouble figuring this out in the first ce meant that the materials were incredibly and utterly abnormal.

 Chapter 307 - Honing

    Eiro looked down at the book that he was holding and let his mana flow through it. He had heard about the beneficial effects of Grimoires, but since they were rather hard toe by, the Demon had never been able to really confirm them for himself.


    But one thing was for sure, this Grimoire did really seem to boost the flow of his mana quite a bit. Even just holding it slightly improved upon his mana''s flow and versatility. It was just a miniscule amount, but every little bit counted in the end.


    And then, Eiro tried out the part that really was most important to him directly. Usually, a Grimoire''s main purpose was to help a spellcaster remember their spells. A lot of the time, considering the mental strain that any spell put on the caster, especially after a few years, many had a hard time concentrating or even remembering specific bits of spells. A Grimoire helped those individuals figure out what kinds of spells they were supposed to use.


    But of course, a book that was just meant to remind them of specific parts of spells didn''t need to be a magical item like most Grimoires were in the end, and due to Eiro''s superior mental capacity when it came to memories, he would most likely never face any sort of issue like suddenly forgetting about spells.


    Especially considering that he didn''t have any issues simply drawing certain conclusions and re-learning the system of spellcasting after seeing a little bit of it if he just needed to.


    So, why exactly was a Grimoire really so special? What was it that made it one of the most important tools that high-leveled spellcaster had in their arsenal? It was quite simple. It allowed you to take shortcuts when spellcasting.


    Eiro flipped the Grimoire open in a specific page and held the book in his left hand while holding his right hand forward. He let his consciousness connect with the Grimoire, trying to focus on it to an extent, and then attempted to cast a rather simple spell.


    Usually, even Eiro had a hard time creating a full spell out of nowhere. Even Eiro ended up drawing different lines to make it easier for him. At a quicker pace than others, which made it seem like he was instantly creating a spell to some that didn''t have particrly great perception, but in the end, he still didn''t create every part of a spell simultaneously.


    But now, also due to the simplicity of the spell that he was testing this with, Eiro was able to create the whole spell at once, in a single instance. It was a slightly weird feeling, since this was quite different to the way that Eiro had been casting spells usually until now, but this would certainly help him properly figure out certain things for himself.


    And after activating the spell, Eiro noticed that there seemed to even be a bit more force behind it than usual. Although, that might have just been his imagination, considering that he didn''t really


    Eiro flipped through the Grimoire and looked for one of the moreplicated spells. Luckily, when Eiro infused more of a specific sort of magic into this magical book, he was able to slightly influence what parts specifically would be improved upon. So, he could basically take aplex Air spell that he had ''saved'' inside of his mind that then appeared inside of the Grimoire.


    By fusing more Air Magic into the book, he could break that spell down into its most important parts, as if he was analyzing it. And while Eiro wasn''t able to instantaneously create therge,plex spell with the help of the Grimoire, he was able to do so with some of the smaller parts, which meant that he was still able to increase the speed at which he was able to cast the spell considerably.


    Eiro was sure of it, with the help of this Grimoire, if nothing else, he would be able to improve upon his understanding of different spells. He would be able to make connections more easily, since even subconscious connections that Eiro made between different things were picked up by the Grimoire, but it took him a little while of thinking to figure some of them out. And even then, he wouldn''t even be able to properly pull all of his subconscious thoughts to the front of his mind.


    At this point, the Grimoire already took on quite a bit of information, although Armodeus asked a question that Eiro hadn''t really thought about that much yet. Somehow, he didn''t seem to think that it was all that important, since he may have already subtly figured out the solution and figured that it wasn''t a big deal.


    "If that Grimoire is automatically improving itself by absorbing magic, why doesn''t it have anything in it that was rted to the spell that was fused with the storm you spoke of? Didn''t you say that the book absorbed a lot of that magic?"


    Eiro looked back at the Elder Dwarf and slowly nodded his head, "That''s a good question. Hmm... I think it might be because it wasn''t bonded with anyone? It notes things down inside of itself through the understanding of the person bonded with it, I think. Without anybody to process the magic, it couldn''t note anything down. And the Grimoire was already a special case when ites to magic, so it makes sense if it would be able to copy it immediately."


    "That makes sense, but does that mean that you''ll just be able to steal the contents and powers of any Grimoire you maye in contact with?" Armodeus asked with a wry smile. That seemed like it might turn out to be rather chaotic if Eiro wasn''t careful about it.


    "Maybe so, but it shouldn''t be an issue. Grimoires are incredibly rare to begin with." Eiro pointed out bluntly. But for now, as he was thinking about all that he had to do to fill out this special Grimoire some more, Eiro realized something important.


    "I''m being messy." Eiro sighed out deeply, and the Elder Dwarf next to him looked over a bit surprised, "What do you mean?"


    "...It''s simple. In my pursuit of strength, I have spent quite a lot of time increasing the range of my abilities. To be prepared for all that is toe. But all that I have done is amass arge number of weak skills instead of improving upon them and properly honing them like the weapons and tools that I want them to be. I think I should spend some more time training."


    "Well, you have plenty of time, right? Even aftering back from the trip to the Dragon of Truth, there''s not much that you have to get done immediately." Armodeus added. Eiro closed his eyes in thought as he let his fingers rub over the surface of his Grimoire. And then, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Swiftly, three spirits appeared floating in front of the Demon.


    "Sarius, you and I will train together to improve our control on high-power magical abilities with the help of Nelli, who is arguably the being with some of the highest fine-tune control of magic that I have ever seen. Then, I will spend some time training with the Wooden Puppet to improve upon my physicalbat abilities some more. I should be able to clear a few more of its challenges at this point... I may not be able to do so right now, but after I am back in town, I will re-read all of the books in this manor that I haven''t yet, and if possible will even try to gain ess to the Academy''s Library again to further improve my knowledge. This way, I hope that I will be able to improve upon my most important abilities." Eiro exined to Nelli, Sarius and Gondos, and then turned over toward Armodeus.


    "I might need a bit of help from you as well."


    The Elder Dwarf raised his brows curiously, "Is that so? What would that entail?"


    "Creating items and materials to increase some of my resistance skills. An item that continuously pushed pulses of magic into me as a form of torture, an item to inject a small amount of poison into my body, or an item to make me constantly feel physically nauseous in a way. These sorts of things." Eiro replied bluntly, and Armodeus looked back at him with a wry smile, "You want me to make items for you that are not only morally questionable, but also possibly lethal and illegal?"


    "Yes, please."


    "You are quite a weird man, you know?" Armodeus sighed deeply, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "I do, yes." And with those words, the Demon stood up and slowly turned around.


    "Let us speak about our trip to meet Lognirter on, alright? For now, I think I should spend my time trying to improve upon my currently nonexistent necromancy." The Demon exined. He stepped through the library, quickly followed by Armodeus again. They made their way through their manor, and Eiro chose to get back into the tower so that he could properly infuse himself with Death Magic in there. It would be quite ufortable, but at the very least it was effective.


    And at the same time, Eiro hoped to add some Death-Magic sections to the Grimoire that might be able to help him out in trying to speak to the spirits of those two dead adventurers.


    From that point on, for the next few days, Eiro tried the best that he could in order to improve himself and properly prepare for everything that was toe. He made sure to get provisions ordered, worked together with Armodeus to improve upon to carriage, spent some quality-time with the children, and of course, he also spent quite a lot of time with his body infused with Death Magic. At some point, he was infused with so much of it for so long that he actually started to lose Health all of a sudden...


    Even after stopping his infusion immediately, it kept going for a few more minutes, but then luckily stopped. It wasn''t a lot of damage, it didn''t even take a tenth of the Demon''s total health, but it was still quite considerable and scary in the moment.


    But at some point, although Eiro still hadn''t been able to get the Death Magic skill, as long as he was infused with Death Magic, he seemed to be able to use necromancy to an extent as long as he truly made use of the Grimoire, which had been a lot of help in trying to figure out how to approach the spirits in the first ce.

 Chapter 308 - Forgive, Not Forget

    Once more, in his second attempt, Eiro kneeled in front of the urns of the two dead adventurers with the small ck bead in his hand. James was standing by the wall, watching over the Demon and what he was doing.


    And then, Eiro slowly pressed the magic stone against his chest, letting his mana flow through it and back into his heart so that it would spread throughout his whole being. The moment that the Death Magic hit Eiro''s heart, he felt a light stinging, as he always did, before his body weakened and practically decayed due to this extreme infusion with an unnatural element that his body was supposed to reject. It was pretty painful in some parts of his body, even.


    Either way, for now, Eiro had to concentrate properly. He could see two shifting clouds above the urns. The spirits of those two adventurers. Eiro slwoly extended his hand toward them, but didn''t touch them this time around. As if trying to gain the trust of an animal by letting it smell him, he tried to get the spirits to approach him first.


    And then, once the spirits seemed to pay attention to him properly, Eiro concentrated a bit of death magic in his throat, trying to repeat something that he did once before. It was a lot harder this time, though.


    For one, it was hard for him to speak when he was infused with this magic in the first ce. His throat felt coarse and dry, even if it was perfectly hydrated. It was itching so much that Eiro nearly thought that parts of it were just crumbling into pieces. And on top of that, the bit of his voice that he actually managed to get out was incredibly distorted, and seemingly quite unpleasant for others to listen to.


    And now, he had to strengthen exactly that part some more. The Demon infused his voice with Death Magic. He ususally did something simr with Air Magic, to make his voice simply travel further, and he did it not too long ago with Fire Magic to make his voice carry more strength to even melt the snow falling around him.


    And this time, he was infusing his voice with Death Magic so that he could converse with the dead. And for that, he did the same with his ears, trying to focus his senses on the two spirits in front of him while attempting to tune everything else out a little bit.


    Eiro slowly stared at the shapeless forms of the two spirits and let out a meek voice, since that was all that he was able to bring forth at the moment, "I ask you... For the deaths that I caused, forgive me..." The Demon told them in a genuine tone. He was truthfully sorry for what he did, after all. He didn''t mind killing others if they deserved it, but since Eiro was the one that caused a situation like that in the first ce, he didn''t think that these two young people really had any reason to die at his hands.


    And of course, through the Knight of Pentacles, the <Ultimate Domain of Truth>, the Demon''s genuine feelings could be properly conveyed to those around him. As such, he really didn''t need any more words than what he just told them.


    Slowly, the two spirits approached Eiro''s hand, and soon wrapped themselves around it. Like snakes, these mist-like masses slithered over the Demon''s arm. It was kind of like two pairs of hands were running along his body, with cold fingers just barely touching him to the point where it could very well just have been a gust of wind.


    It made Eiro wonder just how often he had felt the chilling touch of the dead and simply confused it for the wind. Either way, one thing was for sure... With every single instance of Eiro realizing this touch anew, a wave of fear flooded through him. It was the thing that Eiro may very well fear the most out of any concept there was. Death.


    It made him want to pull away again, to just run somewhere where he could feel safe from this, but Eiro couldn''t just be such a coward in the face of those that he wronged. He took a deep breath to try and focus himself as the two spirits continued to slither up his arm, and soon reached his torso.


    For a few moments, it was as if they were just searching around the Demon''s body, and then, they made their choice for what they were going to do next. As if these ethereal hands suddenly became stronger, the two pairs of hands started to rip into the Demon.


    One of the adventurers ced their hands around Eiro''s throat, trying to strangle him to death. The other one was seemingly trying to rip into his face, pushing its fingers onto his cheek and into his mouth to try and rip away Eiro''s jaw. The imprints of these invisible hands could even be seen by those around the Demon right now, and even James became a bit worried, although he was the one that Eiro was doing all this for in the first ce.


    Nheless, Eiro had to continue despite the dreadful touch of death coursing through him. He felt fear nearly ovee him a couple of times, but this was the whole reason that Eiro had even been practicing with this element so much over thest little while.


    "I''m... sorry... But I cannot die here..." Eiro said in a clear tone, and suddenly, the two pairs of freezing hands stopped, "I know it is selfish... I was the one that caused your deaths, and now... I''m asking you to forgive me after what I did to you... But please, believe me... I wholly regret what I did to the two of you..." Eiro told the two spirits, and slowly, one of them let go of Eiro. Or at least, it loosened its grip on the Demon''s throat.


    The other one was continuing to rip into his face aggressively, however. It seemed like his words had only infuriated it even more. And at that point, something that Eiro really didn''t anticipate happened, although he should have kept this in mind beforehand. Maybe the Death Magic was messing with his mind a bit, considering how much he had been damaged by it over the past few weeks. Or maybe... He just became conceited and thought everything would go over without a hitch.


    But slowly, the spirit gained more strenght. The mist-like figure was strengthened and became more focused. At first, it was only the hands of the spirit, but it was slowly turning solid. Its pure grudge, its anger and hatred toward Eiro, the one that killed this person to begin with, caused it to turn into an undead.


    It caused it to turn into a Vengeful Ghost. After the hands, its arms also became solid, d in a pitch-ckyer as its body was being formed. This continued a while longer, and with every small bit, the Ghost gained more strength. It burrowed its fingers into his cheek, trying to rip into the Demon''s flesh... But of course, even though Eiro''s body was weakened, he still had a Resistance stat of over 120. A newly-born Ghost would never be able to injure someone like that.


    So, Eiro could continue on speaking while this spirit was letting out its anger on him. It seemed like the other one was reached by Eiro''s words, however, and its anger was slowly disappearing.


    "Please, forgive me." Eiro said in a quiet voice, but the slowly developing Ghost just continued on trying to injure him.


    At this point, even James was starting to get anxious. Over the past few days, he had noticed just how hard Eiro was working to earn his forgiveness for what he did. He was seeing how serious he was, how anxious even this demon was to truly make this happen. And different to what James had believed at the start, Eiro wasn''t only doing this to make it up to the Light-Elf, but he was really doing it to apologize to these two that were simply caught up in what Eiro did.


    And there was a reason why Eiro was so serious about these two in particr. They weren''t the first innocent, undeserving people that Eiro killed in mindless ughter. He wiped out most of a whole vige in such a manner before.


    But while Eiro had not been able to apologize to them, and most likely never will be able to, he could still do so with these two. They were the representatives for all the innocents that Eiro had in in the past. As if they were a way for him to atone for this.


    It might not seem quite so genuine from a man that would not hesitate to kill anyone that got into his way otherwise, though.


    But even so, without a doubt, Eiro was serious. He was apologizing with his whole heart, and he wouldn''t stop just because of the anger of this Ghost, whose furious face was slowlying into existence now.


    "Please, forgive me." The Demon repeated once more, staring deep into the eyes of the Ghost.


    "Please, forgive me." He said, his voice digging deep into the Ghost''s ears.


    "Please, forgive me." But no matter how often Eiro said it, the Ghost was only bing more angry. For a good while, at least. But soon, he realized that despite his anger, his burning fury, this Ghost was unable to y Eiro like he had hoped. And throughout all that, he heard the Demon''s pleads for forgiveness.


    What was he supposed to do now? Continue to try and kill Eiro? Or just give up?


    Slowly, the Ghost of the young, male mage turned its head around as it felt a soft touch. And Eiro could see what it was as well. It was the spirit of the other adventurer, slowly trying to converse with the Ghost.


    And suddenly, she also started to get a more strengthened form. Her hands were slowly bing covered in a whiteyer as this Ghost''s strong personality helped her be an undead as well, using the necromantic energies from her friend to do so.


    Soon, Eiro saw two figures in front of him. One young man with an ink-ck form, and one young woman with a snow-white form. The woman, a swordswoman, slowly held the mage''s hand, and together with him, she looked deep into Eiro''s eyes.


    And with a soft smile on her face, and a bitter, sad scowl on his face, the two Ghosts gave Eiro their answer together.


    "We will never forget what you did to us.... But for now, we will forgive you for it."

 Chapter 309 - WillO’Wisps

    The two Ghosts stood in front of Eiro, one filled with anger, and one filled withpassion, but both of them were ready to forgive the Demon due to his honest emotions. They had briefly gained a form just now to speak to him, but it seemed like something was weird with them. Usually, Ghosts were beings that were unable to control their emotions properly, mostly being filled with a single strong emotions to the very end.


    Maybe it was because they were together, bncing each other out with good or positive emotions, but it seemed like they were able to thinking normally, as if they were still alive. For example, the Vengeful Spirit that tried to kill Eiro just a few moments prior was now not that bothered anymore.


    And due to the fact that they didn''t have extremely strong emotions, their forms that were barely held together in the first ce were slowly falling apart now.


    "I thank you." Eiro said quietly, and then looked back at their faces, "Now that we have this chance to speak... If you still wish to exist after this, then I have an idea that I would like to exin to you."


    The two Ghosts slowly looked at each other for a moment and then turned back to Eiro silently, but with expressions that showed their interest, "I can not bring you back to life, at least not yet, but I can try and turn you two into Undead that can retain their ego properly. And once I have the ability to revive you, then I will immediately do so."


    It seemed like the two Ghosts were rather surprised to hear such an offer. They turned toward each other again and spoke to each other for a moment, although Eiro was unable to hear what exactly it was that they were saying. But soon, they looked back at Eiro and spoke to him as well.


    "We still have unfinished business..." The boy pointed out, and the girl next to him nodded her head, "So if you can... We would like to not disappear just yet."


    Immediately, Eiro nodded his head, and immediately got to work. Instead of focusing it on his throat, and with that his voice, he now moved it over to his right hand. Since it was practically a staff, it was obviously strengthened a bit more, and the Demon was able to hopefully control this Death Magic properly.


    He slowly grabbed the hands of the two disappearing Ghosts, and made sure to ce his other hand on top of them to see to it that he was tightly grasping both of them. And after that, Eiro proceeded to push as much Death Magic into them as possible. What happened now was that their forms became stable for the next little while, which was enough for Eiro to do what he had to do.


    Since it was possible to use Magic Stones to cast spells that you didn''t have the skill for to an extent, since they gave you ess to that specific elemental magic, Eiro was also able to fill the Grimoire with a few possible Necromantic spells after letting the Death Magic flow through his body and then into the special book. And with as much effort as possible, and a few forbidden books about necromancy that Solomon managed to get for Eiro, the Demon managed topose a spell that would make it possible to turn a spirit into permanent undead despite not having the Death Magic skill.


    The Demon opened the book on the right page and then started to rapidly move his hands around, first in front of the boy, and then in front of the girl. Actually drawing the spell took a bit longer than Eiro would have hoped, despite the fact that the Grimoire was speeding everything up considerably. They were stillplex magic circles, so obviously they would take quite some time to create.


    It seemed like the boy, who was a mage when he still lived, realized that Eiro was creating something like this at such an incredible speed, however, and was just watching it in awe, suppressing his anger for a few moments.


    And then, finally, Eiro managed to finish the spells up, and simultaneously activated them, although there was still something that he had to warn the two Ghosts about.


    "...Oh, and even though what you will turn into might seem a bit embarrassing, please bear with me. I will exin the reason to you soon enough." Eiro pointed out, and although the two Ghosts seemed a bit hesitant all of a sudden, Eiro quickly activated the spell before they could think about it.


    The death magic inside of the Demon''s body flowed into the spells and then into the temporary forms of the Ghosts. And in a manner that might seem a little bit gruesome to others, the bodies of the Ghosts shrunk down andpressed into two fist-sized, smooth ss orbs, one white and one ck, that soon fell to the ground.


    Of course, Eiro immediately caught them, since the two of them were most likely unable to really control these new ''bodies'' of theirs, but that was fine for now. Eiro didn''t expect anything else. But for now, Eiro got rid of the Death Magic that he was infusing his own body with, since it would start damaging him soon otherwise.


    But the moment that he did so, James looked at Eiro with a wry smile on his face, "Y-You... You didn''t trick them or something, right? What did you do with them?"


    "Hm?" Eiro asked as he turned toward the confused and conflicted Light Elf, "Oh, I turned them into Will-O''-Wisps."


    "Will-O''-Wisps..? But isn''t that like the weakest sort of Undead there is..?" James asked, and the Demon next to him immediately nodded his head, "Of course, what did you expect? I don''t even have the skill yet, I did the best I could. Also, they''re Variant Will-O''-Wisps, so they''re a lot str-" Suddenly, Eiro was interrupted by a surge of electricity that flowed into his arm from the ck Orb he was holding.


    "Could you at least let me finish..? As you can see, they''re not normal Will-O''-Wisps. Those would be more mist-like. But in this case, they''re solid. That will allow them to retain their ego while heavily strengthening thempared to what a usual Will-O''-Wisp would be like. And on top of that, like this, it will be easier to give them their temporary bodies until I can revive them." Eiro exined as the surge of electricity into his right arm continued, although he was able to ignore it pretty well for now.


    "How do you n on giving them a temporary body?" James asked, since he didn''t really understand the Demon''s n, and he immediately turned toward the two urns, "I''m going to fuse their ashes into some seeds to grow strong trees, and have these two assist it with their mana. Basically, it''s the same thing as I''m having you and Charles do. But instead of recing a limb or two... I''m going to create two new bodies for them, and will try to set these two into the center of those bodies. Will-O''-Wisps can possess objects, so I''m pretty sure it would work out pretty well if I do it right and improve on my Necromancy until then."


    James stared back at Eiro with his eyes ripped open, "You want to give them bodiespletely made of wood? Wouldn''t that be more torturous than now?"


    "Why would it be? With those bodies, at some point, they will be able to sense things again properly. They will be able to see, hear, touch, smell, and maybe even taste. They will be able to feel the cold air on them again. And you know just as well as I do that I can make realistic carvings... Don''t worry, the whole goal of the arts I was taught by Jura is to practically create life. I can do this, I can make it up to them. And then, at some point, I will give them bodies that can truly live and breathe."


    "Do you really think that''s fine..?" James asked with a slight sigh, slowly ncing at the two orbs that Eiro was still holding in his hands, before one of the two started slightly glowing all of a sudden.


    "I think it sounds like a pretty good idea!" The girl in the white orb eximed, and a few moments afterward, the boy in the ck orb also spoke up, "As long as I can kick this Demon''s ass soon, I don''t give a shit."


    "Hm, sure, I''ll give you a few free kicks if you want." Eiro replied bluntly.


    "...That was supposed to be a joke, you know?" The boy pointed out, "But honestly, ''embarrassing'' was an understatement, wasn''t it? We''re just... ss orbs that can do nothing but float..."


    "Well, that''s not right, you can do a lot more than that. Let''s test it outter. But for now, I just want to say, I''m d that everything worked well. Speech doesn''t seem to be an issue with you two, but can you see around you alright? Also, try to float a little bit once you can, I''ll catch you if anything goes wrong."


    The white orb seemed to try and think about the question for a few moments, and the girl soon replied, "It''s weird... I can''t see anything, but it''s like I''m aware of everything that''s just a couple steps away from me... I guess?" She exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "I see, that''s good to know."


    "Wait up... How exactly are those two able to speak already? And why are you just... okay with what happened to you? This is the guy that killed you, you know?" James pointed out with a wry smile on his face, and the boy in the ck orb scoffed in response, "Oh, I know that. I''m not saying that I like this form, but it''s better than being fully ''dead'', y''know? And I hate this asshole''s guts, but he apologized, so I don''t feel as angry anymore."


    "...This is very weird." James pointed out, and Eiro slowly turned his head over toward him, "You think so?"


    James bluntly nodded his head in response. Eiro kept looking at him for a few more moments, since there was something else that these two had to talk about as well. James seemed to realize what it was, and he slowly looked back at the two orbs who were currently speaking to each other in their new, weird, echoey voices.


    "Fine, I guess I''m staying in the party, then."


    "I thought so.. Thank you."

 Chapter 310 - Ariella And Mikey

    With two smooth, fist-sized orb floating over his shoulders, Eiro stepped through the manor, happy that this had been dealt with properly. He now had a little less than a week left until Eiro would head off to see that Dragon of Truth, Solomon''s Familiar.


    "So, howe a Demon like you even is here?" A quiet, echoey voice asked. Eiro turned his head to the side and looked at the white orb, or rather, the girl that had been turned into this Will-O''-Wisp, Arie.


    "Yeah, exactly, isn''t that kinda weird? How''d you get rich like this?" The boy that had been turned into the ck Will-O''-Wisp, Mikey, asked. Eiro slightly shrugged in response, "Stuff happened."


    "Well, obviously, but what kinda stuff?" Mikey asked annoyedly, and immediately, Sarius appeared right next to him and kicked the Wisp out of the way, "Shut the fuck up already, you''re annoying as shit!"


    Mikey just started floating there in ce, unsure of what was going on, "I... Is that a Smander?"


    "Fuck yeah I am. And I ain''t gonna repeat myself again, so shut the fuck up! I''m tired!"


    "How are you even tired, you''ve been sleeping for the past day or so..?" Nelli asked as she also appeared right next to Sarius, "Hm, I''m just trying not to waste energy in case I need it. Get it? Now shut it as well, bitch. Go and water the nts or somethin''."


    Eiro let out a deep sigh. This would most likely all get a little bit annoying over time. He already heard Sarius and Nelli fighting every chance they got, but having Mikey there with them might make things even more annoying. And since Eiro didn''t want to particrly leave these two behind while leaving, since it might be troublesome because they were turned into this through Eiro''s magic.


    But there was something that made Eiro think that these two coulde in pretty useful as well. Not for him, these two would just hold him back, but they would be great assistance for someone else for now, if they were fine with it at least.


    Because as Eiro just figured out, these two reacted in pretty unique ways sometimes, "Alright, Mikey. First, let''s try this out." The Demon said as he grabbed the ck Wisp and held it forward, letting his magic flow into its body.


    "O-Oi, don''t just grab me like that!" The Wisp eximed angrily, but Eiro simply ignored him for now. He knew that Mikey was just nervous, anyway. And so, the Demon filled Mikey''s body up with Fire Magic with a certain sort of ''setting''. Well, it was based on Eiro''s intention for the spell.


    Either way, now, the Wisp was giving off strong waves of heat that were already melting the snow underneath Eiro''s feet. And then, the Demon swiftly controlled the magic inside of Mikey''s new form to swing him quickly through the area, using him to clear out all of the snow that piled up on the ground in front of them.


    Soon, Mikey returned to the Demon, who looked at the ck orb with a slight smile, "Isn''t it pretty cool that you''re basically a staff yourself now?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, and the Wisp just floated in front of Eiro. The Demon figured that he was a little annoyed now, but he didn''t really care that much for now. He wanted to properly try this out first.


    "Listen, I don''t really mind this, it actually feels kinda good, but at least warn me beforehand..." Mikey replied in an echoey voice, and Eiro just looked at him with a light smile, "Sorry about that. Arie, do you want to try out your own new abilities as well for now? While Mikey seems to be a great conduit and storage medium for magic-"


    "Please don''t make me sound like some kinda magic item..."


    "-I think your abilities should be a bit different, more focused toward physical damage." The Demon pointed out, and the white, smooth orb slowly floated over toward his hand, "We can try it out if you want. Will it work the same way as with Mikey just now?"


    "It should. Here, let me try. Just go with the flow, and don''t fight against it." Eiro suggested as he wrapped his fingers around the white Wisp''s form, pushing his mana into her. In front of him, Eiro piled up some of the rest of the snow that he didn''t have Mikey melt, just for this sort of test. He didn''t really want to try it out with wood, just in case something could go wrong.


    Either way, the Demon slowly held Arie''s new body behind him, and concentrated on what he wanted to do to that tower of snow and ice. And then, Eiro swung his arm forward at a high speed and threw Arie toward the ice. While her new body was flying through the air, Eiro noticed the effect of what he assumed to be the main part of her new abilities that would allow her to still fight like she used to, at least to an extent.


    Her orb-shaped body was squished t and a sharp edge formed as the Wisp spiraled around. And just like that, she cut through a thickyer of ice on the snow-tower that Eiro made for this, before returning back to Eiro soon afterward.


    "So, how was that?" The Demon inquired with a smile on his face, and the wisp that was floating over his hand stayed silent for a few more moments, before finally replying, "It... was pretty fun!" She eximed, "Can we do that again?"


    Arie''s voice echoed through the backyard as Eiro rxed a bit. Considering that they were both seemingly enjoying the feeling that their new abilities gave them, Eiro could only guess that their transformation into these Will-O''-Wisps worked out well.


    "Sure, we can try it a few more times. Although, not with me. I would like you to work together with someone else. Considering my high power-output, you two might end up damaged if we keep doing this. So I want you to work with someone that roughly matches you two ability-wise. But don''t worry, I personally trained him, so he should be able to handle your talents quite well." The Demon pointed out before he snapped his fingers. The sound of the snapping travelled a lot further than one would have expected, and a few momentster, footsteps could be heard approaching, making the snow underneath their feet crack.


    And soon, the Mountain Hobgoblin Gobo stood there, sweating profusely after practicing as much as he seemingly did.


    "Gobo, what the hell are you even doing? Didn''t I tell you to make sure you get rid of your sweat with magic the moment that it starts gathering on your skin? If you keep doing this, you''ll get sick sooner orter. I know that you''re not that good at cooling your body with magic yet, so at least do this properly, alright?" Eiro asked of him. He waved his hand to the side and removed all of the sweat that had gathered on Gobo''s body and on his clothes.


    "Also, it makes you reek..." The Demon added with a slightly disgusted expression, and the Hobgoblin looked at Eiro excitedly.


    "Sorry, Master! Gobo was-" The Hobgoblin slowly interrupted his own speech as Eiro stared at him a bit, and soon he corrected himself, "...I... I was warming up the area around the spiders while we were training them, so it was pretty hard for me to concentrate on my sweat too..."


    "Then why didn''t you just wait until I was here? I could have helped you out a bit." Eiro pointed out, and Gobo immediately shook his head, "No, Master! There''s no use if you keep doing it!"


    With a slight smirk, Eiro nodded his head, "Good boy."


    At this point, it seemed like Gobo finally noticed the two orbs that were floating over Eiro''s shoulders, "What are those, Master?"


    "Ah..." Eiro replied as he slowly grabbed the white and the ck orbs, pushing them toward the Hobgoblin although they were both a bit reluctant, "These are your new partners, starting today."


    Immediately, Eiro felt a strong surge of electricity flow through his right arm starting at Mikey''s ck orb, while small spikes formed on Arie''s white orb that pressed against the Demon''s skin, "Stopining, you two. I know he''s a Hobgoblin, but he''s a lot smarter than any other Goblin you''ve seen until now. Also, he''s on his path on getting his monstrosity under control."


    "Mhm, we''ve started unsealing it bit by bit a couple of days ago, and there aren''t any noticeable changes to his behavior. And Eiro obviously would have noticed, so everything''s fine." Another voice said, although it just came out of nowhere.


    "Eh? Who''s that?" Mikey asked confused. It seemed like even with his special sort of perception, he wasn''t able to realize that the one speaking was actually the tiny spider that was sitting on Gobo''s shoulder, "Bavet, stop hiding like that. You properly managed to instruct the regr-sized spiders, right?"


    "Yup, they''re all under control as well. Although I don''t know what use those guys are in the first ce..."


    "Well, these Spiders have the ability to sense anything and anyone that''s in the direct perimeter of their webs. Considering their numbers, they should be quite useful for surveince." Eiro exined bluntly as Bavet slowly transformed. He jumped off of Gobo''s shoulder and immediately increased in mass after ''releasing'' his slime, soon growing to the size of a normal man.


    Bavet stretched for a little while and then looked at the two orbs floating next to Eiro as well, "But really, these two are those dead kids you spoke about? They look kinda weird, don''t''cha think?"


    "Well, I did my best. This was the most efficient way to make them keep their ego for now." Eiro exined, and Bavet slowly scratched the back of his head, "That so? But you really want these two to be Gobo''s partners? That''s called bullying, right?"


    "Don''t speak so bad about him. He''s pretty skilled, right?"


    "Haha, that''s not the issue here. He''s just a dumb, ugly fuck." Bavet pointed out, and Eiro red at the slime for a few moments, "You better be quiet before I-"


    "...''Boil your slime away'', I know, I know. You always pick favorites..." The slime said in a tone of voice that made Eiro think he was practically pouting.


    With a deep sigh, the Demon ced his hand onto the head of the slime''s current humanoid form, "There, there. At least you cane to meet the Dragon with me, right?"


    Seeing how Bavet suddenly got excited like that, Arie and Mikey had the same thoughts cross through their minds. And the most prominent one was ''What kind of creature did we end up joining?''.


    Of course, even then, these two had only seen the tip of the iceberg of what made Eiro as weird as he was.

 Chapter 311 - New Combat Style

    A quick punch forward. Eiro''s arm was grabbed. He felt strong force pull him forward. After jumping off the ground, he twisted his body around. Eiro twisted his legs around the puppet''s arm, and let gravity do the rest.


    Once the puppet started to lose bnce, Eiro kicked against its thighs. After pushing its legs away with great strength, Eiro pulled his left leg over the puppet''s neck. Meanwhile, he kicked his right knee into its face.


    Eiro put his weight onto his left side and twisted around the staggered puppet''s body. He was now sitting on its back, and was pullings its head up while restraining its arms. With a broad smile on his face, Eiro stood up again and looked at the puppet.


    "Fifth win in a row. Guess I can finally start putting two tokens in at the same time, huh?" The Demon asked with a grin on his face. Meanwhile, there were a certain few people that were rather, well, surprised to see the Demon''s performance against the puppet.


    "For one... How and when did you get so strong? And two... I thought you can, like, predict stuff with that new card?" Jess asked as she looked at Eiro with a wry smile on her face, and the Demon turned around toward her with his brows raised, "Well, steady physical and mental improvement. I didn''t even use any magic to improve my performance, since I luckily don''t need that anymore when fighting against the puppet. That was my goal anyway." He exined as he looked at the wooden tokens in his hand, trying to figure out what he should try out next. These would all be rather new experiences, so he really wanted to test this out.


    When it came to thebinations that he could make just with the hand-to-handbat token, then that would be abination of hand-to-handbat and dagger-mastery. Eiro was quite curious how these techniques could bebined properly, honestly.


    Then, there would be thebination of hand-to-handbat and freerunning, which also seemed quite interesting in itself. Most of the time, Eiro was fighting in an environment where he could make proper use of hisbat techniques while stationary, so that he could then move on to the next target. But with thisbination, he should be able to figure out how to take on a lot of opponents far more quickly.


    And then, there was thest token, which was the only one that Eiro would take on without truly mastering this yet.


    After all, he didn''t even manage to properly fuse his body into the environment yet while stationary for a long time, although he did get a lot better at it, at the very least, he was able to sense the puppet every time for now after a few moments of concentration. It still seemed pretty hard while it was moving though, so it would take him some time to figure that out in itself.


    To an extent, Eiro wanted to wait adding thatst token into the mix until he managed to hide himself properly so that he could follow along with the copying, but that would still take him a while to fully do. He could fuse himself with the physical materials around him through magic so that he seemed to basically disappear, but it worked in apletely different way than hiding yourself through the stealth skill.


    Either way, that wasn''t important for now. He should concentrate on improving all his abilities and use all the chances that he could get for that.


    Well, that was part one of the question that Jess asked him to answer. Now, on to part two.


    "And as for me being able to ''predict'' things... Yes, and no. It''s not like I get some sort of definite path that a person is going to take, but all the possibilities pop into my head. From then, I still have to figure out the most probably possibility, and go from there." The Demon pointed out, "It doesn''t change much about my fighting itself, even if it does make counters a lot easier."


    "Right... It feels like you''re leaving us in the dust here, honestly..." Jess sighed deeply, and Eiro looked back at her and shrugged, "I''m a lot stronger than you, but that doesn''t mean in any way that you guys are weak. If you continue the training that I told you to, then your guys'' ability should steadily increase over time." Eiro exined, and the young mage slowly nodded her head.


    "Mhm..." She replied passively. Eiro turned away, looking toward Gobo and the two Will-O''-Wisps currently getting acquainted with each other. After a bit of convincing, those two chose to give Gobo a chance, but that they wouldn''t cooperate if he did anything that they didn''t like or want.


    Eiro was fine with that, as he expected that from the start. The Demon stretched out a little and then looked up at the sky to quickly figure out the time, "Alright, I should be able to get a bit more practice in before the kids get home." The Demon muttered quietly to himself. And then, he immediately proceeded to push the Dagger Mastery token into the Puppet''s chest together with the Hand-to-Hand Combat token.


    Eiro stepped over and then grabbed the two wooden daggers that he had made for the puppet a while ago, and gave them to his training partner real quick. It grabbed the two daggers and took up its stance.


    From what Eiro could tell, this was already a smooth mixture of the twobat styles that the Demon was used to. He was a bit surprised that it was actually fighting with two daggers, though. For some reason, he expected the puppet to use one free hand and one dagger.


    Well, he should probably take a look first. And so, he took his own stance as he held two wooden training daggers. And immediately, the puppet pushed forward.


    sh! Stab! Hack! The puppet swung the daggers at the Demon. Eiro defended these somewhat easily, as he was already used to the puppet''sbat. It seemed a lot more agile and dexterous than before, though, so Eiro was wondering if it was hiding something from him. Just as he thought that, the puppet stabbed forward again, right at Eiro''s face.


    He moved backward out of habit, but before he knew it, he had the puppet''s hand pressed against his chest and its leg right behind his own. After that quick push, the puppet caught the dagger that it just let go. It twisted the wooden dagger around in its hands, and then kept pushing forward.


    Eiro caught himself rather easily and twisted his body back around to stand up, but when he did, he saw a palm moving toward him at high speed. He twisted around and dropped backward, ready to kick the puppet''s own legs out of the way. But just then, the puppet''s dagger revealed itself.


    It had been spun around so that it basically rolled around the puppet''s hand along one of the edges. The unexpected dagger just barely missed Eiro''s face. And then, the puppet caught the dagger and wrapped its fingers around the handle. The tip was still pointing at Eiro''s face though, so the puppet could immediately stab down.


    Eiro let numerous thoughts flow through his mind, trying to figure out how to counter this attack. However, at the same time, he noticed something else. While Eiro was focused on the puppet''s left hand, the dagger in its right hand had also disappeared. It had thrown it toward its foot so that it could push the tip against Eiro''s head from underneath as well. Now, he would only be able to move to the left or right. But there was another issue with that.


    The puppet''s stance. To an extent, it was extremely unstable. He should be able to push it over into any direction with ease. But at the same time, that''s what made this stance versatile, giving it the ability to move into any direction in any manner however it wished.


    The puppet had its weight focused on its left leg and put all its force into its left arm and right leg so that it could push them together as if it was a jaw snapping down on something.


    But at the same time, it was still able to move all its limbs, beside its left leg, into any direction that it wanted to. Especially with its right arm, it was able to correct its own movement in any way necessary ording to Eiro''s own movement.


    So, there was only one thing that the Demon could do. He didn''t move at all. Instead, he pulled his arms up to his head as quickly as possible, cing one of his own wooden daggers right onto his face, and the other one right underneath his head. This way, he could block the iing attack.


    In response, the puppet slightly twisted its own to daggers out of the way to simply avoid Eiro''s daggers. But that gave the Demon the chance to slice to the side with his own daggers topletely put the puppet''s daggers off course, while also disrupting its stance at the same time.


    And then, to get out of this situation quickly, Eiro kicked off the ground and used this split-second where the puppet''s stance was unstable to reset himself as well, just as the puppet had to do the same. Numerous thoughts rushed through Eiro''s mind, and he was trying to think of a good way to beat the puppet with this style. It seemed to rely on the de moving around freely within the range of one''s body, while allowing you to free up certain parts of your own body for offensive, or sometimes even defensive purposes.


    It seemed like an interesting style that fit Eiro pretty well, so he was interested in learning thisbined variation of his two main physicalbat styles. But for now... he really just had to force a lot of different moves out of the puppet, so that he could go through them in his mind over and over again to learn them properly. That was the basis of how Eiro studied physical things. He looked at them a couple times, used his <Memory of a Schr> to go through it and copy everything, and then applied it in real life numerous times until it started turning into muscle-memory.


    Luckily, as the style was based off of ones that Eiro already knew, his body''s muscles were already close to perfect for this style. He just had to open up a few more variations for himself.


    And just like that, training continued.

 Chapter 312 - Muscle Building

    Eiro twisted his body around and let go of his dagger. It fell toward his right foot, and the Demon kicked it up into the air as he grabbed the arm of the puppet to throw it over his shoulder. Using the momentum achieved from that, Eiro pulled himself forward and jumped into the air just as the wooden dagger fell down again.


    The Demon kicked the dagger down onto the staggered puppet, pushing it toward the back of its neck at high speed. It was just a hand''s width away from it when the puppet let its body drop to the side. It seemed like it made use of the fact that it was staggered as well as the momentum that led to this to dodge the approaching dagger.


    It threw one of its own wooden daggers into the air with a swift flick of the wrist and used its free hand to quickly twist its own body around by pushing itself off the ground. Using this new, transformed momentum, the puppet shed at Eiro, who was still mid-air.


    Of course, Eiro tried to dodge this attack, but just as he did so, the dagger that the puppet just threw into the air had started falling down. Its tip his the back of Eiro''s head perfectly, and the Demon had lost this round. If this was a normal dagger, it would have hit him well enough to cause quite a bit of damage, especially considering what was surely going to happen now.


    The puppet was definitely nning on using the dagger it was still holding to keep shing at Eiro, while kicking the other one onto his back again, now that it had bounced away from him a bit. Since Eiro was using neither his wings nor his tail for these fights, since there was no way to know if he could reveal them to the enemies that he was fighting at any moment, so that meant there was no way to defend against the puppet''s attacks.


    "I lost." The Demon said, and the puppet immediately stopped attacking. Instead, it let go of the dagger it was still holding and pressed one of its arms onto the ground while using the other one to help prop Eiro up, and the Demon pped his wings quickly to help this out as well. At the same time, he of course pulled the puppet up with him, before using earth magic to push the wooden dagger on the ground up so that the puppet could catch it.


    With a slight sigh, Eiro rubbed the back of his neck, "Hm, this is a bit bothersome. I didn''t win against you at all yet." He muttered quietly as he stared at the puppet. He had tried to fight against it five times today, and while it was always close, the puppet had always won.


    Well, to be fair, Eiro didn''t take the time to fully analyze this sort ofbat with his <Memory of a Schr> yet. Instead, he had just tried to copy it normally with the techniques he already knew to draw as many movements as possible out of the puppet for now. Considering all that, Eiro did pretty well, honestly.


    "That... That''s a pretty interesting way to fight..." Krog pointed out with a wry smile on his face. Eiro turned around and looked at him with a nod, "Mhm, it is. But I like it. This might as well be my main style ofbat from now on. Not only does it let me level up my Hand-to-Hand Combat and Dagger Mastery skills at the same time, which is quite nice, but the versatility is a lot higher. And considering my ''Treasury'', the ways I can properly apply this will rise quite immensely." Eiro pointed out.


    He had stopped himself from using abilities like this, so that he could get a grasp for the basic style first and foremost, but he was pretty excited about the ways that he might be able to use this in fights in the future.


    "...You really are cheating somehow, aren''t you?" Jess asked in disbelief, "How can you even move so quickly? And how did you pick that style up after... 20 minutes, maybe? What kind of prodigy are you?"


    "It doesn''t have anything to do with being a prodigy. More than that, it''s cause he already learned the styles that this one isbining." James pointed out, and Jess turned her head with a deep stare, "I get that. That means it''s pretty simr to learning new moves of a style, right?"


    Eiro crossed his arms in thought before nodding his head, "I guess it could be said like that, yeah."


    "Alright, then James... How long does it take you to learn new moves for your style?" The mage asked, and the Light Elf looked back with an emotionless expression. He stared for a few moments, before looking into the other direction silently.


    "Yup, that''s enough of an answer..." Jess sighed, "Well, anyway... Eiro, can you help me practice spellcastingter on? I thought maybe you could use your new Counter-Spell Creation skill as well?"


    Eiro turned toward her, and didn''t have to think about it for too long either, "That''s a pretty good idea, yes. Actually, that''s a way that we should practice all the time when I''m back from my trip... You get skill-proficiency because the spell was activated, but it only uses minimal mana because the effect didn''t go through. And it would allow us to stop concentrating on damage-control and searching for suitable practice-areas... It should definitely help with your casting-speed if we tried some rapid-repeat casting."


    "...It took me a full day to figure that out as a practice method, and you did it in a second?" With a slight pout, Jess crossed her arms, "That''s totally-"


    "''Cheating'', yes, we get it." Krog interrupted her, and the young mage turned her head toward the mountainous warrior with a deep re, "Shut it, meat-shield!"


    "Who''re you calling a meat-shield, you twerp?" Krog replied with a re. Eiro was about to interrupt them, but then he remembered that these two were fighting all the time like that. They didn''t seem to hate each other, though, so Eiro figured it was just friendly banter.


    Either way, for now, the Demon figured that he should go through the moves that he could remember from the puppet for now.


    The first thing he did was simply look at them over and over again to pick out the basic movements out of everything that the puppet did. By using his knowledge of his other styles that had been ingrained in his body, Eiro was able to do this rather easily. After all, this style was abination of the two, so after seeing the result, he should be able to see the pattern and figure out how all sorts of moves with this style should end up working.


    And then, at that point, he might be able to lead the puppet toward having to fight with certain moves so that he can possibly fix the smaller mistkaes that the Demon might have made in his analysis. And after that, Eiro wanted to do something else as well. He wanted to try out a practice-method that would only work out on a minor scale, and would probably end up hurting him quite a bit in the process. Most likely, he would even do some damage to his own health, but that was worth it in the end, as far as Eiro was concerned.


    It took Eiro a little while to analyse everything, but when he did, he was able to figure out the way that his muscles should be positioned and concentrated, as well as the specific way that they should preferably act. Of course, for the most part, Eiro''s muscles had already changed in that way, but there were a few minor ways that he could improve upon that he only managed to figure out now that he saw this perfectbination of his twobat styles.


    "Nelli." Eiro said as he got ready for this, stretching just to loosen his muscles up a bit, and the Naiad swiftly appeared right next to him, "Yup?" She asked.


    Eiro quickly waved his hand to the side and pulled arge amount of snow from nearby toward him. He proceeded to melt it into water that he then moved over toward Nelli, "Could you maybe refine this a bit?"


    "Hm, sure, but why exactly do you want me to do that?" Nelli asked, and Eiro just looked at her with a wry smile, "You''ll see... If I tell you before trying it, you would want to stop me anyway." The Demon pointed out.


    Nelli was a bit unsure about it after hearing this, but she trusted Eiro''s judgment for now and proceeded to refine the water. Once it had turned rather pure, Eiro covered the palm of his right hand in a thinyer, making the rest float next to him as a reserve.


    He slowly rubbed it onto part of his triceps and slowly absorbed the water into his skin with a sort of physical infusion, although it wasn''t really that. He just wanted the water to practically flow in between every single one of his muscle-fibers... And then, the Demon got out a small bead out of his treasury, which he then used to infuse his whole body.


    It was the Gravity Magic Stone, which Eiro used to increase his own weight considerably. Well, more specifically, he made it so that there was immense resistance to every single movement of his.


    And then, he started to move his body in specific ways ording to how he had analyzed through his memories. He manipted the water that he had moved in between his muscle-fibers to cause more strain to them than usual to artificially elerate the process of muscle-training.


    "Nelli, start healing me now." The Demon said. And it seemed like Nelli understood exactly what he was talking about. While the Naiad was rather opposed to this sort of training, she understood why Eiro was doing it.


    She started to heal his muscle-fibers through magic, and Eiro fine-tuned the healing magic to make sure that the muscle-fibers regenerated in the exact way that he wanted them to.


    After a little while, Eiro managed to make sure that this training seemed to work to an extent. It wouldn''t make him that much stronger, but it was enough in order to regenerate his muscles in specific ways to fine-tune them after violently ripping them apart at a microscopic scale.


    Once he figured out that everything worked, Eiro extended it onto other parts of his body, and continued to rip himself apart to build himself back up afterward, to speed up his practice a bit more.

 Chapter 313 - The Next Three Weeks

    Eiro walked into therge open room that everyone here usually spent their time in when they wanted to be together. It was directly adjacent to one of the doors leading to the gardens, hence why the Demon chose this ce to settle down for now.


    He dropped onto one of the soft couches that was there and stretched out a bit. His whole body waspletely sore after he used that new muscle-building method for only half an hour. Well, he managed to make improvements worth a couple weeks, so that was to be expected.


    And of course, these ''improvements'' didn''t mean that Eiro built more muscle-mass, just that he he had developed certain strands of his muscture a bit more, and let others wither down just so slightly, so that he could move around better for his style.


    There was a little bit of improvement when it came to muscle-mass and -stamina, sure, but it was minisculepared to what Eiro''s initial goal was in the first ce. The Demon looked up at the ceiling and let out a deep sigh.


    "What a bother, really..." Eiro sighed out with a loud groan, while Nelli floated above him and looked down into his eyes, "That''s what you guess for toying with your own body like that..."


    "Ah, don''t worry, I have my body under control perfectly..." He pointed out, before James looked at him with a slightly curious frown, " ''Under control perfectly''? Does that mean you can dislocate your joints and fix yourself up immediately after?" The Light Elf asked, and Eiro slightly raised his head in response.


    "Why would I ever want to do that? Sounds like it would hurt."


    "That''s fine, isn''t it? You seem like a masochist anyway. But well... Usually, the biggest benefit is when ites to things like... escaping after being tied up, or squeezing through thin gaps you usally couldn''t get through." James exined, "I did know someone that used it directly inbat, though."


    Eiro looked at James with a curious expression, until he swiftly figured out a good reason for doing that sort of thing, "You could suddenly and unexpectedly increase your range for a moment in return for lower damage."


    "Basically." The Light Elf shrugged, and Eiro slowly turned his head over toward his left shoulder. Shoulders were rtively easy to disclocatepared to other joints, so after sitting up properly, Eiro ran his wooden fingers over his shoulder and soon found the right spot.


    The Demon pressed down onto that spot while flexing his muscles and pulling his arm forward by grabbing onto his own knee. Immediately, Eiro could feel the pop together with some pain that appeared soon thereafter.


    He could still move his arm around a bit, since the muscles were all properly in ce, but it felt a lot different to control it since there wasn''t the ''base stability'' of his shoulder to help him out. Eiro should get used to this rather quickly though, so that wasn''t a bit deal.


    "...Did you actually just dislocate your own shoulder like that?" James asked with a wry smile. That wasn''t the reason why he brought this up, but for some reason, Eiro just went ahead and did it anyway.


    "Eiro, I swear, could you stop doing that kind of stuff for once?" The Naiad by Eiro''s side floated up to his face and deeply red into his eyes, while hte Demon just shrugged.


    "Sure, when I see a reason why. My regeneration is much higher than normal anyway. I can recover certain sorts of flesh-wounds perfectly within just a few minutes, and even this shoulder will fix itself within an hour or so." Eiro pointed out, as he quickly proceeded to grab his arm and stuff the joint back into it socket, "And when I do this, I''ll be fine in a couple minutes. Probably."


    "Well, on a surface-level you heal, but you remember that your exhaustion, your pain, and microscopic damages are still going to be a thing for a while. And also, not all of your wounds heal instantly." Nelli said immediately, without having to even think about an answer. It seemed like this had been on her mind for a while now.


    Either way, Eiro apprectiated it, but there really wasn''t any need to worry about these things for now, "I won''t start randomly popping out my joints, don''t worry. If I do it, I''ll research the right methods of practicing it before I do anything else. But this wasn''t the first time that this shoulder has been dislocated anyway."


    "...Doesn''t change that it wasn''t nice to look at." The Naiad pointed out with a deep, worried frown.


    "I''ll be more careful from now on." Eiro said as he slowly pushed himself off the couch, "But for now, let''s greet the kids. Their carriage just arrived again."


    ---


    "Alright, you have your bandages, the salve, and the mirrors to check your body in the evening. Use them. If anything is wrong, go meet Clementine if you need to, or go meet the-"


    "Healer that Solomon introduced us to, I know, I know. They''re someone that Solomon trusts, so we can trust them as well." Arc replied with a deep sigh, "Honestly, you don''t need to be so overprotective all the time. I''ll be fine."


    "I don''t remember many things vividly, but I do remember the time where you broke your leg and still walked for a couple miles without noticing it." Eiro pointed out bluntly, and Arc slowly turned his head away, "Right, that happened... But why aren''t you reprimanding the others? They have to be just as careful as I do!"


    The Demon looked back at Arc and exined it in a blunt tone, "Clementine and Sammy have abilities that they can control. You and Rudy do not. But I don''t have to worry about Rudy, considering that no matter what happens, he literally can''t be hurt by anything. You, on the other hand, are more of a wild-card."


    "...Eh, fair enough. But wait, aren''t you worried about Felix at all?" Arc asked with a slightly suspicious frown, as if something was going on here. He was really just trying to drag this situation into a bit more length, probably.


    "...Why would I ever worry about Felix?" Eiro asked with a confused expression, "Amongst you five, he''s the one I''m obviously least worried about. Right after you yourself, he''s the smartest of you five. Most of the time, he''s an incredibly collected, intelligent young man. Even despite the fact that he''s physically rather weak and he''s literally deaf, I feel no hesitation leaving Leon and Avalin in his care. And on top of that... He''s getting private lessons from a man that knows about the situation, with literally nobody else around. And he doesn''t have a Unique Skill either, and I didn''t notice him making use of his Bloodline Skill at all since he''s been with us. Now, tell me why exactly should I worry about him?"


    Arc stared back with a nk expression and then looked past Eiro at the young artist that was currently making sure he had all of his basic materials and tools prepped and was ready to go, ??I... have no idea how to react to that. I think I should be annoyed, but I''m not, for obvious reasons. So... I''ll just polish my sword a bit."


    "Alright. Be careful." The Demon slowly nodded, and the moment that Arc stepped away, Nelli practically red at him when Eiro tunred toward her.


    "Kinda hypocritical, huh?" She asked with her arms crossed and brows raised, and Eiro looked at her with a sigh, "I get it already, I''ve already been more careful with my manual muscle-regeneration. It''s not as extreme anymore."


    "Yeah, yeah, still a bit hypocritical."


    "Kinda, but don''t tell that to the kids."


    "Sure." Nelli replied. Immediately in response, Sarius started tough, "What are ya two, married?"


    "I''ve known Nelli for the vast majority of my life at this point. Ever since I first met her, the longest period of time I didn''t see her was during a rare one-week trip that my teacher went to when she was still contracted to him. And you expect us to act any different?"


    "Exactly. Go burn some weeds, you hotheaded moron." Nelli added, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward her, "Me, or hi-"


    "Him."


    "Just making sure." Eiro smiled lightly. At this point, it was finally time for the children to head to their training-camp for a while, a time that Eiro would make use of to meet a literal dragon and recover all the memories that he had lost so far.


    Their carriage and the extra carts had been properly prepared, and all the permits that Eiro needed for what he was going to do had been prepared by Solomon already. And so, Eiro just had to make sure that the others were doing alright.


    "You three will be fine taking care of this ce on your own?" The Demon inquired. Jess immediately nodded her head, "Yep! We''ll continue practicing as much as we can, and we''ll take care of Leon and Avalin without any issue during this time either. You can go and do everything that you need to do."


    "Thank you." Eiro replied with a smile on his face as he looked at James, who was a bit annoyed by this whole situation, "I mean, I don''t mind staying behind if it''s for practice, but... You''re taking literal monsters and a guy that''s been turned into something close to one, but refused to take us? Isn''t that kinda weird?"


    "...Didn''t I tell you guys already so many times? It''s because I trust you that I do this sort of thing. Instead ofining, just use your head a little for once. Remember to feed the sapling outside as much as you can. Jess, please assist him by heating the area a little so that he won''t catch a cold."


    James clicked his tongue in response, "Tch, do you even know how hard it is to push mana out of my hands in general? And then into a nt?"


    "Well, yeah, of course. At some point, it''s going to start pulling in your magic instead of rejecting it, so just wait for that time a little bit longer."


    "How long do you think it''s going to take..?"


    "It should be at that point when I''m back, if you properly keep at it." Eiro said, "And Krog, use the practice method I showed you a bit more."


    "Mhm, will do. Should definitely improve my muscture quite a bit..." The heavy warrior said, although he was still a bit unsure about everything that was going on.


    But Eiro figured that it was fine for now.. After all, they were all going to make some sort of self-discovery over the next three weeks.

 Chapter 314 - Kobolds And Kitbolds

    Eiro was leaning onto Lugo''s antlers while reading one of his books. Since he would be able to finish this rather quickly if he just tried to, he instead figured it was a good idea to do the opposite for once and just stretch the time that he could spend enjoying this good literature out to as long as absolutely possible.


    He didn''t really have much else to do, after all. Since he was riding on Lugo''s back, he couldn''t practice any sort ofbat in the slightest. And on top of that, in the area they were in right now, he couldn''t properly practice his magic at arger scale either.


    Well, he was doing a couple of things while reading and riding on Lugo''s back anyway, but they were just miniscule things that the Demon mostly used to keep his mind busy so that he wouldn''t get bored somehow.


    For example, he was trying to produce different sorts of poison in his stinger, now that he got a rough grasp on it. Eiro started to fill them into different small ss bottles that he could use to track his progress a bit more directly. And of course, just having different sorts of poison avable to him at any time in the form of small bottles would certainly be useful. He couldn''t produce that much instantly, after all. That, and Armodeus could use them to develop the item that Eiro could use to increase his Toxin Resistance''s skill-level.


    It seemed like it would take him a little while to make something that would give out a constant, minor amount of Toxin out of an item like that, that would be just barely strong enough to cause someone to get just enough proficiency for a skill without producingsting side-effects.


    It would mean that the item would be required to track different parts about the user, like the statposition, phyiscal build, and of course the current state of different skills. It was a lot moreplex than it might think at first, considering how lightly Eiro put it.


    Of course, at the same time, Eiro should just be able to judge things like that personally, considering the fact that he was able to differentiate between incredibly tiny amounts of practically anything. Even just a little off about something that Eiro had seen a couple of times before would be something that he could notice and hopefully use toe up with a good time to stop. But that was bothersome, especially considering that Eiro also wanted to make use of it in his sleep. He wanted to improve at literally any time that was possible in any conceivable way.


    But on top of trying to practice poison-production as well as thinking about methods that could be used to improve Eiro''s skills properly, Eiro was also using magic at a small scale. He made a few pebbles float around with some drops of water, creating a strong gust whenever he wanted to.


    Of course, this included practicing how to pull mes out of his Elemental Gateway just to gather them up,press them, and save them up for a time where the Demon might be able to make use of them in an emergency.


    He could sense anything that was in the direct vicinity, so it really wasn''t all that tough to snipe at something far away with these small orbs ofpressed mes. Well, he had to be a bit careful because of the ntlife, but since these were magical mes, they were more easily affected by one''s will.


    Hence, if Eiro wanted them to, as the one that ''summoned'' these mes here from the Elemental ne of Fire in the first ce, he would be able to, he could make the mes go out rather quickly after he stopped directly manipting them.


    It should be enough to damage and kill any sort of trouble that wasn''t worth stopping to deal with on his own, but that was too troublesome for the spiders that were following the carriage secretly. Then, those spiders could grab the body if Eiro thought it was necessary, and then he could look at it when they were going to take a break for the horses'' sake the next time.


    Well, for the most part, they probably could have made use of new methods that didn''t require horses, but in the end, very briefly actually, Armodeus and Eiro both chose that creating a carriage that was pulled by the Giant Spiders that Eiro and Bavet had ''tamed'' was probably not the best idea around. Well, now they still had them pull some of the carts behind the carriage that they were taking with them with the materials that they would bring to improve on the Goblin Vige before heading off to meet the Dragon.


    Gobo would stay behind with Arie and Mikey by his side, as those three were now a bit closer to each other and the Hobgoblin was capable of fighting pretty well with their help, and lead the other Goblins as well as all of the spiders to properly develop the Goblin Vige.


    Eiro was actually pretty curious about how the Vige had developed so far in his and Gobo''s absence. It had been quite a while, after all. In the worst case, one of the other Hobgoblins had taken over as the new leader and Eiro would have to force them all into submission once again. It seemed like a bother, but at the end of the day, if it was necessary then Eiro would do it. It shouldn''t be that hard either, really. He did it before, and that was when he was a good bit weaker than he was now.


    Just as he was thinking about all this, the Demon noticed that they were finally getting rather close to the Goblin Vige. Or at the very least, they were now starting their ascend of one of the mountains that had enclosed the Goblin Vige.


    Gobo was getting rather excited over it, since he hasn''t been home for a good while. Meanwhile, Eiro and Gondos were making sure that the roads were ones that the carriages and carts could traverse without any issues with Earth Magic. And once they got close enough so that Eiro was able to sense part of what was happening in the Goblin Vige right now, and if he had to be honest, he would have preferred if one of the Hobgoblins had taken over the vige... But that sadly wasn''t the case at all.


    Once they reached the entrance, Eiro jumped off of Lugo''s back and used earth magic to open the path up and straighten the cave so that the carriages and carts could move through there properly. The Demon took the lead with a deep scowl on his face. He honestly wondered how this even happened in the first ce.


    While walking through the cave, Eiro took off his mask and cloak while telling the others to stay back for a little while until he told them that they coulde. And the moment that the Demon stepped into the light of the vige, he was already more than just annoyed. It was as if all the work that he had done here had already be absolutely useless.


    Eiro''s steps echoed through the valley-like vige, that had been infested with a new sort of gue. Kobolds.


    The Dog-like, bipedal Monsters stared at Eiro with violent, aggressive expressions as the Demon made his way through to the ''new Leader'' of the vige. Some of the more idiotic Kobolds tried to attack Eiro, but the Demon obviously cut off their heads before they could even get close to him with his Three of Swords. Meanwhile, all of the Goblins were bowing to Eiro, as their master had finally returned to them.


    It seemed like there was one Kobold to every three Goblins, so Eiro really wondered why there were being treated like this. The Goblins seemed to practically be servants to the Kobolds. While Kobolds were slightly stronger than the average Goblin, that shouldn''t be the case with Mountain Goblins. They should be at a rather equal standing, as far as Eiro could judge at a nce.


    He could tell that there was something special about the leader of the Kobolds, which might exin what exactly happened. Although, it still seemed rather bothersome to deal with. Eiro soon reached the ce in question, and stared at the sight in front of him in disbelief.


    The four strongest Hobgoblins that Eiro had left here were aplete mess. Clypt the heavy warrior and Vent the wind mage were standing beside the new head of this vige, while t the swordswoman and Sagit the female Archer were standing at the sidelines with their arms and legs put into chains. Eiro wondered how they even got their hands on something like that, but for the most part, the Kobolds seemed to be a bit more knowledgeable than the Goblins anyway. So that might have to do with their rather special leader.


    "What a rare sight. A Kitbold?" Eiro asked, actually a fair bit curious since he had never seen one of them, and the leader smirked in response. At this point, the four Hobgoblins had all noticed Eiro as well and immediately threw themselves onto their knees to bow to the Demon.


    "Kitsue must say, intruder is also rare sight~! Kitsue never see red Goblin with wings before!" The Kitbold pointed out with her legs crossed with a rather weird pose otherwise, as if the female Kitbold was trying to seduce Eiro right off the bat, something that obviously didn''t work on someone that had zero sexual urges whatsoever.


    A Kitbold was something simr to a Kobold, albeit a lot more rare, at least in this part of the world. Instead of having the appearance of a four to five foot tall bipedal wolf, they had the appearance of a usually roughly four-foot tall bipedal cat instead. They weren''t particrly stronger than Kobolds, but often rather more intelligent and agile, with a surprisingly low aggressive nature.


    Eiro read that some wondered if Kitbolds were actually just the offspring of Kobolds that somehow mated with wild feline animals, thus losing a fair bit of their monstrosity. Either way... Eiro really didn''t like the way that this Kitbold was staring at him right now. Slowly, she stood up from the ''throne'' she was sitting on, and walked toward Eiro with a determined expression.


    She waved her hips to the sides slightly, as if somewhat badly emting the way that those women in the red-light district of towns moved to attract new customers.


    The Kitbold walked up to Eiro with a broad smile, "The Red Goblin is strong! Kitsue will allow you to be her mate!"

 Chapter 315 - Highland Orcs

    Eiro looked back at the Kitbold in front of him, before turning toward the Hobgoblins that were still bowing to the Demon from next to the throne, "You four, exin the situation to me."


    "Hey, don''t ignore Kitsue, you-"


    "Silence, moggy." Eiro red at the Kitbold in front of him, and she seemed to immediately feel the pressureing off of the Demon, trying to jump backward because of it. But it seemed like the pressure Eiro gave off was too strong for her, and her whole body had tensed up so that the Kitbold wasn''t even able to move a muscle.


    Vent, the wind-mage Hobgoblin, was the one to speak up. Eiro figured that he had the highest Common Language Comprehension level out of the monsters here, with the exception possibly being this Kitbold herself, "I am sorry, Master. This enemy intruded two weeks ago... Took over the vige. We tried to chase her away. But she was too strong..."


    Eiro looked the Kitbold Kitsue up and down for a few moments. Sure, she seemed to be fairly strongpared to the other monsters here, but he couldn''t imagine that she was all that strong, honestly. With an annoyed sigh, Eiro stepped over toward the rough throne that had been constructed, the ce where Kitsue had been sitting up until a few moments ago.


    The Demon sat down on it and let his head rest on his hand, "Oi, moggy. Gather up the mutts." Eiromanded in a growling voice, and Kitsue slowly turned her head toward him, "H-Ho-How dare you speak to-to Kitsue l-like that! I will ki-kill yo-"


    "Don''t make me repeat myself." The Demon added, and the Kitbold flinched back and nearly fell to the ground out of sheer fear. She turned around and ran away, seemingly trying to gather up the few Kobolds that weren''t already gathered here anyway. Of course, all of the Goblins had alreadye to this ce due to the return of their master.


    They stepped to the side to let the Kobolds move to the front of the group so that they would have a perfect sight of Eiro, who slowly extended his hand toward the chains that were ced around the two female Hobgoblins. With rtive ease, he managed to shatter them apart. There were already a few cracks in it, not enough to break by hand for the Hobgoblins, but enough to push some seeds in there and let them crack the chains into pieces before being burnt away by Eiro''s mes, making it seem like he shattered them with nothing but a touch.


    Of course, if Eiro had tried to, he could have broken the chains just by pulling on them, but that seemed like it would still take a little while. This was something that he managed to do within just a few moments, so he chose to go with this method instead.


    And then, as the metal chunks fell to the ground, Eiro turned his attention back onto the Kobolds and the singr Kitbold, who were all standing there rather confused, "All of you. Bow." Eiromanded.


    Without hesitation, all of the Goblins did as they were told. After all, thismand had been deeply ingrained into them by now.


    The only ones that were still standing there were the Kobolds and the Kitbold. And Eiro didn''t particrly like that.


    "Did you not hear me?" The Demon asked in an anger-filled voice, one that should be able to be conveyed to the Kobolds and the Kitbold properly. But to make sure that they truly understood him, Eiro did something else as well.


    He summoned his Grimoire and flipped it open to the pages he had prepared for Gravity Magic as he held his right hand forward toward the Monsters in question. He immediately started to create the magic circle from the page he had just opened, using the Gravity Magic from the small purple magic stone to cause this effect.


    And then, he activated it just as he finished his sentence, "I told you all to bow."


    Immediately, immense gravity that they didn''t expect in the slightest pushed down onto the Kobolds, forcing them onto their knees. At this point, they had understood what Eiro told them, and were bowing to the Demon now.


    "Good. To make it clear, even if you all had a bit of fun over the past two weeks, that is over now. Give me a good reason why I shouldn''t just ughter you Kobolds now and use you for provisions."


    Kitsue slowly tried to raise her head to look at Eiro with a fearful expression, "N-No, don''t kill us! Kitsue is sorry! Our vige was destroyed, and we looked for new ce! Found this!"


    Eiro red back annoyedly. A Kobold vige was destroyed, huh?


    "Who attacked you, then?" Eiro inquired, and the Kitbold looked down at the ground with a face filled with pure hatred, "Pigs! Big, fat pigs!"


    "Do you mean Orcs?" Kitsue immediately nodded her head in response to Eiro''s question. He hadn''t heard about Orcs living in this area. Then, he looked at Kitsue herself as well as the Kobolds. Judging from their builds, ws, and the thickness of their fur, Eiro came to a simple conclusion.


    These Kobolds and the Kitbold used to live in a vige that was rather high up within the mountains. Judging from their bodies, they were more than just adept at climbing and had grown used to cold climates and extreme winds. And if that was the case, then there was only one species of Orc that might have attacked them.


    "Hignd Orcs..." Eiro muttered quietly, until he realized what that would mean. And with a slight grin on his face, he whispered to himself, "This might actually be a pretty interestingbination..."


    Just as he thought that, he watched as the caravan of carts with the carriage in the front arrived here in this area. Of course, the Goblins and Kobolds were quite surprised to see all these huge spiders here, but Eiro was able to make sure that they didn''t attack each other or anything like that.


    Gobo looked around at all of the Kobolds and the single Kitbold that was there, "Master, what happened here?" He asked, obviously quite angry about what all this was hinting at, and the Demon quickly exined the situation.


    "...So they were going to seek refuge, but instead just took this ce over instead?" Gobo asked. Eiro looked back at him and slowly nodded. The Hobgoblin slowly turned his head and red at Kitsue angrily, "Then I know what I have to do. Master, you understand as well, right?"


    "Of course. Knock yourself out, bud." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, "Although, it''s getting ratherte. How about we rest for tonight, and you fight her in the morning instead? It would give us time to settle in a bit, set the ''arena'' up, and let you catch up with these four some more."


    Kitsue stared back at Eiro confused. She had been staring up at Gobo the whole time until now, but after hearing that these two were supposed to fight, she had be a bit nervous, and maybe a bit agitated, "Fight? This Goblin doesn''t stand a chance against Kitsue! Red Goblin, when Kitsue kills this one, make Kitsue your mate!"


    "Hm? Are you an idiot?" Eiro replied, unamused. Because of his quickugh in response to Gobo''s request just now, she must have loosened up a bit again, "Listen here, Moggy. Let me tell you three things. One, I''m a Demon, not a Goblin. Two, you hold no power here. We will not ''bet'' on this. We are not equals. You are nothing but a mere bug to me. And three..." the Demon started.


    "If you truly think you will be able to beat Gobo, then you must be a bigger idiot than I thought you were. He''s not as strong as me, clearly, but if he wanted to, he could probably ughter everyone in this vige now, and still finish before I finish preparing dinner." Eiro could see the hairs on Kitsue''s body stand up as she became scared in response to the Demon''s words.


    But well, that didn''t matter to him at all for now. Instead, he tried to start organizing everything. He already looked at the state of the vige while he walked over here, so he managed to get a good look at how the Kobolds changed things, "Now. All of the Goblins will take back their original housing from before the Kobolds intruded. And the Kobolds will split up the leftover housing or create their own where they won''t bother anyone else. If you need my help creating housing, I will use magic to make this possible, but don''t bother me if it''s unnecessary." Eiro started as he turned around.


    With a wave of his hand, the hidden cave opened up as Eiro got rid of the wall with earth magic. It was the cave where the group had slept inst time they were here. It seemed like a good enough ce to stay this time around as well.


    Gobo was the first one to go in there, trying to calm his anger, and was quickly followed by the other four Hobgoblins. Eiro would let those guys catch up for now while he himself took care of things for now. The Demon already knew a good ce to keep the spiders at least semi-permanently, as well as a ce to keep the horses and the carriage temporarily.


    Using earth-magic, Eiro created hollow areas inside of the valley''s walls and sent the different spiders in there, as if he was creating what was basically a ''nest'' for them.


    Meanwhile, the Goblins were helping out with unloading the carts ording to Nelli and Sarius'' instructions, while Gondos helped Eiro create the ces for the spiders to stay.


    And right by Eiro''s side stood Armodeus, who was seemingly quite overwhelmed at this situation.


    "So many Goblins and Kobolds... and they''re rtively civilized, somehow?"


    "Hm? Ah, yeah, but that''s honestly mainly because I scare the shit out of them. The Goblins are basically perfectly under control by now, especially because Gobo is here, but the Kobolds are an issue. I would like to train the Kitbold to start behaving to make it easier to control the Kobolds though. They would be pretty good for patrolling and hunting around here. And it seems like some of them would be pretty good at caring for fields around here already." The Demon exined, "And if we can get the Hignd Orcs here as well, we''re going to have pretty good craftsmen here too, huh?"


    "Did...." Armodeus muttered, surprised and curious, "Did you just say ''Hignd Orcs''?"

 Chapter 316 - Complete Tool Proficiency

    "Mhm, I did." Eiro replied bluntly, "The vige that the Kobolds lived in was attacked by the Hignd Orcs, which is why they''re now here. I think it might be worth it to try and get at least a couple of the Orcs here. I heard that they''re supposed to be rather impressive craftsmen. As impressive as a Monster Craftsman can be, at least."


    "...Yeah... Normal Orcs aren''t anything special. They''re pretty strong, sure, but they''replete idiots that only fight on instinct. If they use weapons, they were either stolen from people they killed, or they''re just heavy branches that they wildly swing around. Hignd Orcs are to a regr Orc, what a regr Orc is to a Goblin, basically. They''re insanely superior in intelligence, but the most impressive part about them is that they have surprisingly strong socail connections... And on top of that..." Armodeus muttered quietly, before he smiled broadly, "They''re basically the Dwarves of the Monster World. And many of them have a special ability as well that causes this fact to be indubitably true to anyone that knows about it."


    Eiro crossed his legs as he sat down and thought about what Armodeus was saying, "''Complete Tool Proficiency''."


    "Exactly! They''re able to use every tool to its fullest extent! Not weapons, but tools! They''re not amazing hunters, but in return, they''re one of the few sorts of monsters that would be capable of creating whole cities!" Rather excited, Armodeus went on to speak about these special monsters. And Eiro definitely understood where he came from. It was a rather interesting thing to think about, after all.


    But the fact that they would be able to create a city themselves didn''t really matter to Eiro at all. He just wanted to make use of the few Orcs that had that ''Complete Tool Proficiency''. Usually, this ''proficiency'' was restricted to one specific set of tools that was rted to an extent. Weirdly enough, it was split up amongst production-based skills, usually.


    One Orc with this skill could be a cksmith, another one could be a Farmer. But no matter what, through their skill, they had all the knowledge that they needed to use their tools to the fullest extent, including different techniques and general knowledge about the field their skill would allow them to work in.


    But at the same time, that made everything just weirder, "Why would Hignd Orcs attack the Kobold Vige? Did they do something to upset the Orcs..?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself. It simply wasn''t the sort of thing that Hignd Orcs would do, but there was no other possibility of what those monsters could be.


    If it had been just one, then Eiro might have simply said that it was possibly a random regr Orc that got lost, or maybe some other random Monster that didn''t have its normal habitat here, so Eiro wouldn''t know all that much about it.


    But since it was arge group, as well as the few details that Eiro saw on the Kobolds and the Kitbold, like a few strands of Orc-hair stuck to their clothes, Eiro was positive that they were this special sub-species of Monster.


    "Huh... That''s true. Maybe they simply have to expand? Or some sort of trouble hit them so that they''re quite desperate to get materials, provisions, or new ces to live?" Armodeus suggested to Eiro immediately. The Demon slowly nodded his head, "It might best few of those thingsbined. Most likeley, there is something that makes it impossible, or at least quite tough, for them to keep living the way that they used to. Hm... Gondos, you''re pretty strongly connected to this mountain-range, right?"


    The Earth Spirit slowly appeared next to Eiro with a smile on his face, "Indeed. I matured here, through the life of these mountains. Is there anything you want me to do?"


    "Mhm, there is. Nelli told me that Spirits are able to sense basically everything that''s going on in their ''birthce''. Can you sense what''s going on in this mountain-range if you try?"


    "Most likely, yes. Although, I would not be able to sense things that are far away... Except if we fuse, that is. We should be able to retain my ability to sense the life of the mountains." Gondos exined to Eiro, who slowly nodded his head with his chin cupped on his fingers.


    "Then let''s do thatter tonight. For now, I want the Goblins to gather up the unrefined Magic Stones for me."


    "Hm?" Armodeus replied confused, "Unrefined Magic Stones? What do you mean?"


    "Oh, didn''t we tell you?" Eiro asked, "This is a mine."


    "...I figured, I saw the high-concentration strains of iron ore when we came in, but what does that have to do with Magic Stones?"


    "Oh, right, this ce has Iron Ore as well. That might make it even better if we can get the Hignd Orcs here... With a cksmith, this ce would turn self-sufficient rather easily." The Demon muttered quietly, but Armodeus was worried about somethingpletely different, "Eiro, is this a Magic Stone mine?"


    "It is, yeah. It''s where I got the Gravity Magic stone." Eiro exined, and Armodeus stared back at him with a deep re, "If you''re trying to tell me that the magic is so concentrated here that Gravity Magic stones are created, and you didn''t tell me that you had one, I''m going to punch you."


    "...I don''t think that''s a good idea, you might hurt yourself."


    "...Just show me one of the Gravity Magic stones." Armodeus grumbled quietly, and Eiro swiftly pulled it out of his treasury before throwing it over to the Elder Dwarf. Suddenly, the craftsman''s eye slowly changed. It seemed like his iris was suddenly twisting around in circles, and the pupil was growing incredibly small as the Dwarf''s eye started to sh up for just a moment.


    And immediately after this happened, after Armodeus used his incredibly well-trained and -practiced ''Inspection'' skill, the Elder Dwarf looked at Eiro with a deep sigh, "I swear, you cold have told me this earlier and it would have made a lot of things easier. I ain''t Johann, but I still know my way around Artificing. If this is a Magic Stone mine... If it''s here, it should have Earth Magic Stones and maybe some Metal Magic stones on top of these Gravity Magic stones, right?"


    "I don''t think they found any Metal Magic stones thest time I was here, so I wouldn''t count on those. But at the very least, there are quite a lot of Earth Magic Stones."


    "Aye, should be enough." Armodeus said with a slightly excited grin on his face, "We nned on staying here for one more full day, right?"


    Immediately understanding why Armodeus was asking, Eiro nodded his head "Yes, but we can''t stay any longer than that, sorry."


    "No need to apologize. I only need a day. Do you have any more Gravity Magic stones?" Armodeus inquired, and the Demon slowly turned around to the Hobgoblins. The five of them were catching up with each other using the Goblin Language, so Eiro didn''t understand them fully and perfectly, but he got the gist of it. Well, he basically understood thempletely although he didn''t know the meaning of some of the words they said yet. This was probably just his Knight of Pentacles interacting with the Goblin Language Comprehension skill that Eiro already had to let him understand what they said.


    "You guys, can you go and gather up the Magic Stones that you gathered since I wasst here?"


    Slowly, Vent stepped forward toward the Demon and dropped onto his knee, "Can get Magic Stones, yes, Master. But hard to get all. Kobolds take many."


    "I saw that. So? Just get them back. Those aren''t theirs." Eiro sighed. Vent raised his head and nodded with a grin on his face. Honestly, Eiro was a bit surprised to see Vent like this. Amongst all of the Goblins Eiro had seen so far, Vent was by far the most attractive, at least in the standards of humans. Eiro obviously didn''t care for things such as beauty, but he could still appreciate good looks in others.


    And Vent was so good-looking, for a Goblin''s standards, that he might be able to pass as a human. And not even a particrly ugly one. Below average, but not repulsive.


    "We make Master proud." Vent said with a broad smile as he properly stood up, nodding at the other Hobgoblins. Clypt, t and Sagit, the other three Mountain Hobgoblin ''Generals'' that had been by Gobo''s side for a while now, walked to the entrance of the cave, while Gobo himself just sat down on the ground, still angry at how that Kitbold Kitsue had treated everyone here in the vige.


    The Demon understood his sentiment, really. Having people that you cared about treated this way was something that hurt even more than if you yourself were treated that way. And Gobo was a naturally-born leader, honestly. He connected with other Goblins at a deeper level. Before Eiro came to this vige, Gobo confused those emotions with hunger or greed, causing him to start those duels where the winner fed on the loser''s heart, trying to sate that jealous hunger through any means possible.


    But now, through Eiro''s guidance, that had turned into a leader''spassion for those that followed him. There was no way that Gobo would let his people be treated that way by someone like Kitsue for no reason


    Eiro smiled at Gobo, happy to see that he had started thinking this way. It was nice to see, honestly, although it was still kind of weird to think that such a dumb, weak Hobgoblin had turned into such a fine young warrior. The Demon was quite proud, if he had to be honest.


    Now that his mood had been lifted a bit again after meeting Kitsue and having itpletely be ruined for a while, Eiro pushed himself off the b of rock he was sitting on. He stepped into the center of the room and waved his hands around as he started his Magic Practice.


    Eiro was trying his best to figure out how to properly make use of his grimoire, and was attempting to create new spells with its help, using peculiar aspects from other magic systems that Eiro had never thought about before. And there was a particr reason for this. For one, it couldn''t hurt to improve oneself like that, especially if you were going to meet a literal Dragon soon.


    And two... Once Eiro came back to town, he would ughter every member of the Organization, so he had to learn newrge-range attacks.. Possibly, the Hignd Orcs could be some good target-practice for now.

 Chapter 317 - Gobo Versus Kitsue

    In the morning of the day after their arrival in the Goblin Vige, Eiro was sitting on his ''throne'' and looked at the arena that had been constructed in front of him. Gobo stood on one side, and Kitsue stood on the other.


    Gobo stared back at the Kitbold, who seemed to be more than just confident that she was going to win this fight and make Eiro hers, although the Demon thought he made it more than just clear he wouldn''t be with her even if she managed to beat Gobo with just a single hand. Obviously, Eiro could have made such a promise to give Kitsue more motivation and stop her fromining for now.


    After all, there was literally no way for Gobo to lose against her. Only if he just sat there the whole time would she be able to beat him. But even then, even if there was no way Gobo was going to lose, Eiro knew that he had to make sure Kitsue figured out who was the Lord here. Who it was that held the power, that held the right tomand.


    It was Eiro. Kitsue herself didn''t have any rights unless Eiro specifically gave them to her. With a broad grin on her face, the Kitbold looked at her opponent, "Kitsue will kill Goblin, and make Red Goblin her mate!"


    "Did you hit your headst night? Master already told you that he is not a mere Goblin. He is a glorious Demon. Do you not understand that?" Gobo asked with a deep re, but Kitsue just tilted her head to the side.


    Eiro appreciated that Gobo spoke about him like that, but at the same time... His race was amongst the weakest monsters there was. A regr Imp was at the level of a regr Goblin. And Eiro was a lesser Imp, which meant that he was even weaker. On top of that, due to the way that Eiro started out... He didn''t even have any stats, meaning that he was weaker than even a regr lesser Imp back then. Eiro wasn''t sure if that could be called all too ''glorious''. But he let it slide. He liked beingplimented.


    "Kitsue not know what Demon! Demon just Red Goblin, yes?" She asked with a dumb expression, and Eiro stared at her annoyedly. It seemed like Gobo was getting a bit more riled up again as well. Eiro had helped him calm down after the way that he reactedst night after they all got here, but it seemed like Gobo really wasn''t able to do this by himself yet.


    "Gobo. Concentrate." Eiro instructed him, and the Hobgoblin slowly turned around before nodding his head. He took a deep breath and then looked back at Kitsue, "I''m going to make you regret evering here, Cat." Gobo said in an angry tone, and Kitsue just grinned broadly, not taking him serious in the slgihtest.


    Seeing that this was the case, Gobo said something that Eiro didn''t really expect. Of course he saw the possibility, but he figured that the probability was rather low... Well, since there was a chance this might happen it didn''t really matter that much. This was actually a rather positive route. It would allow Gobo to assert his dominance over the Kobolds through absolute supremacy, while showing the other Goblins that he didn''t leave for no reason, and came back stronger than any of them could have ever hoped.


    Gobo held his hand forward and showed three fingers to Kitsue, "My foot will be pressing your head into the dirt within three seconds."


    Kitsue stared back at Gobo before forming a rather excited expression. She didn''t expect such an announcement, but she didn¡ät seem opposed to making such a ''bet''.


    "Hehe... Kitsue will kill you before you even get a chance to act!" She eximed. And thinking that this was a good time, Eiro snapped his fingers to make a proper announcement. Eiro had Vent trante what he said into the Goblin Language, and then a rtively strong Kobold trante it into the Koboldnguage. It was important that they all understood what he was telling them. Even if some of them roughly knew the Common Language already, it was important that they all knew what was going on.


    "This fight will be the decider for the Leader of this Vige. Of course, they will just work under me, but they will make all decisions while I am away. They will be the one that will actually be here to care for you and keep this Vige going." Eiro eximed, waiting for a few moments to let Vent and the Kobolt catch up with their trantion.


    Once they had finished, the Demon continued, "If there is anyone here that wishes to object, I''ll dly hear it."


    All of the monsters in the area stayed quiet, so Eiro figured they could get started, "Alright then. I will throw this coin into the sky, and the moment that it hits the ground, the two of you will start fighting. Got it?" Eiro asked. Both Gobo and Kitsue nodded their heads, so the Demon quickly chose to throw the coin into the air.


    Kitsue was ncing at the coin the whole time, while Gobo was focused on Kitsue herself. And then, the moment that the coin hit the rock ground, Kitsue kicked off the ground and jumped toward the Goblin in front of her.


    She swung her w toward Gobo, but the Hobgoblin quickly reacted. He had his weapon strapped to his hip, but it didn''t seem like he would need it. He didn''t even try to use magic at all either.


    Instead, he simply caught Kitsue''s arm and pulled it further toward him so that she would lose her bnce as the Hobgoblin kicked his foot into her stomach for as much force as possible.


    Then, he threw her down onto the ground and watched as she tried to catch a breath, which was basically impossible for her with the way Gobo threw her down. And then, the Hobgoblin pressed his foot down onto Kitsue''s face, rubbing it around a bit and pushing it into the ground as hard as he could without directly damaging Kitsue with this. Just enough so that she couldn''t escape.


    "Three seconds. As I said." Gobo pointed out as he locked eyes with Kitsue. Eiro had to say, he was rather proud of Gobo''s performance. He should probably give him some form of gift. Maybe he could ask Armodeus to make some items for Gobo. That seemed like a pretty good idea, at least.


    But either way, even though Gobo was pressing Kitsue''s head into the ground, that didn''t mean that the fight was over. There were only two ways to win. One, if either of the two was clearly unable to continue fighting as per Eiro''s judgement, or if either one of them gave up.


    Eiro watched as Kitsue held up her arms and tried to burry her ws in Gobo''s leg, but all that the Hobgoblin had to do was slightly slip his foot away from right on her face and press his toes onto the underside of Kitsue''s chin. And then, he basically kicked her to the other side of the arena before Kitsue''s ws were able to even touch Gobo.


    "Hm, you''re weaker than I thought. You know, I will do something that my Master always does when he gives me the honor to spar with him." Gobo said, and Eiro figured that this was getting more and more interesting by the second.


    Gobo pushed his toes into the dirt and drew a circle around himself, "I will not move outside of this circle, nor will I use my legs to attack you at all. If you manage to push me outside of the circle, then this is your win, and I will be your subordinate. The conditions for my win, your loss, will stay the same as before."


    The Kitbold heard Gobo''s words before turning her head toward Eiro, who was just grinning broadly with his legs crossed excitedly. Kitsue ground her teeth and then nodded her head, "You will regret underestimating Kitsue."


    "Hm, now will I?" Gobo asked. Immediately, the Kitbold ran toward Gobo and jumped at him like a wild animal. But all Gobo had to do was evade her arms during her attack and press his palm onto her stomach while grapping her throat with his other hand. Immediately, Gobo twisted her over and once more mmed her into the ground onto her back with ease.


    Kitsue ground her teeth once more as she jumped off the ground again, and just started to randomly swing her arms at Gobo, as if she was some small kid throwing a tantrum. Of course, Gobo was able to deflect all of these hits with absolute ease, to the point where Kitsue was getting more and more desperate.


    But Gobo didn''t even change his expression. She was starting to realize something. Kitsue realized that she made an immense mistake in trying to take over this vige. It seemed quite simple at first, but now these two came here andpletely flipped it over.


    It wasn''t only Eiro, but Gobo as well. Both of them were overwhelmingly strong to her. Kitsue stared at the Hobgoblin she was supposed to fight with desperation. But in the end, this wasn''t even a fight. It was Gobo simply taking pity on Kitsue by not killing her immediately. He was toying with her, and that thought absolutely terrified her.


    Through all of this, Eiro was able to figure out a lot of things about Kitsue. The most important one being that she couldn''t use whatever ability she used to take over this vige at first without consequences, or that it couldn''t be used whenever Kitsue wanted to use it.


    Beside that, it was more than just clear what kind of creature Kitsue was. Her fur was well-treated, albeit in a crude way. She was able to speak Common, and acted pampered in a way that annoyed Eiro more than just a little.


    "Hm... So she was someone''s pet, I see..?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself, and Bavet, sitting on his shoulder as a spider, muttered confused, "A pet? Doesn''t she seem kinda dumb for that?"


    "Well, not all pets are smart. You in particr should know that." Eiro told the shapeshifted slime, before he grumbled quietly to himself, annoyed at what Eiro said, before Bavet replied to the Demon nervously, although he was still unable to say what he wanted to, "I''ll ignore that for now..."


    "Good. Because you should pay attention to this fight, it''s going to get a good bit more interesting now.." Eiro smirked.

 Chapter 318 - Feline Transformation

    Kitsue stood in front of Gobo and ground her teeth angrily. She was getting more and more riled up, and Eiro was able to see that she was physically preparing to use that ability of hers. The Kitbold leaned forward a bit, careful that this wouldn''t be taken advantage of by Gobo, and then dropped onto her arms so that she was on all fours.


    Her back arched as one could hear her bones crack and her muscles rip. And it wasn''t just Eiro that was able to hear it, most others around here were able to as well. It seemed like especially Bavet was interested in this, since she was making use of the slime''s personal expertise. Shapeshifting.


    The physical structure of Kitsue''s body changed as she let out a deep roar. She had turned into arge feline. Something akin to a Tiger, Lion, or Panther, but something that was none of that as far as Eiro could tell. Well, it wasn''t like he had ever actually seen any of these in real life, only in beastiaries that he happened to pick up here and there, but from what he could tell, Kitsue''s current body shared a fewmon parts with all of these, while having some more unique aspects to it as well.


    But one thing was for sure... Her physical ability must have increased considerablypared to before. She buried her long ws in the ground as she prepared to jump forward. And sure, even in this form, Kitsue should not be a change to Gobo at all. At least if he was capable of moving around freely. But since he restricted himself into neither being able to move out of the circle he drew on the ground nor being able to use his legs to fight, that was another deal.


    Of course, Eiro had little intention to actually let Kitsue be the leader of this vige. If she won, he would just kill her when nobody was nearby and make it seem like she ran after a Hignd Orc to kill it for revenge, but was killed instead herself, so that Gobo could still be the leader.


    That, however, would be quite the shame in Eiro''s opinion. While Kitsue was weakpared to Eiro and after the training he received by the Demon, Gobo as well, she was obviously quite powerful, capable of overwhelming this whole vige filled with Goblins. It would probably require a C-Rank party of Adventurers to take her down, if not a B-Rank party, even. At the very least, she was more powerful than Gobo was when Eiro first met him.


    That being the case, she would be a good individual to train and bring up as well next to Gobo and the other ''special'' Goblins. There were probably some special individuals amongst the Kobolds as well, like this one right next to Eiro that was capable of using Common already, even better than Kitsue, who was surprisingly good at it already.


    After thinking for a few moments, Eiro turned his attention back onto the fight happening in front of him. Kitsue was ready to jump forward, and Gobo changed his stance in order to receive her attack more easily. He even got out his main weapon, the one that he had be most capable of using over thest little while, the Staff. And of course, that didn''t mean the sort of staff that one used to cast magic, but the pole-weapon.


    Well, Eiro did use materials that made it viable as a magical staff, however, although it definitely wouldn''t be nearly as capable as a regr staff or wand. But it did its job, either way. Gobo took a deep breath and rubbed his hands over the staff, infusing Darkness into it, the Darkness that he created by pressing his hands onto the surface of the staff.


    This wasn''t particrly the best ce to use this element, but it seemed like Gobo had a n. He took out the spark-snapper that Eiro gave to him before and used it to create some mes. mes that he spread out in front of him like a wall to make sure that Kitsue wasn''t able to attack him from certain angles.


    Eiro thought that it was rather obvious what Gobo was trying to do, but considering that Kitsue probably didn''t know much about magic, not to mention darkness magic in particr, he didn''t judge her for her foolishness. Rather, she was able to use her speed to nearly get through to Gobo before he was able to create the wall, which just showed her physical abilities even more.


    The Demon watched the fight curiously as Kitsue jumped at Gobo again. But now, she was attacking from an angle where the sun was at Gobo''s back, creating a shadow that he was able to make use of to strengthen the Darkness Magic he infused into his own staff just now.


    Gobo got rid of his mes as thest source of light disrupting his darkness magic, and then pushed the staff forward at Kitsue. But somehow, it seemed like she was able to make use of some sort of special ability of hers to dodge.


    It was as if she was able to set her feet down mid-air for a split second to jump away again, which she used to just slightly change the angle at which she attacked.


    But even with a slight change like that, due to the nature of Gobo''s attack, that didn''t matter at all. The Hogboblin had pushed the staff forward and pushed out as much Darkness Magic as he was capable of, concentrating it at the tip of his staff. And then, a solid spike of pure Darkness Magic shot out of the tip of the staff, burying itself in the Kitbold''s flesh.


    While the others outside of the arena didn''t know what was happening, Eiro knew exactly what this attack was. He had developed it together with Gobo, after all. At some point, he had figured out that the focus of Gobo''s Darkness Magic, or rather the talent he had for it, was in ''Darkness Solidification''. At first, they just practiced creating spear-tips for Gobo''s staff that he would be able to make use of surprise attacks with.


    Of course, just like he did now, that ''spear tip'' didn''t need to juste out at the very front, but instead basically anywhere on the staff. If an opponent grasped the staff, Gobo would be able to just use magic to create a darkness-spike right there to damage their hand.


    But right now, Gobo did something else as well. Gobo had created this spear-tip into the direction that Kitsue tried to dodge the Hobgoblin''s attack, and when he stabbed her with it, he spread solid bars made of darkness magic out through Kitsue''s body. She was now unable to move, and waspletely connected to the end of Gobo''s staff.


    The Hobgoblin swung the staff around his body to make use of Kitsue''s momentum, and then mmed her down into the ground with all the force he could muster.


    Eiro heard a few of her bones breaking, and some of those in her chest were close to piercing her vitals after Gobo proceeded to pull the darkness magic back out of Kitsue''s body.


    The Kitbold tried to stand up again, but was in too much pain to do so. Gobo figured that he should finish this and knock her out, but when he was about to hit her with his staff, Eiro stopped him by hooking onto the staff with his foot.


    "I think that''s enough. Don''t you?" Eiro asked Gobo, "You''ll kill her at this rate."


    Gobo stared back at Eiro for a moment and then pulled his staff away, "I see..." He replied. Eiro smiled a bit as he then turned toward the onlookers again.


    "The fight is now over! Kitsue has indubitably lost!" The Demon eximed, before he heard a voice from behind him. It wasn''t a normal voice, though, since it didn''t seem to be created through vocal cords, but instead through some sort of magic. That made sense. Usually,rge felines aren''t capable of speech, after all.


    "Kitsue hasn''t lost! Kitsue can fight!" She tried to protest, but Eiro turned toward her and squatted down while rubbing his hand over her head, "You''re going to die if you even slightly move around. So that''s not a good idea." Eiro pointed out, and he immediately proceeded to swing his tail forward, pressing his stinger into Kitsue''s neck into one of her veins.


    Of course, Eiro didn''t poison her to finish her off, he simply pushed some anesthetics into her blood to make her sleep so that he could properly treat her wounds in a bit. The Demon stood back up and pressed his hand onto Gobo''s shoulder, "Goob job." He said, and then continued to speak to the Goblins and Kobolds that were in front of him, with the support of the two trantors he had help him out.


    He first exined that Kitsue was totally fine and that she was just sleeping and needed to recover a bit, and then proceeded to speak about what would happen to this Vige and the Kobolds from now on, telling them that he chose to make the Kobolds valid members of this ce, with Kitsue as their representative, while Gobo was not only the representative of the Goblins, but also the Vige Chief.


    And then, he told the Kobolds toe gather at the front, while he had the Goblins go back to their normal lives. They could calm down for a while from now on after being treated like that for the past few weeks.


    Eiro slowly pressed his foot into the ground and caused a te of rock to lift up from it, holding up Kitsue so that Eiro could bring her to the cave, where treating her would be easier. He, followed by Gobo and the other Hobgoblins as well as the Kobold-Trantor, who seemed to be the second-inmand amongst the Kobolds anyway.


    With a slight sigh, Eiro looked at Kitsue''s body, "You really did a number on her, huh?" He muttered quietly, before looking at the Kobold, "You. She can''t transform back until her body has been healed, right?"


    A bit surprised, the Kobold nodded his head, "Yes. Only change when body not broken. Can be damaged, can not be out of ce." The Kobold exined to Eiro. So it was fine if she was still sore or felt pain, as long as everything was in the right ce.


    Eiro could work with that. He quickly took out his three of swords and then proceeded tobine them with some small scalpels that Armodeus made for him.. And then, the Demon began to repair Kitsue''s body.

 Chapter 319 - Overwhelming Force

    The Demon looked down at the body of therge felineying in front of him. He was moving highly refined water over her wounds and healing her with Nelli''s help. Eiro made sure that he had ced all the bones into the right ces again beforehand of course, otherwise Kitsue''s body might heal around them and cause permanent damages as well as possible infections that could kill her and that weren''t easily healed through Healing Magic.


    Either way, now that Kitsue''s body had been healed properly, Eiro could see that her body was slowly shifting back into its normal bipedal form. Eiro picked her up and brought over to a stone b that he thenid her down on to let her sleep for a while longer.


    "Gobo." Eiro said, and the Hobgoblin quickly came to his side, "Yes, Master?" He asked. Eiro ced his hand onto Gobo''s head with a smile on his face.


    "Good job with that fight. It seems like all of the Kobolds should respect you quite a bit now." The Demon exined, "But don''t treat them badly, alright? Treat them as you would the Goblins now."


    Gobo turned his head toward Eiro with a confused stare that was still filled with anger, "Why do I need to treat them well, after they treated my people like that?"


    "Gobo..." The Demon started with a deep sigh, "If you don''t remember, the first time I met you, you didn''t treat them much differently. The only reason you''re mad at them right now is that they aren''t you. Just try to understand them, and then everything is going to be fine. Well, either way, if you happen to let your anger out on the Kobolds, I''ll find out sooner orter. And you can be sure that I won''t let it slide easily." Eiro said in a threatening tone that gave Gobo shivers all over his body.


    "O-Okay, Master..." The Mountain Hobgoblin Stuttered slightly, before Eiro took a step away from him again, "Anyway, take care of everything until I''m back. Oh, and make sure you support Armodeus with everything he needs, and don''t let any of the Goblins or Kobolds touch a hair on his body. Not that they would stand a chance against him anyway, but I still don''t want to see any deaths when I''m back, no matter the side that they''re on." Eiro exined as he stepped out of the cave, spreading out his wings and properly stretching them to get rid of the slightly tense feeling he had in them right now.


    "Master, where are you going?" Gobo asked, and Eiro turned around toward him, "Oh, I''ll just go check out the situation with the Hignd Orcs. I found out where their vige isst night, and I want to know why they went so far as to attack the Kobolds'' Vige. It should only take a couple of hours, but I''ll be back before nightfall, so don''t worry."


    Gobo slowly nodded his head as he looked down. Arie, the white wisp floating next to Gobo, slowly rubbed up to his arm to try and cheer him up a bit, since Gobo didn''t seem to be in the best mood at the moment. Happy to see that both Arie and Mikey warmed up to Gobo quite a bit, Eiro turned away from them and started to p his wings.


    Due to the support of Air Magic, that single p was enough to make Eiro shoot up into the sky quite a bit, but he didn''t fly off just yet. Instead, he just used that boost to make his way over toward where Armodeus was currently working on improving the carriage.


    But just before Eiro stepped into that cave that he created for Armodeus that he could create as something like a workshop, Armodeus pushed him away, "Oi, don''t''cha daree in here!"


    "...Why? I already know what it looks like, I can basically sense it perfectly from out here." The Demon pointed out, and the Elder Dwarf ground his teeth annoyedly, "Well, it ain''t the same as actually seeing it, so shut it and go. y with the other kids, or something."


    "...Or I''ll just go see the Hignd Orcs." Eiro sighed, and Armodeus just passed it off since he wasn''t really listening to the Demon, "Sure, sure."


    Eiro rolled his eyes as he turned back around. He didn''t understand why Armodeus didn''t show Eiro the progress on the carriage, but he figured that it would save him some time. And so, Eiro once more jumped off from the ground and shot up into the air, before immediately summoning Gondos, Nelli and Sarius to his side. They weren''t able to physically keep up with Eiro''s speed, so he had to summon them to him to make up for it.


    "I think I can already see it..." Eiro said as he squinted his eyes. When he and Gondos fused with each otherst night and tried to sense anything irregr in this mountain, they had found a spot that didn''t seem to perfectly fit in with the natural structure of the mountain. From the description of where the Kobold Vige was formerly supposed to be, it would make sense for this ''irregrity'' to be where the Hignd Orcs lived.


    It was quite a bit higher at the peak of part of this mountain range, so the Demon flew up there to get a closer look. Soon, he was able to verify that there really was some sort of artificial structure there. And on part of that artificial structure stood a tall figure with icy, pale blue skin.


    It had boar-like facial features withrge tusks growing out of its mouth. This was definitely a Hignd Orc. It wasn''t as physicallyrge as normal Orcs. Usually, they were monsters of Gluttony that ate everything they came across, even things that normally weren''t edible. That was why most regr Orcs had the ''Iron Stomach'' skill. But these Orcs were different.


    They had a naturally lean build, and while they were shorter than regr orcs, on average they were still around seven feet tall. They were a lot more human in their physical structure than regr orcs, and while their faces did still have pig-like features, it certainly wasn''t anything major in this case.


    If it weren''t for their unnatural skin-color, a color that wasn''t seen in people, they could potentially be confused for people. And quite surprisingly, this Orc was wearing decent enough clothes and even carried a decent de as his side. With a broad grin on his face, Eiro pped his wings and infused his whole body with Air Magic, making him fly toward the Hignd Orc Guard at a speed that the Orc was barely able to react to.


    He managed to flinch and ce his hand onto the handle of his de, but before he could really pull it out or step to the side, Eiro already spread out his wings to stop his rapid movement immediately, kicking the chest of the Hignd Orc.


    Due to the force that he still created through his leftover momentum, Eiro was able to push the Hignd Orc over anyway. With a broad grin on his face as Eiro squatted down on top of the Hignd Orc''s body, the Demon said, "Good day, dear Orc. Could you bring me to your leader?"


    The Orc stared deep into Eiro''s eyes, feeling his intensity. It didn''t seem like it was able to understand Eiro''s words, but it still understood its intentions. And due to the fact that it was positive that Eiro was a dangerous being, instead of agreeing, it pulled its de out of its sheath and swung it Eiro from below.


    Or at least, so it tried. But instead, Eiro simply received the attack with his foot after activating his Rock Skin ability and even infusing himself with some extra rock just in his foot. Part of it still chipped off, but it was at a levelparable to a papercut, so nothing serious at all.


    "Hm, that wasn''t nice, you know?" Eiro pointed out, and then immediately proceeded to kick his hardened foot onto the Orc''s lower arms and even his shins to just immediately break them so that it wouldn''t be able to move anymore.


    Eiro didn''t want to kill these Hignd Orcs right off the bat because he didn''t know to what extent they would be helpful to him. For some reason, most of the monsters that Eiro had nned to gather within the vige weren''t useful forbat at all.


    They were mostly good at excavation, farming, production, and that sort of thing. If Eiro was able to bring some morebatants over there to help protect the vige while also hunting for food, that would honestly be more than just perfect.


    But well, if it turned out that these guys wouldn''t be of any use to him, Eiro wouldn''t hesitate to kill them all immediately. As hended, Eiro was already able to sense most of theyout of the Orc Vige. It was built into the mountain itself, with only a minimal amount of it being exposed. It made sense, considering that there was only harsh weather to find up here. Either way, without hesitation, Eiro grabbed the Hignd Orc by the neck and pulled him into the tunnel that led into the vige from this small guard-post.


    With a soft smile on his face, he stepped into thisrge hollow space filled with numerous Hignd Orcs, before throwing the Orc Guard down onto the ground with a broad grin, "Hello, hello! My name is Eiro! I''m a Demon, and I''m going to be your Master from today onward! Understood?" Eiro said bluntly.


    He looked around as the numerous Hignd Orcs stared at him in confusion and anger as they looked at theirrade writhing on the ground in pain, "Oh, him? I can heal himter if I need to, although that depends on whether or not you''ll attack me!"


    The Demon stared at the expressions of the Orcs, trying to interpret them to figure out which of them might speakmon.


    From the window of one of the blocks of rock that seemed to be a house in this huge hollow space, Eiro saw a young Orc that seemed to understand Eiro''s words. He seemed pretty interesting, and so, the Demon made his way over there.


    But in front of the entrance to that building stood a particrlyrge Orc that held a heavy hammer in his hand and was trying to stop Eiro from getting in there. Immediately, he understood what was going on.


    With a slight sigh, Eiro regretted his actions and turned around toward the Orc Guard. He pulled the refined water out of the bottle he had with him and quickly started to heal the guard''s bones. Eiro broke them as cleanly as possible so that he would be able to heal him easily if he needed to. And considering that these Orcs seemed to be able to showpassion toward each other, like this male Orc obviously trying to protect its child, on top of all these orcs bing angry for the sake of theirrade, he knew that he couldn''t intrude with aggression.


    "I apologize for this.. Most other monsters only understand when faced with overwhelming force, but it doesn''t seem to be the case for all of you."

 Chapter 320 - The Pen

    Eiro looked at the monsters in front of him and tried to figure out what they were thinking about the Demon''s actions. He had clearly miscalcted the way that these Orcs were going to act. It seemed like they were a lot calmer than even the different books that Eiro read about them were describing.


    That led Eiro to two conclusions. One, he couldn''t solve this with violence in the same way as he did with the Goblins and Kobolds. Those guys were savage enough to ept strength as the most important value a leader could hold, and responded incredibly well to Eiro scaring them. That wasn''t the case for these Hignd Orcs, however.


    Two, the reason why they were leaving must be incredibly troubling, otherwise they would most likely try to stay here anyway. As they weren''t the sort that were driven into fear as easily as other monsters were, they must be faced with a quite frightening opponent.


    The Demon quickly healed the bones of the Hignd Orc and helped him stand up, before standing in front of him apologetically, "I''m sorry for doing that to you. I should have been more thoughtful." Eiro said in a genuine, calm voice. While the Orc in front of him didn''t seem to understand his words, he was smart enough to understand what the Demon was trying to say through his mannerisms and his tone of voice.


    He seemed to be unsure about what to feel, even. Normal Orcs were beings that became angry incredibly easily, but this Orc just stared at the others around here for help for what to do. It was as if they didn''t have nearly as much natural monstrosity in them as one would expect.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he turned around toward the rock-hut behind him, the one where the Hignd Orc child had been hiding in, "Kid. I know you can understand me. Come out, there''s something we need to speak about." The Demon said, and he could hear the child inside of that rock-hut flinch surprised, seemingly quite scared.


    And honestly, that was to be expected. Even if the adults were brave enough creatures, that didn''t mean that a child would be able to act the same way. With a soft smile on his face, Eiro exined his reason foring here, "I want to help you. I know you are all in trouble, and I want to get rid of that trouble."


    Immediaetly, the child became a bit more attentive, quickly moving toward the window again, "Wh-Why do you want to help us?"


    Eiro looked at the child, surprised at how well it was able to speak Common, "Some of you attacked a Kobold-vige, right? They happened to invade the vige that I''m currenty trying to take care of while I was away. I heard about you from them, and then figured that there was something wrong. So-"


    "No... Why would you help us..? There is no reason to."


    Eiro couldn''t help hismelf but smirk slightly. This kid was really quite smart, "There is. I want all of you to be part of that vige I mentioned. You have abilities that will be more than just useful to me. With you all by my side, we would be able to develop the vige quite a bit."


    "...Why would someone as strong as you want to develop a vige filled with monsters?" The child asked. This was something that the spirits floating next to Eiro were also quite curious about. At the start, Eiro didn''t want to do much with the vige long-term. He only wanted to get the magic stones, and that was it. But at some point, Eiro started to develop a n for himself.


    He started developing a n that he could make use of in his ploy to be both a Hero and the Monster King, while also changing the nature of the rtionship that People and Monsters had to each other. Eiro didn''t know why, but this sort of thing had suddenly be quite important to him. Of course, this was a n that Eiro was still expanding on further and further as time went on.


    Parts were changing, and for example in this situation, he was able to heavily improve upon a part of his n by quite a bit. But of course, Eiro couldn''t just tell them that he wanted to be both the Monster King and the Hero. So instead, he said something that was probably thergest aspect of what made him want to do all this.


    "I want to make this world a better ce for my children to live in." The Demon said with a soft smile on his face, "And not only for my children. But for their children as well. And for the children of their children. For every generation that is born after this, I want this world to be safer for them."


    The Orc slowly looked out of the window again, staring deep into Eiro''s eyes, "S-So you want to turn this world into a ce that Demons can live in..?"


    "Oh, right, I forgot that people wouldn''t know this. No, I''m not talking about Demons. A couple of years ago, I adopted some children that I treat as my own. They''re humans. Well, mostly, one of them is a Beastman child. But honestly, I must say that you''re quite smart and well-spoken... Do you have some special skill of any sort?" The Demon asked, and the Orc child slowly nodded his head, "It''s a really useless skill for me... but at least I can use it in these situations..."


    From the child''s words, Eiro got thest hint for what it was speaking about, and actually became rather excited to hear this, "Let me guess, it''s about your ''Complete Tool Proficiency'' skill, right? What''s your tool?"


    "... It''s the ''Pen''." The Orc exined, and Eiro immediately took quite some interest in this. The ''Complete Tool Proficiency'' skill gave the user all the information that they may possibly need in order to make use of it properly.


    In the case of a cksmith''s Hammer, it would be the knowledge of different metals, what temperatures they needed to be worked with, different techniques, and basically anything else that was a requirement for a cksmith''s Hammer to be properly used.


    And it seemed like in the case of the ''Pen'', the thing that was seen as something that was needed to work with it was ''Language''. Although it did make Eiro wonder...


    "Whatnguages can you speak?" He asked, and the Orc slowly replied, "...Orc and Common... You can''t write in Orcish, so I think that''s why I learned Common..."


    With a broad smile on Eiro''s face, he approached the hut that he child was inside of, "I see. Kid, if you want, I can teach you how to use that skill properly. I''ve read literal libraries worth of books up until now." The Demon said with a light smile on his face. The young Orc seemed quite interested in Eiro''s words.


    Thinking that things were working out and he was slowly gaining the trust of at least one of the Orcs, Eiro tried to approach the rock-hut a bit further. Just before he took a step to the side and caught an arrow that was shot toward him from the other side of this huge hall. It was quite impressive that there was someone here that was able to shoow this arrow so urately.


    "Sorry, none of you will ever be able to get a hit on me, even if you try to do it while I''m distracted." Eiro smiled softly as he slightly threw the arrow into the air before proceeding to quickly create a magic circle, which he activated once the arrow hit the glowing lines of concentrated air magic.


    The arrow twisted around and was soon covered in a thinyer of twirling wind. The arrow shot toward the other side of the room to where the arrow originally came from. Eiro then turned back around toward the Orc standing in front of him. It was the one blocking the entrance to the rock-hut that this interesting Orc child was hiding in.


    "I don''t want to hurt him. I just need his help so that we can figure everything out. Is that alright?" Eiro asked with a light smile, but the Orc just kept staring down at him. Noticing that there was a clearnguage-barrier between Eiro and the other Orcs, the Orc child chose to speak to them.


    "Weegha! Hiohjada ria magaha! Oigho, hama-uh jhioha!" The child began to speak as Eiro heard the first coherentnguages spoken in the Oguage. It seemed like the others that were gathered here immediately understood what the child said, and even believed it without hesitation. But even then, it seemed like they were still slightly suspicious of Eiro, even though the Orc Child helped out quite a bit.


    The child stepped out of the rock hut and Eiro was able to see its whole body for the first time. To his surprise, it had a few tattoos covering its exposed skin.


    From what Eiro knew, Orcs gave each other tattoos ording to certain aplishments and traits. The one standing in front of Eiro until now had quite a few on his body as well, but they were different to the ones that the child had. For a moment, Eiro looked around, trying to see if he could find the tattoos on any of the other orcs. Once he saw a bit more than a dozen of them, it was enough for Eiro to figure out certain patterns in them. And in the end, Eiro came to one conclusion.


    "Kid, you''re the chief?" Eiro asked, and the child looked back at him a bit surprised, "...I am... Why, is that unusual?"


    "Of course it is, and you must know that. Those tattoos are quite fresh, so you probably haven''t been the chief for long, right?"


    "... You''re right, I haven''t..." The child said in a bitter tone, looking down at the ground. If hepared the child''s physique to the others and with what Eiro knew about the growth-speeds of different sorts of monsters, he judged this child to be roughly 14, maybe 15 years old. Hignd Orcs supposedly had a lifespan simr to humans, and aged at the same rate as well. And that made Eiro wonder what exactly happened.


    If this Orc child was the chief, then that must mean it must have been the child of the former chief. That''s how these tribes usually worked, at least.. And that meant that this enemy that was causing the Orcs to despair was quite a tough one.

 Chapter 321 - Marugahaja

    "Then let''s hear it, little chief. What''s going on here, exactly?" Eiro asked curiously. The young Orc child in front of him looked at the ground with a bitter, hopeless expression, "There is something attacking us... Every single day, the moment that dusk falls, one of us falls down onto the ground dead. We don''t know how, or why... They never have any fresh wounds or anything like that."


    "Do any of the ones that died have something inmon? Age, Gender, abilities? That sort of thing?" The Demon inquired, but the Orc immediately shook its head, "They never had anything inmon, no... They could be children or old people, men or women, guards or craftsmen... And it was never location-based either, before you ask that."


    Eiro stared back at the Orc. He was telling the truth, and didn''t seem to be trying to hide anything from the Demon either.


    "Can I take a look at the dead bodies? If they''re around here?" He asked. The Orc looked back at him and then slightly shook his head, "Most of them were already buried... Except the one that diedst night..."


    Immediately, Eiro nodded his head and then stepped toward the door, "Then let me take a look at that body."


    "B-But-"


    "Kid. I said to let me take a look at that body. You need my help, and this is the only way that I can help you." The Demon told the child, who seemed to be getting the shivers when staring back at Eiro''s eyes. He slowly nodded and then led the way for the Demon. Eiro looked at the vige in the process, and then chose to ask the Orc child a few more questions, "So, why did you decide to attack the Kobold vige?"


    The child slowly turned its head around, "...It was my father''s choice. He thought it was because of the ce we were living in, and we needed to quickly leave the ce, but... Then during nightfall that day, the one that died was my father himself, while he was in the Kobold vige. So it didn''t seem to matter where we went."


    "...That so?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself. Meanwhile, he turned toward Gondos floating next to him and extended his hand toward the Spirit, "Fuse with me." The Demon said, and immediately Gondos approached Eiro''s hand.


    "Is there anything you want to find again?"


    "Well, I hope there''s something to find. So I guess so." Eiro replied bluntly. It seemed like the Golem understood what Eiro was getting at, and then started to take a look around the ce. The Orcs all seemed quite startled by Eiro''s sudden transformation, but the Demon just quickly ignored them.


    However, there was immediately something that caught Eiro''s sight. It was a thinyer of magic that was covering this whole area. It was so thin that Eiro wasn''t able to sense it normally, but now that he was fused with Gondos, he was able to see it rather clearly. Eiro took note of this fact, and of course also of the ces where this thin mana was a bit more concentrated.


    The Demon kept following the Orc child, and they soon reached the ce where the dead body of one of the other Orcs was currently being prepared for a burial. Honestly, this all just made Eiro wonder more and more about how these Orcs managed to be so... civilized. That in itself was probably as mysterious as these seemingly random deaths.


    Eiro kneeled down in front of the Corpse, and proceeded to ce his hand onto the center of its chest. Immediately, he found something that was quite unnatural. This body didn''t have the slightest trace of Life Force left inside of it. And sure, that maybe didn''t seem all that weird to an extent, considering that it was natural that one would usually die after your health reached 0. But it was actually rather rare to die in this way, especially whenbined with the fact that this Orc didn''t have any actual external wounds. Some small scratches on its hands and legs, sure, but that seemed to be rather natural.


    The burial-ground was near here, so Eiro was actually able to sense part of the other dead orcs'' bodies, and it seemed like they really didn''t have anything inmon body- or injury-wise. The Demon grumbled quietly to himself. He didn''t really want to wait until nightfall, to figure out what was going on here.


    So instead, Eiro closed his eyes and thought for a few moments. And then, the Demon came to a conclusion. Whoever or whatever did this had the power to wipe this whole vige out immediately. But for some reason, they didn''t. That only left two possible conclusions up for discussion.


    One, they were doing this for fun to see the Orcs freak out.


    Two, they wanted to chase the Orcs out of this vige. Although this second option would only make sense if there was some specific destination that this being wanted to lead them to. The orcs already left this ce once, but the being still killed them. Well, maybe it was abination of both, although Eiro didn''t really want to think about that.


    But on thing was clear, the magic that was spread out thinly in thisrge cave was something that the perpetrator created.


    After a bit of thought, Eiro looked at the Orc Child, "Just wondering, but... How does that ''Complete Tool Proficiency'' skill of Hignd Orcs actually work? Meaning, what is the definition for ''Tool'' in this sense?"


    "Ah..." The Child said, "In ournguage, this skill is called ''Marugahaja''. The ''ja'' at the end means plete'', the ''gaha'' means an ''ability given by the arcane'', and the ''Maru'' means anything that is used for a specific goal... And we get the abilities to reach that goal, although we don''t know what it is until we''ve reached it..." The child exined. With that, Eiro figured a few things out, actually.


    First, that skill names maybe aren''t always all too urate. Then, that there really was a deeper mystery to be explored with these Hignd Orcs. And atst... That Eiro might be on his track to figuring out what exactly this meant.


    "...Can you give me some examples of these goals?" Eiro asked, and the Orc child slowly nodded his head, "I only know two, though... My father finished his task and it was to ''y the Hill Ogre'' that was living nearby. And my uncle finished his task to ''Reach Advanced Grade'' for his cksmithing skill..."


    "I see." The Demon immediately managed to figure out the rough rules of this ce, as well as a few specific other things.


    For one, he was certain that these Hignd Orcs were a simr creation to the Grandour. A species of Monsters that was artificially bred and created for an unknown purpose. In the case of the Grandour, it could have just been a test-run to figure out if monsters could really be bred toward a certain point, or maybe they were created as mounts or war-beasts, or something like that.


    And in the case of these Hignd Orcs... Eiro had to think that the only viable reason for why they were created was to find a way to control the way that arge group of monsters or people acted. It was possibly by one of the former Monster Kings, even. That would make sense, at least.


    While most monsters were subservient to the Monster King, there were many that simply tried not to get on their bad side and did whatever they wanted otherwise. Most didn''t have a true sense of ''Loyalty'' toward the Monster King. Maybe one of them wanted to change that. At the very least, Eiro found it hard to believe that there were many other beings that were capable of breeding Orcs in a way like this while also bestowing them literal skills.


    And now... For some reason... One of these Orcs may have been born with the task to ''Empty out the Vige''.


    "Wait, no..." Eiro muttered quietly. That wouldn''t make sense, since these Orcs didn''t know about their tasks until finishing them. But then again... "How would they know what sort of route they were supposed to take..?"


    There had to be some sort of subtle information nted into the minds of the orc that influenced their behavior in some way.


    In the end, Eiro knew close to surely that the perpetrator was one of the Orcs here in the vige.


    "Are there any magic casters here? They might be able to help me out with the investigation." Eiro asked with a tant lie. The child turned toward him and then nodded his head, "We have three magic casters, yes. One is an Earth Mage that helps us build out our vige. The other one is a fire mage that works together with our cksmiths a lot. And thest one has some sort of unique magic, I think? He helps us out with finding enemies around us."


    "Hm, could I maybe speak to thest of those three, then?" Eiro inquired with a smile on his face. The child slowly nodded his head and kept leading Eiro through the vige, looking at the dead orc that they left behind now with a bitter expression. This kid seemed surprisingly mature for his age, able to take this sort of thing.


    But well, considering that it was a monster, it wasn''t right to treat its mental state the same as that of others. Eiro knew himself that monsters usually had a different mentality than people did in a lot of ways. It was still surprising in many ways, though.


    Either way, the child brought Eiro toward the outskirts of the vige to an exit on the other side of the cave. Out there, some stairs led further up the mountain onto what seemed to be a t tform, like a ce for a lookout to stand, albeit a bitrger to the one that Eironded on.


    Up there sat an elderly orc, weak and frail, crossing his legs and looking at the horizon. There was a rather high concentration of the same magic that Eiro saw throughout the cave in there. He knew that it wasn''t just something to increase the range of one''s perception, since Eiro was the expect in that field. Instead, it was rather obviously something more versatile and aggressive than that, even if it may have those perception-increasing qualities as well.


    "Kid, leave us alone for a while, alright?" Eiro asked of him. He seemed a bit confused, but when Eiro smiled at him, he figured that it was important and stepped back down the stairs.


    Once he was gone, Eiro and Gondos stopped their fusion, and Eiro sat down on the log that acted as a bench, "You''re a minion of the Monster King, aren''t you?"


    The elderly Hignd Orc nodded his head immediately, "Mhm. I figured you would see it in me.. Since I can see you are one of his minions as well."

 Chapter 322 - Crow

    Eiro kept looking at the horizon, his mind going crazy to figure out the ''truth'' of the situation. So far, this Orc was the oldest one that he had seen here in the vige. It was kind of weird that this Orc knew Common so well, despite the fact that he was told by the child that he was the only one that knew Common.


    Since that child was telling the truth then, this meant that it didn''t know about this Orc''s ability to speak Common. This elderly monster was hiding this from those around it, but felt free to simply show it to Eiro without a moment''s hesitation just because of who, or rather what, he was.


    Such things and much, much more ran through Eiro''s mind before he came to a conclusion, "So it really is you that is killing the other Orcs."


    "That is a surprising conclusion toe to so quickly." The Orc said, although he clearly didn''t deny it. Eiro nodded his head, "Of course. I already figured that the Monster King was behind the creation of this particr vige. And on top of that, this sort of civilized behavior isn''t something that one is innately born with. Hence, the Monster King must have left a few people behind that had the purpose to ''lead'' this vige, as well as a few that had the purpose to ''get rid'' of it after the vige as a whole fulfilled its purpose. You are one of those, aren''t you?"


    "...You are quite a clever one, I must say. I assume you have been created by the newest King?" The Orc inquired, and Eiro slowly noddedh is head, "Mhm. But don''t think that all of us are that way. I''m a bit of a special case."


    "I see... Well, it matters quite little. You arepletely correct. The first of this vige were created by the Monster King that reigned a few hundreds of years ago, with the purpose of creating a single object of power. It was already retrieved by another minion of the current King, though. And then, as the only one that knew the secrets of this ce, as the ''Keeper'', my life''s task was ''renewed''. I was to kill everyone in this vige."


    Eiro heard the Orc''s words, and quickly understood what the Orc was trying to say, but he still had to make sure, "Did you do this to find a way to get around your task, or is this already part of a n to get around your task?"


    With a quietugh, the elderly Orc nodded his head, "Thetter of those two. You see, the firstnguage that a creature learns is their ''mother tongue'', it is thenguage in which the system will be disyed. And due to that, the task was tranted into thenguage of Orcs as well." He exined.


    "So, since the Oguage seems to involve a lot of situational- and bodynguage, the words weren''t enough to give you the intended meaning of your task without any way around it. Let me guess, right now, your task can be seen as ''Kill everyone in the vige'', or as ''Get rid of everyone in the vige''. So you were trying to get rid of them in a way that didn''t necessarily involve killing everyone."


    "Indeed so." The Orc exined, "But as a few rules still restrict me, it became quiteplicated. My time limit for killing them was 24 hours, but due to simr reasons as my task, that became a rule that required me to kill at least one of them every 24 hours. Beyond that, I couldn''t share the task with anyone else, but that turned into me not being able to share it with any of the other orcs. And three... I am unable to kill myself to stop this task." The Orc exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he heard the Orc''s voice. The tone and the emotion that was mixed into it.


    "I see. So you tried to chase everyone toward the closest other vige to get someone to fight back and possibly find out the killer, so that they could kill you. This vige itself means quite a lot to you, doesn''t it?"


    It was clear even without a direct answer from the elderly Orc, "Well... Then let me assist you with thatter. First, there are a few things that I want you to tell me."


    "Ask away. There''s nothing holding us back from that." The elderly Orc said with a light smile on his face, before dark red blood started flowing out of the corners of his mouth. It seemed like he himself didn''t even realize it yet. But what was worse to the Demon sitting next to him was that he only noticed the gaping hole in the Orc''s stomach when it was already toote.


    Eiro could see the damage-notification pop up in the Orc''s eyes, as if even the system wasn''t ready for this sudden turn of events.


    "What a bother... Now I have to ughter all of''em? I thought I could watch this a bit longer, but I guess not..." A voice said. It was a voice that came from a man that Eiro hadn''t taken notice of before this. The Demon immediately went back in his memory, and realized what was going on.


    This man was a monster as well, and he was watching Eiro in the form of a crow sitting around in a group of another few. Although the Demon really didn''t know how the Crow was able to get past his perception.


    Without hesitation, Eiro stood up from the log he was sitting on and turned around toward the figure of the man that just dangerously injured this old man, "Nelli." The Demon said immediately, and the Naiad appeared next to him. Without Eiro even having to say anything else, the Naiad started to heal the Orc''s wound.


    Of course, if this was just any random Orc, Eiro probably would have let it die. But this was the first time ever that he met another artificially-created monster that he would be able to hold a proper conversation with. There was a lot that Eiro wanted to... no, that he had to know.


    The monster in front of him was one that looked mostly like a person, really. He was wearing something like a jacket madepletely of pitch-ck feathers. His hair was the same color, and the rings underneath his eyes actually came quite close to it as well. Otherwise... This being seemed to bepletely average in its build, if not below-average in height for a normal human adult.


    "I guess there ain''t a reason to wait if nothin'' interesting''s gonna happen anymore." The crow-monster said, and then held its hand forward. At a speed that Eiro had never witnessed before, a feather shot forward at Eiro. He was actually barely able to react at all, even though he could see it. It was as if his body couldn''t catch up to his mind. So, there was only one thing that Eiro could do.


    The Demon had to activate the ring that he was wearing on his left middle finger. It was the ring that he had stolen from that Organization''s executive before. There were only around two and a half minutes left on it, but that was more than enough to change the tide of the battle around if it came to it.


    And right now, the only way that Eiro could react was to release the mana that he had bundled up right on the edge of infusion next to the gem that was actually important when it came to this ring.


    "Guess I should take this chance to finish this quickly..." Eiro muttered quietly as he approached this crow-monster, simply stepping past the feather that it had shot off. It was alwayy pretty weird to move like this in this time-frozen space. Eiro stepped right up to the crow-monster and proceeded to simply punch its face a couple of times. When he would make time keep flowing, it would end up getting a lot more force hitting its face at once, which should be enough to take it out.


    The Demon stepped away for a moment and grabbed a few pebbles off the ground, pebbles that he immediately proceeded to shoot toward the crow-monster. Of course, both physically and magically, practically hyper-charging their speed. And that only an inch or two in front of the crow''s face.


    For good measure, Eiro proceeded to position himself in a way that allowed him to shoot off a spell the moment that time continued to flow again. He couldn''t cast spells right now, after all.


    And then, he pulled his mana out of the gemstone and time proceeded to move. The Demon immediately tried to cast a spell at the crow that he figured to be one that could damage it.


    The crow was pushed back and dropped onto the ground a few steps behind where it stood before. The pebbles also seemed to dig into its skin, and since it didn''t move, Eiro figured that it was dead.


    Just to make sure of that, Eiro took out his three of swords and approached the presumably dead body. But then... the corners of its mouth twitched and formed a broad grin that only a maniac could pull off.


    "I couldn''t see it... How? How could I not see it? It was too fast for me? How? How?! Show me again, I want to see it again!" The crow started to scream out things that startled Eiro quite a bit on top of the shock-like realization that his nearly full-power punches, and a couple dozen of them hitting the crow''s face at once, didn''t do anything to it.


    Eiro could see the pebbles slowly be pushed out of the crow''s skin and drop back onto the ground as it slowly stood up as if it waspletely unaffected. But of course, that wasn''t true. Eiro could see the damage that he had done to this monster through its eyes, and it was actually quite a sizeable number.


    But even then, the Monster was unaffected. Completely and utterly so. Maybe it was good at hiding it, or maybe... It was just that strong.


    Somehow, Eiro''s heart couldn''t stop pounding in his chest at this thought. What if this monster was incredibly strong? So strong that it would be able to put up a good match against Eiro at this point? Sure, he was strong, but in the grand scheme of things, there were still plenty of monsters, and of course also numerous people, that would be able to beat Eiro.


    And Eiro got excited whenever he got to face one without many consequences.

 Chapter 323 - Prediction

    The Crow looked at Eiro with a slightly excited expression, one that the Demon couldn''t help but return. It looked him up and down, before plucking one of the feathers off of its jacket. The crow held the feather between its fingers, before simply flicking its hand forward.


    The speed at which this feather travelled waspletely uparable to the feather before this. So much so that Eiro was unable to react to it in the slightest. But at this point, Eiro realized something. As the feather scraped across his cheek, causing blood to flow down his skin, he kept staring at the Crow intensely, until he noticed a sliver of a familiar ''vibe'' from it.


    "You''re a Card-Holder? How were you able to hide that from me?" The Demon asked. The monster in front of Eiro looked back a bit surprised, "You could tell? I thought I had supressed that properly..." The Crow muttered confusedly, trying to figure out where it went wrong exactly.


    And meanwhile, Eiro figured out that this fight may be a bit harder than he thought it would be initially. While Eiro was rather powerful physically as well, the majority of Eiro''s abilities were based around things that happened within him. Memory, processing-ability, and even magic. The fact that Eiro''s ability-focus was on these was what would make it practically impossible for him to beat the Crow in a head-on fight.


    Considering that Eiro figured the Crow''s card was the Two of Pentacles, giving him ultimate agility. And since Agility meant speed, this Crow was possibly one of the fastest beings in existence, or at least one of the fastest beings Eiro had ever seen before.


    There was only one thing that he could do. Eiro tried to push his mana into his ring again. Time once more slowed down, but when Eiro focused on the world around him again, he was met with the Crow staring right at him. From about an inch away. In this tiniest fraction of a moment, the Crow had approached Eiro without the Demon noticing at all.


    How was that even possible? Eiro didn''t really care too much for now, since he had to focus on something else instead. Eiro had to use the rest of the time that he had left to make sure he would be able to kill this Crow. He pulled out the dagger out of the sheath at the side of his body and proceeded to stab it deep into the Crow''s chest. Or so he tried, the Dagger didn''t really go through the Crow''s skin, since it wasn''t possible for it to really split up yet. Eiro just had to make sure to stab at this spot over and over again and push the dagger against the crow''s chest as quickly as possible before making time resume.


    Beside that, Eiro tried something else as well. He pushed his hand into his satchel and got out a small pouch. It was filled with crumbs of Magic Stones, leftovers from the mine down in the vige that couldn''t be used for anything in particr.


    Eiro wanted to try and use if for some magic-fusion experiments, but this was more important right now. Eiro poured out the contents of the bag, and the small crystal crumbs started floating in the air right in front of the Crow''s face.


    The Demon spread these crumbs around every part of the Crow''s head, from the top, bottom, front, or back, anywhere there was space. And then, he filled them with as much mana as possible to try and make them overflow.


    To possibly trigger some sort of other magic reaction, Eiro even made sure to spread these crumbs in a way that they formed a magic circle that would hopefully help to focus the power onto the head itself instead of outward.


    And then, Eiro proceeded to try and push that elderly orc toward a safe ce together with his spirits. He wasn''t entirely sure how big the impact would be, but it seemed like it would be quite intense.


    The Demon turned around once he was done, staring at the notification telling him that he had less than thirty seconds left. He had wasted so much of the time leftover within this artifact, but it was worth it if he was able to kill this Crow... With the speed he would receive from that, by using the Two of Pentacles, Eiro would gain an immense benefit.


    And so, while Eiro turned around, he made time flow properly again. But in that instant, Eiro noticed something he should have paid attention to earlier.


    The position of the Crow''s eyes were different.


    The moment that time continued to flow, an explosion unfolded right around the Crow''s head. It was muchrger than Eiro anticipated, incredibly so, and a lot of dust covered the, presumably dead, body of the Crow.


    But to Eiro''s horror, there was nothing there. There was no dead body, or even blood sttered around. Eiro was confused at what was going on, until he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder, "Hm... And here I thought you''d be fun to fight against." The Crow''s voice said right next to Eiro''s head, "Sure, you''re fast, but that''s just because of that artifact on your hand. I really dislike being tricked like this."


    The next moment, Eiro felt a strong force on his back as all air disappeared from his lungs, as if forced out of it. The Demon was pushed forward quite a bit, nearly reaching the edge of this tform.


    [-4102 Health]


    "..Huh..?" Eiro muttered as he started being able to breathe again. That... was not a lot of damage. Not as much as he expected, at least. And then, Eiro realized something else. Something that would allow him to possiblypete against the Crow in a fight after all.


    "You''re really weak, aren''t you?" The Demon asked with a grin on his face, "Fast, sure, but weak... Your body can''t take it when you attack someone at high speeds because you aren''t physically strong, so you can''t attack as quickly then either... Hahh... Talk about being tricked." Eiro smirked and started to think. He realized that the Crow would be unable to be properly killed through attacks if Eiro froze time.


    It seemed like it made use of its superior speed to get rid of any sort of damage it might experience. It caught the dagger just now, somehow managed to switch the positions of a few of the magic stone crumbs, and seemed to even just quickly snap its head back to counter the sudden damage of the punches Eiro attacked him with.


    That most likely also lessened the Damage from the pebbles to an extent.


    "I don''t need to be strong. With my speed, I can just sh at you a couple of times and you''ll be dead in a second. I still have your dagger, remember?" The Crow pointed out, but Eiro just smirked, "For now you do, yeah. But that''s going to change in a few moments."


    Immediately, Eiro started to make use of another small trick that he wasn''t entirely sure about for now. He tried to ''remember'' what was currently going on. With his <Memory of a Schr>, Eiro was able to see the world of his memories in numerous different ways. He could speed a single moment down tost him a year until it passed, while nothing but an instant actually passed outside of Eiro''s mind.


    If he made use of this fact, trying to ''remember'' the current moment while he was going through it, Eiro was able to at least think at a speed that was superior to what he was capable of before. Just like this Eiro was not only able to roughly see the Crow approach, but he was able to see it do so as if the time had stopped again. And just like that, Eiro could make use of this situation in another way. He analyzed everything, taking in consideration the few things that he knew about the Crow until now, including that it had to slow down to actually attack him.


    Mentally, and with his mana, Eiro tried to prepare as quickly as he could for everything, forming it into a ball in his right hand''s palm. He twisted his torso as far to the left as he could and pointed his feet a bit more toward each other. Or at least, he was starting with these actions. The muscle-twitches were starting to happen, but of course Eiro couldn''t go at a speed like that. But he didn''t need to. Eiro knew how fast his body was and how it reacted to things. All of this was perfectly nned out.


    The moment that Eiro let his mind run normally again, the crow was already right next to him. But due to a small indent that was formed in the Demon''s side due to him twisting his torso in just the right way, the Dagger missed and only cut through his cloak. The Demon turned all of the mana gathering at his palm into wind magic and pushed his whole body around.


    The Crow had continued moving at this point, of course, trying to keep shing at Eiro. But no matter what the Crow did, Eiro predicted everything down to the smallest detail and dodged every single cut that the Crow was trying to attack Eiro with.


    Eiro twisted his body around, jumped, moved things out of his treasury in specific spots around his body, put other things into his treasury. He used magic to make himself heavier or lighter depending on his movements and what he needed to happen. And despite the fact that the Crow was so much faster than Eiro, it was unable tond a hit on him.


    That was, until it decided to stop shing and instead stabbing at Eiro out of annoyance. But that was what Eiro was waiting for. Using the cut-up parts of his own cloak, Eiro wrapped up his hand thickly and proceeded to fill it with ice magic. His hand was already on the way down toward the de. It was unavoidable. The freezing cloth touched the special de and the tiny holes inside of it opened up as the Demon''s grip tightened just so slightly. And as the cloth shattered into frozen shards of itself due to the sudden impact, the Crow was hit by one of those shards. And due to the speed of its own body, it even cut its arm a bit.


    And that was more than enough for Eiro for now. After all, what was inside of the dagger wasn''t water, but poison. Posion that sshed around, somewhat manipted by the magic Eiro spread through the air beforehand, and then dropped right onto the crow''s small cut.


    Obviously it wasn''t enough to kill it, that wasn''t Eiro''s goal for now.. Instead, what was his goal was the fact that the Crow''s attention slipped together with the strength of its grip as Eiro managed to slightly pull the dagger away from it, so that it softlynded in his other hand.

 Chapter 324 - Play

    "Huh, probably the fastest being I have ever seen in my whole life, but you can''t even hit this simple, young Demon?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face. But behind that grin, Eiro hid his real thoughts and his worries.


    What he was doing right now may be incredibly useful, but he wouldn''t be able to use it for too long. Eiro was controlling parts of his body in intricate ways, and sometimes he made himself move in incredibly unnatural manners. It drained his stamina incredibly quickly, and he could already tell that he wouldn''t be able to keep this up for too much longer.


    In the first ce, this was just possible because the crow seemed to be aplete idiot that didn''t know the first thing about tactics or technique. He was a brute that could only move fast, and that was it. Although, from what Eiro could tell, he was rather adept at throwing things. The feathers that the crow threw at Eiro were moving in very specific ways. Whether in a straight line or in a curve, it seemed like the crow was able to throw them however he wanted.


    As far as Eiro could tell, the wound in the elderly Orc''s stomach also came from a feather that the crow had thrown in a way that it would carve into the Orc''s flesh and thene back out. At the very least, Eiro spotted a bloody feather together with some chunks of flesh hidden between some bushes.


    Now that Eiro was continuosly dodging all of the Crow''s attacks and even got his dagger back, the Crow seemed to finally take the Demon seriously.


    "You''re so slow... but why can''t I hit you? Why can''t I? Why? Why?!" The Crow asked with clear anger mixed with a werid sense of excitement written on his face. It slowly ced its hand onto the jacket made up of pitch-ck feathers and pulled a handful of them out, just to have the feathers literally grow back on the jacket itself.


    At this point, Eiro really knew that things were going to be serious. He pulled out his Three of Swords out of his treasury and quickly activated it. Three rings appeared on each of Eiro''s hands. The middle one on his right hand held the hollow dagger filled with some poison, and the middle one on his left hand held Eiro''s regr, me-based dagger. Like this, Eiro was able to instantly disconnect the daggers and hold them in either of his hands depending on what exactly it was that he wanted to dobat-wise.


    But that wasn''t all that Eiro prepared for himself. Beside that, the Demon pushed his foot into the ground and made four bs of rock jump up, each of which Eirobined with one of the Three of Swords'' des. This not only turned them into extra, ratherrge weapons, but also into shields that were hopefully going to help Eiro defend against the feathers.


    Beside this, Eiro made sure to activate his Rock Skin ability as well as prepare the Gravity Magic stone he still had with him by cing it into his mouth, where it would be safe from falling onto the ground or something.


    And just like that, Eiro had properly prepared for what was toe. For some reason, the Crow seemed to have waited for Eiro to finish, as if it was some sort ofbat-maniac that wanted to have a full-on fight against Eiro.


    Before Eiro knew it, basically the moment that he properly prepared and the Crow took notice of this fact, it threw the feathers it was holding toward Eiro. Truly, ''Throwing'' was the perfectpliment for the Crow''s abilities. Whether these strengthened, regrowing feathers were a feature it gained after training in ''Throwing'' and then evolving, or whether it was an ability in coincidentally had, the Crow''s whole body seemed to be perfectly made for this sort of thing.


    Beside Agility, its highest stat seemed to be Dexterity. These two stats inbination made it so that one''s body became incredibly flexible, particrly when it came to fine-tuned things that maybe required your hands or feet. Hence, the Crow''s body was perfect for throwing things with incredible uracy.


    Not only that, but due to the fact that these feathers were disposable weapons, the Crow didn''t have to worry about them breaking, because it simply didn''t matter. The feathers could go at full speed without slowing down for impact, different to the Crow''s melee attacks.


    Due to that, the moment that the feathers were thrown at Eiro, he tried to react. He analyzed the situation and twisted his body in a way that he would be damaged as little as possible. At this point, it was impossible topletely avoid being hit like that. However, due to all the different precautions that Eiro took, he managed to bend out of the way of some of them, but most of them still hit him to an extent. Mostly they were just scraping over his skin, damage that didn''t really do much to Eiro due to his rock skin. But some of them managed to get an angle on Eiro that they did push through the rock skin a bit, damaging Eiro.


    Luckily, the Demon had moved some of the Life Force away from the ces where he was hit to minimize the damage. But even then, this time around, Eiro wasn''t able to avoid taking damage.


    Obviously he was still able to predict all of these sort of things, but at the end of the day, just because you know that something ising doesn''t mean you are capable ofpletely stopping it. The only thing you can do is try to minimize the damage to the best of your ability. If that means you can stop it, great. If that means you can''t, then at least you tried your best.


    After the damage was done, Eiro tried to focus some of his Life Force around those wounds to elerate their regeneration even more than normal, before preparing for the next batch of attacks. This time around, the Crow didn''t just throw them from one direction. Rather, it apparently tried to first test Eiro a little before starting its proper attack.


    The Crow started to run around Eiro in circles, so quickly that some of the dust on the ground started twirling around in a bit of a spiral. Luckily, this worked to Eiro''s advantage. From all around the Demon, numerous feathers were thrown at him at high speeds. This made it much, much harder to properly dodge everything, and Eiro started to take quite a bit of damage. Each singr attack wasn''t actually too damaging, and most actually only did damage in the three-digit range at best since Eiro managed to dodge arge sum of them, but the fact that there were so many feathersing at Eiro slightly undid all of that.


    But luckily, Eiro had slowly be aware of another weakness of the Crow''s ability. Due to its sheer speed, it was hard for it to truly breathe constantly. Hence, it had to slow down every once in a while in order to do that. It always took incredibly deep breaths during that time. This made it possible for Eiro to make use of a small trick he was nning this whole time.


    He had been gathering an anesthetic in his stinger and started to slowly push it out, using abination of water and air magic to turn it into some sort of mist. Mist that Eiro was able to hide between the small clouds of dust and bring toward the ce that Eiro predicted the Crow would take its next breath.


    This was something that Eiro did for a good while until he noticed the Crow visibly slow down. The uracy of the feathers started to decrease, although Eiro still wasn''t able to fully dodge all of them, because even Eiro had to slow down a bit, since he was getting rather exhausted at this point in time.


    However, more and more, Eiro was able to deflect the feathers with his des or the bs of rock that Eirobined with his Three of Swords. Soon, the Crow itself noticed that it was slowing down, although it wasn''t able to tell exactly how this happened. Eiro hid it pretty well, after all.


    That was the perfect moment for Eiro to attack. The Crow still managed to dodge Eiro rather easily, but at the very least, the Demon was now capable of actually approaching it, forcing it to get into meleebat sometimes.


    "Something wrong? You feeling woozy?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face. Due to the obviously rather low intelligence of the Crow, this question seemed to have a lot of impact. As if it was barely able to figure out that Eiro was the one behind it, but not mentally resistant enough to not let it affect it.


    "What did you do? What? What?!" The Crow asked with a deep re directed at Eiro, and the Demon simply shrugged with a broad grin on his face, "I wonder~!"


    Eiro continued to spread the anesthetic thinly through the air so that the Crow had no choice but to slowly breathe it in. Eiro''s Toxin Resistance was enough to make it possible for him to defend against the bit that was able to slip through the Air Magic barrier he ced in front of his mouth to filter the anesthetic out.


    And so, the Crow went for another tactic instead. It quickly ran up to Eiro holding the feathers in its hands, throwing them at the Demon at a point-nk distance, thinking that this would help it kill Eiro practically immediately. However, that was absolutely not the case.


    Eiro pushed his hand forward in just the right spot at the right time, managing to hit the Crow''s arm and send a small pulse of mana into it, making use of his torture-methods. The Crow''s body cramped up and its movements stopped for just a split-second, enough for Eiro to swing the stone bs at it and push it against the nearest rock-wall at full force.


    Eiro immediately tried to it. But the moment that the Demon pressed his arm against its throat and pressed one of its daggers against its chest while the four rock bs floated around its head, Eiro had a bad feeling.


    After all, this was not the most likely way he had figured this would go. Rather, it was one of the less likely, but still probable, ways that Eiro figured out.


    And there was a reason for that, it seemed. The Crow was staring at the horizon and in an emotionless voice said, "Ah... Sorry, I don''t have time to y with you anymore.... I have to go."

 Chapter 325 - Collapsed

    As Eiro pushed the Crow againt the wall, this Monster said something that Eiro didn''t expect at all. He turned his head to the side for just a moment, getting a nce at a figure standing far in the distance in the middle of the air. And he wasn''t flying with something like wings, he was really just standing there, as if levitating.


    And it was really just for a moment, and Eiro didn''t loosen up the grip he had on the Crow either. But when he was in the process of turning his head back toward the Crow, he could feel the literalck of mass in front of him. Eiro dropped forward a little and tried to collect himself as he realized what was going on.


    The first thing that Eiro realized was that there was no way that the Crow actually just ran away. Eiro would have been able to notice it in one way or another, whether by seeing it, hearing its footsteps, or even just by feeling the wind that it pulled with it.


    But no, none of that happened. Instead, for a fraction of a moment, the area around Eiro waspletely empty. It was probably a shorter time than it would take you to blink. But in that fraction of a moment, the Crow was gone. And then, it returned.


    Maybe just 10 or 15 meters away from Eiro, so not an amazingly long distance, but it was still quite a bit. The air in that area started to shift, as if incredibly hot mes were ced right underneath there. And out of that shifting space, the Crow''s figure appeared.


    It was able to teleport, or rather blink, a short distance away. Through its sheer speed, it unlocked the ability to do this. And this could only mean one thing.


    The Crow was just toying with Eiro. It could have turned the tables instantly. Maybe it was just too dumb to realize this fact, or it held some sort of pride inside of its mind, although Eiro doubted thetter to be the case.


    This Monster stood there and was about to keep moving away, before turning back around as if it forgot something. It held its hand up and caught an item that was seemingly thrown into its direction from the man that was standing in the middle of the air in the distance, although that would require an incredible amount of force or incredible magic control even at such arge distance.


    "Nearly forgot. If that Orc is going to die soon, I have to do this." The Monster said and held its hand forward. The item that it was now holding seemed to be a carved gemstone, a sort that Eiro didn''t remember ever seeing before. It started to glow, and Eiro immediately had a guess at what was about to happen.


    He tried to twist out of the way as quickly as possible, and he was barely able to escape the attack. It was basically an extremely powerful stream of light that was about 5 meters in diameter shooting out of that small gemstone.


    It ate away at the mountain immediately, digging through the Orc Vige. The side of Eiro''s body was slightly scorched through this beam as well, but luckily it didn''t seem to be life-threatening Damage, even if it did drain quite a bit of his Health. Basically just being scraped by it took about a fourth to a third of Eiro''s total health.


    The Demon clenched his teeth and turned toward the giant hole created in this mountain. He sent a pulse of mana through the rock of the mountain and figured out that this was enough damage to make the hollow space soon cave in on itself. The Orc vige would be destroyed.


    Immediately, Eiro knew what he had to do. Sure, he wanted to chase after the Crow, but that was a lost cause anyway. It was already being dramatically surrounded by ck feahters for a grand exit.


    "I hope we can y again sometime. Hopefully you''ll be stronger then. I want a challenger I can go all-out against. Will you be that challenger? Will you?" The Crow asked, and Eiro stared back at it with deep anger welling inside of himself.


    "Yeah, sure... And when that timees, I''ll kill you. You hear?" Eiro announced with a growling voice, as he watched the Crow just grin as the gem it was holding before fell to dust, before the Crow turned into an actual crow to fly away at an extremely high speed.


    And Eiro proceeded to concentrate on the matter at hand, despite how exhausted he was right now. The Demon pushed himself up using the stone under his feet and pushed himself toward the closest groups of trees, grabbing whatever nuts or seeds he could get from them, before rushing over toward the elderly Orc.


    Nelli seemed to have managed to stabilize him for now, but from what Eiro could tell, he didn''t have too much longer to live with that sort of woundbined with his old age. As angry as this made Eiro, the Demon quickly picked the elderly Orc up and started sliding down the tunnel that was created through that beam right there.


    The ground was melting, but through a bit of ice and earth magic, Eiro was able to ignore that a bit.


    Soon, the Demon reached the inside of the cave. The first thing he saw were a few chunks of Orc-bodies scattered near the hole, with one of them half-buried in the molten rock. Dead, of course.


    Others were crushed by the falling debree. One of Orcs seemed to help out by using earth magic, protecting especially the children and the Orc Child that Eiro had spoken to before.


    Eiro angrily ground his teeth and proceeded to push his magic into the nuts that he had with him on top of those that he gathered just to be sure. He threw them to several different parts of the cave right around him, and proceeded to use Nature Magic to make trees rapidly grow from those nuts.


    Through these trees, Eiro was able to temporarily stabilize at least this area of the cave. The demon looked at the Orc Child near him, and quickly rushed over, handing him a small bag filled with Nature Magic stones.


    "Make whoever here has any sort of control over their mana pour it into this rock and into those trees. That will sustain them a little while longer. I''m going to take care of the rest of the cave. When everything is safe, I will give you a signal and make a path for you to start descending down the mountain. Go wherever you need to then, I will find you no matter where you go." The child didn''t really seem to understand what was going on, but he at the very least heard Eiro''s words and knew what he had to do.


    Meanwhile, Eiro did his part of what he said he would. After letting down the elderly Orc next to one of the physically stronger Orcs around so that someone could carry him, Eiro grew trees throughout the cave to have something that could be used as a support, stopping everything from immediately caving in.


    Eiro also tried to make some of the roots of these trees grow toward a single ce where he could supply them all with magic while everyone else was escaping, but that seemed to be a lot harder than he thought. At the very least, he managed to sustain a bit more then half of the trees by himself. The others were kept up through the nature magic created by the magic stones by those Orcs.


    "Kid! Get going!" Eiro yelled out into the direction of the Orc child, and once the ce was cleared out, Eiro sent Nelli, Gondos and Sarius to make the other Orcs finally leave as well, the ones that were holding up the other trees. Gondos made sure to hold back some of the smaller rocks that were falling, but luckily that wasn''t necessary anymore once they all left. Once they were gone, Eiro turned his head and watched the other trees immediately rot and decay. That''s what happened with nts created through nature magic, if they weren''t constantly fed it, they would immediately die down.


    And now, all that Eiro had to do was to quickly run away himself, something that wasn''t an issue considering his wings.


    He rushed after the Orcs and could see them descend the mountain in a bit of a distance. It seemed like that was the direction of the Kobold vige.


    Eiro wasn''t sure that nothing was going to happen to the Orcs if Eiro just let all of this happen uncontrobly, like andslide or avnche or something, so he quickly tried to take control of specific parts of at least this side of the mountain so that the Orcs could have a safe descent.


    It took a good while longer until Eiro could make sure that everything was safe, since the mountain in this part finally fully copsed. There were quite a few quakes happening, and some avnches as well as Eiro thought would happen. But this was only happening in areas where the Orcs weren''t affected anymore.


    Soon, the Demon flew down toward the ce where the Orcs had all gathered, in a rtively safe, t area where they could sit down and properly rest, now that nothing was happening anymore.


    Eironded in front of the Orcs, and they all looked at him nervously, thinking that he might have been the cause for the copse of that vige. Even the Orc child that Eiro had been speaking to before seemed quite nervous about that possibility.


    "D-Did you-"


    "No, I didn''t. There was a monster hiding out at the peak of this mountain. It came out when I was trying to converse with that old one over there." Eiro exined, seeing the barely open, tired eyes of the dying elderly orc, "...It was the one that was killing everyone. It was incredibly fast and could even teleport. I think it might have damaged the Orcs in your vige internally without damaging them externally."


    The child stared up at Eiro, "Why would someone do that?!"


    "...There are some very wicked individuals in this world, kid. Remember that. I managed to chase it away, but it let out thatst attack that I couldn''t defend against. I''m sorry for letting this happen."


    Tears gathered in the eyes of the Orc Child, "W-Will ite to try to kill us again..?"


    "No, don''t worry. It doesn''t seem to have any ns like that.. Don''t worry."

 Chapter 326 - Live Together

    Eiro looked over the group of Orcs as they slowly descended the mountain. Most of them were quite bitter about suddenly losing their home like that, and reasonably so. But overall, it seemed like they were going to be able to pull through. They did manage to grab a few necessities that they needed, or things that they were already carrying with them at the time the mountain caved in onto the vige, so they at least didn''t lose every small thing that they had.


    As far as the Demon could tell, the elderly Orc that had been attacked up there didn''t have that much more time left to live either. And everyone here knew that, including the elderly Orc himself. Even the children were aware. Some of them handled such things even better than the adults did.


    Plenty of the Orcs wereing over to him to speak to the elderly Orc, saying goodbye to him properly. It was as if they were trying to use him as a conduct to say goodbye to all the others that died before, since they hadn''t been able to foresee what was going to happen to them. Many died instantly, and none of the Orcs were able to even say farewell to their corpses. But if they told the elderly Orc, maybe he could pass on a couple of messages to the others in the afterlife. Eiro was sure that that was what went through their heads.


    Soon, the sun started to go down, but the Goblin Vige was luckily in sight. Well, it didn''t seem right to call it ''Goblin Vige'' anymore, really. After all, there were Kobolds and now Orcs as well that would live there now too. And they were going to make use of a lot of spider-monsters to help out with their work. It was more correct to call this a ''Monster Vige'', rather than focusing on the Goblins at this point.


    The moment that Eiro and the Hignd Orcs arrived in the Vige, there were a few issues with the Kobolds that recognized these monsters to be the ones that drove them out of their former home. But luckily, Eiro was able to use the trantors of the respective groups, meaning the most intelligent Kobold as well as the Orc child, to make sure that each group understood what was going on.


    Since the Mountain Goblins didn''t have anything against the Hignd Orcs in the first ce, they were alright with having them there, even if they seemed a little bit jealous of their stature at times. Goblins were incredibly short, especiallypared to these tall-built Orcs. Even the ones that prided themselves on theirrge stature were shorter than the average of these Orcs.


    But a little bit of friendly rivalry was never a bad thing. Eiro brought the Orcs to a part of the vige where it would be easy to excavate a few makeshift houses for the Orcs, and they could expand on thatter on. They did have their own Earth Mage with them, after all. He should be able to figure some things out.


    And then, while the other Orcs were settling in, Eiro brought the elderly Orc into the cave where Eiro''s ''House'' in this vige was, this cave abandoned by a wizard, andid him down onto one of the bs of rock where he could sleep away into deathter on. Of course, Eiro wouldn''t do this for all of them. The only reason why he did this was so that he could have his peace and speak to the elderly Orc aler on.


    But for now, Eiro also brought the Orc child with him, since he was the representative of all of these orcs. Eiro had to introduce him to Gobo and Kitsue.


    "Hm? This one is their chief? A child?" Gobo asked a bit surprised, looking the child up and down. Eiro slowly nodded his head as he ced his hand onto the young Orc''s head, "Mhm. He''s the child of their former Chief, and he''s a rather smart one. He can fluently speak Common, and that without anyone to teach him. I didn''t even spot any books there."


    Hearing Eiro''s words, it seemed like Gobo, Bavet and even Armodeus, who just returned from finishing up the carriage-upgrade, were rather surprised. Kitsue didn''t really understand what that meant, though.


    "How''s that even possible,d? You sure he didn''t lie to ya?" Armodeus asked with a suspicious re directed at the nervous child that quickly proceeded to hide behind Eiro when faced with that scary expression.


    "Of course. At this point, there''s no way anyone could lie to me and get away with it. It has to do with the skill you were so interested in, Armodeus. That ''Complete Tool Proficiency''. It seems like the true meaning of the skill was lost in trantion, somehow. Each of these Orcs is assigned a Goal, even if they themselves don''t know what it is yet, and they are given the knowledge and abilities to fulfill that goal. If it''s to craft a specific grade of de, then they will be capable of quickly learning all the techniques and tool-skills they need to make that de, even without outside interference. If their goal is to kill a hundred boars, they will have all the knowledge they need to wield a weapon and how to find boars." Eiro exined, turning over toward the child that was still hiding behind him.


    "That''s right, isn''t it?" He asked. The child slowly nodded its head, "...Y-Yeah..." It said, "B-But we do get a c-central ''tool''... Like swords, hammers, or saws... We know th-those at least... We get the knowledge to use th-those tools in the right way to fu-fulfill our goal..."


    "That''s right. And in the case of this kid, his tool is the ''Pen''. Hence, since the Oguage doesn''t have any written letters, he was made to learn a differentnguage that did have letters. And that was ''Common''.¡ä"


    "...He learned a wholenguage just like that? Isn''t that kind of cheating?" Bavet asked with a wry smile while in his humanoid form, "I remember that I had Common drilled into me for years on end to even understand some of it... How was it for you, Eiro?"


    "Hm?" The Demon replied, "Oh, I could speak fluently roughly a week after I said my first word."


    "...Of course you could."


    "But to be fair, mynguage proficiency skill was boosted, so it leveled up a lot quicker than normal." Eiro pointed out, and Armodeus stared at the demon after hearing something that he didn''t expect, "What did you just say? Your skill was boosted? How was it-"


    "Ah... You met James, right? When you were staying at my manor? Well, he''s the same James that adventured with Avalin back then. Those two with their otherpanion, Thomas, bought a special spellbook with one-time-use spells inscribed into them from Zaragon. One of those special spells was a skill-boost one. No idea how it works, though." Eiro exined swiftly, and a lot of different things just connected in Armodeus'' mind.


    "Th-That guy was the James that took you as a ve...? Really..?" Armodeus asked, "No wonder that there was such a tension between you two."


    "Ah... No, that tension didn''te from that, rather it came from me... Well, killing those two." Eiro said as he pointed at the two Will-O??-Wisps floating over Gobo''s shoulders. The white one started to glow softly as a young woman''s gentle voice came out of it, "Eh... Sorry?" Arie said.


    Annoyed at the fact that his friend would react that way, Mikey eximed, "Arie, don''t apologize! He''s the one that killed us viciously!"


    "Ah, that''s true..." The white Will-O''-Wisp whispered quietly. Eiro tried to ignore those two for now, hoping that the others would as well, "Anyway... He''s going to be one of the three leaders of this vige, with you, Gobo, at the head of them all. Understood?"


    Gobo, like a moody teenager, looked back at Eiro after ring at the Kitbold next to him for a moment, "Master, you truly want me to lead this vige alongside... Her?"


    "I do. I know you don''t like her, but this is what I want you to do. Alright? Just try to get along. You don''t need to be friends, but I at least want you two to not kill each other while I''m gone." Eiro asked of the Hobgoblin in front of him, who slightly grimaced in response, "...Fine."


    Eiro let out a slight sigh, "I''lle here again when we''re on our way back to the capital. I''ll write you a list of what I want you to do and figure out until then. If you can''t get something done, then at least give me a good reason for it." Eiro suggested. He already had a couple of things in mind that would be rather beneficial to this vige''s growth in the long-term.


    After Eiro told these three a little more about everything that they needed to know about the situation and what was going to happen from then on, within the vige and around it, everyone beside Bavet, Armodeus, and of course the elderly Orc made their way out of the cave.


    The Demon scratched the back of his head as he turned toward Armodeus, "I assume everything with the carriage worked out well?" Eiro asked, and the Craftsman King immediately nodded his head in response.


    "Aye, of course it did,d. I''m sure ye''re gonna be happy about those improvemnts. We''ll be able to get to our destination a lot quicker now. Quicker, safer, and morefortably." The elder Dwarf said smugly, grinning broadly as he thought about his creation. With a smile on his face, Eiro walked past Armodeus, "Thank you. I greatly appreciate it. You can just rx for the next couple of days, then. I''ll drive."


    "Sounds good." The Dwarf replied, as Eiro squatted down next to the elderly Orc that wasying on one of the stone bs half-awake.


    "Now... Old man. You know you don''t have a lot of time, right?" Eiro asked. Armodeus and Bavet seemed a little bit confused as to what Eiro was trying to do, speaking to this dying, probably senile Orc that didn''t even speak Common. But to their surprise, the Orc tried to sit up for a bit, "I''m not so clueless that I would not know that."


    Bavet stared at the Orc and squinted his eyes, "What..? How can he-"


    "He''s an Orc that was created by one of the former Monster Kings. The whole Orc vige is made up of the descendants of him and hisrades. It seems like this one was allowed to live for much, much longer than all the others, though." Eiro exined bluntly, "But that doesn''t matter to me right now. I have to ask you a few things. There is little to no public knowledge out there about the state of the ce the Monster King dwells in. And on top of that... I want to know about the abilities of the Monster King.. The abilities that he got after bing the ''Monster King'', what that title truly allows him to do."

 Chapter 327 - Death Of An Elder

    The elderly Orc told Eiro, Bavet and Armodeus all that he knew about the Monster King. There wasn''t much, to be honest. But Eiro didn''t expect that much either. He just figured that he would know more than Eiro himself.


    Eiro was created to be a mindless drone, a pure meat-shield that probably wouldn''t be able to hope to even kill a child when going all out.


    This Orc, on the other hand, was created in order to be a leader. To conserve knowledge that was meant to bring the vige to the point where the Monster King wanted it to be. Hence, he must have been born with a lot of intelligence, enough to catch on to certain details that even Eiro was unable to figure out using his ''Memory of a Schr''.


    Most of it was information rted to what kind of being that Monster King truly was. Its apparent race, and of course its personality when in front of its subordinates. These things didn''t matter too much, considering that the Monster King in question died a couple hundred years ago. At the very least, though, it allowed Eiro tobine this hands-on experience with the things that he was able to read in the journals of the past heroes, books that have been published as popr books for the masses to enjoy.


    It helped Eiro figure out what was exaggerated, and what was true, to an extent at least. But the most important knowledge that Eiro gained through the eldery Orc''s information was at least a handful of abilities that most Monster Kings seemed to have, and how they showed themselves in different instances.


    For one, it was obvious that the ability to create artificial monsters like Eiro was something that every Monster King possessed to an extent. However, it was only the current Monster King, the one that created Eiro, that was able to do it in such extensive, ridiculous masses. If every Monster King had been able to do that, the one that created this elderly Orc would have created the whole vige all at once instead of making it grow naturally.


    Sure, there were probably some other reasons to it, but this seemed rather apparent considering the different stories Eiro had read about the wars against the former Kings.


    Beside this ability, it was logical that a Monster King would have an ability to increase the pressure it gave off. A <King''s Aura> of sorts. It was an ability that even the ''King'' ss had.


    Solomon demonstrated it to Eiro once before, it was basically an ability that heavily boosted one''s Charisma in regard to leadership, and it was most likely the thing that allowed the Monster King to keep the royals under control on top of its superior power, of course.


    And atst, its third ability was something of a wild-card. It was an effect that appeared in every Monster King ording to different stories. But Eiro wasn''t sure if it was something that was just rted to boosting the base monster''s unique qualities to a certain direction, or if it was a separate ability that was given to every Monster King, that was simply applied differently each time.


    Since it seemed probably for it to be a mixture of both, an ability given to each Monster King that took on certain properties depending on unique qualities of the base monster, Eiro chose to dub this ability <Monster King''s Domain>.


    Each Monster King could turn any certain area of their choice into their domain, and that domain would turn out to have the perfect living-qualities for that King. Whether it was a life-filled forest, a zing desert, or a freezing tundra. It could be anything.


    There seemed to be more things connected to this specific ability, but Eiro couldn''t figure out every single detail of it with the little to none information that he had right now.


    Eiro was sitting on a rock-b, deep in thought after hearing all the information that the elderly Orc could give him. If he wanted to beat the Monster King, Eiro had to be prepared for multiple things then.


    One, to be capable of facing numerous specialized monsters that were created only for the sake of defending the castle.


    Two, to build up higher mental resistance to be able to ward off the King''s Aura.


    Three, to be nearly unnafected by different sorts of extreme terrain, or at least the specific sort that the current Monster King''s domain took after.


    Seemingly able to see Eiro''s thoughts on his face, Bavet stared at him annoyedly, "There''s plenty of time. Focus on getting all your memories back first." Bavetined. Eiro raised his head and looked at the slime''s current humanoid form before nodding his head, "Yeah, you''re right. I have to be a proper royal first. I think after my next evolution, it should be fine..."


    "Speaking of..." Nelli started as she appeared right next to Eiro, "You didn''t try to ''update'' your connection with your card in a while, did you?"


    "..." Eiro silently stared at the Naiad and then turned his head away again, "I''ve had other stuff to worry about, leave me be. The probability should be at more than 15 percent right now. I''ll just deal with thister."


    "Mhm, sure." Nelli rolled her eyes, as Eiro stood up from the b that he was sitting on before walking over to the elderly Orc, "You two, could I have a bit of time alone with him?" Eiro asked, and Bavet and Armodeus quickly stepped out of the cave so that Eiro could talk to the elderly Orc about a few other things that he wanted to know, but didn''t feel like sharing with those two.


    Nelli, Gondos and Sarius spent all their time with Eiro, so they would end up seeing this side of him anyway, but Eiro wanted to try and hide it from others for a bit longer. He felt pathetic when others saw him like that, after all.


    "Are you feeling alright?" Eiro asked as he looked at the old man. He could already tell that the Orc''s internal organs were slowly going to fail not too far from now. It was a wonder that they even managed to hold on for this long in the first ce.


    ???As good as you can when on the verge of death." The Orcughed quietly, before looking deep into Eiro''s eyes, "Could I ask you something too, after all that I revealed to you?"


    "Of course you can. It would be unfair if not." The Demon said bluntly. With a deep breath, the Orc tried to bring out enough energy for this conversation, "Why did you... lie to them for me?"


    Eiro of course immediately knew what the Orc was talking about. This was in regards to the fact that he didn''t tell the others that this Orc was the one that killed those in the vige. The Demon thought for a little while, but he didn''t really know why he did this in the first ce. Even he could only guess.


    "Maybe... It''s just because I have a soft spot for old men and children?" Eiro suggested, "You kind of remind me of the man that practically raised me into the being that I am now. Although... That sounds rather cold, doesn''t it?"


    With an awkwardugh, Eiro scratched the back of his head, "In other words, you remind me of my father. He''s one of the people that I forgot basically everything about, but I still know things here and there. The way that he would look out the window from his chair every morning and evening, as if something was written on the lines of the horizon. The way he spoke, although you seem to insult me a whole lot less than he used to. And of course, the way that you''re secretive, and have more than the eye can see to you. My father wanted a peaceful death, and he certainly didn''t want me to resent him after his passing. I figured giving that to you might be a good idea."


    The elderly Orc looked at Eiro with a somewhat surprised expression, as he didn''t expect this sort of sentiment from a monster, a demon much less, "I remind you of your father, I see..."


    "But at the same time, while I do feel those things for you... At the same time, I''m disgusted by you." Eiro exined. The Orc didn''t seem very surprised by this fact. The Demon continued to speak with his fist formed into a ball, "You simply gave up. You were ''forced'' to kill those of your n? Don''t fuck with me. If you think there''s something shackling you to do something like that, I''d rather find any possible way to die rather than harm even a hair on the bodies of my loved ones. And I know you said that you couldn''t kill yourself, but we both know that there must have been ways. There are always clear loopholes in things like this that can be explooited somehow. But you? You just let it happen."


    Eiro, conflicted by his emotions, rubbed his fingers against his eyes. He didn''t know why, maybe because that short time disconnected him from everything, as if resetting him to an extent, but he was feeling certain emotions much stronger now than he ever did before. Or maybe this was just brought out by the ''Ultimate Domain of Truth''. Maybe this was Eiro''s true self. Someone that was way too whiny and emotional for their own good.


    He was good at hiding it, of course, but the mix of sadness when thinking of Jura and the anger when thinking of this Orc''s actions were affecting Eiro in a way that he couldn''t exin to even himself.


    "Thank you for being there for myst moments..." The Orc muttered quietly, "After seeing all myrades die, I thought I had ovee the fear of death... I know I may not deserve sympathy, but it is still quite scary, you see?" The Orcughed quietly, but Eiro chose to just stay silent.


    The Orc was right. He didn''t deserve any sympathy. But it wasn''t like Eiro was in any position to truthfully hate the Orc, given what the Demon had done in the past himself, and what he would continue to do without a moment''s hesitation.


    And after the waves of death-notifications flowed past the elderly Orc''s eyes, Eiro stared down at this corpse in front of him silently. He did feel hatred for the Orc, even now. But he hated himself too, so maybe it was alright.


    Eiro stood there and watched the Orc slowly sink into himself, as this being that just lived seconds ago was now dead all of a sudden.


    And for the first time that Eiro could vividly remember, tears flowed down this Demon''s cheeks as he remembered the death of his father.

 Chapter 328 - Leaving For Lognir

    Eiro woke up in the morning, ready to continue the trip to see find the Dragon of Truth, Solomon''s familiar. The Demon had helped bury the elder''s bodyst night after he had passed away, and then proceeded to check on the current housing of the Orcs to make sure they werefortable.


    But now, there was not much that he had left to do. Armodeus apparently already woke up to get the carriage ready, excited to truly see it in action, and the Demon didn''t let him wait too long. As Eiro stepped out, he rubbed his hand over Lugo''s snout to tell him to wake up, while Bavet slithered up Eiro''s leg in snake-form to then sit on his shoulder in the form of an eagle.


    Eiro didn''t know why, but it seemed like Bavet preferred being in animal or monster form rather than in the form of a person. But it was his choice, in the end.


    The Demon watched as different Goblins, Kobolds, and even some of the Orcs helped out bring certain materials to the carriage, loading them in. They were mostly Magic Stones for Eiro, although the majority of those that were mined here were kept for the vige itself. There were also a couple of ores that Armodeus was rather interested in. Beside that, a little bit of meat from a recent hunt as well as some vegetables from the fields that the Goblins started a while ago.


    And waiting right in front of the carriage were the three chiefs of this Monster Vige. Gobo, Kitsue, and the Orc child, Habojugikatsuge, or ''Boju'' as a nickname. Gobo still didn''t seem all too happy about being left with the Kobolds, although he seemed to have already gotten close with Boju, which made Eiro rather d to see.


    Kitsue seemed surprisingly infatuated with Gobo, however, while she was hesitant about epting Boju and the other Orcs, while Boju himself was happy speaking with Gobo and felt a bit guilty when faced with Kitsue.


    These three had a ratherplicated dynamic, but Eiro figured that they would slowly get over it. He knew Gobo''s personality quite well, so while he was being angry with Kitsue right now, after a while, they would get closer and Gobo would lose that anger.


    "Anything that you three want to tell me before we leave?" Eiro asked. Gobo immediately nodded his head and responded with the only thing that he thought to be right in this situation.


    "Have safe travels, Master. I wish you great sess on your quest to recover your memories with the great Dragon of Truth." The Hobgoblin said as he slightly bowed forward. With a slightly awkward, wry smile, Eiro looked back at him, "Of course, I''ll try my best. Thanks, Gobo. I''ll try to bring you a souvenir."


    With a slightugh, Eiro looked down at the Orc Child, who he wanted to give something for now already. While Boju knew Common amazingly well already, he never had the chance to really read a book before. So, Eiro gave him a couple that he could read through, both to find out things about the world beyond the Vige and to simply get a little bit of experience with thenguage beyond that what the system told it.


    Of course, conversing with Gobo, Kitsue, and the others capable of speaking Common would help with that quite a bit as well.


    "Th-Thank you!" Boju eximed, "I will treasure them!"


    Eiro smiled softly as he ced his palm onto the Orc''s head, "It''s fine, you don''t need to treasure them. I''ll bring you with me to my Manor someday, where I''ll let you read any book in my library you want."


    Boju looked down at the book in his hands while deep in thought, "Wh-What is a library..? I know the word, but..."


    "A library is a room or building with lots and lots of books inside." Gobo said, happy that he was able to teach Boju something as well. It seemed like the young Orc was rather excited about that concept, considering how excited he was about the single book that he was already given to read.


    Eiro smiled as he slowly turned around, heading toward the front of the carriage with the others gathering around the vehicle. Even now, Armodeus was still trying to improve upon the carriage a little bit, although it was already amazing as it was.


    "You know we have to leave now, right?" Eiro pointed out, and the elder Dwarf turned toward him with a light smirk, "I know, I know. But first tell me. What do you think?" Armodeus asked. With a slightugh, Eiro nce at the carriage for a moment.


    There were runes written all over it now, although they were mostly quite well hidden. On the outside, the carriage really didn''t change all too much, except the rare rune that was carved into it, exposed outwardly.


    He recognized some of the runes on the wheels from that high-tier carriage that Solomon lent to him before, and different sorts of gems were ced all over it.


    But the most important part was of course the way that the different magic stones were used to improve upon the carriage directly. The few Gravity Magic stones that Eiro had given to Armodeus were used in two ways. One, in order to lighten the weight of the carriage itself, with a few twists that Armodeus didn''t want to tell Eiro yet. And two, they were directly fused with the horseshoes that the horses had on their feet, while also being ced onto their foreheads with the help of their restraints.


    Eiro could also see a few threads woven into their hairs, which is probably how Armodeus properly created the array, which seemed rather incredible to Eiro. Either way, these things ced onto the horses made it so that they themselves were also a lot lighter, while each of their steps had a lot more pushing force behind it.


    This would increase their speed and stability on the road manyfold. Armodeus even hinted at the fact that he was making something simr for Lugo, so that the Stag would be able to travel much, much faster than before as well.


    On top of that, the Metal Magic Stones were used quite impressively as well. For one, they were used to reinforce the wheels of the carriage, while also being turned into some sort of ''instant defense system'' in case they were caught off guard while Eiro was busy.


    To Eiro, it seemed like Armodeus added something extra to the wheels and axles of the carriage to make thefort a little higher. This would certainly make trips with the children a lot easier in the future.


    And so, Eiro slowly climbed onto the front of the carriage while Armodeus scooped over to the side. Lugo was already walking a bit ahead while Bavet climbed onto the roof of the carriage, sitting there in his eagle-form.


    "I think it''s about time we leave." Eiro smiled as he looked at the monsters that gathered around them for this. Now that Armodeus was properly rxing for the first time in this vige, now that he properly finished up improving upon this carriage, that ''rxation'' seemed to stop rather quickly again. After all, it''s been a while since Armodeus was surrounded by this many monsters. And even if these ones weren''t actually all too aggressive, it was still a weird thing that was hard to get used to for him.


    Eiro understood that, of course, which is why he didn''t hesitate to start driving the carriage forward toward the exit along these roads that he was fixing with his Earth Magic, of course assisted and amplified through Gondos.


    They made their way through the tunnel as Eiro waved at the others one more time. And this time, once he made his way to the other side of this cave-tunnel, Eiro closed the cave uppletely using earth magic. Considering that this Monster Vige now had some more skilled Earth Mages, there was no reason to keep this entrance exposed for random people to find it.


    Until Eiro held a little bit more political power within this country, beside just being friends with Solomon, he didn''t want to expose the existence of this ce to others. Maybe after he won the tournament in the future, he might be able to use his influence to say that this ce was his own personal ''training grounds''. That would keep people from approaching this ce unwarranted, at least.


    But until then, Eiro would keep this ce a secret from as many people as possible. Although even then, that was not what was really on Eiro''s mind right now. The thing that he was thinking of was meeting Lognir, the Dragon of Truth.


    That would be the first time that he would see a monster like that. One that came from a truly legendary race of monsters from even the lowest point. The most lesser of dragons were seen as great beings, even. But while most lesser Dragons were usually monsters, true Dragons were most likely Magic Beasts, as little sense as that made. Some people even said that they might not even be rted to each other at all.


    Eiro was more than curious about the truth of this situation, beside just the fact that he would hopefully end up remembering quite a lot of things that he ended up forgetting. He could very well be excited for both at once, couldn''t he?


    Either way, the Demon figured that for the next little while, they would end up having to keep travelling toward the nest of the Dragon, that luckily wasn''t all too far away anymore.


    If it wasn''t for the curvature of the horizon, he would probably be able to see the mountain where Lognir could be found these days from where Eiro was right now.


    But with this carriage, it wouldn''t take too long to get there. And really, the moment that they got back to nd instead of having to maneuver this mountainrange, the difference in the carriage and the horses became painfully obvious.


    They were travelling at speeds that regr horses would usually not be able to hope to achieve, and although they still had to take breaks periodically to make sure that the horses were rested enough, they still managed to proceed far quicker than they usually would be able to.


    And before Eiro knew it, he had to put his disguise back on as the small group entered the town at the bottom of the mountain that Eiro would now have to climb to meet Lognir.. Eiro stopped the carriage at a conventient ce as him and Armodeus made a n on how they had to keep on going.

 Chapter 329 - Lognir

    "Oi, Lad, d''ya really think it''s a good idea for me toe with you? We''re talkin'' about a dragon here, you know?" Armodeus pointed out, somewhat nervously as they ascended the mountain. Eiro turned his head around toward him as he furrowed his brows.


    "Of course, why shouldn''t youe? You''re with me as a guide. I have no idea what''s going to happen here, and memory-based magic is a rather fickle thing. If anything happens to me, I need you to be there to help me out." Eiro pointed out as if it was obvious, but Armodeus still had a few more worries about all this.


    "Even so, I-"


    "Armodeus." Eiro interrupted the elder Dwarf, "I''ll try to convince Lognir to give you some Dragon-Scales to work with if you keeping with me withoutining."


    The craftsman stared up at Eiro and then clicked his tongue. He knew that he didn''t get many chances to work with materials like that, even if he was the ''Craftsman King''. These materials were just so rare that even Armodeus had a tough time getting his hands on them.


    "Aye, fine." The Dwarf grumbled quietly, while Bavet whispered into Eiro''s ear in the form of a snake, "Heh, you''re really a People-Demon, huh?"


    "Shut it." Eiro said with a wry smile as he slowly turned around to make sure that Lugo was properly managing to climb up this steep rock-wall. Well, it wasn''t all that steep at the end of the day, considering that Eiro and Gondos were constantly manipting the rock around them to create a path they could travel up with the carriage, but it was still a little bit more steep than regr roads were.


    But well, Lugo managed it just fine, as Eiro had expected, so he turned his attention back onto what was in front of him while Gondos got rid of the path so that they couldn''t get any pursuers.


    The only thing that was worrying Eiro right now was that it was incredibly easy for some people in the town at the foot of the mountain to see this carriage if they had even half-decent perception. It would be troublesome if someone tried to follow them. Well, even if that were to happen, considering that there was a dragon at the top of this mountain, Eiro really didn''t worry much.


    For the next couple of hours, Eiro and the others travelled up this slope created by magic, until they finally reached a somewhat t tform at the peak that he ttened so that they could take a break and walk around a bit. The horses had to rest a bit as well.


    Eiro kept looking around before pulling his hand to the side, grabbing something in the middle of the air. When he pulled his hand back, he was holding a scroll. Once he opened it up, it revealed a simple map on it.


    "Something wrong?" Nelli asked, although she, Gondos and Sarius were already aware that something was off, at least. Hearing the words of the Naiad, the already worried Armodeus turned toward Eiro with a frown, "Wait, what''s going on,d?"


    "...Nothing, that''s the issue. There''s no doubt that this is the mountain that we''re supposed to head up, but for some reason, I can''t sense anything at all. I thought maybe there would be some kind of barrier to keep the Dragon''s aura hidden, but that certainly isn''t the case either." Eiro muttered quietly.


    Bavet slithered down Eiro''s arm to get a closer look at the map himself, "Did Solomon give us wrong info? Or maybe they moved away from here?"


    "...No, that certainly isn''t the case either. That would still leave a residue of aura here..." The Demon put the map away, back into his treasury, as he stared up at the rest of the mountain. Eiro pulled off his cloak and spread out his wings with a few ps, "I''ll just go take a look real quick. Nelli, Gondos, Sarius, stay here, I''ll let you know if something is wrong. Protect them if you need to."


    "Be careful." Nelli told Eiro, who simply nodded his head as he flew up the rest of the mountain to see if he would be able to find Lognir here somewhere. But even when he was standing at the literal peak of this mountain, there was nothing.


    "Urgh... Maybe this really was the wrong ce?" Eiro muttered quietly, as a voice entered his ears, "Maybe, that depends on what you''re looking for."


    "There''s supposed to be a Dragon up here, but-" The Demon started, replying to this voice as if it waspletely natural. But he managed to realize what was going on rather quickly, at which point Eiro made use of the trick he fought the Crow with before.


    He ''remembered'' the very instance before this one, and practically used it to freeze time to analyze the situation properly. But even though he did that, Eiro didn''t know what just happened. He didn''t sense anyone approach him in the slightest.


    But considering the situation... "Nice to meet you, Lognir." Eiro groaned loudly as he turned his head to the side. There, right next to him, stood a tall, handsome, mucr man. He had white-golden eyes and pupils in the form of slits. His hair in the same color as his eyes was unkempt and reached down to his tailbown.


    This man was wearing nothing but a pair of loose pants and a vest that barely covered any of his upper body, although that was probably the intention.


    "Oh? You could tell?" The man said with a broad smile, "As expected of the child that Solomon sent to meet me."


    Eiro looked Lognir up and down, trying to figure out what was happening right now. Lognir was standing right in front of him, but Eiro was barely able to sense him at all. It felt like this image would disappear with a single blink.


    "Seems like you''re keeping up pretty well with my Aura Suppression... This is rather extraordinary. To others, I''m practically invisible." Lognir said curiously as he leaned forward, but Eiro just rubbed the back of his head, "Rather, it''s weird that I can barely concentrate on you."


    "Is it, really?" The Dragon of Truthughed, "I''m thousands of years old, child. There''s no way I would let myself be caught by an overconfident brat."


    "...Right." Eiro grumbled quietly, "Anyway, could we head somewhere else? Is there a cave around? It seems like it''s going to snow soon."


    Lognir squinted his eyes as he looked at Eiro before raising his head, "The sky is clear, how do you..."


    "Did Solomon not tell you anything about me?"


    "He told me you were a Demon, but beside that? Nothing." The Dragon in human form pointed out, "But don''t dodge the question. How can you tell that it''s going to snow? I mean, I know it, but how do you know it?"


    Eiro crossed his arms as he thought about how to best exin it, "Well... Mostly because of the amount of water evaporating in the areas we travelled through,bined with the patterns of the flow of wind and the air temperature in this region."


    "...I see, so you do hold the Ultimate Domain of Truth within you after all. It took form in analysis for you, huh???


    "Partially, yes. But also in a few other ways. I can tell truths from lies more easily. Seeing through magic was always easy, but it''s even easier now if it''s meant to be deceiptful." Eiro exined, "But back to the cave thing again..."


    "Hm? Oh, right, we don''t want you feeble little Demon to freeze to death." Lognir smirked slightly as he turned around, ready to descend part of the mountain again, before Eiro said, "Actually, I can''t freeze to death. At least not with normal temperatures. I was blessed by the Lady of Winter."


    "...Excuse me? But you also hold a clear Domain of mes in you, so how-"


    "About that... I was also blessed by the Smander King before absorbing a Spirit Gateway that was connected to the elemental ne of fire. I think that''s what you might be sensing."


    Lognir stared at Eiro deeply before letting out a quiet sigh, "I''m gonna have to talk to Solomon about this. I have to take care of the kids, he can''t expect me to see him and not try to have fun..."


    "...I''m going to ignore this for now. Let''s just head down there, I don''t want the horses to get sick. And I have someone else with me that''s rather sensitive to the cold."


    Although it was more than obvious that Lognir wanted to question Eiro a little more about all of this, he figured that they would have more than enough time to do thatter on. And so, the Dragon and the Demon made their way down to the carriage, before Lognir led the along a path so that they could find the cave that they nested in these days.


    Soon, they reached a vertical wall, a practical cliff, where Lognir stopped. Before Eiro was able to ask what he was doing, the Dragon waved his hand to the side and the rock crumbled away, revealing that which was beyond.


    It was a simr effect as what Lognir himself had on him. None of the others were paying attention to Lognir himself. As the Dragon said, he was ''practically invisible''. He probably didn''t want others to see him in this form so easily, at least that''s what Eiro figured when looking at Lognir''s behavior and speech.


    But now that the cave was open, it took the others a few moments to truly notice it as well. Basically, they didn''t realize what was happening until Eiro drove the carriage through the entrance, and even the horses were hesitant to do it. Eiro simply stepped off and pulled them forward by hand, and once they were inside, they acted normally again.


    "...What exactly is going on? Where are we?" Armodeus asked with a deep frown, and Eiro smiled at him, "We''re in the Dragon''s nest, obviously."


    With a broad smirk on his face, Lognir stepped up in front of them. There was enough space to stop his transformation now. Lognir started being covered in particles of light that rose into the air from his skin and formed the shape of a grand,rge Dragon, reaching two dozen feet into the air just from sitting down like it was.


    "Indeed you are." Lognir said in a dignified tone. His voice sounded much deeper and louder than before, which obviously came from this new shape that his body took. His scales were in the same white-golden color as his hair was before, and his wingsid at the sides of his body softly.. It was a grand sight even from Eiro''s perspective, as all the others finally realized Lognir''s existence in front of him.

 Chapter 330 - Walking On Eggshells

    "I wee thee. Please, act like you''re at home. Meaning, respect this space and don''t break anything, you hear?" Lognir told everyone as Eiro just lightly smirked. The Demon turned his head toward Armodeus, who seemed rather keen on observing this legendary being in front of him a little bit more.


    "Sorry about him, he''s a Craftsman. He seems rather interested in your scales." Eiro exined, and the elder Dwarf turned his head with shock in his eyes, "E-Eiro, don''t tell him that!"


    "What? It''s true, he would have figured it out sooner orter anyway. It''s not like you''re doing much to try and hide it." Eiro pointed out, and Lognir started to chuckle softly.


    Although that ''soft chuckle'' was still loud enough to slightly hurt Eiro''s sensitive ears, "I figured it was something like that already. But do not worry, there''s no need to be scared. As long as you do not harm us or reveal our secrets to those outside of this cave, I do not mind giving you a few ''materials'' to work with."


    The Craftsman next to Eiro opened his eyes wide in surprise and excitement, "Really?!"


    "Of course. The scales that I shed are useless to me, but I know they are wondrous items to you folk. I just never had the chance to see anything made with them before, so as long as you agree to let me watch you work, I will give you whatever you desire that I can offer." Lognir told Armodeus, who honestly didn''t expect this sort of answer. Even Eiro didn''t think that something like this would happen.


    He heard from Solomon that Lognir was a kind-natured being, but this went even beyond that. It made Eiro wonder if Lognir was trying to hide some sort of grand objective.


    Please,e deeper within the cave, I wish to introduce you to mypanion. She can be rather fiesty sometimes, so I don''t want her to get surprised by our visitors." The Dragon slowly turned around and stepped deeper into the cave toward where the other dragons seemed to be.


    Now that they were inside of the cave, Eiro was able to sense them perfectly, although there was something that made Eiro think that something rather awkward might be about to happen.


    They stepped through a grand archway as they entered an area that looked to be some sort of ancient ruin, which would exin why this ce was chosen by Dragons to breed. And on the other side of the room, Eiro could see half a dozen of differently colored dragons. They were already simr in size to arge dog, although they only seemed to be a few weeks old at most.


    And amongst them sat a beautiful woman with long ck hair. She was wearing a ck and purple dress, but it was hard to exin her any further than that. It was as if every time Eiro blinked, small details about her were changing. Her hair wasying on her shoulder slightly differently, some details on the dress changed, and even the vibe she gave off slightly shifted.


    Eiro knew that this was happening as he looked at her, but when he tried to remember what she looked like before, but whenever he thought about it, it was always different. Even if he kept thinking about the same instance again and again.


    The Demon read a few different books about monsters before, obviously, and there was one sort of being that seemed to fit this sort of pattern.


    This sometimes happened to Monsters in the domain of Chaos. The Dragon of Truth, an aspect thatid in the overall domain of ''Order'', had a ''Dragon of Chaos'' as a mate. This... was rather interesting.


    But then, Lognir reacted in the way that Eiro figured he would, "K-Krista!" The Dragon eximed, "Why are you in your human form? I thought I told you we were expecting visitors!"


    The woman in ck raised her head to look at Lognir, before just softly smiling, rubbing her hand over one of the young dragons that were gathered around her, "Oh, I didn''t realize that it was this important~..." She replied bluntly,before Lognir let out a deep sigh. Quickly, his body was covered in particles of light again that soon gathered in front of him as Lognir turned back into his humanoid form, scratching the back of his head.


    "So, yeah... I was not going to show you this side of me, but I figured it''s toote now. My mate is a slight bit..." Lognir started, trying to find the right word to describe Krista, and Eiro quickly found one without needing to think for too long, "Unpredictable?" The Demon asked.


    Without hesitation, the Dragon of Truth turned toward Eiro and nodded his head, "Yes, that''s the exact right word! You feel it too, then?"


    "Of course I do... I can usually think up at least a couple usible scenarios of what might happen, but when I look at her... It''s that I can both seepletely unrealistic, illogical things, as well as nothing at all." Since that was a rather good exnation, Lognir crossed his arms with satisfaction, "Then your perceptive abilities must be extraordinary as well."


    "Of course. They''re some of the best around." Eiroughed quietly, before he turned his head to the side, seeing the even more perplexed Armodeus standing beside him. The eyes of the craftsman were not directly focused on Lognir, Krista, or the six newborn dragons, but rather on the nearly metallic shards that were gathered on a small pile in the corner of the room. With a nce, considering the shapes of some of these shards, it was easy to assume that these were the leftover shells of the eggs that these newborns hatched out of.


    Eiro looked at them somewhat curiously as well, considering that Armodeus was concentrating on them so much that he was nearly forgetting what kind of situation he was in, "Are those really that great? Can you even make something with literal eggshells?"


    The elder Dwarf turned his head toward Eiro with a broad grin on his face, "Ohd, don''t mistake these for the same sort of eggshells like those of a bird! They''re far more special than that! Armor, Potions, even some types of weapons can be created with them! But since Dragons only breed once or twice in their lifetime, it is even rarer toe ross these than a Dragon''s scales!"


    Eiro raised his brows curiously. He hadn''t heard of something like that before. Not like there was all too much information about such things avable to the general public. That it could be used for potions made sense, since sometimes the eggs of other beasts or monsters were used in potions as well, but that you could make Armor and Weapons out of it seemed a bit surprising to Eiro.


    He turned his head toward Lognir, who was staring back with a somewhat nk expression. The two locked eyes for a few moments, before the Dragon finally gave in, "Fine, he can have them. As long as he makes something out of them here in the cave."


    "I think that should be fine. We have everything we need for that with us right now." Eiro pointed out, and meanwhile Armodeus already basically ran toward the shards of the eggshells that wereying in the corner of thisrge room.


    "...Bavet, go y with the kids a bit." The Demon suggested, and the slime slithered over Eiro''s hand confused, "Wait, why do I have to-"


    "Just do it, please."


    "...Fine." Bavet grumbled before jumping off Eiro''s arm, quickly transforming into a wolf as he carefully walked over toward the Dragons. Meanwhile, Eiro and Lognir chose to start walking through the cave a bit as Eiro informed the Dragon of Truth of everything that he needed to know, including the specifics of the situation with Eiro''s memories, of course.


    The Dragon cupped his chin with his hand, deep in thought, "Yup, you should be able to remember it somehow. And I already have a pretty good idea for how you could achieve this."


    "And what would that be?"


    Lognir looked back at Eiro with a soft smile on his lips, "Simple. Meditation while I put you under an immense amount of mental stress. From the way you move, I can tell that you did a lot of physical training and practice to improve your raw abilities, but I doubt you do much beyond just reading for your mind. Am I right?"


    Eiro frowned slightly as he started to think, "That''s fair... I do spend a lot of my time doing mental exercises... but I guess it''s not enough at the end of the day."


    "Those abilities improve your ability toe to conclusions, correct? What about your memory? Did you do anything to practice for that?"


    "...I never really had to, and I''m not sure if that would work. For nearly my whole life, I had the ability to remember every single aspect of my past."


    "I understand the situation, I think." Lognir pointed out, "You''re reliant on that ability of yours. So just block it out for a little while and we do some memory-based training for you."


    Eiro looked back at Lognir, not really understanding what he meant, "...Block it out?"


    The Dragon looked back at Eiro with a slight squint, "You don''t know how to block your skills out? Wait, is that why you didn''t block your aura-output? You just can''t do it?" As if he was looking at a child, Lognir took a step back with a wry smile, while Eiro just red back, "Whatever it is you''re talking about, I don''t think it''s something normal. At least not as much as you think it is."


    "...You really don''t know how to block your aura? Are you a kid or something?"


    "...My next Evolution will turn me into a Supreme Being."


    "And you don''t fucking know how to block your Aura, what kind of dumbass are you?!" Lognir yelled out loudly, "Fine, then let''s do that first. We''ll work on basic Aura blocking, then work on blocking your ''Card'' abilities, since they are foreign anyway, and then we''ll work on blocking your regr abilities."


    Eiro was getting more confused the more Lognir was saying, until he finally understood what exactly he was talking about and what this would do for Eiro.


    "...If I manage to reach a level simr to yours when ites to this Aura-Blocking, I will be able to hide from regr people. It will be much easier to do my thing without worrying about being seen by random people."


    "Ah, that too.. But mostly, I think the boosting-effect might be useful for you in the long-term."

 Chapter 331 - Aura Manipulation

    "Concentrate." Lognir said in a loud,manding tone as he kept spiraling magic all around the Demon, "I said, concentrate."


    "I''m doing that, but you haven''t told me what to concentrate on yet." Eiro groaned in response. As if it was obvious, Lognir let out a sigh, "Isn''t it obvious? On your own aura. I''m teaching you how to manipte your order, what do you think I''m going to have you concentrate on? Your feet?"


    Eiro rolled his eyes, "No need to get so sarcastic about it. You didn''t exin anything about it and just told me to sit down and concentrate. You''re obviously trying to overwhelm my senses to make it easier for me to tune everything else out somehow, any I appreciate that, but you can''t expect me to figure out every little detail."


    The Demon stared at the Dragon in humanoid form in front of him, who just crossed his arms while tapping his foot on the ground, "Fine. I thought you were a prodigy or something, but I guess not."


    "...You''re really pissing me off."


    "Good." Lognir pointed out with a smirk, "You know, you''re right in that my magic is supposed to overwhelm your senses, and in part to give you clear things to focus on to tune them out once you get to that part, but that''s not all in the slightest. Mostly, I''m trying to annoy you. You see, our Aura is deeply connected with our emotions."


    "...I think I know what you mean. Especially when I feel angry, my Aura gets stronger." Eiro added, and Lognir nodded immediately, "That''s exactly what I mean. Depending on different emotions, your Aura will adapt and change. Anger makes it stronger so that those in front of you can feel your seething emotions. They will know you''re angry. Sadness spreads out further distances. That''s why there is this feeling of loneliness in houses where someone grieving lives. And when you''re annoyed... Your Aura fluctuates. It jumps around chaotically. That''s the best way for you to find what it feels like when you expand or contract your Aura."


    Eiro quickly understood what Lognir meant, and then realized that he should be able to do this rather easily. But maybe it was because of his deeply emotional self especiallytely that he wasn''t able to make use of this new part of himself.


    Both ''Edward'' the Demi-Lich and Lognir right in front of him were capable of manipting their aura so much that they seemed nearly invisible. ''Truth'' was a part of ''Order''. And if strong emotions can make it that your Aura bes stronger, weak emotions can make it that your Aura bes weaker. With ''Order'' it might be possible for Eiro to sort out his emotions and control his Aura until it is weakened so much you don''t notice him.


    "Ah... I think I don''t need all this noise anymore... I figured it out." The Demon said quietly to himself as he pushed out arge gust of mana, interrupting the magic of Lognir that was still twirling around Eiro.


    Lognir crossed his arms a bit surprised to hear this statement, "Is that so?" He asked, knowing that Eiro was telling the truth. The Dragon stared at Eiro as the Demon himself explored a certain few memories. A few memories that should be able to help him out, after all, Eiro figured that most of what was happening there was that his Aura was practically disappearing.


    And without any Aura at all, even the world itself would be unable to sense him. And with a ''negative Aura'', it would directly avoid him.


    The Ace of Cups. The potion of invisibility. If Eiro could emte what his body felt like while drinking the potion, he should be able to at least somewhat pull in his own Aura. The Demon dove into his own mind and went through the process again and again and again, until he finally was able to grasp it.


    And it only took a couple of seconds. Eiro''s aura was like a thin film around his body. All that he had to do was to slowly pull that film into his body, as if he was fusing with it. It wasn''t an ''Aura'' anymore, rather, it was just his own body.


    Surprised, Lognir raised his brows as he looked down at the Demon sitting there cross-legged, "You... Really did do it. Huh. That''s surprisingly quick. What you did now was to basically turn yourself into a ''weakling''. Strong people will notice others that are strong instantly through their Aura. It''s built up by all your stats and experience that you gathered over the years. Now, you look like a below-average, regr person while out and about. Nobody will particrly pay attention to you, because you don''t have anything that sticks out. Well, if you can look somewhat normal, at least."


    Eiro slowly pushed himself off the ground, trying not to lose his concentration with the current state of his Aura.


    "Bavet." The Demon said, holding his hand out to the side. In bird-form, the slime quickly flew over to him, "You mean we should do ''that''?" Bavet asked.


    "Yup. Just to test it out some. Try and turn my wings into a jacket of sorts, and my tail into a belt." Eiro suggested, "And this time, don''t make it look so... ''High ss''. Make me look more inconspicuous."


    Annoyedly, Bavet turned his bird-head away, "Everybody''s a critic these days."


    "And what, you''re an artist? Please, just do it. I want to see what I could use to walk around cities now." Eiro suggested, and the slime quickly fell apart. The actual slime covered Eiro''s whole body, mostly concentrating on his wings, tail and horn. Eiro absorbed this slime as if fusing with it, before Bavet''s core was pressed into the center of Eiro''s chest.


    Slowly, his skin changed color and became like that of a human. His horns became hair, his wings became a jacket that was ced around his torso, while his tail became a thin belt keeping his pants up.


    "There we go. That looks good, right? Nelli." The Demon smirked as he looked down at himself, while Nelli appeared with a wry smile, barely stopping herself fromughing as she created water for Eiro to manipte.


    Eiro froze the water and turned it into something like a natural mirror by changing the thickness of the water and how cold he froze it in different ces. And then, he realized why Nelli was smirking. Sure, Bavet turned Eiro''s horns into hair, but he didn''t change their color. Which is why Eiro was now standing there with rainbow hair.


    "Bavet. How is this inconspicuous?" He asked, before a mouth formed on the Demon''s left palm, "Oi, shut up. You can''t expect me to get everything perfect immediately after demands like that. Also, it doesn''t look that bad!"


    "I know it doesn''t look ''bad'', there''s little difference to my horns. I love my horns, so I do like this hair quite a bit... But that doesn''t change the fact that people don''t usually have hair like that. Make it blond or brown. Just something that doesn''t stick out."


    The slime clicked his tongue as Eiro''s hair changed color and turned into something more natural, "Alright. There we go. What do I look like?"


    "...Like a really boring, average person. Maybe you should try to make the clothes look a bit cheaper though. To fit in with your weak aura. Not like a beggar of course, but not that high-quality." Nelli suggested quickly, and Bavet swiftlyplied. At least the belt and jacket turned a little, tiny bit worse in materials and quality, and since Eiro''s pants and shirt were rather straightforward and simple anyway, the Demon looked much more... normal than before.


    "That is rather... Interesting. You really just look like a person." Lognir pointed out a bit surprised, "I think if you practice a bit more, do whatever you need to in order to be able to keep this aspect of Aura maniption up, you should be good. Let''s move on to another aspect, shall we? The one where you don''t seem ''normal'' but rather where you blend in with the world around you."


    Hearing these words in this specific way, Eiro realized that this was something he should have learnt much, much earlier. After all... it was what the puppet was doing when Eiro was searching for it. It was blending in with its surrounding directly.


    "...And how is that done?" Eiro asked while Lognir smiled, happy to exin everything to him, "I''m curious to see how well you''ll be able to manage¡äthis part. Instead of pulling it into yourself, you have to spread your Aura out to be as thin as possible. Usually, you always have a high concentration of aura within you, so even while you''re sad, you are obviously still noticeable. But what you need to do is to spread your aura out thinly all the way across, the edges need to have the same concentration as in any ce within you. That is how you hide yourself in the world."


    "...Why is it that to seem more ''average'', I have to concentrate it within me, but to be less noticeable, I have to spread it out around me?" Eiro asked, since he was obviously genuinely curious.


    "That''s simple. A grain of sand at the beach is easily hidden, but you can still focus on them singrly if you need to. But when you''re not paying attention to the sand in particr, you barely take it in at all. The sand is just there. And if you pay attention to something, it would be the sand itself, not a single grain of sand. Amongst crowds, either should be fine to hide you. But in nature, it is best to hide yourself by bing a part of nature itself." Lognir exined to Eiro, who quickly understood the concept after that exnation.


    What you had to try was to fuse into your surrounding. Eiro had to try this out, then. It was part of ''stealth'', surely. So, Eiro quickly went ahead and started to try and spread his aura out after disconnecting from Bavet.


    He tried to spread it thinly, as if pushing the aura further away by letting out a little bit of it out of his body at a time. Like that, the Demon soon managed to spread his aura out thinly around him, and Lognir quicklyplimented him for this fact, "Well, maybe I was wrong. You might be a prodigy after all... At this point, it''s all about practice. Keep doing this and you''ll get better at it over time. Now, let''s move on to-"


    "No, not yet." Eiro said quietly as he slowly tried something out. He fused his aura with the air around him using magic as a ''bridge'' of sorts.. And just like that, Eiro figured out how to hide just like the puppet can.

 Chapter 332 - Destiny

    "Now, that''s a surprise. That was something I didn''t even n on teaching you." Lognir pointed out with his arms crossed, surprised that Eiro was able to seemingly quite easily fuse his aura with the air around him, "You really do have quite impressive abilities."


    Eiro slowly let go of the control over his aura, returning to normal just a few seconds afterward, "Thank you. Although at the end of the day, I would say I just got lucky with a lot of it. Many coincidences that built up over time."


    Lognir smiled lightly as he shook his head, "That''s what you may think, but I wouldn''t be so sure about that. You have something special within you, something that is part of the flows of destiny. You were brought to all the ces where you needed to be, and then with your own power, you grasped at those chances and used them for your own benefit."


    Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what he should think about that sort of point of view, since he didn''t even know if ''destiny'' was truly a thing in this world. It seemed possible, of course, but it wasn''t something that Eiro particrly believed in. Or wanted to believe in, even. After all, a concept that was based on the fact that you had less free will than you thought at first, with everything being predetermined. The concept itself made Eiro feel somewhat powerless, and that was a feeling he enjoyed the least out of everything that he had experienced in this life so far.


    "It is nothing to worry about at all. ''Destiny'' as a concept isn''t anything all that powerful. You are within a certain stream of it currently, but that ''stream'' practically just controls the things that happen in the world around you. You have the power to stop within the stream, to do twirls and tricks, and you can even step out of it to walk on your own path if that is what you wish. There are only a few things that cannot be changed within destiny." Lognir exined, and Eiro quickly grew curious what he was talking about exactly.


    And since Eiro was going to be taking a short break to collect his thoughts forter anyway, it was a good idea to just talk to Lognir about this a bit more, "And what would those things be?"


    "Of course, the simplest answer to that is ''that which has already happened''. The past cannot be changed, no matter how hard you attempt so. Then there are certain events of importance within the life of every living creature, that are determined the moment they are born. Such things can take any possible form. Usually, there are just two such ''Fixed'' events in one''s own stream of Destiny. There is of course the ''Birth'' of that being, and the ''Peak'' of that being."


    "...Peak? Do you mean ''Death''?" Eiro asked, but Lognir immediately shook his head, "Of course not. Death is something that even Destiny has no control over. You could die right now of your own choice, or in ten years through the hands of another being." The Dragon exined.


    "Of course, depending on the time of your death, you may not have experienced your true ''Peak'' yet. Your ''Peak'' is the moment that has most impact within your life. Something that shakes up your whole being, and something that may cause you to change forever. Or, it is something that simply strengthens your beliefs and sets in stone what kind of being you are."


    Eiro thought about this exnation for destiny. It seemed like it really was a force that existed somehow, but Eiro had seen it in the wrong light this whole time.


    "Is there any way to figure out what my ''Peak'' is supposed to be?" Eiro inquired, but Lognir shook his head, "There is not. You can make guesses, but there''s nothing that definitively tells you what your ''Peak'' is."


    "I see." Eiro muttered quietly to himself, before Lognir walked up to him and ced his hand onto the Demon''s shoulder, pulling him toward the other side of this room they were in, "Come on, let''s take a bit of a break. We can keep on goingter. Maybe try to manipte your aura a little more into different patterns, and then we''ll start with ''Ability Maniption''. Sound good?" The Dragon suggested.


    Eiro didn''t really have anything against that idea, so he simply nodded his head in response. The two of them, with Bavet on Eiro''s shoulder, made their way from this room to the one where the other dragons currently were, and where Armodeus was inspecting the materials that he was given to work with. He was also just trying to figure out what exactly he could make with the scales and eggshells that wouldn''t be disrespectful to the Dragons in any way.


    But since he wasn''t working on anything yet directly, Eiro figured he should check on Lugo for a little bit. He walked up to the stag and swiftly squatted down in front of him, rubbing the top of his head with a smile on his face, "You doing okay, bud?" Eiro asked. With a loud bellow, Lugo opened his eyes and replied.


    "I''m d to hear that. But also, I''m a bit surprised that those kids don''t scare you." The demon pointed out with a quietugh, and Lugo turned his head toward the newborn dragons and responded with another bellow, albeit one that was a fair bit more quiet than the one before that.


    "Sure, you''re my super brave familiar." Eiro said, somewhat passively patronizing Lugo in the process, but the Stag didn''t seem to catch onto that and instead just formed a smug expression on his face.


    Seeing Eiro interact with Lugo in such a way, Lognir looked at the two with a curious expression and asked, "What kind of being is he?"


    Eiro turned his head toward Lognir a bit surprised, "What do you mean?"


    "I was asking what kind of creature he is. What else could I be asking? He certainly isn''t a monster, but he''s not just an animal either. And I would recognize another magic beast when I see it. So I will ask again. What kind of being is he?"


    "...So it really is like that. When I first met him, until not even too long ago, his status seemed to be that of just any other animal. But then, he happened to eat a Nature Magic Stone and suddenly gained a level."


    "He ate a Magic Stone? And absorbed it within himself?" Lognir asked, near to shocked to hear something like this, "...Hearing this... Maybe this creature is a Divine Beast?"


    "Do Divine Beasts have the ability to absorb Magic Stones?"


    "Not inherently, no. But a Divine Beast is a creature in possession of ''Levels'' despite not originally having them. A creature blessed by divine beings. They usually have abilities that are unique to only them."


    "But how would Lugo gain a random blessing from a Divine Being? And it doesn''t show up as a blessing on his status either." The Demon pointed out, and Lognir smiled softly as he exined, "Of course, it may not make sense directly. But perhaps it is a gift meant for you? Something of divine nature would have certainly killed you instantly. So instead, it went to your familiar, the being closest to you."


    Eiro looked at Lugo intensely, but he wasn''t really sure if that exnation made sense to him. He didn''t do anything that was deserving of a blessing from a divine being. He didn''t even directly deserve the blessings from the Spirit King and Queens that he got. Especially considering the fact that Eiro was most likely seen as nothing but a creature of mass-ughter by those in the heavens.


    He didn''t particrly feel any connection to a certain deity either. Although he believed in their existence of course, considering that they literally used to walk on this world, using their divine powers for anything they wanted, he never spent a moment in his life praying to them. He never even spoke about them with anyone before.


    So it just didn''t make sense. And on top of that, during the short period of time that Eiro had been affected by the rebound of his boosted ''Holy Energy Resistance'' skill, he felt the flow of Holy Energy everywhere around him even without needing to try. And while Eiro felt some Holy Energy in everything else, the only two ces where there was quite literally ack of it was within Eiro, and within Lugo.


    And surely, a blessing from a deity would leave behind at least a little bit of Holy Energy within Lugo.


    "I''ll try and figure something out. When I do, I may juste visit you, or we''ll happen to see each other when youe back to Solomon in the future."


    Hearing this, Lognir raised his brows a bit and exined "Ah, that reminds me... Solomon informed me of some sort of tournament that is going to unfold in the capital in roughly half a year. I will being to observe that together with Solomon, to make sure no trickery is happening. I promised him that. Of course, I do also miss that child sometimes."


    Eiro quietly chuckled within himself, hearing Solomon be called a child, before Eiro looked back at Lognir, "I''m actually going to take part in that tournament myself. Solomon asked me to a while ago, after I exined to him that I killed <The World>."


    "...You what?" Lognir asked, "You killed <The World>? Wasn''t that creature sealed up for a long time?"


    "Yeah, it was, but I happened to identally cause the seal to be destroyed, and then I killed <The World> and became the candidate for the next <The World>. After my next evolution, I would assume that I will be able to safely activate that card."


    "That is quite interesting indeed... A royal that willpete to be part of the Hero''s party. I can''t wait to see that happen."


    "Me neither, although I think there is something that you should know about that..." Eiro started, before he exined the rest of his n that he was going to work on in the future, and Lognir just stood therepletely perplexed. Of course, Armodeus, who now heard of this for the first time, reacted absolutely shocked himself.


    "You are going to kill <The Devil>, steal back the ''Key that can open anything'', to then steal the part that makes the ''Hero'' actually the ''Hero'', before going to kill the Monster King. And because you are a Monster, you would be the next Monster King yourself, while still being the ''Hero''."


    "That''s about it, yeah."

 Chapter 333 - Order In Chaos

    "Imagine the two cards you have within you. But not their physical form, but rather, their ''magical'' form, if you wish to call it that. Imagine the power they bestow upon you in the form of a physical, tangible thing." Lognir said in a clear tone while Eiro was meditating on the ground. The Demon did as told, although this step wasn''t particrly tough yet.


    It was simr to handling certain sorts of magic, so it wasn''t really that bad. But the point of this was to get to the source of the ''card vibe'' that other card holders could feel, so that Eiro could filter it out of his aura. That way, even when he would let others see his regr strength, he could still hide the fact that he was a card holder himself, just like that Crow monster was able to do back then.


    He didn''t know how much of an advantage that would be, but it wouldn''t hurt to have as an ability. And on top of that, if Eiro was able to figure out what that ''vibe'' truly was that he could sense through the aura of other creatures, he might be able to sense it even if they are trying to hide it. After all, Eiro''s perception was second to none, or so he hoped at least, so if someone would be able to sense it, it would be Eiro.


    The Demon could quickly turn the two Card powers that he had at all time, the <Ultimate Perception> and the <Ultimate Domain of Truth>, into something like a phyical mass within his mind, although that ended up being just in the form of two spheres that Eiro roughly connected a certain ''meaning'' to.


    "First, you will nowpare these two masses and figure out their simrities and their differences, while also ocmparing them to your own aura. That way, you should be able to figure out the ''Vibe'', as you call it, that is hidden within your aura." Lognir tried to guide Eiro through the whole process, while the Demon slowly nodded his head in response to the Dragon''s words.


    "Mhm..." Eiro mumbled quietly, before doing just that. He looekd at these two spheres, trying to grab them to feel if they had a texture. But no matter what Eiro did... While he was able to visualize them in his mind, that was it. He wasn''t sure if he was able to truly pull forth the abilities themselves. They had be so deeply ingrained within him that it was tough to split them from all his other abilities.


    Seeing that Eiro was struggling, Lognir ced his hand onto the Demon''s head, "Don''t worry, go at your own pace. You don''t have to master this art instantly. Rather, it would be more surprising if you could. But here, let me put a bit of ''order'' into your mind."


    Eiro felt a slight heat enter through his scalp before the mental images that he was seeing suddenly became more clear, as if they were truly two orbs floating in front of him. He remembered this feeling, that felt like all that wasn''t supposed to be there simply vanished from his thoughts as he managed to focus on that which he wanted to.


    "Thank you." The Demon said gratefully, before opening his eyes anyway. He wouldn''t be able to proceed like this, even though the images became clearer, that didn''t change the fact that they didn''t be true physical masses within Eiro''s mind.


    Lognir took a step back and crossed his arms, deep in thought, "We can not truly proceed in any way before you mastered this. I think you should practice a bit more and then we can revisit this." The Dragon suggested. And although Eiro was a bit annoyed by this, since he wanted to get through this as quickly as possible to get all of his memories back, Eiro would rather finish it right now.


    But obviously, that wasn''t possible yet. It was annoying. Really, really annoying. As Eiro was thinking, he closed his eyes, deep in thought over what he was supposed to do in order to get this done.


    Just as the Demon was thinking, he could hear the clumsy steps of a young creature get closer to him. As Eiro opened his eyes again, he could see one of Lognir''s six children sitting on the ground in front of him curiously. All of Lognir''s children were technically different species of Dragon, as little as that makes sense.


    Lognir exined the reason to Eiro before. His mate, Krista, was a Chaos Dragon. She was practically oozing chaos, which made it nearly impossible for both Lognir and Eiro to figure out what she was going to do next, it went that far.


    Usually, if a Chaos Dragon mated with another sort of Dragon, it would mostly end up being a Chaos Dragon as well, albeit sometimes with slightly differing abilities to each other. But in this case, since Lognir as a Dragon of Truth, he brought ''Order'' into Krista''s ''Chaos''. That was why all of these children seemed to have a different overall Draconic Race. One was a Storm Dragon, another was a Frost Dragon, and the others were Fire, Rock, and Poison Dragons. And then, there was the one that just walked up to Eiro. The Demonic Dragon.


    It had tworge horns on its head and the sharpest ws of the bunch. Also, its wings were the most pronounced already. Eiro squatted down toward it and rubbed the top of its head, before Lognir chuckled quietly, "Seems like Jhir took a liking to you. Well, that was to be expected."


    "Was it? I thought maybe Hargo and Migna would be interested in me. I''m not really the prime example for a Demon." Eiro pointed out, referring to the Frost and Fire Dragons that were also somewhat looking over in the Demon''s direction. The others weren''t interested at all, though.


    "Why''s that? You look rather Demonic to me." Lognir exined, and Eiro slightly squinted his eyes in thought, "Did... I not tell you about that yet?"


    The Dragon of Truth''s smile immediately dropped as he stared back at Eiro, "...Tell me about what?"


    "One of the children I''ve been raising for the past seven to eight years is the Holy Priestess. And of course, the bit about me nning on bing the Hero, and all."


    "...Right... Err... Anything else you want to tell me before we continue?"


    "I don''t think so. I told you everything important so far." Eiro exined as he continued rubbing over this newborn Dragon''s snout, "Either way, he''s a cute one. It''s nice when they''re still this cuddly... I have to savor that with my two youngest." The Demon added.


    "Eh. Isn''t it better if they''re independent quickly so you can do your own thing?"


    "In what world is that true? Sure, I mean, it''s good if they are independent at some point. But it''s mostly good for them, not necessarily for... you. To you, they''ll always be little kids, and you''ll want to take care of them. No matter how impressive they are even at a young age. My oldest never really seemed like a kid at all, so he was the first one to want to go off and do his own thing every once in a while. But even then, I worry about him and make sure that he''s alright when I''m not around."


    Lognirughed slightly, "Yeah, but your children aren''t literal Dragons."


    Eiro let out a deep sigh, "True, but for example, one of my kids is literally invulnerable. That doesn''t mean bad things can''t happen to him. He might go through some tough times, and who knows if he''s going to truly be invulnerable forever? Let''s say he was a Dragon. ''Dragon yers'' are a thing. They''re rare, sure, but they can appear at any time. And I don''t think that all Dragons are on good terms. Being a little worried is never a bad thing."


    "You''re right, you''re not a proper Demon at all." Lognir said with a wry smile, "I guess... Maybe that would be a good way to look at it..." The Dragon looked at his child in front of him and squatted down, rubbing his back a bit.


    After a few moments, he finally realized something else, "Ah, I think I have an idea for how you could master that technique rather quickly after all."


    "And how is that?" Eiro asked curiously, and Lognir was about to open his mouth before another person stepped into the room, "Oi, Lad, Lognir, I''m ready to start workin'' now. Wannae watch?" Armodeus eximed.


    That was the deal, after all. Armodeus could only work with the materials he was given here if Lognir was watching him. Since the Dragon figured that Eiro should still take a bit of a break, he turned around and nodded his head.


    "Sounds like a good idea. Eiro, I will exin it to youter. For now, let''s watch your friend work."


    "Alright, fine." Eiro said with a slight sigh. Sure, he was curious, but as long as Eiro was able to figure out how to recover his memories during his time here, he would be fine. And he trusted Lognir when he said that he would be able to help Eiro. On top of that, it was still their first day here, they had plenty of time. ording to Lognir, they were already far ahead of the ''schedule'' that he had nned out, considering how quickly Eiro managed to manipte his aura sufficiently.


    The Demon stood up properly and followed Lognir to the room where Armodeus set up a rough workshop, while the Demonic Dragon was clumsily following Eiro, trying to catch up to him. But to Eiro''s surprise, Armodeus not only set up a ''rough'' workshop. He was able to somehow create a proper forge by shaping the rock wall and was using magic to set everything up. It was most likely some sort of special ability that let him set up a perfect workshop wherever he went.


    He even managed to get coals from somewhere, although Eiro had no idea where from. Maybe he also had a bit of a storage ability in his repertoire that he made use of. Either way, for now, Eiro was just watching as Armodeus ground up the eggshells that the Dragons hatched out of. Simr to how the Dragons were different species, the eggshells also had unique properties to each other that Armodeus wanted to make use of.


    After some of the eggshells had been ground up, the craftsman was just mixing them with other materials before melting them down, a process that pulled out certain metallic properties out of the shells.


    And this was exactly what Armodeus would use to craft some items.

 Chapter 334 - Metal Inset

    The Craftsman hammered down onto the hot metal that he created from one of the eggshells. Even Eiro could tell that they all had slightly different properties to each other, depending on which child''s egg they came from.


    Eiro wasn''t entirely sure, but considering that Armodeus preemptively split the metals up into smaller pieces made the Demon think that Armodeus already had specific ns for everything. Right now, he was working with the metal created from the Frost Dragon''s egg.


    It gave off a slightly chilly feeling, as if a cold breeze ran over Eiro''s skin. At first, the Demon wasn''t sure what exactly that metal was actually supposed to turn into. But for now, it didn''t even turn into anything yet. Armodeus was still just preparing all the different metals to work with themter on. He was even mixing some parts together, folding them into each other after heating them up, without actually evenly mixing them.


    It was as if there were waves being created between the Frost Dragon''s Metal, and the Fire Dragon''s Metal.


    It took a good while until Armodeus was satisfied with his preparation, and then the Elder Dwarf looked directly at Eiro, "Lad, I''m going to use all the recement-parts you made for your hand. Is that alright with you?" Armodeus asked, but Eiro was confused and didn''t expect to be asked this.


    And then, he connected the dots, "You''re making items for me?"


    "Something like that." Armodeus sighed, "I want to improve upon some of the pieces for your hand so that you can switch them out to strengthen some of yer spells. This metal ain''t strong enough for normal weapons. It can only be used to improve on other items, ya know? And since they''re highly magical, they should help yer spellcasting out. I also wanted to improve on your daggers, if that''s fine with you."


    Eiro looked back at the Dwarf in front of him and quickly nodded his head, "Of course. You''re the one that made the daggers in the first ce, so I trust that you don''t break them. And as for the parts for my wooden hand... What exactly do you have nned for them?" The Demon inquired.


    Without hesitation, Armodeus exined exactly what he was going to do in detail. The issue that Eiro had with this idea at first was that it might have messed up the state of the Prosthetic a little bit, stopping Eiro from using it to the same extent as before. But that would have only been the case of Armodeus were to rece full pieces.


    Instead, he would only carve certain patterns into its surfaces and fill them in with the different metals to improve the flow of certain sorts of magic within it. It was barely different to a piercing or a tattoo, so Eiro was absolutely fine with this idea. Rather, if he knew that this was an option, he would have asked Armodeus for it earlier.


    Eiro himself didn''t know how to handle metal, after all. The only sort of craft that he was capable with was Woodworking, beside that Eiro was useless when it came to craftsmanship.


    The Demon pushed himself off the ground and quickly made his way over to his carriage to go and grab the box that he had filled with different recement parts for his hand. He had three full sets ready on top of some more parts for areas that broke or wore down easily.


    But Eiro also had enough wood leftover toplete another set if he made use of those extra parts as well.


    "Armodeus, how many sets did you have in mind?" The Demon inquired, and the Craftsman turned over toward the metal he had prepared, "Four, for now." Armodeus said bluntly, so Eiro quickly nodded his head and grabbed the box that he kept everything in, bringing it over to the Craftsman.


    "I have three ready. I''ll finish a fourth while you''re working." Eiro suggested, and Armodeus swiftly nodded and looked at the pieces that Eiro properly arranged, before the Demon asked, "I''m going to guess that you know where all of them belong?"


    "Hah,d, you think yer talkin'' to some amateur? I can put somethin'' like this together in a quick minute." The Elder Dwarf winked with a smirk on his face. Eiro smiled lightly as he returned to sit next to Lognir, who stared at Eiro a bit surprised, "You are a Woodworker as well?"


    "Hm? Oh, yeah, I am. When I worked under my teacher... well, my father, rather, I was taught the way of the Prosthetist. I made this hand myself."


    Lognir raised his brows curiously, "Is that so? That is a rather interesting profession to choose... But you seem skilled, being able to create such beautiful prosthetics."


    "Thank you. My father created the first prosthetic I used after I lost my hand, and then he taught me for years to be able to do the same things he could. But I can''t say that I''m anywhere near as skilled as he was." Eiro pointed out as he prepared the pale blue wood in his hands so that he could work with it properly. The Demon snapped his fingers, and the door to the carriage opened up, "I''m sure you noticed it already. That is a puppet created by myte father. It was created to train me in different disciplines ofbat."


    "I see... Then your ''father'' must be a rather skilled Demon to be able to create this." Lognir pointed out, but Eiro turned toward him and shook his head, "My father wasn''t a Demon. My father was an elderly human that I met naerly eight years ago. He taught me, and he became like a father to me."


    "Well... Not that I didn''t expect something like that already, but it''s still surprising to actually hear." Lognir pointed out, and Eiro smiled lightly as he got out his tools as well. Eiro pulled out his Three of Swords and quickly started connecting it to specific tools, before he quickly started to carve into the wood that he was holding in his hands.


    Eiro managed to cut it apart rather quickly and the moment that Lognir turned back around from inspecting the puppet, he seemed a bit surprised, "You''re... Rather swift in your work."


    "Hm? Of course, this is nothing much. I''ve done it a couple of times before. And this wood is already like the rest of my body, so I can handle it even easier than other sorts. It was created using my own mana and some of my life force, after all." Eiro exined, "...Maybe I should go and see how that tree is doing... And maybe give it a bit more magic..." The Demon muttered to himself.


    He figured that it might be a good idea to do that. It''s been a while since then, and he did get quite a bit stronger and gained new sorts of magic as well. Feeding those to the tree should be a good thing for it. It should be deeply connected to Eiro anyway, growing alongside with him. He and the tree were connected in a simr fashion as Eiro was connected to Lugo or Nelli, Gondos and Sarius. He was connected in a way that went beyond the physical.


    Eiro continued to work with the wood that he was holding to create the pieces for the fourth hand, all the whilst Armodeus started to improve upon the parts that Eiro had already given him. Of course, Eiro wanted to keep a hand that wasn''t worked on at all just in case something went wrong with those metals, but he was still rather curious about the effect of those metals that were set into the wood.


    It didn''t take long until Eiro was able to finish up the pieces for the hand, and quickly ced them on the table that Armodeus prepared for himself.


    "There you go. I''m also going to put my daggers here. If you need anything else, just let me know." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, ncing at Armodeus as he slowly filled in the carvings that he created on the small pieces of wood. It was a bit weird to Eiro, the metal was so hot that it was literally glowing, but the wood wasn''t being burnt due to the Elder Dwarf''s incredibly careful work and the level of his expertise. And he did it without even much thought.


    It was as if Armodeus had more than two hands, with numerous more limbs growing from his back. Of course that wasn''t really the case, it just seemed that way. This man was truly worth the title of <King of Craftsmen>.


    Eiro heard that most people weren''t even able to follow the movement of Armodeus'' hands, considering that he had the card that gave him <Ultimate Dexterity>. And even Eiro could tell that this was something absolutely unachievable by this Demon, although Armodeus wasn''t even particrly trying. He was able to move his hands and arms to start doing one thing, and after a single blink, he already finished. The small pieces were being inscribed with everything one after another. And he was even holding back quite a bit.


    Either way, Armodeus was an incredibly impressive craftsman, more so than anyone else Eiro had ever seen before. When it came to craftsmanship, even in the field of woodworking, Armodeus was an objectively better craftsman than Jura was. But at the end of the day, Jura''s focus wasn''t only woodworking, but it was the creation of ''life'', basically. So in that regard, it somewhat made sense, even if it hurt Eiro to admit it.


    Especially Lognir, who had never seen Armodeus work before, was incredibly impressed. Especially because Armodeus was such a nervous wreck before.


    Soon, the Craftsman finished the first hand. It was one that had the Frost Dragon''s Metal set into it. Instead of recing Eiro''s whole hand at once, he wanted to see the basic difference to start it out with, and swiftly pulled some parts off of his own index finger that he reced with the ones Armodeus improved on just now.


    Eiro knew the level of his magic when he cast it normally, he remembered it perfectly, so it wouldn''t be hard to figure out any difference if he cast a spell like this.


    The Demon poured his Ice Magic into his index finger and pushed it out. Immediately, he could feel a difference. It wasn''t an immense difference, but it was most likely something that others would be able to see even without the Five of Pentacles.


    And once he cast the spell, a simple spell to lower the temperature of the air in front of him, he was sure that this ''improved prosthetic'' was something that would make Eiro''s magic even more potent.

 Chapter 335 - Aura Barrier

    Eiro looked at his slightly glittering right hand. The light that was created through Lognir''s magic to keep the ce lit up, as well as the mes from Armodeus'' forge, were reflecting off of the metal insets that were ced into Eiro''s prosthetic.


    Right now, he was trying to test out the full ''Frost'' set that was created with the metal that Armodeus pulled out of the Frost Dragon child''s egg.


    Switching out part of his index finger was already potent enough, but with his whole hand, the effect was at a whole other level. The power of other sorts of magic were considerably weakened, while ice magic was strengthened by quite a bit. And of course, Eiro was mainly testing this out through freezing water and lowering the temperature of the air, since casting full-on magic would be a bit reckless in a cave such as this.


    There was only one main issue with all of this. It was hard for Eiro to take his hand apart properly every time, and it would take him quite a while to do so. Sure, with his <Ultimate Domain of Truth> card, Eiro would be able to analyze a situation properly and prepare for it if he had time to think about it, but there were plenty of situations where Eiro simply didn''t have that time. Especially in the middle of a fight, it would be impossible to switch if Eiro made the wrong choice.


    Considering the enemies where the improved prosthetics would end up being useful or even necessary that Eiro might face in the future, he wouldn''t have the opportunity to switch out parts in his prosthetic. Which is why Eiro had to make a few changes to his current prosthetic.


    For the most part, the most important one was that Eiro needed to be able to switch out his prosthetics whole. For that, Eiro had to change the structure of his prosthetic around his wrist area so that he could pull the rest of the prosthetic off more easily, before putting a new one onto there.


    Luckily, that wasn''t all thatplex after Eiro removed all the parts of the prosthetic he was currently using and carved into the rest that remained on his arm, fused with his flesh. This was a part that Eiro couldn''t really remove that easily. It would be like cutting off a chunk of his flesh, something that Eiro didn''t particrly want to do.


    The Demon changed the structure a little bit and gave the few extra pieces that he ended up with to Armodeus so that he could put the metallic insets into them as well. But Eiro added some other parts to the ''base'' of his prosthetic as well.


    He added 10 small pins onto it. For one, they were part of what helped Eiro put the other parts into ce, and they were something that Eiro could ce the rings from the Three of Swords onto. Since the rings that the threads were connected to could be any size, Eiro figured it would be a good idea to try something out like this.


    Eiro activated the card and and watched as a ring appeared around five different ones of the pins, one ring each of course. Like this, Eiro might be able to fight a bit better even if something happened to his right hand, like it getting damaged or him getting surprised while he was repairing or cleaning the insides of his prosthetic.


    But beside that, the main thing that Eiro wanted to use these for was the thing that he tried out next. He moved the des toward the pieces of his prostheticying on the ground in front of him, connecting the threads to the different parts.


    Like this, the Demon was able to swiftly pull all of the parts into the right ce, steadily building up his prosthetic. For one, Eiro was able to increase the speed at which he was able to assemble and de-assemble his prosthetic by quite a bit.


    And just like that, Eiro had figured out a way to properly use this prosthetic, even within battle. He would be able to switch out small parts bit by bit.


    He would be able tobine different pieces of the four special sets to use certainbinations of magic a bit better. For example his sh-freeze, bybining the Frost-Set with the Fire-Set, heating water up to freeze it instantly.


    Eiro tested this out for a moment. The only thing that he had to do now was to figure out a way how to carry the different sets with him in an organized way. He wouldn''t be able to keep them with him using his treasury, after all. It could hold many different items, but each had to be one of a kind. Simr pieces of a set wouldn''t count. Sure, Eiro could probably put the whole prosthetic into his treasury, since he could properly acknowledge it as ''one item'', but that would also only count for one of the prosthetics. The others would need to be kept outside anyway.


    Well, Eiro would be able to figure something out sooner orter. For now, since the Demon yed around with these items a bit, while Armodeus prepared some other things, Eiro continued practicing his Aura maniption a bit more.


    First, he attempted the Aura ''Blocking'' a bit more, where he stopped Aura from moving outside of his body to seem weaker than he actually was. It seemed like there were different ways of doing this, like different ''steps'' that would make it easier to use this ability as time went on.


    For now, Eiro was only able to shrink his Aura down, pulling it back into his own body. But a way that was far more efficient than this was to stop his Aura from leaving his body in the first ce. Hence, ''blocking'' its path outside by creating a mental barrier in the location of his skin.


    Eiro figured that mastering this would also make it easier for him to block only the ''Vibe'' from his cards, as if the barrier was some sort of sieve only letting through his aura, but keeping his ''Vibe'' in. Then, he could go from there to manipte the leftover ''Vibe'' within himself. At least, that''s what Eiro hoped he would be able to do.


    While Lognir was happy to exin a couple of parts about this some more, giving Eiro a few tips here and there, for the most part he left the Demon alone so that he would be able to figure things out on his own. Then, the Dragon would fix any mistakes that Eiro was making.


    Eiro focused on everything within himself. He thought about his aura and started to manipte it, getting a bit of proficiency in that in itself. Eiro tried to simte the different ways that his aura would react depending on his emotions. He made it fiery and spiky to make it seem like he was angry, and he made it mellow and soft to make it seem like he was sad.


    Once Eiro figured he had gathered a little bit more proficiency with this for now, getting better at directly feeling his Aura, as if he became more familiar with it as a ''substance'' of sorts.


    And then, he slowly pulled it all within himself, letting it flow out of him ever so slowly to be able to test out creating a proper barrier. Carefully, some of his aura leaked out through his skin in a ce where Eiro was trying to focus it to go, and attempted to hold it back somehow. Eiro didn''t want to control the Aura itself, but rather the create some other force that held the Aura back.


    But just as the Demon thought he figured something out, nearly being able to grasp at the feeling of holding it back, Eiro heard a loud, powerful voice in his ear, "Lad, open yer eyes already!" Armodeus eximed.


    Eiro slowly opened his eyes, deeply annoyed over being interrupted, before he turned his head over toward Armodeus, "...What is it?" He asked, and the old man quickly handed Eiro the two daggers that he improved upon.


    The Dagger that Eiro inherited from Avalin back then, the one with the me Magic Stone set into its handle, now had a few inscriptions ced on it that were filled with the Fire-Dragon''s Metal, while the outside generally had a thinyer of this Metal now covering it except on the edges.


    And then there was the hollow dagger that was meant to be filled with poison. Armodeus covered the inside of it with the Poison-Dragon''s Metal to strengthen poison that went inside of it, and then covered the outside in a simr way as the me-Dagger was coated.


    "You could have just put them over there and told me when I was going to be done. There''s something else, right?"


    "Of course,d. I want to... make another item for ya. But for that, I''ll need to measure yer stinger." Armodeus exined, and Eiro looked at the materials that the Dwarf had left over, while also taking a nce at his fingers where Eiro noticed a slight residue of a certain metal.


    "You want to make something to improve my stinger''s poison?" Eiro asked. Armodeus immediately nodded his head, "Aye, that''s exactly it,d. Yer tail is rather strong, right? If you''re fine with it, I''d like to make it a steel base with parts that are made of this special poison-based metal. Your stinger is strong, sure, but it''s like... A w. A dagger will always be stronger than a w, and the same will be the case when I make a needle. And a small system to pushrge amounts of poison into something quicker than yer stinger can. Of course, I can also make some small storage containers to increase the amount you can use at once, if ya want."


    Eiro scratched the back of his head as he slowly lifted his tail up, holding it toward Armodeus, "That would be great, actually. Just... be careful. It feels kind of weird when it''s touched."


    "Aye, ya got it,d." The craftsman said with a smirk on his face. He was probably excited to be able to make equipment for someone other than a regr person. Making armor for stingers, as well as weapons to improve upon those stingers probably wasn''t amon item that one came across in general.


    And so, the elder Dwarf squatted down behind Eiro and took a close look at his tail and stinger, measuring everything about it out and figuring out the dimensions. For the most part he was being careful, but sometimes Armodeus had to press onto Eiro''s tail and stinger to figure out how tough that carapace-like structure really was.


    Just like that, Eiro became something that Armodeus used to fulfil his dreams of unique craftsmanship.

 Chapter 336 - Barrier

    Eiro continued trying to improve upon his aura while Armodeus fiddled around with his tail. He was cing some metal tes onto Eiro''s stinger and trying toe up with new ideas or putting everything he already made together.


    It felt rather ufortable, considering that the Demon''s tail was somewhat sensitive. It''s why he didn''t use it forbat all that often, except if he knew that he could safely sting his enemies. The most sensitive part of Eiro''s tail was the sharp stinger. It felt like having someone press their finger into his eye and rubbing around in there as Armodeus as the elder Dwarf attached the special poison-metal tip to improve upon the Demon''s poisonous sting.


    It just felt ufortable, even if he himself touched his stinger, so having someone else do it felt even worse. It gave Eiro goosebumps, something that he didn''t get for quite a while.


    "Are you done yet..?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, unable to properly concentrate on his Aura Maniption practice, and he could practically hear Armodeus'' broad grin, "Nearly, nearly. Just another little bit."


    The Demon grumbled quietly to himself after hearing this. Sure, having his stinger be weaponized, more powerful, and giving it more defense was a good idea, especially because it was just so sensitive to pain, but the fact that he had to go through this in order to get there was something that he still didn''t particrly like.


    The fact that all of Eiro''s senses were extremely strong obviously didn''t help either, and this was a new sort of feeling that Eiro didn''t experience in quite some time now. But in the end, to get through this, Eiro just concentrated on something else. He took a deep breath, and looked inward to continue trying to manipte his Aura, filtering anything out that didn''t belong in there as the aura exited the Demon''s body.


    Eiro took a deep breath and practiced more and more, and he was able to nearly grasp it until he felt a sharp pain at the end of his tail and was once more pulled out of this meditative state, "Armodeus, what are you doing..?" The Demon asked while grinding his teeth to get through the difort.


    "Ah, sorry, I hoped you wouldn''t be bothered by it... Well, I tightened the attachment-ring a bit too much. It squeezed your stinger a little, and it-"


    "So it wasn''t my imagination... You cracked my tail?" Eiro asked as he moved his tail away from the craftsman and right in front of himself to get a closer look at the wound, "...Please, be a bit more careful. I know I don''t react to the pain, but it hurts just as much as getting stabbed in the gut." The Demon pointed out, making Armodeus feel even worse about hurting him, while Eiro just pressed onto his tail''s carapace to press the crack shut to get it to properly heal back together.


    Due to the fact that Eiro had a rather intense physical regeneration, even something like this healed instantly if Eiro focused his Life Force on the area.


    "Continue." Eiro grumbled quietly, as Armodeus continued attaching everything to his stinger. But for some reason, Eiro was able to connect something in his mind through that wound.


    The only ces where he had something like a carapace was his tail, and a little bit around the area where his tail connected to his back, but that was it. It was a rather new thing for Eiro, sincepared to having regr skin, the carapace experienced senses a lot differently.


    And itpletely reced Eiro''s skin where he had it. This part was exactly what helped Eiro figure something new out. While making the ''Aura Barrier'' to keep his Aura inside of his body, he shouldn''t make it anotheryer separate from his skin... Instead, he should make it his skin itself.


    As if fusing this concept with a part of his flesh, creating something new in the process. Something that he could experience in a new way. Slowly, Eiro focused everything on the center of his chest first. He wanted to create a barrier there to begin with. Eiro knew how to change mana into some sort of ''concept'' already, it was the basis of casting most types of magic.


    Elemental Magic required Eiro to change his mana into the specific magical essence that he wanted to use, while using Non-Elemental Magic required him to change it into a specific concept rted to what he wanted to do. Sure, Eiro didn''t use Non-Elemental Magic that much, since it was usually a lot less potent that Elemental Magic, but he did know how to use it.


    So maybe now, Eiro had to do something simr, albeit with the third force of energy that he could now sense flowing through his body. There was Mana, Life Force, and then there was his Aura. It was of course a bit different to those other two, but it still was something technically tangible, considering that Eiro was able to sense and manipte it in the first ce. And through that, if Eiro treated it the same as he would treat Mana, he could turn it into ''Aura with a Concept'' infused into it, before then making that Aura be part of the Demon''s skin.


    The concept in this case was of course to not let Aura actually flow through this, and once Eiro figured this part out, he quickly made it part of his skin.


    And now, while Aura was still flowing out of Eiro''s body in other ces, it didn''t flow out through the center of his chest. Eiro slowly and carefully extended this Aura Barrier from the center of his chest outward to other ces, until it covered his whole torso, then his legs, arms, tail, head, and even wings.


    It was tough to manipte to this extent, but Eiro managed it after losing control of it a handful of times.


    "Oh~! You already did it!" Lognir eximed with an excited smile as he looked at Eiro, who turned his head toward the Dragon with a slight frown on his face, "Mhm, I did... Thanks for the help."


    "Hey, I already told you that you needed to figure this out on your own. Now, let me take a look at your control of ''Aura Blocking''..." The Dragon muttered, cing his hand onto the Demon''s head. Eiro could feel warmth flow through his body, filling him out as if he was some sort of ss carafe slowly filled with water.


    Lognir slowly took his hand off of Eiro''s head and thought for a while, "You''re already pretty close to having thispletely figured out, there''s only a few minor details you can improve on. One, instead of fusing it only with the outeryer of your skin, fuse it with allyers of your skin, simply strengthening and focusing the barrier the further it reaches the outermostyer. Not only does it help your control, but you won''t have any Aura flowing out of your body when you randomly get a cut anywhere on your body." Lognir exined.


    Eiro raised his brows and thought about what Lognir said. He was right, that would be a lot better and more efficient. The Demon slowly nodded his head as he slowly tried this out, extending the barrier further inward into otheryers of his skin. It worked, although it made Eiro feel slightly different. It was like his concentrated Aura was changing the receptors for touch all over his body.


    Not by a lot of course, but just a little bit. It actually helped Eiro ignore Armodeus fiddling around with his tail a bit more.


    After that, Lognir gave Eiro a few more tips to help him improve on his Aura Blocking, all of which were rather simple, but improved upon the strength and efficiency of his Aura Barrier.


    And luckily, the maniption of his Aura Barrier helped Eiro concentrate on anything beside what the craftsman was doing behind him, so when the Demon finished this part of his practice up, Armodeus had enough time to properly finish everything up. He went through tests, prototypes, and then finally managed to get everything done in a small package. And all of that within what was at most an hour total.


    Armodeus was incredibly skilled, after all. But once Eiro got rid of his barrier to take a look at the item on his tail, he was rather surprised. It actually wasn''t all that bad. For one, it blended in with Eiro''s carapace pretty well, since Armodeus painted the metal with some matte colors that fit the color of Eiro''s tail, while even shaping it in a way that continued to look like parts of Eiro''s carapace ovepping with each other.


    At first nce, the only thing you would notice were the small vials that were set around the base of Eiro''s stinger that were meant to help Eiro keep some more poisons saved. Eiro was mostly impressed with the system Armodeus added to his actual stinger though, it was like some form of pump that pulled all venom out of Eiro''s tail through a hollow needle ced around the tip of his stinger, and right into the target with impressive force. And all that Eiro had to do to activate it was to eject venom from his tail, the rest happened automatically.


    Of course, it was really easy to remove this as well if Eiro wanted to, but it wouldn''t just randomly fall off in the middle of a fight. It was surprisingly lightweight as well.


    All in all, this ended up much, much better than the Demon tought it would at first. He really, really liked this item, "This is honestly great... Good job, Armodeus." The Demon pointed out, and the craftsman stood there with a smug grin on his face, "Of course it is,d. I made it."


    Eiro rolled his eyes a bit as he continued ying around with this new item, before Armodeus ced his hand onto the Demon''s shoulder, "Now,d, strip down."


    "...Excuse me?"


    "Well, I want to make Armor for ya. Lognir prepared the scales I can work with while you were practicin''. And I can''t see yer body properly under those baggy clothes. So take ''em off and stip down to yer underwear."


    "Alright, that''s fine, but next time start with that." Eiro grumbled quietly as he pushed himself off the ground. He pulled off his shirt and pulled down his pants to let Armodeus properly measure out the Demon''s proportions to make proper armor for him.


    "Ah, and don''t make me something that''s going to make it hard for me to move. Make something that I can easily wear under a cloak, and something that I can quickly put on or take off if I need to." Eiro suggested, and Armodues immediately took those ideas into ount, although he was smirking slightly, "Oh? You have a girlfriend,d? Or why''d you have to take the armor off quic-"


    "Armodeus..."


    "Right, sorry."

 Chapter 337 - Mental Images

    Eiro sat there on the ground, trying to concentrate on what was within himself. He had been practicing and practicing, trying to properly figure out how to filter the vibes that his cards created out of his aura by using the Aura Barrier as a tool for this.


    He was getting detailed tips from Lognir now, since this wasrgely about fine-tuning how this sort of stuff was supposed to work, so it seemed like the Dragon didn''t mind getting directly involved this time around.


    And then, a short whileter, the Demon figured it out. Well, ''short'' was rtive. To Eiro, who was able to usually figure such things out near to instantly, it felt like forever, but for Lognir it was nothing but an instance. The fact that Lognir was such a long-living creaturebined with the fact that Eiro had managed to finish this much, much quicker and easier than expected added to that feeling for him.


    "Do you think it worked?" Eiro asked with a quiet mutter as he slowly stood up from the ground, trying not to let his concentration fade. If this worked properly, he wanted to keep it up for as long as possible until they figured out whether or not it did.


    "I do think I feel a slight absence of somethingpared to before. But I''m also not a card-holder, so even if you filter out somethingpletely wrong, it would feel like something is different. Let us ask that Dwarf instead, shall we?" Lognir suggested with a smile on his face, referring to Armodeus who was currently in another part of his cave, working on the Demon''s armor that was made from Lognir''s scales.


    The Demon slowly nodded his head and followed Lognir out of this room and into the one Armodeus was working, and the moment they entered, Eiro heard a loud yell, "Oi,d! I thought I told ya to keep the fuck out while I''m workin! It''s meant to be a surprise!"


    "I know, I know, I''m trying not to concentrate on it so don''t make me even more curious than before..." Eiro replied bluntly, "But I need your help for now. Look at me. Do you notice anything different?"


    Armodeus squinted his eyes and looked at Eiro with a re of confusion, "Did ya get a new haircut?"


    "..." Eiro looked back at him silently, and the elder Dwarf crossed his arms while taking an even better look at the Demon. It took him a while, but at some point, he finally realized what exactly was going on, "A bit of that thing ya mentioned... That card ''vibe'' is gone, isn''t it?"


    Eiro looked back with a disappointed expression, "...Just a bit?"


    "D-Did I say somethin'' wrong?" The craftsman asked with a bit of worry on his face, but Eiro just shook his head, "No, no, I''m just annoyed that it''s not working properly."


    "Well, yer on the right track, aren''t''cha? Better than nothin, right?"


    "I guess so?" Eiro replied with a slight, disappointed frown on his face, "I guess I''ll return to practicing..."


    And just as Eiro was about to leave this part of the cave-system again, Armodeus gave a bit of a suggestion, something that Eiro had never really considered. Especiallytely, his abilities all just grew so incredibly fast that it was hard to figure out the reasons for why he got stronger, but now that the elder Dwarf mentioned it, it did make a bit of sense, "Did ya take synergy into ount?"


    Eiro turned his head around rapidly and looked Armodeus deep into his eyes, realizing that the Demon really hadn''t thought about that aspect yet. He was thinking about each of the cards'' vibes separately as their own entities, but at the end of the day they all slightly worked together. Eiro didn''t know if they actually got more potent, but it would make sense if that was the case. Armodeus did briefly mention that the ''vibe'' in Eiro''s aura was pretty strong even considering the cards that he had.


    That meant that Eiro just had to figure out the right point, strengthening all of the vibes together with each other until he managed topletely get rid of the vibe that was still flowing out of his body together with the rest of his Aura! If he was able to figure that out, then that should be more than just helpful. For now, and forter when Eiro would actually start to properly block out the effects from his cards instead of just the vibess they created.


    Immediately, Eiro closed his eyes and started to let his energies flow through him, trying to change the direct configuration of the Aura barrier to take this specific sort of synergy into ount a bit more. He was slowly but steadily increasing it, until he heard Armodeus'' words.


    "There we go. That''s more like it." The craftsman said with a broad grin on their face, "I don''t think I can sense even an ounce of it anymore. But then again, I don''t have yer perception, so there might still be some left in there."


    "Thanks, but I think it should be fine for now. As a craftsman I''m pretty sure you have naturally high perception as well, so I''ll hope that there won''t be any sort of issues with that. And as I grow more used to the vibe, I can fix it a bit more as well, so it''s fine." The Demon exined to Armodeus with a broad smile on his face, happy that he was able to get such help from him.


    "So, that means we can move on to the next step?" Lognir asked, eager to keep going. It wasn''t because he was bothered by the current step, like Eiro felt it sounded for just a moment, but it was rather just so that Lognir was incredibly excited to see what Eiro would be able to do and how quickly he would do it.


    For someone with such a long life and little to do within it, these sorts of events must be rather exciting. And so, Eiro and Lognir left Armodeus alone again so that the craftsman could continue working on the armor for Eiro, while the Demon started to concentrate on the level of ''synergy'' that he had to build up for the different cards in order to be able to filter everything out of his aura properly.


    With that, Eiro should be able to properly create something like a version of the cards'' abilities within his mind. Technically, the ''vibe'' was already a sort of ability from the cards, just one of the few that was rtively easy to grasppared to all the others. And with that vibe properly figured out, Eiro could use it, or so he hoped, as a stepping-stone to figure out everything else connected to the cards.


    Or so he hoped, at least. The reality was a lot harder than that, of course. All the cards had unique abilities. Sure, the ones from the suit of pentacles were in the same area, but they still actedpletely differently to each other, especially because one of them affected factual stats, and the other one affected nothing but a concept that could stretch out into anything it needed to be.


    Eiro closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he saw the cards in front of his mind. With the two that took physical shape, that was actually rather easy. One of them was just a collection of rings, threads and des, and the other was a golden, decorated cup with a pitch ck liquid inside.


    The other two, on the other hand, were a bit different. Neither ''perception'' nor ''truth'' had any sort of true physical form. What was he supposed to imagine? Symbolism?


    He did read a few books about that, although the memories were the kind that were a little hazy. A symbol for ''Truth'' could be seen as the scale. It fit more into the category of w'', but it was close enough. As long as Eiro would be able to visualize it in his mind, it should be fine no matter what shape they took. All that mattered was that Eiro needed to be able to form a direct connection between the symbol and the meaning behind that symbol.


    Eiro thought about it for a while, and sorted through a few different things that could mean truth. At the end, he somewhat settled on two things, for one the ''Owl'', an animal signifying wisdom and truth, and the ''Scale'',, signifyingw and order.


    Both seemed to be a good fit, so Eirobined them within his mind. A scale in the shape of an owl. Law created through wisdom. Basically, it was the creation of Eiro''s own w'' that he figured out over the years of contemtion, and this was the Demon''s one main truth.


    As for the other card, the Five of Pentacles, Eiro went with a more straightforward idea. A homunculus. An artificial creature, the ''man in the bottle''. But not just any homunculus, a ''Sensory Homunculus''. A theoretical being created on paper only. It didn''t have normal proportions, but rather each part of its body was shaped depending on their sensory impact.


    Disproportionatelyrge tongues, eyes, ears, hands, and so on, while many other parts of its body were scrawny. It was a horrid-looking creature that couldn''t exist in real life. Or so he hoped. If some mad wizard chose to actually create one of them, then that would be a different story, although Eiro couldn''t really see a proper reason for why anyone with a sane mind would do that. But he figured that''s why they would be called a ''mad'' wizard.


    With these two extra, theoretical images based on what these cards'' abilities meant to Eiro, he tried to figure out something about how to control them.


    It was a bit easier with the two that Eiro was used to. The Three of Swords just needed to be moved around like normal, albeit only in Eiro''s mind, and the Ace of Cups'' potion simply spread out in a mist-like form to not only envelop Eiro but everyone else as well.


    The owl-scale tipped from side to side, while the Sensory Homunculus wandered around randomly, trying to make use of its disgustingly weird form somehow.


    Eiro kept looking within himself, he kept trying to figure out a way how to manipte these mental items in other ways as well. He had to master them like this if he wanted to master how to manipte them properly.


    At least, that''s what Lognir told him. Slowly but surely, the Dragon led Eiro to sess.. He could already feel his memories returning just thinking about when he would fily be able to <i>actually</i> get his memories back.

 Chapter 338 - Sensory Boost

    Eiro looked within himself and concentrated on the Sensory Homunculus in his mind that he created as a representation for his Five of Pentacles, the <Ultimate Perception>. And to signify the process of deactivating the card... He made the Homunculus go to sleep. It curled up on the ground and dozed off, and as if its existence faded away slowly as it slept, Eiro''s world seemedpletely empty for a moment.


    Absolute silence, not a single scent, no vibrations or even the touch of the ground he was sitting on could be felt.


    It was an instant of absolute sensory deprivation that Eiro had never experienced before. And a few momentster, Eiro''s senses returned to an extent. Dulled, weakened. This was what Eiro''s senses were supposed to be like without the boost of the Five of Pentacles.


    Of course, Eiro''s senses were not weak in any sense of the word, he had higher perception than the vast majority of beings currently alive. It was just so that his perception seemed to be close to nonexistentpared to that which Eiro experienced before.


    It felt somewhat lonely and cold as Eiro sat there, slowly opening his eyes. It took him a while to really process the practically blurry sight that he saw, and his eyes hurt from the fact that he was straining them instinctively to return them to their former state, something that was obviously not possible.


    "I... I can''t..." Eiro muttered quietly, without being able to even hear his own voice properly. Lognir seemed to say something to him, but Eiro couldn''t hear him either. It just seemed like he was moving his lips without actually forming proper words, instead simply letting out simple grunts. This was weirdly terrifying to Eiro, being deprived of basically all his senses for a few moments.


    He looked within himself and woke the Sensory Homunculus up again. As the sounds of bugs crawling on the ground on the other side of the cave, as well as the scent of the rare flowers growing at the sides of this mountain filled his mind, Eiro was able to rx again.


    The Demon let out a calm breath as he turned his head to look at Lognir, "I was able to block out the Five of Pentacles... Although I wish I didn''t have to do that again. I don''t see a clear reason for why I would do this... I felt so-"


    "Deprived of everything?" Lognir asked with a soft smile, as if he expected this to begin with. Eiro nodded his head, "That is exactly it. As if there was nothing around me anymore."


    "And that is exactly why this mighte in useful at some point. You are practiced in weakening your senses considerably already to live with the overstimulus from this card of yours. If youbine this practiced, instinctive ability with theparedck of senses after switching for just a moment, it will truly be like there is ack of senses around you. It is something that many spiritualists strive for, you see? Theck of senses is incredibly useful in achieving a sort of enlightenment, if you will. You will be able to much more easily concentrate during meditative states, maybe even discovering things about you that you never imagined you had within you."


    "...I see. It really mighte in useful in such situations. I''ll think about when to use this... But first, let me try blocking out the Knight of Pentacles as well." Eiro suggested, closing his eyes once again as his mind was still in a bit of a disarray after what just happened to him.


    Now that he figured out what it felt like to block out the abilities of these cards hidden within him, doing so with the Knight of Pentacles was rather easy to do. Not to mention, it wasn''t nearly as overwhelming to see the difference. Sure, it felt a bit offpared to before, but it was nothing too major. Maybe it was due to the kind of effect that this card had on Eiro in the first ce, or the fact he hadn''t been linked to it for all too longpared to the Five of Pentacles. Either way, it was easier to deal with the change in the world after shifting the Owl-Scale to make the scale-part, which was made up of the Owl''s wings, press onto the owl''s body as this metallic animal went to sleep.


    Eiro tried these things out a few more times to get a bit more used to the sensation and the act of switching itself, until he was ready to move on to the next step. Now that all of this was feeling fresh, Eiro wanted to continue as quickly as possible with Lognir''s training.


    "Alright, the next step, as I told you before, is not the ''blocking'' of the cards'' abilities, but the maniption of them. You might have to y around with the maniption of the Knight of Pentacles a bit moreter on, since it is more of a ''conceptual'' ability at the end of the day. It should be a bit easier with your Five of Pentacles however, especially considering the image you chose for it in your mind. Simply-"


    "Increase the size of a particr part of the Homunculus'' body depending on which sense I want to ''boost''? That is the benefit you were speaking of before, isn''t that right?"


    "That is exactly it, yes." Lognir replied with a smile on his face, "Now, you probably figured out how to do this already anyway, so go ahead. Show me what you can do."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head as he closed his eyes, looking within himself once more. He looked at the Sensory Homunculus and focused on one of its sensory organs. For now, he focused on his eyes. At the same time, though, Eiro was already aware of thew of ''equivalent exchange'' from manipting other sorts of energies already.


    If he wanted to boost something, he had to weaken something else. That could either end up with all other senses beside sight to grow ever so slightly weaker, or with one specific sense growing considerably weaker in exchange for the boost of his sight.


    For now, he did the former. He felt his other senses all weaken as he opened his eyes that have be stronger. Within this cave it was a bit hard to truly see the effects, but they were certainly visible even then. Slowly but surely, he increased the strength of his sight while weakening everything else, until his eyes started to hurt due to the dim light that existed within here entering it in such a focused way.


    "Seems like there''s a limit to what I can do..." Eiro muttered as he cancelled the boost, and rubbed his eyes for a while. Since this was a thing, this ''limit'', Eiro quickly went through all of his other senses to figure this limit out. That way he could maximize the strength this new ability of his when necessary.


    And once Eiro was done with that, feeling a bit stiff all over his body, he saw his three spirits appear right next to him, before Nelli made a suggestion, "Do you want to figure it out with your ''sixth'' sense as well? With your mana-sense when we''re fused?"


    "Ah..." Eiro replied, "Yeah, that might be a good idea. Gondos, your senses are the most pronounced,e on."


    The Demon held his hand forward, and the Earth Spirit nodded his head. He dove into the Demon''s hand as they fused, and Eiro looked at his sensory homunculus within himself. Already, his mind added a newyer to this. The homunculus had an even flow of mana-like energy flowing through its body that Eiro could now see. It was easy to manipte, nearly as easy as regr mana was, and he was able to quickly focus it on specific senses.


    This way, he could focus on a specific sense that he wanted to use to actually sense mana. But not only that. At the same time, if he weakened one of his regr senses and then focused on boosting his ''magic sense'', while only oveying the sense that he weakened so that it was close to nonexistent anymore, all he was able to sense using that real sense was magic.


    He would only be able to see magic when doing this with his eyes, instead of things that were really in front of him. He would only be able to taste magic when focusing it on his tongue. This way, Eiro would be able to focus on magic a lot more easily when he tried to do so.


    It probably was nothing he would use all too often, but it was nice to have the option. Eiro and Gondos split up, and both of them looked at each other for a moment, before Nelli asked, "So, what was it like?" She inquired.


    Gondos turned toward her without being able to truly describe it that well, "It was... new. That''s all I can say. Rather ''weird'' to an extent. I was only able to see magic... nothing else."


    "Interesting... That sounds like quite an experience." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "It was, yes. But all these sudden switches in senses feel sort of... nauseating. I think I will stop practicing this particr thing for a while." Eiro exined. He felt a little bit dizzy and as if his head was spinning around. It was not pleasant in the slightest, and it felt like he had to sit down and take a bit of a breather for a while.


    The air in here was quite stuffy as well, so he figured he should head outside for a while just to feel the sun on his skin and properly take in some fresh air for a couple of minutes.


    Lognir nodded his head and chose to take this time to be with his mate Krista, while the Demon headed outside and took a seat on a rock that he cleared from snow with a bit of magic.


    Seeing Eiro''s nearly nk stare as he looked at the distant horizon made Nelli feel a bit worried, "Is everything alright?" She inquired, having been with him the longest out of everyone here. She knew what Eiro was like in different moods.


    The Demon turned his head and looked at her, but he didn''t know what to say, "I think so. But I''m not all too sure, if I''ll be honest. I feel so... foolish. I felt cocky and strong, like nobody could beat me... But now I realize how wrong I was. I can already see that there are many ways for me to be much, much stronger... and someone that has that many options open to him cannot be called truly strong. And especially..." Eiro muttered quietly as he summoned the card of the Major Arcana to his hand that he had with him.


    "It still only says I have a 12% chance to survive if I were to activate it. I wonder, how strong are the Royals if even I would be so unlikely to survive..? And then.... How strong is the Monster King to be feared even by those Royals?"

 Chapter 339 - Slight Struggles

    Nelli swam through the air and moved in front of Eiro, looking deep into his eyes with a soft smile on her face, "But remember, you still have an incredibly powerful evolution in front of you, and after that, once you be a Royal, your power will increase by many times as well. Your ns are all slowlying together, so even if you''re not there just yet, it won''t take too long until then." The Spirit told the Demon, who looked back at her for a few moments before nodding his head.


    "You''re right, thank you." Eiro smiled lightly as he pushed himself off the rock. He took a few deep breaths, trying to get rid of the slight lightheadedness that he was feeling right now, "Let''s continue, I guess."


    Eiro turned around, quickly followed by his three contracted Spirits, reaching Lognir again just a few momentster, "Oh, you''re ready again?" The Dragon inquired, and Eiro nodded his head.


    "Yes, I am. Can you tell me about the next step in my practice?" The Demon asked. He wanted to get through this as quickly as possible. He wanted to grow stronger, as strong as absolutely possible. Lognir nodded in return and walked up to Eiro, cing his hand onto his shoulder, "Don''t overdo yourself, child."


    "Of course. I''ll take breaks when I need them." Eiro quickly replied, and Lognir took a step back as he crossed his arms, "Then I''ll trust your own judgement in this case. Basically, what you did with your cards just now, manipting them like that, is exactly what you need to manipte your own abilities. But of course, your <Memory of a Schr> seems to be of a far higher grade than other abilities you might have. Hence, we will start with one of your simpler abilities that have an easily controble effect. Something that changes your physical ability would be best for now. Do you have anything like that?"


    Eiro thought for a moment, before he nodded his head, "I do. When my Resistance reached 100, I received the <Rock Skin> ability. Let me show you." The Demon said. With just a thought, a hard and thickyer of rock grew all over his body, covering every inch of skin that could be seen.


    "Ah, interesting. That is a rare ability, you must have gotten quite lucky in that sense." Lognir said, rather impressed, "Well, this is just the perfect ability then. Try to manipte it like you did with those card-abilities. Of course, that means you will have to figure out proper visualizations for your internal abilities first. The simpler they are, the best." The Dragon exined.


    Eiro looked back at him for a moment before deactivating his rock skin ability and closing his eyes to start thinking about possible visualizations. Maybe he could just make it a rock that he could make grow in certain patterns depending on how much he wanted it to grow in specific areas of his body? That would trante to upgraded versions of this ability pretty well as well. As far as Eiro knew, the upgraded versions were based around different sorts of ''Metal'' skin instead of just rock.


    So then he could just turn the rock into the specific metal and have it grow in the same patterns as before.


    But... This somehow seemed a bit tooplex. Sure, the concept was simple, but remembering patterns before being able to apply them might take a bit longer than he wanted.


    Maybe he could make the rock simply grow into the shape of Eiro''s body depending on where he needed it.


    "Wait, if I were to do that, then..." He could do something else that woulde in useful for other abilities of his as well. Something like a more central image. Nothing tooplicated. Most of Eiro''s abilities were rather straightforward as well, and mostly based directly on his own body.


    So, Eiro''s ''image'' was himself. Or rather, it was in the shape of himself, but more of a nk canvas in the end. His skin was pure white and he wasn''t wearing clothes. So that Eiro would be able to paint himself depending on the situation, and depending on the ability.


    He first went through the different steps of letting his rock skin grow on him. Simply activating the ability made it spread outward starting at the center of his chest, as if rock was flowing out from there.


    Then, ever so slowly, Eiro moved the spot where this change started, from his chest to his shoulder. Then to his arm, and to his hand. He practiced what it was like having it in different parts of his body, instantly switching between different ces even in the center of the transformation, so that it would flow out from more ces.


    The transformation usually affected Eiro fully within a few seconds, but like this he could speed it up quite a bit of he wanted to. Either way, he managed to do this surprisingly easily, although the next step was a little bit harder than Eiro hoped.


    What Eiro wanted to do then was to manipte the spread of the rock itself, and not just where it started. Basically, he wanted to slow it down or speed it up somehow. This was a lot harder to do. Getting a grip on the flow was hard enough in itself, but it felt as if Eiro was trying to stop a rolling boulder back in his Lesser Imp days. It felt impossible to do. And at the same time, pushing it forward felt impossible as well. Simply because Eiro''s maniption didn''t make a difference due to the natural flow in the slightest, either way.


    Eiro took a deep breath and continued trying. He had to keep trying. The demon changed the way he looked at everything multiple times, trying to see if maybe he was choosing the wrong approach. Sure, it did seem like Eiro was doing a bit better than before, but even 1% was infinitely more than 0%.


    He tried to see it as somethingpletely separate, and he tried to see it simr as his magic infusion. Neither of this worked, although it seemed like at least one of them should. Eiro even thought that maybe he wasn''t being determined enough. The Demon nearly popped a vein by straining himself that much.


    Eiro didn''t know what was wrong... he was able to manipte the cards'' abilities with ease at this point. Is that why Lognir chose this order? He did say that it would be easier since the cards were foreign to Eiro in the first ce.


    The Demon scratched the back of his head, deep in thought. He had to figure this out somehow.


    "I told you. Think simple." Lognir told Eiro, noticing that he was having trouble properly manipting this ability, although he was clearly trying to do so. Eiro opened his eyes and looked back at the Dragon. What did he mean with ''think simple''? Eiro was ''thinking simple'', but it wasn''t working at all.


    What was simpler than just visualizing the change on his body in his mind? This question coursed through his mind for a few moments, before it sparked up within him. He felt excited about this idea, hoping that it would work.


    What the Demon did was simple. Instead of thinking of his whole body while activating the ability, what if he just thought of smaller areas of his body? Maybe just his left hand would be about enough for now. Eiro saw his left hand float there in his mind, the same pure white as before. And then, he concentrated on the transformation to start on the back of his hand. It flowed outward, and Eiro could feel the rock grow on his hand, and only his hand.


    Surprised by this fact, the Demon opened his eyes. A few thinyers of rock were still growing up to his shoulder, but it was definitely incredible progress! Maybe Eiro simply didn''t need the step of slowing down the growth of rock at all. Somehow, this was a lot simpler, just like Lognir said he should think.


    And so, the Demon continued practicing this. He started gradually changing the ces where he allowed the rock to be. It slightly disappeared in any area it was before, still leaving a thinyer wherever it went, but the fullyer of ''Rock Skin'' only appeared in the ces that Eiro specified.


    It seemed like the rock was even a bit stronger than before when it was focused in those areas. With a broad smile on Eiro''s face, the Demon stood up and looked at his rock-covered feet, while the rest of his body was free from it. He didn''t particrly use this ability all too much, but it would definitelye in useful if Eiro was able to master this aspect of it.


    Manipting abilities like this was something that Eiro never really thought about before... But it was something necessary for him to keep growing. Eiro looked at Lognir, who was looking back at him with an impressed expression, "You did it pretty quickly. What a surprise... We''re only at the end of day two, and you nearly managed to do what you came here for already. Although, it''s not going to get any easier anymore, child."


    "I figured so. It was hard enough to do it this time when I had the right visualization in mind, and that was with something that was so easy to grasp as the <Rock Skin> ability. With mental abilities, it seems like it''s going to be a bit less so.


    With a quietugh, Lognir looked back at Eiro, "Well, I said ''Simple'', not ''Easy''." The Dragon pointed out. Eiro was a bit surprised to hear such a statement, unsure what exactly he meant with this just yet. He had a few ideas of course, but Lognir wasn''t particrly the most straightforward being.


    "Anyway, at this point, you should be ready to manipte your <Memory of a Schr> ability. But considering the sort of ability it is, and how powerful it is, you will need a much stronger image. Something that you connect with ''Knowledge'' and the ''Past''. But this is the sort of ability that you need toplete the image itself. You need the memories that you have to appear within there in the truest form, and the ones that youck to appear there in a lesser form. And then you need to spend quite some time repairing the ''lesser'' parts."


    Eiro looked back at Lognir and nodded his head. He understood what he meant, "I see. Then I''m going to try my best right away.." The Demon said bluntly, as the Dragon smiled back, "I would expect nothing else, child."

 Chapter 340 - The Library In His Mind

    What was the easiest, simplest, most basic representation of ''Knowledge'' that came to mind? For Eiro, it was a book.


    Books were collections of knowledge, that which brought it to others, and that what brought it to Eiro in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. So, all of Eiro''s knowledge was to be gathered within a single book in his mind to represent the ability <Memory of a Schr>.


    The memories that were missing were pages that had been ripped out or dirtied so that you weren''t able to get the information from that page anymore. But no matter what Eiro tried, he wasn''t able to properly make use of this book in the right way.


    He flipped it open, and he wasn''t able to connect to his memories through it. He was able to read a few things within there, sure, but it was information that he ''wrote down'' on his own. Eiro was supposed to fill all of the information in automatically by linking his ability with this mental image. However, it was more like he was somehow trying to make it seem like it worked. The ''broken memories'' that were shown in the form of the ripped up or dirty pages were just randomly scattered around in the book instead of being truly representative of the time in the Demon''s life.


    But maybe that was just the issue? Was Eiro''s whole life able to fit into a single book? Sure, he had the grimoire that was basically infinitely long somehow, but that wasn''t a normal thing that books were able to do.


    No normal book could exin every small detail and every small bit of information that Eiro saw and took in within his whole life, especially considering the depth of information that he had been experiencing ever since he became the owner of the Five of Pentacles.


    The Demon stared at the book in his mind, trying to see what would happen if he chose to take multiple books. Maybe have a book per year? Or maybe a book for every year? The book for the past year would be quite a bit thicker than the others, though. Not only because Eiro''s perception increased by so much, but also because he experienced so many new things, and learned so many new things as well.


    Then maybe he could just split it up by category? He could take out the books that he read in the past, that were a definite part of his memory, and put them away. Then maybe he could take episodic memories, the memories of things that actually happened, and turn them into something like... diaries? Or ''novels'', maybe. Splitting them up into smaller packages.


    Then, all of Eiro''s direct knowledge, the raw information that he knew and took in could maybe also be something separate. But if he did that... Then couldn''t he create a whole library? Sure, it was moreplex than the simple book, but it still wasn''t anything too oundishlyplicated. Libraries were simple things as well. All the information was sorted, and it obviously could hold a lot more information than just a single book.


    He could add Grimoires, Beastiaries, and the hundreds of regr books that he read in the past into there. And the parts of his memories that were missing could be represented as nearly broken-down books, or simply gaps in the shelves that were otherwise filled to the brim. It seemed like this sort of thing would be a better representation than just a book, even though it was obviously moreplex.


    Maybe that''s what Lognir meant when he said that he was supposed to create an image that was ''Simple'', and not ''Easy''. It would be easier to have a single book, having everythinggpiled into a singr item, but it would maybe be simpler, although not easier, to have arge space instead.


    Sorting through a book like that would take a lot of time instead of going through a library with hundreds of well-sorted books depending on themes and topics that he could traverse instantly. The Demon figured that this image was the best he could choose, and he felt a lot more connected to it anyway.


    He felt calm and collected whenever he found himself in libraries, which was exactly what he needed for this sort of thing.


    Eiro saw himself standing in this library. He looked around, as if he was sorting books into this space, he went through his memories bit by bit and turned them into books in front of him. Whenever a book wasplete, it was ced into the right area.


    It was easier to connect this library with his skill than it was when the image he chose was a simple book. Eiro looked around and inspected the different parts of this space around him. Without him having to actively sort through things now, books were simply automatically appearing in the air and sorting themselves into the right shelf.


    They shifted around properly, and soon, it became apparent which ones were the ones that held Eiro''s broken, or missing memories. Compared to the high-quality, neat, and tidy books that were seen everywhere else, these were books that were thrown to the streets and trampled on for multiple years. It was as if they were a shell of their former self.


    Soon, nothing more was happening. There was a single bookying on something of a pedestal that had text currently being written in it. It was the book of what was happening to Eiro right now. His thoughts and emotions were being noted down there all at once. But otherwise, nothing else happened. This library was ''finished'' for now, all his memories were properly categorized.


    Eiro walked to one of the shelves and pulled out a random one of the books. It was about one of Eiro''s trips to the city near where they used to live to get a few supplies. He flipped it open and looked at the pages. As he read, he slowly but surely became immersed in the moment and was able to see the memory as he normally saw them. Once the memory was over, Eiro held the closed book in his hands, and was able to ce it back into the shelf.


    "So it works..." The Demon muttered quietly, smiling softly as he continued walking around this library to look for one of the broken books. Soon, he saw it. It seemed like it would be ufortable just holding it in his hands, and it was as if his whole body was rejecting it as he ced his hands around the books spine to pull it out of the shelf.


    When he opened the book up, there certainly were a few letters there, but they were covered in word-scrambles covering them up, making it impossible for Eiro to read or decypher them. Some other pages were ripped up or missing altogether... This really did seem a lot like Eiro''s memories.


    There were some that he didn''t have ess to at all, and others were kind of there but no matter how much he tried to remember them, it was as if there was a wall in front of him that he was experiencing them through.


    Slowly, Eiro took a deep breath and grabbed the book, slowly bringing it over to one of the desks that he made as part of this library, since it had to be realistic of course, and sat down at it. He imagined holding a pen and having a second, empty, book in front of him.


    Eiro squinted his eyes and looked at the first page of the book. It was hard to see everything, but he was able to slowly remove some of theyers on top of the letters in his mind to decypher what was truly written there. And using that, he could rewrite the book of this specific memory. This book was a lost cause when it came to repairing it. That would just not be a possibility. But instead, rewriting it should be something he was able to do, so he tried his hand at it.


    And as he was doing so, rewriting the parts of the book that were actually left for him to read, he was able to slowly remember things that he hadpletely forgotten. The ''walls'' on this memory were slowly disappearing. It was a memory of an afternoon that he spent being taught by Jura. It was a precious memory, of which there were hundreds that were nearlypletely the same, but it was still important to Eiro nheless.


    The Demon continued noting down everything that he was able to decypher in this book, until all that was left were the parts that were directly missing.


    "...What am I supposed to do with this..?" Eiro muttered quietly out loud, and Lognir looked at him with a curious smile, "Is everything alright?" He asked.


    Eiro slowly opened his eyes and nodded his head, "Yes... It''s slowly working." Eiro started. Then, he went on to exin the image that he chose and that it seemed to be working pretty well for him for now, with the exception of those missing pieces.


    "Well, they have to be somewhere within that library then. It seems that you have heard this before, but what was once there can never be truly lost. It will just be hidden, or somewhere else. But nothing can ever disappear withouting back in some form or another." Lognir exined, and Eiro looked down at the ground in thought.


    And then, Lognir said something else, "Do you know why Solomon sent you here to me?"


    "...Because you''re the only one that he knew of that had these abilities? The... ability to manipte abilities?" Eiro asked, and the Dragon lightly shrugged, "That may be part of it, of course. But the main reason is because of your <Knight of Pentacles> card. The <Ultimate Domain of Truth>. I possess a simr force within myself naturally. With it, you will be able to find that which is missing with rtive ease, if you know what you''re doing at least. That''s why you were sent here. So that I could help you find the ''true location'' of that which you are missing. Or it should be something like that, I''d assume. Solomon didn''t exin too much to me, really."


    "The true location... So... They are hidden in my mind... Where would you be able to hide something like that in a library..?" Eiro asked himself quietly, before something popped into his mind. Something that seemed to make some sense to him.


    "I got it..." The Demon muttered. He went back into the library in his mind and searched around, before finding something that was a bit amiss. One of the floorboards had a slight crack. Eiro knelt down and pulled it up, revealing the pieces of paper that have been crumbled up and stuffed in there. His missing memories. Dirty, the text covered up by mud and not even close to all of them... but a handful of them they were there.. And Eiro would be able to use them to remember some of the things he forgot.

 Chapter 341 - Lucid Dream

    Eiro filled in the nks of multiple books that he was trying to repair, or rather rewrite, in order to remember what they offered him. The more he did so, the closer the memories seemed toe, but they were always still a bit out of reach.


    The Demon figured that he would only be able to truly remember a memory after fully rewriting the book it connected to. The issue with that was that Eiro was unable to fullyplete any of the books that he hadying in front of him.


    He might be able to guess what happened there and fill the gaps by concluding what happened from the text around it, but for some reason Eiro thought that was a bad idea. As if that wasn''t what he was supposed to do with these books.


    He continued walking around the library for a while, trying to find more scraps to finally finish recovering at least a couple of memories, but to no avail. Eiro sat down and leaned against the wall with a deep sigh. Tiredness was dragging his body down, although Eiro didn''t be exhausted all that quickly.


    After opening his eyes again to reveal he was still in the cave after all, Eiro slowly pushed himself off the ground, wobbling around exhaustedly.


    "Careful there, child. Mental fatigue is also something to be wary of." Lognir warned Eiro, who turned toward him with a slight nod. He was right. Eiro had to be careful. Well, at least his Exhaustion Resistance skill leveled up once, which was pretty nice.


    But seeing how he was feeling this tired despite that skill''s existence must mean that his body was close to simply shutting down at this point. He did go through quite a lot of tough thingstely that were coursing through his mind constantly. It made sense for him to be exhausted like this every once in a while.


    The Demon made his way to a different part of the cave together with Lognir, now that today''s practices were over, and Eiro slowly approached Lugo. He fell forward and buried his face in the Stag''s fur as it let out a loud bellow.


    "Just let me stay like this for a while, alright? I''m tired." Eiro said as he let out a deep sigh that just warmed up Lugo''s fur around the area that Eiro pressed his face into. After letting out a loud huff, Lugo still stepped away a little bit anyway, but instead of trying to get away from Eiro when he was like this, the Stagid down on the grown and caught Eiro as he staggered forward and dropped down, ready to fall asleep any moment now.


    Eiro grumbled quietly as he shifted his body around to lean against Lugo''s body properly, and slowly closed his eyes as he drifted off into sleep.


    As he slept, Eiro started to dream. As he normally did. Eiro was able to remember all of the dreams that he had, although most of them were just scenes of the day reying within his mind again and again. Smaller details would be a bit different, of course. For example, he might be twice as tall as normal, or the things he was carrying with him were suddenly a different color.


    Seldomly was it that everything was the exact same as reality, although Eiro would still be unable to realize he was in a dream. But now, that was different.


    Everything was the exact same as how he remembered it to be. It was eerily simr, at least as he was in the moment. Maybe that realization and subtle eeriness was what made Eiro realize that he was in a dream at the moment.


    Eiro stood in the middle of the cave, with everything frozen as if time had stopped. It seemed like this memory was from the middle of a short conversation he had with Lognir today. As the Demon moved his hands around, it was as if his body was shifting through the air rather than really moving, leaving behind some form of weird mist as he was at it.


    Was this a Lucid Dream? Why did he experience this now of all times? Maybe it was because experiencing that Library in his mind in such a way was simr to what a Lucid Dream was like..?


    But if that was the case, then Eiro should be able to do whatever he wanted here. With a wave of his hand, the Demon found that the cave around him changed. The floor was reced by wood and the walls became bookshelves. Lognir disappeared, and Eiro was once more back in the Library.


    It was the exact same one as he had been visiting all day in his mind. "So I can fix myself in my sleep, huh..?" Eiro thought to himself. He wasn''t sure if he was really capable of smiling right now, but if he was, then he did. He stepped through the room as this ce became more and more lifelike by the second, ceasing to be like a dream and instead being more like reality. Just like he had been experiencing all day today.


    The books were in the same state as Eiro left them, and he had the exact scraps of paper left over that he was working with before.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro walked through this room, realizing what this meant. Before, Eiro was unable to make time in his mind move faster, or else he might have been able to figure everything out in one day, but now that he was technically dreaming everything was different.


    A dream that seemed to span thousands of years within one''s mind usually took only a fraction of a second. Now that Eiro was this aware of what was going on, this effect would probably not be happening to the same extent as that, but he still should be able to work for longer than he actually slept. And hopefully, he would still recover his exhaustion due to his sleep.


    Eiro kept searching the space for more scraps of paper, although he was unable to really find anything more than he had found today. Maybe they were hidden in ces other than underneath the floorboards as well.


    Either way, maybe what Eiro should try to do for now was the ''easy part'', which was to transcribe all the books of memories that he didn''t remember all too well. And that was what he did. All night, in his dreams, he kept transcribing the memories from the dirtied and ''broken'' books onto new ones. Still, he was unable toplete any of them because there were simply pieces missing, but nheless, he made quite a bit of progress.


    And when Eiro finally woke up, while he was still a little more exhausted than he usually would be when waking up, Eiro was rtively well-rested.


    He stood up and stretched, hearing his bones crack from stiffening up during his sleep. It was an unpleasant noise, but a weirdly satisfying sensation. To feel his stiff body slowly loosen up like this.


    "Alright then..." Eiro muttered as he looked around. The others seemed to be sleeping for now. Eiro went to sleep rather early, so he woke up early as well. Dawn was not even there yet, but he was already wide awake.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he figured he should do something nice for the others. He knew what they ate, so Eiro chose that he should go out and hunt for a while, getting food for everyone.


    They were dragons, so they ate quite a bit, but at the same time they chose this location in consideration of that as well. There were plenty of wild beasts around here, as well as monstrous beasts of considerable size. Judging from the bones that were scattered around the ''trash room'' of this cave, they particrly liked a certain monster that was derived from Boars in some form.


    It was a couple timesrger than a regr boar, however, and had particrly thick skin if Eiro remembered correctly. Their tusks were a popr material for adventurers to decorate their armors or weapons with, so he had seen them quite a lot.


    Not to mention that their scent was incredibly strong as well, so it was pretty easy for Eiro to find them. The only one that was awake at the moment beside him was Bavet, who didn''t need much sleep in the first ce, and Eiro let him know that he would return soon with something to eat, so that the slime could pass this message on to the others if they woke up while Eiro was off.


    Eiro stepped out of the cave and spread out his wings, jumping from the edge of the cliff in front of him. The first thing he had to do was to actually find the boar-like monsters in question. They should be roaming around here in quite a quantity, if he remembered correctly. He saw a whole group of them together on his way here, and the town at the foot of this mountain sold many things that were made from the materials taken from that monster.


    It didn''t take long until Eiro was able toy eyes on a good specimen. Fat and strong,rger than most others. It seemed to be eating the best out of the group it was ''leading''.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro stopped pping his wings and simply dropped down onto this boar, gathering andpressing air on his palm as he fell. And just as Eiro was about to hit the ground, he pushed the bullet of air through the boar''s head to cleanly kill it while spreading out his wings to stop his own fall.


    Therge boar fell to the ground and bits of rock were slung into the air due to the wind pressure Eiro created to stop his fall like he did. And of course, Eiro quickly waved his hand around and shot those bits of rock into the foreheads of the other boars that were gathered around, immediately securing four boars that would end up making good food for some Dragons, a hungry Demon, a Slime, and an Elder Dwarf.


    And so, the first thing that Eiro did was to quickly pull out a small gem that he had in his treasury to make this whole thing easier. It was the Gravity Magic stone, that he would use to make the boars'' corpses a lot lighter to be able to carry them all the way.. Of course, Eiro simply used Nature Magics and roots to hold them all together as if he was using rope, before jumping into the air and pulling these mountains of meat up to the peak of the mountain.

 Chapter 342 - Muscle Memory

    Eiro stood in the cave and proceeded to cut the boars'' corpses up into the different parts properly. Of course, mainly he wanted to cut the meat off of the bones so that he could prepare it well, although there were some parts that were better when the bone was still attached.


    When it came to the cuts that were meant for the children, however, Eiro made sure to remove all of the bones. Sure, they would probably be able to simply crush the bones into pieces, but it should be more pleasant for them this way.


    Eiro sorted out the bones that he wouldn''t need for now, hoping that he would find some other use for themter on. Especially the tusks should be something that Armodeus would be happy with. He probably wouldn''t integrate them into any of the items that he was crafting at the moment, since they were obviously of a far lower quality than the materials he was currently wroking with, but he should still be able to make some rather neat trinkets using the boars'' tusks.


    Either way, after Eiro cut the boars up into the right pieces, Eiro tried to start cooking them. He technically had everything that he needed for that in the carriage, but the main thing he wanted were therge metal bars that Armodeus brought as raw materials. The Dwarf would melt them down to use for certain items.


    But right now, Eiro manipted the rock floor and created a hole in the ground that he ced those bars onto, fixing some of them in ce with earth magic. Through therger gaps that he left open for now, Eiro ced some wood and lit it on fire. He made the mes slightly die down so that they weren''t zing on full heat, so that he wouldn''t burn the meat.


    But once he was done with this, he fixed the rest of the metal bars into ce and started to grill the meat for everyone. They luckily had quite a bit of salt with them already, and Eiro found some different herbs that should go well with this meat in the forest as well.


    Soon, the scent of grilled meat was filling the cave, and Eiro heard a heavy figure approach him. She was the only one that was currently awake, and Eiro didn''t have the chance to have a private conversation with her yet.


    The Dragon of Chaos, Krista. In her draconic form, one that seemed to keep changing ever so slightly whenever Eiro blinked, she approached the Demon casually, "Oh, you are preparing food for us?" She asked quietly.


    Her voice was weird to listen to as well, since Eiro wasn''t sure what kind of voice it truly was. It was hard to grasp considering Krista''s raw chaotic nature. It sounded mature and kind, or young and vicious at the same time. But for now, Eiro tried to simply ignore this for now, and looked at Krista with a smile on his face.


    "Lognir is helping me out quite a bit, and he''s even allowing Armodeus to make some items using his scales. I figured I should try and be at least a little helpful." Eiro exined, and Kristaughed quietly, as if she knew something that Eiro didn''t know. That might have just been an effect of her random nature, though. Anyway, the Dragon of Chaos looked at Eiro with herrge sparkling eyes that turned matte and dead the next time the Demon blinked, and spoke, "That is rather kind of you, child. But I must say, I''m surprised that you were able to figure out our favorite dish."


    "It wasn''t that hard to figure out, if I have to tell the truth. There are quite a lot of things that hint at it here." Eiro exined, "Anyway, that''s not important right now... Do you have any part you like in particr? Usually I would try and make a guess, but I''m afraid that''s literally impossible."


    "Are you sure about that?" Krista asked, and Eiro looked back at her a bit surprised, "What do you mean..?"


    The Dragon slightly shifted the weight of her body as she sat up in front of Eiro, "While I certainly am chaos itself, is it truly that hard to sort through that chaos and see the truth behind it? It was possible for my dear Logir. It was what made me love him in the first ce, you see?"


    Seeing through Chaos..? Would that be possible? Eiro thought back onto everything that he could in his memories, onto everything that he remembered about Krista. About how she acted, and about how she carried herself in the different ''versions'' of herself.


    The way she interacted with her children, and how much they loved her. It made Eiro realize... While she certainly was a chaotic being from the grounds-up,rgely, the things she interacted with were not random. Through the world around her, it was possible to analyze the chaotic nature, and see a bit of the true form beyond it.


    Especially when he looked back onto the bones that he looked at to figure out what the favorite beast of these Dragons was.


    "...The legs, maybe?" Eiro suggested with a wry smile on his face. It was hard for him to realize this fact in the first ce, but it seemed like a certain few bones were randomly changing their position sometimes, as if they were moving around. But rather, it was just the effect of Krista''s chaotic nature affecting them.


    Either way, the bones in question were those that could be found in the legs, mostly.


    With a broad smile, or at least Eiro thought it might have been a smile, Kristaughed, "Most certainly, child." She replied, and Eiro raised his brows a bit surprised, especially when he heard the Dragon''s next words, "Interesting... Maybe I should show you a trick or two after you are done with my mate''s training..."


    "...Excuse me?" Eiro replied surprised, not having expected this sort of development, and Krista softly smiled, "The powers of Truth and Order may be useful to you, but so should the powers of Chaos be. It will make sense to you soon. I will not exin any more to you until Lognir does not acknowledge your training as over."


    Eiro looked back at the Dragoness with wide open eyes. He wasn''t sure why, but he certainly did want to receive this training from Krista. Abilities constructed through the powers of Chaos? How could he say ''no'' to that?


    The next big opponent that Eiro was nning on fighting was <The Devil>... The being known to be the greatest schemer of all time. Having a bit of chaos within his actions couldn''t hurt Eiro in oveing whatever n that monster had constructed.


    Eiro smiled broadly as he continued to cook food for Krista, and Lognir soon woke as well, followed by the newborn Dragons.


    It didn''t take long until Armodeus woke up either, and as everyone ate the meat, Eiro prepared some food for the horses and Lognir. They obviously couldn''t eat the meat, so Eiro gathered some different nts and herbs that should be good for them.


    After eating as well, Armodeus made his way back to his items, while Krista kept taking care of the children. And Lognir and Eiro continued the Demon''s practice.


    He looked inside himself and continued the work that he stopped atst night. Noting down anything that he could from the books. He did this all day and all night, and then another half a day. Until Eiro reached a point where nothing more could be done.


    The Demon finished noting down everything that he could, making use of the few scraps of paper that he managed to find within the library of his mind to fill in the nks. He luckily managed toplete a handful of memories, confirming that this truly worked to help him remember that which he lost.


    But then, he couldn''t continue. There were no scraps of paper left anymore.


    Seeing the Demon struggling like this, Lognir chose to give Eiro one more tip. A silent one. He threw a rock at Eiro.


    Of course, Eiro noticed the rock being thrown at him in such a straightforward manner, and instinctively was able to catch it without much thought to it.


    He looked back at Lognir confused, and his mind raced for a few moments until the Demon realized what the Dragon was trying to say.


    "Memories aren''t always only made up of the mental sort, huh?" Eiro asked, in reply to which Lognir simply continued to smile silently. Eiro felt dumb whenever Lognir pointed these obvious things out.


    Eiro couldn''t only concentrate on the raw knowledge. Many of his memories that were lost were those in which Eiro learned wood-carving, or where he was fighting beasts, monsters, or other opponents.


    Muscle memory was also something rather important. So how should he show this within his library?


    It was simple. There was arge empty space in the center of the library that simply appeared there without Eiro actively putting it there. It was just naturally part of this space, maybe because Eiro subconsciously already knew that this was something he had to do at some point.


    The Demon grabbed one of the books that seemed to be a good fit considering the parts that were missing and flipped to the first page. And just like that, Eiro started to act out that which was written on this paper.


    Normally, he would be able to dive into his memories to experience them properly, but in this case, he couldn''t. The memories weren''t really there all the way, after all. So, Eiro had to act like he could dive into them, and act them out like this as urately as possible.


    Soon, it seemed as if the book was slowly guiding him along, and he started doing things that weren''t written in the books. Small tics that Eiro had sometimes, like tapping his leg when he was nervous, or cracking his knuckles when he was waiting for something to happen.


    These were things that Eiro didn''t actively register in his mind, so they weren''t important enough to be noted down in the book, but they were still part of this particr memory. And soon, Eiro reached the first part that had a piece ripped out. It was as if Eiro froze there for a moment. He was standing still, until he wasn''t. As if in slow motion, his body started to shift and move in the way that it needed to for this memory.


    And when he got through that, a scrap of paper fell from the ceiling down onto the ground.

 Chapter 343 - Combinations

    Having umted a small heap of paper scraps, Eiro softly smiled. He hadpletely forgotten about this aspect of memories, or at least it didn''t seem perfectly obvious to him for a while. Eiro had gone through a few different books now, but hadn''tpleted any of them yet in the form of repairing them. But he knew that he would be able to repair them, with the exception of the parts where full pages were missing.


    After getting all the scraps of around a dozen books by actually re-enacting the different memories the books were about, Eiro sat down at one of the desks again and continued to add the things from the scraps to the books that he was rewriting.


    Like this, Eiro managed to finish another couple of books, although there were still clearly parts missing. Most of the parts that had been ripped out could be filled in, but there were still some other parts that Eiro didn''t manage to get a perfect grasp on. It felt like there was something missing, although he was on the right path.


    Maybe Eiro had to figure out what else would involve memories that he could get done here... But for now, getting any and all scraps that he could just by ying out the scenes was the most important for him. He knew how to get the information for those parts, and hopefully he would be able to remember many of his memories through this already.


    This whole process was certainly one that involved specific action a lot more than Eiro had anticipated. At first, before he even came here, he thought his issues might all be solved just through some meditations and specific breathing techniques, but that clearly was not the case in this situation.


    It was a naive thought, albeit one that didn''t seem too far-fetched when Eiro looked back on the knowledge he had at the time. Either way, for now, Eiro knew what he had to do if he ever ended up forgetting something. He had to look inside himself and actively recover the memories. And now that he knew this, Eiro would be able to do all of this even when he wasn''t here in this cave with Lognir.


    Eiro continued his work and soon felt a bit of exhaustione over him. An exhaustion that was apanied by nausea, a sign that Eiro had to take a bit of a break for now.


    He opened his eyes and found himself back in therge open room of the cave system that he was currently in, where he had spent most of his time, simply to keep practicing. Eiro stood up and stretched his tensed-up body while Lognir looked at him curiously, "You are not finished yet, are you?"


    "Of course not. It''s going to take a lot more time... At this rate I should be done... Tomorrow evening maybe?" Eiro suggested, and Lognir looked back with an impressed expression, "Interesting. It would take many others much, much longer than you. So it seems like you wish to take a break?"


    "Mhm. At least from this for now. It''s mentally taxing." The Demon exined, before the Dragon in his human from silently smirked for a few seconds, as if he was slowly working out an interesting idea in his mind.


    Eiro took a deep breath and waited for the idea that Lognir was about to voice.


    "How about you try out the next step, then? It''s something that I usually wouldn''t rmend just yet, or maybe not even at all, but considering how well you''ve been doing until now... It might be alright." The Dragon pointed out, and Eiro looked back at him rather curiously.


    "The thing I taught to you was the maniption of abilities until now. Something else that requires this ability to manipte abilities is thebination of abilities. Whether it''s magic, skills, or simple passive abilities. With a bit of training, you should be able to-"


    "Oh, I did that once before." Eiro pointed out bluntly, and Lognir''s body froze up, "Excuse me? What do you mean?"


    "Well, it''s probably not exactly what you''re talking about, but it''s something simr. You see, I managed to make use of a Fire Magic Stone and something else that works the same as an Ice Magic Stone would in order to create ''Freezing mes'' of sorts. It wasn''t something that came from my own abilities, I guess, but the concept isn''t foreign to me." After this swift exnation that Eiro gave to Lognir, the Dragon clicked his tongue, "And here I hoped to be able to get you a bit excited, finally. But fine. This is going to make it easier, at least. Anyway,e on, let''s try it with your Five of Pentacles again."


    "...Alright, what should I try tobine it with?" Eiro asked, and Lognir looked back at him confused, "What do you mean? Combine it with itself, of course." The Dragon said as if it was obvious.


    Eiro looked back and was about to ask what he meant, before swiftly realizing it himself. He shouldbine one aspect of his ability with another part of his ability.


    So in this case, that would mean linking a sense with another sense.


    Eiro closed his eyes and looked at the sensory Homunculus in his mind. What would it look like if hebined some of his senses with each other there? The Demon thought for a while, until he came up with a rtively simple idea. All he had to do was to merge the representative parts with each other.


    First, Eiro merged the ears with the eyes. The eyes wererge and bulging out anyway, so moving the ears forward a little bit and adding their base into the whites of his eyes at the side wasn''t too hard to do.


    But as Eiro did so, as he slightly merged these senses, he could feel something spark up in his mind. As if a new connection that wasn''t there before was linked up in an instant.


    The moment that Eiro opened his eyes, he was surprised by what he saw. Colors were moving around his sight, and he quickly knew what they corresponded to as well. The chirping of the birds outside was one color, and the sound of Armodeus working in another part of the cave was a different color that seemed to be coursing through the room in waves.


    But of course, Eiro could also hear Lognir''s heartbeat right now, and it was like waves of paint were being pushed out from the center the Dragon''s chest beat by beat.


    Eiro slowly removed sound from his sight and instead added scent. Now, soft clouds were floating around in the air, also each having specific colors to them. It was... interesting to say the least. But not only that, it was like Eiro was able to smell certain things when looking at certain parts of the cave. When he saw something, he registered something of a scent, but not the one that the object really had. It was kind of... weird. He knew what the smell was supposed to be, but it was offpared to normal.


    Not able to really get used to this, the Demon removed scent and added taste to his sight. Now, whenever Eiro looked at Lognir, he felt like he was able to taste him.


    But obviously, Eiro wasn''t actually able to taste him, it was more like Eiro was able to taste what Lognir''s personality tasted like to him.


    Well, either way, this was an experience unlike anything that Eiro had seen before. Sure, he created some visualizations for himself of different sounds and scents that he could make use of when Eiro tried to search for things at arger scale.


    But if hebined the ability to analyze those visualizations that Eiro had trained for a while already with this ability tobine his senses themselves, this should help Eiro experience certain things that he never thought he would experience in this form.


    The Demon looked back at Lognir after clearing up his senses, returning to how they were supposed to be, "This is quite interesting, to say the least."


    "...Right, of course you managed it instantly." Lognir sighed, "Well, I figured thatbining your senses like that would allow for a good representation to start off with. Other benefits might not be as obvious as that, but they should be easier to grasp for you now."


    "Certainly, yes. Now... Should Ibine other abilities with themselves, or should Ibine certain abilities with each other?"


    "The former. Try to find some unique ways to do so if you can. Sometimes it''s obvious, other times it''s not as obvious. And there should be multiple ways tobine different aspects of abilities as well, so try to just y around with it sometimes." Lognir exined. Somehow, this weirdly sounded like it was supposed to be rxing to Eiro.


    Either way, this was exactly what Eiro did next. He tried tobine other abilities with themselves. For example, he was able to increase the thickness of his rock-skin ability even more by simply seeing a part of his body that was covered in rock already as the ''Base'', to allow himself to activate the ability one more time.


    It made that part of his body a lot heavier and far harder to move, so it would be tough to make use of this long-term, but it might be good for instant defense when he knew that an attack he couldn''t dodge was iing.


    Beyond that, most of the ways of how Eiro couldbine his abilities with themselves were truly minimal, where the cost outweighed the benefit. Either it cost too much mana, it required too much concentration, or it was a waste of timepared to the minimal benefit that he received.


    In very, very, very specific situations those benefits mighte in useful and Eiro would be able to not care for the costs, but most of the time it would be nothing but a waste to make use of these things.


    And then, there were abilities where Eiro was unable to figure out anything that he couldbine or ovep in any manner, although it seemed like there should be a way. Eiro could figure this out somehow at some point, but now it felt like too much of a bother for him to do so.


    Soon, Eiro realized something else, however. What if he tried tobine his <Memory of a Schr> with itself somehow? Would he be able to remember certain things more easily? Would he be able to find the scraps of paper that he was missing with ease?


    Well, he had to try, at least.

 Chapter 344 - Clusters

    Eiro stood in the library of his mind. He saw that which was around him, or at least that which he imagined to be around him using his <Memory of a Schr> ability. It was one that allowed him to remember every part of his past perfectly. So what if hebined this ability with itself to let Eiro remember just one part of his past?


    One part that was broken, a part that he had to go through again and again, slowly filling in the gaps by remembering. By forcing himself to remember.


    That is what Eiro tried next. He stood in the center of the area that he used to act the different memories out to make use of muscle-memory, and ovepped this ability with itself. Basically, he was trying tobine the aspect of his ability that allowed him to dive into a single memory with the aspect that allowed him to recall all these memories in general.


    And that did something that messed Eiro''s mind up rather quickly. He forgot most of the things that he did in his life immediately. Of course, it wasn''t to the extent of a sort of Amnesia as he experienced before, but rather, he was now at the level at which other people were able to remember their life.


    Mostly, they knew all that they had to know, but they couldn''t remember every situation with particr detail. But then again, due to Eiro''s rather high Wisdom and Intelligence, his base-ability to memorize and remember things was a lot better than that of the average person in the first ce.


    But to Eiro, it seemed as if he had lost all his memories for a moment. Of course he knew that this wasn''t the case, but it felt like it for a moment.


    Either way, what Eiro was focusing on now was a single memory. A memory that he still fully held, just to test this out. He didn''t want to mess himself up immediately. Every book in the library changed to be the same book. The same color and thickness, and even weight. They were allpletely identical to each other.


    Eiro picked up one of the books, and remembered the situation he narrowed it down to. It was literally just a calming memory of Eiro wandering through the forest back home. And when he closed the book, he picked up another and opened it up. It was the same exact memory.


    And that showed that it worked out. Eiro felt only that memory coursing through his mind the whole time. It helped him calm down, actually. His powerful ability waspletely focused on this memory, making Eiro''s immersion feel somehow... stronger than before. As if he was currently there in that moment, but also still right where he was. In two ces, and in two different times, both at once.


    It was interesting, to say the least.


    Slowly, Eiro removed the focus of this exact memory, and quickly returned to normal. He spent a short while focusing on trying to figure out if there were any damages done to Eiro''s memories through this just now, but luckily that wasn''t the case.


    The Demon smiled softly as he went for the next step. He tried to make his <Memory of a Schr> focus on a broken memory. One of those that were close topletion, but not just there. Just in case something might go wrong with this, Eiro wanted to minimize the damage.


    But the moment that Eiro did this, he felt... Weird. As if his body was harder to move, as if it became heavier or Eiro started walking through a swamp with muddy sludge up to his chin.


    That was the part of Eiro that was currently inside of the broken memory,pletely immersed in it. Because the memory was iplete, Eiro wasn''t able to truly go through it. The memory was pushing him away, keeping him in ce in the part that he remember most, which really wasn''t a lot to begin with.


    But slowly, as Eiro tried to fully immerse himself in only this broken memory by moving around like he did within it as well, the Demon was able to proceed. Much quicker than he was able to before, and it seemed like the right scraps were falling from the dark ceiling of this room.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro continued, and was able to quickly finish the memory. The moment he did so, Eiro''s mind cleared up and instead of his body feeling like he was trapped in a muddy swamp, the Demon felt light and able to move around however he wanted to.


    And then, Eiro tried it with the next memory. And then the next. Not only was this a lot quicker than before, but it was also far less exhausting. Since Eiro was focusing on only one thing, his mind was practically freed from everything else, which made this job extremely simple to him.


    Eiro smiled lightly and proceeded to start trying to do the same for other memories that he had. There were still aspects of his memories missing for some of them, but again, he would figure out what sort of aspects they wereter andplete them afterward. It was only about a tenth of the memories that had a small portion of parts that were influenced by that aspect of memories.


    That meant that Eiro was able to finish up more than 90% of his work by the end of his day, nearly a full day earlier than he had thought.


    With a broad smile on his face, Eiro stepped out of his library and looked at Lognir, "Couldn''t you have told me about this sort of thing a bit earlier? That would have made everythina lot easier."


    "How was I supposed to know you would be able to master this step so easily? Really, you''re quite talented with these things. Getting new skills or abilities must be in your actual ''talents'' somehow."


    "Are you sure about that?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, "Actually, I don''t think so."


    Lognir turned toward Eiro with his brows raised curiously, "What do you mean?"


    "I think, rather, I don''t have any talents at all." The Demon said, and Lognir let out a deep sigh, "That''s clearly not-"


    "But I don''t have anything holding me back either." Eiro interrupted. The Dragon looked back at Eiro for a few moments in confusion, not sure what he was trying to say. But then, he understood.


    "You think that because you were an artificial creation, you are not limited by things such as ''talents'' or ''boundaries''?"


    Immediately, Eiro nodded his head, "That''s exactly it. None of my skills level up particrly faster or slower than others. And if they do, it''s because of their rarity rather than talents. When I do magic-talent tests, it only shows the ''affinity'' for elements that I already absorbed somehow. It doesn''t show me the possibility of other elements, but I can rather easily gain any element I wish as long as I have ess to a pure form of the magic in question. I don''t have any talent toward particr branches of magic either."


    "...That would not be possible, child. If I understood correctly, your creation is simr to the creation of Spirits, is it not? Creating something without any talents or boundaries is impossible for the itself, so how would the Monster King be able to do so?"


    Eiro slowly turned his head to the side, looking directly at Nelli, who nodded her head in response. Lognir was an incredibly old being, and he was directly connected to truth, while obviously being insanely knowledgeable about many things that Eiro never even heard about.


    Maybe... Lognir knew about this.


    Eiro looked into the Dragon''s eyes and took a deep breath, "Have you heard of... Someone being given Stat Points every time they level up that they can freely assign to their stats?" Eiro asked. Immediately, Lognir ripped his eyes open wide, confused at what the Demon was hinting at.


    "There... There is no way..." Lognir muttered quietly as he took a step back confused, "What are you?"


    Eiro looked back at Lognir, just as confused as he was. He didn''t think that such a question would shock him that much... Of course, it was nothing normal, Eiro knew that, but was it really anything worth freaking out about this much? And it wasn''t just that Lognir was surprised at the possibility, but rather... That he was scared of Eiro. Or at least, he was anxious. Extremely so.


    But a few momentster, Lognir calmed himself down, "No, there''s no way... Eiro, are you sure that you understand the implications of what you just said?"


    "Of course I don''t, that''s why I asked. It seemed natural to me for the longest time, until Nelli told me that it absolutely was anything but natural. You seem to know something about this, though."


    "...Indeed I do. But first, could you show me how this... ability works?"


    Eiro slowly nodded as he took out a small notebook from his treasury together with a pen, quickly sketching out what his status looks like.


    "The rest of your status is the same as normal, but that line underneath your stats is not. And then how do you ''assign'' these stats?"


    Eiro looked at the piece of paper and exined, "I simply think of the stat I want to give a point to, and then it''s added. That''s it."


    "You can choose any stat you wish?" Lognir asked with a slight frown, before Eiro nodded again, "Yes. So... Do you know of something like this?"


    "I know of something simr, at least. But seeing how your ability works still makes me wonder about some certain things." The Dragon looked at Eiro with a deep frown, his golden-white eyes sparking up for just a second.


    Eiro could see a notification appear in front of Lognir''s eyes. It said something in anguage that Eiro didn''t know, so he couldn''t read it, but it seemed quite important, at least judging from Lognir''s reaction.


    "Ah, so that''s it... That would exin it, to an extent at least." Lognir exined, "You see, there are a certain few beings in this world with assigned ''roles''. One of them must exist at any point in time. Those beings are, for example, the Monster King and the Hero. There are different ones as well, less well-known and certainly less powerful at times. All of these beings were created through the same ''energy'' of the universe. That energy crystalized at the dawn of this world, and shattered into pieces at one point. Each shard of that energy held immense power. Some were taken by God-like beings and turned into artifacts. These are referred to as ''Shards''. And then, other parts fused with the souls of the living and became the System we all see. These are referred to as ''Fragments''." Lognir exined.


    "And then, there are those that hold extremely pure and powerful parts of that primordial energy. Those are those special beings. These parts are called ''Splinters''. At some point, those splinters gathered in one ce in one way or another. Some gathered and became ''Clusters'' that turned them into a part of the world. The Hero and the Monster King are such beings."


    Eiro listened to Lognir, although he felt something rather eery creep up on him in the back of his mind as he heard the word ''Splinter''. And then, Lognir exined the point of this ''lesson''.


    "Those that hold these ''Clusters'' within them have the ability to control the distribution of ''stat points'' being added to their stats."

 Chapter 345 - Maps

    Eiro heard Lognir''s words and looked back at him confused, "So, I have a ''Cluster'' like that inside myself?" The Demon asked. It would exin a few things, at least. However, Lognir quickly shook his head.


    "No, you don''t. You have only a single ''Splinter'' inside of you. One that is particrly powerful, but just a single one." Lognir exined, "And there is another difference between you and ''Cluster'' holders... They are merely able to choose what sort of ability to improve as they level up. If they wish to be faster, their stat points will be distributed amongst Agility and Strength. If they wish to gain stronger Magic, their stat points will be distributed amongst Intelligence and Wisdom. They still have no choice how many stat points will be assigned to each stat, nor which exact stats will be effected by their wish."


    Eiro looked back at Lognir and slowly shook his head, thinking that the Dragon misunderstood Eiro''s exnation of how the stat point system worked. However, Lognir quickly showed that this was not the case, "This makes you different to them once more, Eiro. You are able to assign each individual point to whichever stat you wish, are you not? Your ability is clearly many times more... unique than those that hold a cluster."


    Again, Eiro was disappointed as he realized that he still didn''t have a clear exnation for what exactly it was that made him like this. Having a solution shown to him just to have it ripped away again... was more than just cruel to Eiro.


    "...Do you have any idea of why I''m like this?" Eiro asked, but Lognir slowly shook his head, "All I can do is make a few assumptions. There is no way for me to know for sure. But... It is possible that you hold a unique piece of that primordial energy within you. Or the ''Splinter'' simply interacts with the part that creates the system within you in a surprising manner. Maybe someone fiddled with your ''Splinter'' and made it so that you would be like this. There are many different possibilities, you see?"


    Eiro slowly nodded his head in response to the Dragon''s exnation. At the end of the day... It did seem to have to do with the ''Splinter''. Right now, Eiro didn''t have any idea of what was going on, but he was a step closer. Even if the goal seemed to be a thousand miles away, taking even a single step is infinitely better than standing at the start line.


    And there was something else that Eiro knew now. Well, he didn''t ''know'' it, but he had a feeling. A feeling that remembering all of his memories would reveal something to Eiro that might help him clear more things up. He could swear that he heard the term ''Splinter'' in such a context before. There was no way he didn''t. Eiro was never so sure of something that he didn''t even remember before, and he usually wasn''t confident without reason.


    Overconfident, sometimes, but he never felt confidence without any reason at all. Especially not confidence as strong as this. Eiro took a deep breath and let his mind run its course. Was there any memory that seemed like it would contain this information?


    Somehow, there was none. But there was a gap. A gap that Eiro couldn''t exin. A whole book was missing from his shelves in his mental library. Maybe this memory was the one that Eiro needed?


    "...Let''s keep talking about thister... There''s something I need to-"


    "No." Lognir said in a clear and loud voice, "You must do nothing but sleep for now. Your mind is too exhausted, even if you may not want to admit it to yourself. So now let us eat and then you will sleep, promise this to me."


    "..." Eiro silently looked back at Lognir before nodding his head, "Sure. If you say so, then I should trust you." The Demon said in a clear, albeit quiet voice, and the Dragon was satisfied. He seemed to have to collect his thoughts about the information that was revealed to him for a while as well.


    "I''ll stay here and speak to these three for a little while longer, is that alright? I need to... collect my thoughts about this as well." Eiro said, and seeing Lognir''s expression quickly added, "I really won''t try to remember, don''t worry."


    Satisfied, Lognir slowly left as Eiro dropped onto the ground, first sitting there and soon letting his body pull to the ground toy there, with Nelli, Gondos, and Sarius floating above the Demon''s face, "Now, that''s quite interesting... Right?" Nelli asked with a wry smile. She had known about this ability of Eiro''s for a while now, but she knew even less about it than Eiro did. Of course she would be confused about such information.


    Since neither Gondos nor Sarius truly understood the extent of Eiro''s ability to assign his own stat points yet, nor did they truly know about the implications of Lognir''s words, so they just looked at Eiro and tried to calm him down instead of freaking out like Eiro and Nelli themselves.


    "Do not worry, Eiro. For the time that I have been with you, I have not seen you failpletely. There may be some times where things don''t go the way you want them to, but at the end of the day, you always tend to pull through. If you want to figur this mystery out, then you will be able to, there is no doubt about that in my mind." Gondos said, with reassuring words entering Eiro''s ears.


    And it did cheer him up. While both Nelli and Sarius were the kind that would sometimes lie or pretend something was alright for their own benefit, of course still in no serious way, but Gondos was one that Eiro never heard say anything but what he truly meant from the bottom of his heart.


    It felt good to hear such honest words about something that he was genuinely worried about, "Thank you, Gondos."


    Slowly, Sarius opened his mouth as well, wanting to say something about this as well, "Quite often, from the King and Queen, I heard about shit like this. Didn''t know that it was something so important..."


    "They told you about the truth of certain primordial forces that create numerous incredibly powerful beings and you didn''t think it was important?"


    "Oi, I didn''t even know I was ever gonna leave the ne of fire, so fuck off." The Smander grumbled, "But that wasn''t my point. The King told me that the ones capable of manipting this stuff, the only ones at that, are still alive. And that means that-"


    "I can find them." Eiro muttered. Sarius quickly nodded, "Yup, that''s it. They might not be on the central material ne, though..."


    "That means we might have to figure out internar travel, is that it?" Nelli asked with a deep sigh, "Do you know how hard it is to even attempt stuff like that?"


    Eiro looked up at the ceiling of the cave before pointing out something else, "But I already have a connection to another ne, don''t I?"


    "That..." The Naiad whispered, "Is also true... Well, if we can get you to the Ethereal ne, that should give you ess to basically every other ne. Weren''t there maps of certain parts of the Ethereal ne?"


    Eiro raised his brows in thought. He never heard about this before. Of course, he knew of the Ethereal ne, he read plenty of books about it, but none of them mentioned anything about ''maps''.


    "Ah... Yeah, you might want to visit some of Jura''s old friends as well, when you can. They''re quite powerful, if you remember. One of them is a ''Keeper of Knowledge'' of sorts. Knows nearly everynguage there is, owns a huge library... He might have one or two of those maps."


    Eiro immediately sat up and stared at Nelli intensely, "And why did I NEVER hear about this? Don''t you think I would like to meet that guy?"


    "Of course, but we have no idea where he is... Only that he''s on this ne of existence. His position changes constantly, Jura didn''t manage to see him in... decades. Neither did any of the others. You can ask Armodeus though, maybe he knows something about him? He was part of the same ''circle''."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head. There was something new to try and figure out. If he even chose to figure it out at the end of the day. He could just choose to not care about it, and live in blissful ignorance for the rest of his life.


    Slowly, Eiro pushed himself off the ground and made his way to the other part of the cave where the others were waiting, apparently having started to eat without him. Not that he cared.


    He joined them, and soon finshed eating, before heading to sleep like Lognir told him to. Just that his mind was overwhelmingly full with thought that made it hard for him to fall asleep.


    What was he? How did he get that special Splinter inside of his body? He was created by the Monster King, so was it an ident? Or did he use a base material that had the Splinter inside of it already?


    Eiro didn''t know the answer to those questions right now. He wanted to know it, but he didn''t. Maybe he would never figure it out. Maybe he would have to live without knowing it for the rest of his life, with no chance of ever truly finding out what he was.


    Slowly, the Demon managed to drift off into sleep. He found himself back inside of a lucid dream that he could control however he wanted. There, Eiro created the library. He wasn''t able toyer it onto itself like before, but at the very least he was able to still go through everything slowly and steadily.


    Eiro recovered some more memories and finished up a few things that he wasn''t able to finish up during the day, and just a few aspects were left for Eiro to try and figure out.


    In the morning, the Demon went out to grab some new stuff for everyone to eat, and then made his way to another part of the cave system to once more dive into his library.


    He managed to figure out thest aspect of memories that he had to make use of to remember thest bit that was still missing.


    Emotions. In some of his memories, he must have figured out things about his emotions that he now didn''t know.. If he could feel those emotions again, then he should be able topletely recover his lost memories.

 Chapter 346 - Sealed Away

    There were only a handful of memory-books with parts missing left. But they were ones with ratherrge parts that had been ripped out of them. Eiro was positive that they were memories that were deeply connected to ''Emotions'', something that was often rather hard to exin in words. So, it made sense if Eiro wasn''t able toplete them just through logic by writing things down into the new books he was transcribing.


    Eiro read through the books multiple times, trying to figure out how he should be able to recover the emotions from that time, but no matter what he tried, he was unable to feel anything. He felt weirdly disconnected from these memories, even when he made his ability focus only on that specific memory.


    It was... like Eiro would never be able to feel that which he felt there at the time.


    But then, Eiro slowly got an idea. Instead of focusing on a specific memory, maybe Eiro could change the library to only include books of a certain topic.


    Since these memories that he still had to recover mostly had to do with the children, or other important people in Eiro''s life, he had to try anything he could in order to remember them. He didn''t want to return still not holding the same feelings for them as he used to.


    Slowly, the Demon focused his mind and let go of this specific memory, instead just filling it with any memory that included Clementine inside of it. He knew everything about Clementine, and only Clementine filled his mind. This was what the minds of obsessive people had to look like, those that only ever lived for one specific person and cared for nothing but that person.


    It felt a bit weird to Eiro, considering that he just drew this mentalparison, but he should be able to figure this out like this. He grabbed the books that were left now that still had memories missing, and once more read through them, using the memories of Clementine he had to fill in parts. He acted these memories out, and soon, a small scrap of paper fell from the ceiling as Eiro felt something.


    He felt his deep love and care for Clementine from the moment that he had first felt this parental love for her. It basically merged with all other emotions that he felt for Clementine, and made Eiro realize that this truly did work out properly. He would not need to return without these emotions for the children.


    After going through andpleting any and all parts of the memories that had to do with Clementine, he did so with Sammy. And then with Rudy, Leon, and Avalin. He remembered all of them.


    Eiro chose to leave Arc forst, though, since he was aware that there was something else of importance connected to him that he should figure out in that situation as well. So, Eiro first remembered the emotions he felt for everyone else.


    Especially thoseplex emotions, that were a mixture of deep trust and anger, connected to James opened up a lot of different memories for Eiro. For the next hour or so, this was all that Eiro did.


    And then, there was only one person left that he had to focus on in this way. Arc.


    All of Eiro''s mind was filled with this reckless, intelligent young man. The Demon became able to connect certain information about him in a new way, and soon ended uppleting all of the memories that were missing.


    Eiro remembered everything again. Finally, there was no need to worry about anything anymore. He would never end up forgetting something permanently ever again.


    But not only that, Eiro''s mind was filled with another realization. One that became even more apparent when Eiro returned to the normal library of his mind. A single book fell from the ceiling in the center of the room and mmed down onto the ground with a loud thundering smash, way too loud for what a book that size was supposed to be able to create.


    It was a book with pure white leather covering its outside, and a small metal lock ced onto it, keeping it shut. Nervous about what was going on, Eiro approached the book. He slowly picked it up, noticing that it was many times heavier than it seemed to be at first. As if it waspletely made from lead instead of paper and leather.


    The Demon looked at the lock that was ced onto it, unsure of what it was that was held in here. But he had a rough feeling at least.


    These were the memories that Eiro pushed down into his subconscious over time. Those that he didn''t even want to remember somehow. Things that he rejected, or things that were so horrid that he didn''t want to look at them.


    He was able to figure out roughly which memories were in here from other memories. The specific memory of what it was like seeing Avalin be eaten alive.


    The memory of what Eiro saw inside of his own chest cavity when <The Devil> opened it up using the Key card.


    And the memory of what happened when Eiro nearly died during the fight against Edward.


    There were certainly other small memories in there, and all of them were things that were important to know, and ones that Eiro did know before. Things that were probably sealed away when Eiro was given the chance to forget about them like this.


    Now, he had to make the choice if he wanted to remember them. It was an easy one, really. Eiro put a bit of pressure onto the lock that was holding the book shut, and it quickly shattered into pieces. Sure, Eiro wasn''t able to use actual strength here, but there was no way that he would let anything be sealed away within his own mind without being able to exert mental power onto it.


    Eiro slowly opened the book up, as numerous memories filled his mind. Most of them were just overwhelming memories, like times where he felt extreme sensory stimtion, but there were the memories he thought would be there.


    And two of them made Eiro question quite a lot of things. Or rather, the things that those memories seemed to hint at.


    Eiro opened his eyes and stood up, looking at Lognir immediately, "I''m done. I recovered all my memories." Eiro exined to the Dragon of Truth, who looked back at Eiro surprised, "What? Already?"


    "Yes, already." The Demon muttered. He was more focused on the two important facts that were revealed to him after unsealing all those memories.


    Eiro took a deep breath and looked at the figure in front of him, "Can you teach me the rest of the steps of manipting my abilities? Is there anything else that I need to know in particr?"


    "...Well, there''s not too much. You should be able tobine your abilities with each other rather easily. And then,bining Magic will work in the same manner, it''s just a lot tougher and requires much more mental focus. And of course, it will use a lot more mana than normal, fusing magic within yourself."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head. He understood what Lognir was saying. But right now, with his mind racing as it was, Eiro wanted to do something to make it stop.


    The confusion was too much for Eiro. Sure, he brought this onto himself, but that didn''t mean that he wasn''t allowed to struggle with this new knowledge.


    Eiro tapped into the Spirit Gateway that he held within himself and pulled raw magic from there. And at the same time, he created ice magic within his own body that he would be pushing out of his body soon.


    The Demon made both of the magical elements intertwine as he brought them to the tip of his finger Eiro slowly pushed the two types of magic out of his hand, and kept trying to merge them. But for now, all that happened was that a cloud of mist dropped down, due to the cold air and hot air hitting each other instantly.


    Slowly but surely, Eiro pushed them together into each other.


    "Wha-... you want to start with trying to fuse magic?" Lognir asked with a wry smile, "Sure, go ahead. But I don''t know if it''s going to-"


    And the next moment, a me sparked up in front of Eiro''s hand, interrupting that which Lognir was going to say.


    It was a pale blue, nearly white, me that was floating in front of Eiro''s finger.


    "There we go." Eiro muttered quietly as he waved his hand around, making the me grow in size.


    "So, now that I can do the hardest step, I can probably do the rest as well. Is there anything else you wanted to teach me?" The Demon asked, but Lognir slowly shook his head.


    "I... don''t think there is much to teach you anymore, no. Now all you need to do is master these things, and any sort of abilities you can figure out from then on out is part of the next step. But that step is truly just to figure out which version of your abilities and skills is best suited for different situations, and being able to switch between them instantly." The Dragon exined, so Eiro took a deep breath.


    "... I see." The Demon muttered quietly, before smiling at Lognir, "Thank you for your help. I''m truly indebted to you. If you ever need my help, in any way, shape, or form, I''ll do whatever I can."


    Lognirughed quietly, "I will keep that in mind, but for now I''m fine as long as you stay around Solomon and choose to help him out when you can."


    "Of course, that''s what I was nning anyway." Eiro pointed out. Slowly, they made their way to the next room over, where the other Dragons were sitting like normal, just ying around a bit.


    The moment they did so, Krista stood up and walked over to Eiro and Lognir, "So, you finished your training, I assume?" She asked, and Lognir slowly nodded, "Yes, why are you asking?"


    "It''s quite simple. Come here, child." Krista said, clearly looking at Eiro. The Demon approached her and felt the Dragon of Chaos'' palm pressing onto his forehead.


    And then, for just an instant, his mind wentpletely nk, before numerous senses and memories filled his mind in a chaotic manner,ing at him randomly. Things were slightly different for a few moments, changing every time Eiro focused on anything in particr.


    Just a minuteter, everything returned to normal though. And Eiro looked back at Krista, confused and startled before the Dragoness spoke.


    "There you go.. My training must be a bit more simple. But I''m sure now, you will understand what ''Chaos'' truly is, is that not right?"

 Chapter 347 - Chaos And Souls

    Surprised by what his mate just did, Lognir turned toward Krista, "Did... Did you just teach him the essence of ''Chaos''?" The Dragon asked with a wry smile on his face. The Dragoness turned toward him and winked, "Maybe."


    "Krista..." Lognir sighed deeply, "I literally just spent a couple of days teaching him how to make use of ''Truth'' and ''Order''... If you suddenly teach him the essence of ''Chaos'', all of that might go to waste, you know?"


    Krista turned her head toward Eiro with a smirk on her face, "I wouldn''t be so sure about that."


    "...You might be right." The Dragon of Truth pointed out, "Eiro is as lot more impressive than I expected him to be. He might be able to grasp Chaos while still holding onto Order. But really... This guy has children on his own, you can''t just do something selfish like this." Lognir pointed out.


    With a quiet chuckle, Krista turned around, "If he can''t handle it, that''s his own fault, isn''t it? If he, in his position, can''t even handle a little bit of Chaos in his life and ends up going mad, he can''t reallyin. Anyway, it should take a few hours until he-"


    "Did..." Eiro started while grinding his teeth, "Did you just say that this shit could have made me crazy if I wasn''t careful? Why the fuck do you think I came here?! Isn''t that kind ofpletely counter-productive?!"


    Seething with anger at this revtion, the Demon rubbed the bridge of his nose as he looked at the notification floating in front of you.


    <strong>[You have obtained the <Essence of Chaos>] </strong>


    <strong>[You managed to grasp at what Chaos truly is, giving you a new perspective]</strong>


    Eiro rolled his eyes and ran his fingers through the notifications. These have been getting thicker and thickertely, as if Eiro would be able to actually grasp them soon. He had no idea why he focused on this right now, but he managed to quickly move on anyway.


    He looked at Krista and Lognir who were both looking at them rather perplexed, "What? You think I''d let a bit of mental chaos mess me up? I can deal with stuff like that in an instant. Don''t underestimate me."


    Eiro was still a bit mad at the fact that Krista would have let Eiro go crazy without hesitation, but for some reason, he felt somewhat calmer than he did before obtaining the <Essence of Chaos>. His mind was racing chaotically then due to the information that had been revealed to him after unsealing his memories, but now that he received this new ability, that chaos seemed easier to grasp. Even though it was still running as wild as before, Eiro felt safer knowing what this chaos truly looked like, and that he would have an easier time calming it down now.


    Lognir looked at Eiro a bit surprised and raised his brows, "You know... You keep impressing me again and again. And it seems like you will continue to surprise me..."


    Eiro looked at the Dragon with a nk expression. He wasn''t sure what exactly was going on, but he felt like there was suddenly some sort of new energy floating around him. Something that he had never noticed before. While most other energies seemed like some sort of smooth, silky liquid to Eiro to an extent, this one was different.


    It was like it wasn''t there at all, flickering in and out of existence. And its positions werepletely random as well... Even if Eiro wanted to pull this energy toward him, it would be hard to do so since it should be able to nearly instantly escape the Demon''s grasp. However, it was still enough to cloak his hand in this energy for a moment.


    Eiro looked at Lognir and held both of his hands behind his back in fists, "Lognir, tell me. Which fingers am I holding up with both of my hands?"


    "...You want to use this for a party trick?" Lognir asked with a wry smile, and Eiro grumbled, "Of course not, I just want to see if this is enough to trick the abilities of ''Truth'' you have." The Demon exined, "Unpredictability is important inbat. And being unpredictable while still being able to fight in my normal style is even more so. So just tell me which fingers am I holding up."


    "...Fine. Left hand... Thumb and Index. Now you switched to Middle, Ring, and Little finger. And now just the little finger. Stop trying to trick me, will you? Anyway, your right hand...?" Lognir thought for a while. He managed to figure Eiro''s left hand out perfectly, but it was the one that wasn''t cloaked in chaos.


    It seemed like Lognir was having trouble with that hand, "Index finger, maybe?"


    With a smirk on his face, Eiro shook his head, "It was all of them the whole time." The Demon said bluntly, "Alright, since I doubt you''d just lie for the fun of it, it seems like this really was what I thought it was. Although it''s a bit weird..."


    This ''Chaos'' energy waspletely different to anything else Eiro knew. It probably wasn''t an ''energy'', but rather just a natural force that Eiro suddenly became aware of to the extent of being able to sense it. When he cloaked his hand with it, it was like he loosely wrapped some thin silk around it. Silk that wanted to slip out of his hands any chance it got.


    And to Eiro, Krista now looked as if she was basically wearing a Dress made of just that Silk. The Demon took a deep breath as he let this chaos fade away from his mind, and he ceased to see it for now. It would be tough to learn how to control it, but he should be able to do so somehow, sooner orter.


    "Now that I''m done, I think it might be a good idea to use the rest of this time I reserved to be here to go back to my old home. There are some things I wanted to take care of there." Eiro exined, turning his head toward Lugo, "You want to go back there once as well, right, boy?" The Demon asked with a smile on his face.


    "Are you going to take that Dwarf with you?" Lognir asked, and Eiro slowly focused his mind onto the sound of Armodeus'' hammer mming onto some metal, "Seems like he''s still busy at work. I''ll be back in a couple of days toe pick him up. Only if you''re fine with that, of course." Eiro said with a light smile, and Lognirughed a little.


    "You are speaking as if you are that old man''s parent. How interesting. Of course, he has grown on us quite a bit, I would say. He is respectful with what he was given to work with, and he has a certain way with words when we speak to one another. I would like to get to know this ''King of Craftsmen'' a little more as well. Although you should probably speak it out with him." Lognir suggested, "He seems less terrified of us, but it would still be better to hear his opinion, would it not be?"


    Eiro turned his head toward the area where Armodeus was working and nodded, "I think so, yes. He will probably take a break soon, so I''ll speak to him then." Eiro exined, "I''ll get ready for now."


    The demon made his way through the cave system rather swiftly. Really, for some reason, he just wanted to get out of this cave as quickly as he could. He was grateful to Lognir and Krista, but this whole situation, this whole training... Kind of overwhelmed him.


    This ''Chaos'' ability was useful, but didn''t he get it a bit too easily? Sure, Krista said there was a chance to go mad, but to Eiro it seemed rather easy to break through that chance. Usually, Eiro wouldn''t have questioned it, and would have just taken it as a ''Lucky turn of fate'', but at this point, this might have not been just ''luck''.


    But especially because of one of the things he remembered after unsealing his memories made him feel weird. Eiro himself was... Such a weird being. He was technically a Demon, but was there any other Demon with abilitiespared to him?


    And of course, that didn''t mean ''Power''. There were plenty of Demon''s more powerful than him. What Eiro meant was the ''Array of Abilities'' that he had. He was straying so far from what regr Demons tried to do, to the point of being unsure if he could still call himself one.


    But he certainly was nothing but a Demon at the end of the day. He wasn''t a person, and he wasn''t some other monster either.


    But... Eiro probably was never supposed to be a Demon in the first ce. At least, that''s what that small, cowering aspect at the back of the room in Eiro''s chest seemed to show him... The room with all Aspects that made Eiro up at the time that was opened by <The Devil> to take away Eiro''s fear and his fatherly love.


    That what he saw at that time was the thing giving him the most trouble right now. Like a full-on identity crisis that was brought forward just through a single hint at trouble. Something that made him different than what he thought he was.


    That small figure that-


    "Oi,d." The Demon''s thoughts were interrupted as Armodeus walked up to him, "You wanted to talk to me about somethin???" The Craftsman asked with a smile as he took a break from work for a bit. Eiro slowly nodded his head, as he quickly exined his n to the Elder Dwarf.


    "I was going to head back to my old home. The ce where I lived with Jura. I wanted to grab some different wood from the basement, and some from my old tree as well. And of course... just take care of Jura''s grave a bit. Visit him, you know?" Eiro exined, and with a mncholic expression at hearing histe friend''s name, Armodeus looked back at him.


    "Hm... Aye, I''m fine with that. I''ll keep workin'' ''ere until you''re back." Armodeus nodded.


    Slightly calmer now that this has been dealt with, Eiro let out a slight sigh. Slowly, Armodeus frowned and asked something that''s been on his mind, "Lad, everythin'' alright? You seem like there''s something you want to ask me."


    Eiro raised his brows, surprised, "Oh... Yeah, actually. There is. I would like you to introduce me to anyone person of importance you can... Right now, I''m looking for a researcher of sorts? Someone that knows more about souls than anyone else."


    "Souls, why''re you lookin'' for someone like that?" Armodeus asked, although clearly not saying that he didn''t know anyone like that. And so, Eiro exined why.


    "It''s simple...." Eiro started, looking back at the figure of that scared young boy he saw huddled up within himself, amongst all other qualities that made him up, "I think I have the soul of a Human."

 Chapter 348 - Koperia

    "Lad, what do you-" Armodeus started, confused and nearly shocked by the Demon''s insinuation.


    "You know that I was an artificial creation by the Monster King, right? Well, fact is, I have a soul. Without one, I couldn''t exist. But how exactly do I have that soul? It''s impossible to create souls out of nothing, and that rule should still apply to the Monster King. If he was powerful enough for that, then this world would already be doomed." Eiro said, and Armodeus slowly nodded his head as he understood the logic behind it.


    "So... Yer sayin'' that the Monster King took the souls of people to create artificial monsters?"


    "Wouldn''t it make sense if that''s the case?"


    "It certainly would exin some things, I guess... But what brought you to this conclusion all of a sudden. It didn''t seem like this has been on yer mind for long." Armodeus pointed out. Eiro slowly looked to the side with a slight grimace, "I saw it. A while ago, I did. But I didn''t want to believe it then, and while I lost my memories, this specific one was sealed away. Maybe it was just to protect this important info to make sure I could definitely recover it, but... Either way... I saw a boy... Seemingly just barely an adult, huddling in the corner of the ''room'' inside of me."


    Slowly, Eiro exined the exact situation to Armodeus. How <The Devil> had opened up his chest to take a part of him temporarily, and how Eiro saw that human child huddled up there.


    Armodeus looked back at him surprised and in thought, "That means that you... Still have an aspect to you that''s human?"


    Immediately, the Demon nodded, "I think so. My guess is that it''s the aspect that lets me control my Monstrosity so easily. The thing that makes me less of a Monster, simply put."


    "That... That could very well be the case." Armodeus muttered, slowly nodding his head, "I think I know someone that could help you figure things out. Maybe even find the source of your soul... As in, where you lived in your... Well, ''Former'' life."


    "And who would that be?" Eiro asked, before Armodeus scratched the back of his head in thought with aplicated expression, "She''s a real tough one to deal with, y''know? She has a... Well, I wouldn''t call it disdain for life, rather, she simply feels nothing for it. It is as if life is merely a tool, or something to work with. Like steel would be for me."


    "Are you-" Eiro asked, and the Elder Dwarf quickly nodded his head, "Yes, I''m talking about a Necromancer. A specific one, actually, you might have read stories about her. Eliza Katerina Magna Koperia. The Queen of Undeath."


    "...You guys really know every great person in the world, don''t you? Is there some kind of club that everyone with Master Grade skills is invited to..?" Eiro asked, and Armodeus looked back at Eiro for a few moments as he turned his head away and looked at another part of the room.


    "You''ve got to be kidding right now... There''s not some sort of ''League of extraordinary Gentlemen'', right?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, but Armodeus didn''t say anything to deny it, and was quite obviously overreacting as he tried to hide his answer.


    And that was enough of an answer for Eiro, "Fine, I understand the situation. I guess I may or may not figure it out myself someday. If I get a Master Grade skill, that is. Anyway... Could you tell me where I can find that Eliza Katerina Mag-"


    "She prefers to be called Koperia, actually. Don''t mention the rest of her names under any circumstances... It''s going to be rather dangerous for you."


    "Right. I''ll remember that." Eiro sighed with his arms crossed, before Armodeus quickly exined, "The issue is, I don''t exactly know where she is. But she''s always trying to find other Necromancers and steal their abilities and techniques. Basically, try to either use Solomon or that ''Organization'' you infiltrated a while ago to find rumors about powerful necromancers, try to find them, and hope that Koperia heard about them as well."


    Eiro listened to Armodeus'' words and slowly raised his brows, before his lips formed a broad grin, "I don''t actually think I''ll have to do that." Eiro pointed out, "I have my ways of getting her toe to me."


    "...What? How do you think you''ll be able to do that?"


    But in response, Eiro simply formed a broad grin on his face.


    ---


    The Demon spread out his wings as he flew over the world below him. He looked at the snow-covered forest with a somewhat nostalgic expression. And then, he saw it in the distance. He saw the giant tree that didn''t use to be here before. A giant tree, over fifty meters tall. Pale blue, nearly white bark. The leaves of this tree with its flowers blossoming in the middle of winter, glowing as if there were small candles scattered around it, making it look as if shards of ice were floating in the air, reflecting any light they came in contact with.


    Slowly, Eironded on the ground in front of the tree, before Eiro heard Nelli''s voice next to his ear, "This is your tree? This is... Wow... This is a rather... unexpected development." The naiad pointed out, while Eiro simply smiled broadly and ced his palm onto the bark of the tree, "Is it?" He asked with a quietugh before whistling and turning around.


    Lugo was slowly catching up to him now. Eiro mostly travelled on his back, but when they got close to here, he got too excited not to fly and enjoy a view from above for once.


    A few momentster, the Stag reached Eiro again, seeing the ce where the two of them first met, now that it was so much different than before. Lugo looked around and approached the tree, slowly rubbing his antlers onto the bark.


    With a quietugh, watching Lugo do what he used to do with this tree, Eiro turned toward those two that were looking at Eiro''s own creation with wonder in their eyes, "This is a tree that you created just by pouring your mana into a seed..?" Sarius asked with wide open eyes, and Bavet also seemed more than impressed, "This is just incredible..."


    "Indeed it is." Eiro replied bluntly, "But now, excuse me for a moment." The Demon said as he quickly let his body drop down to the ground before pushing himself up as quickly as he could.


    As he jumped up into the air, he soon grabbed one of the branches of the tree and pulled himself up onto it. The tree gave off a cold air somehow. It was rather pleasant... Eiro wondered if it would be like this in winter as well.


    Either way, for now, Eiro swiftly walked along thisrge branch and reached the thing that he wanted to look at. It was the fruit that was growing here. A winterblossom''s fruit, technically created by Eiro.


    He plucked it off of the tree and held the ice-like orb in his hand, before simply taking a bite out of it. To his surprise, while the outermost ''shell'' was like ice, and he was able to slightly look through it, once the shell was broken, a steaming hot fruit could be found within it, one that wasn''t translucent at all. It was sweet and savory, pleasant to chew and had all the tastes that Eiro appreciated in food. It was perfect for him.


    It looked a bit weird, since this seemed to have a magical nature, but Eiro really didn''t mind at all. It was rather interesting, really.


    Thinking that he just had to show this to the children, Eiro plucked a few more of these fruits from along the tree, putting them into a bag that he brought with him. He really did prepare to bring quite a lot of things with him, because he didn''t know what exactly he needed yet.


    And so, after filling up one of the bags, Eiro quickly searched for a good part of the tree that he could take with himself. A nice branch that would allow Eiro to work with it with rtive ease.


    And as Eiro was looking around, it seemed as if the wood underneath his feet was moving. Convulsing. Pulsing. As if this tree was alive.


    The leaves started to rustle and the light they reflected onto the branches created a path for Eiro to follow. And so he did. He climbed across the surface of the tree that was guiding him toward a certain spot, ording to the Demon''s will. A few momentster, Eiro saw exactly what was going on. The tree knew why Eiro was here, and it knew that Eiro would return for this exact reason someday. It prepared some wood for him that was just perfect to work with.


    It was like a bit of power was concentrated here on this branch, and made it a better materials than others Eiro had seen so far.


    With a smile on his face, the Demon pulled his saw out of his Treasury before cing it onto the wood, "Thank you, bud. I''ll give you a small gift for thatter." The Demon smiled as he started to cut through the branch. It was a ratherrge one, but it seemed weirdly weak in specific ces right where Eiro chose to cut it up, as if to make it easier for him. On the other hand, it was stronger in other ced to make sure that the branch wouldn''t snap off and injure the tree more than necessary.


    Well, in the first ce, Eiro pushed his tail underneath the branch to hold it up to stop this, but it was always possible for it to snap off unevenly anyway.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he jumped off of the tree with this thick branch in his hands. Once on the ground, Eiro quickly cut it up into pieces that were easier to transport, and packed them away in a manner that would allow him to carry them easilyter on.


    And then, Eiro walked up to the tree, cing his palm onto the bark again, "Thank you, buddy. Here, let me feed you one more time."


    The next moment, Eiro pushed arge amount of mana into this tree. Since it was basically a giant staff that Eiro could make use of if he wanted to, his mana was spread out through it evenly, and it allowed Eiro to pour an immense amount of mana into it all at once.


    The leaves rustled for a moment before Eiro smiled at the tree in satisfaction. Now that he had visited this ce, there were just two more stops before heading back again.

 Chapter 349 - Traveling Mage

    Eiro walked up the hill, slow and steadily. He wanted to take this moment in properly, now that he had finally been here again after so long. Everything was how they had left it. Well, nearly, at least... Everything was a bit more dirty and overgrown, but that was to be expected.


    The rest was in ce. The barn they kept the animals in, Eiro''s side-hut where he would spend his time writing and working on woodcarvings, and of course the main house, where all of them had lived for years.


    The Demon took a deep breath as he pushed the door open. The dust that had gathered in here was pushed around and twirled in the light let in through the door and windows. Slowly, the Demon stepped inside and took a look around.


    He turned his head to the side, quickly seeing the chair that Jura always sat on. Everyone''s beds in the other part of the room. And of course the wall that was covered with numerous different seeds. Some of them seemed to have sprouted already, but that should be fine.


    "I guess I should just get this over with for now." Eiro muttered quietly as he stopped taking the energy of this room in. This nostalgic air that made him never want to leave again. But of course, Eiro knew that he had to leave, so he forced himself to move his feet around nheless.


    He quickly grabbed the ss bottles that were on the wall and one by one took them out of there. He carved a number and a letter into each one to make sure he would remember where each of them stood. Jura had a particr system to how he sorted these, so Eiro didn''t want to mess that up.


    And as Eiro was putting these ss bottles into his Satchel, that he had emptied out just for this trip, Bavet kept looking around the room with a curious mind, "This is where you all lived for such a long time?"


    "Yeah, it is..." Nelli said with a voice that showed that she was indulging in the nostalgia just as much as Eiro was.


    Meanwhile, as Nelli started to tell a few stories about this ce as she was reminiscing about them, Eiro found some of the things that he wanted toe here for. Seeds that were a match for James, as well as seeds that were a match for Charles. Now he could finally get started in letting them grow their own trees for their prosthetics.


    Eiro marked them with a small star above the number he carved into the bottles, and quickly ced them into his satchel together with the others. Once Eiro was done, he slowly left the room and made his way to the side-hut, quickly followed by the others, of course.


    Inside of the hut, Eiro immediately saw his wall of books towering in the corner of the room. Some of them started being eaten by bugs, so he wouldn''t be able to take them with him. Even so, Eiro had all of them in the library in his mind anyway, so there was no need for him to take them with him. If he wanted to re-read them, he could do so wherever and whenever he wanted to.


    Now, there was only one book that Eiro really needed to carry with him at all times, and that was the special Grimoire that he randomly found in one of the small shops of the capital.


    He still wondered how that even got there, but when he visited that ce, the old man that sold the book to him was nowhere to be found, and there weren''t any clues about him either. Anyway, Eiro was really only in here for sentimental reasons. There was nothing here that he needed. He just wanted to see it again. And maybe he was using this to dy the thing that he had to do next.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he left the room again, making his way around the building. There, at its side, the Demon found the ce he was looking for. Jura''s Grave.


    He knelt down onto the ground and looked at the Tombstone. Slowly, the Demon held his left hand t forward and the tips of his right hand''s fingers onto his left palm. Slowly, he pulled his wooden little- and ring-finger onto his right hand''s palm, cing his thumb onto his ring-finger, before pulling in his other two fingers so that only the knuckles of the index- and middle-finger were touching the palm of Eiro''s left hand.


    This was the hand-sign you would do when praying to the Goddess of Life, the Goddess that Jura believed in. He wasn''t an avid believer or anything like that, and would usually never pray to her at all, but every once in a while as he was going through hardships he would end up making this symbol as he looked up into the sky.


    And slowly, as Eiro wanted to use this symbol to pay respects to Jura, he felt a shiver of pain moving throughout his body starting at his hands. He gave off a bit of smoke as this happened, but it was over after an instant as well. Eiro barely took any damage either.


    But it was enough to ry the message. The message that Eiro''s prayer was being heard, since his body was filled with Holy Energy for an instant.


    Slowly, Eiro let his hands drop down onto the ground as he began to speak, "A lot has happened since you left. The kids are going to school now. I''ve grown a lot stronger, fought a lot of powerful enemies. I found out a lot of things about me... I suffered a lot, but I managed to pull through in the end. And you wouldn''t believe it, but I''m a Royal Candidate now! Although... I don''t know if that''s something to be happy about or not..." Eiro exined in a quiet voice, the same voice that he would use when speaking to Jura a lot of the time.


    The voice that he used when him and Jura would speak in the middle of the night while the children were asleep, so that Eiro wouldn''t end up waking them.


    "Ah, Nelli''s also here. She''s doing amazingly, but she misses you just as much as I do, if not more." The Demon said as he turned his head to look at the Naiad, softly smiling next to him.


    For a few hours, Eiro proceeded to tell Jura about all that happened in detail. As much as Eiro was hesitating to do this before, he didn''t want to let go of this moment anymore.


    He wanted to speak to this old man a little longer.


    ---


    "Are you sure you did everything that you wanted to do here?" Gondos asked, looking at Nelli and Eiro. The two of them instantly nodded their heads, "Yeah. I am, at least." Eiro exined quickly, "I loaded all of the wood I wanted to bring onto the cart that we still had here. I''m stabilizing it with nature magic and gravity magic from the magic stone. It should be able tost until we''re at Town. I''ll have it shipped to the capital from there."


    "Eh? There''s a town around here?" Sarius asked surprised, and Eiro turned his head toward him, "Of course, I would always go there to buy different things, once a week. It''s the ce that the four Ladies would always head to." Eiro exined, as he helped Lugo with the cart by just pushing forward a bit. It would probably take a while like this, but they should be able to get the wood to the Town by sundown.


    "Hey, don''t me me for not expecting a town to be here in the middle of nowhere." Sariusined, and Eiro just lightly smiled at him, "I get it, don''t worry about it." The Demon said.


    But from then on, Eiro tried to concentrate on getting the wood to the vige safely, properly getting rid of the snow on the ground and hardening the surface that Lugo would be pulling the card over, to make sure that they would be able to advance at the highest speed possible right now. Of course, that ''highest speed'' was still just the same speed as a regr cart trip, but that was surprising in itself considering the amount of cargo ced onto it.


    And to also hide the path that the group took, Eiro would ce new snow onto the areas that they already walked over. A few hourster, not too long before sundown actually, Eiro and the others finally reached the town. Or rather, they could see it in the distance. For now, Eiro had to disguise himself a bit.


    "Lugo, stay out here. The people here know you, so they''ll know that I''m here as well." The Demon said with a bitter smile. He wished that they didn''t have to do this, so that Eiro could go there again as well, but they couldn''t disguise Lugo right now at all together with Eiro at the same time.


    And the reason that Eiro had to be disguised through Bavet was simple: The people here knew the masked, hooded Eiro quite well. So if someone like that came there all of a sudden, they should be a bit suspicious that Eiro returned, considering what happened here at the Autumn Equinox.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he detached the cart from Lugo and then removed his cloak as well so that he was just wearing normal clothes. With Bavet then fusing with Eiro, the Demon''s appearance quickly changed. His wings became a thick winter jacket, his horns became hair, although just hazel brown one this time and not as colorful, and Eiro started to look like a normal person. Well, a normal person that was capable of pulling a cart with such a heavy load on it.


    Eiro made sure to ce a staff onto his back to show that he was a mage, while also creating a fake magic circle around the cart to make it look like Eiro cast a special spell to hold everything together.


    Sure, he did cast a spell, but it was one that was much more simple than the one he faked it to be. He wanted it to be tantly obvious that a spell was cast onto this.


    At the same time, Eiro also created some fake magic circles around his limbs to make it seem as if he strengthened his own body to be able to pull this cart, although he obviously didn''t need that.


    And so, Eiro started to quickly pull the cart, while using water magic to fake-sweat as he approached the town gates.


    The members of the militia that were standing there were clearly in shock at the scene they saw, considering that it seemed like an impossible feat, but Eiro was able to quickly talk his way out of this situation.


    His charisma was pretty high, after all, so he was able to get out of it by saying that a few monsters attacked his caravan and he was only able to get rid of them when it was toote. His ''horses'' and other people had died, and he had to make do while bringing this cart to the nearest town.


    And so, Eiro entered the Town for the first time in months, pretending to be just some average, extraordinary travelling mage.

 Chapter 350 - Tom

    Eiro stepped through the town, quite obviously being stared at by the people around him. But with a few subtle smiles, they were able to calm down a bit from this surprising sight and went on with their day.


    After all, no matter how inconspicuous this town looked, they were the only town that was the host to all four Ladies of seasons. This wasn''t the first time that they saw someone extraordinarye along here.


    Eiro knew this, so he didn''t worry too much. They would pay attention to him, sure, but they wouldn''t be scared of him or anything. Either way, Eiro''s first stop was thergest Merchant in this city. And the reason for that was to simply pay him to get all the wood transported to Capital to his manor.


    Of course, Eiro paid a lot of extra gold to allow him to get extra carts, horses, and men for this sort of trip, which was obviously necessary, and also gave him an official document that would allow him to travel through certain cities without paying a toll. It was a privilege that Solomon gave to him before he left on this trip, just in case Eiro was nning on doing this exact thing before heading back.


    But while Eiro was doing this, he noticed a lot of things here in this town. A lot of things that had changed. It seemed like there really were still a few soldiers gathered here, men and women that were from the same country as those that came here to get the Ladies to help them. Probably, they wanted to see if Eiro returned here at some point to apprehend them.


    Obviosuly, even if Eiro revealed himself to them, he could kill them with a single snap of his finger. Well, a snap that was infused with wind magic to create shing des that could cut through their throats, sure, but it still counted in Eiro''s opinion.


    "Is something the issue, m''Lord?" The Merchant asked, waiting for Eiro to finalize the contract with his signature, and the disguised Demon slowly nodded his head, "Of course. I was just enjoying the peace of this town a bit."


    As Eiro said these words, with a certain reason behind them, the Merchant nervously swallowed, "Of course, it is rather peaceful here... Although do not believe that this is always the case... M''Lord, if I can make a suggestion, it may be better to leave as soon as you can. A few months ago, a Demon went on a rampage here. A lot of us think that he might be waiting toe back and finish the rest of us off as well..."


    "Is that so? Did you inform any official sources of this? I had heard rumors of such an attack near here, but there was never anything in newspapers, and there were no tails from even bards about such a thing." Eiro pointed out. The Merchant scratched the back of his head, "Of course we attempted to. Maybe the people handling such things thought it to be nothing worth mentioning?"


    Eiro stared at the Merchant confused. This... was a lie. They never tried to inform any official sources of things like this. Maybe he didn''t want to seem like a coward in front of who he thought to be an influential, rich and powerful noble, to try and hide the fact that they were scared of speaking of this... But that wouldn''t make sense. This sounded far too rehearsed for that.


    "Well, maybe the workers at the Adventurer''s Guild might know a bit more of this. They should deal with such information, is that not so?" Eiro inquired, although he already knew the answer.


    "Ah, yes, Tom should certainly be able to tell you much more than I am. Apologies, m''Lord." The Merchant said with a slightly awkward smile, but Eiro just shook his head, "Nothing to apologize for. It is not like you owe me any information in the first ce. I happen to be a bit of a schr, and I deal withrge sums of money a lot. So of course I know the worth of information. Mary and sentimentally." Eiro smiled lightly.


    "Now, I think I will look around town a bit. You said the basic processing should be done within a few hours, yes? I am going toe back then to check on everything before heading off."


    "Oh? M''Lord is not nning on staying for a few nights? We have a wonderful Inn in this city."


    "Haha, I have some other business to attend to. And without such a hefty load with me, I will be able to get to it rather quickly." Eiro replied as he approached the door, "I will see you soon." The Demon said, and quickly left as the employees and the head of thepany escorted him outside.


    "Hah, the fuck kinda act was that? You sounded ridiculous!" Sarius eximed loudly into Eiro''s ear. Of course while in the inbetween space, where only Eiro, Nelli and Gondos could see and hear him. Eiro turned his head to the side, keeping his act up with a soft smile on his face. But his eyes started aggressively ring at Sarius, making even the Smander flinch for a moment.


    Without having to say anything, Eiro was pretty sure he managed to convey the message to his spirit.


    But now that the wood has been dealt with properly, Eiro made his way over to the main reason why he wanted toe here to this town in the first ce.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro pulled open the door in front of him and stepped into the rather small building. The middle-aged man that was in charge here was tiredly leaning onto the counter until now, but quickly propped himself up before looking at Eiro with a smile.


    "Wee! Are you a traveller, perchance?" Tom, the Adventurer Guild''s Master in this town, asked with a broad and energetic grin, like he usually did.


    "Something like that. Actually, I''m here to hand in a bit of an overdue request." Eiro exined as he pushed his hand into his satchel. He pulled out a couple of herbs that he picked not too far from town, cing them onto the table with a piece of paper that seemed to have been crumpled up multiple times before, nearly ripping into pieces many times.


    A bit confused, Tom looked at the piece of paper, "My apologies, Sir, but except if it is specifically stated so, you cannot hand in such requests in towns beside the ones where you took the request." He exined, before looking at the piece of paper.


    And once he looked down at it properly and read the name that was written on it for the one that took the request, he raised his head as Bavet slowly split off of the Demon''s body, removing Eiro''s physical transformation.


    "It''s been a while, Tom." Eiro smiled genuinely. With shock written on his face and a heart beating fast enough to make Eiro scared that Tom would fall over dead any moment now.


    But instead, he simply dragged his crooked legs in front of the counter and stood in front of Eiro, despite the Demon''s immense physical changes since thest time these two had seen each other. And without a moment''s hesitation, Tom pulled Eiro into a hug.


    "What did you do, just disappearing like that, you fool?" Tom asked loudly, and as Eiro slowly pulled back, he looked back at the middle-aged man''s face, "I killed a lot of people right in the middle of town. It''s not like I could stay here too much longer."


    "Pah, forget about that! That''s nothing to worry about, most of us have seen worse already!" Tom eximed. Eiro couldn''t help himself butugh a bit in response, "That so? Well, either way, it was good timing anyway. We had to leave to get things with Sammy and Leon dealt with. Those two are totally fine now, by the way."


    "Hah, I''m d to hear that! I must say, I was worried about them! So, now that they are fine, you n oning back, yes?" The man asked, assuming that he had the right idea, but Eiro''s smile quickly disappeared as he shook his head.


    "I''m... I''m sorry, Tom. But I can''te back. Even if I could trust that I would not terrify anyone in this town just by being here... I have other obligations now. The children are going to school, I have a lot of others to take care of. I need to be stronger... And that''s simply not possible out here."


    Tom, with a rather disappointed expression, took a step back, "I see. Then if that is the case, I will support you, my friend. Is there a reason why you here? Certainly not because of this request?"


    "Of course not. It was just a lucky coincidence, I guess. I was not too far away from here, and figured I shoulde by to see how the situation here is. And also... I would like to ask you for some ideas. Tips, and tricks."


    "Oh? You finally want to use my wisdom for once, I see." Tom replied smugly with his arms crossed, and Eiroughed back silently, "Right. It''s because of your position as a Guild Master. You must have a bit of information about how the Guild handles ranking people up into higher positions?"


    "Of course, as long as you prove yourself through capability and power, you are allowed to rank up. But why are you-"


    "I want to be- No, I need to be an S-Rank. Help me figure out ways to do that. I know there are aspects beyond just power and capability at that point." Eiro said bluntly, and Tom looked back surprised, "You never seemed too interested in ranking up... You really need to tell me what happenedter. But I guess... Power is certainly the most important factor, of course. If you are not far beyond the capability of an A-Rank, you will not even be considered for S-Rank. However, after that, you need to be able to be a proper public figure. Because S-Ranks are ''Common Heroes'', people that sometimes gain the same renown as the actual ''Hero'' out there."


    "And what do I need for that?" Eiro asked bluntly, and Tom crossed his arms deep in thought, "Well... I am afraid it might be impossible for you."


    "...What do you mean?"


    "An S-Rank needs to have a unique, extraordinary appearance. Something unmistakable, to make them a true symbol for the people."


    Eiro already knew what this meant, and he could see that not only Bavet, but Nelli, Gondos, and even Sarius were rather excited about it.


    "Urgh... Fine, bring back the rainbow hair...."

 Chapter 351 - Jr

    Eiro stood in front of his friends, once more changing his body''s appearance with the help of Bavet. The only difference to before was that instead of having simple brown hair, he now had rainbow hair.


    "...Eiro, were you always that..." Tom asked with a wry smile, "How do I say this..?"


    "Weird?" The Demon asked, but Tom immediately shook his head, "Handsome?"


    "...Excuse me? In what world am I handsome?" Eiro asked confusedly, and Tom raised his brows, "What is your Charisma stat at right now?"


    "106, why?"


    "...Of course it''s something insane like that. And don''t get me wrong, you still look like you used to, but in subtle ways, you look just so slightly more ''handsome'' I guess. Charisma does that to your body, didn''t you know?"


    Eiro scratched the back of his head a bit surprised, before letting out a deep sigh, "No, I knew, I just didn''t expect it to work on Demons. But I mean, it might also just be myst Evolution, right?"


    "Hm, that could also be, but you shouldn''t underestimate the power of the Charisma stat." Tom chuckled quietly. Eiro, with a wry smile, quickly summoned a mirror of ice through Nelli''s magic water. He looked at himself and rubbed his hands over his face, "I guess I look just so slightly different than I used to. But even so, what does it matter?"


    "Oh, it matters incredibly!" Tom eximed as if it was obvious, "People love those that are beautiful or handsome unconditionally. It''s going to make it so much easier to gather renown if you are pleasant to look at. People will have more to speak about in a positive manner. Of course I''m not saying that it''s an absolute necessity, but seeing how you want to get there quickly with an impressive image, it should be something to aim for, right?"


    Eiro crossed his arms in thought and slowly nodded his head. That was a fair point. But it would be a bother to have to concentrate the stats he got from leveling up on Charisma just for that. With his current evolution, leveling up was rather tough to begin with. If he concentrated on increasing his charisma... Then that would mean his growth would be stagnant for a while.


    Eiro closed his eyes in thought, before slowly nodding his head, "Alright, you have a point. I''ll try to improve my looks a bit. With nice clothes and a tidy appearance, that should be easy even if I''m not incredibly handsome right now. Maybe I should ask if Armodeus can make some more impressive clothes for me using his special materials."


    "We also have some nice tailors in town, you know? You should take a look. My daughter just took up an apprenticeship with one of them." Tom said with a smile on his face. Eiro looked back at his friend.


    It''s been a while since they were able to meet like this, and it would take quite a while until it was possible again from now on.


    Eiro and Tom continued to talk to each other for a few hours, because that was one of the main reasons why Eiro came here in the first ce. He wanted to see his friend again.


    But a few hourster, it became time for Eiro to leave again. The merchant should have properly set everything up for the delivery of the wood to Eiro''s Manor, and the Demon had to get back to the mountain soon.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he approached the door. Bavet transformed him again, although he still kept Eiro''s hair brown for this city. It would be weird if he suddenly had a different haircolor just a few hourster, especially if it changed from ''Brown'' to ''Rainbow''.


    The Demon turned around and looked at Tom, "Really, thank you for your help." Eiro said bluntly, "If you ever want to visit me in the capital of Skyhart..." Eiro muttered as he pulled out a small letter out of his satchel.


    "Just carry this with you. When you face any trouble at the border to Skyhart, just show the letter to them and they should let you through without any issues. It should also make it possible for you to stay in high-tier Inns without having to pay." Eiro exined with a smile on his face. Tom raised his head and looked at the Demon in disgusie that was about to leave the building.


    "How did you get your hands on something like this..?" Tom asked, but Eiro just smiled, "I wrote it myself. But I guess that wasn''t really your question... Let''s just say that I managed to obtain a rather powerful position."


    "...Is that so?" Tom asked. It seemed like this was enough information for him. He trusted Eiro, so knowing more was simply unnecessary, "I will consider it when I get a bit of time off sometime." The middle-aged man said. With a slight nod, Eiro stepped out of the Adventurer''s Guild and quickly made his way to the Merchant to make sure that everything had been taken care of properly.


    And then, Eiro made his way to the entrance of the town, although he saw a young man walk toward the gate with a determined stare. Blood was on his armor and de, and the two Guards that were stationed outside immediately stood up straight the moment they saw him.


    "See anything interesting today?" The young man asked, and the Guards looked at each other for a moment hesitantly. This was exactly when Eiro stepped through the gate, ready to leave this ce behind.


    "Yes, Lord Argenson. This man right here came this morning with arge amount of different unique woods, pulling a cart with his own physical power, something that should be impossible to do."


    Instantly, Eiro grew interested. Argenson? That was thest name of Rumia, the Baron in charge of all the soldiers that stayed here for a year, and one of the people that Eiro viciously killed that day.


    Eiro stopped, since it would be impossible to pretend he didn''t hear those Guards, "Is something the issue with that?" He asked with a light smile on his face, and the young man slowly shook his head.


    "Of course not. You must be quite powerful, if that is the case. Judging from your build, you are a warrior?" The young man asked, but Eiro just lightly shrugged.


    "I''d call myself a bit of a jack of all trades. I know a few melee techniques, a bit of magic, some production skills... I''m an adventurer, so I tried learning anything that maye in useful."


    "...Interesting. My name is Rumia Sieg Argenson II, acting Lord of this town and Baron to his Holy Majesty. Would you be able to answer a few of my questions?"


    "Nah, don''t think so." Eiro replied bluntly as he turned around, waving at the young man as he tried to leave, "See you."


    Startled and confused, Rumia Jr rushed ahead of Eiro and stopped him by holding his hand up, "What you are doing right now is clear misconduct to one of his Majesty''s men. Such disrespect is punishable by death if you speak like that with the wrong people."


    "Kid, listen here. One, you''re a Baron. Nobody''s going to give a shit even if I were to beat you up right here, except your own men. Two, someone of your status will not have anyone capable of even cutting through a single hair on my head. And three..." Eiro sighed as he pulled out the brooch that he was given by Solomon a while ago, "I''m a diplomatic envoy from Skyhart. While this country and Skyhart may not be allies, we aren''t on particrly good terms either. Do you really want to risk a war because you felt like questioning a man that was slightly above average in ability?" The Demon asked, before Rumia red back at him.


    "Of course not. I apologize if I was rude to you. You can be on your way, if you so wish."


    "Thanks, that was my n in the first ce." Eiro said bluntly, and quickly turned around. But of course, it was clear that Jr wouldn''t let Eiro leave so easily. The Demon already noticed the people he brought with him just to spy on the people around the town, and Rumia Jr now told them to follow Eiro. Due to this fact, Eiro was a bit annoyed. He expected this to happen, but he didn''t want to deal with it at all.


    Although, maybe he could use this to his advantage.


    "Bavet. When I tell you to, change my hair to the rainbow mode, and make my clothes more vibrant." The Demon whispered. He was going to use this chance to make rumors of his existence spread throughout this ''Holy Kingdom''. Or rather, rumors of the existence of ''Eiro the Adventurer'', the persona that he was going to create from now on.


    It took him a while, but soon, Eiro reached a point that was far enough away from the Town to not be seen by normal people there. He stretched out and quickly snapped his fingers. With a little bit of Earth and Wind magicbined, Eiro made it look as if a bit of dust was falling off of his body as he turned into his new persona.


    His hair changed into rainbow colors and seemed to glow in the faint light, and his clothes suddenly seemed more extravagant. Surely, the onlookers would inform Rumia Jr of this transformation, and the nobles of this Kingdom would find out about his existence. Slowly but surely, rumors about this ''Rainbow-haired'' man would spread. Especially because Rumia Jr would certainly try to uncover more and more information about him, and that would happen while Eiro would spread his own name throughout Skyhart.


    It seemed like a good n to passively spread his renown out further through just a simple trick like this. Especially with the thing that Eiro did next.


    He turned around and looked straight at the man who seemed to be the leader of the ''spies'' following Eiro right now and locked eyes with him, before grinning broadly. With a snap of his fingers, the snow around Eiro''s feet started twirling around his body.


    And once that snow settled again, the Demon disappeared.


    Of course, Eiro just made use of the Ace of Cups'' liquids to make himself invisible to the onlookers and then hurried through this forest to head to where Lugo was currently waiting for him.


    That should be enough to make Rumia Jr suspicious. And luckily, due to his social status that he made clear to Rumia, it would be impossible for that kid to stop the wood he prepared from being delivered to him.


    Everything was working out pretty well at the end of the day.

 Chapter 352 - Carried Home

    Eiro rode on Lugo''s back to get to the mountain where Lognir''s cave could be found. He could already see the peak in the distance, so it probably wouldn''t take too much longer at the pace that they were going now, considering that Eiro was making the path in front of them easy to traverse using magic.


    And just as he thought, it took only a few more hours until they reached the mountain. They had already been travelling for roughly a full day or two at full speed after all.


    "You okay, Lugo? Don''t need to take a break yet?" The Demon asked as he rubbed his hand over the stag''s head, and Lugo just let out a loud bellow, "Thanks, bud. Really, who would have thought that thiszy stag from a couple years ago would turn into this kind of capable being?"


    With what seemed to be a smug smile, Lugo continued along the path that Eiro was constantly creating for him to tread on. Seemingly, he was trying to go even faster than before. And while he was doing that, Eiro was using magic to help Lugo''s flow of blood and his oxygen intake, his physical recovery from running this much, and of course even trying to make sure that he was using up as little Stamina as absolutely possible.


    This was the only way that they were able to travel this much over the past few days, otherwise the trip would have taken a lot longer. But even beside that, it seemed like Lugo was improving steadily. And that was literal. His stats were slowly rising, bit by bit, the more he was moving around. His agility and endurance stats rose by nearly 10 points each already.


    It seemed simr to how Eiro was able to gain stats through certain actions at the start of his life, something that was definitely the only reason why he had been capable of breaking out of that clear control he was under back then.


    "Keep going like this, Lugo. I promise that we''ll figure out what you are someday as well. We got closer to figuring out what I am for now... So it''s your turn." Eiro smiled while rubbing his hand through Lugo''s fur.


    For the next few hours, they just continued doing what they were doing the whole time, trying to get as far as possible until Lugo was exhausted. Luckily, this time around that meant that they reached their destination.


    They were now at the foot of the mountain, and all that they had to do was climb it now. Of course, with this, Eiro chose to give a bit of a helping hand to Lugo. Instead of having the Stag climb up this ce after running for so long, Eiro was manipting the rock to basically push them up to the peak without them having to move all that much.


    To onlookers, this would obviously seem rather suspicious, but since Eiro was concealing his actions using the Ace of Cups right now anyway, it didn''t matter at all. Only someone with godly perception or eyes that could see through lies would be able to figure out what exactly was going on.


    Soon, though, Eiro, Lugo, Bavet, and the three elemental spirits reached the cave of the Dragons again.


    And from inside there, the Demon could hear quite a bit ofughter. Laughter that not only came from Lognir, but also from Armodeus. Luckily, over the past couple of days, those guys managed to get a bit closer while Eiro was gone.


    And the Demon was d about that. He was a bit surprised to find out about Armodeus'' overly scared personality back when they first met. But it seemed like he really just feared the unknown. He used to be scared of Eiro, but now he no longer was. And the same was the case with Lognir, Krista and the newborn dragons.


    After getting to know them and realizing that they were good at heart, Armodeus'' fear of them disappeared, nowhere to be seen.


    And the moment that Eiro stepped into the cave, theughter of one of those voices stopped, instead telling the other that Eiro had returned.


    The Demon made his way deeper into the cave, soon seeing the people that he expected to be here right in front of him.


    "d to see that you''re having fun." Eiro smiled lightly, and Armodeus quickly jumped up before walking over to Eiro to greet him properly, "Indeed. I finished all items I wanted to make yesterday night, so we spent all day just speaking to each other. It was quite fun, actually." The Elder Dwarfughed quietly, "How about you? Did ya manage to deal with everythin'' ya wanted to deal with?"


    "Of course. I visited my old house and grabbed all of the seeds that I could find there. I spoke with Jura a bit... Oh, and I obviously grabbed all that wood from the hut and prepared some wood from my own tree as well. I made it seem more inconspicuous by treating it with some of the Ace of Cups'' liquids as well. I met with an old friend of mine too. And then I came back here." Eiro exined. He didn''t do much, but he did all the important stuff at least.


    "Hm, I see. Then I guess it is time for us to head back home now, isn''t it?" Armodeus pointed out. Eiro looked around. It seemed like the Dwarf had already taken his temporary workshop in here down, and prepared for departure the moment that he was finished working on the items.


    "Oh, and before I forget... I think it should be fine for me to leave Krista alone with the children alone for a day or two. And as his familiar, I do have the obligation to see Solomon every once in a while. How about I bring you all back to the capital?"


    Eiro turned his head toward the Dragon surprised, "If you don''t mind, that would actually be quite great. You should be able to get us there in a few hours, probably." Eiro pointed out, and Lognir smiled softly in his human form, "Exactly. But well, I should certainly be able to carry that carriage. But what about the horses? In my experience, they will usually be rather... opposed to being carried in giant ws like mine."


    "Ah, I can just put them to sleep for a while. And if I protect them with a fire magic spell that keeps them warm, we should be all good until we reach the capital." Eiro suggested, and Lognir simply shrugged, "If you say so, then I''ll believe in you. They are your horses in the first ce."


    And so, Eiro quickly started preparing. Using a simple sedative that he produced in his tail, Eiro put the horses to sleep. It shouldst until they''re in town.


    "Lugo, do you need to be put to sleep as well?" Eiro inquired, and Lugo stared at Lognir for a while, unsure of what would be a good idea. But in the end, he bellowed out his answer, "Oh? Well, if you say so. But if at any point you be too scared, let me know and I''ll sedate you for a while as well, alright?"


    With an agreeing bellow, Lugo made his way over toward the carriage as Eiro started casting the fire magic spells on the two horses. Of course, it was just a spell that would heat up the air around the horses a bit, while creating something of a barrier that would stop the wind during the flight to blow that warm air away.


    Like this, the horses should be safe from any damage, since Lognir was obviously going to be careful with them as well.


    Eiro made sure to prepare the carriage so that it could be carried safely as well. And just as Eiro seemed to have finished his preparation, Armodeus ced all the items that he made into the carriage, "I will exin the items to you while we''re on our way. I think we should save time... I''m sure ya would probably like to go home as quickly as possible, aye,d?"


    "Yeah, I really do. Thank you." Eiro replied quickly, and Armodeus simply smiled.


    And then, Eiro spent a little while properly saying goodbye to all of the newborn dragons and Krista as well, of course, "It was an honor to meet all of you. I hope we can see each other again sometime in the future, when you are all able to use your humanoid forms as well." Eiro smiled and rubbed the snouts of the young dragons, "And of course, thank you for showing me ''Chaos'', Krista. I''m sure it''s going toe in useful in the future."


    "We should probably hope that there is no need for you to ever make use of any of your powerful abilities in the future. It would be better if there was no need for conflict, right? However, as the future is truly unpredictable, hoping is all we can do." Krista exined, "Now, you should be on your way. My mate and your friend are waiting for you."


    Eiro looked back at Krista with a smile, "Thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you." And so, Eiro quickly made his way over toward the carriage and helped Lognir bring everything to the small tform in front of the cave''s entrance so that he could properly grab everything there.


    Eiro cast the same heat spell that he cast on the horses on Lugo as well as the carriage, to make sure it wouldn''t be damaged either, and then stepped inside, "Again, thank you for your help, Lognir." The Demon smiled, and the Dragon slowly transformed into his true form, "No need to thank me, child. I offered this, did I not?"


    And just like that, the trip home, which would onlyst a few hours, started asfortably as possible. Really, Lognir''s flying skills were quite impressive. Although Eiro knew for sure that they were in the middle of the air, it felt as if the carriage was just standing in ce.


    "Now, can you show me the items you made?" Eiro asked curiously, and Armodeus let out a slight sigh, "I knew it, ye were curious about it, weren''t ya?"


    "Considering that it doesn''t happen often that I concentrate actively on not perceiving something... Yes, I am quite curious. Especially considering that it''s your work."


    "Haha, ye''re gonna make me blush,d! Aye, first, here''re yer daggers. Improved, but not altered!" The craftsman ced the two items on the small table ced here inside of the carriage, and Eiro looked at them more closely.. Just from this, he knew that all the items that Armodeus made were going to help Eiro improve considerably as well.

 Chapter 353 - Armor

    Eiro looked down at the two daggers that wereying on the table in front of him. The Dagger with the fire magic stone in its handle, the memento of Avalin, was improved mostly in small ways. There were some small carvings a long its surface that had been filled with that special metal that Armodeus created using the me Dragon hatchling''s egg.


    Due to that, it would be able to be much hotter than before. For one, the flow of the magic stone''s magic was simply much greater, and the de itself was able to withstand higher temperatures without the metal getting any weaker.


    It was a simple but powerful upgrade, one that Eiro liked quite a bit. Quickly, he ced the dagger into its sheath and ced both into his treasury before looking at the hollow dagger. What Armodeus added onto this was rather simple. He covered the hollow space inside of the dagger with an incredibly thinyer of the metal made from the Poison Dragon hatchling''s egg.


    So, when Eiro used poison together with this dagger, as he usually did, then it would probably get a bit of a power increase just by being in there for a while. Usually, so that he was able to control it better and to be able to manipte its temperature some more, Eiro would mix whatever toxin he wanted to use with some water.


    Maybe now he would try the effect with just the raw substance itself, that would certainly increase its power quite a bit.


    If Eiro stabbed someone using this dagger when it was filled with a powerful venom, then it would certainly end up killing the opponent incredibly quickly. But the issue was that this sort of substance degraded rtively quickly at extreme temperatures. Hopefully that wasn''t going to be the case anymore.


    But on top of just covering the hollow space inside the dagger with this metal, Armodeus created a few more funnels that the toxins could flow through when Eiro let the toxins out of the core of the de.


    While Eiro was looking at these two des, Armodeus brought out the other items that he prepared. Right now, they were covered in some white cloth that the craftsman was using both to protect them and to hide them from Eiro.


    "Here ya go, Lad. This is the main dish of the meal!" The Elder Dwarf exined with a broad, smug grin on his face. Slowly, Eiro extended his hand toward the cloth and slowly removed it from the item underneath.


    And what he saw then was truly amazing. It was a full set of armor for Eiro. It seemed like some parts were simr to metal, while some parts were simr to leather. But altogether, it was really more than just impressive.


    Immediately, Eiro tried the items on with a broad, excited smile on his face. The gauntlets that were part of this set were rather special to start it off with as well, especially the one that was covering Eiro''s right arm.


    It seemed like the gauntlet was made of a mixture of leather and metal as well, although both of those different materials were actually created from the same base: Dragon Scales.


    While Eiro had no idea how Armodeus did this, it seemed like it was possible for Dragon Scales to change in such an extreme way depending on how they were treated. The base for the gauntlets was made of the ''leather scales'', wrapping around Eiro''s forearm as well as his wrist, still allowing a great amount of movement from him due to the way that the leather was cut around Eiro''s wrist.


    And onto the back of Eiro''s hand, as well on the outer area of Eiro''s forearm, Armodeus ced the ''metal scales'' in a way that weirdly still looked like small scales.


    Overall, it seemed to have an incredible defense, and the soft white golden color was a nice touch as well.


    But that wasn''t all, since the gauntlets each had something else special to them. For one, Eiro''s left gauntlet had a leather glove connected to it so that Eiro''s skin wasn''t exposed. But at the same time, Eiro''s left gauntlet had something of a small ''switch'' inside of it. It was something made using the leftovers of Eiro''s special wood that Armodeus ced in specific ces within the gauntlet.


    If Eiro let his mana flow into that switch into the few magic stones connected to it, the scales on the gauntlet would shift around. And instead of ovepping each other slightly, just like one would be used to from scales, they would connect directly at the edges, creating a small shield on Eiro''s forearm that could be used to more easily defend against iing attacks. And since it was made from hardened Dragon Scales, there was no way that any sort of normal attack would be able to even put a scratch on this small shield.


    As for Eiro''s right gauntlet, it had something else that would be useful. It also had something like a ''switch'' inside of it, although one that had a very different result. Because instead of creating a shield, the small white golden scales would shift forward and wrap around Eiro''s fingers, with a special small de appearing at the front of Eiro???s fingers. It wouldn''t be able to do too much damage in itself, but if Eiro made use of the Three of Swords andbined its des with these small des that were part of the gauntlet, they would specifically take the shape of ws that Eiro would be able to extend and retract at will.


    And not only that, when Eiro did this, a few slots for different magic stones that Eiro could ce into the gauntlet revealed themselves so that he could cast different sort of magic than normal as well.


    These gauntlets in themselves were more than just perfect, and something that people would pay hundreds, no, thousands of gold for just to get a chance to use them once. And that even without the fact that the greatest craftsman on this continent was the one that created them. That''s how amazing these items were.


    Eiro took a deep breath and quickly donned the rest of the armor, starting with the boots, as per Armodeus'' request. He chose a particr order that he wanted Eiro to try these items out in, although Eiro didn''t mind. They had all the time they needed for this anyway.


    When Eiro wore these boots, he was immediately quite surprised. They were thick and heavy, and gave him quite a bit of stability when he was standing still, but the moment that he lifted his foot of the ground, it was like the boots were pushing Eiro off the ground on their own while losing most of their weight. But whenever Eiro wanted to push his foot back down, they gained that weight again and seemed to pull Eiro toward the ground. It was something that Eiro would have to grow used to, but once he did, these would help with his movements quite a bit.


    More grip when he needed it, and higher jump power when he needed that. This time around, there didn''t seem to be any other sort of gimmick connected to the boots, so Eiro moved on to the guards that he quickly ced on his legs. These were just normal armor, with nothing to it. Sure, they would lessen a bit of the impact when Eiro happened to fall from high ces, but that was all. It was just some leather armor with some metal parts in specific ces on top of it. This armor connected quite well to the part meant for Eiro''s tail though.


    This part was just something meant toplete the item that Armodeus already made for the Demon''s tail, but whenbined with the pants, he was able to wrap his tail around his waist and easily make it seem like any other part of his armor.


    Then came the chest-piece. This was obviously one of the strongest parts, because it was meant to cover all of Eiro''s vitals. This was the item that Armodeus probably spent most of his time on, considering that he had to fine-tune everything considerably. After all, the base of the item was leather so that Eiro wouldn''t be restricted in his movement at all, while Eiro''s vital areas were covered in small metal tes.


    To an extent, this armor seemed rather ornate, although every single part of it had a use. Neither Eiro nor Armodeus were the biggest fans of too much unnecessary decoration, at least when it came to weapons and armor.


    And then, Armodeus helped Eiro put something on his wings as well. When he put it on, it was just a small rod onto each wing''s central base, ''bone'', but then Armodeus pulled something off of each of those rods, cing another smaller rod onto each area where one of Eiro''s bones were running through the wings, with some very, very thin metal leather sheets on the rest. It was armor for even Eiro''s wings.


    And much like with his tail, when Eiro pulled his wings onto his back, they just looked like another part of his armor. That meant that he had more options when trying to disguise himself in public.


    Atst, there was the helmet. It wasn''t anything too special, really. Instead of a ''helmet'', it was more of a hood made of small metallic scales that Eiro could connect to the part of his armor connecting to his neck. And it was perfect when Eiro wanted to wear his mask as well, since it helped cover Eiro''s full head perfectly.


    In general, this armor covered every part of Eiro''s body, but didn''t make him look like he was wearing a full suit of armor, somehow. The only thing that was a bit off here was the fact that Eiro was a full-grown man that was walking around in a slightly golden-white from top to bottom.


    However... Armodeus had a solution for that as well.


    "Now,d, I hope ya like this armor." Armodeus said smugly, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Of course I do. But I''m sure you''re aware of the few troubles I have with it... right?"


    "Aye, of course I am. Ya see, I had a few conversations with Lognir and Krista while ya were gone, and I''m aware of your new ability to interact with ''Chaos''. Use that ability and look at yourself." Armodeus suggested. A bit surprised, the Demon did as asked. With a quick breath, he concentrated on that sensation and looked down at his body. Now, his whole body was shifting around, as if the light around him was being fractured through extreme heat. It was quite surprising, considering the fact that this armor was made using the scales of the Dragon of Truth. But at that point, Eiro realized what exactly was going on.


    Slowly, he ced his hand onto his chest and felt these distortions with his hands. And just so slowly, he tried to pour his thoughts into these distortions. And as he did, his Armor changed. From the bright white, to a far darker color. A color that was more like what Eiro was really used to wearing. This armor was far less conspicuous this way.


    But at the same time.... Eiro realized the possibilities that this armor of ''Chaos and Order'' gave him.

 Chapter 354 - Domain Of Darkness

    Eiro pressed his hand onto his chest, and slowly poured out some fire magic out of his palm, mixing it in with the energies of chaos that were flowing around him due to this armor.


    And so, the power of ''Order'' took effect and shifted the chaos toward a specific direction. Slowly, instead of the ck that it was just now, the armor turned into a dark red and started to give off a bit of heat.


    "So this is really how it works, then?" Eiro asked with a broad smile on his face, and Armodeus quickly nodded his head, "Aye, that''s how I nned it to work, at least. Since there''s a type of Dragon for basically every element there is, ya can temporarily make it so that the scales that have been used as a base are the scales of that sort of Dragon. Of course, there''ll be some rare exceptions. And ya must feed the ''chaos'' some magic so that it knows what exactly to do."


    With a broad smile on his face, Eiro used another sort of magic on his Armor''s Chaos. The color faded from the armor and it changed into a faded, white-blue. Light mist started falling off of Eiro''s body due to the change in temperature as he changed his armor to possess the Ice element instead.


    And then, Eiro got another idea as well. Slowly, he opened one of the carriage''s windows. Luckily they were flying high enough for this. The Demon quickly made use of the natural humidity in the air, as Lognir was trying to hide himself more easily within the clouds, and pulled it in toward himself.


    Quickly, Eiro pulled it into his palm and infused his body with this water, before immediately freezing it.


    Not only his armor, but his whole body was now made of ice. And due to the fact that the probablity of a sessful activation rose within the <The World> card. Since that was the case, of course Eiro''s ability to infuse himself with elements rose a lot higher.


    At this point, it was quite incredible... Eiro''s whole body was made of ice now, and he waspletely translucent. Of course that meant that he would receive extreme damage from any fire-based or blunt attacks, but Eiro wouldn''t use this sort of form anyway.


    But either way, together with Eiro''s own transformation, something changed in the armor as well. The armor itself seemed to turn to ice, and Eiro looked just like a statue carved straight from a huge block of ice.


    It was interesting, to say the least. And then, when Eiro made use of the next-step infusion, his body was no longer translucent, since he infused himself with the ''essence'' of the element rather than the element itself.


    He still gave off extremely cold air, and his body was still quite rigid and weakerpared to normal. But the armor once more adapted and turned opaque again, like Eiro wanted it to, "Armodeus, you really outdid yourself. What do I owe you?"


    The Elder Dwarf raised his brows surprised, "Ye''re not talkin'' about money, are yad?"


    "Of course I am. I mean, wouldn''t it be a waste of time for you to make something like this and not get paid for it at all?"


    "Hah! I didn''t make these items for money,d. I made them because I wanted to work with those materials. So don''t even think about payin'' me in any way, ya hear?" Armodeus eximed with his arms crossed, before Eiro slightly smiled. He stopped his infusion with the ice and pushed it back out the window, turning it into mist again so that it could join the clouds once more.


    "Thank you. I still owe you one, then. If you need my help with anything, I''lle help, no questions asked. Although I would do that anyway, I guess." Eiro pointed out. Once more, Armodeus seemed surprised, "Ya would help me with anything I want, no questions asked? Even without you owing me one?"


    "...Of course, aren''t we friends? That''s how it''s supposed to go, right? I mean, you came all the way from Argberg to the capital without hesitation the moment you heard that something might have happened to us."


    Armodeus lightly chuckled to himself with a nod, "Aye, ye have a point there,d. Fine, I''ll see if I can find anything you could help me with. But for now, just take those items and don''t worry about it just yet."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head, and figured he should try something else out that would be quite important for him going forward. He quickly closed the windows and turned off the candles that were lighting up the inside of this carriage.


    Quickly, Eiro infused his body with shadow magicpletely. Once more, instead of it just affecting his skin, Eiro''s whole body turned into a solid mass of shadows. And this affected his armor as well. It turned a deep ck and gave off mist in the same color, shifting around with every single movement of Eiro''s body.


    "This is rather... interesting. Really, this armor nearly acts like it''s part of my body." Eiro pointed out, his voice seeming toe from every part of this carriage that was covered in darkness. Meaning, currently, ever bit of it.


    Armodeus was a bit surprised to see and hear this, since he wasn''t aware of what it looked like to be infused with shadows until then.


    Slowly, Eiro took a deep breath and did something that he only attempted partially until then. It seemed like the armor was nearly strengthening the effect of his infusion to an extent though, making the Demon a bit more confident that this would work out.


    Eiro pushed himself into the dark surface of the seat that he was sitting on, entering the domain of darkness beyond it. It was like some form of infinitely deep space that Eiro should be able to move through, as if diving through water.


    The only thing that he could still see here was the space that he just came from. The space of the inside of the carriage in front of him. Slowly, Eiro swam through the darkness to the other side of the carriage and peaked his head through a part of the shadows gathered there,ing out right next to Armodeus.


    "That''s a unique experience, to say the least."


    "Holy mother of- Lad, how''d... How''d ya get over here? You were just sitting there!" Armodeus eximed. It seemed like even Nelli, Gondos and Sarius were quite surprised. They were still floating in the same ce as they did before, not having been able to go into this ''domain of darkness'' together with Eiro.


    The Demon slowly climbed out of this dark space. This was really a unique feeling, as if the areas where no light fell were really just made of water that Eiro could dive into at will.


    But now, he stopped infusing himself with the shadows and sat back down on his seat, "This is really a great suit of armor." Eiro pointed out, "I''ll have to try a lot of things out with this then. And I''ll have to get used to fighting with a shield as well." The Demon pointed out as he raised his left arm, quickly activating the small shield that was there, meant to help Eiro defend against small and weak iing attacks.


    For the next few hours, Eiro and Armodeus spoke about the armor some more, so that Eiro really knew every bit of the structure of the armor.


    And then, quite soon, they arrived at their destination. Since Lognir was still able to hide his own body amazingly well, he was able tond in the manor''s gardens without anyone being able to see anything. Of course, since the Manor was in the middle of nowhere to begin with, there wasn''t anyone around to see Lognirnd there in the first ce, although some guards in the distance could have be a bit nervous seeing something like Lognirnd in the distance.


    Either way, Eiro noticed Lognir slowly cing the carriage down onto the ground while letting go of Lugo and the two horses. Lugo qucikly ran out of the way, nervously shaking after this unique trip he just experienced, while the horses were still asleep andying where Lognir ced them down.


    Of course, Eiro quickly made his way out of the carriage and helped the horses up, manipting their blood a bit to remove some of the traces of his anesthetic in there to help them wake up earlier. After safely bringing the horses to the stables and taking everything out of the carriage together with Armodeus, they all made their way into the manor for now.


    The house was pretty empty, the only ones that seemed to be here were Krog and Jess. Both of them were in Krog''s room. Laying in his bed.


    With a deep groan, Eiro made his way to the Warrior''s room and knocked on the door, "You two, I''m back, and since I can already hear your heartbeats while you''re asleep, try to be a bit more quiet." Eiro eximed, and all movement in the room beyond the door ceased for a moment, before heavy footsteps could be heard approaching the door.


    Krog ripped the door open and stared at Eiro, only covered by a nket in front of his crotch, while Jess stillid in Krog''s bed, only covered by a thin nket as well, "Hey Eiro... couldn''t you have just... you know... Let us know a little bit differently?"


    "Probably, but this way was more fun." Eiro pointed out, "Anyway, finish up in here and thene downstairs, we have a guest."


    Krog grumbled as he closed the door, before Eiro made his way back downstairs to the sitting room where Lognir, in his human form of course, and Armodeus already took a seat. Lugo was also in the corner of the room, trying to sleep despite how nervous he still was.


    A few minutester, both Krog and Jess came downstairs, Jess a bit more annoyed than Krog was. Although it seemed like Jess had issue walking for some reason. Not that Eiro cared at all.


    "So, I''ll introduce James to himter if I have the chance, but this here is Lognir, the Dragon of Truth and Solomon''s familiar. He helped me recover all my memories and taught me a lot of new things."


    "...Excuse me?" Krog pointed out with a wry smile, looking at that disgustingly handsome man standing right to Eiro.. Quickly, the Dragon introduced himself properly as well, although both Krog and Jess were still in disbelief at what was going on.

 Chapter 355 - New Teacher

    Currently, Eiro and Lognir were walking through the Capital toward the centermost part of the City. It seemed like he never really had the chance to walk through here like this before, just taking the surrounding area in and eating random food from stalls.


    But Eiro was a pretty good guide, considering that he knew literally every square inch of this ce already. The Demon was able to suggest food that he figured Lognir would like, and even ate some more stuff himself, practicing hisbination with Bavet. If they were able to realistically keep it up in such situations, they were most likely going to be fine. They already knew thatbat was going to be fine as well.


    Either way, what Tom said really was correct... Sure, in the past people would sometimes steal a nce in his direction, but now it was a whole other deal. People were really focused on Eiro and Lognir. Lognir because of how disgustingly handsome he was, and Eiro because of his new, rather unique features.


    He could hear a bit of gossip about them already as well, although there was obviously nothing too major. Luckily, it seemed like all their current targets were currently gathered in the exact same spot. The Academy. It would be Eiro''s second time setting foot in there, the first time being that time when Solomon helped Eiro out by escorting him to the library.


    Eiro wanted to see his children and discuss a few things with James, who was currently there for a rather special request made by Solomon himself, and Lognir was of course there in order to meet up with that King himself.


    At some point, since they were still rather far away from the Academy''s gates, Lognir and Eiro both practically made themselves disappear without anyone noticing and simply rushed toward the Gates using their extraordinary physiques.


    Eiro and Lognir soon reached therge metal gates, that were surprisingly currently open. A few other areas were locked off with the help of things like Earth Magic to create a direct path, but for the most part it seemed like the area was mostly open for everyone that wanted to enter.


    As far as Eiro could remember, the ce that all these random people were heading to was the ''Showcase'' area of the school, where they literally showcased students and ''products'' from different sections of the school.


    "Interesting. I think I know what''s going on here." The Demon pointed out. It seemed like Solomon wanted to show the people of the Capital City that despite the incident before, the Academy was still prosperous.


    "Let''s go there, then." Eiro suggested, "From the noises I can hear, it seems like everyone''s in the same ce right now..." The Demon added.


    "What ce is it?" Lognir asked while stuffing the leftovers of a meat-skewer into his face, and Eiro just swiftly replied, "Thebat arena, it seems."


    And just like that, the two of them quickly reached the ce in question. With just a quick sh of the brooch he was given by Solomon, Eiro and Lognir were allowed into the private viewing-room of the nobility, where the stuck-up parents would watch their stuck-up children win in show-fights.


    Eiro and Lognir quickly stepped inside, and the moment they did, everyone in the room stared at them. They tried to whisper amongst each other about how dirty and poor they seemed, especially Lognir at that due to the fact that he was just running around with his shirt barely covering his torso andpletely without shoes, but even Eiro was trying to hide his armor for now. It was pretty valuable after all, and he didn''t want its secrets to be revealed too quickly.


    "Excuse me, could it be that you have reached the wrong ce? The viewing-area formoners is elsewhere." A butler to what seemed to be a random noble approached Eiro and Lognir, although the Demon just shook his head, "I guess we are in the wrong ce, yeah"


    And with that, although the Butler was just about to show Eiro and Lognir out of the viewing-room, the Demon went for a straight-line for the special area that was reserved for Solomon, Charles, and surprisingly the queen, who Eiro had seen now for the first time ever. Or rather, he had seen body-doubles of her before, but to Eiro it was obvious that they were fake. This one seemed to be the real deal, though.


    Eiro swiftly stepped up to there, and the nobles became noisy. So noisy that Solomon quickly turned around. But of course, in his current form, the disguise of ''Eiro the Adventurer'', the Demon was no longer recognizable to Solomon. And Lognir was a bit hidden behind the crowd that was trying to stop the two from approaching the King, so he wasn''t able to see him either.


    With an emotionless gaze, Solomon locked eyes with Eiro, while the Demon simply smirked. He whispered something that he only wanted Solomon to hear. Manipting the air between the two men, he made sure that this really happened.


    And so, with a deep sigh, Solomon stood up from his chair and walked up to the entrance to his private area, "Please, let him through. And whateverpanion he brought. That man is my dear friend." The King exined, and as if he had just spoken a spell, everyone in the room froze up.


    There were only two people that didn''t. Eiro, who slowly stepped toward his ''dear friend'', and Lognir, who let out a loudugh.


    "Hahaha! Who would have though that this little brat would-"


    Immediately, Eiro snapped his finger and sent a concentrated shockwave of air at Lognir''s face. He was about to say something insulting that even Solomon would have trouble exining. It would be easier if he just stayed silent, "Oh Lognir, please. I''m grown up now, I''m no longer a ''brat''. But please, act respectfully in front of his Majesty." The Demon said in a respectful tone with a calming voice that flowed into the ears of everyone present like honey.


    Lognir of course understood what Eiro was trying to do, and quickly approached him before greeting Solomon properly together with Eiro, and then they were brought into the private area. It was temporarily closed off with a red curtain protecting this area using sound-nullifying magic.


    Solomon rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Eiro, why do you look like- No, wait, let me first ask why YOU are here, Lognir. Didn''t you say you still had to take care of your children."


    "Of course. And I am soon going to return to my children and my mate. I simply wished to see you, make sure you are alright." Lognir exined, and quickly approached the other two that were sitting on the chairs that were now behind Solomon. He rubbed his hand through Charles'' hair and smirked at him, before turning toward the Queen, "It is a pleasure to meet you again."


    "Likewise, Lognir." The Queen said in a soothing voice, and Solomon sighed, "Fine. I''ll talk to himter then. For now... Did you-"


    "Yes, I did. I remember everything, and gained plenty of new abilities that will improve my overall power considerably. I''m prepared to win thepetition this summer, don''t worry." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon sighed in relief.


    "I''m d that is the case. But well, you probably already figured out what is going on here, roughly at least, so I would like to ask you a favor before we miss the chance... Did you think about that proposal I gave you before you left?"


    "Of course I did. And it would be an honor to take up that position, Solomon." Eiro said bluntly, simply because it was true. He would dly do this particr thing, for multiple reasons of course, "But I will do so the way I look right now, rather than in my normal form. I would like to spread the image of this ''persona'' around."


    "Then that is fine. I''ll exin what I want you to do right here then real quick. It is part of the favor, to an extent." The King told Eiro. He seemed rather happy that he was able to have things work out like this, since he would have liked this in the first ce.


    After the exnation, Eiro looked out the window in front of him with a broad smile on his face, looking at the people sitting in the rows around the arena, seeing all of his children sitting together, beside the two that were ready to perform within this arena now.


    "Sounds perfect." The Demon said bluntly, and quickly turned around, "I assume I''ll meet James-"


    "Down there, yes. I personally requested your party to help out with the preparation for this event, and James is the only one that seemed capable of truly teaching others, so... That is why."


    Eiro rolled his eyes, thinking back onto what Jess and Krog were doing while their friend was busy working, "Right. Then I guess I''ll take over. You''ll do the announcement, I assume?"


    "Of course, just leave it to me and y along." Solomon suggested with a light smile on his face. Without hesitation, Eiro left and made his way back out of the nobles'' viewing area, before then going to the ce where the participants were gathered.


    There, he already saw the two children that would be participating in this event beside himself, as he now established together with Solomon. He smiled at them softly, although they were just weirded out due to the fact that a random guy smiled at two children he didn''t know.


    Although Arc seemed to be a bit suspicious, at least.


    And so, soon enough, the event started and Solomon began his introductory speech. Once Eiro''s prompt came up, the Demon swiftly stepped through the open gate in front of him and entered the inner part of the Arena. There, James was already standing at the sidelines to make sure nothing would go wrong, confused to see this random guy with rainbow hair enter the arena.


    "Before we start showing off our students to all of you, there is someone else that I would like to introduce you to, however. This young man here is what you would call a prodigy! Magic, Combat, even the arts! He has mastered them all in his own way! Of course, those are not just empty words... This will all be demonstrated to you in due time, do not worry! This young man will be taking over as a new, albeit temporary, teacher for the uing semester! Adventurer, and close friend and benefactor of mine, Eiro!"


    Eiro stood there during the introduction, and soon bathed in the gossip of the people in the arena that he expected to hear just about now.. Well, they would be silent out of awe in just a few moments anyway, so it mattered quite little to the Demon.

 Chapter 356 - Sea Serpent

    Eiro stood there in the center of this arena, and slowly turned his head over toward James. With a quick wink toward him, the Demon confirmed that this was really the Eiro that he knew. Not that there were many people with that name in the first ce.


    James let out a deep sigh and returned a nod, showing that he roughly understood the situation. Although he still seemed to be rather curious about why Eiro chose this sort of form to use in public. But that was a topic forter.


    Solomon''s speech was now over, so instead, the man that was in charge of organizing this event was taking lead, "We will now start with the Magic Division. Each student will demonstrate their extraordinary abilities. And then, our new Faculty Member will proceed to show his own magical prowess, to show the students the height that is possible for them to reach!"


    That guy was clearly speaking from a script, and his voice showed that he himself wasn''t particrly sure about if Eiro was really as powerful as it said he was on the piece of paper in front of him, but that was fine. He would believe it soon enough.


    Eiro now slowly made his way to the sidelines of this arena where James was also standing while ten students came out into the arena as well. One of them was Clementine, wearing Mage''s robes given to her by the school, while also holding a rather generic staff built for the Water Element in her hands.


    "James, why aren''t they allowing them to use their own staffs..?" The Demon asked, and James turned his head toward Eiro with a slight sigh, "So that people can''t say that the power of a specific spelles from the staff they use."


    "...But the staff that Clementine is using is so much weaker than the one that I made for her, that''s just-"


    "Eiro, let''s just talkter, alright? Let''s focus on the performance for now." James suggested, before the Demon reluctantly nodded his head, "Fine."


    The first student slowly walked up into the center of the arena and started to cast the spell he would use. It was a simple Earth Elemental spell, probably ''Pir''. The moment that Eiro saw the nearly finished magic circle, he nced at the magic circle array that was created along the edge of the arena, creating a barrier between the arena itself and the ce where the audience was sitting.


    The Demon sighed lightly and tapped the magic circle array, sending a slight pulse throughout the barrier. This showed Eiro that his suspicion was right. He pressed his palm onto the part of the array right behind him and started to alter part of it temporarily. Eiro had to keep part of his concentration on this, since it would immediately return to normal once he didn''t.


    And just then, the student finished his just so slightly altered magic circle, that created a pir underneath his feet. It seemed like the student altered the spell on his own volition judging from one of the teachers'' expressions. It was way too tallpared to normal.


    If Eiro didn''t remove part of the barrier, then the student would have been smushedpletely, but now, the performance could go on while the audience seemed quite impressed. While the teacher that was supposed to take care of this was busy panicking, Eiro turned his head to the side and nodded at Gondos, who swiftly flew over there and quickly lowered the pir down safely so that Eiro could let the barrier return to normal.


    The audience apuded and the student returned to the row of ten while the teacher was sending a re over to him. The next few performances went down without a hitch. One of them showed a me storm, another one showed a wind de that cut through a wooden log that was prepared for this. Overall, for their age and apparent level, their magic was quite impressive.


    And then, thest of the group came out. It was Clementine. And sure, while those other children were impressive... Clementine''s magic would be much greater than that. But for some reason, she was just standing there looking back at the teacher, who was nervously rushing around.


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose as he realized the situation. Seeing how things weren''t working out properly, Eiro swiftly stepped into the center of the arena next to his daughter. Using Wind Magic to make his voice carry further, the Demon quickly exined, "There seem to be a few minor difficulties behind the scenes. But so that we won''t make you all wait longer than necessary, I have to intervene for a moment."


    Eiro quickly snapped his finger, and with bubbles of water gathering next to his head, Nelli appeared. The Naiad quickly held her hands forward and prepared water for Clementine, while Eiro first formed arge bowl of water out of ice and then let Nelli pour the rest of the needed water into that bowl.


    The audience was more than just surprised to see a Naiad, something that most people here could have only read about.


    Clementine looked at Eiro surprised but soon just smiled, "Thanks, Dad..." She said awkwardly, while Eiro simply smiled back, "Show''em what real magic looks like, will you?"


    "You got it!" Clementine eximed happily. As Eiro made his way back to James'' side, he saw that the teacher that was rushing around before was finally rxing again. Eiro waved at him for a moment and the teacher pressed his hands together to show how thankful he was for the help.


    But then, Eiro focused on Clementine instead, and immediately saw that she was trying to really one-up everyone else in her group. After all, she wasn''t just creating her magic circle out of mana like everyone else was, but she was directly controlling the water and was turning it into the magic circle. That in itself was going to increase the potency of the spell she would make use of.


    However, Eiro immediately realized what the spell Clementine was going to use was. The Demon taught all of his children ways to somehow overwhelm their opponent. Not in actual power, but in apparent power. He showed them ways to seem far more powerful than they actually were by actively creating spells for them that were big and shy but were simple to create and didn''t take too much mana to activate.


    And the one that Clementine was making use of was exactly one of those spells. Honestly, it really wasn''t all too powerful in itself. It would make enemies hit by it wet, and maybe bruise them a little. Maybe if Eiro used it with a lot of mana he would be able to kill someone, but it was really quite unnecessary to use this sort of spell. It was really just there to be shy, and that was it.


    Soon, Clementine finished the Magic Circle in front of her and tapped the center with her staff. The air itself seemed to suddenly start waving around like water. Ripples that were running vertically through the air were creating arge wall. That wall absorbed the water that Eiro and Nelli prepared for Clementine, and created the truly ''shy'' part of this spell.


    Out of the center of those vertical ripples came a snout. And then a head. And then a lengthy, snake-like body. It was arge mass of water using everyst drop that was prepared for Clementine, in the shape of a sort of lesser-dragon that was known to reign over manyrge bodies of water. Whether it be the oceans or evenrgekes.


    It was a ''Sea Serpent'', floating through the air as if swimming in it, and moving throughout the whole arena.


    The Sea Serpent floated around there for a few more moments, and stopped right behind Clementine as if it was a living creature directly under her control. The audience apuded louder than they did with any of the other performances, as the Sea Serpent slowly fell apart. The water it was made of was of magical nature after all. Usually it would just fall to the ground and create arge puddle, but that would be a bother here, so Eiro took the liberty to pull the leftover bits of his mana in the water that it was created with and made sure that everything worked out without anysting damages to the arena.


    Clementine waved at Eiro with a broad smile as she joined her group again, and the announcer soon spoke up again.


    "What a tremendously amazing show that was! It seems like this year, we have quite a few talents in the Magic Division! But now, give it up for the Physical Combat division! Instead of having simple demonstrations like with the Magic Division, to show everyone''s prowess even better, we will be having 5 separate duels between the students, chosen specifically to help them bring out their power to the greatest extend possible!"


    "Oh, so that''s how that works? Do you know who Arc is fighting against?" Eiro inquired as he turned his head toward James, while everything was being prepared for those five duels. James thought for a moment and looked at the 10 students that wereing out into the arena now, before seemingly remembering, "Ah, right... That one''s a piece of real work, I''ll tell you. He''s a kid, so I''m not going to insult him, but if he was an adult... Well, let''s just say I wouldn''t hesitate to call him out on his bullshit immediately."


    "What''s so bad about that kid, then?" Eiro asked surprised, and James scratched the back of his head, "It''s the one with the metal bands in his hair. Just look at him." James pointed out, and Eiro nced over at him and noticed what the issue was immediately, "Ah, of course... I get what you mean."


    That kid was carrying himself as if he was undefeatable, the King of this world. He was rather tall and seemed quite fit, sure, but the weapon that he was going to use was clearly not meant for him in the slightest. It just seemed... Offpletely. It was an incrediblyrge greatsword, something that looked cool to use, but was hard to actually make proper use of, especially considering that the kid seemed rather thin.


    He didn''t have the build to use a heavy weapon, it was likely that it was going to swing him around rather than him swinging it around. But nheless, he seemed like he felt he would never ever lose a fight.


    Well, there''s no way that Arc would ever lose to a kid like that.

 Chapter 357 - Garden

    The first four Duels were... normal. That was the best way to describe it. Certainly, those children were indeed rather capable for their age, but there was nobody special amongst them. They were average at best, even if it was extraordinary for their age.


    Eiro let out a deep sigh and turned his head toward James, "That stuck-up kid, how does hepare to all these others?"


    James thought about it for a moment before simply shrugging, "He''s probably just barely capable of beating all those kids even if they came at him all at once, I guess."


    "..." Eiro silently looked at that kid, before grumbling quietly to himself, "And a kid like that is matched up against my Arc..? Are they underestimating him or something..?" The Demon clicked his tongue, while James just smiled wrily.


    "No, he just hasn''t been sticking out too much. The techniques you taught him are all very straight-forward. They''re ''kill techniques'', and not ''show techniques''. Most people here are used to thetter, so the former seem weak to those that don''t know the art all too well." James exined, so Eiro crossed his arms with a deep sigh, "That means that this fight won''t be going on for too long, then."


    Eiro looked at the two children preparing for the fight. Of course, as they were students, this duel couldn''t be fought with real weapons, so instead they were blunt weapons. Both wore thin armor that would detect an attack, and if the person received enough damage, they would lose the duel. It was as simple as that.


    The Demon figured that Arc should be able to finish this in... Well, just a hit or two, if he went all-out.


    The two boys stood in front of each other before the referee let out a loud whistle, signaling the start of the fight.


    That stuck-up boy immediately jumped at Arc, while Arc himself just kept standing there. And Eiro realized from his stance that he wasn''t trying to finish this fight quickly, but rather... shily. Withrge, open motions, the boy swung his greatsword at Arc, who swiftly slid to the side and reached the boy''s back.


    Quickly, Arc swung his de down and hit the Armor, but no damage was registered despite the direct attack against it. The audience startedughing immediately, thinking that Arc may be fast but weak, but Eiro knew what he was trying to do. And he was d that he was. This would be pretty funny,ter.


    For the most part, the fight was filled with the boy continuosly trying to swing his de at Arc. Meanwhile, Arc would dodge and continuosly hit certain parts of the boy''s joints.


    But of course, Arc wasn''t trying to damage the boy, rather, he was trying to damage the armor in specific ways. Of course, the fact that the audience was slowly realizing that something was wrong as well, and the boy was starting to be agitated at this situation, made it that Arc was able to reach the end-stage of his n rather quickly.


    He stood in front of the boy with a broad smug, ??Wow, I didn''t think you''d be this weak." Arcughed quietly, but the boy just ground his teeth and once more swung his sword at Arc, this time it was a horizontal sh, however. Arc caught the attack with his own de, and easily so.


    He diverted it down into the ground and got the sword stuck there. And then, with ease... Arc kicked the center of the boy''s chest.


    The boy flew back about two or three meters as his grip on his de loosened. But that wasn''t all that loosened. The whole armor fell apart along the joints that Arc had been focusing on during the fight, and the boy was nowpletely defenseless. He really didn''t look like a contestant anymore.


    With a soft smile, Arc approached the boy and held the tip of his dull de against the boy''s throat, "I think this fight has been decided, hasn''t it?"


    And just like that, the referee called the duel to be over as well. Obviously, it was Arc''s overwhelming win. With a broad smile on his face, he turned toward Eiro and waved at him, before joining the other students in the row they had formed again.


    All eight students that were standing there were staring at Arc with confusion on their faces, unsure what actually just happenedd right there, but Arc himself just kept smiling, not caring for what was going on around him. That was very much like him. Although, Eiro hoped that he would be calmer when he had his conversation with himter on...


    Anyway, at this point, it was going to be Eiro''s turn now. He would need to show off his abilities as well, although he really didn''t think about how he was going to do that just yet.


    After a bit of thought, Eiro came up with a good idea to at least demonstrate his magic, although showing off hisbat skills would be tough without an opponent.


    Well, for now, after the announcer finished his speech and everyone else cleared the arena, Eiro stood in the center of the ce.


    And with a snap of his finger, Nelli appeared next to him again. But not only Nelli, but also Gondos and Sarius.


    "Wh-What is this? Three spirits, summoned by the same man? How wonderful, it seems like we have a Summoning Specialist here!" The announcer eximed, but Eiro''sugh quickly echoed through the arena, "You might think so, but I''m not particrly a ''specialist''. This is just the start of what I can do, you see?"


    Eiroughed slightly and quickly proceeded to turn his head toward the three spirits. With quick nods, they confirmed that they were ready. And of course... Eiro chose to show of a particr ability of his.


    This was the form that he wanted to be part of the Hero''s party, on top of bing an S-Rank Adventurer. Of course, Eiro had to show off some of his abilities. Because in the end, even if he did do that, it didn''t matter. The kinds of people that would be a threat to him would be able to find out about these abilities somehow anyway.


    Eiro grasped the cloak he was still wearing and quickly ced it into his treasury, revealing the white-golden armor that he was wearing. The Demon pressed his hand onto the center of his armor, and it slowly changed its color. It turned into a gray tone, like the color of rock, and took on a simr texture as well.


    Swiftly, Eiro and Gondos got to work. The Demon supplied mana to the Golem, who then created rock that Eiro could manipte with his hand with ease. And what he did was basically terraform this arena. A small hill, a hole here and there, some of the ground loosened up... That was basically it, though. So, Eiro was done with that pretty quickly.


    Then, it was Nelli''s turn. With her water, he created a small pond and an artificial river running throughout the arena. Of course, this also happened in mere moments, fast enough for people to miss if they looked away for a moment.


    Now, Eiro changed his armor away from its ''Water'' mode and instead tuned it toward ''Nature''. All this didn''t have a direct effect on his magic... But it looked more impressive.


    Eiro pushed his hand into his bag and threw the contents into the air. A few momentster, grass grew all over the ce, and even some flowers sprouted. This ce was really turning into a garden now.


    And then, the Demon let out a deep, long sigh as his armor took on a ck color, even giving off ck mist. Darkness spread out from him and soon enveloped the whole arena. The barrier had been deactivated ording to the Demon''s wishes, and the darkness quickly spread itself throughout the whole are. It was so dark that it seemed like night suddenly came, which was exactly what Eiro wanted.


    Suddenly, from within that darkness, numerous tiny mes appeared. Like stars floating right in front of the faces of the audience.


    Small crystals of ice that were lit up through mes created by Sarius, as part of the Spirit''s precision training of course. And right in the center of the sky above the arena, arge orb of glowing ice floated like the moon. Eiro hadbined ice with fire again, and created this phenomenon just like that.


    And what the people now saw was Eiro with his white golden armor standing in the center of a beautiful garden, lit up by an artificial moon during the night that magically came to be during noon. Snow fell from the sky and reflected the light of the stars floating above the heads of the audience.


    All of this didn''t even take a minute to create. And it was just one man that made this possible. And now, Eiro''s voice spread out through this whole scenery, "Now, even if I may be ofmon birth, I hope you are aware that I am capable enough to be a teacher at this Academy. If I can do something like this in a minute, what do you think I''ll be able to teach to these children in six months?"


    Eiro looked around himself with a broad smile on his face, and then snapped his fingers. The darkness disappeared instantly, and everyone was blinded momentarily, which was enough time for Eiro to make the rest of his magic disappear without a trace as well. Now, he was just standing there in the center of the arena that seemed to be the exact same as it was just a few minutes prior.


    Of course, the only reason that this worked was because this whole ''Garden'' was just a big magic circle that Eiro created. It didn''t have much of an effect, really, it would just give Eiro back some of the magic that he used to cast all of this in the first ce, but the magic circle consumed the whole spell and as such made it possible for everything to disappear all at once.


    And with that, it seemed like there was not a single person left that was able to underestimate Eiro any longer. Even James was more than just shocked at what just happened, and his children sitting amongst the Audience were energetically cheering for the Demon.


    Everything was working out just like Eiro had nned. He turned his head toward the viewing room, where all those Nobles were seated and staring down at Eiro in confusion, while Lognir and Solomon couldn''t help butugh because of their shocked expressions.


    However, there was one thing that worried Eiro.. Neither the expression, nor the heartbeat, nor anything at all had changed in the Queen since Eiro started this performance.

 Chapter 358 - Another World

    Eiro stepped away to the sidelines again, standing next to a shocked James.


    "What''s wrong?" The Demon inquired with a light smirk on his face, before the Light Elf stared back at him with a wry smile, "What do you think is wrong?"


    "Hah, you know how powerful my magic is already. And this armor is just a gift from Armodeus, made using something gifted to us by a new friend." Eiro exined, looking at therge window that the royalty was using to view everything, and in particr was looking at Lognir for a moment.


    But when he did, the Queen kept staring at Eiro as well, with the same soft smile as she wore before. For now, Eiro had to ignore all of this. He just took a deep breath and waited for the announcer to close this event up. People slowly left the Arena and even James and Eiro made their way back to the entrance for now.


    Of course, all the students that were gathered there were more than just interested in this person that was capable of disying such wonderful magic within a matter of moments.


    "What ss will you teach?"


    "How old are you?"


    "How did you manipte that many types of magic?"


    The students rushed at Eiro and questioned him without hesitation. The Demon looked back at them with a wry smile and slowly collected his thoughts, trying to answer them bit by bit. Of course, he lied for most of the questionst that were asked, at least when they rted to details of Eiro or his abilities. He didn''t mind answering things that were actually rted to the school itself.


    At some point, he managed to finally get out of the crowd of students, and approached the two children that were waiting toward the back wall. Without hesitation, Eiro pulled both Arc and Clementine into a hug, "I missed you guys. How''s it been since you guys came here?"


    Clementine looked up at Eiro with a broad smile on her face, "It was super fun! There''s a lot of really nice people around! And one time another girl got really hurt, but I was able to hold myself back!" She said with a smug expression on her face, and Eiro rubbed his hand through her hair, "I''m proud of you, Clementine."


    "Hehe~!" With a broad grin that showed her pearly white teeth, Clementine pressed her head further against Eiro''s hand. Meanwhile, Eiro looked at Arc, "I wanted to talk to you about somethingter. Let''s go meet the others first though, and then we need to head somewhere where nobody will disturb us, alright?"


    Arc looked back at Eiro a bit surprised, but just shrugged in response, "Sure, I guess?"


    It seemed like Arc didn''t really think anything of it. ''Worry'' and ''Anxiety'' were emotions that were suppressed by Arc''s unique skill as well, after all.


    The other students around them were a bit curious about the rtionship between this new teacher and the two prodigy students that showed themselves this year. But of course, Eiro wasn''t trying to hide anything at all.


    Slowly, Arc, Clementine, Eiro and James made their way out of this area. Eiro was trying his best to suppress his presence so that he wouldn''t be approached by too many people that watched his performance here, and quickly made his way to where the others were right now.


    Once there, Eiro slowly squatted down behind Leon and Avalin, who were looking around trying to find their father right now, "Hello there, you two. Are you looking for someone?" He asked them, and they turned around immediately, looking at Eiro surprised and a bit scared. They took a step back and huddled up to Sammy, Rudy and Felix. Of course, those three realized that this was Eiro himself, but both Leon and Avalin didn''t.


    But this was a bad ce to make Bavet remove the transformation of his head, "Don''t worry! It''s me, your daddy! I''m just wearing a bit of a disguise right now!"


    Leon and Avalin looked up at their siblings confused, and once they nodded their heads, realized that this really was Eiro after all.


    "Daddy!" Avalin and Leon eximed basically at the same time, before the Demon picked them up with a broad smile on his face, "Did you two behave when staying with uncle Solomon?" Eiro asked with a smile, and the two of them of course nodded their heads immediately, starting to tell Eiro stories about what fun things they did while staying at the castle while Eiro was gone.


    The Demon listened curiously and closely, slowly carrying the two of them toward the noble area so that they could meet with Solomon again.


    Eiro was quickly let in by the guards again, and vouched for his children as well of course, and then made his way up the stairs to the viewing area for the nobles. Once in there, the eyes of everyone here was focused on the Demon again.


    With a slight smile on his face, Eiro put down Avalin and Leon and stepped into the center of the room, "Now that you realize that I''m not just some child from the boonies, let me introduce myself to you all. My name is Eiro, as you heard before. I know that many think of this name as a taboo, but to me, it''s an honor to carry the same name as the Great Hero of the past." Eiro exined to these nobles, "And of course, in a few months'' time, I will take part in the tournament to be allowed to apany the newest Hero on his journey. Personally, I think I''m a prime candidate to join."


    Slowly, the Demon turned his eyes toward a certain woman sitting in the corner of this room, the Bloodstone Sorceress Evelyn James, locking eyes with her. Of course, she also quickly realized who this man was, although she wasn''t sure how he changed his form to be just like that of a human.


    Everyone was silent for a while, until a certain man stepped away from his own personal, special area within this room. He slowly approached Eiro, cing his hand onto his shoulder with a broad smile on his face and slowly nodded at him before moving over to stand by his side instead.


    With a broad smile, Solomon eximed, "You heard him! And so that everyone knows, I am the one that personally requested for Eiro to take part in that tournament. So of course, I don''t think there will be anyints about this matter?"


    The nobles, realizing that if they said anything against Eiro, it would be like they defied the crown, they quickly started to act like all their worries had been blown away. Just like Eiro thought, everything was going to work out well without any particr incidents.


    ---


    Eiro and Arc soon reached the private ce where the Demon wanted to speak to his son. It was really just a random room that Eiro was protecting with magic to make sure that nobody would be able to listen in on their conversation. After letting out a deep sigh, Eiro held his arm to the side. Slowly, his transformation disappeared and instead a ck snake appeared around Eiro''s arm.


    "Thanks for your help, Bavet." The Demon said with a rather deep groan. The transformation process was a bit ufortable sometimes, but it wasn''t too bad.


    Eiro ced his hand onto the top of his head, feeling his horns to make sure that they didn''t stay rainbow-colored hair, and then directly faced Arc with relief, "Bavet, could you head outside and make sure nobodyes near here?"


    Slowly, the snake dropped off of Eiro''s arm and then turned into a fully grown man, "Sure, I guess." The Slime replied and stepped out of the room without much discussion. It seemed like Bavet was a bit exhausted. He would need to let him rest some more, or find some way so that Bavet could keep the transformation up while asleep so that he could rest properly.


    Either way, that wasn''t what Eiro was worried about the most right now. Instead, he looked at Arc with a deep stare and locked eyes with him, before Arc smiled wrily and asked, "Everything alright? Did... Did I do something? If it''s about the vase, then-"


    "What was the world you first lived in like?" Eiro asked bluntly, interrupting Arc to get to the main topic immediately. Arc''s heartrate immediately spiked and he started to panick. It was a real panic attack, something that Eiro has never seen from him before.


    Of course, the Demon quickly embraced his son and made sure to calm him down, "Don''t worry. No matter who you were before, right now, you are my son. But this is something that we still need to talk about, and I felt like I had to confirm with you that this suspicion is right. And it seems like it is."


    Arc grasped onto Eiro''s clothes as his rapid breathing finally slowed down again and he rubbed the few tears out of his eyes, "I... You''re right... For 19 years, I lived a life in another world... It was one that was vastly different to this one... And then at some point, I died and-"


    "Arc, calm down. You don''t need to exin everything to me right now, just what you feelfortable to." The Demon said bluntly. Slowly, Arc looked up at Eiro and slowly nodded his head, "I... I understand."


    Arc took a step back and tried to calm himself down, before looking straight into Eiro''s eyes with a dedicated expression, "I will tell you everything, then. First of all, the world I was born in was a lot more advanced than here. We didn''t really have too many diseases to worry about, and it was mostly peaceful. You could talk to anyone in the world instantly if you wanted to as well."


    "Sounds like there were some rather powerful mages over there." Eiro said, but Arc quickly shook his head, "No, there was no magic there. There was no system there, and no monsters either. And Humans were the only people there. We still had animals of course, but otherwise... That world waspletely different to this one. We relied on ''Science'' instead."


    Eiro raised his brows confused, inplete disbelief, "No magic? No system? And no monsters? Then how-" Eiro cut himself up as he tried to get his thoughts together.


    "What about other beings then? Magic Beasts? Nature Spirits? Things like that?" Eiro inquired, but Arc just slightlyughed, "No, those weren''t a thing either. Well... I think. Some people believed that magic was a thing, and also those magic beasts and nature spirits, I guess. But publicly, there really wasn''t."


    "Then how did you get here? Didn''t you use some sort of spell to transport you to this world?"


    Arc looked back with a bitter expression, "No... I died of Cancer on my 19th birthday.. And then when I died, I was brought here."

 Chapter 359 - The Arcane Dealer

    "Cancer... That is that tumorous disease, is it not? The kind that is hard to heal even with most healing spells..." Eiro asked with a light, sad frown on his face. Arc immediately nodded his head in response, and looked to the side, "It was... Horrible. It spread throughout my whole body, and I was inplete and utter pain for thest year of my life... At some point, all my friends stopped visiting me in the hospital, and my grandfather, the only family I had left, died and I wasn''t even able to go to the funeral."


    The moment that Eiro heard this exnation, he realized something, "And you wished you wouldn''t be able to feel the physical pain from that disease, or the emotional pain from being all alone. When you died, that wish was fulfilled."


    "...Yeah. That''s exactly how it was. At first, when I woke up, I was scared. But then I was happy, realizing what was going on. Andter, I was happy because that was the only choice I had. The ''parents'' I was given in this life threw me away because they thought I was a freak, selling me to the army because of my Unique skills. There, I met the others, and you." Arc exined.


    "Are the others..." Eiro started, but Arc immediately shook his head, "Not that I know of, no. The others don''t have any memories of a former life, they''re just normal people."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head in response and looked at the young man in front of him, "At some point, tell me more about your past life. I want to know more about it, but first..." The Demon slowly moved his hand to the side and did the motion of pulling something from a shelf. In his hand, a wooden figurine appeared. Eiro had created it during his trip back to town while they were being carried by Lognir.


    "Do you recognize this man? Or the weird clothes he is wearing?" Eiro asked, and Arc took a quick look at the figurine, "I mean... I don''t know the guy, but the clothes are definitely from my former world... He''s wearing jeans, a hoodie... All very modern things, I''d say."


    "What are those things? They were made of materials I hadn''t seen before." Eiro pointed out.


    "Ah... Jeans are made of denim, but i have no idea what that''s made of. But hoodies and t-shirts often had polyesters in them. They''re like, artificial materials, I guess? I''ve never seen them here, though, so that''d be unfamiliar to you..." Arc pointed out, before realizing something important, "But wait, when did you even see this guy?"


    "...I''ll exin it to you sometime. Just... When you happen to see this guy, no matter the circumstance... Listen to what he has to say and don''t make him angry. Treat him like a god, if you need to." Eiro said bluntly.


    After all, this man that Eiro met in that white space back then, the one that gave Eiro the possibility of unlocking that skill, was clearly the <Arcane Dealer>. A being powerful enough to create these legendary items, the Cards. It was obvious that nobody would be able to put up a fight against him.


    Someone that could create such things probably was capable of using all those abilities anyway.


    Eiro took a deep breath and ced the wooden figurine back into his treasury.


    "Who is that guy..?" Arc asked, and Eiro just looked back at him, "Someone you should never involve yourself with."


    Eiro knocked on the door to tell Bavet toe back inside, and the slime quickly did so. He pressed himself against the Demon''s body and transformed him again, before Eiro and Arc carefully stepped outside, "When you''re all back at the manor, we''ll talk more about this. For now, this is enough. Have fun for the next few days at this camp."


    "Huh? Wait, didn''t they say you''re going to be a teacher? You won''t be here during the camp?" Arc asked, and Eiro quickly shook hiss head, "I have some more things to take care of. I''ll be there during the first day of regr ss. I was asked to teach practical sses in Magic and Physical Combat. And I''ll be there in some woodworking sses as well, but that''s not set in stone yet."


    Arc slowly nodded his head in response, "Then I''ll probably have a ss with you! Guess I can rx there then~!"


    "...Has it been so long since we''ve seen each other that you forgot my style of teaching?" Eiro asked bluntly, and Arc stopped for a moment, "Right... Meaning that-"


    "You''ll have a harder time than anyone else." Eiro said bluntly, while Arc let his head drop down with a deep groan, "Yep, fair enough."


    With a light smile, Eiro rubbed his hand through his son''s hair as they met back up with the others, "So, you five will go back to your special sses, and I''ll take Avalin and Leon back home with me already. If anything is wrong, just let one of your teachers know to contact me, and I''ll be here as soon as I can be."


    "We know, Dad." Sammy replied with a light, somewhat embarrassed smile, since he was saying this right in front of a bunch of other people that were clearly their ssmates.


    "Good. Then make sure to have fun and learn a lot." Eiro smiled, and gave everyone a quick hug before they had to go back to their special sses. And then, Eiro started walking through this building, holding Avalin''s hand with his left, and Leon''s hand with his right hand.


    "Daddy, why do you look so different now?" Avalin asked, since it''s been on her mind for a while now. Eiro justughed lightly and looked down at her, "So that I don''t have to wear a mask all the time. Like this, I can walk around freely." The Demon said bluntly. Of course... He would be a bit weaker than he normally was, so he would just end up using his regr outfit if he had to or if he didn''t want certain actions of his to be connected to his new persona.


    "But I like how you normally look better!" Avalin eximed with a huff, and Eiroughed slightly, "Is that so? Leon, what about you? Do you like me better when I look like I usually do as well?"


    The still slightly tired young boy looked up at his father and squinted his eyes, "I just like Daddy... When he''s Daddy."


    With a slightugh, Eiro replied, "So you love me unconditionally, huh? I guess we have a winner for ''who loves daddy the most'' here..."


    The moment that Avalin heard this, she grasped Eiro''s hand with both of hers and stared up at him, "No! I love Daddy the most!"


    With a slightugh, happy to be able to have fun with these two like this, the Demon in guise of a Human continued on through this school to get familiar with it. Andter, he would need to head to the castle.


    ---


    "You know how to let your mana flow through you, right?" Eiro asked bluntly, and Charles stared back at him with a nod, as if it was obvious, "Of course I do... And all I need to do is pump as much mana as I need into the seed, right?"


    "Kind of, but not directly." Eiro replied with a deep sigh, "That''s not all you need to do. You need to push your mana into the seed, sure, but if you just push your mana in there until you''re out, you would end up needing far longer than necessary. Create a circle of mana between your limbs. First, let it flow out of your right hand into your left. It might be harder since one of your arms is a prosthetic, but it should still work because of the wood I used for it."


    "And what use does that have?" Charles asked, as if this waspletely unnecessary, "Can''t I just keep using these prosthetics? They work really well already..."


    "Yes, but at the end of the day, they''re still like ''prosthetics''. My hand is technically just a prosthetic as well, but it''s also a staff, and I can feel slight touch through it already." Eiro exined.


    Charles seemed surprised that this was the case, and Eiro kept exining, "Once the tree started growing enough for materials to be harvested from it, it will change ording to your change. It will be like it''s going to be a part of your body, just far away from you. That''s why it''s going to be the best material for a prosthetic, since it''s basically already a part of you. The same tree that you start growing today, will still reflect the state of your mana for the next 10, 20, and 30 years. It will wither when you die, but nobody else would have a use for it anyway."


    "...Alright... Then I''ll try that, I guess. So let it circle through my body, out one palm and in the other. And then..."


    "Create the circle and make sure your mana regeneration is increased while you do so. And then, you only move the same amount of mana as you gain back into the seed. If youbine it with Meditation, you''ll be able to keep doing it until you''re physically exhausted, instead of until your mana is exhausted." Eiro said. He quickly merged with Gondos so that he could see the flow of Charles'' mana. The Demon made sure to help him fix his mistakes, and made sure that he did everything in the most efficient way.


    It seemed like at some point, Charles understood the use of doing all this, and got a lot better as well. The seed was ced somewhere in the royal gardens, a ce where not many people came. It was especially closed off so that nobody could enter here after this anyway, though. But it was Charles'' favorite ce here in town, so it was a good spot that had a deep connection to Charles.


    With a light smile on his face, Eiro kept watching Charles until the Demon was sure that this prince could do this even without his guidance, "Alright, perfect. Just make sure that you don''t overdo it. If at any point you get tired or hungry, go ahead and take a break. There''s no need for you to damage your body for this sake. That would be the opposite of what we want."


    And just like that, Charles started on the creation of his own personal tree using one of the seeds that Eiro gave to him.. Eiro slowly pulled out one of the fruit that he picked from his own tree and wondered what Charles'' fruit would be like.

 Chapter 360 - Letters

    Eiro stepped through his manor with a light smile on his face. It hasn''t been too long since he''s been here, but he still kind of missed this ce. But even so, he couldn''t dwell on these thoughts too long, since there was business to take care of.


    The Demon stepped into his personal study and sat down in front of the desk. He had to write a few documents for a n of his. More specifically, these ''documents'' were letters, written from the perspective of random people that may or may not really exist.


    These letters would be mostly about the life of the person in question, asking the other a few random things. But the most important part was information subtly weaved into the letter. The information about a powerful necromancer in the capital.


    Of course, the ''Necromancer'' that Eiro was talking about was <The Death> that was imprisoned near the town. But Eiro wasn''t dumb enough to actually reveal anything of importance that would make any ''Royal'' think that another one of them was trapped here. That would just be something rather idiotic, to say the least.


    It would be like inviting an army here that would raid this ce. All that Eiro hinted at was a powerful Necromancer resurrecting random beings around town. And that wasn''t wrong; it was what <The Death> was doing after all. Eiro heard a bunch of reports about this sort of thing once he asked Solomon to receive this hidden information on things going on with this Royal.


    Randomly, things like dead rats, cats, or dogs were resurrected after their death. Rarely, even dead bodies of people started walking again. But none of them were turned into proper undead, they were merely manipted to move in random ways.


    This was all the info that Eiro gave in the letters. That random ''Undead'' were waking up all over town. This should be enough informaiton to pull the ''Queen of Undeath'' Koperia in toward town, if Eiro worded this information in an intriguing enough way.


    He swiftly put everything into envelopes and decided for their destination. The people that Eiro was sending this to were people that didn''t actually exist either. But even if they existed, the letters wouldn''t reach that point anyway.


    After all, he was going to send them through rather unreliable sources. The kind where any letter from certain ces would end up being opened and read by random people. Those people would then read the information and take notice of the undead, spreading it around naturally for Eiro.


    Of course, Eiro still had some more ways than just this to spread the information, this was just one of them.


    One of Eiro''s other ways was connected to another one of his goals, one that he would act out rather soon. And ''soon'' meant ''today''. Or at least he would start with it.


    The Demon stood up and made his way out of his study with the letters in his bag. He walked through the manor and spent a little bit more time with Avalin and Leon, before heading out into town. Although, not in the most subtle fashion. Eiro didn''t bring Bavet with him either, and instead used his regr mask and cloak outfit. He was more used to this way, after all.


    Eiro tried to hide himself somewhat as he flew over the town toward the slums, and then simply dropped down into the center of the base of the ''Organization''. Now that Eiro knew that this was just a sub-group of arger group, that name just seemed like such azy choice.


    The Demon appeared out of nowhere in the center of the base, and everyone was more than surprised to see him there. Especially the executives of the organization that were aware of the fact that Eiro killed one of the ''Letters'' and another executive shortly thereafter.


    It seems like they had special ways to immediately recognize a person depending on the tag they carried with them. And of course, Eiro wouldn''t leave his valuable tag at home, or he wouldn''t be able to rise within the oraganization anymore.


    With a soft smile, Eiro looked around as everyone''s focus was already on this person that literally fell from the sky, "Hello there. I''m not sure if any of you know who I am, but it''s better if you did. I''m going to be taking this organization over now." Eiro eximed loudly. And everyone began tough.


    Of course, this was something that many people said when they came here the first time. And theyughed because it was usually the weakest that said this kind of stuff. Due to that fact, there were a few people that wanted to teach Eiro a bit of a lesson, to show him how things worked here.


    "Listen here, kid, ya ain''t gonna get fa-" A random man said. He seemed like he was proud of his body. So, Eiro gave him the chance to get a proper look at it from a new perspective. And so, as that well-trained body fell to the ground and Eiro held this man''s head in front of him, he looked around at the others and smiled softly underneath his mask.


    And then, Eiro quickly raised his right hand to the side and made use of the magic-stone slot that was added into the gauntlet that Eiro was using. It was in the ''w'' mode right now, of course. And the magic stone inside of it was a Light Magic stone.


    Because at exactly that moment, one of the executives made use of a ''Time-stop'' ring and casually approached Eiro, "Another one of these, huh?" He muttered annoyedly. But of course, he couldn''t expect that Eiro''s consciousness worked at the same speed as this ''stopped'' time. It was really just slowed down to a crawl.


    But there was one thing that was faster than anything else, and that couldn''t be avoided by anyone. And that was ''Light''. Eiro pushed his mana into the Light Magic stone and caused a focused ray of light that immediately blinded the executive.


    Eiro was able to experiment on these things a while ago... Immense light like this made one''s mind basically stop working for a moment. And due to that, mana usage would be unstable. And artifacts would be unusable for that instant. Meaning that the time-stop ring would stop working. And in that instant, Eiro cut through the executive''s finger to take away the ring before stabbing his throat to let him die in a rather painful way in front of everyone here.


    There was one thing that was known to mostly everyone here: Don''t mess with the executives. Sure, Eiro beat one up before, but that was because that executive couldn''t use these artificial artifacts then. This one here could use it, and even so, Eiro was able to kill one with ease.


    "Now..." The Demon smiled, and slowly waved his hand around. He created mes that he wrapped around his body. They were glowing in a nearly white light, showing how hot they really were. Nobody dared approach this man in front of them.


    "Eh? Nobody dares to challenge me? Is there any single-digit around? Or maybe even a letter that I can quickly take care of?" Eiro asked, in a voice deliberately meant to piss others off.


    But sadly, nobody took the bait yet, "Then how about this? I''m going to be near the smallke just outside of town for the full next day. If anyone wants to challenge me, thene there. You can bring any amount of people, any weapon, and even executives are free toe if they want. Of course, if you''re weaker than an executive, you shouldn''t even dream of beating me." Eiro eximed smugly.


    Since it seemed like he managed to agitate everyone there properly, Eiro swiftly finished off the executive by smashing his skull underneath his foot, to make sure he couldn''t be healed, and then picked up the ring before jumping up into the air and using magic to push himself away.


    Once he was out of view, he merged his aura with the air so that he would practically disappear, and then started to fly using his wings again.


    Like this, Eiro quickly made his way to theke that he announced he would stay at. Currently, it waspletely frozen shut, and there was a small ind in the center of theke that Eiro would be waiting on, for anyone that wanted to challenge him. For most of the day, nobody came there, though. It soon started getting dark, and Eiro didn''t notice anyone in the area yet.


    Until he did.


    There was a group of five people stepping over the ice of theke toward where Eiro was currently seated. He was pretending to be asleep to make people try and approach him to get a sneak-attack in, but of course he wasn''t really sleeping.


    Once they were all close enough, all that Eiro had to do was manipte the ice underneath the feet of the people approaching him, making the frozenke swallow them whole. Eiro heard a few thuds from underneath the ice, but the people quickly drowned and then froze up underneath the water. However, it seemed like this group was the first of many toe.


    The organization probably gave out a ''Quest'' to have Eiro killed at some point. Well, it worked for him. He was able to get a handful of levels just from rxing out here and drowning the weaker people that approached him. There were still a few stronger ones amongst them that Eiro had to use stronger magic against, but at the end of the day, they were still too weak for him.


    And since this was a ''Quest'', the executives couldn''t get involved anymore, so Eiro could mostly rx. At least, until a certain person came there.


    "What do you think you''re doing here?" Evelyn, the Bloodstone Sorceress, and a ''Letter'' of this organization asked the Demon. She looked down and saw the numerous dead bodies underneath the floor, "Collecting materials. Amongst other things. Increasing my level this way is honestly pretty fun." Eiro pointed out smugly.


    Evelyn red deeply at Eiro and held her hand forward. Blood streamed out of her fingertips, more than her body should be able to hold, and formed spears of ice.


    "Hah, you think that''s going to make me worry? You should know what abilities I have. At least roughly, if you''re not aplete moron." Eiro told the person in front of him, one of the few people there were that he truly despised.


    But without hesitation, Evelyn shot one of her ice-spears at Eiro. It pierced his cloak... But that was it. Eiro himself had disappeared and was nowhere to be seen.. Until he peeked out from underneath Evelyn, climbing out of her shadow.

 Chapter 361 - Conquer

    Eiro wrapped his fingers around Evelyn''s ankles and crushed them immediately as he crawled out of the shadow. He could hear the loud cracking sounds echo throughout the area.


    Luckily it was getting prettyte. It wasn''t night just yet, but the sun was setting, so the shadow that Evelyn created linked up with Eiro''s own shadow, making it possible for him to dive through and attack her like that.


    Evelyn immediately fell down onto the ground as she tried to sh Eiro with her frozen blood.


    "Hah, sorry, but that''s not how it works." Eiro replied bluntly as he looked at the woman in front of him as he shifted around back and forth, dodging all of Evelyn''s attacks. She wrapped her blood ice around her ankles and seemingly gave herself support while trying to heal herself as quickly as possible.


    Soon, she managed to stand back up. Evelyn held her hand forward and let out arge amount of blood that formed three humanoid figures. The blood crystallized and turned to ice, although it was still clearly flowing in the center of these figures.


    They all rushed at Eiro at once, trying to attack him with weapons made of ice. And sure, while they seemed like they were quite sharp, they were still made of ice at the end of the day. Eiro was able to easily defeat them by pulling some focused mes from the gate to the primal ne of fire and sting it at these figures.


    Although, he didn''t even need to resort to that. The one that finished these three humanoid, moving ice-sculptures off was Sarius. While the Smander didn''t have an ounce of fine-control, he did have a lot of firepower. Literally.


    The mes pulled out by Sarius were strong enough to immediately start melting them the moment they were created. The blood was pooling underneath Eiro''s feet, or at least that''s what Evelyn was attempting to make happen, but Eiro simply stepped out of the range of the blood whenever it came too close to him.


    Evelyn was ring at Eiro while the three blood-ice sculptures finally melted awaypletely, and Eiro himself just stood there. Evelyn pulled out a blood-red wand and used it to create a magic circle of blood in front of her.


    But Eiro wouldn''t let that happen.


    He once more made use of the shadows in the area and dove into them. Luckily, the ones that Eiro dove into were connected to Evelyn''s shadow.


    And Eiro once more climbed out of Evelyn''s shadow. However, this time, it wasn''t the shadow underneath her feet. Rather, the shadows created by her whole body. The creases in her clothing, the way her hairid, and of course how she held her body. All of these things created shadows all over Evelyn''s body, as one would expect.


    Those were the ones that Eiro chose to dive out of. A bit of himself out of each of the small shadows. Due to his currently technically formless body, Eiro was able to squeeze through there without any issues.


    And just like that, Eiro''s torso was now basically growing out of Evelyn''s shoulderdes. The Demon smiled as he let go of his transformation in his arms and proceeded to pull Evelyn''s chin upward.


    "Peekaboo!" He eximed with a broad grin on his face, pulling his dagger out of his treasury to ce its edge against Evelyn''s throat.


    "Listen, there''s only one reason why I''m not going to kill you right here and now. You, as the ''Bloodstone Sorceress'', have made quite a name for yourself as a powerful magic user throughout the the world already. Which is why I''m going to use you to build up the image as ''The man that beat the Bloodstone Sorceress''. Rumors would travel, and anyone that knows about you will soone to know about me as well." Eiro exined bluntly.


    "Of course, I''m going to end up as the Hero''spanion anyway, so that''s going to be enough publicity at that point. But before then, I want to establish myself a bit more as well." The Demon kept dodging iing attacks from Evelyn, who simply red at the figure in front of her.


    With a growling voice, she said, "So? Why aren''t you trying to kill me right now? That''s going to give you ''publicity'' as well, isn''t it?"


    "Are you a fucking idiot or something?" Eiro replied with a deep frown on his face, "Nobody outside of the organization is going to know about any of the fights going on here. If I want to establish myself, I literally can''t kill you here."


    "Eh~? Is that so? Then-" Evelyn started, thinking that she had the upper hand since Eiro couldn''t kill her here. However, before she continued speaking, Eiro pulled the rest of his body out of her shadows and let go of his transformation.


    He kicked the woman''s back and sent her flying and sliding over the surface of the frozenke. He manipted the ice so that Evelyn would end up returning to a ce near where Eiro was standing right now, "I can''t kill you, but I can still hurt you. So shut the fuck up."


    Eiro crossed his arms with a deep groan, "But it is a bit bothersome. I have the clear advantage here right now, and I''m probably stronger than you even in a situation where you hold the advantage. It would be a great chance to kill you at this point..." The Demon pointed out as he dodged another spear of ice made from Evelyn''s blood.


    "Can you do, for once, do anything beside that repetitive fucking trick right there? How was I ever scared of you, you''re pathetic." Eiro grumbled annoyedly, "But that''s not the point."


    With a swift movement, Eiro pressed his foot into the ice and made it swallow up Evelyn. Of course, she wasn''t fully swallowed by the ice. Rahter, just her limbs were directly affected. Since she was an Ice Mage, she should have a fair amount of resistance against the cold. It seemed like she was trying to manipte the ice around her limbs to escape, but since Eiro''s mana was still in those areas, that clearly didn''t work out.


    Slowly, as she was trapped there, unable to move andpletely defenseless, Eiro approached her. With a curious and excited grin, he stepped up to her. He could see Evelyn squirming in disgust at what she assumed was about to happen.


    Eiro carefully held his hand out to Evelyn''s chest, and the woman pressed her eyes shut. But nothing happened.


    "Hm, so it''s the same runes, then. Interesting. I understand the patterns, but if I don''t know what the runes themselves mean... How bothersome." Eiro muttered as he took a closer look at the ''Bloodstone'' card that was set into the ne that Evelyn was wearing. He hadn''t gotten a chance to look at its backside until now. There seemed to be a bit of a more highly-concentrated cluster of runes ced there, as he had expected, so this was valuable knowledge if Eiro wanted to figure out how to improve upon the Card Items somehow, or how to create the ''artificial artifacts''.


    Evelyn slowly opened her eyes and looked at Eiro confused. She could see the Demon''s bloodflow, so she knew for sure... "You''re really not interested in my body?" Evelyn asked, "Don''t tell me you can only get turned on from those chi-"


    "Shut up. Don''t you dare finish that sentence." Eiro interrupted the woman in front of him, "I already told you I don''t feel any sexual urges in the slightest, but it seems like you didn''t listen to me then. Not that it matters, you''ll be dead in a few months anyway."


    "And why aren''t you stealing my Bloodstone? You clearly want it." Evelyn asked with a re.


    Eiro looked back at her as if it was obvious, although his expression couldn''t be seen from underneath the mask anyway, "Because then when I beat you publicly, people may say that it''s because you didn''t have your Bloodstone. That''s why. I want you to be at your full power. Actually, I want to give you a situation where you''re in the clear advantage, while I give myself an obvious handicap. If it means I can humiliate you like that, I don''t mind the risk connected to that at all."


    Suddenly, in the distance, Eiro heard some other people approach, "Now shut the fuck up, I have some more guests." Eiro pointed out as he picked up his cloak and wore it again, so that it would be harder for others to recognize his armor as the same kind that was shown during the performance at school.


    However these thoughts quickly were pushed into the background. Judging from Evelyn''s reaction to the person approaching, Eiro concluded that this man was a Letter as well. And soon, he noticed the tag that he was carrying with him in his hand, to show it to Eiro.


    He was the Letter ''M''. Meaning, he was stronger than Evelyn, the current Letter ''Q''.


    "So, you are the one that killed one of our own, and now you even trapped the Bloodstone Sorceress? How intriguing!"


    "Is it? I don''t really care. Let''s just start, shall we?" Eiro suggested bluntly. He didn''t care for who this person was, at the end of the day. He just wanted to kill him and raise his rank to be a Letter as well. After all, the ''ranking system'' worked that way. The rules that one had to be ''Number 1'' to challenge the ''Letter Z'' were not directly included in that. That was something invented by the ''Organization'' itself.


    You could technically challenge the Letters whenever you wanted, and if you killed them, you would rise in rank depending on who you killed. If Eiro had immediately killed the Letter ''A'', he would probably have be a letter instantly as well.


    However, the man in front of Eiro justughed slightly, "Sorry, but I don''t think that will be necessary. I didn''te here to fight you! Rather, I wanted to invite you! Invite you to fight alongside me and take over this organization.


    Eiro looked at the man surprised. He was telling the truth. He also wanted to take the organization over, and wanted Eiro''s help with that.


    "Interesting. Why do you want to take it over?" Eiro asked bluntly, and the man softly smiled, "It''s simple. I love conquering things. Whether woman or man, whether inbat or love, as long as I can make them mine, I will engage. Now, here we have it.... An organization made up of the strongest people of this world? I wonder how amazing it would feel to conquer!"

 Chapter 362 - M

    Eiro looked back at them man standing in front of him and slowly crossed his arms, "Hmm... Then let me think... What would help me for? Having someone like you, someone that clearly only cares about himself and nothing else, by my side, or... killing you right now and increasing my rank within the organization?"


    The Letter standing in front of Eiro looked at him surprised, "What''s that supposed to mean? You think you would be able to kill me?" With a loudugh, ''M'' held his hand in front of his belly as if he had the time of his life.


    "Of course, that''s what I was saying. If I''m not stronger than you, then why''d you need my help at all?" Eiro asked bluntly. And ''M'' slowly squinted his eyes, "Because you have special abilities that allow you to take out the execs. Why else? If we really want to conquer the organization, we need to be able to properly deal with people with higher-tier artifacts than us. You seem to be able to do that."


    "So you want me to be your subordinate?" Eiro asked bluntly. The man slightly tilted his head to the side, a bit puzzled, "I thought that was kind of obvious?"


    "Then how about this? We fight here, and if I win, you die. If you win, I be your subordinate and help you take over the organization." The Demon suggested with a broad smile underneath his mask, his fingers itching so that Eiro could quickly andpletely overpower this man in front of him.


    And it seemed like the man was pretty excited about this as well. The smile on his face turned into a vile, excited grin as well. And it was obvious why; He was a member of an organization built on the basis of being strong. There was nobody here that didn''t enjoy fights with other people, oftentimes more so if the fight may or may not end in death.


    "Sounds like a n for the kinda man I am!" M grinned as he immediately rushed forward toward Eiro. With every single step he took, the ice underneath his feet was just so slightly cracking, but of course not all the way through. It just seemed like the guy''s boots suddenly started weighing much, much more than they did before.


    He swung his body forward and slid over the ice, before lifting his leg high up into the air. It was like the foot was being pulled directly toward Eiro''s body, and judging from its weight, it was going to do quite a bit of damage as well. If it managed to hit straight-on, at least.


    But instead, Eiro held forward his left hand, using his Rock-Skin ability. He concentrated it there as much as he could andyered it multiple times until his fist basically became a thick rock, his fingers not even visible anymore.


    Like that, Eiro was able to defend the attack rtively easily. With some water salvaged from theke underneath his feet, Eiro infused his body with water with a second-step infusion. A lot of the damage from the heavy boot was stopped through Eiro''s thick hand, and the rest was able to be diverted through Eiro''s whole body. He diverted the waves into his legs and let it flow into the ice, forming some cracks.


    Those cracks were used by Eiro. He picked up the shards of ice created by those cracks and shot them at ''M'' with a wave of his hand.


    However, it seemed like ''M'' was really more skilled than Eiro thought at first. After his first hit had been defended against, ''M'' twisted his body and kicked Eiro once more, albeit this time in a different spot and with his other foot.


    But Eiro simply moved his Rock-Skin over to the exact spot where he was about to be hit. And since his hand was now freed up a bit, Eiro was able to properly push the waves right toward his left palm.


    Everything gathered there, and the Demon let out a shot of manal that he lit up with his own mes. They had beenpressed highly, and due to the way that Eiro twist his body, arm, and hand, he was able to hit ''M'' right into the center of his chest. However... It didn''t hit. Or rather, it was defended against, revealing one more ''Card'' that the organization seemed to have ess to.


    "They really have the ''Aegis'' as well? You kidding me?" Eiro groaned loudly. How many Cards did the organization have? And was it really this sub-organization, or was it therger organization that seemed to be controlling this and many more groups from the shadows? The more different artifacts that Eiro saw the members have, the more he believed thetter to be the case.


    It would foil one part of Eiro''s ns a bit, since he would be unable to collect more cards, but at the end of the day, it would be fine. Probably. Since he had 4 cards just for himself, he already could be said to be the individual with the most cards on his own.


    But it was kind of annoying, but he would survive it. It just meant that he had to change a few smaller parts of his ns, but that was fine.


    For the most part, if Eiro took control over this organization, he would still be able to get a lot of artificial artifacts from the overarching organization anyway, which would at least kind of make up for it, even if not fully.


    Either way, while Eiro was having these thoughts, his fight with ''M'' continued. And despite what Eiro thought, instead of slowing down, ''M'' simply got faster. Either it was because he was slowly warming up, or because he simply became more confident now that he saw that Eiro''s magic attacks couldn''t prate the Aegis.


    The Aegis was the greatest shield in existence, of course. The Seven of Swords. Eiro didn''t know what shape it normally took, but judging from the stories he''s read, it was in the shape of a normal bronze shield. But it was durable beyond what the bronze shield usually allowed, and it could wrap protective magic around the user.


    That was the aspect that Eiro was seeing right now. The protective magic that was glowing in a slight amber light, covering ''M'' just a few centimeters away from his skin. However, there were a few clear weaknesses, like with most cards.


    With the Ace of Cups, while you died while using it, you would practically be wiped from existence. It was hard for that to happen of course, but if you had a fatal injury and used the card, you simply wouldn''t return to normal and the world itself would still forever forget about you.


    With the Three of Swords, you might go insane if you''re not careful. And with the aegis... you were unable to breathe and hear while the protectiveyer covered you. The only thing that the shield let through was light. No air, no sound, nothing.


    Of course, now that Eiro was able to properly manipte all of his abilities at a new level, he should probably be able to manipte them so that he could only cover the areas where he needed the shield. Basically an upgrade of his Rock Skin, then. So there would be nothing that he needed to be worried about.


    However, with this version of the Aegis, the artificial kind... already didn''t have that weakness. Not because it wasn''t covering ''M''s whole body, it certainly was, but it simply let through air and sound. Eiro knew that from the fact that he was able to hear M''s breathing and heartbeat.


    For one, his breathing never changed, so there was nock of air in this sealed ''container'', and the fact that Eiro was able to hear those things showed that sound was let through in the first ce as well.


    And so, Eiro came up with another idea. For now, he kept on fighting M like he did before, although he soon started runninng a bit. For one, to exhaust M and make his breathing faster, and just to distract M while Eiro started out with his n.


    Subtly, he gathered some of his poison inside of the containers on his tail. And soon, he pulled those containers away from his tail and pressed it into the hollow part of the poison-dagger''s handle. The poison was pulled out and filled the de''s hollow part.


    Acting as if Eiro simply had to make use of the dagger at this point because M was so strong, to make him slip up more easily as well, just in case, Eiro swung the dagger at his opponent. Every time that the de hit the Aegis'' shield, Eiro let out some of the poison and turn it into very, very thin mist that he quickly pushed through the Aegis.


    It seemed like M was slowly being affected by it and his body began to move quite sluggishly, at leastpared to before. And the more of the poison gathered in M''s lungs, the faster it would affect him, so it was an exponential curve.


    Slowly but surely, he was being poisoned, and he started to notice, "What''s going on? What are you doing to me? And how are you doing it?" M asked confusedly, while Eiroughed loudly, "What''s wrong? Feeling a bit exhausted, bud? Want to give up and just die by my hand?"


    The Demonughed. He was gaining the upper hand, clearly. While M''s body had been weighted down considerably due to some sort of magic, once Eiro was able to push him down, he was going to be fine. Even if Eiro couldn''t stab him because of the Aegis, he could still push him down onto the ground and figure something else out. If he had to, he would just drown him in theke as well, or maybe poison him. Well, either way, Eiro would be able to kill him rather easily.


    Once the Demon pressed M down onto the ground, tripping him over surprisingly easily, with the ice slightly cracking underneath the weight, Eiro pressed his right hand onto the center of M''s chest. Right onto the Aegis.


    Slowly but surely, he made his Three of Swords slither out of the gauntlet, and the five des pressed into the amber light.


    "You think you''ll be able to shatter this shield? Hah! Right! This is the ultimate shield, you idiot!" M eximed, as if he was unbeatable. However, he forgot one thing.


    "It''s not the real Aegis, you dumbass. These are the true ''Marite des'', though.." The Demon replied.

 Chapter 363 - Eiro The Letter

    A small metal te with a letter carved into it. It was a simple ''Z'', with nothing else on there. While sitting on the chest of the dead ''M'', who just had his heart practically ripped apart by the Three of Swords'' des, Eiro was looking at the tag that he was given when he joined the organization.


    He was d that he was finally a letter. It would make things a bit easier at some point, probably. It also removed any doubt in Eiro''s mind that these rules added by the organization werepletely and utterly made up without any proper reason behind them.


    Eiro stood up from the dead body and quickly took the item responsible for the creation of the fake Aegis around ''M'', a small ne. These artificial artifacts were really rather useful, to say the least. He couldn''t find anything that seemed like it would be able to change the weight and trajectory of the boots, so it was most likely an ability that ''M'' himself had.


    Eiro quickly opened up a hole in the surface of theke and dropped the corpse in there. Evelyn growled in an angry voice after seeing this.


    "You really don''t have even an ounce of respect for the dead, do you?" She asked. Eiro looked at her with a nk expression underneath his mask, "Of course I do. Just not for the people that I didn''t have respect for when they were alive. Now, shut it already and tell me about ''Letter'' privileges."


    "And why would I-" Evelyn was quickly interrupted by the feeling of one of Eiro''s des being pressed into her shoulder.


    "Because I''m telling you to. That''s why." Eiro replied bluntly, and then quickly dodged one of Evelyn''s blood-attacks that were sent at him through the wound that he just created, "Hm, what a bother." The Demon added, before using some mes to burn the wound shut.


    "Maybe it would be better if I used mes for this in the first ce." Eiro muttered quietly, "Or I can just make you feelplete agony in your whole body, if you would prefer that."


    Evelyn ripped her eyes open wide as she stared back at Eiro, "I knew it! So you have those urges after a-"


    Eiro groaned loudly and pressed his foot onto Evelyn''s stomach, and proceeded to push his mana into her body, making it mix with most of hers that had been gathered within her.


    Evelyn started to writhe in agony, but the fact that she was unable to move in the slightest due to the way she was restrained made it even worse for her.


    "I already told you, I do not." Eiro replied, "Get that into your ugly fucking head before I mutte it for you."


    The Demon crossed his arms as he took a step back again, "Now speak. What privileges do ''Letters'' have?"


    It seemed like Evelyn was barely conscious at this point due to this extreme pain she felt for the first time in her life, so Eiro had to wait a bit for a proper answer.


    "M-More q-quests and... and..." Evelyn''s body twitched and made her jaw cramp up for a moment, "Y-You can have a-artifacts and we-weapons you have enha-hanced... In exchange for some que-quests, you get artifacts as well..."


    "Ah, so that''s why they had them. Interesting. Guess I should visit that research division of the organization soon. Shouldn''t be too hard to find." Eiro muttered, looking around himself, "Seems like there''s nobody that feels like taking me on anymore, huh?"


    The Demon let out a deep sigh, "And there are so many good ones hiding out in the thicket, great. Now I''ll have to hunt them myself."


    Eiro pressed his foot into the ice, and pressed himself off to rapidly run forward toward the area where most people were currently gathered. The moment he reached that ce, the Demon made use of the ice behind him and turned it into thin needles that he immediately shot at the foreheads of the people hiding out here, thinking that Eiro didn''t notice them.


    Two, five, seven, thirteen... soon, Eiro managed to get another pile of fresh, undamaged bodies. The ones that seemed useless to him were killed a bit more carelessly so that Eiro could still do it as instantly as he wanted to.


    Eiro brought those bodies onto the ice and manipted it to bring them to the same ce where the other bodies were, quickly throwing them down into the water.


    Why was he doing this? It was simple. Necromancers couldn''t do much without dead bodies, so Eiro wanted to do his best to give the ''Queen of Undeath'' that would hopefully being here soon something to y around with. From the brief stories that Armodeus told Eiro of her, she didn''t seem like an especially warm person. He just wanted to make sure that she didn''te here for nothing, and at least would have something to keep her busy.


    Eiro really didn''t want to get on her bad side, after all. She was a person with a Master grade Death Magic skill, there was no way that Eiro wanted to mess with someone like that. Or else he might fall over dead before even being able to do anything.


    Well, either way, it was good that thiske was usually never gone to, so it was the perfect storage ce for these dead bodies. Most people didn''t leave the walls in the first ce, simply because they didn''t feel the need to, but in the case of adventurers and merchants and such, there was no reason for them toe here.


    There were no interesting nts to gather around here, and monsters didn''t gather here either, at least not too often. And if they did, then it was usually in summer, and the monsters just wanted to drink some water.


    There were a lot of monsters that were hibernating in winter anyway, so Eiro wouldn''t need to deal with anyone finding these bodies for a while, at least not until the ''Queen of Death'' came here. Well, either way, Eiro was able to raise his level by a total of 7 levels today, which was pretty neat. He didn''t level up like this in a while, so this was quite an enjoyable feeling to him. He was no a third of the way there to evolving again.


    Eiro thought about what he wanted to do next, and figured he could just make his way back to town for now. He still had some work to do, and now that he was finally an official letter, he could ess a lot more information than before.


    And considering that the basic infrastructure of the organization should still allow Eiro ess to everything he needed and wanted, the fact that he didn''t follow the ''rules'' really didn''t matter to him in the slightest.


    Eiro swiftly grabbed Evelyn by the hair and started to pull her along the ice, keeping her limbs still covered in thick blocks of ice as well.


    "Now, how should I do this...?" He asked himself when he realized that it would be a bother to carry Evelyn through the area with the ice blocks like that. So instead, he simply removed all the ice and figured that he would be able to deal with it if Evelyn tried to attack him somehow.


    Not that she would be able to. Eiro quickly stung her with his stinger and pumped an anesthetic into her blood.


    "Don''t tell me that the bloodstone makes you immune to venoms and poisons?" Eiro grumbled, realizing that it didn''t seem to work and Evelyn was still wide-awake.


    She started to chuckle slightly, as if she had the upper hand now for some reason, but Eiro just shrugged and moved on, "Well, guess we''ll have to go the tougher route for you."


    The Demon pressed his palm onto the center of Evelyn''s chest and pushed his mana into her body. But this time, instead of mixing it with all her mana, he simply did it with the mana around her heart.


    Sure, it wouldn''t directly damage the heart at all, but this sort of torture method made any muscles around the afflicted area tense up. And that included the heart. With a bit of fine-tuning of where exactly Eiro wanted to cause pain to her, the Demon was quickly able to make Evelyn fall unconscious aftering close to a heart attack and simply due to the immense pain that she was feeling right now.


    And since she was unconscious now, Eiro was able to carry her without needing to worry about her doing something bothersome while he was flying. He didn''t want to need to drop her; She would still be useful to him, after all.


    For now, Eiro took a deep breath and thought about what he was going to do next. Once he had a swift n of action set up for himself, he lifted off of the ground and tried to hide himself again somehow as he flew toward the town.


    Eiro set Evelyn down at the mansion of her family, since he didn''t want to deal with her anymore, and then made his way to the organization again.


    Instead of dropping down in the middle of the area like before, Eiro went the ''legit'' route. He entered through the proper means, and although everyone was immediately avoiding him the moment they realized who Eiro was, the Demon really didn''t care.


    This helped him in showing everyone that he was no longer at theke, as he didn''t need to be anymore, so that nobody would go there and find the bodies he stashed there. Eiro stepped into the main building where most people were gathered, and walked up to the main desk in the center.


    "Hello there. I recently became a ''Letter'', so I would like it if you showed me to your research division." Eiro said in a blunt tone, without saying anything else.


    There were a few people that seemingly felt like this was the best time to attack Eiro toplete the quest they were given, but the Demon was able to stop what they were trying to do quite easily.


    The arrows shot at him were cut in half, and the people actually just jumping at him were kicked to the other side of the room.


    "How rude! I was talking to someone!" The Demon eximed, looking back at the executive behind the counter, "Now, will you please show me there? Or do I need to rip your head off and go there on my own?"


    The executive flinched slightly and took a step backward. Within just a few hours, Eiro became a ''Letter'', and they only knew of two ''Letters'' that made their way to fight him.. And they didn''t expect either of them to be beaten by anyone.

 Chapter 364 - Pillar

    The executive walked down the steps while Eiro followed him. It didn''t take long to convince the executive to lead the Demon there; with a quick dagger pressed against his throat, the issue was dealt with.


    They stepped through the undergroundplex, and soon reached a thick wooden door with runes inscribed onto it.


    "ce your ta-" The executive started talking, but before he finished the sentence, the Demon already pressed the tag, which acted as his ''identification'' for the organization, onto the wooden door. The runes lit up in a dim light, and Eiro was able to press the door open afterward. This was just some sort of magical lock, nothing special behind it.


    "Keep going." Eiro said in a blunt tone, and the executive slowly nodded his head, "O-Of course..."


    At this point, it didn''t seem like Eiro actually still needed this man, so he could just kill him if he wanted to, but just in case Eiro was wrong, he kept him along. The area that they entered now seemed to be the start of the area that was only essible to Letters. They walked down some stairs into arge open room.


    It was nothing but another bar, a ce for Letters to gather and sit, eating delicious food and drinking booze. There seemed to be some more servants in the area to take care of a Letter''s ''every wish'', or so the executive quickly exined.


    Eiro really didn''t care all too much about that kind of stuff, so he didn''t pay attention to it.


    However, there was something even more important here. There were 10 big boards hung up on the walls, with one high-tier quest set up on each. The reward for each quest was set into a ss box right underneath those boards.


    It seemed like those boxes were made of the same kind of stuff as the Aegis was... Meaning that Eiro might be able to break these open and grab the artificial artifacts that were set as the reward. Eiro was pretty curious about that, but he should try not to do something like that yet, just in case there was some sort of security system that Eiro would have a tough time dealing with connected to the boxes. He would figure it outter.


    "This here is the central ''hub'' for all Letters... If you are called here to the headquarters, you are expected to wait in this space, except or until you are told otherwise. You are free toe here whenever you wish, however, and enjoy our services for those with privileges such as yourself." The executive exined. Eiro really didn''t care about any of that. It wasn''t like he would actually end up being called here for anything, since he would be taking the organization over rather soon.


    "Show me to the ce where the artifacts are made and enhanced." Eiro said in a blunt tone, although the executive slowly turned toward him.


    "I... I''m afraid that you did not yet earn the privileges for that. As the Letter ''Z'', you are merely something of a ceholder. Your position could change at any point, since you are the one that the Number ''1'' is supposed to challenge to advance. Once you advance to the position of the Letter ''Y'', you can make use of those services." The executive exined, clearly nervous about telling Eiro off like that.


    But the Demon didn''t care. He grabbed the executive by the throat and started to squeeze down a bit, choking him until his face turned blue, "You sure about that?"


    The man grabbed at Eiro''s hands to get them away from his throat, before Eiro just let him drop down. While trying to get back the breath that he lost just now, the executive looked up at Eiro. He slowly pushed himself off the ground and nodded his head, "I... I don''t think I am allowed to let you in there, I am sorry... However, as a ''Letter'', there are new ways of increasing your rank within the organization... There is something like another evaluation, and depending on your apparent skill, your rank can be re-assigned... You can reach up to Rank J like that."


    "Then let''s start that evaluation now. I don''t want to deal with that much longer." Eiro said in an annoyed tone. The executive quickly nodded his head and walked through therge room, toward a door at the back.


    He presented his own tag to the door and then opened it up. This ce seemed to be something like a small arena. In the center stood a white pir with runes inscribed onto it. As far as Eiro could tell, this was supposed to be the target to be attacked.


    "Wait... So nobody is going to evaluate technique?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, and the executive slowly shook his head, "No...pared to actual power-output, technique is unimportant, is it not? You have one minute to deal as much damage to this pir as you wish. Don''t worry, it''s not going to break, no matter what you do to it... But either way, at the end, the total damage is going to be calcted and you will be assigned your new rank." The executive exined quickly. Eiro raised his brows as he looked at the pir.


    "Interesting. Is the damage calcted in the same way as personal damage when you attack others?" Eiro inquired. The executive quickly nodded his head, "Correct. So just attack it as you normally would any enemy."


    "Alright then." The Demon muttered quietly. He walked up to the pir, and looked at the executive, "Can I use artifacts?" Eiro asked.


    "You are not allowed to use artifacts that you were given by the organization, no. Neither are you allowed to use those that you may have stolen from other Letters." The executive exined, and Eiro smirked lightly, "Are those the only two restrictions?"


    "Of course."


    "I''ll kill you if you make trouble afterward." The Demon pulled out a ring out of his treasury and held it in his hand, ready to use it.


    The executive didn''t seem to have noticed, and simply activated everything. The pir lit up in a red light. The moment that it would turn white again, Eiro would be able to attack it. The Demon quickly manipted the life force in his body and took on the right stance.


    He second-step infused his body with water, and used ''Rock Skin'' in a few particr ces on his fist. The moment that the pir turned white again, Eiro pushed his fist forward as quickly as he could and punched the pir in a way that would release as much force as absolutely possible.


    That one attack dealt more than a hundred thousand damage. Quickly, Eiro continued attacking the pir as much as he could, multitasking as he was doing so. The Demon was currently creating a magic circle that was focused on putting out as much power as absolutely possible with his right hand, as he kept attacking the pir with his des and his left hand.


    It didn''t take long until the magic circle was finished, and the instant that Eiro activated the magic circle, he also activated the time-stopping ring.


    The reason for this was simple. The spell that Eiro created would create something like a ''power catalyst'' in one spot for a second. Something to gather any mana and magic that was put into it for a short amount of time, beforepressing it down and shooting the target with immense force.


    Of course, since this sort of spell was extremely unstable, especially the more magic was used for it, there was one restriction to this spell. Eiro could only fill it with magic for half a second. And half a second turned into a whole minute using this special ring.


    That meant that Eiro had a full minute to fill this catalyst with as much magic as he could. Eiro used as much time as he could afford filling up this catalyst with any magic that he held within himself. And just before he let time proceed, Eiro touched the tip of one of his Three of Swords'' des against the catalyst and tried to fuse those two things together.


    Once the de fully absorbed thepressed magic, Eiro fused it with his main dagger that had recently been enhanced even more than before by Armodeus, and used the other des of the Three of Swords as support by wrapping them around the base of the central dagger.


    And then at thest moment, Eiro pushed the de forward as much as he possible could, just an inch in front of the pir, and then let time continue flowing normally.


    <strong>[Ability Test Pir ¨C 13.014.290 Damage]</strong>


    <strong>[Due to the damage being focused on a single point of interest, it will be multiplied by 2]</strong>


    <strong>[Critical Damage has been done to the target, Damage will be multiplied by 2]</strong>


    <strong>[Lethal Damage has been done to the target]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have 120 stat points avable]</strong>


    Eiro looked at the notifications in front of him and was a bit baffled at what just happened. Sure, he focused all of his damage onto a single point that seemed to be the weakest within this thing, but it did seem pretty sturdy so far... It had multipleyers of the Aegis weaved into one making up the outermost part of the Pir.


    Since Eiro already broke one of these fake Aegis artifacts, he had the chance to analyze how the power fluctuated in different ces, letting him choose the ce where it was objectively the weakest.


    But it seemed like that extreme damage in this specific spot caused a chain-reaction and made the Aegis shatter into pieces altogether.


    "Huh..." Eiro muttered quietly, looking at the executive on the other side of the room, "Erm... I killed it, I think?" The Demon pointed out.


    The pir had exploded into pieces, and while that happened, Eiro was able to see that this pir was actually more of a sub-species of Mimic that was specially created, rather than a regr pir.


    Well, it let Eiro level up another 5 times, so he really didn''t care too much.


    The executive stood therepletely perplexed at what just happened, "How did you... Just..." He muttered in confusion. The Demon looked down at his tag, noticing a change, and was happy to see that it now disyed the letter ''J'' on it, making him the tenth-highest ranked member of this organization.


    Sure, Eiro technically cheated a bit, but that wasn''t the point. He was sure that there were other people that did more raw damage than Eiro, but just because the Demon had the Three of Swords, he was able to pierce through the fake Aegis and then have all the damage dealt to the Mimic beyond it.


    Well, at the end of the day, Eiro was happy that he had a target for such a high power-output for once.

 Chapter 365 - Enhancing Items

    Eiro followed the executive through the underground part of the organization''s headquarters. Once more, they reached a door with runes inscribed onto it. Judging from how the executive was acting, Eiro would once more need to open this up himself using his tag, which now showed the Letter ''J''.


    The Demon did just that, and the door opened up to let him inside. And from here, Eiro could already see the ce where he wanted to be. This was the ce where the research for the improvement on different artifacts was done.


    It was arge room with a number of walls lined up here to create some more artificial rooms. From just a quick scan-through of this ce, it didn''t seem like they were actively creating the artificial artifacts here. That made sense, Eiro already figured that they belonged to the overarching organization in the first ce.


    It was still a bit disappointing, but at the very least this organization had the funds to improve on already existing artifacts. And that meant that they had the knowledge of how to do it.


    Eiro looked around the room, and on the other side, quickly saw arge bookshelf with numerous high-quality books lined up. The titles weren''t written on the spines, but it seemed like they would be useful to the Demon.


    Without hesitation, he rushed over there and pulled one of the books out of the shelf, "The advanced theory of artifacts." Eiro read out loud, "Interesting."


    He flipped the book open and started to read it, then and there. It was rather quick of course. What he was doing now was just taking in the raw information so that this would end up in his mental library. There, he could read this again and again and analyze it more closely if he needed to.


    After about a minute, Eiro was done ''reading'' the first book, and ced it to the side, before grabbing the next one. For a good twenty minutes, Eiro continued doing this until one of the researchers here finally walked up to him.


    "Excuse me? But those books aren''t actually supposed to be essible for members... Only executive, research, and leading members are allowed to read them. We could get in a lot of trouble for this, you see?"


    Eiro turned his head toward the researcher and rolled his eyes underneath his mask. He held his right hand forward. It was currently covered in the gauntlet that Armodeus made for him, and of course that meant that the Three of Swords was also currently active and acting as the ws in this form.


    The Demon moved the des out of the gauntlet and made them float around the researcher''s face, "How would you improve these?"


    The researcher''s eyes opened wide in shock, "The Three of Swords?! I thought this card was lost! A civilian stole this card from one of our members, and we didn''t see we would ever see it again!" The researcher eximed.


    Eiro looked at the man standing next to him a bit surprised. He must be talking about the guy that Eiro got the card from in the first ce. It really didn''t seem like he was capable of handling it... Which showed after he was taken over by the des nearly immediately.


    "Well... Now what would I do for these...?" The researcher muttered curiously, "For one, I would probably improve on their shape a bit. They are quite small, so while they''re good for attack, they aren''t great for defense, so you will still always need something like a shield to block iing attacks. Reforging artifacts is only possible in theory... Or rather, we didn''t have the chance to test it out yet, but it should be possible... Maybebining these des into a single, more powerful one would be a good idea."


    Eiro looked at the researcher with a loud groan, "That''s the dumbest idea that I''ve ever heard. For one, look at this." The Demon pulled out his dagger and made one of the des wrap around it, before theybined. The dagger''s de was now floating there.


    Not only that, but Eiro also walked up to a pretty thick square sheet of metalying on a workstation near him andbined it with another one of the des, effectively turning it into a shield-de.


    "Reforging them ispletely unnecessary, and would get rid of a huge part of what makes these des what they are. You would be downgrading them." Eiro exined, "And I don''t want a downgrade. I want an upgrade."


    The researcher stared at the items that so effortlesslybined with the Three of Swords'' des, trying to slightly touch them. Eiro could see that he was just curious, and considering that he was moving the des closer to his face, Eiro wasn''t worried about this guy suddeny trying to attack him.


    "Then... The only restriction are these threads, are they not? Would it be possible to disconnect them from one another?" The researcher suggested. And this was more like what Eiro was hoping he would hear here.


    The thing with these des was that while it at first might seem that the thread was controlling the des, that was really not the case. The des were floating on their own, and the threads were loosely hanging there. They were basically just the connection between Eiro and the des. Sure, it would take a long time until it was possible to control these des like it was possible with these threads connected, but it would open up quite a few possibilities.


    "Well, would it be? You tell me, you''re the researcher. I''m not particrly caught up on the literature yet, as you can see." The Demon pointed out bluntly as he ced the book that he went through for now to the side to grab the next one. At this point, he read half of the books on thisrge shelf, but he still didn''t really take in any of the information. He would take his time with thatter. He didn''t even know if there was going to be any useful information in these books at all.


    It seemed like it, but that was because Eiro didn''t know anything about it yet at all. It seemed slightly rted to artificing, though, something that Eiro wanted to learn anyway.


    But if he could, then he would just try to have Armodeus work on all of this. He would probably end up doing a far better job than Eiro ever could. If it wasn''t wood, Eiro didn''t really know how to handle it craftsmanship-wise, after all.


    The researcher thought for a moment, and then nodded his head, "I''m pretty sure it would be. It would be necessary to establish some sort of link between the individual and the de itself, however. It might be possible to harvest this special thread for that... It looks like it''s able to conduct mana quite impressively."


    "You have good eyes. You know what, I like you. If you bring me any other book that you have on improving on artifacts, I think I won''t end up killing you." The Demon smiled softly underneath his mask, while the researcher was just confused.


    "Ah, let me exin." Eiro said, and then immediately swung the Three of Swords'' des at the executive''s throat. He cut through it immediately, and the executive''s head flew through the air andnded on the ground a few meters away.


    "While I''m ecertainly a member of this organization, I''m not the kind that just ys along with the rules. My goal is to first be the Letter ''A'', to then meet the leader of this shitty organization. And I think you''re going to be quite some help with that, I''d say." The Demon exined bluntly.


    "Ah, speaking of help, I do also still have an insane, cannibalistic ''Letter'' in my home, locked down up there... I''ve been feeding him, but I want to make use of him somehow. So quick, think up something that I can use to make him fear me even while I''m not there." The Demon suggested, "But first deal with the books. That''s more important for now."


    The researcher slowly nodded his head, and turned around. Right now, he was the one that was scared of Eiro, "Oh, and tell your colleagues that if they want to live, they should try and help you out with your new job." The Demon eximed with a smile on his face, and went back to reading the books.


    He was a bit annoyed that the executive''s blood got on some of the books, but it was his own fault at the end of the day. Eiro was the one that chose to intimidate the researcher in this way.


    Eiro rolled his eyes and continued reading the books for now. Once he was done with the shelf, the first group of researchers came over to him to give him more books to read. And it wasn''t just books, but research papers and notes that they themselves were writing. Basically, it gave a lot more actual practical information that Eiro could make use of.


    "Thank you. Now clean this guy''s body up." The Demon said in a blunt tone, "He''s starting to reek."


    The researchers did as Eiromanded them to, while Eiro kept on reading everything that he could. He was given some more notes over time, and some other executives came in here to try and stop Eiro, but they were all killed by Eiro rather quickly.


    But after a few hours, Eiro was finally done. He read everything he could, but he didn''t really take it in yet. He would do thatter on, and then ry that information to Armodeus. The Demon stood up from where he was sitting and then walked around the room to take care of something else.


    There was a group of four researchers here, all gathered around something like a crossbow. It seemed like they were trying to enhance it to try and kill Eiro as quickly as possible.


    So, the Demon walked in there, grabbed the crossbow, and shot one of the researchers in the head. The bolt traveled through his head and shot out the other side, getting stuck in the skull of the researcher behind him.


    While that one screamed in agony, Eiro hit another researcher over the head with the crossbow itself, "I can hear everything going on in this room, so don''t even try to attack me. You won''t be able to."


    The Demon let out a deep groan, and left this smaller sub-room, starting to look for actual examples of how different items were enhanced.


    And as he was doing so, another person entered the room. And it was one of the people that Eiro had been waiting for this whole time.


    A ''Letter'' with a rank above his own.

 Chapter 366 - Nephilim

    Eiro looked at the woman on the other side of the room. She was walking closer toward Eiro in a casual manner, as if she didn''t care about any of the dead bodies here in the room. She probably didn''t.


    "So, you''re the one that everyone''s been talking about? The guy that''s breaking all the rules?" The woman asked, slowly sitting down on one of the chairs before crossing her legs. The letter on the tag around her neck was ''C''. The third strongest individual in this organization.


    And Eiro could tell that this woman was strong as well. Really, really strong. It might be a troublesome fight against her.


    He thought that the difference in strength between the letters would be miniscule, but... It seemed like that wasn''t the case. The difference between individuals seemed to only be increasing more and more the higher their ranks.


    For example, this woman was iparably stronger than Evelyn. And she didn''t even have a Card. Or at the very least, she was hiding it, if she did.


    Although, Eiro was able to sense something else... Something simr to the ''vibe'' that a card gave off. It was the first time that Eiro encountered something like this, but he was able to figure out what it was.


    It was an artifact. But not the artificial kind that the people here were making... A true artifact that was differentpared to the cards.


    Those were rare in itself. So far, Eiro had only met people with cards. Maybe it was the flow of the universe... Fate guiding him toward where he had to be to meet more Card Holders, while carefully avoiding those with other artifacts.


    Until now. Eiro didn''t know what it was. Sure, he knew about other artifacts, he read stories about them, but the thing with artifacts beside the cards was that any transcript of them was destroyed or lost long ago. So any information that could be found could be fully true, utterly false, or somewhere inbetween.


    Eiro''s mind raced, and he started to think about what he was supposed to do. And he started by simply speaking, the easiest of what he could do right now.


    "That would be me, yes. Sorry, but I don''t know anything about you. Maybe we could change that?" Eiro asked, and the womanughed a bit in response, "Wow, getting straight to the point, huh? I heard you were not interested in such things, but it seems that is tantly false."


    While she was speaking, Eiro started feeling that there was something off about this woman. He made sure to concentrate his control of the Domain of Truth onto his senses. But that wasn''t enough. He began trying to see the ''Chaos'' around her.


    The space around the woman was shifting, it was off, like some sort of electricity was jumping off of her into the air. Eiro brought order into the chaos, and he was able to see who this woman truly was.


    Or rather, what she truly was. Eiro let out a deep sigh, and pulled something out of his treasury. He threw it over toward the woman, who caught it quickly in response.


    The moment the small piece of ck wood touched her skin, the woman''s skin let off slight smoke and started hissing. She dropped it to the ground, while her body was practically paralyzed for a moment as her wound healed.


    "Now, before we continue, I think you should tell me why a regr woman has a bane. And why that bane is ''Unholy Energy''." Eiro smiled lightly, looking back at her. The wood that he threw at her was the special kind of wood that Eiro used to stop Avalin''s holy energy from wildly spreading out around her.


    "Hm, I think I have an idea..." The Demon muttered and looked around, "All of you, continue the work I assigned you, but don''t move from your stations. If you do, you''ll regret it."


    Eiro moved his hand forward and pulled something out of thin air. A golden card with a decorated chalice on it. The card turned into the Ace of Cups, and Eiro poured the ck liquid inside of it out and immediately started to manipte it. The liquid spread out thinly and Eiro turned it into a very thin, ever so slightly translucent sheet and created a sphere around himself and the woman in front of him. And then, he froze that liquid so that he didn''t have to worry about controlling it too much.


    The people outside of this sphere were now unable to actively sense Eiro and the woman in front of him, but those two could still see everything outside without any issues.


    And then, the Demon took off his mask and removed his cloak, "It''s nice to meet you, Miss Angel. Howe you''re part of a chaotic organization like this? Ah wait... Angels aren''t Monsters, so you must be a Nephilim. But close enough, anyway."


    "How do you-" The woman in front of Eiro asked, and he pointed at his eyes, "You can''t trick these two. Now, answer my question, if you will. You''re at a disadvantage here. Remember? That wood puts out a neverending amount of Unholy Energy."


    The woman grinned broadly and held her hand forward. A swirl of golden-white light appeared on her palm and quickly enveloped Eiro.


    "And you must forget that a Demon''s bane is Holy Energy, which I haveplete control over!" The Nephilim woman eximedl. However, Eiro just stood there and scratched his cheek awkwardly. Sure, it hurt a lot, but Eiro was able to resist this much. This was nothingpared to dying while lit up through holy mes.


    "You done?" Eiro asked. Of course, he also slightly infused his body with the Unholy wood that he just picked up to negate this Holy Magic a little bit. Usually, if Eiro was any other Demon, he would still be stunned by this and end up dying, but the ''stun'' due to his bane was never a thing for him anyway.


    That was probably an advantage of having an originally human soul.


    "Wh-What, but how? You''re clearly a Demon!" The letter ''C'' eximed loudly, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Listen, if I wanted to fight you, I wouldn''t have created this space where we can talk in peace. That threat with you being at a disadvantage was something I said so you wouldn''t try and fight me either. So just calm down, stop hiding yourself, and let''s talk." Eiro suggested. The Nephilim in front of him slowly nodded her head and pulled away her holy energy, quickly watching Eiro''s skin regenerate in front of her eyes.


    After that, two white wings spread out from her back, and two golden-white ram-horns sprouted on her head. Her clothes were deep ck, creating a fine contrast between her outfit and her phyiscal appearance.


    But not only that, it was basically as if Eiro and this Nephilim were basically the opposite of each other, while still having quite a few simrities.


    One of them was the lowest kind of Unholy beings, an Imp, and the other was the lowest kind of Holy beings.


    Nephilims were the offspring of Angels and people. If this happens, the Gods punish the Angels by making the angels ''fall'' and be Unholy beings, while their children will be allowed to stay holy in nature, but will be seen as a ''Monster'' in this world.


    The parent and child will be unable to be together, or else they will kill each other just by being in each other''s presence. It was a sad existence, really, but it was what it was.


    The woman stood there and looked back at Eiro, who was just staring at her for a while, "Could you not look at me like that?"


    "Sorry. First time seeing one of your kind." The Demon pointed out, "Anyway, let me ask again. Why are you a part of this organization?"


    "Obviously because I want to be the strongest around, why else?" The Nephilim pointed out, and Eiro sighed deeply, "That''s a lie. Sorry, I''ll know when others are lying, so don''t even try."


    "...Fine. I''m here because I want to find someone. That good enough for you?"


    "It''s the truth, at least. Who is it that you want to find?" Eiro inquired curiously. The Nephilim stared back with a deep frown, "Alright, I don''t know what''s going on, but why should I tell all of this to a Demon? What are you going to do with that information?"


    Eiro looked back at her and raised his brows, "That''s true... I don''t know why I''m so curious, I just feel like I''d like to know more about you."


    The Nephilim took a step back as she heard the way that Eiro worded his reply, unsure what to say, but the Demon quickly continued on his own, "I mean, it doesn''t happen often that you meet a Nephilim. You are the only race of ''Monsters'' that are born without ''Monstrosity''. And I feel like you''d be able to sympathize with my situation pretty well, so we could probably get along."


    Another part of it was that, when Eiro ''analyzed'' her through Chaos and Truth, he was able to get a quick nce at what kind of personality she had. She seemed kind, she had strong values, and she didn''t have any hostility toward Eiro. It was in his favor if he would be able to avoid having to fight her, and instead could just befriend her.


    Nephilim, while being the lowest sort of Holy beings, were still extremely strong, so having her with him would help Eiro out quite a bit in the long run probably. He didn''t know why he felt like he wanted to have her around though, he just felt like that.


    "Eiro... What''s going on with you? She literally tried to attack you, and you won''t fight back? And instead, you''re being really... nice..?" Nelli appeared next to Eiro, only visible to the Demon himself.


    Eiro turned his head toward her with a wry smile, "Yeah, so? Something wrong with that?"


    "...Please don''t tell me that..." Nelli muttered, confused.


    "Tell you what?"


    "That you''re crushing on a Nephilim...."

 Chapter 367 - Ariella

    "What are you even talking about?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, and Nelli slowly crossed her arms while looking at the Demon suspiciously, "There''s no way I would. I''m just curious about her."


    The Nephilim in front of Eiro looked at him a bit confused. She wasn''t able to see Nelli right now, after all. Eiro let out a deep sigh and snapped his fingers, causing Nelli to slowly appear in front of them, "I was talking to her, not to myself. I''m not that kind of crazy."


    "Yup, he''s more of a murder-maniac crazy." Sarius appeared next to Nelli and Eiro as well, while Gondos slowly made himself appear as well. Eiro slightly red at the Smander, but he couldn''t particrly deny what he said.


    "Either way..." The Demon started, "It doesn''t seem like you have hostile intentions against me. And you''re probably one of the strongest beings, beside royals, that I''ve met."


    The Nephilim took a step back as she heard Eiro mention the royals. He said that he met them and survived? Sure, Eiro seemed strong, but he didn''t seem strong enough for that, "What are you exactly?"


    "Hm, I don''t think you need to concern yourself with that yet. Just know that I''m not going to try and fight you as long as you don''t try and fight me." Eiro exined. It seemed the Nephilim was pretty relieved about that. She was trying not to show it outwardly, but Eiro picked up on it anyway.


    He didn''t know why she was so nervous. From what Eiro could tell, they would probably be rtively evenly matched if they went for an all-out fight. As he said, this Nephilim was the strongest non-royal being he met in recent years.


    "But beyond that..." Eiro started, "How about instead of a non-aggression treaty, we go for an alliance?"


    "An alliance?" The woman asked, and Eiro nodded his head in response, "Yes, alliance. We help each other out. You help me achieve my current goal, and I help you achieve yours."


    "Depends. What is your current goal?" The Nephilim asked. Eiro smiled back at her and replied in a blunt tone, "I want to take over this organization, basically. Once I do, I will receive quite a bit of an information influx from the system that they built, which will help us find whoever it is you''re looking for."


    "Really? You actually think it would be possible to find the Holy Priestess after taking over the organization? I''m the Letter ''C'', meaning that I get nearly all the information the organization has to offer, I don''t think they have any particr clues on her location, or even her kidnapper."


    "..." Eiro stared back at the Nephilim silently for a few moments, "You''re looking for the Holy Priestess?"


    "Yes, I am. I''m hoping that I can get her help with something. There''s an enemy I have to kill, and while my own Holy Energy certainly could injure him, I''m also at a disadvantage. The Holy Priestess doesn''t have that disadvantage. Her whole reason for existing is to defeat creatures like him." The Nephilim exined quickly. Eiro slowly turned around and approached one of the chairs nearby. He sat down on there and looked down at the ground while letting out a deep groan.


    "What''s your name?" Eiro asked quietly, and the Nephilim looked back a bit surprised, "Arie. And you?"


    "It''s Eiro. Alright, Arie, let me guess. The enemy that you want to beat is <The Devil>." The Demon sighed, and Arie nodded her head quite surprised, "Yes, exactly... I didn''t think it was that clear."


    "No, it''s more than clear. Now I also know what that weird vibe I got from you was. And no, I don''t mean your artifact. It''s just some weak item meant to disguise yourself as a person, I''m not interested in that. I''ve got my own means for that. What I mean is the damned mark that you received from <The Devil>."


    "But how do you-" Arie stared back, and Eiro raised his head, "Did you not realize that I have a connection to <The Devil> myself yet? Or is my unholy nature messing up your senses?"


    "I think you''re forgetting that your perception is the best around." Nelli pointed out, trying to remind Eiro since his words were getting rather harsh, "Right. Alright, I''m just going to put it out there. I will not help you find the Holy Priestess, no matter what. I will however-"


    "Then there''s no need for that ''alliance'', now is there?"


    "Let me finish." Eiro replied after being so rudely interrupted by the Nephilim, "Coincidentally, your end-goal aligns with one of my own future goals. I also want to kill <The Devil>."


    ---


    Eiro stepped out of the underground part of the organization''s headquarters and looked at the tag in his hand. It now disyed the Letter ''D''. He went through a fake duel with Arie and beat her, pushing his rank up quite a bit, but still not high enough to overtake her. At least not for now.


    But that wasn''t what mattered, as the fourth-highest ranking person in the organization, Eiro was rather close to his goal for now. It seemed like once you entered the top five, you would be allowed to speak to the ''leader'' of the organization.


    Eiro was going to make use of that right to contact that leader, and would then try and kill them somehow. Luckily, he was able to work out something like an alliance with Arie, so he was d about that.


    "Eh~? What''re you smirking about now?" Nelli asked with a grin on her face. Eiro turned his head toward her with what was basically a growling out of his mouth, "I am not ''crushing'' on her. I''m just a bit curious about her, that''s all."


    "Oh please, you would have killed anyone else after they said they want to find Avalin!"


    "Yes, but I could use her help in killing <The Devil>, you know that." Eiro pointed out, and Nelli slowly crossed her arms, "It''s not like you were going to try and fight him before turning into a royal yourself anyway. And at that point, we both know that you''d have a chance against <The Devil>. He''s a plotter, not a fighter. You''re both."


    Eiro didn''t want to admit it, but Nelli was right. He had no idea why he wanted to keep Arie around, but something as ridiculous as a ''crush'' being the reason for it was insane. For now, the Demon figured he should head off and start spreading the letters with rumors about a strong necromancer with unique abilities that the Demon fabricated to make the ''Queen of Undeath'' curious.


    There was a lot going on right now. It seemed like some of the events that Eiro wanted to happen would end up ovepping once they do. Well, before then, he still had some time to do anything else he wanted, though.


    Eiro stepped through the town until he found a good spot where he could start flying off, and then made his way back home.


    Hended inside of his own study and then slowly left. James was near here, probably figuring that Eiro woulde back here soon.


    "Something wrong?" The Demon asked as he slowly took off his cloak and mask to put them away, and James stared deep into Eiro''s eyes, "We''re useless."


    "...Kinda harsh, isn''t it?" The Demon sighed, "You guys are plenty useful."


    "But are we? It''s not like we''re anywhere near your level of skill or power. We don''t know how you do it, but you keep growing stronger and stronger, quicker and quicker each time." James pointed out, "You''re iparably stronger when you look at yourself now and yourself back when we met in that small town back then." James said, and kept staring Eiro into his eyes. He knew where he was going now.


    "You know that it won''t be easy, right?" Eiro asked. James looked back at him, not even surprised that Eiro knew what he wanted to ask, "We''re already working ourselves to the bone. A little more won''t change much."


    "Hah, right. If I''m going to actively train you guys, you''ll wish you never said that." The Demon grinned, and James slowly nodded his head, "Even then, please help us. We feel more useless than ever."


    "Sure. Gather the others, prepare, and meet me outside in an hour. I''ll go meet Armodeus for a second." The Demon said, and James quickly replied with a nod. He turned around and left, obviously feeling upset over the fact that he had to ask Eiro for help again.


    "Did you not say you wanted to help them train even more anyway?" Gondos asked curiously, and Eiro shrugged, "Of course, but if he''s the one that asked me, that''s even better. I just need to prepare the proper methods a bit more quickly than expected."


    "Proper methods? Ah, you mean that thing you''re coborating on with Armodeus?" Nelli asked curiously, and Eiro nodded his head, "Yup, it''sing along pretty well, it seems. Nature magic is really useful if you work with Wood a lot, huh?"


    "Of course it is. What would you expect?" Nelli said, weirdly smug about it. Eiro smiled lightly in response and stepped into the room that had basically turned into Armodeus'' workshop at this point in time.


    "Ah, perfect! Help me out a bit, will ya? I''m not good with magic, so I can''t manipte this well." Armodeus eximed the moment that Eiro stepped through the door. He was looking at the armor made of wood with a slightly purple tinge. Well, more than armor, it was better to describe it as a ''suit'' of sorts. After all, these weren''t supposed to protect anyone, and they were only parts meant to be strapped to different parts of one''s body.


    Eiro picked up one part of it. It was really incredibly heavy... But that didn''t matter for now. Eiro poured his mana into this wood and manipted it a bit, causing the wood to be incredibly light instead of heavier than steel, "Honestly, the materials that ya end up givin'' me to work with are always incredible. I''ve been able to make things I never even dreamt of before!"


    "What, is this that unique an idea?" Eiroughed slightly. Armodeus looked at him with a nod, "Of course it is! Those can make anyone ten times heavier than normal, you know?"


    "Just ten times?"


    "Well, probably more than that, as I said, didn''t have the chance to test ''em out yet." The elder dwarf exined, and Eiro smiled lightly.. At least he was able to make use of some of the items for training now.

 Chapter 368 - Take A Breather

    Eiro brought the items that Armodeus made for him outside. With a flick of his hand, he got rid of the bit of snow that had gathered, and then proceeded to dry the ground in the training-area of his manor''s garden.


    If the ground was too muddy, all that would happen was that Krog''s body would be pushed down into that mud. That was the opposite of what he wanted to happen. The Demon ced the items onto the ground and waited for his three party members toe join him.


    The first one to take notice of the itemsying there was Krog himself, since it was obvious that this wooden armor was meant for him. It wouldn''t end up fitting anyone else, after all.


    "You know that metal armor''s better than wooden one, right?" The half-Goliath pointed out with a wry smile, and Eiro let out a slight sigh. He picked up the gauntlet of the armor and poured his mana into it for a moment, and then threw the gauntlet over at Krog.


    This giant mountain of muscles caught it and had his hands dragged down immediately due to the immense weight of the gauntlet. Of course, it was an item that Krog could carry quitefortably, he just didn''t expect it to weigh that much when it came flying toward him.


    Eiro smirked lightly, "This isn''t for defense, dumbass." He took a step toward Krog and ced his hand onto the gauntlet, making its weight return to normal.


    "Now just put it on while I exin what we''re going to be doing now." The Demon pointed out in a blunt tone. Krog seemed quite curious and interested in this wooden armor, so he didn''t hesitate even for a moment.


    Even in battle he didn''t usually wear much armor, since he said it ''restricted his movement'', but this was clearly a different situation.


    "Alright. Basically, while you three are indeed working on gathering a wider range of abilities and expanding your base, like I asked you to, you are currently seeing ack of growth in specific areas of your skills and abilities." The Demon said. So far, all three of them agreed. It was obvious, after all.


    All they were doing was trying to level themselves up throughout low-rank sses. Each of them had gone through either three or four different ones by now, but their actual growth, at least in the field of stats, wasparable to half that of a ss they would normally take on.


    They were putting in quite a lot of work into what they were doing, but it felt like there was little to no reward waiting for them. A feeling that was more than just annoying to people in their position, considering that they wanted to catch up to Eiro as quickly as absolutely possible.


    "So, I''m now going to train you in a way that the system itself may not directly support." Eiro exined, and Jess looked back at the Demon, "Did you find some kind of... Trick around the system? To increase our stats quickly?"


    Eiro looked back at the mage and chuckled, shaking his heads, "What, of course not! The opposite, rather. It''s part of the system, but most people think quite little of it due to how convenient stats are. It''s a benefit that I enjoy due to the system of evolution, while you are mostly stuck with what you''re given."


    "Could you stop talking in riddles?" James asked with a slight growl as he red at Eiro, before a voice came from behind him, "Sorry, I think that''s a habit that he picked up from me."


    It was Lognir, casually appearing right behind the three people that Eiro would now proceed to train. Even Eiro had a bit of trouble in realizing that he was there, since he hadn''t been specifically trying to find him, but James, Jess, and Krog were more than just shocked.


    All three of them, being experienced adventurers, got ready to attack this person that suddenly infiltrated this ce, but Eiro justughed, "Don''t worry, he''s a friend. Not like you would be able to kill him anyway."


    "How true that is, child." Lognirughed, "Now, am I allowed to solve this ''riddle'' for these three to speed this up a bit?"


    Eiro shrugged, "Go ahead, I don''t mind."


    "Thank you. What Eiro here is talking about is-" Lognir spoke, but James was still looking at him with a deep re, "Buddy, could you stop looking at me like that?"


    "How can I, when I don''t even know who you are?" James responded bluntly, and Lognir quickly looked around himself.


    "Alright, let''s change that, then. Eiro trusts you, so I will put my trust in that child." The Dragon exined. And this Dragon whose shape was that of a man, soon returned to his true form in front of these four.


    Instead of having the power or will to do anything but stare at Lognir, James, Jess and Krog just stood there.


    "I told you, you wouldn''t stand a chance if you were to fight against him. Neither would I, though, to be perfectly fair." Eiro exined, "Anyway. Lognir, please continue."


    As the three stunned people were standing there, Lognir turned back into his humanoid form, "Good idea. What Eiro means is the ''hidden number'' behind the stat. The stat value. It''s not something specifically assigned by the system, it is simply a numerical representation of your raw physical capabilities. After all, if you took the system and all its benefits away, it is obvious that this Warrior would have more raw physical strength than Eiro."


    James slowly turned around toward Eiro, "You want to increase our stat values? Seriously? That''s all you''re talking about?"


    "What do you mean, ''that''s all''? Do you realize that the only reason that I be significantly when reaching level 100 is that my stat values increase? My body changes from the ground up each and every time. Within the matter of a few weeks, my power doubles or even triples without any of my stats or skills increasing." Eiro pointed out, "It''s just that none of you ever thought about that. I''ve seen you guys practice techniques, but I''ve never seen you do strength-training. Or run simply to increase your constitution. Or read a book unrted to magic."


    Eiro stared at each of the three people in front of him and then started to exin how each of them would end up practicing now.


    "James, you will learn together with me. We have a simrbat style, so we can probably help each other out when ites to technique. But on top of that, every morning at 4am and every night at 8pm, you will go out, run toward the wall around the urban district, run around the town once, and thene back to the manor." James stared back at Eiro as if the Demon was insane, "Even if I were to sprint the whole time, each run would take three hours. I would get at most five hours of sleep each night. Are you insane?"


    "That''s the point, James. While I want you to train your physical constitution and agility, I also want to train your willpower. And before I forget, you won''t be just running. You will be using this mask." The Demon said, squatting down to grab another item that Armodeus prepared.


    He threw it over toward James, who took a look at it. It would end up covering the lower half of his face. Hesitantly, he put it on since that was obviously what Eiro wanted him to do then. And the first thing that happened is that he gasped for air, as if he was suffocating. All air was pulled out of his lungs for a moment, and he was struggling to pull new air in.


    "That mask is going to make it much, much harder for you to breathe. You will be exhausted more quickly, of course, but at the same time it''s goign to help you increase your endurance and control your breathing. Thattter part is something you have extreme trouble with." The Demon pointed out, while James was trying to rip the mask of his face.


    Eiro walked over toward him and tapped the side of the wooden mask, "Oh, and I''m the only one that can take it off you. But don''t worry, if you fall unconscious because you''recking air, it''s going to take over breathing for you until you''re alright again. If you agree to do my training, you won''t take this mask off except to eat, drink, and brush your teeth. Understood?"


    James looked back at Eiro as if he was insane. And once Eiro let him take the mask of, he took a deep breath and voiced hisints, "What the fuck is wrong with you?! Do you want to kill me?"


    "If I did, I wouldn''t need to use that mask, James. Listen, you''re a Light Elf. You''re incapable of using magic. At least in the same form as we usually refer to magic. You can''t cause effects outside of your body, but you still can use magic within your body, we already established that. By getting your breathing under control, you will not only be able to fight for much longer than you usually can, but you will be able to train for much longer. You will be calmer. Or rather, you will gain easier control over your own body and thoughts. You''re like me, controlled by rage for most of your life. But if you ovee that rage, or can even use it to your advantage, then there''s nothing standing in your way of bing one of the strongest beings I know." Eiro said with a broad grin on his face. This was his honest thought, there wasn''t even a hint of deception in his words right now.


    And James could tell, somehow. He knew that Eiro was being serious.


    "Fine. Count me up, or whatever. But I''ll reserve the right to quit whenever I want." James said, and Eiro shrugged, "Sure. But if you do, I won''t train you ever again, so be aware of that danger."


    "I am." The Light Elf replied, grinding his teeth together as he looked down at the mask in his hands, still trying to recover from his loss of breath just now.


    "Oh, and that was a pretty high setting just now just for effect, in actual training, we''ll start with a breathing-restriction that''s like you have a thin scarf in front of your face. I''ll set it higher every time I can see you handle your breathing as you normally would." Eiro pointed out, scratching the back of his head, while James red at him.


    "Then don''t scare me like that, you piece of shit!"

 Chapter 369 - Heavier And Smarter

    After exining James'' training program to the Light Elf, he turned toward Krog, who already had a rough idea of what his training was going to be.


    "Let me guess, you want me to do shit while wearing really heavy armor?" He asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "That''s exactly what I want, yes. That armor was made with a special wood created by feeding a seed- You know, nevermind, you don''t care."


    Eiro noticed that Krog was only looking down at his armor and not really paying attention the moment that he started trying to exin how things worked.


    "Alright. Simr to James'' mask, using my mana, I can control the strength of the power of your armor. It can either make you even lighter than normal, or it can make you at least ten times heavier. Slowly but surely, we''re going to increase the weight of that armor, and then I''ll have you go through a strict training regime."


    "And what use is that?" Krog asked bluntly, "Ain''t I already strong enough?" The half-goliath lifted his arm and flexed, making his muscles bulge up. Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose annoyed as he shook his head.


    "Considering that you''re physically weaker than me right now, I would say ''no''. The point of this isn''t to just give you more strength, but to develop your muscles toward any sort of movements that you''re going to undertake forbat. I used to rip my own muscles apart and then heal them with healing magic to develop my physical strength, so this should be finepared to that." Eiro pointed out, "Except if you want to undergo that sort of training as well. I wouldn''t mind that either, of course."


    Krog thought about that new offer for a moment before realizing how painful that must be. He slowly shook his head in response and looked back at Eiro with a wry smile, "Let''s go with the heavy armor for now."


    "Oh, I think you misunderstood something. The armor isn''t just ''heavy''." The Demon pointed out, "It will make you heavier, sure, but it''s also going to press against any movement you make. Here, let me show you the max weight." Eiro took a step toward Krog and ced his hand onto the armor''s chestpiece, activating it in its maximum setting.


    Krog''s feet were immediately pushed into the ground, and it seemed like he had trouble standing. However, Eiro supported him a little bit so that he wouldn''t fall down, "Now, move your hand forward please." Eiro suggested, and Krog did as told.


    But instead of his hand moving forward, it was pushed backward. The armor noticed that Eiro was trying to move his hand forward, and then created something like a gravity field that would instead push his hand in the other direction. And since Krog didn''t expect this and didn''t push against this as strongly, the armor overwhelmed him.


    "What the... actual..." Krog muttered, obviously in a lot of pain. So, Eiro turned the extra gravity off.


    "I think that was about 10 or 11 times your weight. We''ll just start with a gradual increase. Once you''re able to do the movements that I tell you to as you normally would, I''ll slightly increase the strength of the armor''s gravity. You got that?" Eiro exined. Krog slowly nodded his head, "And how exactly do you expect me to train?"


    "Simple. Repeat the basic movements of yourbat style. Swing your weapons around. That kind of stuff." Eiro exined bluntly, "Just regr training, for now. If you have any better suggestions, let me hear them. But for now, we''ll just go with this, alright?"


    "Aight... I think once I''m able to move normally in this fuckin'' armor''s max setting... I''m gonna be unstoppable."


    "That''s the n, Krog." Eiroughed, and then looked at Jess, "Now. You being a mage, your practice methods are going to be more mentally straining. First, every moment of the day where you''re not sleeping, you''re either going to read, or I will recite texts that we don''t have anymore to you."


    "Eh? You just want me to read more books about magic?" Jess asked, and Eiro shook his head, "No, of course not. I said it before, but the fact that you only read books about magic is the issue. I''m going to make you read books about everything. Every single book we have in the library. But since I think we should start with the more useful books, we''re going to read bestiaries or anatomical books first."


    "...Why would I need to know about anatomy?" Jess asked a bit confused. Eiro let out a slight sigh, and then proceeded to exin why.


    "It''s simple. Depending on where you hit your target, you do different amount of damage. I need you to know where you can do the most damage in any situation. James and Krog figured this out naturally since they are involved inbat in a very different way. You need to study up." Eiro exined, "At the end of the day, this is going to increase your wisdom. How much you know. And as your mental capacity increases, so will your mana capacity. It''s quite simple."


    "Huh... I never thought about it that way." Jess muttered quietly. She seemed to be interested in this ''training'' though, so everything was fine. But then, she raised her head a bit confused, "Wait, you said ''First'', right? What''s next in my training?"


    "I was just getting to that. Reading books will increase your wisdom, but your intelligence is a bit harder to raise. You''re already incredibly intelligent, don''t get me wrong, but the thing that the ''intelligence'' stat changes is often the capability to quickly solve problems. So, while you take breaks from reading something, I''m going to give you some problems to solve. I''ll make sure they''re hard for you to solve, but not too hard to be frustrating. To raise your problem solving capabilities as much as I can." Eiro exined.


    "Huh... Alright then..." The female mage muttered. It seemed like she would end up quite mentally exausted at the end of the day as well. She scratched her cheek as she mentally prepared herself to start, and Eiro smiled lightly.


    "Also, I have a small item for you as well." The Demon said, giving Jess a small wooden orb. It had five different dots painted onto it in different parts, "Now ce your hand on that. One fingertip onto each dot."


    Jess nervously looked at the orb, but quickly did as told. And what happened is simply that her fingers were practically devoured by the orb, up to the first joint of each finger at least.


    "This will help you increase your dexterity for more urate and intricate magic circles. This is something you can do passively, though. Basically, the orb itself will slowly try to move your fingers into random directions, and all you need to do is press against that to keep your fingers in ce. Easy, right?" Eiro pointed out, and Jess slowly nodded her head.


    "I guess so... Will the difficulty of this increase constantly as well?" She asked curiously. She wasn???t feeling anything right now, but the fact that the wooden orb was stuck to her fingers was a weird feeling in itself already.


    "It will, yeah, but in this case I''m not going to make you use that constantly. It''s just going to be a bother during the rest of our practice together." Eiro pointed out, and then pped his hands together, "Alright. Then I''d say let''s get started for now. James, put on your mask again. I''ll activate it as well as Krog''s armor. For today, I''ll just let you get used to moving around with those things on. As for Jess, we''ll go through the library togetherter to figure out which books would be best for you to read right now, and what sort of problems I need to start with."


    The three of them nodded their heads, dedicated to do just what Eiro told them to do. They all felt incredibly weakpared to the Demon, especially whenever he told them about whatever he was working on right now, and whatever plot he was working out in front of them.


    Just the fact that he was friends with the Dragon that was sitting there behind them made them terrified of what kind of being Eiro truly was.


    While they were standing there, Eiro activated Krog and James'' special items, and as she requested, also the wooden orb that Jess was holding so that she could practice how to use it as well.


    "For now, if you two want to get used to this stuff, I''d just say move around a bit more than you usually would on your days off. Go on walks around the gardens, visit town if you want to. Just stay active and don''t try to cheat your way through this." Eiro suggested, as he and Jess made their way back into the manor to go through the library as he said they would.


    Lognir was following them curiously, of course back in his humanoid form, and he soon asked Eiro something that was on his mind, "So, why exactly did you clear up that area forbat-practice if you didn''t instruct them to fight each other?"


    Eiro smirked as he turned his head toward the Dragon, "Easy. I didn''t instruct them to, but they''re already fighting each other. That''s their way of staying active. Don''t tell me you didn''t realize that yet."


    "It''s my first time meeting them, and they both seem to be rather unique people. Don''t judge me."


    Eiroughed slightly, "Right, sure. Anyway, any reason why you came over?"


    "Not particrly. Just felt likeing by to see how you live your life. This ce has been quite insightful, you see?"


    "I''m sure, yeah." Eiro replied. He opened the door to the library, and Lognir looked around this room, his eyes focusing on the hidden door to the other part of the library, "This manor itself is quite curious in itself. I''m sure you are aware of the hidden sections?"


    "Of course I am. I''ve uncovered all of them already. Don''t act like I''m an idiot." Eiro pointed out, but Lognir just shrugged, "Even acting like it won''t make it true. Trust me, I know a thing or two about truth."


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Anyway. I''m d you''re here. You see, there''s a small favor I would like to ask of you."


    "Oh? This Demon, asking this Dragon of another favor? Haven''t I helped you out enough?"


    "Come on, stop acting like that.. I''m sure you''re curious what I need your help for."

 Chapter 370 - First Day Of Class

    "You do remember that I am probably a hundred times older than you, don''t you, child?" Lognir asked as he looked at the Demon in front of him. Eiro slightly shrugged in response.


    "Hey, if you don''t want to help me out, then that''s fine. But it''s better to ask and be denied than not asking although you would have helped." Eiro pointed out bluntly.


    Lognir crossed his arms with a slow nod, "That is indeed true. I am going to help you, but I would like to know the reason behind it. Why do you want me to spread rumors about a powerful Necromancer that''s trapped here?"


    Eiro looked back at the Dragon and smirked, "Because I want to lure another Necromancer here."


    "But it would not only lure a Necromancer here, but those of holy nature as well. Clerics of the domain of life are the Necromancer''s natural enemy." Lognir pointed out, "And it''s not so just coincidentally."


    "I know that. But it''s not like any second-rate Cleric is going to be able to do anything against the Queen of Undeath." Eiro exined, and Lognir furrowed his brows, "You wish to call that child here? Do you have a death-wish?"


    "Not particrly. I just need her help with something, that''s all. And she''s a friend of Armodeus and myte Master, so I think I''ll be able to speak to her a bit. But I''m surprised. Do you know her personally?"


    "Not personally, but that child has created quite some trouble for me in the past that I had to deal with." Lognir exined, "But as you wish. I''m going to help you out this time, but in return, you really do owe me some favors. Return them when you''ve be the Monster King."


    Eiroughed slightly and nodded his head, "Of course, I''ll do anything you want. But still, thank you for your help, Lognir. I really appreciaet it."


    "Don''t be so emotional now, child. I already said I would help you." And with that, Lognir''s body transformed back into his original form, and lifted off the ground while creating strong winds around himself, "I will return after I spread the rumors throughout some nearby towns. Please assist Solomon while I am gone."


    "Of course, that was the n anyway." The Demon waved at Lognir and watched him disappear in the distance, and then quickly turned around to take care of Jess for now. They had figured out what kinds of things Jess needed to learn about. So now, it was time to teach her instead.


    ---


    A couple of dayster, surprisingly, James, Jess and Krog already made quite some progress. The ones where it was most visible were James and Jess. James'' raw physical constitution increased just so slightly, and the Light Elf''s health was raised by nearly 30 points.


    And as Jess'' raw wisdom increased, her mana was also raised by roughly a dozen points as well. Overall, it was a small number, but there was a clear progress to be seen.


    Now that the three of them had gotten used to this new training, Eiro could leave them alone for this practice, so that he could deal with some other things. And that was necessary. After all, it was the first day of real ss for the children.


    "You two, make sure you listen to the nicedy, alright?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, speaking to Leon and Avalin. With Bavet''s help, he already transformed into his human version so that he could properly speak to the maid that Eiro hired through Solomon''s help.


    She was the one already taking care of these two while they had been living at the castle for a week before, so they already knew her, and Eiro could leave them in her care without any issues. Of course, if anything happened, Jess, James and Krog were also there to intervene.


    "Dad,e on." Arc groaned loudly as the children stood by the door, and the Demon turned his head toward him and nodded his head.


    "Just a second." Eiro replied, and quickly hugged his two youngest children, before making his way to the door. The carriage that they would be taking was already prepared in front of the manor, and as Eiro and the others sat down in there, the Demon waved at Leon and Avalin one more time as they stood by the door, sad that Eiro was leaving for the day.


    But the trip itself was quite normal. Eiro would have preferred to fly over there, but since it was the first day of ss, there would be a lot more focus on how people presented themselves than there would beter in the semester. So for now, Eiro had to present himself in the ways that the onlooking Nobles would like, pretending to be a noble himself.


    "What''s the first ss you''re going to teach?" Sammy asked curiously. Eiro thought for a moment to remember his schedule, and then said, "Today, I''m not going to teach any sses yet, only tomorrow. For now, I''m supposed to tag along for some sses that other teachers teach. I heard that today, beginner, intermediate, and advanced sses are mixed."


    "Right, I heard that as well. So that the beginners and intermediates can learn from the advanced students." Rudy added, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Right. I''ll try toe by your guys'' sses a well, but I''m technically only responsible for Arc and Clementine''s."


    Rudy, Sammy and Felix understood the situation, of course. Especially Rudy and Sammy were a bit jealous, but they were going to be fine at the end of the day.


    Soon enough, the six of them arrived at the castle, and their door was opened by one of the schools faculty. Not a teacher, of course, just one of the people taking care of the building itself.


    Eiro let the children get out first, and then stepped out as well. Currently, he was wearing a formal suit that Solomon prepared for him. It was his first time wearing something like this, but it was certainly quite unusual for him.


    "Didn''t you tell Solomon that I could just change your armor to look like a suit? Why did you really have to wear it?" Bavet asked, whispering into Eiro''s ear. The Demon looked ahead and telepathically spoke to Nelli so that she could reply for him. There were too many people looking at him right now to speak out loud himself.


    "It''s simple." The Naiad said, "Because Solomon already had the suit made at that point. And of course, because there are some specail functions added into the suit itself, apparently."


    Bavet was grumbling to himself, which was a rather weird feeling for Eiro now. But the Demon was able to simply ignore it as he continued on. They stepped through therge doors to enter the school, and then immediately had to split up.


    "All of you, immediately head to your sses. I have to meet with the first teacher I''ll follow in the Teacher''s Lounge." Eiro told them, and the children of course did as told. Just Felix had to follow Eiro.


    Since Felix was deaf, he would be given private sses by a special faculty member, which he would have to meet at the Teacher''s Lounge for today as well.


    Eiro turned his head toward the young man and started to speak to him, of course using signnguage for it, "Are you nervous?"


    "Nervous? A little..." Felix replied with a wry smile, "I mean, I never went to a school like this before. And I''m going to stick out like a sore thumb, won''t I?"


    Eiro slowly looked around, noticing some of the female students eyeing the young man next to him curiously, "I think so too, although probably for a different reason than you think." The Demonughed.


    "Don''t worry, you''ll be able to meet with the others during breaks. And I''ll make sure nobody bullies you." Eiro smiled, "After all, you''re basically family. Like another kid. Or a son-inw, to be more specific."


    Felix stopped walking and stared at Eiro with his eyes wide open. As he replied, his hands were shaking nervously, "I don''t know what you''re talking about..."


    "Sure you don''t. Don''t worry, I trust you know. I know you''ll take care of Sammy. Just... You know, keep your hands off her until she''s ready."


    "C-Could we not have this conversation in public?"


    "Oh, because so many people here would know signnguage?" Eiroughed, as he and Felix stepped into the Teacher''s Lounge together. The teachers that were already gathered there started staring at the two of them, since they were unfamiliar with either.


    However, since Felix already met his private teacher before, he could swiftly approach and greet him.


    "And you are Eiro, I assume?" Someone walked up to Eiro from beside him, and the Demon slowly turned toward him with a nod. This man was wearing a formal suit as well, but he also had a pin on the cor in the same colors as the physicalbat division of this school.


    "And you would be Kristoph Garlings, then?" Eiro asked, and the man in front of him quickly nodded his head surprised, "Indeed I am. Please, just go ahead and call me Kristoph."


    "Don''t mind if I take you up on that."


    With a smile, Kristoph waved his hand toward the door, "I think it would be a good idea to show you around a bit before sses start. I''ll just show you thebat division''s area for now. We don''t have enough time for the full tour, after all."


    "Thank you, that would be quite appreciated." Eiro replied, and quickly followed Kristoph out of the room. He was d that this man was so open to Eiro. The Demon couldn''t sense anything off about him either, so he was seemingly just genuinely a nice man. Some of the others in that lounge wouldn''t have been so nice, clearly.


    "First, what is your own preferred style ofbat?" Kristoph inquired, and Eiro quickly replied, "I have a bit of a ''rogue'' style, I guess you could say. My mainbat style is swiftbat with two daggers, but I use anything I can in a fight. Magic, the environment, trickery, basically anything. I''m afraid I don''t know the specific name of my style of daggerbat, however. And neither do I know what my hand-to-handbat style is called. My teacher was rather secretive about this, somehow." Eiro exined quickly, and Kristoph raised his brows curiously.


    "Oh, you do not know the names, huh? Well, that makes me even more curious.. Would you mind a quick spar in front of the students,ter? It''s a bit of a tradition to show such things off on the first day of ss."

 Chapter 371 - Teacher

    "And here we are, thest stop. The grand lecture hall for the Physical Combat division. Right behind here is the arena that we use for actualbat practice. It should be the same one that you were in during the festivalst week." Kristoph exined to Eiro, as he stood in the front of the hall.


    There were already a few students here, seated on one of the many chairs in this room. This in itself was almost like an arena, since the seats were ascending like steps higher up so that everyone could see the center of the room more easily.


    "And now we just wait for the other students to arrive?" Eiro inquired, and the teacher next to him quickly nodded his head, "Yes, that''s exactly it. The lesson is set to start in about ten minutes, so the rest of our students should be here soon."


    "What will we be speaking about today?" The Demon asked. There probably wouldn''t be too much that all these students could learn together, considering that the different stages in education were mixed here.


    "Mostly we will be going over organizatory issues. Introducing the new students to the way things work around here, showing off our student representatives, exining the lessonyout. Such things. I''m sure it will be quite important for you as well." Kristoph exined, and it seemed rather straightforward for now.


    "And then we head outside and spar so that the students can see what they should strive for?"


    "Exactly. And after you and I spar, we''re going to give the students themselves a bit of a chance to speak to each other, and maybe spar as well if they so wish."


    Eiro turned his head toward the few students already seated here, and those currentlying inside. The newer students were the only ones not carrying things like weapons with them at the moment, "Will they actually fight with real weapons this time?"


    "The advanced students, yes. They have proven that they know how to handle a weapon, and the responsibilities and dangers thate with that. The intermediate students will get the chance to prove this as well throughout the year through personal tests set up by us teachers. The beginner students are not allowed to use real weapons yet, however. Just for their own safety." Kristoph exined.


    Eiro understood what he meant. For the longest time, Eiro also had his children practice using training weapons that wouldn''t be able to actually injure anyone for the most part.


    "Is it possible for beginner students to go through that test as well?" Eiro inquired. Kristoph thought for a moment as he crossed his arms, "Technically yes, but you need to have a certain level of practical skill, and I don''t mean the skill level showing up in one''s status, to be able to take the test."


    "And I guess the ones that certify that level of skill are the teachers as well?"


    "Basically." Kristoph replied, "You need multiple teachers to verify how skilled you are to be even considered for the test. And usually, beginner students are never that skilled. And there''s nothing wrong with that, of course! This ce is supposed to teach them, after all. If they already knew everything, there would be no need for them toe here."


    "Then what if there''s a student already capable enough to take that test amongst the beginner students?"


    "If there is, I would wee it. It would cause a bit of jealousy in the upper grades, sure, but jealousy can often lead to greater progress! And that''s exactly what we want here, isn''t it?" Kristoph pointed out with a broad grin on his face. This man was a teacher through-and-through.


    Eiro was happy leaving Arc to this man half a year from now, when he himself wasn''t going to teach here anymore.


    Slowly but surely, every student finally entered the room, including Arc, who just casually waved at Eiro while entering. There were some other boys around him that looked at him a bit confused, but Arc justughed it off. He already made some friends, it seemed.


    "Now then, it seems like everyone is here." Kristoph eximed in a loud voice that reached the far corners of this room without an issue. He started to exin everything that he just told Eiro about earlier.


    Most of it was pretty boring... Eiro spent that time just reading through some new books in his mind that he prepared for moments like these. The most interesting bit was when the student representatives were called forward.


    It was one young man with two swords at his side, and a young woman with a rapier at her own. Judging from their builds, they were quite well-practiced. Their muscles were developed perfectly for their weapons of choice, but nothing beyond that. They had the same issues as Jess, James and Krog, relying on their stats too much rather than trying to develop their own bodies.


    However, the moment these two opened their mouths, Eiro was no longer impressed with either of them.


    "Wee to this school, to all the new students! My name is Richard Argius Mchine. Now, I know that this name must have quite some impact on you, especially those amongst you without even ast name..." The male representative eximed in a loud voice. His tone and choice of words immediately made Eiro aware that he was nothing but a spoiled brat.


    Many students here were, really. That''s how noble children were a lot of the time. It was sad, but that''s what high status did to many people. Even Charles was a brat like that before he lost his limbs. Apparently, his behavior was known to be absolute garbage throughout even the nearby countries. But now, he was a well-mannered young man who was grateful for what he had.


    Eiro expected this to an extent. What angered him was that this young man, Richard, was looking at Arc and the boys around him as spoke of the impact of his name. And so were many of the other students.


    From then on, the short speech Richard prepared was just filled with narcissism and loathing formoners. Of course he didn''t say anything specific, but Eiro could easily analyze the subtle shifts of tone in his voice.


    The girl next to him wasn''t much better either. Her name was Avelina Herma Mchine, Richard''s twin sister.


    These two were the children of Duke Mchine. Solomon''s cousin on his mother''s side. Luckily, Solomon''s well-natured behavior came from that mother, so Duke Mchine himself was apparently a man as kind as Solomon himself, even if a lot more ruthless due to him being a leader of a huge merchantpany.


    It seemed like that fact rose to the heads of these two children. Eiro let out a deep sigh as the two were talking. A loud sigh. One loud enough to momentarily interrupt Richard and Avelina. They turned their heads toward Eiro with deep frowns. They knew that they had to respect him as their teacher, but they also knew that Eiro himself was technically amoner right now.


    With those conflicting emotions, they stared at him, "Is something the issue there, Mister..?"


    "Hm? Sorry, I just got annoyed by that condescending speech of yours. Go ahead, continue." Eiro replied, still seated on his chair. He crossed his legs and waved his hand forward a bit to tell them to continue. A few of the studentsughed, one of them being Arc of course, while Richard and Avelina stood there, angered by this man''s words.


    They couldn''t obviously show it though, so they simply continued. Kristoph could voice his concerns, though, and quickly whispered into his colleagues ear, "Eiro, please. Act professionally."


    "Kristoph, they''re adults. If they act like that, I''m going to voice myints." Eiro said bluntly, not caring for Kristoph''s opinion in this. For the next half-year, Eiro was an educator. And as an educator, it was his responsibility to educate these children on correct behavior.


    Kristoph understood what Eiro meant, and although he still didn''t fully agree with it, he figured that what Eiro said wasn??t too bad for now.


    And since their speech was over now anyway, it was time to head outside. Kristoph led the students, and Eiro walked in the back to make sure nobody stayed behind or snuck off. And then once they reached the arena, Kristoph brought out training weapons for the students. The only issue was that they were incredibly generic swords. The same shape, same weight, same size. For every single student.


    "Don''t we have other weapons we can give them, at least?" Eiro asked Kristoph, but he just shook his head, "Of course not. This might be the first time for some of them even holding something like that. Throughout the first year, they''ll know what sort of weapon would be best for them. See, the intermediate students already have their own wooden weapons, shaped in the way that would be best for them."


    "...Do they get to choose these things themselves?"


    "Of course. We''re not here to deny anyone''s wishes."


    "Yes, but we''re here to guide them and make them stronger so that they know how to fight. Some of these students are usingpletely wrong weapons." Eiro pointed out, and the teacher right next to him just stared back at him, "Listen, it''s good that you have your own opinions on these matters, but I''ve been a Teacher at this school for the past 15 years. I think I know what would be best for these students."


    "Right. Sorry about that, then. Didn''t want to insult you."


    "Don''t worry about it. Now, get ready for our spar, please. These suits should be specially made to allow us to fight freely." Kristoph exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    He took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. And of course, the vest that Eiro was wearing were actually his wings that Bavet did a great job at hiding, so they were extremely flexible. He could keep them on without worries. Same with the belt that he was wearing.


    The only other things that he had to get rid off were the shoes and the gloves that came with the suit. They didn''t fit right, and would just annoy Eiro in a fight. Of course, part of Eiro''s character right now, on top of the rainbow hair, what would make him unique was his light blue wooden hand that he could use as a staff. So Bavet wasn''t hiding it byyering something like skin on top of it.


    The moment they saw Eiro''s wooden hand, some of the studentsughed, calling him a cripple who would be unable to teach them anything. But Eiro ignored them.


    It was just Arc that didn''t.

 Chapter 372 - Kristoph

    "Hey there." Arc greeted another small group of students with his regr broad smile on his face. This group included the Mchine twins as well.


    Richard looked back at Arc as if he was disgusted by what he saw, and didn''t particrly try to hide this fact, "What do you want?"


    "Haha, it''s pretty simple. I just wanted to ask you guys a quick question." Arc pointed out, and Richard sighed deeply, "Sure, it''s part of a noble''s duties to aid amoner. But hurry it up, I don''t have all the time in the world."


    "Don''t worry, it won''t take too long. So, who the fuck do you bastards think you are?" The young man asked, as blunt as he usually does. Eiro could hear his son speak, noticing that he was somehow... furious.


    "Wh-What did you just say?" Richard red back and locked eyes with Arc.


    "Oh, sorry, I didn''t realize you were hard of hearing on top of being a giant fucking dumbass. Must be a hardbo to deal with, huh?"


    "Who do-"


    "I asked first, isn''t it just good manners to answer my question before asking your own? But well, considering that you''reughing at a man who lost his hand in order to save literal children from being killed, or worse, by Demons, you don''t seem to have good manners anyway, now do you?" Arc asked, his voice getting louder and louder as he spoke, "Now shut the fuck up, you moronic piece of utter garbage before I make you regret ever messing with-"


    "Arc." Eiro walked up behind his son and ced his hand onto his shoulder. His head snapped around, and Eiro could see a blue notification in his eyes, saying that his Negative Emotion Resistance skill leveled up again, "Calm down. You know that''s not good for you."


    "But-"


    "No buts. Stop it." Eiro told Arc, and the young man slowly nodded his head, "Fine. But I''m not apologizing."


    "If you really think they deserved it, you don''t need to." The Demon pointed out. Avelina stared back at Eiro in shock at what she just heard, "What kind of teacher are you? First, you insult us yourself, and then you tell this brat of amoner he doesn''t have to apologize? Don''t you have any pride as a noble?"


    "...You weren''t here during the school festival, were you?" Eiro asked. Taken aback, the twins looked at each other and then back at Eiro, "Of course not. We only returned here a few days ago."


    "That exins it then. Just so that you two know as well, my name is Eiro. Only Eiro. Nost name. I''m amoner, and Arc is my son." Eiro exined, "But before you say anything about not wanting amoner to teach you, I want to put it out there that I''m his Majesty''s own personal candidate for the tournament to choose the Hero''s Companion."


    Neither Richard nor Avelina knew what to say exactly, but Eiro didn''t really care either. He just turned around and pulled Arc away with him, "I know I said you don''t need to apologize, but you can''t do this kind of thing again. Those two may not be actual nobles yet, and just the children of one, but if you were to insult a real noble like that, they could have youwfully executed."


    "But they insulted you!" Arc replied with a deep frown, and Eiro stopped walking and looked into his eyes, "I know. But that''s something that I have to deal with, alright? I''m your father, you don''t have to defend me. Now calm down, go back to your friends, and try and have a bit of fun. Alright?"


    Arc hesitantly nodded as Eiro turned around to head back toward Kristoph, who was rather unimpressed with Eiro''s behaviour, "Once more, as an educator, you should do your best to treat all children the same. Giving your own child a free pass to insult others is not a good-"


    "Kristoph. Rather than trying to reprimand me over something I''m already vastly aware of, how about we start fighting already?" The Demon inquired. Kristoph''s re didn''t move away from Eiro for even a moment, "You know, I was nning on letting this be just a casual spar. But how about we go all the way and turn this into a duel? No killing, of course. But we create an area that we can''t leave. If either of us gives up or leaves that area somehow, the other one wins."


    "Sure, not that it makes much of a difference. So, what do you want to bet? I doubt you want to duel for no reason."


    "You''re right. When I win, you''ll start acting like a proper teacher. If you win, you can keep acting as you normally do, for now at least. And I won''t bother you about this myself anymore." Kristoph suggested, and Eiro shrugged, "Alright. Any rules?"


    "No rules. Use anything you want to use at all." Kristoph replied, and Eiro nodded his head. He snapped his fingers, and rocks and pebbles appeared out of thin air, gathering in one spot to turn into Gondos.


    Eiro manipted the ground through Gondos'' help to immediately create a ratherrge square tform that they could fight on, while Kristoph told the children to head to the viewing area so that they couldn''t end up being injured somehow.


    "Thanks for the help." Eiro said to the Golem with a smile, before the spirit disappeared again. Eiro and Kristoph stood on the tform, looking at each other. Kristoph was holding a spear. This was probably the worst match for Eiro''sbat style. Not that he thought he would lose, anyway.


    Eiro moved his hand forward and pulled it back a momentter, making his main Dagger appear in his hand. The red fire magic stone glistered in the sun as Eiro took up his stance. For now, he would go for the mixed style of Hand-to-Handbat and Dagger mastery that he learned through the puppet.


    He didn''t get a good chance to try it out on someone yet, not in this form at least.


    "I''ll throw this coin into the air, and the moment it hits the ground, we start. Sound good?" Eiro asked, and Kristoph slowly nodded his head, mentally preparing himself for the duel. The Demon threw the copper coin into the air, and casually watched it fall for a few moments, before it finally hit the ground.


    And the first thing that happened was that Kristoph rushed forward at Eiro, trying to take him out immediately for a short fight. The spear was twisting around its own axis as it was pushed at Eiro, like a drill of sorts.


    Eiro pushed his dagger straight forward against the tip of the spear, twisting it into the same direction as the spear itself. But the moment that Eiro''s dagger passed the spear''s tip, he twisted it into the opposite direction to disrupt the movement of the spear.


    Once it stopped twisting around, Eiro slid over the ground and hit the spear with his knee, while still holding the spear-tip in ce with his dagger. The sudden force pulled Kristoph''s hands upward, and Eiro could hit the center of his chest.


    Since it would be a bad idea to injure his colleague, Eiro made sure not to hit him in the wrong ce. Instead, Eiro just tried to push him back as far as possible, while holding onto the spear.


    And just like that, within a second of the duel starting, Eiro managed to disarm his opponent. Eiro threw the spear away from the tform, and made his own dagger disappear.


    "Come on, I know that you are a Hand-to-Handbat expert. Let''s fight like that, shall we?" Eiro suggested with a smile on his face, and Kristoph slowly stood up from where hended. He pat the dust off his back, and then said, "Are you sure you want to fight me in my area of expertise? Sure, you know how to disarm someone, but isn''t your expertise supposed to be magic?"


    "Where''d you hear that from? Everything I do is my expertise, Kristoph." Eiro said bluntly, taking up his stance, now without his dagger.


    Kristoph slowly approached Eiro, and took up his stance as well. While Eiro''s style was connected to fighting with open palms and redirecting force, Kristoph''s was much more direct than that. He was going to fight with his fists, and his style seemed to be about swift movements and heavy direct attacks from the way that he was moving now.


    The moment they both took up their stances, Kristoph pushed his fist forward. Then again, and then again. In a flurry of swift punches, Kristoph was trying to desperately hit Eiro, but the Demon was able to dodge the attacks quite easily. Until he wasn''t. Eiro let Kristoph''s fist hit his face.


    He took that energy to twist backward and put his weight onto his hands. Since Kristoph finally managed to hit Eiro, his hand didn''t move back as quickly, and that was a chance that Eiro took to twist his legs around that arm and shoulder.


    Eiro buried his hands in the ground and twisted his body around, making Kristoph fall over backward onto the ground. However, to Eiro''s surprise, Kristoph had a card up his sleeve as well, one that was hidden by how loose the shirt was around his shoulders. Eiro should have realized that something was going on due to that fact alone, though.


    Kristoph''s arm popped out of his socket and slithered out of the Demon''s hold, before Kristoph flexed his arm and made his muscles push his arm back into the socket within only a moment.


    He had quite some control over his own body. But Eiro wouldn''t let himself be one-upped.


    While Kristoph was trying to elbow Eiro''s leg, the Demon pulled it away and entered a handstand from aying position. He pushed himself off the ground with his hands and soon stood again. This time, as Kristoph attacked him, Eiro didn''t dodge the attacks, but he was rather pushing his fist to the side, when the Demon noticed something weird.


    Eiro was being thrown off bnce whenever Kristoph moved his fist back to his body. It only took a split second, but something was off. It was as if for that minuscule moment, to get just a slight advantage, Kristoph was making use of something that he could only use under a single circumstance.


    He was stopping time for such a short moment that even Eiro barely noticed it.


    But how was he stopping time? It was simple.


    He was a member of the Organization.


    And not just any.


    He was right at the top.

 Chapter 373 - Merlin

    This was getting interesting. The Demon formed a broad grin on his face as he locked eyes with Kristoph. He pushed the man''s fist away one more time, just this once while using Air magic as support.


    "You know, I didn''t n on using magic during this fight. But since you''re using your benefits as a ''Letter'', we can''t call this unfair, can we?" Eiro asked, and Kristoph immediately froze, "How do you-"


    "Exactly, how do I know? Ask yourself that question, bud. Now, which Letter are you? B? Maybe even A?" Eiro just stood there, basically pausing this duel for now as Kristoph looked back at him with a nervous re, "I don''t see how that''s any of your business."


    "Oh, but it certainly is~... After all, I''ll need to face you during my conquest of the organization anyway." The Demon whispered, just loud enough so that Kristoph could hear it. The man in front of Eiro ripped his eyes open wide as he heard these words.


    "You... You''re the guy causing havoc in the organization? Do you know how many people you''ve killed?!"


    "Ah... Do you mean just within the organization, or in general? Well, either way, the answer is gonna be ''a lot''." Eiro smirked. Kristoph''s re only became sharper. Seemed like he was the rarest sort of member in the organization. The kind that actually cared about others beside himself.


    "Why are you doing that? What did the organization ever do to you?" Kristoph asked. Eiro didn''t need to think for long toe up with an answer, "Nothing. It''s just a bother to have around, and I''d kind of like to be able to meet the people from the overarching organization. Not the one we''re a part of, but the one leading that one. You know what I mean?"


    "This is knowledge you shouldn''t have... How did you..?"


    "Easy. I''m pretty smart. Well, either way, let''s continue this talkter. For now, sorry for this, but I''ll have to win this duel pretty quick. But let''s have a nice boutter on again, I''d like to see how strong you really are."


    And with that, Eiro carefully slid his foot over the ground and watched as Kristoph shifted his own body to counter-attack the Demon. And then, time stopped momentarily as the man''s fist approached Eiro''s face. But the Demon himself also had that same card up his sleeve. It was something that Eiro pulled out of his treasury and hid with Bavet''s help the moment he realized who Kristoph was.


    His own ring that he could use to stop time for himself. The Demon just barely managed to dodge the attack as time proceeded for both of them.


    Realizing that this wouldn''t end up working if both of them were capable of stopping time, Kristoph built some distance between himself and his opponent. Now, he took on a slightly different stance.


    He raised his arms in front of his face as a guard and angled his knees to give him more mobility, before jumping forward at Eiro. This time, he was trying to attack him from below and in close-quarters to reduce the chances for Eiro to deflect his attacks.


    Kristoph punched upward at Eiro''s chin, and the Demon pushed his own body backward by shifting his weight. With a t palm, Eiro hit Kristoph''s stretched-out right arm while hooking his left foot and lifting it up.


    Eiro carefully tried to shift Kristoph''s weight over to make him fall. The moment that Kristoph lost bnce and tried to recover it by shifting his weight onto mostly one of his legs, Eiro let himself fall while once more hooking Kristoph''s leg and pulling forward.


    With his momentum, Eiro caught himself and then pushed his own other leg against Kristoph''s chest to really make him fall over now. But while Kristoph was falling backward and trying to recover himself by pressing his feet to the ground, Eiro managed to stand up and kick his foot into the back of Kristoph''s knees to forcefully angle them.


    He then grabbed Kristoph''s cr, giving Eiro basically full control over this man''s body as it was hovering over the outside of the ring.


    During this whole bout, Eiro had been subtly letting himself be pushed back toward the edge of the ring by Kristoph, only to switch positions during their brief conversation in their middle.


    Like this, Kristoph was unable to save himself with his hands, as there was no ground currently in his reach.


    "Seems like you lost." Eiro said with a broad smirk on his face, feeling ecstatic after this wonderful fight with this man.


    Sure, Eiro didn''t use all his abilities, but when it came to hand-to-handbat, Kristoph and Eiro were actually rtively even. Eiro just had a small edge on him there. However, Kristoph also didn''t use all of his abilities. He certainly had some other powers beside just the ones given to him by the artificial artifacts.


    But for now, Eiro pushed Kristoph down onto the ground. And as he did, Eiro could feel the tag in his treasury softly shift. The letter that was on there before, now slowly turned into the letter ''B''. At the rank they were on, it was logical that one would take over the rank of another person after beating them.


    And since this was a duel that both of them agreed to, Eiro officially just became the Letter B. However, this meant that there was one more person that was still stronger than Kristoph in the organization.


    Eiro snapped his fingers and with Gondos'' help immediately made the tform disappear again. He then walked over to Kristoph and helped him up, "Great job, ''C''." Eiro grinned broadly, and the man in front of him just red back as he pushed Eiro''s hand to the side.


    He patted the dust of his shirt as he stood up, and some students came rushing down to where the two of them were standing.


    Obviously, they were excited after watching a fight like this. The swift movements of these two men, and the sheer level of expertise and thought that went into every little thing they did. This was something that all of these students were striving for.


    It was a lot easier to see in something like hand-to-handbat rather than a battle with weapons, since it often required a lot more fine control.


    The Demon smirked at the man next to him, as someone else walked into the arena. It was an elderly man, who Eiro recognized from the Teacher''s lounge. It was one of the Magic Division''s teachers.


    "I am looking for Eiro, is he here?" He asked in a loud tone, and Eiro turned his head toward him, "That''s me. Ah, am I supposed toe watch your lesson next?"


    "Indeed so. Sorry if I am pulling him away so suddenly, Kristoph." The man said with a smile on his face, and Kristoph scowled as he looked at Eiro, "Don''t mind it, Merlin. I just got my ass handed to me anyway. It''s easier to recover from that embarrassment if he''s not here."


    Meanwhile, Arc was just staring at the Magic instructor that was slowly approaching, "Holy shit, his name is actually Merlin..?"


    "Yes, is something wrong with my name?" The mage asked, seemingly having quite high perception himself. Nervously, Arc scratched his cheek and shook his head, "Nope, nothing wrong. It''s pretty cool, actually."


    Merlin the mage huffed slightly in response and then looked at Eiro again, "Please get dressed and follow me. Or else we will bete for ss, and we cannot allow that."


    "Sure. Just a second, though, I have to speak to the students for another moment." Eiro exined, and the mage nodded his head, "Very well."


    Eiro looked at the students and smiled broadly, "From tomorrow on, I''m going to be taking over mostly practical sses with the first-year students, but I also have a few sses with second and third-year students. That means we''ll certainly see each other again. I hope that we''ll get along for this next semester."


    And with that, Eiro slowly turned around as he waved at the students, locking eyes with Kristoph one more time.


    "Sorry for the dy. I''m aware you know who I am already, but I want to formally introduce myself again. I''m Eiro, nice to work with you." The Demon said as he stretched out his hand, and Merlin simply turned around. "I''m Merlin. The pleasure is all mine."


    Although that''s what he said, the tone of Merlin''s voice hinted at him not being particrly excited to work with Eiro. For now, he should wait and see what happens before saying anything about his behaviour.


    The Demon took a deep breath and followed Merlin to another part of the campus, where the Magic division could be found, "I will give you a tourter on, for now we must hurry to meet the students. I heard one of them is your... daughter?"


    "Yes, she is. You won''t have any issues teaching her, don''t worry. She''s a bright girl who is incredibly excited about anything she does. She has a great affinity for Light and Water magic, although her expertiseys in healing." Eiro exined, and Merlin slightly turned his head toward Eiro, "A Healing Mage, I see? Then is there a reason why she chose so many magicalbat sses?"


    "Of course. I strictly believe that a healer needs to be able to protect themselves. If it shoulde to it, in a fight against other people, the first person targeted is the healer. One of the most important roles, while having the weakestbat prowess. It makes sense, right? But if that healer can actually fight back, the whole party has more possibilities for tactics to try."


    "Ah, I see. So it is a sense of self-defense, then? Does that mean she is already experienced enough as a healer to afford splitting her attention like that?" Merlin asked, albeit with a slight frown on his face.


    Eiro ignored that and snapped his fingers, making Nelli appear, "This is one of my partners, Nelli. She formerly had a contract with myte father. He was a prosthetist, so over the years, he and Nelli gathered a lot of experience in healing magic. So, after I was taught by them and after Nelli made a contract with my after my father''s passing, we chose to teach Clementine. We knew she had a talent for healing magic since she was a child, after all."


    "Is that so? And to that child, you taught that magic shall be used in such manners?"


    "Hm? What manners do you mean?" Eiro asked, and Merlin stopped walking for a moment, "In such reckless, self-destructive manners, of course."

 Chapter 374 - Affinity

    "Self-destructive manner..? What do you mean?" Eiro asked with a light frown. He had a rough idea what Merlin meant, but he wanted to make sure beforehand, "Of course I mean to teach your child to injure herself to heal others, you baffoon!"


    "...So you were one of the guys Solomon told about their skills?" Eiro sighed out deeply, before Merlin red back, "Speak of his Maj-"


    "Listen, I''m close friends with Solomon, he doesn''t mind when I speak to him like this personally, so I''m not going to refer to him like that when he''s not even here. Now, as for Clemine''s skill. How much do you know about it?" Eiro asked. Merlin grumbled to himself, but slowly nodded his head.


    "That she has the ability to put wounds of others onto herself to heal them. It is a dangerous ability, and the fact that you force her to use it daily is disgusting!" The Mage eximed, and Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose.


    "I''m not the one forcing her to do it, the skill itself is. She doesn''t just take wounds onto herself, she ''eats'' them. It''s like a hunger for her. If she doesn''t regrly do this, she will go insane or starve. So, I have her eat small wounds, like cuts or such, that she can heal on herself within just a few moments. She sates her ''hunger'' like that." Eiro exined. Merlin looked Eiro deep into his eyes, "Then... Then how about that other child who you force to be injured so she can ''eat'' his wounds?"


    "Arc? I guess since Solomon trusts you to keep Clementine''s secret, I can tell you Arc''s. He also has a special skill. It makes him resistant to pain. He literally doesn''t feel the cuts. Of course, if I didn''t know that Clementine was there to heal him immediately, I would never make him do something like that."


    Merlin was unsure if what Eiro was telling him was the truth. But this man seemed to be genuine, from what he could tell at least. But before he was able toe to a full conclusion, Eiro locked eyes with the mage, "And just to make it clear. I would never, ever, ever put my children in danger. All I do is to make sure they''re going to be safe in the end, and that they can live whatever life they wish to even if I''m gone in the future."


    The old man closed his eyes and lowered his head, "I apologize. It seems like I happened to misjudge you."


    "Don''t worry. You acted like it because you were worried about them. There''s no way I could be mad about that. However, as a mage, you should know that knowing the full situation is rather important." With a wink, Eiro continued walking, and Merlin slowly nodded his head. The two of them entered the lecturing hall together. It was shaped in the same way as the one earlier, just that this ce was more set up to be useful for magic practice.


    There were different gemstones set up everywhere, and there was a singlerge spherical orb in the very center. It was set up so that it could easily be removed, though, so it was most likely just here for this session. It was taller than Eiro was, however.


    The students had already gathered in here, just waiting for the teachers to arrive.


    "Please settle down, we''re starting." Merlin said, his voice echoing through thisrge hall, "Today, we''re going to speak about some organizatory issues, and then we will test the strength and progress of everyone''s magic capabilities. The first-years will have their affinities be officially measured as well."


    Eiro raised his brow and looked at therge orb beside him. That was most likely the device used for measuring that, then. It was very different to the process that Eiro knew of.


    The first part of the lecture was simple. Basically, the same things as Eiro already heard earlier were said, so he wasn''t particrly paying attention. Instead, Eiro took a closer look at the students to remember their faces.


    About half an hourter, Merlin walked in front of therge Orb and pped his hands together just once, "Now, our student representatives wille down here and show us what exactly is about to happen."


    The two students, once again one young man and one young woman, walked down the steps and stood in front of the Orb. To Eiro, it seemed like they were rather studious, and open people. A nice contrast to those brats from earlier.


    "First, all the first-year students will be tested for their affinity. There were already some rough tests of this before you entered, but since we would like to know more details, we are going to use this special device. You ce your palm onto its surface and let your mana flow into it. Theplex arrays created by an expert Artificer will then automatically analyze everything and turn your affinities into observable images right above it. Here, let me show you." The young man exined the process, and then did just what he exined.


    His mana flowed into the Orb and twirled around within the soft white mist inside of it. Just a few momentster, the mist retracted and turned into a fist-sized rock. Then, that rock faded away and a small tornado formed inside of it. It was really tiny, though. Just the size of a finger.


    "As you can see, I have two affinities. Earth, and Air. The size of the image shows just how strong the affinity is. Our dear Teacher Merlin will then interpret that image using another small device created by an Artificer. Now, we will call the first-year students forward in alphabetical order of their family name."


    Eiro was sitting on his chair and crossed his legs, watching as the first students came forward. Considering that the first student''s family name was ''Abeth'', the ones without a family name would most likely be called forwardst.


    And just like Eiro thought, there was just one students left at the end. The onemoner without ast name. There were othermoners of course, but just because you were amoner didn''t mean you don''t have ast name. Many rich and influential people that may bemoners still had a family name to make things easier.


    Clementine came forward, with some of the noble children whispering and giggling amongst themselves. But Eiro couldn''t help himself but grin because of what was about to happen. He knew for a fact that Clementine''s Water and Light affinity were thergest they had seen here. Maybe evenrger than any other student or teacher here at the school.


    She nervously looked over at Eiro, who just nodded his head with a smile to encourage her. She took a deep breath and ced her palm onto the Orb. Her mana slowly flowed into the Orb. Slowly, the image of water was created in the center of the Orb. It flowed out of there and and turned into arge sphere. One taking up more than half the whole Orb. The room turned silent, as the water disappeared just to be reced by a smooth sphere of white light that was a slight bit smaller than the water sphere.


    Nervously, Clementine took a step back and looked at the other students, who were looking at her in shock.


    "Is... Is that thing broken..?" One student muttered confused, "There''s no way she could have such..."


    "Wait, but isn''t she the girl from the festival?"


    "You''re right, the one that created that huge Sea Serpent!"


    Slowly, the older students started realizing who this girl was. The first-years already knew that she was capable, they had already spent two weeks together, after all. With pink cheeks, Clementine climbed back up the steps and sat down next to some other girls she seemed to have befriended.


    But then, a student raised their hand. Merlin called on him, and the student asked his question, "Would it be possible for us to know what your affinities look like?"


    Merlin thought about it for a moment, slowly approaching the Orb, "Of course, dly."


    The old man ced his palm onto the crystal surface, as all the students curiously focused on what they were seeing. And even Eiro was pretty curious.


    But what they all saw wasn''t a regr element, but something different. From the center of the orb, glowing letters started floating around, forming a sphere that covered around a quarter of the Orb.


    "My only element I have an affinity with can not truly be called an element. It''s more of a principle, rather than something tangible like the ground underneath our feet, or the air that we breathe. It is called ''Arcana''. My capabilities of practical spellcasting may be limited, but I have the chance to learn about magic in-depth. We will explore this topic in one of my sses, however."


    Eiro stared at the letters. Runes. They were runes. And not just any, they were ancient runes, of anguage that nobody was capable of learning. His heart started to beat loudly. Truly, Eiro had to have a word with Solomon sometime. The fact that he hid this sort of person from him was nearly infuriating, but right now, Eiro was just excited.


    "Now, my new colleague... Will you show us your affinities as well? You certainly seem to have a few of them to speak of, don''t you?" Merlin pointed out, reminding everyone that watched what happened in the festival of what exactly Eiro showed them then.


    The Demon slowly stood up and approached the Orb, "Sure, let''s hope that this thing can handle it." Eiroughed slightly. He didn''t really mind showing this sort of thing. It wouldn''t change anything anyway, and Eiro was prepared to show off his affinities already anyway.


    Eiro pushed his mana through the crystal sphere, and then took a step back. The first thing that showed itself was water. It slowly filled the Orb up, easily exceeding Clementine''s affinity, until the Orb was fully filled up, without even a single spot of open space left. The water then froze for the Ice Element.


    Then, the ice fully disappeared, just to be reced by a raging tornado. One that also filled the whole Orb. After that came what was basically a boulder, also once more filling the object out wholly. The same could be said for the mes that came to be afterward. The bright mes then made way for shadows, the first element that didn''t fully cover everything. Then came Nature, showing itself in the form of roots growing around each other to form a sphere covering half of the orb anyway.


    A purple-pink energy then filled out a quarter of the Orb, representing Gravity magic. And then came a ck-purple, sinister mist around the same size of the gravity-orb. This was most likely supposed to be Unholy Energy.


    And atst, there was a small white-yellow, fist-sized sphere floating there. Nobody else beside Eiro and Merlin knew what it was, though. This was Death Magic, shown through an orb of bones.


    But just as Eiro turned away, what was shown in the center was a tiny, tiny, white-golden orb of light. It was the size of Eiro''s pinky''s nail.


    An small sphere representing an affinity for Holy Energy within this Demon.

 Chapter 375 - What A Mess

    As the small, white golden sphere disappeared, Eiro''s mind started to race. Why did he have an affinity for the Holy Element? Was it because of how much time he spent with Avalin? Or maybe even when the Holy mes ate him up?


    What would happen if this kept growing over time, and Eiro just awakened Holy Magic that would rip him into pieces the moment that it awakened within him?


    Eiro was starting to panic, his heart was racing and his breathing sped up. Luckily, Bavet noticed this, "Calm down. All of us know that you''re abnormal. We''ll find a way around this." The slime that had fused with Eiro''s body whispered into his ear, and the Demon was able to slowly calm down.


    Bavet was right, there was no reason to worry about this yet. The way that affinities worked for Eiro was weird enough already, there was no reason to freak out about a little bit of an affinity for Holy Energy.


    Except that everybody else in this room was currently freaking out. Talking amongst each other, rushing up to Eiro to try and ask him questions. Merlin nearly fell unconscious due to shock.


    "How do you have so many affinities, and how are they so strong?!"


    "Can you show us some of those spells?"


    "Are you even human?!"


    Eiro smiled wrily as he took a step back due to all of these children, while Clementine just had an amazed expression on her face while sitting in her seat.


    Quietly, she whispered something that only Eiro would be able to hear, "Dad, you''re so awesome!"


    Seeing that Eiro was obviously a bit overwhelmed right now as well, Merlin made the children sit back down in their seats, "Now, now, it may not bemon to see a person with e-eleven elemental affinities, out of which five are too strong for thisplex device to measure, however there is no need to bother Eiro about this."


    Merlin looked at Eiro with a deep frown and whispered, "I will have you exin this to meter, however."


    The frown didn''t seem particrly angry, more like a weirdly excited expression in this case. As if Merlin wanted to experiment on Eiro to figure out how he had this many affinities.


    "But for real, I knew you were insane, but I never thought you''d be... Well, quite this fucking insane, man." Sarius grinned broadly, floating up right next to Eiro''s head. The Demon turned his head to the side and muttered, "Shut it."


    Merlin widened his eyes after overhearing Eiro''s words, and the Demon immediately realized that there was going to be a misunderstanding, "No, I wasn''t talking to you, I was talking to him."


    Eiro pointed to the side and snapped his finger, making Sarius appear next to him, "He''s a pretty annoying one."


    "A-Ah... I''m s-sure he is..." Merlin muttered confused, while Sariusined, "What do you mean, annoying? I''m the future Smander King, how can I ever be annoying?"


    "Nelli." Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose and snapped his finger again, making Nelli appear together with a sphere of waterrge enough topletely cover Sarius in it. And of course, that happened, momentarily extinguishing Sarius'' mes.


    "...Why do I always create these bothersome situations for myself..?" Eiro grumbled quietly, realizing that the room became even louder as they saw the two elemental spirits appear in front of them.


    "Eiro, if you find this awkward, wait until they find out that you''re ble-"


    "Nelli, I swear on our contract that I''ll-" Eiro groaned, stopping himself before he finished. The Demon turned toward the ss, and started to speak in a loud voice, "Now, I guess it is time for my introduction. My name is Eiro. The same one that performed during the festival, as you may have guessed. And as you can see, I am quite magically gifted. This is why I''m not only going to be teaching many different practical magic sses this year, but also a few theoretical ones. If you have any questions about magic, I''m confident that I will be able to answer them, so pleasee to me if you have any issues in that regard."


    "Th-Thank you for your introduction, Eiro. Now, let''s continue with the regr schedule, please." Merlin added, taking some weight off of Eiro''s shoulders and calming the room down a bit more. The Demon approached the wall, as he snapped his finger and made Nelli and Sarius disappear from everyone''s sight again.


    The rest of the ss proceeded rtively normally, just that Eiro waspletely defeated toward the end of it. He really should have been more careful.


    If he had somehow manipted his mana in some specific way, he could have possibly tricked the system that the Orb functioned over. Now this turned into a bit of a bother.


    "Actually..." Eiro muttered, "This might actually be quite helpful."


    The fact that a teacher with eleven elemental affinities appeared would probably be shared quite quickly. His name would spread within the school, and would as such even reach the parents of the students eventually, establishing Eiro as an extraordinary individual. That was actually exactly what he wanted in the long run, so this wasn''t that big a deal.


    And it would help Eiro learn to deal with this much attention all at once. As the ss was over for Eiro himself, he quickly went to speak to Merlin, promising that they would speakter. The Demon walked by Clementine and rubbed his hand through her hair as he left to go to the other divisions of the school, just to get a rough tour at least.


    He was especially interested in the Arts and the Craftsmanship divisions, for obvious reasons. Since the nearest ce was the Craftsmanship Division''s building, Eiro quickly made his way there.


    The introductory meeting for this division was already reaching its end so that the students could head to their first sses of the day. And since Eiro fully knew Rudy''s schedule, he got here at the perfect timing, since his first ss was ''Introduction to Woodworking''.


    Eiro waited in front of the room for the teacher to arrive. A middle-aged, dwarven craftswoman. This sort of division was clearly not filled with Nobles, since no noble would send their child to be a craftsman even if it was the child''s dream, and the same was the case with the teachers. So Eiro was able to get along with her pretty quickly, especially because she was interested in the craftsmanship behind Eiro''s hand.


    "So, who made this wonderful piece?" She asked curiously, and Eiro smiled smugly, "I did, actually. I''m a learned and practiced Prosthetist. My teacher made sure to drill how to work with any sort of wood in the best way possible into my head, so I think I''m pretty good at woodcarving and woodworking in general."


    "Intriguing! But I must ask, what is this wood? It nearly gives off a chill, but is quite warm to the touch."


    "Ah, it''s a special magical wood. It''s the reason why I can do this." Eiro exined, drawing a small magic circle into the air with his fingers.


    The teacher looked back at Eiro''s hand, and then at the Demon''s face, "How can you move a wooden hand like that..?"


    Eiro winked at her with a smile on his face, "Trade secret. Now,e on, let''s not keep the students waiting. I''m sure you''re fine if I watch for a while?"


    "Of course! Come on in!" The teacher eximed, although she was still obviously curious about Eiro''s hand. The two of them entered the room, and Eiro immediately spotted Rudy at one of the workstations with a 10-inch cube of wood ced in front of them.


    "Wee to ''Introduction to Woodworking''! My name is Hermia Viate, I''m the lead of the Woodworking specialization." The teacher introduced herself, "And this here is Eiro, another teacher at our school who is quite interested in the art of woodworking. He will be observing our ss today, since he''s new at our school."


    Eiro smiled at the students and slightly waved at them.


    "Now, who can tell me what the most important thing is when ites to working with wood?" Hermia asked, and there was one student that immediately raised his hand, the one sitting next to Rudy, actually.


    "The wood itself! If you pick low-quality wood, you won''t be able to do anything with it no matter how skilled you are." He eximed, thinking that his answer was obvious.


    While he didn''t seem like a noble, it did seem like his family was rather rich, so he was most likely only used to the best materials. Luckily, Hermia didn''t particrly agree.


    "You see, that answer is actuallypletely false. It may seem logical, but... Yes, you there? Rudy, wasn''t that right?"


    "Yes, it''s Rudy... Well, the quality of the wood is important, sure. But a true artisan can make something amazing out of scraps, even. High-quality wood might make for a better base, and it would make it easier to make something great, but your own ability to pull the best out of what you''re given is the most important."


    Hermia looked back at Rudy and slowly nodded her head, "That''s exactly right, young man. You said it perfectly. ''Your own ability to pull the best out of what you are given''. Basically, creative thinking, and the skill to put that creative thinking into practice. What one person may see as trash can be treasure to someone else. You might be able to see this fact more clearly after our first practice. You have some pencils and paper right next to you. Look at the wood that you have been given, and think about what you want to do with it.. It can be anything you want at all, as long as the only material used in its creation is that single block of wood."

 Chapter 376 - Sparrow

    Eiro curiously watched as the students got to work. They inspected the piece of wood and started sketching their ideas out. Most people here had at least a little bit of experience with Woodworking, so their ideas were mostly quite realistic when it came to what could be made with the wood they were given.


    Some of them were just thinking about rather ridiculous and wasteful things. Like a meter-long de made by connecting individual pieces of the de together. Something that would clearly make this ''sword'' far too unstable to be used.


    For the most part, everyone was doing quite a good job, though. And Eiro was especially proud of Rudy''s idea. Partially because Rudy was his son, but also because it just seemed different from the rest. Basically, he wanted to make a model out of it, like a wooden sculpture of sorts. However, not just by simply carving a figurine out of the wood, but by carving individual pieces out of it and putting them together like a puzzle of sorts.


    This way, the size of the model could go over the ten inches into any direction if he did it right. Just the actual shape of the model was something that Rudy seemed unsure about. As in, what the model was actually going to disy.


    He slowly turned his head toward Eiro, who quickly locked eyes with him. The Demon walked over to him, so that Rudy could ask his question.


    "Do you think I can... model a certain monster..?" He asked. Eiro looked at him, thought about it for a moment, and then just nodded his head, "Sure, there''s nothing wrong with that. Many artists disy monsters in their work. There''s nothing wrong with it, really."


    Of course, Eiro knew which monster Rudy was talking about from the way he was acting. He felt quite honored, actually. And soon, the sketch was finished, and Rudy also noted down all the different pieces that he would need in order to construct this without any issues.


    After enough time had passed to let everyone figure their ideas out, Hermia went around to collect the ideas, "Some of these are really quite unique." She pointed out afterward, "There are, however, two of you who I would like tomend. Rudy and Sim¨®n. These two figured out a way to make use of close to all parts of the wood, wasting as little of it as possible. And the concepts were still quite interesting, at that."


    Hermia soon handed out small boxes to everyone that seemed to hold basic tools for them to use for this ss, "The first project that you will be working on is the creation of whatever it is that you just sketched out. Of course, it doesn''t have to be exactly what you made. You can change parts, improve on it, or even go for a whole other idea if you realize that yours is simply impossible for you." The teacher exined.


    Eiro kept on listening, until the students began testing out their new tools on the block of wood they were given. Meanwhile, the teacher looked at Eiro with a curious smile, "Now, is there any way for you to show us a bit of your own skill? I''m curious what someone that is capable of creating such a prosthetic could make in about... one hour?"


    The Demon raised his brows in response, and slowly stood up from his seat, "Sure, I don''t mind. Do you have any wood that I could use?"


    "Of course. You can use anything you want of what we have in our storage room. I''m quite proud of our variety." Hermia exined smugly. She led Eiro there, while the Demon thought about what he could make with what was in front of him.


    In the end, when he made his material choice, he already made his choice for what to make with it. Sadly there wasn''t anything to make something special with here, just boring, regr types of wood.


    Luckily, Eiro had his satchel, which of course held a small box with a few small pieces of his own tree''s wood, which he wouldbine with the wood Hermia gave him for a small... special effect, of sorts.


    Eiro brought the wood back to the ssroom, and started to work. Just for the sake of it, he borrowed part of Rudy''s concept, creating a model out of many smaller pieces, and he then mixed it with his knowledge as a Prosthetist.


    So that he could make something quickly, his model was going to be something small. A sparrow seemed alright, since it was also quite light. It would help make the effect easier.


    The moment that he sat there, he grabbed his tools out of his satchel and ced the box next to him, slowly taking out the tools he would need and cing them side by side next to each other.


    And then, he touched his fingertips to the first tool, and it disappeared instantly. Just to thene back in his other hand as Eiro began to carve into the wood. Small pieces were carved out first, the parts that would be on the inside of the sparrow.


    He created the mechanics to make it move in his mind as he was carving everything out, and soon he had all the internal parts ready, with the exception of the central pieces. Those were made from Eiro''s own wood, so that he could have some form of extra control over this sparrow.


    They were just small cogs, pins, joints, and such tiny objects. Small on their own, but capable of having a great influence over the whole model''s movement.


    Thest parts that he had to make were those for the outside, which he created to look as much like feathers as possible.


    Once all the parts of this model were finished, Eiro ced away his tools and cracked his knuckles, quickly starting to put the sparrow''s body together. Bit by bit, it grew and grew, and within a minute or two after he started putting the pieces into ce, it was done.


    The sparrow stood on the desk in front of Eiro, and as he raised his head, he realized that the students had all gathered around him to watch him work. Even Hermia seemed mesmerized, especially through Eiro''s ability to make his tools shift from hand to hand instantly.


    With a light grin, Eiro ced the wooden sparrow onto his palm. He let his own mana flow into it, together with some of his own life force so that he could more easily keep controlling the magic within the sparrow.


    And that magic was simple Air magic that he filled every empty space within the sparrow with. Carefully, Eiro summoned his Three of Swords onto the inside of his prosthetic, as he encapsuled the sparrow with his hands. Without anyone being able to see, he fused the des with specific part of the sparrow.


    And then, after infusing the threads themselves with Air Magic to make them practically invisible, something only possible after Eiro infused his life force into the threads. Eiro was able to control the sparrow itself, however he wished.


    It started to jump around on Eiro''s hand, imitating a real sparrow, before he made it p its wings and fly around the room with Air Magic.


    "How is it... Are you using magic as well?" Hermia asked perplexed. Eiro simply smiled and nodded his head, "Of course, this sort of thing is simply impossible without magic." The Demon exined as if it was obvious.


    He made the wooden sparrow flutter around, having itnd by his side again. It still kept bouncing around like a real sparrow would, to make this image just the more magical to the students here.


    "I can''t promise that you will be able to make something quite like this in the future. I''m not only using my woodworking skills on their own, after all. However, if you wish to, you can spark new life into old life." Eiro smiled. He snapped his fingers and made his Three of Swordspletely disappear again so that the sparrow was nothing but a small statue now, standing in ce on the table in front of the Demon.


    "And as I just showed you, while being creative is important, taking inspiration in that which already exists can also lead to the creation of wonderful things. Like this. You can be inspired by nature, or by the work of other people. It''s up to you how you want the things you make to interact with the world around you." Eiro exined, and slowly picked up the sparrow, cing it into his satchel.


    The students, excited to get to work after seeing Eiro''s sparrow, made their way back to their own workstations and continued practicing with their new tools.


    Meanwhile, Eiro was just observing them, taking a look at what kinds of people the students here were. Most were quite earnest, happy to be here at this prestigious school. Just attending would give them an immense amount of future opportunities. If they graduated properly, they would most likely be set for life.


    Especially here in this division, where many students came from poorer households, that was something that they clearly appreciated and recognized. Eiro wouldn''t get many chances to teach here, but he was sure that he would enjoy the few instances where he would.


    After the ss was done, he stayed inside of the room as the students left, to have another short conversation with Hermia. He was happy to have met her, she seemed like a nice person, one that was excited about her work at that.


    When Eiro left, some students from other ssesing into the room as he was doing so, he noticed that Rudy was waiting for him in the hallway.


    "Don''t you have any other sses to get to?" Eiro asked with a smile. Rudy awkwardly scratched his cheek, "Of course I do, I just wanted to talk to you before heading off. You probably won''te with me all day, right?"


    "No, no, I won''t, don''t worry. I was going to see how Sammy and Felix are doing. And then my first day is mostly done, I''ll just have to visit the offices for some paperworkter." The Demon exined.


    "Oh, alright! Erm... So, since we have to work on this project for a while, and not just in ss, could I ask you..."


    "Not to interfere?" Eiro asked. Rudy nodded his head.


    "It''s not that I wouldn''t appreciate your help, I just want to do this on my own. I want to get better at this, you know?" The boy replied.


    "Of course.. Don''t worry, Rudy."

 Chapter 377 - Not Really A Monster

    Eiro slowly stepped through the Art Division''s building, as the other students were also currently walking to their next ss. And then, Eiro reached the room where Sammy should have sses now. The door was open, and the teacher wasn''t here yet.


    The Demon took a peek inside, and soon spotted Sammy already sitting there silently. Since it seemed like the teacher would only arrive in a few minutes, Eiro swiftly took a step inside.


    "So, how''s your first proper day of ss going so far?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face as he stood in front of his daughter. She raised her head surprised, "Dad? Well... It''s going alright so far? Just kind of boring, I guess." She said.


    Luckily, Eiro''s control over the domain of truth allowed him to see through her little lie, although she was clearly subconsciously using her Unique Skill.


    "Sammy. Make sure not to overuse your voice today, alright?" He asked, raising his brows. She realized what she did, and ced her hands in front of her mouth, "O-Oh, I''m sorry..."


    "Don''t be sorry, you didn''t mean to. Just be more careful from now on. I''m not affected by it anymore. You are." Eiro pointed out. Sammy slowly nodded her head.


    "Well, more than that, since you''ve had to use your ability to tell me that everything is alright, it clearly isn''t. Are you okay? Did something happen?" Eiro asked. Sammy turned her head slightly and carefully, looking at the corner of the room, where a few other girls were sitting. They were looking over at Eiro and Sammy and whispering amongst each other, making fun of Sammy.


    "...Are you being bullied?" He asked. Sammy immediately shook her head, "No, it''s not bullying, they''re just... you know... a little bit mean."


    "A little... A little mean? They''re saying thing that even I wouldn''t say to others. And I''ve killed people." He pointed out, and Sammy nervously turned her head to look around the room, "Can you say that so casually..?"


    "Of course, my voice is infused with Air Magic so that I can make only you hear me right now. Don''t want our private conversation be overheard. Either way, do you want me to do something about them?" He suggested, "And I know saying that might not give you a great impression after I just admitted to killing people, but I don''t mean that. I could have a talk with them, see why they''re making fun of you?"


    "I know why they''re making fun of me, Dad..." Sammy replied with a deep sigh, "It''s because I don''t take care of how I look. I''m even wearing this suit-like uniform instead of the dress-version that many girls in my division go for... And since we''re the art division, they''re allowed to change how the uniform looks a bit to ''express themselves''. So I stick out even more..."


    "Just because of that? Isn''t that kind of silly?"


    "Sure it is, but that doesn''t change that they''re being mean about it." Sammy exined. Eiro was rather annoyed at learning this information, "Alright then. I guess there''s just one way to stop that." The Demon pointed out, taking a mental note of how to metaphorically crush those children for being mean to his daughter.


    "Anyway, beside that... How were your sses so far?" He asked, trying to change the topic for now. Sammy lightly smiled in response, "It was pretty nice, I guess. I had a history lesson about famous musicians earlier, and it was pretty interesting. Now I have a practical music ss, though. For singing..."


    "You even have those in groups? Interesting." Eiro pointed out. It made sense, it would be a bit too much to teach each and every student individual for these things.


    "I mean, I guess we''ll just learn different techniques of how to train our voice, and what kind of tones fit together nicely. Those things."


    "You''ll ace this ss then. I don''t know anyone who can control their own voice better than you, at this point." Eiro said with a smile on his face, and Sammy looked up at him, also finally smiling, "Thanks, Dad."


    Just as she said so, the teacher entered the room, so it was time for Eiro himself to leave. Sammy waved at Eiro as he left, and the Demon waved back. Of course, he also sent a quick re at the girls sitting in the corner of the room, to make sure they realized they just fucked up.


    If they were going to make fun of how Sammy dressed, he would have the best clothes in the world made for her.


    ---


    "Excuse me? You''re not allowed to go in there, there''s a private lesson currently in progress." A Librarian stopped Eiro as he was about to open one of the doors in the library, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "I know. I''m a teacher here, and coincidentally the guardian of the young man getting lessons in there. I just want to check on him."


    So, without minding the Librarian, Eiro opened the door and stepped inside. Felix immediately spotted Eiro and smiled at him with a quick wave. His teacher turned toward Eiro as well, "What are you doing here, you are bothering us." He said in signnguage.


    The Librarian next to Eiro took a step forward and looked at the Demon, "Ah, he asked why you-"


    "I''m just here to watch for a while, if that''s alright with you. Don''t worry, I''ll be quiet." Eiro replied, speaking and also using signnguage at the same time.


    The elderly man nodded his head and pointed at the woman next to Eiro, "I know, I''m talking about her. And don''t try to be funny, it doesn''t fit you."


    "Well, Felix thought it was funny."


    "Actually, I just got used to your really bad dad-jokes... And you''re not even my dad..." Felix replied with a wry smile. His hands were covered in paint, making Eiro even more curious about what the boy was working on.


    Eiro turned his head toward the Librarian next to him, "I said I could be here, didn''t I?"


    "R-Right, sorry for assuming..." She replied, and nervously made her way out of the room.


    Eiro took a step closer in, "You seem quite well-respected."


    "No, that young one is just a fan of my old work."


    "Right, I was told that you used to be a reknown Artist." Eiro pointed out, as he took a step closer toward Felix and his teacher, who slowly nodded his head, "I dabbled."


    " ''Dabbled'', huh?" Eiro sighed. He heard that some of this man''s work was in a museum here. He basically created a whole new style of art. He was walking art history.


    "More than that, I''m quite impressed with this child. He is rather skilled already. You must have gotten a good teacher for him." The Teacher pointed out, and Eiro shook his head, "I haven''t. I''m not his father. His father actually never let him paint or sculpt anything ever, although it was clearly Felix''s greatest talent."


    The teacher opened his eyes wide, "So he truly has no experience? I thought he was just being humble in front of me..."


    "Hah, right. No, while art is his greatest talent, his second greatest is bragging. If he says he''s unexperienced, then that''s true." The demonughed, with a light wink directed at Felix who was listening with an awkward smile.


    The teacher turned toward Felix and looked at his painting, "Then this is even more astounding than I thought. I knew there must have been a reason why the King asked me to be a personal teacher all of a sudden, and this is it."


    "I''m d that you enjoy teaching him, then."


    "Enjoy? I''m ecstatic now." The teacher said with a broad grin, recing his formerly emotionless expression. And then, Eiro looked at the painting that Felix drew, and his mind went nk for a moment.


    This painting was of something that had really happened. Not to Felix, but to Eiro. It was the moment when Eiro''s ''Mark of the Devil'' produced the ''Mark of Wrath''.


    Standing there inside of a bubble of ice, encasing raging waters, a Demon grasping at its own face. The world around the bubble was slowly fading away, and all that could be seen was the anger that this being felt at the moment.


    That pure feeling of murderous fury.


    "So you were awake for that, huh..?" Eiro muttered quietly, not moving his hands. The teacher was looking at the painting, but Felix wasn''t. He was looking straight at Eiro, to see how he would react, knowing that Felix painted him like that.


    "I''m... I''m sorry, if you want, I''ll get rid of it right away, I-"


    "No. It''s great. You did a great job showing how I felt then, Felix. I''m sure you felt quite simr, after all." Eiro pointed out with a smile, this time moving his hands again of course.


    "This... Is this painting supposed to be you?" The teacher asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Mhm, it is. Something wrong with that? I have a unique way of dealing with my anger."


    "I see... I will not question why he painted you as a Demon, then. That must be quite private."


    "It''s fine, don''t worry. I''m a rather Wrathful person if I want to be. And ''Wrath'' is something directly connected to Demons. I have a certain past with Demons, so that''s most likely why his mind went there. At least I hope so.. I would like it if Felix didn''t really see me as a Monster."

 Chapter 378 - Disciplinary Actions

    "Wee to ''Introduction to Utility Magic''. I''m going to be your teacher for this semester. Go ahead and just call me Eiro." The Demon exined in a loud tone, his voice reaching all the students that are sitting in his ss. They were roughly fifty people.


    "Now, can someone tell me what they understand under the term ''Utility Magic''?" He asked. For a few seconds, the students thought about it, until a young man raised his hand.


    "Erm... Magic that is actually used in day-to-day life?" The boy asked. Eiro quickly nodded his head in response, "Yes, exactly. Utility Magic is any kind of magic that has actual, nonbat oriented uses. Think about any random spell, right now. It''s very likely that the spell you thought about was abat-spell. Compared to many utility spells, they''re more shy, they''re easier for onlookers to remember."


    Eiro snapped his finger and pulled mes from one of the nearby candles, creating the spell ''me Spear'' for reference. He got rid of the me spear again, "I think you get it. Now, let me show you an example of a more utilitarian spell.


    Eiro snapped his finger, and the candle that he took mes from before was snuffed out, "Inparison, it''s quite anti-climactic, right? But for most people, it''s a lot more useful than a giant, burning spear. In this ss, you will not learn specific examples of spells, but you will rather learn how to use basic magic for different practical means. Can someone give me examples for how basic air magic can be used? Just from the top of your heads."


    Multiple students raised their hands. They gave different simple examples, ranging from how air magic can be used to clean, to it being used to put out or start mes. The rest of the ss went smoothly. The students were incredibly interested, and Eiro exined the basics of the process of choosing what to do with certain spells.


    He started exining the mostmon uses for certain spells, and that there is a thin line between the different ''types'' of magic. Utility magic can be used forbat, andbat magic can be used for certain utilitarian means. For the most part, Eiro just covered basic introductions of what he would teach in this ss.


    And once it ended, Eiro waited for the students to leave and then also headed out of the room. For his first ever ss that he taught by himself, that went pretty well. Next, he had a practical ss in thebat division.


    As he walked from building to building, he noticed some children standing around together in a group. They were huddled around something rather obviously, so Eiro couldn''t help himself but pay attention to them.


    And when he noticed what they were doing, Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose and walked over to them. The students saw him approach and quickly threw away what they had been holding.


    "What are you doing?" Eiro asked in a cold tone. One of the students, a first-semester, had bloodshot eyes and was clearly shaking with his whole body, as if he was freezing. Sure, it was cold out and there was snow on the ground, but his body-temperature seemed actually pretty high.


    Behind the group of students, Eiro could spot thebat-division''s two student representatives, Richard and Avelina Mchine. They were sitting on a rock right next to each other, and stood up once they spotted Eiro.


    "Oh, we''re just talking a bit, you know? It gets a bit loud inside of the buildings inbetween sses. I hope you don''t mind." Richard pointed out with a smug smile, and Eiro rolled his eyes. He looked at the young student with bloodshot eyes and pressed his index finger onto the boy''s forehead.


    The next moment, the boy fell to his knees and threw up. The vomit melted the snow, and inside of the vomit, Eiro could see some things that were less than edible. It probably wouldn''t have killed the boy, but they surely would have made him sick. They were things like half-smoked tabo, paper notes they surely wanted to hide, and even some rocks. In the middle of it, Eiro could even spot an earring that the boy was most likely wearing just a few minutes earlier.


    "Did any of you make him eat all this stuff?" Eiro asked, still in an emotionless tone as he melted some of the snow and had Nelli quickly purify it from any rough dirt. He swiftly knelt down and ced his palm onto the boy''s stomach and used healing magic to make him feel a bit better.


    "Of course not! How would we know why he ate all that stuff? We''re just here to give him a few tips, as his seniors!" Richardughed as if Eiro''s suggestion was ridiculous. The Demon slowly stood up as he helped the boy stand up as well.


    Of course, Eiro knew that Richard was tantly lying about this.


    "Richard, you''re quite the brat. If I had the power to make those decisions myself, I would have you and your sister thrown off this school immediately for this behavior. It''s obvious that it isn''t the first time you''re mistreating other students in this form. But I''m going to give you another chance. If you stop being such an absolute miscreant, I will not report you to the principal for this." Eiro exined bluntly as he kept making sure that the boy next to him was alright.


    Richard let out a deep sigh as he took a step closer toward Eiro, "Do you really think that scares me? I thought you realized who we were already. I guess lessermoners like you really are as uneducated as I thought. Listen here, instead of doing what you suggested just now, we''ll do something else. You will turn around, leave our new friend in our care, and never bother us ever again. That is, if you want your children to have fulfilling school-lives."


    Eiro knew that he was being threatened. It was clear that something was wrong with Richard on a deep level. His heartrate didn''t change even slightly for that whole thing. His sister, Avelina, was getting a bit scared being faced by Eiro. He was exerting a bit of pressure onto them, after all. Richard, however, wasn''t scared in the slightest. His mind was calm, and he stood there perfectly collected in front of Eiro.


    "Mhm, right." Eiro rolled his eyes, proceeding to melt more of the snow. He made it wrap around the limbs of the group of students that had been bullying this boy next to Eiro, and quickly made them follow him.


    "You have a practicalbat ss now anyway, right? Coincidentally, that ss is one of the few where the arena is shared amongst all students. While I am teaching the first-semester students, since you will be there anyway, I''m pretty sure that it''s fine if I punish you children for now." The Demon said, not caring for anything that Richard was trying to tell him as he struggled to get out of the control of this ice.


    It seemed like he was trying to use basic Fire Magic to melt the ice, but Eiro''s ice magic was capable of withstanding that bare increase in temperature.


    And just like that, Eiro led this group of students to the arena, where the other students had already gathered. There was also another teacher that was awaiting Eiro, but didn''t expect him to bring these students with him like that.


    Kristoph approached Eiro immediately, staring at him with a deep frown, "Eiro, what are you doing?"


    "Oh, they were bullying this first-semester student, and Richard then proceeded to threaten me by insinuating he would bully my children as well, so I''m going to exert some disciplinary action upon them right now. If you don''t mind, that is." Eiro said bluntly, and Kristoph blinked in surprise, "Ehh... No, I guess that''s fine? You''re not going to hurt them, right?"


    "What, of course not! I''ll just make sure their whole bodies are sore tomorrow." The Demon pointed out as he snapped his fingers, "And that''s going to start with you guys running fiftyps around the arena."


    "What? Fiftyps, are you insa-" One of the students asked, but Eiro just turned his head and red at him, "Did I stutter?"


    Defeated and unable to do much against this now, all of the students started to jog around the arena, "I did not expect such a lenient punishment..."


    "Kristoph, that''s just the start. For now, I''ll just make sure they''re physically exhausted and in immense, horrifying muscle-pains. And I''ll be talking to all of their parents, of course." Eiro pointed out, and Kristoph stared at him as if he was insane, "Some of their parents live across the country. How do you expect on doing that?"


    "I have my ways of getting from point A to B quickly, you see?" He replied with a smirk, and then sent off the bullied students to meet up with the other students in his semester, "But I must say, I''m surprised. I didn''t think you''d speak to me this openly right now."


    "Well, I was thinking about how I could kill you, but then I was visited by ''C''. Well, I guess she''s ''D'' now... Either way, she assured me that you were trustworthy, and since I know she''s probably the kindest person in the organization, I let your chaotic actions pass for now."


    Eiro couldn''t help but smirk when hearing Kristoph talk about Arie, but before he could say anything, Kristoph spoke, "Well, today we will be doing a lot of free practice anyway, since we have to wait for the theory sses to finish first, so it''s fine that you''re making them work out like that. But for other sses, they''ll still have to pay attention."


    "Oh, of course. If you need them to take a break for anything, that''s fine. I''ll just have them continue afterward. Just don''t be too lenient on them, or otherwise it''s going to defeat the purpose." Eiro pointed out, and Kristoph shrugged, "Fair enough. Alright, then go ahead and start your ss with the first-years. You remember all the content, right?"


    "Of course, I have absolutely perfect memory. Shockingly so, actually." The Demon pointed out, and the man next to him groaned loudly, "Of course you do."


    And so, just like that, Eiro made his way over toward the first-year students and started the lesson. Basically, for now they were just supposed to practice basic moves using the wooden weapons that were handed out to them earlier.. And although Eiro said he knew what to teach them, he wanted to change everything up a little bit.

 Chapter 379 - Passion Creates Talent

    "All of you, hold your weapons. Those that already have a bit of experience and think they know exactly how to use that weapon, please move over here to the side. The others, step over here to the other side." Eiro told his students. Most of them apparently already knew how to handle their weapon of choice, whether spear, staff, sword, dagger... They had some form of experience. But a handful of students didn''t, and they were all just holding regr wooden swords in their hands.


    Of course, as Arc was part of this ss, he was part of the former group.


    "Since I have no knowledge about the level of each of your actual skill, I would like you to form a line, the order is unimportant, and one after another show me a few moves you are confident in. If you need a target, I can make it for you, so just tell me." Eiro exined to the students, who quickly entered a line as they were told.


    While they were doing so, Eiro turned toward the students without any particr experience, "You guys just keep watching them together with me. Knowing what other people''s movements look like is the first step to perfecting your own."


    The students quickly nodded their heads as they listened to the Demon''s words. And just like that, one after another, the students showed Eiro a few of their moves. Overall, the majority of them were painfully average in their level of skill. There was never anything particrly great about what they were doing, and there were many wasted movements in what they were showing Eiro.


    A handful of them were actually quite skilled, Arc being amongst them, but the rest would need a lot more training than they were getting right now.


    It took quite a while for all students to finish showing everything off, and Eiro made sure to take a proper mental note of each and every student he saw. He remembered their strengths, their weaknesses, and of course what Eiro would need to do to help them improve considerably starting from where they currently were.


    The first thing that Eiro chose to do was quite simple, "I will pair all of you up with a partner. Spar with them a bit while I hold personal conversations with you all individually." The Demon announced, swiftly pairing the students up depending on who they would be a good fit forbat-wise.


    "First, you six." Eiro started, looking at the students that didn''t have much experience at all, "Rather than me giving you tips right away, I need to know more about who you kids are as people. We''ll just talk a bit, alright?"


    Eiro looked at these students, and they quickly agreed. One of them was the bullied boy that Eiro pulled away from Richard and Avelina''s group earlier.


    "Okay then. To start it off with, tell me about your interests. What sort of weapon would you like to use? Especially if you are nobles, do your families have any particr ''Family-style'' of sorts?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face. One after another, the students told Eiro whatever he wanted to know.


    The Demon was subtly inspecting their bodies while they were doing so to get a rough idea of what would be best for them from his personal experience. And thenter, the boy that had been bullied lightly raised his hand, "Erm... My parents had my talents measured at some point, and apparently I have a talent for hand-to-handbat... But I think that was kind of wrong..?"


    Eiro raised his brows surprised. The boy''s hands were shaking intensely. At first, Eiro thought it was because of the shock of being bullied like that, but he seemed totally fine otherwise. Right now, it looked like the boy wouldn''t be able to fight using his hands at all. Or rather, using any weapon properly, considering that his hands were shaking this intensely without any proper reason.


    The Demon pulled out an empty piece of paper and a pen out of his satchel and handed it to the boy, "Could you please write your name on this piece of paper five times? I''ll give you... 30 seconds." Eiro suggested.


    Confused, the boy looked back at Eiro, who just casually started counting backward from 30. Soon, the boy was finished, and Eiro grabbed the piece of paper and looked at the boy''s writing.


    "Yup, the measurement seems right. Usually, your body and your talent aren''t necessarily connected. Even if you have a great talent for music, you might be born deaf. What I think is going on here is that you think that you have talent for hand-to-handbat, while your hands are useless for it due to the shaking. But that''s not the case at all. I''ll exin it to youter, for now, let me help the others out a bit." Eiro suggested with a smile.


    He stood up and walked over to where the wooden training weapons were, and then picked out one dagger and one spear. He pulled out his carving knife and quickly pushed the edge against the wood, quickly changing the form of the wooden weapons to be a bit of a better fit in weight or length for the students in question.


    And then, he paired them up with other students with a simr build and abat style that seemed like it would fit them for now, and had the unexperienced students basically just shadow them for now to get used to how to even just hold their training weapons.


    Meanwhile, he started to speak to the bullied boy.


    "Now, as I was saying before, I-" Eiro started, and the boy looked up at him nervously, "I-I don''t really think that I can really learn to fight... My family has a long history of being soldiers, so they wanted to put me here, but I really don''t think it''s for me."


    The Demon looked into the boy''s eyes, "Are you saying that you don''t want to learn how to fight?"


    "I... I don''t know..."


    Eiro looked back at the boy and let out a deep sigh, "Alright, let''s continue with the example from before. A deaf man with a talent for music. This is not actually just a randombination, but one of the greatest musicians of all time was born deaf. Despite that, he was drawn toward music, and learned topose and y by feeling the vibrations of the air on his skin, rather than hearing the sounds he produced. Why do you think he went through all that hassle? Because he was only truly passionate about music."


    Eiro sat down next to the boy and ced his hand onto his shoulder, "Even if you think you don''t want to know how to fight, is that truly right? Talent doesn''t produce passion. Passion produces talent. I believe that you truly want to know how to fight."


    The boy looked down at his hands, still shaking, maybe even a bit more than they did before.


    "You see, I''m incredibly proud of my senses. I have great eyes, for example, and incredible dynamic vision. I could probably still see what''s going on if someone chose to move around in stopped time." The Demonughed slightly, since that wasn''t actually a lie, "And these eyes showed me something. That while you were writing your name, the shaking from your hands didn''t affect what you did negatively at all. Your hands moved perfectly how you wanted them to, and you have incredibly pretty handwriting. It''s incredibly consistent, as if you studied caligraphy for years."


    "...Then that would give me a talent for being a scribe, wouldn''t it?" The boy asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "No, no, that''s not where I''m going. The reason your hands are so shaky isn''t because they are somehow injured or subtly deformed. It''s nothing that would stop you from fighting. Rather the opposite. Your hands are doing that because they want to move, they want to be used. I assume you have an incredibly high value for your dexterity stat, while your actual numbers don''t catch up to that."


    "R-Really, you think so?"


    "Yes, I absolutely do. If you want, I can have a friend make a small item for you that you can fidget around with sometimes. If you regrly do this, that should make it quite likely for your dexterity stat to increase when you next level up." Eiro exined. He looked at the boy, seeing that he was slowly getting pretty excited. It was clear that he was less than confident in himself.


    "You''re friends with my son Arc, right?" The Demon suddenly asked, and the boy turned his head toward him, "O-Oh, yeah! He''s really nice, and the first person that spoke to me... It''s really fun to be around him..."


    "I''m d to hear that. He can be pretty troublesome to deal with sometimes, so thanks for putting up with him." The Demon smiled, "And, listen, I know that you are probably ufortable talking about this with your friends, but if those kids ever bully you again, you can tell Arc about it. He''s the oldest of my kids, he knows how to take care of others. And he''s not in the slightest afraid to stand up to people like Richard and Avelina."


    The boy slowly turned quiet and nodded his head, before Eiro quickly stood up again, "Now, Rico, go ahead and pair up with Mark over there for now. Try and copy a bit of how he holds his body for now."


    The boy, Rico, immediately nodded his head and rushed off somewhat excitedly. Happy that he was able to handle this like that, Eiro thought about where to start with modifying the weapons of the other students to make them a better fit for their body-type andbat-style.


    But as he was still thinking about it, he heard someone approach from behind him.


    "Who''d have thought, you''re actually a good teacher, huh?" Kristoph sighed out loudly, and Eiro kept looking at his own students as he replied, "You think Solomon would put a total psychopath here? I''m actually a pretty good guy, believe it or not. A bit homicidal, sure."


    "I think I''ll be the judge of that myself. For now, just don''t do anything too crazy, and keep being supportive like that to your students. Just make sure you don''t start treating some better than others. Preferential treatment is quite counter-productive when you want to be a good educator."


    "Of course, don''t worry. I''ll treat them properly.." Eiro replied, "But for now, just keep on taking care of your own students, will you?" The Demon asked with a smirk on his face.

 Chapter 380 - Play Like An Adult

    Eiro slowly waited by the arena''s exit. His ss went pretty well, as he just so slightly modified each of the students'' weapons to make them a better fit for their, sometimes not fully developed, bodies.


    But for now, the Demon was waiting for a certain few students that he yet had to fully punish. The group of bullies gathered in front of him,pletely and utterly exhausted.


    "All of you, write a ten page essay about why what you did was wrong. Each of you individually, of course. If I notice that the letters have too much inmon, or if I notice that you didn''t write them yourself, I''ll have you write a twenty-page essay. While I''m there to watch you write it." The Demon said in a strict tone.


    One of the students practically red back at Eiro and replied, angry at the fact they were being punished like this, "Don''t you think you''re exaggerating a bit?! We won''t do it again, alright? Just fucking stop it now, or I''ll tell my father about this!"


    Eiro turned his head toward the student, "Don''t worry, I''ll be speaking to your parents about this anyway. So you can go ahead and tell them whatever you want. However, I just want to point out one little thing. You could have killed Rico with what you made him do."


    "Oh, don''t be ridiculous, now." Richard sighed loudly, the only one unimpressed by the idea of his parents being informed, "All we had him do was swallow some rocks and his shitty, rusty earring. How could that have-"


    "The earring had a small exposed pin, which could have certainly wounded Rico a bit. Not fatally, of course, but you could have injured him." Eiro pointed out, and without giving him another chance to speak, Richard continued, "Hah... how sad, now you''re contradicting yourself. You just said it wouldn''t have been fatal, so how would it have killed him?"


    As if he already won this ''debate'', Richard looked Eiro straight in his eyes, as the Demon continued, "Simple. At some point, Rico would have visited the infirmary. There, one of the academy''s hired healers would have realized that he was wounded internally, and would have healed his stomach area. There, that mana would have interacted with that ''shitty, rusty earring''." Eiro exined. The children were a bit confused, of course.


    "That earring was apparently a family-heirloom. But you already knew that, that''s probably the reason why you made him swallow it. However, I was amazed to realize that it had a miniature Magic Stone set into it. Not a rare one, of course, but still. It was a Magic Stone. The mana from Rico being healed could have interacted with the Magic Stone, causing it to produce even a small amount of magic within Rico''s stomach, or digestive track. Considering that it was a Fire Magic stone, that could have backfired quite a lot, obviously. The healers that stay within the infirmary aren''t equipped to heal that sort of injury." Eiro exined to the students.


    Each of them had a paleplexion, realizing what might have happened if Eiro hadn''te along. Of course Eiro was hiding the fact that there was a miniscule chance for any of this happening, since the pin on the earring in question was actually rounded and not sharp, but it still could have led to some injury. It was just very unlikely.


    Once again, however, it seemed like Richard didn''t care much. At first Eiro thought that he somehow realized that it wouldn''t have injured him, or that such a situation was incredibly unlikely, but that clearly wasn''t the case considering what he said next.


    "So what, if he''s dumb enough to do whatever we tell him to, then maybe he would have deserved that." Richard pointed out, and Eiro locked eyes with him. He was trying to act tough, and Eiro wasn''t sure if this kid really was like this, or if he was just pretending.


    "All of you beside Richard, you are dismissed. The deadline for the essay is a week from now." The Demon said, and everyone quickly rushed past him to get out of here, while Richard kept staring at Eiro.


    "Hahaha, seriously? You think it''s a good idea to be alone with me?" Richard asked with a loudugh, as if Eiro just made a huge mistake. He took out a small de, nothing but a letter-opener, out of his coat and slowly made its tip hover over its tip.


    "Listen here, what you''re going to do now is this. You will let me leave, and you will never speak to anyone about this ever again. If you don''t want your pitiful life absolutely ruined, then you''re going to do what I say." Richardughed, and Eiro looked back at him.


    "You think you scare me? I just want to talk to you, to figure this out. The school offers plenty of support to its students, especially if they''re going through certain things mentally. Mental health issues are a serious thing. We don''t live in the same times where people think that you are possessed by an evil spirit anymore. Now we can differentiate between an actual evil spirit''s possession and just someone needing a lot of help. It''s obvious that you need plenty of help." Eiro exined bluntly, "I can set up a session between you and Mrs. Klitzing, she is apparently quite exper-"


    "Oh, just shut the fuck up, now." Richard groaned loudly, "Nothing is wrong with me, you absolute idiot. I''m literally perfect."


    Eiro let out a deep sigh. He himself didn''t take this whole ''mental health'' thing too serious before either, but after having long conversations with Arc about the world he used to live in, he started to realize that it might be something more serious than he thought. Arc kept going on and on about how he wished his former world was more like this in the regard of how this sort of topic was generally treated.


    But that wasn''t important right now, what was important was that Richard was obviously threatening to injure himself just to control Eiro.


    "Fine, if you don''t believe me..." Richard slowly pressed the tip of the letter opener into his own palm, quickly drawing blood, "Oh no~... Seems like the new teacher Eiro has aggressions against nobles... The whole division can confirm that he was quite aggressive toward us yesterday as well... He must feel jealous for how he himself grew up..."


    The young man kept on smirking, but Eiro didn''t take his crap, "I guess before then, we''ll head to the infirmary ourselves. Put that away ande with me."


    "Huh?" Richard replied baffled, "You don''t care that I''m about to ruin your career?"


    "Ruin my- Kid, I''m an Adventurer, I''m a stand-in for a teacher that literally killed students here. I''m a close personal friend of the King. Stabbing a little asshole''s hand won''t ruin anything for me." Eiro replied, and simply grabbed Richard by his arm to drag him toward the infirmary.


    Richard clicked his tongue, "Fine, then I''ll have to go with n B. If you don''t listen to me, I''ll tell my men to go to your house and kill your children. They''re professionals, trained to the highest degree by our-" The boy suddenly stopped and looked down at his hand, before flinching back in pain as he realized that his hand was stuck to his thigh.


    The moment that Richard chose to threaten Eiro with something like that so casually, the Demon chose to check if Richard was just making this up, or if he was serious. And it was basically impossible for Richard to lie any less. He would absolutely try to go through with this.


    So, considering that he was threatening to have people killed, Eiro figured it was fair to stop treating him like a child. Richard wasn''t ying the children''s games that Eiro thought he was. He was ying in the league of the adults.


    And Eiro treated him as such. He grabbed the letter-opener and pressed it through Richard''s hand until it came out the other side, and then continued to press it down to stab Richard''s leg with the very same de.


    "Alright, you just took it a step too far, buddy. I''ll tell you what''s going to happen now. You''re going to your dorm-room, you sit down at your desk, and you start writing the essay I told you to. Then, you''re going to meet Rico, and personally apologize to him by burying your smug face in the dirt he''s standing on. If you don''t, then next I''m going to stab something bigger than this letter opener through you. You got that?" Eiro asked with a soft smile on his face, his eyes constantly interlocked with Richard''s.


    "You''re absolutely insane!" Richard eximed, but Eiro really didn''t care in the slightest abotu what he had to say, "You''re the one that threatened to have my kids killed just because you have an issue with me. You should take responsibility for that." The Demon pointed out.


    He pulled the letter opener out of Richard''s leg and hand, and quickly cleaned up the blood before swiftly healing any wounds with Nelli''s help. Now it just looked like Richard identally cut open his pants with his own sword or something like that.


    Of course, at the end of the day, Richard was just a kid. Even if he was ying with adults, that wouldn''t change anytime soon.. But Eior was ready to bend his own rules a little bit for pricks like Richard anytime.

 Chapter 381 - Complexity

    Eiro left the Arena, watching Richard swiftly scurry away after their interaction just now. Nelli was floating next to Eiro''s head and stared at him, "Was that really necessary? He''s just a kid."


    "I know that he''s just a kid. But considering that he threatened to have the children killed, and genuinely, truthfully meant that. I''m not letting someone like that get away with nothing." Eiro pointed out, "I should still think about how exactly to deal with this, though..."


    "Can''t you just kill the kid like you would anyone else?" Sarius suggested, and Eiro turned his head toward the Smander, "Do you even understand why I agreed to be a teacher here at this school? At all?"


    "Eh... Cause you''re bored?"


    "No, it''s not because I''m bored. I''m wasting valuable time that I could use to train myself and push my ns further ahead. The reason I''m not doing that and am here instead is quite simple, really." Eiro started, and as he was about to continue, Gondos spoke his thoughts.


    "It is because you wish to find new sides to yourself, is it not?" The Golem suggested, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "That''s exactly right, yes. From what I remember, when I saw the fragment of a ''human'' in my soul, that boy was roughly the age of the kids here. Maybe a bit older, but not by much. Being around so many children, as emotional as they are, I might be able to learn something about that side of my soul, right? Most of the students here at Humans, after all."


    "...Basically, you want to just expose yourself to as many vastly different humans, in the hope of bing more human yourself?" Nelli asked, and Eiro nodded, "Mhm. I''ve already been trying, and it''s working pretty well, I''d say. I helped that Rico kid just by talking to him about his worries, and I n on helping Richard as well somehow. If I can fix others, then why not myself?"


    Nelli turned her head to look at the other two spirits next to her, as Eiro let out a deep sigh and started to walk forward, away from the arena. He had to get to his next ss now.


    As he was walking over the campus, the Demon made sure to properly take notice of anything and everything that was happening around him. In particr, he wanted to make sure that there was no other sort of bullying going on right now. Because he knew that he wuld have to end up dealing with it, and he didn''t want to bete for the next ss.


    Basically, Eiro just had a whole bunch of practical sses, and only a handful of theoretical sses. One of the theoretical sses was this morning, and now he had a practical magic ss. And more specifically, it was a practical ss for the magic-circle creation line of the Magic division.


    Eiro swiftly made his way through the campus and reached the special room created for the actual magic practice, with strong barriers covering the walls so that nothing could go wrong. The students already gathered there, holding very basic wands in their hands.


    As Eiro made his way inside, he already spotted most of his students in here. There were just a handful missing, but they also came just a minute or two after the bell was rung.


    "Now, let''s hope you won''t bete for the next ss, you three." The Demon sighed slightly, "So, just to make sure, but you all are second-year students, isn''t that right?" Eiro asked, and the students quickly nodded their heads.


    "Good, good. That means you already learned about the theory behind creating magic circlesst year. For now, please create an ''Empty'' Magic circle, please. Don''t worry, nothing is going to happen with it for now, no pressure, I just want to see that you all are able to ''draw'' magic into the air." The Demon exined, demonstrating exactly what he meant with an ''empty'' magic circle.


    While the students, were doing this, Eiro slowly got a certain book out of his treasury and proceeded to flip it to a particr few pages.


    "Perfect. You all seem to have the basic requirements down. You can draw magic in the air, and shape-wise, your empty magic circles all seem nearly perfect as well. Sure, some of you took longer than others, but that''s totally fine. For now, activate those magic circles so that they won''t bother us anymore." The Demon suggested, and all of the empty glowing circles quickly disappeared from in front of the students.


    "From now on, since you can all already do the basics, it''s all rtively simple. It''s like writing. For now, you know the letters. Let''s say, a letter is each individual aspect of a magic circle. Like a rune, that seems simple enough, right?"


    Eiro slowly started to draw a magic circle into the air. For now, he just drew a basic ''air'' rune into the air.


    "Then, using multiple letters, you can create words." Eiro continued, drawing a circle around the rune, and connecting it to two other runes inside of circles, forming a triangle of sorts.


    "From those words, you then head off into the territory of sentences." The Demon added three more runes and connected those to each other in a triangle, creating a simple hexagram.


    "And here we have it. Using letters and words, you create a coherent sentence. It''s like speaking. You want to convey specific information, and use the knowledge you gathered so far for it." Eiro smiled lightly, and then nced at the Grimoire in his hand, "And some people use those individual sentences to write books, to convey even more information."


    Just like that, Eiro started to wave his hand around, expanding upon this rtively simple ''Gust'' spell in extreme ways. Its size doubled and tripled, and became extremelyplex.


    "Take a look at this magic circle. It seemsplex, but at the end of the day, I didn''t particrly use different techniques than you all already know. If you wanted to, you could create a magic circle like this yourself." Eiro exined to the students, who were all just staring back at him inplete shock at what they were seeing. This thing was made so easily in front of them, within just a few moments.


    "Now, can one of you tell me what exactly this magic circle does?" Eiro asked with a smile. The students thought for a few moments, until one of them raised her hand, "It''s a modified version of the ''Gust'' spell, and there are a lot of ''strengthen'' runes to increase the effect of a spell... So I''d guess it''s ''Gust'', just a lot stronger?"


    Eiro smiled lightly, "Exactly. This is an extremely strong ''Gust'' spell." The Demon activated it, away from the children of course, and as if all air where they stood was suddenly being pushed forward rapidly, the students could feel their bodies being pulled forward. Some of them even had their wands pulled right out of their hand, but Eiro quickly caught them.


    "Now, of course I could have made it so that this spell does many other things, but I only made it do this one thing. Do you think making this spell in that exact way was worth it for this result?" Eiro inquired, and the students looked at each other and thought about it for a bit.


    "It seems like it, yes." One of them replied, and Eiro just smiled as he created another magic circle to show off another principle. He was specifically asked to do something like this by the theory teacher.


    Eiro quickly created a smaller magic circle. It was still quiteplex, but at least it was far more simple than earlier. And then, Eiro activated the magic circle, and one of the students fell to the ground as an even stronger gust of air was pushed into the opposite direction.


    "So, how can you exin this? This smaller, lessplex magic circle is more powerful than the giant,plex one from before." The Demon asked the students, but none of them replied, since they were simply incredibly confused.


    "You see, the reason is simple. Just because something isplex doesn''t mean it''s better. Something that you should always strive to do as a Mage that uses magic circles is to simplify any of your magic circles. This small one was a directly simpler version of therge one from before. That being the case, what if I turned this smaller version into the centerpiece of another huge magic circle? What would happen then?"


    One of the students raised their hand after Eiro''s exnation, trying to answer, "It would be weaker again...?"


    Eiro slowly shook his head, "Oh, no, no, that''s not what I meant with plex doesn''t mean better''. If you take a basic magic circle and add some other moreplex parts onto it, with a specific thought-out n, then it will make the magic circle stronger for sure. But it''s not right to assume that any incrediblyplex magic circle is incredibly strong as well. And it certainly doesn''t mean your opponent is skilled. Rather than that... Can someone tell me why it could mean your opponent is less skilled than you?"


    "Well, if you have two mages, and they cause the same exact effect through a magic circle, but one is simpler and the other is overlyplex, then that means the one with the simpler magic circle is more skilled... Right?"


    "Yes, exactly." Eiro replied, "Because the other mage didn''t have as high an understanding of the principles of magic circles as you did, they had to resort to unnecessarilyplex methods. I think everyone here understands the principle now. Could all of you recreate the ''Gust'' spell for me? And make it as simple as possible. Don''t worry about the strength for now."


    Eiro slowly turned around as he watched the students excitedly get to work, before he noticed something surprising. Through one of the windows, he could see a familiar figure flying through the Sky. At first Eiro had hoped that it was Logniring back from the trip to spread the ''Necromancer'' rumor, but he apparently already got back from that a couple of days ago, so it most likely wasn''t him. And the castle was in the whole other direction.


    So, Eiro quickly focused his eyes a bit more than he normally would, being in such a small room, and quickly realized that it was the Nephilim Arie, slowly approaching the Academy for some reason.


    Eiro could barely see her expression from here, but judging from her bodynguage, she was actually rather angry.. That probably wouldn''t turn out too well for Eiro, then.

 Chapter 382 - Undead Hunters

    "I have to step outside for a second. Until then, take a bit of a break and let your mana recover a little bit. I''ll be right back." Eiro told his students, swiftly heading toward this room''s exit. He made his way out of this building, and quickly waited for Arie tond in front of him.


    The Demon looked back at her with a light sigh, "Is something wrong, Arie?"


    "Are you seriously asking me that? Seriously?" She asked, crossing her arms and staring back at Eiro. The Demon thought about it for a moment, but didn''t find any reason for her to be particrly mad.


    "Wait, don''t tell me you''re somehow rted to the Mchines..."


    "Mchines? What are you talking about? No, I mean the fact that you''re leading numerous ''Undead Hunters'' to the capital. I heard about those rumours that you''re spreading, Eiro." Arie pointed out, "Why would you do something like that?"


    "Because I need a specific person toe here, that''s why. And why are you bothered with those ''Undead Hunters'' at all? You''re a Nephilim, not a Lich or something like that." The Demon pointed out, and Arie rubbed the bridge of her nose annoyed, "Because Undead Hunters are absolute bothers. They think they''re above thew, they use their ''Life Golems'' or whatever they call them to search a whole town for anything with even an ounce of ''Death'' Magic, and they-"


    "Don''t mind ughtering anyone who they believe to be ''heretics'', I know. But again, why are you bothered at all? What do you have to do with Death Magic?"


    "It''s not about me, it''s about people I''m close to. One of them is a young girl, she''s a novice Necromancer. She would never think of using people for her undead, of course, but she does practice using insects and vermin. If those Undead Hunters coincidentally find one of those bugs, they''ll be able to trace it back to her. That means I''ll have to leave with her, and that obviously messes with all my ns." Arie exined to Eiro, who slowly crossed his arms.


    "Hm, alright, I think I''ve got a solution for you there. Wait until the end of the schoolday, it''s another six or so hours, I''ll have a way to deal with those Undead Hunters ready for you by then." Eiro pointed out, and Arie seemed a bit taken aback, "What are you-"


    "I''m going to lure them to me, obviously. Believe it or not, but I have an affinity for death magic myself. I can''t use it yet because I didn''t practice it at all, but I do have the affinity. I''ll deal with them. Actually, that''s going to help me even more." Eiro pointed out, "If numerous Undead Hunterse here just to disappear, that''s going to intice the one I want toe just the more."


    Arie stared back at Eiro, considering how lightly he seemed to take this situation. She groaned loudly, "If you don''t give me a good n by the end of the day, I''ll have to think about leaving soon."


    "It won''te to that, don''t worry. Juste meet me at thatke just outside of town. You know, the one where I was waiting for a bunch of people from the organization. We''ll meet there at midnight tonight." The Demon suggested, and Arie groaned slightly and nodded her head, "Fine. Now go back to your sses, I''ll leave again."


    Eiro nodded his head, doing just as Arie suggested as he watched her fly away again. And Eiro began to plot his n out in his mind.


    ---


    Eiro was standing at the edge of the small ind in the center of the frozenke, wearing his new armor with a cloak on top. He watched Ariend on the snow-covered ice, slowly approaching Eiro.


    "Alright, I''m here. What''s your big n, now?" She asked. The tone of her voice was a mixture of angry and hopeful, since she most likely didn''t really want to leave yet.


    "We''re already in the middle of it, Arie." The Demon pointed out, as he held one of his hands forward. From there, a small flower sprouted. Its stem seemed withered and nearly petrified, while its petals seemed to be made of bone. It was a flower that didn''t really exist, created bybining Nature Magic with Death Magic. The Death Magic came from the small Death Magic stone that Eiro still had with him inside of his treasury.


    "I spread these flowers in specific ces in town and the nearby forest. It''s going to definitely lead any ''Undead Hunter'' here, I actually did already spot some of them heading into this direction when I came here. And of course, I''ll take over a different role as well." The Demon pointed out, as he pressed the magic stone in his hand into the small slot in his chestte.


    He let his mana flow into it, then took the magic into his own body, quickly infusing himself with it. Soon, it was like Eiro''s body began to rot, his armor turning into a bone-like substance. Eiro let his will flow into his mana to change the way that he would ''transform'', and soon, his body changed like he wanted it to.


    His horns lost their color and turned into bones, and the flesh seemed to disappear from his wings and tail as they turned into something skeletal.


    Eiro''s skin became pale and unhealthy. It really did look as if he was a walking corpse. As if he was a Lich.


    "So, what do you say?" Eiro asked, his voice sounding raspy as if his throat was falling apart, "Do I look dead enough?"


    The Demon wore a broad smile on his face, showing his yellow, rotting teeth as a smell reminiscent of a corpse escaped his throat.


    Arie took a step back and slowly nodded her head, "Y-Yes... You certainly do... But how..."


    "Ah, I''ll exin itter. Basically, I have the ability to infuse every part of my body with any sort of magic I want without any damage to my being. And not just magic, it''s why I was able to fuse with that slime I introduced you to in the way that I did. Just through him was I able to look like a human." Eiro exined. His introduction was ufortable to listen to due to his voice, and he looked as if he was about to fall over dead any moment now.


    "Either way, that''s not important right now. I suggest you take a step back for now." The Demon said, as he concentrated on his Aura. He strengthened it, fusing some death magic into it. He made sure that anyone with the ability to sense ''death'' would end up taking notice of him.


    "Of course, I-" Eiro started, but quickly stopped when he noticed something approaching, "Arie, take a step back. I''ll show you that I can deal with any ''Undead Hunter'' thates by, no matter their numbers."


    The Nephilim looked at Eiro, this Demon that looked like he was already dead, confidently stepping onto the ice. Eiro squatted down, and quickly caught something slithering through the thick snow. It was a white snake, iling around in Eiro''s hand.


    He could tell that it was hurting his hand just by him holding it. It wasn''t holy, of course, this was just because of the Death Magic Eiro was infused with. This was one of the ''Life Golems'' that Arie mentioned earlier today.


    "Well, hello there. Which of these Hunters is your master, huh? The one hiding behind therge oak tree, the one that climbed the pine, or the one that hid behind the pile of snow?" The Demon asked with a broad grin on his face, before he proceeded to crush the snake''s skull to kill it. But even then, it surprisingly still kept moving. It wasn''t really alive in the first ce, after all.


    These people were just capable of using Life Magic, to an extent. And not particrly strongly either, as far as Eiro could tell. For now, he just had to make sure to threaten these Undead Hunters to lead even more here.


    The Demon got rid of the snow and cleaned up the ice, showing the many corpses frozen within theke that Eiro hid here.


    Seeing these corpses, one of the Undead Hunters chose to get to work immediately before Eiro could animate them. Of course, before he even crossed half theke, Eiro pierced his skull with ice and killed him, making the ice swallow him.


    They were only strong against Death Magic, any other kind would painfully overwhelm them. Clearly, that was the case. One of the others became rather shocked at this sight alone, and seemed ready to leave already. The other one was as confident as before, thinking that the one that was killed was nothing but a fool. That wasn''t just a guess on Eiro''s side either, he heard both of their muttering.


    However, to Eiro''s surprise, what came at the Demon next wasn''t the next Undead Hunter, but rather an animated lump of snow and ice. Since it was ''alive'' right now, Eiro couldn''t manipte it either, and it would obviously be unaffected by any attacks using ice-magic.


    It was a clever tactic, so Eiro chose to y along for now to make the Hunter more confident. The Demon used ice magic to try and get rid of the snow-creature, as more and more of them were created by the Hunter.


    And using them as a cover, the hunter himself tried to approach Eiro, who kept acting like he was in trouble. Until the man was close enough, of course, which was when Eiro stopped his act. With a snap of his finger, mes appeared in the middle of the air and started to melt the snow-creatures, showing the shocked Undead Hunter.


    "Sorry, but you''ll be fodder for the Queen of Undeath as well." The Demon smiled, as he killed the second Undead Hunter. He exerted an aura that would scare most people off, as it did with thest Undead Hunter, who Eiro quickly let get away.


    "Undead Hunters are rare, especially those that can actually use Life Magic. Most of them tend to use Holy Magic. Out of these three, just the second one could actually use it, I think. The snake was also his golem.


    "Wait, three? So you''re just letting one of them get away?" Arie asked, "Why would you do that?"


    "Because he''s going to find the other Undead Hunters, who I know he already made contact with, to lead them here. I want to get rid of anyone with Life Magic that''s here, for now.. I don''t care about the others, they''re glorified Pdins, nothing else."

 Chapter 383 - Undead Girl

    Eiro sat down on a small throne of ice that he made for himself, while Arie looked down at the corpses within the ice.


    "You killed all of these people?" She asked, and Eiro quietlyughed in response, "I''d hope so. I would be surprised if they were still alive." The Demon pointed out. The Nephilim turned around with a light frown.


    "You know exactly that wasn''t where I''m going." Arie groaned, "Why did you kill all of these people?"


    "To ascend in the organization''s rankings, of course. Oh, and to gather ''offerings'' for someone."


    "The Necromancer that you want toe here?" Arie replied. Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Exactly. I figured she would be happy to get some good materials out ofing here, at least. Considering that I don''t have any direct ns to have her deal with the necromancer I''m hinting at in the rumors."


    Arie crossed her arms with a smirk, "Yeah, I''d be surprised if you wanted her to kill you."


    Eiro raised his brows confused, "What? I''m not talking about myself, I''m talking about the actual incredibly powerful Necromancer that''s hiding out here in town. I just know that I''d have to help her, and I don''t want to bother with that. The Necromancer is currently in a location where he won''t be able to mess with anyone for now, at least not at a grand level."


    "...There''s actually a powerful Necromancer here in town?" Arie asked with a wry smile, and Eiro stared back at her, "Of course there is. I figured you''d know, having been Letter ''C'' until not too long ago."


    "I don''t know everything about this town either. But wait, I don''t get it, if there''s already a powerful Necromancer here, then why are you luring another one to this ce?" The Nephilim asked Eiro, while the Demon locked eyes with her.


    "...Alright, why exactly do you think I need that Necromancer toe here?" Eiro asked, and Arie tilted her head to the side, "Because you want to create an Undead army to take out ''The Devil''?"


    Eiro slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose as he shook his head, "No, that''s not why. I''m not going to use Undead, they won''t be of much help anyway. ''The Devil'' is probably amongst the weaker Royals,bat-wise, he''s just an incredible plotter. A trickster, schemer. Idiotic Undead that won''t be able to see through the slightest of tricks are just going to be useless."


    "...So why am I here, if this isn''t about ''The Devil''?" Arie asked confused, and Eiro stared at her, slightly taken aback, "Arie, you''re the one that told me to deal with the ''Undead Hunters''. That''s why you''re here. So that you can rest assured that nothing will happen to that friend of yours. Why would you think this was about ''The Devil''?"


    Eiro let out a deep sigh, "If you don''t want to be here anymore, then you can head off. But don''t bother me because of Undead Hunters anymore. And by the way, just to put this out there, you could easily take care of these guys yourself. You didn''t even need my help." Eior pointed out, and Arie turned away for a moment.


    "I know I could. I already killed one of them earlier today. The reason why I came to you wasn''t so that you would kill them all, but so that you could take responsibility for the problems you''ve caused. Which you''re obviously not doing, because you don''t think anything is wrong."


    "Yeah, nothing is wrong because this was within my expectations. Rather, I wanted them toe here, so that I could give the Necromancer something fun to y around with. It''s not my fault that your little friend is a novice Necromancer that doesn''t know how to hide her magic." Eiro groaned, "If you''re that worried about her, just give her your artifact. It can hide that kind of stuff, can''t it?"


    Arie looked at Eiro with a deep re, "You''re a piece of shit, you know that?"


    "Yes, of course I know that. But here I am, trying to deal with your shitty insecurities anyway. And again, I don''t fucking know why you would be scared of these weak-ass Life Mages and Pdins. They''re literally not the lightest threat to you. Just stay around your friend for a while, and deal with anything thates up. It''s not like the Undead Hunters are going to be a huge threat to her anyway with you around. Even if they fling Life Magic everywhere, your friend''s going to be totally fine. Necromancers aren''t injured by-" Eiro started to get slightly heated as he talked back at Arie, and then finally realized.


    He slumped down into his ice-throne and groaned loudly, "By Lady Winter, just fucking tell me that she''s an undead next time, will you?"


    "Wh-What? How do you..." Arie took a step back, shocked, as she locked eyes with Eiro. The Demon rolled his eyes, "Simple. Because you wouldn''t be afraid otherwise. You can kill any Undead Hunter you want, but if they use some form of Life Golem, which seemed to be your greatest concern anyway, to sneak past your perception, they can still be a threat. The only way that''s possible is if your friend isn''t just a Necromancer, but an Undead herself. Let me guess ¨C she''s some form of lich?"


    "..." Arie silently stared back at Eiro, and then slowly turned away, "She''s not a lich, she''s just a ''Skeleton Mage'', ording to her race... I met her a few months ago on my searches. Shepletely kept her memories from when she was alive. It''s because of a skill of hers, it''s a-"


    "Unique skill. Figures. Those are honestly a pain. Alright, change of ns. I didn''t want you toe there yet. Tomorrow at 8pm,e to my house with the girl." The Demon said, quickly writing the exact location down on a piece of paper that he then handed to Arie, "It''s a safe ce for her to be, and we''ll be able to figure something out. And I have someone to introduce you to. It''s just that, if you don''t behave when you meet them, I''ll have to kill you." Eiro said bluntly, "Even though I clearly don''t want to."


    "I don''t know if that''s really as ''clear'' as you want it to be." Arie replied, "Fine, I''ll trust you with this. But I swear, if this is some sort of trick, I''m not going to hesitate to try and kill you either."


    Eiro quickly shrugged, "Yup, I know. Now, I don''t think that they''re going toe back tonight, so you can head off for now. I''m sure you''re worried about the girl."


    The Demon locked eyes with Arie, who slowly nodded her head, "You''re right, I''m incredibly worried. Thanks." The Nephilim replied, as she spread out her wings. She quickly lifted herself off the ground, and proceeded to fly off toward town.


    Meanwhile, Eiro was sitting there, deep in thought, "Alright, I guess it''s time for me to go on a hunt." The demon pointed out. He got rid of the Death Magic he was infused with, and stretched his body to get rid of this stuffy feeling that came with this sort of infusion. He took a deep breath as he took the first step forward, and buried his foot inside of the ice. With as much force as he could muster without cracking the ice, Eiro jumped forward and pped his wings for the extra boost.


    Luckily, the ''Undead Hunter'' that ran away was still close enough for Eiro to catch up to him. It''s only been a few minutes since he ran away, after all. Eiro made sure to move without making a sound, before proceeding to dive right into the Hunter''s shadow without him noticing. Here, Eiro would simply hide out until this Undead Hunter met up with others of the same trade, so that he could jump out and kill them all at once.


    That might make the whole process a bit easier than having to wait for them. Maybe Eiro could even catch one of them if they had ess to Life Magic to study the element a bit more. And if they were alive, the Queen of Undeath would possibly appreciate them as a gift as well. Eiro just wanted to make sure that he could get on her good side as quickly as possible. A lot was depending on them getting along, now that Eiro alreadyid out everything to lure her to this capital city.


    Luckily, it seemed like Eiro would soon get ess to the perfect gifts for her.


    ---


    Eiro sat inside of his study and kept note of the current progress of his ns, and what exactly he would have to do for everything to proceed properly.


    "Alright, at this rate, I''m definitely going to have evolved one more time by the start of the tournament this summer. Except if this evolution happens in apletely different way, that is. Nelli, do you know anything about Monsters with Legendary skills?"


    The Naiad floated next to the Demon and hummed in thought, "Nope, I don''t think so. Haven''t heard of anything like that before. But I wouldn''t imagine it to be too different from evolution through the cards?"


    "But those are Unique Evolutions. This is going to be a Legendary Evolution. It''s going to be on a whole other level. Maybe I should try and speed the process up a bit?"


    "Well, you could always spend your free-time to go hunt monsters. You know there''s this ''Noble Alliance'' that was recently found." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro crossed his arms in thought, "Maybe I should just wipe that ce out, yeah. A couple of strong Noble monsters should push my level up by a handful. Or I could go for it and try to kill ''The Death'' once the ''Queen'' gets here. She can steal its techniques, I get the experience. Everyone would be happy, right?"


    Just as Eiro was saying this, he slowly turned around. He noticed someone approaching this building from the distance.


    "Well, I guess we should keep plotting all this sometimeter. For now, we have a guest to entertain." Eiro slowly opened the window and jumped out of it, carefullynding on the area at the front of the manor.


    Just a couple of meters in front of him, Ariended, while holding someone that was tightly wrapped in cloth. Eiro could see her form anyway.


    It was the skeletal girl that Arie was speaking about. Arie carefully set her down, and the girl looked around nervously. Her hollow eye-sockets seeming to pull in any bit of light around. Cracks were covering her skull in multiple parts, barely holding her together.


    Eiro could tell that she had quite a bit of mana, a monstrous amount. However, something else was even weirder. She had something that no Undead should possess.. This Undead girl possessed Life Force.

 Chapter 384 - Asylum

    Eiro red at the girl. Just from her rough skeletal structure, she couldn''t have been older than 13 or 14 when she passed. That is, if this was her first form as a monster. If she happened to have evolved already, Eiro had no proper way of knowing what she looked like when she was still alive.


    She had scratches on her bones, cracks. In particr, her hands had been broken many times before. Slowly, the Demon grabbed his own left hand and started twisting and pulling on his fingers. The only way they could have been cracked in that form is if they were forcibly broken by another person.


    Her ribs in particr were in a bad state as well. Clearly, she had been abused when she was alive. Undead monsters heal in other ways, such cracks wouldn''t form after healing anymore. But then again, since she had Life Force within her, she wasn''t any regr Undead anyway.


    "Girl. Open your status for me." The Demon said in a clear voice, and confused, the skeletal girl turned toward Arie, who didn''t seem to know what this was about either.


    But then, the girl looked straight back at Eiro and opened her status, like Eiro asked her to do.


    "So she''s really a Skeleton Mage, then..." Eiro muttered. He wasn''t able to see the reflection of her status in her eyes, but he was able to see through the unnatural darkness of her hollow eyesockets, soon spotting something simr that he could read.


    "Ah, that must be the skill... <The Beauty of Life in Death>. It''s the only one it could be, the others are just regr ones." Eiro pointed out with his arms crossed, "Just from the name, it would exin why she has that in her..."


    "Wait, what are you talking about? How do you know the name of her skill already?" Arie asked, and Eiro turned toward her. As if it was obvious, he said, "I probably have the greatest perception out of anyone in this world. I can see the system''s reflection in others'' eyes, andbined with some other abilities, I could see it even where there were no eyes."


    "You believe me to expect th-" Without a moment''s hesitation, Eiro pulled out two of his Divine Cards. The other ones were fused with him, after all, "I have four of these in total. The Five of Pentacles being one of them."


    With a flick of his wrist, the cards quickly disappeared again, "Now, juste inside. We shouldn''t talk out here about this business. And don''t worry, there''s no need to disguise yourself or anything." Eiro quickly turned around and walked up the steps to his door. Arie and the skeletal girl followed him, although the Nephilim was clearly nervous.


    "Are you sure it''s safe here? There''s no way you can squat in here for long... Once they notice you live in here, you''ll have to-"


    "What are you talking about exactly?" Eiro asked, "I''m not squatting here, this ce belongs to me."


    Eiro kept walking a bit, before realizing something else, "Hold on, did you think I was impersonating a teacher at the Academy? Or why did you think I was there?"


    "...You weren''t?" Arie asked with a wry smile, and Eiro quickly rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Seems like I''ll have to tell you a bit more about myselfter."


    Eiro swiftly walked into one of the nearby rooms, "Jess, what are you doing in here? I thought I told you to keep reading in the library."


    "I know you did, but I''m still reading the book you gave me anyway... I just felt like changing my environment a bit, you know? I slept in the library for the past two days, I didn''t even get to spend any time with-" Jess exined, and finally raised her head from the book she was reading. Immediately, she dropped it onto the table in front of her and jumped up from her seat.


    "I-Is that an Angel? And an Undead? Alright, I''m definitely going to take a break for this story!" Jess eximed, and Eiro shrugged, "Close, Nephilim and an Undead that''s not really an Undead. Didn''t figure thetter one out yet, I''ll keep you updated."


    Eiro soon felt Arie grab his arm in confusion, "Didn''t you say there was nobody here?"


    The Demon tilted his head to the side, "No? I said you would be safe here, which you are."


    "But how could we trust some random girl like he-"


    "Arie. Jess is my friend and party member. I fully trust her with nearly all my secrets, and there''s a lot more on the line than with any of yours. So just calm down. Also try not to react that way when you meet the others."


    Arie was once again more than just confused, before all of a sudden a young man dropped through the ceiling. He managed to just barely catch himself.


    "Hey Dad, Rudy said we''re out of some veggies he wanted to use for tomorrow''s dinner." Arc pointed out casually after just taking one of the many secret passages in the building, and quickly took notice of the two people standing behind his father, "Heh, neat. Anyway, want us to go grab them tomorrow after school?"


    "That''s fine, I''ll just head off to buy them myself tomorrow. You can juste straight home." Eiro pointed out, "Also, be more careful when using the passages. I''d prefer it if you didn''t use thepletely vertical ones. At least not when Clementine or I aren''t around to check on you."


    "Fine... Can you give me a boost upstairs though?" Arc asked with a light smirk, and Eiro sighed slightly. He stretched out his foot toward Arc, who quickly jumped onto it before being kicked back up through the secret passageway to get back upstairs.


    "B-But, how- Who- What?" Arie asked with a wry smile as she took a step back, "Is this some sort of asylum?!"


    "That''s kind of rude, isn''t it?" Eiro replied bluntly, "For now, just be quiet and follow me."


    The Demon walked through the room and soon essed another one of the hidden passages, just that this time it was a set of stairs, "Where are we going now..?"


    "We''re meeting someone that can hopefully help you out a bit." The Demon pointed out a bit. As he walked down the stairs, he soon heard Bavet annoyingly yell in the distance in the ce that Eiro was currently heading toward.


    "You''re abusing me!" The slime screeched, while the Elder Dwarf in front of him quietly grumbled into his own beard, "I''ll show you what abuse feels like if ya don''t shut the fuck up..."


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Something wrong?"


    Immediately, Bavet transformed from his regr, translucent slime-form into a hummingbird and started flying in front of the Demon''s face, "Yes, something is wrong! This guy keeps ripping off parts of my body!"


    "Bavet, that''s what I asked him to do. I also exined the whole reason for it to you earlier, didn''t I?"


    "Eh? You did?" Bavet asked surprised, and Eiro groaned loudly, "Yes, I did. Armodeus, how''s it going so far?"


    "Alright. Could''ve gone quicker if this bastard hadn''t keptinin''. Tried liquifyin'' it, so that ye can use Magic with it properly. Should be harder than normal, but I figured it''d work."


    "Perfect. Thanks. Ah, these two are the ones I told you about. This Nephilim is Arie, this Undead girl is Hannah." Eiro pointed out. He had seen her name on her status before, and although that should be obvious, the two girls were still pretty surprised that Eiro knew the girl''s name.


    Armodeus smiled and walked up to the skeletal girl with a smile on his face, "Nice to meet ya, lil'' missie. So you''re the one that I have to put up with this bothersome slime for, eh?" Heughed slightly, while Arie locked eyes with Eiro.


    "Is nobody alright in the head here? Who reacts like this?"


    "I''m a Demon that''s under full control of his monstrosity, possesses four divine cards, and has numerous absolutely ridiculous abilities. An Undead and a Nephilim aren''t that big a deal, considering all that." Eiro pointed out bluntly, and Arie let out a deep sigh, "Fine, if you say so. Exin to me what''s going on then. Why was this... Human, working on something for Hannah?"


    "First of all, he''s not a Human, he''s an Elder Dwarf. Second, try to be a bit more appreciative, not everyone can get something that the King of Craftsmen even just partially created." Eiro smirked lightly, but before Arie could say anything else, the Demon grabbed the container filled with a liquid alchemically created by Armodeus using Bavet''s slime.


    "Armodeus, there''s a bit of a change of n. Before, I meant to make something to just disguise her. But now, I n on making something a little different. The Girl has Life Force, so we can make her some special prosthetics." Eiro smirked.


    "Life Force? In an Undead? Interestin''. D''ya need my help?" Armodeus asked curiously, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yes, I need you to use the Artifact that Arie has and make an artificial version of it. You do roughly know how to, right?"


    "...Aye, been readin'' all that stuff you gave me non-stop.. And I think I roughly know what you want to do now." The Elder Dwarf smirked, "Let''s bring this lil'' missie back to life, eh?"

 Chapter 385 - Not Really Undead

    "Eiro, just stop and tell me. What did he mean when he said ''bring her back to life''?" Arie asked Eiro, following him as the Demon made his way outside into the gardens.


    "Obviously we won''t really bring her back to life, that''s impossible. At least for us, it is. We''re just going to make her seem alive, that''s all." Eiro said bluntly, while the Nephilim behind him quickly grabbed his arm to make him stop.


    "Just stop and exin it already. And why do you want me to give my Artifact to this ''Armodeus'' guy?" She asked. Eiro stopped, turned around, and looked the Nephilim deep into her eyes, "Again, we want to make her seem alive. I gave Armodeus the information about artificial artifacts that I collected, so he''s going to adapt that to your artifact and create an artificial version of it that we can use to help Hannah seem more alive. And on top of that, I''m going to give her a few special prosthetics that she can use as well. You can trust us, we just want to help."


    "Oh really? You sure there''s not some other reason behind it?" Arie asked, and Eiro thought about it for a moment before shrugging, "I mean, she''s also a pretty good test-subject for this kind of stuff in general. Armodeus can figure out how to make artificial artifacts, and I can test out how to make adaptive prosthetics. If I can figure out how to make a prosthetic voice-box for Hannah so that she can actually talk, I should be able to help out a bunch of new people."


    Arie seemed even more taken aback than before, "What... What really are you? Are you really a Demon?"


    "Mostly." Eiro replied in a blunt tone, and quickly turned around. He finally reached his special ''orchard''. The Demon smiled a bit as he saw Hannah curiously look around in this hidden-away area of the gardens.


    "You can look around a bit if you want." Eiro snapped his finger, making Nelli quickly appear, "Nelli, make sure she doesn''t go toward the more dangerous saplings. That means Holy Energy, Fire, and Gravity. Alright?"


    "You got it~!" The Naiad replied, and swiftly flew over toward the young, skeletal girl. It seemed like she tried to say something, orugh even, but considering that she didn''t have a voice box anymore, that was clearly impossible.


    Once the young girl and the Naiad were a bit away, just ying around a bit, Arie looked at Eiro curiously, "What is this ce?"


    With a smile on his face, Eiro looked around at the, so far, quite small trees growing here. Some had bark that was like rock, others had a glistering ice-like surface. Basically any magical element that Eiro had ess to had its own tree here, slowly growing.


    Of course, there were also ''personal'' trees for the kids here, just in case anything was going to happen to them and they needed a prosthetic.


    "Just something I need for work. Oh, and I don''t mean teaching or adventuring. I''m a Prosthetist, I think I mentioned it to you before." Eiro quickly exined, and proceeded to take out a small ss bottle out of his satchel. He pulled out the cork and let the seed drop into the ground. It was quickly swallowed up by the dirt, before Eiro grabbed the bottle of liquid that Armodeus gave to him.


    "If you want to watch, that''s fine, but I would prefer it if you could head over and finally give Armodeus your artifact. What kind is it, anyway?" Eiro inquired. Arie looked at Eiro nervously, and finally pushed her hand into her cleavage, pulling out a small amulet hanging around her neck.


    "It belonged to my father. He used it to disguise himself as a human, and then met my mother. Ever since then, I''ve used it myself." Arie exined. Eiro took a look at the amulet, trying to analyze it properly, "Hm, alright then. It does work with others besides just angels, or angel-descendants, right?"


    "Yeah it does. It works with anyone with the intelligence to use it. So... Humanoids can turn into other humanoids, and beasts, if they happen to be smart enough, can turn into other beasts." Arie exined, "And of course, it can easily hide things like wings or horns."


    "Hm, alright then." Eiro pointed out, "Then it would definitely work well with the prosthetic I''ll make."


    "...Sure it will." The Nephilim replied, and Eiro quickly started to get to work. He poured out the bottle of especially liquified slime, and fused it into the seed using magic.


    For now, Eiro just made sure to make the seed sprout, fusing the slime-liquid with it as much as he could. By pushing his will into his mana, Eiro was already able to change the small sapling to an extent. The wood could turn harder or softer, lighter or darker in color. It could even turn into slightly more flesh-like than normal.


    Eiro took a deep breath, and after a few minutes of manipting the seed further, it was ready for the next step, "Hannah, can youe over here for a second?" The Demon asked, before the young skeletal girl quickly came skipping over toward him.


    "Could you ce your hands onto this, and just pour your mana inside? Just as much as you can. I know you have quite a lot of it." The Demon pointed out, and the girl slowly nodded his head.


    At the same moment, he stretched his hand out toward Nelli, who quickly fused to him. Eiro was able to see the flow of mana within this girl now.


    "Like I thought." Eiro muttered as Nelli split off again, "She''s really not a normal Undead in any way."


    Arie looked at Eiro, "What do you mean? What just happened?"


    Eiro slowly crossed his arms as he looked the Nephilim into her eyes, "For one, she has ''Life Force''. If you don''t know what that is, you could say it''s basically an energy within us. Our ''Health''. It''s like Mana, basically. Well, Undead don''t have ''Health'', they have something like... Durability, I guess. She does, and thates from her Unique skill, I''d assume. She still has ''Life'', even in ''Death''. But more than that, what''s quite interesting, is that she''s her own Necromancer."


    "...Could you exin that a bit more?"


    "So, Undead also don''t have Mana. They usually don''t even have souls. There are exceptions of course, like Lichs. They''re rather rare, though. Undead are just artificially brought to life through Death Magic. The mana that usual undead mages usees directly from their Necromancer. However, Hannah has her own mana, and a surreal amount of it, at that. It''s twice what I have. And I''ve gone through multiple unique evolutions." Throughout Eiro''s exnation, he made sure that Hannah was properly helping the sapling grow by pushing her mana inside, assisting inpressing it as much as possible so that Eiro could then use the mana together with Nature Magic to make it grow all at once.


    Arie looked down at Hannah, and soon squatted down next to her, "Is that so..?"


    "Mhm, it is. Honestly, the fact that she had a status was weird enough in itself. Undead don''t-"


    "Have it, I get the gist of it now, yeah." The Nephilim replied, and Eiro slowly nodded his head in response, "Alright, then I don''t have to repeat myself."


    After a little while more, it seemed like Hannah had slowly exhausted a lot of her mana. Enough for Eiro to think it was fine to proceed for now.


    He ced his hands onto the sapling, and manipted Hannah''s mana using his own, slowly letting the sapling absorb it as it grewrger andrger in size. Soon, it reached up to Eiro''s hip, then his chest, and not muchter, it was already towering over him.


    It certainly had enough wood to make all the prosthetics that Eiro wanted to for Hannah. With one fell swoop, Eiro cut through the base of the log, and soon cleaned it up by removing small twigs and leaves. He just wanted the thicker branches and the main log itself. The rest was basically useless. Eiro wrapped his arms around the log and quickly picked it up.


    "Now then,dies, let''s head back to Armodeus'' workshop." The Demon suggested with a smile on his face, and the Nephilim and Undead girl quickly followed Eiro back toward the manor. Eiro carefully brought it back to the room that the elder Dwarf was waiting in.


    "Ah, back already, I see? And with everythin'' we''ll need... Your magic really is quite convenient, ain''t it?" Armodeus asked with augh, and Eiro quickly nodded her head, "I would say so at least, yes. Now, sorry that Arie didn''t give you her artifact, she''s going to do so now. Isn''t that right?"


    The Nephilim nervously looked down at the amulet around her neck, and slowly nodded her head, "If it''s really to help Hannah out, then sure..."


    "Here we go, then." Eiro watched Arie pass the artifact to Armodeus, who took a quick look at it.


    "Just give me a bit of time, will ya? Might take a bit till I''ve figured this out."


    "Of course, of course, I''m just going to work on parts for her arm for now. So that we can test this properly." The Demon suggested, and quickly cut off a piece of wood from the log by his side.. And then, he started to carve it apart.

 Chapter 386 - Prosthetic Skin

    Eiro slowly ced the carefully carved pieces of wood down to the side. He held a small piece of it in his hand and held it to the side toward Bavet, "Try and transform it for a second."


    The slime slowly tapped his core against the wood, and within a quick moment, the finger-sized piece of wood turned into metal. Of course it wasn''t real metal, it just looked like it. It still only had the strength of the base wood, which really wasn''t all that strong to begin with. And it would probably be hard to spot for others, but it was still possible to see that it was some form of wood, at the end of the day.


    But luckily, it wasn''t really turning back into its regr form. It was staying this sort of metallic thing, which was exactly what Eiro wanted to happen. That''s why he made this wood in this way, instead of just having Bavet split off a part of his main body. After all, while it would hold out for a while, Bavet had to directly concentrate on it, and it wasn''t possible to do it for much longer than half an hour yet. Bavet was practicing it, though.


    Eiro pulled the piece back, and slowly held it in his hands. He pushed his mana into it, overwrititing Bavet''s transformation of the wood with his own will and control over chaos and order. And just like that, the wood turned back into its original form.


    "Perfect." The Demon smiled, and soon started to whistle a bit as he continued to finish the pieces for the arm up. Everything was slowlying together, and Eiro looked over at Armodeus. It seemed like he was still in the middle of his work in creating the artificial artifact.


    "How long will it take?" The Demon asked, and Armodeus thought for a bit. He slowly pulled away from the piece of metal in front of him that he was working on with some of his mana, making use of his artificer-abilities, "It''ll have to keep forming for about a day now, but after that it should all be ready. I''m basically done with this, do you want me to quickly inscribe the inside of the parts?"


    "Sounds good. Sorry, I would do it myself, but I didn''t actually get around to getting the Artificing skill yet."


    "Don''t worry about it,d. Even so, there''s no way ye''d catch up to my skill any time soon." Armodeus pointed out with a smug grin on his face, "Just you wait, I''ll get there someday."


    "Hah, can''t wait to see that happenin''!" The Elder Dwarf grinned broadly. Eiro smirked a bit as he handed the pieces of wood to the man next to him. With a light smile and a deep breath, Armodeus quickly carved certain runes into the inside of the pieces of wood that Eiro prepared.


    And ''quickly'' was not an exaggeration in this case, he truly managed to finish within a minute. That is what ''Ultimate Dexterity'' made possible.


    "Perfect, thank you." Eiro said quickly, and turned around toward Hannah, "Now, stretch out your left hand." The Demon said to her with a smile, and the undead girl slowly turned her head toward Arie. The Nephilim simply nodded to encourage her, and Hannah nervously pushed her hand forward.


    Carefully, Eiro grabbed that hand and slightly tugged on Hannah''s fingers to straighten them out for a moment. The Demon looked at her, straight into her hollow eye sockets, "Don''t worry, no need to be scared. I have a simr one myself."


    Eiro pointed out, waving his wooden hand in front of the girl''s face. Carefully, he started fixing the specific parts that he just carved in ce, and proceeded to exin, "This is going to be a special prosthetic. One, it''s going to help you blend in amongst people. Just the prosthetic would allow you to get past most people, as long as you still try to not stick out, that is. There are some that can see through it though. The kind of people you''d need to worry about in the first ce."


    "...And to trick thest bit, you need the artificial artifact?" Arie asked. Eiro quickly replied with a nod.


    "Exactly. The potency of artificial artifacts is horrendously loweredpared to the originals. And since Armodeus doesn''t have much experience in this sort of thing, while he is the greatest craftsman alive, he wouldn''t be able to make up for that lowered potency yet. That''s going to take a while." Eiro exined, "For now, we''re going tobine my ability to create these prosthetics with the artificial artifact. The upside of this is also that you might be able to feel a bit of touch here and there again."


    Arie stared down at Eiro confused, "Is that even possible? But..."


    "Of course it would be. This is also a way where Hannah differs to normal undead. Regr ones are unable to sense anything, they just have the information conveyed to them through their creator''s senses. As for Hannah, she can see and hear, even without any of the sensory organs to make it possible. By that logic, it should be possible to extend that ability of hers toward my prosthetics. This wood should be a fine conductor for her mana and abilities." The Demon exined to the two girls, as Eiro quickly finished fixing the prosthetic around Hannah''s left arm, up to her elbow.


    "Try moving your arm around a bit, alright?" Eiro asked her. Hannah slowly stretched out her hand and formed a fist. She curled her wrist a bit, and turned toward Arie more than just excited. Without a moment''s hesitation, she picked up the pen that Eiro prepared for her and started writing onto a piece of paper.


    ''I can move it just fine!'' Hannah wrote in an excited manner, and Eiro simply smirked, "That''s not even all. Now, for the next bit, I need you to empty out your mind. It''s going to feel a bit ufortable, tingly... It might even hurt a bit. But I need you to promise me you won''t push me out. Alright?"


    Hannah was clearly quite confused, but she slowly nodded her head. So, Eiro wrapped his hand around hers, and tried to take control of her Life Force. Usually, this shouldn''t be possible. But before, when he was obvserving Hannah''s flow of magic after merging with Nelli for a moment, he realized that her soul hadn''t lost its shape despite her obviousck of flesh.


    That Unique skill was a rather powerful one, it seemed, if it was strong enough to keep the shape of her very soul intact. However, since this was the case, it was also possible for Eiro to really give her these prosthetics. The Demon pulled the Life Force into the prosthetic wooden skin. Hannah really was squirming, but she held out quite well nheless. Soon, Eiro pulled his hands away.


    "Now, try to move your hand again." The Demon suggested. Hannah did as told, and while her hand was incredibly shaky before, only being kept together through magic, it now moved nearly as it normally would. Of course a bit slower and more sluggishly, but nheless ¨C It obviously worked.


    Even more excited than before, Hannah jumped up from where she had taken a seat. She moved her two hands around, to see the difference made up by the prosthetic even more clearly. Immediately, Hannah hugged Arie happily, before soon looking back at Eiro.


    "Don''t worry, don''t worry, I''ll start working with more right away. I-" Eiro started to say, although he quickly stopped, "I... Have to take care of something first."


    Dropping everything, Eiro moved toward the door and opened it up. He ran through the basement''s hallway and rushed toward the stairs. He had focused all of his attention onto Hannah''s life force just now, to make sure that he didn''t mess anything up, so he nearly missed this just now. He was lucky that he saw her approach.


    "Now, what do you think you''re doing here?" Eiro asked with a light re, and the girl standing there soon locked eyes with the Demon, "Shouldn''t you be asleep already? How did you get past your siblings that easily?"


    "I''m not tired, Daddy!" Avalin eximed loudly, "I want to y with you!"


    "Sorry, sweetie... I don''t have time to y with you right now... We''ll y tomorrow, alright?"


    "You said that yesterday! I want to y now!" She yelled out loudly, and quickly grabbed onto Eiro''s hand, dedicated to not let go of him anymore.


    "Sorry...?" In the distance, Arie seemingly heard exactly what Avalin said, "Eiro, do you have another daughter?"


    The Nephilim approached with swift footsteps. She seemed to be more interested in Eiro''s life now. Under any other circumstance, Eiro would have been happy, but since Avalin acts on whims hard for even Eiro to predict sometimes, this was a situation he didn''t n on even happening.


    "Avalin,e on. I''ll just bring you to bed now, and then we''re-"


    "No! I want to y with Daddy now!" She yelled loudly, throwing one of her tantrums. Eiro just nned on ignoring it and quickly rushing her upstairs anyway, but then he suddenly felt a jolt throughout his body as a white-golden spark jumped off his hand.


    "What just-" Eiro muttered, and Avalin pulled her hand back, startled by the spark. Immediately, tears gathered in her eyes as she started to furiously bawl.


    "Don''t worry, don''t worry, everything is fine, sweetheart. It''s not likest time, it didn''t even hurt." Eiro reassured her, and quickly pulled her into a hug. The Demon rubbed his hand over the back of her head and tried to calm her down. At this point, Arie caught up to the Demon, and of course was able to see what was going on.


    Smoke was rising off of Eiro''s body wherever he touched Avalin, and the Demon and the Nephilim locked eyes for a moment.


    "There''s no way... Is that girl the..." Arie asked, and Eiro simply red at her. Slowly, he mouthed the sentence ''Do not say another word'', trying to make her turn around and head back to the other room as if nothing happened. But of course, Arie wouldn''t just y along with this.


    "I told you that I needed her help, and you just go and hide her from me? What the fuck is wrong with you?!" The Nephilim yelled out, and Eiro immediately red at her, making the woman''s body shiver all over.


    Using wind magic, Eiro made sure that only Arie would be able to hear his words now, to make sure there was no misunderstanding, "Don''t swear around my daughter."

 Chapter 387 - The Devil Laughs At You

    "Did you finally calm down again? I already told you, I''m totally fine." Eiro said in a calm voice, looking his youngest daughter into her eyes. Avalin slowly nodded her head as she looked back at the Demon, who just continued to slowly run his hand over her head.


    Carefully, Eiro picked her up and started to carry her up the stairs again. Avalin seemed to have exhausted herself quite a bit after crying that much just now. Eiro couldn''t me her either, she was really bawling. So for now, the Demon just figured he should bring her to her room and get her to sleep.


    He kept reassuring her that he was totally fine as he quietly walked up to her room, and soon she was sleeping in her bed, one that was actually far toorge for her.


    Eiro stayed with her a bit longer to make sure she really fell asleep, and then quietly left the room again. However, Arie now stood there right in front of him, wanting an answer from the Demon.


    "I''m going to ask again, why didn''t you tell me that you had the Priestess all along?" Arie asked, "Using her, we can achieve our goal of killing ''The Devil'' far quicker!"


    Eiro took a step toward the woman in front of him, locking eyes with her, "And that''s exactly what the issue is. One, I don''t ''have'' the Priestess. That girl is my daughter, Avalin. Nothing more, nothing less. Two, how can you even think of ''using'' an eight years old girl like that?"


    "But that''s her whole reason for existing! She was born with the powers of the Holy Priestess, what other meaning does her life have?!" Arie eximed, but Eiro blocked the sound off so that Avalin wouldn''t be woken up by this.


    "That''s for her to decide. If she wants to be someone fighting monsters in the future, I''ll support her with all I have to make sure she doesn''t die. If she wants to be a scientist, artist, musician, or whatever other profession she wants to be, I''ll support her with all I have as well. What she is going to do with her life is nothing that you, I, or anyone else has the right to decide. Do you understand?" Eiro said in a growling voice, and Arie nearly flinched back hearing how angry Eiro had gotten.


    She ced her hand around her neck, trying to grab the amulet that wasn''t even there anymore right now, nervously, "I don''t get why you''re trying to stop her from fulfilling her destiny... It''s why she was born! Why do you-"


    "Because I don''t want her to fight a battle she was thrown into by others. I guess this is as good a time as any to do this. After my next evolution, I''ll have the power to be a Royal. ''The World'', to be exact. Then, I''m going to go with you and kill ''The Devil'', so that I can get a specific card from him. Using that Card, I will then steal the aspect of the Hero''s soul that keeps getting pushed onto other people, and then I''ll kill the Monster King, so that I can take that burden onto myself as well. All at once, I will stop this useless cycle of neverending war. And do you know what I''ll do then? I''lle home, and tell my daughter a fucking bedtime story." With anger clearly deep within his voice, Eiro stepped past Arie and walked down the hallway toward the stairs. And the Nephilim stood there confused.


    "What... What do you mean, you want to... be the Hero and Monster King at the same time?" Arie asked. Eiro turned his head toward the woman, and nodded his head, "Yes. To create a world in which my children, their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and all their descendants will be able to live in peace. The existences of both the Hero and the Monster King are those creating constant chaos, they are beings that should not exist on their own, let alone at the same time. So, I''ll turn myself into the amalgamation of all that Chaos. That''s not that hard to understand, is it?"


    Arie nervously looked at Eiro''s back, "Wh-What is it you really want...? There''s no way that you really just want those random children to live a ''happy life''!"


    "Is it so hard to believe that a father wants his children to be safe and happy?" Eiro red at Arie, "Nowe on. There''s another child that I want to help right now."


    In silence, Arie and Eiro walked back down into the basement, where Armodeus was already waiting. He had been trying to make sure that Hannah didn''t follow after them. He probably got the gist of the situation after hearing Avalin''s voice on the other end of the hallway.


    Quietly, Eiro sat down on the stool he was sitting on before, and grabbed another piece of wood.


    "Bavet. Show Hannah and Arie to the ''Soldier''s Quarters''. And just to make sure, I don''t mean the Dungeon with that." Eiro said in a clear tone, and the Slime slowly turned into his humanoid form. As he wascking quite a bit of mass due to Armodeus taking it from him, he could only turn into a child this time around, though.


    "Of course, no way I''d make thosedies live with that maniac in there. You know that he''s been trying to eat his own armtely, right?" Bavet smirked a bit, as if he found that idea amusing.


    "I know. I''m going to train that out of him sooner orter. For now, I honestly don''t give the slightest shit about what happens to his body." Eiro pointed out, "As long as he''s in his cell, at least."


    Quietly, Arie pushed Hannah out of the room, ncing at Eiro as she left. The moment that the door closed, Eiro stopped working and stood up. Armodeus was looking at the Demon with worry in his eyes, as Eiro started slowly pacing around the room.


    "Is everythin'' alright,d?" Armodeus asked, and Eiro turned toward him. Eiro''s eyes were slowly turning red in anger, "Hm? Of course, everything is alright. Just that the one being who I for some fucking reason seem to have even an ounce of romantic interest in wants to use my eight years old daughter for her own selfish reasons, while that daughter''s Holy Energy keeps growing stronger and stronger to the point where she''s nearly setting me aze! Everything is going just as fucking nned!" Eiro yelled, angrily hitting the wall next to him with his left hand. The brick wall form a small crack. And then, Eiro hit it again. And again and again, until the small crack turned into arge indent in the rock, and Eiro started to bleed out of his hand.


    The wound quickly healed, but the blood was still left on his skin.


    "Oh, shut the fuck up, you disgusting bastard!" Eiro screamed, staring at the notification that popped up next to him.


    <strong>[<The Devil> is amused over your demise and anger]</strong>


    "I swear to all the forces in this world, that I''m going to hunt you down and miserably kill you someday to get rid of this fucking mark!"


    <strong>[<The Devil>ughs at you]</strong>


    Eiro turned toward the wall in front of him, and in one swift motion his his forehead against the brick, "Just shut the fuck up. Just..." Eiro growled, and pressed his teeth together to the point he was scared of them shattering. Eiro took a deep breath, and slowly made himself rx, "And there I thought I finally had control over that mark."


    The Demon turned toward Armodeus, who had jumped up in worry for Eiro, "Lad, are you alright? Who were you talkin'' to?"


    "...I told you about the mark I was given by ''The Devil'', right? Well, whenever it activates, he basically knows whatever I''m thinking. I doubt he can do so at any other point, but when the mark bes active... That''s when I need to worry about him. And it''s been quite a while since itst activated. I thought I''d finally gotten it under control, but apparently that''s just another lie that I told myself."


    Armodeus slowly walked up to Eiro, cing his hand on the Demon''s shoulder, "Lad, calm down. I know that yer situation is quite unique, but even so, you''re not alone through it. Ya know that, right?"


    Eiro turned toward Armodeus, and while he still felt extreme anger, he slowly nodded his head with a smile. He was slowly rxing again, feeling the direct influence of the mark fade away, "I know. Thanks, Armodeus."


    The Demon looked at the wood that he had thrown onto the ground, "Luckily I can still use it... I''d like to make as many recement parts for her as possible while I have the chance to. I might teach the girl how to manipte her own Life Force as well so that she can rece the parts herself, if she needs it."


    "Aye. Concentrate on that,d. Come on, let''s work. Always helps me rx some, at least." Armodeus slowly led Eiro back to his stool, where the Demon quickly sat down and grabbed some of the wood again. Parts of it had dents, but it wasn''t that big a deal for now.


    "Would you mind to start teaching me about how to Artifice while we''re here? I might need a bit more of a distraction than just work..." Eiroughed awkwardly, and the Elder Dwarf quickly nodded his head.


    "Of course,d. It''d be an honor to teach ya. I''m sure you know the theory already... so I''ll just show you the basic actions, if that''s alright with you?"


    "Yeah, that''s fine. Thanks." Eiro replied. Armodeus nodded in response, and quickly looked through this small makeshift workshop that he set up here for himself, and grabbed a small ss bottle. Then, he started exining the most basic practice method, and that is to put magic into a container like this.


    Eiro curiously listened as he kept carving parts for Hannah''s body as Armodeus proceeded to inscribe the runic patterns on their inside.


    Once the two of them figured that they should stop working for the night, they ced everything to the side and secured the artificial artifact that was still currently finishing up, and then chose to head to their bedrooms.


    "Goodnight, Armodeus. And thanks for tonight." The Demon smiled, and the Elder Dwarf simply replied with a nod, "Aye. Always, Lad."


    Eiro soon sat on his bed in his bedroom. He managed to collect his thoughts again. At least he hoped so. What he was going to do next was a rather crazy thing, after all.


    He held a small white-golden gemstone in his hand. Just after pushing some of his mana inside, Eiro''s skin began to sizzle and give off slight steam.


    "I guess I should keep raising that skill for now."


    And just like that, for the rest of the Night, Eiro proceeded to bring himself to the point just before he would spark up into mes by infusing himself with Holy Energy.

 Chapter 388 - Magic Combat

    <strong>[Your <Apprentice Holy Energy Resistance> Skill has leveled up!]</strong>


    <strong> </strong>


    Eiro looked at the notification in front of him. It was really surprising how quickly he was able to raise this specific skill if he tried to in this manner. It leveled up another three times just this night, bringing it to level 85.


    Of course, Eiro was able to find the perfect amount of Holy Energy that his body could take until being damaged beyond repair. Nothing was happening to his soul either, luckily, or he would have just doomed himself.


    Even so, he couldn''t avoid the fact that his whole body ached an incredible amount. So much so that Eiro just wanted toy there all day, doing nothing at all. But he couldn''t do that, he still had sses to teach today. It would be a calmer day for him, then, especially in the practicalbat ss that he was going to teach today.


    The Demon walked out of the door to his room and slowly walked down the steps. And there, he saw James walking toward him, breathing heavily, full of exhaustion.


    "Good start to your training for now?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, and James soon locked eyes with the Demon in front of him, "Just... shut it... I feel like I''m about... to die..."


    "Don''t worry, you''ll be fine." Eiro pointed out as he walked past the light elf, who only continued to re at him, "Fuck you..."


    "No thanks." And just like that, Eiro made his way back down to the ground floor, noticing that James was flipping him off behind his back. But Eiro didn''t care, he was in too much pain for that. It was like his whole body was bruised after a heavy beating.


    "Morning. Are all of you ready for school?" The Demon asked unenergetically, looking at the children sitting at the table in front of him.


    "Yup, for the most part." Rudy said, ncing at Arc sitting next to him, casually reading a novel. Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "What does that mean? Arc, what did you do? Or rather, what did you not do?"


    Arc casually stayed silent, pretending not to hear Eiro. Instead, Sammy answered for him, "I''m pretty sure he didn''t do any of his homework."


    "...Really now? Arc, the only thing you really had to do was read the text given to you about Archibald Hemingway, and then answer a few questions about his life. What''s so hard about that?" Eiro asked with his arms crossed, and Arc slowly flipped to the next page in his book.


    "Nothing in particr, just that the dude''s life is boring as shit. I read about him when I was 13, Dad. During your ''Autobiography'' phase. We had like 10 books about him. I''ll just answer all the questions during the carriage-ride, or hold a full-on presentation about him. Not that it would take long either. His life can be summed up in a sentence. He was born a prodigy, didn''t lift a finger his whole life, and then happened to kill a Royal Monster by pure luck." Arc said in a bored tone, and Eiro let out a deep sigh. To an extent, he was right. Arc probably knew most of what could be taught to him in those sorts of sses anyway. That didn''t mean he could justze around and not do what was required for them.


    "Except that the royal monster in question was the closest to bing the new Monster King after the old one died. And he was a ''Hive'' type, with thousands of monsters being part of his own self. All alone, he defended a town from that many monsters that were each strong enough to be the weakest royal. The ''luck'' part you mean is that each individual monster gave him experience after he killed it, letting him rapidly level up." Eiro pointed out, "If you think about it, that''s a lot more awesome than the way than how I managed to kill a Royal."


    Arc slowly raised his head from his book and locked eyes with Eiro, "If you put it that way, sure, he might be kinda cool. But he''s still boring as shitpared to our life. I mean, we have a fucking angel and an undead in our basement."


    "Wait, what?" Sammy asked confused, "We have what in our basement?"


    "I''ll exin it on the way to school. But Arc, it doesn''t matter if you think something is boring. That doesn''t mean you can just not do it. Got that?"


    Arc soon rolled his eyes as he stood up from his seat, "Fine, I''ll do it now, I guess."


    "Good. We''re heading off in half an hour, so hurry it up." The Demon pointed out, and walked past the table a bit more. He let his body drop onto the chair with a loud groan, and everyone in the room turned toward the Demon immediately.


    "Dad, are you getting... old?" Clementine asked nervously, and Eiro stared at the girl with a deep sigh, "You know that technically my body is younger than all of yours, right? No, I''m not getting old. I''ve been practicing my Holy Energy Resistance all night."


    "...Has Avalin''s holy energy gotten stronger again?" Sammy questioned. Eiro slowly nodded his head in response, "Yes, she nearly set me azest night. I''m just 15 levels away from the Intermediate stage, at that point I should be fine for the next few months. And then after my next evolution, that skill is surely going to be strengthened again, and I won''t have to worry about anything anymore."


    "Speaking of... How are you going to hide your evolution from the students? And when is it going to happen anyway?" Curiously, Rudy asked. He tried to change the topic. The fact that Eiro could constantly be injured by their sister was something that everyone that was a part of this family was worried about anyway. They were well-aware of the dangers that existed within this family-dynamic.


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, "If I hurry it up and use a lot of my freetime to hunt... Two, three months maybe. My evolution itself is most likely going to take a month or two as well. I doubt that my body is going to change in major ways anymore. And any changes that I''ll experience can be hidden through Bavet''s help." The Demon exined quickly, "So I doubt it''s going to be an issue."


    "That''s good. Would be a bother to exin why a man with kids our age is suddenly growing by another ten centimeters."


    "...If that happens, I''ll me it on a fake skill that I''ll pretend to have. Shouldn''t be too hard." Eiro replied to Arc, who chuckled a bit in response.


    Eiro looked at his palm, and pressed down onto it with his wooden thumb. His body felt weirdly... weaker than beforest night. Part of it was probably just the pain that he was still experiencing, but beyond that, it felt like his body had lost in substance in a weird way. It would probably recover soon enough, but it still felt a bit weird.


    But either way ¨C Eiro had to keep on raising his Holy Energy Resistance skill if he wanted to keep living like he did right now.


    ---


    Eiro walked into the room that he would have his next ss in, and exhaustedly ced his satchel onto the table. He thought that the pain would disappear throughout the day, but the opposite was the case. It only became worse. At least, Eiro''s body felt more sluggish than before. It was surely just temporary, however it still felt quite ufortable now at this time.


    "Alright, ss, we will now be discussing the basics ofbining Magic with physicalbat. Can any of you tell me how you think this would be possible?" Eiro asked the students. This was a special elective ss for those that were able to use magic on top of takingbat sses.


    Surprisingly, none of the students raised their hands. They just had a practical ss, so most of them seemed quite exhausted.


    "Anyone? At all?" Eiro asked again. Finally, a student raised their hand.


    "By covering your weapon in magic?" They asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "That is the most basic form that this sort ofbination can take, yes."


    The Demon pulled out his dagger, and proceeded to use fire magic, covering its surface in red hot mes. "There are, however, some other ways to use magic in simr ways. Instead of just covering your weapon in magic..." Eiro walked up to a container filled with water next to his desk. He pulled the water out of it, and quickly froze it, turning it into the shape of a sword.


    "You can also use magic to fight more directly. This, of course, requires a lot more control over magic in general, so it''s not for everyone. In the first method, you can just link your magic to your weapon, and let the magic do the rest. You can concentrate on fighting. With the second, you need to split your concentration between your magic and yourbat. There are benefits to either method, of course. A weapon made of magic is a lot more versatile. Easier to adapt to different situations. It can''t bepletely broken either. One simply cloaked in it may let you deal more raw damage, and might be easier to use. It all depends on your own style, and the situation."


    After Eiro''s exnation, the Demon suddenly felt a bit of a tingle in his hand as one of the students raised their hand. It was Rico, and Eiro had a rough idea what he was going to ask.


    The boy was called on, and then asked his question, "Is there a way to use the second method as a hand-to-hand fighter?"


    "Well... That might require a bit of creativity, but it''s certainly possible." Eiro pointed out. The ice that made up the sword he was holding turned back into water as Eiro ced his right hand behind his back. Instead, the water formed a fake right hand as it soon froze over again. Eiro moved it around with a bit of concentration, creating simr movements to a simple jab.


    "Or if that''s too hard, you can do something like this as well." The Demon said, and moved his right hand back in front of his body. The ice began floating in front of his hand and turned into arge fist of ice. Again, Eiro moved his hand like a jab, and the ice-fist moved in simr motions.


    "Basically, linking up your hand with your magic to create a fake hand. More reach, possibly more power, and a lot more possibilities." The Demon exined, "I wouldn''t suggest using the ''cloaking'' method if you use fire magic though." Heughed. A few studentsughed along. Everything was fine.


    Until Eiro suddenly felt a jolt in his arm, and a bit of smoke left his body. He just now realized why his body felt so sluggish.. Holy Energy was stuck in his body.

 Chapter 389 - Mana Circuits

    Luckily, this was nothing that others could spot, otherwise the issue would rise to whole new heights. But it was undeniable ¨C Eiro had Holy Energy stuck inside of his body.


    It was most likely a residue of infusing himself with it. Usually this sort of magic would simply fade away over time, but in this case, it apparently didn''t. The Holy Energy reacted to Eiro''s flesh in a different way, it being his bane. That probably exined why Eiro kept on feeling worse throughout the day, because he simply wasn''t aware of what was going on within his own body. He wasn''t particrly focused on it, after all.


    ''Now, that is not good.'' Eiro thought to himself. Him using magic pulled the Holy Energy forward into his arms, and no matter what other magic he would now cast, the Holy Energy would probably be passively pulled out as well. The smoking and sizzling that came with it would be pretty hard to hide from others.


    So for now... Eiro proceeded like normal. Acted as if nothing was going on, although he could feel his arms slowly bubbling up on the inside along his veins. It was more than just ufortable, and worst of all, it made Eiro''s blood quite literally boil.


    It was sizzling away, taken by the Holy Energy. Disintegrating. And the side-effect that came with that was rather obvious. Eiro had a tough time feeling his left hand. He managed to get through this by manipting his own blood and simply pushing more of it through the areas where the Holy Energy was stuck.


    Of course, this also pulled Holy Energy further through his veins, and sooner orter, it ended up spreading throughout his whole torso. Once it hit his heart, throughout his whole body. Since the Holy Energy was thinned out, Eiro''s blood wasn''t disappearing at that dangerous a pace, and he was able to get through it by simple making his blood produce blood a bit faster than normal. Didn''t make this any less painful, of course.


    Toward the end of his lesson, Eiro''s internal body temperature had risen to the point where others would feel pain when touching his skin. Bavet luckily wasn''t all that affected by temperatures at this level anymore, so the transformation didn''t change, but it was most likely still quite ufortable for the slime.


    The moment that the students left, Eiro dropped down onto the ground and proceeded to enter a meditative form. He needed to somehow flush the Holy Energy out of his body. For that, he needed to gather it somewhere.


    Mana flowed throughout one''s body in vein-like patterns. Actually, these mana veins'' locationspletely ovepped with the ces where his regr veins were. For a long time, it just followed the major ones, but now itpletely ovepped with this system within his body.


    Just like that, Eiro should be able to take some form of control of all this Holy Energy that he was unable to take direct control of, by manipting his blood. However, the worst thing was that he would have to basically ''bleed'' himself to get rid of the Holy Energy at this point, considering how far it had spread throughout his body.


    At least, that''s what he thought at first. Before doing anything else, the first thing Eiro did was try and take control of his mana that had mixed with the Holy Energy. After all, it was still his own mana, at the end of the day. He tried to pull it away from his veins directly, as if tugging on it. And that was when Eiro noticed something that would chnage the way that he would end up casting magic through his bodypletely.


    It would revolutionize his own methods. Maybe this was only possible because the Holy Energy messed something up within his own body, loosening up these ''Mana Veins'', or maybe it was something that he could do all along and simply never realized. Either way, it was something amazing.


    Eiro pulled the whole Mana Vein away from his regr vein. It wasn''t much, just a fraction of an inch, but he still did it. The natural flow of his mana had been changed within his body. And it didn''t seem to make any efforts to change back to normal either.


    And from this point on, it was possible for Eiro to loosen his Mana Veins altogether, letting his mana flow to a single point where he managed to gather the Holy Energy, letting it out of him with a quick air spell.


    But not just that, the spell''s form was rather different as well. It was usually quite straight and went exactly how Eiro wanted it, but now it was justpletely messy. Maybe due to the way that Eiro''s mana veins changed. And just as he was thinking that, something else appeared in front of him.


    [You have learned the <Beginner Mana Circuit Maniption> Skill!]


    "Mana Circuit... Maniption..?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself as he stood back up, now that the leftover Holy Energy got out of his body. He already felt quite a bit better than before, although his body was still aching a little.


    "So they''re called Mana Circuits? I never heard that term before... And I never heard of this skill either." Eiro muttered to himself, "Nelli, do you know about it?"


    The Naiad floated up to the notification and stayed silent for a while, before bluntly shaking her head, "No, me neither. I mean, obviously everyone can actively manipte the flow of mana, that''s how anyone casts spells, but changing the flow of mana permanently? That''s something I''ve never heard about."


    "I''ll have to figure this out soon then. But first, I should make sure I finish my sses for the day."


    ---


    Eiro walked through the school''s library. The aching pain that he had been feeling all day finally disappeared now that ss was over. So for now, Eiro figured he should take the time to see if he may find something out about ''Mana Circuits''.


    This Library was huge, and Eiro knew that it had plenty of knowledge that was hard to find anywhere else. This was where he found information about mind-manipting magic, after all. However, no matter how much he looked, he didn''t find anything. There were a few books he took an interest in, but they weren''t rted to ''Mana Circuits'' at all. He simply found nothing. Maybe the organization had ess to the right information.


    In defeat, Eiro left the library. There was not even an ounce of information anywhere to be found. However, as he was there, he got another idea while talking to his spirits. Something that could help him absorb elements and raise his affinity through it some more. He just had to ce his Mana Circuits in the right patterns and locations.


    But for this, Eiro needed a way to practice. It was quite hard to move the strands of the Mana Circuit around, but with a bit of determination, as he was flying back toward his Manor, he managed to return his mana circuits to ''normal'' with a single difference.


    His right hand also had these mana circuits, as it was basically like a part of his body, and inside of there he created a magic circle using the circuits running through his hand. It was the ''air bullet'' spell, a rather simple one.


    Eiro let his mana flow through that magic circle, and instead of leaving his hand like normal magic would, then requiring him to create an external magic circle for this spell, the bullet simply left his body straight away. He could shoot it at a rapid pace, as if he was consecutively activating magic circles one after another.


    "So, that''s quite interesting, then." Eiro smirked a bit, looking at his manor in the distance, hearing James'' heavy breathing from here already. He was talking to Jess while he was training, apparently.


    "Ah, that''s a way to use this as well." Eiro soonnded in the gardens, startling both James and Jess. Jess quickly picked up the book that she was supposed to be reading, and looked at Eiro nervously, "H-Hey, the kids said you''d be backter..."


    "Don''t worry, I won''t reprimand you. I have something new to teach to the two of you." The Demon exined. James and Jess looked at each other a bit confused, "What is there you could teach to both of us?"


    Eiro looked at Jess and smiled broadly, "A new method to cast magic." He held his hand forward, and demonstrated his air bullet spell.


    "How did you..." Jess muttered confused. Eiro quickly turned toward her, and exined the situation. This new skill that he found.


    "And the best thing is, since the magic circles are formed within your body, even James should be able to cast spells to some extent." Eiro pointed out, "If you learn the skill, then I''ll design specific magic circles for you, James, don''t worry."


    Jess stared deep into Eiro''s eyes, "This... How did nobody ever know about this?"


    "Probably because it''s hard to achieve. But now, we''ll train specifically to manipte your mana circuits. I''m sure yours are quite well-developed already Jess, but I don''t know about yours, James. We might have to start with that."


    "Even more training...? When am I supposed to do this..?"


    "Ah, stopining!" Eiroughed, "It''s a way to make you stronger immediately. Just be happy about it."


    Eiro slowly turned around, "For now, keep on practicing. We''ll do thister tonight. I have an undead to take care of for now...."

 Chapter 390 - A Regular Girl

    Eiro walked down into the basement, looking for Arie and Hannah. The two of them stayed here all day, hiding from possible ''Undead Hunters'' that coulde after them at any time. And the ce they were hiding was in the Guards'' barracks inside of the manor.


    Well, more like the room that was hidden inside of these barracks. Eiro stepped up to the wardrobes on the other side of the room, and slid his foot underneath it. He slid one of the pins there to the side and pushed his mane into the gem that was exposed.


    After a second, he pulled it back out, and the wardrobe slid down into the ground, revealing the entrance to the room beyond.


    "Hello there. I hope you weren''t too bored, stuck in here all day." Eiro told the two women. Hannah quickly jumped up and walked over toward Eiro, quite energetically. If she could, she would probably be smiling right now.


    "Is Arie washing up in the other room?" The Demon asked, cing his head onto the girl''s exposed skull. She quickly nodded her head, so Eiro smiled at her and walked toward the other side of the room. Without hesitation, he pushed open the door and stepped into the washroom.


    "What the-" Arie yelled. She turned around toward the door, her body fully exposed as she was cleaning herself, and stared at the Demon, "Get out of here! What are you doing?!"


    "Hm? I just wanted to talk to you, what else?"


    "Could we do that while I''m wearing clothes the next time?!" The Nephilim eximed, but Eiro simply scratched the back of his head, "What? People still care about that stuff when they''re adults? I thought it was just some kind of teenager thing."


    "You think not wanting to be seen naked is a teenager thing?" Arie asked with a wry smile, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yeah, but it''s not? I wasn''t really aware, sorry about that. But just to put it out there, it''s not like it really matters anyway. I know the exact shape and size of your liver, so I obviously already knew what you looked like naked."


    The Nephilim proceeded to cover herself with a towel, "You know what? Next time, how about you don''t reveal to the person you''re teaming up with that you''re just some pervert that wants to fuck he-"


    "Arie, I think you''re misunderstanding. I have not an ounce of sexual attraction toward you. Or anyone, at that. Arc told me that''s called being ''Asexual''. But then again, I also thought I couldn''t feel any romantic feelings toward anyone, and that''s clearly not the case." Eiro pointed out, "But that''s not of importance right now. More than that, I need to talk to you aboutst night."


    "...You are... truly unbelievable. Fine, but at least turn around while we talk." Arie groaned. Eiro shrugged and did as told, "You know that doesn''t really make a difference with my-"


    "Just shut up, that''s not the point. Now go on, what do you have to say for yourself?" The Nephilim asked in a blunt tone as she dried her body to get dressed.


    "Are you still of the opinion that it''s my fault I don''t want to use my daughter for war?" Eiro replied. Arie let out a deep sigh, "She''s not really your daughter. You know that, right? You''re a Demon. She''s a Human. She''s just some... pet you picked up."


    Eiro ripped open his eyes, his heartbeat rising intensely as he became rather angry, "I''ve raised her since she''s been a toddler. I was there for her first words, first steps. I was there for her, calming her down every time she cried. I would literally give my life for Avalin, and you''re saying I''m not her father? I''m more of a father than whatever piece of shit left her to a church that wanted to turn her into a weapon of war, like you''re doing right now."


    "But you''re a Demon, you-"


    "I''m a Demon, but I have a human soul. And that''s not just some dumb metaphor, I mean it quite literally. I''m a being that was artificially created by the Monster King using a human''s soul. Something went wrong, and some parts of my human soul were kept within me. Thest part is just an assumption, but I think it''s a rather fair one." Eiro exined, "But now, that doesn''t mean I''m just a human stuck in a demon''s body. I do have monstrosity. I have killed people. I have eaten people, when I was too dumb to even form a full sentence. The only thing that''s important is that I am me. I am Eiro."


    Arie listened to Eiro''s story in disbelief. What he was saying just sounded absolutely insane, preposterous. Impossible.


    "How do you expect me to believe something like that?"


    "I''m just asking you to trust me. I mean, I didn''t say anything about your father being one of the probably worst pieces of scum in this world." Eiro said, "''The Hierophant'', right?


    Arie snapped her neck around, staring at the Demon, "But-"


    "At this point, did you really expect me not to know? I have ways to spread rumors throughout the world, but I don''t have ways to find information? I keep tabs on the actions of all the Royals, as much as possible at least. The Hierophant, assumed to be an evolved Kenkraa. Priest-like abilities, but for an evil god. At least that''s what people think, since he uses Unholy Magic. And on top of that, the Hierophant was scouted by the Devil. At least he used to be part of the Devil''s personal army." Eiro pointed out, "Now, what do you expect me to think? An unholy being with raven-ck wings. Brought into the life he''s living by the Devil. And then, a Nephilim trying to kill the Devil for whatever reason. With all that information, it''s not particrly hard to figure it out, now is it?"


    "So? What are you trying to do with that information? ckmail me? Reveal this to-" Arie started. Once more, Eiro interrupted her, and he stopped caring for her request to turn around, looking straight into the Nephilim''s shocked, and scared, eyes.


    "Are you just aplete moron? Arie, stop acting like that. I am trying to help you out. We have amon goal. I''m the same level of scum as your father, probably, also in part due to the Devil''s influence. All I''m saying is that I want you to stop treating me like a monster. Both of us know that you don''t think of yourself as one, although you technically are. So why am I a monster, but you aren''t? Why is it so unbelievable for me to care for children and treat them as my own? Stop twisting me into the viin of this."


    "Because why can you be around someone that will kill you sooner orter, and he...!" Arie eximed angrily. But anger that wasn''t directed at Eiro, clearly. He knew what that felt like, and this wasn''t it.


    "...Finish up here. I''ll put more prosthetics on Hannah, by the time you''re done, she''ll have another new arm and two more legs. And then I have to properly introduce you to someone." Eiro quickly turned back around and left this room. Hannah had clearly been trying to listen to the conversation the two had been having, but Eiro didn''t particrly care.


    The Demon quickly brought the girl out of this hidden room, and back to the makeshift workshop where all of the prosthetic parts were currentlyying. Eiro had Hannah sit down, and proceeded to ce the prosthetics onto her right arm.


    "So... Do you mind if I ask you some questions?" Eiro asked. He handed her some paper to write on with her left hand as well, of course.


    Hannah nodded her head in response, and Eiro smiled at her, "So, how long have you been able to use necromancy?"


    The girl turned her head to the side and started to write as Eiro kept attaching the prosthetics.


    ''Since I died'', she wrote.


    "Hm, I see. Did your unique skill do anything even while you were alive?" The Demon inquired, and the girl shook her head, ''I never had it before. When I died, I went to the heavens, and the gods gave me the gift toe back to life''.


    "The... The gods? Were they an Elf, a Human dressed in weird clothes, and a Rhida?" Eiro asked. The girl tilted her head to the side a bit confused, ''What is a Reeda?''


    "It''s Rhida." The Demon said, writing the word down on the piece of paper, before drawing a small sketch of what they look like. A race of humanoid alligators, basically.


    Immediately, the girl nodded her head, ''Those were the gods! They gave me the gift and the skill!''


    "What the..." Eiro stopped for a moment, stunned at what was going on. Why did they give such a gift to a random girl? There didn''t seem to be anything else special about her status. What reason could they have..? Was it just a coincidence? Or was this some sick joke, a weird twist of fate?


    This all was just getting weirder and weirder. It seemed like Hannah didn''t want to talk about the way she died, so Eiro of course kept away from that topic. But he still asked a few other questions to distract her while Eiro gave her the prosthetics. Just things about her. Her hobbies, her favorite color. Things she wants to see here in the capital. That kind of thing.


    And bit by bit, Eiro had been finishing up. Soon, Hannah had full prosthetics for her arms and legs. He helped the skeletal girl put her cloak back on, and gave her a spare mask of his that he had her put on.


    "And just like that, you''ll be able to pass as a human for many already." The Demon smiled, "Just keep a note saying that you''re a novice adventurer with you and give it to people that want to cause trouble. You''ll instantly seem normal in those fields." Eiro exined to Hannah, who excitedly nodded her head.


    And just then, Arie stepped into the room. She stared at the girl that was really just made of bones yesterday, standing there with her hands and feet exposed. She looked... alive. More alive than she did just a few days ago, at least.


    "This is really insane... Thanks for your help, Eiro. We really appreciate it..." Arie said, but Eiro turned around toward her with a wry smile, "What are you talking about? I''m going to work on the rest of her body as well, the only thing that''s going to take a while will be the parts for the head.. She''ll look like a regr girl in just a few days."

 Chapter 391 - Tea

    Eiro looked within himself, inspecting his Mana Circuits. The first thing that he really tried to do once he got a good enough grasp of the concept was to practice manipting them as quickly as he could. However, when he did so too recklessly, it was like a part of his physical body was being dragged along with it, causing sharp pain as well as a good bit of damage to the Demon. It was rather bothersome, but it was something that Eiro had to deal with for now if he wanted to improve this. Like that, the Mana Circuit maniption skill also rose to level 17 within a few hours.


    There was a very simple way that Eiro wanted to use this ability. Of course there was the aspect of simply using it to increase hisbat capabilities by letting him activate certain spells instantly. But there was another aspect to it.


    ''Maniption'' Skills aremonly thought to be only applicable to oneself. And of course, that is correct for the most part. For the beginner grade at the very least, you can only really affect things on your body, as is often the case with beginer magic as well.


    However, since ''Maniption'' skills are quite rare in the first ce, it''s not all too well-known that they can affect the whole concept they apply to, and not just your own. That meant that Eiro would be able to manipte other people''s Mana Circuits if he practiced enough.


    And that had many possibilities. It seemed like Mana Circuits had the tendency to slowly return to their original position over time, which was still a process that took a couple of hours or even days. Eiro figured it was dependent on how practiced you were with magic, how developed your Mana Circuits were, and how much mana you had flowing through them.


    There was a reason why Mana Circuits developed in that way in the first ce, after all, and the development of Mana Circuits depended on all those aspects as well.


    That meant that, while he wouldn''t be able topletely cripple someone''s ability to use magic, he would be able to either considerably weaken them, or disable them from using magic altogether. Thetter was something like his goal in training toward this sort of ability, at least, and something that would certainly take quite some time even if he was able to manipte others'' Mana Circuits.


    It was still his goal, though. The Demon took a deep breath and continued forming the Mana Circuits into specific patterns within his body. Ones to enhance his ability to spread infusions to let him do so quicker, ones to help him to move through whatever substance he was infused with, like the ''Shadow Step'' spell he figured out.


    Some of them were harder to do than others, but overall, Eiro was able to figure out some quite interesting things after practicing the high-speed control of his Mana Circuits. It took a few hours for him to reach the point at which he was satisfied with the point that he had reached for now, and then slowly pushed himself off of the ground and stretched a bit.


    His body ached a bit from when he kept identally moving around parts of his flesh together with the circuits, but he would be fine after a little bit of sleep. The Demon stepped up to the door and walked out of the room. Luckily, it was a Saturday now and ss wouldn''t happen today, so he could take a nap around noon. It was already quite early in the morning right now, after all.


    Eiro made his way to the sitting room and let his body drop down onto one of the couches as he took a deep breath. The Demon whispered something in a low voice, using air magic to manipte where it would go, "Bring me the tea kit."


    Only a minute or soter, one of the hidden passages opened up and three special spiders came crawling out of it. One let down the box with the different types of tea in it, another one let down the teapot, and another one let down the tea cup.


    These were some of the spiders that had been specially trained in the basement. Basically, they were crawling around this ce, protecting it from any possible intruders. Not that anyone really dared toe here anyway, but just in case, there would be these spiders here to take care of them.


    And while that wasn''t the case, they were also quite skilled housekeepers, surprisingly enough. At this point they listened to anymand that Eiro gave them, they were able to get rid of rodents around and within the manor, and the few that were able to use magic could even clean this ce up when Eiro himself was too bothered for it.


    Eiro sat up on the couch and grabbed the teapot as the spiders crawled away again. He started to heat it up with his magic as he searched through the box of teas for something that he felt like drinking right now. He took a bit of it and ced it into the teapot. Using a bit of basic nature magic to manipte the tea leaves, as well as some water magic, he didn''t have to let this steep at all and could pour himself a cup immediately.


    And just like that, Eiro sat there as he pulled a book out of his treasury, casually reading through it as he drank his tea. He did this for about an hour, until the first one beside himself showed up in this room. James.


    "Morning. Are you heading out on your run now?" Eiro asked curiously, and James slowly nodded his head.


    "I am. Got a problem with that..?" The light elf asked with a big groan, and Eiro stared back at him, justughing casually, "Stop being so grumpy all the time. This training is going to help you out. You''ve already made a lot of progress. So did Jess and Krog, of course, but your progress is still incredibly impressive."


    "Mhm. Thanks." James replied. He opened one of the doors to the gardens to do some warm-up exercises before he would start running, to not injure himself. Eiro felt a bit hurt that James wasn''t talking to him at all, but he figured it was because James was barely able to breath right now. He must be concentrating quite a bit. Something that Eiro knew was a little hard for James.


    And that didn''t mean that James was dumb, he just didn''t possess the same sort of intelligence as Jess, for example. He was street-smart, not book-smart. So for now, Eiro figured he should keep on waiting for others to wake up. Specifically, the children and Arie, so that he could properly introduce them to each other.


    It seemed like Arie was going to live here for a while from now on, to hide out from the Undead Hunters that kepting to this capital city, so to prevent any incidents, it would be better if he introduced them to each other.


    And surprisingly, it didn''t take that long for the first of the bunch to get up either, although it wasn''t one of Eiro''s children, not directly at least. It was Felix, who came into the room. Quite tired, but with a canvas, his paint, and his brushes underneath his arm. There was an easel already on the other side of the room that he set up yesterday, so that he didn''t have to deal with that so early in the morning.


    "Morning." Eiro signed as he looked at Felix.


    "Good morning." Felix replied in a quiet, unsure voice. He probably wasn''t used to speak without signing anymore, so it felt awkward to him. Either way, the Demon watched as Felix set the canvas up on the easel and prepared his paint shortly after.


    It seemed like Felix just woke up to draw the sunrise, which seemed like a fairly basic practice to the Demon right now. And so, Eiro chose to just watch the young man paint for a while. He still held his book so that he could pretend not to be paying attention to Felix when he turned around every once in a while, since that would make him quite nervous, but whenever Felix wasn''t looking, Eiro would keep watching him work.


    And he was really doing quite well. His strokes were smooth and concise, and he was doing what he wanted to do without any issues. Felix didn''t seem too worried about anything he was doing at all. Really... He was an incredible talent, that was clear from just a nce.


    If Enka hadn''t been such an asshole and let Felix explore his talents, he would probably already be a famous artist at this point. But Felix was still young, and Eiro would do his best to support the young man in his endeavors instead, so that he could follow his dreams from now on.


    Throughout the next few hours, the other children slowly woke up one after another and sat down in the sitting room next to Eiro. And sooner orter, someone else showed up at the entrance to this room, with the young Hannah right next to her.


    Eiro immediately stood up, setting Avalin and Leon down onto the ground after they climbed onto him immediately, and walked over toward Arie.


    "Now, you all. I have someone to introduce to you.." The Demon said, pointing at the angelic figure next to him.

 Chapter 392 - Meeting Ariella

    Eiro stood in front of his children with Arie right next to him.


    "This right here is Arie, she''s a Nephilim. She''s going to stay here for a while, I hope you don''t mind." The Demon said. All of his children looked at Arie utterly confused, with the exception of Arc of course, "You met an angel and didn''t tell us about it yet?" Sammy asked with a wry smile.


    "Well, she''s not an Angel, she''s a Nephilim. They''re technically monsters, right?" Arc pointed out, and Sammy turned her head toward her brother, "Huh, really now? Cool, we didn''t meet a monster that could control its monstrosity beside Dad, Gobo and Bavet before."


    "No, no, that''s not true, there''s also Lognir." Arc added, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "Dragons aren''t monsters, they''re Divine Beasts. They don''t have monstrosity to begin with."


    "Ohh, right, right, I remember. Wait, then why are Wyverns monsters? Aren''t they like a dragon species?"


    Eiro crossed his arms and thought about it for a moment, "That''s a good question. Probably due to a history of breeding between dragons and some other monsters, and they were just pulled toward the monster side of things rather than the Divine Beast one?"


    Arc opened his eyes wide, "Can we go and talk to Lognir about this?"


    Eiro was immediately just as intrigued as Arc was, although he knew that the others here in this room were focused on something else. Well, there was Leon as well, of course, but he was just slowly dozing off and-


    "Ah..." Eiro turned his head toward Arie and Hannah, who were both standing there as if they were petrified. Arie''s heart was beating incredibly fast, and her pupils were dting in fear. The Demon quickly rushed over toward the couch and picked his youngest son up, slowly waking him up.


    "Leon,e on, be careful alright? You can''t let your powers'' influence out just like that." Eiro told him, and Leon looked into his father''s eyes, "Hm..? Sorry, Daddy... I''m just tired..."


    "Hm, tired, I see? Well, you did grow quite a bittely, maybe that''s why you''re tired. You can take a napter, but for now,e on and say hello to Arie, and apologize while you''re at it, alright?" Eiro suggested. He slowly let Leon down onto the ground again, and the young boy quickly walked up to the Nephilim and the Undead, "Hello... I''m Leon. Sorry for scaring you."


    Leon quickly stretched his hand out toward Arie, who was still nervously looking at the boy. Eiro let out a deep sigh and ced his hand onto Leon''s head, "Take a deep breath. Breathe your ability in again."


    The boy slowly nodded his head and did as told. The next moment, Arie was finally able to breathe normally again as well, "Wh-What just happened?" She asked, utterly confused.


    Eiro looked into her eyes and smiled, "Ah, that''s his ability. You see, Hannah isn''t the only one in this building with a Unique Skill."


    "You mean this boy has..." Arie muttered, staring down at the boy that was at most 9, maybe 10 years old. Arc grinned broadly, "Not just Leon. All of us do. Well, Felix and Avalin excluded. Although Felix does have a Bloodline skill, and Avalin is just the way she is, y''know."


    Sammy, Clementine and Rudy stared at their brother intensely, "What''re you doing, you idiot?" Rudy asked in a low voice, "Why are you telling her that Avalin is special?"


    "Eh? She obviously already knows." Arc pointed out, "Just think about it this way. I met her the first day she came here, and all of us noticed that Dad was bringing a crying Avalin to bed the same night. He seemed pretty scary, so I''d say something happened. And now, he''s bringing her here and is voluntarily revealing that we have Unique Skills. He''s not the kinda person to tell that to anyone he doesn''t trust."


    Clementine locked eyes with Arc for a few moments, and then turned away, "R-Right, that''s exactly what I was thinking as well. She clearly already knows..."


    Arie looked over at Eiro, who was simply smirking at her, "Arc is a bit unique, but they''re mostly normal kids, aren''t they?"


    "That''s not what I was about to say, but let''s go with that." The Nephilim replied, and Eiro continued to speak, "Either way, Arc ispletely right. She already knows about Avalin, so no need to hide it. But for now, I''m leaving it up to all of you if you want to reveal what your abilities are. You should make your own choices of who to trust, and who not to trust." The Demon pointed out, and the children looked at him for a few moments.


    "I can feel neither physical pain nor negative emotions."


    "I can make anyone believe whatever I say."


    "Well, I can ''eat'' the injuries of anyone that I meet and take them on myself!"


    "And I can''t be injured by literally anything, but I also can''t hurt anything in the slightest."


    Immediately, the four kids revealed the rough effects of their unique skills to Arie, and Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "That''s not what I meant, but sure."


    "Dad, you trust her, so obviously we''d trust her too." Rudy pointed out with a wry smile, "And it''s gonna be easier if she knows anyway, if she''s going to stay here for a while. I don''t want her to freak out when she sees me cooking in the kitchen... Or when I need to ask Arc to kill bugs for me again because I literally can''t..."


    Eiro let out a deep sigh, followed up by a smile, "Fine. Thanks for trusting me, kids. Anyway... It''s your turn." The Demon turned toward Arie, and the Nephilim looked back at him for a few seconds.


    "Oh, right, you''re talking to me... Sorry." Arie apologized. She was clearly still trying to mentally catch up to what was happening here at the moment. She cleared her throat for a moment, and then looked at the children.


    "As Eiro already said, my name is Arie, and I''m a Nephilim. I need your father''s help to catch a really bad man that he also wants to find. The reason that I''m going to stay here is this girl right next to me... Even though she''s an Undead, she''s a normal child like all of you, so I hope you''ll treat her well. Some other bad people that could hurt her suddenly appeared in this city, and I need to protect her." Arie exined. All of the children looked at each other for a moment.


    "Dad, who''re you trying to kill this time?" Clementine asked, and Eiro bluntly replied, "The Devil, as usual."


    "...Then why''d she say it like that?" Arc sighed deeply, "Just say that you want to off that bas- Sorry, ''that guy''."


    "But that makes sense then... That was what Arc mentioned earlier was about right? She wanted to use Avalin for that?" Sammy asked, Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yes, but we already spoke about it. She won''t be doing that." The Demon lightly red at Arie.


    Throughout all of this, Avalin was just sitting on the couch, staring at this pretty woman that was suddenly standing in the room, "You need Avalin?" She asked with her head tilted to the side, and Eiro looked at her, "No, it''s fine, don''t worry. You can just keep ying with Leon, alright?"


    Eiro looked straight at Arie, "And since you don''t seem to want to understand me, I''m going to introduce that little girl to you. The one that you want to plunge into your own personal war." The Demon whispered, and quickly walked over toward Avalin, with Arie right behind him.


    Avalin was still staring at Arie, and jumped up with a bright smile as the Nephilim finally stood in front of her. Maybe Avalin was just pulled toward the holy part of her being, as Arie was still a half-angel at the end of the day.


    "You''re pretty!" Avalin eximed immediately, and Arie lightly smiled back as she squatted down in front of the girl, "Thank you. You''re quite pretty yourself, Avalin."


    "Hehe, I know~!" The girl replied smugly, "Daddy tells me all the time! And Daddy is always right!"


    "Is that so?" Arie asked with a smile as she turned toward Eiro.


    "Oh really, you are?"


    "Eh, as far as Avalin is concerned, I''m only right when it benefits her. But when we''re talking about bedtime, I couldn''t be further off from what''s right." Eiro replied with a wry smile, "Avalin, why don''t you show Arie some of the toys that Solomon bought you?"


    "Oki!" She eximed, and without a moment''s hesitation, Avalin proceeded to grab Arie''s hand to pull her toward the other side of the room, where some of Avalin''s toys were stashed in a wooden box.


    "...What''s that about? Are you trying to make them like each other because they''re both kind of holy?" Rudy asked, and Eiro turned his head to look at Arie on the other side of the room, "I''m trying to make Arie realize that Avalin is just a normal little girl. So that she stops insisting on using her to kill the Devil."


    "...Is that really all? Usually, you would have killed her by now just for suggesting that... And don''t try to hide it, we all know what you''re like, Dad." Sammy pointed out. Hannah, who was still standing behind Eiro, immediately flinched and looked up at the Demon''s face in fear.


    Eiro let out a deep sigh and ced his hand on top of the undead''s head to calm her down a bit, "I''m not going to kill Arie, no. But if she doesn''t be more reasonable in regards to the Avalin situation, I''m going to throw her out, violently if I need to."


    "Hm..." Clementine looked at Eiro with a deep stare, "Dad, do you... like Arie?"


    "If I didn''t like her, she wouldn''t be here anymore."


    "No, I mean... like do you... you know..." Clementine replied, and Eiro soon caught on, "Ah... About that, I literally have no idea anymore. But that''s not something I should talk to you all about, I need to figure it out myself." The Demon pointed out, "But more importantly, this here is Hannah. She also has a unique skill, which is why she''s not a regr Undead. Basically, forget everything I told you about undead beings so far, and think of her as apletely normal girl that, for now, looks like an undead and is technically a monster."


    "Cool." Arc replied, "But should she really be here? With Avalin and all?"


    "Ah, right, I''m using some Unholy Materials to basically create a barrier for her right now.. Armodeus and I will integrate it into the prosthetics I''m making for her right now so that she really doesn''t have to worry about anything like that."

 Chapter 393 - Fake Tears

    Eiro watched as the situation in this room slowly settled down. Arie had been forced to y with Avalin, due to the little girl''s selfishness, while Sammy and Clementine proceeded to make Hannah feel more than wee in this household.


    Sammy in particr was even trying to teach her a few words in signnguage, since she had started to study it so that she could properly speak to Felix. Since Hannah was literally incapable of speach at this current moment, Sammy figured that her knowing this specific way ofmunication was rather useful.


    However, soon enough, Arie saw what was happening, and nervously looked at the children before turning her head toward Eiro, "Erm... Wh-What is she doing..? Is she casting some sort of spell?"


    Eiro looked at Arie and let out a deep sigh, "Of course not. You didn''t hear Sammy exin it earlier? It''s signnguage. It''s anguage that mute and deaf people usually make use of."


    The Nephilim looked at Sammy confused, "The girl is deaf?"


    "What, no, of course not, she was responding to me normally earlier. That kid over there is deaf, though." The Demon said. It seemed like Felix got the rough idea that someone was talking about him, since he slowly turned around and looked at Eiro nervously. The Demon quickly proceeded to sign toward him, "Everything''s fine, just continue painting. Don''t let us distract you."


    Felix slowly turned back around and got back to work. Eiro knew that a proper workflow was rather important, especially for Felix. His teacher specifically said so. Since Felix wasn''t particrly skilled yet, and just talented without any sort of experience to speak of, it was hard for him to pick up where he left off earlier at this point in time. So being able to get as far a possible with a painting at a time was important if Felix wanted toplete a high-quality painting for now.


    "Oh... Wait, is he not one of your children?" Arie asked, and instead of Eiro, it was Avalin that answered, "No! Felix is Sammy''s boyfriend~!" She eximed, proceeding the teenage girl in question to immediately freeze up.


    "A-Avalin, what do you..." She muttered, and Eiro turned his head toward his eldest daughter, "Stop pretending now, we all know it''s true."


    "Urgh... Dad, can I maybe... Just maybe... use my ability for once..? To, you know..." Sammy asked, and Eiro raised his brows and locked eyes with her, "I''m not going to let you use your unique skill to make everyone forget about what your sister just said, Samantha."


    "Oooh, he used your full name~!" Arc said with a smirk on his face, and Sammy turned her head to the side, ring back at him, "I swear to the gods, if Dad wasn''t here, you would think you''re a cat right now."


    Arc squinted as he looked back at Sammy, "So, you want to turn me into a cat-boy, I see? You''re ahead of the times on that one, sis..."


    "Arc, please stop with those obscure references that nobody can understand." Eiro sighed. It was clear that it was some sort of reference regarding Arc''s past life, but since nobody else here knew about this, and Eiro wanted to keep it that way for now until Arc wasfortable to reveal it to the others himself, he wanted to make sure that Arc didn''t identally make the others question his origins. After all, Arc could be a bit air-headed sometimes, despite how intelligent he was at the end of the day.


    "Sure, sure... Well, anyway... Rudy, wanna start practicing a bit? You have your firstbat-oriented ss next week, right?" Arc asked. Meanwhile, at the same moment, a rather heavy, tall man stepped into the room with steps that made the floor shake just a little.


    "Eh? The kid''s takin''bat sses? I thought he wouldn''t?" Krog asked, clearly exhausted just from walking around and doing basic morning exercise in his special heavy armor. Eiro turned toward him with a nod, "Yes, Rudy''s not taking regr sses. He''s just taking an introductory ss to shield-wielding. Luckily, Solomon assigned me to help teach that ss, so we don''t have to worry about others finding out. The other teacher shows them the form, while I create missiles for them to defend against, at least in the first few sses."


    "Hu... Wanna have the kid just help me? I could use a target that ain''t breakin'' anytime soon." The warrior pointed out, ogling Rudy as he was at it. The boy looked back with a wry smile, "Err... I''ll take it as apliment for now, but even though you''re saying that, you do keep throwing me at least a meter or two backward with every heavy attack of yours... And those are the only ones you would ever need my help with."


    Krog let out a deep groan as he sat down on the couch, disappointed that Rudy didn''t want to help him out this time, "Fine, fine, I thought you could-"


    As Krog was speaking, he was quickly interrupted by the sound of something violently breaking apart. Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose as he looked back at the heavy warrior, "What are you doing? Did you forget how much you weigh right now?"


    "...It''s easy to forget, y''know." Krog said, trying to quickly stand back up after just breaking the couch under his own weight, due to the special armor that he was wearing. Since he seemed to have a bit of trouble right now, Eiro quickly pulled him up, "Just go outside, I''lle and practice with you in a bit."


    "Urgh... Right, right..." Slowly, Krog made his way through the room, quickly leaving toward the gardens. He didn''t even really pay attention to the Undead girl, or the Nephilim sitting by Avalin''s side, that''s how exhausted he was.


    Either way, for now, everything was going well. Arie seemed to understand that Avalin wasn''t just some tool to be used, and that Eiro genuinely cared for the children. If she really did understand it, then that would mean that there was nothing for Eiro to worry about in that regard.


    The Demon sat down on one of the chairs, and began to think about his next actions. Until the Queen of Undeath finally reached this ce, he didn''t have much to do. He would keep training his party members until the tournament for the Hero''spanions. If Eiro won, which he was rather confident that he would, he would still have some time until he had to actively meet the Hero.


    That would be the point in time at which Eiro would start moving toward thepletion of his other ns. They would go to the Holy Empire''s capital to try and meet Zaragon, so that James and Eiro could kill him together.


    And then, using whatever Zaragon would have in his shop, Eiro and Arie, as well as the Demon''s party if they wished to help him, would go ahead and try to fight the Devil so that Eiro could get the ''Key that opens everything'' from him.


    All of these things were quite a bit away, and would require a lot more preparation. Of course, until then, Eiro had to meet with another group as well, which he hoped would have managed to grow properly until then as well.


    At the end of the day, everything was going ording to n.


    ---


    "Make sure you practice your stances properly. I''ll see you all tomorrow." Eiro said to the students of the ss he had just finished teaching. They all stood up from their seats and made their way out of this room to head to their next ss.


    However, before Eiro had the chance to leave, some other people stepped into the room. They clearly weren''t students, as they weren''t wearing any uniforms, but they also didn''t seem to be teachers. They were wearing a specific armor-set, which was different to that of the school''s guards as well.


    "Can I help you?" Eiro asked as he was packing his things up into his satchel, and the two of them quickly approached him, "Are you ''Eiro''?" One of them asked. Eiro slowly nodded his head as he answered her.


    "Yes, that''s me. Again, can I help you?" The Demon squinted as he looked at both of them. Judging from the colors on their armor, Eiro figured they were part of a specific family''s guard.


    "Did the Mchine boy call you here?" Eiro asked. The other of the two guards nodded his head, "That is correct. We need you to follow us."


    "Mhm." As he rolled his eyes, Eiro quickly stepped past the two and headed toward the door, ready to make his way to his next ss already. However, one of the guards quickly said, "Did you not hear what we told you? We need you to follow us."


    "And I''m only going to say once that I don''t care about what you need me to do. You can''tmand me to do anything."


    "Lord Mchine wishes to speak to you. You are a meremoner, you should listen to themand of a Duke if you wish to continue your work here." One of them said. Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose annoyed.


    "Not this shit again... Get off your high horse, you two are nothing but goons. I''ll meet Mchine, but only because I wanted to visit him about that brat''s behavior anyway. He''s in the headmaster''s office, is he not?"


    "H-Huh? Yeah, he is. How did you-"


    "What, you think I''m some idiot? Just shut it and follow me." Eiro groaned. He proceeded to walk through the halls past the students to get to the headmaster''s office, where the duke would be waiting. The Guards quickly followed Eiro, of course, and Eiro didn''t slow down to let them catch up to him either. Soon, Eiro reached the office. Of course, he still couldn''t just be unreasonably rude to the headmaster or the duke, so he didn''t just push the door open, but quickly knocked.


    "Come in." The headmaster said, and Eiro swiftly stepped into the room. He saw the headmaster behind his desk, more guards standing alongside the walls of the room, as well as a bruised Richard Mchine sitting on a chair. With Duke Mchine sitting right beside him, ring at Eiro angrily.


    The Duke immediately stood up and approached Eiro, deeply staring into his eyes. Without a moment''s hesitation, he swung his hand and tried to p Eiro. But of course the Demon didn''t let this happen, grabbing the Duke''s hand immediately.


    "What''s going on here?" Eiro asked.. Of course he already had a rough idea, seeing Richard''s light grin, although he had some clearly fake tears in his eyes.

 Chapter 394 - Let The Judgement Begin

    "Who do you think you are?" Duke Mchine asked as he stared at Eiro, who just caught this man''s hand before it was able to p him. The Demon quickly proceeded to let go of his hand, and then kneeled down in front of him, "My name is Eiro, your highness. I apologize for so rudely touching you, but as a fighter, such are my instincts."


    The Duke red down at Eiro, "I see. So you are a fighter, not an educator. And that is why you beat my child beyond reason?"


    "I sadly have to say that I don''t know what you are talking about, your highness." Eiro replied bluntly, and the Duke, Marcus Xavier Mchine, simply stared back at the Demon.


    "You don''t know what I''m talking about? Just take a look at my son, he''spletely-"


    "Of course, he''s utterly bruised and injured. But that wasn''t me, I would nevery my hands on a student in such a manner." Eiro said, interrupting Mchine. The Duke was about to say something again, but Eiro was already too annoyed to keep talking so formally, "I hope you don''t mind if I stand and speakfortably. And I will only say it once more, but I didn''t give your son those injuries."


    Mchine stared back at Eiro, "Are you saying that my son is a liar?"


    "I thought that was obvious. Yes, I am. I must say, as a Duke, I thought you were used to people attempting to trick you. That you are not able to see through a child''s lies is quite surprising to me." Eiro said in a blunt voice, as he approached the desk where Richard was currently sitting. Of course, he fake-flinched and the guards lifted their weapons to make sure that Eiro wouldn''t approach him anymore.


    "Don''t be ridiculous now." Eiro sighed, as he continued to walk up to Richard. He was shaking in fear in front of Eiro. Of course just outwardly. His heartbeat was as calm as it could be, as if Richard was just taking a nap.


    "Please take a step back from the child, Eiro." The headmaster said with a light re directed at Eiro. Obviously he was on the Duke''s side, there was no other way.


    "I won''t be doing that, Sir, and both of us know that Richard is simply lying. I assume that you didn''t send the letter I wanted you to send to his highness, now have you?" Eiro asked, and the headmaster flinched in response, "Wh-What, what letter are you talking about?"


    It seemed like the letter wasn''t anywhere around here. The headmaster most likely threw it away, or simply burnt it right away.


    "Well, not that it matters. I guess I can just inform you like this now. Your highness, both of your children are rather troubling individuals. Your daughter seems to understand that what she is doing is wrong, at least, but your son Richard here seems to feel no regret for greatly injuring a young man and horrendously bullying him." Eiro exined, and Duke Mchine walked up to Eiro with a deep stare.


    "What are you talking about, my children would never do such things!" He eximed, but Eiro quickly shrugged, "Sorry, but it''s what they did. Now, I hope you will still be here after school for a short parent-teacher conference. I think it would be a good idea to get your son some psychological help. I do want to see him turn out better, and make some friends here at school instead of just enemies. But for now, I do have to head off to my next ss, if you''ll excuse me."


    The Duke looked at Eiro rather confused, "We are in the middle of a conversation, you cannot just leave!"


    "Sorry, but actually, I can. By his Majesty''s decree, the faculty of this university is directly protected and freed from the necessity of followingmonws of aristocracy, to protect them from students, and their parents, taking advantage of their societal position. As such, I literally don''t have to do anything you say while I''m working here." Eiro said without hesitation, and quickly made his way toward the door, leaving without letting anyone say anything else.


    As he made his way to his next ss, Nelli appeared right next to him, "Do you really think that was a good idea?" She asked, but Sarius just scoffed, "I''d be more worried about why everyone that Eiro meets is aplete and utter moron like that dude."


    "He''s not a ''Moron'', Sarius. Duke Mchine is an incredibly intelligent man and schr. He published many popr research papers, and he''s a skilled General in the army. However, he''s also a very loving parent." Eiro exined bluntly, "And at the same time, Richard is a skilled trickster and liar. To Duke Mchine, he''s a good child, and someone whose word he trusts. If I didn''t have my abilities to see through lies so easily, I would trust my child in such a situation unconditionally as well. Especially if the offender was a brute adventurer with a reputation of being incredibly ruthless like me."


    Sarius and Nelli looked at each other for a moment, "Well, if you say it that way..."


    "Yep, he doesn''t sound like just some idiot anymore, right? Those guards, on the other hand, were incredibly stupid." Eiro sighed, "Now, I''m just going to speak to him after ss today, like I just told him I would."


    ---


    Eiro quickly knocked on the door to the headmaster''s office. It was now shortly after ss ended, and this was the ce where they would have the parent-teacher conference. Instead of someone answering for him, one of the guards inside opened the door.


    The Demon swiftly stepped inside, followed by another man by his side.


    "Eiro, who is that person?" The Headmaster asked confused. He was lightly dressed and looked like just some hoodlum. As if Eiro brought someone to threaten the people here.


    "Ah, this is-" Eiro started, but before he did, Duke Mchine jumped up, deeply staring at the man, "L-Lognir? But why are you here?"


    "Oh? You two know each other?" Eiro asked surprised, "Well, you are his Majesty''s family, so it''s not that ridiculous, I guess."


    "Why are you here? Is my cousining as well?" Duke Mchine asked, but Lognir quickly shook his head, "Not that I know. This child asked my toe, so I came. As a neutral party."


    "Neutral... party?"


    "Of course." Eiro replied to the duke, "Even though it is indeed a fact that you cannot do anything to me while I''m a teacher here, I''m only a teacher for this one semester. And not only that, but your son would get off scot-free, and without receiving the help he so obviously requires. That''s why Lognir is here. He will make sure that none of us will lie." The Demon exined with a grin on his face. And of course, being aware of Lognir''s identity and abilities, didn''t have any need to worry about this.


    He wanted to find out the truth as well, so he agreed without a moment''s hesitation.


    "Everyone, please leave." Duke Mchine said, "It will only be us four in this room during this conversation."


    While they were indeed quite hesitant at first, the guards still left the room ording to the Duke''smand. Just the headmaster didn''t seem to understand that he was also meant to leave at first. But soon, there were only four people left here. Richard, Duke Mchine, Eiro, and Lognir. Richard still seemed quite confident, since he clearly wasn''t aware who or what Lognir was, but Eiro knew that he didn''t have to worry about any sort of consequence with this.


    "Let the Judgement begin." Lognir said with a broad grin on his face. The next moment, a wave of cold air flooded the room. The Duke''s and Richard''s hairs stood up on their skin as Lognir''s influence filled the room.


    "All of you, ask your questions. I will confirm whether the other party is saying the truth, or whether they are lying." Lognir exined, and the Duke quickly nodded his head.


    "Were you the one that injured my son in this way?" He asked without hesitation. He probably already experienced this kind of thing before.


    "No, I was not. However, the other day, I did discipline him by making him work out until he waspletely exhausted. And I am also expecting an essay from him exining his wrongdoings while apologizing for them." Eiro exined bluntly. Immediately, the Duke''s head snapped toward Lognir, who quickly smiled.


    "He is telling the truth." He exined. Duke Mchine''s gaze moved from Lognir to his son, "Richard, what does this mean? You said that this teacher was the one that injured you like this."


    "What? Of course it was him!" Richard eximed, but Lognir began to grin the next moment, "That''s a lie."


    Richard turned toward Lognir, "What are you talking about, you buffoon? You''re the one that''s lying!"


    "Haha, that''s a good one. I don''t lie, child." Lognir grinned, "I only tell the truth."


    "Richard. What''s going on here?" Duke Mchine asked, in a strict tone, "Why did you lie about this?"


    "Because this guy is a total psycho! I want him gone! He''s ruining everything! And by the way, he stabbed a knife through my hand the other day!" Richard yelled, now that he realized he wouldn''t be getting out of this using his current lies. Lognir turned his head toward Eiro, "That''s... the truth."


    Duke Mchine jumped up and looked at Eiro, before grabbing his son''s hand and inspecting it closely. Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Well, that''s true. I did do that. However, you need to be aware of the context. Your son threatened me with a situation simr to this before. He held a knife to his hand, and proceeded to stab himself with it. When he realized that I wouldn''t budge, he threatened to kill my children. You should also be aware that I am the person with the greatest perception in at least this country, and I have simr abilities to Lognir that allow me to see through truths and lies. And your son was saying the full truth at that moment, he genuinely wished to have my children killed. I met literal bandits and killers that wouldn''t actually do such things. However, your son would." Eiro said. Lognir proceeded to hold his hand in front of his mouth with a light smile.


    "All of that is the genuine truth." He said, unable to hide his clear interest in this situation. Shocked to hear this, Duke Mchine dropped back onto the couch.


    "First I have to deal with ''her'', and now my son..? What a year this already is...." The Duke muttered, and Eiro immediately became rather interested who the Duke meant with ''her'', basically already having put this situation behind him.

 Chapter 395 - On Her Way

    "Who do you mean with ''her''?" Eiro asked, his instincts making him ask the Duke this question. However, Duke Mchine was worried about something else, "Are you joking? I just found out about what my son is like, and you want to ask me about a person that''spletely unrted to this situation?"


    "Clearly, yes. We can have your son leave for a while if you want, I''ll just heal him before he does."


    "Of course not! I am not letting my son out of my sight while I am here!" Duke Mchine eximed, but Richard looked at his father perplexed, "What are you even saying, father? Do you truly believe these two? They teamed up to ruin us, isn''t that clear?!"


    "No, it is not ''clear'', Richard. Now stop with your lies and own up to your mistakes already." The father said to his son. This was the first time that Eiro had noticed Richard''s heartbeat speeding up. And it was clearly out of anger. With a slight sigh, Eiro snapped his finger and made Nelli appear. He proceeded to heal the wounds that Richard had inflicted upon himself for this meeting today, to make it clear to him that this was over for him.


    "This is just ridiculous, how can you believe these two hoodlums over me?!" Richard angrily stood up before Eiro had finished fully healing him. He rushed toward the door and left the room. Duke Mchine jumped up as well, trying to go after his son, but the Demon swiftly stopped him by standing between the Duke and the door.


    "There''s no need for that. If he does anything stupid right now, I''ll know. My perception is focused on him at the moment, so there''s nowhere in this school that he can go where I won''t notice him." Eiro exined. The Duke stared at Eiro as if he was insane, but Lognir simply grinned and said, "That''s the truth."


    "What? How is that even possible?" Duke Mchine asked, and Eiro smiled softly, "That''s a secret. But more importantly, were you perchance speaking of Eliza Koperia when you said ''her''?"


    The Duke''s body became stiff as he took a step back, away from Eiro, "How do you know that? Do you know that wretched woman?"


    Eiro felt an unbelievable bubble up inside of his chest as he stared back at Duke Mchine, "It was just a lucky guess. Just an unbelievably lucky guess." Eiro grinned at the Duke, "But I tend to be lucky anyway. Now tell me, where is she right now? You said you had to deal with her recently."


    "..." The Duke silently looked back at Eiro, but didn''t say anything. And then, Eiro pulled a certain brooch out of his treasury, "Don''t worry, speak to me like you would to Solomon."


    "How do you have that..? Wait, are you the man that my cousin sent me letters about? His personal candidate for the tournament to choose the hero''spanion?" The Duke asked. Eiro nodded his head without hesitation, "That''s me, yes. So? Will you tell me what the Queen of Undeath is up to already?"


    Duke Mchine slowly tried to collect his thoughts as he took a deep breath, "Fine. She is currently on the way here. I had to deal with her when she was in my duchy''s capital, to stop her from resurrection everyone in the graveyard."


    "Ah... So she''s that kind of person?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, and the Duke shook his head, "She didn''t do so just out of boredom. She wanted to take the undead with her to get rid of ''Undead Hunters'' that were also on the way here."


    Eiro turned away with a wry smile on his face. Basically, the Duke was unknowingly saying that it was Eiro''s fault she did that to the graveyard. The Demon let out a deep sigh, hoping that the Queen of Undeath wouldn''t do any more damage on her way here. Luckily the Duke''s duchy was in the opposite direction as the monster vige where Eiro left Gobo, so he didn''t need to worry about those guys at the very least.


    "If she was on her way here even before you left, shouldn''t she be here by now?" Eiro asked with a light frown. The Duke slowly nodded, "Yes, but she most likely found something else she was also interested in on the way. I knew that I had toe here as quickly as possible, so I wasn''t side-tracked, but Eliza Koperia is quite different in that regard. She is easily distracted when she finds something interesting."


    "Is that so?" Eiro asked, "But wait, how were you able to interact with her in that way? I thought she was opposed to interacting with the living."


    "Usually so, yes, but my side of the family had some history with her already. My great grandfather was a great aide to her, it seems."


    "Great grandfather? Isn''t she a human?" Eiro asked, surprised of Koperia''s apparent age.


    "Of course she is, but she also is not. Due to her control over death, it is like death itself has rejected hert. Or so I heard. She stopped aging long ago." The Duke exined. Eiro lightly nced at Lognir, who nodded to reassure Eiro that the Duke was saying the truth.


    "Well, she does have Master grade death magic..." Eiro muttered. Surprised to hear the man in front of him say this, the Duke stared right at him, "Master grade? How do you know that?"


    "I guess since you shared a bit of a secret of yours, I can share one of mine. My teacher, or father if you prefer, was one of the most wanted and despised men in this world, who once saved the Monster King." Erio smirked, and the Duke red back at Eiro, "Are you speaking of that man, ''Jura''?"


    "Of course. He was a master grade woodcarver." The demon pointed out bluntly. Without hesitation, Lognir nodded his head, "He''s telling the truth."


    "Jura taught me my craft. I may work as a teacher and adventurer right now, but you could say my true nature is that of a prosthetist." Eiro smiled back at the Duke, showing his wooden hand to him, "I made Charles'' prosthetics after the incident at this academy. It''s how I met Solomon."


    Duke Mchine let his body slump a bit, quite suprised, "Interesting. Being a prosthetist is a rather noble profession... Someone that has the skill to make such limbs out of wood could work as an artist or woodworker, maybe make more money. Most of those that have lost their limbs did so out of disease or war... and ended up rather poor in consequence. So there wouldn''t be much money in that, would there?"


    Eiro lightly shrugged, "I guess. I mostly made prosthetics for animals before. But that''s not the point." The Demon slightly sighed, "More importantly, when exactly did Koperia leave your duchy?"


    "A week prior, if I remember correctly." Duke Mchine exined to the Demon, who slowly rubbed his chin, "Is that so? Then I assume she should be here soon as well."


    "It''s what you would assume, yes... It is another reason why I am here. I meant to just send my cousin a letter, but as I had toe due to my son''s situation anyway, I wished to speak to him personally." The Duke quickly exined. Eiro slowly nodded his head in response, "Nelli. Can you go inform Solomon that his cousin wille see himter?" The Naiad looked at him with a wry smile, "What, that''s what you want to use me for now?"


    "Do you want me to send the incredibly slow Golem, or the foul-mouthed Smander instead?" The Demon asked. In response, Nelli just groaned loudly as she floated out of the window. Roughly at the same time, Eiro stood up from the couch he was sitting on.


    "I think we spoke about some of the more important things just now. But before anything else happens, you should probably start chasing after your son after all. He is trying to set a few horses in the stables loose, for whatever reason." Eiro pointed out, pulling the door open. The headmaster stood in front of it, surprised at the door suddenly opening altough no sound came from the other side the whole time.


    Of course, Lognir''s ''judgement'' ability made sure that nobody outside the area of judgement could hear that which was said within it. The Demon smiled and stepped past the headmaster. The Guards were confused about what they were meant to do, but Duke Mchine quickly told them to stand down and look for his son instead.


    "I deeply apologize for my son''s behavior. I will make sure that it never happens again." Duke Mchine said, and Eiro just smirked a bit as he walked away, "Don''t worry about it. Just get him some help."


    Lognir swiftly rushed out of the room to follow Eiro as well, and looked at the Demon with a light smirk on his face, "So, what will you give me in return for helping you like this, child?"


    "What do you mean? You already heard about what I''ll give you just now. The chance to meet a Master grade necromancer and observe her abilities." The Demon pointed out bluntly. Lognir justughed in response, "You''re really a cheapskate, are you not? A bit of food would be in order now, would it not?"


    "Fine, I''ll buy you somethingter. Just don''t expect anything grand." Eiro replied bluntly, and looked ahead through the hallway.. Part of his ns would finally continue moving soon.

 Chapter 396 - The Queen Of Undeath

    Eiro took a deep breath and looked at the snow in front of his feet. It was the third night in a row that he spent out here, trying to strenghten the energy that the Death Magic stone gave off in order to lure someone here.


    Most of the time, the ones that came here were just weak Undead Hunters, which were soon added to Eiro''s collection of bodies underneath the ice. But it''s been getting a little bit boring, since he really couldn''t do anything. He didn''t want to be one of Eliza Koperia''s targets, after all, so he had to be fully aware of anything going on around him at all times. He couldn''t mess around with someone that possessed a Master grade skill, after all.


    However, since it was around 4 in the morning now, Eiro had to start heading back home and prepare to leave for the sses he would be teachingter today. He stretched a bit and cracked his knuckles, slowly spreading out his wings.


    One more time, Eiro checked his surroundings. There was nothing of interest around him. A pile of snow to his left, a crow on a branch to his right, a hooded figure just a few meters behind his back. Andst, the pine tree right in front of him.


    Truly, nothing of interest.


    "Ah... Fuck that..." Eiro groaned loudly, as he without a moment''s hesitation snapped his finger. Through Sarius'' help, he created a rather dense, incredibly bright sphere of mes behind the pine tree before diving into the shadow that it created. The next moment, Eiro already found himself underneath the hooded figure.


    He dove out and tried to attack it, but at that point, the figure already jumped out of the way. Eiro grinned broadly, although his mind was in disarray. He couldn''t see what was beyond the ck void created by that hood. Something like this never happened before. It made Eiro just the more horrified, but excited just the same.


    "Now tell me, what are you?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, and the hooded figure simply stood there. And with an unnatural motion of its body, it swung its right arm to the side. Space itself seemed to shift, as if someone cut a picture in two and was slowly pulling the two parts away from each other.


    With everything that he had in his arsenal, Eiro proceeded to protect himself. He hardened his skin many times over along the area that the cut would hit, and he tried to protect himself by imbuing his will into the chaos that surrounded him. And on top of that, Eiro even tried to slow down time with the bit that he had left on the ring he carried with him.


    However, none of it worked. Space was still split apart, and Eiro felt warm blood flowing down his chest underneath his armor. The armor itself waspletely undamaged. That cut only touched Eiro''s flesh.


    If he tried to fight this being, then the oue was more than just clear. Eiro would die, that was clear. This was a simr sensation he felt when he met that crow Eiro at the mountain where the Orcs used to live.


    "..Crow..?" Eiro muttered, and turned his head to the side. There was no way, right? Did that crowe and bring a buddy with it to finally kill Eiro? Fear started to bubble up inside of Eiro''s chest. Eiro''s heart started beating faster and faster as he finally found the crow he saw just a bit ago again.


    And just now he got a good look at it... It was a regr crow, just that its eyes were hollowed out. Its body was half-rotten, and it clearly had some bite-marks in its body from when a wolf killed it. This crow was undead. How did Eiro not see all those things before?


    In that very moment, Eiro''s fear turned into excitement, "Ah... Haha... So it''s you, huh? Nice to meet you, Koperia!" The Demon screamed out in ecstasy, before he felt a cold touch on his shoulder.


    "Oh, you know who I am? I guess I''m kind of famous that way, huh?" A seductive voice whispered into Eiro''s ear, as he just now noticed the woman standing behind him. However, the hooded figure was still there not too far away from him. Meaning that he wasn''t fighting Koperia..?


    "You did well not to die against that doll''s attack. It''s one of my favorites, you know?" The woman asked as she casually stepped around Eiro''s body. At the same time, the hooded figure''s body became d in ck mes and disappeared into nothingness soon after.


    "I was just... fighting one of your undead..?" The Demon muttered. It''s been a while since he''s felt this way.


    Eiro already knew two people with Master-grade skills. Jura and Armodeus. However, their skills wereid out for creation. And this woman''s skill wasid out for utter destruction. The Demon could feel Koperia''s freezing touch. Her skin was as cold as a corpse, but for some reason it felt like it was much colder than that.


    Koperia slowly leaned in toward Eiro, "I guess you''ll be a nice toy... It''s been a while since I''ve had a Demon like you with me." She pushed her face toward Eiro''s, as if she was about to touch her lips against his. However, she stopped just a moment before making contact, and quietly began to speak.


    But before she could finish her first word, the Demon spoke instead, "I was raised by Jura!"


    For just a few seconds, it was like everything stopped, and was dragged out to be infinitely long. So much so that Eiro wondered whether or not he activated the time-stopping ring again.


    "Jura, you say? It''s been a while since I''ve heard that name... Do you have anything to back up that im of yours?" Koperia asked, and Eiro slowly raised his right hand, "Just take a look..."


    The woman turned her head to the side as she took a step back, and soon saw the wooden hand on the Demon''s hand, "While that is not Jura''s handiwork... It sure does seem quite simr."


    Koperia turned around and stepped away, so that Eiro could get a good look at her. Her skin was nearly as white as the snow she stood on. But despite the weather, she was d in rather revealing clothes, as if the cold didn''t bother her in the slightest. Her long, pitch-ck hair seemed like it was going to pull Eiro in if he looked at it just for a moment longer, and both her eyes and lips seemed touched by fresh blood.


    She had a certain sort of liveliness in her movements when she walked, but while she stood still, it seemed like Eiro ws looking at someone that had barely just passed.


    "He... He taught me... I''m not even close to as skilled as he was, but I won''t stop working until I am..." The Demon exined to Koperia. She locked eyes with Eiro, and the Demon''s heart continued beating ever faster, "From your choice of words... It seems he has passed on?"


    Eiro slowly looked down at the ground and nodded his head, "More than a year ago, yes. I gave him the burial he wanted, don''t worry."


    Koperia stayed silent for a moment. For a split-second, it seemed like she wore a bitter expression, but that quickly faded away a moment after, "Ahh... Too bad, he would have made for a gre-"


    "If you dare finish that sentence, I''ll kill you." Eiro growled, although all of his instincts told him that he was going to die before he could even draw his weapon.


    Koperia turned her head away, "I apologize, that might have been a bit insensitive. Now, tell me, why are you ying around with magic that is not your own?"


    "To lure you here." Eiro said bluntly. Koperia curiously looked at Eiro, "To lure me here? Are you saying you are the necromancer I heard rumors of?"


    "No, that necromancer is made up. There is a powerful ''Lich'' like being near this town, but that''s not the type of necromancer you''re looking for, is it?" Eiro pointed out. Koperia turned her head toward Eiro and frowned suspiciously, "Are you trying to tell me that you made that necromancer up, just for the chance to meet me? Quite a hardcore fan, aren''t you?"


    The demon looked back at Koperia, and didn''t even have the energy to talk back to her, "I need your help with something. I-"


    "You have a soul that doesn''t fit your race, don''t you?" Koperia asked, "Yeah, I can tell that it''s rather poorly matched, but you''ve done quite well with it despite that fact."


    "You can tell just by looking at me..?"


    "Of course, who do you think I am? If I couldn''t even do that, it would be tough to call me ''Queen of Undeath'', wouldn''t it? But is that all? Can I kill you and take your body now?"


    Eiro grinned lightly, "If you wanted to do that at this point, I would already be dead, right? Come to my house, I''m sure Armodeus would love to see you again as well."


    "Huh? Armodeus is there as well? How unexpected... that man never used to leave his workshop back in the day." Koperia said in a wondrous voice, "Very well, I will listen to your requests in more detailter, once I confirmed if you are speaking the truth. Now, follow me."


    "....Shouldn''t I lead the way to my home?" Eiro asked with a wry smile.

 Chapter 397 - Mismatched Soul

    "Watch the head." Eiro said to Koperia as he climbed through one of the hidden passages that would lead him directly down to the basement, near where Armodeus set up his workshop in the building.


    "And why exactly are we not using the main entrance?" She asked. Eiro turned around toward her, and bluntly said, "Because I don''t want you to meet my children."


    "That''s kind of rude, isn''t it?" Koperia replied, "I would never do anything to children, even if they''re demons."


    "Mhm, but my children aren''t demons, which is exactly the reason why I don''t want you to meet them." Eiro exined. It seemed like Koperia was indeed quite curious, however she didn''t get much of a chance to inquire about what Eiro meant before they happened to encounter Armodeus, taking a break in front of his workshop''s door.


    The Elder Dwarf stared at the woman right behind Eiro, and dropped the cup of water he was holding. Of course Eiro quickly caught it before it hit the ground, "What are you doing?"


    "I''m just... I... erm..." Armodeus muttered, staring at the Queen of Undeath that now stood in front of him, "Y-Ye''re really here, eh?"


    "I''m not an illusion, at least. That Demon lured me here through rumors he fabricated. Well, half-fabricated, if it is to be believed that there is a powerful undead entrapped around here somewhere." Koperia pointed out, and quickly took a step closer toward Armodeus, "So, how about it? Have you finally made the choice to join my collection?"


    Armodeus'' face quite quickly turned away from its stunned expression and instead became an angry grimace, "Hah, as if! Told ya a million times before, I''m not gonna be one of yer filthy undead!" The moment that Armodeus said this, he quickly started to look around, and Eiro shook his head, "Don''t worry, she''s too far away to hear you."


    Armodeus let out a deep sigh of relief, "Aye, thanks,d. And now to you. Don''t mess with anyone in this house, alright? They''re good people." The elder dwarf said, to make sure that Koperia wouldn''t do anything that couldn''t be undone, "Ahh... Fine, fine. Nowe on, don''t you want to tell me of that issue with your soul again?"


    "Sure. Armodeus, do you mind if we do that in your workshop?" The Demon asked, but the dwarf immediately shook his head, "Of course I don''t mind,e on in! It''s yer house in the first ce,d!"


    "Speaking of, how did a Demon get his hands on a ce like this?"


    "Haha, thed has quite a few unique contacts. As should be quite obvious with us two being here." Armodeus said, leaving it at that for now. Meanwhile, Eiro pulled out the Ace of Cups and cloaked the walls of the room in a thinyer of the liquid, making sure that nobody outside would be able to hear what they were saying, no matter what magic they were using.


    "Oh, how intriguing. You have a divine card, huh?"


    "I''m more suprised that you don''t." Eiro replied, but Koperia quickly shook her head as she took a seat on one of the chairs, "I prefer not having power gifted to me. I prefer forcefully taking it for myself." She exined.


    "Of course you do..." Eiro sighed, "Anyway, we can talk now. Let me get you up to speed."


    And so, Eiro proceeded to tell Koperia the most important things that she needed to know. Mostly focused on the fact that he was a being created by the current Monster King.


    "And you see, now we''ll get to the part where I would like your help. The soul that the Monster King used to create me was that of a human. He made a mistake when he created me, which I assume is the reason why I still have an aspect of humanity within me." Eiro exined to Koperia, who was holding her hand in front of her mouth. She was unable to stop herself from grinning in excitement.


    "A Demon with a human''s soul, you say?" Slowly, Koperia moved her hand toward Eiro''s chest after standing up. She ced her fingers in front of his heart. Eiro wasn''t sure what was going on, he just knew that he was practically paralyzed right now. Soon, Koperia''s fingers dove underneath Eiro''s skin, as if disappearing inside of his flesh. But it didn''t hurt or bleed in the slightest. As if she wasn''t really touching his physical body.


    And then, with one swift motion, she tugged on something within Eiro. Slowly, the Demon moved his head down, seeing a silvery, translucent mass sticking out from his chest. Immediately, Armodeus yelled out, "Koperia, what are you doing?!"


    The Queen of Undeath rolled her eyes, "Don''t worry, I''m just making a ''copy'' of his soul. I''m not taking his real one."


    And just like that, with one more tug, Koperia pulled the mass fully out of Eiro''s body as the Demon''s legs became weak for a moment. As if he suddenly lost all strength for just a second. Luckily he was able to still catch himself though.


    "Huh? How interesting. Most people fall unconscious when their soul is touched like this." Koperia smirked, clearly intrigued. Eiro locked eyes with her, "Didn''t you say you didn''t take my soul, and just made a copy of it?"


    "Of course I did..." Koperia replied, looking at the silver sphere floating above her hand, "But in order to copy it, I still had to touch your actual soul a bit. However, I''m d that you''re awake, that saves us some time."


    Koperia proceeded to snap her finger, and soon, the silver sphere grew in mass and floated right in front of Eiro. Koperia quickly started to exin, "Now, to make it clear, all that has been copied is the soul''s shape. This obviously is incapable of recing a real soul, even I cannot create something like that out of thin air."


    Just a momentter, what stood in front of Eiro was something that was shaped exactly like he was, his naked body at least. Eiro looked down at where the soul''s right hand was. The walls of that soul have broken apart, irreparable, but still roughly floating around in the shape of a hand. This was the only reason why it was possible to create prosthetics like this. The soul was technically still in the right shape, it was just impossible to heal wounds like that due to how much the soul happened to deteriorate in such ces. It was the same reason why people were often left with scars when healed of life-threatening wounds.


    But of course, Koperia didn''t create this copy so that Eiro could get a good look at his own hand. But rather, he was supposed to see the ''mismatch'' that Koperia mentioned earlier.


    "There, you can see it now as well, right? The form that your soul is taking, and then its real form." Koperia said, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. There was a simple humanoid soul deeper within Eiro''s full soul. And it looked like a human, like a more handsome version of what Eiro currently looked like. And everything else, like Eiro''s horns, tail, or wings were justyered on top of that ''base''.


    "That''s what the human I used to be looked like, isn''t it?" Eiro asked, and the Queen of Undeath immediately nodded her head, "It should be fair to assume though. It''s not like I''ve seen something like this often myself. It seems like with each evolution, you areing closer to the original shape of your soul. Of course with the exception of those additional parts you''ve got sticking out everywhere. But of course, it should be impossible for your soul to take on its true form when only making use of evolutions."


    "...Even if my next evolution is a Legendary Evolution?" Eiro asked, and the Queen of Undeath stared deeply into Eiro''s eyes, "Did you just say ''Legendary''..?"


    "Yes. I have a Legendary skill, called ''Supreme Demon''. Would my soul possibly... ''fix itself''?" Eiro asked, and Koperia crossed her arms, "It is indeed possible for that to happen. But I wouldn''t count on you bing human again, sorry."


    "Why are you apologizing? I don''t want to be human." Eiro sighed, "I''m quite happy as a Demon, you see? My question was more regarding the fact that... I should have more mana and health than I do right now."


    "More mana..?" Koperia asked, "Well, how high are they currently?"


    "Health, roughly 150 Thousand. Mana, roughly 350 Thousand." Eiro replied bluntly. Both Armodeus and Koperia opened their eyes wide in surprise, "Are you trying to say that those numbers are low?"


    "Considering that I''ve gone through multiple unique evolutions, each built toward knowledge or magic in some form, and my wisdom is above 300, I at least hoped to have slightly higher mana, yes."


    Koperia looked at the copy of the soul standing in the center of the room, "Considering that... I would indeed say that that amount of mana is rather low... It is certainly possible that the reason for this is your mismatched soul. Mana is created in the soul, after all. This could certainly also have effects on your Life Force, since the body is formed after the soul''s image." Koperia confirmed, "So, are you saying you want your soul to be plete'' during your next evolution?"


    "Yes, since I need as much power as possible, that would be quite helpful."


    "What do you need that power for? Who, or what, are you trying to kill?" The Queen of Undeath asked rather intrigued, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms, "After my next evolution, I will have the power to be ''The World'', as the card is already in my possession. Then, I will kill ''The Devil'', and take a certain divine card from him, which I will use to steal the aspect that makes the current hero actually the hero out of his soul, before I will kill the Monster King as well. Meaning, I truly need as much power as my body can take."


    Koperia stayed silent for a few moments, and stepped past the soul. She ced her hand onto Eiro''s cheek, once moreing eerily close to their lips meeting a momentter, "Are you sure you don''t wish to be part of my collection? I''ll treat you quite well, you know?"


    For a few moments, Eiro stayed silent. Not because he was actually considering it, obviously, but because he had toe up with a way to get out of this situation, "Ah... Sorry, I don''t think the Spirit King and Queens that blessed me would like that."


    "Excuse me?" Koperia asked, "You received blessings?"


    "Mhm, by the Smander King, the former Naiad Queen, and the Lady of Winter. I also have a direct connection to the primal ne of fire within me, so if you try to do something like steal me away, the Smander King mighte and stop you." Eiro bluffed. Of course what he said was true, with the exception of that veryst bit. The Smander King could probably not care less if Eiro lived or died, he would only interfere if something was going to happen to Sarius. But luckily, this was enough for Koperia to back down. She took a step back and looked down at the ground.


    But then, Eiro realized that she was just smirking.


    "Ah...." She practically moaned, cing her hands on her face and throat, "That only makes me want you more, dear~."

 Chapter 398 - The Deal

    Eiro pushed Koperia away from him, "Please stop joking like that. You know exactly that I won''t be ''yours''. Ever." The Demon sighed deeply. Koperia looked back at Eiro with a light frown, "Then what else will you offer me for my services?"


    "Your... services?"


    "Yes, ''services''. Helping your soul take on a proper form during your next evolution... your... legendary evolution. Surely, it might be powerful enough for your soul to adapt naturally, but at the same time it could also simply not happen. However, this will be your best chance at ever shaping your soul, at repairing it. How about I stay nearby, and when it''s time for your evolution, you let me help you a bit." The Queen of Undeath asked. Eiro turned his head toward Armodeus, who had a nervous frown on his face.


    "Lad, she''s right. It''s yer best chance. The current Monster King is probably the mightiest any has ever been. Skipping the stage of a ''royal'', it immediately became king. You know that. If ya really want to go through with your ns, ye''re gonna need any amount of power you can get." The Elder Dwarf pointed out. Eiro nodded his head.


    "Yeah, it''s too risky not to take advantage of this..." Eiro muttered, and then looked straight at Koperia, "Before I make you the offer... You are still counted as a ''person'', right? I don''t know what magic at your grade can do to one''s body, but..."


    "Of course I''m still a person. I would never let my own magic turn me into some sort of monster. Only the living can truly control the dead." The Queen of Undeath exined bluntly, and Eiro crossed his arms in thought, "Then I have a deal for you that can help us both a bit more... I know the location of ''The Death''. Since I''m aware you like to harvest ''techniques'' from powerful necromancers, maybe you would like to do the same with that creature. In return, I want you to leave the card of ''The Death'' to me."


    "Lad, but..." Armodeus started surprised, "You already have the card of ''The World'', what do you need ''The Death'' for?"


    "Easy. I want to make sure that nobody else can get it. Once I kill ''The Devil'', I''m also going to keep that card. Of course I still need to find a good way to keep them with me safely, but I want to weaken the Monster King''s army as much as possible. And of course, after saying that I want to get rid of the Monster King forever, I can''t just let a being of death incarnate wander this world uncontrolled." The Demon pointed out.


    Koperia looked at Eiro with a curious expression, and started to pace around the room in thought, "Interesting. Spells and techniques taken directly from a royal... Interesting." She smirked lightly, "Of course, as I said earlier, I don''t have the slightest interest in things like cards and such, so you can keep it for all I care. But for that to happen, you must be the one to do the killing, is that not right?"


    Eiro smiled lightly and nodded his head, "Yes, that''s also another benefit that I''ll gain. A lot of levels from killing another royal."


    "I''m d that you''re honest like that. However, I want you to be honest with another thing. You have also used Necromancy before, have you not?"


    Eiro raised his brows surprised, "You can tell?" He asked. Koperia immediately nodded her head, "Of course I can. Any magic used is ingrained into the wielder''s mana. Those with enough skill can even tell the exact spells that were case. It''s been a while for you, though, so that doesn''t seem possible anymore."


    "I created two Will''o''Wisps using the souls of two young adventurers I killed." Eiro exined, "Luckily the souls were still there, and I read a few books about ghost-type undead. They''re the only sort that actually keep their soul to an extent. And the spell I cast made them independent of me."


    "Oh? Not everyone can do that with their first casting of a death spell. You seem to be rather skilled in casting magic as well." Koperia said curiously, "But there''s one more thing I''m wondering... That was the only time you used necromancy, is it not?"


    "Yes, it is... Why?" Eiro asked, already aware of what Koperia was most likely about to say to him next. And soon, he realized that he really did ask what Eiro didn''t want her to ask. Koperia smiled as she locked eyes with the Demon, "Why do you have an Undead walking around your home?"


    Eiro red back at her, walking in front of the door immediately, "That''s none of your business. She is none of your business."


    "Oh? For someone who couldn''t even fight against one of my dolls, you are acting a bit too much like you could stop me." Koperia pointed out. Eiro groaned loudly, "Then let me go about this another way. Koperia, please don''t mess with her. She''s a good girl, alright? I have a bit of a fail-safe, if you can''t tell." The demon said, ncing at part of the thinyer of the ace of cups'' liquid that was coating the walls.


    "If I need to, I will kill you through any means necessary." Eiro said bluntly, and Koperia began tough loudly, "Don''t worry, I''m insane, but I''m not a psycho." She replied with a smirk, "I want you to be part of my collection, but you said you don''t want to. And since you seem to be a good kid, I''ll let you live for a while longer."


    "..." Eiro silently turned his head toward Armodeus, who slowly nodded his head, "Aye,d, d''ya really think Jura would be friends with someone that would indiscriminately kill others? If that was the case, both Jura and I would already be long dead."


    "Huh... I guess that''s... fair." Eiro replied, and locked eyes with Koperia, "Alright. If you can truly promise me that you won''t do anything to her, I''ll introduce her to you... You could be some help in figuring her out anyway."


    Eiro turned around and opened the door, revealing a young, cloaked girl to be standing there. And behind her was Arie, just as curious as Hannah about what was going on in this room. They had both noticed that someone powerful entered this building, after all.


    "Come in." Eiro said, quite nervous. But since he knew for a fact that Koperia was telling the truth the whole time, and she actually never spoke even a single lie the whole time they had been speaking, Eiro figured that it was fine to let Koperia meet Hannah. And since Arie wouldn''t let Hannah meet someone like that alone, Eiro of course pulled both of them, and not just the undead, into the room.


    "These are Arie and Hannah. Hannah is the undead." Eiro said bluntly, while both of the girls were basically frozen, standing in front of Koperia. Of course, mostly because Koperia was exerting pressure onto them so that she could get a proper look at them.


    "Please stop that, they''re my guests." Eiro sighed. The Queen of Undeath rolled her eyes, "Fine. You''re no fun, you know that?"


    "I''ve been told." The Demon said bluntly. Koperia looked at Hannah a bit more closely, but all that she was able to actually ''see'' was a young girl. After all, Eiro had finallypletely covered her in the skin prosthetics, and the artificial artifact created by Armodeus was set into her chest. And just like that, her disguise was basically perfect. She looked as if she was alive! She was still mute, as Eiro hadn''t finished the prosthetic voice-box yet, but appearance-wise, she was just a regr human girl.


    However, at the same time, Koperia could see something beyond the fake skin. She could see that Hannah was an undead, but she could also see that she had a soul and even life force.


    "How... intriguing. Girl, is your status a full one, as if you were alive? Not just the limited status that Undead usually possess?" Koperia inquired curiously. Hannah turned her head to look at Eiro, who nodded his head.


    And so, Hannah turned back toward Koperia and nodded, trying to mouth the word ''yes'' with her fake lips.


    Koperia got the message, and couldn''t help herself but grin, "How is that possible? You are a pure contradiction! Juxtaposition incarnate! An undead with life force! How wonderful!" Koperia''s heartbeat sped up, and Eiro realized that she was getting a bit too excited over the body of a 14 years-old girl at the moment.


    "Koperia, concentrate, please. It''s because of a Unique-skill she has. But now I''m wondering, considering that she has life force and a fully intact soul, could she be-"


    "Oh, you want to know if she can be resurrected? Of course not. She''s not even really dead in the first ce. She''s a living undead. She is the only true un-dead I have seen in my admittedly long life." Koperia exined, looking deeply into Hannah''s fake eyes, "But don''t worry child. You have great talent for the art of necromancy. As you are neither truly dead, nor alive, you can ess both halves of existence equally. So don''t be too sad, you have a great future ahead of you." Koperia exined, "Except, of course, if you want to offer yourself to me and be part of my collection... I could help you gre-"


    "Koperia, stop it." Eiro groaned, and the Queen of Undeath turned her head and smiled back at the demon, "It was worth a try, wasn''t it?"

 Chapter 399 - Permission

    Eiro quickly made his way out of the manor together with Koperia and the others, to make sure that the Queen of Undeath didn''t wander around the building without him or anything like that. He was pretty sure that she tried casting some spells anyway, but the Demon managed to stop her from doing so for the most part. Whenever she tried, Eiro had been able to see through her immediately, after all.


    "Well, I guess I''m going to stick around here for a little while. Do you know any interesting creatures that I could add to my collection?" Koperia asked curiously. Eiro thought for just a moment, "There are the corpses that I hid inside of theke where we met a few hours ago if you want to y around with those a bit. But besides that, I guess most things are free game. Just don''t try to kill random people in town. Oh, and there''s a mountain near here, with a vige of monsters set up inside of there. It''s where the two Will''o''Wisps I made are, so you should be able to recognize the ce immediately. Anyway, those guys are part of my own ''collection'', if you so will, so please don''t do anything to those guys either."


    Koperia raised her brows curiously, "Would you mind if I go visit them for a moment at least? I keep growing more and more curious about your business in this area..." The woman said with a slight grin on her face. Eiro rolled his eyes, "Sure, but keep your distance. They''re still monsters, and most of them are utter morons. So, they''ll attack you if youe there, and I don''t want you to wipe them out because they made you angry." Eiro sighed, but Koperia smirked.


    "Don''t worry, if I was able to get past your perception, then I''ll get past theirs." Koperia pointed out, and Eiro was quickly reminded of something, "Speaking of... How did you do that? Do you just have such a great control over your aura?"


    "Aura? Oh, yeah, I guess so. It''s something you pick up if you live as long as I do, especially since my expertise is not regarded so kindly in most ces of this world. And of course, Necromancy is not the only magic I know." Koperia said with a wink, and Eiro knew immediately that Koperia wouldn''t tell him any more details regarding her abilities.


    Koperia quickly snapped her finger, and out of ck mes, a small creature appeared. It was mostly just arge eyeball with two bat wings at its side. It was floating around Eiro rather speedily.


    "What''s that supposed to be?" Eiro asked with a light frown, and Koperia quickly exined, "Homunculus, familiar, toy, call it whatever you want. The only thing you need to know is that through it, we canmunicate. If you need my help, just hold it in your hand and say ''wake''. It''s going to wake up, and its counterpart, if you want to call it that, will respond on my side. It works simrly for me. Just a quick method ofmunication, since I''ll be off doing my own thing." Koperia exined. A momentter, the eye-bat folded up its wings, covering up the entirety of its body which was made up solely of that single huge eye. The whole thing was about the size of Eiro''s fist, so it was rtively easy to hold it like this.


    "Interesting. I''m guessing this sort of thing is hard to create." Eiro pointed out, and Koperia thought about it for just a moment, "It''s not particrly hard... It''s more like... a privilege that you receive once you''ve gained enough skill in magic. It''s like a spell taken shape for a short time. Simr to spirits in concept, but incredibly different in execution. That''s all I can bother to exin, anyway." The Queen of Undeath exined. Eiro knew that she was genuine saying thatst bit, so he didn''t even try to convince her to keep teaching him. He could try and analyze this eye-batter anyway.


    A momentter, Koperia turned around and once more snapped her finger. ck mes appeared again, just this time, they didn''t summon this sort of eye-bat, but rather one of her undead. It was a giant bird, most likely a special sort of Roc bird. It was mostly skeletal, just that it had some sort of magic covering most of its form, so it didn''t directly appear skeletal for most. Koperia climbed onto the undead Roc bird without a moment''s hesitation, and then looked at Eiro with a smile on her face, "Once you got your ns in order, let me know, and we can go take care of ''the Death'' together."


    "Will do." Eiro replied bluntly, and the Queen of Undeath disappeared just a momentter on the back of her undead roc. And then, he turned around and looked at the three people standing there. Armodeus was already on his way back into the building, a bit annoyed that Koperia didn''t even bother to say goodbye to him, while Arie and Hannah were simply standing there rather nervous.


    "Eiro, who exactly was that?" The Nephilim inquired immediately. If Hannah had flesh, Arie''s fingernails would be digging into it as the Nephilim stood behind the undead girl.


    Eiro looked back at her, "Oh, I thought you would have picked that up through context... That was Koperia, the Queen of Undeath. She''s an acquaintance of Armodeus and myte Master, and I needed her help with something." The Demon exined. Arie let out a deep sigh as she locked eyes with him.


    "The fact that you are saying this so casually is not even nearly as disturbing as the fact that I''m not even surprised anymore..." Arie groaned. Her frustration, nervosity, and shock soon faded when she realized something.


    "Wait... The Queen of Undeath, Eliza Koperia? The woman that''s known for being utterly insane, with no regard for the life of anyone or anything?" Arie asked with a wry smile, "And you let her meet Hannah?"


    "..." Eiro looked back at the two, "I can tell that you''re getting angry, but there''s really no need to. I can see through any lies, and she promised she wouldn''t do anything crazy like mess with you. And I didn''t notice any lies."


    "Didn''t you just talk about the fact that she managed to get past your perception as well? What if she used some sort of trick?" Arie asked, and Eiro looked back at her, a bit in thought, "You have a point. Then how about this... Koperia was a close friend to my master, a man who indiscriminately tried to heal any living creature he met, and if they had the need, would make custom prosthetics on the spot. And she is also a close friend to Armodeus, who you should already know is a huge scaredy-cat. If she was as scary as those rumors, those two would never have be so close." Eiro exined to Arie. Somehow, it seemed like that helped her ept Eiro''s words a bit more easily.


    "If you say so..." Arie muttered. With a smile, Eiro walked up to the two women in front of him, before he squatted down in front of Hannah. He looked into the girl''s fake eyes, and looked at her fake face. Her fake hands were grabbing onto the Nephilim behind her, rather nervous.


    "Now, Hannah... What would you think about bing a royal with me?"


    ---


    Eiro walked through the royal castle with a smile on his face. He was being escorted by the royal knights, because of course he was, and soon ended up in front of Solomon''s study. And to Eiro''s pleasant surprise, it seemed like there was another visitor here at the moment. While that visitor''s guards were first trying to hold Eiro off from heading inside, once they realized who it was that was trying to get into this room, they took a quick step to the side to allow him in.


    The Demon couldn''t help himself but smirk as he knocked on the door, "Solomon, I''ming in." Eiro said with a smile. On the other side of the door, the King let out a slight sigh and nodded his head. Meanwhile, his cousin, Marcus Mchine, the duke, was wondering why he didn''t reply properly. But of course, Eiro didn''t need to hear the King''s words to know that he was being let in. Not that Eiro cared too much. Even if Solomon had told him to stay out, he would have juste in. There were only three individuals in there, after all. Duke Mchine, Solomon, and Lognir. He probably couldn''t interrupt anything important that he couldn''t know about anyway.


    Eiro swiftly pushed open the door and took a step inside. There, he simply smiled at Duke Mchine and lightly waved at him. The Duke immediately jumped up once he saw this man, and then locked eyes with him, "What? What are you doing here? I thought our business regarding Richard was over already..."


    "Hm?" Eiro asked, "What are you talking about? I''m not here for you. I''m off-duty already." The Demon sighed deeply.


    "Then why are you here, Eiro?" Solomon asked with a light smile on his face, although he clearly wanted to continue his situation with his cousin. Eiro turned his head toward Lognir and smirked. The Dragon snapped his finger while rolling his eyes, "Don''t abuse my abilities too much, child."


    "Hey, I''m trying to preserve my own abilities here a bit more, you know?" Eiro smirked, "Anyway, just wanted to let you know, Solomon. I managed to meet up with Koperia. She''s a friend of myte master, yadda yadda, that part''s not important. What is important is that she''s going to help me out with a few things to help me be stronger. Don''t worry, she won''t mess with anyone around here, she promised me. You might find a few more undead monsters around the vicinity of the town for a while, but don''t worry about that." Eiro exined, and Solomon raised his brows surprised.


    "Oh, what a coincidence. That''s what Marcus and I were just speaking of." The King pointed out, and Eiro nodded his head immediately, "I know, that''s why I said it first. Anyway, now that you''re caught up with that, I need to ask you for two things. One, make sure that Charles doesn''t ck off as much when ites to infusing his sapling. Two, I need official free ess to the deep part of the prison, Koperia and I will take care of ''that'' soon. It would be easier if we don''t have to break in there for that." Eiro pointed out quickly. Solomon locked eyes with Eiro for a moment, while Duke Mchine was kind of overwhelmed with all of this sudden information.


    Solomon let out a deep sigh, "I keep telling Charles to do it, but the kid just won''t listen. He''s like a different person now, but we have the same issues. Back then he wouldn''t listen because he was rebellious, and now because he''s too excited about things to just sit there for a couple of hours at a time."


    Duke Mchine turned his head toward his cousin and stared at him, "You''re seriously focusing on that part of it, Solomon?"

 Chapter 400 - Wasting Time

    "Sorry, but it seems like this conversation currently takes a bit of priority..." Solomon said while looking at his cousin. The other man just shook his head and smiled, "Don''t worry about it, Solomon. I can tell that it is rather important... considering that Koperia is involved here. Besides, we already spoke about most of what we had to speak about. The rest is something that can be discussed at ater point."


    "Thank you for understanding. I will see you at dinnerter, I assume?"


    "Of course. But for now, I''ll head back to the bedchambers that were prepared for me." Duke Mchine exined to the King in front of him, before stepping through the door out of the room. His guards quickly apanied him. They were rather tensed up because of Eiro''s presence, but also at the same time somewhat more rxed because the royal guard was swarming this building. And considering that they didn''t do anything about Eiro, he was clearly not dangerous. At least that was their mindset.


    Once Eiro, Lognir and Solomon were alone, the Demon turned toward the King, "Alright, again. Koperia and I will take care of ''The Death''. Since I''m not officially ''The World'' just yet, I can keep the card for myself as well, until we found a good way to keep it safe somewhere."


    "...What sort of motivation would that woman have to assist you in this?" Solomon asked a bit worried. Such a powerful person, who was known for doing anything she wanted even if it resulted in whole cities being wiped out within a matter of days, helping out someone like Eiro? It didn''t make sense.


    It seemed like Lognir, as his and Solomon''s minds were connected to each other, knew what he was thinking, and quickly exined what he figured Eiro might be thinking right now, "I assume that she is doing this out of her own selfishness, Solomon. I did hear rumors that she liked hunting down other ''powerful'' Necromancers, and who else deserves the title of a true incarnation of death beside her? ''The Death'' itself."


    Solomon turned away from his familiar, instead looking at the Demon in front of him, "Is that right? She is trying to fight the death out of her own selfish reasons?"


    "To an extent, yes. I''m sure she is kind of trying to help me out as well, since she and my teacher were friends. Otherwise she could just go to the prison and get rid of the death herself. I''m no match for her in the slightest, so I also won''t be that much help in killing ''the Death''. But she''s giving me the experience and even the card thates with killing it. Sure, she''s not particrly interested in either of those things, but even then, she could just take it for herself and let the card just disappear." Eiro exined.


    Solomon was not entirely convinced, however. He was nervous, thinking that there might be more to it than just that, "Why is Koperia even here in the first ce? I know you asked Lognir to spread rumors about a necromancer so that she woulde here. What did you need her for? Surely not just to kill ''the Death'', right?"


    Eiro sighed slightly, since he didn''t expect they''d have to speak about this today, "You''re right, there is a reason. You know that I was created by the Monster King, right? Well, there were some... issues with my soul that I needed an expert''s opinion on. And the expert in this situation was Koperia."


    "What kind of issues were there with your soul?" Solomon asked, and Eiro turned away. It wasn''t his fault, andpared to some of the other things that he did in the past, this wasn''t anything to be particrly angry about either. Of course the implications were horrific, but at the end of the day, it wasn''t like people didn''t know about this.


    "I have a human soul. During my creation, the Monster King became distracted, and I had an aspect of humanity left within me, which is why I can control my monstrosity." Eiro exined. Solomon''s eyes opened wide as he locked eyes with the Demon, "So you''re saying that all the monsters of the monster king''s army were made not using other monsters'' souls, but the souls of people?"


    "It''s possible... at least arge portion certainly was. But I believe that many are still made from monsters'' souls." Eiro exined, "Although at the end of the day, this Monster King is rather uniquepared to many of the others that existed. I mean, he led his army to a ce that monsters shouldn''t even possibly approach."


    "The city on theke... It''s formally been a monster nest for quite some time, and we don''t even know if the guardian of theke still lives at this time." Solomon muttered, "But that''s not important right now. So because of your soul, you wanted Koperia toe here to..."


    "To see if everything was alright with my soul. I''ve always had rather low mana and healthpared to what my level, number of evolutions, and stats would suggest. Now I know why, and throughout my next evolution, Koperia will help me fix that." Eiro exined.


    Now, Solomon became even more suspicious, "Really? What did you offer her to help you?"


    "Again, she does whatever she wants, no matter what other people offer her. She probably just wants to see if she can manipte someone''s soul in such a direct way." Eiro exined to Solomon, who slowly nodded his head, "I see... But at least be as careful as you can be. That woman is incredibly dangerous."


    "I know, I was nearly killed by her the first time we met. Well, technically I was nearly killed by one of her undead, but that''s the same thing, basically." Eiro pointed out, "But let''s move on from that for now. Will you give us ess to the prison?"


    Solomon crossed his arms for a moment, "It would certainly be quite helpful if we were able to use the resources of that basement area for something else. But are you sure that you can get rid of it that easily?"


    "Well... strength-wise, I assume that Koperia is probably as strong, if not stronger, than ''The Death'' at its full power. And it''s weakened right now as well. And then including the fact that I''ll try and make use of some magic that should possibly hurt it quite a bit, there''s not much to worry about in that regard."


    "...You have a point." Solomon said, "Alright, give me a few days, and I''ll figure it out. I''ll make sure that nobody there will bother you either... Just make sure you figure out a way to get rid of it without affecting the other prisoners in the building, alright?"


    "Don''t worry, that shouldn''t be an issue." Eiro exined, "Now, where''s Charles?"


    "Charles?" Solomon asked, surprised at the sudden change of topic, "Oh, right, because of the wood for his prosthetics... He should be in his room at the moment, he told me he''s trying to study for one of his sses."


    "Alright, then I''ll go visit him for a moment, if you don''t mind. I might be able to help him out with that, and then I''ll talk to him about properly feeding the sapling his magic. It''s important that he does that consistently if he wants to have high-quality prosthetics."


    Solomon nodded, "Of course, go ahead. Thanks for doing that, Eiro."


    "Don''t worry about it. I owe you quite a bit at this point anyway."


    "Oh, don''t worry about either of us owing the other something. We will simply help the other out when they need it, right?" Solomon suggested. Eiro nodded his head in response as he slowly turned around to make his way toward the door, "That''s what friends do, right?"


    ---


    Eiro knocked on Charles'' door and waited for an answer. And the next moment, it seemed like he fell over onto the ground. Of course, realizing that he might be hurt, Eiro quickly opened the door. He already knew that he wasn''t doing anything that he would want to hide in there anyway.


    "Are you alright?" The Demon asked, soon seeing Charles holding his leg. The one that he had left, not the prosthetic. And at the same time, he had a few scratches and some blood on his hand.


    "Did you just try to cast a spell?" Eiro asked with a sigh, and Charles looked up with a wry smile, "What if I was..?"


    "If you were, then I would suggest doing it on the training grounds next time where you can''t damage things in your room. And where there will be people that can help you if you mess something up." Eiro pointed out, looking around the room a bit. Judging from the slight marks on the walls as well as the scratches on Charles'' hand, this was clearly supposed to be attack magic.


    "I wouldn''t have messed up if you hadn''t surprised me like that anyway..." Charles groaned, as Eiro rolled his eyes and approached, pulling a sk of purified water out of his satchel that he could use to quickly heal the boy''s shallow injuries.


    "If you can''t cast attack magic because someone knocked on your door, then you simply can''t cast attack magic. It''s the type that has to be cast while a lot of stuff is happening, you must focus on the world around you at the same time as you''re casting your spell." Eiro pointed out, continuously focusing his mana on healing him as much as possible.


    Since Charles was so unresponsive to healing, it would take him a lot longer to heal these scratches. As long as it would take him to heal a serious, possibly life-threatening wound on someone else.


    "Now tell me, what''s going on?"


    "What do you mean?" Charles asked with a wry smile. Eiro looked back at the boy and rolled his eyes, "You know exactly what I mean. One, why are you secretly trying to practice casting attack magic, and two, why are you neglecting your sapling?" The Demon asked, "I have a feeling that the reasons for both are somewhat connected."


    "..." Charles silently stared at the ground, "I... I want to be stronger. I''ve always thought I didn''t need to be because of the guards with me, but if I had been even a little bit stronger, maybe I could have helped stop... him. Back then, people in ss would look at me because I was the prince, and now... they''re looking at me and whispering to each other because I''m the cripple that let his ssmates die... I just can''t waste time anymore...."

 Chapter 401 - Becoming Stronger

    "You want to be strong?" Eiro asked, looking Charles deep into his eyes. Nervously, the young man nodded his head, not sure about what Eiro was going to say to him now.


    "Then start with finishing feeding your sapling your mana every day. Once you do that and there''s enough wood to make prosthetics out of it, you''ll have limbs that will literally act as staffs do, meaning you''ll be able to cast magic using them. That alone is quite an upgradepared to your current state." The Demon pointed out bluntly, "And after that, instead of practicing in here, go look at some spellbooks that your school offers to you, or just the ones that you have here in the castle, and keep on practicing. Increase your skill levels, and you will naturally be stronger."


    Charles nervosity disappeared as he realized that Eiro didn''t offer him any sort of ''miracle method'' to be stronger instantly. Something like that didn''t exist, and if it did, Eiro would be using it as well. At the end of the day, even though the Demon''s growth was elerated considerably due to the fact that he got extremely lucky a lot of the time, his actual growth still justes from doing the basics. Practicing, learning, and slowly bing better at the things that he wants to do.


    Seeing that Charles was somewhat disappointed, Eiro let out a slight sigh, "Don''t worry, I know you have something special about you. The world doesn''t take away without giving something in return. You''ve suffered a lot because of your incredibly low rate of healing, but that is something you were born with. A condition you had ever since you were born. It isn''t some sort of disease or curse in itself. That means that you are more powerful in another way, to bnce out that which was taken from you with your low healing. You just have to be patient until you find that thing you are good at."


    "...Are you sure?" Charles asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Of course I am. Now,e on. Go to the gardens and feed your sapling already before it dies off." The Demon said as he stood up, and the young prince lightly smiled, somewhat more reassured, as he left the room and started making his way to the gardens, like Eiro asked him to.


    "Poor kid, though. You''re a piece of shit so I''m kinda sure you deserved losing your hand, but a kid like that..." Bavet said, as he was still currently fused with Eiro, and the Demon groaned loudly as he heard the slime''s voice in his ear, "You know I can still kill you whenever I want, right? Especially now that we can replicate Arie''s artifact."


    "...So, how about that seal on Solomon''s memories, eh?" Bavet asked, trying to change the topic. Eiro rolled his eyes and replied, "What about it?"


    "Well, we didn''t remove it yet. Did that dragon dude do it instead?"


    "No, of course not, Lognir can''t unseal things like that. He could probably do it with low-tier seals, but not one that''s that strong. If Solomon''s memories had simply been manipted, he would have remembered everything by now, but seals are different." Eiro pointed out, "Also, why am I the one exining that to you? You''re the sealing-arts expert here."


    "Yeah, but I don''t know how that dragon''s powers work." The slime pointed out, while Eiro just made his way through the halls of the castle, so that he could get out of here for now. Although Bavet did have a point. It was taking rather long for all the materials to arrive here. Bavet had concluded that a few rare types were needed in order to unseal Solomon''s memories, and Solomon was going to order them, but Eiro didn''t really hear anything about those things anymore.


    To be fair, Eiro had a lot of other things to take care oftely, so he couldn''t be med for just not thinking about it all that much.


    Well, they would unseal Solomon''s memories when they had everything they needed, either way. For now, Eiro had to concentrate on something else, though.


    There was going to be a test during ss tomorrow, and Eiro still didn''t finish preparing all the questions.


    ---


    "Eiro, can youe out for a moment?" A muffled, exhausted voice asked from the other side of the door. The Demon raised his head, "Why should Ie out, juste in, James. The door is unlocked."


    "...I can''t... Breathe..." James muttered, hunched over. Eiro groaned loudly as he stood up and approached the door. The Light Elf stood there with a pale face, clearly struggling to stay upright in front of Eiro.


    The Demon rolled his eyes and swung his tail around, hitting it against James'' sr plexus. At the same time, Eiro grabbed the mask James was wearing and slightly pulled it off his face, while also pushing some magic into the elf''s chest.


    And just like that, James'' lungs lost all the air that they held just a few moments ago. But of course, Eiro swiftly used air magic to make sure that James'' body calmed down and that he received new air, before cing the mask back onto his face.


    "Better?" Eiro asked, and James stared back at the Demon. He was about to yell out in anger, when he realized that he was actually quite alright, despite his expectations.


    "What did you just do?"


    "I reset your breathing, that''s what. You''re straining yourself too much to try and keep up with the changes of the mask. But what you have to do is just try to act casual about it. Breath as if you weren''t even wearing it in the first ce. Now, is there something else?" The Demon asked, and James scratched the back of his head.


    "Well, I just wanted to ask how long you think we''ll have to continue this sort of training... It doesn''t feel like any of us made any progress. Sure, Jess'' mana did rise a bit, and so did my health, but not by all that much." James pointed out, "This just feels useless."


    "You''ve been doing this for a couple of weeks, what do you expect?" Eiro asked, but James clearly couldn''t help himself.


    "Listen here, dickhead, I know we''ve had our differences, but at this point, I thought we were at leastrades in some sense. What, do you want us to be nothing but pawns to y around with when you''re bored? What use are we gonna be if we''re not strong enough to even kill the scraps you leave behind?" James asked with a deep re, and Eiro crossed his arms, "One more week. After that, I''ll give you guys a bit more of an exnation."


    "One week? And what, in that time you''ll have gotten another ten legendary skills, and the gap between us will grow?"


    Eiro looked back at James, and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Fine. You don''t want to wait any longer? Then gather up Krog and Jess and wait out in the training area. But just remember, you''re the one that wanted this, so don''tin about the consequences."


    "Don''t worry, I won''t." James replied in a clear voice, while Eiro turned back around and entered his study. He would just quickly finish up writing the questions for the test tomorrow before heading down.


    And while he was doing so, his three contracted spirits appeared right next to him, "What exactly are you nning on doing now? You never really told any of us."


    "I''m going to go through with the next part of those guys'' training, like James wants me to." Eiro pointed out bluntly, clearly quite pissed off. Nelli looked back at the Demon, "I know that you''re trying to make them actually useful to you, but if they aren''t strong enough, why are you even bothering? Just let them fend for themselves. You don''t really need them anymore anyway."


    Eiro put down his pen and looked up at the Naiad, "Because, believe it or not, they belong to my ''circle'' now. I care about them, and I don''t just want to leave them to die. And of course, in case anything goes wrong in the future, I need people to be here that can protect the kids."


    "Don''t you think they''ll be able to protect themselves somehow?"


    "Probably, but I don''t want to risk it." Eiro said as he finished writing down thest question. And then, he quickly stood up and walked over to the side of the room and grabbed his armor, swiftly donning it. The Demon walked up to the window and quickly jumped out of it, catching himself with his wings. Soon, he reached the training area, where the others were already waiting for him.


    Eiro stood in front of all of them, and crossed his arms, "As I understand it, you guys think you''re falling a bit behind?"


    Krog and Jess turned toward James, who was unwavering as he stared back at Eiro.


    "Don''t worry, I can''t me you. I am growing at a rather insane rate. So, we''re going to move on to the next step instead. Surprisingly, Charles also asked me for a way to be stronger as quickly as possible today, but I didn''t tell him of this method. Because he''s still basically just a kid. But you guys aren''t. So, tell me. Do you guys think you have what it takes to do this? The answer would have been clearer if you had gone through this whole regime as I asked you to, but now, it''s not just as clear."


    "Just... What is it you want us to do?" Jess asked nervously, and Eiro shook his head, "I won''t tell you yet. Before then, I need to know.. Are you guys prepared toy down your life in case you mess up during this? And remember, I know if you''re telling the truth or not."

 Chapter 402 - Buff Through Chaos

    The threepanions turned their heads and looked at each other. Certainly, all of them wanted to be stronger, and that as quickly as possible. However, if Eiro said that they could die, then he definitely meant it. He wouldn''t lie about something like that.


    After they gathered a bit of determination, they all looked straight at the demon and in unison nodded their heads, "We''re prepared." James spoke for the other two. And he knew that it was the honest truth.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he gathered his mana in a spot in his hand. He was manipting his mana circuits for what was about to happen, since this should make it easier to do, and more importantly, to control.


    The Demon took a few steps forward, and pressed his palm on James'' chest. As the original leader of this group, he would go first, "I''m sorry about this. It''s going to hurt quite a bit."


    And just like that, Eiro manipted the chaos that was naturally swirling around James.


    Everybody had a certain force of chaos around them. Anything that lived and had a free will did. After all, there was an incredible anount of things that could possibly happen all of a sudden. And that was a concept that Eiro manipted together with the use of the rest of the ''time stop'' left in the artificial artifacts that he had with him.


    The first thing he did was increase the chaos, empower it. That alone made James feel quite overwhelmed. The amount of possibilities that his body had going forward increased immediately, although it was bound to disappear the moment Eiro stopped controlling it. And then, Eiro brought order into that extreme chaos, after he managed to find the specific ''possibility'' that he wanted to achieve.


    But at the same as the control of ''truth'' or ''order'' hit the chaos, Eiro pushed the ''time stop'' onto the Light Elf. However, Eiro didn''t do so in the normal way. Instead, he intertwined the artifact''s chaos with James''.


    And then, Eiro took a step back, pulling his hand away. For a few moments, it seemed like James was perfectly fine, as if nothing happened, but then, he fell to his knees, gasping for air. At the same time, Eiro took of James'' mask, but even though that was the case, James'' breathing didn''t improve, although it clearly should.


    "This is something I tried out only a couple of times with some monsters roaming around outside of town. I manipted the chaos to make it that your body is predetermined to increase the exact muscture and abilities that you require to increase your stamina to an extreme level. Of course, that would usually still only happen over a long period of time. The ring was used to stabilize it, ''trap'' the chaos in time in the exact form that I wanted it to be. If you had gone through with the training as I told you to, this wouldn''t have been so painful. Your body would have already gotten used to such changes. Sure, it would have still hurt, just not as much." Eiro exined, as he squatted down in front of James, "But now, you''re not that lucky. This time around, you''re going to have to deal with the pain, and potential death. Sure, your growth is going to be sped up considerably, but it''s going to make you wish for death if you don''t concentrate enough. You need to keep on working on your breathing and stamina if you don''t want to die."


    It was clear that James was having extreme issues. He would end up suffocating to death if he didn''t pull himself together. And that was when James remembered what Eiro did just fifteen minutes earlier. And the Light Elf proceeded to hit his own chest, getting rid of any air left in his lungs as quickly as possible. Then, he could fill that void with fresh air, which he managed to do to an extent.


    He was in pain. Pain that made it feel like he was going to die any moment now. But nheless, James pushed himself off the ground and stared Eiro deep into his eyes, while his own were deep red and bloodshot.


    "Good. Now meditate, get used to this. Fix your breathing issues first, and then continue the training I assigned to you in the first ce." Eiro told James, who without a moment''s hesitation dropped down onto the ground and took some deep breaths as he started meditating. And then, Eiro turned over toward the next target. Krog.


    He was already nervously taking steps backward as he looked at Eiro, "D-Does that mean that my whole body will..."


    "Yes, your whole body will be in immense pain, every second of the day. James'' is the most life-threatening, which is why I''m going to make sure to keep an extra eye on him. You will probably be the one who''s the most in pain, while Jess... Might have other sort of issues to deal with, but it''s not definite." Eiro exined, cing his hand onto Krog''s chest, "Are you ready?"


    "You just fucking told me I''d be in a shitton of pain, no I ain''t fuckin'' ready!" Krog eximed, his muscles clearly bulging out of nervosity, but it was toote. Eiro already started to manipte the chaos around Krog, in a simr way as he controlled James''. Of course, instead of focusing on increasing Krog''s stamina, the Demon focused it so that his muscles would develop more intensely. And since Krog had to improve the strength of muscles all over his body, he would be hurting practically everywhere. And a lot more intensely than normal. Probably even more than the time Eiro cut apart his own muscles and then healed them to speed up his own training.


    Once Eiro was done, Krog''s whole muscle tensed up. So much so that Eiro was genuinely scared he was about to break his own bones, but luckily Eiro was able to help him rx his muscles a bit.


    "Now, start slow. Do regr things, and slowly increase your actions until you''re at your regr training regime." The Demon said, and then looked at Jess. She was nervously holding her own arm already.


    "And what''s going to happen to me..?" She asked. Eiro thought about it for a moment, "Well, in your case, I''m directly influencing something in your mind, so... Extreme headaches, tiredness, short-term memory loss... Those kinds of things. You might be a bit more confused than normal while this is all happening, but while you''re reading something, that shouldn''t be an issue. So just keep reading as much as you can and don''t think about much else, and you''ll be fine."


    "...Did you just say memory loss?" Jess asked with a wry smile, and Eiro nodded his head, "Yeah, but it shouldn''t be too bad. And even if you lose any long-term memories, you should be able to get them back. I''ll help you out with that, and if that doesn''t work, I''ll ask Lognir to help out a bit as well. So just don''t worry. Oh, and just a tip, instead of specifically reading every word as you do now, just nce at everything. You''ll end up registering it anyway."


    "A-Alright... Alright, do it..." Jess said, and Eiro quickly nodded. He ced his hand onto Jess'' head and manipted her chaos, focused on her mind''s ability to process and take in information. Once Eiro was done with that, Jess sight immediately became dazed, and she started holding her head in pain.


    "Don''t worry, everything''s fine." Eiro said clearly, as Jess dropped down onto the ground, and the Demon proceeded to ce an open book into her hand, "Calm down, and just read."


    The Demon swiftly helped Jess stand back up, and turned toward James and Krog, "I''ll bring her to the library. You guys stay here, I''ll be right back."


    Just like that, the Demon greatly increased the rate at which these three would be stronger, in return for them having to deal with immense pain in return. Although, the pain they were feeling right now was nothingpared to what they would feel after they actually started properly training. Eiro would definitely need to pay attention to them as much as possible.


    "Was that really a good idea, Eiro? Aren''t they just gonna hurt themselves? Something at that level could be rather dangerous to them long term, right?" Nelli asked nervously, and Eiro turned his head toward her, "Yes, and no. For the most part, they''ll be fine. We''ll keep on healing them, and like that nothing will happen. There won''t be any damages to their body, really. While their advancement in those areas is increased, so is their recovery. It bnces out, you know? The only thing we need to pay attention to is that they don''t develop bad habits by slowly but surely messing things up." Eiro exined to the naiad, who was still not entirely convinced for now.


    The Demon let out a deep sigh, "Don''t worry, I''ll check on them in the morning and whenever I have time after ss is over for the day. If I notice even the slightest bit of physical damage that wasn''t supposed to happen, I''ll undo what I just did to them. So calm down, they chose this themselves."


    "Fair enough." Nelli shurgged, "Still just a little worried, you know?"


    "Of course I know, I''m also worried. Which is why I''ll keep an eye on them, as I said.. But if everything works out, which I assume it will, then those guys will be a lot stronger a lot quicker, especially once they''ve gotten used to their situation enough so that we can start hunting again."

 Chapter 403 - Surprise Attack

    Eiro let out a deep sigh as he looked at the ceiling. Sitting here in ss while the students were taking a test was really boring. He would have nothing to do for the next half hour. Sure, he could read a book if he wanted to, but he didn''t have any with him that he didn''t read yet. So instead, Eiro resorted to simply manipting his mana circuits to get more proficiency in that skill.


    He yed around with it a bit, seeing how random shapes and patterns in his mana circuits would influence the flow of his mana as it left his body in different ces. His insight into his own mana increased by a little, but for the most part this was really just a way not to feel like he wasted his time.


    At the end of the test, Eiro collected the tests, and then spoke to the students, "Alright, you can take a brief ten minute break. Talk to each other, do other homework, or just sleep, I don''t care."


    The Demon sat down at the desk with the filled-out tests and took out his pen as his students rxed a bit after the test. Quite a few of them wereining about how tough it was, but Eiro didn''t particrly care if they thought it was hard. This was all stuff they were supposed to know by heart at this point. If they didn''t know the answers, then that meant that they didn''t study properly.


    Well, this test wasn''t anything too important for the students grade-wise anyway. Eiro just needed to make sure that everybody understood these theories before he moved on to the next few in ss, since the new things built up on the older.


    Nearly everybody had passing grades, and just a few people failed it. In general, most people seemed to understand everything, but they could still use some deeper exnations into the material.


    Once the ten minute break was over, Eiro stood up with the tests in hand, already having graded them all in that short period of time, before walking through the room and giving the tests back to the children. They were obviously surprised that they already got them back, since they thought they wouldn''t have to deal with this stuff for another couple of days till the next ss, but Eiro was quite efficient when it came to such things. Again, he didn''t want to waste any time.


    "Henry, L, Chris, please stay for a few minutes after ss, I have to talk to you about something." The Demon said. All students were focusing on those three, since it was clear they were the ones that failed, "Oh, and Arc, you too, please."


    Arc raised his head surprised. He had full points, and everyone here knew that he was the biggest genius of the new students, so they were rather confused as to why those four people were being called to stay after ss.


    That also meant that once ss was actually over, a few students were staying a bit longer than normal, just to see what exactly they were going to talk about.


    "Get to your next ss already, kids. Stop loitering around." Eiro sighed when looking at those kids, and they quickly scurried away after being briefly told off like this.


    And then, Eiro turned toward the three students that failed, "Now, first of all, don''t worry about your grade on the test, it won''t influence your final grade too much. But since I need to make sure you all properly understand the material, it would be great if you took some tutoring. Not a lot, just a few hours a week, and only until your tutor verifies that you understand everything." Eiro exined quickly and without further ado. The three students looked at each other nervously.


    "But we have to do work for other sses as well... We don''t have time for tutoring." One of them said, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "I know that you have other work as well, but at the same time, I''m pretty sure that none of you kids really spend that much time on your homework. Otherwise, you wouldn''t have failed this test. Most of the questions came from parts of the homework I gave you over the past few weeks, even if I changed things up a little bit."


    The students didn''t really know what to reply, since they knew that Eiro was right, but they simply didn''t want to admit it, and the Demon looked over toward his own son.


    "Arc, you''ll be their tutor. You''re far ahead of the material anyway, and it''s quite easy for you. And since you never do your homework in the first ce, let''s take this as a recement for that." Eiro said with a smile on his face, but Arc looked back at his father with a wry smile, "Err... Really? But I''m kinda busy, you know?"


    "At home, all you do is sit around, mess around, or read. You have the time, both of us know that." Eiro said, in a tone that made Arc realize that the Demon wasn''t asking this of him, but that he was telling Arc to do it, "Urgh, fine... But you owe me one, dad."


    "No, I don''t. Just help your ssmates, figure out the times yourselves. I''ll make sure that they understand everything in a few weeks." Eiro told the four students while rolling his eyes.


    "Wait, dad..." Arc said in a pleading tone as Eiro made his way out of the ssroom. But Eiro didn''t pay attention to him, since he knew what Arc was trying to do. Arc needed to be more responsible when it came to ss here, so this was a way to help him and these other students as well.


    And Eiro made his way through the halls of the school to get to the next ss that he was going to teach. However, on his way, he encountered something rather... unexpected. There were traces of a spell being cast here in the hallway, and nobody else was here. Well, no students were around at least. Usually there would be at least a couple of students around, but Eiro didn''t really notice any reason for why they wouldn''t be here.


    "Well, let''s just y along for now." The Demon muttered to himself, and stepped further through the hall. And as he did, he soon activated the spell that was nted here. A few of the candles set up on the walls sparked up brighter, and multiple fireballs were thrown at the Demon. Eiro let out a deep sigh and waved his hand to the side and a wall of wind stopped them from hitting him. To make sure that there was no damage to the hallway and the decoration within it, Eiro extinguished the mes immediately.


    "Now, who would do something like this?" Eiro asked out loud, "I don''t think any of the students that I know of are capable of nting spells like that. Who are you?"


    The only other person that was around slowly stepped out into the hallway. He wore long wizard''s robes and a pure white mask with a smiling face on it. He looked at Eiro and chuckled, "Wow, so you really are stronger than you let on. Well, I guess that was to be expected, you being a teacher here and all. But I have to apologize, for you will-"


    "Mhm, sure. Could you just leave the campus, it''s kind of weird that there''s some random person here. And yes, I know that Richard Mchine hired you, but at the end of the day, you''re still a random person. So just go ahead and leave before I make you." Eiro said bluntly. He didn''t want to deal with any of this stuff anymore, it was just getting ridiculous at this point in time.


    "Kikiki!" The mageughed, as if this was all just some kind of joke, "You''re quite confident for someone that was just barely able to stop one of my weakest spells."


    Eiro stared back in disbelief, "What do you... ''Just barely''? Did you even watch? That was- You know what, no, I won''t let you piss me off."


    "Kikiki! Scared, are we~?"


    While rolling his eyes, Eiro held his wooden hand forward. He formed it into a finger-gun and shaped his mana-circuits to immediately activate the air bullet spell, using the rest of his body''s mana circuits to help thepression and speed of that bullet.


    The mage looked back at Eiro and held his hand onto his mask, "Kikiki, getting des-"


    The mage''s speech was interrupted by the fact that his arm now had a hole in it, as the bullet went straight through it with little resistance.


    "Eh? You didn''t even protect your own body in any way? What kind of novice are you..?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, as the ''enemy'' mage, who wasn''t really enough of a threat to be called a proper enemy, grasped his arm in pain, "What the fuck did you just do, you absolute maniac?!"


    "What, you were the one that tried to kill me, don''tin about getting hurt a bit." The Demon pointed out, quite annoyed, "Now shut it and leave, I don''t have time to bring you away.. And I don''t want to kill you here either, so just get the fuck out, and tell Richard that he should get someone at the level of the Sage if he wants to have me killed."

 Chapter 404 - Another Day, Another Problem

    Eiro soon reached his next ss. And coincidentally, it was one of the practical sses that was taught at the same time as those for the higher years, which included Richard.


    The young man stood there holding his weapon, ready to start his practice for the ss, and only ended up stunned in confusion when he saw Eiro enter thisrge training field. The Demon proceeded to wave at Richard, basically showing him that he did indeed encounter that mage. With a light grin on his face, Eiro whispered something and manipted the air to have his voice carried over all the way to Richard, "Meet me after ss, please."


    And so, the rest of the ss proceeded without any issues. Eiro did feel Richard''s res and heard his muttering every once in a while, but for the most part, it was just a regr ss like any other. Once ss was actually over, instead of meeting Eiro, Richard immediately left the area, most likely to try and find that mage. Of course he was long gone, Eiro made sure of that. He didn''t particrly want to leave on his own, so the Demon had to kick him out himself.


    However, while the mage wasn''t an issue to Eiro in particr, he could have been a threat to others that could possibly be Richard''s target. Like Rico, Richard''s orignal target of bullying, or Eiro''s kids. Of course not all of them either, Arc and Rudy would be able to at least get away from the mage somehow, as they were frontliners anyway. But if Sammy, Clementine, or Felix were to be a target, an archer, a supporter, and a nonbatist, that would be a different issue.


    Eiro had to make sure that Richard understood that he couldn''t do this sort of thing. For now, there really wasn''t any threat anymore, though. From how Richard was acting, he most likely only hired one person to try and take Eiro out, and it would take a while to hire someone else.


    So for now, Eiro was going to keep teaching his sses for the day.


    ---


    Once work was over, Eiro checked the campus to make sure that nobody dangerous was hiding out here as the students either made their way to their dorms or left the campus altogether. And as he did so, Eiro came across a certain colleague of his. Kristoph, a fellow member of the organization.


    "Hey there, how are you?" The Demon asked with a smile on his face, and Kristoph seemed rather annoyed as he looked back, "That a genuine question? Some asshole messed with the protective measures we set up here, and it''s freaking me out. It''s simr to... you know, that incidentst year. I''m going through the campus to see if there''s anything else wrong, could you help out? I know your perception is a lot better than mine, so you should be able to spot something more easily."


    Swallowing his pride, Kristoph asked Eiro for help. For the past few weeks, the two of them held up a strictly professional rtionship, and didn''t talk to each other outside of ss in the slightest. They never even brought up business rted to the organization either, they just acted as if it didn''t exist, and as if they didn''t know about part of each other''s secrets. This was the first time that Kristoph acknowledged it, so this must really be quite serious.


    "Really? This is simr in what way?" Eiro asked. He didn''t know many details about this situation, after all. Kristoph crossed his arms in thought, "Well... You know about the barrier around school, right? While it doesn''t directly hold people out, it allows us to have a high survence of what actually happens here, if we actively try to see what''s going on. And of course, we can also cast spells through the barrier to any ce within it. Before the incidentst year, we lost control over the barrierpletely. We weren''t able to ess any of the information it gave, and we weren''t even able to interact with it."


    "And that same thing is happening again?"


    "Somewhat. We can''t see the information, but we can still ess it in other ways. Of course without the information the barrier gives, that''s too risky, but at least it''s not the exact same. I''m still worried about if something is going on, though." Kristoph exined to Eiro, and the Demon was immediately confused. If that was the case, then most likely Richard had some kind of contact to whoever orchastrated the incidentst year. This was too much if a coincidence, after all.


    Eiro wasn''t allowed in the room where the barrier was constructed and held up, but he was still able to sense a few aspects of it, especially after fusing with one of the spirits. The barrier was created through an extremelyplicated array that was incredibly hard to just create after a lot of research, not to mention analyze after it was already created by someone else. And since that was the prerequisite to taking control of such a setup, it would require an extremely skilled mage or artificer.


    "This... is indeed troubling. I was attacked by a mage today, Richard hired him because I exposed the kind of person he is to his father." Eiro exined. Kristoph stared back at him, utterly perplexed, "And when did you think about reporting this?"


    "...Not at all, actually. I just wanted to speak to Richard on my own. He''s part of my friend''s family, and it''s worse because Solomon and Marcus are actually really close to each other. Richard has some issues, but I don''t want to ruin his life if it can be avoided."


    "...How are you this kind of person at school, but you ughter people without hesitation anywhere else?" Kristoph asked with a deep frown, and Eiro simply shrugged, "I''m trying something new. Trying to fit the role of a ''teacher'', and... at the same time I''m trying to find some new sides to myself while ying this role. And if I do that, then I''ll go all the way."


    "Yeah, but that has its limits. If Richard really hired the teacher that did that..." Kristoph muttered, and Eiro looked back at him surprised, "I don''t think he hired the teacher."


    "True... He did gopletely mad, I doubt that it would be possible to convince him of something like that."


    Eiro stared back at Kristoph and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Are you aplete fucking idiot? Obviously the guy didn''t actually go mad! How are you not connecting the points you literally just told me? If there were issues with the barrier for a few weeks before the incident, the ''incident'' was nned. The guy didn''t go mad, he did it on purpose."


    "What? No, no, but he was a good guy, like one of the nicest people I knew. He was just really unlucky." Kristoph said, waving Eiro''s suggestion off as if it was ridiculous. Annoyed, Eiro looked Kristoph into his eyes, "Sorry about this."


    "Hm, what do you-" Kristoph was interrupted as Eiro pressed his hand onto the man''s forehead. He whispered, so that only bavet would hear him, "Do you feel something?"


    "Yeah, now that you mention it... There''s a seal, like that king dude''s. Actually, exactly like it, the same exact one."


    "Ah, shit... Ipletely didn''t think that it was possible..." Eiro sighed, "At least we had a lot more of the materials ordered than we needed for just Solomon."


    "No, you don''t understand..." Bavet said, "This seal is the exact same seal as Solomon has. Whoever sealed their memories did so at once. The same cast of the sealing arts."


    "So it was someone incredibly powerful... Interesting..."


    "But this also means that we''re gonna have to unseal everything at once... Or rather... Ah shit, lemme think about this for a bit, I ain''t as smart as you..." Bavet groaned into Eiro''s ear, while the Demon just sighed. Kristoph hit Eiro''s hand away and stared at him, "The fuck are you doing? Are you talking to yourself?"


    "Kind of." Eiro replied, "Well, I''ll exin it to you some other time. More importantly, who knows about the fact that the barrier couldn''t be controlledst year?"


    Kristoph was confused, but he thought about it for a moment, "Maybe half a dozen people? His majesty, then there''s the principal... Me, Merlin, one of the security mages that alerted us of this in the first ce, and... Oh, and of course the guy that made the barrier in the first ce. And you as well, but I somehow thought you''d already have known. Otherwise, we managed to keep it a secret from everyone else. I hope, at least."


    "Alright..." Eiro muttered. That meant that he had to check on another four people, "Tell me the names of thosest two people. Oh, and by the way, for now you have to know that there''s nobody on campus that you should worry about."


    "What? I hope you won''t just leave me with that."


    "I was kind of nning on it." Eiro shrugged. Kristoph groaned loudly, "I just told you a secret that I wasn''t even allowed to tell you, and yet you won''t give me any more information?"


    "Yes. Because I don''t have any more information. I''m going to figure this out soon, and once I did, I''ll let you know. It does involve you as well, after all." The Demon said. Kristoph let out a deep sigh, "Fine. But I''ll remind you of that in a few days."


    Kristoph quickly left to check on certain parts of the barrier himself, while Eiro turned his head to look at his spirits, who were all staring at him worried.


    "Another day, another problem to figure out... Not like I was busy anyway...."

 Chapter 405 - Stealthy Combat Practice

    Eiro took a long, deep breath as he let his mana flow through his body. It was a quite rxing feeling and helped him get into a meditative state pretty quickly. And as he did, Eiro made sure to enhance his senses as much as he could.


    He manipted them to the extreme, making it so that he was practically only able to see what was going on in a five-meter radius around him, with everything else being a ck void inparison. And the Demon took on the right stance.


    A few momentster, something came out of that ck void, but seemed to practically disappear the next instant. But this time, Eiro was able to actually able to keep that figure in his perception. It was the wooden puppet, which Eiro was currently training with.


    It''s been a while since he dedicated some time to it, and he figured he should finally get to finishing up all the different modes with the two-token setup. He managed toplete all the otherbinations already, now he just had to finish up with all the ones where the puppet was hiding itself from the Demon while doing other things.


    Right now, it was in the ''hidden'' hand to handbat mode, and it didn''t hesitate to attack Eiro aggressively when it was like this. However, by sensing every little thing in this area, whether it was the flow of the air, small pebbles on the ground, and just the bit that Eiro could actually sense of the puppet itself, Eiro was able to react to the puppet''s movement. To make it ''fair'' and to be true to his training, Eiro even deactivated his ''ultimate domain of truth'' for this, so that he couldn''t simply analyze what the puppet was doing first and then react like that. Eiro wanted to react ording to what he sensed, not what he thought was going to happen next.


    It was certainly incredibly hard, but the good thing about hand to handbat was that it required direct physical contact. As Eiro knew the puppet''s moves perfeclty already, he was able to react once even slight contact was made.


    Since thisbat style relied a lot on grappling, at some point, it was actually not all too necessary to have immense perception once either the puppet grabbed onto Eiro, or Eiro grabbed onto the puppet, as he could simply go from the basis of touch, something that even the puppet was unable to hidepletely.


    And so, from there on, it was basically just like the regrbat, and Eiro was able to take the puppet down surprisingly quickly.


    Once the puppet admitted defeat and Eiro officially passed this mode, the first of the three stealth-based modes he yet had toplete, Eiro spread his perception back out to normal and reactivated his ultimate domain of truth.


    "Perfect." Eiro grinned broadly, "Seems like it''s finally working ou-"


    "What the hell was that? It looked like you had a stroke..." A voice said from one side of the training area. Eiro turned toward them and sighed at Arie, "I was training, what else. With this puppet here." The Demon said bluntly, but Arie still seemed a bit confused at what Eiro was talking about.


    Eiro held his hand to the side to point at the puppet as it slowly appeared there next to him, having used an incredible level of stealth to hide from the Demon. The Nephilim looked at the wooden figure confused, "Wait, what is that? I''ve never seen that around here..."


    "Yeah, because I usually make sure that the stealth and hand to handbat tokens are active, so that it can cover the perimeter more easily and stop people froming in. Obviously."


    "I think it''s not as obvious as you think it is..." Arie pointed out, "Ignoring what that thing actually is, why have I never seen you practice with it before?"


    Eiro thought about it for a moment as he approached Arie, "I''ve been pretty busytely, so I haven''t really been practicing with it at all. But I feel like at this point I''m powerful to get through all of the modes at once, so I figured I should get through it quickly now and finish this aspect of my training."


    "Huh... Is it really that hard?" Arie asked, looking at the puppet. It didn''t really seem like it was all that powerful and tough to beat.


    Eiro rolled his eyes and snapped his finger. In that moment, the puppet disappeared out of sight once more, and just a few secondster, Arie felt her body restrained as she was standing up, without any chance to defend herself. The puppet reappeared and Eiro looked at the Nephilim with a smile on his face, "It is pretty tough, huh? You might be able to beat it when it''s using just hand to handbat or dagger mastery, but certainly not when it''sbined with stealth like this. This mode was specifically created to help me practice the limits of my perception. Nobody else has a chance against this." Eiro exined to Arie, as the puppet jumped off of her.


    She held her chin, since the puppet held onto it as he was restraining her, and then looked at it, "Then why isn''t it just-"


    "Obviously because it can''t do any damage to others. No real damage, at least, not like you or me, or even my kids. It can hurt others, but the damage to health is minimal." Eiro exined to Arie, surprised that she didn''t know about how this kind of thing worked herself. Although to be fair, she didn''t seem to know too much about the concept of life force.


    Eiro looked at the puppet and grinned a bit as he switched the hand to handbat token out with the dagger mastery token, "Anyway, you don''t have anything else to do? I don''t think you really left this ce at all since you''ve been here, right?"


    "Well, what am I supposed to do? I achieved my goal of finding the holy priestess, but at the same time, I can''t proceed with that, since she''s your daughter. I basically have to wait for you to be strong enough now."


    "Oh..." Eiro said with a wry smile, "Right. We''ll... get there soon, don''t worry. Solomon let me know that we can enter the prison in two days, and I already told Koperia about it as well. After that I''ll level up quite a bit, since ''the Death'' is amongst the oldest royals, so it should give me a lot of experience when killing it. So by the time we get to the spring equinox, we should be ready to go."


    Arie looked back at Eiro, "Why specifically the spring equinox?"


    "Hm? Oh, I just have a close connection to the solstices and equinoxes, so I think along those lines a lot."


    "Right. And then once we get to the spring equinox, we can go kill ''the devil''?" Arie asked, and Eiro scratched the back of his head, "No, not really. Since we have no proper way to track him. Around the spring equinox, there''s a two week vacation period for the students at school, which should be enough for me to get to the Holy Empire''s capital and back with James, Jess and Krog. We''ll take care of the thing I promised to James there, and then we''ll go and find a certain vige that I passed through eight years ago. It was a ce for ''the Devil'' to experiment, so it should give us some clues at least."


    "What, a vige near the Holy Empire''s capital city is a testing ground for the the devil? That seems kind of..." Arie pointed out, surprised to hear information like this, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "It sounds weird, right? That kind of thing is exactly the Devil''s sense of humor."


    Eiro slowly turned around and made his way back to the center of the training field, "You can think about if you want toe along, you still have time to make that decision until we actually leave for the Holy Empire. But for now... Let me keep practicing a bit." The Demon suggested, calling over the puppet.


    Arie nodded her head, already deep in thought as she was contemting whether or not she shoulde along for that. For the most part, it seemed like an obvious answer, but it still wasn''t the sort of decision you could make without at least spending a little time to think about it.


    And while the Nephilim was busy with that, Eiro continued his practice with the puppet. He gave a dagger to it and took up his stance, limiting his perception in the same way as he did before to get ready for whatever attack was toe first.


    This time around, Eiro would need to be a lot more careful than before. The style for dagger mastery was obviously mostly relient on shing and quick stabbing while quickly moving around, and barely any physical contact, so Eiro needed to focus more on the puppet through his other senses than touch. But at the same time, that meant that Eiro knew he could reduce the strength of his sense of touch, to instead strengthen his other senses. Eiro had already done the same with his sense of taste, as he quite obviously wouldn''t end up needing it in this fight.


    And just like that, Eiro continued practicing with the wooden puppet.

 Chapter 406 - Ready To Go

    Eiro wrapped his arms around the figure ahead of him and pulled it to the ground, to make sure that he really caught the puppet like he wanted to.


    And as he did, the puppet appeared in front of him. The two looked at each other as Eiro extended his perception once more, and then Eiro looked at the puppet''s chest. The puppet pressed its hand against a new area, when it pulled out another nk token and handed it to Eiro. This meant that he now unlocked the possibility of giving it three different tokens.


    Altogether, like this, Eiro unlocked four more different modes. He still had a few hours until the sun would go down, so maybe he should try and get through one of the new ones for now. But which one...


    "Eiro?" The Demon heard in the distance, "Where the hell are you?"


    Eiro turned around and looked in the direction of the sound''s source. It was James, and he seemed annoyed. Judging from his tone of voice... He probably called for Eiro a couple of times already, but he didn''t notice because he limited his perception so that he could chase the puppet properly.


    "Sorry, is something wrong?" Eiro asked as he approached the light elf, but James just sighed deeply, following by a cough-attack because he forgot that he shouldn''t waste his breath like that right now.


    "Could we try training a bit?" He suggested. Eiro raised his brows surprised as he looked at him, "You sure you can do that already?"


    "Of course I can, I''m not some little bitch." James pointed out bluntly, while Eiro crossed his arms, "Hm, you know what? Sure, let''s give it a try. But we''ll stop the moment I notice you''re struggling."


    "Don''t patronize me like that, man. Juste on over, let''s start before it gets dark." James turned around and started making his way toward the training area, grasping both of his daggers. Of course James'' wooden arm wasn''t capable of moving that well yet, since it was just regr magic wood instead of the special kind that James was feeding mana to every day, but it should still be able to help him out a bit.


    "Then let''s start with the basics. And before you say anything, let''s just see this as a warm-up of sorts." Eiro suggested as he waved his hand, pulling some snow from a few meters away toward him. That snow was formed into small, marble-sized spheres that the Demon had float in the air in front of James.


    "Try to break them all as quickly as possible. We''ll start to ''measure'' once you first move with intention to break one of them."


    "Urgh..." James groaned, "This one again?"


    "Yes, this one again." Eiro replied bluntly, "It helps you analyze patterns more easily, and its a good way for me to make sure that you move cleanly."


    "Right..." James said. He took a deep breath, pulling in slowly and steadily. The muscles in his chest around his lungs tensed up quite a bit, but for now, James didn''t seem to have too much of an issue breathing. It seemed like his body adapted to its new ''state'' rather easily.


    James swung his arm as he pressed one of his feet forward, moving to cut through some of the marbles of snow. Eiro started measuring how long it was taking him, and a few secondster, James only had a set of four of them left. Perfectly in a line, so he could cut through them in one go.


    The light elf swung his dagger downward and cut through them. The moment that James pulled back into his base stance, Eiro stopped measuring his time.


    "Huh, roughly half as fast as you usually are." Eiro said, and James snapped his head to lock eyes with him, "What? What do you mean?"


    "Oh, don''t get me wrong, that''s a good thing. If you were able to move just the way you normally do with those sorts of restrictions, you wouldn''t need this specail training in the first ce. I expected you to be only a quarter or a third as good as before, but the fact that you''re already half as good means that your body is changing incredibly quickly in response to what I did to you." Eiro exined, properly looking James up and down as he was doing so, "On the other hand..."


    James seemed a bit surprised, as he understood what Eiro was saying, however he was still kind of nervous about what wasing next, "What is it?" He asked with heavy breaths.


    "Stamina, obviously. The way you''re now, it''s like you have the stamina of a man that was in aa for half a year, so you have to work on yourself in that regard a bit more. I would say put more focus on your stamina for now, since your progress is otherwise incredibly impressive already." Eiro exined. James grumbled quietly, as he turned away and took up his stance again, "I don''t wanna admit it, but you got better at exining shit since you started teaching..."


    "What do you expect, it''s my literal job right now." Eiro said with a wry smile, as he waved his hand and brought the marbles of snow up into the air again so that James could continue doing this same thing as a warm-up.


    ---


    Eiro sat on a block of ice as he watched both James and Krog practice. Seeing that James was actively working on improving himself already, Krog figured that he should ''man up'' and do the same. So while James was doing a guided practice to improve his stance, since it was a bit more sloppy than usual, Krog was starting to do basic bodyweight-based muscle training as Eiro instructed him to.


    It was actually surprisingly fun to watch them train while they were in that much pain after begging Eiro to do this to them. His sadistic side came out in such situations.


    "Aaargh!" Krog screamed out, while Eiro rested his hand on his palm and looked at the heavy warrior, "What, something wrong?"


    Krog was finishing up his set of situps, and it seemed like he had a sudden cramp that caused him quite a lot of pain. He just turned toward Eiro and red at him, unable to speak due to the pain, while the Demon was enjoying himself.


    However, those two weren''t the only ones practicing right now. Arie also took a part of the training area for herself, and was doing spear-practice. Well, it was almost more like ance than a spear, or something in-between that. In actualbat she seemingly also used a shield and wore armor, on top of using magic in a synergetic manner with herbat.


    She really was quite powerful, although, especially after seeing her practice a couple of times... Arie didn''t particrly seem powerful enough to take on a royal in any capacity. Even if Eiro had let her get the help of Avalin, they probably would have died before even seeing ''the Devil''.


    So maybe he should find a way to make her stronger as well. He might end up finding some ways to do that once they killed Zaragon in the Holy Empire''s capital. The Demon let out a deep sigh as he was stuck a bit in thought.


    He crossed his arms and looked up at the sky.


    "Hm... Maybe I''ll find a way..."


    ---


    During the night a few dayster, Eiro stood on the roof of his manor. He was wearing his armor that was made by Armodeus, as well as his good old mask made by Jura. It''s been a while since he wore this, and it somehow made him feel a bit more confident. It felt familiar, so he might be able to fight a bit better like this. And of course, with the hood that was included in the armor, it also made it possible for the Demon to just hide his identity as a demon.


    Now, he just had to wait. He waited and waited, until the hairs on the back of Eiro''s neck stood up. With a wry smile, he said, "You could juste here like a normal person, you know?" Eiro pointed out, and he soon felt Koperia''s hand on his shoulder, "But I''m not a normal person, sweetheart."


    "I''m aware, don''t worry." Eiro replied, "Now, you''re all prepared, right?"


    Eiro turned around and looked at Koperia, as well as the other figure standing beside her. It was a short figure, maybe 4 feet tall, with arge box on its back. Its face was nk, quite literally as it didn''t have any sort of details like eyes, nose or even a mouth, and otherwise didn''t move either. As if it was just a statue.


    "And what''s that one for?" Eiro asked, pointing at that undead, and Koperia quickly smiled, "Ah, this is just a special toy of mine! I use its help to harvest certain parts of my enemies... And this one enemy we are seeking out is quite unique, so I can''t forego this chance."


    "Right. Well, I guess it''s good to be prepared. But let''s just go for now, we should just get this over with. I''m sure there''ll be some curious soldiers in the prison that didn''t vacate the ce as they were told, so we''ll have to deal with that."


    "Oh? Some more to-"


    "And with ''deal with that'' I mean that we''re going to send them away under the authority of the king. We won''t kill them."


    "Awe...."

 Chapter 407 - Start Of The Battle

    Eiro and Koperia walked up to the prison, and the moment they approached, the Guards stepped in front of the entrance. They were three rather suspicious figures, including the undead that was following Koperia the whole time, after all. However, Eiro quickly held up Solomon''s brooch to them, "We''re allowed to be here."


    The two Guards looked at each other nervously for a second, "I apologize, but I am going to quickly verify this with my supervisor. We know we are awaiting guests, but we just need to make sure."


    "Of course, it would be weirded if you were to let me in without any second thought." Eiro said, as he took a step away, turning toward Koperia to ask her toe along as well.


    And while the guard stepped into the building, Eiro looked at the Necromancer next to him, who was already annoyed, "Can''t we just go in and not care about them? We can easily kill them if they try to bother us."


    "Yes, but as I told you a couple of times throughout our way here, we are not going to kill them. Those guards are innocent people, they didn''t do anything to deserve being killed." Eiro pointed out, while Koperia raised her brows, "What, you care about things like that? What a surprise~!"


    "Well, I can''t just be someone that randomly kills people if I want to live amongst them. So yeah, I do. And generally, I do just believe that if there''s no reason to kill them, then I just shouldn''t do it." The Demon exined, and Koperia looked back at him with a surprised expression for a few moments, before she turned away, "You sounded like Jura there for a second."


    "Hm? I did?" Eiro asked, but before Koperia could say anything else, the entrance to the prison opened again, and the Guard from just a few minutes ago came out with who seemed to be his superior.


    He approached Eiro and Koperia, "Good evening. May I please see that brooch you just showed to this guard?"


    Without another word, Eiro did as asked, and the Head-Guard took a closer look at it before nodding and handing it back, "Yes, it is indeed real. In his Majesty''s letter, your appearance was described to us, but of course due to the nature of what you are wearing..."


    "You can never be sure if it''s actually me, I know. But it shouldn''t be an issue toe inside now, right? And to get to the basement?"


    "Ah yes, of course, of course. We have prepared everything for you already." The Guard said with a smile, and swiftly turned around to lead Eiro, Koperia and the Undead into the prison. Soon, the Demon noticed that a few things changed around here since Eiro wasst here a while ago. There were more of the royal guard here, most likely to make sure that there was nobody amongst the original guards that were loyal to the former Warden.


    Quickly, Eiro, Koperia and the Undead made their way down into the special basement area together with the Guard that was leading them. Quickly, Koperia was able to sense that which was ahead of them, "Oh, it truly is quite powerful. As you would expect of such a creature." She said with a broad grin on her face, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "Keep it down a bit." He sighed.


    The Guard seemed a bit surprised that Koperia seemed to know what was kept down here, but Eiro swiftly turned toward him to change the topic to something else, "Would it be possible topletely vacate everything down here? It would be nice if there was no way for someone to identally get hurt."


    "Huh? Oh, yes, of course. And you are truly sure that you can take care of it without issues?" The Guard asked. Eiro turned his head toward Koperia, who was just smirking in excitement already, "Yeah, I think we''ll be able to manage pretty well." Eiro pointed out with a wry smile underneath his mask.


    Soon, they were all downstairs, but Eiro noticed something weird going on. The moment he realized what it was, he squatted down onto the ground annoyed, "What are the chances..?" He groaned, before turning toward the Guard.


    "What exactly did you do to prepare for our arrival?"


    The Guard seemed a bit surprised, "Well, we made sure to prepare the ''cage'' for easy ess."


    "And how did you do that?"


    "...By removing some of the sealing-objects we ced around it?" As if it was obvious, the Guard looked at Eiro unsure of what he was saying.


    "Now that''s fucking great." Eiro said as he waved his hand to the side and made a small ss container appear in his hand.


    "Wait, you have its phctery already?" Koperia asked surprised, and Eiro nodded his head, "Yep. Well, this body''s phctery. ''The Death'' itself doesn''t seem to need one."


    "Oh? A lich-like creature that does not require a phctery... Intriguing." Koperia muttered quietly, "Mhm, sure. Well, it''s safer with you than it is with me, so make sure you hold it now. I''ll go look for anything that it might have messed up around here."


    "W-Wait!" The guard eximed, and Eiro turned around toward the man, "What?"


    "What''s going on?"


    "What do you think it''s going on? You prematurely removed seals that were keeping ''The Death'' and its powers inside of that huge cube. Shit, it was able to create Undead around here even before that, what do you think it''s trying to do now?" Eiro pointed out, rather annoyed at the guards'' actions, "Now get the fuck outta here before I make you. I''ll send all the other guards up there as I find them."


    Nervous at what Eiro just said, the Guard quickly turned around and sprinted back up the stairs, while Koperia, whose eyes were not moving away from this phctery, asked, "What are you so worried about? We were going to bring it out of there sooner orter anyway."


    "I know, but we would have done that without its miasma escaping and creating undead here. You know, ''The Death'' isn''t the only being kept down here. There''s some other high-security prisoners. Four of them, I think. They''re pretty far away from the cell that ''the Death'' is in, so we wouldn''t have had to worry about it before, but now we do."


    "So? If they''re causing trouble, we can just kill those four as well." Koperia pointed out, "Those guys aren''t ''innocent'', right? I doubt you''ll mind killing bad people." She said with a grin on her face.


    "...Right. If they attack us, we''ll kill them. But it would still be better if we didn''t have to. The point I was trying to make was rather that if we''re not careful, ''the Death'' will try and switch to one of their bodies."


    "So wh-"


    "I get it, you don''t care. Juste on." The Demon grumbled quietly, and swiftly started making his way through this basementyer, trying to find any guard that he could sense. Most of them were totally fine, if a bit confused, so Eiro just sent them upstairs. And then, there was a group of three that was trying to rip open the door to the cell with the suspended lump of metal that the Death was kept in.


    "Really now? It got three of you?" Eiro sighed deeply, as he pulled one of the now undead guards away from the door. The miasma had infected them, and they died of a heart-attack, followed by their bodies being turned undead before their bodies even went limp.


    However, now, Eiro had just one thing to do. He pushed his hand into his satchel and got out a small sk with a white-golden me inside of it.


    "Thises from one of my first attempts at artificing, but I''m quite proud of it anyway." The Demon said, taking control of the holy mes by letting them burn away at his mana. The holy mes hit the Undead, two of their weaknesses in one form, and they soon fell to the ground dead once all of the Death''s miasma was burned away. Eiro pulled the bodies to the side to make sure they wouldn''t be damaged too much, before pulling the mes back into the sk.


    "Oh? A demon wielding holy magic?" Koperia asked as she approached the Demon, "I sensed the energy so I was a bit worried about you, but to think you were the one to make use of it... intriguing."


    "Mhm, right." Eiro replied silently, and then looked at the door that didn''t even budge when all three of those undead guards tried to rip it open. And with a quick kick from the Demon, it swung open as if the lock was made of paper.


    "Now, shall we get to it? Doesn''t seem like any of the other cells were opened." Eiro pointed out, as he started walking down the stairs into the huge cell. Koperia swiftly followed the Demon down there, curiously staring at the huge cube floating in the center of the room.


    "Alright, I have an idea. I''ll surround the cube with the holy mes to make sure it can''t somehow escape, while you break the chains." The Demon suggested. Koperia shrugged and snapped her finger, summoning one of her undead. Coincidentally, the same one that had attacked Eiro not too long ago. It swung its weapon around a few times at the chains holding up the cube, and even cut through some of the other things holding the cube together to make it simply copseter.


    And just like this, they had started their battle against a Royal.

 Chapter 408 - Adaptive Death

    Eiro made sure to keep the holy mes centered around the area where ''the Death'' would step out of that huge metal cube. And in the meantime, Koperia was rxing and instead had her undead do all the work.


    To an extent, Eiro expected that this was going to happen anyway, although Koperia herself was already plenty strong, the fact that she was going to use her own undead to fight ''the Death'' was something that Eiro figured she would try to do. After all, if just a few of her undead were stronger than a true incarnation of death, then what would that make her? It would make her something that was above death. So, to gain that position, Koperia was going to simply hold back for all of this.


    The Demon was a little bit annoyed by this, but as long as she was going to help out in one way or another, he didn''t really care too much. The most important part was that they were able to properly hold ''the Death'' back. If they managed to destroy its body and force the slime that took over the body''s brain out, then they basically already won. The slime itself most likely was rather weak, after all, and needed another body as a tool to be able to use its abilities.


    And then, the body of ''the Death'' appeared, breaking out of the cube it had been contained in. Sinister miasma filled the room and immediately attacked Eiro''s senses, although Koperia seemed totally fine. Either because she was used to things of this level, or just because she had weaker senses than Eiro. Either way, Eiro grew more nervous, while Koperia was as calm as ever.


    The Demon took a deep breath as the boy whose body was taken over stood there, looking around. In a voice that didn''t fit its body in the slightest, as if there were a dozen different people speaking at the same time, it spoke, "Oh, how long has it been since these rotten lungs have touched some fresh air?"


    Eiro scoffed in response, "If you think that this is ''fresh'', you must be a bigger idiot than I thought you were."


    "Idiot? I have knowledge of a myriad of lifetimes, and you call me in such a way? You must be the foolish one then." The child said, and Eiro and Koperia locked eyes.


    " ''Mind Devourers'' usually can''t remember all that much, right? Do you think it''s because of it being a royal?" Eiro suggested, and Koperia ced her hand onto her chin, "That would indeed be intriguing, and rather unlikely at that. Undead usually lose their memories instead of keeping them, so the fact that it can remember all of the lives it stole... Oh, I really want to have a look at it now~!"


    Eiro turned his head back to the Death, who was standing there shaking its head annoyed, "You know, it is seen as quite rude to speak of others in such a manner, especially when right in front of them. Shall this great one teach you some manners?"


    "I don''t think that''s going to be necessary." Eiro said, "I can be pretty well-mannered if I want to be." With a snap of his fingers, Eiro concentrated all of the holy mes onto the Death''s body, while Koperia''s undead, the same one that had removed the sealing objects, swung its weapon in its direction to cut through this monster''s body. It seemed like both attacks hit it quite easily, and Eiro quickly saw some messages that proved to him that he did a lot of damage to this royal''s body.


    But then, Eiro saw a different message that he had never seen before.


    [Your attack has failed]


    "My attack failed? What?" Eiro frowned deeply, but before he was able to figure out what was going on, it appeared again.


    [Your attack has failed]


    [Your attack has failed]


    [Your attack has failed]


    "What the hell is going on?" Eiro muttered quietly, and he soon received his answer.


    "Change. Adaption. That is what the card of ''the Death'' truly represents. Did you think a card of the Major Arcana was simple enough to just give one sort of ability?" The royalughed, his different voices echoing on top of each other, making it sound like dozens of peopleughing at the same time, "This unwieldy body has its benefits. Itcks in power, but it is immature. It has time left to grow and change, which helps me quite a bit. It can easily be adapted to ''resist'' this sort of attack."


    Eiro ripped his eyes open as he saw the Death''s new form. Its clothes had been burned away by the holy mes, but the rest of its body was now covered in a thinyer of a bone-like substance. But something was off, it was glittering too much. As if it wasn''t truly bone, but a mixture of bone and crystals. Either way, it no longer looked as if it ever used to be human.


    And without hesitation, once it stepped out of there, the Death jumped off of therge mound of hot metal that it had been standing on and held its hand forward. In front of its arm, a magic circle started to appear, being rapidly created at a pace simr to what Eiro was capable of with the help of his grimoire, if not more than that.


    Eiro pressed his hand forward as he analyzed the spell that the Death was creating, pulling out his grimoire. Just in case, he even slowed down time using his ring. Eiro wouldn''t let this being do anything at all.


    And just like that, Eiro hurried up to create a counter-spell for whatever the Death was trying to do right now. Once it activated its spell, the counterspell was activated as well and countered the spell-activation. The Death looked down at its hand and toward Eiro, "Oh?"


    Eiro rattled his brain to think about how it was casting that spell so quickly. And then he realized another benefit that came with the fact that it was able to remember all the lives it stole until now. And that was that ''the Death'' kept all the practical experience that came with all those lives. Whether it lived as a wizard, a warrior, or just a farmer, it still knew everything that came with those lives.


    It knew tricks to speed up casting, how to properly move its body to respond to meleebat. It knew all of that, on top of having the powers that it was given through bing a royal.


    "Oh, how fucking great..." Eiro grumbled quietly, looking at Koperia, "You think you can still handle it?"


    "Hm, shouldn''t be an issue." She snapped her finger, and four towers of ck mes shot up behind her back, forming dark specters. Each had sharp ws and a maw that seemed to be able to devour anything that came between their monstrous fangs. And all four of those specters were now flying toward ''the Death''.


    In Koperia''s eyes, Eiro could see that the attacks were doing damage, but the damage was gradually bing less. It was the same as what happened with Eiro''s holy mes at first, and if he was right, then...


    [Your attack has failed]


    Koperia squinted her eyes, not having expected that she would also suffer from the same phenomenon as Eiro did.


    "Now, that is indeed rather unique..." Koperia muttered, slowly bing annoyed rather than being intrigued by ''the Death''. However, something changed. Theyer of bone on ''the Death''s body looked different than it did before. And now, Eiro took the chance to once more attack this royal using the sparks of holy mes that were still left floating near it.


    And this time, he didn''t see that grim message. He damaged it again. And now, Eiro couldn''t help himself but grin.


    "Ah shit, nearly fell for it. It didn''t do a lot of damage, but at least a little bit." Eiro pointed out, turning his head toward Koperia, "Hey, Koperia. He can''t fully ''adapt'' to multiple things at once."


    "Huh? Then we just gotta keep attacking him in different ways?" Koperia asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yup, that''s exactly it."


    The Demon swung his arm downward and produced more holy mes from the ones that were still floating around. Hepressed his mana in that spot, and bit by bit, he had apressed orb of holy mes floating near him. It drained a lot of mana due to the way that he was controlling it, simply having the holy mes burn away at his mana, but at least it was going to be effective in one way or another.


    "Then let''s start with the storm, shall we?" Koperia asked with a grin on her face, and the Demon nodded his head. He swung the orb of holy mes at the royal monster as well, while casting other sorts of magic with the help of his spirits from afar. Eiro couldn''t risk attacking it from afar, it was clearly a lot more powerful than he was. Instead, he left that to Koperia''s undead.


    Neither of them did a lot of damage, but still a bit. Eiro was at least fast enough topletely evade the Death''s attacks, since this body of his clearly wasn''t particrly powerful when it came to its physical abilities, and he was able to cancel out any spell that it was trying to cast. However, bit by bit, ''the Death''s movements changed. It didn''t be sluggish, but instead, it started bing faster. The damage it received increased, but it was harder to hit each time.


    Its body was adapting in a different way.

 Chapter 409 - HyperAdaptability

    The bone-like stubstance that had been covering ''the Death''s body was starting to gather around its legs as it sped up. The substance merged with the child-like body, turning its legs into the shape of a horse''s. But it was a rather grim version, as it was covered in nothing but half-rotten, dried up flesh.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he looked at the figure ahead of him. And ''the Death'' soon jumped up as high as it could. The moment its hoofs hit the ground, he pushed himself off for an extra boost, now running and jumping around the room as quick as it could.


    It seemed like instead of going for defense, the Death was now trying to go for the ability to dodge. And it was incredibly capable at that. None of Eiro''s or even Koperia''s attacks were hitting it.


    "Koperia, you have anyrge-scale attacks ready?" The Demon asked, but she quickly shook her head, "Sadly not, I don''t have that child with me at the moment. I figured this would be a bit less annoying to deal with, you see?"


    "Then get yourself and your undead out the door, I''ll fill the room with holy mes." Eiro suggested, and Koperia shrugged. She waved her hand around and had ck mes cover her and her undead, before they all disappeared. Eiro sensed that they reappeared in the ''control room'', so he could quickly fall back and-


    Just as Eiro was about to finish that thought, he sensed that the Death was on track to move through the door behind Eiro, but the Demon wouldn''t just let that happen. He spread out his wings and pushed himself back as quick as he could, blocking the entrance before the Death could reach it. With Gondos'' help, Eiro ced a b of rock in front of him to trap the Death inside of the room, and spread the holy mes through the room so that the Death had no chance to escape.


    Eiro saw the messages in front of him popping up one after another. And while the damage was certainly decreasing, it seemed like now, the Death had little chance to escape. Or so Eiro thought at first. However, he soon felt like something was amiss. This was far too easy... wasn''t it?


    Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong. It seemed like the Death was holding back...


    "Koperia, don''t you-"


    "Yeah, I see it too. It''s a bit weird, isn''t it? Far too boringpared to what I was hoping would happen." Koperia replied in a disappointed voice, "But well, if this gives me the chance to more easily get some new knowledge, I don''t really care. Should we just destroy the phctery already? It will take a while to reform it, and until then, it should be weak enough to be killed by us."


    "That''s right, the phctery...!" Eiro turned his head and looked at the ss container that held the heart turned into a clock, "The Death is obsessed with time. It has abilities rted to it, but until now-"


    Just as Eiro was speaking, he heard a noise that he hadn''t heard before. The ticking of a clock. As if onmand in response to Eiro thinking about it, something happened.


    The heart-clock was ticking all of a sudden. It was standing still before, but now, it no longer was. But the most threatening thing was that it wasn''t running normally, but instead it was running backward. Like a countdown of sort.


    "Koperia, something will happen in four minutes and 49 seconds, I just don''t know what exactly that is." The Demon said with a deep frown, and Koperia shrugged, "So? I''ll just destroy it anyway, so what of it?"


    "Well, just go ahead and try." Eiro told her, and Koperia looked at the phctery a bit confused. She cracked open the ss container and held the heart in her hand. She tried to use magic on it, and she even had her undead attack it, but it was resisting all attacks.


    And something else was worrying. The Death was still moving as fast as before, but Eiro was already doing no damage to it at all.


    "I think for the next five minutes, its ''adaptability'' is incredibly strengthened. We need to take it out now." Eiro said as he got rid of the rock b in front of him. The Death immediately went for the attack, but Eiro was able to defend himself, luckily. It wasn''t particrly physically strong, after all. But even so, Eiro took quite a bit of damage.


    "Koperia, a little help?" The Demon asked as he pped his wings and flew into the center of the room, trying to defend or evade any of the Death''s attacks.


    Koperia muttered something to herself as she pushed her hand into the chest of the undead next to her. She pulled her hand back, and was then only holding part of a skull. It was only half, stopping right underneath the eyesockets, and it didn''t have a back either. Like some sort of mask.


    Koperia stepped into the room and had an undead eagle present the skeletal mask to Eiro, "It''s one of my strongest humanoids, treat it well, will you? I''ll act as support for now."


    Eiro held the skeletal mask in his hands, and got rid of the one that he was wearing right now. He already knew what Koperia wanted him to do. This thing was brimming with death magic, but not just the regr sort either. There was something else imbued in this mask, something that Eiro could fuse with.


    The Demon ced the mask onto his face, and took a deep breath. He pulled the magic into his body and fused it with his heart.


    Eiro felt the power imbued into the mask in his whole body. He went through the same process as regr infusion, or when he merged with the spirits. Eiro''s body started to feel different. More powerful, lighter. He felt pain course through him as his flesh was basically rotting, but different to when he usually infused himself with death magic, he didn''t feel lethargy and weakness. He felt better than he ever did before.


    And he could hear another voice reverberating inside his mind, as if someone was speaking to him, "Control over space is yours. Distance is nonexistent. Cross it instantly, attack from anywhere. That is my power."


    Eiro understood what that undead meant immediately. The Demon swung his hand to the side, and he felt an impact. The death''s body was hit, and it now slid to the side. It didn''t do much damage, but Eiro was still just getting a grasp of this ability. It was exactly what this undead used to attack Eiro not too long ago.


    The Demon got out his daggers and three spirits appeared beside him, "If he gains resistance to one thing at a time, then I''ll just have to hit him with everything I have in my arsenal."


    Eiro tilted his body around and pulled some regr mes that Sarius was creating for him, shooting them at the Death instantly. He was still dodging, but there were simply some things you couldn''t dodge. And that is if the attack follows you wherever you are.


    Eiro did the same with spears of ice and bs of rock that he continued to use to attack the death. More and more, its body was changing. However, Eiro realized something else as well. While the body was changing, the Death''s mind became less powerful. Its moves became sluggish, as if it was forgetting about the things it had learned.


    However, this wasn''t a consequence of the changes, but rather of the damage that Eiro was doing to it. It seemed like the Death was trying to heal itself by sacrifing something. Undead couldn''t heal like normal, after all. They were unique ''lifeforms'' whose rules worked different to normal, and that had to be true for an undead royal as well.


    Eiro continued hitting the Death with all that he had, trying to do as much damage as possible, and whenever one type of attack stopped doing damage, he switched it out. Soon, Eiro couldn''t attack the death with magic any longer, and instead had to resort to meleebat.


    Cutting it soon stopped working on it as well, and blunt attacks also did. It would seem like Eiro was setting himself up for failure, as he was basically actively creating his own worst enemy that he had no chance of beating, but this all gave Eiro a deep insight into how the Death''s ability worked.


    Most importantly, he realized that it was an active change, and not a passive one. The Death was reacting to any attack and then actively began to control this bone-like substance that was changing its body.


    And that substance was, rather simply... the Death itself. The slime that took over this child''s brain. The Death was using its own, original body to change the vessel it was controlling.


    That meant that more and more, the body of the child was being reced by the slime. He knew how these beings worked, he was fused with a slime quite often himself after all.


    In these five minutes that the death was changing and adpating incredibly quickly, Eiro had to use this chance topletely destroy the original body by forcing the death to create ways to counter everything that Eiro attacked it with.. If he did that, and the body was destroyed by the death''s own choice, the phctery would certainly be destroyed as well, or they would at least get the chance to go for it at least.

 Chapter 410 - Infinite Adaption

    Eiro continued fighting ''the Death'', with this new ability that he currently had while fused with Koperia''s undead. With this, he was able to use quite a few new unique tactics that Eiro''s enemy had to adapt to. The formerly child-like body that it had been using was no longer recognizable. The death just looked like a wild beast, and it was acting the same way.


    It didn''t seem particrly sentient like it was before, and was now instead only acting on the instinct that the death''s adaptability programmed into its mind. It was causing its own doom, there was no doubt about it.


    However, when they reached thest ten seconds of the countdown that the phctery was showing to Eiro and Koperia, the Demon still didn''t see any point where the death was going to truly die. He knew that at this rate, they would get there in time, but Eiro simply didn''t have that time.


    Five. Eiro pushed the Death to the side with a kick, but didn''t allow it to fly away, instead pulling the Death further onto his leg.


    Four. The death''s body became more malleable, and swung around Eiro''s leg.


    Three. Eiro repeatedly stabbed the death in a single spot numerous times.


    Two. The death''s regeneration sped up. Whenever it was stabbed, the small wound healed the moment the de was pulled out.


    One. The two beings stared into the other''s eyes, awaiting the end of the countdown. And the death formed a sinister grin on its horrendous, beast-like face.


    The moment that the clock ticked for thest time, Eiro felt something shift around him. His view of the world changed, and became an ethereal version of itself. Just ten meters away from where Eiro stood, he was no longer able to see anything. The only thing that Eiro could see was the death standing a few meters ahead of him.


    But then, Eiro looked past the death, and saw himself. At first nce, it seemed like a reflection, but that wasn''t it. Eiro leaned to the left, and so did the other version of himself. Usually, in that reflective world, he would have leaned to the right, as such ''mirroring'' Eiro''s movement.


    This wasn''t a mirror. Just a fraction of a momentter, Eiro saw another version of himself to his right. And then another to his left. Bit by bit, before Eiro knew it, numerous versions of Eiro stood here, circling around the Death. The Demon thought about what to do, and the thought of attacking the death right now crossed his mind. And as he thought that, numerous different versions of Eiro split off of the ones already standing here and went to attack the Death. Each one just in a slightly different way. From then on, the attacks didn''t stop anymore, but there was no single attack that was like another that Eiro saw from himself.


    With that realization came a rough understanding of what was going on. The death''s obsession with time came from something that was outside of what the card of the major arcana gave it. It was a trait that the individual that became ''the Death'' held. And that traitbined with an ability given by the card.


    The ultimate way to adapt. This thing here would continue until ''the Death''s body changed so that it adapted to absolutely everything that Eiro could do. Once this was over, the death would truly have be a being that was impossible to be killed by Eiro.


    Its body was changing at a rapid pace, away from its monstrous form, and back to a more normal one. It now had the chance to adapt its body more efficientlypared to before.


    But Eiro couldn''t help himself but grin at this thought. Does ''the Death'' really think that Eiro would be like any other enemy that it fought against?


    The Demon raised his hand into the air with a broad smile, and proceeded to snap once. This was a space where time converged. If he was able to see other versions of himself, they should be able to see him as well.


    And when a few of them lightly nced at Eiro, he knew that he was right. And then, another one snapped as well. And another one, and another one, until most of the versions of himself that he was able to see right now were holding their hands up, or had snapped in some form. Apparently, the death didn''t think much of this action, and simply let the different Eiros attack its body.


    Luckily, sound was moving through this space as well, and Eiro gathered air in his lungs and quickly screamed out just one word. The one person that made an impact on his mind that fought in apletely different way than him, and the one word where no matter which version of Eiro it was, they would be able to understand what he was trying to say. He would never speak this name in any other situation, after all.


    "Thomas!" Eiro screamed out, and that was exactly when a shift started to happen. The versions of Eiro that were moving toward the death increased manifold, and they all moved in a vastly different waypared to before. They moved just like Thomas moved in Eiro''s memories. Of course Eiro had to adapt a few things due to his build and the fact that he only had a dagger as a weapon, but he fought just like Thomas would have fought. Many even created fake weapons with ice or earth magic so that they could fake the death out.


    And just like that, Eiro was set on a path to win. Because Eiro''s mind was great enough to look past this sort of technique. He was making sure that the Death didn''t be Eiro''s natural enemy, but the natural enemy of a man that died in front of Eiro''s eyes eight years ago.


    Soon enough, the death''s outer appearance looked like that of a child again, just that in a few ces, its joints were misced, or its skin was unnaturaly strong to protect certain areas of its body.


    And then, the death started to move. It was obvious, it didn''t only want to defend against Eiro, it wanted to be able to kill Eiro more than easily as well.


    The Demon couldn''t help but grin the whole time as he was excited about tricking a royal in such a way, and the different versions of himself seemed to feel the same. This space just looked like a single human boy fighting off a horde of crazed, unique imps.


    It felt like hours, days, or even weeks had passed until this technique ended. From Koperia''s expression and stance, it was clear that not even a second had passed here. And the Death was standing in the center of the room with a broad smile, one that it practically seemed to have copied off of all those different versions of Eiro.


    "Hah... Haha...! Hahahah!" The Deathughed loudly, all those numerous lives it stole once more making it sound like Eiro was in a concert hall with hundreds of people surrounding him.


    "How amazingly easy that was. Most others tend to resist at least a little, but you just went at it again and again. There were barely any versions of yourself that chose not to attack." The Death pointed out with that same grin again, and Eiro just stood there silently.


    "Embarrassed, are we? Of course, I would be as well." The death said, "Well, no matter. Your body will certainly make for a powerful new home for me. I had to switch into this one after my old one broke, and before I could gain some raw understanding of what I was, I was already trapped here in this cage. Well, it allowed me to unlock this wonderful ability to remember who I was forever, so it was good for something, at least."


    The death approached Eiro with a smile on its face, but the demon juist kept standing there the whole time, waiting to be approached. After all, the Death was not the only one that could adapt, Eiro just couldn''t change his own body to adapt, but he could still change his actions. Eiro made sure to once more analyze the way that Thomas used to fight, or rather, the way that the different Eiros fought using Thomas as a base to copy. And that meant that he knew the exact ces to strike the death now, and he could do so at any distance.


    He just had to wait for the perfect chance. One step. Two steps. Three steps. And there it was.


    Eiro instantly shifted his whole body and stabbed his dagger forward, nullifying the rest of the distance left between him and the Death. And surprisingly easily, Eiro created a deep wound right above the death''s shoulder de.


    It stopped moving, and turned its head to the side to look at the wound, where arge chunk of its flesh was missing.


    "How did you-"


    "Koperia." Eiro interrupted the royal in front of him, "You better get ready to destroy that phctery."


    In the other room, Koperia was nodding her head and holding the object in her hands. She was a bit curious about how the death''s body suddenly changed like that, but in the end, she figured she should just let Eiro do most of the work left. He was confident, and he wanted as much of the experience the death had to give as possible, after all.


    And just like that, the battle between Eiro and this royal entered its final phase.

 Chapter 411 - The Death Of The Death

    Eiro looked at ''the Death'' with a broad grin on his face, as this child-like figure in front of him looked back at him in confusion, "But- But how is this possible?"


    "Well..." Eiro muttered, rubbing his chin in thought, "Obviously, it''s because you underestimated me. You know..." With a smile on his face, Eiro moved his hand forward and went through the motions of pulling something off a table, before the card of ''The World'' appeared in his hand, "You''re not the first royal I''ve faced."


    The death stared at therge golden card that Eiro was holding, and was utterly perplexed, "B-But it was sealed! How did you..."


    "Does it matter?" Eiro replied, cing away the card again. The death was slowly bing more and more upset. After all, even if it held the memories of all the lives it took over in the past, right now it had the body and brain of a child. And that had to affect its behavior at least somehow.


    Eiro took on his regr stance with a dagger in one hand and his other hand being free, and locked eyes with the Death.


    "Now, let''s see if you can still adapt." The Demon smirked, and pushed off the ground. Through the powers of the undead that Eiro was fused with, he nearly instantly appeared in front of his enemy, and grabbed onto the Death''s cor. Thomas would never use grappling-based attacks, so the Death had no way to defend against something like this. Of course it still wasn''t as easy as Eiro hoped, since the death''s body was still quite strong and agile nheless.


    Eiro pulled the death''s body toward him and stabbed his dagger toward a specific spot in its neck. Its head was mostly protected, since Thomas did quite often aim for it atrge especially with blunt shield attacks, so he couldn''t directly attack it that easily. But that didn''t mean that Eiro couldn''t injure the Death''s head. After all, it had no protections against attacks from the inside. Thomas couldn''t do such things, after all.


    But Eiro was able to press a certain liquid right into the Death''s body, pushing it through its empty veins. It was still an undead, and it had gotten rid of all of its blood somehow. Eiro realized this rtively soon after entering battle with it. This, of course, was only something Eiro did as a setup forter, however.


    He continued on fighting with the Death. It didn''t seem capable of adapting to Eiro''s attacks directly anymore, but it was clearly able to adapt mentally to an extent. Since it did have plenty memories ofbat, itsbat sense was incredible, so this was in no way a simple fight for Eiro. Due to the huge disadvantage that the death received through its extreme adaptation to an enemy that wasn''t technically Eiro himself, as well as the advantage that Eiro got through this action on top of the undead he was fused with currently increasing his strength incredibly, they were rtively equal.


    That, of course, still showed Eiro just how powerless he was inparison to the royals.


    This enemy had such incredible disadvantages, on top of having a body innately not meant for suchbat, while not being able to make use of its true specialty, necromancy, and Eiro only just barely was on even terms after being incredibly empowered in this way?


    It made Eiro terrified of having to fight ''the Devil'', a royal that would use everything in his power to ensure he had the advantage throughout the whole fight. But at the same time, it made Eiro ecstatic for the level of power that he would reach once he next evolved into a Legendary being, even before bing a royal.


    The Demon''s heart kept on beating, strong enough for Eiro to feel the pressure reverberate through his whole body. He stabbed the death, and the death dug its fingers into Eiro''s flesh. The two kept on fighting and fighting for the next hour in this way, until Eiro made sure that the death''s health, or ''durability'' due to its nature as an undead, was low enough for this to work. He once more pulled out the vial filled with everburning holy mes, and pulled a small spark out. He increased the size of the mes and shot them at the Death as well as the stters of the same liquid that he pushed into the death that were covering the ground.


    The moment the mes came in contact with that liquid, they spiked up for a moment.


    "You''re the death, but you can''t even manipte someone else''s blood ced into your body?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, and the death groaned loudly as the mes hit his body. Eiro''s blood that had filled out the death caught on fire, and was destroying this royal''s body. Its durability went down further and further, until the body copsed, turning to dust. However, the body was still being kept together somehow, and Eiro knew why. He turned and yelled, "Koperia, now!"


    But of course, the queen of undeath was already working on it. She held the heart in her hand and just a few secondster, it rotted away and all that was left were the metal parts of the clock-aspect of the phctery, although even those soon rusted and shattered apart, unusable.


    And at that exact moment, the death''s current body fell apart as well, and all that was left was a bone-like, egg-shaped mass that fell to the ground. This was the Death''s true form. It most likely just created a protective shell outside of its body to protect it from damage for now, but Eiro didn''t care that much. Koperia came back in to get a proper look at this slime, and was curiously staring at it.


    "Can I try to break it open, or do you want to take a look at it first?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, still excited from how this battle went. Nelli already came out to heal his wounds, though, since he was covered in them from head to toe.


    Koperia smiled at Eiro and shook her head, "I will inspect its corpse, so go ahead and kill it. We can''t risk it infecting another body."


    "Sounds good." Eiro replied, and shifted his life force through his body, and used anything he could to increase the strength of a downward kick, before pressing his foot down with as much speed as he could. The moment his foot hit the shell, it cracked open, and the slime inside was revealed.


    "You fought well, you were just really unlucky." The Demon pointed out, and pressed holy mes into the shell. More and more, he was damaging the Death, until a storm of messages appeared in front of his eyes.


    [Lethal Damage done to <The Death>]


    [You have in a royal. Experience multiplied by 10]


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have leveled up!]


    ...


    ...


    ...


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have 450 unused stat points avable!]


    Eiro leveled up 45 times in one go. Even more than when he killed ''The World''. That version of the world was incredibly weak, practically had no form or ''experience'' to give. But this version of ''the Death'' was incredibly strong and old, and was never fully sealed like ''The World'' was, only being entrapped instead.


    But even so, this was far beyond Eiro''s expectations. He was now at level 85. Eiro was far closer to evolution than he expected he would be. This was... amazing.


    "Thanks for the help, Koperia. I doubt I would have been able to do it without your undead''s help. And on top of that, you seem to have kept in all of the Death''s magic so that it couldn''t create any undead to help it, right?"


    "Eh, something like that." The queen of undeath winked, and proceeded to send her undead to pick up the leftovers of the death''s body, while Eiro picked up the card that was left behind. He could practically feel it rejecting him to an extent, since he was the candidate to be ''the world'' already, but at the very least it didn''t go so far as to disappear into a random ce. So, Eiro quickly put it away into his treasury to keep it safe there.


    "So, what are you going to do now?" Eiro asked, turning toward Koperia, "Are you going to stay in the area, or will you keep travelling? I''m only 15 levels away from evolution, so it might be worth it to stay around."


    "Hm..." Koperia thought about it for a moment, "I''lle back when you contact me, but I don''t like staying in any one area if I don''t have something to do there. Except if you''ll let me-"


    "I still won''t let you kill people around here, Koperia." The demon said with a wry smile, before he pressed his hand onto the mask on his face. He had to take it off now. He stopped his fusion with it, and his body became instantly weaker, but he regained a healthierplexion. It seemed like the mask literally fused with his skin though, so Eiro had to pull on it quite a bit. He infused himself with air for a moment to properly get it off of him.


    "Ouch..." Eiro said with a wry smile, having Nelli help heal his face in that area, and Koperia looked at Eiro surprised, "You got that off yourself? That undead is incredibly invasive, he should have not let go of you without mymand."


    "Eh?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, "What do you mean? I just fused with it like normal."


    "Like normal?" Koperia asked, unsure what he meant, and Eiro quickly looked at Nelli.. She understood what he meant, and the two quickly fused, looking at Koperia, "Just like this."

 Chapter 412 - Reward

    Eiro stood in front of Koperia, showing off this merged form of his, "When I became the candidate for ''The World'', I got an ability that allows me to easily fuse with magic and the elements, and since spirits are basically both of that juste to life... I can fuse with them. I could feel that the undead''s powers worked in a weirdly simr way, so I was able to fuse with it. Although it seems like I couldn''t stop it from trying to physically merge with me." Eiro pointed out as he rubbed his face where he had to rip the mask off of his skin just a few moments earlier.


    Koperia crossed her arms and thought, "At this point, I already gave up on making you my toy, but... Would you mind letting me... ''analyze'' that ability of yours? I''ve been trying to fuse different undead with each other for a long time, so that ability of yours should help me figure out how to proceed."


    "Ah... Well, sure? You''re going to help me fix the state of my soul, so I can''t really say no." The Demon pointed out as he and Nelli split up again. Eiro looked down at his body, looking at some of the parts of the armor that he was wearing, "I need to ask Armodeus to fix this up a bit. It broke a lot more than I thought it would."


    "Right. But before then... One of my toys noticed some people approaching, so we should probably get on our way." Koperia suggested, and Eiro nodded his head, "Sure, they''re just the prison guards though. The fight was rather intense, I kind of figured that they would notice at least some of what was going on."


    Eiro wrapped his wings around his body and pulled up the hood connected to his armor before cing his regr mask onto his face. The Demon and necromancer next to him quickly proceeded to walk out of this cell, and once they reached the stairs, some armed guards stood in front of them. Eiro saw them earlier when he told them to leave, so of course they recognized him as well. However, knowing what the creature they had captured down here was, they were still nervous that Eiro and Koperia were now undead beings under a royal''s control.


    "Ah, don''t worry, we took care of it. ''The Death'' is finally actually dead now." Eiro exined to them, making sure to infuse his voice with his control over the domain of truth as much as he could, so that the guards wouldn''t even think about doubting him after this. Obviously Eiro was telling the truth anyway, but Eiro knew that people were often mistrusting, and since he didn''t want to deal with people bothering him too much again, he wanted to just convince them right off the bat.


    The guards looked at each other, and then turned toward this man and woman in front of them. They were clearly in disbelief, which is understandable. There is a reason why they entrapped ''The Death'' instead of killing it themselves, after all. They simply didn''t even hope that they would be able to kill it, basically. And now, these two random people showed up and took care of it just like that?


    "Ah... There were a few casualties, though. Since you guys removed some of the seals in preparation for our arrival, three of your colleagues were turned into undead. We killed them as well, but their bodies are safely ced right over there." Eiro pointed out quickly as he stepped past the guards without another word.


    Immediately as Eiro passed them, all of the guards were saluting to him without a moment''s hesitation. Even if Eiro wasn''t ''the'' hero, to them, he might as well be. The fact that Eiro was wearing white-golden armor that quite literally radiated the sensation of ''truth and order'' clearly didn''t help with that either.


    And before leaving, Eiro met with the head guard as well, and exined the situation to him. Koperia made sure to take all of the traces of the death''s physical body with her, and even the system confirmed that ''the Death'' was dead now, so the guards were in not much more danger than they would be in any other prison.


    The head guard as well saluted Eiro and Koperia as they left, and the two of them looked at each other for a moment once they were outside and away from the visible range of anybody that might be around here.


    "That was a bit of a weird sensation, but it wasn''t bad." Eiro said with a wry smile, and Koperia looked at him surprised, "What, you care for the thoughts of people that cannot even fathom the level of your strength?"


    "Well, not really, but that doesn''t mean that I can''t endulge in such things every once in a while."


    "Hm, that may be true." Koperia said, before snapping her finger. ck mes sparked up beside her and she summoned the same huge undead bird asst time, "I will be leaving now. If you need me, you still have that toy of mine to contact me with." She said with a smirk and a wink, and Eiro sighed a bit.


    "Right, I''ll let you know if I need anything. Oh, and I''m going to tell you what I''ll end up doing with this new card as well, once I figured that out properly."


    "Oh?" Koperia looked back at Eiro surprised, "Did you not n on turning that little undead girl into ''the Death''?"


    "I was thinking about it, but... Well, for one, she wasn''t particrly up for that idea. Which I can understand, she''s not been a monster for long, and we both know that royals are absolute dickheads, and everybody else knows that as well. But also, now that I know more about the nature of this card, I''m not sure even I would want to give it to her. The ''adaption'' ability mightpletely change her, and I don''t want to do that to a child like her." Eiro exined, and Koperia let out a deep sigh.


    "I will never understand how a demon like you ended up caring for children to that extent." Koperia pointed out, climbing onto the back of the undead bird, which quickly began to p its wings, "Maybe next time I will learn to understand you a bit better."


    "Right. Maybe." Eiro said with a smile, watching Koperia fly off, as Eiro properly stretched his body after this intense fight. He had to inform Solomon of how everything went for now.


    ---


    Eiro quickly walked up the steps in front of the royal castle''s main entrance, watching as the door was opened for him. He walked through the building, surprised to find that Solomon had quite a few visitors. Well, Eiro heard that nobles like throwing parties, and to keep them happy and under control, Solomon had to invite them to a few every once in a while. It was a bit annoying, but Eiro and Solomon should be able to speak somewhere in peace.


    The Demon swiftly made his way to the hall where Solomon and the other nobles were currently gathered, and stepped inside. The moment he was in there, the nobles and their escorts looked at Eiro confused, although most of them recognized the armor that he was wearing.


    Without a care in the world, Eiro stepped through the room and approached the group of people gathered around Solomon. The moment that Solomon saw Eiro approach, the demon noticed that the king''s heart-rate considerably increased.


    They looked at each other for a moment, and Eiro simply nodded his head, causing Solomon an incredible amount of relief. He smiled broadly and walked up to Eiro, "Excuse me, everyone. I must speak to my friend here in private for a moment."


    And then, Solomon basically ran out of the room as fast as he could, Eiro following behind him, leaving the rest of the nobles standing there in confusion. Eiro and Solomon soon entered Solomon''s study, and the King looked at Eiro with a nervous stare, "So? Tell me what happened!"


    Eiro smirked as he took off his mask, letting himself drop down onto one of the couches, "Well, he was really bothersome to deal with, but I managed to trick the death and kill it." The Demon exined, pulling out the card of the major arcana that acted as proof for this fact.


    Solomon had a broad grin on his face as he looked at Eiro, "I cannot believe it! I mean, I can, since it''s you, but this is just incredible! You got rid of two royals yourself, that is truly amazing, Eiro!"


    "Thanks, but I had a pretty big advantage both times." The Demon pointed out, "But now I''m just 15 levels away from my next evolution, so after that I should get a pretty big power-up."


    "Yeah, I''m sure you will." Solomon said with a smile on his face, and looked at Eiro, "I have a suggestion for you. Today is actually the perfect chance for it."


    Eiro looked back at Solomon a bit confused. He had a few guesses of what he meant, but Eiro wasn''t entirely sure.


    "How about we announce the fact that you have in ''the Death''?" Solomon asked, and Eiro raised his brow surprised, "And why would we do that?"


    "It''s simple. I have thought about this for a while. I want to give you something that makes you immediately recognized amongst the people and other nobles, an event where it''s impossible for them to deny that you deserve my gift to you."


    "...Solomon, you don''t really mean that..."


    "That''s right.. Eiro, I''m going to make you a noble tonight."

 Chapter 413 - A Noble’s Duties

    "Noble? Doesn''t something like thate with... responsibilities and stuff? And most importantly,nd? I don''t want to bother with that at all." Eiro pointed out with a wry smile, and Solomon slightly smiled back at his friend, "Yes, it doese with responsibilities, but not any more than right now. Being a teacher at the academy right now, and then afterward I assume you will win the tournament and be apanion of the hero. That mostly covers any responsibilities you will have."


    "...And what about thend bit?" Eiro asked with his arms crossed, happy that he won''t receive any particr duties, and Solomon proceeded to grin a bit, "I already thought about that. The title you will receive is that of a ''Baron'', and I''m pretty sure you''ll like the barony I chose for you. Also, don''t worry, but the county that the barony is in luckily belongs to a close, trusted aide of mine. He is a good man, and his family is actually one of the few that know of the skyhart line''s bloodline skill."


    "What''s thend, then?"


    "I chose a particr one for you, one without any viges. There might be people there every once in a while, but mostly, they just travel through there instead." Solomon exined, "It''s the mountain range that your small ''monster vige'' is in. You can do anything you want there, change the essible routes to ensure people can''t find that ce and so that you can increase the size of it at will. And there are quite a few interesting hunting grounds there as well. Some adventurers will try and go there because of it, so you might have to deal with that, but otherwise it seems like the perfect ce for you, right?"


    "Heh, yeah, it sure does." Eiro said with a grin, although Solomon still had something else to say.


    "However... At this point, you can no longer avoid getting a few servants, you see? But that will be rather troublesome with the state of your manor right now." Solomon exined, "We can find some people that are especially trustworthy that wouldn''t tell anyone of your secrets."


    "No." Eiro replied bluntly, "We won''t be getting people as my servants. I managed to get my hands on the method of creating artificial artifacts, as well as a non-card artifact that can disguise monsters as people. And I have a ce filled with monsters that are already especially subservient to me. I just need to pick some with the best stat and skill setup to be servants."


    "You understand that ''servants'' also means a handful of knights and other soldiers? You can get away with having them be your direct followers instead of having to give themnd on their own, though."


    Eiro let out a bit of a sigh, "That so? Well, figures. Guess I''ll ask Armodeus to make some armor and weapons for them, then."


    "You will also need someone to design a coat of arms for you."


    "...Is there anything else?"


    "Of course. We can wait a bit for that, but we shouldn''t wait too long, to decide on a family name for you. Being a baron, you also need a middle name, although we can spare your children from that for now. If they want to have a middle name, there is nothing to speak against that, of course." Solomon said, as he started walking around the room, "But then, there is also on more thing... We need to announce you to the public as well sometime soon. We could avoid that if you so wished, but publicly announcing that you killed ''The Death'' will also help your promotion in the adventurer''s guild."


    "That does sound like a good n, yeah. But won''t it appear a bit weird if a noble still actively works as an adventurer?"


    "Of course not! There are plenty of lesser nobles working as adventurers. Especially if they became nobles through their work as adventurers. The nobles will mutter about it amongst themselves, but they will do that anyway." Solomon pointed out, "There is little reason not to name you a noble, Eiro. I can only see advantages. For both of us."


    Eiro stood up from the couch and nodded his head, "Fine. But give me some time to fly to my house and pick up Bavet. I can''t particrly show my face as it is right now, after all."


    "I shall prepare everything we need! Is an hour or two long enough for you to get ready?" Solomon asked, weirdly excited in his tone, and Eiro nodded his head as he walked up to the door to quickly leave, "It should be long enough. I should be back by then." The Demon ced his mask onto his face and walked through the halls of the castle, past the mingling nobles and their retainers, before eventually reaching the outside again. In a ce where nobody could see him, Eiro spread out his wings and jumped off the ground, flying to his castle.


    He could see that James and Krog were outside to train right now, so the Demonnded right by their side. They stopped what they were doing and looked at Eiro intensely. They could see that his armor was damaged, and that there was a bit of dry blood on it here and there.


    And then, Eiro took off his mask and revealed his broad grin, "And that''s two royals down."


    "Holy fucking shit..!" Krog eximed, "You''re fucking awesome, dude!"


    "Thanks. But I actually can''t stay too long. I have to clean the armor a bit, and then leave with Bavet again." Eiro exined, as he started making his way toward the steps into the building, "I''ll exin everything that happened tomorrow."


    "Wait, why do you have to leave again? You should rest a bit, right? You''re injured!" James eximed, and Eiroughed, "Don''t worry, I''m not going into battle. Solomon is going to name me a Baron tonight, and the fact that I killed ''The Death'' will be publicly announced in a few days."


    James and Krog looked at each other perplexed, as Eiro kept walking, "So you two better train a shitton to get stronger. If we''re going to be an S-Rank party, I can''t be the only one with a reputation."


    Eiro stepped up into his home, and in the sitting room, his children were already gathered. The older ones only, of course, the others were already sleeping. It was a bitte, but they were most likely just waiting for Eiro toe back, no matter how long it ended up taking.


    And the moment that their father stepped through the door, the five of them, including Felix, jumped up and ran over to Eiro.


    "Dad! Is everything alright? Did you..." Sammy asked immediately, and Eiro just smiled at the kids, "Of course I did. Did you ever think I would fail?" The Demon hugged the children and let out a slight sigh, before speaking in a serious tone, "Just that I''ve got something else to do. And I need your help with it this time."


    The children looked at each other nervously, and with a dedicated expression turned to their father, "Alright... Whatever it is, we''ll do it." Arc said bluntly. Eiro was a bit proud that they didn''t even hesitate until they reached that answer, but luckily, they wouldn''t need to do anything bad.


    "Since you are the ones that chose my name for me, I need you to do the same for my middle name, and our newst name for when we be a noble householdter today. You can take your time, the official ceremony probably won''t happen for another few days, but we still can''t wait too long."


    The expressions of the children went nk, while Felix was freaking out, unsure if he read Eiro''s lips correctly.


    "Did you just say we''re gonna be a noble... a noble household?" Rudy asked with a wry smile, slowly getting excited. The same thing happened to Clementine. But Sammy and Arc, who both grew up in a noble household until they were sold off due to their unique skills, were more nervous than excited. And Eiro could tell that they were.


    "Don''t worry, nothing will change. I''ll just be a baron, and you four, and Avalin and Leon, will get honorary titles. You''ll get ast name, and you will have an easier time getting whatever job you want to get in the future, but beside that, nothing will change for you. People might talk about you at school a bit more, though. We''re already living the life of nobles anyway, we just weren''t an official noble-family.


    Arc let out a deep breath, "You''re right. And you won''t change through just a noble title anyway. Technically, you''re already a noble, just a monster noble... And soon you''ll be a royal... This shit''s confusing, man."


    "It sure is..." Clementine nodded in agreement, before looking at Eiro, "But does that mean we''ll have to go to other nobles'' parties now?"


    Eiro looked back at his daughter and thought about it for a moment, before realizing that Solomon left out an important part of being a noble, "That goddamn bastard..." With a loud groan, Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "We''ll probably be fine if we don''t attend, but we might get a bunch of invitations anyway. You can go if you guys want to, we''ll just have to buy you guys some nicer clothes than what you have now. Something that shows that you''re part of a noble family."


    "But for now...." Sammy said, "We should think of a really cool name for this family!"

 Chapter 414 - Eiro The Baron

    While Eiro was getting ready, cleaning his armor a bit while Armodeus fixed some of the biggest and most fatal damages on it, the kids were already brainstorming. Not too long after, they came to a quick consensus that got rid of one part of the issue.


    "Obviously, dad''s second name is gonna be Jura, right?" Arc said in an obvious, blunt tone. Everyone was quite in agreement, and even Armodeus immediately nodded his head, thinking that this was a good fit as well. It was a good way to make his friend''s name live on longer.


    "It would be great if that already solved the issue with ourst name, but Jura was amoner, right? He didn''t have ast name..." Rudy added, and everyone was quickly back to thinking.


    "Personally, I would like something unique, memorable. And something that, at the same time, shows-"


    "Right, right, we got it." Arc interrupted Eiro, "You want something that everyone will regard with awe the moment they hear it, right? Then how about... ''Eiro Jura Autter''?"


    "...You know your name would then be Arc Autter, right?" Sammy pointed out with a wry smile, and Arc stared back at her for a moment, "You have a point..."


    Arc seemed to be really worried about making a good choice, even though he added obvious jokes into everything here and there. And then he got an idea, that he had to confirm with Eiro, "Dad, are ''Daemons'' a thing?"


    "Daemon? Well... Maybe. They''re most likely extinct now, and you can only read about them now. They were basically another category of creatures... Like Magic Beasts, Monsters, People, or Spirits. But apparently they came to be in a different way than those other sorts, but nobody knows how exactly. Why do you ask?"


    "Well..." Arc said, scratching his cheeks. His siblings didn''t know that he was from another world, so he was thinking of another excuse, "In the ce I grew up, I read a bit about different myths and legends... And there was a... bookparing Demons to Daemons. And it''s like... While Demons are usually wicked or evil, Daemons are their good counterpart to an extent. And that feels like a kinda good fit."


    "Hm..." Eiro thought about the idea a bit. He really didn''t know much about Daemons... But this was obviously a story from Arc''s old world, where the myths and legends often weirdly ovepped with this world. So maybe there was something to it. Any actual documentation of what Daemons actually were was somehow destroyed, so everything that is known now was passed on by word of mouth. So maybe it was really like that...


    "If that''s so, then that might be quite a good idea..." Eiro said, and the others also seemed to agree, "Yeah, definitely!" Clementine eximed, "And it does still hint at you being a Demon... It''s kinda... erm, poetic?" She suggested, and Arc looked at her with a wry smile.


    "Going to school for a month or two, and already speaking like an expert, eh?" He replied, while Sammy simply stared at her brother annoyed, "Stop teasing Clem like that. I think she''s right, it is kind of poetic! But we can''t just go with ''Daemon'', right?"


    Arc kept thinking a bit, but before he or anyone else was able toe up with a good idea, Felix turned around his sketchbook to show the coat of arms that he sketched on Eiro''s request.


    In its center was the outline of a demon''s head, with two antlers, eerily simr to Lugo''s, sprouting up into the corners of the symbol. The shield-like shape that the demon''s head was on showed half of a, simplistdmasses stretching out behind the head. Of course, referencing Eiro''s soon-to-be status as ''The World''.


    On the inside of the demon-head''s outline, a pattern simr to the one that spread out all over Eiro''s body could be seen, supposedly shifting into an array of colors the further the lines moved away from the center, to show the many different types of magic that Eiro could control.


    At the side of the base coat of arms was one set of wings simr to Eiro''s own, and something that looked like his tail twisted around the front.


    Of course, this might be a bit too spot-on considering that Eiro wanted to hide the fact he was a monster, but he could probably twist a story about how his ancestors had a history as demon-hunters that he was proud of. And it did still fit with a name following the theme of ''Daemon'', which was quite a coincidence since Felix''s eyes never moved away from the paper for even a moment.


    He didn''t need to wait for long, until Eiro looked to the side. The armor was mostly finished being repaired for now, as he wanted to leave a few scuffs here and there to show he just came out of his battle with ''the death''. Eiro donned it again and pressed his hand onto his chest.


    Finely manipting the chaos surrounding him, he added the new coat of arms onto the center of his armor''s chest.


    "Well, I''d say this looks pretty good." Eiro said with a smirk on his face, and Felix''s face immediately turned red. Eiro looked back at him and proceeded to sign, "If you''re not fully happy with this yet, the coat of arms doesn''t need to be decided on until the official ceremony. So you still have some time to change a few things. But I do like it, personally."


    "Oh, and in tune with that, I do also have a suggestion for our family name." Arc eximed with a broad grin, "How about-"


    ---


    Eiro entered the castle once more, this time fused with Bavet. And just to show off a bit more, Nelli, Gondos and Sarius were also floating by his side, and he even had Lugo following right behind him. It''s been a while since he went out somewhere with Lugo, beside just to town to get him a bit of exercise of course, since it was far more efficient to simply fly wherever he needed to go. But he figured that, since Lugo was a part of him, he should bring his closest friend with him to a ce like this.


    Of course Eiro made sure to clean him properly, and Armodeus even worked on some armor for him, using a special dye to color it. The dye was made from some leftover parts of the material he specially created using dragon-scales for Eiro''s armor. Through it, Eiro was able to change the color to match his own armor''s color whenever he changed it. It wouldn''t change properties, since it was mostly made for appearance''s sake anyway, but it was a neat little extra.


    Eiro stepped through the halls of the castle with these five beings by his side. People of course looked at Eiro a bit weird since he brought a stag along, but the Demon didn''t particrly care. He just wanted Lugo to be here for this.


    All in all, Eiro was actually quite excited. Even if it wouldn''t make that much of a difference in itself, it still made it feel... weirdly acknowledged. That he didn''t just do all this here for naught, but that he was slowly being epted in this world he chose to live in, side by side with the people of this city.


    He stepped back into the hall where the main party was being held, past the nobles'' servants and right into the mass of nobles themselves, who were all called back from wandering around this part of the castle to be here for this announcement.


    Obviously, they were confused why Eiro was here all of a sudden, especially with an animal by his side like that.


    But the moment that Eiro entered, Solomon spread out his arms. Charles was right behind him, and so was the queen, surprisingly. Eiro still wasn''t sure if he should trust herpletely, but then again, she was Solomon''s wife. And one that he married out of love, and not diplomacy, as is quite often seen in this world of nobility and royalty. However, that the King, Queen, and Crown Prince were gathered here for this, all standing up with Eiro''s arrival showed just how important this was. The Demon stepped up in front of Solomon, who was smiling broadly.


    Eiro leaned in a bit and whispered to him, "I have already chosen a name." Solomon raised his brows surprised before he heard the name Eiro chose, and quickly nodded his head.


    He stepped in front of Eiro, and quickly proceeded with his speech.


    "This man by my side tonight has just achieved a task we thought to be impossible. He left battle just a few hours ago, a battle with a force that no living being should be able to resist! This man has in one of the Monster King''s servants, a Royal! He has taken the life of ''Death'' itself!" Solomon eximed, and this hall was immediately filled with gasps of shock. Even Charles and the Queen were surprised to hear this, as Solomon didn''t inform those two of this yet either.


    The nobles muttered amongst each other. This time not in a judging manner. Instead, their voices were filled with awe, and quite often disbelief. Which Eiro understood, of course.


    "I have verified this fact myself, the current ''Death'' is no more! Due to this immense task, henceforth, this man will be named a baron under my authority!" Solomon''s voice echoed through the halls, and silence spread through it as he continued.


    "The one who overcame death, the one who will certainly be a legend amongst men! History was written today, with the rebirth of this man!"


    The air which was filled with silence just before now seemed so thick through curiosity and awe that it felt like one was underwater. Solomon turned around and stepped behind Eiro, cing his hand onto the Demon''s shoulder.


    "Baron of Skyhart, <strong>Eiro Jura Daemonherz</strong>!"

 Chapter 415 - Socializing

    Apuse echoed through the room as the nobles'' immediately switched from being suspicious or borderline disgusted by Eiro, over to being enamored by him. The Demon stood there, with Solomon''s hand on his shoulder, smiling down toward the crowd.


    And then, a message appeared in front of Eiro.


    [You have the chance to take on the name Eiro Jura Daemonherz]


    [Through an official ceremony, your name will be adjusted]


    Eiro smiled a bit and got rid of the notifications, before Solomon locked eyes with him, "Come on, you say something as well."


    The Demon took a step forward as he looked at the crowd once more, "You already heard it. Tonight, I killed ''the Death''. I won''t go into what kind of battle it was, I doubt any of you care about that anyway. There is only one thing that any of you truly need to know." Eiro said, continuosly smirking. Solomon was a bit disappointed by the tone that Eiro took on, but he expected this before he asked Eiro to speak anyway. So, the king just let it happen. Eiro knew best what he wanted people to think of him in the first ce.


    "I am not some holy warrior. I am not a saint who will fight for you like a mindless beast. I am not a weapon. I only fight for what I believe in. I will not pledge allegiance to Solomon, I will pledge allegiance to myself and my own values." Eiro exined with a smile on his face. And this action of course upset quite a few of the nobles again.


    "However, that doesn''t mean I won''t fight for this country, and it doesn''t mean I won''t fight for its people. This is the ce that I and my children now call our home, the ce where future generations of our family will most likely be raised. I know many of you see me as an outsider, an intruder. A savage that doesn''t belong here. And don''t even try to hide it, it''s painfully obvious. And you''re right, I''m all of that. But with this title, this acknowledgement of my self, that will no longer be the case. By the name I was given, Eiro Jura Daemonherz, I swear that as long as I live, this country shall not fall to ruin."


    The nobles were a bit conflicted. The tone of Eiro''s speech souded as if he was nearly mocking him, but overall, he was saying things that they wanted and that they agreed with. Solomon was d that Eiro didn''t just go and randomly insult all of these nobles, but the good opinion that Solomon created of this Demon had quickly dropped again.


    There was however one thing now fully imprinted in the mind of everyone present here. And that was that Eiro was a powerful man, someone that shouldn''t be messed with. Someone with a close standing to the King, and someone that can kill a royal practically on his own.


    Eiro was someone who they didn''t want to anger. They wanted to get on his good side. So of course, with only a handful of exceptions, everyone pped their hands. And so, Eiro''s sight wandered around the room.


    He saw Duke Mchine, and even Richard and his sister standing in the corner of the room. Of course, Richard was absolutely furious at what was going on. But he wasn''t the only one. The Bloodstone Sorceress, Evelyn James. After being humiliated by Eiro during theirst meeting, she had kept a proper distance. But when it came to a party hosted by Solomon, she couldn''t just randomly stay away without any reason.


    So now, she had to witness this. Eiro being acknowledged. This filthy, vile, evil demon being acknowledged by the King of the country she lived in. This was ridiculous, wasn''t it? Eiro must have done something to trick Solomon! That was exactly what was going through her mind.


    Eiro knew what she was thinking, and couldn''t help himself but grin once the two of them locked eyes for a moment. However, while Eiro was standing there, listening to the apuse of the nobles in front of him, Solomon once more spoke.


    "We will soon announce the date for the official ceremony, so I hope to see many of you again then! But for now, let us continue to have fun, as was intended for tonight!" Solomon eximed with a smile on his face, as the nobles slowly returned to socializing with each other one by one.


    The first thing that happened was that Charles practically sprinted up to Eiro, though.


    "You really killed ''the Death''? You killed a royal?" Charles asked utterly perplexed, and Eiro quickly nodded his head as if it was obvious, "Of course. Do you think I would lie about something like that?"


    "Of course not! But it''s just so... so amazing! Could I also someday..."


    "Charles. It''s not all about raw power. I am someone basically fine-tuned towardbat in most ways possible. I even found ways to use my nonbat abilities forbat. You, however, are the crown prince of this country. Someone who will lead people. You will hold immense power someday, it may just not be the same kind of power that I hold." Eiro exined with a smile on his face, and Charles slowly nodded his head.


    It didn''t seem to be the answer that he wanted to hear, but he still understood that it was the truth either way, whether he wanted it to be so or not.


    "Of course, that doesn''t mean that you can''t be powerful like me at all. It will probably be a bit harder than it is for me to get here. But in this world, nothing of the sort is impossible, know that." Eiro smiled, cing his hand onto Charles'' head with a smile, "But well, how are your limbs going? I noticed that the way you''ve been walking is rather stiff."


    "Ah..." Charles said, "I fell the other day. Nothing seemed to have really happened, I just basically scraped my leg a little..."


    "Hm?" Eiro immediately squatted down and felt Charles'' leg. He poured his mana inside and tried to feel Charles'' life force a bit more closely, "Ah, here''s the issue."


    Without hesitation, Eiro pulled on the wooden leg and twisted it a little, fixing one of the mechanisms that was close to breaking. It happened to Eiro''s initial prosthetic hand all the time.


    "Don''t worry about it, but tell me earlier next time. And make sure to properly keep going with that sapling of yours, so that we can rece your limbs soon. Any damage like this will just naturally heal with those, although we might have to look for another solution if it doesn''t work with your basic healing factor." Eiro exined, looking up at Charles'' face. He held his hand in front of it embarrassedly, and Eiro quickly realized why that was.


    Plenty of nobles were currently staring at Eiro, since the Demon suddenly started feeling up the crown prince''s leg like that. Eiro stood up and looke at them, stretching his hand out forward to show its wooden nature to everyone, "I''m a prosthetist, I just made sure that the prince''s prosthetic leg is alright."


    The people were still weirded out, and a few of those that were more ''loyal'' to the system amongst the nobles were actually rather upset. But overall, they couldn''t really do much, since even Solomon didn''t particrly seem to mind at all. He just treated it as if it was normal.


    "I must say... I was quite surprised to see this just now as well." The queen exined to Eiro, who just looked back at her with a wry smile, "What? But you obviously know what exactly is going on already."


    "Indeed so, but I did not get a chance to witness you working on his limbs yet." She added, and Eiro lightly shrugged, "Eh, fair enough. It just seems kind of normal to me at this point, so I don''t really care what other people think."


    "..." The queen silently looked back at Eiro, trying to figure out why exactly this man was just speaking to her in such a casual tone. Nobody ever really spoke to her that way, with the exception of Solomon while they were in private, of course. But it was clear that Eiro wasn''t afraid of her authority, since he spoke even more rudely to Solomon.


    "Now, I think it would be better for you to socialize a bit, on your first night as a yet unofficial noble." The queen suggested, returning back to her seat from where she could see this whole main hall rather well. Eiro nodded his head, and quickly turned around to join the other nobles.


    Lugo was following him slowly as well, of course, which is why Eiro made sure not to go toward the seating-area where the stag would have trouble walking without bumping into anything. That also meant that the nobles that didn''t want to speak to him had a pretty easy time avoiding him, though. Which Eiro really didn''t mind. He was kind of hoping to be approached by a certain few people, and a man rted to one of those soon walked up to Eiro.


    Duke Mchine smiled broadly, in a nearly proud manner, "I had no idea that you were that powerful. To be the one that id a royal! What an immense achievement that is!"


    Eiroughed a bit, "I know, it sounds pretty insane, doesn''t it?"


    "It sure does!" The Duke eximed with augh as well, while Eiro could feel eyes staring at the back of his head.

 Chapter 416 - Center Of Attention

    Eiro swiftly turned around, "Sorry, I just saw someone else that I wanted to talk to for a bit." He said to Duke Mchine, who immediately nodded his head, "Of course! Go ahead, don''t let me keep you here!"


    And so, Eiro looked forward, locking eyes with Evelyn James. She was standing there, acting as calm as she could, but her heart showed that she was incredibly nervous. The Demon slowly walked toward her, and she didn''t move a step away. Eiro didn''t know if it was because she didn''t want to, or because she was too nervous too. He didn''t really care much either.


    "It''s nice to see you again." Eiro said. The woman in front of him held her own arms, "What do you want? You tricked your way into the mind of the King already, so you have what you wanted."


    Eiro groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I have not done that. Can''t you finally understand that I''m not a regr monster?"


    "Hah, right. You''re not. If you really killed ''the Death'', you''re going to be a royal pretty soon." Evelyn replied, but Eiro was pretty annoyed, "That was already the case long ago, since I also killed ''the World''. I''m not a royal yet, by the way, meaning that in another fifteen levels, you really won''t have a chance against me anymore at all."


    "I truly despise you. You make me sick to my stomach. Beings like you shouldn''t exist, you know that?" With a deep re, Evelyn locked eyes with Eiro, before another voice intervened.


    "Oi, you dumb fucking bitch, who''d you think you are? Eiro''s the dude that the great me formed a contract with! So shut the fuck up, will you?" Sarius swore at Evelyn, who turned her head surprised. She wasn''t particrly impressed, however, "So what? You''re just some second-rate fire spirit anyway!"


    "Eh? Who''d you call second-rate, you dumb cunt? I''m set to be the King in the future! And by the way, the current Smander King blessed him, so get off your high horse and kneel in front of this literal legend behind me, bitch!" His voice getting louder and louder, Sarius soon yelled at Evelyn directly, causing some people to stare in this direction, while Evelyn was just chuckling to herself.


    "Heh, right, good joke. Why would the Smander King bless a De-"


    "Just be quiet now, Evelyn. You know the reason why I didn''t kill you yet. But after that time is over and I crushed you in front of everyone in this city, I won''t have that reason anymore. So be careful who you antagonize from now on." Eiro said bluntly, and quickly turned around. But what was in front of him wasn''t a straight path so that he could go meet other nobles, but a young man stood behind him.


    "What did you do..? What did you do to cheat your way here?!" He yelled, and Eiro just rolled his eyes, "I think you''re being a bit disrespectful to one of your teachers, especially during this asion, Richard."


    "Oh, who gives a shit about disrespect! I''m a Duke''s son, you''re just a fucking baron anyway! So just-" Richard''s voice reverberated through the room, before someone pulled on his shoulder. Richard was interrupted as he turned around, "Who the fuck do you think you are, touching me like thi-"


    This time, Richard was interrupted by the loud sound of a p created by this person''s hand hitting his own face, "No, who do you think you are?" Charles asked, "Eiro is a benefactor to our family. He''s the man that saved me and my father from despair. The man set to bing one of the hero''spanions, and is probably the most powerful person here in this city. And you, a mere child of a noble who barely achieved the status of student representative for the physicalbat division thinks less of this man? He who worked for the a position you were born into?"


    Richard red back at Charles, but couldn''t say anything. Richard''s hands turned into fists, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "I''m thankful that you''re defending me, Charles. But there''s no need to do this in front of everyone here, is there?"


    Charles looked around himself, not seeing much of a problem in front of all these nobles, "Well, he''s the one that insulted you here, so I took care of this here as well."


    "Do not dare defend me, you-"


    "Richard. Shut up." Eiro said with a deep re, and the young man flinched, "You''re already an adult, and even though you are a student, you are in no position to be treated like a child. I try my best to treat you with respect, but I also have my limits."


    Richard turned his head toward Duke Mchine, "Father! Will you allow him to speak to me like that?!"


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose annoyed, watching as this whole thing escted beyond what Eiro wanted to deal with right here, right now.


    And before Duke Mchine could say anything, Eiro grabbed Richard''s shoulder and applied direct pressure to him as he momentarily stopped time for himself and Richard, "Two hours ago, I was in the midst of a battle in which I could have very well lost my life, with one of the most powerful monstrosities in this world. A being that adapted to every single one of my attacks until it was nearly impossible for me to even do a single point of damage to it. And even then, you are much more of a pain to deal with. Grow up, and stop being a brat that can do nothing but rely on your father."


    "Wh-What do you-"


    "No, stop. As I just said, I tried to respect you, but you have now made it utterly impossible for me to do that. Just let me make it clear. Every single person you hire to attack me will die from my hands starting now. If you even think about once more antagonizing me or my family, you will have to face the man that killed a royal. I thought I made it clear when I literally stabbed you alredy. Leave. Me. Alone." Eiro told Charles, his voice bing angrier and angrier as he spoke, while Richard just stood there, staring back.


    "I''m not afraid of you!" Richard replied, "You are nothing but a vile man!"


    "I know you''re not scared of me. But I know what you are scared of. You are scared of being a nobody. Of being powerless yourself. Of being unable to control the situation you''re in." Eiro exined, and for the first time, Richard''s heart beat stronger out of fear instead of anger, "You see, being a prosthetist, I know a lot of the human body. I know which parts are necessary, and which parts can be... disposed of. And being an adventurer, I know where to strike someone to be lethal, and where one can survive an attack rather easily, even despite the pain thates with it."


    "Are you threatening that you''ll kill me?"


    "No, I won''t kill you. For someone like you, death is not the right punishment. And that''s because you''re not scared of death. Instead, I will make sure you will never be able to rise to the position you want. You will never be acknowledged by anyone. I will take your power and control, turning your body into a lifeless mass, with your mind stuck inside of it. And I will do it in a way where nobody can ever hope to heal you, but can only prolong your life. Whether you live or die will no longer be up to you." Eiro''s hand slid away from Richard''s shoulder, and he instead touched his fingers against the young man''s neck, pressing right onto his spine, "It will be up to everyone else."


    And just like that, Eiro made time proceed again. Time runs out twice as fast when two people are using the ring, so this just cost Eiro quite a bit of time on it. But it was rather effective. Richard''s whole body froze up as Eiro left, "Please just stop this, Richard. For everyone''s sake." The Demon said, and turned back around.


    Duke Mchine proceeded to pull on his son''s arm, dragging him out of the room angrily. In the distance, Eiro could soon hear both of them yelling, while Eiro finally had the chance to move on. And finally, some of the nobles chose to speak to Eiro. They were actually rather respectful,plimenting Eiro on this achievement and his new title. Most of them were actually rather sincere, which surprised Eiro even more. There were still those that just said it without actually meaning it, but amongst those that came up to Eiro on their own, most were good-natured.


    They seemed to actively respect Eiro due to his achievements. It would be rather weird of nobody respected him, actually, considering his achievement.


    Some of the nobles already invited Eiro to some other parties or simply to dinner. Others were attempting to just do smalltalk with him. Anything to get on his good side, really. If Eiro was really going to be the hero''spanion, which many people here assumed now, then it was perfect to be on good terms with him.


    Of course not everyone had such intentions in getting close to him, but there were certainly quite few. At the end of the day, Eiro figured that something like this was going to happen. This party wasn''t just for pure enjoyment for the nobles either, it wasrgely so that they couldwork with each other. There weren''t only just nobles here after all, but also powerful merchants that could be useful for the nobles to get to know.


    But since Eiro didn''t care about theworking part, and simply wanted people to notpletely be against him, he didn''t really try to actively talk to someone. Not that he had to.. He was the center of attention now, and nearly everyone wanted to get a chance to speak to him.

 Chapter 417 - NY

    At the end of the night, once most of the nobles made their way back to wherever they were staying, whether this was in a high-tier inn in the city or in their own manors, Eiro chose to stay a bit and speak to Solomon again.


    The two of them made their way to Solomon''s study, and each sat down on one of the two couches.


    "So, Eiro Jura Daemonherz, huh?" Solomon asked with a smile on his face, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yep. The Jura seems rather obvious, but the Daemonherz was chosen by Arc."


    "Huh, interesting. I know what a ''Daemon'' is, roughly at least, but what does ''herz'' mean?"


    Eiro shrugged a bit in response, "Heart, apparently. Arc heard it in the ce he used to live before."


    With a nod, Solomon crossed his arms, "Hm, alright, I guess I can see how those are simr."


    Eiro smiled a bit as he looked back at his friend, "Let''s not keep talking about my name the whole time. I have a n for what I want to do with my newnd, but I wanted to run it by you just to be safe."


    "As long as you don''t get rid of the mountains altogether, you can basically do anything you want there. I trust you." Solomon replied immediately, and Eiro smiled a bit.


    "Don''t worry, I won''t be doing that. But what I am nning is to further expand the space that makes up the monster vige. Turn it into a monster town, or something like that. Right now, they''re mining magic stones there, but at some point, those will most likely run dry. Magic stone mines aren''t that big usually, after all."


    Solomon raised his brows surprised, "Wasn''t that your whole reason for creating that vige in the first ce?"


    "Kind of. At the start it was. But now it''s more like... an investment, if that makes sense. An investment and an experiment, although I kind of dislike that word in this context. Can I create a town of monsters that act exactly like people? Monsters that simply don''t have their monstrosity anymore? You see, as ''the World'', my central ability will be ''integration''. But another ability most likely given through that card is something along the lines of ''creation'' or ''expansion'', I''m not entirely sure about that yet. There aren''t many texts speaking about the world right now. But I kind of already feel like I want to create something in that sense. Show that not all monsters are mindless killing machines. Some of us are gentle and kind. It''s just that there is this literal force inside of us that stops us from acting like that, except when it''s forcefully suppressed."


    "And that''s why you want to create a ce to show that exact fact to others?" Solomon asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Something like that. You already know about my ns to be the Monster King... And I don''t know what sort of powers I will gain when that is the case. Even amongst monsters, I''m a rather special being already, after all. Maybe getting to that point will allow me to do more than other monster kings. Especially since I perfectly have my monstrosity under control."


    "You want to turn all monsters docile?"


    "No, I wouldn''t be able to do that. Only the gods can change something like that, it''s... I think what gives us monstrosity is directly integrated into that what makes us ''monsters''. If I wanted to get rid of monstrosity forever, I would have to kill all monsters, and that''s not what I want." Eiro continued to exin, "I just... Don''t want those with the possibility for so much more than mindless ughter to be stuck in that world, you know? Make it possible for those monsters that are strong enough in their dedication to easily ovee their nature. So that not all of us have to live like that. And once that is the case, those monsters will need a ce to find refuge. That is the ce that I would like to create."


    Solomon was still smiling as he leaned back into his seat, "And you want to do that in my country of all ces? Well, I figured that you wanted to expand that ce already, so I can''t really say anything. Just, in what way do you want to expand it?"


    "I''m not sure yet. There are two possibilities. Extend down below in the form ofrge cave systems, or spread out on the surface of the mountains. Thetter would be much more obvious and easier for others to find, though, which is why I''m currently considering the former. But then again, that willrgely influence the development of the monsters in that city, so I don''t exactly know yet."


    "Hm..." Solomon muttered, "If you need any specific materials for the expansion, just let me know and we''ll figure out a way to trade with each other a bit."


    "Sounds good." Eiro said, as he quickly stood up, "But for now, I think I should head back to my manor and rest a bit. I did just kill a royal, after all."


    "Of course, of course, go ahead. I didn''t want to keep you here for that long." Solomon apologized as he stood up as well, leaving the room together with Eiro. The two of them continued having a bit of small-talk as they made their way to the castle''s main entrance, talking about regr things that other people could hear if they wanted to. Having this kind of conversation every once in a while was nice as well.


    And so, Eiro climbed onto Lugo''s back once they were outside, and the Demon rode home on his familiar.


    ---


    Eiro found himself in a pure white space. He couldn''t even see his own shadow on the ground. To be fair, he had no idea whether or not this ce even had a light-source to create a shadow in the first ce.


    There was just on thing that Eiro was sure of. He went to bed just moments earlier, so why was he in this kind of ce? It wasn''t a lucid dream, those felt very different than this. Right now it felt like Eiro''s real body was in a different ce, as if he was actually standing there.


    But no matter what, he couldn''t sense anything around him at all, and there was no way for him to wake himself up. In a lucid dream, Eiro could also just instantly wake himself up with a snap of his fingers.


    Eiro took a deep breath and waited for something to happen. He chose to just lie down on his back for now, looking up into the sky of this infinitely white space. It was a good chance for him to think about how to spend his new stat points.


    But then, all of a sudden, without Eiro being able to sense any of them, three people stood there behind Eiro and spoke to one another.


    Immediately, the Demon jumped up and looked at them. They were the same three people as those that Eiro saw back then, when he died through his fight with Edward.


    The armored human whose face was nothing but a nk te, without eyes, ears, nose, or a mouth. The somewhat elderly rhida hunter right beside him. The short elven mage with that huge staff. And of course, the weirdly-dressed human.


    They were standing there, chattering amongst themselves as if Eiro wasn''t even there.


    "What are you all?" Eiro asked immediately, and the four turned toward him.


    "It is rather rude to interrupt others, don''t you know?" The armored human asked, and Eiro looked at them with a wry smile, "You know what''s also rude? Giving me a skill that immediately turned me into an amnesiac that nearly permanently forgot everything that was important to him."


    "Huh. You can remember that conversation? I thought I had gotten rid of that memory in you when I gave you that skill." The weirdly-dressed human said, "But well, nothing that can''t be corrected."


    "Why am I even here right now? Why did you call me?" Eiro asked, and the weirdly dressed human tilted his head to the side, "Did we call you? I thought you just came here on your own."


    "Stop lying to me, and just tell me what it is."


    "No, no, you really came here on your own ord, although I don''t particrly know either." The man said, before raising his brows curiously, "Wait, are you in possession of two cards of the Major Arcana?"


    "...I am, what about it?" Eiro asked, and the manughed loudly, "Nothing, nothing, now I understand why this happened. You have that ability to hold items within a sub-space, right? Well, the two cards of the major arcana reacted with each other in that space, and now that you''re asleep, your mind was brought to their creator."


    "...So you really are the Arcane Dealer?" Eiro asked, and the man smirked with a quick nod, "That''s me, bud. Well, no matter that, let''s just send you back. Good job on not dying a second time, by the way. See y-"


    "New York?" Eiro said suddenly, and the Arcane Dealer''s body froze up as his face twisted into a mad grin, "How do you know the name of that ce?"


    "...So that was really it? You really are from the same ce as Arc? I had a rough suspicion, so I asked him about a few symbols I remembered seeing on your clothes... Those pins in particr." Eiro said, pointing at the bag that the Arcane Dealer kept with him.


    The elven mage stepped up to the two of them and looked at the symbols, "They seem rather random to me, though."


    "Shut it, I''m talking to him.." The Arcane Dealer said with a broad grin, "I feel like this could be a rather interesting conversation."

 Chapter 418 - Four Arcane Beings

    Eiro looked back at the man in front of him, trying to figure out what to say. And then, the first question he could ever ask popped up in his mind, "How did you... How did you be the Arcane Dealer? Will my son be someone like you as well?"


    The Arcane Dealer started walking around Eiro with a smile on his face, "I became like this through a number of fortunate coincidences. I was born in this world anew, and died through the influence of higher powers. Due to the level of strength I had amassed, I was able to resist death, and became like this using that which was left inside me."


    "...The splinters?"


    "Exactly so. I had amassed quite a number of them. And when I gained this new power after death, I learned how to forge them into something else." The Arcane Dealer exined, and Eiro was confused, "And why did you do this? Why did you create the cards? Why would you create monstrosities like the royals? For fun?"


    "Oh... Well, there was quite an imbnce. There were quite intelligent, wonderful monsters, but all of them were being ughtered by people without break. So, as I created the minor arcana as per some concepts I remembered from my former world, I created the major arcana in the same way. I manipted already existing forces and turned those with cards of the major arcana into pawns of the monsters'' hero equivalent, the Monster King. That did create quite a bnce, didn''t it?"


    "Bnce? All you''ve done is create more chaos, more... death. What''s wrong with you?" Eiro asked with a deep re, before one of the other beings behind the Arcane Dealer began tough. The elven mage.


    "Hah, I''m starting to like this child." He said, and the Arcane Dealer turned around and smiled at him, "Right? He''s pretty interesting."


    Slowly, the Arcane Dealer turned back toward Eiro, "Well, anyway, the rest of this topic will be based on opinions, so let us move on. To your second questions. No, your son will not turn into the same kind of beings we are. I was born in another time. A time where the gods still walked the surface of this world. Where people were nothing but their mindless servants. A time where these ''splinters'' were still objects of power that the gods were wielding. During a war between two such gods, the one that my family was serving died. And I managed to get my hands on that god''s weapon of choice. Since then, the gods retreated to their realms, and nearly all of their objects of power have been destroyed and distributed amongst the people in the form of the system. As long as your son doesn''t get his hands on one of the few objects of power that are left, there is no need for you to worry." After the Arcane Dealer''s exnation, Eiro was a bit relieved, before he looked past the man at the other three beings.


    "So none of you are gods?" Eiro asked.


    The Rhida hunter quickly shook his head, "Not in the literal sense, no. But there is little difference these days. We hold powerparable to some of the gods, after all."


    "All of us are beings of Arcane nature. Gods are beings of Divine nature." The faceless warrior said, "Just like his title is ''Arcane Dealer'', ours respectively are Arcane Warrior, Arcane Mage, and Arcane Hunter."


    "Arcane beings... Just as there is holy energy belonging to the ''divine'' category, is there something simr for you?" Eiro asked, and the four beings looked at each other for a moment. The Arcane Mage then took on the task of replying and exining.


    "Pure mana is of arcane nature, I would say. There is no other sort of arcane energy in that sense." He stated, and Eiro nodded his head, "I see... So-"


    "I will have to interrupt you. You are not the only one that wishes to ask some questions." The Dealer said, and Eiro looked back at him, "Of course. Go ahead."


    "Now, who wants to go first?" The Dealer asked, looking at the other three, and the mage quickly took the initiative once more, "In that case, I would like to. Amongst the disciplines of magic, and the ways to use it, yours is one of the more interesting I have seen. But why do you only rely on using magic from within your own self, instead of the ambient mana to cast it?"


    "I also have a simr question." The Warrior said, "Why do you waste time when fighting your opponents so often? Your mind and senses are powerful, can you not directly sense their intent?"


    "...What?" Eiro asked, and the Arcane Dealer also had a question, "Yeah, and why the hell aren''t you searching for other cards more actively. I mean, I obviously made them with the intent of something awesome happening when all the cards of a suit are collected. Why else would I tell you how many you have, and how many you still need when you get one?"


    "I..." Eiro muttered. But the next time he blinked, the three beings in front of him had already disappeared. The Demon was pulled out of this dream. He looked to his sides, noticing two young childrenying there. Avalin and Leon, currently snuggling up to their father, waking him up in the process. Mostly it was the effect of Avalin''s Holy Energy on Eiro''s body, though.


    Eiro let out a groan, annoyed that he was pulled out of the conversation with those guys. It seemed like he was about to get some insane information, but he lost out on it. Hopefully he can end up speaking to them again.


    But for now, Eiro figured he should just keep sleeping for the rest of the night... not much else he could do with two of his children basicallyying on top of him.


    ---


    In the morning, once the children were awake, Eiro stood up as well, bringing them downstairs, "So, will you tell me why you came to my bedst night?"


    Leon looked up at Eiro and quickly exined, "You looked like you were in pain..."


    "In pain?" Eiro asked, and Nelli floated up next to him, "You were breathing heavily, and constantly gasping for air... and grasping your sheets. You nearly ripped them apart in your sleep. So yeah, it definitely seemed like you were in pain. The two of them couldn''t sleep so they came to you, and then saw the state you were in."


    Eiro let out a deep sigh. Maybe contact with those beings wasn''t good for him after all... but his body felt perfectly fine, so there was nosting damage done to him, at least. Who knows if that would still be true if he stayed there any longer, though.


    With a smile, Eiro ced his hands onto the heads of his kids, "Then thanks for being there for me, you two."


    Eiro sat down in the sitting room, still quite exhausted fromst night, and had the spiders bring him some tea again, "All of you, start clearing out some of the servants'' rooms. They''repletely cluttered right now." Hemanded the spiders, and they immediately went off to do just that.


    "Servants?" Armodeus tiredly asked as he entered the room, and Eiro turned toward him, "Yeah, I''m going to head out to the monster vige sometime soon to pick out some of them to bring here. Ah, right, we need a bunch more of the artificial artifacts copied from Arie''s artifact."


    "...Couldn''t you have told me about thatst night? I would have started to make some preparations the-" Armodeus said, although he suddenly stopped, realizing the situation he was in.


    "Hey,d... when''d I turn into yer private craftsman? And why''d I practically abandon my workshop back home?" Armodeus asked with a wry smile, and Eiro shrugged in response, "I''m not keeping you here. Sure, it''d be great if you stayed, but you can leave whenever you want."


    Armodeus quietly grumbled to himself, before locking eyes with Eiro, "Ya know exactly I can''t leave with the state yer life is in. You''re practically one of my best friends'' son, I kinda have to take care of ya."


    Eiro smiled a bit as he poured himself a cup of tea, "Thanks. That''s nice of you to say. But really, if you ever want to head back to Argberg, just let me know. I''ll fly you there myself if I have to."


    "I appreciate it,d. I might take you up on that sometime, I really got to check on how things are going there."


    "I''m sure you do. I was surprised when you just left there without a second thought in the first ce."


    "I got an emergency letter saying that everybody in this city forgot about you, that you yourself were forgetting everything you ever knew, and that it might be irreversible... What did ya expect me to do,d? Just sit back and watch?"


    Eiroughed, "Fair enough. Still, thanks. I really appreciate your help." The Demon said, before something else popped up in his mind, "But there''s something else I might need your help with. Do you know anyone with an ''Arcane'' type job? Or someone that deals with Arcane Magic?"


    "Arcane?" Armodeus asked, "I know a kid that researched anything arcane some time ago, but I haven''t seen him in a couple of decades."


    "Huh.... Do you know where he is right now?"

 Chapter 419 - SafeKeeping

    "No, I don''t think I do. Again, it''s been decades since I''ve spoken to him." Armodeus replied. Eiro let out a deep sigh, rather disappointed that he wouldn''t be able to find that man so easily. And that was when Eiro remembered something.


    "Armodeus... How old are you again?" The Demon asked, and the Elder Dwarf crossed his arm, "Somewhere around three hundred years. Stopped counting. But why,d?"


    "Well, was that ''kid''s'' name Merlin, by any chance?" The moment that Eiro mentioned this name, Armodeus raised his brows, "Yes,d! Yes it was! How did you know?"


    "Because that ''kid'' is now an old man working for the Academy. He''s the head of the magic departments." Eiro exined, "This can''t be called a coincidence anymore, now can it?"


    "I''m not sure it is just a coincidence. He was rather obsessed with magic, so it makes sense he would seek out a ce like that Academy, which is basically a gathering point for all sorts of magic." Armodeus pointed out. Eiro nodded his head with a grin on his face, "Well, most importantly, I have ess to someone that studied the arcane."


    After this, Eiro and Armodeus kept talking a bit more about Merlin, so that Eiro could tell him things that showed that he really did know this elder dwarf. If Eiro knew an old friend of his, then he might be open to talking more about these rather unusual topics. Although from what Eiro already knew about that old man, he seemed happy to talk about magic to anyone that wanted to listen. That made him a pretty good teacher at the school, at least as far as Eiro was concerned.


    But soon, Armodeus made his way out of the sitting room and back to his workshop to start preparations for the dozens of artificial artifacts he would have to make. Eiro finished his tea, and then headed outside, where he could aready see a few people training alongside each other. James, Krog, and Arie as well. This was perfect, Eiro had to speak to Arie a bit anyway. Eiro approached the Nephilim, and she soon stopped training as she saw the Demon walk up to ther.


    "Congrattions. I heard that you seededst night, and got quite a reward through it on top of that." Arie said with a smile, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yes, both of that is true. It''s not officially my name yet, but you''re looking at Eiro Jura Daemonherz right now."


    "A noble Demon, huh? Well, technically you already were, but that''s beside the point." The Nephilim pointed out, "So... Do you want to turn Hannah into ''The Death'' now?"


    "About that... I don''t know if I want to at all anymore. Especially since she''s just a child right now. It probably has a high chance of seeding because Hannah is a good fit for the card, but at the same time, it''s still just... The abilities thate with the card can be dangerous for a young child. If she keeps leveling up, maybe evolves a couple of times... If her maturity and intelligence rises and she still wants to be ''The Death'' at that point, I''ll dly support her. But for now... It would most likely rather rapidly change her from the girl she''s now, to someone else."


    Arie listened to Eiro''s exnation. He told her about the abilities that ''the Death'' had, and which parts of it were because of the card itself. For now, it was simply too risky to give it to her, although Eiro would still make sure to keep this card safe somehow.


    They even exined the situation to Hannah herself. Since she wasn''t that excited about the idea in the first ce, she didn''t mind, although during the past week or so, the idea seemed to have grown on her the more she saw the way Eiro acted around others. He was a monster, but he still acted kind like that to those around him. So, she ended up choosing to simply make use of Eiro''s suggestion. If she ever wanted to be ''the Death'' in the future, Eiro would give her the card.


    So until then, Eiro had toe up with an idea. He made use of his rough understanding of sealing arts, and began to meditate. Eiro visualized another room within himself. Not the library, but the treasury this time. Eiro saw the shelves with books, tables with clutter on them. Random small objects that Eiro nearly forgot about. Over time, the amount of things that he could hold within him really grew quite a bit.


    And now, Eiro walked up to the wall on the other side of the room. He ran his finger across it, and as he did, cuts appeared in that wall, before a b simply disappeared out of it. Eiro ran his fingers through the empty space along the wall, creating a certain pattern as if he was drawing a magic circle. It was a cubic space,rge enough to hold just a few small items. And as Eiro finished, the visualization of what he just created in here appeared. A metal safe. The door slowly opened up, and Eiro picked up ''the Death''s'' card from the table, cing it into this safe. Eiro quickly closed that door, pulling on the handle a few times to make sure that it didn''t just open that easily.


    But the moment that the safe''s door closed, Eiro stopped feeling this ''rejection'' within him that came from that card. At the same time, Eiro could still open the safe with certainplex images in his mind. Like abination that nobody would be able to copy, since only Eiro''s never-forgetting mind was able to remember itsplex nature. Like this, Eiro should be able to open the safe and get the card whenever he wanted, but it couldn''t just be ''stolen'' from him, and it most likely wouldn''t disappear either. Maybe once Eiro gained a certain level of power, he should try and collect all the cards of the major arcana as well... And only give them out to monsters that he himself directly trusted wouldn''t do horrible things with them.


    However, for now, this was enough. Eiro opened his eyes again, having left his treasury, and then pushed himself off the ground. He looked at Hannah and smiled, "Don''t worry, as I said, when you''re ready, you can ask me to have it."


    The young girl nodded her head in response, before Eiro swiftly turned around to look at two of his party members practicing, "And now, I have to check on someone else as well." The Demon said.


    Together with Hannah, Eiro went inside. And while Hannah stayed in the sitting room with Clementine and Sammy, Eiro jumped through the hidden passages and soon found himself in the library. There, he could see Jess sitting on the ground, a mountain of books surrounding her.


    The speed at which she was reading certainly sped up, and Eiro already made sure multiple times that she was really absorbing the information instead of just ncing at the pages and not really reading any of the words. This showed that her stat values were rising slowly but surely, and Eiro was excited to see this.


    Eiro grabbed one of the bottles of water that he kept here for Jess and brought it over to her, "Come on, take a bit of a break." The Demon said. The woman slowly raised her head, and as if in a daze, she locked eyes with Eiro. When Eiro handed the bottle to Jess, she quickly drank from it, and then ced it back to the side.


    "Thank you..." She said, and Eiro raised his brows surprised. It seemed like she was able to somewhat react normally again. Once Jess'' mind returned back to what it was usually due to the growth in her stat values, that would mean that she had immensely grown, and she could keep growing beyond that. It was the same with the others. Once they reached the level they were at before this training began, then that was direct proof of their improvement. And then, they would keep on training to improve. And once they reached a certain level of improvement, that was when Eiro would bring them out to hunt again. Due to the strain that their areas that needed the most improvement were under, when they leveled up, those particr stats were going to rise the most, especially since all of them had sses that supported growth in that direction incredibly. Before they really began training under Eiro, the Demon made sure to have them pick high-tier sses for once, so that their stat-improvements would be generally higher anyway.


    Either way, slowly but surely, those three were bing stronger and stronger as well. They most likely won''t catch up to Eiro anytime soon, or ever as far as he was concerned considering Eiro''s own rate of improvement, but that was fine. None of them really cared about being ''the strongest'', they just cared about being strong enough. Strong enough to do that for which they became adventurers in the first ce.


    To make a living, to protect those around them, or simply to find happiness. And with the idea of improving one''s power in mind, Eiro opened up his status. He looked at the number of stat points he had left, and couldn''t help himself but smile.


    Right now, for Eiro, it was time for a bit of an upgrade as well.

 Chapter 420 - Official Ceremony

    Eiro looked at the status in front of him, thinking about how he should best assign the stat points that he got yesterday. The best idea would most likely be to get as many of his stats to directly upgrade by pushing them over the next hundred. Considering that he had 450 stat points to assign, it seemed like he would be able to do this for plenty of them.


    He pushed some into strength, others into intelligence and wisdom, and any of the other stats that seemed rtively close to reaching the next upgrade. And as he did, one after another, messages appeared in front of him.


    <strong> </strong>


    <strong>[Intelligence stat reached 400 points. Ability <Quick Thought Processing> was upgraded to <Hyper Thought Processing>]</strong>


    <strong>[Strength stat reached 200 points. Ability <diator''s Strength> was upgraded to <Warrior''s Strength>]</strong>


    <strong>[Dexterity stat reached 200 points. Ability <Skilled Hands> was upgraded to <Capable Hands>]</strong>


    <strong>[Willpower stat reached 200 points. Ability <Iron Will> was upgraded to <Steel Will>]</strong>


    <strong>[Constitution stat reached 200 points. Ability <Vigorous Body> was upgraded to <Energetic Body>]</strong>


    <strong>[Wisdom stat reached 400 points. Ability <Quick Learning> was upgraded to <Rapid Learning>]</strong>


    Eiro sat in front of the notifications, enjoying their light glow. The Demon couldn''t help himself but grin at all the upgrades, and slowly turned his head toward his current status again.


    <strong>[Name ¨C Eiro (Jura Daemonherz)][Race ¨C Elemental Imp][Level ¨C 85]</strong>


    <strong>[Health ¨C 181.485][Mana ¨C 406.125]</strong>


    <strong>[Strength - 206][Constitution - 201][Resistance - 162]</strong>


    <strong>[Agility - 262][Evasion - 167][Dexterity - 208]</strong>


    <strong>[Intelligence - 401][Wisdom - 400]</strong>


    <strong>[Perception - 276][Willpower - 201][Charisma - 106]</strong>


    <strong>[0 Stat Points Avable]</strong>


    "Seems rather impressive, I would say... I even breached 400 Thousand mana." The Demon muttered to himself, and Nelli appeared beside the Demon, "The fact that this is supposed to be little for the point you''re at right now is utterly insane to me." She pointed out, and Eiro looked at her with a smile, "That just means that after my next evolution, I''ll definitely be ready to be a royal. And that, of course, there will be nobody that can actually stop be from winning the hero tournament."


    "I don''t think thetter part was up for debate anyway. You''re already officially the second most powerful person in the personal-power-obsessed organization of this country." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro shrugged, "So? Not everyone is in that organization, so there might have been people that could overtake me if I wasn''t so close to my evolution now. There are plenty of other powerful beings... Like that damn crow from not too long ago."


    "Are you still bitter about that?" Nelli asked, and the Demon looked at her as if it was obvious, "Of course I am! It wasn''t even a proper fight. It waspletely one-sided..."


    "It''s been a while since you experienced something like that, huh?"


    "Mhm, exactly. And I don''t want it to happen ever again." Eiro pointed out, as he pushed himself off the ground, "Anyway, for now, I think I should loosen my body up a bit. See how much my new stats changed my movements."


    The Demon made his way to the center of the training area, and did some of the more basic things that he would use to test his limits. Eiro pulled in his legs and the very moment that his body dropped down as low as it could, he stretched his legs back out with as much force as his body could muster without life force maniption.


    A small cloud of dust formed below him as Eiro rose high into the air, impossibly high. He could actually see the rooftop of the manor, and that just from jumping. It definitely was a good bit higher than usual.


    And now that he was here in the air, Eiro pulled in as much air using magic as possible to test the increase in his maniption of mana through his higher intelligence stat. Once more, there was definitely a difference that Eiro could notice, a notable one at that.


    The flow of Eiro''s mana itself had be naturally smoother, both through his increase in intelligence and wisdom. He took a deep breath and used the air he just gathered for a smooth descent. Eiro soon was back, standing on the ground with his two feet.


    "Seems like that worked pretty well." Eiro said with a grin on his face. His stat distribution this time worked out pretty well, he didn''t feel awkward from the sudden increase of his capabilities like that. Eiro probably just got used to what it felt like for his stats to increase in this manner, since it did happen quite often, especiallytely. And then, now that this was taken care of, he looked at his party members again.


    "Now. Want to practice a bit with me again?"


    ---


    It was a few dayster. It was time for the official ceremony. Armodeus had fully repaired the armor that Eiro was now wearing, and Bavet was well-fed and in a good mood, so he was able to perfectly transform Eiro''s wings into something like a decorative cape.


    All of Eiro''s children were given nice clothes. Sammy, Clementine, and even Avalin, who received some extra special objects to suppress her holy energy, were given dresses sewn specifically for them. And Arc, Rudy, Leon, and even Felix were given suits that were sewn for them as well. All of them were looking pretty good. Even Armodeus dressed up for the asion.


    And since over the past few days, all of them got to a point where they could move around somewhat normally again, due to Eiro''s help, his full party was here as well. For once, Arie and Hannah came out as well. That meant that everyone that Eiro cared for to some extent was here to witness this.


    And Eiro stood at the front of the crowd, here in Solomon''s throne room. The King slowly stood up from his throne and approached Eiro, pressing his scepter down on the ground in front of him.


    "We have gathered here today, to celebrate the achievements of this one man! He, who single-handedly id a beast amongst beast! The royal monster ''The World''!" Solomon eximed loudly, and the crowd started to cheer and p loudly. For a while after this, Solomon continued to say some random things, at least it seemed that way to Eiro. They were the regr things that one was supposed to say in such a ceremony, he was sure, but Eiro simply didn''t care for it in the slightest. And then, they finally reached the end.


    "Hereby, I, Solomon Sigurd Skyhart, name this most special of warriors Baron Eiro Jura Daemonherz!" Solomon eximed, and a notification appeared in front of Eiro''s eyes.


    <strong>[Do you wish to receive the name Eiro Jura Daemonherz?]</strong>


    Of course, Eiro epted. Immediately, the Demon''s name fully changed in his status, and as this happened, his children had messages appear in front of their eyes as well.


    <strong>[The one you acknowledged as your parents has received a new name. Do you want to change your name in ordance?]</strong>


    <strong> </strong>


    That was something that Eiro did not expect. The system itself acknowledged the rtionship between Eiro and his children. All of them immediately muttered ''yes'' upon reading the notification. Clementine and Rudy both started to tear up, since it now seemed more official that they were Eiro''s children to them as well. Arc and Sammy looked at each other with warm smiles, while Avalin and Leon were simply grinning because they were surprised because of the sudden appearance of that notification.


    And just in this moment, while the audience began to p and cheer for the birth of a new baron, the banners with this family''s coat of arms dropped. It was the same coat of arms that Felix drew the other day, simply a bit more refined. A Demon''s head with antlers, the patterns of Eiro''s symbol running through him, ending in a colorful array to represent the different magic he had mastered. And behind him, the horizon of this world. Wings and a demon''s tail stretched out from the side of the shield-shaped symbol.


    Eiro pressed his hand onto his chest, and manipted the chaos around his armor to create this exact banner on its surface as well. And around that time, another notification appeared in front of the Demon''s eyes.


    <strong>[You have been named a Baron of the Skyhart Kingdom]</strong>


    <strong>[Future Evolutions may be influenced]</strong>


    "Hm?" He muttered surprised. A noble title given to him by people influences his evolutions as a monster? If only he had known about this a bit earlier...


    Eiro got rid of the notification, and enjoyed the apuse and cheers a bit more. It did feel pretty good to hear that kind of thing. It didn''t take long for the ceremony to finish up, and they went straight from this ceremony, to a huge party held here at the castle. One more event at which Eiro had to socialize, and one where the children had to socialize for the first time in a long while. Outside of school, of course.


    But the only ones that Eiro didn''t let out of his sight, or even his arms, were Avalin and Leon. Avalin because he was able to safely keep her holy energy in check if he was this close to her, and Leon because otherwise, the young boy would end up in a ce where he shouldn''t be, just to then nap. That was a bit too risky for Eiro, although he doubted that anyone was too stupid to attempt anything with Eiro''s children, but he never knew.


    The others could take care of themselves, so Eiro just let them wander around. The only issue was that, now that Eiro was an official noble with the possibility of rising through the ranks of nobility in theing years, there was one issue that Eiro didn''t ount for.


    The fact that he was unmarried brought plenty of nobles with him that were ''jokingly'' suggesting a marriage between him and their children, or Eiro''s children and their children.. He did not expect something like that would happen.

 Chapter 421 - At The Party

    "What a wonderful piece of armor you have, Lord Daemonherz." A Lady told Eiro, clearly with the intention of simply starting a conversation with him based on the few things she could actively see on this newly born nobleman. She obviously never held anything heavier than a few pounds in her delicate hands, and she clearly thought that this armor was purely decorative as well. But Eiro sadly had to be nice to other nobles for now, as long as they weren''t rude to Eiro themselves.


    "Thank you. It was personally made by my dear friend using the best materials avable." Eiro exined, "If you hold an interest in these items, I could introduce you to Armodeus."


    "A-Ah, no, there is no need." The noblewoman replied. Eiro remembered that she was widowed, her husband having died from a bothersome disease.


    The Demon smiled back at her, "Then if you will excuse me, I think my daughter needs a bit of fresh air." He pointed out, and thedy in front of Eiro smiled broadly, "Oh, if that is so, then let us head onto the balcony. The view is wonderful at this time of the night."


    "No!" Avalin eximed, hearing that the woman wanted toe along with them. It seemed like Avalin also realized what this woman wanted to do, "You can''t have daddy! He''s mine! Go!" She eximed, and thedy looked back at her, "E-Excuse me? What do you mean, littledy?"


    "Go! Leave daddy alone!" Avalin replied immediately, and thedy looked back awkwardly. She turned around nervously, "S-Seems like I forgot I had something else to do..."


    Once thedy left, Eiro turned around with a smile on his face, "Thank you, sweetheart. You''ll get extra dessert tomorrow."


    "Yay~!" Avalin said with a broad grin, while Leon looked up at his father and grumbled to himself, "And what about me..?"


    "Don''t worry, I think Avalin''s work might have given a little bit more to you as well." Eiro winked after speaking so that only Leon could hear his voice, before they then walked out onto the balcony. For now, the Demon let go of their hands, "Don''t wander off, stay out here." He said.


    Like this, he could calm his mind down a little bit. He didn''t enjoy this sort of loud noise. Screams of pain and horror were fine for some reason, but he couldn''t handle random chatter filled with fake glee and smiles. It was bothersome.


    And just as Eiro was thinking that, someone else stepped out onto the balcony. One of the few people that Eiro didn''t mind talking to right now.


    "I understand that you may want to leave already, but this event was specially nned for you." Arie said, "And if I have to be here, then you have to stay at least twice as long."


    "Hah, good one. You know you didn''t have toe. Or stay, even. You can leave whenever you want, but I have to stay here for most of the night." Eiro replied to her, and Arie leaned against the balcony''s banister as she locked eyes with Eiro, "What, you make it sound like I want to be here." Sheughed slightly.


    Eiro sighed a bit, "Arie, I know that since I killed the Death, you''re expecting that we will be able to easily kill the Devil as well, but I need you to be aware that-"


    "I know, Eiro. That''s not the reason why I''m in a good mood. Of course, the fact that we''re clearly closer to it than we used to be helps quite a bit. But I''m just kind of happy for you as well. It seems like you were happy, so I''m happy as well." Arie exined. Eiro looked back at her with his brows raised, "Thank you. I''m d to hear that." Eiro replied to her. For a few moments, the two of them just stood there and were looking at each other, enjoying each other''spany in silence.


    That was until one of the windows above the balcony opened up, and a young man jumped out of them. Eiro immediatelypressed air to catch that young man''s fall, before groaning loudly, "Arc, what did I tell you about jumping out of windows like that?"


    "Eh... Don''t?"


    "Exactly. So why are you still doing it?" Eiro asked with a deep groan, and Arc quickly turned around and pointed at the window he jumped out of. There were a few girls standing around it, looking down at them in confusion, "I wanted to get away from them. They''re kind of a bother, you know?"


    "Didn''t you tell me that you wanted to meet girls at school? Those ones up there seem around your age, so where''s the issue?" The Demon asked his son, who looked back with a wry smile, "Dad, I''m looking for someone to slowly get to know, and not someone to marry! Like, most of them were sent to me by their parents anyway, and that''s just... weird."


    "Then just tell them you''re not interested. You don''t usually care for what others think if something bothers you." Eiro pointed out, and Arc looked back with a wry smile, "That''s what I''ve been doing... For real, it feels like my skill''s about to gain another level..."


    "It would be best if it didn''t. I mean, you can leave whenever you want, or just sit down at one of the tables with the others and have something to eat."


    "Eh, sure. The food is actually pretty good, I tried a bit of it earlier."


    "This is the royal castle, of course the food is good, Arc." Eiro pointed out, before all of a sudden, a mouth appeared on his cheek, "Oi, brat, bring me something to eat as well! I''m kinda hungry."


    "Bavet, you''re not going to eat right now. Do you know how ufortable that feels? And it looks like I just have lumps growing all over my body."


    "So? I''m hungry, and this takes up a lot of energy... We don''t stay like this all that long, normally!" The slimeined, and Eiro quietly grumbled, "If you don''t stopining, I''ll do you the favor of never fusing with you again. Although at that point, my uses for you will reduce by one."


    "Hah! Good one!" Bavet eximed, "You still try and treat me like a pet, but at this point I know you well enough to realize that you''d never get rid of me!"


    "I don''t have to get rid of you. I can just drop you off at the monster vige forever. And give you the task of teaching all the new, dumbass monsters I find." Eiro grinned lightly, and the Demon could immediately feel his whole body shiver. And that shiver didn''te from himself, but from the slime that fused with the outeryer of Eiro''s body.


    "Actually... I heard you speak of that ce a few times before, but I''m still not sure what you mean exactly. What is the ''monster vige''?" Arie asked, rather curious about what Eiro might mean. Arc smirked a bit, speaking for his father.


    "You see, dad is not only super strong, intelligent, and capable of casting more magic than literally anyone at the academy, but he''s also a born leader. By his own hands, he created a vige filled with monsters built around a magic stone mine. There''s Goblins, Kobolds, and even Orcs there." Arc exined with his arms crossed in front of his chest smugly, while Arie turned her head toward Eiro.


    "Wait, really? A vige filled with monsters? Isn''t that kind of... dangerous?" She asked, and Eiro quickly shook his head.


    "Not really. In the first ce, the Orcs never had any major monstrosity to begin with. And I sealed the monstrosity of the Goblins and Kobolds away while we train them to be civilized. When we remove the seal, they''ll mostly be able to control themselves. They''re set up in a ravine right now, and they can''t really get out of there that easily. The Hobgoblin that currently takes care of the vige was directly trained by me, and depending on how things go in the future, I was hoping to turn him into a royal monster as well." Eiro swiftly exined. Arie was immediately taken aback, not having expected this sort of reply.


    "Wait, really? Why would you turn a goblin of all creatures into a royal monster? They''re like... the lowest type of monster there is, right? They''re at the same level as... for your kind, Imps, I guess?" Arie said, and both Eiro and Arc froze up. Bavet was shaking as if he was holding backughter, while Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose.


    "Arie. You know that I''m an Imp, right?" He pointed out, and the Nephilim stared back at him, "Wh-What?"


    "Yeah, I started out as a Lesser Imp that didn''t even have any stats. I was literally the weakest imp amongst all the others in that horde. The only reason why I''m like this now and not dead and turned into fertilizer is because I was too stupid to realize that the system''s notifications weren''t some other creatures following me around." Eiro exined, "Since then, I''ve gathered four cards of the minor arcana, two cards of the major arcana, umted a total of two and a half thousand stat points, formed contracts with three spirits, gained three blessings from a spirit king and two spirit queens, and even received a Legendary skill." Eiro pointed out with a soft smile, "If someone like me can go from absolute zero to where I''m at now, I can turn a Goblin into a royal."

 Chapter 422 - Introduction To Familiars

    "Heh..." Arcughed a bit, after hearing what his father just said, "You sure do like to brag, eh dad?"


    "What do you mean, ''brag''? This all actually happened." Eiro pointed out, and Arc shrugged, "Of course, just because you''re bragging doesn''t mean you''re lying, but you didn''t have to recount everything you did." Arc said, unable to hold his grin back.


    "Anyway, I guess I''m just gonna leave you two alone now before all those girlse down here." He added, and swiftly made his way back inside.


    Eiro let out a slight sigh as he turned back toward Arie, who was still processing all this information, "So, you''re telling me you''re really an Imp?" She asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Yeah, that''s what I was saying. But after a couple unique evolutions, I don''t really have much inmon with regr Imps."


    "Hm, I guess that''s... Fair... I mean... The few times I evolved, I didn''t really change that much... The first time I evolved, I gained my wings, and then the second time I got my horns. And after that those things mostly just changed their shape a little bit." Arie exined, "So I guess I didn''t expect you to change this rapidly."


    "Well, yeah, you''re not a ''true'' monster at the end of the day. You were born with a body that would develop into a true humanoid form, and you didn''t even have monstrosity. You''re technically a monster, but you know, not... Not as much as I am, for example."


    "I guess that makes sense. And I never really stayed around to see monsters evolve too much, I would usually just kill them." Arie said, feeling somewhat bad about her reaction and words now.


    Eiro smiled and nodded his head, "The same was the case for me, so don''t worry about it. I still do. Just because I''m a monster doesn''t mean I don''t kill other monsters."


    "...An Imp, really? That just seems so... wow." Arie said, and Eiro let out a slight sigh, "Can we just move on for now? We can talk about it some other time some more, if you want." The Demon pointed out.


    "For now, want to hear more about the vige?" Eiro suggested, "It is pretty interesting. Monsters have a very different way of living togetherpared to people."


    "Hm. Really? Alright, tell me about it." The Nephilim replied with a soft smile on her face.


    ---


    Eiro was sitting on Lugo''s back, riding alongside the carriage on his way to the academy for today. He was teaching a ss about Familiar''s today, so it was obvious that he would need his own by his side for this.


    But at the same time, he attracted quite a bit of attention, since there was practically nobody here that didn''t hear about the new baron, and the stag was a pretty good identifier. Not that Lugo didn''t attract attention normally anyway.


    Soon, they reached the academy, and after the children got out of the carriage, it was brought away by one of the stable boys. Another one was trying to bring Lugo away, but Eiro looked at him and shook his head, "He''s my familiar, I''m taking him with me."


    "E-Erm, sir, I don''t think you can do that..." The stable boy said, and Eiro simply sighed, "Well, I think I can. I''m going to properly clean his hoofs before we go inside, the halls and doorways are big enough, and I''ll take routes where I won''t bother anyone. I think it''s going to be fine if I take my familiar with me. I just need him for maybe three hours today anyway. I''ll bring him out to the stables once I''m done." Eiro exined.


    The stable boy was a bit unsure, but he figured that it was fine if one of the teachers said so, "Then I apologize for my rudeness."


    "Don''t worry about it, you''re just doing your job." Eiro smiled and stepped into the building following his children. One after another, they split off to get to their own sses, while Eiro made his way to the ss ''Introduction to Familiars''.


    He stepped into the room and sat down at the desk in the front, waiting for the students to arrive as he read a book. His students stepped into the room, and were already muttering amongst themselves when they saw Eiro and the stag next to him. Once everyone was here, Eiro stood up and smiled at them.


    "Now, since I know all of you already, this is a perfect chance to make this announcement. From today on, my name is no longer just ''Eiro''. I gained a family namest night. But of course, I don''t really care what you refer to me, so I''ll leave the choice up to you. You can either keep calling me Eiro, or you can call me ''Mr. Daemonherz''. But again, it''s up to you. I''ll respond to either." Eiro exined to all of them. But that was all that he told them as well, immediately moving on.


    "Alright then. Who here already has some experience dealing with familiars, in any form? Whether it''s through acquaintances, parents, distant rtives, or even just by reading about them. Let me know what you know." Eiro said. Overall, it seemed like everyone had at least heard a little bit of them before, but the levels of experience were still rather different between individuals.


    "Then let me start at the basics. Any being can be a familiar. Animals, Magic Beasts, even Monsters. There''s not even really a limitation for People. It''s simply frowned upon, and in many countries, like this one, illegal. And since the exact methods differ for each sort of creature you want to turn into a familiar, the ceremony to turn a person into a familiar was purposefully obscured over the years, so don''t even try to find out." Eiro said, "You''re much better off just choosing a beast as your partner, as most mages tend to do."


    Eiro turned toward Lugo with a smile, "There is onemon misconception that I want to immediately banish from your minds, however. Familiars are not servants to you. They are yourpanions. Partners. Anyone that has apletely subservient familiar, doesn''t have a familiar. They simple enved whatever creature serves as their familiar. Theoretically it is simr, but it is simply a bastardization of what truly makes a familiar valuable."


    Quickly, a student raised their hand, "But why would you want a familiar that does their own thing all the time? Don''t you want it to listen to you?"


    "Of course you do. But with that logic, parties of adventurers would not be a thing. It would be one person that has servants they''re bringing along. There must be a sense of trust between the parties involved. Mutual trust. You must be able to trust that your familiar listens to you, and the familiar must be able to trust that you''re going to take care of its safety like your own." Eiro exined to the student, but it seemed like overall, the ss wasn''t really convinced yet.


    Eiro sighed slightly, "A familiar is not a pet to y around with. Again, it is a partner that will stay with you for its whole life. And in return, you offer the same to your familiar. They are your best friend for as long as possible, and you are theirs. It is not a rtionship between the owner and the owned, it is a rtionship between to beings of equal standing in the rtionship. That is why many lose their familiar. By losing their trust, the contract you formed will be nulled. You broke your promise to it. Under those rules, and only under those rules, can you truly have a familiar, and enjoy the benefits thate with it."


    Once more, the ss overall didn''t seem too convinced about why one would enter this rtionship on equal terms, but Eiro had exined it the best he could. He just had one more idea.


    "Okay, since that didn''t seem to convince you, let''s go with this. Throw away the concept of race. You are you. You are not a human, elf, or dwarf. You are simply who you are. Just imagine that for a moment. And then, you meet someone. They seem like you two could get along great. They smell a bit more than you do, but you don''t judge them for that. And so, you two choose to work together by entering a contract with each other. They be your familiar, and technically, you be theirs, even if you were the one that dered the contract. You live alongside one another. You eat alongside on another. And you fight alongside on another. This being bes your best friend. What does it matter if they''re an animal? What does it matter if you are a human. Or an elf. Or a demon straight from hell. Things like that don''t matter in a true friendship." Eiro exined to them, rubbing his hand over Lugo''s head.


    "And that''s why I''ve been with Lugo here for roughly eight years. I watched him grow up. I watched him eat more and more, until he didn''t even fit through the door to our old house anymore. Wherever I went, he went. So, in turn, he saw me grow as well. He knows all there is to know about me, and I know all there is to know about him.. And that is exactly what makes up not only a good rtionship between you and a familiar, but a good rtionship between anyone you love, in any way, shape, or form they or the rtionship you have may be."

 Chapter 423 - Elder Brother

    Eiro stood in the ssroom, exining what makes a bond with a familiar special. And then, a student asked another question, "And is there a particr reason for choosing to get a familiar? Wouldn''t it be simpler to just try and tame something? And in that case you can have more than one at a time..."


    "Well... If you ask like that, then... sure. It might be. But the connection between you and a familiar is much, much deeper. You share things between one another. When you grow, your familiar grows with you, to an extent at least. Abilities that you gain might affect your familiar, and vise versa. That is not something you can get from tamed creatures. And not only that, but to a certain extent, you can share your senses with a familiar. Communicate with them without words. This is actually the reason why this art was created." Eiro exined.


    "Let''s go back to the bit where I mentioned that it''s possible to have a person as a familiar. There was a certain tribe, a long time ago. Their weddings were not only ceremonies as we know them, but they were familiar ceremonies. To strengthen the bond they had already formed based on their emotions, they became each other''s familiars."


    "Then..." A student said, "Isn''t it like you''re married to your familiar?" A couple of other studentsughed, and Eiro quickly shook his head.


    "Of course not. Such rtionships aren''t so simple. And the art of forming familiar contracts is much older than this tribe I just mentioned." The Demon told them all, "That simply is not what this is about. A familiar is a partner that you trust and have by your side through any circumstance. If everything else goes haywire, you still have that being to rely on."


    Seeing that none of the students seemed to care for this central aspect of having a familiar, Eiro moved on to the bit that he figured people wanted to actually hear, "But there are of course certain, more ''practical'' ways that a familiar cane in handy. Let me show you."


    Eiro ced his hand onto Lugo''s back, and created a flow of mana between them. Usually, the mana of two people couldn''t mix, but in this case, it was basically like Lugo and Eiro had the same mana to begin with.


    The Demon took a deep breath and then stepped away from Lugo, walking to the other side of the room. And then, he waved his hand around. In front of Lugo''s antlers, as if they were encasing this, a ball of wind formed. To show what was happening, Gondos appeared and created some dust-like rock to make the wind actually visible to the students.


    "With a bit of practice, you can cast magic by using your familiars as a proxy. Of course, it''s not directly as useful as you might think. What I just did was basically nt the mana that I wanted to use for the spell inside of Lugo, my familiar. I don''t think I ever used this in practice, however, there are many ways it cane in handy. Let''s say... Lugo was a bit more inconspicuous, instead of thisrge. Let''s say I formed a contract with a bee, which is certianly possible. Then, if I were to cast a fire spell through that bee, it opens up a lot more ways forbat. And let''s say I were more interested in ceremonial magic, where certain spells have to be invoked at different ces at the same time... A familiar would be able to help assist with that as well." Eiro exined, looking at Lugo in the distance.


    He clearly felt a little bit woozy from that, since his mana was suddenly brought in disarray. Lugo really wasn''t made for casting magic... That is why Eiro never really used this before, and why he made use of one of the simpler and less-straining spells in his arsenal.


    Eiro approached Lugo again, and rubbed his hand over the stag''s head to calm him down a bit, "Of course, that is only part of what you can do. Anything else is more... unique to each pair of person and familiar, depending on the set of abilities either of them have." Eiro exined. From then on, the lesson continued with Eiro telling a few stories about such pairs that disyed rather special abilities. Or simply pairs that one might not expect to be a thing. Bit by bit, the students became more excited about the idea of gaining a familiar, although in Eiro''s opinion, for the wrong reasons.


    All of them just wanted to use them to be more powerful. Of course, Eiro himself was power-obsessed as well, but Lugo simply wasn''t. Lugo was azy, hungry, slightly stupid stag. And just because of this connection between them, Eiro knew that he couldn''t just use Lugo in order to gain more and more power himself. Sure, he did want Lugo to improve a bit more in his abilities, and level up now that he gained the ability to do so, but that was just because he didn''t want to leave Lugo behind.


    The more Eiro grew, the less he would actually need Lugo. And the less he needed him, the less they would interact. And that was just a sad thought, considering that Lugo was really just his best friend.


    At the end of the ss, Eiro once more walked through the building with Lugo, although a bit more frustrated than he was before.


    A few students stopped them because they were curious about Lugo, but that just came because they thought Lugo was ''cute'', a fact that clearly rose to Lugo''s head. With a smug expression, he eyed Eiro whenever they continued walking.


    "I get it, you''re more popr than me." The Demon sighed, and Lugo let out a puff of air through his nose. The two walked through the building together, and Eiro crossed his arms in thought. Was there any way to bring the concept of familiars closer to these students? Because it was certainly something valuable. He couldn''t remend it to everybody, because not everbody was a good fit for having a familiar, but overall it was an experience that was hard topare to in any way.


    "What the hell is that animal doing in here?" A familiar voice eximed. It was someone that Eiro had been hoping to meet with for a few days, but he had been on an unexpected leave for whatever reason. Today was the first day that he returned. Eiro looked right at him with a smile, "Hello Merlin. He''s not just an animal. He''s my familiar." He exined, and the man raised his brows surprised.


    "Your familiar? A stag?" Merlin asked with a squint, "That does not seem like the best fit, now does it? I would have expected something more like a war-horse. Or a pixie-dragon, due to their incredible control over their innate magic, but a regr stag..? Interesting."


    "Do you have a familiar as well?" Eiro asked Merlin, who quickly shook his head, "Not anymore. It sadly passed. He was a wonderful specimen. A magic beast known as Woodsnake. He would act as my staff. But sadly... He passed in a battle that I regrettably was unable to avoid."


    "I''m... I''m sorry to hear that." Eiro said, but Merlin looked back and shook his head as he stroked his own beard, "There is no need for you to feel sorry. It has been a few decades already, after all. And now, he is a wonderfulrge tree in my private garden."


    Eiro looked back at Merlin, happy that there was at least one other person that appreciated familiars for more than their ''practical use''.


    "But if you will excuse me, but I have a few matters to catch up on again." He exined, but before he was able to leave, Eiro stared him right in the eyes.


    "I would prefer it if you didn''t. I need to speak to you about Arcane Magic." The Demon exined, and Merlin raised his brows, "If you wish to learn more of this topic, then it would be appreciated if you coulde to my officeter today. But for now, I-"


    "I''m friends with Armodeus. I was basically raised by Jura. And I just recently fought a battle side-by-side with Koperia. Those are familiar names, aren''t they?" Eiro asked him, and Merlin stared back at him, "Jura...? My old friend... We grew up side by side... What a nostalgic name that is."


    Merlin''s smile kept on growing as he and Eiro spoke, "But how did I not know he had a child your age? I am still regrly exchanging letters with him!" He eximed, "Of course, due to circumstances, it had to happen more in secret, but we would send a letter at least once a year. Actually, I have been waiting for his letter for a few weeks now, but it simply did not arrive."


    "...Could we go to your office right now, maybe?" Eiro suggested, and Merlin slowly nodded his head, "Of course. This is something that I can postpone the matters I had in mind for."


    Silently, Eiro and Lugo both made their way to Merlin''s office together. Eiro had a bit of time to kill before his next ss as well, so it was fine for now. He pulled out the Ace of Cups and spread the liquid inside of it around the room so that he and Merlin could speak to each other in private, without having to worry about anyone.


    "I had heard a lot about his recent handiwork, especially ever since his woodcarving skill reached master grade, but I haven''t seen it in action in quite some time. Does this mean that this hand of yours was made by him?" Merlin asked quickly, and Eiro shook his head.


    "No, it wasn''t. I made it myself." He exined. Merlin looked at Eiro''s wooden hand more closely, "Is that so? I meant to meet him some time ago. Maybe a year or two, actually, but it sadly wasn''t possible. But he did send me a few packages in advance that he wanted my help with. He was trying to create some sort of... puppet. He wished to practically give life to it, but he needed my help to make sure it could actually think properly. It was an interesting project. I wonder what became of it..."


    "...It''s here in town with me right now. It''s a training puppet that Jura made for me, for when I had to leave our home." Eiro exined, and Merlin looked back a bit confused.


    "Why would you have to leave your home?" He asked, and Eiro locked eyes with the man.


    "Merlin. Did you not think anything of the fact that I have impossibly strong senses?" Eiro asked, and Merlin stopped for a few moments.


    "You... That must be a coincidence, correct? Jura taught you ways to increase your perception, is that not so?"


    "Merlin. I''m sorry, but..."


    "No... I know. I think I... I realized that the time was close some time ago. I just didn''t realize that it was that close.. Nobody thinks that they would be able to live longer than someone who was basically your elder brother."

 Chapter 424 - Two With Questions

    Eiro took a seat on one of the chairs in the office, while Lugo chose to lie down wherever there was space for him.


    "I''m sorry that you had to find out like this." Eiro told Merlin, but the old man simply shook his head as he took a seat hikmself.


    "Do not worry about such manners. I had to find out somehow. And being told by one raised by Jura is better than being told by a total stranger." Merlin exined, and then looked back at Eiro, "And you really inherited his Card?"


    "Yes, I have. It was pretty tough, but he prepared a space for me where I could get used to my new senses. He thought of everything, basically." Eiro said with a bitter expression.


    "He really was a kind man. Kinder than most, at least. It ended up turning him against the people of this world, however. You see, he-"


    "He created prosthetics for the current Monster King, I know." The Demon muttered, "He even created a prosthetic for a vile being like me when he first met me, even under all the circumstances."


    "Vile being? You seem like an upstanding young man to me." Merlin pointed out, and Eiro slowly shook his head as he stood up, "It might seem like that, but I''m not. Everyone else of your guys'' ''group'' know of this, so I''m hoping that you''ll be fine with this knowledge as well. I just think it''s going to make my questions a bit easier going forward. Bavet, if you will..."


    Merlin seemedpletely confused, as a mass of slime suddenly gathered on top of Eiro''s hand. And the more of that slime gathered, the more Eiro''s body changed. His skin changed color to be more red, or blue in other spaces. His hair fused together and hardened, and his clothes split off of his body as if they had been a part of it already. Eiro''s jacket turned into wings, while his belt turned into a thick tail.


    "I''m a Demon. But I''m not like other Demons. I have my monstrosity perfectly under control, and I''m raising my children, who are all people by the way, with utter love and care. I am here with the end-goal to create a better future for them." Eiro exined, in the calmest voice that he could to make sure that Merlin wouldn''t freak out.


    Merlin raised his brows surprised, his body practicallypletely stunned, "Now, that is not what I expected to hear today. Well, the only thing I really need to know is whether you can be trusted. I assume that our King knows of this as well, as close as you two seem to be. I think in that case, it''s fair to assume you really were Jura''s foster-son, and did not just kill him to take his card. So... It seems like I can trust you." Merlin pointed out, and Eiro looked back a bit surprised.


    "That went better than I expected." Eiro muttered, "Not that I''mining. But of course, you probably have some questions, so go ahead and ask anything you want."


    "Hm..." Merlin thought for a moment or two, "Then let us start at the beginning. How did you meet Jura?"


    Eiro quickly nodded as he recalled the situation, "I had juste out of a battle with other demons... I used a source of Holy Energy to fight. I''m not stunned by my bane like many others are, somehow, but it still made my hand practically rot away from the inside out. And after the fight, I had to go get something to eat for my children. I wandered through the forest, and came across this old man currently creating a prosthetic for a boar which lost its leg. That was the first time I came across him. Later, I saw some people carrying around that exact boar, and Jura wasn''t far away either. We... took care of those people because they were trying to attack us, and then I copsed. Jura amputated my hand, and asked me to be his student."


    Merlin crossed his arms in thought, "I see. That does sound like him." Merlin chuckled, "But I am quite curious about why you are affected by your bane in a different way. Are you some sort of super special high-tier sort of demon?"


    "No, I''m... erm... an Imp, actually." Eiro exined, "I just had a few unique evolutions so you would never be able to guess. But I think I do know why I''m not affected in the same way."


    "And why would that be?"


    "...As you just saw, I also possess the Ace of Cups. I drank it at that point, and when I did, Iter became exposed to an extremely strong source of Holy Energy. I developed a rather high resistance to Holy Energy immediately when the effect of the ace of cups subsided. For the longest time I thought it was just this, but it seems to be a mixture of different things. You see, I was artificially created by the Monster King as part of arge monster horde. And, as he was interrupted, he made a mistake creating me, and something with the soul he used to create me went wrong. To be brief, my soul was that of a human. I think that is the main reason why I''m not affected as strongly." Eiro exined, but Merlin was just silent, until he staretd to mutter.


    "A monster horde... the ace of cups... and an extremely strong source of holy energy..?" Merlin was deep in thought, as shivers covered Eiro''s whole body, as he realized what Merlin was about to find out.


    "You are in the possession of the Holy Priestess, are you not?" He asked, and Eiro red back at him, "She''s my daughter, I do not ''possess'' her." Eiro sighed, "But how did you figure that out?"


    "Hm? Oh, it was quite simple. Monster hordes are quite rare, especially demonic monster hordes. There wasn''t one of thetter for a few decades, but there was one with mixed monsters. Many researchers guessed that it was created by the Monster King to show his might. And that horde made it''s way to the Holy Empire''s capital sooner orter. I have the tendency to track objects of Arcane nature, and I lost track of it after that attack, so I know you were there. And since the Holy Priestess was kidnapped that same day, it was rtively easy to conclude. I stillck understanding of a few aspects of this all, but I knew that I was somewhat right at least." Merlin exined to Eiro, who let out a deep sigh.


    "I have a feeling we''ll get along quite well, Merlin. You''re absolutely right. Just that I split off from the Monster Horde at some point, and made my way to that capital through other means. I won''t go into that now, however." Eiro said, and Merlin slowly nodded his head, "I see, now. I really do have quite a few questions, but I think you have your own. I will be patient for now."


    "...Wait, you don''t think it''s wrong that I''m sheltering the Holy Priestess?" Eiro asked, and Merlin scoffed, "Hah, right. She should be what, eight years old? I know how disgusting the actions of the Holy Empire are. Now that I think of it, that must be how you came across the other children as well. They all have unique skills, so it makes sense. The Holy Empire loves to create soldiers out of the unique, even if they are nothing but children. She seems safer with you, a loving parent."


    "Yeah, I was right. We''ll get along amazingly." Eiro smiled, "Thanks for trusting me like this, although I''ve done nothing to earn that... But yes, I do have some questions that I would really like to ask you now. And since you said you have the tendency to track Arcane objects, I think I''m right. You probably researched Arcane beings as well, right?"


    "Arcane beings! Ah, yes, there are not many of them, but they are all extremely powerful. I know of roughly five or six, which ones do you want to know of?" Merlin asked, and Eiro immediately smiled.


    "All of them, if possible. But mostly, with a focus on the Arcane Dealer and the Arcane Mage." Eiro pointed out, and Merlin smiled in response, "Oh, the Arcane Dealer is one of the easiest to speak about. He is the one that interacted with us the most, nearly being a leading figure amonst Arcane Beings. The Arcane Mage is nearly the opposite in that regard. He is one of the ones that showed themselves the least. We don''t even know what he looks like. All we know is that he wielded the greatest level of Arcane Magic possible."


    "That! That''s the part that I want to know about. You said you have an ''element'', or rather, a ''concept'' that you can use called ''Arcana'', right? Is that Arcane Magic?" Eiro asked, and Merlin smiled in response, "Indeed it is. It is a special way to use pure mana to create magical effects. It is not necessarily powerful in battle, but it has an incredible number of other uses. It can be quite useful whenbined with elemental magic as well. And the best thing is... Since Arcana is a concept, not an element, practically anyone with the capability to use magic in the first ce can learn it! Different to elemental affinities, an ''Arcana'' affinity can grow over time."


    "Right. That''s pretty interesting. Would it be possible for you to teach the concept of Arcana to me?" Eiro asked, and Merlin immediately nodded his head, "Of course! It would be an honor to do so!"


    Once again, Eiro became even more convinced that he and Merlin would get along great. He seemed a bit mean-willed at the beginning, but only because he was worried for Eiro''s children. After that misunderstanding had been cleared up, he immediately became rather kind and showed his passion in everything he did. And now, he seemed like another person that could be a great ally to Eiro.


    "First of all, I think we should start in teaching you the ancientnguage. There are a lot of secrets to anything arcane hidden in texts written in the ancientnguage, so that should help you improve rapidly!" Merlin eximed, and Eiro''s mind stopped working for a second.


    "What did you just say?" Eiro asked after a few moments, and Merlin looked back at him surprised, "Oh, you are not aware that you can indeed learn the ancientnguage?"


    "No, I''m not aware of it. Whenever I try, any meanings I figured out immediately escape my mind. Which is a really weird feeling for me. I have an ability that lets me remember everything I ever sensed or thought in any way perfectly." Eiro pointed out, and Merlin began to chuckle, "I see. Well, the ancientnguage is something important for you to know to study the concept of Arcana. I did analyze those curious effects of the Ancient Language some time ago. So, as an experiment, I made my way to a ce where mana converged somewhere in the mountains, and created a ce to pull mana in even more, to help create an effect of improving one''s capability to actively learn thenguage. And from what I found, it seemed that once someone had gained the respective skill, the effect of ''forgetting'' what you learned disappears. I will tell you where I created this experiment, so you should make your way there soon."


    Once more, Eiro was left stunned as he sat there inplete and utter silence. Eiro knew that the person that created it was a powerful, special mage. But now it turns out that this powerful mage was right in front of his nose?


    Merlin was the one that created that magic-absorbing b in the monster vige...?

 Chapter 425 - Return To The Monster Village

    "Wait, wait, wait, I know exactly what you''re talking about, but how exactly does it help you learn the ancientnguage?" Eiro asked confused, and Merlin quickly exined, "Well, that''s simple. You interchange the mana held within the carved b with your own, and as you do so, you study the words as you normally would."


    "...It''s that simple?" Eiro muttered, "I''ve done the first thing quite a bit already, but I just had to study while I was doing it?"


    "Wait, how did you get the idea of doing this already?" Merlin asked a bit confused, "In the first ce, how did you find that ce? It was hidden away quite well."


    "Ah, well, some goblins started using the area as a vige. Because, as it turned out, by creating that b you also consequently created a Magic Stone mine in that ravine. The goblins liked how shiny the magic stones were, and settled there. But you don''t need to worry, those guys arepletely under my control now. And now that I''m a noble, that whole area belongs to my barony, so that ce will be safe either way."


    "Huh. A Magic Stone mine can be created so simply?" Merlin asked, "How curious. Would you mind if I take a look at that ce myself sometime?"


    "Oh, sure, I can show you around there soon." Eiro replied, "But that''s good to know, then. If I can learn the ancientnguage, that really is going to open up a few things for me."


    "Of course, that is just the start of studying the concept of Arcana. I can give you a few notebooks about the process of turning pure mana into ''arcane'' mana. You need a deep control over your own mind to do so, however. So just be careful." Merlin said, just as the bells to the next ss rang out through the building.


    "I guess we''ll have to go for now." Eiro sighed a bit disappointedly, before he stood up again. Bavet fused with his body and once more changed Eiro''s appearance, "I''ll talk to you soon, then."


    "Come by any time you want to." Merlin said with a smile, as Eiro stepped out of the room. The moment he did, his soft smile immediately disappeared, "Well, shit."


    "Hm? What''s wrong?" Sarius asked confused, and Eiro grumbled quietly, "Something felt off in there, I just don''t know what."


    "Wait, seriously? Like, with Merlin?" The Smander asked, and only a nod came from Eiro. Sarius groaned loudly, "Then why''d you tell him that you''re a fucking demon, and that the monster vige is a thing? What kinda moron are you?"


    "It''s not like it felt like Merlin is a bad person, I do feel some form of trust toward him, knowing that he grew up with Jura. Some things just didn''t add up, as if he was hiding some things." Eiro exined. Soon, he heard a whisper in his ear,ing from Bavet, "What exactly are you talking about?"


    Eiro groaned quietly, "Alright. It sounded like Merlin and Jura were extremely close, but it''s been so long that they''ve met that Nelli never saw him before? And if they exchanged letters every year, how didn''t he know about me? He told Armodeus about me, and it sounded like Merlin was closer to Jura than Armodeus was just now. And sure, Merlin wasn''t lying in there, he didn''t say a single, tiny lie in fact. Which is also weird."


    "So? Merlin is a weird person, but you can not call yourself normal either." Gondos pointed out, and Eiro sighed a bit, "I guess you''re right. But well, at the very least there wasn''t any hostilitying from him, so I''m sure I can trust him."


    "...Right." Nelli muttered, "It still seems kind of risky, you know? Jura never spoke about him at all."


    "...never?" Eiro asked, and Nelli shook her head, "Never."


    "That is a bit weird, I guess. But I''m sure there''s nothing to worry about. And if something happens... I can always call the Master Grade Necromancer here for help." The Demon pointed out.


    ---


    Eiro felt wind touch his body as he was riding Lugo next to his regr carriage, the one improved by Armodeus. Right now it was empty, and was just pulled by some horses. The Demon was on his way to the Monster Vige, after all, considering to bring some of them back with him as a first batch of ''servants'' for the manor.


    Once he reached the rough area of the entrance to the monster vige, Eiro could already tell that the vige was doing pretty well. He could hear them talking to each other, living alongside one another. But the first thing that Eiro did was something else.


    He ced the carriage somewhere safe, and then started to use earth magic to change the area around the path running by there rapidly. He wanted to make sure that nobody was going to consider stopping here by removing any spot to do so. Later on, when he had a bit more time and nerve to do so, he would create a new path altogether.


    Once he was done, Eiro made his way back to the carriage and brought it toward the entrance of the tunnel. With a quick wave of the hand, therge boulder was pushed to the side. And to Eiro''s surprise, this tunnel itself changed quite a bit. It was no longer a natural cave, but it was a straight, carved tunnel that would lead straight to the vige.


    Torches were set up along the walls to light the area up, and at the end of the tunnel, Eiro could see something like a wooden gate.


    "Huh..." Eiro muttered, as he walked through the tunnel, the carriage right behind him. Once he reached the other side, he knocked on the wooden gate a few times. A thin slit opened up so that only a pair of eyes could be seen. With a strong orcish ent, the creature behind it asked, "Password?"


    Eiro let out a deep sigh as he took off his mask, "Open this damned gate before I rip your head off. That good enough for a password?"


    The orc seemed to turn around and speak to someone else in orcish, but Eiro was just annoyed.


    "Bavet." He grumbled, and the slime flew up to his shoulder in his bird-form, "Turn into a key to open this up."


    "Alright. Seems pretty basic, shouldn''t be too tough." The slime replied, and quickly pressed its body against the key-hole. A few momentster, Eiro could hear a clicking sound, and proceeded to push against the gate.


    "Did you already forget your master''s face?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, looking at the blue Hignd Orc in front of him. The Orc seemed a bit confused, and Eiro raised his brows, "Wait, I don''t recognize you. Are you new around here?"


    "Not... new. You... new." The Orc grumbled, and Eiro sighed, "Where''s Boju?"


    The two Orcs in front of Eiro seemed confused, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "Habojugikatsuge. The orcs'' chief."


    Immediately, the Orc guards nodded their heads with a broad smile, and pointed toward one end of the ravine toward a particr structure. It was partially just carved out of the wall, and partially created using stone bricks and wood to create a building. That was most likely the ce where Gobo, Kitsue, and Boju were right now. As well as the two Will''o''wisps. Mikey and... Arie. It was a bit weird for Eiro that two of the people connected to him shared such a rare name. He already asked the Nephilim-Arie about it, but she didn''t know anyone else that went by her name.


    And so, Eiro stepped past the Orcs that didn''t seem to know him, and made his way through to the other side of the vige. The two orcs were following him confused, while Eiro was simply annoyed. At least most of the other monsters recognized him, so the Orcs soon understood that Eiro was meant to be here.


    But Eiro couldn''t help himself but be impressed by the progress of the vige. The mines were still in progress, of course, but some had been closed down because there was nothing else there anymore, and were instead turned into houses for the inhabitants of this vige.


    Once he reached therge building, Eiro stepped inside. It didn''t take him long until he spotted the one he wanted to see the most, Gobo.


    The moment that the Hobgoblin spotted him, he ran up to Eiro with a broad smile, "Master!" He eximed, "Wee back! I didn''t expect you so soon!"


    "Thank you, Gobo. It''s nice to see you again. The vige looks great, by the way, so good job on that."


    "It is an honor to hear this from you, Master! Do you want me to show you around?" Gobo asked with an excited smile, but Eiro shook his head, "That''s fine, first, I need to ask you about Mikey and Arie. Where are they?" The Demon asked. Well, he could sense them nearby, but they gave off a different feeling than thest time Eiro saw them.


    "Ah! You will be proud, Master! The two of them managed to evolve while you were gone!" Gobo eximed, and Eiro was close to stunned by that fact in itself.


    "They evolved?" He asked, "That''s impossible. They''re undead created by me, so they shouldn''t be able to evolve without my interference."


    "Well, they did..." Gobo pointed out. And soon, Eiro was able to see that Gobo was definitely right. These two were very, very different than they used to be. To begin with, neither of them were just the orbs that they were before anymore. Their size didn''t change much, just their shape. Mikey turned into a tiny, semi-humanoid figure that was wearing a cloak, his face hiddenpletely in ckness. Or rather, it was made of that shadowy ckness itself. He had a couple firefly-like lights floating around him.


    And next to him, the Will''o''wisp-Arie. She had a simr basic form, just that her head was exposed, and she had two tiny angel-like wings on her back. This just gave Eiro the idea that she was connected to the other Arie even more.


    But for now, Eiro was nothing but confused. It shouldn''t have been possible for them to evolve like that. That was not how undead worked. Hannah was basically the only undead that is be able to, since she was basically her own necromancer, but it should be impossible for other undead.


    There was only one exception to that rule that Eiro could think of.. And that was in case someone with powers like the Monster King created Undead beings.

 Chapter 426 - The Collar

    "What''s going on exactly? Were you able to evolve like regr monsters?" Eiro asked the two spirit-type undead. They turned toward each other and then looked back at the Demon confused.


    "What do you mean? Of course we could?" Mikey replied, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "That means that you two received multiple options for your possible evolutions, and you were able to pick which one to go for yourselves?"


    "Yeah, is that not supposed to happen?" Arie, or Ari, asked. She looked at Eiro somewhat nervously, since it was clear that something was wrong.


    "Not really, no. But it''s not a bad thing, don''t get me wrong. I''m just... confused." Eiro muttered. This was the first time that he himself had ''created'' a monster in the form of an undead. Could it maybe be because of his Legendary skill? He had no idea, since he was unable to really learn anything about this skill.


    As he was unable to really make use of it, it was practically sealed away at this point. Also because Eiro didn''t want to identally strengthen his skills and cause some kind of incident again once it became reversed. But he only did that a bit after he created Mikey and Ari. The skill did have the ability to strengthen things, so maybe it somehow strengthened this process in some way. That was the only thing that Eiro figured made sense.


    Sure, spirit-type undead were very different to corpse-type undead, but that didn''t change that they should only be able to really function under the influence of their necromancer, which in this case was Eiro himself. It was confusing, really.


    "Or maybe it was the fact that I used a magic stone?" He muttered. Eiro had no idea, but he definitely wanted to find out. Maybe he should ask Koperia about this as well. She might know something.


    "Do we have to be worried or somethin''?" Mikey asked as he floated around Eiro, but the Demon quickly shook his head, "No, you don''t need to be worried. I''ve got to figure this out myself. But on another note..." Eiro said to change the topic to something else. He didn''t want the others here to know just how perplexed he really was about this situation.


    "Arie, do you perchance know someone else with the same name as you?" He asked next, and the white undead quickly shook her head, or rather her whole body, "No, I don''t think so. I''ve never met anyone with the same name, at least."


    "Well, that''s technically true, but not really, right?" Mikey pointed out, and Arie looked confused, before realizing what her brother meant, "Oh, right! Mom and dad told me that they named me after a woman that saved them while mom was pregnant! They said she was super pretty, and that she was basically an angel!"


    "...Right, of course." Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Yeah, that would exin it, at least. I guess I''ll just ask her if she remembers..."


    "Wait, do you know who it is?" Ari asked excitedly. Eiro raised his head, just to see the Will''o''wisp floating only inches away from his face.


    "Yes, I do. At least I think I do, from that description. Arie is a rare name in the first ce." Eiro pointed out. Well, that was something that Eiro figured he had to deal with first, since it was killing him not to know why they both had this rare name. Although, it was also quite a coincidence that Eiro encountered this young girl of all people back then...


    But that wasn''t important right now. Instead, he should focus on the central things he came here for.


    "Gobo, call Boju and Kitsue here as well. I want to speak to the three of you about something." Eiro said, and the Hobgoblin immediately nodded, "Of course, Master!" With the same level of excitement Gobo had as always when doing something Eiro asked him to do, he rushed off to go find the Hignd Orc and Kitbold.


    Meanwhile, Eiro took a look at this structure. It was fairlyrge, as if it was supposed to be some form of gathering-hall. It had multiple floors, and reached surprisingly deep into the mountain. Deeper inside, Eiro could even see some proper storage-spaces filled with materials gathered from other monsters, provisions, as well as all of the processed metals and magic stones mined here.


    They did a really good job. The addition of the Hignd Orcs really did wonders for this vige. Eiro took a seat on one of the chairs in what seemed to be something like a meeting-room. There were a dozen or so seats around arge wooden table, and one of the chairs was carved in a rather impressive way. And obviously, Eiro sat down on that chair as he waited.


    Just a few minutester, Gobo returned to this room and had Boju and Kitsue right beside him, "Here they are!"


    "Thank you. Please, take a seat, I have something to talk about." Eiro said, greeting the two other monsters as well.


    "Now. Just a few days ago, I was given a noble title by the king of this country. Together with that noble title came a few responsibilities and tasks I had to take care of. In exchange, I now have actual ownership of this mountain-range. For now, I need to take a few monsters with me to the capital to act as servants for me there." Eiro exined to them briefly. He didn''t go into too much detail about the ''baron'' title, since literally none of them knew what it meant. Only Mikey and Ari were surprised.


    "Wait, a noble title? What''d you mean?" One of them asked, and Eiro smiled at them, "Solomon named me a Baron the other day, because I managed to kill ''The Death''." He exined, before turning his head toward Kitsue, Gobo and Boju again.


    "For you three, ''The Death'' is a royal monster, one of the most powerful monsters that directly ''serves'' the Monster King." Eiro exined, and the three immediately became excited.


    "Ooh~! How expected of our master~!" Kitsue eximed, followed by Boju right after, "Th-That is really impressive! I think I read about royal monsters in one of the books you left!"


    "Yeah, one of them was speaking aobut them in a chapter. If you''re interested, I can bring some more next time." Eiro exined, before he moved his hand to the side. He moved his hand like he was pulling a book out of a shelf, before a leatherbound notebook appeared between in his clutch.


    He opened it up and slid it over the table toward Boju, as he was the most likely to be taking care of administrative matters like this.


    "Those are positions I need filled, ranked in priority. The first number in front of each line is the number that I need to take with me this time around, and the second number beside that is the total amount I will need. But I will only take the amount for the first number with me. If there is no number in a line, then I won''t take anyone to fill that position." Eiro exined, "Did you keep a list of all the monsters in this vige with their respective general skill-set, just as I asked you to?"


    "Of course! I have it in the thick notebook you gave me. I will put together the group of monsters that wille with you immediately!" Boju eximed, ready to go get the monsters right this very moment. But Eiro slightly raised his hand and shook his head, "No, stay. That''s not the only thing I wanted to talk about." He exined in a serious tone, making the three monster chiefs rather nervous.


    "I''m really happy with how the vige looks right now. The monsters all look happy, and it seems quite peaceful. However, there is an issue. Some of them are still incredibly aggressive. They''re kept on the other end of this ravine, in what is basically a slum. I don''t want that. Do not, I repeat, do not do something like that long-term." Eiro told them in amanding tone so that they understood, and Gobo immediately grew nervous.


    "But Master, what else should we do? If we don''t split them off from the rest of us, they''re going to just attack us. It puts the other monsters on edge!" Gobo exined, and Eiro slightly smiled, "Don''t worry, I''m not judging you for it right now. I understand why you did it, and at the end of the day, I think you did the right thing. But now, you don''t have to do that." Eiro exined.


    "In my carriage, I have some items for you that Armodeus created with Bavet''s help. Basically, they''re made partially out of Bavet himself, focused on his Sealing-Arts ability." Eiro exined, and the Slime grumbled quietly as he dropped down onto the table. With a hissing voice, he said, "Exactly, so don''t take it for fucking granted, will ya?! It''s really damn ufortable to split parts of your body off in that way..."


    "Anyway. They''re Magic Items, technically inspired by ''Taming Cors'', the items used to enve creatures as a shortcut instead of properly taming them." Eiro exined. He still had his own in his treasury, so Armodeus was able to quickly copy parts of it for this. Gobo''s body immediately froze up at the mention of that concept, slowly moving his hand toward the back of his neck, "You want to turn the aggressive monsters of this vige into ves?"


    "That''s kinda..." Kitsue added with a wry smile, and Eiro immediately rified.


    "Of course I don''t want to turn them into ves. However, those cors have the ability to suppress monstrosity of monsters as well. Temporarily, the monsters that have too high monstrosity will wear these." Eiro exined, pulling one of them out of his satchel.


    It was a wooden ring,rge enough to fit around someone''s neck, "Just to make it clear, these will not make monsters lose their own mind, and these will not put anyone under the control of anyone else. It is rather the opposite. It frees them from the monstrosity that is clouding their mind, so that they can make their own decisions. After all, we can''t be here to seal and unseal their monstrosity all the time ourselves. Instead, you will put this on them, and on a weekly basis will go into a room with them alone. You will take this wooden cor off of them. It should take half an hour or so until they return to ''normal'', meaning that the effect of the cor will have fully faded, at which point I will let you judge whether they can stay within the mainmunity without it. If you think they still need some time, you put the cor back on them, and call them back a weekter." Eiro exined to them, especially Gobo.


    "Again, this is just something that they will have to wear temporarily. You don''t want to see your people killing each other, do you?"

 Chapter 427 - Village Meeting

    Eiro looked at the three Monster Chiefs in front of him. At first, none of them were particrly excited about the idea of putting these sorts of cors on the monsters in this vige, but at the end of the day, it was something that had to be done if they all wanted to live here in peace.


    They all agreed to using this method, before Eiro moved on to the next point, "Alright, so. In terms of aggression and monstrosity, has their been anything of the sort amongst those that had their monstrosity sealed away already?"


    "...Yes, there has." Boju admitted, "We thought maybe you could look at them? Maybe there was some issue when you sealed it?"


    "No, there wasn''t an issue with the sealing. Boju, even amongst the Hignd Orcs, a race that has extremely low monstrosity in the first ce, there must have been crime. In such cases, the issue isn''t the monstrosity, it is simply their personality." Eiro exined to them, "It is a shame, but sometimes there are those thatmit crime for different reasons. Arge portion of crime is created out of circumstance. Those that think they are treated unfairly, quite often that is actually the case as well, will resort to crime to make up for that unfair treatment in any way. If that happens only to some individuals where you can say they are the exception, simply talk to them and try to solve their problems."


    "But won''t that be a bit of a waste of time..?" Gobu asked, and Eiro shook his head without hesitation, "Of course not. And I''m not talking about you guys in particr. I mean the Guards you already stationed around the vige. I want you to turn them into a sort of police-force that takes care of the order in this vige as it continues to grow. Right now, they don''t have much work, so I want you to give them work."


    "Ah, I see. That makes sense!" Boju eximed, "But you said that''s what we should do if there are issues with individuals... Should we treat it different when there are more that are affected?"


    "Exactly so. You catch on quick." Eiro smiled lightly, "If there is a problem with groups of monsters, and more and more things happen as the amount of monsters here grow, then you need to evaluate if something is wrong with the system of how you govern this vige. And I need you to understand exactly how to do this before we expand the size of this ce to that of a town in the future."


    Boju was quickly taking notes of what they had to take care of under Eiro''s orders, while Gobo and Kitsue simply listened to the Demon.


    "Anything else you want us to do, Master?" Gobo asked, and Eiro thought about it for a bit, "Well, if you can, just set up a system to create new jobs for the monsters of this vige to do. Whether it''s farming, mining, building, hunting, or even scouting for new monsters to integrate into this vige. We want everyone to have something to do, so that nobody iszing around. With the exception of children, elderly, sick and injured of course."


    Eiro leaned back in his set and crossed his legs, "I think it''s obvious, but if you need help figuring such things out, then contact me immediately. I''ll be leaving a magic item so you can do just that with youter. But for now, I want to hear something from you. Tell me how things are going in the vige, and what you need from me right now. I''ll get you whatever you need. If I can get it, of course."


    Kitsue groaned loudly, "Everything is fine with my Kobolds, but Gobo''s dumb goblins keep trying to fight them! They''re causing nothing but trouble!"


    "As I told you, they aren''t trying to fight them, they''re trying to duel them. As a sport. In their freetime. Because yourzy Kobolds keep doing nothing butze around and act all high-and-mighty, my Goblins will just hate your Kobolds even more. And what Master wants is a united vige, and not one split up like that!" Gobo replied, but Kitsue couldn''t do anything but scoff.


    "You''re really calling my Koboldszy? Who is sitting in ce for hours on end, freaking out when they''re interrupted, eh?"


    "I''ve told you a million times before, but we''re meditating. I''m teaching the ones with talent for magic how to manipte their mana and how to keep a calm mind!"


    "Do you want to know what''s going to keep all you morons calm? I''ll tell you if you suck my di-"


    "Kitsue." Eiro interrupted her, "How do you guys even know how to talk like that?"


    "W-Well, there are adventurers around here every once in a while... And since they''re the most skilled in the vige, Gobo and Kitsue are the ones that go out and make sure they don''t cause any issues..." Boju exined. Eiro crossed his arms annoyed, "Great. Well, you two better stop fighting too much, or one of you is going to end up dead one day. If you''re unlucky, both of you."


    "Y-Yes Master..." They both said in unison, before Eiro continued, "And what about the Hignd Orcs? How are they doing?"


    "Oh, those guys are absolutely perfect." Kitsue pointed out, and Gobo couldn''t help but agree, "They all have their own tasks already, so they just keep on doing those and everyone is happy. It works out pretty well to keep a basis for the vige that we can build on."


    "Good." Eiro smiled in relief, "Great job, Boju. And now to you two." Eiro said, looking at Gobo and Kitsue, "First, it''s fine if the Kobolds want toze around in their freetime. They can choose want they want to do during that time, and the Goblins shouldn''t try and force them to participate in something they don''t want to."


    "Hah!" Kitsueughed as she red at Gobo with a victorious expression.


    "However... That doesn''t mean that the Kobolds should be split off of the Goblinspletely. Dueling is part of what Goblins do to have fun, and if they want to befriend Kobolds, the logical consequence is to invite those Kobolds to fight duels with them. Or at least toe watch. Kitsue, you should be able to understand that it''s annoying when you invite someone to do something you enjoy, and they just act like you''re crazy or bothersome."


    "Hah!" Goboughed next, but Eiro just rolled his eyes.


    "But do you guys want to know what the main reason for the animosity between Kobolds and Goblins in this vige is?" Eiro asked, slowly standing up from his seat as he walked around the table a bit. He soon stood exactly in the center between Gobo and Kitsue.


    "Stand up, both of you." The Demon said in a strict tone. The Goblin and Kitbold did as told, and kneeled in front of Eiro. The Demon leaned down toward them as he ced his hands on top of their heads. And with one swift motion, he hit both of their heads together.


    [Gobo -123 Health]


    [Kitsue -165 Health]


    Eiro saw these messages appear in front of his eyes, "Both of you, stop fighting like that, you got that?"


    Kitsue hissed loudly as she held her head in pain, while Gobo slowly stood up, also holding his head.


    "I''m not saying you have to get along perfectly, but at least be a good example when in front of the monsters of the vige. If they see their leaders fight, they will end up fighting as well. So just fake it in front of them. But if, the next time Ie here, I hear from anyone that they saw you fighting in public, I will hit your heads together harder. As hard as I can."


    With those words, Eiro stepped toward the rock wall, pressing his fingertips against the surface. He pushed his hand against it and squeezed his fingers together, causing cracks to appear due to the sheer pressure he was creating. Shivers ran down the bodies of the two monster chiefs right next to Eiro.


    The Demon repaired the wall with earth magic, as he returned to his seat, "Also, I generally like the idea of everyone in the vige participating in the duels if they want to. It''s never a bad thing if they can defend themselves properly. I''ll send some things for that sort of thing here. They fight without weapons, right? So I''ll send you guys some bandages to wrap around their hands. Just to protect their muscles and joints in their hands a bit. Speaking of, I''ll also send you some more materials for armor-smithing that are hard for you guys to get. Do you guys need anything else in that direction?"


    The three chiefs thought about it for a moment, before Boju quickly suggested something, "We dug a tunnel through part of the ravine, and found a good spot where we can start farming without anyone being able to spot us once springes. We have some basic seeds that we can use, but it would be great if we could get more, and some higher-quality seeds..."


    "Hm, of course. I''ll put together a good collection and have them sent to you before winter fully ends." Eiro replied, "Do you need anything else regarding provisions until then?"


    "Not provisions directly, but the Orcs that have a cooking-based task want to try out ways to preserve food for longer. Things for that might be good?" Boju suggested. Eiro thought about it for a moment, and then nodded his head immediately.


    "Sounds like a good idea. I''ll try and set up a deal for salt, and I''ll give you some books on food-preservation for you to read through as well. I know that smoking is something good for preserving meats, so prepare arge space in some cave-walls that can hold a lot of heat and can be closed off. I know some types of wood that are great for that as well, so I''ll try and send you that as well." Eiro exined, taking mental notes for what he had to get done for this vige.


    "Hm... Ask the craftsmen if they need any materials. And in general, all of you ask around if the monsters arecking of anything here, and we''ll figure something out." The Demon suggested, "I''ll be staying here until tomorrow, so tell me whenever somethinges up."


    Gobo rubbed the side of his head some more as he looked at Eiro, "Master, what exactly do you want to do until tomorrow? Can we help somehow?"


    Eiro shrugged, "I want to try something out I got a hint about. And besides that, I''ll just stay here and make sure that the distribution of the cors goes well." The Demon exined, "Oh, speaking of distribution..."


    Eiro pushed his hand into his satchel and got out three small boxes. He threw them over to each of the vige chiefs, "In case any of you encounter any adventurers near here again, you''ll need these. You can''t really modify it in this lesser version, but it''s still pretty useful for you. Oh, if any of you evolve and notice something being off afterward, just let me know and I''ll get you new ones."


    "Master, what are these?" Gobo asked. He opened the box he was given and saw a thin bracelet. Gobo proceeded to immediately put it on, and it fit onto his wrist like it was a second skin.


    "Push your mana into it." Eiro instructed. Gobo slowly nodded and did as told immediately. As he did, the color of his skin changed from what it was before into that of a pale-skinned human. Overall, Gobo''s appearance changed, and the parts that made him look especially goblin-like, his leftover ws, fangs, ears, tongue, and eyes, were turned into things that you would see on a person, albeit not necessarily a human.


    This was the artificial artifact specially created for Gobo so that he could appear as a person when he needed to.

 Chapter 428 - Ancient Language Comprehension

    Eiro looked at the three monster chiefs in front of him, each of them in their new human forms thanks to the artificial artifacts Eiro gave to them.


    Gobo was turned into that pale, nearly-human person. Eiro didn''t know what exactly he looked like, but he would pass as a person either way. Kitsue simply turned into a beast-woman, as was to be expected, so the most that happened was that she lost fur on most parts of her body.


    And as for Boju, he turned into a dark-skinned young man, and even the chieftain-tattoos that he had on his body changed color along with his skin, fitting themselves to Boju''s new body-shape. These three would definitely pass as people, that was for certain.


    Eiro was d that this worked out alright. These artifacts were specialized perfectly for these three, but the others that Eiro brought with him were different. The only thing that they had to focus on when giving them out now was that they were distributed depending on their race. A ''transform'' artifact meant for an Orc would do weird things when used by a Goblin.


    "I have a dozen of these in total. Four for each of the three races here in town for now. Give them to those that have to wander around outside for their jobs. Those that are most likely to encounter people, at least." Eiro told them, "I might be able to bring more in the future, but we need to produce specified ones for the servants I''m taking with me first. They''ll be the ones most likely to actually meet with people, after all."


    "Master, this feels weird..." Gobo pointed out, and Eiro smiled back at him a bit, "Don''t worry, you''ll get used to it. And you don''t need to use it for long anyway, simply use it in emergencies. Otherwise, you can keep it deactivated." The Demon exined to them, as he slowly stood up from his seat.


    "Now, I think that''s all for now." Eiro pointed out, and once more moved his hand in a motion to pull a book out of his treasury, just that this time it was an old tome written in the Ancient Language. Eiro hade across it some time ago, and had continuosly tried to keep on using it to learn the Ancient Language, but whenever he did, he would forget the meaning he figured out immediately. He would write it down, so he slowly umted a list of meanings for different words in the ancientnguage, but it was still impossible to actually find any sort of logic in the words or sentences. As if it was some sort of curse ced onto thenguage itself.


    But now, Eiro had a way to learn thisnguage. It was perfect. He should be able to enhance his spells incredibly once he figured this out. The Demon made his way outside and soon stood in front of the wooden b. It seemed like the area around it had been cleaned up a bit, but beside that was left alone.


    Eiro was d about that, because otherwise they might have somehow destroyed the effects of the b. And at the same time, the hiddend cave was also still right behind him, so Eiro would be able to keep using it as his own personal space while he was here.


    Eiro took a seat on the b, while the three chiefs were looking at him curiously. Eiro raised his brows a bit, "What, something wrong?" The Demon asked, and they immediately shook their head.


    "Of course not, Master! But what exactly are you trying to do right now?" Gobo asked, incredibly curious. Because it seemed like whenever Eiro did anything with extreme purpose like this, he was doing something amazing.


    "Well, I''m just going to study a bit." Eiro exined with a smile on his face. Gobo seemed somewhat disappointed, "St-Study?"


    "Yes, study. What, have you forgotten what that word means since I''ve left you here again?" The Demon asked with a slight smirk, but Gobo immediately shook his head nervously, "No, of course not! I studied everything you told me to, Master! Whenever I had the time to!"


    "Good. I would have reprimanded you if that had been a lie." Eiro pointed out. He pushed his mana into the b underneath him, and redirected the flow of the mana gathering within there into his own body. At the same time, he was fusing the chaos that both the b and eiro himself were causing with the help of the armor, hopefully supporting the effect that Eiro would be able to study thenguage.


    The Demon opened up the book and looked at the words, having Nelli and Gondos hold his notes next to the book. He let Sarius just wander around for a while, since he had the tendency to burn whatever he touched.


    Quickly, Eiro was able to figure out rough basics of thisnguage. Patterns in the letters and words. The way that the different ancient symbols were connected to one another in a smooth way to allow for consequtive writing. It was as if each word was its own symbol, made up of the letters as building-stones.


    The writing wasn''t linear like the Common Language either. The letters were ced right next to one another in Common, while in the ancientnguage they were ced in different patterns. Above one another, side by side, or even ovepping. Overall, the ancientnguage seemed to be made up of 53 individual, unique letters, at least as far as Eiro could tell so far.


    With thatrge amount of letters, it was more than just possible that there were some that were just so rarely used that they didn''t appear to him yet. But for now, once Eiro reached this point, he felt like he made progress. So he figured he should risk to lose all of that progress.


    He pressed the book shut and let his mind wander for a few moments. Eiro looked at the scenery of the vige stretching out toward the other end of the ravine in front of his eyes. And after a few moments, he tried to recall the information.


    "Non-linear writing, 53 letters..." Eiro muttered, before grinning broadly as he recalled all of the individual letters one by one. It seemed like this b actually worked. Eiro had no idea how, but it was clearly connected to Arcane Magic. He couldn''t help but be excited about this. It''s been so long, and now he finally managed to figure out how he could learn the Ancient Language.


    And so, Eiro quickly continued trying to learn the Ancient Language. Bit by bit, by trying to analyze the texts no matter the orientation of the words rtive to each other, the Demon was able to figure out more and more meanings of the words.


    It was incrediblyplex, which now made Eiro realize exactly why he was only able to figure out the meanings of a few dozen words and note them down. Luckily, the speech aspect wasn''t that hard to figure out. There were many spells that were created with chants, that were passed down ever since the Ancient Language was stillmonly used. As such, there were ''Commonized'' versions of the Ancient Language to note down the way that those words were pronounced. The fact that Eiro used that Commonized version to note down the Ancient Language words he already ''learned'' before might have been the only reason that he was able to somewhat remember them and their meanings.


    But now, Eiro didn''t have to rely on just that anymore. Instead, he was not only able to figure out the meaning of certain words to cross-reference with spells that he knew about, but instead, he was able to figure out the way that certain letters were pronounced in different configurations to other letters.


    Whenever Eiro figured out not only the meaning but also the pronounciation of a word, he would write it down in a thick, nk book that he brought with him to create a dictionary for the Ancient Language for himself.


    And then, after quite a bit of work, Eiro seemed to have ovee whatever hurdle made it so that he was unable to learn the Ancient Language normally, and the notification that he wanted to see right now appeared in front of Eiro''s eyes.


    <strong>[Congrattions! <Beginner Ancient Language Comprehension> Skill Learned!]</strong>


    With a grin on his face, Eiro ran his fingers through the notification to get rid of it, and a momentter stepped off of the b to test out whether Merlin was right. If Eiro was able to learn the Ancient Language now, when disconnected from the b, then everything was going perfectly.


    And so, Eiro continued going through the tome written in the Ancient Language to try figuring out another word. Bit by bit, Eiro analyzed it. And soon, Eiro had figured this word out. He closed the book, once more let his mind wander to something else, and tried to recall the word.


    And he did. With a broad grin on his face, Eiro ced both books away. Now that he was able to learn the Ancient Language without the need of the b, he could also safely rely on the library in his mind. While he was in there, he could do things while the world out here slowed down to a crawl, all depending on how quickly Eiro''s mind could process information. And of course, since he had abilities that increased his processing speeds, Eiro was able to manipte the effects of those abilities andyer them on top of each other, focusing on his speed of learning andprehending raw information.


    In return, that would reduce Eiro''s reaction speed and ability to focus on what his senses were noticing outside his body.. But like this, Eiro might be able to create a dictionary that included every single word inside of this thick tome he had with him, and that within just a few days.

 Chapter 429 - Area Magic

    Eiro casually walked around the Monster Vige, taking in the scenery a bit. That was because it was basically one of the only few things that he could do. Walking around and casually looking at things didn''t require a lot of mental capacity, which allowed Eiro to continue working on his Ancient Language Dictionary in his mental library.


    It was multi-tasking at a basic level. If Eiro had to stop to hold a conversation with one of the vige''s monsters, he couldn''t really continue working on the dictionary, so it wasn''t really true multitasking. But it was still good enough, since the conversations with the monsters didn''t particrly take up too much mental capacity. Like this, Eiro was able to briefly observe some more specific ways that the vige had changed over time.


    For one, the housing had developed in incredible ways. Not only did the number rapidly increase, due to the increase in monsters living here, but the quality of individual houses increased as well. The dirt and rock that was the floor before was now actually turned into wood from nearby forests, prepared by the Orcs with a woodworking-based task. Proper doors had been created, and the structures for families of different races were just slightly different. Bridges and stairs had been created so that the higher parts of the ravine''s walls could be made use of like this as well.


    Storage-facilities had been created right next to the main mines so that the raw findings could thenter be processed and brought into the proper storage-rooms in therge building Eiro was in earlier. Most of the monsters were doing some sort of work right now, whether it was a job they had been assigned, or simply training. Thistter part was the case especially for the Goblins, Kobolds, and the younger ones amongst the Orcs. They were training and learning depending on their basic abilities and talents that had been measured by Gobo, Boju and Kitsue.


    It could be production-based talents, in which case they would study under the more experienced and were directly instructed. And if they werebat-based talents, they would mostly train on their own with some references, somewhat developing their own style with rough guidance from those that were more experienced already.


    <strong>[<Beginner Ancient Language Comprehension> has leveled up!] </strong>


    Eiro slowly raised his hand and ran his fingers through the notification. He was now at level 8, which was surprisingly low considering the process that Eiro made already. He had transcribed roughly 6 to 7 percent of the total words that could be found in the tome. If he had done something like this with othernguages, he would have leveled up far more by now.


    "That''s kind of weird." Eiro thought to himself, "Allnguages are supposed to be on the same rarity and difficulty tier... The only differencees from the individual. But I don''t have those restrictions... I have neither talents nor inabilities. That can only mean that..." The Demon thought, trying to figure out if he was really right.


    "That would mean that the Ancient Language isn''t just anguage, but that there is more to it than just that." Eiro concluded. And it wasn''t a ridiculous idea either, honestly. The fact that the Ancient Language was the one mostly used for spells and magical enchantments had a reason, which was theplexity of thenguage and the magical capabilities that were deeply rooted in thenguage due to the way that it had been developed.


    Eiro intertwined his fingers with each other in his mental library. If this was the case, then that meant that he might be able to increase his understanding of the Ancient Language rather quickly through different means than just regrly studying and using thenguage. And that was through a rather simple thing that he was going to try and do anyway.


    Eiro was going topose his own vocalponent for a spell, in which he used ancient runic writing to make up its structure as well. Basically, Eiro was going to try and modernize ancient magic, a concept that felt more than just exciting to him.


    The Demon stood up from his seat in the mental library, and stepped up to the free open area in its center, where he had gone through his memories to try and recover them.


    In front of his eyes, he started to try and develop a spell with the words that he had found out so far. First, he made use of the letters and overall symbols to integrate them into the spell''s magic circle. Luckily, Eiro found some words that meant things like ''cold'', ''ice'', and ''frost''. And to properly make use of the way that the ancientnguage''s words were written, Eiro created ayered magic circle instead of a t, single-ne one.


    He was giving each of theyers different aspects of the magic circle to take care of instead of only adding the letters into differentyers, for better stability and hopefully functionality. Of course that made the spell quite a bit more difficult to create, but that wasn''t an issue for Eiro right now. As he wasn''t trying to just create another new, simpler version of a spell, and instead just a version that had the ancientnguage deeply ingrained within it.


    And at the same time, Eiro was thinking about what kind of vocal spell he could create for this. Usually, from his increased understanding of vocal aspects of other spells, you are mostly asking another being, usually a ''higher'' being, for help in casting this spell. But Eiro wasn''t particrly sure if that higher being had to be the generic ''god'' and ''goddess'' used to refer to the cluster of divine beings, or if he could refer to his own ''higher beings'', as in the Spirit Kings and Queens of the various elements.


    So, to try it out, Eiro called upon the Lady of Winter for this ice-based spell. In most spells with vocal aspects of the Spirit Magic variety, one seemed to already call upon the spirit''s help to cast the spell, so it was rather likely that it would be able to work. Eiro highly doubted that someone was monitoring what those that cast spells said, considering that Eiro could very well cast any spell without a vocal aspect. It simply made them more stable, and in some cases more powerful, than before, although to Eiro there was often little difference.


    The time that he was able to save by just instantly drawing the magic circle and activating it instead of having to speak the whole spell more than made up for the miniscule bit of power lost in its activation.


    Eiro created the spells chant, and it roughly tranted, ''Oh mydy who rules over winter, cover the space around me in deep frost.''


    Once Eiro had finished the chant, he was ready to go. He took a deep breath and spread out his wings. Eiro swiftly leapt into the air and looked around the area. There was an empty field near here. The Demon ced his mask onto his face, since Bavet was somewherezing around here in the vige, and then he flew over toward that empty field.


    Once hended, Eiro held his hand forward. He started constructing the magic circle, and repeatedly voiced the chant as he was doing so. Eiro had adjusted the speed at which he was building up the magic circle so that he would finish it at the exact time as when he finished speaking the chant.


    Eiro''s mana was pulled out of his body and entered the center of the magic circle as it was activated. The next moment the air cooled down rapidly. Frost covered the des of grass, leaves, and trunks of the trees that were in front of the Demon. In a huge Circle around Eiro, reaching around 50 meters in diameter due to the amount of mana Eiro used for the spell, the area had been frozen. As if temperatures suddenly dropped to far below zero.


    The heat given off by Eiro''s body caused mist due to the sudden change in the air''s base temperature, nearly hiding his whole body.


    "This... This is quite effective, isn''t it?" Nelli pointed out surprised, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, it is... But why?" Eiro asked. He hadn''t expected that this area would be this cold so easily. Being able to affect a wholerge area like this nearly instantly was more than just useful, and there weren''t many spells like this that Eiro knew of. At least none at this level of efficiency.


    "Hm..." Eiro muttered, "Wait, let me try something out..."


    The Demon jumped back up, away from this frozen area, and quickly flew toward the main building. Eiro rushed through the doors past the monsters and entered the storage facility.


    There was a Goblin working in here, and Eiro looked at them with a grin, "Bring me all of the Gravity magic stones. Now." Eiro told it, and the Goblin tilted its head to the side confused. Eiro pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out one of the ''empty'' gravity magic stones he had, which had all of its magic used up. It still kept most of its color, albeit having slightly lost its vibrancy. Eiro thought about having Armodeus make something with this, as these sorts of magic stones were often used for decorative purposes.


    Either way, the Goblin took the magic stone that Eiro gave him and hurriedly turned around, while Eiro closed his eyes and entered a meditative state. He wanted to focus all of his mental capacity on this. He had found some sentences in which words rted to ''weight'', ''mass'', or even ''gravity'' directly made sense.


    Eiro was going to focus his analysis on these areas in particr to try and decypher everything. After all, if Eiro removed all the parts that turned the spell from earlier into its frost based version, he would receive a base version to create spells that affectedrge areas.


    If he then changed the runes and some of the patterns to make it something that increased the weight or the level of gravity affecting everyone in this area beside himself... This was a way for Eiro to immediately incapacitate arge amount of people without necessarily injuring them.


    Or rather, the use that Eiro would make use of more often.... a way to stop his prey from fleeing from him to make hunting far, far easier.

 Chapter 430 - Gravitational Defense

    Eiro finally found every single word that he needed for this, and he even rummaged through his memories to find descriptions of the Gravity Spirit King and Queen so that he had a proper idea of what to imagine during the chanting of the spell, when he called on them for the power to cast the spell.


    Once Eiro had been given the processed gravity magic stones that were found here in this vige''s mines, he continued trying to decypher the texts. It took him about half an hour to find some words that seemed just perfect for the spell that Eiro was trying to create.


    He made his way to an empty space once more, and started constructing the altered spell in his mind. Eiro held the magic stone in his hands as he prepared to draw the magic circle in the air. And at the same time, Eiro was trying to figure out something to test this out with.


    "Gondos. Create pebbles about twenty meters away from me in a circle, and shoot them at me when I tell you to." The Demon said, looking at the Golem. Gondos did exactly what Eiro asked him to do, and then soon after, Eiro started to draw the magic circle and speaking the spell. It roughly tranted to, ''Oh my King and Queen who rule over gravity, cover the space around me in the force of your weight''.


    Eiro activated the spell and fed the magic circle the magic that was created by pushing his mana through the gravity magic stone, as Eiro hadn''t awakened the skill yet.


    Gondos shot the pebbles at Eiro just a moment before the spell fully activated, and once they traversed roughly half the way they needed to in order to reach the Demon, sheer force pushed them down onto the ground, burying them deep within it.


    The grass was pressed t, and the ground sunk a bit as if the dirt had been stomped down onto.


    "This is perfect." Eiro said with a broad grin on his face, "Gondos, the same thing again."


    "Do you want to test it at a higher speed, or with heavier projectiles?" Gondos asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "No, that''s fine. I want to try something else out, so just set everything up exactly like before. Thanks." The Demon said, as he reconstructed the magic circle in his mind, changing a few slight things about it. The chant was exactly the same as before, however.


    Eiro started drawing the magic circle as he spoke the chant, and upon activation, Gondos shot the pebbles at him. The spell activated and once more took gravity magic into itself. But instead of being pulled down now, the pebbles started slowing down. And once they came to a halt for a brief moment, they started elerating into the other direction. They shot all around Eiro and imbedded themselves in the trees or the ground soon after.


    Eiro had created an area magic using the gravity element that could be used to perfectly defend against projectiles, by using himself as the centerpoint, and had gravity simply point away from that single spot. It drained a good bit more mana than the basic version from before, but this was definitely also a great way to use this spell.


    Overall, this was a nice creation. And not only that, but now that Eiro had done all this, creating this spell using his new knowledge of the Ancient Language, the Demon soon saw a notification in front of his eyes.


    [<Beginner Ancient Language Comprehension> has leveled up!]


    Compared to what it was like before, the rtive effort and time that it took for this level uppared to all of the others was extremely low. It seemed like Eiro was on the right path. The Ancient Language was not only just a simplenguage, but in itself, it was something that was meant to be used for magic. At least, that was the only way that Eiro was able to exin this. Aftering to this conclusion, it was clear. Eiro would be able to increase his understanding of the Ancient Language while creating new spells for his arsenal. This was truly the perfect situation for him.


    ---


    Eiro slowly stepped through the vige one more time. He took a closer look at the few individuals that could slowly be integrated into the main vige due to the wooden cors that were made to suppress their monstrosity while they wore them.


    The Demon was d that they were doing well, really. And now, Eiro turned his head away from those monsters and looked at the group that was lined up in front of him instead.


    "Seems like this is everyone, huh?" Eiro asked, and Boju quickly turned toward him, "Yes, Master! I wrote a symbol on the back of their hand to show their profession again, like you asked me to. But here is the list with their individual skill-sets anyway."


    The Demon nced at the list and then nodded his had satisfied, "I see. Thank you, Boju. Just, I have a simple quick question."


    "Yes?" The Hignd Orc asked curiously, and Eiro looked at an individual amongst the guard-group. He was an Orc, who clearly didn''t want to be there right now, and was aggressively rubbing at the symbol on the back of his hand since it seemed to annoy him.


    "Why did you pick someone who is defiant to the very core for the chief guard position?" Eiro asked with a light grumble, and Boju immediately became nervous, "E-Erm, I-I can exin this! Th-That is Khareghubitaryu... The only adult in our vige who hadn''t been able to find his task..."


    The Demon let out a deep sigh as he shook his head, "What do you even mean? That one obviously found his task. He''s just denying it."


    "Huh? No, Khareghubitaryu didn''t... Oh, do you mean because the scythe? I know that it''s a weird choice for warriors, but for some reason he insisted on having one of our cksmiths make a battle-scythe for him, and he''s actually pretty skilled at it! He does have quite an attitude, but he was a close friend to my father, and you can definitely trust him!" Boju said reassuredly, and Eiro raised his brows. He was surprised that Boju didn''t realize it, he was a pretty intelligent young orc, after all.


    Eiro took a step forward toward that Orc, while he red down at the Demon, "What want?"


    "It''s ''what do you want''. But well, what I want to know is simple..." Eiro stared at the Orc, and went through his mind to figure out a sentence in orcish, that he wanted to whisper to this Orc while making sure only he heard it.


    "Krah breg hyjuuh? Tryu jjorughi orghiasyuu." Eiro said. He clearly had an intense ent as he was speaking, but considering that he barely got the skill not too long ago, he felt like it was fine. Some of the sounds that one needed to make to truly speak orcish were ones that Eiro was absolutely not used to, and he didn''t care enough to practice the muscles in his mouth like that for now.


    The orc stared back at Eiro, clearly confused, "Jkhyass, juiokjia!" He replied in a loud voice. He became angry. After all, Eiro asked him why he was hiding the fact that he clearly found his task already. Not expecting to be found out all of a sudden.


    And it was true. The task of this Orc wasn''t one rted to being a warrior, but one that was rted to being a farmer. That was why the ''item'' it was assigned was the scythe, a farming-tool. However, this showed Eiro something else.


    While usually, talent follows passion, there were cases where, even amongst beings created to have their whole lives follow their talent in an extreme way, it was possible for talent and passion to oppose one another. And it showed him something else. That this Orc was extremely special for being able to resist following his task like all the others.


    It was interesting, for sure. But on the other hand, Eiro wasn''t happy that the one that would lead the guards around his manor was an Orc that lived its whole life defying practically everything its life was meant to be.


    Once more, Eiro said something in orcish so that only this one could hear it. What he said could roughly be tranted to, "You can be my head guard, but only if you answer my questions."


    The Orc was worried, clearly. But once the Orc agreed, Eiro was pretty happy. He liked interesting creatures like this Orc. And certainly, this one was powerful, and could possibly even teach Eiro a few things about using the tools one had avable in unique and creative ways.


    Sure, there were people that used scythes forbat, but this Orc''s muscture was built toward farming, and notbat in any way. That meant that the way that he used the scythe was the same as a farmer would use it, given the skill to do so by his task, just adjusted ever so slightly forbat. Usually, scythes were used in rather weird ways, ways that often really did not resemble farming in any way, although that was what the scythe was created to do in the first ce, obviously.


    The Orc slowly nodded his head, agreeing to Eiro''s terms, rather angrily, however. It seemed like he didn''t want his secret to be found out, and it was like Eiro was practically ckmailing him. Well, that was fine for the Demon. As long as it worked out for him in the end, he really didn''t care about that.

 Chapter 431 - First Servants

    Eiro wasying on Lugo''s back, looking into the sky as the stag was running next to the carriage pulled by the horses. The Demon was casually manipting the liquid of the Ace of Cups to hide the presence of the monsters inside of the carriage as they approached the first gate into the town, the one closest to Eiro''s manor.


    And here, this would get a bit tougher, but it should be possible to let the monsters sneak by while Eiro spoke to the guards and distracted them a bit. Basically, he made sure to strengthen his aura in a specific way to attract the attention of the two guards as much as he could, doing the opposite of what the Ace of Cups did. Controlling that power to hide the monsters and this aura-maniption at the same time was really a bit tougher than Eiro thought, but he was able to figure out how to do this in a stable manner pretty soon.


    "Slow day, huh?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, and the guards stood up straight as they looked at Eiro, "Yes, baron Daemonherz!" one of them, the younger one, replied with a quick nod.


    "Did you have a good day so far, Baron?" another one of them asked, and Eiro slowly looked at the obviously far more experienced and rxed guard, "I did. I just went out for a brief hiking-trip in my newnd. It is quite a nice ce, at least if you don''t need to worry about the monsters there."


    "I''m sure it is." The guard chuckled, "Go ahead ande through."


    "Thank you very much." Eiro smiled, quickly stepping through, following the invisible carriage without further ado. From now on, there was no need for him to worry about anything anymore. All of the monsters were properly contained within the carriage, and it didn''t seem like they were going toe across anyone else until they reached the manor.


    Although to his surprise, Eiro happened to see two other people instead. James and Arc. James had started running againtely, to increase his stamina as much as he could, and since Arc liked to go running as well, he volunteered toe along with James for a while until they could make sure he would be able to run the whole route without issues.


    "Dad!" Arc eximed, lightly steering his path toward the approaching Demon. But for some reason, he steared out of the way instead of keeping on running in the middle of the road, far before he meant to in order to meet with Eiro directly. Arc reacted to the ace of cups subconsciously. That wasn''t what surprised Eiro. Instead, what surprised him was James'' surprised expression, mixed in with his clear exhaustion and heavy breaths.


    "How are you two?" Eiro asked, still keeping his eyes on the way that James was reacting. Arc turned toward James with a grin, "He''s slow as shit, what else?"


    "You wanna try running with this kinda pain, dickhead?" James asked with an annoyed frown, holding the side of his torso, "Also, why''d you move so fucking weird?"


    "Hm?" Arc asked, "What do you mean?"


    "I know what he means." Eiro pointed out, "He noticed that you subconsciously avoided the carriage that I cloaked with the ace of cups. How did you notice that, by the way?"


    "...Well, I don''t fucking know. The magic flowing there is kinda fucking weird, ain''t it?" James pointed out, and Eiro smirked in response, "You''ve got a point. And actually, this gives me some new ideas for your training."


    "...Should I be scared..?" James asked with a wry smile, and Eiro casually shrugged, "I don''t know. If having to fight invisible opponents seems scary to you, then sure."


    "...Fuck you..."


    ---


    Eiro brought the monsters into the manor, immediately leading them to the area where their rooms would be from now on. Of course, the soldiers would end up staying somewhere separately to the other servants, so the Demon brought those guys to their respective rooms first.


    "This is where you will be staying." Eiro told them in a strict tone, "Remember the rooms, and take proper care of what''s inside."


    One after another, the monsters entered their respective rooms, rummaging around inside of it. Immediately, they turned them into absolute messes, making Eiro really quite annoyed.


    "Alright then... Bavet." The Demon grumbled, and the slime quickly appeared next to him again, "Yes..?" He asked suspiciously, and Eiro smiled at him.


    "You know the proper etiquette of a servant. Teach them." Eiro instructed the slime. Over the course of the next few seconds, Bavet''s body, currently slung around Eiro''s arm, turned into a rock-like substance.


    Eiro pushed his hand onto the rocky surface and pushed Bavet off of him. He fell to the ground and split in half as hended there, "Stop pretending. Just do it already." The Demon groaned loudly, and within a moment or two, Bavet was standing there in his humanoid form. He rubbed the back of his head annoyed.


    "Can''t you, just like... Hire someone else?"


    "Why would I? I have you, right?" Eiro pointed out, and Bavet turned his head away annoyed, "Fine, I guess so. Just give me a few days to properly teach them, alright?"


    "Sure, take as much time as you need. They''re all pretty well-behaved anyway." Eiro pointed out, "Just make sure to teach them well, and show them around the house a bit so that they know where exactly to do their jobs. I''ll call them when it''s time to give them their artificial artifacts."


    "Right, right~." Bavet replied, while Eiro turned around and left this area with the guards behind him. Of course, they were technically mostly for show, but they would also help drive off any possible intruders. The spiders that were scattered around the area would take care of basic security while Eiro was gone anyway. But otherwise, the Orcs would still make Eiro feel a little more rxed. Right now, he had just four of them with him, but more would end uping soon.


    Eiro had fixed up the barracks a bit. They still weren''t in a perfect state, but they were useable at the very least.


    "You four will be staying here. It''s a bit away from the main building, but that means you''ll have a lot of time to yourselves. Of course, you''ll still be under myplete survence, and you are not allowed to leave the property without me telling you to. Understood?" Eiro asked, and once he got confirmation from the four monsters, Eiro showed them around the barracks a bit to make sure they could properly live here.


    "I''m going to be the one that will have to teach you a guard''s etiquette, and I''m not the most patient person when ites to this sort of thing, so try your best to learn quickly. Later we''re going to meet with Armodeus to have your bodies measured out. He will then make you some clothes, as well as armor and weapons. And most importantly, you will be given a specific item that you have to constantly need to activate while you are working." Eiro exined to them, "It might feel ufortable, but you''ll certainly get used to it. Especially if you happen to evolve as you get used to using it. It should have a bit of impact at the very least."


    The monsters were a bit confused, but Eiro didn''t bother to exin anything more to them. He wasn''t sure if they were really going to understand in the first ce. So instead, he continued showing them around the area, telling them where they needed to especially pay attention. They would mostly need to take care of the outside perimeter, since the inside of the manor was rather well-protected anyway.


    "So you need to make sure to pay attention to this area, and if you ever see someone approach this ce, make sure to drive them away immediately. Don''t kill them, and only fight them if they''re aggressive toward you. Obviously defend yourselves, but don''t overdo it." Eiro exined to the monsters. It took a bit longer than he wanted to do all of this, since he needed to trante some of the parts into the Kobold, Orc, and Goblinnguages respectively depending on whether or not the monsters really understood what he was saying.


    Soon, Eiro was done and he could meet up with Armodeus again. The Elder Dwarf was a little bit nervous about being left alone with all of these monsters, but since Eiro vouched for them and assured Armodeus that he would be safe, he was rtively fine.


    He took their measurements one after another, and then gave them their artifacts. Eiro showed them how to use it. A group of monsters stepped into this room, and out came a bunch of people. They mostly looked like regr humans, although if you knew their real identities, you would be able to see their resemnce to Orcs, Goblins or Kobolds.


    They also all seemed quite ufortable with this change to their bodies, but Eiro assured them that it was fine and they stoppedining soon after. Eiro demonstrated this by himself as well, using a test-artifact that Armodeus made for him. After all, why would their master use this item if it was dangerous?


    And so, just like that, Eiro had procured his first servants.. Now he just needed to tell Solomon about them and make sure they would be taught proper etiquette, and then he could start slowly but surely getting the other monsters to him to increase the number of his servants.

 Chapter 432 - Arcane Theory

    The next day, it was once more time for ss, and it was the first time that Eiro was leaving the monsters at the manor without his supervision. It was a bit nerve-wracking, but at the end of the day, since Krog, Jess and James were there as well, they would be able to take care of anything that happened. They were certainly far stronger than any of the monster-servants at this point, after all.


    Once they reached the academy, Eiro and the kids stepped out of the carriage and swiftly made their way inside. Of course, they split up soon after so that everyone could get to their respective sses. And Eiro didn''t even have anything to do for now, since his first ss didn''t start for another two hours. The reason why he came so early was in order to get a lesson himself during that time, instead of teaching.


    The Demon swiftly made his way to Merlin''s office. He knocked on the door rather excitedly. Beyond the door, Eiro heard some movement, and the next moment Merlin replied, "Come in."


    Eiro pushed the door open and stepped inside, "Good morning." He said, looking at Merlin and the student that had been speaking to him until now. The old man smiled at her, "You are excused. We can continue this conversation sometimeter."


    The girl immediately nodded her head and rushed out of the room. Eiro knew her as well, she was one of his students as well. She was mostly quite average, but she was studious and dedicated. She just had a tough time catching up to her more directly talented ssmates.


    But something was off. The girl rushed out of the room with her heart beating rapidly. The scent she gave off showed a hint of adrenaline, and her pupils were clearly dted. She seemed almost scared as she ran out of the room, closing the door behind her without a word.


    "Did something happen?" Eiro asked concerned, and Merlin slowly nodded his head, "Yes, but it is a private matter in her life. I can''t divulge such information freely. But do not worry, I am handling it." The old man exined. Eiro was a bit concerned for the girl, but since Merlin was speaking with clear sincerity, he didn''t worry too much for now. He could always try and help in the future.


    "Now, why are you here? Do you require a bit more assistance in your studies for the Ancient Language?" Merlin asked, but Eiro swiftly shook his head, "No, not directly. I got the skill and brought it to beginner level 18 over the weekend. It''s really a tough skill to level up, huh?" He said with a slightugh.


    Merlin jumped up from his chair and stared back at Eiro, "What did you just say? You reached level 18 over the weekend..?"


    "Ah, yeah. You see, some time ago, I found this tome written in the Ancient Language that was decently well-preserved. I simply chose to analyze thenguage a bit to figure out the true meanings of the words in there. I even started transcribing a dictionary for all the words in here, as a way of practicing. And after I figured out that it was faster to level the skill up by creating your own spells and chants, my leveling speed for the skill shot up. Compared to othernguages, at least."


    "..." Merlin didn''t know what to say. Eiro had reached such a level within just a weekend?


    "Hah, that is why I am jealous of those with superior talent like you." The old man sighed, but Eiro immediately exined something, "Actually, I don''t have any talents. I think it might be because I was artificially created, but during any sort of talent-measuring procedures, I get no results in the slightest."


    "...No results?" Merlin asked, "But you usually get at least miniscule positive results in the different solutions and liquids involved."


    "Of course, usually. Except if you don''t have a talent at all. As in... If ''talent'' had a value, then my talent would be zero for everything. Usually, there are some reactions at least, since it''s close to impossible to have a natural ''zero'' in such values." Eiro exined simply, and Merlin was unsure what to say. He simply stared down at his desk.


    That meant that even Merlin had higher talent for learning about magic and the ancientnguage, but Eiro was able to learn all that so easily anyway? That seemed rather unfair to him.


    "Now, why exactly are you here then?" Merlin asked, not letting his thoughts be shown to the Demon in front of him any further, and Eiro quickly smiled, "Well, I would like to ask you about how I could get a grasp of the concept of Arcana for now. If you have the time, that is."


    Merlin crossed his arms as he leaned backward in his chair, "Sure. I finished collecting the notebooks with Arcana theory for now. You can read those for now. Understanding the actual theory of the concept first is quite important."


    "Hm, my guess is that the Ancient Language has an extremely high importance for this, also considering that the ''affinity'' measuring showed it as an orb made of Ancient Runes. Let''s say... Does it work by using magic without an element as an intermediate and instead just relying on the Ancient Language, which in itself seems to have magical properties, far heavier in the element''s stead?" Eiro asked. Merlin looked back at the Demon silently, unsure what to say.


    "...That is exactly correct. Seems like you will rather easily figure out the specifics." Merlin sighed, somewhat annoyed, as he stood up and walked over to the bookshelf near him. He grabbed some books out of it and handed them to Eiro, who quickly flipped them open. Eiro nced at the pages and took the raw information in one after another, not really thinking about it. The total of five books were devoured by the Demon near to instantly.


    "Come back to me when you have read them all, then we can start." Merlin exined, and Eiro ced thest book down onto the small pile in front of him and nodded his head, "I assume you have time after ss ends for the day again, right?"


    "Of course, every day I leave time to speak to my students." The old man replied, and Eiro smiled, "Perfect. Then I''ll be backter after analyzing everything." He turned around and left for the door, "This gives me some time to read a few more books at the library as well."


    "Speaking of books..." Merlin sighed, "You forgot my notebooks."


    "Hm? Oh, no, I just already remembered everything about them, don''t worry. I just haven''t had the chance to think about the content yet." Eiro exined in a smug voice, and left the perplexed Merlin in his office behind. And without further ado, Eiro made his way toward the library. He still had a few hours left until his first ss was going to start, so until then, he would simply use the chance to read up on some more things rted to the Arcane that he could find here.


    The collection of books within the library was more than just impressive, and it was even enough for Eiro to figure out things about memory-manipting magic while all of his memories were disappearing bit by bit.


    "Actually, isn''t there already magic that''s just mana? Magic like that maniption stuff?" Sarius asked when the Demon spoke about this fact to the spirits, and Eiro thought about it for a moment, "Well, it seems to be a bit different with arcane magic. With things like memory-maniption, you still infuse your mana with something, and that is the raw intent with which you carry the mana. It isn''t ''pure mana'' anymore. And with arcane magic, it seems like you really are using mana in its purest state, and then shape it into something else using the Ancient Language without infusing things like intent into it. It''s fundamentally different."


    "Well, in the first ce, using magic without an element is fucking weird." Sarius pointed out, turning toward Gondos and Nelli, "Right?"


    Gondos was the first to reply, "It certainly feels unusual, but it is not as if we are capable of it in the first ce."


    "Yeah, we don''t have ''mana'', we only have pure elemental magic flowing within us. So we couldn''t do this even if we tried." Nelli added, and Eiro stopped for a moment as he was looking through the library, "That makes me wonder, if ''Arcana'' is technically an element, even capable of being picked up by affinity-measuring, does that mean that there are Arcane spirits that have pure mana flowing within them?"


    "Maybe, but what shape would they even take? Not like mana has a form to it..." Nelli replied, and Eiro thought about that as well, "That is true... Maybe it''s going to make more sense when we figure out what Arcane Magic even looks like." The Demon suggested, "You know what, I think I saw some books about non-elemental magic around here, speaking about it in theory. Maybe those are going to help with that. And some books about spirits were around here as well..."


    "Heh, you seriously want to listen to books instead of the spirits in those books?" Sarius asked with a grin, and Eiro looked back at him with a wry smile, "Well, yeah. I especially won''t listen to a spirit that spent its whole life in the primal ne of fire until very recently. But either way, it''s not like any of you know much about other spirits besides yourself in the first ce."


    "He has a point." Nelli said as she looked at Sarius, who just crossed his arms annoyed, "Right, right."


    With a light smile on his face, listening to the spirits'' arguing, Eiro began to read some more books.

 Chapter 433 - Bravery

    Eiro took a deep breath as he ced one of the books that he was reading on the table in front of him. None of them were really making sense in the way that Eiro figured he was supposed to learn to use Arcana. Of course, none of them were written speaking about Arcana in particr, but were simply theories about how non-elemental magic could potentially be used.


    The Demon crossed his arms as he started thinking intensely. Maybe he could make some sense of these theories or figure out if there was somemon denominator in them. Of course, that didn''t mean that these books weren''t useful to Eiro at all. It was just that they didn''t mention anything about the Ancient Language, so it was clear that their theoretical methods for using non-elemental magic were simply false, at least to some extent.


    However, they did all discuss some rather interesting things. For one, the ways that non-elemental magic could be used. First, there was the factor of having magic that simply wasn''t weak against anything in particr, in return for not being particrly strong against any other magic either. It wasmonly agreed to be a ''stable'' sort of magic, if it was possible to use it.


    Then, there were of course other aspects to it. Some theoretical spells could only be used without any element in y, since there was simply nothing that could end up interfering with the actual effect in any ways that would make it harder to control. For example, precision-based spells. And that didn''t mean things at the level of precisely being able to hit a far-away target, but rather spells that were meant to finely affect specific, tiny spots.


    That would then end up being useful for medicine. For example, whenever a soldier or adventurer ends up with a wound that''s toorge to heal, or if there is something preventing the healing, it is important to be able to precisely operate on them. Eiro knew that especially that kind of thing was incredibly useful. While he was studying under Jura, he had to amputate limbs from certain animals or sometimes even monsters. Since he had to do it with as much precision as possible to prevent unnecessary bleeding or pain, it was really quite hard for him to do back then, and that was with specific tools.


    Now, if someone had ess to this sort of non-elemental magic, which due to its properties theoretically wouldn''t require any particr affinity, meaning that anyone could potentially learn it, it would be possible to do precise surgery out in the middle of an adventure or on a battlefield, even. It was really quite interesting.


    Of course, Eiro didn''t ignore the possibilities this kind of spell had forbat. Whenever he wanted to use a spell without any particr element for whatever reason, he would mostly end up using air magic. There was basically an unlimited amount wherever he went, and it didn''t really leave any traces. But there were of course some issues with that as well, caused by the air element itself. Using a non-elemental spell would allow for quite a bit more fine-control in general, which excited him.


    And now that Eiro thought about it, it was most likely that the barrier erected around the academy was one constructed by somehow making use of Arcana. At least, whenever Eiro took a look at it with his mana-sight when fused with one of the spirits, he never saw any particr element. He thought that it had been infused with intent somehow, but now that he knew more about Arcana and non-elemental magic, it would make a lot more sense if that barrier was created through pure mana somehow.


    That meant that once Eiro figured out how to use Arcane magic using pure mana, he should be able to create full-on barriers like that as well. And they would be perfectly inconspicuous, since pure mana couldn''t just be seen by any particr person, so it was perfect for passive protection that Eiro could use on the children somehow.


    Either way, for now, Eiro had done enough reading. He had to head to his first ss of the day now. It was another practical physicalbat ss, actually one of Eiro''s favorite to teach. It always felt good to move his body around somehow.


    And so, the Demon swiftly made his way to that ss, entering the training-field that had been reserved for his today. And luckily, today the ss was going to cover something rather interesting as well.


    "Sparring!" Eiro eximed as he approached his students, "One of the most important aspects of learning how to fight. If you never have an opponent, you can never truly know how to practically move your body, no matter how much you know of the theory. So, today we''re going to have some proper duels!"


    The students looked at each other confused, before one of them raised their hand, "But haven''t we been doing that a lot already? Sparring with each other?"


    "Eh, kind of, but not really. What you have been doing is basically ''test out'' certain movements on your sparring partner in a safe way. I always gave you certain move-restrictions to make sure nobody would really get hurt. But today, we''re doing something different." Eiro pointed out. He snapped his finger, and raised a bit of a square tform out of the ground, "I have been observing you closely this whole time. At this point, you are all perfectly able to hold your own in a fight against your ssmates. Sure, there certainly are those that are a bit stronger or more experienced than others, but I will definitely take that into ount for the scoring of the matches."


    Immediately, the students became quite nervous, "Wait, is this gonna be graded?" One of them asked immediately, and Eiro raised his brows as he shook his head, "No, no, not graded. Sorry, I should have exined this first. I have been working on a bit of a system for you to understand your overall weaknesses a bit more easily, so that you know what to practice on your own time or during free-practice a bit more. The categories are ''Technique'', ''Stamina'', ''Wits'', ''Creativity'', and atst ''Bravery''." Eiro started, and then quickly continued to exin what each meant.


    "Technique will obviously be determined by how precise your techniques are, and Stamina will be chosen depending on how long you can fight until your movements be sloppy or slow down. Now, the rest are a bit more ambiguous, but trust me, I will judge them fairly. Depending on how well you can react to your opponent''s movements, you will get a higher or lower score. Again, I will put multiple things into ount especially when ites to this score. As for creativity... I don''t want you to just use the movements you have been taught in exactly the ways that you have read about them. Switch things up,bine certain things creatively depending on the situation. The more creative you are with your fighting, the less predictable you will be in a fight." Eiro said, walking up to two students standing next to each other. Rico and Arc. He pulled both of them to the front.


    "And now, we''ll get to thest one. Rico, attack me. Hit me as hard as you can." Eiro said bluntly, surprising not only Rico, but the rest of the students as well.


    "H-Huh? B-But..." Rico stuttered, and Eiro smiled in response, "Don''t worry, I can take it. Just hit me with all the power you have, right into the middle of my face."


    Rico swallowed nervously, and with shaking hands stepped in front of Eiro, who stood there with a soft smile. And so, Rico formed fists and stepped in front of Eiro. And after a few more confirmations from Eiro himself, Rico simply swung his fist at Eiro''s face. But even so, he still slowed down before hitting Eiro''s cheek.


    "Now, did any of you spot that? Rico was afraid of hitting me. He was afraid of hurting me. Of course, you might think that this is just because I''m your teacher, and it certainly ys a role, but many of you are still afraid of injuring other people in general. That ends up making your attacks weaker, while you are opening yourself up to stronger counter-attacks." Eiro exined to them, before turning toward Arc, "And to show that this really wasn''t just caused because you know me... Arc, please swing your wooden sword at my face as hard as you-"


    "Gotcha." Before Arc even heard Eiro finish the sentence, he swung the wooden sword at Eiro''s face with absolute dedication and precision. As it hit the Demon''s forehead, the wooden sword shattered into pieces, "Ah, shit... You got a new one for me?" Arc asked as he looked at half the wooden sword that he was holding.


    Eiro smiled a bit as he ran his hand through his rainbow-colored hair to get rid of the wooden splinters stuck inside of it right now, "As you can see, my own son hit my face with absolutely no hesitation. To be fair, he might have been a bit too enthusiastic for my tastes, but that''s beside the point." Eiro pointed out as Arc smiled awkwardly.


    "That is exactly the way that you need to attack any of your opponents. If you start, you need to pull through with everything you have.. That is the fifth point I will be scoring you on, Bravery. Now, I will be splitting you up into pairs of two, so let''s get started, shall we?"

 Chapter 434 - Extraction

    Eiro observed the two students that were currently duelling in front of him. Of course, he would make sure that nobody would receive any serious damage, and immediately heal any damage that they did end up receiving during the fights.


    But at the end of the day, the fights were more than just useful for not only Eiro, but the children as well. Eiro was able to see what areas he needed to focus his teaching on, and the students knew where theycked. With the five-point system that Eiro exined to them earlier, the Demon figured that they should be able to improve rtively easily.


    It did seem like Eiro''s assumptions were correct. In the area of ''bravery'', all of them werecking extremely, with the exception of Arc. They were scared of injuring the person in front of them during the fight. For those without experience, and especially those mostpassionate, it was incredibly tough to get a good score in this category.


    And so, consequently, the one with the highest rating there was Arc. Not only was he the most experienced, he simply didn''t feel any ''fear'' of injuring his friends. Although, even then, in these fights even Arc didn''t get a full 100 points, since he was somewhat hesitant sometimes. Mostly when he saw his opponent flinching. After all, passion'' was a positive emotion, so it was one that Arc still felt, extremely strongly at that.


    But due to the circumstances, Eiro didn''t retract too much for hesitating in such situations. After all, these people were still their friends, and Eiro would never unfairly judge them for that hesitation. He still had to retract some, but not all.


    Overall, these students were doing rather well, however. The average for every category was over 60, and the minimum for each ended up being around 35 or so. At the end of the semester, Eiro would once more make the students duel like this to see their progress, and he even spoke to some of the otherbat-teachers about this concept. Since many of them did like the idea, it seemed like it would be more normal to score them for their own progress like this.


    Eiro started working on creating rough guidelines to make it easier for the other teachers to score the students properly when he first suggested it. It helped him figure out how exactly he wanted to score things like this in his own ss as well, so he maybe should have done that to begin with anyway.


    At the end of the ss, Eiro gave out notes to the students, with their scores for each of the five categories on it, as well as some extra written notes for things that Eiro noticed in the fights, or what he thought they should focus on in particr for each category.


    And then, he sent the students off after healing the few blunt injuries they had received, and made his way to his next ss as well. Teaching really was quite fun.


    ---


    Eiro knocked on the door in front of him, and soon heard Merlin call him inside.


    "Hello there. Are you busy?" Eiro asked, basically already knowing the answer, and Merlin slowly shook his head, "No, I am not. Do you need any help figuring out some of the texts? Or do you want to take another look at them?" Merlin asked, but Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "No, I''m good on that, I''m basically already finished with that. I wanted to talk to you about it a bit more, but I also have another question." Eiro pointed out, ignoring Merlin''s surprised expression, "The girl that you were talking to here this morning didn''t show up for ss today. Did something happen? I''m a bit worried."


    "Oh! Ah, yes, she... had some private matters to take care of at home." Merlin exined, "Again, it''s not my ce to reveal her situation to you, I apologize."


    "Well, is she alright, at least? I''m her teacher as well, if she has some sort of issues at home, I want to see if I can help somehow."


    "No, no, don''t worry, it''s all under control for now. It simply takes some effort on her part right now. It should be dealt with rather soon." Merlin said reassuredly, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "I see... Let''s hope so. She''s a good student, after all."


    "Mhm, excatly. Now, what is it that you wanted to speak to me about in regard to the Arcana research?" Merlin asked, and Eiro quickly sat down in front of him, "Ah, that. Well, I finished properly analysing your writing. You wrote a lot about the theoretical part, but very little of the practical aspect to actually learn more about Arcana. So I would like to ask how exactly it works, and how exactly you circumvent the necessity for an element by using the Ancient Language."


    Merlin let out a deep sigh, "I shouldn''t even be surprised anymore at this point. It is rather simple. Usually, you infuse your mana with an element to cast magic, correct? Well, now you need to do the opposite. The mana you are holding within your body is not pure directly."


    "Right, it has a part of my own self within it, and it''s directly connected to my being. I understand that part of the theory, I''m simply struggling to understand what form the extracted aspect would take." Eiro pointed out, and Merlin soon understood what he meant exactly.


    "I see. The form that this extracted aspect takes exactly is often quite different for each individual. For me, it is simply a light mist when I push it out of my body. It can often be something toxic to your body if you leave it within you for too long, but in itself, this aspect of your own being can be used for many different things as well. Anyway, once you extract that aspect out of your mana and you receive true, pure mana, it will practicallyck something. It cannot stay as it is for long. And that is basically it. That pure mana willtch onto your ability to speak the Ancient Language, as well as your understanding of it. And like that, you will have created Arcane Magic within yourself. And thus, your ability to cast Arcane Magic is directly correspondent to your ability to speak the Ancient Language."


    "Huh. You didn''t mention that aspect at all. I was really surprised, actually, that it waspletelycking the step from getting pure mana to getting arcane magic. But if that''s it, then I guess..."


    "Oh, but you need to be aware of something else." Merlin interrupted Eiro, "At the start, you will have to let that arcane magic flow through you as much as possible. You need to analyze it, use it, and simply be ustomed to it. Increase your understanding of the arcane, and then you will sooner orter receive the ''affinity'' for it. Until then, you should be unable to move it outside your body. It should fall apart the moment it leaves the form of your soul."


    "Is that so..?" Eiro asked, "Well, that''s fine, I didn''t imagine I would be able to cast it immediately. Thanks, though! That helps me quite a bit. The process of how to actually produce pure mana is described in your research, so I can get started at home. Thanks, Merlin."


    "Of course. You''re... Well, technically my nephew, are you not?" Merlin asked with a light chuckle, and Eiro smiled back at him, "Right, basically. Now, it seems like some students areing to talk to you, so I''ll leave you alone now." Eiro stood up and swiftly made his way to the door, while Merlin stayed seated at his desk.


    Eiro opened the door and stepped outside, seeing the students that wanted to talk to Merlin in front of him. He quickly greeted them and then made his way toward the exit.


    And as he was doing so, he started ignoring everything else that was going on around him. The only thing that he wanted to do was try and extract his own ''self'' from his mana to make it truly pure.


    "Eiro..." Nelli said right next to the Demon, who slowly turned his head toward her, "What?"


    "Do you really just trust Merlin like that?" She asked, nervously looking back toward the other end of the hallway. Eiro locked eyes with her and sighed, "Well, he doesn''t show any hostility to me. He seems a bit annoyed that I got a grasp on Arcana quicker than he did when he first learned of it, but that''s it. And I understand that, so I don''t see a reason not to trust him."


    "How are you not seeing that Merlin is just really fucking weird?" Sarius asked with a deep re, before Eiro stopped walking, looking at the three spirits in front of him, "And why are you three not trusting my judgement? He''s basically Jura''s brother. If Jura trusted him, then so do I."


    "Yeah, but we don''t even know if Jura really trusted him. He literally never spoke of him!" Nelli eximed, and Eiro turned his hand into a fist as he red at her, "Please, stop it. I don''t want to think about this right now."


    "...So you..."


    "Yes, I can see that he''s acting weird, but plenty of people that I trust are weird. Armodeus is an absolute weirdo that can''t look away once he started working on something, even ignoring the mountain of fears he has. If you forgot, one of my children literally came from another world. And I''m the weirdest being I or any of you have ever encountered.. Weird is our normal, alright? So just stop it!" Eiro said, growing angrier and angrier the more that Nelli was suggesting something may be wrong with Merlin.

 Chapter 435 - Surrounded By The Arcane

    Eironded in front of his manor, stepping through the front door without listening to the words of the spirits beside him.


    "Eiro, what are you doing? You aren''t usually like this!" Nelli eximed, "You''re usually so calm and collected, so why are you so angry right now?"


    The Demon stopped walking immediately and stared at the Naiad, "Because I''m sick and tired of everything messing up somehow. Rtionships are a pretty weird thing for me, if you didn''t notice. I just..." Eiro groaned, "I just don''t want Jura''s brother to turn out being an enemy, alright? Just... If I need to ignore a bit of weirdness from him, I''m fine with that. I really, really am. Now, can we move on, and get started with practicing Arcana?" Eiro suggested, and none of the three spirits really knew exactly what to say. So, they just stayed silent as Eiro walked through the manor and climbed up into the infusion-chamber.


    "What are you doing now..?" Nelli asked nervously, "Do you want to infuse yourself with pure mana?"


    "Of course I do. What else? I''ll do this,bine and ovey all my senses with each other, and analyze that element as much as I possibly can to grow my understanding of it immediately. Alright? Good." Eiro threw his clothes onto the ground next to thedder leading up to the infusion chamber, while Bavet finally split off of him fully as well.


    "Eiro, I''m not sure if that''s a great idea... This is pure mana, it''s basically just... nothingness. Do you really want to infuse yourself with ''nothing''? Shouldn''t you try it out normally beforehand?" Bavet suggested, but Eiro didn''t pay any attention to him. He simply continued unclothing as he started climbing up thedder.


    "Just leave me be. Stay out there, and leave me to think. Alone. Alright?" Eiro told them with a deep stare, and the four of them quickly understood. The Demon closed the hatch-like door the moment he stepped inside, andid down on the ground in this room that was barelyrge enough to do this.


    "Why can''t they just listen to me? In the end, with my judgement, everything always worked out..." Eiro grumbled to himself. He knew that he wasn''t usually like this, though, and that his anger was most likely strengthened by the Mark of Wrath that was ced on him. Or so he hoped, at least. He didn''t like being this angry, especially not at people that he cared about as much as the spirits that he was contracted to.


    They were his partners, and the beings that Eiro spent most of his time with. Sure, they weren''t there all the time, but throughout most of the day, they would end up floating next to or nearby Eiro so that he was able to at the very least sense them. He felt closer to them than most, for obvious reasons.


    The demon pushed his fingernails into the ground, feeling them slightly crack the wood. The moment that Eiro took notice of this fact, however, he immediately stopped and tried to calm himself down.


    "Let''s just do this..." He muttered quietly as he closed his eyes. Eiro tried to concentrated on a very specific spot within his body and manipted his magic circuits so that he could create a very condensed bit of mana there while heavily controlling the flow of mana that went on around it. He didn''t want any sort of interference when it came to this.


    Eiro felt the concentrated lump of mana within his chest, and then looked deeper into it. Eiro felt his own being, the aspect that made his mana his own, and that which made his own tree the force that he was. Luckily, Eiro had a rtively strong grasp on the individual differences in one''s mana, simply because he ended up studying the process of creating individualised trees like his own.


    The Demon took a deep breath as he searched for his essence within this lump of mana. Slowly but surely, Eiro tried to pull it out of the mana. And the more he did, the more he could sense an actual difference. Soon enough, Eiro was able to actually get a grasp on what his essence truly felt like to him.


    It was... a sludge-like mass. Muddy and disgusting, the kind of thing that would make you flinch the moment just a little of it got on your skin.


    Eiro manipted his magic circuits to try and push that muddy sludge toward his hands, where he quickly expelled it out into a small ss bottle. He was making use of an artificer technique used to store mana for other creations, in order to contain his own essence within this bottle, so that he could get a closer look at itter on. The Demon took a deep breath as he forced this substance through his skin. It was ufortable, even making Eiro cringe in response to feeling it on him.


    The Demon groaned to himself as he filled the bottle with the sludge. Once Eiro umted a mass of pure mana, or rather mana that was as pure as he was able to get it, he closed the bottle up and ced it into his treasury for safe-keeping.


    The mass of ''pure'' mana wasn''t actually perfectly pure, since there were still residues of his own essence left within it. At the very least, Eiro must have managed to extract about 95% of his own essence out of the mana, but the rest was practically clinging to it. That was probably something that Eiro would end up growing to learn to do better sooner orter as well.


    For now, Eiro simply concentrated on thisparatively pure mass of mana within his chest, and continued to observe it. As he did so, he could feel the mana practicallytching onto the concept of the Ancient Language. This mass that seemed to want to dissipate the moment Eiro ceased his control over it now seemed like it was rtively st able.


    And so, Eiro started to move it around within his body. It was surprisingly hard to move, it was nearly as if Eiro was learning how to control his mana anew. But sooner orter, it started moving around more quickly than before, and Eiro''s ability to manipte it grew more and more overall.


    And it didn''t take long until Eiro was able to move it to the center of his back, since that spot was currently directly above the part that Eiro had to infuse with magic to let it flow through the whole room. Eiro pressed it against his skin, and felt it nearly rip it apart. Of course, it didn''t really, that was simply what it felt like. And so, Eiro pressed this pure mana through his skin like a rock through a fine sieve. The pain was an unusual one, and yet it was nearly the kind that was satisfying once Eiro actually managed to press it out of his body. The feeling lingered for a while longer, as Eiro immediately infused the element into the runic inscriptions in this room before the pure mana had been able to dissipate.


    And the next moment, Eiro felt the room change. The runic letters around the room lit up and nearly blinded Eiro. It felt like he wasying in nothingness. All of his senses were both overwhelmed and left with nothing to sense at all. As if Eiro was both experiencing everything and nothing at once.


    It seemed like the walls were fading away anding closer, while Eiro himself was justying there unable to do anything.


    The moment that Eiro felt this, he jolted up and let go of his control of the mana inside of the inscriptions. The room returned to normal, as the rest of the pure mana was basically sucked back into Eiro''s body in a painful manner.


    "Shit..." Eiro groaned as he grasped his chest, gasping for air. But that wasn''t even the worst part. A metallic scent filled the air, as Eiro felt something wet touch his hand and lower back. He turned around, and spotted a puddle of blood on the ground.


    Immediately, Eiro twisted his hand around his body and touched the spot that he pushed the pure mana out of. And what he found there was a gashing wound, as if his skin in that ce had been literally ripped apart.


    "What the fuck..?" Eiro muttered. How was this happening? The Demon jumped up and opened the hatch to get back out, climbing down thedder again.


    "So..? Did it work?" Gondos soon asked curiously, and Eiro looked at him with a deep frown, "What do you think? Of course it didn''t work. I''ve barely been in there at all."


    "Erm... What''d you mean?" Sarius asked, and Eiro let out an annoyed sigh, "Nelli, just help me, please. My back is injured."


    "No..." Nelli replied, "I think we should talk about this. How long do you think you''ve been in there?"


    "I don''t know, maybe 50 minutes or something? Really not that long." Eiro replied, and Nelli, Gondos and Sarius looked at each other for a moment.


    "Dude, you''ve been in there for a few hours, it''s midnight right now..." The Smander pointed out. Eiro stood there confused, "What do you mean?" He asked, confusedly stretching out his perception. And Sarius was right, it''s been a few hours.


    "Are you kidding me? That single instantsted a couple of hours..?" Eiro muttered confusedly.. Maybe learning how to use Arcane Magic would end up being a bit harder than Eiro thought at first.

 Chapter 436 - Enthralled

    Eiro took a seat in the room connected to the infusion chamber as Nelli healed the wound on his back.


    "How am I supposed to do this..?" Eiro muttered, "My body is fundamentally different to others, so the amount of damage that I took should be a lot less than what Merlin did. How did he manage to avoid these injuries?"


    "Well, maybe it''s because he didn''t fucking rush ahead, you absolute dumb-fuck." Sarius replied immediately, and Eiro rolled his eyes in response, "Right, of course. I mean, I guess I can try and do it in the more basic way. I''ll infuse myself from the inside, then."


    Eiro slowly closed his eyes and looked into himself again. He felt the mass of pure mana and moved it around inside of him. The Demon shifted it toward his left hand, and then reced the regr mana in there with the pure mana, going through the same process as ''infusion''.


    And when he did so, nothing in particr happened for a while. But then, bit by bit, the longer the pure mana stayed in his hand, something appeared, something that only Eiro was really able to spot with his extremely strong eyes.


    There were extremely thin lines of golden light appearing on Eiro''s hand, that were slowly and surely growing in size and brightness. And the more this happened, the more Eiro''s hand started to tingle and feel lighter and lighter.


    But even so, the movement of his hand wasn''t affected in the slightest. And for now, while his hand seemed to be okay, Eiro started to move forward from this point. Within the center of his chest, he continued on extracting his essence from the mana within his body. He pressed as much of the sludge-like substance that was his essence into the bottle that he had,pressing it down heavily.


    And then once Eiro had acquired mana that was sufficiently pure, he would attach it to the pure mana that had started in his hand. He was practically starting to rece all the mana within his body with this pure, arcane version. That was basically how Eiro wanted to rece the infusion chamber before he figured out how to safely make use of it.


    The Demon soon had his whole arm''s mana reced with the pure mana. And he then concentrated all of his senses just on his arm, so that he could properly try and analyze it with as much as he could. He analyzed the tingling, the way that his arm changed over time, the patterns and lines of gold appearing on it, basically everything that changed about his arm right now.


    And like that, he soon realized something. The glowing golden lines were patterns simr to the patterns that made up the marks of Eiro''s blessings, just at a much smaller scale, and they were also just so slightly shifting around the whole time, somewhat changing.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he stood up. He started moving both of his arms around to see what sort of differences there were between his control over his arms. There didn''t really seem to be any major difference, it was just that his left arm felt a bit lighter. Maybe the movement was slightly smoother, but there probably wouldn''t be any benefit forbat here.


    After a while, once Eiro had been filled with dedication to not sleep tonight to make up for the time that he had ended up losing through that mishap inside of the infusion chamber, he tried something else. Eiro began to move aroundrger amounts of mana, instead of just the small, thin streams that he had been doing since earlier.


    Eiro made sure to increase the control over this pure mana as much as he could. Although, he wasn''t entirely sure what was going on. Why was his body reacting to the pure mana this way? How did it literally rip apart his flesh? It simply didn''t make any sense. It shouldn''t be able to do anything like that.


    "Maybe..." Eiro grumbled, before crossing his legs and entering a meditative state as quickly as he could. he started to let the pure mana flow through his body like his regr mana did, simply by pushing a little bit at at time into his heart. The pure mana was mixing with the regr mana, and Eiro started slowly increasing the purity by gradually increasing the amount of his essence that he pulled out of his mana. Of course, Eiro was still producing his regr mana, so he had no need to worry about identally messing anything inside of him up in that sense. However, bit by bit, the mana in Eiro''s body grew more pure, and the Demon felt his whole body grow more energized and feel far healthier than before.


    He wasn''t particrly sure if this was real, or his imagination, but it was a fact that it felt like it. And considering that this was the case, Eiro continued. It didn''t seem to be doing any harm to him. If it were, then Eiro would be able to sense it immediately.


    This was one of the reasons why Eiro kept his ''essence''. It was rather easy to control, and not only could he easily push it out of him, but he was able to pull it back in and infuse the pure mana with his own essence. So if anything happened. Eiro would immediately proceed to turn the pure mana back into regr mana.


    Eiro slowly but surely pressed a tiny bit of the pure mana into his right hand, just to test out whether or not this would work.


    "Huh?" Eiro muttered confused, as he noticed something while moving the mana around the magic circuits within his wooden hand. A bit of the pure mana simply escaped. It slipped out of his wooden hand. But how was that possible?


    And that was when Eiro realized something.


    "My spiritual body was ripped apart in my hand because of the Holy Energy... And now that I have this staff acting as my hand instead, letting mana flow through it as normal... The pure mana can slip out of the cracks in the soul''s form..." The Demon said as he looked at the spirits in front of him.


    "Wait, does that mean that the mana before injured your soul itself, and not just your body?" Sarius asked, and Eiro looked at Nelli, who had done all the healing.


    "Well, I didn''t notice anything unusual myself. It just seemed like an actual physical mass came out of you, and I can''t see anything weird in regard to your soul there. Your mana flows there regrly as well, after all." The Naiad exined, and Eiro closed his eyes in thought. Eiro''s maniption of the pure mana was close to non-existentpared to that of regr mana. And that was when he realized something.


    "I think it doesn''t damage my soul at all... regr mana practically tugs on the walls of the soul as well as it leaves your body. Now it was just so strong that once it passed through the soul, my flesh was ripped apart in that spot, but my soul stayed intact. A soul is something far more durable than flesh, after all. But now, the pure mana didn''t have to worry about the interference of the soul at all... but if I still had a regr hand, it might tear my flesh apart in that area anyway while the pure mana flowed out through the cracks. I must have not noticed any sort of difference with regr mana because at this point, mana flows through my soul''s walls as if they were nonexistent." Eiro pointed out as he started to think deeply about what he should do.


    "Well, at least this is a shortcut to cast arcane magic..." Eiro muttered quietly, as he sensed the mass of magic in front of him. Of course, Eiro wasn''t particrly able to see his mana outside of his body, but he was still able to sense it a bit.


    Eiro recalled the example arcane spell inside of one of Merlin''s spellbooks, and swiftly drew it with the help of this pure mana that had pulled the Ancient Language into itself, this Arcane Magic. And so, a few momentster, the spell was finished at the same time as he finished speaking the chant.


    And when he activated the magic circle, the glowing lines gathered in a mass in the center. The glowing Orb that was floating there soon had its outermostyer shatter apart in some ces. And that which then appeared there was a hand nearly identical in appearance to Eiro''s own right hand. It even had some of the slits that the wooden hand required for the individual pieces to move properly.


    The only difference was that this hand was made of Arcane Magic. It was floating there, a white, translucent hand with thin and shifting golden lines all over it. And this hand waspletely linked to Eiro''s mind, and was utterly under his control.


    With a single thought, this hand moved to the other side of the room and picked up a small object, bringing it over to Eiro. This was honestly quite amazing. He had never seen a spell like this.


    It seemed like due to the nature of Arcane Magic and the spell itself, this hand couldn''t be used inbat. If it held a weapon and attacked others, it could potentially prate their skin, but barely any actual damage would be done to them. And the hand itself didn''t even have the strength to strangle someone, so it really was quite useless in that sense.


    But luckily, it could have other uses for Eiro. Although, that wasn''t directly what he was thinking about the whole time as he was watching this hand float there in the air in front of him. Due to hisck of an apanying skill, or even any sort of major control over Arcana in the form of an elemental affinity, the hand was weak and unstable, barely able to even lift the writing feather that wasying on the desk on the other side of the room. It drained much more mana to keep it up than most of Eiro''s high-power attack spells.


    However, this was something so new, and so different to Eiro, that it felt like he was once more nothing but a lesser Imp, staring into a campfire and being so enthralled by it that all his thoughts disappeared.

 Chapter 437 - Essence Infusion

    Eiro looked at the Arcane Magic floating in front of his eyes. It''s been a while since he felt this sort of immediate familiarity in the magic that he was casting. The first time he felt it was when he used Ice Magic for the first time. And now, it was Arcane Magic. These two elements, although Arcana wasn''t in fact an element itself, seemed like they were an innate part of Eiro''s very being.


    It just felt right. Eiro stretched his hand out and touched the tip of his finger against those of the magical hand. Nelli looked at Eiro a bit concerned, however.


    "Eiro, it''s draining an insane amount of your mana per second, you should probably be careful..." The Naiad pointed out, and Eiro turned his head toward her. It was like he heard her words, but it took a few more moments to understand their meaning.


    "Oh, right... Of course." Eiro snapped his finger, and the arcane hand disappeared from the Demon''s sight. He quickly pushed himself off the ground with his tail and stood in the center of the room the next moment, "But that was really... Really amazing."


    "Was it? It seemed like regr magic to me..." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro turned toward her with a broad grin on his face.


    "I know, it wasn''t any different than any other sort of magic at the end of the day. But it still seemed like more than that to me. I need to thank Merlin for teaching me about this. And the next time I meet those four, I will need to tell that Arcane Mage just how d I am that he gave me that sort of brief hint through his question. Sadly I was unable to meet them again after that, but I''m sure that it wasn''t thest time I encountered them." Eiro said, a calm but broad smile on his face that seemed like it would not disappear anytime soon.


    Nelli let out a bit of a sigh, but soon floated around Eiro''s head and leaned her body against his cheek, "I''m d that you''re feeling happy about this. Sorry for possibly overreacting a bit because of Merlin..." She said to Eiro in a genuine voice. Eiro simply kept smiling, "Don''t worry. It is true that Merlin wasn''t to be fully trusted... he hid something rather important from me, after all."


    "Hm? He did?" Nelli asked confused, slowly moving away from the Demon''s face. Eiro slowly nodded his head, "He hid the way that I was supposed to control this magic until I cast the spell. Now that I saw the magic in action, it dawned on me what exactly was happening just before."


    "Really? Then what was it? It was kinda shocking to see yae out of there like that..." Sarius pointed out, and Eiro slowly looked back at the spirits, "My essence." Eiro said as he pulled the bottle that he had filled with it out of his treasury.


    "This is the only reason that I am even able to control my mana. You see, I can perfectly control this essence, far better than I can currently control even regr mana. But I also noticed that it quickly faded away once I pulled it out of my body. Had I let go my control over it for even an instant, it would have immediately disappeared for good. This is why you easily loseplete control over spells outside of your body, usually at least, and why such spells fade away quickly. The essence disappears, and the mana is purified. But pure mana also can''t exist that easily in the world, so it quickly fades as well. Because both fade in such a way, mana quickly falls apart and bes uncontroble even long before it fully disappears." Eiro exined, "At least, that''s my theory on it right now. But this was also why I couldn''t properly push this pure mana out of my body. Because it wasn''t really seen as ''my'' mana fully anymore. It was a foreign substance, and while I was able to control it to an extent, my body still somewhat rejected it. That''s why, when it pushed against the walls of my soul, did it rip apart my flesh in those areas."


    The three spirits looked at each other somewhat confused, since they had no idea in what way this rted to Merlin having left something out to Eiro.


    "Well, what else were you supposed to do then? That''s what Arcane Magic is, right?" Nelli pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Of course, but not at the beginning. Right now, the pure mana is still mostly seen as simply that pure mana, because of my low level in the Ancient Language and mypleteck for an affinity in ''Arcana''. But once that grows, and the Arcane Magic created from the pure mana bes its own thin in a way, my body is going to be able to properly use it." Eiro exined to them.


    "Of course, that in itself once more doesn''t mean that anything has been left out. However, when youbine the two things I just told you about, what I mean will make more sense." Eiro said, as he pressed the opening of the bottle with his essence against his lips, and practically poured some of it down his throat, as if drinking it. Then, inside of his body, Eirobined the essence with the pure mana that had pulled the Ancient Language into it already. The mana returned to its original purity, but there was just one difference. The three spirits all realized what exactly it was, being able to see the mana flowing through Eiro''s body.


    "Ah..." Gondos let out, "It is still different from regr mana? Did the reliance of the Ancient Language that the pure mana possessed stay intact in its original form?" The Golem asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head.


    "That''s exactly it, buddy. It''s not true Arcane Magic right now, but it technically is in a bastardized away. That means that I can still do something like this." Eiro said, once more casting the same spell from before with the impure arcane magic. It flowed out of his skin exactly as it normally would as Eiro quickly cast the spell. The next moment, a hand appeared floating in the air again. Just that this time, it looked a bit different. It looked nearly cracked into pieces, barely holding itself together. And it was barely visible in the first ce, being so translucent that it was close to invisible.


    Eiro asked Gondos to create some dust and a few pebbles for him, and then held them above this hand''s palm, "It costs far less mana if I do it like this, although it''s still far more than usual for this level of spell. However, at the same time..." Eiro dropped the pebbles and dust. The dust travelled halfway through the hand and then stopped there, starting to float through this translucent hand along with the flow of the magic it was made of. Meanwhile, the pebbles already hit the ground, having created multiple clean holes in the hand.


    "It''s not even able to fully hold off dust. It''s enough to practice, and over time, I''ll just keep using a verson of this that is a little bit more pure each time. That should be enough to get used to this pretty well." Eiro pointed out, "And also, I''m not saying that Merlin hid this with malicious intent... Sure, he''s a bit suspicious, but I can''t expect him to reveal every single secret in his life. It didn''t seem like he ''forgot'' anything, but rather that he simply chose not to tell me. He seemed rather distressed that I was able to get a grasp on his life''s work so easily, so maybe he just left it out to have me struggle a bit. Or he was trying to test me to see how well I could handle Arcane Magic."


    "...Are you sure that you want to believe in him like that?" Nelli asked, staring into Eiro''s eyes, and the Demon slowly nodded his head, "For now, yes. Of course I shouldn''t trust him blindly, but I simply want to. That''s how it is. But if ites to it... I won''t ignore his actions due to the rtionship we have."


    Nelli smiled softly as she looked back at the Demon that she was contracted to, "Good. Thank you for being more reasonable than before." The Naiad thanked Eiro, before the Demon walked up to the door and stepped out of the room.


    "Now, I guess I''ll just sleep for the rest of the night, and recover some of my mana. And tomorrow, I''ll see if I can find anything about one''s essence at the library in the academy." The Demon said as he stretched his body out a bit, and quickly made his way to his bedroom.


    Eiro stripped out of his clothes and dropped onto his bed, looking at the ceiling for a while. As he drifted off to sleep, in his dream, Eiro entered the library in his mind. He sat down at one of the desks, and pulled two books out that he ced down in front of him. The tome written in Ancient Language that Eiro found, as well as the dictionary that he was writing the more he uncovered the meanings of certain words.


    The Demon continued looking through the tome and started trying to figure out more and more meanings. Right now, while things were a bit more stagnant, Eiro was once more left in a deep ''study'' phase. He studied to figure out how to use Arcane Magic, and he studied to understand the Ancient Language and increase hisnguageprehension skill''s level more and more.


    And once Eiro''s arcana affinity grew more and more, he would be able to awaken the Arcane Magic skill, and the amount of spells that he was able to cast would grow farrger, especially once Eiro perfected elemental fusion.


    However, one thing became more and more apparent to Eiro.. He was striving further and further away from being a creature that could simply live in peace in a ce such as this.

 Chapter 438 - Apologies

    Eiro slowly sat up in his bed. He managed to figure out another four of five percent of the meanings of the words in the tome, bringing him to a point where he knew a third of the words used in it.


    And as Eiro was just sitting there in his bed, trying to think for a while, he heard someone approaching his room.


    "Come in." Eiro said just as they were about to knock on the door, and was able to hear a sigh the next moment, "I know that knocking ispletely unnecessary with you, but could we at least pretend to have a normal routine?" Arie asked as she entered the room, and Eiro shrugged as he was still sitting in bed, his body partially covered by the nket.


    "Sure, if that''s what you want. I''ll let you knock the next time." Eiro replied, "Anyway, is there anything that you wanted to talk about? You don''t usuallye to see me at this time of the day."


    "Ah, yeah... I wanted to talk to you about something. Basically... It''s not particrly necessary for Hannah and I to keep living here, is it? There haven''t been any Undead Hunters aroundtely, and the more I understand your abilities, the more I know that in case we encounter an enemy that I can''t take care of myself, you''ll be there to help us out at any point." Arie exined, and Eiro closed his eyes for a moment as he took a deep breath.


    "If you really want to leave, then you can, of course. But I don''t have an issue with you staying here however long you want. We have plenty of space here, after all." The Demon pointed out. Arie stood in front of the bed and lightly turned her head to the side to break eye-contact with Eiro.


    "I get it, but..." She muttered, and Eiro smiled at her, "Don''t worry, I get it. But at the very least let me make sure that the ce you two will stay at is safe, I think I can scan the perimeter a bit quicker than you."


    "Thank you, I really appreciate it." Arie nodded her head, and the two of them were there in this room in silence for a while, before the Nephilim looked at Eiro somewhat awkwardly, "Aren''t you going to get out of bed?"


    "Of course, but ever since you told me I shouldn''t walk around naked while you''re there, I figured I shouldn''t just yet." Eiro pointed out, and Arie raised her brows, "O-Oh, so you''re... Alright, I''ll leave you be, then..."


    Arie quickly rushed out of the room while Eiro threw the nket to the side and stepped out of his bed. He swiftly walked over toward his closet and picked out some clean clothes to wear for the day. After getting dressed, Eiro stepped out of the room and soon made his way downstairs, where the children were already gathered as well, simply sitting there before they were all going to head off to the academy.


    Eiro looked at them with a smile on his face, "Did you guys eat breakfast already?" The Demon asked, and the children quickly turned toward him and nodded their heads. Although, they seemed to be a bit concerned about something.


    "Yeah, but... What happenedst night? Avalin was looking for you all around the house, but couldn''t find you... I had to tell her a story so that she could end up falcling asleep." Sammy exined to Eiro, who looked back at his daughter and awkwardly scratched his neck.


    "About that... It was a bit of a mishap in my training, it won''t happen again, don''t worry." Eiro exined to them, before he noticed one of the monster servants cleaning up the table that the children most likely sat at to eat earlier, "Erm, in your guys'' opinion, are the monsters doing alright jobs here at the moment?"


    "What? Why''re you just changing the topic, dad?" Arcughed a bit, "I mean, they''re doing fine, but we were talking about how we literally didn''t see you all day after ss ended. We were worried, until Bavet told us that you were here." Arc pointed out, and Eiro looked back with a slight sigh.


    "I''m sorry. As I said, it won''t happen again. It was something rather unpredictable, since I was working with Arcane Magic. It works in a very different way to other sorts of magic, so the effect that it had on my mind in the infusion chamber was rather unexpected as well. In just a second for me, a few hours passed. So, I won''t be using the infusion chamber like that anytime soon, so this kind of thing won''t happen. But I promise to check in with all of you when Ie home now, yesterday was just a bit... rough for me in general." Eiro apologized to the children, who were slowly looking at each other. They understood that Eiro was serious, although that still didn''t solve one of the issues that they had brought up.


    "I think all of us ept your apology, but we''re not the ones you had to apologize to that much anyway. We''re used to you sometimes fading in and out with your attention." Rudy pointed out as he looked at his father. The Demon slowly nodded his head as he replied.


    "I''m going to apologize to Avalin as well, don''t worry. But for now, all of you get ready to head to the academy while I do that. Rudy, remember that you have to hand in your project today." The Demon said as he slowly turned around, and Rudy quietly sighed as the group of four swiftly stood up from the couches.


    ---


    "No!" Avalin yelled out, with Eiro standing in front of her room''s door, "I don''t want to see you anymore!"


    Eiro looked at the wooden surface in front of his eyes. He could sense Avalin on the other side of the door, stomping her foot onto the ground with deep huffs of anger. Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose a bit worried, as he tried again.


    "Avalin, I''m sorry, but it was an ident. I promise that it won''t happen again." Eiro tried reassuring the girl on the other side of the door, while Leon was trying to use this time to keep sleeping for a bit longer in his bed. He turned around a few times since Avalin was bothering him with that, but that wasn''t particrly the greatest issue that Eiro was seeing right now.


    Instead, he noticed that Avalin''s smile seemed to have grown a bit bigger on the other side of the room as she seemed to be somewhat excited about something.


    "I will... forgive you if you bring me..." Avalin muttered, and Eiro already knew where she was going with this.


    "Oh no..." The Demon muttered nervously, as Avalin continued to tell her father about her conditions for forgiving him.


    "If you bring me as much candy as I can eat!" She eximed, and Eiro let out a deep, but quiet, groan.


    "Fine, but only if you promise not toin when you feel sickter. Alright?" Eiro replied, and Avalin crossed her arms, "I promise nothing!"


    "Avalin..."


    "Nothing!"


    Eiro closed his eyes as he took a deep breath, "Fine. You can eat as much candy as you want, and I''ll even let youin once you feel sick from it. Alright? Will you open the door now?"


    "Okay~!" Avalin eximed with a broad smile on her face as she pulled the door open. Eiro stepped inside and knelt down in front of her to be at an eve eye-level with the girl.


    "I''ll bring you the candyter. For now, let me apologize again. I''ll..." Eiro said, but at that moment, he noticed something. He snapped his head over toward Leon. He hadn''t noticed until now since Eiro had practiced to not intensely focus on other people, especially ever since he was by Arie that it was rather inappropriate, so he hadn''t really noticed anything until it was this obvious.


    Eiro immediately jumped up and walked up to Leon, pulling the nket off of him.


    "H-Huh? What is it..?" Leon asked tiredly, and without a moment''s hesitation, the Demon stared deeply at Leon, "Your scent is different..." The Demon pointed out, "Why is your scent different..?"


    "My scent? But I bathe every day..." Leon muttered as he slowly stood up, and Eiro immediately proceeded to grab the young boy''s head. He could feel the blood-flow intensifying around certain parts. The Demon stared deep into Leon''s eyes, and could spot a small change.


    "Your eyes are changing... Their color, at the very least..." The Demon said out loud. Leon''s eyes had always been dark, practically as ck as his hair. But now, it was different. They were brightening up a bit. Leon''s hair as well, it had started growing a lot faster than before, and it was not only longer but far thicker than usual.


    Eiro grabbed the young boy''s body and swiftly turned him around. With a swift press on the center of Leon''s back, Eiro sent in a light pulse of mana that he wanted to use to figure out all changes within his son''s body.


    "A concentration of mana and blood-flow at the lower end of his spine... It''s simr to when it happened to me... Leon, you''re growing a tail." The Demon said, somewhat confused.. Changes within a beast-man''s body were only supposed to happen when they entered puberty. So why was it happening to this eight years old boy right now?

 Chapter 439 - Maturity

    "Are you alright? Does your body ache in any way?" Eiro asked with a worried expression, and Leon slowly turned around as he looked at his father, "No, I''m just tired..."


    "Okay, that''s normal... Is everything normal with your sight?" The Demon asked, and Leon slowly looked up into the air and thought for a moment, "Blurry... but..."


    Eiro looked deep into Leon''s eyes, and was soon able to see what was happening to his son. Indeed, the reflection was far more blurry than normal. Usually, this shouldn''t happen, except if this kind of thing was caused through a skill of sorts. But that wasn''t all. Within Leon''s sight, Eiro could see something like golden threads floating around in front of him.


    The Demon took a step back as he kept his sight focused on his son''s eyes, when he realized where those threads originated from. They were all rising off of Eiro''s body. Above his head, they were intertwining with each other to be a thicker, yarn-like thread that soon faded away when it got too far away from his body.


    So far, this was not something that Leon had been able to see. But since these lines didn''t seem toe from Avalin, Eiro came to a quick conclusion for what might be happening.


    "There is more to your unique skills than we thought... Or maybe it''s something that has to do with you being a beastman... Either way, for now, try not to interact with these threads, alright? Everything is going to be alright soon, okay?" Eiro said to his son in a reassuring voice, and Leon slowly shook his head, "I can''t touch the threads anyway..."


    "So you tried this? How long have you been seeing these things?" Eiro asked concerned, and Leon shrugged, "For a few days... But daddy''s are the coolest looking, the others are just boring and gray, and there are just a couple... But daddy''s are really cool!"


    "...Alright, interesting... You know what? I don''t have many sses today, so I''ll spend as much time as I can with you, and we talk about the threads some more, okay? And you tell me how your body feels with all the changes going on right now. I will have to go for a few hours, so just stay here in bed until then, but I''m definitely going to be back earlier today. Is that alright?" Eiro asked, rubbing his hand over his son''s back.


    "Okay..." Leon replied quietly and tiredly, "Then I''ll go back to bed now... okay?" He asked. Eiro immediately nodded his head as he took another step back. And that was when he was reminded of the little girl that he left standing there while he checked out Leon in a hurry.


    Avalin was standing there with her arms crossed, and angry scowl, as well as a few tears in the corners of their eyes. The Demon let out a deep sigh as he looked at his youngest daughter, "I''ll bring you some cake as well, right?"


    "...Two slices?"


    "Even three if you want." Eiro said with a smile on his face, as he patted Avalin''s head. With his daughter now happy, Eiro stepped out of the room. He didn''t have many sses that he was going to teach on his own today, and he could probably opt out of the other few that he had, since he was mainly supposed to be an assistant in those anyway. That meant that the main reason that Eiro was going to head to the Academy was simple.


    Eiro was going to head off a bitter, but now he was going to immediately skip breakfast and head to the academy before the children.


    "Bavet!" Eiro eximed in a rush as he approached the ce where the slime was currently to be found. Before Bavet even had the chance to fully transform anything, Eiro grabbed him on his way to his bedchambers. There, Eiro picked up his other clothes and items that he was going to need, and then used one of the secret passages to drop down into the sitting room where the others had already prepared to leave for the Academy as well.


    "You guys just take the carriage, I''m going to head off first. I''ll exin itter when you''re back, but something important came up." The Demon said, barely having put on his jacket properly. He didn''t even take the time to use the door, but instead just walked up to the window as his children were standing there, utterly perplexed at what exactly was going on now.


    "Gondos, go exin the situation to Armodeus and ask him to watch Leon and Avalin while I''m gone. I''ll summon you once you''re done." The Demon said, before the Golem right next to him turned around to go meet with the Elder Dwarf living in the manor with them.


    Eiro spread out his wings while he pressed Bavet''s core onto the center of his chest underneath his clothes. Bavet''s slime was slowly spreading all over his body, but he was having a rough time because of how quick Eiro was travelling right now.


    The Demon made sure to slow down for a bit to let Bavet properly transform him, before he wrapped his wings around his body. At nearly full speed, Eiro was now rushing toward the Academy without his wings. He pushed through the barrier, since it didn''t actively hold people out and instead just watched everything that was going on inside, and used air magic to navigate himself right toward the Library.


    Eiro stopped himself with a strong gust of air that created a cloud of dust around him, and was able to rush past the guards right into the library. Maybe Eiro had to talk to Solomon about the security at this ce, but to be fair, not everyone was able to do what Eiro just did.


    The demon pushed past the professors that were doing their research in here, as well as the few students that wanted to use this space to study, and made his way into the Anthropology section, and specifically to the area dedicated to the research on beastmen.


    Eiro was looking for a few specific books that he didn''t get around to reading yet. He meant to do it to be prepared for the changes to Leon''s body once it was time for that, but right now, he didn''t have time to waste. He had to figure out what exactly was happening to Leon, and why he was changing so soon.


    The Demon jumped from shelf to shelf, not using thedders that were meant to be used to grab the books, before he brought a mountain of them toward one of the desks. Without hesitation, Eiro flipped open the first book. He read everything, then had Nelli bring the book away. Then, Eiro read the next book.


    He did this until he read all of the books on beastmen that seemed like they were helpful at first. Although, Eiro didn''t really read them at all, he just ingrained the text into his mind.


    As the Demon started to try and actually understand all of the information that he had memorized already, he finally found a passage that seemed to exin what exactly was happening with Leon.


    "''A beastman''s maturity cycle usually begins during the child''s puberty, but there are exceptions to this rule. As the changes in a beastman''s body are akin to what happens during a monster''s evolution, albeit not stuck to the limitations of reaching a certain level, they can be triggered through certain magical means. For example, a sudden change in... In the very flow of one''s mana.''... shit..." Eiro muttered.


    That meant that this early maturity was most likely caused by the fact that Leon''s skills were unsealed. It certainly made sense. It hasn''t even been half a year since that happened, after all. But then, Eiro continued going through the text and found something that caused him immediate relief.


    "...in the vast majority of such rare cases... There is no harmful change to the child''s development beyond this point... The only noticeable differences are a possible increase of body-hairpared to other of their kin, as well as bodies that slightly change their disposition to be a closer fit to their spiritual guardian." Eiro muttered, and then his mind practically short-circuited. He was worried that this sort of thing was going to lead to some damagester on in Leon''s life, but it seemed like this was fine. Irregr, but fine. Irregr didn''t always mean ''bad'', after all.


    Eiro pressed his face into his hands as he let out a deep sigh of relief. The spirits right next to the Demon were looking at him, clearly concerned.


    "Is everything fine? You didn''t really exin anything to us either... We just know that you''re worried about something..." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro nodded his head. He turned toward the Naiad and nodded his head, "Yep. Leon''s body is entering his maturity-phase already, triggered by the fact that we unsealed his skills. Everything is going to be fine with him in the end."


    "Wait, really? So that was what you were freaking out about before?" The Naiad asked, "Leon''s body is really already changing in that way?"


    "Mhm, it is... And now that I managed to figure out that he''s going to be fine, I need to do research on all the different beastman tribes so that I know what I need to expect. Haah... If only I had ess to a few beastmen topare him to...." The Demon muttered, staring at the ceiling as he did so.

 Chapter 440 - Information Gathering

    Eiro flipped through the books in front of him, finally a bit more rxed. Now that he found out that, while not particrly natural or normal, what was happening to Leon''s body was absolutely fine. He wouldn''t end up damaged by this long-term. All that Eiro had to do was make sure that he found out what tribe Leon was from, since their maturity-phase was often quite different depending on the tribe.


    This mostly had to do with whether or not their ''guardian spirit'', the animal that their tribe was based off, was a herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore. Of course, since they weren''t animals, beastmen didn''t have to worry about having a one-sided diet.


    A carnivorous beastman could eat fruit and vegetables perfectly fine, but they still required a lot more meat in their diet while their bodies were changing during their maturity phase, or else they could fall sick as well.


    So Eiro really just had to figure out which of those three categories Leon fit into. He would either need to reduce the amount of meat he ate, increase the amount of meat he ate, or he could leave his diet as is in case he would end up being from an omnivorous tribe.


    In his mind, Eiro had already gone through all the information that he knew about the different tribes, but luckily there were other books here that he hadn''t read yet that could fill in any sort of information that he might becking.


    In particr, the book about tribe-specific behavior during a beastman''s maturity phase was helpful, for obvious reasons. Through it, Eiro would be able to figure out what tribe Leon was from simply from the way that he would act soon. He hoped, at least.


    Once Eiro was done going through about half the information that he had gathered on beastmen here in the library, he turned his head over toward Nelli, "You don''t perchance know any way to definitively tell what tribe Leon is from, right? One that you somehowpletely forgot about until now?"


    "Nope, sorry. Beastmen are rare around here, we''ve onlye across a handful of them at this point. However, if you had the time, you could just travel to the southern continents. Beastmen are as plenty there as humans are here." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "I know, I know. But sadly, I don''t have the time right now. Actually, maybe I will in half a year once the hero tournament is over, but until then, not at all. Hmm... Although..." The Demon muttered quietly, slowly getting an idea for what he could possibly do.


    "There aren''t any tests that you can do to find out one''s tribe... however, what I can do is turn over a grave." The Demon pointed out, and Nelli raised her brows confused, "What do you mean, exactly?"


    "Yeah, how''s that gonna help you?" Sarius asked, just as confused as the Naiad. Eiro crossed his arms as he looked at them.


    "Seven years ago, when I first met the kids, I killed the guy that was hired to bring them to the holy capital. I... stripped him off his flesh, for obvious reasons, considering my nature back then, and I just got rid of the clothes and bags that he had with him. I know there wasn''t any information on the kids in the carriage we used at the time, but there might have been something in those guys'' bags that could tell me more..." Eiro pointed out, "I''m heading to that area rtively soon anyway, depending on the party''s growth until then. It does seem like they''re doing pretty well, but we''ll have to see."


    "So you''re not freaking out anymore?" Nelli asked, and Eiro smiled back at her, "Not as much at least, no. Now that I know that Leon is going to be fine, I''m really, really quite rxed."


    "Just that you have to give Avalin a lot more sweets than you wanted to." Gondos added, and Eiro quietly chuckled, "I don''t want to give her any sweets at all. They''re bad for her, and she''s just going to end up acting super hyper, which in turn means I won''t be able to leave her alone. At least she''s going to sleep well after the inevitable crash she''ll feel." Eiro replied. The Demon slowly stood up and stretched. He brought the rest of the books that he had in front of him back to the ce they were before, and then slowly made his way out of the library. His first ss was going to start soon, after all.


    Eiro made his way out of the library, while the guards standing in front were clearly confused. They didn''t see Eiroe in, and it wasn''t like he was the kind of person that they could simply not notice, with his rather unique appearance. But since Eiro was allowed in the library whenever he wanted in the first ce, there wasn''t any issue, even if they somehow forgot that he was in there.


    They greeted Eiro as if nothing happened, while Eiro made his way through the academy in a somewhat rxed manner. He freaked out so much just now, so he slumped down into rxation rather quickly once he figured out there was no reason to freak out.


    The Demon soon stepped into the room that his first ss was going to be in, and sat down at the desk in the front. It would be another twenty or so minutes until the first students arrived, so that meant Eiro had enough time to fill out the Ancient Language dictionary with the words that he managed to figure outst night.


    He basically just had to copy the information from the dictionary in his mind into the real one. And as Eiro was doing so, he took particr notice of a few words that he figured out. ''Information'', ''Status'', and ''System''. These were certainly not words that Eiro expected to find, but they were here. Eiro lightly grinned as he came up with an idea. It didn''t seem like the kind that Eiro would be able to cast with just any of his elements.


    Instead, he would most likely need to use an element that was based on ''concepts'' and ''knowledge''. He would need to use Arcane Magic. Especially since there seemed to be an eery simrity between what the system''s messages were made of and arcane magic. By no means were they the same thing, but it was close. Arcane Magic was a step away from Mana, and what the system messages were made up of were another step or two away. Eiro was sure of it.


    That meant that maybe Eiro could create a spell to ess another''s system, a spell that he could use to find out information that even they weren''t directly aware of, if he fine-tuned it enough. If Eiro was lucky, he might find a way to find out what tribe Leon was from.


    So, Eiro figured out a priority-list for things that he had to try out in regards to finding out what tribe Leon was from.


    One, simply try and analyze Leon''s changes toe to the conclusion. Two, find information on Leon among the items that Eiro buried near the holy empire''s capital. Three, create a spell that could tell Eiro what tribe Leon was from. Four, travel to the continent in the south, andpare Leon''s scent to that of other beastmen. And atst, five. Simply wait it out and hope Eiro would be able to figure it out as Leon''s maturity-phase proceeded.


    And so, since it was one of the few things that he could do for now, Eiro began to create the potential chant and magic circle for the information-gathering spell. It didn''t take long until he finished it, though. And when he did... He wanted to try it out. Eiro held his hand forward and spoke the spell, using an element that would cause rtively little harm and reced all of the parts that defined the element and reced it with that of air.


    It didn''t take long until Eiro finished changing the spell and chant, and held his hand forward as he started to draw it while speaking the chant.


    A gust of wind pushed out from behind Eiro, as the Demon directed the wind at one of the objectsid out along the wall. This one in particr was a vase. And a few momentster, something entered Eiro''s mind. Something like whispering information given to him without words. It was simr to when a skill gave Eiro information that he had no way of actually getting yet. He supposed that''s where the spell''s ''system'' aspect came in for this particr version.


    Maybe it wasn''t all that useless, although this spell only gace Eiro rough information on the appearance and material used for the vase and the paint on it. He even somewhat got an idea of how old the vase was, but that was it. It might be a good tool for Eiro to expand his perception beyond what he was usually capable of, but that was it. It didn''t do exactly what Eiro wanted. Maybe even the Arcane Magic version wouldn''t do that, but it was worth a try at least. Eiro had other things to fall back on if that didn''t work, after all.


    And as Eiro was thinking, the first few students came into the room. Eiro greeted them and put away his things as he waited for the other students toe in as well.. And just like that, it was time for Eiro''s first ss of the day to start.

 Chapter 441 - Vile

    Eiro was walking through town, pulling the attention of the people toward him. He was in his ''famous'' disguise right now, after all. And it wasn''t like it was impossible for people to have this sort of appearance, but it was rather seldom anyway.


    Bright, rainbow-colored hair, a tall stature, and of course the aura that came with Eiro''s growth in power. Most people here at least nced at Eiro, and many were basically just staring at him the whole time as he walked through the streets. Of course, Eiro tried his best to just ignore them, but it was tough when whispers about him wereing from any ce that he was trying to avert his focus to.


    But luckily, Eiro soon reached the ce that he wanted to go to. In the district filled solely with shops meant for nobles to use, many of which wouldn''t even serve just regrmoners even if they had the money somehow, Eiro found the ce that he wanted to get to. It was incredibly overpriced, but it was Avalin''s favorite ce, so he had to deal with the cost for a while.


    The Demon pushed the door open and walked into the candy-shop. Immediately, the women and the children here in this ce turned toward Eiro, who was rather out of ce in this shop. However, at least the ones that worked here were acting professionally. One of the workers immediately came up to Eiro and asked if he needed any help, and the Demon quickly nodded his head.


    "Mhm, give me just a second to look around..." Eiro said, quickly ncing at everything that could be found here in this shop. The worker quickly nodded their head.


    "Of course, please let us know once you''re do-"


    "I''m done." Eiro replied, pushing his hand forward and pulling out a piece of paper as well as a writing-feather out of his treasury. The Demon swiftly wrote a list onto the piece of paper, and then handed it to the worker.


    "Get all of this together, please." Eiro instructed the employee, who looked at the list a bit surprised, "A-Ah, of course! Oh, but... we''re out of Macarons at the moment. Someone came by and bought them all up for a tea-party just now. But we are currently making some new ones, it''s only going to take about half an hour. If you''re fine with waiting that long..?" The employee asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "Of course, half an hour is fine. Meanwhile, it smells like you also serve tea? Could I get a cup while I''m waiting?" Eiro asked, and the employee immediately nodded her head as she swiftly led Eiro toward a table that he could sit on while waiting for the macarons to be finished.


    "Here you go. Now, what sort of tea would you like?" The employee asked, and Eiro didn''t have to think about it for too long, "Some sort of herbal tea would be great. Something with strong vor." The Demon replied, and the employee immediately nodded her head.


    "Right away!" And so, she swiftly turned around and left to get the tea ready. Meanwhile, Eiro got out a book that he wanted to keep reading. It was one that he borrowed from the library earlier, one that had particr information about the different beastman tribes'' physical features.


    After a few minutes, the tea was served to him, so Eiro started to just drink it while casually reading. This was nice sometimes as well, and the book was rather interesting in itself. It seemed like very rarely, beastmen received the ability to transform further into their guardian spirits. These abilities had different ranges as well, of course. Some could be a humanoid version of that guardian spirit, somewhat close to what many were-beasts could do, while others could turn into a true version of that guardian spirits, meaning that they would fully turn into that beast when activating that ability.


    Surely, that was an interesting ability... Eiro somewhat hoped that Leon would receive that ability. Not only would it make him rather powerful so that he could defend himself and others should his unique skills run rampant in the future, without requiring him to studybat directly, and it would also make it far more obvious what sort of beastman Leon was... It seemed like a simple solution, but it was one that Eiro was hoping for nheless.


    Just as he was finished with this line of thought and was about to take another sip of his tea, he noticed that someone had approached the table and now took a seat right in front of him.


    "Oh, what a coincidence that we meet again here! I was not aware you had a sweet-tooth, Lord Daemonherz~!" The woman said. It was a youngdy from a lesser noble household, only a few years older than Sammy and Clementine. She was one of the ones trying to get closer to Eiro during the party after he officially became a baron.


    "The sweets I ordered are not for me, but for my daughter." Eiro replied, not looking away from the page of the book he was looking at. The youngdy looked at the cover of the book, and then pped her hands together with a broad smile.


    "Oh! You are trying to learn more about beastmen? I am somewhat of an expert on the topic, at leastpared to most others living here in the capital." She eximed. She was obviously flustered, but Eiro could also tell that she wasn''t exactly lying. He raised his head and looked past the book to lock eyes with the youngdy.


    "Truly? How so? I have barelye across any of them here in this country so far." The Demon pointed out, and as if it was obvious, the youngdy began to chuckle, "Oh, of course you wouldn''t find any of them here!"


    "Hm? What do you-"


    "My family happens to own a vacational home in an allied country to the south, by the ocean. It is truly a wonderful ce. You see, I despise winter, and it''s practically always summer there!" Thedy exined, and Eiro stayed patient, since he wanted to figure out what this woman knew about beastmen, "And there, I learned a lot more about beastmen! The town we own that manor in is a harbor-town, one of thergest ces connecting us to the continent in the south, so I could see many of them there! They were so cute, you see~?" Thedy eximed with fond memories. Maybe Eiro misjudged her a bit. She seemed rather selfish and close-minded thest time her spoke with this youngdy, but she wasn''t that bad after all. Obviously Eiro would never end up having a close rtionship with her in any way, but having connections with other noble households was fine anyway.


    "Is that so? Do you perchance know something about beastman children entering a phase of pre-maturity?" Eiro asked her, but the youngdy seemed rather confused.


    "Pre-maturity? What do you mean?" She asked, and now Eiro was a bit taken-aback.


    "You know, when a beastman''s body changes away from the more human-like appearance, and they get their primary identifiers to connect them to their guardian spirit? And pre-maturity is when it happens to them before puberty." Eiro exined, before he saw something that truly disgusted him. And that was the expression of this youngdy right in front of Eiro.


    "Ehh...? Beastmen look like us as children? How disgusting, to think they might end up ying with our children without us knowing..." The youngdy pointed out with a warped expression of disgust, "No wonder I never saw any beastman children in the enclosures... How scummy for those zoos to hide this fact from us."


    Eiro felt a wave of anger flowing through his body, his own heart beating so loud it nearly deafened him. But instead of saying anything to thedy directly, Eiro asked her something instead, "And why... why do you think is it so obvious that there are no... beastmen here in this country..?"


    "Huh?" Thedy asked, confused about why Eiro''s expression suddenly changed, "Well, of course it''s because very is illegal here? Why would we need any beastmen in such a case?"


    Eiro felt his body fill up with more anger and disgust. But he understood that it wasn''t the fault of this woman directly. She was disgusting, absolutely horrifically so. But he also knew that she wasn''t the only one that thought this way. Most people did. Most people thought of beastmen as lesser than themselves.


    The thought that Leon could be mistreated in the future just because of something like that... Something so shallow, something he had no control over... It made Eiro just so angry, so absolutely, absolutely ang-


    "Calm it down." Bavet whispered into Eiro''s ear, as all of the Demon''s senses were overwhelmed by the most disgusting things ever. Scent, touch, sight, hearing, everything around Eiro felt as if it became its worst version.


    The Demon slowly stood up, his shaking body guided through Bavet''s help. Eiro walked over toward the other side of the room, where a small, empty barrel stood that was formerly filled with sugar.


    Eiro leaned over the barrel and proceeded to empty out his stomach right into it. It wasn''t a great feeling, but at least it was enough to stop Eiro from running rampage and killing someone in here.


    "Urgh..." Eiro muttered as he stood up straight again, using a handkerchief to wipe vomit from the sides of his mouth, looking at the youngdy standing near him clearly worried.. The Demon smiled, inwardly thanking Bavet, as he spoke to thedy, "Sorry, but your very being, your rotten mind, is just so abhorrently vile that I couldn''t control myself anymore."

 Chapter 442 - Trust

    Eiro stood there in the candy-shop, just having thrown up into the barrel in the corner of the room. His eyes and that of the youngdy he was just speaking to were locked on each other, while she was trying to figure out what Eiro really just said.


    "But you- what do you mean?!" She eximed, clearly angry, "How dare you just-" The youngdy stopped herself as she was speaking, and pressed her hand onto her chest, clutching the cor of her dress.


    With a calm, fake front, she spoke, "What you just told me is rather insulting, Lord Daemonherz."


    "Oh, good, seems like you understood what I wanted to tell you, then." Eiro said bluntly. He looked at the employee that was staring at Eiro and the barrel nervously, before the Demon pushed his hand into the leather-pouch ced onto his hip. He pulled out a bundle of small gold coins, pulled one off of it, and pressed it into the employee''s hand, "This is for the mess I made. And don''t worry, I''ll give a grand tip for the sweets you are currently preparing for me as well."


    The employee nervously nodded her head, and a young man, seemingly an apprentice in this shop, was tasked to throw away the barrel and clean up any spige. Once he returned, Eiro gave him a small tip for the trouble as well.


    The Demon walked back toward his table and past thedy that was still trying to understand what Eiro said to her. Meanwhile, Eiro whispered something to himself, or rather, the slime that was currently part of himself, "I wasn''t aware you could do something like that, but thank you."


    "Hmph, I''m not just a one-trick slime either, Eiro. There''s a lot I can do that you probably aren''t aware of."


    "Then show me more of thatter, alright?" Eiro whispered, as he took another seat at the table he sat at just earlier, as if nothing happened. Thedy approached him again, but Eiro raised his head away from his book before she could say anything else, "I think we''re done here at this point. I don''t wish to speak to a disgusting creature like you anymore, so please leave my sight immediately."


    Thedy''s face became flushed in red, but she managed to keep herself together anyway, "I hope that you remember that my family is of higher standing than you are. We are Viscounts, while you are nothing but a Baron. I tried being nice to you due to your recent achievements, but it''s clear that you don''t wish to be part of this society, considering the way that you act toward someone that did you no harm."


    Eiro casually smiled as he locked eyes with the youngdy, "I think you don''t understand the system of nobility all too well. You are not a viscountess by any means. Only your father attained a noble title. And do you want to know how he did it? He managed to get lucky to be the firstborn son of his family. He didn''t work for where he is, and as far as I''m aware, he pushes all the responsibilities that he has onto other people, so that he can spend his time in vacation homes all over our allied countries. Isn''t that right?"


    The youngdy didn''t know what to say, but Eiro didn''t particrly care, "Now, before you continue thinking of other people as lesser than you, try having a conversation with a beastman. Coincidentally, there''s a very well-reknown researcher at the academy. He''s a beastman from the Ape-tribe. Listen, the reason why there aren''t many beastmen here is because most of them are simply used to tropical, or hot and dry weather. We''re a northern country. It''s not because they''re a race of ves. And by the way, there is no race that is innately meant to be a ve. So leave, and never talk to me again. Understood?" Eiro knew that he made his thoughts clear to this young woman. He knew that she understood him. And both of them knew that this was thest time they were going to voluntarily speak to one another. The youngdy picked up her bags and left the shop, meekly apologizing to the employees, acting as if Eiro was the one in the wrong and she simply had to behave like this because she was being terrorized by him.


    It was absolutely ridiculous from Eiro''s standpoint, but he understood that from her view, Eiro was in the wrong. He still didn''t like it though. For the rest of the duration of his stay here in the shop, everyone was silent. Eerily so, since they didn''t want to upset Eiro after how he spoke to that youngdy.


    That was, until one of the employees stepped up to Eiro with a few boxes in her hands, "L-Lord Daemonherz, here you go. I hope that everything will be to your liking. If you wish, we will send the bill to your estate, if you don''t want to deal with it right now..."


    "No, that''s fine. I''ll give the money to you right now." Eiro said. He looked at the piece of paper attached to the topmost box, and swiftly took out some bundles of coins. He gave the employee the money and even tipped quite a lot due to the circumstances.


    The Demon swiftly snapped his finger, and Gondos appeared next to him. The Golem created a few rocks that Eiro ced perfectly around the boxes that he was given, and then proceeded to start manipting the rock so that he didn''t have to deal with carrying them himself. Instead, he just had them float right beside him as he left the store.


    "Have a fine rest of your day." Eiro said with a smile on his face as he left the shop, and swiftly made his way through the streets. Of course, all that while gathering even more attention than before, considering the boxes floating right behind him. But he didn''t care, Eiro just made his way out of the urban district, and then cloaked himself and the boxes using the Ace of Cups so that he could proceed to fly back home.


    It was still early in the day, barely noon, so Eiro could probably take his time and not worry about things too much, especially since it was Armodeus that was taking care of Leon and Avalin right now.


    Instead, Eiro had a proper conversation with Bavet.


    "Now, tell me, how did you manage to make me... feel like that?" Eiro asked curiously, and Bavet replied with a scoff, "What, you didn''t figure that out yourself yet? Man, sometimes I wonder if you''re really just a moron in disguise..."


    "Just tell me, slime, before I turn you into fertilizer for my trees." Eiro told the creature fused with him, although Bavet was practically waiting for this kind of threat.


    "Eh~? You sure about that? You know that I''m the one with power right now~!" Bavet whispered into Eiro''s ear, and the demon rolled his eyes as he pressed his hand underneath his clothes. He buried his fingers in his flesh and tore out Bavet''s core. A momentter, the slime and the mass making him up were gathered around Eiro''s hand, having turned into a wooden orb so that Bavet could properly cling to Eiro.


    "Eh~? You sure you should do that? You know that I can conjure raging mes out of every part of my body, right~?" Eiro replied with a grin, and Bavet seemed to grumble quietly.


    "Right, right... Well, if you really wanna know, it''s kinda basic. You know, in sealing arts, especially when dealing with living beings, it''s necessary to pacify them somehow. You have other means to do so, which is why I never felt the need to tell you too much about it... But basically, through shifting and shing patterns and colors, specific scents, and particr frequencies of sounds, it''s possible to calm down most living beings. But if you''re not careful, they end up getting sick and throwing up, or worse, falling unconscious. That kind of thing usually wouldn''t work on you, but considering how much I know about your body and the way it reacts to stuff now, I was able to fine-tune it to you." The slime exined quickly, and Eiro raised his brows surprised.


    "Huh, that so? And why did you do that? Did you want to fight against me or something like that?" Eiro asked, and Bavet scoffed as if that idea was ridiculous.


    "Right, and why would I do that? I''m not an idiot. Nah, I did it to help you. I know you''ve got your emotions under control, but you''re still sensitive to some things. Just now, you nearly attacked the daughter of a viscount, and a few weeks ago, you stabbed through the hand of a duke''s son. Because the things they said were rted to the kids. Listen man, you''re really fucking strong, but when you''re angry, you''re... not you. You get sloppy, you don''t move like you do, most of your techniques be useless. I figured you would need a way to get rid of your anger immediately if it came to it, especially with you nning on fighting the one that gave this anger to you in the first ce." The slime continued exining, and Eiro couldn''t help himself but smile.


    After all, Bavet didn''t lie with a single word he said. He wholeheartedly meant this. Bavet was part of Eiro''s life now, and he trusted him, but he wasn''t all too aware of how close the two had really be over time. And that Bavet was trying to find ways to help him out really meant a lot to Eiro.


    "Thanks. I''ll be relying on you, then." Eiro said, although Bavet''s body shivered a bit in response.


    "Y''know, it''d be a lot better if you didn''t have to rely on me... You know, if you got your fucking emotions under control, you dumbass..."


    "Eh~? What did you say, you''re feeling cold, Bavet? Ah got it, some mes areing right up~!"

 Chapter 443 - Cake And Tea

    Eironded on the windowsill of one of the second-floor windows, and swiftly stepped into the hallway of his manor. It was a lot quicker than having to go through the front door, especially with his target currently being Leon and Avalin''s bedroom.


    The boxes were still floating right beside Eiro, and everything was perfectly intact. He made sure of that by manipting the air-currents around the boxes while he was flying back home.


    The Demon swiftly opened the door to his children''s room. Avalin jumped up the moment she saw Eiro and ran over toward him, dropping her pens that she used to draw a bit right now.


    "Yaay!" She eximed. But of course, that wasn''t an exmation of her happiness of seeing Eiro, but rather, of seeing the boxes right beside him. Eiro rolled his eyes and ced the boxes onto the table at the side of the room, and opened them up.


    Eiro quickly whistled a short melody, and then said, "Get us some tes."


    A minute or twoter, the door opened up once more and one of the monster servants was carrying four tes. He ced them down onto the table, and then excused himself. Eiro then proceeded to put some of the cookies, a bit of cake, and a few of the fresh macarons onto the te.


    "Now, eat it slowly, alright?" The Demon said, before Avalin practically ripped the te out of his hands. She rushed over to her child-sized table and proceeded to dig in and eat the sweets.


    "Do you want some cake as well, Armodeus?" Eiro asked, and the Elder Dwarf slowly turned around to him, "Ah,ter, maybe. For now... Do ya really think that the boy is alright? He''s been doin'' nothing but sleeptely..."


    Eiro approached Leon''s bed and sat down on it, rubbing his hand over his son''s leg through the nket, "Yeah, don''t worry. He''s probably fine. Leon has always been a heavy sleeper. Back then, it was because of the markings used to seal away his skills, and now, it''s because of the changes that he''s undergoing right now."


    "Hm? Changes..? Ah, right, Gondos said something about pre-maturity?" Armodeus said, "What exactly does that mean?"


    "Well... basically, when a beastman ''matures'', they gain their physical identifiers binding them to their guardian spirit. In cases where a child''s flow of mana is suddenly and extremely changed, it can cause this event to ur even before puberty, which is when it''s usually supposed to happen. That is what''s happening to Leon right now. My best guess is that it happened exactly because his skills were unsealed."


    "Ah... I see... So does that mean that the boy''s suddenly gonna shoot up in height as well? Basically skip a few years?" Armodeus asked, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, it''s not like that. In the books I read about this, it said that he''s going to age and otherwise physically mature like normal, as he would have otherwise, he simply already has... you know, whatever identifiers he has. During his puberty in a few years, he might end up being a bit hairier, but that''s basically it. No need to worry about it... Mostly."


    Armodeus looked at Eiro with a worried expression. Leon was clearly dead asleep, so they had no issue whispering about it here, so Eiro swiftly exined, "The process of maturity is not an easy time for a beastman in the first ce. Their body is changing in rapid ways. In Leon''s case, as he seems to be growing a tail, he is literally gaining new bones. He''s going to have a tough time seeing for a while since his eyes are also changing. If he is from a carnivorous tribe, his teeth might start aching soon. It''s that kind of thing." Eiro exined, "So at the end of the day, nothing to worry about, but we''ll still need to take care of Leon a bit more than normal."


    "Alright, if you say so,d... But really, to think that this boy is a beastman... He really lookspletely like a human, doesn''t he? If he could have stayed like this a while longer, life might have been easier for him." Armodeus sighed, and Eiro swiftly turned toward the Elder Dwarf, "What do you mean, exactly?"


    "Hm? Oh, it''s... in most ces, simply because of this ''maturity'' as you call it, many see beastmen as... ''Monster Kin''. Not true monsters, but somethin'' close to it, I guess." Armodeus pointed out, "So due to that, they''re not particrly kindly regarded in most ces. Sure, in Skyhart, such discrimination is ouwed, but in the surrounding and allied countries... Not so much."


    "Well, at least he''ll have me and my name to protect him from anything that could happen to him." The Demon grumbled quietly, still feeling incredbily disgusted and angry at the idea that Leon might be mistreated in such a way simply because he wasn''t exactly the same as others. Although...


    "One... One of my first memories, it was something that I''m not that proud of anymore, but it fits to this. I understand that it''s in the nature of people and even monsters to shun those that are different, but I thought that those with higher intelligence would be a bit different than my lesser-imp self. In the horde, when I was still part of it, the imp that was always walking in front of me was the strongest of the bunch. He was always the one that ended up killing monsters in our group, so he was the first to evolve. I saw that he was growing something out of his back, most likely something like rudimentary wings, and I attacked him for that trait, because he was different." Eiro exined to Armodeus, who was quietly listening.


    "But before you judge me, that was before I gained even my first point in... well, anything, really. I had not a single point in intelligence, wisdom, perception... or anything, really. I hit that imp repeatedly, and I don''t think I did a single point of damage to him." The Demon leaned back a bit, making sure not to bother Leon as he was sleeping, "Statistically, people have literally infinitely more intelligence than I back then, and they''re still acting like I did? It''s... weird."


    "Of course, this isn''t about logic. It''s about fear. The fear that people have ingrained into them, thinking that even the weakest monster can ughter a whole town. The fear of the unknown, which all of us possess... You can''t tell me that you never felt scared when staring into a deep abyss, not knowing what woulde next. Generation through generation, these fears were carried over from parent to child, and grew in intensity. Soon, fear became anger, and anger became hatred. And that hatred... became normal." Armodeus exined, "It''s something that disgusts me as well, trust me. Even I experienced that sort of thing quite often, when I was travelling through the continent. In smaller settlements where they may have never even heard of a dwarf, I as well was seen as a freak. I might even still have scars from that time. Of course, now I can pass as a bulky human because of my height, but back then, before I ascended to being an Elder Dwarf, I was maybe half the height that I''m now. A grown man with a thick beard and thundering voice, stronger than even most warriors I came across. All that, with the height of a human child."


    Eiro turned his head toward Leon, and let out a deep sigh, "I think it''s good that we happened to meet Solomon at your shop back then... I''ve never entered a church of my own volition, but maybe I should offer a prayer to the Goddess of Fate sometime."


    "Haha, aye, maybe ya should,d." Armodeusughed, "The Gods are fickle in regards to who they favor, but it does seem like that one has kept its eye on you for a while now."


    "Which would be rather ironic, wouldn''t it?"


    "Who knows, maybe the human yer soul was taken from was a Priest to the Goddess of Fate." Armodeusughed along with Eiro. The two stayed quiet for a while, as Eiro continued watching Leon sleep a bit longer.


    A few minutester, Armodeus stood up from the chair that he had pulled to the side of the bed andughed a bit, "I think I''m ready for that slice of cake now,d."


    Eiro smiled and stood up as well, "Coming right up." The Demon replied. He chose to take a slice for himself as well, and then continued to talk for a while with Armodeus over cake and tea. It was nice. Eiro understood why human nobles liked doing this all the time.


    But soon enough, Eiro''s conversation with Armodeus was interrupted, as the Demon noticed someone approaching the manor on horseback.


    "Sorry, I need to check this out real quick." Eiro said, cing down the cup of tea in his hand. He swiftly grabbed Bavet, who wasying on the ground in his cat-form, and pressed the slime''s core into his chest. The slime covered his whole body just a momentter, "Eh, what''s happening?" Bavet asked, slightly disoriented.


    Eiro swiftly stepped out of the room and rushed over toward the open window at the end of the hallway, and simply jumped out. With a few ps of his wings, he elerated enough so that he managed to jump all the way over toward the gate in the front of his manor''s premises.


    And there, he swiftly stopped the messenger from the royal castle.

 Chapter 444 - SealingArts Concoction

    Eiro looked at the armored man on horseback that just arrived at the gates to his manor. He had sigils of the royal family on his armor, so he was a royal guard.


    "What is it?" Eiro asked, and the horse soon came to a halt in front of the Demon. The man climbed off the horse''s back and saluted to Eiro for a moment.


    "I bring a message from his Majesty, Solomon Sigurd Skyhart!" The guard eximed, holding forward a sealed letter. Eiro pulled the wax off of it and pulled the actual letter out of the envelope. And all that was written on the piece of paper were the words ''The ingredients have arrived''.


    This was definitely Solomon''s handwriting, and it didn''t seem like the letter had been tempered with somehow, so it seemed like Eiro and Bavet would have to get to work soon.


    "Thank you. You can leave now." Eiro told to the guard, who quickly nodded his head and climbed onto the back of the horse again, swiftly riding it off to get back to the royal castle soon.


    "The ingredients have arrived? That mean what I think it does?" Bavet asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yes. Or it should, at least. I don''t know what other ingredients Solomon might be talking about." Eiro said, "Did you n everything out properly? How long is it going to take to make everything that we need to unseal their memories?"


    "Well, shouldn''t take too long. I''ll just instruct you properly, and then you can go for it immediately. With your hands, we should be able to get through it rather quick. I''ll just be the one using mana on everything though, since that''s, well, a lot easier than teaching you the whole process of the mana and all that shit. It''s a bother, and it''s gonna be quicker and more effective if I do it." Bavet exined, and Eiro slowly smiled as he swiftly turned around.


    Using a gust of air to push himself off the ground a bit, Eiro flew back to the window that he had jumped out of before. Once there, he made his way back to Avalin and Leon''s room, and looked at Armodeus, "I''m going to have to leave for the royal castle for a while. Can you make sure to watch them for another while? Everything should be fine with Leon for now, but if something''s wrong, you know where to find me."


    "Aye. Don''t worry, and take your time,d." Armodeus replied. Eiro smiled back at him, "Go ahead and eat some more cake. I should be back in a few hours." The Demon said, and swiftly turned back around. But he didn''t immediately rush back outside, but instead rushed through some of the hidden passages to head to one of the manor''s storage rooms.


    Once there, Eiro grabbed the materials that he himself already gathered for this process, and ced them into his satchel.


    "Bavet, we''ve got everything, right?" The Demon asked. He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from the expert again, just in case. The slime swiftly created an eye for itself on Eiro''s palm, using it to look around the room a bit more.


    "Yep, seems like we''ve got everything. But just in case, let''s bring some more tools that we know we''ll be able to use." Bavet suggested. Eiro swiftly nodded his head, grabbing a few more of the ss bottles and tubes that were needed to create the concoction.


    "Then let''s go." Eiro said, and swiftly turned around. He made his way outside and pushed himself off the ground immediately, swiftly flying off toward the royal castle. Eironded in an alleyway near the gates, where nobody would be able to see him, and then made his way over toward the gate.


    He greeted the guards, who let him inside without a moment''s hesitation, already knowing Eiro quite well.


    And then, Eiro just had to make his way into the castle itself. Once there, he quickly made his way toward Solomon''s study, and knocked on the door with a smile on his face.


    "Solomon, it''s me." The Demon said, and the king swiftly stood up from his seat on the other side of the door, "Oh! Come in!" He eximed, and Eiro pushed the door open.


    "It''s always nice to see how quickly you respond. The messenger didn''t evene back yet." Solomon chuckled as he approached his friend, who was already looking at the wooden crates that were stacked up in the corner of the room.


    "Well, flying is always a bit faster than horseback. Otherwise I would have taken Lugo here as well." Eiro pointed out, and the King slowly smiled back, "I see. Well, it seems like you already want to get started. The materials are all there. Should we do the unsealing right now?" Solomon asked, although he was clearly quite nervous about what he would end up finding out.


    Eiro quickly shook his head in response, "We can''t do the unsealing, but we can prepare everything so that the unsealing-process is going to be rather quick. It''d be best if you stayed around, though, so that we can use the seal in your mind as a reference directly. For the fine-tuning, you know?"


    "Ah, I see. Then please, go ahead and start." Solomon replied, and Eiro looked at him a bit surprised, "In here? Don''t you have a space that''s better for this sort of thing?" Eiro asked, and Solomon crossed his arms in thought, "Well, sure, we can go there as well. I didn''t really think about that. But you are right, arger space should be better."


    "Yep, exactly." Eiro said, as he quickly picked up some of the crates, walking out of the study''s door. He knew his way around the castle better than most of the guards, probably, so Eiro made his way to the room that he was thinking about immediately.


    It was aboratory that a royal mage, that recently passed away, had been using. It was mostly cleared out, so there was plenty of space for Eiro and Bavet here. And most importantly, it only had really small windows that were nearly impossible to get to from the outside, so Eiro didn''t need to stay fused with Bavet and could let the slime do his thing properly.


    "Alright, all of you, please leave. This is a process that you all can''t watch." Solomon said to the Guards, realizing that Eiro wanted to split off of Bavet, and the guards immediately did as told. By this point, they knew that Eiro was someone to be trusted, so none of them hesitated for another moment to leave Eiro alone with Solomon.


    At the same time, they also knew that even if Eiro tried something, they would lose that fight instantly, and that Eiro was the best bodyguard against other intruders that Solomon could possibly have. There was no need to watch him closely anymore.


    Once the guards left, a flesh-like mass gathered on Eiro''s left hand, as his skin turned back to its regr red and blue color. Bavet jumped off of Eiro''s hand and sat on one of the tables.


    "Alright! Let''s get this started, then." Bavet said, as he did something else as well. He split off a bit of his body, that was still under his control, however, and made it cover Eiro''s right hand like a glove of sort, so that he could properly go for the sealing-arts aspect of what they were going to work on now.


    Eiro had already remembered the physical aspect of everythingpletely, through Bavet''s instructions, and as such was able to quickly get started.


    "First, extract the sap out of the roots." The Demon muttered quietly. Luckily, through nature magic, Eiro was able to manipte the roots themselves to easily extract the sap out of all of them. He then ced the roots to the side after extracting all water from them as well. They weren''t needed now, but they were useful for other things.


    Slowly but surely, Eiro mixed some of the different saps together. As he was doing that, he also worked on something else at the same time. And that was mixing together the venom from different snakes and spiders with the ground-up parts of specific dried herbs and flowers.


    Overall, although Eiro only had two hands right now, it certainly felt like he had more. Especially to Solomon, who was simply watching everything happen at such a speed.


    "A bit less of the bloodblossom, some more of the rabbit-snake venom." Bavet instructed as he kept an eye on the seal on Solomon''s mind. Meanwhile, the water inside of the two different concoctions was evaporating and mixing inside of the same tube, before dripping down into a separate bottle.


    "Good, now carefully make a hole in the inksac." Bavet said, and Eiro rolled his eyes in response, before the slime added something else, "The luminas one, not the redtear."


    "What?" Eiro asked confused, "Why the luminas one first? I thought the basis was supposed to be the mix of redtear and opiopod ink?"


    "Yeah, but I changed my mind... Just do it! We''ll still be using both, the order just changed. And bring it up to 79¡ã instead of 84¡ã to make up for the change."


    "Right, obviously.." Eiro replied with a bit of a sigh, as he continued on working on the concoction that was required to unseal not only Solomon''s mind, but the minds of all the others that were affected as well.

 Chapter 445 - Unsealed Minds

    It took a few hours, but soon enough, Eiro was finally able to finish the concoction. It was nothing but a dark red liquid, close to being called ck already. It was viscous, and its temperature was weirdly far above what it should be. It was just under the level at which it would cause burns to the skin of a human. Sure, the liquid might feel a bit ufortable when applied to them, but in the end it should be something that they could all deal with.


    "Now, I guess all that''s left to do is gather everyone who had a seal ced on their mind. We need to unseal all of them at the same time, or else it might not work." Eiro exined to Solomon, who was somewhat nervously nodding his head, "I see. I already called everyone that you mentioned here. Let us clear up some space so that we can do everything in here directly." The King suggested, and Eiro swiftly nodded his head.


    He swiftly started to use magic to clean everything that he could up, and then pushed the tables to the side before setting up some chairs for everyone to sit on.


    It didn''t take long until everyone got here. The half-dozen people that were affected by the seals.


    Solomon, Kristoph, the principal of the academy, one of the security mages, Merlin, as well as the man that created the barrier around the academy in the first ce. This was the first time that Eiro had actually met them, and to his surprise, they weren''t a full person. They seemed to be an elf, recognized by the system as such, with a bit of monster blood within them.


    "Interesting... Bavet..." Eiro whispered to the slime that had once more fused with his body before everyone arrived here, "Just to make sure, but has everyone here been affected by the seal?"


    "Yup. Seems like it, at least. And luckily, seems like that''s all of ''em. The seal seemsplete now, at least." Bavet exined, so Eiro smiled with satisfaction.


    He looked at the people in front of him and pped his hands together, "Now, please undress your upper body, please." The Demon said, and everyone swiftly looked over at the elf that had created the system. They were a woman, so there might be a bit of a problem there.


    "Ah, don''t worry, you''re going to have to sit with your backs toward each other anyway. The only one that''s going to see anything is me, and I really don''t care about such matters." Eiro exined with a smile on his face. The outwardly surprisingly young woman practically red at him, "And you expect me to believe that?"


    "Oh, yeah, of course. I''mpletely asexual, I don''t feel the slightest physical attraction to anyone. And I''ve only felt true romantic attraction to one person in my life as well. So there''s no need for you to worry in the slightest." Eiro exined. Somewhat hesitantly, she agreed as well. She waited until the others sat down first, though, and then undressed and sat down as well.


    Eiro cracked the knuckles in his left hand, and stood in the center of the circle that all six of these people were forming. But he was able to sense that something was off with this already. Eiro wasn''t sure what, though, until he tried to interact with the chaos around him, simply attempting it to figure out what was going on. And that''s when he realized.


    There was a flow of chaos between Merlin and this woman. It was a deep connection, but not the kind that lovers often had. It was a bit different. Well, not that it mattered to Eiro, he just wanted to get this done to find out what exactly happened with the barrier, and of course to help Solomon remember everything that happened.


    However, Eiro did something else first. Something that he felt like he had to do.


    "By the way, I have a few questions to ask you. Questions that I need you to answer truthfully." Eiro exined, "They''re all rted to that incidentst year, where the barrier had stopped functioning, allowing someone thought to be a teacher to wreak havoc in the academy."


    "What? What is this about?" The security mage asked confused, "Who are you to ask such questions?"


    Eiro rolled his eyes in response, "I''m the only man that currently has a chance to figure out what exactly happened that is not a suspect in causing everything. By the way, Solomon is also not a suspect, but I''m not sure if he''s going to know much about the situation." Eiro said in a blunt tone.


    "Now that we have established that... All of you, tell me what exactly the barrier consistst of and how it was created in your own words." Eiro said, "Solomon, please, you go first. In the meantime, I''m going to start with the unsealing process. It''s going to take a while anyway, so let''s not waste any time."


    Everyone agreed, and Solomon swiftly began to exin what he understood the barrier to be, "The barrier is something created through finely-tuned magic circles ced onto the core underneath the center of the academy. I apologize, I don''t know much about magic myself, so that''s where my understanding ceases." Solomon pointed out, and although that was a tant lie, Eiro understood why he said that. Eiro was trying to investigate the others, so he was trying to answer the least that he could. The only reason he was answering in the first ce was so that the others had no choice but to answer themselves. After all, if the King could answer honestly, then all of these others could as well.


    One after another, the others answered as well. Although in the end, there were only two answers that Eiro cared about right now. That of Merlin and this woman. As he expected, they had a high understanding of the barrier, exining it in much detail. Maybe a bit too much, but Eiro didn''t really mind. Either way, after hearing their answers, Eiro moved on.


    "Who was it that caused the incident?" Eiro asked. And as he thought, the general consensus was that it was the teacher, although he did notice that both Merlin and the woman were hiding something.


    "How was the barrier''s survence disturbed?" The Demon then asked. Solomon, the principal, and Kristoph really really didn''t know what to say, since they simply had no idea, but the other three understood the barrier enough.


    "There are only two possibilities. Either the supply of mana to the inscriptions in the core were interrupted, or someone deliberately manipted the barrier to cause a disturbance. The former is a lot more usible, since the level of skill required to do thetter is far too high. I know you did it for the protective barrier ced around the arena that one time, Baron Daemonherz, but this one is far moreplex." The security mage exined. That was roughly the answer that Eiro expected. And then, answers from the other two came.


    "It is true that the level of skill required is immense, but that does not mean that it''s impossible by any means. If it''s possible to create such a barrier, it''s possible to manipte it as well. It''s as simple as that. Surely, that wicked teacher hid his true abilities and managed to manipte the barrier somehow, allowing him to do whatever he wanted." Merlin suggested, and the creator of the barrier seemed to agree with that theorypletely, not adding anything to it at all.


    "Hm, alright. I guess that means I only have one question left." Eiro said, "Who is the true creator of the barrier?"


    Immediately, Eiro sensed a spike in the heartbeat of Merlin and this elven woman. It was clear what the answer was going to be. Four of these six people answered with the name of the woman, Gabria, and truly meant it. The other two said the name Gabria and were simply lying. Those two were Gabria herself, as well as Merlin. It was obvious what happened, at least to Eiro, although he still didn''t know the reasons. Although he would find out soon.


    Eiro now stayed silent and started to instead speed up the process of painting all the intricate patterns on the ground. He needed Bavet to flow his magic through this ''paint'' the whole time, so Eiro couldn''t just use magic for it, meaning that it took a lot longer. But it was still rather quick, since Eiro was the one that actually drew everything onto these five people toplete the overall un-sealing circle.


    "Alright. Now, all of you stretch out your arms and tightly hold the hand of the ones next to you, to create a full circle between all of you." Eiro instructed them. They all swiftly did as told, as Eiro finished up the unsealing circle by painting the patterns onto their arms.


    And then, for just a moment, Eiro let go of his fusion with Bavet for thisst bit. After all, the slime had to finish everything. He stretched his body thin and touched the back of the necks of everyone involved, creating another pattern in the center, as if turning his body into the shape of a magic circle.


    For this, Bavet also spoke a chant, albeit using Eiro''s voice for this, and the magic of the sealing arts flowed through the dark red paint that was covering the bodies of everyone involved. The paint slowly lifted off of their bodies as Eiro could directly sense something changing within the heads of each of these six people. He fused with Bavet once more, preparing to ask everyone more questions.


    Especially this imposter, Gabria, who was pretending to be the creator of the barrier, as well as Merlin, the one that clearly actually created the barrier.

 Chapter 446 - Questioning

    Eiro crossed his arms in thought as he looked at these people that were currently undergoing the mental unsealing process. It seemed like they were in quite a bit of pain right now, but that kind of thing should fade after a few more minutes.


    "For now, you can all get dressed again." Eiro told them, "But then, I have some more questions to ask you. And I will ask those one on one, just in case."


    "Alright... then." Solomon groaned, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Right, I think you might be the best one to talk to first, Solomon."


    "Of course..." The King replied, while Eiro pulled out the ace of cups. He used the liquid inside to produce a small sub-space in this room that he could talk to everyone without the chance of someone listening in somehow.


    And Eiro and Solomon swiftly made their way inside of this sub-space, before the Demon looked him deep into his eyes. He ced his hands onto Solomon''s head to make sure that the seal had been properly removed, and Bavet soon whispered into Eiro''s ear.


    "Everything''s gone now, it seems. He should be able to remember." The slime exined. Eiro smiled a bit, and then pulled his hands back, "Good. Are you alright, Solomon? Do you think you can remember?"


    "Yeah... Yeah, I can remember..." Solomon muttered, anger seemingly growing inside of him, "It is true that that man was not suspicious... At least not at the level of killing so many people within the acadamy, but he wasn''t a perfectly kind man like I thought until a few moments ago. It never came to disciplinary actions, but there were times where we had to reprimand that man for how he treated his students."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head as he took mental notes of this information, "Interesting. Now, is there any more information about the actual attack that you can tell me?"


    "Yes... I was there that day. And it was a group that invaded the academy, and not just that man. Surprisingly, however, they didn''t seem to be trying to kill me, but it was like... they were looking for something, and they just killed the students as a distraction. It is true that Bernard seemed to have gone wild, but it was more like... he finally unleashed his true nature after suppressing it for a long time. And I think... Some of the ones that invaded the academy were humanoid monsters? I remember this one creature... Just standing there, watching everything."


    "What did it look like?" Eiro asked, and Solomon tried to remember, "It was... Amia, I think? Rare for these parts, so it must have been really powerful..."


    "Lamia? With sparkling emerald scales, and arge horn in the center of its forehead?" Eiro asked, and Solomon looked back at him surprised, "Yes, I think so... How did you know?"


    "That..." Eiro was confused. To an extent, it made sense, but it seemed like far less ughter than normal for that sort of creature, "If it''s themia I''m thinking of, then it''s... ''The Magician'', a royal monster."


    Solomon''s whole body shivered in shock, unsure what Eiro was talking about, "A royal? Why would a royal be here?!"


    "Well, you said it took something, right? Maybe there was something it wanted here... Luckily it didn''t let out ''The Death'', though..."


    "There were some students whose bodies were never recovered... We thought they got crushed by Bernard''s powers to be unrecognizable, but maybe..."


    "Maybe they were kidnapped?" Eiro asked, and Solomon slowly nodded his head, "It''s certainly possible, yes. The Magician is known for doing that kind of thing... But I just wonder, why was it necessary to seal your memories of all this?"


    "I don''t know, it''s just... I''m d that Charles was left alive..." Solomon said with a nervous expression. Eiro understood his thoughts. Surviving an encounter with a royal was something incredibly rare.


    "I think that''s enough, I''ll just ask the others some more questions. Other things mighte up, though, so I''ll have to ask you about themter." The Demon said, and Solomon slowly nodded his head.


    "I see, thank you. I will be heading back to my study for now, to collect myself a little again." Solomon suggested. Eiro brought him to the door and saw him out, before he turned around to the other five left in the room.


    "Alright. Now, you,e on. I need you to tell me more about the circumstances of the barrier. I''m quite curious why your memories were sealed as well." The Demon pointed out, but this man, the security-mage that had been watching the barrier for a while, already seemed quite nervous about talking to Eiro. Hesitantly, he approached the sub-space''s entrance, but just before then, he turned around and tried to run away.


    Of course, Eiro was able to catch up to him instantly, and grabbed him by the back of the neck, "Ah... It''s just as I thought. It didn''t make much sense for the memories of such a random person to be sealed, but I get it. You were the one that weakened the barrier, right?"


    "P-Please, you have to believe me! I had no choice! They were going to kill me!"


    "And instead, numerous students were killed. You happy with yourself?" Eiro asked with a deep re, and the man immediately shook his head, "How could I be? I feel just horrible! But I had no choice, my wife, she... we just found out she was pregnant, and I couldn''t leave her alone like that!"


    Eiro ground his teeth and threw the security-mage to the ground, "Who was the one that forced you? This Bernard guy?"


    "Y-Yes, of course! He was a terrifying man, truly!" The mage eximed, staring up at Eiro. But the Demon was already sickened by this man, and kicked him to the other side of the room, "How disgusting. Kristoph, call some guards in, and have them arrest him, please. Then instead, you. Come with me." Eiro said, talking to the principal. He seemed nervous as well, most likely due to the memories that he had recovered through this process. Eiro noticed that the guards took the security-mage away, and then began to speak to the principal about what he knew.


    Surprisingly, he didn''t seem to know all that much, just things simr to what Solomon already told to Eiro. The principal himself was cowardly and weak, so he seemed to have been hiding somewhere for most of the attack. It was disgusting to Eiro, the fact that the principal, the man supposed to protect the students of the academy, was hiding out and waiting for the ughter to end. But the principal seemed to be even more disgusted by himself, so Eiro wasn''t that hard on him for now.


    Following the principal, Eiro spoke to Kristoph, "So, what kinds of things can you remember?"


    "Ah... well, I ended up fighting against some of the intruders. Killed one of them, apparently, but the body was probably taken away by the intruders themselves. There was amia there, and I tried to attack it, but it simply disappeared when I got too close and then ended up somewhere else. So, I focused on others. When I saw Bernard battle-ready, I at first thought that he was there to help me, but... Then he started attacking the students instead of the intruders." Kristoph exined, "Oh, and you said that our memories were sealed all at once, right? Well, I remember when exactly they were sealed, but I wasn''t around any of the others at the time."


    "Huh, really? Yeah, sounds about right. It was ''The Magician'', after all, so it''s unsurprising that he was able to cast such a spell on multiple targets at a distance." Eiro pointed out, and Kristoph ripped his eyes open wide as he stared into Eiro''s eyes, "The Magician? What are you talking about? The... the royal?"


    "Yes, of course I''m talking about the royal. I don''t know why he was here yet, apparently they were trying to steal something. Probably, they caused that havoc as either a distraction, or as a tool to get what they wanted. Or both, or something else entirely."


    "Do you know what they stole already?" Kristoph asked, "Everything was focused on the Magic-specialisation''s building, as well as the library..."


    "Then maybe they were looking for some kind of artifact or... tome, maybe? I''ll have to ask Merlin, then. Thanks." The Demon said, and Kristoph slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, of course."


    Kristoph left the sub-space, and now, only Merlin and Gabria were left. But these were people that Eiro wanted to question together, at least to an extent. Eiro sent the principal and Kristoph away for now, so that they were more likely to answer.


    "Okay then. First, I want to ask why everyone thinks that Gabria created the barrier, although it was clearly Merlin?" Eiro asked, and both of them were in shock as they heard what Eiro just told them.


    "B-But how did you-"


    "I have a rather impressive deductive ability, Gabria. Tell me everything. Every single detail about your rtionship, the barrier, as well as why the hell the royal ''The Magician'' was there. Was there something he wanted to steal? Why did he leave so easily? Why were your memories sealed in the first ce? And why just you six? I want to know everything that you know in rtion to the incident.." Eiro told them with a deep re, "And you better not lie to me, I''ll be able to tell."

 Chapter 447 - Merlin’s True Intentions

    Merlin and Gabria looked at each other for a moment, before turning back toward Eiro. The Demon crossed his arms and stared at them.


    "First, to clear this up, I am correct in the assumption that Merlin is the one that created the barrier, right? Barrier magic is generally possible through other ways, but it''s a lot easier to create arger and more powerful barrier using Arcana." The Demon pointed out bluntly, and Merlin slowly nodded his head.


    "Yes, it was me that created the barrier. Although Gabria is my student, she-"


    "That''s a lie. She''s not your student." Eiro said bluntly, and Merlin stopped for a moment as he was confused, "No, it is not a lie! She is my student!"


    "Well, you say so, but you clearly don''t believe it." Eiro replied, "What is she to you?"


    "I..." Merlin muttered as he stared at the ground, "During my journey to try and achieve a Master Grade of the Arcane Magic skill, I did many things to find out its true nature. And in the process, I happened to... destroy an elven vige in the east. I didn''t mean to do so, of course, but many people had lost their lives. I brought the survivors with me, and Gabria is one of those survivors. I had to make sure she could live a proper life while supporting her fellow elves, and pretended that Gabria was the creator of the barrier. He is a good man, but even Solomon would not give such fugitives such a prosperous position for no reason..."


    Eiro stared back at Merlin. Most of what he said was true, while other parts were tant lies. The Demon ground his teeth, angry at this old man, as he spoke, "Solomon has a special ability that allows him control over the domain of truth. A lesser version of one of my cards, basically. I don''t know how much he knows exactly, but he must be quite aware that Gabria is not the true creator of the barrier, so that whole lie had little reason."


    Merlin opened his eyes wider in confusion, "What? But- How do you-" The old man was confused, and realized that something far worse was now going to happen. He was clearly growing more and more nervous the whole time already, but Eiro was trying to ignore it somewhat.


    "Merlin... What did ''The Magician'' steal from the academy?" Eiro asked, and the old man stared back.


    "Eiro, you have to believe my words, but I did it for a good reason..." Merlin said in a pleading voice, but Eiro had enough.


    "You did what for a good reason? Act as a spy for a royal in the academy, and try to let Gabria take the fall for you? How long has all this been nned?" Eiro asked with a deep re, and Merlin''s worried expression soon turned into a deep re.


    "You don''t know what you''re talking about, Eiro. My memories were sealed too, weren''t they? How could I be working for a royal?!" Merlin eximed, and the Demon clicked his tongue, "You know, Bavet worked under one of the best, if not the best, Sealing Arts practitioners in the world. They''re the ones that actually sealed ''the world''. As far as I''m concerned, he may as well be one of the greatest experts in the Sealing Arts currently left alive, at least in rtion to his knowledge on the topic. He said there was a switch built into the seal, that only came apparent once all of you had been gathered. The caster of the seal could release it instantly, whenever he wished. That was probably the n, wasn''t it? They would leave you here, and then when the time was right, release the seal and get to the next step of the n."


    "I don''t think you should continue speaking. For the sake of my brother, I ask you to stop." Merlin said in a growling voice, but Eiro didn''t care anymore, "Merlin, what did they steal?"


    "I don''t want to dishonor Jura, Eiro. Please..." Merlin pleaded, this time actually being genuine with what he said. Eiro clicked his tongue, and stretched his hand forward toward Merlin. He manipted his own aura, as well as his ability that let him control the domain of truth. He infused the ''truth'' into his mana, and then spoke the spell in the Ancient Language.


    "Lognir, force this being to speak no lie and bring me closer to the truth." Eiro said, and Merlin''s eyes widened again as the mana shot at him in the form of a small glowing orb of truth.


    Merlin waved his hand to the side once, creating an imprable wall. But it wasn''t Merlin that Eiro was targeting in the first ce.


    "Gabria, tell me. You know, don''t you? What did they steal?" Eiro asked, and the elven woman pressed her hands onto her face, trying to force her jaw shut. Within an instant, Eiro reached her and pulled her hand off her face, pulling the ace of cups around him and her in a way that Merlin was unable to fully interact with them.


    "A... They were trying to... no, I don''t want to... a grim... no!" Gabria eximed, but that was already enough information for him. He didn''t expect the Ace of Cups'' liquid to work for long, but it was enough for Merlin to have to think for a few moments.


    The liquid soon fell to the ground, having lost all its power. Eiro didn''t know how he did it, but it was an impressive spell if it was able to influence an artifact like this.


    "What do you think you''re doing?!" Merlin eximed, "You fool, you have no idea what you are talking about!"


    "I don''t know what I''m talking about? Well, fuck you, then, because I know what it was ''The Magician'' was looking for, and it''s in my possession!" Eiro eximed, pressing his hand to the side. Within a moment, he pulled an old, ripped-up book out of his treasury. He only let it be out there for an instant, before pushing it back into his treasury.


    "That fucking Grimoire was what you were looking for? All those people were killed for a shitty spellbook that fills itself up?!" Eiro asked angrily, "How can you do something like ughter all those children just for this book that makes life a little easier?!"


    "Because it is the only thing that might have brought me to a new level, Eiro! That Grimoire not only lets the userpile their knowledge within it, but at a certain level it will reveal new information! Fill in the gaps, make your magic... perfect! ''The Magician'' promised to bring me to new heights, never seen before! That I would be the greatest sage ever seen, after the Monster King eradicated him back then and took his soul!" Merlin eximed, "You''re a Mage too, you must understand that desire!"


    "Of course I get why you''d want to be more powerful, but why would you do something like this for that?!" Eiro asked with a deep, angry re.


    "Oh, don''t pretend as if you never did something horrific for your own gain! You''re a Demon, it''s literally in your blood!"


    "A demon that used to be a person! I have children, I mostly have my emotions under control, and most importantly, I regret those things!" Eiro replied in anger, his emotions soon overtaking him. But luckily, Eiro was still fused with Bavet, who overstimted Eiro''s senses in specific ways once again, helping him calm down a bit.


    "Merlin, under my authority as a Baron of the Skyhart Kingdom, I hereby arrest you for high-treason..." Eiro said in a growling voice, but Merlin simply held his hand forward.


    "I don''t think that''s going to happen, Eiro." The mage said, "I''m sorry that I have to do this, but..." Mana flowed out through Merlin''s hand, forming a mass in front of him. The arcane mass approached Eiro faster than he was even able to react. Merlin wasn''t a Master, but he still had immense skill in magic. Like chains, the arcane mass slung around Eiro''s body and tied him down to the ground.


    "Gabria, please secure the room, and prepare for a diversion."


    "Y-Yes, Merlin..." Gabria muttered, utterly in fear of the man she was beingmanded by. The Demon took a deep breath as he tried to escape from this.


    "Ba...vet..." The Demon growled, and the slime already acted as quickly as it could. It had created an extrayer around Eiro''s skin, so that the Demon could slip out from these Arcane Chains. The transformation was released, and Eiro slipped away as he pushed his feet into the ground.


    Merlin was more skilled in terms of magic, but Eiro was more physically powerful. He jumped toward the mage, and while pulling his dagger out of his treasury, stabbed it forward into Merlin''s stomach. But instead of cutting through flesh, the tip of Eiro''s dagger hit a barrier that he was unable to prate.


    Merlin was still pushed back quite a bit, hitting the wall on the other side of the room, but he hadn''t been damaged at all. Not even by a single point.


    "Sarius!" The Demon eximed, and pressed his arm to the side. Sarius dove into his flesh and the two fused, as Eiro''s body became that of a half-spirit. He drew on the power of the magical gateway within his mana core to strengthen this fusion, and once more tried to attack Merlin.


    This was a battle that he didn''t want to, but had to fight.

 Chapter 448 - High Treason

    Eiro pushed his hand forward, conjuring apressed stream of the hottest mes he could bring forth. Everything around Merlin was being singed, except this old man himself.


    Merlin waved his hand around and once more created a mass of arcane magic. He didn''t seem to have a wand on him, so Eiro was at a light advantage, at least. The arcane magic was still able to fend off Eiro quite a bit, however. Now, instead of turning into something like ropes to hold him down, the arcane magic turned into a bubble that surrounded the Demon, entrapping him.


    Slowly but surely, the bubble was shrinking, "It is a shame that it came to this, Eiro. I will express my condolences to your children soon, do not worry."


    Eiro growled, not caring for anything that Merlin was saying. He pressed his hand forward, and pulled out as a huge amount of mes out of the nar gateway. Eiropressed it into a tiny spot in front of his finger, and started twisting and turning it as quickly as he could. The air inside of this bubble soon caught fire itself, and turned into a raging tornado while the bubble kept on shrinking.


    But when the Demon pressed the tiny spot of mes onto this mass of arcane magic, the barrier shattered into pieces as if it had been made of ss. After all, Eiro used half of his mana to create it. And he didn''t just use simple mes, but he infused them with his Counter-Spell Creation skill. He created mes that were specifically targeted to destroying spells, and nothing else.


    They were probably unable to singe even hair at this point, since Eiro''s will made sure that they could only affect magic, strengthening the ability they had in that regard. Eiro rushed forward again with all his might before Merlin was even able to realize the barrier around the Demon had shattered, and pressed the tiny spot of mes into his abdomen.


    As the protective, magical skin around Merlin shattered into pieces, Eiro pressed his fingers onto the mage''s skin. His fingernails bore into his flesh, and Eiro stared into Merlin''s eyes as damage notifications finally appeared in front of him.


    "I really, really didn''t want to do this..." Eiro said, pressing his teeth together as him and Merlin locked eyes with each other, "But I despise what you did in this ce. I despise that you act in disregard for those around you out of your own selfishness. I despise those things in myself as well, but at least I''m trying to change."


    Eiro''s fingers slowly pushed deeper into Merlin''s chest, slipping past his bones and wrapping around his heart. With clean cuts and swift movements, Eiro pulled the heart from Merlin''s body. It was the quickest way to make sure he was dead right now. The body''s mana core was practically fused to the heart for the creatures that had one, so no matter what he did next, this would at least slow down his mana-production.


    And as the soul fell apart around that ce, the mana production within him would haltpletely and forever. No matter what he did then, he would inevitably die.


    Blood poured out of Merlin''s mouth as he clutched his chest, and he gasped for air, "Y-You... How did you..."


    "Shut it." Eiro said as he kicked Merlin''s stomach, really just letting out his anger at this point. He noticed that Merlin managed to prolong his life for a while by creating a fake heart using arcane magic. He stared back at Eiro, and held his hand forward, attempting to cast another spell.


    "Just stop it already, both of us know that this is useless. You''re going to die." Eiro said bluntly, as he crushed Merlin''s heart in his hand. Eiro turned his head, ring at Gabria. She had fallen to the ground in fear after witnessing Eiro''s true form as well as the fight between these two.


    Of course, the guards outside the room were alerted by what was happening rather quickly as well, but Bavet was already taking care of that. He had transformed into Eiro''s ''Person'' form, and made sure to hold the guards off froming inside.


    Eiro held his hands to his throat as the realisation of what just happened caught up to him, "I really, really didn''t want to have to do this, Merlin! You''re part of my family, you-"


    "Part of your family..?" Merlin asked with a wry smile, "Hah, as if! I don''t care what you say, but you will never be a part of this ''family''. You never were, and will never be Jura''s son! You forced your way into his life, and you forced your way in mine! If you had stayed away, then everything would have been fine! I could have finally grown stronger, and I could have proven that I really am a master! This ridiculous system simply held me off from truly being able to say so!" Merlin yelled out.


    Eiro stared back at Merlin, "...What have you been doing to the children of the academy? That girl from the other day... She waspletely horrified..."


    "Girl? What gir- Ah, that little brat! I simply did what I had to to make sure that she would learn her ce, that nasty girl!" Merlin eximed, "I-"


    "Just stop, I can piece it together..." Eiro grumbled, truly disgusted to his core, "Is that why you destroyed that one''s vige?" The Demon asked, pointing at Gabria, "The girl... She had a slight amount of Monster blood in her. Barely noticeable, the only way it must have surfaced is... her talent, maybe! A healthy appetite for meat? How can it be that you despise monsters so much you would eradicate a whole vige of monster-person hybrids, but then teamed up with a fucking royal?!"


    Merlin red back for a moment, and then couldn''t help himself butugh, "You think I hate monsters?! Hah! Haha!" Eiro stared back confused, when he realised what was going on, "I hate people, you fool! Monsters are... they are perfect! Even if a creature is limited by their fate, if they kill enough, they will be set free. They will evolve, they will widen their limits, they will... be even more perfect!" Merlin eximed with a disgustingly excited expression.


    "Of course, I don''t hate all people! I truly loved Jura as if he was my real brother, even when he stopped visiting me all that time ago... And at the same time, I don''t blindly love monsters... Especially those that aren''t true monsters... Those people that hold the blood of monsters, those disgusting creations that defy all that makes monsters wonderful... And you, a creature who was born as a truly perfect being, you could have be the pinnacle of perfection! But you... you chose to abandon everything!" Merlin yelled out, deeply ring at Eiro. It took him a while to realize what just happened, but when he did, he was taken aback. Still in pain, he pressed his back against the wall behind him.


    "Wh-Why did I just... Just say that..?" Merlin asked, and Eiro just shrugged, "It''s easy to push a spell into you when my hand is wrapped around your heart." The Demon pointed out, "You have a surprisingly low resistance against spells affecting your mind."


    Merlin red at Eiro, and shook his head, "You know what? I guess this is it! I guess I finally don''t have to pretend to want to be here anymore! This act of caring for people is finally over!" Merlin eximed. He gathered the mana that was left within his body, and created another mass of arcane magic that he covered his whole body with, using it to cast a slightly different spell.


    The moment that it was cast, and it really only took a moment, Merlin''s body fell apart into pieces, turning into glowing white birds that flew into the wall, and immediately disappeared.


    "Nelli, follow him please, and tell me what he does. The moment you notice danger,e back." The Demon said to the Naiad, as he slowly turned around and approached Bavet. He was still trying to hold off the Guards by pushing the door closed, and Eiro simply walked into Bavet''s back and fused with him, letting the slime transform his body immediately while they were out of the guards'' view for a moment.


    Eiro red at them, in an incredibly bad mood, "Give a report to the King.. Merlin was one of the perpetrators of the attack that that the academy receivedst year,mitting high-treason against not only this country but all people, by siding with the Monster King."

 Chapter 449 - A Devil’s Descendant

    Eiro stepped back into the room. He had to clean up some of the damage that he just caused here, while the guards were already heading off to go talk to Solomon.


    "Wh-What... What just happened..." Gabria asked as she stared at Eiro confused, and the Demon turned his head toward her, "It''s simple. Merlin was a goon of the Monster King all along, but you probably already knew that, he destroyed your vige not identally but on purpose because he hated that you most likely all had monster blood, and yeah, that''s basically all you need to know right now." Eiro exined in a blunt voice.


    The elven woman stared back at him and then looked down at the ground, "Ah... I see... So that''s what happened..." She looked at her hands with teary eyes, "You know, I-I didn''t want to be ''the person that made the barrier'', but... Merlin asked me to..."


    "He might have tried to push the responsibility onto you in case things had gone wrong. He can''t be held ountable for the barrier failing if he was never the one that created the barrier in the first ce." Eiro pointed out, "But well, what are you going to do now? Will you keep going with that act? Return to your home country?"


    "I don''t know... I will have to ask the others..." Gabria said, "We managed to establish ourselves here now... I don''t want to rip them away from that..."


    "Then don''t. Solomon is reasonable. I''ll talk to him, so you can figure something out. Especially if you cooperate with us, and tell us everything you know. But you have to be aware that you might not get away without a full punishment. Did the other survivors from your vige help Merlin in some ways as well?" Eiro asked Gabria, but she quickly shook her head, "No, none of them did... Most of them are children, after all, so..."


    "We''re still going to need to talk to them, to make sure they really don''t know anything. But don''t worry, especially those kids are going to be just fine."


    "B-But how do you know that it''s going to be fine..? We''re Elves, but we''re from a special n... For centuries, we... served a monster we thought to be a god, simply due to the exorbitant amount of powers he had... But that was really just a ''Royal'' that thought it would be fun to be treated like a god despite being..." Gabria said, and Eiro raised his brows surprised. A royal? Eiro approached Gabria and analysed her scent in more detail.


    Since he didn''t really care what kind of monster was in her blood, as it was unimportant, she didn''t pay it any attention. However, one thing became rather clear when Eiro analysed the scent. It was that of a Demon. It didn''t seem like the Demon blood in Gabria was showing at all, but that didn''t matter right now either.


    While he wasn''t the only ''Demon'' royal that existed throughout the past few hundred years, the fact that this sounded exactly like something that he would do... made Eiro only thing of one being. ''The Devil'', and the one that currently existed, at that.


    "You''re a descendant of the Devil?" Eiro asked, and Gabria looked back, seemingly unsure, "I-I don''t know, maybe? I have no idea which royal it was, but... one of them is my great grandparent." Gabria exined.


    "I see..." Eiro replied as he finished cleaning up some of the mess that he caused in here, while Gabria looked at him confused, "How are you not startled by this at all..?"


    Eiro looked at her as if she was stupid, while Bavet peeled away from Eiro''s head, "I''m a fucking Demon myself, what do you mean by ''not startled''?"


    "Y-Yeah, but we''re talking about a royal..."


    "I became a noble by killing a royal, why do you think I would be startled in the slightest?"


    "...You really did that..? That wasn''t just some lie told so that the King had an excuse to turn you into a noble?" Gabria asked, and the Demon groaned loudly while Bavet once more transformed his head back to his human form.


    "Of course it''s not just a lie, I did actually kill ''Death'', got that? Good, then just shut it ande with me, we''ve got some things to exin to Solomon." Eiro said while rolling his eyes. On his way to Solomon''s study, Nelli returned back to him. The Demon looked at her with a light frown, "Where''d he go?"


    "He was moving away from town, further up north... He disappeared at some point, but I made sure to remember what his mana felt like." Nelli told Eiro, who looked at the Naiad he contracted with a smile, "Thank you. Seems like he''s trying to fleepletely." Eiro figured, as he pushed open the door to Solomon''s study, even without knocking this time. He didn''t even pay the guards in front of the door any heed, and simply stepped inside.


    Beside Solomon, there were the guards that Eiro sent here to tell Solomon about what happened in here, and his adviser was apparently also quickly called and was rushing to get to this side of the building.


    "Eiro! What happened in there?! Merlin is-" Solomon eximed, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Merlin ran away. He''s on the side of the Monster King, and worked together with ''The Magician'' to steal something that was most likely supposed to be hidden within the Academy''s library. His goal was to grow in strength further, having developed jealousy of formerpanions of his that reached the stages of masters while he reached his limit." Eiro exined immediately, answering any questions that he figured Solomon would have for now.


    "And where is-"


    "He escaped north, and I assume that he won''t be returning anytime soon. I would still station some more guards around the watch-towers and have them report anything unusual that''s going on around the perimiter of the outer wall." Eiro said, when the adviser finally arrived in the room. Before he was even able to talk, Eiro turned toward him.


    "You, immediately gather all permanent faculty members of the Academy for questioning. That mostly means teachers, head guards, and those working in the library." Eiro said, "And just in case, create an ''Event Quest'' at the Adventurer''s guild to give an incentive for those roaming around the outside of the wall to report everything unusual or suspicious."


    The adviser looked at Eiro confused, "What, why should I do any of that?!"


    "Because adventurers usually have a more specialized skillset than guards and are able to gather information more effectively and precisely. They know the outside of the walls better than the guards, and will be able to tell when something is amiss. And most importantly, because I told you to." Eiro replied immediately. Instead of fighting Eiro about this more, the adviser looked at Solomon who quickly nodded his head.


    "Do exactly what Eiro told you to." Solomon said, and the adviser ground his teeth as he quickly turned around again, "Ah, before you leave. Also call the owner of the bookstore at this address here." Eiro added while writing the address down onto a small piece of paper and handing it to the adviser.


    Quickly they turned around and left, before Eiro turned back around. He looked at the guards that he sent here earlier.


    "You can leave. Or rather, you should leave. Gabria and I have to speak to Solomon in private." The Demon said immediately, before the guards left without further discussion of the manner. Eiro looked at the King, and immediately started to exin the whole situation to Eiro. He didn''t hide anything about Merlin, his own rtion to him, or the fact that Gabria was ''The Devil''s direct descendant.


    Solomon was in shock, inplete and utter disbelief, "B-But how did... Why did Merlin...?"


    "As I said, he despises ''People''. I don''t know exactly why, but I know who I can ask, so I''m going to do that and I''ll keep you up to date. Now, I already asked Gabria some of the things that I wanted to ask her, so you can ask whatever you want as well. I''m pretty sure she genuinely wants to help out with this situation, since she didn''t want to do this all in the first ce. Her situation simply forced her to."


    "...I see. But she stillmitted treason. I can''t just leave her without punishment for that." Solomon pointed out, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Of course. But I still ask you toe up with a punishment that takes her situation, and those of the other survivors of her vige, into ount."


    "Hmm... I wille up with something. Until then, you are under arrest, and we will secure the others from your vige as well. But do not worry, as long as they didn''t collude with you or Merlin, no harm will be done to them. This is something to protect them." Solomon told Gabria in a genuine tone, and the elven woman looked back at these two menpletely confused. They were the first ones that didn''t seem to mind what she was in the slightest.


    A monster and a human, standing side by side, working together in order to achieve theirmon goal. Or rather, they were friends. Gabria didn''t know how something like that was possible, but it was.. She felt like, maybe, there was a tiny possibility that she and her friends were able to find peace here in this country.

 Chapter 450 - Flaming Hands

    Eiro slowly stepped through the front door of his manor. He had been silent the whole way back from the royal castle. It was an exhausting night, painfully so.


    He might have managed to unseal everyone''s memories to find out more information of what happenedst year, but with that, he found out so many more horrible things. Things that he really never wanted to know, even if Eiro had an inkling that something was off.


    Merlin despised people as a whole, but still hated Eiro because of the way that he acted. He didn''t act like a ''Monster'' at all, after all. At least not most of the time. Why would someone want to act like a monster? That was just a horrific thought for him in the first ce. And the fact that Merlin acted so worried for Eiro''s children the first time they met... It disgusted Eiro.


    While Merlin was Jura''s brother, Eiro couldn''t help but despise him, despite the fact that he wanted to keep whatever chance of a familiar rtionship they could have alive, even when Eiro realised that something was amiss with Merlin a while ago.


    Now Eiro understood why Jura and Merlin broke off contact. Jura was someone that treated all life with a certain level of respect, while Merlin had an obsession with monsters. And it was clear that Merlin would resort to extreme levels of violence when he wanted to, so Eiro understood that Jura tried to cut off contact to an extent.


    But even so... They were still brothers in the end. Otherwise there would have been no way Jura would go and ask Merlin to help him out with that puppet. That''s not the kind of person he was. In the first ce, Jura associated with people like Koperia as well. She was literally someone known for treating all life with little to no respect... So something extreme must have happened for Jura to stop all sort of contact with Merlin like that.


    Eiro was standing in the entrance of his manor, unsure what he was supposed to do. His mind was nk, and all the choices that he tried making didn''t work out in his mind?


    Did he want to go to bed? No, he was too awake for that.


    Did he want to go train? No, he was too tired for that.


    Eiro was stuck in this sort of purgatory where his mind was racing and absolutely dead at the same time. It was truly bothersome. He was thinking about so many things, but none of them had any sort of substance or logic behind them.


    "Eiro? Do you just want to go read a bit?" Nelli asked, trying to help the Demon out a bit, but Eiro simply shook his head, "No, I don''t... I don''t think so. I''m not in the mood."


    Eiro slowly started to walk forward again. He walked up the stairs, choosing to just make his way through the manor a little. Eiro reached Leon and Avalin''s room, and quietly checked on them. Through his intermediate grade stealth skill, he was so silent that neither of them had the slightest chance of waking up through him.


    The Demon sat down at the side of Leon''s bed, somewhat worried, "I hope you won''te to hate people someday... No matter how they may treat you..." Eiro whispered. He didn''t want his son to be such a hateful person, despite how loving he was right now. However, with the rtionship that the children had with monsters, especially Leon, they might all end up with some form of grudges against people as a whole.


    It didn''t even seem like a possibility until now. Eiro thought that he had raised them in a way that they would treat all life with a certain level of respect, just like Jura did. But in the end... Eiro didn''t really do that himself. He treated most life with a certain level of disrespect until certain conditions were fulfilled.


    Then again, it wasn''t like Eiro immediately killed anything he came across, unless they showed him hostility and couldn''t be reasoned with, for example beast-type monsters. But in the end... Eiro was never a good role-model for them. He really, really wasn''t. Maybe he should try to do better from now on.


    Having other people around here, such as Armodeus and Eiro''s party-members would definitely be a good influence in the long-term as well, though, so that was something Eiro was rather d about as well.


    Slowly, Eiro stood back up and made his way back out of the room. After hearing the click of the door behind him as the lock caught on, the Demon walked to the end of the hallway. He quickly opened a window and then looked at Gondos, "Do you mind closing it behind me?"


    "Ah, of course." The Golem replied, and Eiro quickly jumped out of the window and flew right toward the training grounds outside. It was the middle of the night, so nobody was here. That meant that Eiro had enough time to test a few things out.


    After seeing Leon just now, at least Eiro''s mind was able to focus again a bit. And that focus was set directly on his personal improvement so that he could protect the children for as long as he could. He needed to improve so that he could create the perfect world for the children to live in, so that they would never end up hating their own.


    Eiro stepped into the center of the training area, and then took a deep breath. He should probably try and increase his understanding of the ancientnguage by creating and casting some new spells for now, otherwise it might be too tough for him to get a hold of the Arcane Magic skill in the future.


    Eiro took a deep breath and looked into the library in his mind, where he proceeded to think about a new spell. For now, to warm up a bit, Eiro figured he should maybe try altering a spell and chant instead of making a fully new one. It soundedplicated, but it was actually somewhat easier for Eiro to alter a spell for now. Since he was able to easily split a spell up into itsponents, at least. For other people, altering a spell might be incredibly challenging, much more so than creating one.


    But through the fact that Eiro''s control over the domain of truth gave him such an incredible analytical ability, it was rather simple for the Demon to do. And so, Eiro was first searching for a spell to test out. And then, he got an idea. Maybe he should try and create elemental versions of certain arcane spells, so that Eiro could figure out the properties and potential uses of the spell beforehand.


    With that, since Arcane Magic was based on cognition of the principle of Arcana, and this was a simple way for Eiro to slightly increase his understanding and experience with it without actually needing to use Arcane Magic directly himself.


    Eiro took a deep breath and took a closer look at the single Arcane Spell that he already tried out. ''Mage Hand''. He thought about one of the simpler elements to rece it with considering his current vocabry within the ancientnguage, and quickly made the choice.


    It didn''t take long for Eiro to alter that spell either, and then slowly held his hand forward. Eiro started to draw the magic circle as he spoke the chant at the same time. A few secondster, the spell had been cast.


    mes were drawn in from Eiro himself, forming a ming orb right in front of the Demon. The orb formed ''cracks'' and a hand was soon formed. The way that Eiro was controlling this hand was very different than when it was made of Arcane Magic, of course, but it was still easy to control it otherwise. It was more like he was controlling regr Fire, just that it was automatically kept in this shape, and Eiro didn''t need to worry about his concentration on it.


    The spell created something like a connection between himself and this hand, and the hand would siphon the mana that it needed from Eiro itself. The Demon tried to make the hand pick up a small pebble, but of course, that didn''t work. Fire was sma, so it was logical that it wasn''t able to pick anything up. It did manage to scorch the ground in the process, however.


    And so, since the hand was kept up on its own for a while longer, Eiro was able to cast more of them. Many, many more. With his mana, he might be able to create hundreds, if not thousands of them. But for now, Eiro limited himself at just 10.


    With a light smile on his face, Eiro yed around with these hands. He manipted them and positioned them around his body as if they were additional hands directly connected to his body. Since Eiro had a high control over Fire Magic, he was able to manipte them with a rather high amount of precision, to the level that Eiro could adjust his martial arts so that he could use it with these ming hands if he wanted to.


    Of course, that was technically a rather useless thing to do with these ming hands, but once he had other versions.... Like for example rock hands or just the regr mage hands, especially thetter since those moved practically like another limb in the first ce, the ways that Eiro could fight would increase manyfold.

 Chapter 451 - The Sage’s Grimoire

    Eiro looked at the ten ming hands that were floating around him, and then looked at the ten hands of water that were right to them. Eiro hadn''t figured out enough words to create the ''Earth'' version of this spell yet, but he was still able to create a water and an ice version respectively.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro made the hands move around near him in different patterns. At the very least, Eiro should be able to use these to fight at least a little bit, although he would still need to test this out the next time he got the chance to hunt.


    But more than that, Eiro wanted to move on and create new spells altogether. He had already basically figured out all different elemental versions of most spells that he knew of, at least if he had the vocabry in the ancientnguage to do so. And that was when Eiro remembered something that Merlin said.


    He said that he was looking for the Grimoire not just because it was able to fill itself out with the knowledge of its owner, but also because it was able to go beyond that. It was able to help the owner figure out things that were usually beyond their ability. So maybe this applied now as well.


    Eiro stretched his hand forward and pressed his fingers onto the grimoire within his treasury, before pulling it out. He poured a little bit of mana inside, and it was quickly ''updated'' with all the new knowledge that Eiro had. He hadn''t been using this grimoire for a while.


    The quality of the book''s leather increased immediately. The pages became straighter and a bit thicker, and the weight of the book seemed morefortable as it sat in Eiro''s hand. The metallic decorations seemed to increase in quality, as if an alchemist had turned them from iron to a more noble version of itself.


    It was truly interesting to the Demon to see this all happen, but the process was soon over. He really wondered what kind of object this grimoire was. It was no artifact, since Eiro was able to recognize the vibe of artifacts, whether they were of ''arcane'' nature, created by the Arcane Dealer, or of any other nature, such as Arie''s artifact.


    But this was no object that just anyone could create. This grimoire... it was an object of power innately different to artifacts, and it wasn''t just a simple magic tool either, if Merlin was to be believed.


    There were certain creatures in this world that were ''special'', that stuck out. Creatures that reserved certain rights. For example, the Monster King, the Hero, or the Holy Priestess. Creatures with splinters.


    And there was another one, a being that was often believed to be kind of different from these. Someone that rose to their position through knowledge and power instead of it being a birthright. The Sage. The greatest mage in the world. Merlin said that the Monster King killed him some years ago, and that Merlin could take his ce if he just had this grimoire that Eiro now had with him.


    "Is this... the Sage''s Grimoire?" Eiro muttered quietly. It was certainly possible. It had to have some kind of connection to him, at least, "If it''s the Sage''s Grimoire, then maybe it''s possible... If the greatest mage in this world created it, then something like this could exist."


    Eiro thought about what this book really might be. He still didn''t know, and he might not figure it out anytime soon, but he felt like he was on the right path at least. Eiro slowly flipped open the grimoire and looked at the page that appeared to him. It was thependium in the very front.


    "This wasn''t here before..." Eiro muttered, "Or was it?"


    The book usually brought him to wherever he wanted to go immediately, knowing his thoughts sometimes even before he did. If he wanted to cast a me-based spell, then he would reach the me section. If he wanted to cast an earth-based spell, it would bring him to that chapter.


    But now, it didn''t. It brought Eiro to thependium, a section of the book that didn''t even exist earlier. It noted down all the different elemental chapters, although the length of each chapter was far, far shorter than it used to be. Eiro quickly flipped through the book, and reached the first page of an elemental-based chapter.


    It told Eiro all that he knew of the element, like its properties, the ways it was best used. It even described the Elementals of the respective element, in this case being Smanders for the Fire Element. And on the next page, it listed all the words of the ancientnguage rted to the fire element, and after that came specific runic patterns that were particrly useful while casting this element.


    And it even listed things that Eiro knew were a thing, but he never tested out with a particr focus. Different ''higher beings'' to call upon while chanting. The next page was a map of a ce that Eiro had never been to, nor had ever seen. He was still in the me section, and something simr to this didn''t seem to be in any other ce. And then it dawned on the Demon.


    "Is this a map of... the ne of fire?" Eiro asked perplexed, and Sarius immediately looked over his shoulder to get a nce at it. He thought for a moment, and quickly nodded his head, "Yup, it is. But how the fuck did this get here..?"


    "It might be that something specific changed in the grimoire... That it''s now able to analyze my connection to the ne of fire through the gateway within me. If I ever get the chance to go there... This will definitely be useful." Eiro muttered to himself quietly, although Sarius simply scoffed.


    "Hah, right! If you ever wanna go there, you''ll have me, so you don''t need a boring ass map." Sarius pointed out, and Eiro raised his brows curiously, "Oh, so you know everything there is to know of the ne of fire? I heard you would do nothing butze around in the royal castle all day, every day."


    "Don''t judge me, dude." Sarius replied with a wry smile, "It''s different over there, aight? It''s like... Our version of your world here or something. We can''t move around as freely over there as we do here. But I can still show you around a good bit of the ne of fire, I just won''t know about every detail."


    "...speaking of, I never asked what the elemental nes are like." Eiro pointed out, but before he was able to change his attention to something else, Nelli appeared in front of his face, "Keep flipping through the grimoire, don''t you dare stop now. I''m curious as well, so keep going, demon boy."


    "...Right, right." Eiro replied, and continued looking through the pages. He returned to thependium and looked at the section that had already caught his eye earlier. Generally, the grimoire had already been split up into three sections. ''Elemental'', ''Arcane'', and ''General''. The Arcane section was mostly empty, holding nothing but the knowledge that Eiro knew of Arcane Magic right now. But it seemed like this section was going to be muchrger, seeing how it gained its own overarching section. Eiro kept flipping through it, and soon saw something in the Arcane Section that rather surprised him.


    It was knowledge of the Arcane Dealer, Arcane Mage, Arcane Hunter, and Arcane Warrior that Eiro had met, as well as the concepts of the ''Shards'', ''Pieces'', and ''Splinters''. There were even pages rted to the cards, those that Eiro had collected himself, as well as those that Eiro simply knew of. And then, at the very back of the section that rted to the cards, the motifs of all the cards had been drawn out. The ones that Eiro himself possessed were actually colored in properly, while the others were grayed out.


    "The ''goal'' really is to collect all of them, huh?" The Demon muttered quietly, letting out a deep sigh as he moved on to the next pages. Rather, he moved on to the whole next section, and that was the ''General'' section.


    It seemed to hold the actual spells that Eiro knew of. Each page contained another magic circle that Eiro knew, together with the chant. But more than that, the magic circles were actually animated like they should be in reality. The magic circles were just so slightly shifting, some parts were twisting and turning when it was necessary for the spell. Most importantly, Eiro could manipte the way each page''s content showed itself with nothing but a mere thought.


    If he knew the right words and runes in the ancientnguage, then he could alter the chant and the magic circle to be of that particr element. When he thought about the result of the spell, then the ink used to draw the magic circle onto the page would disappear or shift, to be reced by an image showing what exactly the spell looked like when actually activated.


    This was even the case for spells that Eiro knew, but never used before. The different example spells for arcane magic, for example. The only one that Eiro had tested out was the ''Mage Hand'' spell, and now he could even see what exactly would happen when just looking at the spell and chant on the paper, without actually casting it. At the very front of this section, there was even the ''Ancient Language'' dictionary that Eiro had been working on himself, all the words telling Eiro all the meanings that he figured out.


    And then, there was thest page of the spell section. This section was the most important to Eiro in the first ce, the one that he would end up using the most. And there were some nk pages with the title ''spell creation'' at the top.


    With the help of the grimoire, Eiro would be able to more easily create new spells himself.. Eiro grinned broadly, ready to test this out immediately.

 Chapter 452 - New Spell

    Eiro looked at the empty page in front of him. With a single thought, he could draw the magic circle on the page, or alter it just as quickly. It wasn''t like the grimoire was actively helping him construct it, but it did increase his concentration to an extent. As if he was breathing, he was able to make use of all the different parts that would make up magic circles or chants, instead of having to ''remember'' them.


    In the end, this part didn''t really make any direct difference, since Eiro was able to think at a speed simr to this anyway, but the creation of the magic circle happened just a lot more smoothly. It was like the moment that Eiro thought of the exact effect that he wanted, Eiro had already started creating it.


    It was a nice feeling, and it was kind of like Eiro was able to create much moreplex magic circles than he thought he would be able to.


    Soon, Eiro finished his next spell. It was something akin to what he already did just through general maniption of elements. This spell will simply make this a lot more stable, something that can actually cause damageparable to the real deal, to a high-quality weapon. It was a weapon-creation spell.


    Eiro first tried it out with ice, because it was rtively easy to manipte into a sharp de. As if on its own, the base he created for the spell turned into its elemental version, without Eiro having to do much, or anything at all, to do this himself.


    He held his hand forward, constructing the spell bit by bit with the assistance of the grimoire, while he started to speak the chant, "Oh Lady of Winter, let me borrow your power of frost to turn it into a de of ice to fight and protect."


    Water that was being provided by Nelli soon gathered in the center of the magic circle before freezing over into a mass of ice. This ice then changed its shape, as if crystals of itself were growing off of it, thinning it out and turning into a sharp sword of ice.


    It wasn''t the kind of weapon that Eiro would usually wield, but it was a rtively basic one to test this out with. By changing some certain things about the magic circle''s thirdyer, which was responsible for its specific form, Eiro would be able to turn this into any weapon that he wanted. At least provided that it was based off of des.


    So for example, he could create daggers, spears, or even throwing-knives with this spell, depending on the situation, but he couldn''t create something like a hammer. It simply went against the things deeply ingrained into the spell itself.


    Focus created strength. By concentrating the spell onto the ''de'' archetype, exactly this aspect of the spell''s creation would gain its power to actually cut like a crafted item would, causing both magical and physical damage at the same time. Of course, Eiro nned on creating a simr spell for the ''bludgeoning'' as well as the ''piercing'' archetypes. In the end, this was rather easy, and Eiro was able to include each variant version for the different archetypes in the same page.


    So when Eiro tried to cast the spell, the moment that he decided on which sort of weapon he wanted to create with it, the grimoire would end up helping him out and adjusting the output of what he was drawing and creating itself.


    It was like... a contract in its own way. As if this grimoire was a spirit that was helping Eiro out in return for mana. He was able to see into it, and it was able to see into him. It was really quite interesting.


    Slowly, Eiro let go of the de, slowly controlling it. He had added aspects of the ''Mage Hand'' spell into it to allow him to do so in this exact manner. Eiro was hoping to create more spells with these concepts so that he could have a greater arsenal of spells, and spells that he could cleverly re-use in battle.


    Usually, a spell would be shot out, hit a target, and that was it except if otherwise designated during the creation of the spell. But while having this sort of connection to the spell''s creation, where it was even sapping part of Eiro''s mana to keep itself up without him having to actively supply it or anything like that, he could adjust what he was doing with the spell depending on the situation, and even make split-second decisions.


    All this knowledge was truly wonderful in Eiro''s honest opinion. As he was ying around with the spell, however, he heard someone approach from the manor. Eiro had been out for quite a while, for far longer than he had hoped. It was the middle of the night now, and James often ended uping out here in the middle of the night to train when he couldn''t sleep.


    "Where have you been all day?" James asked, somewhat annoyed, as he approached the Demon. Eiro turned around toward him with a light smile on his face, "I had some business to attend to."


    "...Some business, huh? Business that you can share with me?"


    "I probably shouldn''t, but it''s not like it changes anything. I''ve told you about Merlin, right?" Eiro said, as he deactivated the spell that had formed the sword, causing the water to slowly disappear and disintegrate back into nothingness.


    James scratched the back of his head with a slow nod, "I think so? The guy that was basically a brother to this Jura guy, right?"


    "Mhm, that''s him. Well, turns out that he was one of the people that nned and caused the events of that incidentst year that crippled Charles. He worked with ''The Magician'' to get an item that he wasn''t able to find. Oh, by the way, that object is currently owned by me. Either way, Merlin and I fought for a while, he disappeared, and I''ve been makingrge-scale ns with Solomon for the rest of the day after that." Eiro exined, "And you know, turns out, we''ll now have to expect a potential invasion of ''The Magician'' into this ce. It''s all kind of fucked up, don''t you think?"


    "...You could say that." James replied with a wry smile. He really didn''t know much about what Eiro was talking about, but even he had heard of that incidentst year. It was something incredibly horrendous, and the whole city was in active mourning for a full week until things became somewhat normal again, "I''m sorry to hear that, man. Anything I can help with?"


    "I don''t... I don''t think so, no. But thanks for asking. Ah, but there is something that we do need to talk about." Eiro said, quickly changing the topic to something else entirely, "Spring vacation isn''t that far away anymore, and we should get ''that'' done then. I''m not sure if I have the time for such a long trip in the summer."


    "Ah, right... Well, do you think that I''m actually stronger now than I was a few weeks ago? Strong enough to be of any help during the fight against Zaragon?" James asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head without a moment''s hesitation.


    "Of course I do. Even right now, with the chaos-maniption still active, you''re stronger than you were before. We should keep this practice up for a bit longer, and then make sure we hunt while on the way to the Holy Empire''s capital."


    "Right. Sounds like a n." James said, "And then before we actually get there, you''ll release that maniption thing and we''ll all get a whole lot stronger than before?"


    "Yup, exactly. Well, if you exclude the few hours that you''ll be in agonising pain, of course." Eiro added, and James red back at him, "You didn''t mention that part before."


    "Well, it just makes sense, right? And stop crying about that already, I thought you got used to it by now."


    "I''d be crying about it much less if you weren''t just telling me that it''s fine and were doing it yourself. If this method is so effective, why aren''t you using it yourself?" James asked with a wry smile, but Eiro just rolled his eyes.


    "Because my body is going to change from the grounds-up during my next evolution anyway. How much muscle mass I build up right now won''t change anything... And by the way, I''m going to be using this method during my actual evolution to stimte and increase the level of positive change to my muscles throughout my evolution. The process brings me excruciating pain every single time anyway, plus I have senses that are strong enough to even hear an ant die on the other side of the manor, on top of the fact that I''m going to be manipting the chaos for every single part of my being. So, you know... What you''re feeling now will be nothingpared to that." Eiro exined to James, who couldn''t help himself but let out a deep sigh.


    "What, is this some sort ofpetition now?" James asked, and Eiro shrugged in response.


    "You''re the one thatined I don''t have to deal with this. Anyway, no matter that... It''s just another month until spring holiday begins, until then we need to keep on training."


    "And then..." James added, a broad grin forming on his face, "We can finally kill Zaragon for what he did...."

 Chapter 453 - End Of Training

    Eiro held his hand in front of him, holding his grimoire in the other. With the help of this special book, he was able to quickly draw theplex spell formation in the air in front of him. The spell activated, drawing in the content of the Ace of Cups into them.


    "Perfect." The Demon muttered quietly, as he watched the spell created a dozen small masses of ck. He then shot those pieces into different directions, where they would continue floating. Once they reached the right ce, Eiro twisted his hand around and went into the next phase of the spell.


    Thosepressed bolts of the artifact''s liquids spread thinner than paper and connected to each other, effectively creating a barrier around the whole campsite.


    This spell was an altered version of an ''Arcane Barrier'' spell with Eiro''s ''Field'' spell. Basically, he made sure to create a distinct difference between the ''inside'' and the ''outside'' of the barrier, so that he could ce a specific effect onto the ''inside''. And that effect was for all which was ''inside'' to be hidden, and for this field to not be approached by anyone that wasn''t specifically looking for it right there in that ce.


    Even if someone was looking for Eiro and the others here in this general area, if they didn''t already know the exact location, they would simply end up ignoring this area somehow without thinking about it. That way, even beings with abilities beyond what Eiro might know about would be unable to find them.


    This let Eiro and the others avoid any sort of conflict in the first ce, and the best thing was that it worked autonomously from Eiro''s control. Meaning, that it would stay up even if Eiro didn''t pay any sort of attention to it, and it would simply drain all the mana that it needed to keep itself up from him.


    And once he was done setting this one up, Eiro dropped a few nuts onto the ground and started constructing one more spell. Meanwhile, he turned over toward the others who were currently unpacking the carriage.


    "Ah, Krog, there''s something stuck on Lugo''s antler... do you mind..?" The Demon asked, and the heavy warrior turned toward the stag. He pulled off the thin branches that had somehow wrapped themselves around Lugo''s antler, "You got it."


    "Thanks." Eiro said, as he finished the construction of the magic circle. Eiro took a deep breath and let his magic flow into the magic circle, before the spell then affected the small nutsying right there on the ground. They quickly sprouted and grew, burying their roots in the ground before turning into thin trees that stretched out in simple manners.


    Four base pirs were created, before the trees started bending to connect the tops of all those pirs to each other. They were wrapping around each other in the center before thin branches started spreading out from there, covering the four pirs in a thin sheet of branches that then grew leaves. And just like that, Eiro had created a small, natural hut with the help of nature magic, that they could now all sleep in.


    Mostly, this was just protection against rain for now, and it technically wasn''t that great to sleep in yet, so Eiro got rid of the somewhat moist dirt and reced it with rock that he pulled from deeper below. He cleaned it up, dried it, and then stepped to the side so that the others could continue. They ced the sleeping bags into the hut together with the boxes filled with whatever they would end up needing for the next few days.


    Because this was the ce where they would end up camping out in preparation of heading into the capital in a few days. There were a few things that everyone had to do in preparation for that first.


    "Alright, I think we''re basically finished for now." Eiro said with a smile on his face, before his three party members looked at him somewhat nervously, "That means..." Jess muttered, and Eiro nodded his head with a light smile.


    "Yes, that''s exactly what it means." Eiro replied to her, "I''m going to stop the maniption of your personal chaos now." The Demon told them, and each of them nodded their heads nervously. But of course, Eiro had to prepare them properly.


    "Now, there is one thing that all of you have to be aware of." The Demon said, "Everything is going to feel somewhat overwhelming in some ways once I do this. It''s basically the opposite to what happened when I first manipted your chaos, so you need to be especially careful. First, let''s go with James."


    "Urgh... So basically... It''s going to feel like I can breathe too much?" James asked with a wry smile, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "If you''re not careful, you''re going to pull too much air into your lungs. You will definitely feel rather light-headed, and you should be careful not to cut yourself anywhere, or else you might bleed out because it''s going to be like your heart is pumping water through your body." Eiro exined to James, who groaned loudly in response.


    "Right, start, then..." James replied, so Eiro looked at him with a light smile. He stretched his hand forward and pressed his palm onto the center of James'' chest, before slowly but surely starting to manipte his chaos again. Last time, he had basically pulled andpressed it onto particr areas, but now, Eiro just had to unravel all of that.


    In one fell swoop, everything returned to what it was supposed to be like before, and James immediately felt overwhelmed, just like Eiro said that he would. He felt the air fill his lungs, he felt his blood flow through his veins, and he felt everything around him go white. James pressed his hand onto the ground to catch his bnce.


    "Careful, careful. Just be calm, take small, thin breaths. Close your eyes andy down." Eiro told James, trying to help him figure out how he could get through this moment. For now, James simply felt overwhelmed, but soon, the pain would set in. It would be best if he was as rxed as possible before that started happening, so that James could get through this as easy as possible.


    "Alright, next, Krog." Eiro added, "Youy down before I even do this. Your muscles are going to feel rather painful immediately, I would assume at least. I can try and fill your body with anesthetics if you want, though."


    "What?! And why couldn''t you do that for me?!" James asked, before ending up in a deep, painful cough. Eiro rolled his eyes as he helped James calm down, "You want me to push a venom that will make it practically impossible for your muscles to function into your lungs? I don''t think that''s going to happen, bud." Eiro pointed out, although it seemed like the pain was slowly starting to set in for James, so he really wasn''t paying any further attention.


    "Anyway, are you ready?" Eiro asked as he looked at Krog, who slowly nodded his head in response, "Yup, just fucking do it, man..."


    "Alright." Eiro said, and without a moment''s hesitation, he unraveled the changes done to Krog''s personal chaos as well. Immediately, Krog felt his muscles cramp up due to the slightest action, he felt everything that was happening in his body due to the oversensitivity he was experiencing right now.


    Eiro moved his tail around his own body and pressed his stinger into different parts of Krog''s body before pushing a bit of venom into each part. Krog''s pain slowly subsided to an extent, and his spasming cooled down too. Happy that everything seemed to work out, Eiro turned his head to the side.


    "Then thest person is Jess. Come on. Because your changes are based in your mind, you need to bepletely calm and think about nothing if you want to be fine. Basically, start meditating right now. I''ll help you out a bit to get you there, though." Eiro exined to Jess, who seemed to be nervous. She remembered the pain that she was feeling, and how she was simply unable to do anything at all beside gather new knowledge and think about what she just read, and only what she just read. Jess was feeling scared that something simr might happen again.


    "Don''t worry. You''ll be fine after this." Eiro said, "It''s just that you might end up overwhelmed with all the information around you if you take in anything. So just meditate, and slowly drift off into sleep from there if you can." The Demon suggested, helping Jess sit down with a proper posture for meditation.


    Once she entered a proper meditative state, Eiro ced his hand onto her forehead and unraveled the chaos that he manipted for her a while ago.


    It didn''t take long until it all came into effect, and Jess was clearly unable to fully keep up her meditation anymore. But Eiro tried to make sure he helped her while giving her as little information of what was going on around her as possible.


    And so, Eiro was able to release these three from their training. Officially so. They had improved incredibly even before Eiro released the maniption of their chaos, and that would be pushed higher and higher even more after this. Certainly, they were much closer to being able to stand by Eiro''s side.


    Meanwhile, Eiro stepped out of the hidden capsule and flew into the air.. The Holy Empire''s capital stretching out in the distance to Eiro''s right, and arge, deepke straight ahead.

 Chapter 454 - The Lake

    Eiro flew forward to get near theke. They had camped out really quite close to where Eiro had first met the children back then. He smiled lightly as he spotted a particrly familiar spot. It had changedpletely in the past eight years, of course, but it simply felt so familiar that Eiro would always be able to recognize it, even if a house had been built over it.


    He stood in the middle of the clearing, which had overgrownpletely since then. But even so, the three was still there. The one that Eiro was leaning against while holding Avalin and her basket. And then, in a ce where a thick bush now stood, he saw Arc for the first time. He was still incredibly scared there, and Eiro probably caused his unique skill to level up a couple of times at that point.


    The Demon held his hand forward and made the bush wither away. It was like he was able to see it. Right over there stood the carriage. That young priest tried to attack Eiro not too far away from where he was standing right now.


    Eiro pushed his mana into the ground and searched for the hole that he buried everything in. The objects that Eiro was looking for were soon pushed above the ground. Surprisingly, the bag kept together rather well. It couldn''t really be used properly anymore, but it was surprising that it didn''t rot away somehow in the first ce.


    The demon pulled the bag open and grabbed the objects that were inside of it, "Hm... Is this is?" He muttered, noticing a small note-book. Eiro flipped it open, and although it was rather hard to see the content written onto the pages, being covered in quite a bit of blood, the Demon was able to figure out a few things.


    While this wasn''t exactly what Eiro was hoping for, it was simr. This was a notebook kept by that priest, most likely. He didn''t write down the exact details Eiro wanted to find, but Eiro might still be able to find some information in this thing. There were a few things written about the kids rather early on. There were notes about how Leon''s abilities had been sealed away, but nothing about the specifics of his race.


    Well, he did find that there were notes about him being a beastman, but sadly, there wasn''t anything more specific than that. Nothing about which n Leon belonged to.


    "Dammit." Eiro sighed as he threw the book to the side, "Fucking useless." The Demon grumbled, as he swiftly made his way down an overgrown path right next to here. It was kind of bothersome that he wasn''t able to easily find out Leon''s n like this, but the most important details were already figured out by Eiro at that point. For example, that Leon was from a carnivorous n. He was able to find it out through his sharp canines that grew in rather quickly after pushing his old ones out. It was actually kind of bothersome, since Leon was in absolute pain for a couple of days. He barely stopped clinging to Eiro, and would keep waking up in the middle of the night beforeing to Eiro''s room while in tears.


    This early maturity was something really annoying... and maddening. Seeing Leon like that drove Eiro crazy as well. But luckily he was mostly fine after that, and proudly showed his siblings his new, super sharp teeth.


    As Eiro finished that thought, he finally reached the side of theke, "I guess I should head inside here now then." The Demon muttered, looking at his spirits, "Nelli,e on. And you two, stay up here, this is most likely still the domain of the former Naiad Queen. She might be scared off seeing you two." Eiro pointed out, and the two of them quickly understood.


    Eiro ced his cloak to the side as Nelli flowed into his chest. The two of them fused together, as Eiro manipted his armor to go along with it, supporting this change. Eiro found that his elemental fusion ability kept on being upgraded, and along with that, he got even more abilities from the spirits when fused with them. For example, when fused with Nelli, Eiro was able to breathe underwater. The shape of his tail and his feet changed to allow him to swim more quickly, the same being the case with his wings. Basically, when fused with Nelli, Eiro could live underwater if he wanted to.


    And with a light smile on his face, Eiro walked right into theke. Eiro made sure to use earth magic to clear the dust and dirt out of the water to give him a clear sight throughout thiske. And deeper within it, at its deepest part, Eiro and Nelli soon spotted arge concentrated mass of magic.


    "Wait, that..." Eiro muttered, his voice being carried through the water as if it was air. It seemed like a somewhat familiar sight, although Eiro really wasn''t sure yet. He pped his wings and started to shoot through the water at high speed. It didn''t take Eiro long to reach the vicinity of the mass of magic.


    And that was when Eiro had been able to confirm it. It was a deep rift that had pure water magic flowing out of it. It was a gateway leading to the elemental ne of water. But surprisingly, there were no naiads around it at all, although you would think that those would be close to such a ce.


    Although, maybe it made sense. This ce was supposed to be the home of the ''Lonely Naiad'', after all. She wouldn''t be so lonely if she had a bunch of other Naiads around her, after all. And since the name of Eiro''s blessing didn''t change, he figured that her state should be roughly the same right now as it was back then.


    Eiro looked around, trying to find the Naiad, before he suddenly heard an irregr flow to his right. He turned his body around immediately, and there he was able to see a glowing form. She was short, the height of a child, a colorful mermaid''s tail on her lower body. The former Naiad Queen approached Eiro with a soft smile on her face.


    "It has been a while. I am d you were able to survive that wound, and even strived so much afterward." She told Eiro with a soft smile, and the Demon looked back with a smile on his own, "The only reason I was able to survive was because you healed me. And of course, because you gave me your blessing."


    "Of course, you seemed quite interesting. An irregr being like you was rather deserving of my blessing, I thought."


    "And I thank you for that." Eiro replied with a genuine smile. The lonely naiad came closer to Eiro and ced her hand onto his chest, "It seems as if you received a blessing from my dear friend as well. What a coincidence that you happened toe across her."


    "I know, right? I''ve really been quite lucky. And... there''s one more thing I need to thank you for." Eiro started, "Thank you for making me want to not be alone." He told her, and the lonely naiad turned her head to the side.


    "What may you be speaking of?"


    "You know what I mean. Your blessing not only gave me an increase in my affinity with the water element, but it also made me avoid ''loneliness''. You''re the reason why I managed to get closer to my children." Eiro exined to her, and with a light chuckle, the lonely naiad nodded her head, "I see. I''m d that you were able to follow along with that wish of mine so well."


    "Of course. I did want it myself in the end, after all." Eiro exined. With a smile on her face, the lonely naiad kept swimming around Eiro, "And I see that... you were also blessed by another old friend of mine. And he even gave you another interesting gift on your way."


    "Do you mean the spirit gateway?" The Demon asked, and the naiad nodded her head, "Indeed so. I am surprised that you are capable of holding it within you."


    "Ah... Well, yeah, I know that it''s not particrly normal. But, speaking of spirit gateways, would you-"


    "Let you take in the gateway here as well?" She interrupted Eiro, who slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, exactly that."


    "And why should I do that? Do you not understand that this gateway is the reason why the Holy Capital was built here? This ce has been in quite some trouble in recent years, do you wish to bring it to ruin even further?" The naiad asked Eiro, who looked back at the former queen with an emotionless expression, "I''m certainly not here to help this ce out. I don''t care what happens to this country. And if you were to ask me if I think whether it should continue to stand just like this, or be reced with something new from the ashes of this current country, my answer will certainly be thetter." Eiro exined to the Naiad.


    "Then what do you wish to do with the gateway?"


    "Simple. I''m going to use it to make myself stronger." Eiro said in a blunt tone of voice, as it echoed through the waters of thiske.. The lonely naiad looked back at the Demon with a soft smile on her face, while Eiro was awaiting her answer.

 Chapter 455 - Promise

    Eiro looked back at the Naiad queen with a soft smile on his face, waiting for her to answer to his request. He didn''t know that there was a spirit gateway in such a ce, but now that he did end up finding it in such a way, it was too great a chance to pass up.


    "You already hold a gateway within your body. I don''t think such a thing would be good for you. The gateway would fuse with your soul... Having multiple of those stuffed in there might cause some irreversible damages." The former naiad queen told Eiro with a somewhat worried expression, but the Demon simply shook his head, "I''m sure I can take something like that. My soul needs to be reshaped soon anyway, so I can ask my friend to make sure the gateways didn''t damage it in a major way."


    "...You really are quite interesting, you know that? I gave you my blessing on a whim, but now I must say I do not regret it in the sligthest." She exined with a soft smile, while Eiro slightly turned his head toward the gateway, "So, does that mean that you''ll give it to me?"


    "I will. I have little use for it anyway. I can''t make use of it myself anyway, having been banished from that realm a long time ago. I would rather someone with my blessing have it than those people that will simply use it for reckless destruction and superiority." The lonely naiad exined, and before Eiro was able to thank her, Nelli chose to speak through him, "Do you need us to help you be allowed back there? To get your throne back?"


    The former naiad queen seemed surprised to hear that suggestion, but she soon shook her head, "I don''t think that''s going to be necessary, but I appreciate the thought. As my title says, I am quite lonely here, but I do not miss my position of ''Queen'' either. It was simrly lonely for me then. Like this, I can at least watch the children of this town as they y together, even though it has be less in recent years."


    "Are you sure you don''t want to go back? To meet all those you left behind there? Your friends..?"


    "I never had things like ''Friends'', my child. When this world birthed me, I had already been chosen to be the queen. I was never treated the same as those beside me. I never had ''friends'', only those that wished to be close to me due to my status." She exined, and Eiro could feel that Nelli felt rather sad after hearing these words from the one who she considered to be the ''true'' queen.


    "In the first ce..." The naiad queen exined, "I don''t believe the title of ruler to be a birth-right, but something that you have to earn through consistent struggle. There was no need for me to ever struggle in such a way. However, she who now reces me did have to. She is much more deserving of that title than I."


    "Is... is that so..?" Nelli muttered quietly, as Eiro slowly took control of his mouth back, "Of course, if you don''t want to be the queen any longer, then there is no reason to force you into that position. But I do have to agree with my friend, that I do owe you something in return. Is there anything I could do for you?"


    "...There is one thing that I could think of. But I''m not sure if you hold the power necessary for it." She replied in a quiet tone, "This country has been turned into what seems like a hell through the influence of the monster king and his royals. A town not too far away from here had been taken by the devil and is now in ruins, the capital on the horizon has been destroyed by the king''s army, and my dear friend has been imprisoned by them as well."


    "Your dear friend..?" Eiro asked, before realizing what she meant, "Are you talking about the Guardian of the Lake?"


    "You know if them?" The former queen asked in a surprised tone, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yeah... The first time I even came close to them, I became absolutely horrified. But well, it helped me out in the end, so it''s not a big deal." Eiro exined, "And also, I think I have to admit that... I''m the one that caused that town taken by the devil to fall to ruins..."


    "You are? I wouldn''t think so, the devil came by and wiped it off all maps. You messed with the demons in that town, sure, but you are not the one that destroyed it. Be aware that I know much of what goes on around these parts, dear Eiro." The lonely naiad exined. And to Eiro, it did make quite a lot of sense for the devil to just get rid of everyone in that town, considering that it was nothing but a ce for him to y around with. And after Eiro destroyed that n, there was little reason to keep that ce around anymore.


    "So, what is it exactly that you want me to do?" Eiro asked the lonely naiad, who quickly exined her request, "I want you to save my friend from the oppression they are under. They are trapped within thatke. Set them free."


    "...But isn''t the Guardian of the Lake a huge monster? How are they supposed to get out of thatke?"


    "By freeing the town above it. Don''t worry, it has be nothing but a monster nest. There are a few noble monsters there, but none of them should be anything for you to worry about." The naiad exined to the Demon, who thought about it for a moment, "I mean, if that''s all, then that''s no issue. We can take a small detour on our way back from where we''re headed right now."


    "I see. Thank you, Eiro." The naiad said, and the Demon slowly nodded his head, "Then once I freed your friend, I''lle back to get the gateway from you."


    "Of course. Again, I thank you." She replied to Eiro, who smiled lightly and nodded his head, "For now, I''m going to just return to my friends, then. I''ll be back in at most a few days."


    "I will be waiting here for you."


    And so, Eiro swam back to the shore, with one more thing added onto the list of things he had to do. Not that he wasn''t interested in doing that in the first ce.


    ---


    Eiro sat on a rock, looking at the sky, while waiting for the others to wake up. Sometime in the middle of the day, the side-effects had subsided, so they were taking exhausted naps. Meanwhile, Eiro was working on a n of action.


    He flew over to the capital earlier to take a look at the state of it, and now created a duplicate model here in the dirt so that he could show the others how exactly they should handle this n. And also, it helped Eiro figure out something important. The exact location of Zaragon''s shop. Sure, they could just try and wait for a door to appear in the right ce, but it wouldn''t be guaranteed that they would find one. Eiro could quickly get to wherever a door appeared at, but it was different for the others, and he didn''t just want to run off and do his own thing. That wasn''t why he was here.


    The first to wake up was Krog. His body had properly filtered out the anesthetics, and he was able to fully move around again. And as Eiro expected, his overall strength and the control over his body that he now possessed was far, far higher than it had been before all of this training began.


    When Jess woke up, Eiro wasn''t really able to see any difference directly, since her changes were mostly mental and in her mana. Although, the spirits confirmed that her mana did increase over the past few hours, by quite a lot actually. To Eiro, Jess seemed a bit calmer, more collected. Like she was really taking everything that was going on around her in with absolute precision.


    And thest to wake up was James. Eiro was surprised, though, since his breathing barely changed from what it was when he was sleeping. The same with his heartbeat. James'' whole body was absolutely rxed, even when he jumped up and walked over toward the others like he normally did. Clearly, he changed quite a bit.


    Now, these three would certainly be good partners for him. Eiro wasn''t sure if they were worthy of the ''S'' rank at the guild yet, but they would certainly get there soon. Especially because they still had plenty of sses to go through to increase their strength further. From now on, they would just have to keep on hunting, growing stronger like that, increasing their abilities further and further.


    Of course, since Eiro would keep growing stronger as well, it was doubtful whether or not they would really ever stand by his side, but at the very least, they weren''t as weak as they used to be.


    "Alright... Is that it? Can we go now?" James asked, eager to go and fight Zaragon to enact his revenge on that disgusting creature. Eiro as well couldn''t wait to ovee that trauma that was still somewhat stuck within his mind. But first, the Demon needed to exin the n to them.


    "Well, first of all... Let''s talk about how we can get to him in the first ce.. How we can get into the royal castle, where Zaragon set up his shop."

 Chapter 456 - Into The Holy Capital

    "Zaragon is inside the royal castle? You said something like that before, but... it was actually the case?" James asked with a deep frown, "I mean, that ce never had anything like windows, so I guess it''s possible... but what benefit would the Emperor have to let Zaragon set up his shop in the castle?"


    "Easy. Control, power, information. Anything, basically. Although there is another possibility, which I think might be a bit more likely. This race that Zaragon is, they''re a special sort of being. They link their whole existence to a particr space that they will reign over. For all we know, Zaragon could be older than the Holy Empire, and he made a deal with the first emperor."


    James looked back at him after Eiro''s exnation, and slowly understood what he meant, "You think Zaragon made a deal with the first emperor that let him create this country? But in exchange for what?"


    Eiro shrugged, "Again, anything. Not that it really matters what they exchanged, since we''re not part of whatever deal they made. We don''t owe anything to either party, meaning that this deal rtes to us in no way whatsoever. All that we need to know is that Zaragon is there."


    "...Right." James replied, still eager to go, although he was a bit nervous considering the ce that they were going to need to invade.


    "But also..." Jess started, "Considering that this ce has beenpletely destroyed eight years ago, it looks pretty..."


    "Good? Yeah, I thought the same." Eiro replied, "They were struggling for a few years, but then they were able to pretty quickly recover. Well, the capital, at least. The attack caused damages to all parts of the empire, even if indirectly. But that is nothingpared to what the capital''s recovery did. Insanely high taxation, an increase of very by 200% over the past three years. Basically, they focused everything they could onto recovering the capital, ignoring everything else. But in return, this ce outwardly looks like some kind of utopia. Everyone that can actually afford to live here now is so rich that they can live in ignorant glee, and those that can''t and ended up in the slums, are either killed, pushed away, or enved. It''s a horrible ce, really, just not to the upper ss."


    Hearing these things about the empire made these three even more eager to get in there, although their target wasn''t even to do anything that would hurt the empire directly. They were just going there to take out Zaragon, and that was it.


    "Anyway, I figured out a decent path for us to take. We''re heading into the capital before sundown and act like regr traveling adventurers. You guys should wear the fancy versions of your armor that I gave to you, even if they''re practically uselesspared to your normal stuff. We''re not attacking anyone right away anyway." Eiro exined, "We''re going to head into the noble district and take a room at this inn right here. It''s apparently quite popr with traveling clergymen and religious nobles, since it promises a perfect view of the cathedral built into the royal castle."


    "...And what help is that going to be?" James asked, "Can''t we just sneak in there somehow?"


    "Of course not. They are heavily guarded, it''s going to be nothing but a bother. No, I''m going to be disguising myself as a noble pdin using my armor, and you three will be my escorts, and we''ll try to convince one of those clergymen or religious nobles to bring us into the cathedral with them. Not everyone can get in there, after all. And once we''re inside, it''s easy to evade detection, especially using the ace of cups."


    Krog scratched his cheek and looked at Eiro confused, "Can''t we just use the ace of cups to get inside in the first ce?"


    "ces like that usually have high-tier detection spells ced onto every possible entrance. Without fusing myself with the ace of cups or drinking it, it''s impossible to get past those even with the ace of cups. The most I can do with it is affect a specific area, like I''m doing right now, to get the four of us through the ce. But once we get through an entrance, that area is going to include the spell as well. I mean, I might be able to figure out a way if I took some time to analyze the exact spell, but this is a much easier way to deal with it. On top of that, if we can use someone to get inside, we can use them as a distraction as well, just in case." Eiro exined to them.


    Since the overall basics of the n had been discussed, Eiro simply went into some of the details for how they were going to need to act, and what exactly everyone''s roles were going to be throughout this whole ordeal.


    And then, when they were done, Eiro got rid of the ''barrier'' around them and they headed off to the capital. It was still about three or so hours away with the carriage, so they continued discussing things on the way.


    ---


    The small group soon found themselves within the walls of the Holy Empire. James'' breathing was still calm, but it was a bit irregrpared to before, as Eiro noticed. Clearly he was a bit nervous, now fully realizing where exactly they were, and why they were here in the first ce.


    "Don''t worry. Everything is going to work out in the end." Eiro reassured James, who turned his head and looked back at him with a wry smile, "And how do you know that for sure?"


    "Because I said so. We''re all strong, and it was me that made this n. Do you not trust my mind?" The Demon pointed out, and James let out a light sigh as he shook his head, "No, of course I do. I know how ridiculously smart you are. Just can''t help myself when I feel like this, y''know?"


    "Yeah, I understand what you mean. But again, there''s no need to worry. Both of us want this to happen, so we''re going to make it happen." Eiro told James, as the group made their way further through the town on the carriage. Since thest time that James and Eiro had been here, this ce practically became even prettier by now. It was really quite incredible how this ce had changed considering that catastrophe back then.


    They stopped the carriage in front of the Inn. Krog stayed outside with the carriage while James and Jess came inside with him. For now, Eiro had already changed the armor to be something that gives off Holy Energy, albeit an amount that was below the threshold of Holy Energy that his body was able to take. And of course, Bavet was also helping him out by creating something of a shield around his skin to fend off some of that Holy Energy. He wanted to make sure that the image of him being a noble pdin was upheld right from the start.


    Before Eiro even had to walk up to the front desk, an employee came up to him and bowed forward, "Wee, my lord. Is there any way I can assist you?"


    "I need a room for a few days. Preferably one with a view, if you understand." Eiro exined to the employee, who immediately nodded his head, "Of course! If I can ask you to follow me, let''s handle the specific n and the payments immediately, and I will show you to your room."


    Eiro nodded and followed the employee. Of course, he also quickly paid for everything. He made sure to exchange the currency that he was using from Skyhart''s currency to that of the Holy Empire''s in a smaller town they were in a few days ago, so it was no issue.


    "Thank you very much, my lord. Please, follow me."


    "Wait. We have a carriage outside, as well as my familiar. Is there a stable connection to this ce we can use?" The Demon asked, and the employee nodded without a moment''s hesitation, "Of course! We will take care of everything, do not worry!"


    "Perfect." Eiro said, and made his way upstairs to his room together with James and Jess following behind him, acting as if they were his guards. The moment that Eiro stepped into the room, he turned toward the two others, "One of you go downstairs and help Krog out. While you''re at it, make sure to look at other customers to figure out if they''re going to be good targets."


    "As you wish, my lord." James said while bowing forward, and Eiro looked at him with a wry smile, "Don''t call me that, man..."


    "But aren''t you supposed to be a noble? Why shouldn''t I call you that~?" He asked with a light grin, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "Considering that I''m actually in fact a noble and you never spoke to me like that before, I don''t think that''s a good enough excuse. Now just go and do it. I''ll go ahead and scan the building in the meantime."


    "Sure, sure..." James said as he stepped out of the room. Once he was gone, Eiro looked at Jess, "While I''m doing that, could I ask you to set up everything we need for artificing?"


    "Alright. Do you want me to prepare some of the magic circles already as well?"


    "Yeah, as I said, everything we need for artificing. We need to hurry up and prepare as much as we can." Eiro replied with a smile on his face, as he sat down cross-legged, and poured his mana into the ground.

 Chapter 457 - Inscriptions

    Eiro finished properly scanning the entirety of the inn that they were currently in, just to make sure that there wasn''t anything here to help him out in here. Since there wasn''t anything special about this inn, despite what the Demon had been hoping for, like some sort of secret tunnel between this inn and the cathedral, he stood up somewhat disappointed.


    Either way, for now, him and Jess just had to start artificing. Jess had already prepared everything for that, setting up all the tools that they were going to need, and even preparing some of the magic circles in a semi-permanent setup.


    "By the way, what exactly are we going to inscribe these on? I don''t think we have any particr materials, do we?"


    "Of course we do." Eiro replied with a smile on his face, as he walked over toward Jess'' bag. He had given her a small box with jewelry earlier that she was supposed to carry in case they needed her to disguise herself as a noblewoman as well. Since she was a mage, she wasn''t wearing anything that was instantly recognizable to be armor, so they could easily have her pass as a noble even after walking through the inn with her like she was dressed before.


    Either way, Eiro got out the jewelry and grabbed the pearl ne with a smile on his face, "We have everything we need right here."


    "The pearls aren''t pearls, huh?" Jess asked with a curious smirk on her face, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Exactly. Basically, we''re going to be inscribing the spells onto these and will then put the pearl ne back together. And then you''re going to wear that when we head into the cathedralter.


    "...You want me to wear an array of extremely lethal spells, of which many are extremely explosive, around my neck as we prepare to enterbat?"


    "Mhm, that''s exactly it. Don''t worry, there''ll be a fail-safe to make sure nothing happens to you. The thread running through them isn''t normal either, it''s a material that reacts in a negative way with the gemstones so that they can''t activate in the first ce, even if all other conditions are met. And while we head to Zaragon''s chamber, you just have to take the ne off and prepare to use them."


    Jess slowly nodded her head as Eiro brought the marble-sized gemstones over toward the table that she set everything up on. For the most part, Eiro was sure that the fight with Zaragon would end anticlimactically fast, but at the end of the day, he really didn''t know. He had no idea how strong Zaragon was back then, and eight years was a long time to be so, so much stronger. And on top of that, Zaragon had ess to not only incredibly high-tier magic tools, but even plenty of artifacts. He seemed to be able to control that space''s configuration freely as well, so it might be possible that Zaragon would put up an incredible fight against them.


    And that is why they were preparing like this, so that they could fight back against whatever could possibly happen. Eiro took a deep breath as he stood in front of the desk. He grabbed the first inscription tool and pressed it against the gemstone.


    "Start with the first one." Eiro said, and Jess nodded her head. She pulled the first of the adjusted magic circles over toward the gemstone, and slowlypressed it to the right size, before wrapping it around the gemstone. The size and pattern of the base magic circle was adjusted beforehand in such a way that it covered every bit of the round gemstone, forming a spherical magic circle in the end. Both Eiro and Jess had to stay as still as possible, keeping the magic circle and the gemstone in the exactly same position, which was especially bothersome to do while twisting the gemstone around.


    Either way, now that the magic circle was wrapped around the gemstone, Eiro slowly but surely used his own mana and let it flow through the inscription tool, and followed the exact pattern of the magic circle, practically carving away at the gemstone and pushing the magic circle created by Jess into it at the same time.


    This was actually a technique taught to Eiro by Armodeus. Usually, inscription worked in a much different way, and resulted in a somewhat different end-product. You were supposed to carve intricate patterns into the target object in a special way, and then when the wanted effect was supposed to be activated, mana had to be slowly and carefully ced into each ridge of that pattern for the activation to be possible.


    Both the creation and activation required not only a high amount of precision, but an extremely understanding of the inscribed patterns. With this method, however, that was only the case for the inscription.


    With a magic circle innately ced into the carved patterns during the process, it allowed for nearly instantaneous activation of the spell in question. Duringbat, this was a much more viable solution. However, the greatest drawback was that the object the spell was ced on would either get damaged or shatter altogether, making it impossible for the object to be used in that way again.


    But at the same time, it allowed for some rather unique tactics that weren''t possible with regr spellcasting, which is why Eiro and Jess were preparing these right now, just in case.


    "Alright, that''s the first one... Next." Eiro said, handing the finished gemstone to Bavet, who pushed the thread from the ne back through it, "By the way, why don''t you just have me hold that for you? Would be much easier, right?"


    "Not really. You have shaky hands."


    "Eh?!" Bavet eximed, "What do you mean, I have shaky hands, I- Most of the time I don''t even have hands!"


    "Exactly. You''re not used to them. So shut up and let me concentrate." Eiro rolled his eyes as he continued inscribing the spells onto these small gemstones. Sometime in the middle of that, James and Krog got back as well.


    "Just make sure your weapon are ready for now, and that you have everything you need." Eiro suggested, "Did you find someone that seems to be a good target?"


    "Yep." Krog replied, "Some kinda priest from the other side of the country. He practically came up to us on his own to talk to us about the gods."


    "Sounds good. Once I''m done here, we''re heading downstairs and I''ll talk to him." Eiro told them, "So if possible, we''re going to head off right away. Just another half-dozen of these and we''ll be done as well."


    "Wait, already? Doesn''t it usually take super long to do this kinda thing?" James asked with a wry smile, and Jess quickly exined in Eiro''s stead, since he was concentrating on an especially tricky bit on the gemstone.


    "Usually, yeah, but Eiro has great dexterity, and his high woodcarving skill apparently helps him out a little bit as well. The principle is the same, after all. And also, because I''m here and can concentrate on the spell''s effect and chant, Eiro doesn''t have to worry about that either, so he can speed it up quite a bit just through that." Jess exined with a smile on her face, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Mhm, what she said.."


    "Huh, that''s kinda neat." Krog pointed out, as he was cleaning up one of his battle axes, "By the way, would I be able to use magic with those things as well?"


    "Technically, yeah." Jess replied, "You do have basic control over your mana, and all you need to do is activate the inscribed spell with your own mana to activate it, so... Yeah."


    "Wait, then why don''t I have something like that on my axes? That''s so neat!"


    "If you want them to shatter into pieces in the middle of your fight, be my guest." Eiro replied to him, as he ced the gemstone he just finished to the side, "Either way, it''s not that easy to properly use these things either. Since they''re pre-inscribed like this, there''s no way to adjust them to the situation at all, so you need to be aware of how the spell acts beforehand. And since you never used magic before, it''s going to be close to impossible for you to get a proper grasp on these beforehand."


    "Urgh... Fair point." Krog replied with a wry smile, as Eiro grabbed the next gemstone to continue inscribing spells onto it.


    It took a little while longer until he properly finished everything, and then handed the finished pearl ne over to Jess, "There you go. I know I said there''s no way for them to activate while on there, but just still be careful with them, alright? Make sure you don''t drop it or let the thread rip."


    "Of course, I''m not an idiot. Now, what are you going to do with the rest?" Jess asked, and Eiro swiftly showed it to her. It was a rtively simple process, after all. He grabbed the small, empty vial and pressed his fingertip onto it.


    A ck, rotten sludge poured out of the Demon''s finger and into the vial. Although, just a couple of drops, "And then..." Eiro grabbed the Holy Energy Magic Stone and activated it with just a bit of his mana, letting the holy energy flow into the vial. Instantly, a holy me sparked up, ignited through this liquid.


    Eiro let his fingers flow around the outside of the vial, quietly whispering a chant. The me shrunk down into nothing but a slight spark, the kind that would float away from arger fire.


    With a few more whispers, the spark seemed to suddenly be rather stable, before Eiro slowly pulled it out of the small vial. And then, he got another small piece of jewelry out. It was a ring, this time, with arge gemstone ced onto it. That gemstone was hollow, and prepared specifically to hold this spark of holy me.


    "And just like that, I prepared everything we need for our distraction."

 Chapter 458 - Patrius

    Eiro walked through the inn with a smile on his face. His armor was infused with subtle Holy Energy to make sure he gave off the vibe he was a pdin. And slowly, he approached the man that James and Krog had seen earlier, that priest that had approached them on his own.


    "Excuse me?" Eiro said with a smile on his face, "I heard you are a venerable priest."


    The middle-aged man looked up at Eiro and nodded his head without a moment''s hesitation, "Indeed so! Are you interested in the words of the gods?"


    "As I think is rather clear, I am." Eiro replied with a smile on his face. He made sure to mix his charisma-enhancing abilities into the chaos that he manipted his mana with, so that the holy energy had an especially strong influence on this priest.


    "Yes! It is clear you are a man of the gods!" The priest replied. At that point, it was rather easy to subtly manipte this priest. Eiro made sure to talk to him for as long as possible, until it was time for the priest''s evening prayer. At that point, he stood up and excused himself.


    "It was wonderful to be able to converse with you, however, now it should be time for both of us to retreat to our chambers to pray." The priest said, "It was an honor to meet you."


    "Ah, I have a bit of a better idea." Eiro said in response, turning his head toward the window, "Should we not take any chance that we can to be closer to the gods? Praying here while the cathedral is in view seems like more than just a waste, does it not? One might even call it an insult to one''s faith."


    The priest raised his brows and looked out of the window as well, before slowly nodding his head, "You are right. It was suggested to me not to walk through town on my own, since my escorts are currently busy, but not only you but you and yourdy''s escorts seem quite powerful. If you not mind, I would like toe along with you."


    "Of course, that would be perfect. However, you must be aware beforehand... While I tried to protect it, I lost my sigil of the order during a battle with a wicked demon, so I am afraid I would not be able to get inside the cathedral on my own. Would you mind using the influence of your sigil to get us into the cathedral together with you?"


    "Oh, of course! Do not worry, you are clearly a man of the gods, there is no way I would not take someone like you along with me for our prayers." The priest said with a smile, "However, in that case, we must leave now, or else it will be toote for our prayer."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head, and followed the priest as he turned his head toward James, Krog and Jess with a light smile. The three of them were unsure how easy this was going to be, but surprisingly, Eiro had been able to convince this man more than just easily. For now, everything was working out perfectly.


    The group of five made their way through the streets, being greeted by the guards and the people living there, and before long, they reached the cathedral.


    The guards standing outside quickly checked the priest''s sigil, and the priest asked the guards to let Eiro and the others into the cathedral with him. And so, they easily managed to get inside. However, the moment that Eiro stepped into the cathedral, he made unholy energy flow through his body from a small unholy object that he was hiding in his hand to fight off the holy energy that hit him when he entered the church.


    Obviously, the holy energy coursing through this building was extraordinarily strong. It was a cathedral in the holy capital, after all. So even if it didn''t manage to particrly injure Eiro, it might still end up slightly burning his skin, causing him to give off smoke. And seeing someone''s body suddenly start to smoke the moment they stepped into a church was something rather suspicious, so Eiro wanted to stop that from happening by any means.


    Eiro followed the priest through the cathedral, since he seemed to have been here before, and they soon found themselves right in front of the altar. Of course, for now, Eiro had to make sure that he went along with it, although the holy energy became stronger and stronger the closer they got to the altar in the front.


    Slowly, the priest kneeled down in front of the steps leading to the altar, and Eiro did the same in preparation for the start of the distraction.


    He pressed his hands together as he knelt there, slowly removing the gemstone from the ring he was wearing, and prepared to give it to Sarius ording to the n. However, before that was possible, something else happened. Something that Eiro really hadn''t taken into ount, since it was something that was simply impossible to take into ount.


    He slowly raised his head, since he sensed something that shouldn''t be happening right now. This church was one that prayed to all of the gods that aligned themselves with the good, but there was really only one central being that they focused on. The other deities had smaller shrines set up along the walls of the cathedral, but at the heart of this structure stood the altar to one particr god.


    The God of gods, the father of all, Patrius.


    That god had a statue standing there right in front of Eiro, on the other side of the altar. And that statue''s connection to the wall that was holding it up slowly cracked into pieces. Overall, the whole structure that made up the statue began to crack around its joints, and it became suddenly animated. It took a step forward, crushing most of the altar underneath its heavy feet, as the being that controlled the statue looked down at Eiro.


    "Who art thou?" It asked, and Eiro stared back confused. Its very voice burnt in his ears, and when Eiro looked around, the rest of the world really just seemed frozen in a weird way. If he tried looking to the other side of the cathedral, it all just faded away into nothingness, as if Eiro wasn''t really there anymore.


    "My name... is Eiro Jura Daemonherz." The Demon said, feelingpelled to reply.


    The being red back and spoke once more, its voice starting to really hurt Eiro''s ears, "Why art thou in my halls, Demon?"


    "What, is there some kind of rule that says Demons can''t be religious?"


    "But thou art not."


    "...So? Listen, we both know that... whatever you are, you aren''t going to kill me. That''s not really in the style of you big guys. So what do you want?" Eiro asked, wanting to just get away from whatever was going on here as quickly as he possibly could. The being that controlled the statue looked back at Eiro and stayed quiet for a few more moments, until it finally replied.


    "I am not nning on ying thee, Demon. Thou art a creation of the gods'' hands as well. However, thou in particr art the antithesis of our being. Rather than ''Why'', my question meant ''How''? What brought thee to this ce?" The being asked. And while Eiro wasn''t sure if his ability worked on a literal god, it seemed to him that they were telling the truth.


    And so... Eiro told his story. He didn''t know how long it took to do so exactly, since his mind was simply wandering away as he did so. But soon, he finished, telling every detail of his life to this deity, and they both sat there for a while in silence.


    "A demon on the path of righteousness, raising a child that received our blessings, hoping to bring order to this world... Do you understand that what thou art trying to do directly opposes our divine ns?"


    "...Yes, I do. But there''s a reason why I have these abilities that will allow me to do that. And since the gods don''t, can''t, and won''t step in, there is nothing you can do against it." Eiro replied immediately and in a blunt tone. The god in front of him that was controlling the statue simply chuckled.


    "That is under the assumption that we even wish to intervene. Do not worry, Demon... this is a n established millenia ago. Long before the current state of the world. While we are powerful, we are by now means able to see every detail of the future of this world that thou live in. Even if thou shall choose to rule over this world with the new powers thou will attain, that is what the creatures living in this world have caused through their own actions." The deity exined to Eiro, "This conversation was quite entertaining, however. I thank thee, Demon. Nay... I thank thee, Eiro Jura Daemonherz."


    And just like that, the statue turned around and pressed its body back onto the wall, fusing into it again. The world around Eiro turned back to normal as time started flowing again, and Eiro was sitting there trying to suppress the possibility of himself going up in mes with all his power. He felt sick, as if he was going to throw up right here.


    The Demon pushed himself off the ground and pressed his hand to the side. He didn''t care if anyone saw him do it, there wasn''t any need to be subtle about it anyway. Sarius took the gemstone into his hands and absorbed it into himself, taking the power of that tiny holy spark and letting it flow through his being for a bit of a show.


    Meanwhile, Eiro just started walking through the cathedral, waving at the others to follow him.


    "Huh? Eiro, what''s going on?" James asked confused, but Eiro still couldn''t speak after all that. He felt simply overwhelmed.


    After all, he just spoke to the one divine being that was the most reclusive of all, that even other gods weren''t able to freely speak to.


    He spoke to the mightiest god of all, and he sanctioned his n to overthrow the system bringing chaos into this world.

 Chapter 459 - Return

    Eiro was feeling a bit lightheaded. Probably because he literally just held as conversation with a god. It seemed rather surreal, but considering the kind of being that Eiro was, a demon born from a human soul, and someone that arcane beings also paid close attention to, maybe it made some form of sense for the gods to pay attention to him as well.


    Or rather, it didn''t seem to bepletely ''out there''.


    "Dude, are you alright?" James asked confused, somewhat nervously turning around as he saw the groups of guards running toward the cathedral. Eiro slowly nodded his head in response and continued walking forward, making sure that himself and his party were properly cloaked using the ace of cups.


    "I''ll exin itter. Don''t worry, it''s not going to influence what we''re here to do today." Eiro exined quickly, but James, Jess and Krog looked at him with light frowns, noticing that something was definitely off.


    Eiro let out an annoyed sigh and rolled his eyes, "Guys, I''m a demon that just prayed to the father of gods in the most holy church in this world, what do you expect?" The Demon told them with a wry smile, and at that point, the three of them figured they would just ept that as a reason. It wasn''t like that was totally wrong anyway, Eiro did feel a bit affected by the holy energy inside of that structure. And inside of this castle as well. But at the very least, he knew that Zaragon''s chambers wouldn''t have any sort of holy energy of this level in them. Otherwise Eiro would have gone up in mes the moment he stepped through that door back then.


    While they were walking up the stairs, getting rather close to what seemed to be the space Zaragon should be in, Eiro closed his eyes and for a moment checked up on what exactly was happening in the cathedral. Like Eiro had asked him to, Sarius made use of the special gemstone holding the holy spark to temporarily turn his body into holy mes instead of regr ones, so that he could pretend to be a holy spirit of some sort.


    That did of course attract quite the attention in itself. But since Sarius quite liked the tone of his own voice, he was able to tell whoever approached him some form of bullshit, all the whilst slowly but surely burning down the whole cathedral.


    And the best thing was... Anything that Eiro was doing in order to achieve his goals had practically been blessed by the greatest god in existence, meaning that he was safe from divine retribution for burning down that cathedral a little bit.


    It wasn''t like Eiro was trying to burn the whole ce downpletely, just a bit of the decorations, some of the seats... Enough to distract people so that they wouldn''t cause any sort of trouble while the party of four was fighting against Zaragon.


    Either way, to Eiro it seemed like they finally reached the right ce. Or at the very least, this was where the room was supposed to be, but the door wasn''t here.


    "Wait, does that mean... Does Zaragon transport the whole door to different parts of the capital city?" James asked out loud, and in response, the startled Krog looked at the wall, "Does that mean we can''t get inside now or something? Even after finally getting here?"


    "Eh? What are you talking about?" Eiro replied with a wry smile, "Since when have doors been the only way to get into a room?"


    "...Since forever?" Jess replied, and Eiro raised a brow in response as he ced his hand onto the wall. The des of the three of swords slowly moved out of his gauntlet''s w-slots and pressed against the wall. They carved a quick pattern into the wallpaper, and Jess soon raised her brows as she understood what exactly Eiro was trying to do.


    "Ah... But won''t that attract a bit of attention..?" She asked somewhat nervously, but Eiro shook his head. Right now, it would seem like that, but Eiro wasn''t finished yet. He quickly ced anotheryer onto the carved pattern, and then slowly ced his hand onto the center.


    "It''s going to just repair itself once I stop supplying mana to it. So there''s nothing to worry about." Eiro exined to the others, before he looked at James.


    "Are you ready? This is definitely Zaragon''s space, since I can barely sense anything beyond this wall. As if there''s something like a barrier ced around it." The Demon said, and waited for the others to fully get ready.


    Eiro slowly ced his hand onto his own chest and manipted the chaos to remove the holy effect, and instead left it in its neutral base mode for now, which actually didn''t look that much different from the holy mode.


    And then, Eiro let his mana flow into the carving on the wall. Without further ado, a hole opened up in that wall,rge enough to let the four of them quickly rush inside. A momentter, the hole closed back up and basically trapped them inside of this space. Immediately, this room was familiar to Eiro, though. This was the entrance area, where one was supposed to leave their items and such before heading inside. It was also the ce where Zaragon killed Avalin. It was practically unchanged from what it was like eight years ago. And that fact showed itself in Eiro''s breathing. Even though Eiro was much, much stronger than he used to be, and much more intelligent and mature... This trauma was still ingrained inside of him, and he never had the chance to deal with it all that much.


    If just this room made Eiro feel like this, he didn''t really want to know what seeing Zaragon would do to him. But he would find that out soon enough. James as well, he was standing there, tightly clutching the handles of his daggers. Even with his prosthetic. After all, by now, it was a basic version of an improved prosthetic that could be used by him more easily than the version before.


    The two of them looked at each other for a moment, realizing that the respectively other one was going through something at this point as well.


    "Are you alright?" Eiro asked, and James slowly nodded his head.


    "I will be, yeah... what about you?" James replied, and Eiro smiled somewhat, "Same with me."


    "How wonderful a friendship this seems to be. That nearly warmed my ck, cold hearts up." A voice suddenly said, and it certainly wasn''t one of this group. It wasn''t Bavet either, the only one who could change his own voice in such a convincing manner.


    That meant only one thing, "There you are, Zaragon."


    "Hm? Do we know each other? I thought this was just a random attempt at a robbery." Zaragon said, as Eiro slowly turned around. He saw that pure white being, with its pitch ck teeth in a smile and the same-colored eye wide open while staring at them.


    "A random attempt at a robbery, right. That''s why we used the wall in the royal castle to enter, instead of the fucking door." Eiro replied, his heart starting to beat intensely as he saw this being in front of him. James as well was starting to freak out somewhat, but at least his breathing was under control.


    Eiro stepped out of this room through the open door and looked at Zaragon as he stood there in this enclosed space. Through some pretty bad luck, there were a few other customers here at the moment, and Zaragon apparently instructed them to attack whoever came in here in his stead. Eiro swung his hand to the side just one, stretching out the Three of Swords and sticking the des in the foreheads of the customers.


    "Oops, seems like that didn''t really work out." Eiro said with a slight sigh, as he watched the bodies of half the group of 6 simply drop down. The other three were of course startled at their friends dying so suddenly, and even Zaragon grimaced a bit. But from what Eiro knew about him, this wasn''t because of the death of these people, but rather because their blood was pouring onto the ground.


    The Demon pressed his foot onto the body of one of them, and let his mana flow into his body, draining all of the blood out of him. He moved the ball of blood inbetween himself and Zaragon and smiled softly, "Oops, seems like I identally gathered a bunch of blood... Would be too bad if it got all over the floor, walls, and ceiling." Eiro said with a light grin, while Zaragon became furious.


    "Don''t you dare, you disgusting little-"


    "Toote, you dumb piece of shit." Eiro smirked, and made the ball of blood simply explode outward, sttering it onto literally everything except Eiro and his party. The Demon stood there with a smile on his face as he was expertly executing the first part of his n. It was surprising that there were people here, since Eiro had just nned on using mud created by Gondos and Nelli''s magics, but this was much better.


    Blood had a bit of a nice meaning to it as well, on top of being incredibly hard to get out of literally everything it got on.


    The three other people screamed loudly as they were covered in theirpanion''s blood, and Eiro slowly turned around toward his party, who were also slightly horrified by this sight, "Shall we begin?" The Demon asked, with a broad, demonic grin on his face.

 Chapter 460 - Puppets

    Zaragon stood there, his suit covered in stters of blood. With a deep re, he waved one of his four hands over his body, and the suit was immediately cleaned perfectly. With a snap of his finger, the blood covering the floor, walls and ceiling also disappeared within the next few moments.


    "Disgusting. Who do you think you are toe into my home and dirty it with the blood of those disgusting savages?" Zaragon asked, as he turned his head over toward the other three customers who were stillpletely overwhelmed by the situation.


    With a wave of his hand, their throats were cut and their head fell to the ground. But they didn''t actuallynd on the ground, instead, they fell through a hole that suddenly appeared in the floor together with their bodies.


    Now that this ce was decently cleaned up and readied for the battle, Eiro figured he should try and remind Zaragon of who him and James were. He held his hand forward and pulled something out of thin air. The golden, decorated card appeared inbetween his fingers, and Zaragon''s two hearts began beating at a surreal speed. Something that would cause anyone else to have a heart attack at this point.


    "You... you''re that... that disgusting little Imp from back then?!"


    "Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! And your price is absolutely fucking nothing!" Eiro eximed as he made the card disappear in his treasury again. He turned around and pulled James toward him, "And I brought someone else with me, you should be able to remember him as well, eh?"


    "...The child that got away back then? He jumped out of the giant hole in the wall, so sadly it was too much of a bother to chase after him. How wonderful that he returned to me on his own." Zaragon said, although he was clearly just trying to hold it together right now, taken aback by this situation.


    "Too much of a bother? You mean that you were unable to chase after him, right? I know your kind. You''re linked to one specific space at a time, and you can''t leave it. Your focus was on this room, so your control is a lot higher than it should be, right?" Eiro pointed out, and Zaragon closed his eyes for a moment. He sighed somewhat as he ced his hands onto his back. A momentter, he disappeared into smoke.


    Reacting immediately, Eiro pushed James to the side and ced his tail in front of Jess. He soon felt an impact, as Zaragon''s hand hit his tail.


    "Start." Eiro said in a cold voice, and Krog immediately began to swing his axes at Zaragon. The fight had already started now, after all. Zaragon turned part of his body into smoke to dodge the attack, and Jess activated the spell that she had been silently preparing. A strong gust of wind hit Zaragon, and the parts of him that were currently made of smoke were pushed away and spread out throughout the room.


    Before Zaragon was able to properly react to what was going on, James already attacked him as well, stabbing his dagger through the enemy''s head. Of course, Zaragon turned that part into smoke as well.


    But at that point, Eiro held his hand toward that smoke before it turned back into Zaragon''s flesh andpressed the air in that spot as much as he could.


    Right now, what they were trying to do, was make Zaragon use as much of his mana as absolutely possible. He shouldn''t be able to keep on doing this infinitely. Although, as was evident just a momentter, he really didn''t have to. One of his three hands that hadn''t been turned into smoke quickly snapped, and the room started to change its ''disy'' mode to another type of wares. It waspletely empty earlier, but now, thick pirs rose out of the ground.


    They began to twist around their vertical axis, when they slowly stopped. Now, their front was open. And inside was something that seemed like it would turn into quite a bother. They were old, most likely ancient even, but that didn''t mean that they were broken. They were well-kept and probably had been repaired and enhanced through new methods of the current time.


    They were... dolls. Simr in nature to the puppet Eiro trained with. Just that these were specially created to be actual weapons. They were far more advanced than the puppet. They... were artificial beings. They were alive, but also not. While the puppet was unable to do any particr point-damage, these ones were most likely acknowledged by the system. They were weapons that wielded themselves.


    And there was a dozen of them. Each took a generic humanoid form. They were tall, with broad, strong builds. Each of them was about two meters tall, holding heavy weapons that would certainly hurt when they hit you.


    The worst part, however, was that they were incredibly fast on top of that. The puppets, made of some kind of metal that Eiro didn''t recognze, ran through the room and attacked them instantly. The first that was attacked, simply because of his position, was Krog. The puppet that attacked him swung arge, heavy sword down at him. Krog swung his axes over his head and stopped the attack, knowing that he wouldn''t be able to evade it no matter what he did. He didn''t have any particr speed going for him, after all.


    Another one of the puppets, wearing gauntlets that made its hands look like huge hammers, hit Krog''s side. The heavy warrior was thrown through the room as if he weighed nothing. But through the intense control Krog had over his own body, he was able tond on his feet. Two of his ribs were broken, but he didn''t flinch at all. He just ran forward again, ready to attack.


    There was an issue, though. Whatever metal the puppets and their weapons were made of were far stronger than even the best steel. After just that single impact right there, there were huge dents in Krog''s axes. He would never be able to damage them like this, even when focusing on the joints like he should with these sorts of enemies.


    But at the same time, that attack told Eiro something. Despite that metal being so clearly strong, the damage that Krog received... was anticlimactic. Eiro saw the damage notification in Krog''s eyes, and the fact that only two of his ribs were broken despite that full-on hit against them? That meant that they didn''t have as much force behind them as Eiro thought they would.


    Of course they would still be extremely dangerous, especially considering their speed and number, but as long as they were able to find a way to defend against them somehow, they wouldn''t be tough. Once they killed Zaragon, Eiro figured that they wouldn''t be able to move. They were probably directly controlled by Zaragon, after all.


    So, after finding his target, a puppet carrying a ridiculously huge tower shield, Eiro held his hand forward, using one of the magic skills that he finally learned over the past few weeks as he prepared for this trip.


    He used gravity magic, and focused a spell that increased the gravity of an object on that one specific puppet. It became unable to move, as Eiro hoped, and the only way it was able to keep itself up was by pushing its body off the ground using the shield as a way to prop itself up.


    "James!" Eiro eximed, but he was already on his way. He swiftly dodged the puppets with his fast and smooth movement, and hooked his foot onto the backside of the shield and pulled it toward himself. After pulling it away, the puppet fell to the ground and hat to let go of the shield, at which point James kicked the shield over toward Krog. Immediately understanding the n, Krog ran over toward the shield and picked it up, letting go of his axes in the process. That puppet carrying the gauntlets once more hit Krog before he was able to pick it up, hitting the exact same spot as before. Now it was Eiro''s turn to do something again.


    He made thepressed ball of Zaragon''s smoke explode outward to stop him from instantly forming again. Jess was casting fire spells with the help of Sarius, who Eiro had summoned again, to heat up specific parts of the puppets'' bodies to weaken them and make it easier to destroy their bodies, all the whilst Eiro had both Gondos and Nelli do something else in preparation for thetter parts of this battle.


    Nelli was spreading out an incredibly thin mist, while Gondos created super fine sand and tried to push it inbetween the mechanical joints of the puppets bit by bit.


    The sound of sand crunching the more the puppets moved became louder as the battle went on. Soon, Eiro reached Krog again, fusing his body with a high amount of air magic to be able to avoid the puppets as easily as possible. When he was right in front of Krog, Eiro fused his left arm with water from a waterskin he carried on his hip, and pushed his open palm right onto Krog''s ribs. The water-infusion caused ripples inside of Eiro''s flesh, and he was able to push a sudden pulse of magic into Krog''s body. It was clearly rather painful, but Eiro was able to set that parts of hispanion''s ribs perfectly into ce again. Thatst attack from the puppet with the gauntlets disced part of Krog''s broken ribs, making them pierce his flesh right inside of his body.


    Bit by bit, they were able to fight back against the puppets, and by the time that Zaragon''s body had been able to form again, they had been able to easily fight back against the puppets. They weren''t fully destroyed yet, but the puppets had received decent internal damge.. If nothing else happened, they would soon be broken, something that even Zaragon knew to be fact.

 Chapter 461 - Revenge

    Zaragon''s body reformed, and so did his ability to fully think and react to what was happening around him. And to his surprise, this group had managed to take on the mechanical warriors quite well. It seemed rather bothersome to him, though.


    So, Zaragon pped two of his hands together while using the rest to fix his suit up a bit. Together with the pping sound, something in the room changed. It was sudden, so much so that even Eiro nearly missed it. But he didn''t, and was able to react in time. Right from above the Demon, a thick stream of holy energy came flowing onto him.


    It was strong and concentrated, but... Zaragon clearly didn''t expect that which Eiro did next. He waved his hand around, making a ck sludge pour out of his fingers. The sludge stayed in ce, and diverted the flow of the holy energy, and let Eiro control them instead.


    "Thanks for that~!" The Demon said with a smirk on his face, and soon, the flow of holy energy from above simply stopped. Eiro took the essence that he had pressed into his hand to have some form of reserve for it, and quicklypressed it while the essence turned into the fuel for holy mes. Eiro held his hand forward toward the mes and used another sort of magic.


    Slowly, a mass of incredibly pure mana flowed out of Eiro''s right, wooden hand and wrapped itself right around the holy mes. He was creating a barrier around the mes using Arcane Magic. Eiro moved his hands around as if he was physically squeezing something into a small ball, as the holy mes became incrediblypressed right within that special arcane barrier.


    The Demon then grabbed that small orb, which was now small enough for him to hold in one hand, and then grinned lightly.


    "Huh... You are able to use rather unique magic, I see." Zaragon said, genuinely surprised, "But no matter that. Let''s end this, shall-" Before he was able to finish that sentence, Eiro threw the orb filled with thosepressed holy mes right at his enemy. The air let out a loud cracking sound due to the speed of the orb. But of course, instead of hitting Zaragon''s body, it simply flew through him. But right when the orb was within the space of that monstrosity''s body, Eiro released the barrier. And even Zaragon wasn''t able to properly react to it.


    The mes spread out within a moment andtched themselves onto Zaragon''s body, since Eiro''s essence was also still within the orb. And that was when Eiro finally some some damage notifications for Zaragon.


    "It''s working." Eiro said with a grin on his face, watching as Zaragon''s body immediately fully turned into smoke. But even though that was the case, the mes were still moving along with that smoke, as if the air itself was on fire. And of course, since smoke had rather bad defensive capabilities, the damage that was being done to Zaragon increased, causing him to return to a physical shape a momentter.


    "H-How is it still... sticking to me..?" He asked with a practically growling voice, and Eiro couldn''t help himself but grin as he was pushing one of the puppets away, basically kicking it to the other side of the room with surprising ease.


    "That stuff is my essence. It''s not a physical thing in the first ce, and it''spletely and utterly under my control." Eiro exined with a broad grin on his face, as he stopped moving. But he wasn''t the only one that stopped moving. So did the puppets, as well as Eiro''s party members.


    With a snap of his fingers, the metallic puppets stood up straight, albeit clearly against their will. Their metal sheets, tubes and gears were creaking loudly, as if their whole bodies were about to explode, but they weren''t able to do anything against what was happening. Every bit of hollow space within them was now filled out with Gondos'' rock, after all.


    And that meant that Eiro and his contracted spirit hadplete and utter control over them from the inside. With a grin on his face, Eiro made the puppets simply kneel to him, as he turned his head over toward James, Jess, and Krog.


    Krog was still holding therge shield made of this nearly indestructible metal. Him and Eiro locked eyes, and Krog immediately knew what to do, stepping in front of Eiro and holding the shield in front of the whole group, all the whilst Jess grabbed a handful of the special spell-filled orbs. She let her mana flow into all of them, but didn''t activate them just yet. Instead, she made sure install some sort of dy into them for now, so that they would activate once they got far enough away from them.


    And then, while Zaragon was nearly forced to stay in a solid form, since he otherwise would end up simply burning away due to the holy mes that he himself created, multiple high-powered spells created together by Eiro and Jess exploded outward.


    The first one to activate was a wind spell, causing a flurry of air-bolts to be shot right at Zaragon. Meanwhile, Eiro was making sure to create a small barrier around himself, James, Jess and Krog so that they air wouldn''t be sucked away from them, rather just taking the air only directly around Zaragon himself. Another reason why Eiro sealed the entrance they took back up.


    Once all the air in that space waspressed and shot at Zaragon, this creature was just filled with holes. He did manage to reduce the damage that was being done to him by turning smaller parts of his body into mist instead of his whole body, but that was fine. Since that was somewhat the n anyway, it was just working out a lot better than expected.


    Soon, the next spell activated. It was a water magic spell, that was mixing the thin mist that Nelli had been spreading throughout the room with Zaragon''s mist. And right then, the next spell orb activated. It was an ice magic spell this time. Once more, parts of Zaragon''s body were forced into having actual, tangible mass. But this time not through that creature''s own active choice, but because Eiro wanted it so.


    The air immediately froze. Or rather, the mist in the air froze. This was thest bit that forced Zaragon''s body to keep on staying like this. And since Holy mes didn''t actually give off too much heat, and simply radiated Holy Energy instead, the frozen air could be kept frozen.


    And just like that, the situation had been turned around. Eiro slowly moved the water that was still infused into his left arm and slowly spread it throughout his whole body, before freezing that water. Eiro''s skin turned pale and somewhat glittered, as Eirobined the ice magic with the air around him. He was infusing himself with a mixture of ice and air. He was turning himself into the same substance as what the air was right now. And for a specific reason, of course. So that he could move through this space as freely as Zaragon did just a few moments earlier, while Zaragon wasn''t able to move at all.


    And through the unique nature of the air right now, this mixture of ice and air, Eiro was able to practically jump from one ce to another instantly. And with a p of his hands, he disappeared, just to be standing behind Zaragon.


    "This is rather familiar, is it not?" Eiro said with a grin on his face, cing his hand onto Zaragon''s chin from behind, turning his head around with a broad grin on his face. As the two locked eyes, Eiro quite literally pulled Zaragon''s head off his body.


    His skin had begun ripping a bit, and his spine nearly shattered in his neck, but before that was possible, Zaragon used his smoke to split his head off his body in a special way. And since the rest of the head was still burning with those holy mes, he wasn''t able to turn it back into smoke or else it would be damaged even more. And even if that wasn''t the case... his smoke would mix with this frozen air, and then it would be game over.


    With a grin on his face, Eiro kicked Zaragon''s head over to the other side of the room toward James, who slowly picked the head up. He buried his fingers within this creature''s skin, and made him watch what Eiro was doing to his body.


    While Zaragon was trying to fight back, without his ability to turn into mist, he had lost his greatest strength advantage. In a straight-forward feat of strength, Eiro would overwhelmingly win every single time. That was very clear now.


    And there was of course another aspect than just strength. Motivation. What Eiro was doing this for was revenge. He wanted to hurt Zaragon for what he did back then. He wanted to kill him, get rid of his trauma, and live a life that wasn''t influenced by this being in the slightest.


    Eiro never wanted to have a nightmare about that day again.


    He never wanted to break out into cold sweat the moment he thought about this ce.


    He didn''t want this stuff to influence the friendship that him and James were finally building.


    As Eiro was breaking the bones within Zaragon''s body, the creature''s health decreasing bit by bit, ck blood pouring out of his wounds... He threw him to the ground. He watched as Zaragonid there on the ground, slowly trying to push himself back up.


    And that was when Zaragon went for ast-ditch measure.


    His suit was slowly being burnt away by the holy mes, and his body became exposed.. And on his torso, a huge, gaping maw appeared, as it let Eiro stare deep into this seemingly infinitely deep abyss that was Zaragon''s throat.

 Chapter 462 - Death Of A Trauma

    "I''ve had enough of this!" Zaragon yelled out, his head still being held by James. Therge maw that was Zaragon''s second mouth, that huge vertical slit running across his torso, opened up wider and wider, until it wasrge enough for a full person to fit into with ease. And then, a loud screech came out of this mouth, an ear-shattering one.


    Eiro swung his hand around and manipted the air in the room to make sure the sound couldn''t travel through the air that easily, making it a lot quieter than it usually would have been. But even so, everyone was still quite affected, feeling at the very least dizzy. Eiro stood behind Zaragon, and stabbed his dagger into the center of his back. And while his ck blood sttered down onto the ground, the scream stopped for a moment.


    But whatever it was that Zaragon was trying to achieve with the scream had already happened, and the room shifted in a new way. Incredibly dense mana spread out from Zaragon, covering every single bit of space within this room. It seemed to practically push the walls away from where they were before, increasing the size of the room an incredible amount. It didn''t take long until they were basically inside of a nearly infinitely huge white space.


    "You should not have angered me, you fools!" Zaragon yelled, "This is MY space! I haveplete and absolute control over what happens here! I am GOD in this ce!"


    All of a sudden, the ground shook like in an earthquake. A huge, enormous snow-white hand pressed onto the ground from somewhere below, as if they were all on some kind ofrge tform right now. Soon, a second hand followed. Then a third and a forth. A towering, enormous Zaragon pushed himself up, and red down onto this tform.


    He was grinning broadly, while nearly everyone here on this tform was stunned, unable to move in the slightest. There was just one being that could still properly move. Eiro dove back into the special air, nearly instantly reaching James, Jess and Krog. The Demon pressed his own hands onto James'', as he was still holding Zaragon''s head.


    "Don''t worry. It''s just a trick, nothing more." Eiro exined calmly, pressing more tightly onto James hands. More and more, as the two locked eyes, Eiro''s strength increased, until the sound of something cracking sounded out. It was clearly Zaragon''s skull, but at the same time, the sky began to crack.


    This was an illusionary space, after all. They were within Zaragon''s mind, and if the head containing that mind was broken apart, it made sense for the same thing to happen to this space.


    "What are you-" Zaragon''s regr-sized head spoke again, while the huge version of himself froze, as if time had stopped for it, "Stop it! What are you doing?!" He yelled, his voice echoing through this huge, fake space, as if it wasing from all angles.


    The rest of Zaragon''s real body quickly fell apart into smoke, and nearly instantly reached a spot behind Eiro, despite the fact that it was still aze, and more parts of the body were taken over by ice.


    Zaragon fought against it, clutching onto Eiro''s body with his four arms. He tried to pull on the Demon''s throat and shoulders, trying to rip his head off, but his physicality was far superior to that of Zaragon''s. His head wasn''t something easily taken away from him. And around that time, the next crack appeared in the sky, with a loud echo that permeated this whole space. Zaragon became more desperate, and tried to push his sharp, w-like nails through his armor. But of course, even Zaragon wasn''t able to push through a dragon''s scales with sheer desperation.


    Zaragon tried anything he could to get rid of Eiro, who was the greatest threat here, but seeing that it wasn''t possible, he instead tried to go for one of the others. But even they weren''t pushovers in the slightest. Krog and Jess had each other''s back, and it seemed like not even Zaragon could get through the defense of the shield made of that weird metal.


    "No, no, no, no!" Zaragon''s head yelled out, as the body pped all of its hands together. The room immediately shifted, even while the illusion was still active. Numerous weapons appeared on top of pedestals, and Zaragon grabbed arge de from one of them.


    He ran over to Eiro and swung the sword at him. And while Eiro wasn''t able to just withstand this sort of attack with his body either... there was no need to. Krog rushed inbetween Eiro and Zaragon and blocked the attack for him, while Jess continued casting spells at him.


    Again and again, Zaragon revealed all these items that he had in his arsenal, trying to use them to fight this group, but nothing worked. In the end, he became so desparate that he kept on trying to get the puppets out of the physical control they were over, since their bodies werepletely filled out with rock.


    But the only thing that happened was that their gears and joints practically shattered into pieces. All of the puppets fell into pieces, having been ''killed'' by the one that controlled them.


    And it was then that both James and Eiro gathered the determination needed to do this. Together, they pressed down onto the creature''s skull harder and harder, while Zaragon couldn''t do anything but scream out in pain.


    The sky shattered into pieces as ck blood came pouring out of his eyes. And a momentter... the room returned to normal, as Zaragon''s body dropped to the ground, as James and Eiro crushed his skull together.


    ---


    <strong>[You have done lethal damage to Zaragon]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have leveled up]</strong>


    <strong>[You have 20 unused stat points avable]</strong>


    ---


    Eiro let go of James'' hands and took a step back. He looked into hispanion''s eyes, seeing that he received simr messages, just that he leveled up a couple more times. It seemed like it really counted as both him and James having killed Zaragon together.


    And as James stood there, with the squished skull of this creature still in his hands, he had tears streaming out of his eyes. Tears of happiness that Zaragon finally died, that he was able to get revenge on this thing that ruined his life. And of course, tears of grief, as he remembered his friend and his love that he lost in this very room that day.


    Slowly, he let go of Zaragon''s head, and it fell to the ground just a few feet away from where his body wasying.


    Eiro stared at Zaragon''s body, making sure that both of his hearts had really stopped for good. He had never seen a being with two hearts before, so he needed to make sure that there wasn''t something weird going on. When he made sure that everything was fine, Eiro pressed his foot into the ground and let his mana pulsate through the room. Now he was able to actually sense what else was around here. There were different chambers all around this space that were holding all the different items Zaragon had in his possession.


    Eiro smiled lightly, as he noticed something else. The door to this room... It wasn''t something that was part of Zaragon''s abilities, but rather, it was an item of sorts that had been under his full control. The Demon walked up to it and pressed his palm onto the door, and let his mana flow into it. Through a thought, it seemed like he was able to manipte it.


    Sadly, it wasn''t a sort of ''free'' control, but there were a set few locations that the door could lead to. Luckily, one of those locations was surprisingly close to the Inn. They should be able to get the carriage and just put it in front of here, and put all the things they wanted to take with them in there.


    But for now, Eiro just made sure to lock the door so that nobody coulde in, and then started to walk over to the first ess point for the items, so that he could get all of them out here. Everyone else was clearly extremely exhausted, and Nelli was already busy healing them.


    "How are you fine after... that?" Jess asked with heavy breaths, and Eiro turned his head over toward her before shrugging, "My constitution is over 200, and I''m a demon, so... Most lesser injuries just heal close to instantly." The Demon pointed out rather bluntly, as he pressed his hand into the ground and ripped arge hunk of rock out of there, "Anyway, just rx for now. I doubt anyone is going toe up here anytime soon, so we can take our time. I might find some potions down here as well that could help you guys out."


    Everyone nodded their heads, recovering after that more than stressful fight. Krog was taking a closer look at the puppets, that were now practicallypletely useless and broken. But at the very least, the weapons they had with them were pretty neat. And more importantly, nearly indestructible, it seemed.


    Meanwhile, James and Jess were just sitting there, trying to recover from that fight, either physically or mentally.


    And Eiro just grabbed any items that he found in the different adjacent chambers and brought them out into the main room, while already mentally deciding what to do with them.


    But the whole time while Eiro was doing that, he had a soft, happy smile on his face, since he finally overcame one of his long-time goals after eight whole years.

 Chapter 463 - A Plot For Land

    Eiro was sorting through all these amazing objects and treasures that Zaragon had stored in these adjacent chambers.


    "You can say much about that... thing, but it certainly had a good taste for powerful items." Jess pointed out, seeing all these objectsying in front of her. Eiro quickly nodded his head as well as he went through everything, "Certainly so... Although, while that is the case, there aren''t the items that I was hoping for."


    "And what was it you were hoping for?" James asked, and Eiro looked at him with a light grin, "Something utterly wasted on a measly imp like me."


    Surprised, James raised his brows, "You''re looking for those spellbooks? Ones with skill-growth boost spells?"


    "Mhm, exactly. There are other spellbooks here, and many of them are filled with Arcane spells, actually. So I think it would be fair to assume that skill-growth boost was also an Arcane spell of sorts. It''s just that I wasn''t able to see the page at all back then, so I have no way of remembering it, and it doesn''t seem like the type of spell I can very easily recreate myself at the moment." Eiro exined to them, "So I was hoping I would be able to find another one here, but sadly that isn''t the case. Not that these others aren''t useful, though... They definitely are."


    "You can say that again... This one is a spell for strength-enhancement, right?" Jess said, curiously looking at one of the pages of a spellbook.


    "Mhm, and there''s even a temporary polymorph spell over here." Eiro pointed out, "They will definitely be incredibly useful."


    "Wait, polymorph? Does that mean you won''t need me now anymore, since you can transform yourself?" Bavet asked with a wry smile, havinge out of hiding now that the battle was over. Eiro turned over toward him and shook his head, "Don''t worry, I can''t really use this spell yet. I can probably use a lesser version of them, and maybe I can figure them out after studying different sorts of simr spells, but these... Seem to be the ''effect'' of a spell, and not the spell itself. My assumption is that whoever, or whatever, created these books had a surreal amount of power and mana." The Demon pointed out, "An amount that I doubt I canpare to anytime soon."


    "...What could possibly have that much mana, then?" James asked with a wry smile, as Bavet wrapped himself around Eiro''s arm nervously, and the Demon thought about it for a moment.


    "Dragons, maybe. I know that Lognir has an absolutely surreal amount of mana, so it doesn''t seem like too much of a stretch. If there was a dragon interested in magic, considering the amount of time they would have to study that magic... Then it would be possible. Or well, it could possibly be any sort of Magic Beast, really, not just Dragons. They''re just a good example." Eiro exined, as he tied a pile of the books together to make sure they could be transported more easily.


    And that was exactly when someone knocked on the door. He swung his hand to the side, formting an arcane spell''s magic circle. A hand of arcane magic appeared there, and it moved over to the other side of the room and opened up the door, since Eiro was too bothered to move away from this pile of items right now.


    The door opened up and Krog stepped inside, "I''ve got our carriage, and I asked them all to prepare some more carriages for us, like you asked. But the issue is... Who''s gonna drive ''em?"


    "We have plenty of people that can drive carriages, Krog. We''ve got at least five ounted for right now." The Demon pointed out, "Well, four, maybe, I''m not sure if I want to split off from Lugo for this."


    "Hm? Split off, what do you mean?" James asked, and Eiro looked over at his party, "I was asked to help the dear friend of someone I owe a lot to. Which is why I would like to ask you all to head back to Skyhart ahead of me, while I take care of that."


    "...Is it something where we really can''t help you?" James asked bluntly, and Eiro shrugged.


    "I''m not sure. I''m going to be eradicating every single being in a monster nest, after all. But at the same time, we need someone to take care of all these things."


    "Then can''t we just have someone else deliver all this stuff for us, and we cane with you?" Krog asked. Eiro really wasn''t sure what he was supposed to do now. Having their help would definitely be amazing, but he couldn''t let all these items justy around here, and they definitely wouldn''t just fit into one carriage.


    "Then maybe..." Eiro muttered quietly to himself, trying to think about a decent solution for this dilemma. And that was when the perfect n popped into Eiro''s mind. A n that would not only be incredibly useful to Eiro right now, but also in the long run.


    "Do you guys remember thews that all the countries on this continent unanimously agreed to? The ones in regard to Monster Nests?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, and Jess thought about it for a moment. She just recently read something about that.


    "Erm... There''s only one that I think you may be referring to... ''Once a plot ofnd has been designated as an official monster nest by the country it resides in, it is no longer part of that country, and instead seen as property of the Monster King''." Jess recited, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Exactly."


    "Wait, what? That''s a fucking nonsensicalw, why would any country ever do that then?" Krog asked with a deep frown, before Eiro quickly exined.


    "It''s simple. There is anotherw that the countries of this continent agreed to unanimously. ''Any country shall be allowed to dispatch an armed force into another, as long as their destination is a property of the Monster King''. This refers to, not only, countries being allowed to send armed forces through another without being stopped if the force''s goal is to strike back against the monster king in another country, but it also allows any country to dispatch a force to take over a monster nest. It is a threat not only to the country it resides in, after all. Monsters are seen as enemies of all people, so if a country may not have the power to get rid of a monster nest themselves, another country may do so instead."


    "...And what does that help us? Do you want to just get some people from Skyhart toe and get rid of it instead of you?" James asked with a frown, and Jess slowly shook her head, "I think he''s referring to whates after that? You see, if a Monster Nest is freed by a country other than the original owner of thatnd, they are given possession of that plot ofnd for up to a full month. They''re allowed to take any ressources from that plot ofnd they want to in exchange for their service."


    James let out a deep sigh, "I still don''t get it. How exactly does that help us?"


    Eiro walked up to James with a grin on his face, and squatted down in front of his resting friend, "Try to remember, James. Which Monster Nest from around here do you know of?"


    That was when he caught up to it. He was shocked at first, but then he couldn''t help himself but grin himself.


    "You''re not nning on... Don''t tell me you''re actually... You''re insane, Eiro." James said with a growing smile, just because of how ridiculous this idea was. Krog and Jess were still somewhat confused though, since they didn''t know much about this area at all.


    "Bavet, you''re staying here. Turn into Zaragon and pretend to be him in case someone from the Empire tries to talk to you. Just bullshit around however you want. Zaragon was the one in power in this ce, so not even the Pope or Emperor will be able to talk back to you. We''lle back briefly when we''re done, and then we''ll bring everything to the monster nest we''ll have just taken over."


    "Ah, I get it! You want to bring everything there, and since Skyhart will own that ce for a month, we can have peoplee pick it up?"


    "Nah, nothing like that." Eiro said with a smile on his face, "Well, that in itself would have been a better alternative than having to split up like that, but I feel like there''s a way for us to go above and beyond. Quite literally."


    "...Dude, can''t you see that Jess and I have no fuckin'' clue what you''re talkin'' about? Just tell us already!" Krog groaned out annoyed, and Eiro looked back at them with a smile.


    "The Monster Nest that we''ll be freeing is a special one. Around here is a hugeke, with a floating ind above it, arge town built upon it, that has been taken over by Monsters. That ind is only kept in ce by some chains." The Demon exined with a smile on his face, and slowly, the others understood what Eiro''s n was a well.


    Eiro walked up to his friends, seeing their confused expressions turn into those of shock, as he continued, "So what else should we be doing, given this chance, but steal a whole Town from the Holy Empire?"

 Chapter 464 - Climbing The Bridge

    The party was able to soon see the floating ind in the distance, as they were moving along the shore of theke. Deep inside of this huge body of water, Eiro was able to sense the Lord of the Lake, restrained by the beings that had taken over the city on the ind.


    It seemed to be magically chained up, its powers slowly but surely being sapped. It was a miserable way to live. Even if it wasn''t the Lonely Naiad''s friend, Eiro would have understood if she wanted him to help it.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he stared into the distance. He manipted the liquids in his eyes all the whilst increasing the focus of his senses on visual ability. Like this, he was able to see what was going on in the city, at least roughly.¡ä


    Along the bridge that they were going to take, there was some form of Noble Monster stationed as a guard, to stop anyone that wasn''t permitted from intruding. And the rest of the city... From what Eiro could see, the monsters inside were just using it as their yground, doing whatever they wanted.


    Most of the buildings had been destroyed, reced with structures created by the monsters themselves. And then, there were also the buildings on the shores themselves. The Inns that were ced before each of the bridges so that those that wanted to head into the city could rest if the bridges couldn''t be passed.


    "...Hm, that seems quite bothersome." Eiro sighed, "The bridges are flooded right now."


    "Does that mean we''ll have to wait until the water level lowers?" Jess asked, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, not really. I''ll just use magic to push the water to the side so that we can cross the bridge without issue. It''s just going to use up a good bit of mana, that''s all." The Demon pointed out, "Mana that I would have liked to save, just in case something troublesome happened up there. But at the end of the day, we should focus on making it up there in the first ce."


    "...Right. I do keep forgetting just how powerful your direct control over the elements is." Jess said with a wry smile, "I''m mostly just good at drawing magic circles, but direct control is kind of... awkward."


    "Don''t worry about that. You''re specialized, that''s all. And since you''re a full mage instead of mixing your expertise like I do, that''s totally fine as well." Eiro reassured her, as Jess slowly smiled back, "Thanks, that''s kind of reassuring to hear..." She replied.


    It didn''t take long for the group to reach the entrance onto the bridge. Within the inn ced at the bottom of the steep structure, there were plenty of monsters gathered for now as well.


    "Jess, please create a fire magic spell that just spews mes through one of the broken windows. If you can, aim it at the one in the top right, it''s some kind of storage rooms with plenty of paper and other burnables." Eiro suggested to her, and Jess quickly got to it as Eiro turned toward James and Krog, "And you two, make sure to fight any of the monsters thate rushing out of there when the building is set aze."


    The two fighters quickly nodded their heads, pulling out their respective weapons, although James had a bit of ament, "Although, wouldn''t it be too obvious if we just set fire to the old inn? Won''t the monsters on the ind find out that they''re being attacked?"


    "Not really. You''re underestimating how proud and stupid monsters can be, especially nobles, which are the only ones we have to worry about at this point. Even if they were to notice the fire, they''ll think ''One of those dumb lesser monsters set fire to that building... How funny''." Eiro said bluntly, "Although, even then, it really doesn''t matter in the first ce. We''re not really trying to be stealthy, since we have to kill all the monsters up there anyway. If they end up gathering in one spot because they want to fight back against us, that''s just better for us in the end."


    "Eh, makes sense. We really are a lot stronger than we were before, so they shouldn''t end up being a threat to us." James said with a grin on his face, and Eiro smiled as he stepped up to the entrance to the incredibly long bridge that would take one hours to get across, just because of the sheer size of theke. It was incredidble, really. Eiro had no idea how they even built these bridges. There weren''t many that could use magic to help out in the creation of such an incredible structure.


    Not that it mattered at the end of the day. Eiro walked onto the bridge up to the point where it was covered by water, and then sat down cross-legged inside of the water. He started spreading out the mana throughout the water in a straight line in front of him, practically creating a rectangr magic circle. It was basically a special ''zone'' spell, made to push any water within it out of the way while Eiro supplied mana to it.


    While Eiro was constructing this spell, he could hear the screams of monsters and smelled the scent of smoke and blood mixing together. So the others were busy at work right now as well.


    It seemed like one of the monsters they were fighting escaped and was running right at the bridge. It probably thought that it had to get back up onto the ind if it wanted any chance of surviving. And since Eiro was sitting there with his back turned toward it, it most likely thought that he was easy prey.


    It was just that it took nothing but an instant for Eiro to push arge amount of venom into the blood of this monster, paralyzing its body immediately before it slowly died, drowning in its own blood. It fell to the ground before evening into arms-reach for Eiro. Since the Demon''s tail was decently long, it allowed Eiro to use such tactics.


    Either way, after that monster died, Eiro continued constructing the spell. Soon, just around when the others were done as well, Eiro finished constructing the magic circle, and quickly activated it. The water that was making it impossible to cross the bridge at the moment was pushed to the side, as the group started walking it up.


    "But really, why was this bridge flooded like that? It wasn''t like that back in the day." James pointed out, "Or was it?"


    Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, it wasn''t. It''s because of the ind. It''s floating lower than it used to. When they chained up the Lord of the Lake, they connected him directly to that mass ofnd. Its sheer weight is pulling the ind down a bit, causing the bridge to submerge like this for now. It should have probably taken another few days for the ind to lightly float back up enough for it to be possible to pass it normally."


    "How disgusting..." Jess said with a deep re as she looked into the water, "I heard the Lord of the Lake was a wonderful being... A monster that really wasn''t a monster, protecting the people of this town. That they did this to such a majestic being..."


    "Oh, the Lord of the Lake isn''t a monster." Eiro said bluntly, before James, Jess and Krog immediately stopped walking, "What? What do you mean?"


    "...It''s not a monster." Eiro replied immediately, "I was able to sense it just now, it''s clearly not a monster. It''s a Magic Beast, possibly one even mightier than dragons. Although I don''t really know what exactly it is. It just looks like a truly enormous sea serpent right now, though."


    "...Seriously? Then why does everyone think it''s a monster..?"


    "Because it probably can''t speak Common, and people are quick to call beings that scare them monsters." Eiro said bluntly, and the others looked at each other somewhat embarrassed. They knew that Eiro was right, so they couldn''t say much in response. Seeing that they were feeling somewhat awkward after that reveal, Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Don''t worry, I can''t me people for doing that, at least in this case. Again, it''s not like it can speak Common and just tell them about how it''s a magic beast and not a monster. And it does seem pretty monstrous even to me, so I get- Ah, Krog, walk a step further to the left."


    "Huh?" Krog replied. He did as told, but he was clearly still confused. That was, until a small marble-sized ball hit the spot where he was just walking. It popped open, and a dirty green liquid came out, spreading onto the thick surface of the bridge. That part of the bridge immediately started melting away due to that acidic liquid.


    Eiro held his hand forward as a magic circle was quickly formed in front of his palm. It was activated an instantter, and a pebble that was provided by Gondos was shot at the being that had noticed the group and tried to attack them. It was one of the things that had settled down on the bridge itself, a small nt-type monster that was growing in the area beyond where the water was covering the bridge.


    Of course, Eiro immediately shot through the center of its body and killed it without issue. It was just a peasant monster, after all.


    Nothing to worry about in the slightest.

 Chapter 465 - Troll On A Bridge

    "To your left. And James, right ahead." Eiro said with a somewhat annoyed expression as he kept warning his party-members because of the acid-projectiles being shot at them. Whenever one of those nt-type monsters that were growing along this bridge were shooting at them, Eiro shot back and killed them rather easily and quickly. But there were just so many of them that even this Demon wasn''t able to kill them all at once. But he was reducing their numbers, at least.


    "Can''t you just make a fucking barrier or somethin''? It feels like the bridge is gonna copse sooner orter because of this stuff..." Krogined loudly, and Eiro shrugged, "A barrier would be too bothersome. I''ll just keep using Rock Bullet instead."


    It didn''t take too much longer until Eiro had killed nearly all of them without a problem. And then, one of thest couple of them shot one of those projectiles, a particrlyrge one, directly at Eiro. The Demon held his hand forward and proceeded to use a magic that he currently didn''t have too much control over, even though it was one that he had technically used for quite a while already.


    The projectile ended up slowing down right in front of Eiro, until it came to a halt right in front of his hand. The Demon then encapsuled it in an orb of ice, which was when the projectile popped again. Eiro opened up a tiny hole inside of the ice orb and let a small drop of the acid touch his skin.


    It immediately felt like it was burning him, but it wasn''t that bad. It didn''t even make Eiro bleed. But even so, it was still an incredibly potent sort of acid... So of course, Eiro chose to keep it. He poured the rest of the acid into a ss bottle that he then safely ced into his treasury, where it couldn''t shatter apart. He would try and analyze it a bit moreter so that he could possibly replicate it, at least to an extent. If he made a more potent version of that right now inside of his stinger, he would probably cause his tail to melt apart because of it.


    "Gravity magic is really useful, isn''t it..?" Jess said with a jealous expression, and Eiro looked back at her with a light smile, "Yeah, it is. I''m d that I was able to finally awaken to the skill, so I don''t need to use all the magic stones anymore. Instead, I can have Armodeus make some great items with them for us instead."


    "You''re really just using Armodeus as your personal item dispensary, huh?" James pointed out with a grin, but Eiro just shrugged, "I don''t know what you mean. I pay him for every item he makes for me and I pay for all the materials that he uses even for his own projects. It''s not like I''m ''using him'' or anything like that."


    He held his hand forward, and shot a few more Rock Bullets at the rest of the nt-monsters, causing them all to die. There were a few more on the underside of the bridge further ahead, but it wasn''t like those were going to be any sort of issue. They couldn''t really move, after all, and they wouldn''t end up melting away the parts of the bridge they were hanging on. Instead, while the group walked over them, they were trying to be as quiet and inanimate as possible, so that they wouldn''t die like the others of their kind.


    But it wasn''t like Eiro would let them live anyway. Although, he still brought their corpses with him, so that he could harvest their seeds and grow some of them on his own at some point. These nt-type monsters had an incredibly subtle ego, and they were mostly controlled by the most raw and basic of instincts brought upon by their monstrosity. So if Eiro manipted them properly as he grew them so that they didn''t have any, or simply far too little, monstrosity to begin with, they should be incredibly easy to control. They should be great if Eiro stationed them as defensive units around the border of his manor.


    But for now, Eiro just threw all of their corpses onto one spot. They had to go kill the city guard first anyway. It stood there, arge Troll with a thick stone pir as its weapon. It red down at the party, saying some gibberish in troll-speech.


    "Do you three want to take care of it?" Eiro asked, looking at his party members, "It would be a good chance for me to harvest the seeds from these guys already."


    Krog, Jess and James looked at each other for a moment, before they soon nodded their heads, "Let''s do it like that." James concluded, "But you better hurry up, cause this won''t take long."


    Eiro grinned a bit as he approached the pile of the bodies behind him again. He sat down there, grabbing the bodies one by one before he started going through them. The only issue was that their bodies were naturally giving off that same acid as before, even if it was somewhat weaker than earlier.


    He definitely wouldn''t be able to use his metal tools for it, otherwise they would end up rusting away practically immediately. So instead, Eiro swiftly started constructing a magic circle to create some Arcane Tools so that he could properly extract everything from their bodies. After all, pure mana obviously couldn''t be affected by things like acid. And so, after Eiro created them, he fused them with his Three of Swords'' des, something that gave Eiro more fine-tuned control than just through the regr magical tools.


    And while Eiro was doing that, the others were at work fighting that Troll. For Eiro, it would be easy to kill that thing instantly, since Eiro was able to cause a lot of different sorts of damage. Among them, he was able to keep on ''pressing'' damage onto the opponent, something that came in incredibly useful against Trolls. Their regenerative ability was incredibly impressive even for the base-race, and this one particrly so.


    Even though it was clearly only a Baron-Level Noble Monster, its regenerative ability was dialed up by quite a bit. When James tried stabbing it, if he wasn''t quick enough, the wound would end up closing around his dagger and he would get tripped up when trying to pull it back out.


    If one of Krog''s heavy attacks broke its bones, they healed immediately. And when Jess tried burning its flesh, it barely even started bleeding. They needed to figure out how they could do a lot of damage over a longer period of time. Or if they couldn''t do that, they needed to figure out a way to kill it instantly. But the Troll didn''t give them the time to just think about a n like that, another advantage that Eiro himself would have.


    One idea they had was to simply keep on attacking it. When a Troll healed damage done to its body, it healed 100% of its physical damage, and maybe around, at most, 70 to 75% of damage to their health points. They didn''t instantly rover all of their actual health, and the less health a Troll had, the slower their overall regenerative ability became.


    Jess figured that this troll was probably able to recover about 90% of its health instead of the regr amount, if not more. It certainly was impossible for it to recover 100%, that simply wouldn''t make sense. That meant that as long as they ended up dealing more and more damage to it over time, the Troll''s regeneration would eventually slow down to a point where they were able to deal actual damage to its physical body.


    And that is exactly what they tried to do for now. Overall, the Troll wasn''t that powerful. It wasn''t particrly strong, so much so that Krog was able to keep up with it in a feat of strength, it wasn''t fast enough to catch James, and it wasn''t smart enough to react to the three of them together.


    It was clearly overwhelmed, having evolved just for its superior regeneration.


    For about ten minutes, this fight dragged on and on. At this point, other monsters wereing to this ce as well. And that was when Eiro chose to gave them a bit of a tip...


    "You know you don''t actually have to kill it, right?" The Demon pointed out, and immediately, the three of them froze up. Krog and James were confused, but Jess quickly caught on, and groaned loudly as she became embarrassed that she didn''t think of it earlier herself.


    She started casting a spell, and soon shot a powerful, strong st of wind onto the side of the Troll, pushing it to the edge of the bridge.


    "Krog, could you..?" She asked, and Krog''s confused expression turned sour immediately, "Urgh... Come on now..."


    Krog ran up to the Troll and attacked it once more, crushing its hand so that it couldn''t swing the huge pir it was holding for a few moments, and then grabbed its whole body. He pushed the Troll over the edge of the bridge, and watched as it approached the surface of the water. This ind was probably floating more than just a few hundred meters high... the impact itself might be enough to fatally injure the troll, and then there were the water-born monsters swimming down there that would then deal with it.


    "Seriously? We could have just done that the whole time?" James asked with a wry smile, and Eiro bluntly shrugged, "Of course.. Just fight smart."

 Chapter 466 - Trolls

    "Alright, how should we do this, now? It''s going to take a while if we want to get rid of every single monster here in town." Eiro pointed out, "And if this is going to be ournd, I don''t particrly want to destroy every single structure on there."


    After a bit of thought, James raised his brows, "Wait, do we even have to kill everything here?"


    Eiro looked back surprised, "borate." He said, and James scratched the back of his head, "Well, you''ve already got a vige full of monsters... Depending on which monsters exactly are on here, couldn''t you just keep some of them to expand the vige?"


    With a smile on his face, Eiro slowly nodded his head, "You know, that''s actually a really good idea. It''s just... I''m not sure if I can bring all of them, and we don''t have Bavet with us, so sealing their monstrosity isn''t possible either."


    "Just trap them for now or somethin''. Like, this is a town, it has to have some prisons, right?" Krog added, while Eiro was healing him together with Nelli.


    "If they haven''t been destroyed yet, at least." Eiro agreed, "I guess for now, that means we should stay together. As far as I can tell, this city works in a pretty interesting way. At least around this bridge, the town is split up into different areas, as if each type of monster got its own designated area to roam around at. And in each area, there seems to be a noble monster in charge. My guess is that they''re around... Viscount, maybe Earl levels? And there''s some new structure in the center of the town as well, it was obviously built by monsters, there might be a high-noble monster that''s in charge of the whole town in there."


    "Ah, so... We make our way to the noble monsters, you trap them as well as some of the others, and thenter when we go get Bavet, he can help you seal their monstrosity and then... we''re good?" Jess asked, while Eiro started thinking, "I can probably make them sleep with some anesthetics, and then I can probably figure out a way to make them sleep indefinitely." He muttered, "That way, they won''t be an issue. The nobles are the most important right now, actually. Let''s say we save a couple dozen monsters from each type, maybe some more depending on how cooperative they are..."


    "Right... Well, where are we going to first, then?" James asked, and Eiro turned around, looking at the end of the bridge, "At the start right over here is an area filled with more Trolls, so I guess they''re a good target. They''ll be the most bothersome for now anyway."


    "Urgh..." Krog groaned loudly, really not wanting to deal with more Trolls like that one just now, but Eiro smiled at him, "Don''t worry,pared to that one from just now, these should be rtively easy to deal with... At least those that we''ll end up killing."


    The party made their way into the city. The monsters that were approaching, a mix of Trolls, Lizardmen and different more nt-type monsters, had been quickly turned into their targets.


    "Jess, go ahead and burn the nts away." The Demon said bluntly. He only needed one seed from them to cultivate a whole army of them, at the end of the day. So it was totally fine. In the meantime, while Jess was taking care of those mostly herself, Eiro, James and Krog fought the others. The Lizardmen were swiftly weakened as Eiro immensely cooled the whole area around them down. Lizards were cold blooded, after all, so they soon reacted and slowed down, making it easier for James and Krog to kill them.


    And meanwhile, Eiro started to take care of the handfull of Trolls. Hepressed some mes into a single point, and shot thatpressed orb right into the chest of one of the Trolls. Once inside, Eiro kept feeding the mes a huge amount of mana, and the Trolls were losing health incredibly quickly. Their regeneration wasn''t even able to fully keep up with it. But more importantly, they were simply in an extreme level of pain as their bodies were repeatedly repairing themselves before their flesh was burnt away again a momentter.


    So, while the Trolls lost the ability to do much against the Demon, he chose to help out Jess in killing the nt-type monsters, so that they could all concentrate on taking out the Lizardmen, which had the highest number here in the first ce.


    While the closest area was still one controlled by the Trolls, there were simply far more Lizardmenpared to Trolls in the first ce, so it made sense for there to be this many here. Either way, soon, the group managed to take care of all these monsters rather easily. And for now... the Demon wanted to try out something else for once as well.


    Over the past few weeks, Eiro had mostly practiced on expanding on as many of his elemental affinities as possible, to further strengthen the magical abilities of whatever creature he would end up evolving into rtively soon. And once of the magical elements he kept practicing the use of was the death element. Another magic skill that he had been able to awaken.


    He pressed his hand onto his chest and infused death into the chaos of his armor. The metallic parts became bone-like, while the leather parts simply dried out and darkened in color. Meanwhile, Eiro''s body became a lot more pale than before as well, as he infused himself with the essence of death magic itself.


    Now that he had awakened the skill, this infusion in itself looked rather different. Of course, Eiro''s body became more like that of a corpse, but rather than looking like he had aged and been rotting for a while now, he just looked as if he died rather recently at his current physical age. His body was cold, maybe a little bit more stiff than normal, and he was incredibly pale. His heartbeat had also slowed down to a crawl. Actually, this would be perfect just if he wanted to somehow fake his death at some point... Although he didn''t know when exactly something like that woulde in handy.


    Eiro took a deep breath and pushed his mana forward. He pressed it into the recently provided corpses, and used proper Necromancy for one of the first times. Eiro watched as the first creature stood up. One of the Lizardmen. It was one that had its heart pierced, so its body was able to move without issues. It pressed itself off the ground in an unnatural way, nearly ripping apart its muscles or breaking its bones in the process, but it soon stood there, extremely slumped over.


    And another momentter, more undead Lizardmen stood next to it. And then, Eiro got to the trolls. The issue with these guys was that, since Eiro was heavily fighting against their fleshly regeneration, their bodies had been ripped apart in a way that their flesh would just end up being a detriment to theirbat ability.


    So, the Demon used a particr death spell as he made the undead Trolls walk over to a specific spot, a good bit away from where the party was currently standing. And then... All their flesh just started to rot off of them rapidly, as if melting away, until their bodies were only made up of bones.


    As for those nt-type monsters... Eiro just chose to gather a seed from each different sort of nt, and put them away for now. He wanted to grow some of themter, but for now, it didn''t matter.


    "Alright, then let''s keep going." Eiro said with a smile on his face as he looked at his party members, with a small group of undead right behind him. Confident that they would be able to get through this quickly, especially since Eiro could increase their numbers as they went on, the group continued further into the area of the trolls.


    Eiro focused on the continuous, pressing damage for the Trolls, while the others did individual damage to them to speed things up a bit more. They managed to find a group of Troll children, that would probably end up growing to be adults within the next few weeks. These were the perfect monsters to keep alive, in Eiro''s opinion. They were usually less ''monstrous'', since their bodies were focusing on growth instead ofbat ability, and it was easier to restrain them since their regenerative abilities didn''t set in all that much yet either. Everything was slowlying together bit by bit. And a bit further ahead was the leader of the trolls, hidden away in one of the old buildings. It was one of the few that seemed to be nearly fully intact at this point. The Troll was sitting in one of the rooms, just taking a long nap while her underlings were standing guard around her room. Just... that there was something rather surprisingly different about her. Trolls had a simr stature to normal Orcs, tall and fat with thick, log-like limbs. But this one... This Troll Noble was small, the size of a regr woman. Her limbs were slender and she certainly looked to be anything but a normal Troll.


    Not that it mattered, since they were going to have to beat her up rather violently anyway, so that they could make sure she wouldn''t be able to run away while they went to get Bavetter.

 Chapter 467 - Troll Bride

    Eiro stood in front of arge wooden door as he turned around to look at hispanions, "Are you guys ready to go?" He asked, and they all quickly nodded their heads. They were properly prepared to start the attack on this building, which would be filled with the strongest trolls that they will have faced so far. Sure, there were a bunch of undead right beside them that would fight together with them to make things easier, but it would still be a rather tough battle.


    The Demon held his foot in front of the door once he got the approval of his party members, and waited for a few seconds for the perfect moment. And then, Eiro kicked his foot against the door, using magic to make it fly forward faster, all the whilst pushing some mes onto it forter.


    The door immediately shattered apart into pieces when it hit the first Troll that just walked past the door only a moment ago. Eiro made sure to keep his mana around the door, so that he could spread the mes out deeper into the wood. The burning hot splinters were quickly controlled by Eiro using the mesbined with air magic, and pressed them into the body of that Troll a momentter.


    Therge splinters of wood buried themselves in the Troll''s body and practically fused with its flesh due to the mes, making it harder for it to push them out of its body while it started regenerating a momentter. And then, Eiro changed the focus of his mana into the wood instead, and tried to make it sprout out, burying itself deeper inside of the Troll''s flesh. Soon, the wood had fully spread through the Troll''s body in very specific areas, so that instead of pushing everything out, the Troll''s body would choose to grow around the wood.


    This was Eiro''s first attempt at ''immobilizing'' a Troll through these sorts of means instead of having to put anesthetics into their bodies... After all, the anesthetics probably wouldn''t work unless Eiro somehow provided the trolls with a constant supply of them, and even then they would probably quickly build up a resistance.


    Either way, the Troll''s flesh bulged up as it healed around the wood, causing lumps to appear on its flesh. It was clearly in immense pain, and on top of that, the flesh and muscles growing in a disced manner around the Troll''s joints made it so that it was unable to move around in the slightest.


    "Huh, perfect." Eiro said rather bluntly, watching as the Troll''s body fell over backward, writhing in pain as it was trying to resist against this incredibly invasive sort of attack. And meanwhile, for now, Eiro marked that Troll so that he wouldn''t be attacked by the others, and the group began to fight against the other Trolls that were attacking them all. It took a while to fight back against them in this smaller space, since they were a lot more restricted in what they could dopared to outside. But the good thing was that this ce seemed to have been some kind of Inn before this city was taken over by the monsters, and this entrance area had decently high ceilings. Just when they would go deeper into the building would they have to deal with some more tight spaces.


    The leader of the Trolls was in some kind of special room at the very top, the kind of room usually reserved for VIPs. She was clearly still justying there, unbothered by what was happening around her, although all the other Trolls were freaking out and trying to figure out where the enemy was.


    However, for now, they managed to fight back against the first wave, and this entrance area was cleared from living Trolls. To make sure the others didn''te to bother them for now, Eiro and Gondos closed off the doors with rock-walls, while the others rested for a short minute and Eiro created more undead soldiers out of the trolls.


    And after he was done with that, Eiro took another look at the Troll whose body was restrained through the wood that the Demon had grown within its body. He pressed his palm onto its chest and pulled all the wood out. Its body practically copsed onto itself for a moment, until the regeneration set in and fixed the Troll''s body without any further ado.


    "Perfect." Eiro said with a light grin on his face. If this was the case, then he should definitely be able to trap the Troll leader like this until they returned with Bavet. This was a surprisingly great way to deal with this... Maybe he should try and trap a few of the more unique Trolls they woulde across here in the same manner as this.


    "That''s kinda brutal, isn''t it?" James asked with a wry smile, looking at the bloody pile of thin wood that Eiro pulled out of this troll''s body, but the Demon simply shrugged, "It''s not particrly more brutal than what we have to do to kill them. And like this, they at least get to keep their lives." Eiro exined, as he began to smash the head of this Troll to bits again and again, until its body stopped properly regenerating so that it actually counted as fully dead, and so that Eiro would be able to turn it into one of his undead. Since the head wasn''t really necessary for a skeletal undead to move around, since it reacted to things around it through magic instead of its senses, Eiro didn''t really care about crushing its skull, no matter how many times he had to do it.


    And once he was done with that and grew his small undead army by one more member, the group once more continued through this old, troll-infested Inn.


    They ended uping across some trolls that were actually worth keeping around, ones that could do things other than just il heavy objects around at their enemies. Some that actually used weapons with a surprising amount of precision, those that used tactics instead of blindly rushing at those in front of them. And there was even a troll that could use magic on its own, surprisingly enough.


    And of course, Eiro used some special seeds to grow roots within them that were as hard as steel, giving the trolls little to no chance of escaping, especially once their regeneration fully stopped even trying to push the roots out of them. Eiro gathered them in the storage of the Inn, and then, once every other troll had been cleared out, they approached the room of the troll leader, who didn''t seem to particrly care about anything that was going on outside.


    Eiro stepped into the room first, ahead of the others, with the seed in his hand. The troll leader slowly sat up, tiredly looking at Eiro. There was arge bottle of alcohol in her hand, and the alcohol itself seemed to be a specially made kind... It wasn''t normal, at the very least. It was kind of simr to some kind of potion, and from the incredibly strong smell, Eiro figured that this alcohol was created to make people particrly drunk... Something fit for a troll that wouldn''t be able to get drunk any other way.


    Eiro looked at the female troll leader, who stared back at him as well, without any bloodlust toward him, "Do you understand my words?" Eiro asked, and the troll leader simply stayed silent. The Demon rolled his eyes as he looked within himself for a few moments, trying to remember certain aspects of what happened today. He heard some of the trolls speak at least a little bit. Thenguage itself was surprisingly simr to Goblin-speech, it was just some form of slight variation in the pronunciation, and the meaning of some words would probably be different.


    So, in an attempt to speak in the proper dialect, Eiro looked at the troll leader and said, "You can give up and be mine of your own free will, or you can fight and be mine by being forced to. Choose." The Demon said, and the troll leader looked back, seemingly somewhat surprised.


    "You speak mynguage, demon?" She asked, "Not particrly well, but it is close, at least." The leader added, and Eiro slowly nodded his head in response.


    "Somewhat. But make your choice, I''m impatient." Eiro said in a blunt voice, and the leader looked back with a grin, "If you can disy your power for me, I will-" She replied, but Eiro already rolled his eyes as that point and jumped forward. He had concentrated some gravity magic on his fist for a particrly explosive, damaging attack focused on one point, and proceeded to hit the center of the troll leader''s chest.


    Within just an instant, her flesh was ripped away and her blood sttered onto the wall behind her, before she was even able to react. She flinched for a moment, but it was only like she was a bit startled, not much bothered by it otherwise. Her flesh healed within just another moment, and she looked back at Eiro with a stunned expression.


    "You are strong... you are very strong..." The leader said, extending her arm toward Eiro. She was clearly not trying to attack him, so for now, Eiro let it happen. She seemed rather submissive right now, after all.


    But what she did next was something that Eiro didn''t expect. The nket that had covered her nearly perfectly humanoid body, with the exception that her skin was a muddy gray-green and her long hair was a pale yellow-white, fell to the side as she pulled herself closer toward Eiro.


    "You are strong, so I will be your bride..."

 Chapter 468 - Rashi

    Eiro locked eyes with the female Troll in front of him, and slowly turned his head around to look at his party members. They were clearly waiting for Eiro to say what the Troll told him, but even they were able to guess what was going on considering how the Troll was pulling herself toward the Demon.


    Eiro turned back toward the Troll and shook his head, "That''s not what I meant. I want you to be my servant, not my bride..."


    "I can serve you as your bride..." She replied bluntly, and Eiro let out a deep sigh. He grabbed the Troll''s arms and pushed them away from himself without much trouble, "I already have someone I love." Eiro told her.


    The Troll looked at Eiro with a seductive expression, "She could not be more beautiful than me, could she?"


    "She is. She''s the fourth most beautiful woman I know." Eiro said bluntly, "I will say it again. You can be my servant, but never my bride. Will you still follow my strength?"


    The Troll looked back at Eiro, slowly stepping off her bed. She knelt down in front of him with mannerisms he had never really seen from monsters before. Rather, it was something that people did when speaking to their lords.


    "I will be yours. For now, a servant. Even if you don''t want me as your bride just yet, your strength is still utterly beautiful." She said with a slight smile on her face, and Eiro stared back at her, "What is your name?" He asked, slowly managing to speak in a more clear troll-speech ent.


    The troll in front of him quickly shook her head, however, "I don''t have a name."


    "...I see." Eiro said, slowly closing his eyes. He thought about some good ideas for names, and then got a good idea. A term that roughly tranted to ''the pursue of power'' in the ancientnguage, "Rashi. Your name will be Rashi from today."


    "I humbly ept this name of mine." She replied, slowly standing up as Eiro looked toward his party, switching from troll-speech back tomon as he began to exin the situation.


    "So, I won''t go into too much detail of what we spoke about, but she agreed to be my subordinate." The Demon quickly told them, as the female troll stepped past him.


    In troll-speech, she said, "Then let me take out these pests for you now, my lord." Rashi kept approaching Eiro''s party members, and before her right foot managed to touch the wooden floor one more time, Eiro had cut her body in half with his three of swords and was now holding her up by her neck.


    "They''re mypanions. Don''t you dare touch them. Understood?" Eiro told Rashi in a threatening way, concentrating all of his charisma into his voice to sound as threatening as possible. Rashi''s body quickly began to regenerate. Her legs rotted away while new ones grew underneath her torso. When her new feet touched the grund, she turned around with a weird smile on her face.


    "If my lord says so, I will spare them for now." She exined with a broad grin, quickly following behind Eiro as the Demon walked up to his party members, "Anyway, she''s taken care of for now. I''ll be able to stop her if she tries to attack you, don''t worry." He reassured them, when James pointed at the female troll with a wry smile.


    "Good to know, but could you have her wear clothes or something? It might be a bit awkward having her run around naked the whole time..." James pointed out, considering that Rashi looked quite a lot like a human.


    Eiro shrugged and pushed his hand into his satchel. He rummaged around in it pretty deep for a while, until he pulled out a small vial. He popped the cork off it and threw the seeds inside of it at Rashi. He manipted them so that they buried themselves in her flesh. Some in her arms, some in her chest, some in her legs, and of course some around her lower back.


    The Demon pressed his hand onto Rashi''s stomach, before pouring some mana into her. At this point, he was able to quite easily avoid another''s magic circuits, allowing him to freely move his mana through them if he so wanted. And just like that, Eiro managed to let all of the seeds grow all at once in specific ways.


    He made some parts grow then rot away, and then grow and rot away again. For a few seconds, it looked like Rashi was being buried inside of a thick log growing around her, but that log just as quickly crumbled away. Now, Rashi was just wearing some wooden armor that would cover up her private areas, while also making it possible for her to help inbat in a more unobstructed way.


    And of course, at the same time, since she had this wood all over her body now, Eiro was able to control her more easily if he wanted to. He could make the seeds grow deeper into her flesh at will so that he could trap her just like the others if he just wanted to. After all, she still held monstrosity within her, and while Eiro knew for a fact that she genuinely pledged herself to him, she might still choose to do some things he didn''t want her to because she thought it would be helpful to Eiro.


    So until they managed to seal her monstrosity and teach her how she was supposed to treat others, he had to be as careful as possible.


    "This is bothersome... Just let me walk around without it." Rashiined, but Eiro just rolled his eyes and shook his head, "No, you''ll be wearing that for now."


    "...Yes, my lord." She agreed with a light frown, and slowly started to follow Eiro out of the room. Sheid eyes on all those skeletal trolls standing in the hallway, but didn''t even bat an eye. She clearly just didn''t care about them at all, just as Eiro would expect from a monster like this.


    But for now, no matter how she acted, she was a great source of information about this town, "How many monsters are your level are here in town?" He asked her, and Rashi scoffed, "There was no creature like me in this town before you came, my lord."


    "Just answer the question. I know that you know what I mean."


    "...There''s some bothersome lizard bitch... Then that super annoying bird? Then there''s also... that mole, but I don''t see him too often. That dumb, big dog would be one too... And then that demon thing." Rashi exined. Despite only having ess to troll-speech, she was clearly incredibly intelligent, something that Eiro didn''t particrly expect. She was able to exin everything quite well, and quickly continued, "I heard there''s some idiot down in the water as well."


    "Do you mean the Lord of the Lake? The one trapped underneath this ind?"


    "That thing? Nah, that''s not a bother anymore. It scared the shit outta me when I first came here, but I was fine pretty quickly. Some other bitch said that the domain down there belongs to her, so that''s that." Rashi exined to Eiro, who raised his brows surprised.


    "It scared you when you first got here? Being tied up like that, it barely gives off any sort of vibe that could scare monsters." Eiro pointed out, "When did youe here?"


    "A long time ago... There were many of us. Some, like me, were allowed to stay here and protect this ce from pests, and then a bunch others that left came back." Rashi exined, and Eiro''s whole body froze up immediately.


    "I heard other monsters joined this ind over the years, but you were one of the originals, huh?" The Demon muttered. Rashi was also a monster that was created for that horde back then, which would exin her current form.


    Throughout Eiro''s evolutions, his body slowly tried to fit closer to the true form of his soul, which was the form of the human whose soul the Monster King took. He knew that not all of those monsters were created through the souls of people, but it certainly seemed like Rashi was, and throughout her own evolutions, her body changed in a simr way, making her a lot more humanoid... Although for some reason, she looked just like a human, while Eiro still had a lot of facial features that belonged to an imp... Was the human whose soul he was created with just really, really ugly or something?


    Eiro kept thinking, when he recalled that Rashi mentioned a Demon, "Does that demon you mentioned have wings and a scorpion tail like I do?"


    "Yes he does, how did you know? Ah, he must be the same kind as you! He was apparently assigned to be the true ''leader'' of this town by that really, really strong one... Even I have to say that he is more powerful than me, but in the most disgusting way... His power is not nearly as beautiful as you, my lord."


    "I see." Eiro said with a light grin on his face, feeling kind of excited for what was going to happen throughout this conquest of the town.. He turned around toward his party members and smiled lightly at the hrious situation, and spoke inmon again, saying something that surprised the others, "Turns out, the strongest being on this ind is another Imp."

 Chapter 469 - Monster Subjugation

    "Seriously? Another Imp..? How likely is that?" James asked with a wry smile, and Eiro shrugged a bit in response, "Actually, not that unlikely. Especicallypared to other monsters, Imps were always... you know, particrly brutal. So it''s definitely possible that it just happened to enjoy killing a lot more than others, making it level up quicker than other monsters."


    "...Great... So we have to fight a killing-machine demon, great."


    "Don''t worry, it''s gonna be easy to fight against. I mean, I do have another vial of infinite holy mes here with me." Eiro exined, as he pushed his hand into his satchel and pulled that small vial out of there, "For one, I doubt it has any particr resistance to Holy Energy, and even if he does, these holy mes are strong enough to even injure me if I''m not careful. And there''s no way that one has the level of Holy Energy resistance as the guy that spends his free-time cuddling with an extreme source of it."


    Krog smirked a bit as he nodded his head, "Well, fair enough, man. Are we, like, taking care of that one first? Or some others?"


    "Well... For now, I think we should figure out the others first, one by one. Rashi spoke of a lizard, bird, mole, dog, and fish. My guess is that they''re Lizardmen, Harpies, Molemen, Blood Wolves, and... I don''t actually know what exactly that fish one is yet, there''s a lot of different monsters down there in the water." He told them with his arms crossed, "The closest ones right now are the Lizardmen, so we should just go for those for now. They shouldn''t be a big deal. With my Ice magic, we should be able to take care of them rather easily."


    "Oh yeah, those guys were super easy to fight because of that. They were just so... slow."


    "Yup. And at the same time, it''s a decently simple way for us to trap those guys if we want to." Eiro said with a smile on his face, "We just have to make them fall asleep because of the cold, and we''ll be fine."


    ---


    Eiro stood in the center of this area of town that had practically been turned into a swamp by the Lizardmen. The water was frozen, and the mud was hard as rock. And in front of him, the Demon saw the leader of the Lizardmen kneel in front of him.


    She was probably twice as tall as Eiro, or all the other Lizardmen, but even so, she still couldn''t do anything against the cold that Eiro was inflicting her with. Although Eiro wasn''t able to understand hernguage, the two of them came to the rough understanding that Eiro was superior to her, although that mostly came from the fact that he was able to subdue her with just a snap of his finger.


    Really, this area wasn''t anything for Eiro to worry about in the slightest, but it was still a good ce to get a bit of experience. Some literal experience that would let the group level up a bit, and of course, experience in leading an army of undead.


    They were definitely incredibly useful. While the main advantage the undead had before was that they simply didn''t feel any pain, and Eiro could use them until their bodies werepletely destroyed, now there was another addition to the advantages. The living Lizardmen slowed down in the cold, but the moment they were killed and taken over by Eiro, they were able to move as if they were in their perfect habitat again. It made it obvious that the Lizardmen were never going to be able to beat this group, even to the Lizardman leader.


    Different to Rashi, it seemed like her base hadn''t been a humanoid race in particr, which turned out to be a little weird.


    The thing with all these guys was that their souls were more perfectly integrated with their current bodiespared to Eiro''s. Their soul wasn''t directly mismatched, but since even the Monster King wasn''t ale to perfectly ''clear'' the memory of the soul, throughout some evolutions, the monster''s body would always end up trying to be more like their original form.


    This was clearer in cases where a humanoid monster got a humanoid soul, but in this case, a humanoid monster got a beast monster''s soul. It was probably just a huge crocodile that the soul was taken from, which would exin how this Lizardman was able to grow to such size, on top of the fact that her head was shaped quite a bit differently to that of a normal Lizardman. She was standing there hunched over as well, as if her body had been trying to return back to a form where it could properly walk on four legs.


    It did give this Lizardman a decent amount of mobility though, and it was able to swim a lot better than the others of its kind. But once it tried doing that, Eiro just froze the water around it, so it didn''t really amount to much of an advantage.


    Since Eiro couldn''t speak to this Lizardman, due to the clearnguage barrier between them, he wasn''t sure if he would be able to control it properly. So for now, Eiro made the Lizardman leader fall asleep by cooling their body down immensely, before tying up her and the other Lizardmen that Eiro thought to be worth keeping around with some roots.


    And then, it was time to take a look at what the other monsters could do. Eiro flew into the sky a bit, and looked into the distance. He figured out the positions of all the important monster leaders by now. In the distance, Eiro could see the nest that had been built by the Harpies around the town''s clocktower. He figured they might be a decent next prey. They were quite a bit more bothersome to deal with than the others, but since both Eiro and Jess had pretty good control over air magic, they could fight back pretty well.


    And as it turned out, when the group actually made his way over there, they were able to figure out a pretty nice dynamic. Eiro and Jess manipted the air in the area to make it harder for the harpies to fly, and James and Krog took them out as soon as they hit the ground.


    Harpies weren''t particrly strong monsters. They had a humanoid torso, while thier arms were reced with wings and their legs were reced with a bird''s. They had a speed-advantage in the air, but when they were pulled out of the air, that really wasn''t a big deal anymore. And since their torsos werepletely naked, on top of having mostly regr, albeit slightly tougher than a human''s, flesh and skin, with a few precise attacks, they were taken out incredibly easily.


    Eiro managed to find a few nests filled with harpy eggs, so Eiro figured he should just take as many of them as he could and raise the harpies once they hatched, instead of having to deal with reforming all of these harpies. Most of these monsters were incredibly wild, which was extremely weird considering how civilized their leaders seemed to be every time. Not that Eiro cared too much... It just meant more experience for Eiro.


    He would end up sparing any monster that didn''t want to fight, but those that did attack him, he would kill without hesitation. And he figured that would be the vast majority of monters in this city.


    Eiro took eggs from the harpies, killed the adults, and spared only a few that he thought to be particrly useful or intelligent. The ones that he thought he could reason with. The Harpy Leader seemed happy toply, as long as Eiro didn''t harm her legs, something that Eiro of course didn''t do. He had no reason to, after all.


    Thenter, in the area of the Blood Wolves, things were a bit more straightforward. Being nothing but beasts, it was clear they couldn''t be reasoned with for the most part. There were those that showed their bellies rather quickly, so Eiro just tied them up to take them alongter, but most of them did try their hardest to attack the group no matter what.


    And one of those was the leader of the group. Eiro would have liked to be able to reason with this one somehow as well, but it was nothing but a huge blood-red wolf. It was the strongest of thisrge pack, but it wasn''t the smartest by far. In the end, the group had no choice but to forcefully subdue it, and might have to end up killing it. Since these beasts had little to no ability to reason, being practically nothing but wild animals, they would have a different status in the Monster Town back in Skyhart in the first ce.


    And then, they reached the Molemen, who Eiro was particrly interested in so that they could more easily expand the vige. Molemen usually had an innate ability to use earth magic, and they were incredible at carving out space from within dirt or rock, which was a great asset for the town. They were stuck in a ravine right now, so they had little choice but to expand into the mountain.


    Luckily, Molemen were... cowardly. Sure, being created by the Monster King, they had higher willpower than others, but they still usually tried to avoidbat if possible. It was probably the reason why they were the smallest group with a proper leader amongst all the monsters in this town. It also meant that they were able to convince more than half of the total Moleman poption toe along with them. They had a rather small build as well, being about half a meter tall while the leader was a full meter tall, so they would be perfect for the town.


    And then... There were only two proper groups to take care of.. Those ''fish'' down in the water, although the Lord of the Lake would take care of them once Eiro freed him, and the Demons in the center of the town.

 Chapter 470 - Survivors

    The group made their way toward the center of the town, taking care of the stray monsters that either weren''t part of any of therger groups, or those that simply managed to escape them while they were taking care of all those.


    It didn''t take long until Eiro was able to sense some of the Demons that had made this part of the town their home. There really weren''t that many of them, which made sense, considering that most of them would have died during the invasion of the Holy Empire. Being surrounded by sources of their bane so easily, the majority of them must have died. But nheless, the fact that there were this many leftover was something that still surprised Eiro.


    At the same time, this meant that they were all surprisingly strong. Eiro expected that none of them would end up being ''Lesser Imps'' anymore, but there were actually a few other Imps as well. Imp Mages, Imp Warriors, Imp Trappers... Of course, each of them was specialized into some more fitting role for them. They did have 8 years to grow in strength to this point, after all.


    But it seemed to Eiro that none of them would end up really being a problem for him to deal with. The Demon slowly let his mana flow through the small piece of wood that he had turned into a ring he was wearing on his left hand. It was a piece of that Unholy Wood, which he was using to ess Unholy Energy.


    He infused his body with it as well as influencing the Chaos of the armor to be unholy as well. He was practically the opposite to what he was earlier, something of an Anti-Pdin. Eiro soon approached the first small group of Imps, and they turned around toward him the instant they realized he was there.


    They immediately entered an attack-stance. The ones that had wings spread them out wide, and all of their tails were stiff, ready to help them react to any sort of attack.


    They were acting surprisingly smart about this. Instead of just randomly attacking him, they were careful. But then again, they were most likely able to tell that Eiro was simply a superior demon to them. With a smile on his face, he walked forward, "Hello there. Would you guys mind bringing me to the one in charge?" Eiro asked them, but they didn''t move at all, and instead just kept on standing there. It seemed like they didn''t really understand him at all.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he continued walking toward them. He soon stood in front of one particrlyrge Imp. He was about three meters tall, and was towering above Eiro while holding a thick greatsword like it was a toy.


    Slowly, Eiro crossed his arms, trying to figure out what exactly he should do with these guys. Honestly, if he was able to, then he would love to take them along with him somehow. Although, would they really have a use to him?


    He started slowly looking inside himself to figure out some sort of n of action, when he suddenly noticed something. There were... children''s toysying on a pile near them.


    While he opened his eyes wide, his heart beating faster and faster, the huge Imp in front of him swung his sword at him. But of course, Eiro just leaned forward for a second, dodged, and cut off the Imp''s arm with his three of swords. He then proceeded to press his right palm right onto the Imp''s abdomen, to really feel what was in its stomach.


    "Ah... Nevermind." The Demon said, as he pushed his gauntlet''s ws, the des of the three of swords, into the Imp''s belly. A momentter, he ripped out some of his internal organs, ripping them up in the process. The huge Imp pressed its remaining hand onto the wound, but as it did so, Eiro stretched his arm upward and pressed his fingers onto its lower jaw as it screamed in agony.


    With nothing but a quick tug, followed by the sound of something cracking and ripping, the Imp''s lower jaw hit the dirty ground. The Imp fell to its knees, as Eiro took hold of its two horns. With a quick twist, the Imp''s neck was broken, and its disfigured face was now staring at the other Imps.


    "Erm... didn''t you say you wanted to try talking to them first?" Jess asked with a wry smile, turning her head away as the huge Imp fell to the ground and started bleeding out. Eiro looked at the group with a smile, "Yeah, but these guys have a meal-n I really don''t agree with. Just kinda pissed me off. And at the end of the day, do we really need more Imps?" Eiro said bluntly, as he looked back at the group in front of him, "Aren''t I demonic enough already?"


    Without a moment''s hesitation, he walked up to the other Imps and cut them up. Completely and absolutely, to the extent where he couldn''t even use them as Undead anymore, not that he really wanted to turn this scum into his soldiers anyway. They disgusted him too much for that.


    Not even a minuteter, Eiro stood there, surrounded by the corpses of these Imps. He waved his hand around and got rid of the blood that had sttered all over him and his armor, as he proceeded to walk further ahead.


    "Urgh... That was... Something." Krog muttered as he stepped past the Imp corpses, "Does that mean we''re not taking any of these guys as prisoners this time?"


    "Yep, that''s exactly what that means." Eiro replied, "We''re killing all of them."


    "But why? Shouldn''t they be kind of useful to you?" Jess asked, just to make sure Eiro made the right choice, and the Demon quickly nodded his head.


    "They might be, but not particrly so. Imps don''t have any particr special ability that make them incredibly useful to us, different to the others. The Molemen are useful in the vige expansion, the Trolls are great as extra security and guards in general. The Blood Wolves will be great for the hunting groups, while the Harpies are perfect for aerial defense and attacks. There''s ake nearby, so whichever those fish-monsters down there are will certainly be quite useful somehow as well, same as the Lizardmen. They all have a reason to be there, except the Imps, they don''t. They''re just disgusting me right now." Eiro told them bluntly, "And on top of that, I''m just kind of in the mood to kill my brethren right now."


    While Jess and Krog just stayed silent for a few moments after that exnation, James raised his brows, "Wait, yeah, these Imps are definitely also from the same monster horde as you, right? Does that mean you know all of them?"


    "Kinda, but not directly. It''s not like I paid particr attention to any of them, anway. For the most part, at least." Eiro said, "If they had any sort of unique aspect to them, I might be able to recognize them, but it''s not like it makes any difference at the end of the day. Just because I know someone doesn''t mean that I won''t kill them if they bother me." The Demon said in a blunt tone, as he kicked his foot into the ground, making a building near him copse onto itself, since he pulled away most of the supporting areas of the structure.


    There were a few more imps inside, but they weren''t anything too bothersome. As the group made their way further into the center of the town, he was able to sense the inside of that castle in the center that belonged to the lord of this ce back then.


    There were quite a few Imps running around inside there, but that wasn''t all. Arge part of the castle''s interior was reserved for... people. They hadn''t killed everyone here when they invaded, they kept quite a few people as prisoners. Something that would exin why there were this many Imps left here after all.


    The people were kept as food, and... ways to produce offspring to increase their numbers. Eiro should go ahead and save those guyster as well. They didn''t deserve this kind of treatment either, after all.


    There was even a nursery in there... And surprisingly, the children were given toys... which exined how those Imps from earlier were able to get their hands on them, even if the thought sickened Eiro just the more.


    "We''ll split up once we''re in there. Jess, I''m giving you some Holy Energy Magic stones, there were quite a few in Zaragon''s storage spaces. When I break open the main gates, we''re all entering the courtyard. I''ll open up a pathway for you to get into the underground section in the center of the courtyard. Kill all the Imps in there. In the north-eastern corner of the underground structure, you will find a lot of survivors... People. Make sure to gather them in one ce, but wait down there until I''m back. Protecting them all might be a bit too distracting for you guys when you''re outside, so down there you''ll have more of an advantage. I can at the very least sense distant enemies, so we should wait for when we''re all together again." Eiro exined to them, while the party looked at the Demon with serious expressions.


    "Got it.. And what will you do in the meantime?" James asked, and Eiro looked at him with a practically nk expression, "What do you think? I''ll kill some Imps."

 Chapter 471 - Reunion

    Just as he had nned out earlier, Eiro stood in front of the gate, after killing the tworge Imps that had been stationed here as guards, and destroyed the gate without a moment''s hesitation. The group swiftly stepped through, and Eiro had the Undead behind him hold off any Imps that were trying to attack them right now.


    The only issue was that, right now, his necromancy wasn''t powerful enough for him to make proper undead ''drones'' yet. He was controlling most of them directly, giving themmands that his own mind and magic interpreted through their bodies. But they weren''t acting on their own at all, they simply weren''t capable of that. That meant that James, Jess, and Krog would have to go down there alone.


    Luckily, he was able to convince Rashi to go down there and help them out, having her promise not to injure any people that she found and to only kill Imps. And then, Eiro looked at the creature that he had many of the Undead protect for the whole duration of this thing.


    "Lugo,e on. You''re with me this time." The Demon said, making his familiar walk through the crowd. He wanted to involve Lugo a lot more, but he simply wasn''t strong enough to actually help out for now. But even so, Eiro wanted to expose him to this sort ofbat more than before, so that he at least knew how to react in certain situations.


    Eiro made his way through the castle, with only Lugo behind him, the Undead left behind to create a barrier to stop the Imps from attacking the rest of the party all at once.


    "When we get in there, you know what to do, right? Stay behind me at all times, I will properly protect you. Alright?" The Demon said, "But I can only do that as long as you listen to what I say."


    The Stag bellowed his response out, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "I didn''t say that you''re useless, I''m just saying that I don''t know how strong this guy is going to be. I still want you around me, though."


    Lugo stayed silent for a few moments, simply huffing air out of his nostrils while turning his head away annoyed, "Fine... If you listen to me properly, we''ll work on leveling you up a bit, alright? The Monster Vige must have gathered quite a few Nature Magic Stones by now. I know that you mostly only like to eat those." Eiro pointed out, and Lugo immediately turned his head back toward him. Lugo immediately started walking a bit faster to catch up to Eiro. And with what seemed like a happy grin, he let out a quiet bellow.


    "Fine, fine. Although, I still don''t know why you won''t eat any others. You know how rare Nature Magic stones are. I know that you''re also kind of fine with earth and water magic stones, so why don''t you just try eating some more of those? There''s plenty of water ones in theke where the Lonely Naiad is right now." The Demon tried to exin to him, but Lugo didn''t seem to want to hear it. Eiro tried feeding Lugo a few different magic stones, since that was seemingly the only way that the stag would be able to level up at all, but he was an incredibly picky eater.


    Eiro didn''t know if it had anything to do with the affinities that Lugo seemed to have for magic, since it would make sense for a stag to have a strong affinity to nature, but it was still kind of troublesome in Eiro''s eyes. The fact that he couldn''t bring Lugo along to more ces really made him quite sad. He loved being around Lugo, after all.


    "Alright, how about this... Every level you gain by eating Nature Magic stones, you eat one magic stone of my choice for another element. How does that sound?" Eiro asked with his brows raised, and Lugo slowly turned his head back toward him. Slowly, Lugo nodded his head, so Eiro extended his hand and rubbed Lugo''s snout for a moment.


    "Great, thanks, buddy." The Demon said with a smile. Luckily, he heard from Gobo that they had discovered a spot in the mines were particrly many nature magic stones could be found, so he had plenty of things to feed to Lugo once they went back there soon. At this point in the conversation, Eiro had already killed a few more Imps that thought approaching him was a good idea.


    For now, he didn''t really need to use Holy Energy, his normal attacks were fine. Some of their skulls just shattered into pieces the moment that Eiro hit them with one of his t-handed attacks. Either they were incredibly weak, or the impact of Eiro''s attacks was just stronger than he thought at first.


    It didn''t take long until they reached the ce that the Imp-leader seemed to have turned into its home. Without any hestitation, Eiro kicked the door open, prepared for what he was going to see beyond it.


    Men and women alike, chained up along the walls... some of them just children. As if they''re trophies, although they certainly weren''t just hanging there without being... used. That much was clear from the wounds on their bodies.


    There were random treasures covering the insides of this room as well. Gold, gemstones, paintings, as if the Imp was trying to be a dragon or something. And the Imp in question was sitting there on the other side of the room, currently munching on an elven arm.


    He waspletely naked, so the blood that was covering him blended in really well with his skin. He was rather quite big as well, about five meters tall. Huge wings sprouted behind its back, and its tail was impressivelyrge as well. It had seemingly also evolved into the same direction as Eiro''s, now having a stinger at its end that was filled with surprisingly potent poison.


    And to Eiro''s surprise, something else happened that he didn''t particrly expect, "Now, who might you be?"


    This Imp was able to speak Common. He was probably taught it by whover put him in charge here.


    "Just the guy that''s going to kill you. You know, I really hate what you did with the ce. It''s disgusting, really." Eiro said bluntly, and the Imp sitting on its throne, which was really just arge pile of metal that had been molten together into the rough shape of a throne he could sit on, quickly replied, "I will take that as apliment."


    "It''s really not. Anyway, should we get started? I want to get out of here before dawn." Eiro exined, and the Imp slowly stood up, throwing the half-eaten arm to the side, right next to the one it belonged to.


    The Imp stood up, slowly approaching Eiro, "Too bad for you. I am strong. Super strong! So strong, I was the first Imp to ever evolve!"


    "...Excuse me?" Eiro said with a wry smile. He already figured who exactly this one was. Surprisingly, it seemed to be the Imp that Eiro had so proudly punched back then. The one that had its wings sprouting out of its back. It was the first Imp that Eiro could remember evolving in any way, at least.


    "You know you''re not the first imp to ''ever'' evolve, right? You were the first from our batch to evolve, sure, but we weren''t the first Imps to ever exist." Eiro pointed out, and the huge Imp tilted its head to the side confused, as Eiro rolled his eyes. He spread out his wings and moved his tail in front of his body as he looked back at his opponent, "As you can see, I''m also an Imp. And different to you, I''m not aplete moron, so let me exin our history to you a little. You and I, we''re not even real Imps. Real Imps, such as any other demon in fact, are born somewhere in hell. Imps usuallye from the circle of Wrath, but y''know, there are exceptions. Imps are one of the oldest breed of Demons to exist, by the way. When the High Demonic God was first thrown to this world after trying to fight the other gods, creating a rift in space and time which created the underworld, he turned his own flesh into Fiends, Imps, and some other boring breeds. That makes every single Imp a descendant of the High Demonic God. But the two of us? Nah, we were created by the Monster King. Not even our souls are technically demonic. You look like your soul was taken from some kind of giant ape, by the way. Anyway, by far, you are not the first Imp to ever evolve." Eiro exined quite bluntly, and it seemed like the huge Imp in front of him wasn''t really able to follow along for most of what Eiro was saying.


    So, Eiro let out a deep sigh as he tried to exin it in simpler words, "You? Not a real Imp. Not first Imp to evolve. I? Also not a real Imp. Also not the first Imp to evolve. Although, each and every evolution of mine was unique, while yours were obviously just... normal. Sure, you evolved into quite a monster, but you know, you''re nothing special. There''s thousands of you in the underworld, as I heard." Eiro exined with a soft smile. This time, the Imp in front of him seemingly understood what he was saying, and angrily rushed at him.


    Of course, Eiro had already taken out a Holy Energy magic stone and was more than ready to face him.

 Chapter 472 - Fratricide

    Eiro looked at the figure in front of him, and slowly poured his mana into the Holy Energy Magic stone he was holding, before chucking it forward at the Imp that was running toward him. The Huge Imp simply grinned, "What are you trying to do now, throwing pebbles at me?!" He yelled out, hitting the magic stone away with little to no effort.


    Just that instead of actually being able to do so, the Holy Energy magic stone buried itself in his flesh, due to the forcebined with it simply being the Imp''s bane. And nearly immediately, the Imp''s body went into shock, like Eiro was expecting. He knew that he was a bit unique in that sense, evenpared to other artificially created demons.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro watched as the Imp''s arm simply started melting away, as the magic stone fell to the ground. At some point, the Imp''s flesh started being destroyed, and it instead healed itself, closing the wound off just a few inches underneath his elbow.


    "What did you do to me?!" He yelled out loudly, now being able to move again, as Eiro shrugged a bit, "Nothing much. Just making use of our bane. Because, as it turns out, I''m actually so much more special than you, that my body doesn''t even care about it anymore." He said bluntly, but the Imp was simply angry. Incredibly so. But Eiro didn''t care. He just wanted to have a little bit of fun with all of this for now.


    Since it was night, this room used things likenterns and candles to keep itself alit instead of natural sunlight, meaning that there were plenty of shadows around Eiro right now. Shadows that he quickly infused himself with. So the moment that the Imp actually reached him and tried to attack him, Eiro''s body simply fell apart into shadows, and he reappared a few steps behind his opponent.


    "What, you thought I was going to let this be a ''fight''? Sorry, I''m just here to ughter you, dear foolish brother." Eiro said, a sadistic grin forming on his face. The huge Imp once more stormed at Eiro, seemingly not really caring for what he was saying, and attacked him once more. This time, instead of trying to hit through him, he tried to squash Eiro down onto the ground, thinking that might work a bit better.


    But when Eiro just dove back into the shadows underneath him, or rather when he came back out of them at another spot, he was surprised to see that the Imp had... destroyed the floor. With a single punch, he had been able to crush the floor into pieces that were now gathering on the ground below this room. Some of the treasure that had been gathered in this room slid down as well, something that the huge Imp seemed to be caring about a lot more than anything else.


    "You made me destroy my treasure!" He eximed, and Eiro looked back at him with a wry smile, removing the shadows he was infused with from his face for a moment, "Are you kidding me? They''re not even destroyed, those are metal coins, there''s at most a handful that are even a little dented. Get over it already." The Demon said with a deep sigh, before he crossed his arm as he watched the Imp approach some of the people chained up along the walls.


    "Wh-What is he- Please! Help us! He-" One of the men yelled out. His spirit had been broken until just earlier, much like many of the others here, but he was one of the few that had managed to see that there was a chance for them to be freed, considering that this huge Imp''s hand had simply... disappeared, within nothing but a moment. He was struggling again, something that the huge Imp didn''t like to see, which was probably the reason why he picked him instead of one of the other, possibly more suitable ones.


    He grasped the man''s body and ripped him away from the wall, breaking his arms, wrists and hands in the process, as the man was pulled out of the shackles on the wall. It was a rather gruesome sound, but... if Eiro got to him quickly, him and Nelli should be able to heal him somehow. Just that the huge Imp then proceeded to swing him around like he was nothing but a weapon.


    Clearly, this man''s body was being strained quite a bit. Eiro could see, and even hear, his skin slowly ripping apart. So, the Demon figured he should really do something more actively this time, instead of just ying around with this moron.


    He spread out his wings, and infused his body with the air of this room. With a single p, Eiro rushed forward without the huge Imp even being able to react to him. All the des of his three of swords cut through the Imp''s skin, muscles, bones, and even the thick carapace covering his back on the way through, without being obstructed in any major way.


    And so, the huge Imp''s arm quickyl fell to the ground, being removed all the way up to his shoulder. He screamed out loudly in pain, trying to grasp his arm with the hand that he had of course already lost not too long ago. Before the huge Imp''s arm fell to the ground, Eiro caught it and pulled the heavily-injured man out of the tight hand. Swiftly, he brought the man over to a rtively safe spot, before quickly returning.


    "You will pay for this!" The huge Imp eximed, ring at Eiro angrily, but he just shrugged in response, "Eh, I doubt it. It looks like you already have more than enough money in the first ce." He pointed out, and just a momentter, he could see that huge stinger, which was quite a bitrger than Eiro''s head all in all, approach his face at a rapid pace. Well, for now, Eiro figured he would just let it happen. Simply because he knew that he was able to resist this without any issue.


    The stinger pushed itself into Eiro'' arm, and a huge amount of poison was let into his body. It felt like his arm was about to just rot off for a few moments, until Eiro took a deep breath and started to control the foreign liquid that had entered his body. He was able to keep it away from interacting with any part of his body, and simply slowly transported it through his veins for a few moments, bringing it all the way to his own tail.


    There, the empty poison containers attacked to his armor were immediately filled up, because Eiro had been able to filter this guy''s venom through his own venom nd. It did hurt him quite a bit though, but... for what followed, it was worth it.


    When the stinger entered Eiro''s flesh, he immediately tensed up the area around the entry-area as much as he could. Flexing his muscles by focusing all his strength-increasing abilities on that one specific muscle andyering it multiple times, and strengthening his skin with his Rock Skin ability to grow a thickeryer right around the stinger. And through all of that, the huge Imp was unable to pull the stinger out of Eiro''s flesh.


    In a panic, he tried to instead swing Eiro around, but the Demon had already increased his own weight through Gravity magic, while lightening his opponent''s body. So instead of swinging Eiro around by rapidly moving his tail around... the huge Imp swung himself around, and was too dumb to notice what was going on for a few moments.


    That was, until Eiro had properly filtered out the venom that had been pushed into his body. Slowly, he moved his own tail toward the huge Imp''s, and pressed his stinger into the tip of the tail. Eiro used a venom of his own creation, one technically simr to this one that the huge Imp used, just many times more potent, since Eiro actually knew what he was doing and how he was supposed to use his body.


    And the best part was ¨C this particr concoction had a bit of Holy Energy mixed into it, since it was just freshly created with the help of a magic stone. It wasn''t enough to injure Eiro in the slightest, but it would be enough to increase the potency of the venom when it attacked the huge Imp by many times again.


    It was easy for Eiro''s stinger to prate the huge Imp''s carapace, and he injected his venom into his opponent''s tail as he finally let go of his stinger. The Imp was thrown through the room, still affected by the rtive weightlessness Eiro had put him under, and looked at his tail. The tip, the actual ''needle'' like part, was still stuck in Eiro''s arm, surprisingly. That was something that even Eiro hadn''t anticipated. Of course, he just quickly pulled it out and that was that, but it would do for a nice souvenir.


    Especially since it would have otherwise simply molten away, like the rest of the huge Imp''s tail currently was. It was spreading slowly, but it was clear that the huge Imp was unable to do anything against what was happening to it.


    "Wh-what are you doing to me?! This can''t be!" The Imp eximed, and Eiro looked back with a broad grin on his face, "Are you sure about that?"


    Slowly but surely he approached, able to finally see the fear in the eyes of the Imp in front of him.


    "Don''t worry, brother.... Your death will be excruciatingly painful, just like you deserve it to be."

 Chapter 473 - Healing

    Eiro watched the body of this huge Imp slump down onto the ground, unable to move. The first part of the venom that took effect was a paralysis venom, and the second was one that increased one''s sensatory sensibilities. The Imp wasn''t able to move, but he was able to feel every little thing that was happening to it, while Eiro stood there, calmly watching this being''s body fall apart.


    The tail was slowly just rotting away in the most hideous manner, and it was climbing further onto this being''s body bit by bit. It was something that certainly wouldn''t stop anytime soon.


    "P-Please, don''t do this! I''ll give you my treasure! Anything you want! Just don''t kill me!" The Imp yelled out, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he took a step closer toward this pathetic creature. They locked eyes, and Eiro''s face slowly formed a light grin, "Hm, after that, it''s not like I can just leave you be like this..."


    A bit of hope appeared in the Imp''s eyes, as Eiro ced his hand on his forehead. Eiro not only saw the Chaos that the Imp was emanating, but he also felt it. He felt these thin threads of chaos twirling around the Imp, floating between his fingers. And slowly, this Demon just grabbed those threads, and pulled on them without thinking about what might happen. He was moving the Chaos around, well, chaotically, like it was supposed to be, basically.


    And as he did so, the Imp in front of him soon experienced a different kind of agony. He could feel his muscles spasm, his airways close just enough, as he lost absolute control over his body. It was something that most wouldn''t wish on their worst enemies, but Eiro was rather enjoying this beautiful moment that was unfolding in front of him. And the people that had been chained up along the walls seemed to think simrly. They were staring at their dying captor as manic grins formed on their faces. They were ecstatic to see what was happening to the being that had tortured them for this long.


    That was when Eiro started speaking, "I just want to make one thing clear to all of you. I am also a demon. One far more powerful than this puddle of shit you see cowering in front of me right now. But well, I am going to free you, of course. However, if I hear any of you speak of my true nature to anyone, I will hunt you down and make you hope that I never rescued you in the first ce. Do you all understand?" The Demon told all of them, strengthening his spoken charisma so that his words would get through to even those that were very clearly distracted by the death of this huge Imp in front of Eiro''s feet.


    But even then... they soon started to yell their thanks at Eiro. After all, he did still save them. He would set them free, and would allow them to return to their normal lives, at least to an extent. Considering that there were children here that were born in captivity, it would be particrly hard for them to find a ce to live. Eiro hoped that their parents were still alive, at least. He didn''t just want to throw some orphans out into the world.


    Not that this mattered for now, since Eiro wanted to focus on the death of his brother for now. Most of his body already rotted away, simply crumbling away into dust or turning into some kind of weird sludge that then mixed with that dust.


    "Now, do you have anything left to say?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, and the huge Imp locked eyes with Eiro once more, "Don''t... think you''ll... get away with this..."


    "I already did." The Demon replied bluntly. And this was thest thing that the huge Imp seemed to be able to hear, since the rot now reached his heart. At that point, he went into absolute shock, and his head rotted away within the next few seconds. Nothing was left of this Imp''s existence. Even its horns fell to dust. It had died so... easily, despite supposedly being so strong. Eiro let out a bit of a sigh, as he turned around and walked toward that man that was nearly ripped in half earlier.


    Eiro quickly stung him and injected an anesthetic into him, but all these people started freaking out immediately.


    "Ah..." Eiro let out, understanding their concern, "Don''t worry, this isn''t the same venom I pushed into that Demon just now. This is just an anesthetic, a pain-killer that''s going to make him sleep while I treat him." As he exined this, waiting for the venom to take effect in this man''s body, he quickly went around the room and cracked the chains that were holding these people up.


    "I''m going to be removing the rest in a bit, for now, just... you know, sit down or something, I don''t care." Eiro said bluntly, as he cracked his knuckles, seeing that this man was finally unconscious. Since his condition was rather serious, he tried something out that him and Nelli had only roughly discussed, and never actually tried before, although it should theoretically help them out a bit.


    They fused, and then began with their healing. Both of their abilities were heightened to an extent, and the two were able to work in much greater unison and at higher speed and powerpared to before. Luckily, it seemed like everything was going to work out.


    The first thing they did was heal his bones one by one, something that showed them that this method of healing seemed to be working quite a bit better than before. It was surprisingly quick, which showed just how serious this man''s condition was in the first ce.


    Due to the way that the huge Imp had crushed this man''s body, plenty of his bones were misced or shattered into smaller pieces, piercing different parts of his flesh and internal organs. It surprised Eiro that this man had been able to stay conscious for this long considering all of this, it must have hurt incredibly to have gone through something like this. For a human, he held out incredibly well.


    And since he seemed to have a rather decent build, even though he was clearly starving right now, he was probably a decently strong warrior before he was captured.


    Eiro grabbed the man''s shoulder and pushed it back into its socket, and then pressed down on his shoulder while fixing the position of certain parts of his spine. Now that that was done, Eiro quickly started healing his internal injuries. His ripping skin was something secondary, something that just really wasn''t that importantpared to imminent organ-failure.


    It didn''t take too long, though. By the time that Eiro was done healing his internal organs, most of the people had already gathered around him, watching him heal one of their own. Not that Eiro really cared. He took a deep breath, as he finally moved on to the man''s skin. Eiro tried to heal him as much as possible, but he still ended up with some scars along his torso, upper arms, and thighs, as one would expect after this sort of damage.


    "Alright, I''m done. Who else needs imminent healing?" Eiro asked, looking around at the group. And immediately, one of them came forward. With a nce, Eiro was able to tell that she had incredibly internal damage as well, and her body was covered in numerous wounds, many of which were clearly incredibly old. It was just that they were re-opened every time they nearly closed.


    Eiro immediately walked up to her, but the woman moved away, "N-No, not me..." She said, pulling forward a young boy, maybe five or six years old. He was covered in wounds as well, but they weren''t nearly as serious as that woman''s. He had some broken ribs, but that was the worst of it for this one. Eiro sighed slightly as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I don''t think you all understand that I will heal every single one of you. You don''t need to have me prioritise some of you. You will all be healed to the limit of my capabilities." Eiro said bluntly, and the people all just stared at him, tears forming in their eyes. It was slowly hitting them that they were actually being saved right now.


    So, Eiro did as he said, and he healed everyone that needed healing right now. Some of them he could heal practically in passing, others needed a bit more attention than that, but either way, he was able to heal all of these people here as much as possible for Eiro at the moment within the following half-hour.


    At that point, he split off of Nelli and proceeded to look at all these people around him, "Alright, this isn''t a ce where you all should stay for now. I''m going to bring you to a decently safe spot, but all of you have to stay in there if you want to be safe, alright? I will being back, and nothing is going to happen to you anymore, alright?" Eiro told them, and they all quickly nodded, following after Eiro without a moment''s hesitation.


    It felt like they were a little bit too trusting, honestly, but maybe they were just desperate. That seemed to be it, considering how they were all huddling behind Eiro. Most of them were clearly incredibly anxious, but it was as if they were forcing themselves to trust Eiro, which was absolutely fine for now. As long as they didn''t try anything, Eiro really didn''t care.


    The Demon took out a few more Imps that came rushing at him rather easily, and soon brought these people into arge hall. It was clearly used as some form of storage by these demons, and was filled with a whole lot of random stuff. It seemed like a decent enough ce to leave these guys for now, though. It seemed like the others managed to set themselves up in a decent way underground as well, so Eiro could just go down there and get the others and then bring them up here.


    The raid of this huge monster nest was slowly but surelying to an end.

 Chapter 474 - Underwater

    Eiro opened up a hole in the courtyard''s ground again, quickly dropping down into the underground hallway that was currently practically flooded with Imps. They were the only ones that didn''t immediately rush at the space where the others were currently waiting for Eiro, it seemed. He was able to smell the scent of Imps that were molten away by Holy Energy, so Jess seemed to have used the Holy Energy magic stone to defend themselves. But even these Imps seemed to be smart enough to try and avoid their bane.


    Well, either way, Eiro just quickly got rid of all of these Imps for his party, since they were bothering him quite a bit. A few of them were running away, but that was fine. Eiro would go for a final ''cleanup'' measureter on anyway, where he would kill every single monster that they wouldn''t take along to expand the Monster Vige. Eiro had leveled up a bit already, through all these monsters that he had killed. Thesest monsters that were left in the city would probably bring him to the mid-90 range in regard to his level. At that point, it would be a miserable crawl to find ways to level up to 100 so that he could finally evolve, but it should be possible if he spent a week or two going out to hunt.


    Eiro quickly knocked on the door to the room where the party and all those prisoners were currently in, "Don''t attack, it''s me." He said, and quickly opened it up. Of course, the moment he stepped inside, all the prisoners were shocked. They were told that they were going to be freed, and now, another Demon steps into the room? That was something that would shock most people, really.


    "No need to be scared, I''m here to help you all." He said bluntly, and then turned toward James, "I already brought a group of people to a storage room up there. It''srge, and there are plenty of ces where they can sit ory down. We''ll bring them there, and then I''ll go out to finish the hunt while you guys protect and help all of these guys." Eiro suggested, and James slowly nodded his head.


    "Sounds good. But are you sure you don''t need any help?" The Light-Elf asekd, and Eiro smiled at him, "Don''t worry, I''ll be fine on my own. I''ll go all-out for a while, so it shouldn''t take me too long to finish up. Especially since the sun ising up, there are plenty of shadows around right now."


    "Right, I keep forgetting you can travel through them so quickly." James pointed out, "Really, I''m kind of jealous. That''s an ability I wish I had." Heughed slightly, and Eiro shrugged in response.


    "I might be able to help you out with that once I can control other people''s Magic Circuits. And when I''m... you know... I''ll get plenty of new abilities. One of them might help with that." Eiro suggested, and James looked back at him with a wry smile, "Dude, you''ve already given me so much more power than I used to have, I''d feel bad if I-"


    "James, just shut the fuck up and ept the offer." Krog said as he hit his friend''s back, before going to help some of the prisoners up from where they were sitting. James looked at Krog with a slight re, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward Nelli, "Could you stay here and help Jess heal everyone a bit?"


    "Of course. That was the n anyway, right?" The Naiad replied immediately, and Eiro quickly nodded, "Yup, basically." He said, and slowly turned around back toward the door


    "Well, anyway, I guess it''s about time for me to get started now. Nelli and Lugo will lead you to the right storage room." The Demon exined, and slowly spread out his wings as he infused his body with the air around him.


    With a single p of his wings, a strong gust hit the face of the people gathered here, and Eiro disappeared before they knew it. And what Eiro now did was simple. He really went all-out. For the first time really trying this out, Eiro essed all ten des of the three of swords.


    The rings appeared on his left hand, and fit perfectly into his gauntlet there as well. Right now, he chose to gatherpressed air in one spot and fuse it with each of the des, effectively creating ''wind ws'' for himself.


    Using these, due to the speed that Eiro was traveling at right now, he was able to cut through most of the monsters that he was hunting immediately. Their necks were turned into thin discs while their bodies lifelessly slumped onto the ground. It didn''t take Eiro too long until he managed to take out all of the Imps in this area, without a single exception. And then, he moved on to other parts of the city. Block by block, Eiro freed this city from the monsters, of course with the exception of the ones that he would take with him.


    Depending on his oponents, he would change which element he infused himself with, using the Shadow Element quite a lot especially when it came to moving around narrow areas or the insides of buildings. Sometimes, Eiro even used Gravity magic to pull certain monsters toward him so that he didn''t need to slow down in his movements. Like this, Eiro was able to quickly free the town of most of the monsters that were roaming around. Some managed to hide out in the blocks that Eiro already cleared out, so he had to go through the whole town a couple of times to make sure that there weren''t any monsters hiding out anywhere anymore.


    But soon, the town had been freed. And that meant that Eiro just had to take out the monsters in one more area. The Demon rushed to the edge of the city and quickly jumped off the edge of the floating ind, rushing closer toward the surface of theke second by second.


    He dove deep into the water as he infused himself with it, letting him travel through it faster than he usually would be able to. If he was fused with Nelli, he might have been able to move even faster, but that mattered quite little for now.


    When he was in the water, it was the first time that he actually saw the Lord of the Lake. Really, it was a truly huge, enormous serpent. Its body was so long that its body covered arge part of the bottom of theke. But even so, it was still unable to move, magically chained up to the ind. Eiro would need to remove those restraintster, but he wanted to somehowmunicate with the Lord of the Lake first.


    Eiro had no idea how powerful it was, but he wanted to make sure that the Lord of the Lake knew that it, as well as the city above it, was freed by Eiro. That was, it wouldn''t end up attacking the ind the moment it became able to move around again. If that were to happen... that would certainly be a rather bad oue.


    Well, for now, Eiro just had to find the leader of these underwater monsters first. Not that it was particrly hard, since they basically erected a castle down here using the corals that were naturally growing in thiske. The Demon approached the area, obviously dyeing part of the water near him red whenever a creature tried to attack him.


    And so, it didn''t take long for Eiro to reach the inside of this small underwater castle, and he soon set eyes on the creature that was waiting there for him. It was a Siren. He was the size of a regr human, and actually looked surprisingly simr to the Lonely Naiad.


    His lower body was just a fish-tail, while his upper body was more humanoid, even if it was stillrgely covered in scales. He had webbed hands, and a fin on the back of his head running down toward the center of his back instead of hair. He hadrge, ever-open dead eyes, and only blinked with a see-through film like a regr fish would. He had sharp, monstrous teeth, and a long, nearly snake-like tongue.


    Now, Eiro just had to find a way tomunicate with him. Eiro approached the Siren and locked eyes with him, while he just sat there without reacting too much.


    "Come with me." Eiro tried to speak through the water,yering his charisma onto his voice as much as absolutely possible, so that he could at least try to bring the rough meaning of his words to the Siren. Other sea-creatures came as well. They were all sorts of different underwater monsters, instead of just different Sirens. The monsters tried to attack Eiro, but the Siren just stopped them by raising its hand for a moment.


    It looked back at Eiro, and simply nodded its head. Eiro didn''t know how, but the Siren clearly understood what he was trying to say, and swam away from its throne toward Eiro. Surprised at how easily this worked, the Demon swam out of the underwater castle and approached the surface. He created a box of ice around the siren, and then more around a bunch of other different monsters that seemed like they would be useful. Eiro would just leave the rest to the Lord of the Lake, if it felt like eating something after being trapped for so long.


    Eiro quickly shot out of the water and carried as many of the monsters up to the floating inds as he could by controlling the water-filled boxes of ice. On the surface of the ind, Eiro quickly manipted the earth and made a pond for these monsters to stay in for now. He would expand it furtherter if he needed to.


    It took a few trips to bring all of them up to the ind, but then, it was time for Eiro to speak to the Lord of the Lake, and then he would finish the request of the Lonely Naiad.

 Chapter 475 - Egg

    Eiro swam closer toward the Lord of the Lake, but the moment he did so, this giant serpent''s body began to move around, as if it was getting angry at someone approaching it. The Demon immediately stopped moving when he noticed this. He really didn''t want to antagonize this Magic Beast.


    "Don''t worry, I''m here to free you." Eiro tried to exin to it, but it didn''t seem like the Lord of the Lake wanted to hear any of it. Which kind of made sense, because why would it trust someone like him? Although, Eiro was a bit surprised that it was acting so mindlessly. Eiro figured it would be as smart as a Dragon, if not smarter, so it should be able to at least understand the tone of his voice, but it just seemed like Eiro was talking to an animal...


    Was he wrong? Was the Lord of the Lake really just a monster? Eiro thought that this might be the case for a second, but immediately threw that thought away. He knew that it was a Magic Beast, that was for sure. Eiro knew the difference between Monsters and Magic Beasts pretty well by now. It was really quite annoying though, not knowing how to interact with the Lord of the Lake at all.


    And that was when something caught Eiro''s eye, something practically right beside the Lord of the Lake''s body. It was weirdly curved, and it was a quite huge structure. So, Eiro tried to investigate. And soon, he was able to see what it was.


    "It''s... It''s an egg''s shell..." The Demon muttered, as he looked at this truly enormous fragment of what clearly seemed to be an egg. Just from the materials, that''s what it had to be. Eiro knew that the eggs of a fish were practicallypletely spherical, so from this small piece, it shouldn''t be too hard to figure out the size of the actual egg.


    The moment that Eiropletely visualized everything within his mind, his heart skipped a few beats. This... couldn''t be. This was clearly a mistake. This eggshell must have grown after absorbing theke''s water or something... although that seemed rather unlikely as well.


    Eiro pressed his hand onto his chest, and slowly twisted his body around as he looked at that enormous serpent behind him. Now Eiro knew why it wasn''t to be reasoned with, at least. Eiro swam through the water, trying to travel as fast as he could, until he reached the snout. Eiro constructed a special spell, and when it was finished, arge amount of water suddenlypressed right in front of Eiro. It created a rather strong current that nearly pulled Eiro right into it, but he was able to pull the water that was flowing out of his body back, luckily.


    A momentter, a huge hand, created out of highlypressed water could be seen right in front of Eiro. The Demon slowly moved his own hand, and the giant water-hand moved together with it. He moved the water-hand toward the Lord of the Lake''s head, and simply... rubbed over it. Slowly and gently, of course. But it was enough to clearly calm the Lord of the Lake down at least a little bit.


    It started rxing a bit at this touch of a being it didn''t even know, and Eiro slowly swam up to one of its absolutely enormous eyes. He stayed there, calmly floating in front of it, and tried to do anything he could to bring across the concept that Eiro was just trying to help it. It really didn''t take long until the Lord of the Lake''s body slumped down again, as if it just wanted to rest.


    And of course, it probably did.


    Newborns needed a lot of sleep, whether they''re people, or enormous sea-serpents.


    ---


    Eiro stepped back into the castle, taking a deep breath now that he was actually able to breathe air again, and stood in the center of the courtyard. Eiro pressed his foot into the dirt, and a hole simply opened up.


    "You sure you know what you''re doing?" Sarius asked with a wry smile, seeing Eiro so recklessly do what he was doing, and the Demon immediately nodded his head, "Yup, of course I do. I''m just a bit pissed off, you know?"


    "What, why that? Did that water snake say something weird to you?" The fire spirit asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "Of course not. It couldn''t, even if it wanted to." Eiro replied immediately.


    "The reason why I''m pissed off is that moronic Imp from earlier clearly wasn''t the one that constructed the system to keep the Lord of the Lake in chains. The people that lived here back then did that on their own."


    "Huh? Why would they want to trap a being that is practically their guardian deity?" Gondos asked confused, and Eiro slowly stopped and turned his head, "Gondos, people used even you, a Spirit. Whether it''s really where you came from or not, in myth, the world itself was the one that created you personally, like she did with every single spirit. The world is often seen as a force even above the gods. If people can do something like that to you... They can certainly exploit a creature they believed to be a monster, no matter how calm and helpful it was to them." The Demon pointed out, before sighing deeply as he continued walking. It was a bit more silent after that, as Gondos thought about Eiro''s words a bit more.


    Meanwhile, Eiro reached the entrance into the ce he needed to be for this. He pushed open therge, ornately decorated door, although most of the decoration had already been pulled out by some Imp''s filthy little hands, and saw the space beyond. It was a beautiful, sight. Really.


    In front of him, arge hall spread out, right in the center of what was clearly one of thergest masses of magic that had ever been found in this world. This wasn''t even a fact people knew about, publicly it was said that this ind was brought to float through the influence of a great mage. Well, maybe that was still kind of the truth, though.


    Eiro found himself in the center of a truly enormous magic stone. Or rather, a huge crystal that was simr to a magic stone, the ''Gravity'' kind, to be more precise. The inner part of this area seemed to be naturally hollow, or at least it wasn''t hollowed out by the hands of people. And on the inner walls of this huge crystal were numerous runic carvings, and patterns that clearly belonged to magic circles, or rather, artificing.


    Someone, a master of both magic and artificingbined, tapped into this magic stone and made it so that this ind could be kept afloat. And then, some sort of sloppy moron ruined everything. In the center of thisrge crystal cave stood a circle of eightrge white monoliths, simply forced into the ground.


    They were clearly ced somewhere where they were supposed to tap into the magic exerted by the floating ind so that they could create the power needed to chain up the Lord of the Lake somehow. The areas they picked were... alright, but just barely. This whole array in here was set up so that if a certain part of it was damaged, everything could still work nearly perfectly. But whoever constructed this... disgusting structure of monoliths had analyzed everything enough to figure out that the areas where the pirs were ced had a high amount of importance to the structure, which would let them tap into the power of the crystal as much as possible.


    However, after that, they created an octagon-type magic circle amongst the eight pirs. Which in itself wasn''t that bad yet. It was actually carved in a way that allowed the rest of the array to function at nearly peak condition. While the sub-circle created with the monoliths wasn''t activated, that was.


    It was part of the reason why the ind was hanging so low now. Usually, it would probably have the power to carry even the whole weight of the Lord of the Lake, but with this perfect disy of idiocy, that was no longer the case.


    Luckily, while this thing was activated, it was clear that someone damaged this sub-circle somehow. They just identally created a deep scratch within it, which changed the flow of the magic through the circle. It immensely weakened the sub-circle, and let the ind actually stay afloat.


    That scratch was also the only reason why Eiro was able to easily deactivate this sub-circle, since it allowed him to simply expand on the scratch to weaken the sub-circle enough to justpletely deactivate it.


    And now that that was the case... Eiro could alter this sub-circle so that he could somehow tap into the force that this huge crystal could exert, which would practically mean that he could just steer this ind wherever he wanted to go.


    "Armodeus is gonna love this ce...." Eiro muttered slightly, as he continued carving into the crystal surface.

 Chapter 476 - Safe

    Eiro let out a deep breath as he finally finished up changing around certain aspects of the carvings inside of this huge magic stone. Luckily, since the sub-circle carved into the crystal was something meant to ''control'' another being, meaning the Lord of the Lake, Eiro could surprisingly easily switch things around to instead let another being control the magic array in here.


    Now, Eiro would just need to create a spell that would let him actively tap into this, so that he could control the ind''s movements with just his mind. Using Arcane Magic, that should be rtively easy, actually, considering that he was able to super easily control anything created through an arcane spell. He was able to create a sort of connection between himself and arcane spells that was somewhat differentpared to when he cast other spells. He could even manipte them at a surprisingly far distance, especially if he were to create a spell that was focused on such things. But for now, he had to do something else first, anyway.


    Even after deactivating the sub-circle, the magical chains holding the Lord of the Lake in ce didn''t let go, and Eiro figured that was the case because he first needed to kind of ''reset'' everything. So basically, he had to set up his own control of this magical array within this space, and actively try to sever the connection to the Lord of the Lake. Considering that this whole array was just so incredibly huge, it made sense for a few aspects of it to just linger for a while. Otherwise, if something suddenly set out for a moment... the whole ind would just end up crashing down and shattering into pieces once it hit the ground.


    Eiro took a deep breath, and slowly created a small spell that would just allow him to establish basic ''control'' of this thing to reset everything else, which would free the Lord of the Lake and which would allow the rest of the magic in here to flow properly again. He was aware of what would happen the moment he did so, which is why he chose to go outside for a while and just warn everyone of what was about to happen.


    And when he got back, he finally casted the spell. His magic flowed into the sub-circle carved into the ground, and he could hear the water of theke suddenly shifting quite a bit as the Lord of the Lake dropped down a bit, his weight no longer held up by the chains.


    At the same time, the ind itself reacted too. Eiro could feel his weight increase quite a bit for a second as the ind sped up, travelling upward. And then, all at once, that weight disappeared as the four bridges, that also acted as chains to hold the ind itself in ce did their job and stopped the ind''s movement. Eiro should just fly around the bridgester to make sure they weren''t damaged or anything like that. They still needed to bring all the items from Zaragon''s storage spaces over, and only then could they disconnect all of the bridges. Otherwise, the ind would float up higher along one of the edges and protentially destroy the whole city in the process.


    But for now, Eiro approached the castle in the center of the city again, andnded in front of the storage hall. He opened the door, and quickly saw James and Krog standing in front of him, since they were guarding the entrance in case some monster was still left somehow and tried to attack them.


    "Alright, we''re good to go. The Lord of the Lake is freed." The Demon said, and stepped past his party members, until he stood in front of the people that he had saved by taking this city over. They all stared at him, waiting for him to say something, and so of course, he did just that.


    "First, I need each of you to make a decision. A personal decision, of course. You can do whatever you want from here on outward. Do you wish to head back to your old home, or will youe with me?" He asked them in a blunt tone, and they all looked at each other. Since they were all thinking about what to do, Eiro made sure to clear something else up, "I am in the position to give all of you a new life. If you need it, you will be given full support, whether it is mary, physical, or mental. And as for the children who lost their parents, they will being with me and I will bring them to an orphanage, while guaranteeing decent education for them. And if any of you need any help, even if you choose to go another way now, you can still alwayse to see me, and if I can, I will help you." Eiro told them all. He wanted to make sure that they could all make their own choice and not worry about anything.


    And why did he do that? Well, living and working with people over the past few months maybe made him a little bit soft. Or maybe he felt somehow guilty that all these people had to go through something like this. The ones that did all this to these people were his brothers and sisters, they were part of his horde.


    Maybe Eiro was slowly changing, especially after realizing that his soul was that of a person in the first ce. He wasn''t sure, but it could be all of that or none of that. It could be a reason that Eiro hismelf didn''t even understand yet. Either way, he knew that he wanted to help them. And Eiro was selfish enough to do whatever he wanted to at any given point.


    Eiro stood there, waiting for the answer of the people in front of him. These people that had lost so much over the past eight years, while Eiro just gained... everything.


    "If you wish toe along, simply stay here. If you want to leave, then tell Jess, James and Krog about it, please. We will give you anything you need to get on your way right now. We will probably be leaving in a day or two." Eiro said bluntly, and slowly turned around, walking up to his party.


    "I hope you three are alright with staying here while I go get everything. I need you to stay here to ''protect'' everyone. The monsters are genuinely under control, at least for now, but none of these guys would feel safe if we just left them alone." Eiro exined to them, and Jess quickly nodded her head, "Yeah, that does make sense..." She replied, and before anyone else could say something, a young man walked up to them.


    "E-Erm... Before... everything, I was a... st-stableboy... Do you need help when we d-drive carriages to your home?" He asked, and Eiro raised his brows, "You already made up your mind?"


    Slowly, the young man nodded, "Th-This city was my home... my family... they all died, so I h-have nobody left..."


    "Hm, alright then. Well, we''re not going to be driving any carriages to our home, we''ll take a different sort of transportation, but... I think I might still be able to use your help a bit. We need to head to the Capital for a little while, and get some things we left there. I could use someone else than can drive a carriage."


    "A-Are you sure..?" The young man asked, and Eiro immediately nodded, "Yeah, it seems like you''re confident enough in your ability. There''s nothing for you to worry about, though. If you don''t want to, you don''t even need toe into the city with me. Also, we might have to go twice if we don''t find anyone else toe with us. So if you know anyone else that can drive a carriage, go ahead and introduce them to me." He exined, before the young man immediately nodded his head, excited to be of help. He immediately turned around and rushed over to the rest of the people to talk to them for a moment.


    "...How was that ''confident in his ability''?" James asked with a light frown, "He didn''t seem confident at all... Not that I me him, they all went through so fucking much..."


    Eiro turned around and scratched the back of his head, "Well, my ability to sense ''truth'' in what someone is saying doesn''t depend on factual truth, it depends on their perception of it. If he had told me about it just to be of some help although he didn''t know whether he could do it, it would have been a lie, at least to an extent. But he seemedpletely genuine, so clearly he truly believes that he''s going to be helpful by driving a carriage." He exine to them, and then slowly turned around, listening as the young man tried to convince some of the others to help out as well.


    "Are you smiling? It''s been a while since I''ve seen you smile outside ofbat or when you''re around your kids..." Krog pointed out with a chuckle, and Eiro turned his head toward him, "So what? I''m d that they''re doing better. If these people can turn around and trust another demon after suffering through a demon for so long, then that means that my ''grand scheme'' might actually influence some things." He exined.


    "I might be able to really create a world that my children can live in safely."

 Chapter 477 - Surreal

    Eiro pushed open the door in front of him without a moment''s hesitation, and stepped into the white space beyond it. Once he actually entered the room, he took off his mask with a light sigh while seeing Bavet sitting in the corner of the room just curled up.


    The moment the slime saw him, he immediately jumped up and ran over toward Eiro, changing his form away from Zaragon''s over to that of a bird for speed, before turning into arge snake to curl himself around Eiro''s body, "You''re finally back! Do you even know what I had to go through while you were gone?!"


    "I don''t know, nor do I care all that much." Eiro replied bluntly, before he saw Bavet''s snake-head with tears in its eyes. Which was kind of weird, since snakes didn''t even have tear-ducts. With a deep sigh, Eiro rolled his eyes, "Fine, tell me what happ-"


    "After you were gone, a bunch of people tried toe over here! Like, a bunch of priests and shit! It was terrifying, and they nearly tried to break through the wall for some reason! I thought maybe they somehow realized that Zaragon was dead, so I moved the door back to there to try and trick them somehow... So all those guys came in, and with them was the fucking pope! And lemme tell you, that guy''s an absolute freak! He asked me to give him a bunch of really weird stuff, like whips and shit! And when I managed to finally find one, you know what he said?! He asked me to whip him, ''like I always do''!" Bavet eximed, and Eiro looked back at him with a wry smile, barely able to hold back hisugh. It was then that Bavet finally noticed the group of three standing by the entrance. Two girls, one man. He practically froze up for a second, before turning back into his Zaragon form.


    "I mean... Wee to my humble-"


    "Bavet, I''m standing here without a mask, read the room." Eiro pointed out, and the slime quickly reacted, "Ah, got it! Right away!" Bavet replied, and one of his arms suddenly turned into a thin, sharp spike that he tried to hurl at the group of three. But of course, Eiro just grabbed it beore it was able to reach them.


    "Idiot, they''re with me. They''re helping us ride the carriages. They were on the inds." Eiro said bluntly, and Bavet slowly turned his head back and forth between Eiro and the group of three people, "Oh."


    Eiro rolled his eyes and kicked his foot into the ground, opening up the path right into one of the storage chambers. Of course, Eiro just hurled everything in there right up into the space above, while Bavet tried to intimidate those kids to show his superiority to them.


    Of course, he stopped whenever Eiro was above the ground, even though he should know that there was literally no difference to what he could hear even if he was right here in these underground chambers. But well, at least he did his job and started carrying everything to the carriages that were set up outside already. And after they carried everything there, Eiro just had one more thing that he wanted to do... Just for fun, and also because he despised the Holy Empire for what they nearly did to Avalin. Of course he wouldn''t do anything huge... just something that would slightly damage them and put them into chaos for a while.


    He quickly set up arge magic circle here in the room, with Zaragon''s corpse right at the center of it. Eiro chose tobine a few different sorts of magics together in the process of creating this spell. He didn''t fuse them, of course, he just used certain elements of magic for different parts of the spell. It was a ratherplex one, after all.


    And then, they were ready to leave. Eiro jumped onto the front of his carriage, the one drawn in part by Lugo, and quickly led the others out of the Holy Capital. After a few hours, the group took a short break, for multiple different reasons, and Eiro left the group to Bavet and Lugo for a little while.


    Eiro quickly jumped into the air and flew toward the Holy Capital again. Once he was in the right position, he finally activated the spell. It was just incredibly hard to keep it set up there for such a long time, but through the knowledge he gained from using Arcane Magic, he was able to set up a decent system for long-distance spell activation.


    And with a snap of his finger, the signal to activate the spell finally went through. At that moment, a part of the castle simply shattered into pieces and copsed onto itself, being sucked in by the gravity-well that Eiro created there with a mass amount of mana. And then, a momentter, everything exploded outward, destroying even more of the castle, and killing a few people in the process. Although Eiro expected this, he didn''t expect the notification that appeared then. It seemed like the deaths of the people affected here was enough to push Eiro over one more edge.


    ---


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have 110 unused Stat Points avable!]


    ---


    "Huh. Level 96. Just a few more to go." Eiro muttered to himself, as he slowly turned back around, flying back toward theke where the others were waiting, while the panicking voices of all those people near or within the castle where slowly fading away.


    And now that he had taken care of this part of it, Eiro didn''t fly over toward the carriages straight-away, but rather made his way over to theke. In the air, he fused with Nelli again and dropped down into theke. Eiro swam closer toward where the Lonely Naiad was currently waiting for the Demon, and the two soon looked into each other''s eyes.


    "Have you already..?" She asked, surprised to see that Eiro returned so soon, and the Demon immediately nodded his head, "Yeah, I have. The Lord of the Lake was freed. And I will be taking that ind with me, by the way. Even the people living on there before the monsters had been nning on trapping that child." Eiro exined, before the former Naiad Queen in front of him just chuckled quietly.


    "Saying such normally ridiculous things so easily, I see." She pointed out, "But even so, I must thank you. And... you even realized that the ''Lord of the Lake'' is truly nothing but a child..."


    "...I did. But just... how is that even possible? If there was a being capable ofying such a huge egg, then..."


    "It is the child of one of the beings that live in the ne of water. It is an old being. Just so incredibly, incredibly old. Itys only a single egg in its lifetime. And due to how powerful it is, there were certain... forces that wished to take advantage of it. I made sure that this could never happen by bringing it here and hiding it from those forces. Since the beings of this ne do not know of its existence, it was easy to make it seem like some kind of guardian to them."


    "And why didn''t you just bring it to the ocean, where it could be hidden from the eyes of people in the first ce?" Eiro asked, and the lonely naiad quickly replied, "Because this was the only way for it to stay hidden. These forces I am speaking of reign over the ocean. At some point, this child will truly awaken into its power and intellect, and then, it will be free to live wherever it wishes, since there will be nothing that can take advantage of it anymore. But until then, I must protect it."


    "And how long is that going to take?"


    "Three, maybe four hundred years?"


    "And you will stay here and do that on your own?" The Demon asked, and the Naiad slowly nodded her head, "Yes, it is one of my reasons for staying in these parts."


    Eiro smiled lightly as he looked back at the Lonely Naiad, "I''m pretty sure I''m going to live a lengthy life, if I don''t actively do something against that. So... I wille visit you every once in a while, so that you won''t be that lonely all the time."


    The Naiad smiled back at Eiro, and grabbed the Demon''s arm as she pulled him closer toward the Spirit Gateway. It was time for Eiro to be given his reward for fulfilling the former Naiad Queen''s request. Now, he would absorb his second Spirit Gateway, forever linking him and his soul to one more ne of existence.


    Eiro stood in the center of this Spirit Gateway of Water. It looked simr to the Gateway of mes, with everything around it beingpletely distorted, especially once Eiro forced his way into its center. This familiar feeling returned, it was a sight that Eiro had seen once before.


    The world around him, everything just mixed together and created an absolute ckness. Once more, it was like he was falling, and as he looked down, there was the white ne that he was rapidly approaching. It was just, something was different here this time. Eiro soon fell onto this pure white ne, feeling no force of impact, and slowly lifted his head.


    There it was above him... A sun. A sphere of pure me radiating heat and light down onto his skin. And it didn''t take long until the alternate Eiro''s appeared as well.


    After all, Eiro was once more making a contract with the very world to be the protector of a Spirit Gateway.... This surreal process would now begin once more.

 Chapter 478 - Play

    Eiro stood in thisrge space, the white ground stretching out into the infinite distance while the ck sky hung above him, with a small sun illuminating this space. And just as Eiro was thinking about it, he was able to see certain figures approaching him at a rapid speed. And these figures once more were alternate versions of Eiro. Versions of him that could have been, and versions of him that could happen from here on out. And around him, Eiro soon found the right ''target'', although surprisingly, it was a little different to anything that Eiro had moved intost time.


    The way this seemed to workst time was that he moved into the body of a certain version of himself, practically leaving behind the older ones to fall to dust. And so, Eiro tried to switch into that other body, but somehow, he wasn''t able to. However, what did happen was that certain versions of himself simply fell apart into dust as he was still standing here, even though his perspective didn''t change. It was like a wave moved outward starting at Eiro''s body, destroying all these alternate versions of himself. And that even included the ''target'', the one that was on the path of what Eiro would be in the future. Or at least that''s what he deducted this version of himself would be.


    All of the alternate versions just fell apart, before the dust started moving around as if it was being picked up by the wind. A storm formed around Eiro, while the view of the world around him was being blocked out. And soon, the dust just dropped right to the ground, revealing the world around him.


    Last time, Eiro was in some sort of weird city with huge buildings all around him. And now, he was sitting in some kind ofrge hall, like some sort of auditorium. Bright light was being shot at the stage in front of him, when a figure suddenly walked out from therge red curtain.


    "It''s been a while, Eiro." The figure said, in a voice that Eiro wasn''t able to really recognize as anything in particr. It was like Krista, just... all at once. Krista would slightly change every time he blinked or looked away, but this being was changing and shifting all the time.


    At the same time, it looked like a little girl as well as an elderly man. And the same was the case with its voice. Eiro simply wasn''t able to pinpoint it at all. Last time, it had borrowed the bodies of the people that were walking around Eiro, but this time, that wasn''t the case.


    The world was standing there in some form of weird body it had chosen for itself.


    "It has..." Eiro replied, "But erm... could I ask you what''s going on this time? Why wasn''t I able to see what would happen to me and my body?"


    "Ah, you see..." The world itself replied, cing its hands behind its back, "Last time, you were on the path to a change that was to be expected. This time, it''s a little different. It felt like the fact that I showed you specifically where you might end up actively changed something about this, so I chose to simply not show the specific oue this time. Of course, due to the nature of that space, you were still able to see any possible future, past or present, I simply called you here earlier thanst time." This being exined to Eiro, who let out a slight sigh.


    "I see." He muttered, "Not that it really matters anyway. More importantly, will you-"


    "Will I allow you to take that second gateway to the Spirit Realm into your very being? If I were not to, I would not be speaking with you, my child." The being exiend to Eiro, who smiled with relief in his mind.


    "Great, thank you. Then... I have some more questions, if that''s fine with you? Before I leave again?" Eiro asked, and the being in front of him quickly nodded, "Of course, go ahead. But remember, I cannot answer every question, for I am not all-knowing."


    "Right, I remember. Rather, it''s another question regarding my soul... I''m sure you can see this ''shard'' or ''splinter'' or whatever inside of me, right? Do you know what exactly it is? Or where it came from?"


    "...All I know is that it is something I do not know." The incarnation of the world exined to Eiro in a somewhat sad tone, and Eiro himself felt somewhat disappointed. Until he understood what this being meant.


    "So you''re saying that... It''s simply new?" He asked, "This... thing inside my soul didn''t exist before?"


    "Yes, and no. Yes, it did not exist in that form, but no, it did exist. Everythinges from something, and never from nothing. You were... unique. A young soul created for a new purpose, a purpose not seen within my children thus far. By a being even I was unsure existed. A being outside of what I can see, something so powerful that my rtionship with it may be called that which your rtionships with your gods are. Or at least, that is the best way to put it into logical terms. Of course I do not pray to this being, nor do I care for it, but..."


    "I think I get what you mean, don''t worry. It seems like you won''t be able to answer that question. It''s still a decent hint, though, so thank you for that." Eiro replied with a smile on his face, before slowly asking his second question, "Then instead, could you tell me... What sort of ''message'' is this now? This seems unfamiliar to me as well, kind of, so I assume that it''s not just a ce of your choosing?"


    The being slowly nodded its head, "You are correct to assume that. But again, even I myself do not know what this message might mean. Although, I am quite sure that there is even more to this than just this empty room." With a snap of its finger, the being suddenly disappeared from where it stood on the stage, instead sitting right next to Eiro in one of the soft, clean seats.


    Slowly, the lights became dimmer, as the curtains were pulled open. Beyond it stood a figure, weirdly mechanical like one of those dolls that he had seen and fought against in Zaragon''s chambers. The doll stood underneath arge crystal orb. It slowly raised its hand and ced it onto the surface of the crystal, before pulling its hand back, just that it was now holding arge glowing, crystal spear, while the crystal orb became somewhat smaller.


    And then, the doll stepped to the side, and made way for another doll to do the same, just that this time, it pulled a crystal bow out of the orb. More and more dolls came and pulled a weapon out of the crystal orb, until it became nothing but a small version of itself, practically marble-sized, while the dolls started showing Eiro a y.


    They fought against each other, and smaller dolls came along and fought against them as well. And then, during one particr fight between therger dolls, one of them died, and one of the smaller ones, one whose color was a light red instead of the golden hue the others had, grabbed therge weapon that that doll was wielding.


    Using that weapon, it fought against therger dolls, pushing them behind the curtains while their weapons were left behind. There were a handful more beings that grabbed those weapons, some others were stolen by some of therger dolls, but most of these crystal weapons soon shattered into pieces, each fusing with one of the dolls.


    A handful of the smaller dolls got particrlyrge pieces, and seemed to stand out amongst the rest. Meanwhile, the dolls that had stolen the weapons of therge ones retreated to above the stage.


    And the small dolls started continuing the y. Half of them began to build some kind of city, while the others attacked that city. The ones in the city fought back against the destroyers, and vise versa. This fight continued, until two of the puppets, which had grown in size, started fighting against each other instead.


    It was clear what was happening, at least in Eiro''s mind. This y was showing the story of how this current system came to be. He knew part of it from what the Arcane Dealer had told him, but this all seemed to have a lot more details than what he heard, in some weird roundabout manner, at least.


    Slowly, the two sides of this war, the people and the monsters, each retreated to a different side of the stage, building their own bases. And then, a hand slowly stretched out from the top of the stage. A huge one,rger than the bodies of the dolls that represented the gods just earlier.


    It grabbed the crystal marble that had been leftover, and grabbed the dead body of a fallen human. It tried to push the marble into that body, but it didn''t work. So instead, he focused on one of the dolls that had grown in size. It wasn''t the hero... instead, it was holding a small book.


    The giant hand saw this doll fight against somerge, strong monsters, and pushed the marble into its body in the middle of the fight, causing the doll to die. Its body wasn''t left behind, but rather dragged to the monsters'' castle, and thrown into a pile of other dolls'' corpses. Bit by bit, more dolls were thrown onto the pile, until the doll representing the Monster king grabbed the dolls one by one. Their bodiespletely shifted in size and form, and they were turned into different monsters for the King''s army.


    Until it got to the one that had the marble ced into itself. When it was working on this doll, the monster king was interrupted, and the monster that was created didn''t fully change. Instead, it simply gained horns, a tail, and a pair of wings, while keeping the rest of its body the same. The monster king threw this doll out of its castle anyway.


    The doll wasying there on the ground, before it slowly pushed itself up. It turned toward Eiro, as the curtains closed.


    This y... was the full story of how Eiro was created.


    His soul was not just that of any human.


    His soul had been yed with by a higher being for a reason Eiro didn''t know.


    Eiro''s soul was that of a special being to begin with, only ''improved'' through a higher power.


    He used to be the Sage.

 Chapter 479 - Second Gateway

    "Is this... Is this true? Was I the Sage before?" Eiro asked, clearly stunned at this idea. The being sitting beside him slowly turned to him, "I only know your soul is a unique one, but that has been clear for a while, has it not?"


    "...I guess so..." He muttered in response, looking down at his own hands, when he remembered something, "Wait, no, that... that doesn''t make sense." The Demon said, "When I met those Arcane beings, they mentioned that I have one huge ''splinter''... If I was the sage before, and was then given that... leftover part on top of that, wouldn''t that mean that I''d have two splinters?"


    Eiro stood up and made his way over to the stage, and pushed the curtain to the side, stepping behind it. All the puppets that had been part of the y were now standing there, just staring at him, as if they were still alive but just without a will of their own. Eiro looked around, and found the mechanical doll with the wings, horns and tail and then quickly picked it up.


    With sheer strength, he cracked open the doll''s chest, and saw a small shard of that crystal inside of it, but that orb was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, Eiro searched for the other ''special'' dolls, the ones for example representing the Hero, Holy Priestess, or Monster King, and cracked their chests open as well. There were also shards inside, but they were really a bit smaller than before. The mechanical dolls started moving their bodies around wildly when Eiro opened up their chests, until they stopped moving altogether. At that point, the shard within their chest disappeared, and another doll was given the role of the respective being.


    Eiro let out a deep sigh, and squatted down to the ground, "Something is weird here. When the hero dies, the shard will be incarnated within another person born at that very moment, no matter their actual race. Elf, dwarf, human, doesn''t matter... When the holy priestess dies, it is given to a female human born at that moment, specifically in the Holy Empire. When the Monster King dies, the shard is given either to the monster that killed it, or to a royal that has proven itself to other royals inbat. None of them are the same... So what are the conditions to be the incarnation of the Sage?" The Demon muttered, before thinking about what he knew of the past sages.


    "So, either, a being that possesses a soul with a high connection to mana gets it, or alternatively, the splinter creates that high connection to mana... or a mixture of both, considering that many sages were part of long lines of powerful mages." The Demon whispered, trying to figure everything out, "There is no restriction in regard to race, and it''s still given to a newborn like those other two... it''s always a person..."


    And then, another fact popped up in Eiro''s mind, "Both the current hero and holy priestess were incarnated into newborns right around when this body was created. I thought it was because the former ones died together in a battle, just coincidentally around that time, but what if... these events are connected somehow? Most of the y seemed literal, like they showed me exactly what happened, but maybe that wasn''t really the case? Maybe the soul that became me wasn''t actively given that orb, maybe it was just a metaphor. Maybe there really was some sort of battle, and in the process... the former hero, holy priestess, and sage were overwhelmed and killed, because the sage was able to ess... something. Something that strengthened its connection to whatever force it is that created or controlled that crystal mass?" The Demon turned around, looking at the being still sitting in its seat silently.


    In an instant, this being stood next to Eiro, taking a look at these mechanical dolls as well, "That is an interesting theory."


    "Shouldn''t you be able to tell me if I''m right? If it actively happened here, then it should be something you know. Did the Hero, Priestess and Sage fight against something... powerful, before just dying?"


    The being looked back at Eiro and they seemed to lock eyes, even though Eiro wasn''t sure if that was actually the case, and the incarnation of the world started to speak, "Yes, but also no. That is the most I can and will say, my child."


    "...But can you at least confirm whether or not I am... or rather, was, the sage in the past?" He asked, but before the being was able to reply, Eiro already buried his face in his hands, "But... shit, if that was the case, and I still have that splinter in me, then I''d have to have ess to the powers of the sage, right? Except if something vital happened to the splinter and caused it to change in nature? Maybe it reset, or something? Argh fuck, this is just so confusing..."


    "If you are confused, then I doubt I will be of much assistance. There is nothing I can say that will aide you anymore, at least for now." The world exined to Eiro, and he just let out a deep sigh, "I see... Then I guess I might just figure it out some other time... Maybe properly awakening my Legendary skill will give me some insight into things."


    "Or the next time youe across a gateway to the spirit realm, there will be more I can tell you." The being exined to the Demon, who lightly smiled, "Well, I guess I''ll have to keep my eyes open for that, then. Again, thank you for this chance, and thank you for taking the time to speak to me."


    "Oh, there is no need to thank me for sparing something I have a neverending supply of, my child." The being said, and Eiro just smiled back, as something started changing in the room. Parts of the walls were cracking open, letting water pour inside. This auditorium was slowly but surely being flooded.


    "Then until next time." Eiro said, thankful for this chance he was given to once more speak to this very world. He stepped off the stage, feeling the water quickly climb up to his neck. Soon, the Demon waspletely submerged, and he slowly closed his eyes.


    The moment he opened them again, he found himself back in theke, in the exact location where the spirit gateway was earlier. Now, the pain would begin. Eiro felt the water around him force its way into his body, as if currents were ripping through his flesh. A cold energy forced itself into his body''s center, fighting against the source of heat that one could already find there.


    The pain was horrendous, it felt like every part of his being was ripped apart just to be pushed together by the current again. This was his least favorite aspect of this whole deal. It didn''t take long, however, until everything was over. Eiro was just floating in the water, slowly looking up. Nelli looked down at his body, of course having split off of him before Eiro entered the spirit gateway, and the Demon let out a deep breath. He didn''t want to, it was just instinct. It felt like the air in his lungs was somehow disgustingly rotten and it nearly made him want to throw up.


    The demon pped his wings for a moment and shot up back to the surface of the water, where he pushed the rest of the air out of his lungs, recing it with fresh air.


    "The fuck was that..?" He groaned loudly, all the whilst wanting to just scratch the leftover taste off his tongue. With a shudder, Eiro dove back into the water to return to Nelli and the lonely Naiad.


    "So it worked?" The former naiad queen asked, "You really were able to form a contract with this world?"


    "Mhm, I was. I''m now the ''Guardian'' of two spirit gateways." Eiro exined once him and Nelli fused again, and the lonely naiad in front of him softly smiled, "I think I must actually thank you for taking this responsibility onto yourself. While I will miss that view into my old home, I can now at least stray from here, and go to live around that child."


    "Can you do that? You''re officially the ''lonely'' Naiad, so won''t there be something stopping you?"


    "No, do not worry. I am lonely, as I cannot live with my kin, but it does not stop me from being with others. Otherwise, you and I would never have been able to meet like this."


    Eiroughed a bit in response, "You''ve got a point. Well... I guess I''ll see you there in thatke, then. I''lle by before we really head off."


    "Thank you for all your help." She said with a gentle smile, and Eiro quickly nodded his head. He swam out of the water again, floating in the air above thiske. Him and Nelli split up again for now, and Eiro slowly waved his hand to the side. In front of his fingertips, water simply appeared, transmuted from his mana.


    "Urgh... Now I know how Sarius must feel... It''s like you barely need me now anymore..." Nelli pointed out with a wry smile, but Eiro justughed, "Come on, it''s not like the only reason you''re around me is because I want to use you. You''re family, and you would be even if you had no abilities at all.. But even then, you''re still plenty useful, so don''t worry about that."

 Chapter 480 - How To Hide An Island

    Eironded in front of the rest of the group again. He had been gone for a little while, and the people that he had brought with him were clearly rather nervous about him possibly not returning. The fact that Bavet was sitting there, smug as always, acting like he was a king, of course didn''t help their nervousness either.


    "Alright, we''re ready to go. Come on, strap the horses back onto the carriages." Eiro said, climbing onto his carriage somewhat exhausted. Everyone quickly did as told, although Bavet came over to him a bit worried, "You alright? You''re... sweating a lot."


    "I''m fine, don''t worry." The Demon said with a light smile, "My body is just adjusting to a small change, that''s all it is." He said, although he had to admit, it''s been a while since he felt like this. He basically just wanted to take a nap, something that he would definitely try to do as soon as he could. Although... He first had to find a ce to keep this ind for now. It would attract quite a bit of attention no matter what Eiro did, so he had little choice but to just try and figure out a way to hide the floating ind as he was moving it over to Skyhart.


    During the trip back, instead of just rxing, Eiro spent his time trying to figure out a good way to deal with everything, and once he actually saw the ind in the distance, he actually figured out a rather decent way.


    He held his hand forward and summoned water, spreading it thin to create a light mist around it. Then, he used ice magic to cool part of the air, and then used fire magic to heat another part of the air. Due to the temperature difference, the moisture in the air condensed into a thicker mist, or rather, a small cloud around his hand.


    "That should be fine, I guess. Doing this shouldn''t be too hard... I hope." The Demon muttered. He would just create arge-scale barrier around the whole ind, mix the liquid from the Ace of Cups with as much water as he needed to cover every necessary spot, and then he could create a special cloud around the floating ind that would hide it from others, until Eiro managed to figure out a way to convince Solomon that this was actually a great idea, and not somerge-scale theft, "Urgh... That''s going to be a fun conversation... I can already imagine it. ''Eiro, you can''t just steal a full ind from another country'', and even if I go ''but it''s legally ours'' he''s going to have something toin about... These guys didn''t even try to do anything about this for a good eight years..." The Demon groaned deeply, and he could soon see Bavet''s arm stretch out from the carriage behind him all the way over to him. On that slime''s, currently humanoid, hand, appeared a mouth.


    "I don''t think you need to worry that much." Bavet pointed out, "You know, while I was in there and... distracting the pope, I overheard some things... They were nning on destroying the bridges of that ind to just get rid of it. We''re basically doing them a favor..."


    Eiro raised his brows and looked to the side, "That so? Interesting... Although, I doubt that would make much of a difference at the end of the day, right? It''s not like they made any official announcements, so they might stillin a bit if we just show the ind off freely for now."


    "...You can also go the route of exposing the crimes and corruption of the Holy Empire against its people by conspiring with that murderous creature, you can just say that you wanted to help them fix their ways, and that would start by removing the thing that caused their downfall. You know, that kinda thing." Bavet exined, and Eiro chuckled as he shook his head, "No way, that''s never going to work... right?"


    "It''s worth discussing with Solomon though, right?"


    "You''ve got a point..." Eiro muttered, "Well, I guess you''re right. If I need to, I''ll just hide it somewhere in mynd."


    "You want to hide a huge ind and ruined city in a mountainrange regrly traveled by random adventurers? Great idea." The slime pointed out, and Eiro just grumbled in response, "My mind is a bit foggy right now, alright? I''m just brainstorming. And it''s not like there wouldn''t be ways to hide it anyway... I mean... it''s not like Skyhart isndlocked, we have ess to the ocean in the north. If worsees to worse and nothing else is a viable option, we''ll just turn this flying ind into a regr ind. At least for a while. And before then, we need to see whether or not my n actually works the way that I want it to... it''s not like people often end up controlling the movement of a whole ind like that."


    ---


    "Excuse me? You did- you did what?" A confused voice asked as the owner of that voice looked back at Eiro, "Are you aplete idiot?" Solomon asked, and Eiro turned toward him with a loud groan, "Dude, shut the fuck up already and help out." He said, and the King of Skyhart quickly turned back into a pile of translucent slime.


    "What, I''m just preparing you for that inevitable conversation you''re going to have to hold!" Bavet eximed, while Eiro just rolled his eyes annoyed, unloading the carriages into a separate storage space exclusively for the things from Zaragon''s chambers, "I think you should rather prepare by begging for your life. Or at least prepare by helping Kim carry that crate over there." The Demon said annoyed as he sorted everything a little bit while figuring out a way where nothing could happen to any of these items, although many of them were incredibly dangerous things. If something happened to these item in here or they were handled in the wrong way, then they might end up blowing up a part of this whole city.


    "Fine, fine..." Bavet said, doing as Eiro told him, and soon the whole storage room was filled up with the right things. Eiro turned toward the group of young people that helped with the transportation of all these items with a smile on his face, "Thanks for your help. Let''s head back to the others so that you can all rest up a little bit." He suggested, leading the group back toward the castle in the center of the town. As Eiro entered the storage room, he was once more met by the stares of James and Krog who were ready to attack any sort of intruder right this second.


    "Again, it''s me." The Demon said, and the two of them immediately rxed, "Great, you''re back. Did everything work out well?"


    "Yeah, everything is fine. Don''t worry." Eiro exined with a light smile, although both James and Krog were clearly incredibly concerned for him, "Are you sure? You''re sweating a lot... I''m not sure if I''ve ever seen you sweat before." James pointed out, and Eiro rolled his eyes.


    "Guys, I literally fused my soul with a gateway to another ne of existence, let me be a bit exhausted." Eiro walked through the room and dropped himself down on one of the empty chairs, as he leaned back a bit. Not that this particrly helped the worry his friends were feeling right now.


    "You three, you''re here, right? Is he telling the truth, is he going to be fine?" Jess asked nervously, approaching the group after overhearing this part of the conversation, and without being prompted by their contractor, Nelli, Gondos and Sarius appeared in the air in front of them all.


    "Sure, just take my mana without even asking me..." Eiro groaned as he slowly closed his eyes, basically just wanting to sleep.


    "Well..." Nelli said, looking at Eiro with a bit of worry in her eyes as well, "I''m pretty sure he''s going to be fine, and just so much more stronger than before. This will definitely help his next evolution as well... Right now, Eiro is just... adjusting to some things."


    "Yup, that spirit gateway as well as all that shit he found out when forming the contract with the world." Sarius added, and Krog slightly tilted his head, "But I thought Eiro was going to be ''The World''?"


    "Well yeah, but a different kind." Bavet exined from behind him, and Nelli quickly continued, since he knew that Bavet would throw a few insults into his exnation.


    "The contract that Eiro formed was with the world. This world. Our parent, or creator, basically. The god-like force, ''the world''. That one." Nelli pointed out, something that James and Krog quickly epted, although Jess was still dealing with that information.


    "Excuse me? Th-That''s not a thing... That''s just a myth, right? This world isn''t actually a sentient being, right..?"


    "I thought so as well, but sentience isplicated. They''re not sentient all the time. Sometimes, they just exist without thought or ability to reason, and sometimes they take the time to actually think or talk to others. Like me, for example. Showed me some kinda ''vision'' or something, both this time andst time I spoke to them. Just that those visions didn''te from them, but a being far, far above them in this gctic hierarchy." Eiro pointed out, "And by the way, before you worry, nobody can hear us. Ace of cups." The Demon said.


    "...So what were those visions about?" Jess asked, and Eiro just shrugged, "Last time, I was shown some kind of different version of this world. Maybe a future version or something. The moon was shattered into pieces, no idea what it meant. And this time, I was shown some kinda puppet y, where the puppets were those mechanical dolls we fought. Anyway, long story short ¨C the soul used to create me most likely came from the ''Sage''."


    "...Right...."

 Chapter 481 - Hidden Island

    "...Right... Wait, what? Come again..." Jess muttered with a wry smile, "The sage? You... you used to be... Wait no, you ''are'' the sage..?"


    "...Yes, and no." Eiro replied with a sigh, "It''splicated, I don''t even know if it''s really the case in the first ce. It would... exin a few things, but mostly, this is just a guess. Either way, I know that something weird happened to the person that my soules from, and it certainly seems like my soul belonegd to some special person before. But effectively, it doesn''t really matter in the slightest. I mean, I''m also going to be the Hero and Monster King at some point. If I wasn''t convinced that it would rip my very being apart the moment I did so, I would even try to take the aspect that turns Avalin into the ''Holy Priestess''."


    After Eiro''s exnation, James couldn''t help himself butugh a bit, "Kinda funny, isn''t it? That guy you fought before... That Merlin. He wanted to ovee the Sage, and as it turns out, the Sage doesn''t really exist anymore." He pointed out, and Eiro raised his brows a bit, "I guess that is kind of funny... In a weird and sadistic way."


    Eiro slowly sat back up, and looked at his friends, "I think I might just need to sleep for a while. Just to... get some of my energy back or something. Either way, I feel incredibly exhausted, and I don''t want to suddenly lose control over the ind while I''m controlling it. That would probably lead to a bit of a catastrophe." The Demon pointed out, slowly standing up from the chair he sat down on earlier, "Call for me if something happens."


    "Alright... So we''re staying another night, then?" Krog asked, and Eiro shrugged, "Yeah, I guess so. Make sure to prepare everything for those that want to leave already, and if they want to tell me something, they can wait until I wake back up. I''d appreciate it if you only wake me in case of an emergency." He exined, telling them what they should do in case some of the monster leaders came by. Since Eiro was the only one that could even slightlymunicate with them, the others would probably have a bit of trouble dealing with them.


    Eiro walked up to one of the broken windows and climbed out, before quickly pping his wings. With a storng gust of air left behind where he stood, he rose into the air before just sitting down on top of the castle''s tallest tower. It had just so slightly copsed in on itself, so there were some t areas. Eiro spread out his wings andid down on the roof, staring up into the sky. It''s been a while since he felt like this. Thest time he actively remembered was probably sometime during hisst evolution. Since Eiro had the exhaustion resistance skill, he could go for days without feeling any sort of exhaustion. That didn''t mean that his body wasn''t somehow getting exhausted from what he did, sure, it happened more slowly, but at the end of the day Eiro''s body would still get the repercussions for not sleeping.


    His organ function would slow down considerably after about a week, and his movements would be incredibly sluggish, even if he barely felt tired at all. His body would start breaking down despite that skill. The skill was incredibly effective in holding back most of these things, but even though that was the case, after absorbing the second spirit gateway, his body simply ignored the existence of that skill. Rather, he felt even more exhausted than before.


    The Demon took a deep breath, slowly helping out the smooth, calm flow of his blood in his veins and the air in his lungs. Eiro''s muscles rxed bit by bit and his wings were looselyying on top of the tiles here on the roof.


    Eiro enjoyed the fresh air, and chose to just sleep for a few hours.


    ---


    It was early morning, and the light of the dawn''s sun hit Eiro''s body. With a loud groan, he sat up on the roof, his wings stillying somewhat t on the tiles, as if they still wanted to keepying down for a while longer.


    But even though that was the case, Eiro had to really get up now. It seemed like everyone was ready to go, either to leave this ce or toe along to Skyhart. While stretching his body, causing his bones to slightly pop in a satisfying manner, hte Demon leaned forward and dropped down the roof. His wings ttered above him, and only firmed up when Eiro was a few meters above the ground. He pped his wings just once, creating an updraft strong enough to cancel out all of his movement perfectly when his feet were a few inches off the ground.


    Once he stood there, Eiro folded his wings together and pressed them onto his back, walking into the building in front of him.


    "Morning." Eiro groaned loudly as he walked into the room filled with all of these people, most of which immediately stopped what they were doing, just sitting down on the ground.


    "...What are you doing?" The Demon asked with a frown, "Stand up and... keep doing what you were doing." He told them, a mand'' that they all followed without a moment''s hesitation. Which made sense... they''ve been trained into this sort of behaviour for a few years now. Once he made sure that everything here was going alright, he started to make his way to to the town''s four different bridges, where he quickly set up a few long-distance magic circles so that he could split off the connection of the ind to those bridges all at once. On his way around town, he made sure to meet with some of the different monster leaders to make sure that they were fine, giving some food to the ones that had no way of feeding themselves right now.


    Overall, this took just a few hours, which was long enough for everything else that needed to be prepared to be finished up. Eiro made sure to send the group of people that was leaving off with a carriage or two as well as some extra provisions. And while they were all traveling down one of the bridges, Eiro conjured arge mass of water in front of him, and poured out the content of the ace of cups into it as he was doing so.


    He mixed everything together, trying to push as much of the ace of cups'' liquid out of the chalice as he possibly could, until he finally had enough water to at least get started. Of course, he didn''t have nearly enough to create a cloudrge enough to cover the whole ind. But he didn''t have to, luckily. All he needed to do was make sure ayer of cloud stuck to the underside of the floating ind, that was all. He would create some other clouds to add more thickness to everything, and he hoped that the baseyer would be enough to cause the effect of hiding the floating ind from the people of this world while it was floating through the sky.


    Once he was done, Eiro started flying around underneath the ind, spreading out a thin film of mist in a way that was like creating a magic circle to make sure it stuck in ce. And after that, Eiro spread streams of cold and hot air all around the ind''s underside as well, causing the actual cloud-patterns to form.


    And then, Eiro quickly made his way into that crystal cave, which is where he hoped to connect the base part of this huge, albeit simple, magic circle to, to make sure that the clouds would keep sticking to the ind.


    Once he was inside, he activated this huge magic circle, and could feel more than half of his mana being drained out of his body all at once. It felt even worse than having his whole body covered in Holy Energy, since he felt just so... empty. It was a rather violent process, due to the mass amount of mana that was needed to activate and maintain this spell for now.


    But once this was done, Eiro flew out of this cave again, and took a look at the ind from afar. The barrier spell had worked, and a half-barrier was now surrounding the ind, covering basically just its underside to conserve mana. If he had made a full barrier, he might be unconscious right now from how much mana he lost all at once.


    And then, Eiro chose to just add more clouds onto the barrier, which Eiro created to pull this sort of configuration of liquid and air onto itself. It was aplex process to create this magic circle, but at the very least, all Eiro had to worry about was keeping this up right now for a few hours, and then he could get rid of the ace of cups'' liquid, since they would be hiding amongst the ocean of clouds above them. That way, Eiro could just easily gather a mass of clouds around the ind anyway, protecting them from being seen too easily. And by then, Armodeus might have been able to figure out the specifics of creating an artificial artifact for the ace of cups, so that he could produce enough liquid, even if it worked worse than right now, to cover the ind more easily.


    Now that Eiro was done hiding this ind for now, there was only one thing left to do before he would try and steer the whole ind away from thiske.. He would say goodbye to the lonely naiad, and then blow up the bridges that currently held the ind down.

 Chapter 482 - Moving The Island

    "Is everyone ready to go?" Eiro asked, looking at the people around him, "If you change your mind about wanting to leave the ind mid-trip, you won''t be able to get off until we reach our destination." The Demon exined to them, and everyone slowly nodded their heads, ready toe with Eiro to wherever he wanted to go.


    Until now, Eiro had never even told them specifically where they would go, just that they would go somewhere where they can live in safety. He quickly turned around and left the room, looking at his party as he did so, "Sorry to ask you to do this again, but please stay here and kind of watch everyone, make sure that nothing happens here."


    "Of course, it''s not like we can really do anything else anyway, can we?" James pointed out, and Eiro shrugged, "You could do plenty of stuff, like try to rebuild the city or something, I don''t know."


    "Rebuild a city with what, a couple dozen people and a handful of monsters that won''t try to kill us?" Jess asked with augh, "I don''t think that''s gonna happen anytime soon."


    "Yeah, we''ll need to figure out what to exactly use this ind for before that." Eiro exined, something that seemed to surprise the three people around him. James looked at Eiro with a wry smile, "You don''t know what you want to do with the ind yet? Then why are we even taking it?"


    "...Because I don''t want the Holy Empire to have it? And also, it''s 100% going toe in useful at some point, so don''t judge me..."


    "I forgot how petty you can be sometimes..."


    "Yeah, that''s on you." Eiro said bluntly, as he walked out of the room. The moment he left, he pped his wings to shoot himself forward through the castle''s hallways, so that he could reach the underground levels more quickly. Soon, Eiro found himself in therge crystal cave, and stepped up to the central area that he would connect one of his spells to. First, Eiro quickly constructed the spell in question, cing it over the magic circle carved into the crystal floor. And then, he activated all the magic circles that he had a connection to currently. That meant this one right in front of him, as well as the four magic circles ced around the bridges. He could feel the shockwaves from the explosions through the ground and the crystals, which was immediately followed by the feeling of his weight very suddenly increasing instantaneously.


    Due to the loss of the restraint in the form of the bridges, the ind practically shot upward for a moment. Not by much, but it was probably enough to make a few people upstairs fall over because they weren''t prepared for it. But before anything else happened, Eiro''s connection to this ''control'' based magic circle was established. And right at that moment, Eiro sat down within its center and spread out his perception as much as he possibly could, trying to make sure that he could sense every part of the ind to make sure that nothing was wrong with it.


    If the ind tilted just a little bit, then Eiro would manipte the gravity and change this fact, bncing it out. Although, this was something that this huge crystal structure did on its own to an extent. It was just that the sudden release of the bridges caused a slight imbnce in the ind for a short moment that Eiro had to make sure to correct as quickly as he could. And once that correction happened, this huge cave''s magical array did that job on its own, letting Eiro focus on the rest.


    The first thing he did was slow down the speed at which the ind was rising into the sky. It was basically what he wanted to do anyway. That way, Jess would actually have the chance to adjust the air in the room with all those people. Since the air pressure would change quite a bit on the path upward to above the clouds, Eiro left Jess with a spell that would help counteract this more easily, especically for the particrly young children.


    As far as Eiro knew, just chewing on something or making yourself yawn woud help relieve some of the pressure that would build up, but that wasn''t something that everyone could do right now, so Jess would try to keep the current air pressure in that room for a while, and then slowly let go of her control and influence in a controlled way to allow everyone to gradually adjust to the pressure difference.


    Soon, the ind rose up further and further into the sky as the bridges shattered apart upon hitting the surface of the water below. He already apologized for this fact to the Lord of the Lake as well as the Lonely Naiad beforehand, so that they wouldn''t be too mad for their home to be filled with so much trash.


    It took a while until they reached the right height, and Eiro slowly stopped making the ind ascend further. Instead, he tried to influence the gravity to make it slightly move forward, all the whilst keeping this specific height. They were above the clouds now, after all. At the same time, Eiro could now get rid of part of the special barrier that was covering this ind underneath. He could get rid of the aspect that was supposed to hide the ind through the Ace of Cups'' influence. Instead, he would just focus on the cloud-gathering aspect to make this ind seem like any other cloud.


    Once Eiro had finished everything that he wanted to, he slowly got up and took a deep breath. The ind was now slowly moving toward Skyhart. Well, ''slow'' was rtive. They would get there in at most a day, probably. But it was much slower than the ind could move. The main reason why Eiro didn''t make it go any faster was just so that the buildings weren''t ripped apart due to the violent winds that would be created through it.


    Even now, the wind would probably be rather strong, so much so that Eiro didn''t want anyone to really go outside right now in case something did happen. He made sure to prepare a ce for the leftover harpies to stay during all of this as well, since they were the ones most influenced by it.


    And so, Eiro made his way out of this cave while making sure that everything was fine with the ind. The connection between him and the ind''s personal gravity would keep being a thing for now. He just had to go back every couple of hours to strengthen that connection, at least for now.


    If he just wanted it to stand in ce, then he probably wouldn''t even need that connection. This magical array down there was perfectly constructed to allow the ind to keep up such a stationary position. The people that controlled this ind before just didn''t know how to make use of all this properly. Which did make sense to an extent, considering that most of the aspects that would allow one to interpret the magic array were written in the Ancient Language, something that most being couldn''t really learn that easily.


    Either way, for now, Eiro made his way outside to see the state of everything a bit more easily, and to feel the actual strength of the wind on his skin. It was really quite a lot. Enough to make Eiro d that he wasn''t wearing a cloak that much anymore, but not enough to really cause too much damage to anything beyond nts.


    So now that this was established, Eiro made his way back to the ce where everyone else was currently waiting, so that he could help Jess regte the air pressure here in this room.


    "Wait, are you already done?" Krog asked surprised, and Eiro shrugged a bit, "Not ''done'', but we''re on our way to Skyhart."


    "Skyhart?" Someone suddenly said, surprised to hear the name of that country, "We''re going to Skyhart?" This young woman slowly stood up from where she sat, and although she was clearly incredibly thin and weak, and one of the people that were still more scared of Eiro than they were thankful, she approached the Demon bravely.


    "We are. I''m close to Solomon Sigurd Skyhart, the king." Eiro exined, and the woman looked back at him as tears filled her eyes. Eiro was confused, unsure what was really happening right now, before this woman slowly exined why exactly she was so moved at hearing all this.


    "I-... My name is Maria Rosalina Skyhart..." She exined, and Eiro opened his eyes wide, as the others also realized what exactly was going on. And Eiro knew that she was telling the truth, and with a smile, he looked at her, "I''m happy to meet you, then.. I guess now I know that Solomon won''t be too mad at me for stealing a whole ind from another country. Who can be mad when someone they long thought to be dead returns, especially when they''re your sister?"

 Chapter 483 - Long Lost Sister

    "Wait, what?" James asked, "Sister? You mean she''s..."


    "Apparently so. At the very least, she was telling the truth, meaning that she certainly believes herself to be. And the timeframe fits as well, right? She was assumed to be dead since 8 years ago or so." Eiro pointed out, and Maria looked at him with a somewhat shocked expression, although she slowly let her head droop down a bit, "I see... so I was already announced as dead, then..."


    "..." Eiro looked at this member of royalty in front of ihm, unsure how he was supposed to make her feel better about this situation, "I don''t know how much you know about what actually happened, I''m sure there was just plenty of chaos, but a royal monster, ''The Sun'', led an army to attack the Holy Empire, and this city ended up in its path. I heard you were in the middle of a trip for political reasons and were assumed to be caught up in this, since yourst known position was about a day''s trip from the city. But you can be sure, Solomon tried to have as many people searching for you as possible. And even now, you''re still remembered fondly. He spoke about you to me a few times before." Eiro exined with a smile on his face, and Maria lightly looked down.


    "Is that so?" She asked, a soft smile forming on her face, "How is he... my brother? Has he been taking care of himself?"


    "...Mostly. There was a period of time where that certainly wasn''t the case, but he''s doing a lot better now." Eiro exined to her, "But if you want to know about these things, you should ask Solomon yourself tomorrow. We''ll be arriving tomorrow in the evening, and Solomon has a tendency to work untilte in the night."


    "That certainly does sound like him..." Maria pointed out with a soft smile, as tears started filling her eyes. Her legs started to shake, as she just dropped down onto the ground, sobbing at the realisation that she had really been saved after all these years, as Jess rushed over tofort her. As far as Eiro knew... She was just a young woman when she left back then, just 16 years old. It was one of her first trips for diplomatic reasons, and something like this happened to her.


    Solomon had been ming himself for letting her go without more support, because maybe some of the stronger knights could have at least presented her with an opportunity to escape. Eiro took a deep breath, as he thought back onto that day that he was within this city eight years ago.


    It was a beautiful, vibrant ce. A rich city, for obvious reasons. It wasrge city and the easiest way to get over theke. And the fact that the city was built upon a flying ind certainly helped the general tourism quite a bit as well. Back then, while they were moving through town, did Eiro see her here? Did he see anyone that seemed to be from Skyhart back then?


    He was pretty sure that he didn''t, but at the same time, they could have just very well been disguised somehow to not attract too much attention. Either way, Eiro knew for a fact that she was telling the truth, and she did seem to have a certain resemnce to Solomon as well. They would find out what was actually going on tomorrow.


    But as Eiro was going to turn around to head somewhere else, to work on a few different things he wanted to do here in town for now, he heard the crying stop behind him, "W-Wait, I still... I still have a question for you..." She said, and Eiro slowly turned around toward her, "Yes?"


    "Why... Why is my brother working with a... a demon..? How did this world change since then..?" Maria asked, and Eiro slightly smiled at her as he replied, "This world hasn''t changed much in the past eight years. But I''m a rather... unusual being." He exined, "I think we should keep it at that for now, if you don''t mind. But you don''t need to worry, your brother is one of the most genuinely kind men I know, and he loves the people of his country."


    Maria slowly nodded her head, wiping some of the tears out of her eyes, "I see... Thank you. That is... calming."


    "Of course." Eiro said, as he finally made his way out of this room again. He stood there with a deep sigh, thinking about how Solomon would probably end up reacting when he found out that his sister was still alive after all these years. And as he was standing there, the door behind him opened up again as Krog and James both stepped outside, looking at Eiro with worried expressions.


    "Was she actually telling the truth? Is she Solomon''s sister?" James asked, unsure if Eiro was genuine in there or if he was just ying along for now. It was hard to tell sometimes. With his immense control over the domain of truth caim the fact that it was harder for others to discern lies or deceit within Eiro''s words or actions.


    "Yeah, she really is. Or again, she really believes herself to be. She certainly smells like him, but that''s not always a fool-proof way to see if people are rted. Let''s just say... It''s incredibly likely that she is Solomon''s sister. Everything just fits perfectly, so there''s no reason to doubt it right now. No matter what, she''s definitely not dangerous, so if she ends up not being Solomon''s sister somehow, she''s not going to be able to harm anyone, especially not with my hand on her back throughout the whole ordeal."


    "...I see. Well, that fair, then..." Krog muttered, "But for real, that''s just... weird. I was at a public memorial service held for her a couple years ago, like five years after her... ''death''. Seeing the dead appear in front of you like that really is kinda scary, man." The half-goliath exined, and Eiro rolled his eyes. He stretched his arm to the side and snapped his fingers.


    A few momentster, a skeletal troll stepped into the hallway, just standing there right in Krog''s line of sight, "Because this is so much better, right?"


    "Oh fuck off, you know what I mean..." Krog grumbled, and Eiro smiled as he nodded his head, "Yeah, I do, don''t worry. Anyway, I was going to clean some things in the city up for now, get a few things ready for now. The monsters need to be able to stay here in the ind for now, at least." The Demon said, ready to walk down the hallway, before he was once more stopped by one of the two men behind him.


    "Dude, wait, there''s something else." James said, with a light frown forming on his face, "Could you exin to us why you''re just revealing all of this information about yourself to the people in there? They''repletely random people we never even met a few days ago. How can you just trust them? What if someone just ends up identally telling someone about you?"


    Eiro smiled a bit, trying to reassure his friend, "Don''t worry, even if that were to happen, there''s nothing to worry about. Especially when I be a member of the Hero''s party this summer. I''m a noble that, publicly, has done nothing but good for the society. People know me as a powerful man, and a close friend to the king, who even the leaders of countries we''re on bad terms with respect deeply for his strong will and kindness, and soon I will be someone that is going to help train the hero into bing someone that could kill the Monster King. And then, a few people traumatised after being captured and tortured by a Demon for eight years im that man, one of the first new people they''ve seen in nearly a decade, to be a Demon himself... Who will believe people like that?"


    James looked back at Eiro and opened his eyes wide, "You''re telling me that these people can know just because they''re not a threat to you? So what, why don''t you go around telling random children you''re a demon as well?"


    "...It''s not that simple, James. Listen, these couple dozen people, as long as everything goes well, will be the key to really... changing something. They''re epting the help of a Demon after all they''ve gone through. And if they can do that, then a couple of random people can learn to ept... others, as well. I don''t know how exactly I will make it happen, but I will turn those people into symbols of peace and eptance."


    "Wait, ''others''? Is this about...?" Krog asked, and Eiro scratched the back of his head, "Of course it''s about Leon, what did you expect?" He sighed deeply, before slowly turning around, "Everything I do, I do for my children."

 Chapter 484 - Explaining The Situation

    Eiro sat inside of the huge crystal cave, making the ind slow down bit by bit, so that it woulde to a halt at a very specific point. Right above Skyhart''s castle, far, far above it. Soon, the ind was practically stationary, it would only slightly wave up and down now, but it shouldn''t be more noticeable than it would be in the middle of a ship out on sea. Luckily this ind wasn''t waving from side to side, at least. It was perfectly stationary in that sense.


    The Demon let out a deep breath, as he stepped out of the crystal cave, where his party was already waiting for him.


    "I''ll head down there first, and I''ll bring Solomon up here so that we can figure out what exactly to do together. And it might be better to move him up here than Maria down there. It''s going to make a lot of things a bit easier to handle." Eiro pointed out, "And if it is really his sister... then the two of them can be emotional without worrying about the people around them."


    "Worrying about other people''s emotions now..? What happened to you..?" Bavet asked with a deep squint, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he pushed his hand through this man''s chest within just a moment, "Shut it and let''s go already." The Demon said, and the slime quickly changed its form again, swiftly covering Eiro''s body and transforming him into ''Baron Daemonherz''.


    He looked at his friends as he straightened one of his arm-guards, "You guys cane with me if you want, but you can also just wait for now, and I can bring you down thereter."


    "I think we''ll stay for now." James suggested, looking over at Krog and Jess, both of which also quickly agreed, "Yup, I don''t wanna miss out on what''s gonna happen now. We also helped you get this ind, so of course we''re gonna wait it out until we know where we''re goin'' with this." Krog added, and Eiro slightly smiled.


    "Perfect, then I will be back rather soon. I''m pretty sure Solomon should be in his study right about now. I''ll just kidnap him for a second and we''ll be right back." Eiro exined.


    "Don''t say things like that in front of the guards, please..." Jess pleaded with a worried expression, and Eiro just slightly chuckled as he left, something that didn''t particrly help Jess'' worry. Either way, Eiro quickly stepped out of the castle, and quickly pped his wings. In an instant, he was higher up in the sky, the bright sun hitting him from all directions, since even the clouds were brighter than ever up here. He flew over toward the edge of the ind and dropped down by simply folding his wings onto his back. It would take him roughly one and a half minutes to reach the bottom, since they were flying actually rather high up with the ind.


    Eiro could hear some whispers in his ear as the Demon chose to close his eyes and spend this little bit of freetime just reading a book in his mental library so that he could actuallyprehend its information. There were so many books in there that he just skimmed, so much so that he ended up having to split the libary up into tworge wings. One filled with books he already read, and one filled with books he had yet to read. And since Eiro tried to at least skim through every single piece of writing that he came across, thetter section was filled with quite a few more books than thetter, sadly. So much has been going through his mindtely that he spent most of his time in the mental library developing new spells, or trying to learn more about the Ancient Language.


    The fact that he picked up a few hundred new books in this city''s library or that Imp''s treasure hoard didn''t particrly help him with that either. So, he tried to spend as much time reading the books he was missing out on as he could, but maybe him doing that while in the middle of a free-fall was a bit too much for Bavet.


    "What the fuck are you doing, you moron?! Open your eyes, I don''t wanna die!"


    "Bavet, you can literally split off of my body and be a bird in a second, just let me concentrate for now." The Demon said with a sigh, "I want to enjoy this, this book is actually really interesting. It''s about-"


    "Eh, don''t bother, I don''t wanna fall asleep right now... I need all the reaction speed I can get right now." Bavet pointed out, while Eiro rolled his eyes annoyed. He went back to reading in his mind for a while, and since the time inside of his mental library flowed a lot more slowly than normal, he was able to get a fair bit into the book he had been reading.


    And then, a few secondster, Eiro stopped reading and instead spread the ace of cups'' liquid around him, practically making it stick to him, so that nobody would notice him just randomly fall from the sky. He could feel Bavet starting to shiver on his skin, so Eiro spread his wings out a few seconds earlier than he nned, to considerably slow the drop down. Soon, Eiro stood on the balcony of Solomon''s study, while Bavet was smoothing himself out, before knocking on the ss door.


    Immediately, Eiro could hear shuffling from inside the room, as Solomon stood up and carefully approached the door, "It''s just me, Solomon, no need to worry."


    Eiro instantly heard Solomon''s heartbeat slow down as he started to rx again, quickly opening the door for his friend, "Next time, could you use the door like anyone else?"


    "I could have, but that would have been pretty annoying. I dropped around five kilometers just now, I didn''t want to bother walking around out there." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon looked at the Demon confused, "What do you mean? Why did you drop that much? Wait, how are you even back already..? Did something happen in the Holy Empire? Did you fly here on your own?"


    Eiro quickly chose to reply to all of those questions, "I mean exactly what I said. I dropped that much because the ce I dropped from is up there. We happened to find a way to move rather quickly, and yeah, a lot happened in the Holy Empire. And no, I did not fly here on my own." He exined, although all these answers seemed to make Solomon only more confused than before.


    "Eiro, please, exin it so I understand." The King said with a deep sigh, sitting down on one of the couches while Eiro did the same, sitting in front of his friend.


    "Alright, I''ll exin. So, we managed to kill Zaragon, and brought quite a few interesting objects with us afterward. Anyway, what you will be more interested in hearing about will probably be something else we did there... You see... I met with the former Naiad Queen again!"


    "Hm? The one that gave you your first blessing?" Solomon asked, and Eiro quickly nodded, "Yep, that''s the one. Anyway, she was guarding and protecting a Spirit Gateway to the ne of water, and..." With a smile on his face, he conjured a bucket worth of water to float over his hand, "...I managed to form a contract to guard that spirit gateway with this world. There, I found out I''m probably the quite literal reincarnation of the former Sage, as in his soul was used to create me, while some higher being even higher than the gods fiddled with my very being. So, that being the case, just understand that it''s impossible for you to clearlyprehend my decisions right off the bat, so just listen to me all the way through until you form your opinion, alright?"


    The King looked back at Eiro with a wry smile on his face, not even able to really process the things he already heard, "There''s moreing..?"


    "Hah, yeah... So, do you know that internationalw that says that if a country sends armed forces into another country to take out a monster nest, they have ownership of the whole space that has been recognized as a monster nest for a month afterward, to then harvest any natural resources of that ce they wish to during that time? And amongst those natural resources could be a lot of things! Not just ores, but also general rock, y, or even soil, you see?"


    "...Eiro, what are you talking about...?" Solomon asked, not sure where exactly Eiro was going, and somewhat scared to actually find out.


    Eiro slightly looked to the side, "Well, the former Naiad Queen asked me to help her with something... You know about the Lord of the Lake as well, right?"


    The moment Eiro mentioned that nearly legendary creature, Solomon jumped off the couch, realizing what he was talking about, "No, you did not!"


    "Listen, I made the decision as a baron of this kingdom, and I think it was actually a pretty decent one... It''s not like they''re gonna miss that thing! They didn''t use it for eight years!"


    "Because it was infested with monsters, Eiro!"


    "Exactly! Nobody would want to move back there anyway!" Eiro pointed out, "Seriously, I''m pretty sure I did them a favor. And on top of that, there''s the fact that the Empire is destroying itself by stealing from their people to feed their nobles'' mouths, that they had been nning on capturing a Magic Beast of which there are only two of existence in all nes, something that would have destroyed that ind in the process had an imp not identally scratched up a part of the magic circle, and that they worked together with some form of an ancient evil in order to gain their power in the first ce! They didn''t deserve a ce like that!"


    "...Alright, I''m pretty sure there are some more things I need to catch up on. Tell me more about thister.." Solomon groaned loudly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as the greatest migraine he''s had in months infested him.

 Chapter 485 - I’m Just Exhausted

    "Alright, then let''s just go up there now." Eiro suggested with a smile on his face, and Solomon looked back at him with a wry smile, "Is that really necessary?"


    "Yeah, I would say so. There are some things up there that I want you to see." The Demon exined, and Solomon rolled his eyes, "Fine, but you''re not going to carry me. I already called Lognir over here."


    "Ah, perfect. You did make sure to tell him about the ind first, right?"


    "...No, I just asked him toe by." The King replied, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Well, then let''s hope that Lognir doesn''t try to destroy it while he''s up there. Because I know that I wouldn''t let something like that just be."


    Solomon slowly sat down and nodded, "Don''t worry, I just let him know toe straight here, even if he sees something he wants to take care of."


    "Great. Now, Bavet, please." Eiro said, pressing his hand onto the slime''s body, before just pulling on his core, "E-Ey, what are you doing?!"


    "There''s a guesting." The Demon said bluntly, "And he''s not the kind of man that I want to show my demon form to, you know?"


    "Yeah, yeah..." With a light grumble, Bavet once more covered Eiro''s whole body and let him take on the form of a person. A few momentster, a knock could be heard on the door.


    "Your majesty, if you please, a message has just reached us through magical means." A man said on the other side of the door, and Solomon sighed deeply, "Alright. Come on in, Jordan." He said, and a momentter, the King''s advisor entered the room.


    As he saw Eiro, he flinched a bit and looked at him confused, "But- How did you get in here? I know for a fact that you didn''te through the main entrance!"


    "You''re right, I dropped down from a five kilometers high and insteadnded on the balcony." Eiro said with a smile, and Jordan frowned at him annoyed, "Hah, sarcasm! Thenguage of fools who believe themselves to be geniuses!"


    "Haha, just that I''m actually a bit of a genius, my friend." Eiro said bluntly, "Anyway, go ahead and give Solomon the message."


    "I have told you time and time again, please do not speak so casually in front of his majesty!"


    "Why? He doesn''t care, so why do you?"


    Solomon pped his hands together to get the attention of both Eiro and Jordan, "Please, just give me the message and stop bickering. It is fine if Eiro hears it."


    "...If you wish. We have received a message from one of our informants that part of the royal castle of the Holy Empire''s capital has been destroyed. The ce that was the starting point of the explosion was supposedly their of the ''Pure Merchant''." Jordan exined, and Solomon immediately turned his head toward Eiro and stared at him, before looking back at Jordan.


    "You may leave. Thank you for the message."


    "Erm... There is something else..." Jordan pointed out, and Solomon frowned nervously, and even Eiro was curious what this was about, as the advisor continued, "Following that explosion, this morning... part of the capital was flooded, and waves of strong monster-migration have been reported surrounding the World Lake." He exined, "And worst of all... the World Lake has been thrown into a havoc altogether. The Lake''s ind suddenly disappeared, and the Lake God began a sort of rampage. For the first time in decades, it has shown itself to the people that surrounded theke, trying to scare them off."


    "...Is there anything else, or is this it?" Solomon asked with a deep frown, and Jordan slowly shook his head, "No, for now, this is all. They did add, however, that there might be more messagesing soon that we should be prepared for."


    Solomon ced his hand onto his forehead as he started to think, before telling Jordan to leave again. The advisor did as told, but of course not without ring at Eiro on his way out. The moment Jordan was far enough away, Eiro looked at the King with a smile, "We can talk now."


    "Good." Solomon said, before he stood up. He quickly approached Eiro and proceeded to p him with as much force as he could muster. Of course, that only ended with a loud crack in Solomon''s hand as Eiro''s face didn''t budge at all.


    "Gods dammit..." Solomon swore as he looked at his hand, clearly in pain. Nelli appeared a momentter as Eiro helped her heal the King''s hand, "You know exactly that I have more than 150 points in resistance, Solomon..."


    "I know, but I was angry. What did you think, just blowing that ce up?! Were you not aware that it was within the royal castle?!"


    "Of course I am. That''s mostly why I did it."


    "What?!" Solomon eximed, "But why?"


    "I just told you, the king and pope formed some sort of deal with Zaragon. He is part of a race of beings who govern over specific physical spaces, and I don''t think those spaces can very easily change. It has been, at the very least, a few hundred years since Zaragon began controlling that specific ce. My guess is that he is what turned that poor ''Holy Kingdom'' into the ''Holy Empire'' back then. Zaragon is a vile, horrible being. I just chose to personally punish those that chose to work together with him." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon sighed deeply, unsure what exactly he was supposed to say.


    "Eiro, why exactly do you keep doing things that make it incredibly hard for me to keep defending you? Do you really not see any wrong in your actions?"


    "Oh, of course I see that I objectively overreacted. But this wasn''t an action of logic, it was an action of emotion." Eiro pointed out, as he slowly stood up. His skin began to form ripples since Bavet was being influenced by the aura that the Demon gave off right now, and Bavet even pulled himself back from parts of Eiro''s face and arms, "I was just really fucking pissed off. Those guys think they''re the best, that they''re always just morally right, but they just aren''t! They''re... they''re disgusting people, they''re horrible, they... They just make me so incredibly angry! They worked together with that horrendous killer, that guy that devoured Avalin right in front of my eyes! Solomon, do you even know how horrific it is to be able to remember every single tiny detail of the world around you? And have that ability bebined with the greatest senses and deductive abilities one can have?" The Demon asked, moving his arms toward his throat, pushing his fingers into his skin.


    "I remember every single crunch, every single tear, every single time one of his numerous teeth buried into her flesh! I remember her voice, her screams, her terrified expression... But of course, back then, my senses weren''t what they are now... For a while, barely anything came from it. I could ignore those memories. But then, I stood in that room again. My mind began to race as I took every single detail in that room in. Every single detail of Zaragon''s body. And since I know the internal structures of humans as perfectly as possible, my mind brought be to think of the ''truth'' of what happened there back then. My mind filled in the gaps, my mind turned that horrific experience that traumatised me to this date into something even worse. And then, there''s of course this fucking mark that makes it harder for me to control myself day by day. At that point, everything just fucking fell apart, Solomon. I was angry, I was so fucking angry. But of course, I couldn''t show that fully to the closest friends I''ve ever had in my life. I let my anger out, killing people that had nothing to do with this. And then, I wanted to resolve it, by just blowing everything to smithereens. I just wanted that ce gone, Solomon. Gone."


    Eiro''s exnation, which he had meant to be short and brief, the bare minimum that he wanted to show, had turned into an anger-filled, self-hating rant, and everything just came flowing out in front of his dear friend, now that he had entered a situation where he could really be vulnerable for once, "I don''t even know who I am anymore... Am I good, or bad? Am I selfish or selfless? Am I a man or a monster? Is there some higher being just toying with me, enjoying all this bullshit that keeps on happening to me? I just snapped... I... I wanted to destroy that whole city... see it in the same shambles that I saw back then. But I... I held myself back... That''s something at least, right? That''s worth something, right?"


    He stood in front of Solomon, his body slumping in on itself even though he still stood upright, staring into his friend''s eyes. Solomon''s anger had turned into a mixture ofpassion and sadness as he listened to Eiro''s worries, emotions that seemed toe out of nowhere.


    Eiro''s emotions slowly turned from fury into depression, "I''m just so... so exhausted, Solomon... I''m four levels away from bing something else entirely... from getting everything I''ve worked for for years... But I don''t know if I can do this anymore... I just want to stay behind, keep teaching at the academy, and watch my children grow up...."

 Chapter 486 - Reunion

    "Eiro... are you sure that''s what you really want?" Solomon asked with a worried expression on his face, and the Demon in question slowly raised his head to look at his friend. He had calmed down a little bit after his rant just now.


    "I... don''t know... Yes? No? Maybe? My mind is just racing right now. There are still so many things that I don''t know about, to the point where I''m absolutely not sure what the right choice would be going forward. I see myself just... splitting in two. ''Eiro, The World, Sage, Monster King, and Hero'', or ''Eiro Jura Daemonherz, teacher at the Academy and baron of Skyhart''. I don''t know which one I should be anymore..." Eiro exined, looking down at the ground, when he suddenly heard another voice echo through the room.


    "How pathetic." He sighed, and Eiro raised his head, looking at the Dragon of Truth standing in front of him. It seemed like Solomon just let him in through the balcony as well.


    "I know I''m acting pathetic, don''t worry..."


    "How could I not worry, you child? I don''t exactly know what happened to you, but I do know that this is not the man I am proud to call a friend. The first friend I have made outside of this royal family in centuries." Lognir exined in a strict tone, his voice echoing through Eiro''s ears, "Now stand up, and look at me. And you, slime, leave him be for a few moments."


    Bavet slowly split off of Eiro, turning into a humanoid form instead as he started to lean up against the wall. The Demon pushed himself off the ground and looked at the Dragon in front of him, as the two of them locked eyes.


    "Who are you?" Lognir asked, and Eiro slowly averted his gaze, "I don''t know anymore..."


    "I''m not asking about who you were, or who you''re going to be. I''m asking about who you are right this very moment." The Dragon said with a re, and Eiro quietly sighed.


    "I''m... a Demon. A parent, a teacher, an adventurer, a noble... I''m a lot of things, I guess."


    "You''re on the right track, but it''s not what I wanted to hear. Eiro, you are simply you. Your race does not matter. You would be you even if you were a goblin, a kobold, or even a human or elf. You will always be a parent, that is something that cannot, and never will, change. And the rest? Those are upations. They''re temporary, but you can basically stop them and pick them up whenever you want. You will only grow in wisdom over the years. Even if you don''t teach for hundreds of years, you will still be a great teacher. There''s little to no need for you to be an adventurer in the first ce, since you''re only doing that for your end goal. Once that is achieved, you don''t need that title anymore. And a noble? Hah, who needs those anyway? In a few hundred years, they''ll be obsolete." The Dragon exined to Eiro, looking him deep into his eyes, "You know that I''m speaking the truth. Right now, you may be all of those things, sure, but are you actually defined by them? The man I know you to be is loving, as he cherishes his family above all else. The man I know is brave and strong, striving for greater heights. And the man I know will never budge to fickle concepts like obligations or rules. You are you. You always were, and you always will be. Even if you be the Monster King, the Hero, or just a simple teacher. You will be you, and you will always return to what you were meant to be. And you are the only one who can choose what that is."


    Eiro listened to Lognir''s words, slowly letting his head drop as he stared back at the ground. Lognir was right. Even if he ended up doing everything he had nned... There was nothing stopping him from being what he really wanted to do afterward. There was no way he wouldpletely lose himself, even if he became such a being that never existed before. Even if he became a being that was iprehensible... Eiro was going to make sure he would never cease being who he was right now. Even if he had to set up a n to force himself to, Eiro would never give up the chance to see his children grow up. He shouldn''t throw away his happiness like that. Eiro looked at the being in front of him with a smile on his face, "Thank you... That... really helped."


    "Of course. But now, I do have a slight question that I am hoping either of you may be able to answer." Lognir pointed out, "What is that huge lump of earth floating right above the castle, which could very well destroy not only this country but the whole continent if it were to freely drop down onto us from that height?"


    ---


    "Alright, we''re here. Wee to the city I stole." Eiro said with a wry smile, watching as Lognir turned back into a humanoid form to walk beside Solomon. Both of them were still trying to figure out how exactly Eiro moved a literal whole ind here to this ce, but since Eiro would try to exin that to themter on anyway, they just let it go for now.


    "So, juste with me. We''re meeting the others in the castle in the center of the city. It was the only ce that was in an actually decent state. Also... if you see monster corpses, don''t worry about them for now, I''ll take care of them sometimeter." The Demon exined to the two of them, as he started walking straight through the town.


    "Right..." Solomon muttered, looking around at this ruined city with a deep, worried frown, "You know, I was here once, maybe ten or so years ago. It was a beautiful city, truly. But now... it turned into this? What do you even want to do with this ce? What use does it have?"


    "It''s greatest use is that we have it now, and they don''t." Eiro said bluntly, "Listen, this city has plenty of uses. It has a huge magic stone at its center, and this ind was clearly created by some kind of magical genius centuries ago. The sheer knowledge this ce has to offer to the kingdom is invaluable, and then on top of that, the tactical advantage? Solomon, even a regr ind can be easily turned into an imprable fortress, but a flying ind that''spletely self-sufficient? It''s just perfect. It''s an asset that the kingdom should definitely make use of." The Demon suggested to the king in front of him, who slowly closed his eyes for a moment of thought.


    "Fine, I guess you do have a point. And it''s not like we''re on particrly good terms with the Holy Empire... and even a tenth of our army could obliterate all of theirs, and that''s not even including our ''special assets''. They won''t even dream of attacking us, and no other country will try to join them in some kind of alliance, since we''re on far better terms with all the countries on the continent than the empire... and since we''repletely in the right ording to that internationalw you spoke about... I guess there would only be moral issues. But I personally don''t feel too many qualms about taking from that horrendous country either... Did you know that they alone own more than half the ves on the continent, although their whole poption makes up barely a quarter of the continent''s people?" Solomon muttered, as if trying to somehow convince himself that this was actually a good idea. Because even he had to admit that he was jealous of what this floating ind could offer sometimes in the past.


    "Mhm, I knew." Eiro replied, as the group soon reached the center of town, speeding things up by Eiro flying and Solomon just being carried by Lognir over to the castle.


    Once they stood in front of the castle''s main gate, Eiro turned toward Solomon and locked eyes with him, "So, in there is someone that I would like you to meet with for a moment, alright? You are the only one who can truly tell if it is the truth or not, and I don''t want Lognir to say anything to sway your thoughts in this regard either, alright?" The Demon told Solomon, who looked back at him with a deep frown, "What do you mean? Did you take someone prisoner?"


    "...Not prisoner, no. We freed some people that had been taken captive here on the ind. Most of them are in here, although we did let those leave that wanted to go." Eiro exined, before taking another deep breath. He opened the path into the castle, and soon, Solomon stepped into the castle''s entrance hall.


    And there, on the other side of the room, stood a young woman. Due to the light flooding in through the door, it was hard for Solomon to recognize her immediately, but as he took some steps forward to get closer to her, his heart rate sped up tremendously. Lognir seemed to have already recognized her.


    "How sadistic, not preparing him for this a bit earlier.." The Dragon said, watching the man who he formed a contract with embrace his younger sister while crying tears of relief.

 Chapter 487 - Adamantine

    "But... how is this possible? How are you here right now?" Solomon asked, looking into his younger sister''s teary eyes. Maria rubbed the tears away and looked back at the man in front of her, "Eight years ago, I was here during that invasion of the monster horde... I was somehow kept alive until now, and then, Eiro came here... He saved all of us, Solomon..."


    "I know, he''s... he''s like that... Maria, I''m so sorry that I didn''te here earlier, if I had known that you had been captured, I-"


    "No, don''t... it''s alright... Until a few days ago, I was practically dead after all... The things that those vile demons did to me..." Maria held her hand in front of her mouth, trying to stop herself from throwing up, as Solomon continued to hold her in his arms.


    After a few minutes, Solomon slowly turned around toward Eiro, letting go of his sister to approach his friend.


    "Thank you, Eiro. I... I just don''t know what to say... Thank you for reuniting me with my family. You keep doing this, first you save Charles, and now Maria? How can I ever thank you?" Solomon asked, and Eiro scratched the back of his head, "How about you act a bit more leasurely when thinking about the fact that I stole a whole ind?"


    With augh, the King nodded his head, "Of course. I was alreadying around to it, honestly. We will still need to speak about this some moreter, but for now... we need to bring everyone down from this ind. Do you have any suggestions, Eiro?"


    "Yeah, actually, I do. There are quite a lot of children amongst those that survived, and with the exception of a few, they are all orphans. So, I was hoping for you to give me ownership of the orphanage on the nort side of town. Or at least, allow me to supervise what happens there to an extent. These children have clearly suffered enough already." Eiro pointed out, "As for the adults... plenty of them have training as adventurers, and used to have rather sturdy bodies. Most of them are at least above average on the raw stat side, so we should try to help them recover physically for the next few months, and then help them reintegrate into society. If you want, I can supervise which jobs they will enter when ites to it." The Demon suggested, and Solomon lightly frowned.


    "So you''re saying that you will take responsibility for all these people? You''re clearly stressed enough already, I don''t want to do that to you as well."


    "Don''t worry, I''m already in charge of a whole vige of monsters, checking in on these people every once in a while, if they even want me to, is simplypared to that." Eiro replied, "Oh, speaking of, I need to bring this ind to the mountainster as well... There are some monsters here that I want to integrate into the vige to try and expand it. It''s going to be easier to move them there using this ind." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon slowly nodded, "Fine, do that. But we really need to talk about what to do with this ce. We can''t keep it above the castle forever. On a cloudless day, it''s going to stick out quite a bit, don''t you think?"


    "Right, yeah, I was going to speak to Armodeus about it, he should be able to help me out. And at the same time, we have a Dragon of truth and the ruler of the ultimate domain of truth here, so I''m hoping that we''ll be able to figure out a way to obscure the ind from sight."


    Hearing himself be mentioned, Lognir swiftly stepped in, "You say that, but I doubt that it would be possible to do something like that. Controlling how well you yourself blend into the world is different to controlling how well something else blends into the world, not even mentioning something as huge as this ind."


    "We should be able to figure something out though, I hope. I mean, I do still have the Ace of Cups." The Dmeon pointed out, and Lognir crossed his arms in thought, "But would it not be a waste to use such a legendary chalice to hide this ce? It is one of your greatest assets, a tool you carry with you in case of an emergency, is it not?" Lognir pointed out, and Eiro shrugged a bit.


    "That''s true, but I''m hoping that Armodeus will figure out how to create a duplicate of the Ace of Cups somehow, that way we should be able to manage something without having to rely on the base item, you know?"


    "That does seem like it could work. Truly, that Dwarf is rather impressive, even being able to create duplicates of artifacts."


    "I know, right? Armodeus is pretty great." Eiro said with a somewhat smug expression, since his friend was talked about in such high regard, before he turned back toward Solomon, "Anyway, do you know of any ce where we can just have them recover for now? A ce with some decent beds and food?"


    "Hm, yes, I do think something doese to mind. There is a side-building to the royal castle that is currently vacant, which we can surely house some people in. So we will take care of them for now, and after everyone settled and calmed down a bit, we will see what else to do." Solomon suggested, and Eiro immediatly smiled back at him.


    "That sounds like a pretty good idea. There''s a few dozen people here. Should we get started now to bring them all down there? So that we can get it done first, and then I can bring all the monsters to the vige to figure things out there." Eiro pointed out, "Maybe I''ll find a good ce to ''hide'' the ind near there for now. Nobody climbs the mountains due to the monsters roaming around the peak, so I might be able to figure something out over there." He suggested, and Solomon simply sighed in response.


    "Fine, try to figure that out for now. I''ll take care of everything else. Oh, and you said you took some things from Zaragon? You can have them for now, but I trust that you will let me view themter to see if there is anything that can be of use to us."


    "Ah, about that, there definitely is something. I''ll show you when we get inside. The others are waiting over there." The Demon said, pointing down the hallway. They quickly made their way to the room where everyone was currently sitting and resting, although they all jumped up the moment the door opened up.


    Solomon stepped inside, seeing all those starved, weakened people. They were crippled, bandages covering their bodies. The King slowly took a few steps forward, before lowering his head in front of the people in this room.


    "I apologize that you were only just rescued a few days ago. My name is Solomon Sigurd Skyhart, I am the lord of the kingdom of Skyhart. From today on, you will all be safe under my and Eiro''s personal protection. You will be brought down to the city shortly, but before you leave, I do have something to ask of you." Solomon exined to them, "Even though this is a promise you already made to Eiro himself, I wish for you to pledge yourself to not speak of the true nature of this man next to me. Publicy, Eiro is not a demon, but a human. More specifically, a baron of the kingdom, and a close friend of mine. For his and his family''s safety, as well as your own, I wish to ask you to keep silent." The King told them bluntly, something that everyone of course quickly agreed to.


    Both Eiro and Lognir confirmed that they were speaking the truth. But even that was only a truth for now, since their thoughts on this topic could very easily change in the future. Everyone got ready to leave, while Eiro swiftly showed Lognir to the mechanical dolls and the weapons that had been stripped from them.


    The moment the dragon saw it, he couldn''t believe his eyes, but of course he knew that it was the truth.


    "How could this... Is this truly Adamantine? This is a metal even more precious than gold, unable to be shapen but by the greatest of metal smiths! And you say this ''Zaragon'' held ownership over so many of these?" Lognir asked, holding one of the weapon in his hands, while Eiro just stood there, stunned at what the Dragon had said.


    "Erm... yeah, he did... I have no idea where he got all these things... but he definitely had all of these, and could somehow freely control them." Eiro pointed out, "And this metal is really that strong?"


    "Of course it is!" Lognir eximed, picking up the thinnest weapon of them all, a small sword. He grabbed it in his hands, as something changed about his body internally. His muscles turned into something far stronger than that which a person could have. They turned into a dragon''s muscles. Lognir was trying to strengthen himself as much as possible for this.


    And then, Lognir started to try and bend the metal. He curved the sword, soon doing it so much that it had turned into a shallow ''U'' shape. Any other de would have already snapped at this point. But that was not what Lognir was trying to show off.


    He kept on and on as he tried to push the de further together, but no matter what he did, he wasn''t able to. His muscles were strained, and even soon started do be damaged to the sheer strain that they were under.


    This dragon''s muscles tore before the de even chipped. And when it was clear that Lognir would be unable to damage the sword with his current strength, he simply let go of the de, and it returned to its normal form, not showing a hint of ever being bent.


    Truly, this was an incredible material.

 Chapter 488 - More Monsters

    Eiro dropped off thest one of the people that had been captured and held on the flying ind, and then turned over toward Solomon, "So you''ll take care of them for now?" He asked, and Solomon immediately nodded his head.


    "Yeah, don''t worry. You just find a ce where you can ''Hide'' the ind, and make sure to bring all the monsters to that vige... but please, I beg of you, make sure that they won''t somehow randomly attack people, alright? These guys are a lot different to the monsters already in the vige, right?"


    "That''s true... but don''t worry, everything is going to be fine. The monster leaders are mostly under my control, so the others will fall into ce pretty easily as well."


    "...If you say so, I will trust your word. But please keep me up to date, alright? I really don''t want these personal projects of yours topletely get out of control without me knowing about anything that''s going on there." The King exined, while Eiro slowly scratched the back of his head, "Again, everything is going to be fine. I''ll make sure to deal with it, and then give you as much information about that vige as absolutely possible."


    "Perfect. Thank you." Solomon said with a relieved sigh, before slowly turning around, "Also, make sure not to stay away too long, your children are already missing you. Whenever I saw them, they would just talk about all the things they wanted to tell you about once you came back."


    "Oh? Really?" Eiro asked with his brows raised, "I can''t wait to hear about it."


    And with a smile on his face, Eiro pped his wings and shot right back into the sky, soon standing at the edge of the ind again, where the others were still waiting for him, "Are you sure you want toe with me for this as well? You can just go take a rest if you want." Eiro pointed out, but James was the first to reply, "Hah, right. Nah, we''ll properly help out, don''t worry. And it''s not like this trip is going to be all too long anymore. We expected to onlye back in another week or so anyway. This ind is so much faster than some carriages." The light elf pointed out, while Eiro lightly chuckled.


    "Got it. Thanks for the help. Then I''ll head back to the crystal cave, and we''ll head off. Make sure to stay inside though, it really is incredibly windy, and it''s going to be hard to steer out of the way of any storm clouds we maye across. The weather in the area of the mountains is never the best, if you remember."


    "Right, right, don''t worry, we''re not idiots." Krog added, and Eiro shrugged as he moved past them to head back to the center of the ind, "Eh, debatable."


    "What''d you just say..?" Krog asked with a wry smile, and Eiro couldn''t help himself but smile a bit, "Just joking around."


    ---


    Eiro slowed the ind''s movement downpletely in a very specific spot in the mountain-range. It was a ce pretty close to the monster vige, so it would be easy to get all the monsters from here to there, and it was a rtively t terrain protected by the mountains that surrounded it. And the best thing was that the whole area was mostlyrge enough to fit the floating ind into if he just tried. He just had to dig out part of the ground and then try to fit the ind in there, letting it hover in ce there. It should be decently safe from any possible curious eyes.


    The vast majority of people didn''t approach this kind of area simply because it was too dangerous. It would be too exhausting to climb the steep cliffs. The only reason why there were official, detailed maps of this area was because Skyhart had hired arge hunting party to apany a group of cartographers to this ce, and that was a few decades ago. Since then, Eiro doubted that anyone was even thinking ofing here anytime soon.


    That being the case, Eiro flew down from the ind and quickly started his work excavating part of the terrain underneath where he wanted to keep the ind for now. If he needed some other form of protection for this ce afterward, he would just nt some trees around here that he knew would help keep people out of this ce. It took a few hours to just dig out everything alone, even with Eiro''s level of magic and Gondos helping him out.


    The issue was that Eiro wanted to make the hole a bitrger than what it actually needed, since he wasn''t one hundred percent sure how exactly the crystal cave determined what parts of the ind it took with it. He didn''t want to identally rip out part of the mountain and cause some kind of huge cave-in or something like that.


    But once he was done, Eiro could slowly but surely control the ind to move downward ever so slowly. Luckily, he did the calctions of what he had to do for this in advance, or else the ind would have just crashed down into the ground, something that Eiro really wanted to avoid.


    Then, Eiro made sure that the ind would keep a level position, as if it was going to lock itself into the space that it was currently upying. And then, he rounded up all the monsters that were left in the city, and brought them to the edge of town, where he then started creating a pathway for all of them to take toward the vige.


    Of course, Rashi and some of the other monster leaders were sticking very close to Eiro. Some of which were forced to, actually. Since the fish-type monsters of course wouldn''t be able to move through this mountain range on their own, Eiro was moving the water that they were swimming in instead, to bring them along with him.


    A few more hourster, therge group of monsters, plus three people, finally made their way to the monster vige through an entrance that hadn''t existed before Eiro forcefully created it. Of course, the Orcs, Kobolds and Goblins that were standing guard around that area were startled at what happened, but it didn''t take long until they recognized the true lord of their vige.


    "We wee you, Master Eiro!" They eximed, nearly in unison. This seemed to be one of the few phrases that they were able to say. Gobo, Kitsue, and Boju seemed to have raised them pretty well. As far as Eiro could tell, the ''slums'' of the vige had nearlypletely been cleared out, with just a few exceptions that still had to get used to not having their monstrosity control their lives.


    "Bring me to Gobo." The Demon said, and the guards quickly realized what Eiro was asking of them, and brought him over to the other side of the vige. Of course, Eiro made sure that they were taking a path where the monsters following him didn''t end up bothering the monsters that already lived here too much.


    Soon, they reached therge, carved-out space that acted as the city hall of this ce, and Eiro stepped in there alongside Jess, James and Krog, while he made sure the other monsters were peacefully waiting outside.


    Eiro quickly approached the room that Gobo was in, since he was the closest, and pushed open the door. In there was the Hobgoblin, training to be stronger. He immediately turned around with a re, angry that he was suddenly interrupted, before he saw who actually came here.


    "Master!" He eximed, and immediately abandoned his training to rush over to him with a broad smile on his face, "What are you doing here?!" Gobo asked, clearly excited.


    The Demon crossed his arms with a smile on his face as well, "We have some new monsters that are going to live alongside you all here." He exined, and the moment he did, Gobo''s smile disappeared.


    "Ah... Erm... Master... we kind of already have trouble finding space for all the monsters already here in the vige..."


    "Don''t worry, I''ve thought about everything. There are a few different races there. Some of them will go to live in the nearbyke, others are avian and will live ''above'' you, basically, constructing their nests where you guys couldn''t reach yet. And there are also some monsters that will help you expand deeper into the rock-walls, since they''re innate cave-builders. Don''t worry, I wouldn''t just throw this sort of thing onto you without thinking about everything that might happen." Eiro exined to him, and Gobo slightly sighed as he thought, moving his hand once to use his own magic to get rid of the sweat covering him, just like Eiro would always do when he was this sweaty.


    "Alright, then that''s something else. But we''re probably going to need your help nning everything out... And are there any monsters that can act as representatives?"


    "Yes, I actually only brought groups of monsters that had a sort of leader. Again, I''ve already thought about everything." The Demon exined, and Gobo simply smiled at him, "I know, I was still just worried. Well, I guess we should try to meet the others then... Oh, and..."


    "Yep, don''t worry, you''ll still be the head of the whole vige, Gobo, don''t worry.. Your position will always be a step above the others."

 Chapter 489 - Village Plans

    Eiro looked at the monsters sitting in front of him, and then turned his head toward those that were still standing. Due to the sheer size of some of them, not all of them were already able to sit down, but luckily the ceilings were high enough to house them for now.


    "Alright, so. I need you three to teach the other leaders how to speakmon with extreme priority, alright?" The Demon said, "Because right now, I''m pretty sure they don''t understand a word of what I''m saying." He slowly looked at the monster leaders, basically all of which were looking at him curiously, unsure what exactly he said.


    "Eh..? But that''s so much work..." Kitsue pointed out annoyed, before Eiro rolled his eyes, "I know it is, but I want you to do it anyway. The next time Ie here, I want them to, at the very least, be able to greet me. And if possible, I want them to be able to do even more than that. Understood?" He exined to them, before Gobo, Kitsue, and Boju all slowly nodded their heads.


    "Good. Now, I also need you to aodate some of them a little bit for now. I already spent the time to change the form of some of the sealing cors, so I will put them on each of the leaders for now. I want you to concentrate on properly integrating them into this vige first, alright? If they are no longer controlled by their monstrosity, it''s going to be a lot easier to teach them things and live alongside them. Although for some of them, you don''t need to worry too much." Eiro exined, looking in particr at the moleman leader and the seafolk leader, thetter of which was in control of multiple different races of water-based monsters, which is why Eiro referred to her as something other than her race for now, which was that of a siren.


    The seafolk leader was currently in just a small pond of water that Eiro created for her here in the floor, since there was really no other way to have her join the discussion.


    "Anyway, after each of the leaders is integrated, I want you to make sure to assign the leaders to the role of integrating the monsters they represent into the vige as well. My guess is that the first ones this will affect will be the molemen. While they aren''t particrly aggressive or powerful, meaning that they aren''t really particrly threatening to anyone here, they''re kind of... tricksters. They might end up ying a few pranks here and there. And since none of them fought back against me at all, there''s a lot more of them than all the others I brought today. But that''s a good thing to an extent. They will be able to work incredibly well with your earth mages, Boju." The Demon exined. "I was able to see the underground structures they built where I got them from, and it was really incredible. They don''t speak as much as some of the others, but that''s because theirnguage is somewhat more... intuitive. They should be able to tell what you want them to do more easily than the others. So, please, as soon as you can, work together with the molemen to expand the vige."


    After Eiro''s suggestions, Boju quickly spoke up about something that seemed to worry him, "Erm... We were actually talking about this a few days ago, but we''re not sure if we want to just expand deeper and deeper into the rock-walls, since it''s just going to make some of the monsters have to stay stuck in colder, darker areas while others have more ess to sunlight." He pointed out, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms, "That is a bit of an issue, yeah... Techncially, the Mountain Goblins and Hignd Orcs should both be alright with cold and darkness, although I do get why you wouldn''t want to constantly live in such an environment... Alright, how about this... To bring all the monsters here, I constructed a bit of a tunnel between here and the ce I brought them from. That ce in itself will be off-limits, but there was another nice open area near there that you could make use of. The basic space is about two to three times as much as you have just here." Eiro pointed out, before thinking a little bit.


    Soon, he had an idea, "Alright, let''s do it like this. Move some of the storage and production spaces into the tunnel, simply build rooms right onto it. Then you can have a few more spaces open up here, and then you can slowly expand further into that new space I mentioned."


    "But that would make it a lot harder to get an overview of everything that goes on in the vige. If something were to happen over there, it would take us way too long to get there, right?" Gobo voiced his concern, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms as he continued to think.


    "Let''s just have this be a temporary solution. If possible, I would like to move this whole vige elsewhere at some point anyway." Eiro pointed out, "It''s further away from any onlookers, and it''s practically the perfect ce. It''s a very wide, tall space, there''s ake right next to it that theke-monsters can live in, and in general, it''s further away from ces where people will usually be. It''s probably going to take a few weeks until that space bes avable, though." He exined. He was talking about the space that he now currently filled up with the floating ind. It really was a great ce, and they would probably have a decent use for the ind rtively soon, meaning that Eiro won''t need to hide it anymore.


    "But then, what about the mines we have here?" Kitsue asked, "Should we just abandon them?"


    "No, no, I don''t think you should, but they''re already partially running dry, right? There''s less reason to concentrate on this ce as the central base soon. We can still have some of the monstersmute here for a few days at a time to continue their work here, though. But that ce will offer some other possible mines as well. That whole area had an incredibly metallic scent to it, so there are probably other mines in the area. Of course, it''s very unlikely for there to be any magic stone veins, but we gathered plenty of those here already. Right now they''re not really used here in the first ce, but we might be able to figure out some ways to integrate them into this vige a bit better. But that''s going to have to wait until I return with Armodeus."


    Boju was busy writing all the ns down into a notebook, before he slowly raised his head and looked at Eiro again, "I have our to-do list finished now, then. Do you have anything else you would like us to work on?" Boju asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "Right now I wouldn''t say so, no. But I will leave you with this item here for now, so that you can contact me whenever you need my help." The Demon exined, pulling out a small, fist-sized brass orb and cing it on the table in front of Boju.


    "You grab the bottom and top with your hands, and then twist it into opposite directions. The orb will then transform into a small metallic bird, who you can give a scroll with a message on it. Then you just tell it my name. I already made it remember my mana, so that''s all you need to do. And make sure to do it outside, or else it might be a bit confused when it''s in this kind of inside space." Eiro exined, before James stood up from the seat behind Eiro to take a look at it as well, "Wait, was that one of the items we took from Zaragon?"


    "Mhm, but don''t worry, there were about half a dozen of these particr ones, so I took the liberty of grabbing one for these guys. I would also like to leave one with my children, with Solomon, and then with one of you guys if I''m ever gone for training." Eiro exined to them, "And they''re re-usable, so we can pick something else what to do with themter."


    "Hm, alright... And they can only send messages to those whose mana it remembers?" James asked, but Eiro just shrugged, "I think so. I didn''t have too much time to y around with it yet. We can test it out when we get back hometer. I left all the others there already, so."


    "...Got it." James said, although this all seemed somewhat weird. Eiro didn''t expect him to react this way to this item, although he had a rough idea what exactly James wanted to do with this sort of item.


    "Anyway, again, if you need anything, please let me know and I''ll be here as soon as I can. Although you should be aware that I''m only a few levels away from my next evolution, and it might be a rather... violent one. It might take a bit longer to get here during that time." Eiro pointed out, as he stood up from his seat, "I''ll help you get all the other monsters settled in for now, but I would like to leave before nightfall so that we can get back as soon as possible." Eiro exined, although Gobo was a bit surprised.


    "Did you not make time to spend a few days here this time?"


    "...Actually, this was not in my ns at all... and if the kids wake up and realize I dumped a whole bunch of items at the manor just to leave again for a few days without even meeting them, they''ll just be pissed off...." Eiro pointed out with a wry smile, scratching the back of his head with a bit of worry.

 Chapter 490 - Sleepwalking

    Eiro pushed the carriage into the part of the stables reserved for it, and then brought the horses to the other side. When he stepped out of the stables, he slowly rubbed his hand over Lugo''s snout, "Finally back, huh?" He said with a smile on his face, before starting to walk toward the manor''s back door. The others already made their way inside to their rooms, but Eiro said that he would just take care of the carriage for now and thene in as well.


    The Demon and the stag made their way inside, and they quietly walked through the building toward Eiro''s study. Jess, James, Krog, and Bavet were already sitting inside, waiting for him. Eiro quickly helped the tired Lugo get through the door, before letting himy down in the corner of the room.


    "Alright, then I guess it''s officially over now, huh?" Eiro said with a light smile, standing in front of his party, and they all slowly looked back at the demon. And then, James formed a broad smile on his face, "Yeah... it really is. Zaragon is dead, man... He''s really dead..." James said in an excited tone. Eiro couldn''t help himself but smile as he walked over toward one of the cabs, taking out a bottle of liquor that he knew everyone here liked. He poured some into the sses, and made sure to cool them down with a bit of ice magic.


    After handing everyone here a cup, Eiro slowly sat down in the armchair in front of the small table, while the others were sitting on either of the two couches. Eiro raised his ss above and smiled at his friends, "To finally achieving a long-term goal."


    "Hear, hear!" James said, and everyone quickly took a sip of their liquor. Eiro turned toward Jess and Krog with a smile, "Thank you two foring along with us. You really didn''t have anything to do with this revenge of ours, but you still helped us out throughout the whole thing."


    "Don''t worry, man, of course we''d help you two out. You''re our friends." Krog pointed out, although his smile quickly turned wry, "And honestly, after all that training, I really didn''t want that hell to be for nothing..."


    "Speaking of... Do you think we have to keep going with that? You know... just stronger than before?" Jess asked nervously, a question that all three of them seemed to be asking themselves, but Eiro quickly shook his head, something that relieved them immensely.


    "Right now, it would be useless if I just made you go through even more of that. Not to mention that with my current control over ''chaos'', I''m not sure if I could even go much further than that right now. You leveled up a few times, so you should have slowly adjusted to the rapid changes in your body or mind now that your stats rose like that." Eiro exined, "Just try to keep leveling up for now, there''s no directly imminent thing we need to do anytime soon anyway. We can just rx a little bit more until summer, I''d say. But do make sure not to stop training your bodies, although I''ll just give you some training programs that have a bit more leisure to them. If you want, I can always increase how tough they are, though."


    "Honestly, a bit of leisure does sound nice... I think we deserve a bit of a break after all that, right?" Jess pointed out, ncing over at Krog, "The two of us were actually thinking about going on a bit of a vacation... if you guys are alright with that."


    "Hm? Wait, why''d you two go on vacation together?" Bavet asked confused, and everyone slowly turned their head toward the slime in slight disbelief, "Seriously? You can copy and construct the anatomy of beings that you either just nced at or just read about in books, burt you can''t see that those two are a couple?" James asked, and Bavet stared at Jess and Krog.


    "What? Seriously now? That''s a match-up you''d never expect..." Bavet muttered, before Krogughed loudly, "You think that we''re a weird matchup? Did you even see Eiro and Arie?" He asked, before Eiro stared at the man sitting next to him.


    "What do you mean? There''s nothing going on between us..." Eiro pointed out, and Jess rolled her eyes, "Oh please, it''s so obvious! You''re all over her whenever she''s around! Not that I can me you though, Arie is absolutely gorgeous!"


    "...Well, I would be lying if I said I wasn''t interested, but I doubt it would really work out. You know... Her being basically an angel, while I''m a demon? That''s not really the best match-up." Eiro pointed out, actually somewhat embarrassed, "And I just want to make it clear again, I''m absolutely not interested in this sort of... physical love as you two have going on basically every night."


    "Eiro! Are you listening in on us..?"


    "Jess, on a quiet night, I can basically hear Solomon snore from here. What do you think?" Eiroughed slihtly, and both Jess and Krog looked at each other somewhat nervously, before the Demon continued, "Anyway, as I said, there is nothing going on between her and I, and I doubt that anything will happen. I do think I have to admit that... I have feelings for her... but this is very, very new to me, so I just want things to happen slowly, if at all." Eiro exined to them, before he slowly turned his head to the side, "Ah... I think we woke Leon up... Or at the very least, he''s kind of wandering around right now." The Demon pointed out.


    However, a momentter, he could feel a hit to the side of his arm, "Eiro, if it''s Leon... then I think..." Krog said, before quickly pointing at Bavet. Eiro turned his head and looked at the slime, whose body was... unstable, to describe it in simple terms.


    His humanoid form was slowly falling apart, his skin turning into something of a sludge-like substance that was running down his body. Or rather, it was his body itself running down the rest of his body that was still able to keep up some kind of solid mass for a little while. Bavet was sitting there, unable to really move. It was clear that the control he had over his body was rather limited all of a sudden.


    "Well, that''s not good..." Eiro said, immediately spreading his awareness throughout the building. The monster servants within the manor were all starting to freak out, being pulled out of their sleep. Eiro sighed and quickly stood up, cing his cup of liquor onto the table in front of him. Immediately, he rushed out through the door and pped his wings, catapulting himself through the hallways and hidden passages to reach Leon as quickly as possible.


    Soon, the Demon stopped right in front of his son, and quickly embraced him with his arms and wings, "Don''t worry Leon, everything is fine, everything is fine... Daddy is here..." Eiro said, trying to calm him down. But somehow, Leon didn''t really react. It seemed like he was sleepwalking in front of Eiro right now, which might exin why his powers suddenly got out of control. If he couldn''t control his body, the same being the case with abilities that took him a lot to restrain in the first ce made sense.


    Eiro knew that it wasn''t always a good idea to wake up sleepwalkers, so instead, he chose to just try and calm him down instead. He kept holding his son, rubbing over his back, all the whilst speaking to him in a calm, gentle voice.


    Whenever Leon was trying to walk somewhere, Eiro made sure to try and hold him in ce in the most gentle way he could, and it didn''t take long until his efforts worked out properly. Leon''s body soon slumped down as he simply fell asleep again, and as far as Eiro could tell, the boy''s influence on the monsters in the building was interrupted once more.


    With a deep, relieved sigh, Eiro stood up, walking Leon back to his room, although he didn''t make it far in the first ce, andid the boy down in his bed. His body really was changing. His hair grew a lot more than usual over the past few weeks, and his adult teeth were slowly pushing away his baby teeth. His canines were also slowly changing their shape properly, seeming a bit sharper, even though they were still behind Leon''s old teeth. All of this obvious difort must have messed with Leon while he wasn''t here.


    "Huh?" A voice suddenly let out, and Eiro noticed that Arc was standing by the door. Eiro wasn''t paying attention to the things imminently around him, so he seemed to have missed him somehow. The Demon ced his finger in front of his lips to tell Arc to be quiet, and then quickly rushed back out of the room.


    "You''re back?" Arc whispered, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yeah, we just got back not too long ago." The Demon exined, "But what are you doing here? You should be sleeping as well by now."


    "Ah, that¡­ Leon''s been sleepwalking a bittely, so I just wanted toe check on him to see how he''s doing. Did you catch him walking around?" Arc asked, before Eiro immediately nodded his head.


    "Yeah, Bavet suddenly turned into a puddle, so it seemed like Leon''s abilities were acting out as well."


    "Really? That only happened like once or twice, and it neversted too long¡­" Arc pointed out, "I figured it would be fine when you came back though, so let''s hope for that."


    "Yeah, let''s¡­ But Arc, would you want toe with me, and have a bit of a drink with all of us? Since you''re awake, anyway?"

 Chapter 491 - Parenthood

    Eiro and Arc entered the demon''s study, where the others were still waiting, as Bavet seemed to be slowly recovering again. He was breathing heavily as if on instinct, since he didn''t actually need to breathe at all.


    "Leon is asleep again, everything should be fine now. It seems like he''s been doing this since we left." Eiro exined, before turning around to his son, "And I brought Arc with me."


    "I''m d that the little brat is fine, but I''m not! Do you even know how ufortable that was?!" Bavet practically screamed out, and Eiro proceeded to just re back at him for a moment, "Don''t call my son a brat, will you?" He said with a wry smile, before stepping up to the slime. He pressed his hand onto his head, and proceeded to make his mana course through Bavet''s body. A momentter, all the issues within his body had been corrected, since Eiro just manipted the liquids with his mana.


    "Now stopining. It couldn''t have been that bad when I didn''t even feel it without it being pointed out to me." Eiro said bluntly, and Bavet immediately turned around toward him, "The fuck? You''re trying to tell me you didn''t feel that? Seriously?"


    "That''s what I just said, isn''t it?" Eiro sighed as he walked up to the cab to get another ss for Arc, before pouring him some liquor. The Demon once more quickly sat down on his armchair, while Arc joined the others on the couches.


    "That is kind of weird though." Arc pointed out as well, "I mean, it usually wakes up all the monsters in the house, and sometimes makes them go pretty crazy... some even broke parts of their furniture, but Armodeus mostly repaired everything already. But that you didn''t feel it is kinda... weird."


    "...Is it really? Well, there''s nothing wrong with my senses, I just didn''t feel affected by it at all." Eiro exined as he crossed his arms in thought, but before he was able to make a suggestion about what was going on, Jess said something that made quite a lot of sense.


    "Well, if this all started since we left, then it might just be because he missed you while he was going through all of this, right? Maybe subconsciously, he just simply... excluded you."


    Eiro raised his brows curiously at that idea, "That would make sense, but at the same time... he didn''t even know I was here. And his skill is based on an area of effect, it doesn''t affect specific targets."


    "Well... His skill was pretty close to reaching advanced grade... So maybe it finally jumped over?" Arc suggested, and Eiro looked back with a worried expression, "...It''s true that I didn''t check his status page for a while, but has it really risen that much?"


    "He told me that the level has been rising a lot, yeah... It started leveling up more since he''s been feeling so under the weather again, because his body''s been changing. I think maybe it might be affecting his skills as well or something, I don''t know." Arc said bluntly, "And I mean, since he''s practically always holding them back, he''s kinda interacting with the skills, which would probably end up giving him some more skill experience, right?"


    "...Right, you do have a point. I''ll have to speak to him about it in the morning. But if he''s really be capable of selecting who he wants to affect in such a way, that would be a really powerful ability." Eiro said with a somewhat worried expression. This sort of skill being in the hands of a child was something really troublesome in the first ce. And not just because it was dangerous to Leon and those around him, but also because it was a lot of stress for a child. And if the wrong people were to find out about this, that would be even worse. Well, at the very least Eiro had all the power and means to hold anyone that he needed to back from achieving whatever ploy they had that involved his children.


    Eiro leaned back in his armchair and took another sip of his liquor, before letting out a deep sigh. This situation was really quite troublesome. He just really hoped that everything would be fine with the kids after this, and that this was thest incident that could potentially interrupt their peace.


    ---


    Eiro shoveled some dirt out of the way with his hands while looking over to the side, "See? Just like that. A hole like this is enough for seeds like that." The Demon exined, and Leon slowly did just what Eiro did as well, just that he had to use both his hands to just get the same amount of dirt away as Eiro did witt just one hand.


    The demon then ced a few small seeds into that hole together, before covering it dirt again. He then handed Leon some seeds as well, "Just put them all in there. Like that, it''s more likely that something will actually sprout from it." Eiro exined, before Nelli appeared beside him, "You won''t make it grow using magic?"


    "No, no, that wouldn''t be fun." Eiro said, looking around at this small part of his garden that he had prepared this morning, "I want this plot to be something of a small project with the kids. If I just make everything grow using magic, that would kind of defeat the whole point." Eiro exined, as he watched Leon bury the flower seeds in the soil.


    The young boy then looked at hispletely dirty hands and turned toward his father, "What now?" He asked, and Eiro smiled at him as he rubbed his hands over Leon''s to simply pull off the dirt with magic, "Now we''re going to have to wait a while. It''s going to take a few months until we can see these flowers bloom, though." Eiro exined, "But still, that''s going to be worth it. Watching something grow and nurting it like that is a great, calming feeling. We now have to water it to help it sprout, and remove and bad nts from around it that might hinder its growth."


    "...alright. But it kind of makes me tired..." Leon pointed out, already rubbing his eyes. With a slightly concerned expression, the Demon ran his hand through Leon''s rather thick hair, "Don''t worry, you can take a napter. For now, how about you y with your sister a bit? She''s been picking out some toys to y with all morning." Eiro suggested, before Leon slowly nodded his head.


    "Okay..." He yawned, as Eiro quickly picked him up, bringing him over to the terrace where the others were just sitting around a little bit. Today was a surprisingly warm spring day, so they figured it was as good a day as any. Eiro set Leon down next to Avalin, rubbed over her head, and quickly sat down next to his other children.


    "You guys really need to pick out which flower you want to nt soon, or else Leon''s and mine will be ahead of yours quite a bit." The Demon pointed out, and Arc justughed loudly in response, "Hah, right, I''ll be picking the most awesome flower that''s going to grow faster than all the others, all the whilst looking the coolest!"


    "...right... well, the rest of us already kind of picked out some, but we weren''t sure if they''re good choices." Rudy pointed out, and Eiro smiled lightly, "Don''t worry, all the ones on the marked pages can be grown around this time of the year. Just pick whichever one you want from that." Eiro said, before Sammy immediately shrugged.


    "If that''s the case, then I''d like to grow this one. The ''ss Rose''? It sounds pretty cool..." She pointed out. Eiro quickly smiled and nodded his head, "It is ''pretty cool'', actually. They''re going to start out a bit white when they sprout, but after that there''s going to be a week where the petals arepletely translucent." Eiro exined, "I was nning on making each of you guys an ''Everblooming'' version of whatever flower you guys choose to grow, so that''s certainly going to be quite pretty." The Demon said, but before his children could tell him which flower they wanted to nt, Eiro heard something in the distance.


    Horses, carriages, people talking to each other... visitors were approaching.


    "Bavet." The Demon said as he stood up, and the slime stood up from the perch he wasying on as a cat, jumping down at Eiro, who quickly caught him as the slime covered his bodypletely. Eiro quickly turned into his human form. He was only wearing a simple shirt, some pants, and ck boots earlier, so Bavet quickly transformed his wings into a jacket that at least looked somewhat like something a noble could wear out in public. The Demon swiftly made his way over toward the entrance of the manor while making sure that all the monster servants were transformed into their ''person'' forms as well.


    The guards in the front quickly opened the gate for the visitors, and the carriages soon came to a halt right in front of Eiro. A man, with short blonde hair and crystal blue eyes, quickly stepped out of the carriage, looking at Eiro immediately.


    "You, call the lord of the house immediately." He said to Eiro, clearly thinking that he was just a servant or something like that.


    "That will be unnecessary." Eiro replied, "That lord would be me, Eiro Jura Daemonherz."


    "Ah, perfect, then." The man said, as a woman stepped out of the same carriage he was in, the same blonde hair as this man. Out of one of the other carriages stepped two other people that also seemed to be nobles. He had hazel brown hair, and she had fiery red hair. Parts of their scents were also incredibly familiar to Eiro, as he could already guess what was about to happen.


    The man that spoke to Eiro quickly approached him, and proceeded to simply... p him. Of course, the man''s hand hurt much more than Eiro''s cheek did, but the man didn''t let his pain show through his anger, "My name is Aaron Minas Gilhart, I am here to retrieve my son, Arc Gilhart."


    "Ah..." Eiro was right.. These people were respectively Arc''s and Sammy''s parents.

 Chapter 492 - Fake Parents

    "I apologize, but there is no ''Arc Gilhart'' here." The Demon said bluntly, "There is only my son, Arc Daemonherz."


    The man in front of him, Aaron Gilhart, red at Eiro as he heard his words, "Do not act a fool! You know exactly that it is indeed my son! I have seen the illustrations of that silly event at the Academy at the beginning of the year. That boy is my son, indubitably!"


    "And in response to our dear friend''s im, we investigated a bit." The other man, with hazel brown hair, pointed out, "You are a young, never-married man with six children, of which four are the exact same age, while clearly none of them are even slightly rted." He said with a deep re, before cing his hand onto his chest, "Let me introduce myself, my name is Loid Garian Kiliar, Samantha''s father. You can say all you wish, but it is obvious that our children have been entrapped by you. If you hand them over to us now, there will be no consequences. Understood?"


    Eiro stared back at the two men in front of him, when the blonde woman, Aaron''s wife, started running past the Demon toward the manor. Eiro turned his head, seeing that Arc was peeking at what was going on from a corner of the building. The woman seemed to have seen him before he had realized who it was. It has been eight years since he saw her, after all.


    "Elizabeth, where are you going?" Aaron asked confused, as the woman quickly eximed why she started moving, "I can see my boy!" She exined, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he kicked his foot into the ground. Within an instant, a wall of rock appeared in front of Elizabeth, which she promptly ran into.


    "Oops, I guess I formed it a bit too close to you..." Eiro said loudly with fake sympathy, as one of Elizabeth''s servants quickly ran over to her to help her up.


    "You! What did you do?!" Aaron angrily asked, before Eiro rolled his eyes. He snapped his fingers, causing Nelli, Gondos and Sarius to appear, "I''m a mage, you fool. But more importantly, I should be the only one asking the questions. What do you ''think'' you''re doing? Without even a prior message, youe to visit my manor and use me of kidnapping your children? You are not citizens of Skyhart, so do you realize that such actions could clearly cause conflict between our countries?"


    "Hah, as if anyone in this country would care about a mere Baron being used of a crime he actually didmit." Aaron sighed as he shook his head, and Eiro stared back as his jaw practically dropped, "That... that is a joke, right? You realize I''ve only been a baron for about... a month, right? I became a baron because I''m a special asset to the Kingdom. King Solomon is practically my closest friend, he personally rmended me for the ''Hero''s Companion Tournament'' this summer, and I have potential to be given a higher noble rank just through the raw worth I have for the kingdom." The Demon exined in a blunt tone, before Aaron stared back at him. He turned his head toward Loid, who slowly nodded.


    "That is indeed the truth, something that I believe I informed you of, Aaron. But that matters not in the face of the fact that our children are being kept captive here against their will." Loid pointed out, locking eyes with Eiro.


    The Demon was barely able to hold back his anger, a feeling that was clearly shared by Nelli and Sarius, and even the calm-hearted Gondos was furious at this insult. Bavet was only able to contain himself because he had trained himself to be able to help Eiro out when he was feeling angry. Luckily he didn''t need to take care of Eiro right now, so he could concentrate on himself.


    "Against our will? Seriously?" A voice said,ing over from behind the rock wall that Eiro had created just earlier. Aaron and Elizabeth looked at the young man with broad smiles, "Arc! My son! Oh, how much you''ve grown..!" Aaron eximed, as Arc slowly stepped up to stand next to Eiro.


    "You''re not my father." He said, locking eyes with the man in front of him, "You''re nothing but a sperm donor. And she''s nothing but an egg donor. Neither of you have done anything, in the eight years I have lived with you, that would make me want to call either of you a parent. Meanwhile, Eiro... my actual father, has done everything and anything in his power to protect us. He gave us a future, an education. He gave us the choice of what we wanted to do with our lives. And he loved us more than either of you would be ever capable of." Arc said bluntly, saying his opinion rather clearly.


    Arc was a mature and intelligent young man, he knew exactly what he wanted, and he wasn''t swayed by any sort of emotions that he might have for these ''fake'' parents of his. At least, that''s what he was showing outwardly. Arc was trying to act as rationally as possible, but Eiro knew... Arc was feeling some form of happiness seeing them again.


    Of course, the only reason that was the case was because it was the only possible emotion he could feel. All the anger, sadness, and fear that might apany their arrival had been suppressed. Arc had never really felt any negative emotions around these guys until the end, simply because he wasn''t capable. He quite literally only had positive memories, and least on the emotional side of things. Arc had incredible memory, something that seemed toe through his reincarnation into this current world, so he was able to remember most of his childhood that he had spent around these people. He knew that they were never good parents, he knew that as a fact. But when he saw them, the only emotions that were able to bubble up were those of the happy, nostalgic feelings that he had once felt for them. Even a horrible parent would end up having a few good moments here and there.


    These were the only things rushing through Eiro''s mind, seeing his adoptive son and that son''s father together in front of each other right here. And while Eiro was still trying to process everything, since this situation was quite emotionally demanding for the Demon as well, practically stunning him, Aaron walked forward with an anger-filled face.


    "How dare you speak to your parents that way, Arc? Do you not know how much we worried for you since you disappeared that day?!" He asked with a furious tone of voice. He was clearly thinking about pping Arc as well, but his hand still seemed to hurt from when he did so to Eiro. Instead, he tried to grab Arc''s cor, but before he was able to eveny a hand on him, Arc grabbed Aaron''s arm and with some swift motions that he learned from Eiro, threw Aaron to the ground.


    The personal guards that had apanied him immediately got ready to unsheathe their weapons, but they were quickly stopped by Loid, "You do realize that this man is an Earl, do you not?"


    "Oh so fucking what, do you think I really care?" Arc replied, clearly annoyed as his emotions were starting to bubble up again, "You want me to fuck you up as well or something?"


    Loid, his wife, as well as Arc''s ''fake'' parents all looked back at him and Eiro in shock, "What did you do to my boy?! You turned him into some kind of savage!" Elizabeth eximed, before Eiro let out a deep sigh of annoyance. He ced his hand on Arc''s shoulder and quickly locked eyes with him, "Please, be careful. We don''t want ''it'' to level up again." He said, and Arc grumbled quietly to himself as he took a deep breath. He basically meditated for an instant right here, trying to calm himself down to not let the emotions affect him, to try and avoid his unique skill''s level rising.


    And then, Eiro took over instead. He walked a few steps forward. In front of his hand, he started gathering a lot of me,pressing it down into a single point. All that sma came together, radiating heat that was clearly affecting the people around him. They were starting to feel ufortable by the heat that Eiro was letting off. Slowly, Eiro raised his hand into the sky, and started letting the tiny, marble-sized orb of me float up above them. It sped up more and more, until it reached the sky. Or rather, more specifically, therge, fluffy white cloud right above them right now.


    While these people in front of Eiro were unsure what exactly was going on, Eiro simply held his hand in front of himself, and snapped a single time.


    A momentter, a deafening sound could be heard, as if the sky itself shattered into pieces. And as they looked up, what these nobles, that simply came here and insulted Eiro, saw was practically a second sun. An explosion of me, that simply erased most of the huge cloud floating above them, pushing all the others in sight away in ripples.


    And a few momentster, what hit them was a violent shower of rain, since that cloud''s water was released unto the ground beneath it. Of course, Eiro protected himself and Arc, and had sent Nelli off to stop the water from hitting the others or the flower bed they had just created together.


    But all the others right in front of Eiro had be soaked in rainwater that nobody would have expected on such a day. This was an event that Eiro had created with ease. He didn''t even need to cast a proper spell, he did it just with his control over mes.


    With a gentle smile, trying to hide his absolute fury, Eiro tilted his head to the side, "It seems the weather has gone a bit sour. How about we move this discussion inside instead?"

 Chapter 493 - Confrontation

    Eiro led these people into the manor. If anyone else disrespected him and his children like that, they would be dead right now, but this situation was incredibly¡­ weird andplicated. Not only were these people nobles of another country, meaning that others probably knew about where they currently were, but they were, at the end of the day, the birth-parents of two of his children.


    He knew that they loved him, and that they hated their parents for what they did to them¡­ but that didn''t mean that they would be alright with Eiro just straight-up killing them. Eiro would never do something that could potentially hurt them. The Demon watched these two pairs of horrible parents sit down on the couches in front of Eiro, while Arc sat down behind the Demon.


    "Sammy will be here any moment now." Eiro exined, but Loid immediately red at him, "Samantha. Her name is Samantha." He practically growled, but Eiro couldn''t help himself but roll his eyes.


    "Oh, shut the fuck up, I''ll call my daughter whatever I want. Listen, all of us know that you four are not here for anything but self-gain. You two bastards saw Arc in the newspapers, figured that he finally had some worth to you beside the money you got for selling him to the Holy Empire, and asked Loid for help to figure out if it really was your son. At the same time, Loid found out about Sammy, and learned more about her and her reputation within the Academy as well. Now that she can control her powers, you ''diplomats'' would of course want her back as well. But I will tell you one thing, if any of you think I will let you touch even a hair on any of my children, you will not walk out of this ce alive." Eiro said in a very clear, and very clearly angry, tone of voice, as he watched the expressions of the people in front of him change. It was clear that he was spot-on, and that this was probably exactly what happened and what ended up leading them here.


    Around that time, before Loid was able to refute what Eiro said, Sammy actually stepped into the room, with Felix standing right behind her. Further down the hallway, Rudy and Clementine were standing with Leon and Avalin.


    Sammy stood there, absolutely stunned by what she was seeing in front of her right now. Eiro slowly walked over toward her, and ced his hand onto her shoulder, "Are you alright? You don''t have to do this."


    "I... I don''t know... I..." Sammy muttered, tears gathering in her eyes as she looked over at Eiro, "But- You... you''ll be here still, r-right?" She asked nervously, and the Demon slowly nodded his head.


    "I always will be. Come. Felix can join as well, if you want him to. I know you two are..."


    "Dad, please... n-not now... but yeah... I want him toe..." Sammy confirmed, so Eiro slowly called Felix in with some hand-motions, telling him that he''s going to try and trante everything for Felix as much as he could so that he would understand what''s going on.


    "Are you casting a spell?! I knew it, you are manipting them!" Aaron yelled out, but before his voice even really quieted down after he spoke, a figure suddenly appeared right behind him, practically dropping right out of the ceiling. It was one of Eiro''s monster servants, more specifically, a butler. He was a kobold very adapt at moving around any space, whether it was by swimming, climbing, or running, so he very quickly became Eiro''s head-butler, since he could very quickly move throughout the house''s hidden passages. Of course, currently, he was disguised as a person like all the other monsters in the house.


    "Please do not raise your voice, there are children in this manor." He exined. Luckily, Kitsue had already taught some of her more skilled kobolds how to speakmon to an extent, so Eiro had a great basis when he continued teaching them.


    "How did-" Aaron yelped, as the guards that had of course apanied them once more ced their hands on their weapons, ready to react if necessary.


    "Don''t worry, that''s just one of my men. Please, could you get us some tea? Something... rxing, if possible." Eiro suggested, and the kobold butler quickly nodded his head, "As you wish, my lord."


    He pushed his foot into the ground and jumped back through one of the hidden passages, which quickly closed up behind him again. And then, Eiro turned to Aaron, "Just to make it clear, I was not casting a spell, I was merely speaking to this young man, Felix. He''s deaf, so I wasmunicating with signnguage.


    "What? Deaf? He doesn''t look the part!" Aaron eximed, as if in disbelief, while Eiro just rolled his eyes. Even Loid seemed to start being rather annoyed by him at this point.


    "Please, we were told so once already. Lower your voice, Aaron." Loid told him off, and the nobleman slowly did as told. Loid seemed to be of a higher title than Aaron, so there was a rather clear-cut power-dynamic between the two of them, even though they were supposedly friends. Was this what a friendship between nobles was supposed to be like? If so, then his friendship with Solomon must seem like the weirdest thing ever to others.


    Either way, soon, everyone took a seat, and the Kobold returned with everything that was needed for tea. There was of course a selection of teas that they could pick from, like normal. However, Loid looked at the multiple kettles and lightly smirked, "I think your servant made a slight mistake. That is cold water."


    "No, that''s just how tea is served here in this house, at least when I''m around." He exined, and with a wave of his hand, he started to heat up the water in the kettles, and they soon started to whistle as steam escaped them.


    Once everyone had been served their tea, the conversations could begin. It was hard to hold back, but Eiro was trying to make this whole situation seem as normal as possible to Sammy and Arc. Even though it was clearly impossible for it to be totally normal, he didn''t want to sway any of their thoughts or emotions because of who and what he was or because of what he did.


    "W-Why are you... Why are you here..?" Sammy finally asked, and Loid quickly replied for the whole group, "We are here to take you back, my daughter."


    "I''m... I''m not going with you two... you are- aren''t my.. you two aren''t my parents. You n-never were..." Sammy pointed out, in disbelief over what this man had just told her. She had gone through all of that, she had found a new parent that actually dearly loved her and that she loved, just to be told that the ones who abandoned her wanted to ''take her back''?


    Loid stared at Sammy as a tear slowly appeared in his eye, and a shiver traveled all over Eiro''s body at the very same time, "Please, my child... I know you must be scared to say you wish toe with us in front of him... This man must have mistreated you throughout the years he has kept you locked up in here... I mean, look at you! Your clothes are absolutely filthy!"


    Loid was speaking, and meanwhile, was using a special skill that seemed to be very simr in principle to Felix''s bloodline skill. Loid was using some kind of skill that was supposed to sway the opinions of others. Slowly, it was starting to make sense... Both of Sammy''s parents had something special about them, something that in particr rted to their voice.


    Loid could use his voice to manipte others, while Sammy''s mother clearly had some sort of misgrowth in her vocal cords. It was like they werepletely fused together, something that made it impossible for her to ever speak. Eiro kind of wished for this trait to be transferred over to Aaron. But somehow, Sammy''s mother seemed the most calm out of everyone. She was the one that reacted the least out of everyone when Eiro spoke about why they were actually here earlier as well. It was as if she cared the least out of the whole group of four.


    Either way, before Eiro had been able to say anything about what they said, Sammy did so instead, "Don''t... don''t lie to me." She said, as Loid immediately looked back at her shocked, "Samantha, you-"


    "Calm down, she didn''t use her skill, you nimwit." The Demon exined, "Not even able to realize that..." He mumbled, as Sammy continued.


    "If that was the truth... then why did you try to ''manipte'' me just now?" She asked, slowly calming down as she stopped to stutter, "My clothes are dirty... because I was outside nting flowers with my siblings. I have never been locked up here, my father, and with that I mean Eiro, always gave us anything in the world... The whole world itself, even. Meanwhile, all you did was take from me... you took my childhood from me, something that my father worked hard at to recover for me... Meanwhile, you clearly fear me... Did you know, that Eiro can resist when I tell him to do something?" Sammy asked, "Through sheer determination, he chose to not let me manipte him. He didn''t let me... But all you did was have my skill sealed before throwing me away...."

 Chapter 494 - Strangers

    "You''re saying we threw you away? My dear, in no way did we ever throw you away... we just wished to help you... we didn''t ''sell'' you to the Holy Empire, we only wanted you to get help with them! They said they would be able to find a way to keep you safe, despite your powers!" Loid eximed, "And then, we only heard that the caravan that transported you mysteriously disappeared, and... and we thought you were dead..."


    Sammy looked back at the man in front of her, as her face quickly turned sour, "You''re doing it again, aren''t you? You''re trying to manipte me again! No, I won''t let that happen! Do you even know what it was like back then? I was eight, I wasn''t an idiot!" She eximed angrily, "Let me tell you what I want you to do right now, alright? I want you to tell me the truth! The actual, absolute truth! Tell me why you came here!"


    Eiro turned his head as he listened to Sammy use her ability on this man, who was quickly taken aback. And Loid simply answered without a moment''s hesitation, not even seeing any issue with suddenly having to reveal the true reason why they came. Clearly, Sammy''s skill did affect him, but it simply made it seem like Loid wanted to talk about this in the first ce.


    "We simply came here to have our two families join, by having you and Arc marry. We want you to return with us to our homes, and bring us prosperity using your abilities!" Loid exined in a simple tone, and Sammy and Arc immediately looked at each other confused, "Marry? Us two? Are you fucking insane?" Arc asked, "I''m not going to marry my sister, what the fuck!"


    "Don''t you dare use that sort ofnguage in front of us!" Aaron yelled out, trying to act like an actual parent for once in his life, before Elizabeth stood up and tried to walk over toward Arc, "Please, scream, yell, be angry! Do whatever you need to to let these emotions out! But after that, you must start realizing... This girl is not your sister, by any means. She is just another victim of this vile, evil man that has kidnapped you."


    "Oh shut the fuck up, you dumb bi-" Arc said, but Eiro quickly ced his hand on his son''s head from behind to try and pull him out of whatever anger he was going through right now. And then, Eiro looked at the people in front of him.


    "I have a few things to say about this. The first being that these two are siblings, no matter what you say. They are my children, and legally so. They are both part of the Daemonherz household, they grew up together, and most importantly, they consider each other as siblings. As far as I''m aware, there is no sort of romantic interest between the two."


    Eiro turned to the side, noticing that Sammy was shuddering at just the idea, and then looked back at the people in front of him. With a deep sigh, Eiro figured he should just try and have this whole thing finish up, "Alright. You four, do you have any sort of proof that these two are your children?"


    "H-Huh? It''s obvious, isn''t it? They look just like us!" Aaron eximed, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward Arc, "I do see the resemnce, but... that doesn''t mean anything, does it? Is everyone that looks even remotely simr rted to each other?"


    "We all know for a fact that they are truly our children. So what is this about?" Loid asked with a deep frown, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms, "It''s simple. Sammy, Arc... who is it you two consider to be your parent?"


    "You, obviously." Arc said, "You are, and will always be, the only man I will consider my father." He said in a clear tone, standing up so that he could walk up beside Eiro, and Sammy slowly joined her brother with a nod, "I feel the same. He''s my father, and that will never, ever change."


    "I felt a little confused when I saw you earlier, but... now I just really want you to leave. Forever." Arc pointed out, while Sammy was still trying to find her words. She soon felt Felix squeeze her hand with a light smile on his face, supporting her with all he had. She let out a slow, deep sigh, and then looked at her ''parents''.


    "I do not feel any sort of lingering attachment to you. You never acted like I''m your child. Even throughout the years I was there, I was just considered a guest in your home. You practically feared me to the point where you wouldn''t allow me to speak, ever... except the few times when you wanted me to make ''suggestions'' to people you would randomly introduce me to. Again, I''m not an idiot. But you two certainly are if you think that I would ever see you two as anything but strangers ever again." Sammy told them, her heart beating so strong out of nervosity that Eiro was actually kind of worried for her health.


    But the Demon just slowly looked at the four people in front of him and in a very clear tone said, "Then I think the rest is simple, right? You four are strangers to my children. You have no proof that you are rted in any way whatsoever, and you are just here to take them with you for your own self-gain. I don''t know what the whole thing about having the two of them marry is about, but either way, it''s a disgusting way to think, just treating the two like they''re toys for you to y with. So we''re adding that onto the oh-so-long list of reasons why I never want to see any of your faces ever again, and why I never want any of you to approach any member of this family." Eiro exined with a light smile on his face. He slowly took a few steps forward, and showed them a rather sadistic, even excited, grin as a bit more of a warning, "Or else, I will consider it a deration of war."


    He saw the people in front of him shudder, and a few moments, the kobold butler appeared beside them again, "My Lord, do you wish for me to escort our guests out of the property?"


    "Please do, thanks." Eiro replied, watching as they all were practically forced out of the room. But they all knew that they couldn''t just attack Eiro right here either, since that would just be straight-up idiotic.


    Eiro made sure to watch from the main entrance as they all got into their carriages and left, before he heard Sammy''s whole body simply slump down onto itself.


    He immediately squatted down and held her, but he was simply pushed away by her, "N-No, please... Why... why did you even bring them in here..? Did you want us to go back with them or something?!"


    "What..? No, why would I ever want something like that? Sammy, I just... I just didn''t want to deny you the chance to finish things. I didn''t want to deny you any chances, really... No matter what you had done, I would have supported you."


    "Wait, so you really thought we would... we would just ept them..? That we would say ''Hey there, mom, pops, long time no see!''?!"


    "Sammy, that''s not what he meant, and you know that." Arc replied in Eiro''s stead, "What was he supposed to do? Just fight them off? They knew we were here, and if he had just rejected them, things would have gotten even more troublesome."


    "Oh yeah, so instead, why not fucking invite them in for a cup of tea? That makes sense!"


    "They called him a kidnapper, an abuser! Do you think that Dad wanted to-" Arc replied, but Sammy quickly interrupted him again, "I don''t know what he wanted, okay? I just know that... that I didn''t want this..."


    "Dad literally gave you the choice about whether or not you wanted to do this, what do you mean?" Arc asked, but Sammy didn''t know what to say.


    Eiro looked at his daughter and slowly wrapped his arms around her. She tried to push him away again, but he didn''t let go this time, "I''m sorry, I shouldn''t have put you in that situation. I swear to you, you won''t ever have to deal with any of those people again, alright? If they try to even nce at you, I''ll be in the way to block their sight. Alright? You''re my daughter, and you always will be."


    Slowly, Sammy wrapped her arms around Eiro''s body as well, and hugged him back. She was clearly just overwhelmed with all of this, Eiro understood that. Sammy always tried to be strong around others, but sometimes, it was too much even for her.


    A few momentster, she was also reminded of something else, "By the way... do you think you''ll be in trouble for suddenly causing that kind of rain..? I mean, the source of that must have been visible everywhere..."


    Eiro stopped for a few moments, and nervously let go of Sammy as he stood up, "That is a good point. I think we might get a visit from Solomonter today..." The Demon muttered, "But well.... at that moment, I was just way too angry not to do something. And that was better than to hurt them, wasn''t it?"

 Chapter 495 - The Perfect Lie

    Eiro watched the King''s carriagee to a halt in front of his manor, and a few momentster, Solomon stepped out of it in a dignified manner. His personal guards were told to wait outside the main entrance, while the Demon quickly made his way out of his study before dropping down to the first floor, meeting Solomon in the sitting room.


    As Eiro pped his wings to stop his fall as he came out of one of the hidden passages, Solomon let out a deep sigh, "How great... I have a meeting with other nobles after this, and you ruined my hair..."


    "I wasn''t aware you really cared about things like that." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon quickly shook his head, "I don''t usually, but my wife demanded I take care of my appearance for this. After all, I need to look as clean and well-taken care of as possible to try and calm down those nobles after a certain ''someone'' just caused something that could seem like an attack from the outside." Solomon pointed out, while Eiro awkwardly turned his head to the side.


    "Right... sorry about that, I just couldn''t hold myself back." He apologized, while Solomon sat down on one of the couches with a deep groan, "Right. And what exnation do you have for losing your temper this time?" The King asked, not really expecting to hear anything that he actually would need to worry about, since Eiro usually had nearly everything under control himself.


    "Well, Arc''s and Sammy''s parents suddenly showed up, demanding that I ''give them back'' after they used me to be a kidnapper that is holding them against their will." Eiro said bluntly, since he figured that summed it up pretty well, for the most part.


    Solomon sat there,pletely stunned, as he uncrossed his legs and slowly leaned forward, letting his face rest on his hand, "Right, of course..." He muttered, "Of course it''s actually something serious this time..."


    Eiro slowly sat down on the couch opposite to the one that Solomon was currently sitting on, and proceeded to exin what exactly happened earlier today, and how Eiro had ''wrapped up'' the situation for now. Of course it was obvious that those events weren''t really going to be the end of it, but Eiro figured that it had at least bought them a little bit of time to figure everything out further.


    "You have quite horrendous luck, you know? Both the Kiliar and Gilhart households possess quite a bit of influence within the Ramguard Kingdom. The Gilharts, despite only being viscounts, are the head of arge trading conglomerate that trades in anything you can imagine. Despite the fact that we try not to interact with them too much due to some of the wares that they actually trade, that is only the case when we have the leisure to either form contracts with other countries directly or have certain things produced within Skyhart itself. There are still some items that we can only get through their means." Solomon exined, and Eiro let out a deep, annoyed sigh.


    "Which means that they hold quite a bit of power not only within Ramguard but also a lot of negotiative power within Skyhart. Well great. And the Kiliar household... I heard that they''ve been trusted advisors to Ramguard''s royal family for generations, right? Making that particr pair-up especially troublesome." Eiro muttered quietly, as he looked at Solomon nervously, albeit with a determined expression.


    "Solomon, no matter what, I will never-" Eiro said with clear determination in his voice, but he was quickly interrupted by Solomon, who didn''t want him to continue that thought for even a moment.


    "We obviously won''t hand Arc and Sammy over, don''t worry about that. Something like that will never, ever happen. If we did, it would be like just giving up in the face of the lightest threat. And obviously, I can''t fail my friend like that." The King said with a smile on his face, and Eiro managed to slightly rx in response to that.


    The Demon took a deep breath as he tried to think about how they should deal with that, when Solomon pointed something out, "I''m supposed to have a meeting with those two families sometime over the next week or so as well, and it seems like they made arrangements to stay for quite a while. As long as they need to be here, it seems."


    "Great... I figured they wouldn''t give up that easily, but I was hoping that they wouldn''t end up being this... desperate." Eiro muttered, crossing his arms, "Well, they''re here to get some form of long-term benefits for their families. Would it be possible to give them something of worth that could rece Arc and Sammy?"


    "I doubt so, except if you would like to offer yourself as a vassal to either of them."


    "Threats are also always an option." Eiro pointed out, but Solomon quickly shook his head.


    "No, I don''t really think so. That can very easily backfire." The king replied, while Eiro slowly thought about what he should do, letting out a deep, annoyed sigh.


    "We could also just... You know... Kill them..." Eiro grumbled, "But if possible, I would like to avoid that. I doubt Arc and Sammy would want to see them dead."


    "Is it even really necessary for us to do anything?" Solomon asked, and Eiro raised his brows, "What do you mean, exactly?"


    Solomon slowly stood up from the couch and started to pace around the room, and quickly exined his mindset, "You see, from what you told me, they don''t have any sort of proof that they''re their children. So if we needed to, we could just fabricate proof for the opposite."


    "Oh? Skyhart''s king is offering to break a fewws for me?" Eiro asked with a smirk, "Although, I do like that idea."


    "I already broke plenty ofws for you by this point, Eiro." Solomon sighed, "But no matter that... It should be simple to produce documents to feign some sort of life here. Let''s just say that you came here, adopted them, and then moved away to live with Jura. It can only be in regard to Arc and Samantha as well, we can figure something out for the others in due time. But with you and Lognir potentially working together to formte a perfect lie, would it not be impossible for anyone else to see through it?"


    "That is an interesting idea... However, they will definitely beining about it to other nobles in their country, or even to their king if necessary."


    "Ah, I already thought about that. All we need to do is warn them about it beforehand. Do you know how long it takes for a ruler to prepare for a trip toe to another country?"


    "...Not really, no."


    "Let''s just say... For the countries that surround us, they might be here within a month. Those further away, maybe two. However, there is a certain eventing up. With the tournaments to determine the hero''spanions soon unfolding all over the continent, a certain meeting with all royal representatives had been nned. At this point, as far as I''m aware, everyone should already be prepared to leave at any moment, since nobody may know what might happen. I was thinking about suggesting that we may be the ones to host this event. At that time, a promising young noble like yourself introducing his children is not necessarily that umon. And if one of that daughter''s nobles were to, let''s say, exin just how close they all feel to their father, that might be a rather convincing situation, would it not be?" Solomon exined, and Eiro raised his brows, actually rather enjoying the idea for this n. He slowly nodded his head, looking at the king in front of him.


    "So basically, we just need to convince as many people with extremely high positions of power that we are a true family, and that the Gilhart and Kiliar families are nothing but liars that hope to monopolize on my children?" Eiro asked, and Solomon immediately replied with a smile.


    "I think that might be a decently possible way to bring these things to a resolution. And well, even if we can''t host, most of the royals will probably bring their own chosen champions for their respective tournament with them as well, so it wouldn''t be too weird for me to bring you and your family. But it might be a bit better for us if it ended up being here, so I will try to arrange this. A location has not yet been decided upon."


    "Alright, great then. That means all I need to do is figure out a way to make those guys hold off until that time, and maybe trick them a bit to assure the best possible oue. I think that is actually a really decent n, Solomon." The Demon said with a grin on his face, "It does sound like creating the perfect lie might be possible through this."

 Chapter 496 - Wyvern

    Eiro watched as Solomon''s carriage left again, before he slowly turned around and went back inside. Bavet split off of him and instead slithered over the ground in his snake form, "What were you two talking about earlier?" The Slime asked, and Eiro slowly turned toward him with a shrug as he pulled his mask and cloak out of his treasury, just dropping them onto his body.


    "I''ll exin it to youter. I just need to clear my head for a while. Maybe do a little hunting. You remember how to do the ''signal'' thing, right?" The Demon asked as he spread his wings out, making them peak out from under the cloak. Bavet slowly opened his mouth, changing something within his throat, before letting out an incredibly high-pitched sound that immediately made Eiro''s ears ring.


    "A simple ''yes'' would have sufficed... If something happens, just call me with that and I''ll be right back. I''ll be nearby." Eiro pointed out, and Bavet slowly nodded, "Alright... Do you need me to do anything while you''re gone? I mean, I can tell you''re not doing too well yourself..."


    "I''m fine." The Demon replied bluntly, "I just feel like killing something."


    ---


    With a single crack apanied by a yelp, the wolf in front of Eiro dropped to the ground. Its body was still flinching here and there, but its death had been confirmed anyway. The Demon had received the experience from killing this being. He let out a deep sigh, wiping the blood and small bits of gray matter off his dagger.


    When the wolf was dead, Eiro turned toward the other wolves that were still around him, who were all growling at him, "I killed your strongest, but you still want to fight?" He asked, and slowly pressed his foot into the ground. Pebbles started floating up as Eiro picked them up with a smooth motion, and released them even quicker than he picked them up. With a flick of his wrist, he threw the pebbles toward the wolves, using earth magic to speed them up even more, and watched as the pebbles easily prated the wolves'' eyes. The pebbles, not strong enough to crack the skulls themselves, moved in through the hole in the eyesockets and bounced around inside of the wolves'' skulls, turning their brains into nothing but mush.


    Within a few moments, all the wolves around Eiro had dropped to the ground dead, and Eiro was even closer to his next level up.


    "This should be fine for now..." The Demon muttered quietly to himself. These wolf-type monsters had suddenly increased in number and were disturbing the forest-life way too much, so there turned out to be a few requests to take them out at the guild. Just so that he had some kind of direction, Eiro picked those requests up and figured he would go through with them. Now Eiro just had to harvest something from the wolves. The things with the most worth were the fangs, ws, and hide, but Eiro was too bothered to skin the wolves right now, so he simply pulled the fangs and ws, and left the rest for other monsters to feed on.


    "Now, just four more requests." Eiro whispered, as he moved through the forest in front of him quickly. Supposedly, someone spotted a wyvern around here. If that was true, then that was really an issue that had to be taken care of. Wyverns were powerful monsters, and it was possible that its arrival was the thing that caused the imbnce in the forest. The area it was spotted in was in the territory of the monsters that those wolves shed with the most, automatically decreasing the numbers of either sight.


    Now, the wyvern will probably have killed those monsters for food while scaring the wolves, who possessed strong instincts, to run further away, causing their numbers to increase beyond control on top of them being in areas where they were able to feed a lot more easily, since there were only weaker animals and monsters around.


    This caused trouble all over the forest, just because there was a single extraordinarily strong monster around. The issue was that for now, he didn''t manage to find said monster directly, but he did find some traces that arge monster came through here. Thick, ttened and cracked branches, deep cuts on the trees that clearly came from ws. Eiro spread his perception outward and quickly tried to follow these traces through the forest, and soon found something that seemed to be what he was looking for.


    With a few ps of his wings, Eiro rushed through the forest, soon reaching what could only be the wyvern''s nest. It was a structure that Eiro had actually seen from above before, a patch of trees that was tightly intertwined. They basically created a huge wooden nest on their own. Arge creature had forced its way through two of the trees to create a proper entrance into this spherical structure.


    Eiro slowly stepped inside, and what he saw in front of him were five wyvern eggs. They were the size of a person''s head, and justying there out in the open. But the issue was... that they weren''t fertilized. They were ''dead'', or rather, they was never a trace of life within them in the first ce. But even so, they were protected by soft beds of leaves, and they had clearly been warmed up a good bit. They were slowly starting to cool down, though.


    And the Demon didn''t know why he did this, there was quite literally no reason for him to do so. But the wyvern was nowhere around here, so when it came back, the eggs would just be stone-cold. Eiro knew that monsters like this were smart enough to at least realize what they had to do to their eggs, otherwise they wouldn''t have been warmed up like this. And if the wyvern returned to stone-cold eggs... what sort of reaction would it have.


    With a slight wave of his hand, around started to just so slightly heat up the air around the eggs, to warm them back up to a safe level. The Demon just sat there, for a few hours, trying to keep the eggs warm. It went so far that he thought the wyvern had possibly just died already, or it had abandoned this nest when it realized that its eggs wouldn''t ever hatch.


    But then, just when Eiro was about to give up, he heard something approach. It was the sound of wind slightly hissing underneath arge creature''s wings. The wyvern was finally returning. The Demon pressed himself against the wall, dropping right into the shadows. A few momentster, the wyvern climbed back into the nest, but the scent and taste of iron filled the air. The wyvern had been fighting something.


    As if with thest of its strength, the wyvern climbed onto its eggs. And then, Eiro saw something even more surprising. The wings of the wyvern were utterly ripped up. Whoever attacked it wanted to make sure that it couldn''t fly anymore, but probably by using some form of air magic, it was able to make up for the damage at least until it returned. Parts of the wings were destroyed to irreparable levels, and a form of venom seemed to be flowing through its blood. From the entry-wound, it was most likely a poisoned arrow of sorts.


    And in the distance, Eiro was able to hear footsteps approach. The Demon moved through the shadows of the forest to see who it was that was approaching this wyvern''s nest. It was a group of bandits, it seemed. There were plenty of ouws here in the area... and they held bountiesparable to monsters. So if Eiro were to kill these guys, he would really just do everyone around here a favor. Therge group of bandits approached the nest, and got ready to attack after tracking the creature all the way here.


    The first one that tried approaching them was a guy holding... a bomb of sorts. Something they clearly wanted to use to finish the wyvern off all at once, or at least force it back out of the nest. The bandit prepared to throw the bomb into the nest, but Eiro made sure that it wouldn''t happen.


    He didn''t know why, but he wanted to defend that wyvern, at least for a little while. So, he simply used ice magic to make the bandit''s hand so cold that his skin froze to the rusty metal used to build the bomb.


    It stuck to his hand, and the bandit had no idea what was going on. It tried to throw the bomb again and again, and then even tried to rip it away from his hand, but it was toote. Eiro used Arcane Magic to construct a small barrier around said bandit, one that would contain the explosion and any noise that apanied it.


    And then, the moment the barrier had been finished, the small bomb blew up. The st filled out the barrier, crushing and ripping apart the body of the bandit. This all happened within at most ten seconds, so none of the others had the chance to realize what exactly was happening. And they really didn''t know what was going on when a creature made of nothing but shadows climbed out of the ground, spreadingrge dark wings outward.


    Eiro stared back at the bandits that seemed ready to yell out in confusion and anger, but the Demon simply ced his finger in front of his mouth, "Be quiet.... she''s resting."

 Chapter 497 - Monstrosity And Compassion

    "W-What are you?!" One of the ouws yelled out, and Eiro slowly tilted his head to the side, "Does it really matter, now? And I doubt that any of you will even understand the answer, even if I had one for you." The Demon said with a light grin. He walked over to the puddle of flesh, blood and bones that had been theirpanion, and grabbed the dead guy''s head. He pulled him up with ease, and held him forward, for the first time in a long, long time letting his monstrosity run wild within him.


    "That was a really powerful bomb you had there. Did one of you make it?" Eiro asked, as all the ouws were stunned, unable to properly react to what they were seeing. The shadows soon faded away from Eiro''s skin, showing his red and blue flesh, his crystal-like, colorful horns that sat above his head, and the deep crimson wings that were spreading out like a wall behind him.


    "No answer? Well, that''s fine. I can replicate the power of those bombs very easily myself anyway." The Demon said, stretching his prosthetic forward toward one of the closer ouws. He constructed a spell and swiftly spoke the chant, and a momentter, a barrier had been constructed around the man. And with a snap of his finger, Eiro activated the second part of the spell that he casted, causing a violent explosion, much, much more powerful than that bomb from just now. While the guy that had been killed by his own bomb was still somewhat recognizable as something that used to be a person in death, this one had be utter nothingness. His bones had been crushed and his skin burnt to a crisp. At least his death was instantaneous, and he had no need to suffer through all that pain.


    The insides of the cylindrical barrier had be covered in blood, and the moment that Eiro made it disappear, that curtain of blood fell to the ground. At that time, one of the other ouws simply threw up on the ground, convulsing in horror. As if it was some sort of signal, some of the others attempted to run away.


    "Sorry, but I came here to calm down a bit. And you guys? You''re the perfect stress-relief. Scum that nobody will ever miss. Killing you makes me a good guy, rather, doesn''t it?" Eiro said with a light chuckle, as he made the roots growing throughout the forest ground shoot up, tying everyone that had tried running away into ce.


    "You know, I was experimenting with necromancy a bittely. With the limits of this magic, to be more precise. I know the structure of the human body better than probably anyone that has ever lived. I know exactly the patterns and priorities in which blood flows through your bodies, I know how your muscles retract and loosen when you do certain actions... If I''m very close, and focus a lot, I can even feel some... sparks flying around within your tiny little brains." Eiro smiled a bit, "So I was wondering, could I recreate a human body from the grounds up, if I had all the material to do it? It sounds unrealistic, right? But... you know what, here, let me show you."


    The Demon smiled a bit as he squatted down in front of the first ouw that had died here, pressing his hand onto the corpse''s head. He let his mana flow throughout all the flesh, bones, muscles and blood that had gathered here, and he took control of every single bit of it.


    Slowly, an undead rose from the ground. Or at least it tried, but since its body waspletely destroyed, the most it could do was il around. At least, that was the case for a few moments. Bit by bit, the bones all came together again, setting themselves into the right position. The muscles, like numerous tiny worms, crawled up those bones, strengthening the human''s body. The blood seeped into everything, flowing through the gaps in everything in incredibly unnatural manners.


    "Well, this is where it usually stops... you know, controlling fat and skin in particr is really, really hard, you know? I thought aboutbining it with different other types of magic, but nothing everes from it. At least, usually. You see, all the heat from the explosion started melting the fat, so now I can control it with water magic, and then I can set it again with ice magic. And... here we go, one more step!" Eiro exined, simply ying around in this incredibly gruesome way. But well... it''s been a while since Eiro absolutely let loose like this, so he deserved to have a bit of fun, no matter how horrific it actually turned out to be.


    "Now, how do I add the skin back onto it? Well, it''s a bit bothersome, but at the end of the day I could just fix everything by hand, although that would defeat the purpose a little, you know?" Eiro pointed out, and smiled at his right hand, "So instead, I''ll just do this."


    Eiro grabbed a small nut from his satchel and ced it into the mouth of the undead that he had just created. He made the seed sprout, doing something very simr to when he gave Rashi that impromptu wooden armor so that she would cover up somehow. Now, Eiro simply used a tree''s bark to fill in whatever bits of skin weren''t avable anymore, "He doesn''t look ''that'' much like he did before, but it''s better than what you saw just a few minutes ago, right? Come on, say ''hello'' to your old friends will you, bud?" The Demon said, looking at the undead he created. Slowly, it walked forward, precisely while every bit of its body was being manipted by Eiro. The undead walked in front of one of them, and then slowly ced his hand onto one of the ouw''s throats. The ouw struggled, but the undead was much, much stronger than him. And so, within a moment, another ouw had died.


    "Of course, the easiest way to make a healthy-looking undead is just to kill someone without outwardly visible wounds, and then to take them over like that." Eiro exined, as he immediately turned the guy whose neck was just snapped into an undead as well.


    "See? It''s simple." The Demon said with a smile on his face, as some of the other ouws red at him with tears in their eyes, clearly fearful of what was going to happen to them now.


    "Why are you doing this?!" One of them yelled out, and Eiro slowly shrugged in response, "I don''t know. I took up teaching recently, so maybe I felt like teaching something that I would never tell my actual students, you know?" Eiro exined. He let out a deep sigh, and scratched the back of his head.


    The Demon stayed silent as he approached the ouw with his dagger in his hand. The two undead behind Eiro were slowly falling apart and rotting into pieces so that Eiro could properly bury them without a trace.


    "And well... I''m just a parent helping out another parent, at the end of the day." Eiro said, as he stabbed his dagger into the head of the ouw. One by one, he killed all of these people, making their bodies rot away before he made the ground simply swallow them up. If someone came by here anytime soon, they wouldn''t be able to figure out what happened here, surely.


    And when Eiro killed thest of the group, he saw a surprising message pop up in front of him.


    [You have leveled up!]


    [You have 120 unused stat points avable!]


    "Well, I guess this was worthwhile, then. I''m level 97 now. I really killed a lot today, huh?" Eiro muttered. He had been hunting for a few hours now without break, killing anything that he figured might give him a good chunk of experience without disturbing the forest too much more than it already was anyway. And now, Eiro turned back toward the being that caused said disturbance here in this forest in the first ce.


    Eiro climbed into the nest through the opening in the front. The wyvern wasying there, on death''s doorstep. But even so, it still tried to get up to fight back against Eiro. It let out a painful screech that was meant to scare him away at least, but of course, Eiro just kept sitting there. He sat in front of this wyvern as it tried to fight back against death in order to save the children that never existed in the first ce.


    Eiro slowly approached the monster, and ced his hand onto its snout. He tried to rx it like he made Lugo rx when he was upset, and it seemed to work. The wyvern slowlyid down, pulling its eggs further into itself.


    The wyvern was painfully malnourished, despite the fact that it had clearly been eating anything it came across. It had some older wounds covering it, which probably weakened it quite a bit in the first ce. They seemed toe from other wyverns,paring the shapes of the ws of this one to the old scars covering it.


    And then, amongst the wounds, was something eerily familiar. It was a symbol that Eiro himself had seen plenty of times, just that this one''s form took on a different symbol. One that he still remembered seeing long ago, though.


    "So you''re one of the Devil''s toys as well, huh? The mark of gluttony for you..." Eiro whispered, "Don''t worry, you won''t be hungry for much longer." The Demon reassured the wyvern with a smile on his face.


    The wyvern slowly closed its eyes, and Eiro pushed his tail toward the eggs, injecting some of his venom into them to give him control of the liquids inside of it. And then, slowly, all the eggs started cracking open. The wyvern ripped its eyes open again, and saw her children being born in front of her. Children that should never have even existed.


    "Don''t worry, I promise that I''ll take care of them for you. You can sleep now." Eiro said with a soft smile on his face, and the wyvern finally stopped clinging to life, while Eiro held its head. And when its body went limp, and its death was confirmed even by the system, Eiro looked to the side and watched all the fake wyvern hatchlings he made out of ice fall apart again as well.


    Eiro kept sitting there for a while longer, and finally got up when he thought it was time to head back home for tonight.


    He dropped a few seeds into the inside of the tree, and touched the structure with a bitter smile. This ce now became proof of both Eiro''s monstrosity, as well as hispassion.

 Chapter 498 - Searching For Wyverns

    Eironded on the roof of his manor, looking up into the sky. He slowly closed his eyes as he started thinking about what to do next, "Now... that wyvern had a mark from the devil on her... but the devil would never let a special specimen that he personally gave something like that to escape so easily... And considering that... that the wyvern had marks from other wyverns on her, there might be arger group of wyverns... arge flock of them, maybe..." Eiro whispered quietly, and slowly sat back up. He stared into the distance as he continued to think.


    "Wyvernsy eggs once every five years. They start forming a month in advance of theying. Considering how protective she was of the eggs, they were probably the reason why she left in the first ce. Let''s say... one or two weeks in she noticed that she was soon going toy, and went off somewhere where she could be safe from others. So, the rest of the flock would be maybe three weeks away... But... why is it so far up north..?" The Demon muttered quietly, trying to figure out what exactly was going on.


    Wyverns were cold-blooded, meaning that they wouldn''t usually be found near here. Or rather, this was the farthest north that you may end up finding them. And when wyverns split off from their flock toy on their own, they would usually travel further south where it was warmer and safer for the wyvern and the soon-to-be born hatchlings.


    "So either, part of the Devil''s experiment was to see how incredibly hungry wyverns would survive up north, or something ispletely wrong with this wyvern''s innerpass. I doubt it would really be thetter, though." The Demon whispered to himself, as he thought about the physical structure of the wyvern for a bit longer. He went into his mental library, and imagined the wyvern to be standing in front of his eyes.


    Layer byyer, he removed parts of the wyvern to see if there was anything else special about it. Beside the fact that its stomach acids seemed strong enough to be able to tear just about anything apart, and that its intestines were filled with traces of even some usually non-edible things, like coins or cloth. And amongst them, was something else. There was some sort of rock, clearly stuck somewhere in its intestine, causing some sort of blockage, which probably didn''t help the wyvern''s health.


    "Hm, the scent of that... it''s... very, very rich in iron and copper, but it seems unprocessed..." Eiro muttered, as he slowly blinked the wyvern''s body away. Instead, he created a physical representation of the continent up to a wyvern''s three-week travel distance, which was clearly incredibly far. Putting into ount the weather up north, as well as the fact that she had half a dozen huge eggs growing inside of her body, he was able to narrow things down a bit further.


    "And then... the areas that are particrly iron- and copper-rich along there... If I left now, I should be able to get near there in a day, as long as I go really fast." Eiro told himself, "A flock of wyverns that spend their whole lives killing and eating anything theye across... might be worth two or three levels."


    ---


    "Wait, you''re leaving again? Seriously? But you only just came back! And what about... you know?" Rudy pointed out, slowly ncing at Arc and Sammy. Everyone had be incredibly nervous because of Arc''s and Sammy''s parents suddenlying over. And Eiro understood that of course.


    "Which is why you''ll be staying at the royal castle for a few days. I already discussed some options with Solomon. Listen, if everything works out, I''m going to be staying here for the next few months. This is the only chance I have before ss starts again in a few days. Nothing is going to happen, you can trust me." Eiro exined simply, but it seemed like the others weren''t particrly convinced.


    "There are only few monsters around here that are going to be able to help me level up at all. If I want to level up even one more time, I might have to eradicate the whole forest. And once I level up just three more times, I''m going to evolve again, and after said evolution, there is very little on my agenda anytime soon. Okay?"


    "...When will you be back?" Arc asked, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward him, "In two, at most three days. Possibly shorter. Throughout myst few level-ups, my agility rose a lot." Eiro exined. Of course, the fact that he could assign his stat point freely was something that only very few people knew about. Even his children didn''t know yet. It was one of the few secrets that he was keeping from them. That, as well as the true origin of his being. As in, who he was before his soul had been used to create the current him.


    "Alright. Then be sure toe back before Leon starts sleepwalking again. That''s my condition." Arc said bluntly, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Of course, don''t worry. With all of you at the castle, I''m sure that Leon and Avalin will be far too distracted for them to even notice I''m gone. I''ll be back before you know it." Eiro exined to them all. The Demon slowly walked over toward the door and smiled.


    "They''re both sleeping now. In the morning, Solomon will be here to pick you up personally. And then, you guys only have to sleep once, and I should be back before you go to bed a second time. That sound good?" Eiro asked, and everyone slowly nodded their heads, as the Demon stepped out, "I love you all. And now, don''t head to bed toote."


    Eiro walked through the hallway, and looked at his party members as he went on his way as well, "I''ll be back soon. This is just one more hunt before... everything changes." He exined, and James looked back at him, "Just take care of yourself, man. And make sure toe back soon."


    "Of course. I promised." Eiro smiled, as he pushed open the door. Even Bavet was sitting by the entrance, somewhat nervous. It was one of the few times where Eiro was heading off somewheretely and didn''t need this slime''s help disguising himself. Of course, it was somewhat nerve-wracking.


    Eiro stood in front of the manor and spread out his wings. He fused himself with the air, and the moment he pped his wings just once, he shot into the sky, leaving behind nothing but a huge cloud of dust. Once in the air, Eiro opened up his status. He still had 120 stat points to assign. And immediately, Eiro assigned 40 of those stat points to his Agility, as a message appeared in front of his eyes.


    [Your agility has surpassed the 300 point threshold! The <Quick Feet> Ability has been upgraded to <Quick Movement>]


    Eiro could immediately feel himself be a lot quicker than he was before, removing probably a couple of hours from his travel-time at the very least. Eiro didn''t want to invest the other 80 he had leftover into agility as well. For now, he wanted to see if he could just speed himself up further using more and more magic.


    He was using at an incredible speed right now anyway, but the issue was that he might have to spend quite some time slowing down to actually search his destinations for the wyverns. That would cost him quite a bit of time. But at least for now, Eiro began constructing a spell in front of him. At this speed, this was something a bit moreplex and mana-intense, but he definitely had said mana to spare.


    The moment the spell activated, Eiro shot forward a few hundred meters in an instant, as if he teleported. It was like the air itself shattered into pieces just because Eiro was traveling through it. Even Nelli, Gondos and Sarius weren''t able to keep up. They just stayed at the manor for now, choosing to be summoned to him when he actually found his destination to make things a lot easier for everyone.


    For about nine hours, Eiro kept travelling as the world around him became colder and colder, to the point where the bits of his body that were still solid were nearly freezing, due to the speed at which he was traveling.


    But soon, seven hourster, Eiro chose to slow down to take a look around in more detail. There were a lot of mountains around here as well, and since wyverns liked to be around high ces, it seemed like this was a good enough ce as any to search around. For the next five hours, Eiro did nothing but do that. He searched and searched and searched, although he didn''t even know if he was in the right ce.


    Eiro had basically just guessed that this was where he would find the wyverns, from the traces of food that were left within the wyvern''s body. But what if those were simply goods transported by merchants that the wyvern chose to attack in its hunger? Then all of Eiro''s guesses would basically be useless.


    Eiro let out a deep, annoyed sigh. He kept flying around for a while longer, hoping to be able to find something, but if he didn''t get there by sundown, then he would just turn around to leave again. He would need to find a way to apologize to the children for returning the same level he was at when he left, but they would probably understand when he exined the situation to them... right?


    Just as Eiro was thinking about this, and the sun stood high in the sky above him, Eiro heard a familiar screech.

 Chapter 499 - Wyvern Slaughtering

    Eiro turned his head to the side, and in the distance, he spotted something rapidly approaching him, "Huh. So I am in the right ce." The Demon muttered to himself, apanied by a deep sigh of relief that he didn''t waste his time on this trip. After all, there was a wyvern, that looked quite a bit like the one that the Demon just met yesterday,ing at him.


    From what Eiro could see, it was starved nearly as much as that wyvern from yesterday, and after spotting something edible, in this case Eiro, it came at him. The Demon just stayed in ce and activated his Three of Swords. He really just needed a single de, though, and to increase the size of it in this case, Eiro fused it with highlypressed air that he gathered within a few seconds before the wyvern actually reached him.


    Eiro waited there, and the moment that the wyvern was in range, its huge snout pulled open while showing its sharp teeth, the Demon pushed himself down with air magic and used the wyvern''s momentum, as well as the three of swords'' surreal sharpness, to cut the wyvern in half.


    He cut through its brain and heart, and watched its body fall down into the snow deep below him.


    "Hm?" Eiro muttered quietly, as he picked something up when the wyvern passed him, "It smells of sulfur."


    Was it just rted to the Devil''s influence? Although, Eiro''s mark never really gave off the scent of sulfur, so he quickly ruled that out. Instead, he figured that there was probably some kind of volcano around here. Due to the weather, people didn''t really travel here a lot, so there were still plenty of unexplored areas of this part of the kingdom, and the continent in general. So it certainly was possible that there was some sort of volcano around here. And if that was the case, then it should be a bit easier to find.


    At the very least, Eiro would be able to follow the sulfur scent rather easily, it was incredibly distinctpared to everything else that could be smelled around here. The Demon flew forward, and just about ten minutes after he started moving, the scent of sulfur started to be clearer. But there didn''t seem to be a proper volcano anywhere around here, so it was probably something like a volcanic underground chamber that the wyverns had made their home.


    "So that''s why they were here." Eiro whispered quietly. The Devil found this volcanic chamber, and put the wyverns in there, basically trapping them through the environment they were in. Being cold blooded, flying through this freezing environment could just as well mean death for them. And being creatures controlled by instinct, they must be aware of that. So basically, this was one of the few clever ways that the Devil could take advantage of arge space to entrap arge amount of wyverns without the threat of too many of them escaping.


    Eiro let out a deep sigh as he pulled his wings close to his body to just immediately drop down. He had a rough idea where the cave entrance could be found. For one, it was the only ce that was covered in a lot of ice instead of just snow. The heat escaping through the caves would melt the snow, which would cause it to immediately freeze over. And since it wasn''t actively snowing right now, it made sense that there wouldn''t be any snow around there.


    The Demonnded in front of the entrance, and immediately sent in a pulse of magic throughout the mountain to figure out the structure of the ce that he was about to invade. First, there were about half a dozen possible exits and entrancesrge enough for wyverns to escape through. So of course, the Demon quickly flew around the mountain and sealed them up by simply sqeezing it shut with earth magic.


    And not too longter, Eiro was done, and stepped through thest possible entrance, closing it off behind him as well. He snapped his finger, and beside him appeared three spirits.


    "Huh, it''s kinda hot around here ¨C you sure we''re in the right ce?" Sarius asked the moment his head fully formed, and Eiro immediately nodded his head in response, "Yeah, the wyverns are just ahead. More importantly, how''s the situation going at home?"


    "The children are alright... maybe a bit annoyed that you''re gone again, but they''re fine for now. I''m guessing you''ll have an easy timeing back anyway." Nelli pointed out with a light shrug. Eiro let out a relieved sigh.


    "You''re right, it should be fine. And if I''m right, then all those wyverns in here are going to be enough to push me over the edge as well." Eiro exined, "Obviously I''ll only initiate the evolution once I called Koperia over again, and once I''m home and all. Unique evolutions are more taxing on the body than regr ones as far as I can see, so a legendary evolution... might be rather violent." He added, as he started walking through the cave in front of him.


    As they moved further down the cave, Gondos was curiously looking at the walls, when he took notice of something interesting, "Eiro, correct me if I''m wrong, but does this cave not seem like it has been created artificially?" The Golem asked. Eiro raised his brows, and took a closer look at the walls. He hadn''t even really considered that, but now that Gondos mentioned it, he had to admit that everything did seem to have some sort of pattern to it. Of course, that pattern could just be something that Eiro was imagining, seeing a pattern in nothing, but he wasn''t sure if that was entirely the case.


    "You do have a point. If so, then the Devil must have used some form of magic to excavate this ce after finding some underground channels of magma." Eiro said, "I don''t think it matters too much, but it''s certainly a good hint to figure out what he''s capable of..."


    Eiro kept looking around as well, unsure if the one that created this cave system was actually the Devil or if it was a servant of his. He did have quite a few skilled ones, after all. The Demon let out a deep sigh, figuring that he couldn''t really be sure if either was the case. The knowledge that was out there about the Devil was extremely limited, and any actually ''confirmed'' information may very well be fabricated, no matter how likely it seemed. The Devil was a master of lies and trickery, after all.


    However, it seemed like Eiro didn''t have too much longer to think about these things, as he was soon faced by his first few enemies. There were a few wyvernsying around near the entrance, trying to sleep to fight against the hunger. Eiro stepped in front of them, and cut through their skulls with incredible ease, and they were only able to let out a few yelps before they were all dead. Their blood soon covered the ground, and Eiro continued as if nothing really happened.


    "Hm, that seems to be giving me a decent amount of experience. Seems like this really will work out exactly as I hoped." The Demon said with a light grin on his face, killing a few more stray wyverns as he walked through this part of the cave system. But soon, he reached a deeper part of the cave, and the heat had really picked up once he was here.


    Eiro saw therge central ''bubble'' of this cave system. The whole ground a few dozen meters down was just nothing but incredibly hot, bubbling magma. And along the walls, in little nests created by the wyverns digging into them, sat numerous of these reptilian creatures, practically just waiting to be in by Eiro.


    All the wyverns stared at the intruder that just entered their home. Eiro turned his head toward some wyverns that were currently feeding on one of their own to sate their hunger, before he smiled slightly. He made sure that his voice held quite a bit of charisma so that he could push them over the edge, "Come on, kids, dinner is ready." He said with a grin, and this sentence was what made all the wyverns simply jump out of their nests so that they could try their luck with him.


    But of course, Eiro was able to dodge any possible iing attack from them, cutting through their bodies with his three of swords, and using magic to simply crush them to pieces. He burnt them to a crisp, drowned them by pushing water into their lungs, or mmed them into the ground to shatter their skulls.


    One by one, the wyverns all died in front of Eiro, and he was always happy when notification windows appeared in front of his eyes


    Eiro leveled up twice surprisingly quickly due to the constant barrage of wyverns that were simply throwing themselves at him. However, when Eiro reached level 99, things slowed down to a crawl. He had killed only a third of the total wyverns in here to level up twice, but he was no longer sure if the remaining wyverns were going to be enough for him to really reach level 100. This was something that the had been waiting for for quite some time, and he was really excited at the prospect that he might reach this goal today.


    Well, even if he didn''t, he was so much closer to his goal than he was this morning, so even if it wasn''t enough, he would be able to figure something out.

 Chapter 500 - Another LevelUp

    Eiro killed more and more wyverns, ripping their bodies apart, ending their lives within just an instant. They fell before Eiro''s feet, they could do nothing to stop what was happening to them. Some of them tried to escape, but of course, the Demon didn''t let anything like that happen. That''s why he had sealed up all possible entrances and exits to this ce.


    Eiro rushed throughout this ce, watching as the wyverns continued to feed on their brethren after they died. The Demon knew that ''The Devil'' was watching him right now. There was no way that he wouldn''t realize that something was so suddenly happening to so many beings that he had given his mark to.


    But why didn''t he just appear here to try and stop him? Well, this ce was probably something like a throwaway-site, a ce that he didn''t really care much about. He was probably watching all of this unfold with absolute delight, more than curious about what might happen next.


    And the thing that happened was that Eiro killed them all, without a single exception. He found out that a few more of the wyverns seemed ready toy their eggs, or had already done so a few days prior. Of course, these ones actually had wyvern hatchlings within them. Eiro might throw these eggs into the magmater if he still needed more experience, otherwise he may as well bring some of them to the monster vige as pets for the monster leaders.


    The whole inside of this cave system was filled with the disgusting scent of rusted metal, as the blood of the wyverns fell to the magma and was immediately evaporated. It was hard to see everything that was happening down there by now. A small ind had even formed there, created out of the bodies of wyverns that had molten into the magma, as well as parts of rock that had been cooled down by their blood.


    It was a rather disgusting sight, but it wasn''t one that Eiro particrly cared about. The wyverns falling down there were actually covering a bit of the blood smell, since their burning flesh had a very pleasant scent to it, something nearly mouth-watering. Maybe Eiro should take a bit of a breakter and have lunch using some of these bodies. He deserved a bit of a treat, after all.


    Just as Eiro pushed his hands through the flesh of one of the wyverns, before tightening his grip around its spine, he realized an interesting fact. With the exception of a single individual, all the actual wyverns were already dead.


    "Huh... Let me see... 99,98%..? I''m not sure if I''m lucky or unlucky..." The Demon grumbled as he realized how close he was to leveling up that onest time. He let out a deep, annoyed sigh, and turned his sight toward the ce where he would be able to find that singlest individual. He doubted that it would be enough for him to level up, though.


    "I mean, you finished everything here up pretty quickly, right? You must have spotted some other groups of monsters around here, and monsters that can survive in this climate must be pretty strong... right?" Nelli pointed out, as Eiro scratched the back of his head, "I guess you''re right." He muttered, "I might just drop a few explosions around here and there, and see what happens."


    "...that''s not exactly what I was suggesting, but sure..." The Naiad replied, as Eiro lightly smiled at her, "I know, I know. Let''s see how much experience this one gives me first, though. It should be an evolution or two ahead of the others, considering its stature."


    "That much? Then if it''s that strong, why didn''t ite out to fight you while you were ughtering all these weaklings?" Sarius asked curiously, as Eiro pointed toward one particr, narrow tunnel, "Because that''s the only entrance to where it is. And it''s probably three to four times bigger than all these other wyverns." He exined, and Sarius immediately understood.


    The wyvern had probably gone in there to be undisturbed during its evolution, and then grew to be too big to leave the ce again.


    "Isn''t that kinda... sad?" The Smander asked with a wry smile. Eiro simply shrugged, "Sure it is. But you''d be surprised how often this kind of thing happens. It actually sometimes leads to special evolutions suddenly happening. I remember this one story, where a monster that lived underground spent months creating this hideout in this super hard rock. Well, after that hideout was finished, that monster continued hunting like normal, and due to the narrow entrance and hard surface of the entrance, it was unable to be killed by any other monsters. So, it soon evolved, and of course fell asleep within its hideout. It was just that it grew to a size toorge to be held within the space it had carved out personally, so instead, the system aodated, and fused the monster with the rock instead. I''m not sure if you''ve heard of it or not, but it continued evolving more and more, until it did finally die. Its corpse is a mountain in the eastern continent now." Eiro exined, "And not just any mountain, by the way, it is apperently the greatest mountain that exists."


    "...Isn''t that just a children''s story? At least that''s what it sounds like." Nelli pointed out, but Gondos immediately spoke for Eiro, "No, as far as I''m aware, it is a true story. I remember some other earth spirits talking about it in the ne of earth. I think in the moment of its death, the Golem King took it as its pet, and its now the mountain that the royal castle stands upon in the ne of earth."


    "Seriously? That''s kinda cool..." Sarius pointed out, "All we have in the ne of fire are boiling rivers, deserts, and eternal sunlight. We have nothing cool like that."


    "At least you have something likend to begin with. The ne of water is just an infinite ocean." Nelli added, "Although, it is still pretty amazing there, honestly. It''s a shame that Eiro isn''t able to see it."


    "...By the way, why is that? He has the spirit gateways within his body, so he should be able toe by to at least the nes of fire and water, right?"


    "...Sarius, that is the first logical thing you''ve said since I''ve known you." Nelli pointed out, "Eiro, do you think you-"


    Eiro immediately interrupted the naiad and shook his head, "I''ve already tried, no luck, sorry. I''ve spent hours of meditation just trying to squeeze myself through there, but it just doesn''t seem like that''s how it works."


    "Then maybe you just have to await the true awakening of your legendary skill, as well as the moment you gain the title of ''The World''... Maybe you can do so once you reach that point." Gondos suggested, and Eiro raised his brows, "Maybe, but let''s not assume so beforehand. That''s only going to set us up for disappointment. And before that can happen, I need to level up again first anyway, so let''s make that happen first, alright?" Eiro pointed out as he pped his wings, quickly flying over toward that narrow tunnel, beyond which he would then find thergest wyvern amongst all of them.


    How this one ended up bing so powerfulpared to others was really beyond Eiro. Although, when he came closer, he could at least guess. There were traces of other wyverns within its stomach, and there were even dried bits of flesh stuck between its teeth and scales. Clearly, this wyvern had just somehow forced the others to feed it. Maybe it had a skill that let it control the other wyverns somehow. Not that it really mattered.


    The monster gave off an incredibly loud screech the moment Eiro stepped into this space that was barelyrge enough to hold the wyvern.


    "Sorry bud, I''m not bringing you any food. Rather, I think you''re going to turn out to be my lunch in a bit." Eiro exined, and soon saw some huge ws being swung at him, while the wyvern pushed its head forward to try and bite the Demon as well. But of course, that didn''t happen, since Eiro used the three of swords to fight back. He cut off the wyvern''s ws with some swift motions, and pulled its fangs out the moment they came even somewhat close to him.


    "These are actually pretty high-quality items... thanks, I''ll have Armodeus make some items out of these." Eiro pointed out, surprised at the sharpness and overall health of these parts of the wyvern. At first, he had expected most parts of its body to be justpletely rotten, since that''s what had happened with most of the other wyverns, but this one was actually in surprisingly decent health. Of course, it was still as hungry as all the others, probably even more hungry considering its size, and it was thin enough that if it lost any more weight, its ribs may or may not end up just piercing through the wyvern''s skin.


    That also sadly meant that there wasn''t that much meat on its bones... but well, it wasrge enough, so Eiro would have enough to eat no matter what, even if the food might end up being a little bit tough. Eiro''s jaw was strong enough to bite through metal with ease, so chewing a little more than normal wasn''t an issue.


    "Alright, let''s finish this quickly. I don''t think I''ve properly eaten anything in a few days now..." The Demon grumbled, holding his stomach as well. The wyvern once more tried to attack Eiro, with the bits of ws and fangs that were still left on its body, but Eiro simply swung itself over its body and proceeded to cut through its spine with the three of swords, making its body fall to the ground immediately.


    But something surprising happened that Eiro didn''t expect. He thought it would take a bit longer for him to see this.


    <strong>[You have leveled up] </strong>

 Chapter 501 - Glitching

    Eiro looked at the message in front of him, and then stared at the flurry of messages that appeared in front of him.


    <strong>[You have reached Level 100]</strong>


    <strong>[Possible Evolutions]</strong>


    <strong>-[...</strong>


    Before the windows had even fully opened up, they... disappeared. But in a weird way. They flickered in and out of existence for a few moments, and the letters on the notifications were disced, showing nonsensical words. And there were even moments that Eiro had never seen before, but he still ingrained them into his mind.


    However, as Eiro was watching this flickering, the word ''glitch'' popped up in his mind, although he was unsure where exactly it came from. The notifications kept glitching for a few moments, and soon disappeared altogether.


    And then, a new notification appeared in front of Eiro, of a type that he had never seen before. He hadyed eyes on message windows of quite a few different colors, but this one... it was weird. It was like it was a more stationary, permanent form of those glitching notifications from earlier. It looked like a cracked mirror, each shard slightly disced to create its unique version of the image that should have fallen onto it. Just that here, each shard of the window floating in front of Eiro showed a unique version of itself. The colors were slightly off in each, and when Eiro moved his head around, the colors in each were changing, like some sort of weird reflection of light.


    But more importantly, it took a while for the letters to actuallye in, something that had never happened before. Usually, the notifications would appear with all the information already on them from the start, from the moment they came into existence. But now? The words were slowly appearing in front of Eiro letter by letter, and the message window changed its form to aodate the ever-growing information.


    <i><strong>{[A Legendary Evolution Option has been found. A certain amount of probabilities have been consumed to power said evolution. Do you wish to initiate the evolution?]}</strong></i>


    Eiro looked at the message, but slowly shook his head, "No, not yet."


    <strong><i>{[It is reended to initiate the evolution as soon as possible. Do you wish to initiate the evolution?]}</i></strong>


    Confused, since he already said ''no'' once, Eiro stretched his hand out to run his fingers through the notification like always, "No, I will not initiate the evolution. Not yet." He said, but then, he felt something. And it wasn''t just the slight hint of air flowing inbetween his fingers whenever he ran them through a message window... but he was touching a solid surface. Not even when he touched these windows with time slowed down to an absolute crawl was he able to touch it like this.


    It would always start falling apart a momentter, which was still a lot longer than he normally had, but it was enough time for him to interact with it. But now? He was able to touch it, grasp it with both his and could even physically pull the notification around wherever he wanted.


    "What the..." Eiro muttered, and the three spirits around him looked at the Demon somewhat confused, "What''s going on? What are you doing?" Nelli asked, and Eiro turned his head, "I''m looking at this notification, that''s what. It''s weird."


    "...what notification?" Sarius asked, and Eiro stopped for a moment, "You three can''t see it..?"


    "No, we can not. What does it say?" Gondos inquired, so Eiro quickly exined to them what he was seeing, but they had no idea what he was speaking of. They had never heard of something like this before either.


    "...Erm... again, ''No''. I will not evolve yet." Eiro said clearly, and the words in the notification slowly disappeared again, soon to be reced.


    <strong><i>{[Evolution will not yet be initiated. It is remended to evolve as soon as possible]}</i></strong>


    "Alright, alright, I''ll evolve soon... in a few days." Eiro muttered quietly, and to his surprise, the information on the message changed again.


    <i><strong>{[The Systemins about the vague time estimate]}</strong></i>


    "....Excuse me...? ''The system''... ''The systemins''..?" Eiro muttered with a wry smile, absolutely confused about what was suddenly going on with the notifications in front of him.


    "No matter that, just disappear." He grumbled quietly, trying to just crack the whole window in half. A few moments of tryingter, a new message appeared.


    <i><strong>{[The System will rest until the time of the evolution]}</strong></i>


    The notification window suddenly shrunk down, and seemed to move directly onto Eiro''s chest, as if sitting within the center of the patterns that were covering the Demon''s whole body. Eiro couldn''t really sense the window anymore, and when he looked at system information, like his status, after that, the windows all looked normal and were fully visible to the spirits again.


    "This was pretty weird." Eiro whispered, as he slowly turned around toward the corpse of that huge wyvern. He approached it, trying to forget about those weird status windows for now, as he started to cut out a huge fillet out of the wyvern''s body.


    With some fire magic, Eiro started heating the meat up in specific patterns so that he could create some decent food for himself.


    "I''m really hungry somehow, though..." Eiro muttered slightly. He let the meat cook a bit more, and for now just started to think about how to assign the 110 stat points that he had in his status. He wanted to assign them before the evolution, so that he could reap as many benefits from it as possible.


    He quickly spent 24 stat points to bring his perception to 300. And since the greatest benefits always came when one''s stats overcame the 100-point thresholds, Eiro quickly brought the two stats that he could actually bring there with his currently avable stat points to the next stage. He got his resistance and evasion to 200 respectively. And the leftover 15 he invested into his lowest stat, charisma, since he figured it was still rather useful sometimes.


    <strong>[Your perception has surpassed the 300 point threshold! The <Sharp Senses> Ability has been upgraded to <Superior Senses>]</strong>


    <strong>[Your resistance has surpassed the 200 point threshold! The <Rock Skin> Ability has been upgraded to <Lesser Metal Skin>]</strong>


    <strong>[Your evasion has surpassed the 200 point threshold! The <Adrenaline Rush> Ability has been upgraded to <Hyper Adrenaline Rush>]</strong>


    "Alright, this will definitely help me out a bit." Eiro smiled lightly while blinking a little bit. The upgrade of the perception ability messed up his control of his senses for a moment, but he was able to adjust rather quickly. He was still waiting for the meat to finish being cooked through, so he looked at his left hand and activated the ''Lesser Metal Skin'' ability.


    Instead of growing rough and rock-like as it did before, Eiro''s skin stayed rtively smooth, and instead turned into a metallic substance. It was amongst the weaker metals that Eiro knew of, but it was still quite a bit stronger than rock. But the thing was that Eiro was unable to actually identify the metal. It was like his skin itself had really been transmuted into its own unique metal through magic.


    He tried to move his hand around like normal, but his movements were heavily restricted, just as he expected. The metal was rtively malleable, but it still slowed him down quite a bit, and it was much heavier than the rock was. But with a few adjustments, Eiro was able to at least solve the first of those issues. He changed the exact areas where the metal would appear, to make sure that it wouldn''t appear in the cracks of Eiro''s hand that actually allowed for movement. As if he was creating some sort of gauntlet for himself right now.


    "Interesting." Eiro muttered slightly, as heyered more metal on top of the one that was already there. While the metal before took on the same exact color of his skin, he was able to control it a bit more for theyers further removed from his flesh, and he could make it look as if it was simple iron or steel.


    "Hm..." Curious if this would actually work, Eiro slowly took off the armor pieces covering his upper body, and quickly createdyers of his ''Lesser Metal Skin'' ability appear all over his torso and arms. By manipting exactly where he wanted to create this metal, he was actually able to create something that looked like any other sort of armor, even if it did have some more unique touches to it. If it came down to it and Bavet wasn''t nearby, Eiro would be able to rely on this ability to just cover his skin up and pretend he was wearing some sort of armor. Or well, he could simply use his mask, cloak and gloves that he had in his treasury at all times, but it was always nice to have multiple alternatives.


    And as he was removing this ''natural'' armor, Eiro looked at his hand, and then at the meat that was still cooking atop arge rock b that he created a few moments earlier. Eiro summoned mes with his right hand and pressed them against the metal-covered left hand, and watched as the metal heated up immensely. It was glowing in a bright yellow at some point, and while it didn''t seem to want to melt at any point, it was still incredibly hot. This would probably open up a few more possibilities inbat... by simply melting their flesh with his glowing, hot metal hand.


    And while Eiro quickly cooled his hand down again, luckily without anything like cracks suddenly appearing in his skin, he noticed that the wyvern steak seemed to be just about finished.. And so, Eiro began to eat a little bit, and would thenter head off to get back home again.

 Chapter 502 - Plundered Treasury

    Eironded on one of his manor''s balconies and quickly stepped inside with a loud yawn. He was starting to get a bit tired at this point. The Demon walked to his study and looked through the papers on his desk. Grabbing the right one, he quickly started to write a brief message on it, before he simply burnt it to a crisp with fire magic.


    Out of the paper''s ashes, a small paper bird rose up, and flew out of the window as Eiro sent a message to Koperia. It shouldn''t take too long for her toe here once she receives the message, but for now, Eiro could just rx a little bit. Once he was done with the message, Eiro made his way to Armodeus'' room, where the Elder Dwarf was currently sketching out a few more ideas for items.


    "Hey, Armodeus." Eiro said with a smile, and the dwarf quickly turned around, "Oh! Yer back!"


    "Yeah, just got here a few minutes ago." He replied, "I reached level 100, so I''ll start my evolution within the next few days."


    "Finally reached that point, eh?" Armodeus chuckled, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "I did, yeah."


    "...Lad, is something wrong?"


    Eiro scratched the back of his head as he sat down on one of the chairs at a table, "Nothing is wrong, I was just thinking about somet things while I was flying. I had the time to, after all."


    "...Should I be nervous?" Armodeus asked, cing down his pen as he looked back at the Demon, "Are ya askin'' me to leave? If I intruded, then I''m absolutely sorry, I-"


    "No, no, I''m not asking you to leave, I''m asking whether or not you really want to stay." Eiro exined, "You''ve been here for a while now, much longer than I had thought. And don''t get me wrong, I love having you here, you''re a part of this family by now. I''m just worried about how you somehow ended up abandoning your position in Argberg."


    Armodeus let out a deep sigh as he shook his head, "I was never there for the title,d. I was there because I was able to work as much as I wanted to, with any material that I wanted to. But that is something I can do here as well. If you would like me to leave, then I will, but I feel quite at home here at this point as well."


    "...Then how about we have all your things from Argberg delivered here? Actually have you move to this country? Solomon will dly ept you as an official citizen, and with your status and reknown all around the world, you should even be able to get a noble title if you wanted one." Eiro exined, "You could have your own manor where you don''t have to bother with all the things and people I end up dragging in here all the time."


    Armodeus softly smiled and shook his head, "I''ve got not the slightest interest in being a noble. Not even in Argberg, even though I clearly could have been one. I was regarded simrly to a high noble in some regards while being amoner." The dwarf exined, "But now, I just want to keep on workin''. And if you''ll have me, I''ll happily be your personal craftsman."


    "As I said, you''re already family, Armodeus. Of course, you''ll always be wee here. So, what do you say? Should we get your things brought over here?"


    "I think that might be a good idea. I might have to head off for a while to arrange for things in Argberg, but that should not trouble you too much, right?"


    "I don''t think so, no..." Eiro replied as he thought for a bit, "Ah, wait, I brought a few materials with me. Some ws and fangs." The Demon exined, as he pushed his hand into his satchel, grabbing ratherrge chunks that were wrapped in cloth. He ced them down on the table, "They''ve been freshly harvested from a wyvern." Eiro smiled.


    Armodeus slowly grabbed one of the chunks, and unwrapped it. He held the w in his hand, and it was so sharp that it could already be turned into a weapon just from this. With a slightugh, Armodeus ced it back onto the table, "This is exactly what I''m speaking about,d. Not every day does someone bring me parts from wyverns as if they''re souvenirs from a vacation."


    "Hah, don''t worry, that won''t be thest great materials you''ll be given. And well... I actually have a few other things with me that might interest you, you know?" Eiro exined with a wry smile, "I have about half a dozen wyvern eggs that I brought with me as well... I''ll bring the actual wyverns to the monster vige after they hatch, so that I can make sure they''re trained well-enough, and then you can have things like the eggshells if you want. It looked like they were covered in something like thick rock that had an impressive amount of metal within it."


    "...Aye, I think I''ve made the right choice..."


    ---


    "Seriously? A status window that you could actually, legitimately touch? What would happen if you touched it with me on you..?" Bavet whispered into Eiro''s ear as they were flying toward the royal castle, and Eiro raised his brows curiously, "Well, in general, you kind of hinder my sense of touch in the first ce, so I can only barely feel regr system windows, so we''re not really ''fully'' fused, if you get what I mean? So I think the part that is ''you'' will just pass through it, and then my actual skin will be able to touch it." Eiro suggested, and the slime seemed weirdly disappointed at this fact.


    Eiro rolled his eyes with a sigh, "Don''t worry, it seems to be rted to my Legendary Skill, so I might have ess to that sort of system window permanently from now on. You might have the chance to see it someday."


    "...That would be pretty cool..." Bavet muttered, and Eiro slightly smirked, "Right? Anyway, just be quiet now, we''re here." Eiro exined as hended in an alley near the royal castle''s gate. The Demon walked up to it, and he smiled at the guards standing in front.


    "Hey Rob, Henry, how''s your guys'' day going?" He asked, and the two guards quickly smiled back at Eiro, "It''s a slow one. You know how it is." Henry, the older of the two guards exined, and Robert also quickly engaged in the conversation.


    "Are you here to pick up your children, Lord Daemonherz?"


    "That I am. I hope they weren''t too much trouble." Eiro chuckled, before Robert and Henry looked at each other with wry smiles, "Your children are fine, m''Lord, but... your familiar on the other hand..."


    Immediately, Eiro''s heart seemed to skip a beat, "Lugo? Wait, what happened to Lugo?"


    "...He somehow got into the castle''s treasury, and proceeded to try and eat many of the magic stones that could be found in there."


    "Well, he didn''t really try, he did... About a third of them all are gone now." Henry exined, and Eiro stared at the two guards in front of him, before he slowly closed his eyes, "That little fucking-"


    "Don''t worry, m''Lord, your eldest son said that he would take care of your familiar to make sure he would throw up the magic stones again."


    "...Thanks for the information..." Eiro grumbled in response, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "You two should reallye by for dinner sometime... I have a feeling we''ll have venison soon." The Demon said as he stepped through the gate, annoyed that this was one of the first things he found out about now that he came back.


    Eiro immediately looked around to figure out where Lugo was right now, and pressed his foot into the ground. The pathway leading up to the royal castle shattered into pieces due to the created pressure, but Gondos stayed behind for a moment to repair it for Eiro.


    A momentter, the Demon had made his way all the way to where Lugo was currently. He was in the royal castle''s gardens,ying in the sun with Arc just leaning up against him, taking a nap. Eiro stood in front of the two of them and crossed his arms.


    "A third of the royal castle''s magic stones? Seriously?" Eiro asked with a deep frown, and both Lugo and Arc flinched as they opened their eyes.


    "Ah, dad, you''re back already? How did it go?"


    "It went great, but that''s beside the point." Eiro grumbled as he opened Lugo''s status.


    [Name ¨C Lugo][Race ¨C Forest Deer][Level ¨C 97]


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose and squatted down, "Level 97? You ate enough to get to level 97?" The demon muttered, "Why would you-"


    Eiro began to speak, when he looked at Arc. Immediately, he understood, "Arc? How did you get into the treasury..?"


    "Huh? I don''t know what you''re talking about..."


    Eiro sighed as he closed his eyes, "You realize that it''s impossible to lie to me without me noticing, right?"


    "...Alright, fine... It was supposed to be a surprise! We wanted have Lugo level up to the point where he reached level 100 as well, since you... you know, you were curious about what might happen." Arc exined, and Eiro let out a deep sigh.


    "Sure, I was curious, but that doesn''t mean you should have Lugo eat the royal castle''s magic stones! How did you even get him to do that, he refuses to eat anything but Nature Magic Stones when I ask him to..."


    "Just a simple mixture of love, threats, and a lost bet." Arc shrugged, "But that''s not the important part right now! He''s just three levels away... what if he evolves as well?"


    "Magic Beasts don''t evolve, they just get magical abilities." Eiro pointed out, "But even so, that wouldn''t be the important part... the important part is that the next time I go to the monster vige, you''lle with me and work a day in the magic stone mines."


    "Eh...?"

 Chapter 503 - Ready For His Next Class

    "Y-You want me to literally work in the mines..? That''s childbour, you know..?" Arc pointed out with a wry smile, but Eiro simply crossed his arms in response, "Be happy that that''s all I''ll have you do. Do you even know how much that many magic stones are worth? This is possibly going to do some serious damage to Solomon."


    "...Well, fair enough... But still, really? A day''s work in the mines... Aren''t you worried that I''ll overwork myself without noticing? Or that I''ll identally break my hands while working..?" Arc asked somewhat nervously, but Eiro simply shook his head as he waited for his son to stand up, "No, I will be watching you the whole time, after all. And we won''t be doing this anytime soon anyway, I want to finish my evolution first. So for now, just go inside and apologize to Solomon."


    "Eh, I can do that, that''s not a big deal." The young man pointed out, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Seriously, the fact that you don''t even feel any shame is the most troublesome effect of your skill... I''m happy that you at least stopped walking around buck naked."


    "Well yeah, it''s cold up here, why would I walk around naked?" Arc asked with his head tilted to the side, before Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose.


    "Nevermind that. Lugo, youe as well. I know that Solomon won''t understand you, but at the very least I want you to show some remorse to him as well." Eiro exined, and slowly turned around. But a momentter, he felt Lugo''s antlers being pressed into the back of his head. The Demon turned around and looked the stag in the eyes, and saw that Lugo seemed to actually be somewhat sorry, even if that was only the case because Eiro ended up finding out about the situation.


    "Listen, I''m happy that you want to get stronger for my sake as well, buddy, but this isn''t the right way to do it. We have plenty of magic stones ourselves, so just eat those instead of Solomon''s." Eiro exined as he rubbed his hand over Lugo''s snout, "But really... leveling up really gave you quite an increase in mana and life force, huh..? Let''s see how else your powers increased through that."


    Lugo slowly nodded and started following Eiro, as the three of them made their way into the castle. The servants that they were passing were staring at Lugo with deep frowns, since they all knew about what he had done. Eiro really just ignored them though, and didn''t try to do anything about this. He did want Lugo to see what happened when he messed up like this, after all, so that he wouldn''t go along with Arc''s stupid ns in the future.


    Soon, they made their way fully through the royal castle, and Eiro spread his awareness a bit more to see where exactly everyone was. But when he did, he immediately stopped in his track. His nose twitched sligthly as he ground his teeth together.


    "What are they doing here?" Eiro muttered in a growling voice, as he turned around toward Arc, "Go meet your siblings, they''re in the sitting room on the west wing''s third floor." He told his son, who slowly nodded his head, understanding that something seemed to be off.


    "Sure..." Arc replied, and made his way through the castle, as Eiro and Lugo immediately made their way to where Solomon, and some guests he didn''t really feel like seeing, would be found.


    Without even knocking, Eiro pushed the door open. Of course, the guards of said guests tried to stop him, but they were in turn stopped by the royal guards, all of which were aware at this point that Eiro could freely walk around this castle if he so wished. Nobody even thought about stopping him anymore.


    Eiro pushed against therge door and it swung openm so fast that the hinges nearly bent and cracked. The Demon entered the room, and immediately locked eyes with Loid as he was sitting on the couch facing the door.


    Solomon turned around surprised, and looked at Eiro with his brows raised, "Eiro, back already? How did it go?"


    "...It went well. I reached level 100, so it''s time to choose my next ss soon." He exined from behind his teeth that were pressed onto each other so strongly that they may as well have started cracking apart.


    "That''s great. I was surprisingly visited by these four, and they were telling me some interesting things." Solomon exined as he slowly stood up. He walked through the room toward Eiro, and ced his hand onto his friend''s shoulder, "They were trying to say that your children, Arc and Samantha, are actually their children."


    Loid and Aaron looked at Eiro with smug grins, thinking that Solomon was about to agree with them and that Eiro had messed up. Surprisingly, Loid''s wife, Samantha''s mother, was still sitting there with a nk expression, while Elizabeth was letting her tears flow so much that her husband''s handkerchief was already soaked through.


    "Indeed so. We have revealed your wicked ways to his majesty! Finally, we will be reunited with our children!" Aaron eximed with a broad smile on his face, but before he was able to continue, Solomon lightly raised his hand, "Silence, please. I think there was quite a misunderstanding here. Arc and Samantha are absolutely Eiro''s children, there is no doubt about that."


    "H-Huh, but-" Aaron let out, and Solomon smiled back at him, "They were born in this country. We found the documentation that indeed confirms this fact. They are citizens of Skyhart, so it is impossible for them to be either of your children, is that not so?"


    Loid jumped up from his seat and stared back at Solomon, "Your majesty, excuse my rudeness, but they are indeed our children... I was there during Samantha''s birth!"


    "Ah fuck off, we both know that''s not true." Eiro said suddenly, as if overtaken by instinct, because that was one of the greatest lies he had hearde out of this man''s mouth. It was clear that he didn''t care about Sammy in the slightest. He probably didn''t see her for the first few weeks, if not months, of her life.


    "What did you just say?!" Loid eximed, replying angrily, but Solomon immediately interrupted him, "Hm? I don''t know what you''re talking about, I didn''t hear anything at all."


    Loid looked at Solomon, clearly angry, but he obviously couldn''t yell at the king of the country that they were visiting, "I apologize for raising my voice, your majesty. I am not feeling too well, so I think it is about time that we left again." He stood up, and walked to the other side of the room. He was quickly followed by his wife, and Aaron and Elizabeth soon followed behind them as well.


    They left the room, and therge, heavy door was closed by the guards, as Solomon looked at Eiro, "Are you alright?"


    Eiro ground his teeth and nodded his head, "I''ll be alright." He said, before Solomon slowly turned to look at Lugo with a squint, "And what about him? Is he hungry again?"


    Eiro smiled lightly and shook his head, "No, don''t worry. I want to apologize for that, by the way. I''ll try to make up for it, whether it''s through money or just by giving you some of the magic stones I have stashed up."


    "There''s no need, those magic stones never would have been used anyway, at least not anytime soon." Solomon sighed, as he slowly sat down again. Eiro scratched the back of his head with a wry smile, "Don''t say that around Arc, or else he''s going to steal even more from you." He pointed out, sitting down as well.


    Solomon and Eiro sat in front of each other, and the Demon looked down at the ground, "What were they here for?"


    "They were basically just trying to exin the situation to me from their view. It was the story that you already warned me they would tell me, basically word for word." Solomon sighed, "Again, I''m on your side, but they know that now. They might just go ahead and try some more aggressive things now."


    "Right, let them try. I''m going to have two people with Master Grade skills in my home soon, the support of the king, and I myself am going to awaken to my legendary skill and will be a royal monster. They won''t be able to do anything to us." Eiro exined, and Solomon slightly smiled back at him.


    "Speaking of, you said you''re ''ready to choose your next ss''? Does that mean you reached level 100?"


    "Yes, exactly. I eradicated all those wyverns that I told you about. I brought some wyvern eggs with me, so I''ll raise them to get their monstrosity and behaviour under control, and I''ll see to it that they won''t be influenced by the Devil at all. I sensed the mark from them, but I should be able to free them from it once I fully evolved. They''ll only hatch in a few weeks anyway." Eiro exined, scratching the back of his head, "And some other weird things happened with the system messages... I''ll exin that to you once I figured out what exactly happened. But yeah... it was ''rmended'' to me that I evolve as soon as possible, so I''ll get to that as soon as Koperia is here.


    "Perfect. ss is going to start again soon, but go ahead and take some breaks if you need it. I know that your evolutions are sometimes quite painful to you."


    "Hah, that''s an understatement. I''m pretty sure that my whole body is going to be ripped apart and put back together on the daily during my next evolution...."

 Chapter 504 - Legendary Evolution

    Eiro slowly pushed open the door in front of him and walked into the room that was barely lit up by the dusk''s sun. The moment that they saw him, Leon and Avalin ran toward him happily.


    "Daddy!" They eximed together, and Eiro squatted down to give the two of them a hug, "Hey there, you two. I missed you as well." He said with a smile, and slowly raised his head as he looked at the others, "I missed all of you too, obviously."


    "Did everything work out well?" Rudy asked, wondering if he was able to achieve the thing that he had left for, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yes, I managed to level up a few times. I will take a break for a few days until another guestes to our home, and then I will change my ss." He exined, once more speaking in terms that people would use since there were guards standing near the door that might overhear him.


    "That''s great!" Clementine eximed with a broad smile, although she quickly realized that there was one aspect of Eiro''s evolution that she had to deal with as well, "That means you''ll be in a lot of..."


    "...Yes, I will be, at least I assume so. But don''t worry, I''ll be fine. And if you can''t sleep at night because of it, just let me know, alright?" Eiro said to his daughter, since Clementine was able to sense any sort of pain that other people were feeling. Whenever Eiro was going through a painful evolution before, she was affected by it to an extent as well, because she was sensing Eiro''s pain throughout the whole ordeal, no matter how much he was trying to hide it. She had quite a few sleepless nights through it.


    "Alright..." Clementine muttered, holding her own arm as she slightly looked to the side. Eiro lightly smiled as he walked up to her, giving her a hug as well, "Everything is going to go well, don''t worry. I promise."


    ---


    It''s been a few days since Eiro returned from hunting the wyverns. Armodeus had already turned the ws and fangs into some items, and Koperia had arrived in the middle of thest night.


    sses at the Academy were going to start again in a day. So if possible, Eiro wanted to initiate his evolution today, so that he could slowly get used to teaching while the pain was growing. The Demon made his way to the library, more specifically the hidden part of it, since it was simply incredibly rxing and pleasant to be there. It would be the perfect ce to start his evolution and see what was about to happen to him. Koperia was already waiting there, sitting at one of the desks.


    She looked at Eiro with a seemingly quite curious expression, and crossed her arms, "Are we beginning now?" She asked, and the Demon immediately nodded his head, "Yes, we are." He quickly replied, as he stepped into the center of the room. He was wearing somefortable, loose clothes, something that Koperia was actually surprised to see.


    "I would never have expected to see you in those sorts of rags." Koperia pointed out, but Eiro just rolled his eyes, "They''re morefortable than what I usually wear. And at the start of my evolution, I usually start sweating a lot, so that''s easier to deal with in clothes like this."


    "You have ess to ice magic, simply use that to cool your body down."


    "Heat isn''t the reason why I sweat. I bathe in boiling water, after all." Eiro replied, "It''s more because my body itself is working so quickly that it''s pushing out anything that it can. Usually, along with the sweat, a whole bunch of other stuff is being pushed out. Now, I realize that''s probably impurities in my essence, since the scent is surprisingly simr."


    "...Your essence, you say? Show it to me." Koperia said with her arms crossed, and Eiro let out a slight sigh. He held his hand forward, and started to clean up part of his mana, pulling his essence out of it before pushing it out of his palm. His hand then became covered in that dark, muddy sludge that was his personal essence.


    Koperia''s face convulsed as she even shuddered a bit, "Your essence is quite... vile."


    "Oh really? Then what about you, what does your essence look like?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, and Koperia quickly held her hand forward, and pushed her essence out in a simr fashion to Eiro. She personally didn''t have ess to the Ancient Language Comprehension skill, so the pure mana that she formed inside of her body simply dissipated the moment she split her essence off of it. But more importantly, Eiro couldn''t believe his eyes when he saw Koperia''s essence.


    Its color was a clean silver, but it was somewhat transparent and seemed quite simr to a liquid gemstone. And the scent... It wasn''t what Eiro expected either. He had thought that he was about to smell the scent of death, but all that he was met with was the smell of a particr flower, the corpse blossom. It was a sickly sweet flower, created to attract bugs that would feed on the corpse and take it apart so that the flower itself could feed on the leftover nutrients more easily. It was a fitting scent if you knew the effect of the nt, but otherwise, it was something that rather opposed the image that Eiro had of Koperia.


    "As I said, I have never seen such a vile mana... What does that tree you nted look like? Knowing Jura, before letting you study under him, he had you grow your own, personal tree." She pointed out, and Eiro just scratched the back of his head.


    "You''re right... My tree is really quite different to my essence, which is a bit weird. Not that I''mining, though. My hand is made from its wood, so if it had the same scent as my essence, that would be an issue."


    "Ah, right, that''s how he would make those personalized prosthetics... It really does not seem anything like you''re essence. Interesting, really."


    "Well, the seed that Jura picked out for my tree was a special one as well, I think. Maybe it reacted positively with my essence."


    "That is indeed quite likely. But no matter that, we came here for a reason. I want to witness a Legendary Evolution, so get on with it."


    "You realize that the evolution will take quite a while, right?" Eiro pointed out with a wry smile, but Koperia simply shrugged, "It can''t be that bad, can it?"


    Eiro smiled wryly, since he was hoping that this was the case as well. But either way, Eiro just took a deep breath.


    "Now, let''s start my evolution." He muttered, and the moment he said this phrase, that weird system appeared from the center of his chest again.


    <strong><i>{[Do you wish to initiate your Legendary Evolution?]}</i></strong>


    "Yes." Eiro replied, and immediately, the window changed.


    <strong><i>{[Warning: You will not be able to ess system information throughout your evolution]}</i></strong>


    <strong><i>{[Base Evolution Time: 1 Year]}</i></strong>


    "...Excuse me..?" Eiro muttered with a wry smile, and Koperia walked up to him with a frown, "What''s the issue?"


    The Demon turned his head toward her and exined what it said, "It seems like the evolution will take a... a whole year..."


    "...A whole year?"


    "A whole year..."


    "That''s way too long..."


    "I know it is! I don''t want to wait that long either!"


    <strong><i>{[The System has recognized dissatisfaction with the evolution time. This value has been calcted due to the energy collected by the consumption of different probabilities. Do you wish to give more energy to the evolution?]}</i></strong>


    "If that speeds it up, then yes. What can I give to the evolution?"


    <i><strong>{[These</strong></i><strong></strong><i><strong>o</strong><strong>ptions</strong><strong> have been found]}</strong></i>


    <i><strong>-{[Initiation of the royal ascension will create energy to reduce the evolution time by 6 Months]}</strong></i>


    <i><strong>-{[Temporary connection subversion between you and nar gateways will give ess to reduce the evolution time by 2 Months]}</strong></i>


    <i><strong>-{[Destruction of the Mark of the Devil and Mark of Wrath will create energy to reduce evolution time by 1 Month]}</strong></i>


    Eiro raised his brows surprised. That meant... Throughout this evolution, he would not only turn into a royal at the same time, but he would also get rid of the Mark of the Devil and Mark of Wrath that were bothering him so much? The only issue was the second one...


    "What are the drawbacks of each of those..?" He asked with a deep frown, and the writing on the special notification changed immediately.


    <strong><i>{[The general reduction of evolution time will cause the evolution to undergo more violently]}</i></strong>


    <strong><i>{[The addition of the royal ascension will affect the evolution and will cause it to undergo more violently]}</i></strong>


    <strong><i>{[The subversion of energy from nar gateways will stop you from essing the energy from those gateways yourself, restricting your summoning of elements]} </i></strong>


    <strong><i>{[The destruction of two marks will cause the magical wavelength to be interrupted, causing a considerable weakening of magical capabilities during the time, and the evolution will undergo more violently]}</i></strong>


    Eiro looked at the window in front of him with a wry smile, not sure how he was supposed to react. So basically, the evolution will be much more excruciating, his magic will be weakened by a lot, and he won''t be able to summon mes or water... But at the same time, he will be a royal when it''s over, and he''s going to be freed from any sort of control that the Devil might have over him. It was an alright price to pay, considering that the evolution time will be reduced by nine months on top of that.


    "Well, this is... great..." Eiro muttered with a wry smile, as he slowly nodded his head, "Fine, take the energy from all of that, and reduce the evolution time to three months. Is there anything else?"


    <strong><i>{[Further energy sources could not be located]}</i></strong>


    "Alright, then start the evolution. Better than a year, at least."


    <strong><i>{[The evolution has been initiated]}</i></strong>


    <strong><i>{[Final Evolution Time: 3 Months]}</i></strong>


    <strong><i> </i></strong>


    Immediately, the notification window in front of Eiro disappeared again, pressing itself into Eiro''s chest once more. And the moment that it really disappeared, it seemed like the evolution actually started.


    Everything was fine for a few moments, but then, everything started all at once. Eiro''s veins bulged up, and he was starting to feel nauseous. He fell to his knees as the world started to spin around him.


    Koperia immediately jumped up and rushed over to Eiro, together with Nelli, Gondos and Sarius of course.


    "Are you alright?" Koperia asked, and Eiro held his hand in front of his mouth. His face had gone incredibly pale.


    "Yeah... Yeah, I''ll be fine..." Eiro muttered. But at the same time, he knew.... the evolution would only get much, much worse than it was now.

 Chapter 505 - Creativity

    Eiro wasying in his bed, he was violently convulsing and sweating rivers. His muscles bulged up, blowing up like balloons just to dete again a momentter. He just entered the peak of one of the first waves of strong change that his body was going through.


    These were always a thing that he had to deal with during his evolutions, but they were never this painful this early on. And considering how long this whole evolution would take, and how quickly the first wave came, it was clear that this evolution would be a tough one.


    But nheless, Eiro made some choices. Choices that could break him if he wasn''t careful. But more importantly, choices that would make him much, much more powerful once this evolution was over. He had manipted his personal chaos simrly to how he did with Jess, James, and Krog''s, just that in this cse, he manipted it to strengthen the growth of every single aspect of his being. His muscles, his mind, his senses... everything waspletely on fire at the moment.


    And on top of all that, something else would be happening now. Koperia walked up to Eiro''s bed, where he wasying half-naked in preparation of this, and sat down on the bed''s edge, "Shall we begin?" She asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, keeping his eyes squeezed shut.


    With a smile on her face, Koperia climbed further onto the bed, sitting down on his lower abdomen. She pressed her hands onto his chest, running her fingers along the patterns created by Eiro''s blessings, intricately running across his skin. And as her fingers grazed Eiro''s flesh, they suddenly dug into it. And it wasn''t that she was physically pushing her fingers through his skin, but her hands were turning into something new, something ethereal. They were being pushed through Eiro''s physical body, and instead interacted with his own ethereal body, his soul.


    She grabbed his soul and slowly interacted with it. Eiro was basically able to feel it trante to his body. His skin was bulging up and down right where Koperia pushed and pulled on his soul. And then, Eiro could start feeling something change on his chest. His flesh was feeling... weaker. Sponge-like, basically, as Koperia tried to subtly adjust the shape of the soul to properly fill out Eiro''s body. There was little to do along Eiro''s torso and legs for the most part, but even then there were aspects that needed a bit of Koperia''s influence.


    In these early stages, Eiro''s soul was still more ''solid'' than during thetter parts, so this was a great chance to get all of these things out of the way. Andter, when the soul was reshaping itself some more along with Eiro''s body, Koperia would take care of other parts of his fomr, like his head, wings and tail.


    But at the same time, since Eiro''s soul still was quite solid, this part was probably a lot more painful than the rest would be. Or so he was hoping, at least.


    "We will continue this for an hour or two, and we will do the same each night until these parts are solid. It should take a week or two to get these basic forms out of the way, and then we will get to the rest of your body. At that point things should proceed a lot more quickly. After we fixed everything in that regard, I will simply support your physical changes. Help your soul move into its proper space." Koperia exined to him, and Eiro simply nodded his head. His throat was feeling weirdly sore, so he wasn''t able to speak that well at the moment.


    Was something going to change about his voice as well? That was the only reason he could think of why he wasn''t able to properly speak right now. For now, Eiro tried to get through everything without convulsing too much, so that Koperia didn''t identally push something in his soul around the wrong way. He turned parts of his skin into metal, thickening it around his joints to make it basically impossible for him to move some parts of his body around, just to make everything a bit easier.


    A few hourster, Koperia slowly pulled her hands back out of Eiro''s chest. The ethereal glow and translucency slowly faded away, and she climbed off of him, "I think that worked out pretty well for today. Tomorrow we''ll work on parts of your lower abdomen." She exined, rubbing her hands with some cloth, as if she was trying to dry them off.


    "You''re being pretty quiet today, huh?" Koperia asked, and Nelli soon appeared next to Eiro, and the Demon chose to speak through her. They were able tomunicate telepathically, after all.


    "His throat is being affected as well, so he can''t properly speak." Nelli exined, and Koperia slowly shrugged, "Well, it''s not a big deal. You usually speak enough to make up for this. But won''t this be a bit bothersome when you start to teach again?"


    "It will be, but Eiro said he would figure something out." Nelli exined, and Koperia actually seemed rather curious.


    ---


    "Wee back. I hope your short vacation was fun for you all." A voice echoed through the ssroom, "In today''s returning ss, we''re going to be doing something a bit more fun, something without any pressure, to slowly get you into sses again. And what I am talking about might be rather clear with this small trick that I''m demonstrating to you right now." The voice exined next.


    The voice was one created by magic, throughplex maniption of air magic andbining it with arcane magic. Arcane magic was able to be used to create plenty ofplex magical effects like these, "Also, before we begin, I want to apologize that I am using this magic to speak to you. I injured my throat casting some new magic I wanted to try out." Eiro exined, "But again, it''s a great chance to teach you these sorts of things. I have told you all before that magic has different, unique uses outside of what is usually discussed. Being able toe up with unqiue uses for magic will help you in any situation. Just having that capability will give you ess to new uses for yourbat spells, or new applications for utility spells."


    The kids in the ss started muttering to each other about the content of this ss, as Eiro smiled and continued, "For the next few weeks, each of you will be working on a project. If you want to, you can form small groups of two or three people, but I am expecting the scale of the project to reflect the amount of people involved. The goal of this project is simple. Create a unique, creative new spell."


    The students looked back at Eiro confused, since they were aware of how much such a task entailed. One of them raised their hands to ask a question, and Eiro pointed at him to signal that he should speak.


    "Can''t only really experienced mages create new spells? And ones with really high stats and skill levels..?" He asked.


    Eiro quickly responded, "Obviously, I''m not asking you to fully create a new spell, I''m not some maniac. I''m asking you to create the concept for a new spell. Think of a new theoretical application. If you want to, you can go as far as you want with this, of course. I don''t even mind if you manage to get a more experienced mage create prototype magic circle or something like that, you can take it as far as you want. Flesh it out if you wish. But all that''s required is to give me a concept. This project will be graded, but it''s only a small part of your final grade. Even then, you are required to hand something in to pass. But if you have situations that make this harder for you, feel free toe and talk to me about it, and we can make arrangements."


    The Demon was using thisplex magic, but he needed to concentrate on it much, much more than he thought. Much more of his mana than normal was used, considering theplexity of the spell. This was one of the drawbacks of reducing the time that it took for him to evolve.


    "Go ahead and start working on this now. Form groups if you want, just brainstorm with yourselves, just go ahead. You have ate deadline for this anyway, two months from now." Eiro exined. Quickly, the students began talking to each other, and noise started filling out the room while Eiro was able to use this time to rx a little bit more. Surely, the changes to his throat were going to be over rtively soon, so he should be able to talk again properly when it came to that.


    While the students were working, Eiro started observing his own body again, although he had a tough time properly concentrating. Since he was influencing his own mind by manipting his chaos, he had a bit of trouble keeping up his concentration, especially after he had to concentrate on that voice spell just now.


    But even then, Eiro was able to see what changes were happening to his body right now. The muscles in his torso were being moved around for some reason, and even his skeletal structure was changing somewhat. He wasn''t sure what exactly was going to happen, though. Maybe just some changes to his wings that would make them more powerful. But even then, he was in quite a lot of pain.


    It was just something that he had to deal with for now, though.. It would definitely pay off.

 Chapter 506 - Splits And Fusions

    Eiro slowly opened his eyes, looking at the ceiling of his bedroom. He slowly turned his head toward the side, looking at these new things that he had to bother with. He carefully stood up, but his shoulders were in so much pain that he had a tough time pushing himself off his mattress.


    "Urgh... I really need to figure out a way to deal with these..." The Demon grumbled quietly, looking at his arm. He rubbed its underside a little bit, feeling it practically cave in in response to his touch, as if his arm simply turned hollow.


    "This is so ufortable..." Eiro grumbled quietly, but Nelli quickly appeared next to him and tried to cheer him up a bit, "It''s only been a month, I''m sure things are going to work out properly in the end!" She eximed, "And also, having those will definitely be useful, right?"


    "I don''t know, maybe? Either way, I''ll have to adjust my martial arts, and I''ll have to figure out new ways to hide them."


    "I mean, can''t some monsters hide extra limbs in their bodies? You said something was changing about your back simr to your arm, right? Maybe it just means that you can like, push shit in there?" Sarius suggested, and Eiro raised his brows in thought.


    "...Maybe. I really don''t know." The Demon sighed, as he slowly rubbed one of the extra limbs that were currently growing on his body. As it turned out, the changes to the muscture all over Eiro''s upper torso weren''t because something was happening to his wings, although they did change shape a little bit, but rather, the changes were happening in preparation for somethingpletely different.


    Eiro was growing two new arms. Directly underneath his armpit, the base of those new arms was currently forming. They were still quite thin and frail, but they were at least taking shape. To an extent, at least. There was something kind of wrong with the structure of the arm, on its upper side. Eiro was a bit worried that this evolution was somehow going wrong. It was initiated by that weird system window, after all. Maybe his arms were supposed to just grow stronger, and something went wrong and he grew two new arms, while all of them have this weird ''hollow'' aspect to it that was clearly messing things up with the Demon''s strength.


    At the very least, there was one good thing about everything that was happening, though. Despite the fact that he was in so much horrendous pain at the moment, he never felt more calm. This was probably a thing because the Mark of the Devil and the Mark of Wrath were taken apart rtively quickly. He couldn''t confirm whether it was truly gone yet, since he can''t interact with the system during an evolution, but it certainly felt like it. Maybe part of it was just the sheer amount of exhaustion that this evolution was bringing onto Eiro.


    The Demon took a deep breath and quickly got dressed. He tried to press his new arms onto the sides of his body as much as possible, and was wearing wide clothes to hide these new bulges on his torso. Bavet was able to transform them into other things to an extent, but he couldn''t do that much. At the very least, he was able to turn Eiro''s wings into something like a long trenchcoat that let Eiro cover everything up easily.


    Soon after getting dressed, Eiro made his way to the sitting room that was mostly used, since it was near the manor''s entrance, and took a seat on one of the couches. He only had a handful of sses to teach today. Luckily, it wasn''t actually required by teachers to be all too active, otherwise this would be rather tough to deal with.


    Eiro slowly touched his hand to his throat, trying to rub it a little bit. It was still feeling slightly ufortable, especially the more he ended up speeking with it. His voice didn''t particrly change too much. It felt a bit cleaner, although it was quite raspy at the moment because of the irritation in Eiro''s throat. Otherwise, Eiro had a much higher amount of control of his voice. His tongue had changed in structure as well, which made eating incredibly painful for a few days, letting him control it to a higher extent. Mostly, this meant that Eiro was able to produce moreplex tones with his voice and mouth, and he was able to speak a lot quicker while still being clear in his pronunciation. This part will probably end up helping with the chanting of spells. The issue with that before now as that Eiro was simply unable to speed up his speech at all, and if he tried, the words would end up being slurred. But since a chant was required to be spoken clearly, it never worked out. However, now, that was different.


    Eiro was able to pronounce things a lot more easily.


    And also, when Eiro''s voice-box was affected by his physical changes, the amount of vocal cords that he had changed quite a bit as well. Originally, one only had two vocal cords that actually produced sound. They would vibrate against each other as air passed through, creating the sound in question.


    However, Eiro now had four vocal cords that he seemed to be able to produce sound with. He could control just one pair, like he did now, to produce normal sounds, or he could use both of them, making it practically sound as if two people were speaking at once. And most importantly, he could manipte each pair of vocal cords separately from each other. So while one was producing a high-pitched sound, the other could produce an opposing low-pitched sound.


    Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what sort of purpose this change had, but it might end up being useful somehow... maybe the amount of vocal cords used in speech influenced how strong the effect of the charisma stat would work. But for now, it was really just a bit of a weird gimmick that he could y around with when he wanted to. Surely, a lot of other things were going to change about Eiro from now on, and everything would make a lot more sense.


    ---


    "Yes." ¨C "No." Eiro said. Both at the same time. He was saying two very different words at the same exact time. It has been two months since his evolution had begun, and a lot of things were now starting to make sense.


    For one, Eiro''s mouth had changed quite a bit. A week or so ago, his tongue suddenly split in half, and Eiro was able to manipte each half like it was its own separate tongue. And then, the muscles around his mouth changed, allowing him to control the form of the left side and the right side at an incredible level of independence if he wanted to. Worst of all, the edge of his mouth split open far onto his cheeks, nearly reaching his ears. And now, as if it was a natural ability that he had in the first ce, with just a single thought he could control the air in his mouth, creating a barrier of sorts between the two halves of his mouth, each keeping separate sounds in. Like this, Eiro had be able to say two different things at the exact same time.


    Of course, many would say that Eiro now looked far more monstrous and horrifying than before, which was true to an extent, but luckily, another change of Eiro''s body slowly ended up making sense.


    Eiro''s two new arms had fully grown in within thest month, and when they did, the underside of the upper arms and the upper side of the lower arms had be properly ''solid'' again instead of hollow. At least for a little while. If Eiro wanted to, he could split open each of his arms, making them basically... fuse togehter. It was like someone ripped open his arms with long cuts, and was now trying to fit them together like a puzzle. Like this, his arms of course looked a lot thicker and muscr than before, but they seemed to nearlypress themselves to make them still look natural.


    This same physical ability was something applied to Eiro''s mouth and tongue. He could make the edges of his mouth and his tongue somewhat fuse together again to the extent where it was impossible to tell that something had changed about them.


    His back seemed to be changing in a simr way, which would most likely allow Eiro to pull his wings and tail into his torso somehow. Most likely, this was an ability given as Eiro''s body evolved along with the title of ''The World'' being activated within him, giving his flesh the ability to fuse with itself.


    However, there was one issue that came with this. Specifically, with his new right arm. The left side seemed to have evolved perfectly, and his lower left hand would just be pulled into Eiro''s higher left hand, but on the right side this wasn''t possible due to his prosthetic hand. Eiro had thought that maybe he would regrow his old right hand, but rather, the new hand that he was given on his lower right arm had a different form to the others when it split open.


    Eiro''s left hands basically just fused together,pleting each other. But Eiro''s new right hand simply opened up and swallowed Eiro''s prosthetic like a glove. When this happened, Eiro was still able to cast spells through his prosthetic anyway, meaning that this part wouldn''t change.


    But there was one more thing that changed about his right hand. And this time, it was the prosthetic. He couldn''t confirm it with his status, but it was as clear as day. Eiro''s body had fully epted the prosthetic as its true, new hand.

 Chapter 507 - Lion

    Eiro stretched out his four arms for a moment. They were feeling incredibly sore, probably because Eiro was currently entering thest stretches of his current evolution. The Demon swiftly pressed his arms together, making them fuse into two instead of four. For a moment they were quite thick and log-like, but his flesh soonpressed itself and his arms looked quite normal just a few secondster.


    The Demon grabbed his jaw and tried to get rid of its soreness. Lately, even that part of his body had be something that he could influence separately to an extent. The way his mouth worked was quite interesting now. At this point, he could split his mouth into two, including everything that came with it, including teeth, so that he could create two separate, full mouths on his cheeks. He could use both of them to speak at once without issue, even being able to speak about two separate things with ease. His mind had be capable of that. And it wasn''t just that he was suddenly much more intelligent, which Eiro did assume he was to an extent, but rather, certain structures of his brain had changed to allow for parallel speech in this manner.


    But at the same time, this felt quite weird, and looked even weirder outwardly. He didn''t even show it to Avalin and Leon because he knew that it would scare them, since even the rest were quite shocked by what they were seeing.


    "You guys, are you ready to go?" Eiro asked, peaking his head into the sitting room. The children all seemed to be properly dressed, and ready and eager to head off.


    "Alright, perfect. I''ll feed the wyverns real quick and then I''ll join you all." The Demon exined to them, straightening the tie that he was wearing. Eiro quickly made his way to the gardens, and soon reached the greenhouse that he had constructed a while ago. After everything had been built by the people that Eiro hired, the demon had filled it with different, more ''exotic'' nts. He wanted to create a practically tropic climate in there, since it was the best climate for the wyverns whose eggs Eiro had brought with him.


    Eiro whistled for the wyverns with one of his mouths, using the other to speak instead, "Come here, food''s ready." The Demon eximed, and the wyverns jumped down from the trees just a few momentster. They immediately rubbed their bodies on Eiro''s legs, since they were currently just newborn hatchlings, and were as such still just the size of a housecat.


    With a smile on his face, after turning his two mouths into one again, Eiro fed the small wyverns the chunks of raw meat that he had prepared for them.


    "Oi, stop it, leave some to your brother." Eiro grumbled with a frown, pushing one of the wyverns out of the way to feed the smallest of the batch. Once all of them were fed, Eiro just rubbed their heads for a little while, to make sure that they were happy and healthy. Eiro had already managed to get rid of the mark of gluttony''s effect with Bavet''s help. Since the mark could only really form once the wyverns had been born, Bavet was able to seal away the mark in the process. It was still there for now, but the wyvern''s wouldn''t be affected by that insatiable hunger as all those others were. And on top of that, Bavet had also already helped seal the monstrosity of the wyverns before they were even born, really making them just small dogs with wings.


    "I''ll be back with more food tomorrow. Don''t fight with each other, alright?" Eiro said with a smile, and the wyverns all started to scatter around the room. Eiro left the greenhouse and made sure to lock the door, even protecting it through an arcane ''lock'' spell that would protect the whole structure in another way.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he pped his wings, quickly bringing him back to the manor''s door. He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes as he folded up his wings, pulling them into his back. It felt a bit tight and stuffy, but it wasn''t that bad once Eiro''s back properly closed up. His tail also quickly rolled up and was pulled into the Demon''s lower back. Luckily, Armodeus was skilled in numerous different areas of craftsmanship, and was able to tailor him a special-made suit that had hidden parts to it that he could push his wings and tail through if he needed to.


    The only thing that he would now have to hide were his horns... a slightly troublesome issue. His wings had grown in size quite considerably. More colors had been added to the arrangement, and now they were really sitting atop Eiro''s head like a crown, stretching out into different directions. And now, when Bavet transformed Eiro''s body and horns, his hair ended up being quite long, reaching the center of his back.


    Since Eiro''s body looked slightly bulkier at the moment, as it was bulging up just topress itself within the next few days after that, this long, rainbow-colored hair looked quite weird in Eiro''s opinion. However, he simply tied it up into a ponytail to make it at least appear shorter, and then Eiro just had to deal with it for a while until he figured something else out.


    "Honestly, it''s quite pleasant to not have to transform your wings and tail like that... just changing the color of your skin from red and blue to that of pale flesh, and turning your horns into locks, is really pretty rxingpared to before~!" Bavet pointed out as the two had been fused, and Eiro let out a deep sigh while putting on his suit jacket.


    "Right." Eiro rolled his eyes a bit and fixed the cement of the decoration on his suit a bit. He was a baron, so he had to have these sorts of things on his suit properly, "Now, let''s go."


    "Huh? But Armodeus isn''t ready yet, right?" Rudy asked, and Eiro quickly shook his head, "He''s ready, he''s justing down the stairs." Eiro replied, as he threw a small ring over through the door.


    "Did any of you-" Armodeus started, although he was interrupted as the small item he was looking for already hit his chest. He quickly caught it, and looked back at Eiro, "Ah, thanks,d."


    The elder dwarf quickly continued weaving his beard, using the ring that Eiro threw at him as an essory. This was traditional dwarven beard-decoration, so it was something that Armodeus tried to wear as much as he could during these sorts of official events.


    "I''m still quite jealous of your hands. You did that in less than a second." Eiro pointed out as he closed the buttons of his jacket, but Armodeus scoffed in response, "Lad, you''ve got four hands. I''m the jealous one."


    "We get it, you''re both jealous of the other. Can we go now?" Arc asked with a light frown, and Eiro turned his head, "Arc, calm down. Happy thoughts. We don''t want your skill to-"


    "How can I think happy thoughts when that pair of sperm and egg donors is gonna be there?" Arc groaned loudly, and Eiro sighed deeply, "By realising that this event will help you forever be rid of them."


    "...Fine. I''ll try." Arc said, walking ahead through the hallway to get outside. Eiro turned his head to the side to look at his friends, "Are you three ready to go as well?"


    Krog looked back at Eiro nervously, as he put on his slightly too tight jacket, "A-Are you sure that we shoulde along? Eiro, this is a party with literally every ruler of basically every country... Do we belong there?"


    "You do. You''re my fellow party-members, aren''t you?" Eiro pointed out, "Listen, getting along with all those rulers will just bring the party closer to bing S-Rank. You guys want that as well, right?"


    "Yeah, but can''t we do that by just... you know, doing our job?" James asked. Neither him nor Krog were particrly good at socializing, so they weren''t all too excited about this.


    "We could, but it would take a few years longer than if we do this..." Jess exined, "But if we can impress a few kings, we might be S-Rank within a few months, especially once Eiro bes the ''Hero''s Companion''."


    "Yep, that''s exactly it. And also, this is probably exciting for you all as well anyway. The rulers are bringing their own candidates, so you can meet strong people from all over the world." Eiro exined with a grin on his face, and both James and Krog were actually starting to get curious about seeing all those people at that party.


    "Fine. Then let''s go..." James sighed, before Eiro smiled and turned toward his children, "Sounds good." Eiro said, as he squatted down to pick up Avalin and Leon.


    "Let''s go, you two." Eiro said, and the two quickly came up to him. Eiro made sure that Avalin''s contact lenses were properly in her eye, hiding her omnichromatic eyes, and that she was wearing her bracelets and anklets, properly turned into pretty decoration, that would hide her holy aura from leaking out.


    And then, Eiro looked at Leon. He moved his hands through his son''s thick hair, and brushed through it one more time with a deep sigh, "I told you to be more careful with your hair, right? It looks messy like this, and we need you in particr to look good in front of them, okay?"


    "But... I like it like this..." Leon muttered, and Eiro looked back at him with a smile, "I know, so do I. But I want others to see you in your whole beauty." The Demon exined, as he pressed down Leon''s hair, revealing his ears. As Leon matured over the past few months, his ears wandered up his head a bit to a new location, changing shape in the process. He now had a feline''s ears, and amber-colored eyes, and he looked back as his thin tail waved behind him.


    "Don''t worry Leon.. We will show everyone just what an amazing lion you are at that party."

 Chapter 508 - Royal Gathering

    The carriages came to a halt in front of the royal castle, and some servants quickly opened the carriage''s door.


    "Wee, Lord Daemonherz." They said, and a bit away, some other servants were greeting Armodeus and Eiro''s party members. They had split up who would travel in which carriage, and Eiro''s children were all travelling with him in his carriage.


    Eiro stepped out of the carriage, helping his daughters do so as well, since Clementine and Sammy were both wearing dresses that made it harder for them to walk, before he picked up Avalin and Leon again. Eiro turned his head to the side, and saw one of his own servants, the orc who was driving this carriage, release Lugo from the front of the carriage. Just to show him off a little bit, they had connected Lugo there, so that he would be the first one anyone was going to see as the carriages approached.


    The Demon quickly ced Avalin and Leon down on the Stag''s back. He needed both of his hands to be free so that he could properly greet all the other nobles. And it was a good way to show Leon off some more as well. His body had changed so much that it was obvious he was a beastman now. Eiro knew that there were people that liked to discriminate against them in this country, but by showing him off right at the start as his loved son, then nobody would ever think about saying anything against him, especially since there was a certain event nned during today''s party.


    Eiro slowly looked at his hand, ying around with this trick he had been figuring outtely a bit more. Since the Demon was proud of the teachings that Jura passed on to him, Eiro didn''t particrly like that he would have to hide his prosthetic when his arms were ''fused'' together like this. And it seemed like his body quickly responded kindly to that. Since his hand had been fully recognized as part of the Demon''s body now, it seemed like he could ''switch'' which hand he wanted to be in the forefront. And when he wanted to have the prosthetic be shown, Eiro''s other right hand would practically... disappear. As if seeping into the prosthetic somehow. This way, Eiro was able to show off his hand however much he wanted.


    Right now, he was doing just that. It was part of who he was, and a part that he was not scared to show off to others in the slightest. The Demon walked in the front of the group as everyone made their way into the royal castle. And the moment they entered, they were met with the hustle and bustle of a huge party, spreading out to even this part of the castle. Everywhere, numerous royal guards of different countries were walking around, securing the perimeter. Some of them were incredibly strong, to the point where they might have cause Eiro some trouble had he tried fighting against them during one of those stronger waves of his evolution a month or two ago.


    Eiro quickly started greeting some of the nobles that he was seeing there, and they quickly greeted him, as the whole group quickly made their way to the room where the party was actually supposed to take ce.


    "Alright, a few ground-rules. Rudy, this time you won''t help the chefs out, no matter how much they ask you to. Arc, hold off on the alcohol, you know you can''t feel when you''re too drunk. And Clementine, stick to Sammy please, and don''t just try to follow random guys into secluded ces of the castle again, alright?"


    "B-But they said they needed my help with something..." Clementine muttered with her head drooping slightly, and Eiro smiled at her, "Then when they ask you something like that, have Sammy confirm it first, alright? Make sure they''re telling the truth, and if they actually genuinely need help with something,e to me and we''ll figure something out."


    "...Okay, that''s fine..." Clementine slowly nodded her head, and Eiro rubbed her back for a few moments before the group continued.


    The group stepped into the cental hall, and Eiro could immediately feel quite a few eyes on him. Quite literally, actually. Eiro''s instincts had increased like crazy over the past few months, so it was like he was actually able to sense exactly where other people were looking on his body.


    Some seemed to try and figure out how strong Eiro was by looking at his general build. Eiro was a tall man, and currently rather bulky, so it seemed like he had impressed some of the other people here in this hall. It was rather clear to Eiro who exactly the candidates of the different royal families were. For one, because each was actually carrying their weapon of choice with them, as if they were acting like some extrayer of defense in case something was going to happen. Like personal bodyguards or something like that.


    The first person that Eiro naturally approached was Solomon, with Armodeus right beside him. The others all chose to scatter and try to socialize a bit. Well, partially. Arc, James and Krog immediately made their way to the bar.


    The Demon let out a deep sigh as he heard Arc suggest a drinking contest to someone that was obviously the prince of another country, and was even more bothered when that prince agreed.


    "Charles, could you maybe check on Arc at the bar to make sure that he doesn''t identally start a war?" Eiro asked with a deep sigh, and the prince slowly raised his brows, "What? Why would he- urgh, not again... by the gods, that guy can never shut his mouth..."


    "Sorry, but he''ll probably listen to you more than me..."


    "I know, I know, I''m on it." Charles let out a deep sigh as he made his way over to the bar, trying to avoid all the people that were trying to talk to him as he walked. Clearly, there were quite a few people staring at his prosthetics as well. Prosthetics that Eiro had finallypleted just a few weeks ago. Charles had apparently gotten used to them quite quickly. After all, they were basically just like his original limbs, even if they were slightly more awkward to control. But like Eiro, Charles didn''t seem to want to hide the prosthetics. Many other nobles tended to wear gloves, but Charles chose to show his prosthetic arm off a little bit.


    With a light smile, Eiro looked at Solomon, "So, did the meeting go alright earlier?"


    The King simply smiled back in response, "It probably could have gone better, but that was to be expected. I will exin the details to youter. For now, let us enjoy the party."


    "Oh, you mean because of all those rude fuckers listening in on us?" Eiro asked, and managed to sense a few flinches across the room that were clearly caused by him calling these scouts that were ced around the room out like that.


    "...Yes, because of those rude fuckers." Solomonughed slightly, "I assume you''ve got them on your radar now?"


    "Yup, don''t worry." Eiro replied with a smile, as Solomon turned his attention toward Armodeus, "Anyway, how about you? I heard you only returnedst week. Are you settling in alright now that you officially live here?" The King asked, before the elder dwarf simply replied with a light chuckle.


    "I have basically lived here for a few months already, now it is just official. But yes, I am settling in alright." He exined, and Solomon replied with a slight nod, "I''m d to hear that. If you need anything, let me know."


    "Of course." Armodeus replied immediately. Eiro turned his head to the side, seeing that there were plenty of people just staring at the stag right behind Eiro. Of course, Lugo himself was quite a unique sight for these parts, but the two children on his back didn''t quite help that uniqueness either, especially considering that it was quite obvious Leon was a beastman now.


    "And you''re sure you didn''t want to hide this for today?" Solomon asked, noticing where Eiro was looking, and the Demon simply smiled at him, "Of course I don''t want to hide this. Why would I?" Eiro asked with a smile, "Leon is a beastman from the lion n, but he is also my son. And I want to make sure that both of these facts are known to the people gathered here today." Eiro said bluntly, noticing that a certain few people were currently approaching Lugo. Or rather, Leon.


    They were beastmen themselves, and they turned toward Eiro with deep res as they got closer to him. And then, Eiro heard some whispers from them, the two beastmen that were currently approaching Leon, "How dare that man..? Having such a young child as his ve, showing him off to proof how prosperous he is? Disgusting..."


    "Let us rescue him. He will be happy if we can give him some money for this child." The other replied, and Eiro''s heart immediately skipped a beat. He was stunned for a moment or two, when he saw that those two were actually quite close to Lugo now. Eiro pressed his foot into the ground, and the air cracked as the Demon shot forward like a bullet.


    He came to a halt right in front of the two, moving through the room in just an instant. It seemed like none of the people, with the exception of a few, that had been watching Eiro until now had been able to follow along with his speed.


    And not even the two beastmen could respond as Eiro stood in front of them, staring at the two. The mark of wrath was gone, but that didn''t mean that Eiro wasn''t predisposed to a certain amount of anger anyway.


    "And what do you two think you''re doing?!"

 Chapter 509 - Tigers

    "And what do you two think you''re doing?!" Eiro asked with a growling voice, ring at the two beastmen in front of him. They looked back at him startled, since Eiro appeared in front of them as if he teleported there within an instant. But one of them was able to quickly get a grasp of what was going on, and who this man in front of them was.


    "Well, I guess this is a good chance. We will buy that ve from you, name any price." He said, pointing at Leon in the process. The nobles that knew Eiro already, and in turn also knew about Leon, were muttering amongst themselves. They were aware of Eiro''s power, and some even were aware of his temper.


    Eiro could see Gilharts and Kiliars standing in the corner of the room near the king of their kingdom, just smirking to themselves about what was going on. But he didn''t want to deal with them for now, and simply sighed in response.


    "I know what''s going on here, but I just want to point out... Leon isn''t my ''ve''. very is illegal in Skyhart." Eiro exined, as he turned around to pick up Leon off of Lugo''s back. He brought him a bit closer toward the two men in front of him, knowing that they would never be able to do anything to Leon while he was holding him like this.


    The two beastmen stared at Eiro confused, "Then why is that child here? Did you not force him to mature this early to have a powerful force..?"


    Eiroughed and shook his head immediately, "No, of course I didn''t. I''m Leon''s father. Not biologically of course, I''m not a beastman as you can see, but I''m still his father. I heard his first words, I saw his first steps. I''ve been there for him nearly every day of his life for eight years. There were some situations with his health that we needed to be treated, and that treatment seemed to have caused him to mature earlier than normal." The Demon exined, and the two beastmen just kept staring back at Eiro.


    Solomon was going to run up to Eiro to make sure that he didn''t kill these two in the middle of this hall, but he had to stop, stunned at Eiro''s tone of voice. He didn''t expect his friend to be able to remain genuinely calm like this.


    Eiro turned around and smiled at the people around him, "I apologize for raising my voice so suddenly. Please continue your celebrations." Eiro eximed, as he slowly looked at the two beastmen, "Can I ask you two to apany me to the balcony, to have a proper conversation about this?"


    The two of them looked back at Eiro confused, but soon agreed, since they really wanted to understand the situation. Their goal was to save a young child ve, after all. Eiro left Avalin with Solomon, and walked out onto the balcony with Leon in his arms as well as the two beastmen. Eiro took a deep breath as he turned around, looking at these two men.


    "I know that you two are most likely used to seeing beastmen as nothing but ves. And yes, the people in this country are still not particrly... well, happy seeing beastmen around. They''re rare this far up north, you know?" Eiro exined, "But again, Leon isn''t a ve. He''s my son."


    "...Why would you raise a child that is not yours?" One of the two asked, and Eiro smiled back at them, "But Leon is my child, in nearly every conceivable way, just not in that one single respect."


    "Do you think we would just believe something like that?" The other beastman said, the one that was rtively silent until now. His friend looked at him with a deep frown, since he seemed more convinced that Eiro was telling the truth, "Do not be so rude, Hijar."


    "Ohe on, he''s a human! All they do is lie and steal, and-"


    Eiro interrupted the man in front of him with nothing but augh, and the two beastmen looked at him confused, "What are youughing about?"


    "The fact that you really think I''m human. Have you ever seen a human with rainbow-colored hair like mine? I''m not going to tell you what I truly am, but I just need to make it clear, I am not a human. And either way, things like this matter quite little to me. The one I love is the descendant of an angel, the only man I will ever consider a parent wasbeled a traitor to people by ignoring matters such as a being''s race when he saved it. We all breathe the same air, the all walk the same ground. As long as you don''t try to hurt me, I will not try to hurt you. That''s the philosophy I try to live by, even if it gets hard sometimes." Eiro exined, as he looked at Leon resting in his arms, nearly falling asleep in even a situation like this, "I am Solomon''s, this kingdom''s ruler, candidate for the tournament of this country that is soon to happen. The only reason why I am joining that tournament is to give me the chance to make a difference, to change this world into a better, safer ce for my children and their loved ones to live in." Eiro exined with a gentle, genuine smile. He was happy that he could exin his views to these two strangers like this without growing uncontrobly angry. He managed to ignore his own thoughts, and was activelypassionate to strangers for once. It was a weird, but nice, feeling.


    The two beastmen in front of Eiro didn''t know what to say exactly to what he had just told them. It took a few moments for them to look at each other,ing to a conclusion.


    "We apologize for our assumptions. We thought you were like the nobles we know. You seem kind. But there is something that I must ask of you. The two of us are also candidates ced into our own country''s tournament by our king. During the ''entertainment'' portion of tonight''s party, will you do us the honor of battling one of us?" One of them, the older of the two, asked. The younger, Hijar, didn''t seem that excited about it, though, but he just went along with it for now.


    "I would dly battle the two of you."


    "The two of us? What, you gonna fight twice in a row?" Hijar scoffed, and Eiro softly smiled back, "Of course not. You two are a team, aren''t you? If you are fine with it, I wouldn''t mind fighting the two of you at once." Eiro pointed out with a light smile. The older of the twoughed in kind, realising that Eiro was clearly joking, but Hijar wasn''t that understanding.


    "Hah, right! I bet you won''t even be able to beat me in a one on one fight, and I''m way weaker than my brother. He''s definitely going to win the tournament. I''d be surprised if you came in even third in yours." Hijar said with a grin, but Eiro simply smiled back, "Then let''s test thatter, shall we? Hijar, would you like to fight against me during the entertainment partter?"


    "Fine! But when I win, you have to bow down to me and my brother and, in front of everyone, announce that we are superior to you in every way." Hijar eximed. While his brother was embarrassed by what he said, Eiro couldn''t help himself but smile. He could definitely imagine Arc saying something simr to these two.


    "Alright. And if I win, you two will sit down with me and exin some things about your culture to me. I was nning on travelling south to learn more about beastmen anyway, and having you two exin some things, such as those aspects of your culture that you wouldn''t find written down in books, would be helpful to me for now. You two are from the tiger n, correct?"


    "...I would be happy to do that anyway." The older of the two exined, "If it''s for that young one, then that''s not an issue."


    "Thank you. But there is little else I want from you two, so that is the only thing I can ask."


    Hijar scoffed, "You realize that this means that once you lose, we won''t teach you that stuff, right?"


    "Hm? Ah, of course. But don''t worry, I won''t lose." Eiro said bluntly, as he stepped past the brothers, "Ah sorry, I caught the young one''s name, but what about you?"


    "My name is Biril." The beastman replied immediately, and Eiro smiled at him, "Biril and Hijar, then. My name is Eiro, it is a pleasure to meet you."


    "Eiro? Your name is Eiro? But-" Hijar eximed, "Isn''t it seen as disrespectful to name your children that on this continent? Who in their right mind would..?"


    "It''s a name given to me by my children, actually. We met under ratherplicated circumstances." Eiro exined, as he turned back around and made his way back to the main hall where the party was still continuing on, while Biril and Hijar were standing there, perplexed after meeting someone as unique as Eiro clearly was. The Demon looked at his son with a smile, "Those two were beastmen like you, wasn''t that exciting?"


    "...They''re scary..." Leon muttered. Eiro figured that he thought something along these lines, as he was shivering and silent throughout that whole conversation. Eiro smiled at him as he set him down onto the ground next to Avalin, "Don''t worry, you don''t need to be scared of them.. They seem like good people to me."

 Chapter 510 - An ’even’ Battle

    Eiro walked up the steps of the square stage that had been constructed in the center of this hall just for the purpose of these fights. He slowly took off his suit jacket and threw it to the side, before rolling up the sleeves of his button-up shirt. And after straightening his vest a bit more, Eiro smiled at the young man in front of him.


    "I''m happy that you''re this enthusiastic, but this is just a short spar. There''s no need to switch into full armor." Eiro exined to Hijar, the younger of the two tiger beastman brothers, but he simply red back, "Rather, it''s a bit insulting that you think you can beat me while wearing that sort of stuffy suit..."


    "Well, I''m not, I took off my jacket, you see? So it''s not the full suit." Eiro replied bluntly, something that seemed to annoy Hijar just a bit more. But before the two could continue their conversation, Solomon held a short speech, properly thanking everyone foring, and introducing the people that were going to fight today. Most of the royal families had brought thier own candidates with them over here, so they were the ones that were going to fight for the entertainment today.


    "Of course, since I am the host, I will have my candidate begin the fight." Solomon exined. Everyone seemed rather curious to see all these candidates fight against each other, and were especially excited about this very first fight. Everyone knew that beastmen were extremely physically powerful, so they were mostly expecting that Hijar was going to win, since they didn''t seem to know much about Eiro. And from the fact that he didn''t change into something like armor, they assumed that he was some sort of mage. And that wasn''t directly wrong, but notpletely right either.


    One of the guards from the same country as Hijar quickly handed him his weapons, a pair of scimitars, and Eiro just stood there with his hands behind his back, smiling as he waited for the fight to begin.


    "Huh? You''re gonna fight without a weapon?"


    "Well, I''m quite proficient at hand to handbat, so yes." Eiro replied to his opponent, who seemed even more annoyed and eager to fight now. Eiro himself was actually also quite excited, since it''s been a while since he fought anyone like this. He would be happy to see how he fared against others in this point in his evolution.


    Solomon held a coin in his hand, and eximed, "The moment that this coin hits the ground, the fight begins!" And with that, he flipped it up into the sky. It turned and twisted around itself, soon stopping its ascend. The coin fell quickly, and soon, the sound of the gold coin hitting the floor could be heard throughout the silent hall.


    The moment that this happened, one of the two opposing duelists rushed at the other. It seemed like the fight would be over in nothing but an instant, as the attacknded on the other''s neck. The other was actually confused, trying to pull back since his opponent didn''t even make an attempt at dodging. However, due to the momentum, the de still hit the other''s flesh.


    In his belief that he suddenly beheaded this man, this father of a child he just met, Hijar''s heart skipped a beat. And then, he saw what actually happened. Indeed, the scimitar hit Eiro''s neck, but... it didn''t slide through his neck. Rather, a loud sound echoed out, created by metal hitting other metal.


    A light red, blue and purple metallic patch covered Eiro''s skin. It was thick, creating something of a mound that stopped the scimitar on its path. There was a cut in the metal, but said cut quickly disappeared together with the whole metal.


    Those who thought that the fight was about to end in an instant were standing there in silent shock at what they just witnessed. The attack of a predator beastman, and a feline at that, was stopped by the other''s bare skin? That seemed impossible, but they saw it happen right in front of their faces.


    Eiro slowly raised his hand and slid his fingers across the t side of the scimitar. As soon as he reached the base of the metal that connected to the handle, Eiro pushed the de to the side with ease, causing Hijar to be wide open. With a few smooth sliding motions, Eiro moved his right foot inbetween Hijar''s. He grabbed the beastman''s right shoulder and pulled it forward as he hooked Hijar''s right leg and pulled it toward his other leg. His bnce was immediately destroyed, and Eiro then grabbed Hijar''s other shoulder and pushed him down onto the ground.


    Within just a moment, Hijar had failed to cut through Eiro''s neck and was then thrown to the ground with ease. As Hijar caught his fall, staring at the ground for a few moments afterward, Eiro stepped into the center of the square tform. With a soft smile, he looked at Hijar, "Come on, let''s try this again. And this time, take me serious, will you?" Eiro asked, "We''re here to put on a show, after all, so let''s make it entertaining."


    Hijar pushed himself off the ground while grinding his teeth in anger. He stared back at Eiro, and clutched his scimitars tightly, "You want me to take you on seriously? Fine, then I''ll do just that." Hijar''s red back at Eiro, as the beastman''s muscles suddenly started bulging up. The veins all over his body seemed to pump themselves up like balloons, and Hijar''s hair grew longer and thicker.


    This was a special ability that beastman could train to attain. Beastification. Eiro was honored that he was able to fight again someone with an ability tuned to this extent. Hijar pushed his foot into the ground and rushed forward, and in an instant he stood in front of Eiro, swinging his scimitars at him once more.


    Eiro slid over the ground and dodged, pressing the des away from himself with a precisely positioned push. It wasn''t that easy this time, since Hijar had a strong grasp on them, but Eiro still seemed to be much, much stronger than the beastman, so it was still quite easy for him.


    From this moment forward, Hijar and Eiro began fighting each other properly. One attacked, the other countered. The counter was countered, and that in turn was countered as well. It was a smooth fight that didn''t seem like it wanted to stop. And neither Hijar nor Eior wanted it to stop either, since the two of them seemed to be having quite a bit of fun.


    Hijar''s angry re slowly loosened into an excited, ecstatic grin as he battled this man that he had looked down on just a few minutes earlier. The fight continued on further much longer than anyone had expected, and Eiro made sure that this was the case until the people watching the fight were growing bored. Something that seemed to be happening rather quickly, so Eiro figured he should finish this fight now.


    He intercepted Hijar''s attack and grabbed one of the scimitars on its blunt edge, before twisting his own arm around in a rather unnatural way. At least it was unnatural to others. Eiro''s body had grown incredibly flexible throughout his evolution, and all his joints had an incredible range of mobility now, to the point where the only thing stopping him was the rest of his body that didn''t allow his joints to turn further.


    But that wasn''t the case with Hijar. As Eiro twisted the scimitar around, Hijar''s arm locked up and he was forced to let go of the weapon. And now that his opponent had a free hand, Eiro quickly grasped his arm up to his elbow with his left hand and kicked the side of Hijar''s thigh, pulling and pushing the beastman''s body around however he wanted, causing him to flip around a few times until hended back on the ground, staring at the ceiling of the hall they were in.


    Eiro was still holding onto Hijar''s scimitar that he took from him, and quickly held its tip against the beastman''s throat.


    "I guess this means I win, doesn''t it?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, and Hijar couldn''t help himself but have the broadest smile on his face, despite the fact that he just lost after acting so high and mighty earlier. The onwatchers apuded, although some people were talking to each other about how Eiro couldn''t be ''that'' strong.


    He fought in a way that appeared as if he was evenly matched with Hijar, and those with littlebat experience wouldn''t be able to tell apart their levels of power too well. However, with the exception of a few that weren''t too well-fared in physicalbat either, the other candidates of the royals were staring at Eiro in awe. They were aware that Eiro was much, much more powerful than Hijar, and that he had been practically ying around with him this whole time.


    Eiro helped Hijar stand up, and watched as the beastification subsided. With a broad smile on his face, he looked at Eiro, "I''m sorry about how I acted before! You''re really, really strong! Maybe even as strong as my older brother! Although, my brother can even use some magic, so I''m not sure if you''d be able to beat him..."


    "Oh, magic is actually my expertise." Eiro replied with a smile on his face, and Hijar froze up, "What?"


    "Hm... Hey, Solomon." Eiro looked toward the King, while some of the nobles that heard Eiro speak gasped at the fact that he just called the king by ''Hey, Solomon''. That king in question just sighed in response, "Yes, Eiro?"


    "Do you mind if I show off a bit of magic as well?"


    "...Can you do it without breaking anything?"


    "I''ll take that as a ''go ahead''.." Eiro smiled, as he pped his hands together, "Then let''s go forward with a second show while the others prepare for the next fight."

 Chapter 511 - The Beauty Of Magic

    Eiro kept standing on the center of the stage, and looked around at the people watching him. There was a reason why he wanted to show off his magic to the people here. He wanted to show off his power.


    Not only would this help the standing of Skyhart, being the host of this party, but it would also show everyone part of Eiro''s worth. They would see his power, and realize that he was valuable, that he wasn''t to be antagonized. And the main person that he was aiming for in this regard was the King of Ramguard, the country that both the Kiliar and Gilhart households heeded from.


    Eiro wanted the King to be aware of what a being Eiro was. Whether it would fill him with awe or fear, Eiro wanted to leave an impression on his mind. He wanted the king to yearn for Eiro as an ally, or fear him bing an enemy. Because if he could do that, then Arc and Sammy would be safe from those viins'' grasps.


    That King already seemed to be quite curious about who Eiro was and what he was capable of. Ramguard was a country where very was the norm. Most nobles there wouldn''t pay their servants, they simply bought them. It was disgusting. But at the very least, this meant that they looked at people based on their raw worth, putting a price on people. And if Eiro could make himself seem priceless in the eyes of the king, then this should all work out.


    Eiro held his hand forward with a soft grin on his face, and started drawing magic circles with his prosthetic. The fact that he was able to do this through just his hand was amazing enough to the people watching him, especially those that didn''t know about Eiro yet. Since he had been fighting so expertly with both of his hands, they clearly hadn''t expected his hand to be anything abnormal, as if he was just wearing a glove of sorts.


    The Demon drew an arcane magic circle, and soon activated it. The magic was applied to himself, and he carefully walked forward. The sound of his shoes hitting the ground echoed through the silent room, and continued on even when Eiro stepped off the stage. He took a deep breath as he walked through the air, or rather, on top of the air. Eiro created something like small barriers underneath his feet, which he could use to walk anywhere and anyhow that he wanted to. And of course, it was quite a spectacle. Flying magic in itself was something considered to be of an extremely, extremely high tier, but something like this? It seemed like something from storybooks. Something impossible in itself.


    Eiro walked up invisible stairs, through the air so that he could be on top of the onlookers around him. He snapped just once, and three spirits appeared around him. First, it was Gondos'' turn to help in impressing all these people. Eiro had him create a mass of rock on the center of the stage, just arge, great block, a few meters high. And with just a wave of his hand, Eiro manipted that huge rock and shavedyers off of of it, creating a man of rock that was just suddenly standing there, like a piece of art on disy. Like something that did really belong here in this royal castle.


    With another wave of his hand, Eiro made this statue move around, taking on different forms. As if it was alive, moving in a way that seemed like nothing but natural.


    And then, it was Nelli''s turn. She created bubbles of water all throughout the air. Eiro took control of these bubbles, shaping them into small fish that started swimming around atop the heads of the visitors, swiming just within reach so that the more curious once could attempt to touch, or even catch, one of them.


    Their outeryer was frozen with Eiro''s ice magic, and their ice scales now reflected the light from the candles hanging over them on the chandeliers. The Demon took a deep breath as it now became Sarius'' turn. This sort of magic was still hard to use during this evolution, because he chose to speed the evolution up in exchange for lowering the amount of magic he could use throughout this time.


    Either way, slowly, Eiro took control of the sparks that Gondos was creating for him, turning them into small orbs that were floating even further above the fish. Eiro used shadows, darkening the ceiling to make them look like stars, while snuffing out the candles that illuminated part of this room just before now.


    He also covered the windows with shadows, since the sunlight was still streaming inside, so that Eiro could manipte just how much light was being let into this room.


    And then, Eiro went for his ''finale'', something that would probably drain most of the mana he had in the current state he was in. Once his evolution was over, he should be able to do this as easily as sparking a campfire, but now, it was something that brought him to his limits.


    Eiro used gravity magic, and removed any sort of weight from all the people in this room.


    It was not something that was immediately noticed. At first, they thought their bodies were just lighter out of delight of what they were seeing above them, this beautiful scenery above their heads. But no. The moment they moved, they realized it was much more than that. They slowly lifted up, floating throughout the room. Of course in a controlled way ¨C Eiro made sure to keep anyone from being injured.


    As most people were now floating, Eiro continued to walk through them with a soft smile on his face, as he created simr tforms for his children to stand on like he had for himself.


    "All you that are listening! I wish to make a quick announcement to you all. My name is Eiro Jura Daemonherz, and I will exin to you who I am, and why I am doing what I am doing. These six young ones are my children. Not by blood, but by love. Parental, familial love. They are my children in nearly any way. Five humans, out of which one is a goliath, and one wonderful, young special Lion Beastman. They are the ones that have chosen my name for me. I was a wanderer, living in fear of even the system given to us all, but these children rescued me. They gave me the name of the first hero, and ever since then, I have done all I can in order to be just like that hero to them. Then, there is ''Jura''. It is the name of my father, a man many of you know as the ''Traitor to all people''. He was a woodcarver that spent his life doing nothing but improve the life of others, wether they were people, beasts, or even monsters. He was the kindest man I know, however, his name is one that reminds many of foulness. I carry the name of a man considered nothing but good, and that of a man considered nothing but bad. That is the man I am. I may not be the kindest person you will ever have the chance of encountering, but I am by far not the worst. All I do in my life is give a future to my children, a future in which they can live freely and do whatever they wish. And of course, that involves the ying of the monster king. I am not the kind of person that would call himself stronger than the hero, despite the fact that he is only a child at current times, but I will give all my power to support the hero in the ying of the monster king, to stand by his side as one who will carve the path for peace open to all. I hope that everyone here in this room can support me, and all of us, in that endeavour." Eiro smiled, as he slowly set the people back down onto the ground.


    He wasn''t sure whether or not they were all convinced, but there were little people that weren''t excited about what Eiro just showed to them. Most people loved magic, after all, which is why Eiro showed this to them.


    The king that Eiro was hoping to influence the most was grinning from ear to ear, something that made Eiro d, since it meant that he was most likely able to protect his children with this act.


    Eiro got rid of his magic, and continued to speak, "In one and a half months, the tournaments to choose the hero''spanions will begin. At that time, I hope that I will be one of them.." Eiro said, with a gentle, broad smile on his face, since he genuinely meant what he said.

 Chapter 512 - Frozen Whispers

    Eiro stepped in front of his king with a light smile on his face, "So, how was that?"


    "A little bit overkill, especially with that whole speech... But I''m sure there was a reason for you announcing who your parent is." Solomon pointed out, as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, "At the very least, you are more than just memorable to everyone here now."


    "That was the point, kind of." Eiro pointed out, as he felt something hit his back. It was Clementine, who had rushed up to him after Eiro had let her down just earlier, "Daaad! Why''d you have to do that, that was embarrassing..."


    "Sorry, sorry." Eiro apologized, as he slightly nced out over to the side, looking at a certain man that was now approaching him, "But it seemed to have worked just in our favor."


    The man that was currently approaching them was the King of Ramguard, and Loid Garian Kiliar as well as Aaron Minas Gilhart were following behind him withplicated expressions.


    The King soon stopped, just a few steps away from Eiro. And of course, the Demon immediately bowed forward, "I greet you, your majesty."


    "Ohoho, there is no need for that. This is a party, let us be casual." The King replied, and Eiro of course reacted without hesitation, and followed this king''s words. He could feel Solomon''s stare in the back of his head, as he was clearly annoyed at the fact that Eiro had never greeted him in such a way before.


    "That was quite the show you put on for us. I had no idea kidnappers were so skilled these days." With a light chuckle, the King replied, and Eiro''s soft smile disappeared instantly, "With all due respect, but I''m not a kidnapper."


    "Oh really? I heard differently."


    "You do realize where you are, don''t you? Please do not insult my friend with such statements." Solomon said bluntly, stepping in front of Eiro to face Ramguard''s King himself. The elderly ruler looked back at him as his smile slowly faded away, "Young Solomon. It is nice to see you again. But once more, I simply have to say that I heard differently. Whether what I heard is the truth or not, is a whole separate matter." He exined, slowly turning around to nce at the two men behind him, who were both wearing pensive expressions on their tired faces.


    "I can assure you, it is not." Solomon replied immediately, "I swear upon my honor that those two are the children of my dear friend."


    "Hm... That is all I needed to hear." Ramguard''s King replied as the smile returned to his face, "Of course, there are some discussions to be had. In private, between the involved parties. How about... tomorrow, in the evening, after we have all rested following this party?"


    "I see. Yes, let us get this out of the way before the meeting of kings begins." Solomon agreed, and Ramguard''s King immediately nodded, "I am d we are in agreement, then. Now, there is something else that I would like to ask. However, it is directed at this young man right here."


    Eiro locked eyes with the King, noticing that the royal''s muscles tensed up instantly and for just a second, before he managed to hide his fear behind his smile again, "I would like to ask you for a favor."


    "A favor? After what those two have done, I think I''m the one owed a favor." Eiro pointed out, and the King in front of him stayed silent for a few seconds.


    "That... that may be true, but that is a separate matter that is part of the discussion tomorrow. Rather, I would like to ask you for a favor not wholly unrted to what we have seen earlier."


    "Do you mean the fighting, or the magic?"


    "I mean your ability to handle those beasts in men''s clothing." The King chuckled, "You seem to be quite close to those two over there, at least they have been staring for a while now, and you even managed to create a method of causing maturity before a child''s puberty, as I have seen from that beast child earlier. If you do not mind, and if it is not too much to ask, could you sell me that method? You can have gold to outweigh your whole family, enough ves to make your home seem tiny, and if you wish, I might even be able to offer you and your family a stable position in our country. You are only a baron here, after all, so I''m sure nobody would notice if you left."


    Solomon and Eiro stood there, in utter disbelief at what they were hearing. Neither of them knew how to respond, so someone else spoke for them.


    "What a fucking idiot..." Sarius muttered with a wry smile, and Eiro slowly turned his head to the side, "Before you insult a royal, fucking hide yourself."


    "Huh? Why should I? I stand way above a measly human royal, and you know that. He should be bowing to me right now, just being alowed to bask in my mes."


    "Seriously, you be an asshole in all the wrong moments." Nelli pointed out, pressing her hand onto his face. Steam rose from their bodies, as Sarius'' face was snuffed out by the water.


    "Thank you, Nelli." Eiro sighed deeply, as he turned back toward the King, who was staring at the spirit with fury in his eyes. Actually... maybe what Sarius did was good. Otherwise Eiro would have knocked some teeth out of this king''s mouth, had the smander not shattered the tension like that.


    "A mere spirit, a servant to people, believing himself to be more important than I? What is this? Teach that thing some manners!"


    "Well, I am going to teach him manners, but before you continue to speak, I''m pretty sure you should know that this ''mere spirit'' is the crown prince. The future Smander King." The Demon said, nothing but truth in his words, something that the king seemed to pick up.


    "The future... smander king? How did you get your hands on such an important specimen?!" The King asked, "Please, I will give you anything, just sell it to-"


    "Aight, sorry about this, Solomon." Eiro said, as the Demon slowed down time using the bits of time left in the ring he carried with him. He looked at the man in front of him, and quickly split his mouth in two as Bavet momentarily let go off his face, "Dude, what are you doing..?"


    "Just making sure that this guy shuts it, before I''m forced to make him shut it the hard way." Eiro exined, as he took a step closer toward this man. Using both of his mouths, he whispered into the King''s ears, forcing as much of his charisma into his voices as possible. At the same time, he treated the words he was saying to this King as chants, trying to create a spell based solely off of verbalponents using mana with special attributes. In thest few months, Eiro had a lot of time to study different sorts of magic, especially with Koperia around to tell him some things that he couldn''t find out through books.


    "Be silent." ¨C "Be careful."


    "Stop treating others like objects." ¨C "Hold fear for what they might do to you."


    "Your money is worthless." ¨C "As worthless as your soul."


    "They are my kin." ¨C "My kin are everything."


    "Don''t touch them." ¨C "Stay away from them."


    "Or I will kill you." ¨C "Or you will die."


    Eiro''s whispers went on for a few more moments, before he slowly took a step back again. He fused his mouths back together, turning them back into one as Bavet quickly covered his face again.


    "Alright, I think that should be enough." Eiro said, ready to pull his mana from the ring to let the flow of time continue properly, but before he could, Bavet whispered into his ear.


    "You know... given this chance, why don''t you..." He muttered, creating some tubes and lenses in front of his eyes, to change Eiro''s view over toward Aaron and Loid, "Bavet, I may technically be only eight years old, but my soul is about eighty. I''m not doing something petty like that."


    "...But it''d be fun."


    "Can''t argue with that logic." Eiro replied bluntly, as he took a step forward and held his hands on the ears of the two men. He pushed some air inside, and tried to mess with their inner ear a bit, before he pressed his hand onto their chests to manipte the wine in their stomachs and make their blood absorb it a lot quicker. For one, he went a step further, while for the other, he added a separate little surprise of magic into the bowel region.


    Eiro stepped back into his former position, made sure that Bavet fully transformed him, and then let time flow normally again.


    "-me! How much do you... want for... it..?" The King asked, as his mind slowly caught up with the magical whispers Eiro pushed into his mind. Sweat started to form on his forehead as his heartbeat sped up. He was clearly beyond terrified at the moment, since he was unable to rationalize those words just yet.


    His whole body was shaking, as he took a step back, bumping into Aaron in the process, "O-Out of the way, you buff-" Ramguard''s king eximed, trying to get away from Eiro, when suddenly another event ured.


    The king was soon covered in vomit, the source of course being Aaron, who Eiro made both nauseous and drunk enough to throw up just a few seconds after time flowed normal again. Loid was also trying to keep standing up properly, but around that time, a whole other problem formed within him.


    And with unsteady feet, Loid turned around and tried to rush out of the room, trying to find a calm space to do his business.


    Meanwhile, Eiro stood there, a light, satisfied smile forming on his face, while he could feel Bavet shaking all over his body out of humorousughter.

 Chapter 513 - Massive Soul

    Eiro stepped into Solomon''s study, following the king''s lead. He turned around to the demon and the two of them locked eyes, "Alright, now tell me, what did you do?" He asked, and Eiro simply smiled in response.


    "I did what I had to do. You heard him, you heard how tantly insulting and disgusting he was. So, I just told him to be careful. Better than me attacking him and causing a war, is it not?" Eiro pointed out, and Solomon closed his eyes as he crossed his arms, "At least that part is true. But even then, Eiro, what is going on? You are revealing so much about yourself at the moment. What next, will you spread the word that Avalin is the Holy Priestess, and that you''re an Imp?"


    "Of course not. At least not anytime soon. In the future, maybe. But if I do, only after I killed the Monster King. I still have to think about things. I don''t want Avalin to have to hide that part of herself forever." Eiro pointed out, as Solomon took a seat on one of the couches.


    "That was meant as an extreme case, but I forgot that ''extreme'' is your ''normal''. But even so, I''m d you were able to calm yourself down. Even I was growing furious, I can''t imagine what you felt."


    "It was... unbearable. But with my experience suppressing the mark of the devil and the mark of wrath, I was able to still think in a rational manner." Eiro exined, "Listen, nothing else will happen tonight anyway. Those guys all retired for the night, so we can just enjoy ourselves and talk to each other. Some of the other candidates for the hero''spanions seemed quite unique and interesting to me, so I would love the chance to talk to them. Introducing myself to some other kings will also be useful in the future. So let''s rx for tonight, and just deal with everything tomorrow." Eiro suggested, and Solomon slowly nodded his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose.


    "I guess you''re right. Sorry, I''ve been a bit... unwelltely. I''ve been having a migraine that makes it hard for me to sleep sometimes, so I''m somewhat on edge." Solomon exined, and Eiro immediately raised his brows as he stepped toward his friend, cing his hand onto his head without another word.


    "What are you doing, Eiro?" The King asked after slightly flinching, but Eiro simply ignored his question, "Bavet, is it a residue of the seal?"


    "Nope, at least I don''t seem to notice anything."


    "That''s because it''s not because of the seal... It''s rted to Lognir." Solomon exined, "He returned back to his nest to be with his mate and children. But since he''s been gone, whenever we speak to one another, this... pain hits my mind. As if there is some sort of interference."


    "...I think I know what you''re talking about. Usually, powerful flows of magic influence the ability tomunicate with your familiar. I would assume that with the physical distance between you to, that connection might be more susceptible to it." Eiro exined, and Solomon quietly sighed, "I see. I will ask Lognir to investigate things in his area that might be the issue. Thanks for the tip."


    "Otherwise... are you sure it''s not stress? You''ve been working non-stoptely. That certainly won''t ease the pain."


    "You do have a point. But there are so many things happening at the moment. I have to deal with the security issues at the academy, and since one of the prominent figures of my kingdom is a major pawn of the monster king, I have a responsibility to help fortify the border to the monster king''s domain. Then the preparations for the tournament that is happening soon, trying to rid the slums of those drugs you told me about, as well as their recements now that the source for that drug is simply gone, and also dealing with this king''s meeting? Everything has been rather... bothersometely." Solomon leaned back on the couch, and Eiro slowly sat down on the couch opposite to him.


    "Don''t worry, some of those things you won''t have to deal with for too long anymore. Things will ease up in time. Once my evolution is finished, I will be staying in the area for a while and can probably help you deal with the drug issue. I can help you keep track of things for the meeting, and the tournament is over in a while as well. And as for the academy''s security issues, once my evolution is over, I will have ess to a few abilities that will be helpful in that regard. I am your friend, and with all that you have put up with thus far, I am in your debt a hundredfold, and I will repay that debt."


    With a deep sigh that he let out despite the big smile that was forming on his face, Solomon shook his head, "I already told you, we''re friends. There is no debt between friends."


    ---


    With a loud p, Eiro entered his son''s room, "Wakey wakey, Rudy." He eximed, smiling broadly. Immediately, Rudy jumped up and stared at Eiro, before dropping back down onto his back and holding his head in pain, "Ahh, damn..." Rudy groaned. Eiro couldn''t help himself but chuckle a bit as he ced a cup of water on Rudy''s bedside table.


    "I told you guys not to drink too muchst night, but you didn''t listen."


    "Well, but I-" Rudy started, and Eiro raised his brows, "Oh, so you didn''t lose a drinking contest against Armodeus?"


    "I mean, I did, but... But what about Arc? He somehow drank way more than me!" Rudy pointed out, and at that exact tikme, Arc stepped into the room, "Hah. As if that little alcohol could do anything to me, lil'' bro."


    "Yeah, his skill is suppressing the pain of the hangover, but he already threw up a couple of times, so you''re fine." Eiro pointed out, "Just both of you, stay away from Clementine for a few hours, that would be unfair to her."


    "Right, right..." Rudy muttered as he slowly pushed himself out of the bed. Meanwhile, Eiro made his way back through the manor, before seeing Jamesying on the couch covering his eyes with a piece of cloth.


    "Headache?"


    "Shut it." James immediately replied, "Don''t act like we''re losers... you didn''t even touch any booze yesterday."


    Eiroughed, "I had some wine, but I had to make sure that I looked good in front of the kings. If they saw me drinking with all of you guys, that would have been counterproductive. But we''re meeting with the candidates at the guild today anyway, so I''ll make it up to you then."


    "...We''re what?" James asked, slowly sitting up on the couch, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he sat down, as he was being handed his tea-set by one of the spiders.


    "We were all talking about itst night. We''re meeting with all the candidates chosen by the kings at the guild tonight. I already went there and reserved a whole section for us. Some of the guards that are off-duty areing as well though, so try not to shit-talk any kings." Eiro exined, and James simply let out a deep groan, "Uurgh, another night of drinking? I don''t know if I can do this, I''m not the youngest anymore, man... My back hurts, my whole body feels sore, and my jaw locked upst night while I was drinking at some point..."


    "Oh, you want to talk about physical pain right now? To the guy whose body was changing from a fundamental level, to the point where his bones had turned into apletely different subtance and his muscles had turned as solid as metal for a week straight?" Eiro asked, and James slowlyid back down on the couch, "Just wake me up when it''s time to go."


    Eiro sighed with a light smile, "I''m going to be heading off to the royal castle for a few hours in the evening before we meet at the guild, so you''ll have to head off alone. Jess will remind youter."


    "Cool, cool..." James groaned loudly, as Eiro poured himself a cup of tea. At around the same time, Koperia stepped into the room, sitting down on the back of the couch.


    "So, how was that partyst night?" She asked, and Eiro shrugged, "It was alright. Some things could have gone better, but overall I think it was quite fun. Do you want some tea?"


    "Well, I won''t say ''no'' to that."


    "You should have been therest night. Solomon said it was fine if you came along."


    "Hm, I don''t see any appeal in mingling with the living. I will be gone from here soon anyway." Koperia exined, "Speaking of, I will adjust your jaws tonight again, but your soul is getting harder to manipte. It''s quite... massive."


    "Massive? Don''t you mean solid?"


    "No, massive. You know of physical inertia, correct? You told me you quite experienced it with that ind you moved. Just as with physical objects, the more massive something is, the harder it is to be moved. The same thing is happening with your soul. It has be much more massive over the past few weeks. Or at least, somethingparable. The weight of the soul is quite minuscule, but for you, it is something... more noticeable. I assume it is because of your legendary skill, but I could be wrong.. Either way, it is how it is, so we need to be a bit more intense from now on."

 Chapter 514 - Meeting

    Koperia''s hand softly ran over Eiro''s skin, as she put the finishing touches on her maniption of the Demon''s soul. Or rather, his jaw, "I must say, your appearance has be more like that of a human, and less so at the very same time." She pointed out, and Eiro lightly smiled as he was finally able to speak again.


    "I know. My face now really seems to look like that of the former Sage. But considering that I can do this now..." Eiro muttered, splitting his mouth in two again, "...I certainly see your point." Both of the mouths said.


    The Demon stood up and grabbed his jaw, since it felt a bit stiff, as if it was going to lock up any second now. Koperia looked at him and pulled his arm away, "Be careful, your soul still hasn''t fully set again. You don''t want your true form to have a jaw next to your skull instead of underneath it, right?"


    "Calm down, I know what I''m doing." Eiro pointed out, as he put on his suit jacket. The head butler quickly came over toward him with a small ss bottle in hand, and Eiro quickly pulled a few drops of the liquid inside of it out and turned it into a mist, before applying it to himself.


    This perfume was a bit too strong for his liking, but for others it was basically nothing but a slight hint. Since most nobles used this kind of thing, Eiro had to follow along if he wanted to look good. The Demon turned around toward Koperia with a smile, "Can I expect you at the guild tonight?"


    "I already told you, I have little interest in mingling with the living." Koperia replied as she sat down on the edge of the bed, and Eiro simply smiled at her, "That''s fine, but you''re free to join us. Even Arie and Hannah are joining us tonight. Last time they came to visit, you seemed to have taken quite an interest in Hannah."


    "Oh? I''m surprised you noticed, considering how your eyes were glued to that woman." With a slight smirk, Koperia tried to tease Eiro, something that clearly wasn''t easy to do, "Of course, she is my love, after all."


    "...She is your love, but you aren''t hers. Why do you keep bothering with this, why do you not try to find someone else?"


    "Because I have no interest in others beside her. And I do not mind if she never returns my feelings. The fact that I am feeling like this around her makes me happy enough." Eiro pointed out, and the woman in front of him couldn''t help herself but smile wrily in response, "The fact that you can go from a man that stashed dozens of corpses in a frozenke for me to... whatever this is, without even batting an eye, is quite impressive."


    "It is, isn''t it? I get surprised by it myself every time. Anyway, it is not as if she is my lover, so the most I will do is speak of her in this way. And she won''t be an influence to my ns either, I feel like I now have quite a grasp on my emotions, now that the Devil''s influence has disappeared from me."


    "Speaking of, when will you try and kill that creature?"


    Eiro thought for a few moments as he stopped adjusting the decoration on his suit, "I don''t know yet. For now, I want to wait until I adjust to my new abilities once my evolution is over. I''ll adjust the specifics of the n after I know exactly what I can do."


    "I see." Koperia replied, as Eiro stepped toward the door. The Demon quickly stepped into the hallway and smiled at Koperia, "I will be off now. Again, it would be great to see youter tonight if you want, but don''t worry if you choose not toe."


    "Sure, sure. Good luck with that ''discussion''. If you wish for me to threaten them in your stead, just let me know." Koperia replied, clearly not saying this as a joke. Eiro slowly shook his head, "I think I''ll be able to manage, but thank you, anyway."


    ---


    Eiro rode through the royal castle''s gates on Lugo''s back, and cleaned his hoofs up as the two climbed up the stairs to the main entrance. Greeting the royal castle''s guards with a wave, Eiro quickly stepped inside. The security in this castle was a lot stricter now, with numerous different royal guards wandering around the building to make sure everything was safe. But luckily, Skyhart''s guards had already confirmed with them that Eiro and Lugo were trustworthy enough to walk around the castle like this without even an invitation.


    Even then, Eiro made sure to stay away from where the kings were currently resting, just so that he could avoid any sort of trouble. Or at least, as far as the people here could tell. He simply used his stealth-based abilities to stay out of sight, and nobody noticed that he was passing by even without Eiro having to use the Ace of Cups.


    Like this, Eiro made his way to one of the smaller meeting rooms, where Solomon, Ramguard''s King, as well as the two scum-families were waiting. The Demon closed the door behind him and stepped into the room with a light smile on his face. He could tell that Ramguard''s King was nervous, and hadn''t slept wellst night. Clearly, he would want to get past this meeting as quickly as he possibly could, which obviously worked incredibly in Eiro''s favor.


    "I humbly greet your majesty, the king of Ramguard." Eiro said with a light grin, before turning toward Solomon, "And ''sup, you slept well after all that drinking you didst night?"


    "...Eiro, please..." Solomon grumbled somewhat annoyed, as Eiro quickly sat down next to him with a smile on his face, "Sorry, sorry."


    "What is this, where are our children?!" Aaron asked with an angry groan, but Eiro simply nced at him, "Oh, I see that you must still be feeling sick. Because what ising out of your mouth is not worth much more thanst night''s vomit." Eiro pointed out bluntly, and Aaron''s face immediatley turned a bright red. The fact that this guy was supposed to be Arc''s biological father was... surprising. But then again, it''s not like they could influence his personality too much, since he had reincarnated into this world from another. Maybe in exchange for Arc''s ability that suppressed his emotions, this man''s emotions had been strengthened instead.


    "Now, now, please stop with this. Let us just start this meeting, so that we may end it soon." Solomon sighed out deeply, before he waved his hand, calling over one of the servants. He brought over two books that Solomon quickly flipped open, "We have managed to retrieve the books of the doctors that birthed Arc and Samantha respectively. You will be able to find the important documentation on the opened pages." Solomon exined, "If that is not enough for you, we also have documentation in regards to the mothers of the two."


    "M-Mothers?" Elizabeth eximed confused, "But I am Arc''s mother!"


    "No, you are not. The mothers of the children both died during childbirth, and their fathers are unknown. The children have been brought to an orphanage, from which they were soon adopted."


    "Oho, so they are not even your own children? Then why are we even discussing this?" King Ramguard''s co-advisor, a man working together with Loid, albeit in a slightly lower position it seemed, asked, "Let us make this easy for us all, and have you hand over those children to us? If it is the truth they are mere orphans, you must be happy to get rid of them, and these parents clearly want them in their lives. They will be well taken care of, I can assure you."


    And it also seemed like this advisor was trying to suck up to Loid and was trying to follow along with what he wanted, although King Ramguard was sitting next to him with pearls of sweat flowing down his wrinkled forehead.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself a bit, before he slowly pulled his grimoire out of his treasury. The decorated book began floating by his side as the Demon waved his hand around above his head. Within a few seconds, a dozenplex magic circles had been created.


    The moment this happened, the faces of the people on the opposite side of the table turned pale. They had no idea what to expect, but the fact that a dozen magic circles of this caliber had been created this quickly was nothing to treat lightly.


    Eiro slowly closed his eyes as he activated the magic circles. Immediately, twelve humanoid figures appeared around him. They looked simr to the wooden puppet Eiro trained with, and they were something that Eiro created himself. It was an expanded version of the mage hand spell, and they all drained a massive amount of mana.


    Eiro had these spell-creations, which he called ''Mage''s Servants'', stand right next to the advisor, creating a path between him and the door.


    "I ask you to leave, before I tear you up limb by limb." Eiro said in a growling voice, directing this at the advisor, but locking eyes with the king of Ramguard himself. Nervously, the advisor looked to the side, and the king immediately nodded his head.


    "D-Do what he says. Leave. Now." He said immediately, and the servant nervously got up, following the path that the mage''s servants created for him. They closed the door behind him, and then stepped up behind Eiro again.


    "And now, for thest time, let me make something clear. Arc and Sammy are my children, they will stay with me, and if I ever see the faces of any of those four ever again, I will personally obliterate Ramguard if I have to."


    "Eiro-"


    "No, Solomon, I''ve had enough." He said bluntly, "We all know that nothing is going to happen no matter what I say, because this man is too scared to even look me in the eye right now. Before this meeting even began, he knew that he could do nothing but agree with whatever we said. Isn''t that right?"


    The King slowly raised his head, and this elderly man was shaking in fear as he nodded, "Y-Yes, of course. I would not dare try split up the family of the hero''s future most prominentpanion." The King exined, and Eiro slowly snapped his finger. The mage''s servants immediately disappeared, and Eiro leaned back in his chair.


    "Good. Then I guess this discussion is over with that, isn''t it?" Eiro said bluntly, as everyone here in this room understood what kind of being Eiro was.. He was the kind of person that could get a king under his grasp just a day after meeting him for the first time.

 Chapter 515 - Two Silent Words

    Eiro closed his eyes, pressing them shut as he took a few deep breaths, with Solomon pacing around in front of him, "Really, you overdid it this time... How could you talk to a king like that?"


    "Because I''m sick and tired of people acting like pieces of trash. Again and again, people ignore my words and turn around to then be utterly disgusting. You heard what he saidst night, didn''t you? And then again today. Those people aren''t worth being kind to, you know that."


    "...I guess you''re right. And it''s not like they can really do anything against us, since they signed that contract. They won''t officially pursue Arc and Samantha again, but they might privately try and make some things happen, so just be careful."


    "Of course, don''t worry." Eiro replied as he slowly stood up from his seat to take off his jacket. He took a proper seat, and split up his arms, since it was morefortable that way. Eiro leaned back a bit, and Solomon looked at him with a light frown, "Please at least act like you understand the consequences of your actions."


    "What do you think I''m doing right now? It takes a lot for me to concentrate properly since my evolution started, and after using that much mana earlier it''s even harder. But even so, I''m thinking about what mighte from this, and how to make sure that it won''t. Of course, the easiest way would be to just kill those four, but I don''t really think that''s the best way to do things." Eiro pointed out, and pulled open his eyes a momentter.


    He fused his arms together again, and had Bavet once more turn them properly into arms that would seem to belong to a human, "Speaking of, there''s one surprising visitor." Eiro said with a light frown, as a few knocks could be heard on the door.


    "...Come in." Solomon replied, and a certain woman stepped into the room. It was someone that Solomon and Eiro had seen not too long ago. It was Samantha''s mother, Jasmin.


    She stood in front of the two with her nk expression, and soon slightly bowed forward apologetically. She wasn''t able to speak, after all. Even so, Eiro let out a long sigh, "Come on, at least say something."


    "Eiro, she''s mute..." Solomon pointed out with a wry smile, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "I know. I didn''t tell her to speak, I told her to say something. She knows signnguage."


    Jasmin stood up straight and locked eyes with Eiro, as she soon started to sign to converse with him, "How did you know?"


    "Your eyes were ncing at my hands a few months ago when you visited the manor, when I was tranting things for Felix." Eiro replied quickly, of course speaking, since she seemed to be able to hear things normally, and so that Solomon could at least slightly follow along, "Now, why are you here?"


    "I would like to ask you for something." Jasmin exined, and Eiro frowned, "You dare think I would do you a favor after what you did? Fuck off."


    Slowly, Jasmin continued to sign, and said something surprising, "I..." For a moment or two, Jasmin stopped, before starting again, "Back then, when Samantha was... when my husband sold Samantha, I was very sick. I was on my deathbed."


    "And then you used the money you got from selling her to the holy empire to get medicine?"


    "No, my husband spent it on whores and alcohol." Jasmin replied bluntly, "We were nevercking in money. What I am trying to say... I had no ability to do anything against what was happening. I was unable to move my body, so I could not write or sign to the few servants that I had learn it to understand me. Iid there, unable to do anything."


    Eiro looked at Jasmin, and slowly turned toward Solomon, who was unsure what exactly was just said, and let out a deep sigh, "Take a seat. This seems like it will be a longer conversation." Eiro exined, "Don''t worry, I will make sure that nobody can hear your words, but I will directly trante them to Solomon so that he understands what''s going on as well."


    Jasmin formed a gentle smile on her face, the first time Eiro had seen any sort of emotion on her, and slowly sat down on a chair opposite to where Eiro was sitting at the table. Meanwhile, Eiro told Solomon what Jasmin had said to him.


    "Then... what is it you want right now? Even if you were unable to do anything, that doesn''t mean that we will allow you to take Samantha back with you." Solomon pointed out, and Jasmin immediately nodded, "I know, that is not what I am asking. Even before my husband sold Samantha, I was not a good mother to her. Cold and distant. I... was scared of her. Of what she could do with that voice of hers. I was jealous, as well. Her voice was filled with such power, but I was denied the gift of even a whisper. When I became sick, my perspective on things changed. Samantha, despite my actions, tried to be close to me. For the first time, I looked at her as a daughter. And the next day... my husband gave her away."


    Eiro closed his eyes in anger, really just despising Loid more and more now. He was a disgusting man, in any way. But even so, "You still didn''t try and get her back."


    "...I know. I really never tried. That is another sin of mine. I am not her parent, not anymore. That is a title only you deserve, I see that. But when, on that day, that man... Aaron came to see us, tell us about his son, I had hopes. Maybe I could see Samantha again, hold her for the first time in her life. Be a mother to her, like she deserved to have growing up." Jasmin exined, and beyond tranting this for Solomon, Eiro stayed silent.


    And that silence lingered for a few moments, until Eiro finally spoke, "I think I know what you want. You... still want to be part of Sammy''s life, right?"


    And now, for the first time, Eiro noticed this woman''s heart skip a beat. Slowly, she continued to sign, "Do you know what my greatest talent lies in?" She asked, and Eiro stayed silent, not even fully tranting her question.


    "Singing." Jasmin added, and Eiro pulled open his eyes wide, "It is cruel, is it not? A woman who is unable to even hum, to be given a talent for singing. We do not always get what we want."


    "...I will try give you a chance to speak to her. But only once, and in private. She knows signnguage as well, not fluently, but well enough to hold conversations. Speak to her, say your piece, and then let her make the choice of what happens once." Eiro said, and Jasmin''s face practically seemed to glow, although it barely moved beyond a slight smile, "However. I can only try. I will ask Sammy if she wants to speak to you, and if she doesn''t, then... I won''t let you see her. It ispletely up to her."


    Eiro knew that Jasmin waspletely truthful in what she was saying, and some other things now seemed to make sense. It wasn''t that she didn''t show any sort of expression, and that she was unnaturally calm during those few conversations out of self control. It was against her will. A disease that influenced her muscles to the extent where she could not even write a single word, a disease that brought her nearly to her death, must have shown some effects even when cured. She could move around, and the muscles in her hands seemed well-recovered, even if only through the fact that Jasmin used them to sign instead of speaking. But the muscles in her face in particr seemed out of her control. That slight smile she showed earlier must have been the equivalent of a bright smile that went from ear to ear for others.


    The fact that she was unable to express herself even through expressions after that disease seemed to have made her feel shut-off to an extent. She disconnected, dissociated from the situations she was in, even during that first meeting. That was why she didn''t seem to react at all, no matter what happened.


    Tears formed in Jasmin''s eyes, and soon began to stream down her face. It seemed surreal, since even now, her expression didn''t seem to change in the slightest beyond the fact that she tried to press her eyes shut to stop the tears.


    Eiro handed her his handkerchief, which she quickly used to remove the tears from her porcine face. Slowly, she stood up and signed at Eiro, "My husband must be wondering where I am by now. I will have to take my leave. We will be staying here for a little while longer, I am sure you will be able to find us."


    "Of course." Eiro replied, as he watched Jasmin walk toward the door. She pulled it open and stepped outside, but before she closed the door, Eiro said something else.


    "Sammy, she... she is an amazing singer." He said, and once more, he noticed a skip of her heart and a slight smile on her face, a bit greater than before, on Jasmin''s face, as the tears returned to her. In what was clearly an incredible effort, she slowly mouthed two words,pletely silently.


    ''Thank you''.

 Chapter 516 - The Thing About The Ladies

    Eironded in an empty alleyway near the guild, and quickly pulled his wings into his back again. Once his skin closed up, the Demon swiftly stepped out of the alley and walked over toward the guild''s entrance. It seemed like there were already a few people getting quite rowdy and loud inside, as one would expect from adventurers.


    After pushing the door open, Eiro immediately made his way to the closed-off, private section to join the others. James, Jess and Krog were also already sitting around, talking to, surprisingly, Biril and Hijar. The warriors in particr seemed to be getting along quite well overall. As he walked through the crowd, Eiro quickly greeted everyone, before sitting down at the table with his party, as well as the two beastmen.


    "Sorry I''mte, some things unexpectedly extended the meeting outward." Eiro exined, as Krog immediately pushed arge mug of beer in front of the Demon, "Eh, don''t worry about it. We''ve been having fun without ya."


    "I can see that." Eiro replied, as he slowly picked up the mug, cing it against his lips.


    "It has been quite fun, yes. Yourpanions are incredibly interesting folk, Eiro." Biril exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he poured the whole mug of beer down his throat in one go. He ced the empty mug onto the table in front of him again as he smiled at the others, "Yep, they really are. Did you know that the first time the four of us met, we actually fought against each other?"


    "Huh? Wait, what? Why?" Hijar asked confused, "You seem like such good friends!"


    "Well, we are, but Eiro is quite stuck-up sometimes." James pointed out, "Especially back then, he was weirdly religious."


    "It''s not a religion, James. I was a servant and guide to the fourdies, and you guys disrespected a ce that was important to them and the town."


    "I don''t know, that sounds like a religion to me." James shrugged, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, as Krog chuckled slightly, "To be fair, while many others swear things upon the gods, you swear things upon the Lady of Winter."


    "Yes, because I might as well go up in mes if I swear things to the gods." Eiro sighed deeply, as James rolled his eyes, "Says the guy that got a private audience with the Great God."


    Immediately as James said this, Eiro''s expression went nk, as he slowly turned his head to the side, "Could you... two ignore that?" He asked of Biril and Hijar, both of which were unable to properly follow along with the conversation.


    "Wait, sorry, but... we are not particrly familiar with the gods, or know at all whatever those four women are, could you exin? What does an audience with the great god entail?" Biril asked curiously, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "See? This is why you should think before you speak, James... You two, could you try and keep this a secret? Luckily nobody else really heard, it is quite loud here. And if you guys don''t know much about the gods in the first ce, then it doesn''t really matter, right? I will, however, dly talk to you about the fourdies. Except thedy of autumn, she''s a bitch."


    Hijar grinned broadly as he leaned back, "Honestly, I don''t know why you people put so much importance in the gods anyway. What did they ever do for you? Thosedies, however, sound kinda fun, y''know?" Hijar pointed out, "Theying tonight? It''d be great to meet them."


    Eiro chuckled as he immediately shook his head, "No, they''re not. They''re not what you think they are. You guys know about spirits, right? I mean, you saw themst night, at least."


    "Yes, we do. Are those women spirits, then?" Biril asked.


    "They are actually, yeah. In a way. You see, each magical element, in some way, shape or form, has spirits that belong to its domain. The mostmon ones being spirits of fire, earth, water and air. When ites to other elements, they''re simply... quite rare, or don''t have the ability to travel outside their elemental nes. I think it has something to do with the power of the spirit kings and queens, but that''s not really the point. Either way, back when the world formed and the first spirits had been birthed, and with that the first kings and queens, they were each given a domain to rule over. And that is the elements that they now represent. At the same time, though, there are some forces of nature thaty outside of the direct influence of elements." Eiro exined, "Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes... Those seem like they would belong to the earth, water, and air domains respectively, but they actually don''t. To an extent, sure, but they are the sort of powerful force that needs its own ruler. That''s why there are smaller sub-groups of spirits that don''t specifically rule over elements, but concepts of nature."


    "Wait, what? I thought thedies rule over advanced elements and stuff." James pointed out, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "Kind of, but not directly. The firstdy of winter, for example, was an ice spirit before she was chosen to rule over winter itself."


    "Alright, so these dies'' are spirits? And by the namedy of winter... they''re the spirits of the seasons?"


    "Yep, exactly right." Eiro replied to Biril, who curiously listened to what he had to say, "So, the fourdies, right along the solstices or equinoxes of their respective seasons, wille to this realm and initiate the seasons. My master, the man I consider my father, became the guide of thesedies by chance, and thenter took me along to help him out. I quickly befriended thedies." Eiro exined, "I lived in that forest for seven years, collected offerings for thedies, and then helped them find their way to the city, where they would be given offerings by the people of the town, before truly starting their season. Then, they would go into a slumber in their spirit realm, while their husbands, the lords of the seasons, would supervise everything and make sure that the powers of the lords of winter would work properly."


    "So yer tellin'' me that the reason we''ve been gettin'' four seasons for the past seven years was you? That ain''t how it works though..." Someone else pointed out. It seemed like while Eiro was so enthusiastically telling his story, other people had started listening in, and a small circle had formed around Eiro''s table. The Demonughed and nodded his head, "Of course not, I''m aware of that. With or without thedies, the seasons would have happened. However, this world gives off magic through every single one of its pores, and during the different seasons, that magic can cause some issues. The seasons would run wild and cause uncontroble damages. Certain ces would freeze overpletely for winter, and then turn into deserts a few monthster. What thedies do is bring order into this magic, so that nature can survive." Eiro exined, "Wild magic is much more dangerous than you might think."


    A mage that was listening as well quickly squinted at Eiro as he finished speaking, "And what makes you an expert on this topic?"


    "Well, for one, it''s that my curiosity brought me to ask any questions I had, and thedies were kind enough to answer me. And also, I have been blessed by one of them." Eiro exined, and immediately, all those that had even the slightest idea what a spirit''s blessing meant started to freak out, "You have a spirit''s blessing?! Wait, but if you''re an ice mage, how did you use all that other magic so well yesterday..?"


    "Oh, it''s because I''m not an ice mage. I''m an Elemental Mage. I have affinities for quite a few different elements, and I have awakened most of them as a skill already as well. And of course, the blessing of the Lady of Winter is not the only one I received. I have been blessed by the former Naiad Queen, who is now known as the ''lonely naiad'', and the current Smander King."


    "Alright, now we know that you''re fuckin'' with us! How do we know that''s even true?" Someone asked, and Eiro quickly snapped his fingers, summoning Nelli and Sarius.


    "Oi, of course that''s true! Why else would I form a contract with this guy?" Sarius asked with a grin, and Nelli let out a deep sigh, wanting to snuff out the smander''s face again, "To put it on record, I did not form a contract with Eiro because of his blessings, but because he is someone I trusted for seven years prior already." Nelli added.


    With this revtion from two spirits themselves, it seemed like everyone immediately believed Eiro''s words. It was incredible, and especially the mages had plenty of questions for him. Eiro happily answered them, albeit leaving a few details out. He no longer wanted to hide many of these things from others anymore. He wanted to spread his name as far as he could, to give him immense influence in different ces. After all, there were many things that he needed to do that required such influence to be connected to his name. The fact that he was impressing so many of these people here even further thanst night meant that many rumors would spread to the kings of their respective countries, so this whole situation was more than useful to him.. But even so, the moment a particr person stepped into the guild, Eiro stopped answering some questions, and stood up to greet her.

 Chapter 517 - Sudden Encounter

    Eiro stepped in front of Arie with a smile on his face, "I''m d you were able to make it." He said, and the nephilim in front of him gently smiled back, "Of course, it was a good chance toe out again. And are you sure you don''t mind that I brought Hannah? I''m not sure if this is the best ce for her..."


    "Yeah, don''t worry. If she doesn''t feel too good here, I can bring her by the manorter so that she can hang out with Sammy and Clementine a bit." Eiro replied, as he turned his head toward the young undead girl. She was standing in front of Eiro with a thin scarf covering the lower half of her face, "G-Good, evening..."


    "Good evening to you too, Hannah." Eiro chuckled slightly, "Is your throat feeling alright?"


    Hannah now just replied with a quick nod. It seemed like she was having a bit of a tough time to get used to her new voice-box, which did make sense. Eiro had to go for a lot of work-arounds to make it work properly with her body, but he managed to finish it a few weeks ago with Armodeus'' and Koperia''s assistance, "Just keep on practicing the things I told you to, and you''ll be fine. If you still feel slightly ufortable, I can try to adjust the voice box a little bit again."


    "No... it... alright." Hannah whispered, and Eiro slowly turned his eyes toward Arie, who was smiling at the young girl next to her, happy that she was managing everything properly, "Arie, do you want to drink something?"


    "Ah... do they serve wine here?" She asked, and Eiro thought about it for a moment as he turned around to look at the bottles standing behind the bar, "It seems like they do, yes. I''ll order some for you, so just go ahead and sit down with the others already."


    "Alright, thank you." Arie said, and quickly walked over to the table where Eiro was sitting at earlier, introducing herself to Biril and Hijar, as well as the other people that lingered and were confused about why Eiro just suddenly got up. A few momentster, as Eiro was waiting for some more alcohol, Biril came up to him, "Do you need any help carrying everything?"


    "Sure, thanks." Eiro replied quickly, as the two now waited for the order to be brought to them together. After a few moments of slightly awkward silence, Biril turned back toward the Demon, "Is there a particr day you would like to meet again, so that I can tell you about beastmen?"


    "Hm?" Eiro turned his head a bit confused, when he remembered the content of the bet they ced yesterday, "Ah, right. Not particrly. You should all be here a week or two longer, right? Then it would be fine if we just met next weekend. I am a teacher at the academy, so it might be a bit harder to meet during the week."


    "Oh? You really be more and more impressive each time I talk to you. To the point where I do not know if I would even stand a chance to be apanion of the hero." Biril exined, and Eiro slightly turned his head toward him, "The journey to fight against the Monster King is still at least another eight years away, preferable even ten, when the hero turns 18. Until then, you can get as strong as you need to be."


    "...But you will only continue to grow in that time anyway, will you not?" The beastman pointed out, "Despite your ridiculous power, it doesn''t seem like you are at the end of your growth."


    Eiro slowly nodded, as he started tapping his finger onto the wooden surface in front of him, "Do you know how I lost my hand?"


    "...It was not a choice you actively made to strengthen yourself by turning your hand into a staff for yourself?" Biril asked, and Eiro shook his head with a scoff, "Of course not. This hand is a prosthetic, not a tool. It''s supposed to rece that what was lost, it''s not supposed to be something you use to improve yourself with. Of course, the fact that this hand can be used like this is a nice extra, but it''s not the reason why I have this hand."


    "Then will you tell me what happened to you?"


    Eiro smiled lightly and nodded, "Some eight or so years ago, I was travelling with the children. We stopped in a small town on our way. And then, that night, that town turned into hell. Quite literally, at that. It had been taken over by numerous kinds of demons, the children had been stolen from me, and despite my weakness, I had to do all that I could to save them. Back then, I was barely able to kill a single enemy, and due to my weakness, I put the children in danger, and lost my hand in return for the chance to save them. A day or soter, I woke up in our carriage, and a certain man had removed my hand from my body, since it otherwise could have killed me. You know, by infecting the rest of my body. And from then on, that man taught me so much that it''s nearly ridiculous. He made me the man I am today, and he gave me reasons and ways to be as strong as I am now." Eiro exined, and Biril''s heart skipped a few beats as he slowly turned away, "You became this strong in just eight years..?"


    "...I became this strong in less than two years. After my father died, we had to leave due to some circumstances I won''t get into. But the values that Jura taught me, my will to do anything and everything I need to for my children, and a shitton of luck brought me to this point." Eiro exined, and Biril quietlyughed in response, "So ites down to luck in the end, huh?"


    "Of course luck is important, but that doesn''t mean that it was just the luck. If you want to be as strong as me, then you need to work hard enough to make up for the difference in our luck." Eiro said bluntly, "But in the first ce, I don''t think I''m the kind of person you shouldpare yourself to." He exined while picking up some of the cups and sses that had been ced down on the surface in front of him. He paid for the order, and turned around.


    "Why not..?" Biril asked, and Eiro slowly turned around with a smile, "Because I''m the kind of man that will even rip apart his soul if it means he can achieve his goals."


    The two locked eyes, and as Eiro spoke, a shudder ran down his spine. It wasn''t the first time that he heard someone say this sort of thing, but it was the first time that he could tell that it wasn''t some kind of metaphor. Biril was convinced that if Eiro needed to, he would destroy his own soul without a moment''s hesitation.


    He nervously picked up the rest of the drinks and followed Eiro, bringing them over to the table. The Demon lightly smiled at the beastman as he sat down, but Biril really didn''t know what else has been going on around him.


    "Bro?" Hijar''s voice finally pulled him out of that trance-like state, "Could you let go of our drinks?"


    "Huh? Oh, right, sorry..." He muttered, and slowly ced the sses and cups down around the table, but that didn''t mean that he had been able to collect his own thoughts now. They were still scattered, as his mind was racing to different ces. What could Eiro have done in two years to make him this powerful? It seemed absolutely impossible to change that much in this short amount of time, but of course, Biril still had not even remotely seen the limit of what Eiro was capable of. It was terrifying, but at the same time it seemed to practically open Biril''s mind to the world of possibility that was beyond him. He was filled with the determination he needed to really continue on growing in strength. He would be the hero''spanion, and he would be someone that could fight side by side with Eiro in the battles against the monster king and the royals.


    Of course, if he, or anyone else here that wasn''t part of Eiro''s central group, knew that one of said royals was actually sitting right here amongst them, enjoying some cool beer andughing around with everyone, he would be thinking about this situation rather differently.


    If they knew, this whole city would immediately move to try and kill Eiro. They would hunt his family, and they would probably try to overthrow Solomon, since he was supporting the Demon so much. So of course, Eiro couldn''t let anyone he didn''t trust know what he was.


    And really, he felt slightly bad for Biril, since his end goal really seemed to be to kill the monster king a decade from now. But considering that Eiro would steal the ''aspect of the hero'' from that child in another seven years when it truly awakened before heading off to kill the monster king himself... that was obviously not going to happen.


    But for now, Eiro just smiled. He drank,ughed, and spoke to these people around him. And then, from one moment to another, Eiro could feel his heart stopping. One moment, it was beating, the other it was not.


    His senses practically disappeared, as the sound around him became muffled. His field of view changed to only let him see a single small point in front of him as everything else went ck. Eiro''s whole body just shut down as he saw a figure standing on the other side of the room. That was the single point that Eiro was able to see.


    Out of the shadows, it came toward him. No... the figure itself was the shadows. It approached Eiro, as the world around him disappeared. It stopped in front of him, and slowly and gently touched Eiro''s cheek with a wooden roughness, asd the Demon stared into the deep abyss that was the monster king''s body.

 Chapter 518 - Ripples

    Eiro sat there, basically dead, as he looked at the being that had caused this event. Clearly, none of the others here around him could see the creature made of ck smoke and wood standing in front of him. Some of them did seem to notice that something was suddenly wrong with Eiro, however. One of them being Bavet, of course, who was realizing that Eiro suddenly didn''t have a pulse.


    Unsure what to do, and of course not wanting to reveal Eiro''s secret, he simply started trying to give Eiro a heart massage to ''resurrect'' him. Jess had also realized that something was off, since Eiro suddenly went silent. She was sitting right in front of him, so she had a clear view of this unexpected change in his behaviour.


    The Demon stared into the face of the Monster King, who seemed to simply grin, even though Eiro wasn''t able to see anything like a face. He muttered something, words that Eiro somehow didn''t understand. They seemed like some kind of gibberish to him. It was... terrifying.


    The Monster King was able to get to Eiro so easily. He was a being of power far beyond what Eiro was currently at. Clearly... the Monster King was one of the most powerful Monster Kings that have existed thus far.


    The shadowy figure slowly grabbed Eiro''s arm, pulling it forward. Those around Eiro saw that he was just slowly stretching his hand out forward, and turned it into a fist. But of course, Eiro hadn''t done this himself. He could feel the cold wooden touch of the Monster King''s hands as they cupped his own, as the ck smoke faded away into nothingness.


    At that exact moment, Eiro could feel his heart continue beating as the world returned to his senses. With a loud gasp, Eiro pulled in as much air into his lungs as he could, before breaking out into a coughing fit that caused some ck sludge to be thrown out of his throat into his hand.


    "Sorry, I... I need to..." The Demon muttered, as he slowly stood up. His legs were shaky, but with Bavet''s help, he was able to keep his body upright somehow.


    "Yo, you good?" One of hte other warriors asked, as Eiro identally bumped into him. He looked at Eiro and began tough, "What, you drunk already?" More people around them started tough, thinking that this was the case, but those that knew Eiro and his true identity knew that this was quite literally impossible. He only had a few cups of beer, and if they weren''t somehow poisoned with something that even Eiro couldn''t sense, then it was impossible for him to be like this because of the alcohol.


    Suddenly, Eiro could feel something gather up in his throat, and he kicked his foot into the ground. Breaking some of the floorboards in the process, Eiro rushed to the door, and a momentter found himself outside. He slid into the alleyway next to the guild, and in a ce that others couldn''t see, he threw up more of that ck sludge that had now mixed with blood somehow.


    "Eiro, what''s going on? Are you alright?" Bavet asked immediately, as he was the one being that was able to follow along with exactly what was going on with Eiro, even if he hadn''t seen the Monster King himself.


    Nelli, Sarius and Gondos floated around Eiro as well, summoning themselves by forcefully taking part of Eiro''s mana so that they could support him somehow.


    "Seriously man, what''s going on?" Sarius asked in a worried tone, as he quickly floated off to guide the others over here to where Eiro was right now.


    Eiro''s central group quickly reached him, but they had no idea what it was they were looking at, "Eiro, your body, you-" Arie muttered nervously, as she looked at him. She rushed over toward him, trying to help him, but as she tried, she quickly moved back. Eiro''s body was too hot for her to even touch right now.


    "Bavet, what''s going on?" She asked, but the slime didn''t respond. He was busy trying to keep up the disguise as much as possible. But even then, Eiro''s body was reacting weirdly. It was bulking up, and thenpressing. As if Eiro''s whole body was inting and deting like his lungs. Spikes were forming along his spine, even visible through his suit, and Eiro''s arms were trying to split up to turn into four again.


    Eiro was starting to hear other peoplee out of the guild to see what was going on, and before they saw Eiro, he had to do something. He had to figure out what was going on. And in that exact moment, time froze around Eiro. Completely and utterly, as if he had used the time-slowing artifact.


    But of course, this was not something that was actually activated. Instead, it was just that Eiro''s mind started running so fast that it seemed like time had stopped. And at the same time, Eiro could feel himself standing outside of his body, looking down at himself. He could see how his body was convulsing, and he could see everything that he was too distracted to keep proper notice of. Somehow, like this, Eiro''s mind felt perfectly clear, and he could focus on all the information around him at once.


    The first thing he did was make sure that there was nobody that somehow saw what was happening to Eiro. Luckily, nobody seemed to be around beside those that already knew that Eiro was a demon. Next, he slowly pushed his hand onto the ground, trying to pull on the rock that formed the ground of this alleyway. He pulled up two walls thatpletely blocked Eiro in so that nobody could see what was happening. But right now, they weren''t really there, of course. Time had stopped, after all. Rather, Eiro just saw some kind of mist-like representation of what was going to happen next.


    Then, Eiro stepped up to his own body, and ced his hand on his own back. He could feel the spikes pierce his skin. It was like his bones had suddenly decided to change their shapepletely, but of course, Eiro wouldn''t let something like this happen. It didn''t seem to be part of his evolution, after all.


    He slowly pushed the spikes back into his body, and proceeded to press his arms back together. He pressed down onto this inted flesh, and could push it back into its normal state.


    Now that his body had been ''fixed'', Eiro moved on to what was happening inside of him. He controlled his own mana, and slowly analyzed what was happening to him.


    Eiro''s mana core was inplete disarray. Without him even noticing it, it seemed like the Monster King had done something to him. It was most likely nothing but a small push, but something like that can quickly lead to ripples forming. Ripples that can cause chatastrophic things depending on how exactly they interacted with each other.


    In this case, these ripples destabilised Eiro''s whole mana core, making it try to forcefully interact with the two spirit gateways that had fused into it. However, since Eiro wasn''t able to ess them right now, it seemed like some issues were happening.


    Disgusting, dirty sludge filled his body wherever it could, in his stomach and even lungs. But instead of water being created, Eiro''s essence was being pulled out of his mana, and that was what filled him up, and what he was currently throwing up.


    At the same time, it was like the pure mana that was leftover was simply burning up due to the influence of the gateway to the ne of fire within him, creating the heat that his body was now giving off. Luckily he didn''t directly go up in mes, though.


    If Eiro influenced his mana a little bit, he could probably bring himself under control. But... there was something weird about the stuff that Eiro was throwing up. It wasn''t under his control in the slightest, the opposite of what his essence usually was.


    Rather, it seemed like... this wasn''t actually his true essence, but just an aspect of it. The most prominent aspect, apparently, that gave it its disgusting nature. It was nothing but a hunch, but it was one that Eiro had to follow up on under any circumstances. Because if this was the case, it would change many things.


    Instead of stopping the flow of the ripples running through Eiro''s mana, he strengthened them. Helped their flow, their stability. He was elerating what was currently happening to him.


    In this very instant, Eiro did all of those things. He was unsure how exactly he did so, however. Maybe it was just an extension of his mind that he created to cope with the stress his body and mind was currently under. If that was the case, then maybe Eiro should try to stress himself like this again, since this was clearly an incredible ability to have.


    Eiro slowly closed his eyes, and found himself back inside of his body. He could feel his body immediately changing to be exactly what he just did to himself. Which was a good thing, because the ripples instantly strengthened what was happening, and those two things were counteracting each other, but Eiro''s body seemed to slowly return back to normal.


    That was just the case for physical aspects of his being, however. The heat increased so much that bavet nearly begun to boil, while a steady stream of that disgusting sludge poured out of his throat. At the same time, the rock walls shot up in just an instant, without anyone being able to tell what exactly just happened.


    Eiro was able to throw Bavet out of the area that the rock walls contained before they encased him, causing him to be alone in there for a while.. At the very least, people couldn''t find him easily anymore.

 Chapter 519 - Spark

    Eiro watched his clothes get drenched in the ck sludge. Even if he was able to get through this, he would no longer be able to join the small party that was happening within the guild. It was sort of sad, but at the end of the day, other situations like this mighte up. Especially once the finalpanions of the hero had been chosen.


    The demon continued throwing up the sludge, until the rock cube he was in was filled with it so much that he could drown in it if he wasn''t careful. The stench was unbearable, however, to the extent where Eiro would have thrown up vomit instead if he was currently capable of such a thing.


    It took maybe an hour or two until Eiro was done. His body had started heating up the ck liquid to the level where it began boiling, making the air in the cube unbreathable. But somehow, Eiro was doing fine nheless. He had stopped vomiting, and his body cooled down to a more normal temperature. His mind slowed down, and the exhaustion in his body now made him feel rxed instead of in pain. Somehow, despite his mana having beenpletely and utterly exhausted, he was feeling quite well right now.


    And as this was the case, Eiro was able to realize what had happened to him. He pulled his hand out of the slude, which was sticking to his skin like drying glue, and pulled some of the new mana that was pouring out of the center of his soul toward his palm. He split his mana up, creating pure mana and his essence in two different instances. The pure mana was stabilized by his ancientnguageprehension, while his essence was slowly pushed out of his skin.


    And instead of seeing the disgusting mud that he normally did, what Eiro saw was something wholly different. It was pure and clean. It gave off a slightly cold air, but one that could burn your skin with heat if you were not careful. In itself, this substance was contradictory to itself. It had waves of a cool ice blue and crimson red flowing within it, creating subtle patterns that seemed rather simr to those that were now covering Eiro''s skin nearly all over his body.


    "What... how..?" Eiro whispered to himself. This was his essence. It was very clearly a very pure version of his essence, "Then all this... all of this were impurities within my essence? So strong that they overpowered everything else..?"


    The demon found himself in a situation that confused him beyondparison. The being that did this to him... was the Monster King. He was the one that had cleansed his essence, getting rid of these impurities. Sure, Eiro''s own influence probably caused the purification to undergo a lot quicker and safer, but even then... why would the Monster King do something like that?


    As Eiro was trying to fifgure this out, he suddenly felt a sharp pain on his forehead. He quickly touched his hand to it, and could feel a new horn that had suddenly sprouted there. Different to the others that Eiro had, this one didn''t try to interweave with the others. It was something prominent itself, as if it was the centerpiece to Eiro''s crown that he had missed up until now. Somehow, Eiro could feel a simr sinister energy from the horn as he did from the impurities that had been pulled out of his essence.


    "So my horn..." Eiro muttered, as her thought about what was going on. The sludge was what had been created by dragging the impurities out of the mana itself, and the horn atop Eiro''s head was simr, but still quite different. The first thing that Eiro could think of was that this horn was the energy that had been cleansed from his mana core itself, which had then caused Eiro to grow this new horn all of a sudden.


    Eiro let out a deep breath, and spread out his perception a bit. There were a few people standing around the cube, waiting for the Demon toe back out of this thing that he had created. Most of them were people that knew about what Eiro was, but there were a few that had no idea. Two of them being Biril and Hijar.


    The Demon opened a small hole in the rock, causing the pressure created by the steamified impurities to escape immediately. However, at the same time, Eiro could now properly speak to them.


    "I am better now. I would like to ask you all to please step out of the alley for a few moments while I return from this thing." The Demon said, his voice quickly reaching everyone. And of course, they did as told, but there was one person that Eiro wanted to stay.


    "Arie, you... wait please." He muttered, and the nephilim slowly turned around toward the cube of rock, and slowly nodded her head, "Alright."


    Eiro asked Gondos to create new walls of rock on both sides of the alley, and as they stretched upward, Eiro removed the cube of rock that he had formed around himself.


    Immediately, the sludge poured outward, as Eiro slowly rose up from within it. His face showed his exhaustion, as his mana was still near topletely exhausted. He stood in front of Arie, as the nephilim looked back at him.


    "Why did you want me to stay?" She asked, and Eiro stared back at her as he shook his head, "I don''t know. I just... wanted you to see me like this. You have seen many parts of me, but not this side of who I am."


    "And what is that supposed to be? The side where you get drunk after a few beers?" Arie chuckled, and Eiro lightly smiled back.


    "I wish that was it, but this situation is slightly different. I mean the side of me that''s... out of control. Whether it is because my emotions run wild, because I wascking in attention, or simply because there was someone stronger than me... I sometimes lose the control I have over myself. Like I did just now. So I-"


    "Show me your true form. Wings, tail, and all your arms." Arie interrupted Eiro, and the Demon looked at the woman in front of him somewhat confused. But even then, he listened to her. He pushed his wings out of his back, and used them to help him take off his sticky, sludge-covered jacket, vest and shirt, since he wouldn''t be able to split up his arms while wearing all of this.


    His tail was pushed through the small hole that opened up when it pressed against his pants, and his wings quickly sprouted out. They pped once just so slightly, as if they were stretching to get rid of some of the stiffness created when they were in Eiro''s back.


    The Demon''s arms inted for a moment before they split up into two, all of them hanging by Eiro''s sides. Slowly, Arie took a step forward, cing her hand onto Eiro''s left upper arm, not caring for the ck impurities still sticking to his skin.


    "Right now, all I see is you. Whether or you''re fully in control or not, you''re still you through and through." She pointed out, as she slowly closed her eyes. A soft light radiated from some parts of her body for a moment, and as that light practically shattered away, Arie''s true form was revealed as well.


    Her two horns on top of her head and her tworge white angel wings. She really did look like theplete antithesis to Eiro.


    Arie slowly took a step closer as the feathers on her wings started standing up, and her heart was beating faster and faster. Eiro wasn''t sure what was going on, but he could soon see the nephilim''s facee closer and closer.


    Soon, it was so close that he could feel her warm breath on his face, and a momentter, their lips touched. For a moment, it felt like their contact caused some holy mes to spark up between the two, but that was only the case for an instant. Immediately after, Eiro realised that it was nothing that interesting.


    It was just the sort of spark that appeared during the kiss of two people that held each other dearly. They stood there for a while, embracing each other. It might have been a few minutes until they spoke again.


    "I think we should return to the others, don''t you think?" Arie pointed out, and Eiro smiled slightly, "I smell absolutely disgusting right now. I would just ruin the night if I joined in again like nothing happened."


    "Then fly home, ande back when you have cleaned yourself. You should be able to do that within a couple minutes, right?"


    "You have a point." Eiro added with a light smile on his face, as he quietly called for Bavet, who was sitting on a ledge above the two, staring down in disbelief, "I''ll be right back, then. Bavet, wait here for me if you want, I''ll be trying to move quickly."


    "Seriously...? You''re just gonna leave all of this here..?" Bavet asked, and Eiro thought about it for a second as he slowly moved all four of his arms up. He practically pulled up all the liquid with water magic, and formed it into a ball. As if he was using all four of his hands, he pressed the sludge into a smallpressed ball.


    Nelli appeared next to him a few momentster, grinning slightly as she looked at Eiro and Arie, before she helped the Demon pull the pure water from this orb. Since these impurities were given form through the influence of the ne of water, Nelli''s true home, this was something quite simple to do. So now, Eiro held a rock-like version of his impurities, and just ced them into his treasury.


    "Let''s not worry about that." Eiro said, as he smiled slightly.. He turned around, and started pping his wings, as he removed the rock walls, hiding himself with the ace of cups while Arie used her artifact as she headed back to the others, and Eiro flew off to clean himself up properly.

 Chapter 520 - A Tiny Metal Ball

    Eironded in front of his manor and quickly walked inside through the main entrance, trying to use his magic to clean his clothes of the sludge as much as he could already, so that the servants wouldn''t have too tough a time cleaning itter. A suit like this was hard enough to clean properly anyway.


    However, as he stepped into the manor, what he surprisingly saw was not the empty entrance-way with maybe a few of the spider servants scurrying around, but rather, he saw Koperia standing there, well-dressed, but in a casual sort of way. It was quite different to what she normally wore, even if it was objectively still incredibly beautiful.


    "Oh, are you heading out somewhere?" Eiro asked, and Koperia looked back at the Demon somewhat startled, "I was... erm... nevermind that, rather, why are you back already? And why do you reek like this..?" She asked, as Koperia quickly pulled away as the scent hit her nose.


    "It''s...plicated. I don''t want to worry anyone right now, so let us talk about the exact reasons for this happening in peace tomorrow." Eiro exined, as he took a deep breath and slowly pushed one of his hands forward. A few momentster, the red and blue, silk-like liquid appeared on his palm. Koperia, being someone that has reached master grade in a magic skill, immediately realized what this was, despite the fact that this looked like theplete opposite of what this substance had been even just a few days prior when she saw it thest time.


    "My essence has been cleansed of all impurities. I don''t know how they umted in such a way. Maybe it was because of the mistake the monster king made back then as well, or because of something that the Sage did in my past life, but either way... the impurities arepletely gone. And as you can see, there were even some other consequences to this." Eiro exined, pointing at the ck horn that had sprouted in the center of his forehead.


    "That horn is made of the impurities in your essence..? Or rather, how is it even possible for one''s essence to be impure to the very core? Something like this could only have been done if someone either deliberately corrupted your soul while it was freed from its corporeal form, or... if you, or the Sage,mitted a sin that has upset the world and the rulers of mana themselves." Koperia shared her insight of mana, something that in many areas was far, far beyond Eiro''s own, and held her hand to her chin in thought.


    "But the fact that you were able to purify your essence in itself is just..." Koperia whispered, as Eiro slowly stepped past her, "I will exin it tomorrow. For now, just go ahead and head off to wherever you wanted to go, I will simply change and clean myself and then return to the guild."


    "Are you sure that''s a good idea? I cannot sense any mana from you at all, aren''t you exhausted?"


    "Ah, that. Well, I''ll just chug a few mana potions, we have plenty of those ever since Armodeus picked up alchemy as a hobby. I''ve been wondering how they taste for a while now anyway." Eiro pointed out, "The mana I will get from those should be enough in case of an emergency, and I''ll have the rest of my mana fully recovered in a day or two."


    "I do not know if I should be surprised at the fact that you can recover that monstrous amount of mana in just ''a day or two'', or the fact that you have so much mana that it will take that long despite how you will ''chug a few mana potions''." Koperia added, and Eiro quickly shrugged, "And that is even without the stage in my evolution where my amount of mana actually increases."


    Without another word, the Demon pped his wings and started flying through the manor to reach his bedroom. He stepped inside and quickly had the spiders get him some new clothes out of his closet while he took off the ones that he was currently wearing. They were practically sticking to his skin, rather ufortably at that.


    And as he did so, a small object dropped to the ground. Eiro hadn''t really paid attention to it during that wholemotion, but it was stuck to the inside of his sleeve. Eiro quickly picked it up, and soon saw a small metal sphere, with intricate patterns carved onto its outside. It was just the size of a marble, and it didn''t seem to be anything particrly special, but the fact that it got inside of Eiro''s clothes without him noticing meant that this was clearly a unqiue and important object.


    "Was it then?" Eiro muttered, as he thought back at what the Monster King did to him. Before he had disappeared, he cupper Eiro''s hands with his own to close his hand into a fist. Did he leave this object in Eiro''s palm then, and it somehow slipped into his sleeve while Eiro was outside vomiting like that? That seemed to be the most logical exnation, but there were some even more sinister connotations connected to that theory. If this was left by the Monster King... then that back then was not just some sort of magical projection of his being, but rather, the actual Monster King that had just easily invaded Skyhart''s capital.


    ---


    Eiro quickly whistled as he was flying through the air, and soon saw a small bird fly toward him. As the Demon slowed down, the bird hit the center of Eiro''s chest, as most of his body quickly changed back into that of a human.


    "Took you long enough." Bavetined, "Everyone seems quite concerned for you. Especially Ari-"


    "Don''t continue that sentence, buddy." Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Keep silent about what you saw earlier as well, please, because both of know that you definitely did see it. Arie and I yet need to talk about what happened."


    "O-Oh, erm... sure... Ah, more importantly... if I just change your horns into hair directly like I did until now, you''re gonna have a ck streak running through it now... Want me to hide that?" Bavet exined, clearly trying to hide something, although Eiro just ignored it for now.


    "No, leave it. I don''t mind it." He quickly replied, as the Demon pulled his wings into his back, and he simply used air magic to catch his fall a few momentster. And so, Eiro quickly stepped back into the guild, where everyone that was part of Eiro''s party immediately turned toward the door. Eiro walked through the room with an awkward smile, and soon, the first person to talk to him was Hijar.


    "What happened out there?! Are you sure you''re okay? Did you drink too much?" He asked, clearly concerned, and Eiro quickly shook his head, "No, no, it wasn''t anything like that. You see, I''m the owner of the Five of Pentacles, and a bug had crawled into my beer, apparently. A rather unpleasant one, at that." Eiro exined, "I hadn''t been expecting that sort of stimulus, so I just wasn''t feeling good for a while. I have been quite physically weaktely."


    The moment that Eiro gave them this exnation, the ones that heard him and didn''t know about these things already, immediately froze up. To the extent where someone even let their drink drop out of their hand. Of course, Eiro quickly used water magic to make sure it wasn''t spilled all over the ground, and picked the cup up before putting the beer back inside of it.


    "Careful, there." He said, handing the drink back to the person in front of him. This action caused them to immediately start questioning Eiro, "You''re a card owner?! Seriously?!"


    "Actually, I currently possess four cards. The Marite des, the Potion of Disappearance, Absolute Perception, as well as the Absolute Domain of Truth." The Demon exined, as he walked through the crowd to sit back down at the table with the others.


    "So you''re just revealing all of that now? Also, what''s up with your hair?" James asked with a wry smile on his face, and Eiro immediately smiled back at him, "It doesn''t matter if people know. Rather, it just makes me just the more impressive to them."


    "Yeah, but they fight wars over some of those cards... isn''t this kinda... reckless?"


    "Not particrly, considering that there is nobody that would even consider going to war with Skyhart right now. Well, the only person that might consider it is now utterly terrified of me, so that''s that."


    "I''m not even gonna ask..." James sighed deeply, before looking back at the Demon, "You good though?"


    "Yeah, I''m fine. Although it seems like I''ll have to answer a few questions right now.." Eiro pointed out, turning his head to look at all the people that wanted to know more about how exactly Eiro got his hands on four of those powerful cards.

 Chapter 521 - Bar Conversations

    Eiro let some more beer flow down his throat, before cing the cup back down on the table in front of him. Most of the people that had been questioning him all night finally chose to leave him alone for a while, so Eiro could actually enjoy the night a little more.


    Jess was sitting opposite to Eiro again, so the Demon naturally ended up locking eyes with her a few times throughout the night, "Everything alright?" He asked, seeing her expression. Jess looked back at Eiro with a wry smile.


    "I''m pretty sure we''re the ones who should ask you that... Because we know that your exnation is just a lie." Jess pointed out, and Eiro shrugged in response, "I''ll exin it to you guys tomorrow, I would just like to enjoy the night. I need to really figure out what is going on right now anyway."


    "Well, there is one other thing that is going on that we can talk about instead." Krog added, figuring it was better to change the topic altogether if Eiro didn''t want to talk about that stuff, and looked at the Demon with a light smirk, before turning his head toward Arie, "So you two''re a thing now, eh?"


    "Huh?" Eiro let out confused, as he turned his head toward the nephilim next to him, who was just as surprised about hearing Krog say this, so Eiro figured that he quite knew the source of this information.


    "Bavet, I will boil your liquid away when we get home." The Demon said, before goosebumps appeared all over his skin. Of course, they weren''t caused by himself, but rather Bavet, who could sense that Eiro was rather serious in this situation.


    Arie, her face flushed in red, quickly replied, "It was just a kiss, alright? We didn''t have much of a chance to really talk about all of this afterward, if you remember..."


    "Wait, wait, so that was your guys'' first kiss? Like, ever?" Jess asked surprised, although she couldn''t help herself but grin from ear to ear, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yes, it was. But spare us the questions, will you? As Arie said, even we don''t-" The Demon stated, but quickly stopped speaking as he turned his head to the side, noticing someone approaching the entrance to the guild that he didn''t expect to being today.


    The door opened up, and Koperia stepped inside, looking around the room before she found the people that she was looking for. She quickly approached the table that Eiro and the others were sitting at, catching the eye of quite a few of the people here, before she stood in front of the table.


    "I decided toe after all. I hope you do not mind." She said bluntly, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, of course not. Come, sit down. It''s getting a bit... cozy at this table, but that''s fine, I think."


    "Urgh... I can just pull up a chair and like three more people would fit onto the bench, I think." Krog pointed out, but Koperia quickly shook her head, pulling up a chair herself, "It is fine, I will just sit here."


    As she sat down, the group was silent for a few moments, before James hit the table, "Alright, where were we? Right, tell us more about that... kiss." He pointed out with a light smirk, and Koperia quickly looked around the table confused before seeing Eiro and Arie look at each other somewhat awkwardly.


    She quickly caught on, obviously knowing about the nature of Eiro''s feelings for the nephilim, "Oh..! When did this happen?"


    "Like a minute after Eiro finished throwing up all hell, apparently. Which is kind of a weird choice..."


    "Krog, please. You and Jess have done things that are objectively much weirder." Eiro replied immediately, and Krog simplyughed out loud while Jess awkwardly averted her gaze, "You''ve got a point, man. Although... didn''t you say you wouldn''t peek?"


    "It''s not called peeking when Clementine wakes up in the middle of the night and nervouslyes to my room to inform me that she can feel a lot of unique pain from your room." The Demon said bluntly, making even Krog stopughing while Jess'' face turned a deep red as she tried to hide it behind her hands. Meanwhile, now it was James'' turn to startughing at this situation, while there were three rather confused people at the table. Hannah, who simply didn''t understand the references, and Biril and Hijar who werecking an important part of the puzzle. Eiro turned his head to the side with a smile.


    "Those two are in a rtionship." Eiro exined, and Hijar tilted his head to the side, "Huh? Then what- Ohhh...." He replied, suddenly understanding what Eiro was talking about now, while Biril just nervously continued drinking his beer.


    "M-More importantly, I don''t think we have been introduced yet. My name is Biril, I am one of the Kiratil Kingdom''s chosen warriors for our tournament." Biril turned toward Koperia with a smile on his face, wanting to leave that conversation from just now behind. Koperia turned his head toward him and just stared at him for a few seconds. Some momentster, she simply sighed, "My name is Eliza, but I am usually called by Koperia, my family name."


    "...Eliza Koperia? That somehow sounds familiar..." Biril muttered, and Koperia quickly shrugged with her arms crossed, "I better does, I am one of the most famous-"


    "Koperia, we''re inside of an adventurer''s guild."


    "So? None of these children could harm me even if they all came at me at the same time."


    "I know, that''s the point. I don''t want everyone in here to die." Eiro replied, and Biril raised his brows curiously, "Oh? If you are that powerful, are you taking part in a tournament to be the hero''spanion as well?"


    "Huh? Why would I want that? I don''t care about any of those matters. I am only in the area to help Eiro out with his training." She exined. Overhearing this, Hijar turned his head toward Koperia excitedly, "You help with his training? How so?"


    "Hm, well, how much do you know about souls?" Koperia asked, and Hijar silently tilted his head to the side. With a deep sigh, Koperia rolled her eyes, "Fine. The soul is the container for all magic. Of course it does more, but that doesn''t matter right now. Anyway, that being the case, if the soul is out of tune with one''s physical body, it will weaken one''s magic and decrease the amount of mana that one would usually possess. In Eiro''s past, something happened that caused Eiro''s soul to be slightly out of tune with his physical body, so I am here to fix that."


    "Wait, you are manipting his soul? Isn''t that-"


    "Excruciatingly painful? Yes indeed it would be." Koperia replied to Biril, who turned his head toward Eiro, "I am sorry to hear that you have to go through such things. Is the disarray of your soul the reason why you said you have not been feeling well?"


    "Huh? Oh, no, not at all, actually. I mean, my soul being yed around with by Koperia every day somewhat ys into that, but it''s other matters. I''m just doing this to increase my mana, basically." The Demon quickly replied. Biril wasn''t sure what exactly to reply, so James slightly leaned over, "Their conversations are at a whole other level sometimes, just smile and nod if you don''t understand them. Their exnations aren''t going to help."


    "A-Ah... I see..."


    ---


    Toward the end of the night, when most people had already left, it was only Eiro''s group still sitting around. Biril had drunken quite a bit, trying to match up to what Eiro was drinking, and ended up basically cking out for a while, so Hijar chose to end the night there and bring his brother to the inn that they were staying at.


    "Alright, so. Since we''re all here... you wanna use the ace of cups to close us off and tell us about what happened earlier?" James asked, and Eiro slowly looked at the table. He figured that technically it was ''tomorrow'' by now, and it was as good a chance as any. And everyone being at least slightly tipsy might help them not freak out as much, hopefully.


    Eiro pulled the card out of his treasury, and quickly spread the liquid around in a soft mist so that nobody would hear or try to disturb them.


    And then, Eiro told them what happened. He told them that the Monster King himself had descended upon this ce and had done this to Eiro. And he showed off his pure essence to the others, exining that the sludge and his new horn, which was now visible in the form of a ck streak of hair, were created by the impurities that were in Eiro''s essence before.


    Once Eiro''s exnation was over, the table became rather silent. They didn''t know what they were supposed to say, or whether they were supposed to freak out or be relieved that nothing happened. But at the end of the day, everyone was just as confused as Eiro was. After all, why would the true enemy to all people in this worlde here and help Eiro, the being that seems like the greatest threat to him at the moment, out by purifying his essence?


    It simply didn''t seem to make sense. Once the conversation was over, Eiro removed the mist and waved at the barkeep, "It seems like everyone could use another round, huh?"

 Chapter 522 - Guests

    "You''re saying that the Monster King visited you in the bar..?" A voice filled with confusion and fear asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head before replying to Solomon.


    "Yes, that''s exactly what I''m saying. I don''t know why exactly he did it, but I''m going to figure it out, most likely at the verytest when the messages of the past three months appear before me in two weeks. He also gave me this small metal orb that I''m going to have Armodeus properly analyse. It doesn''t seem like any specific metal that I know of." The Demon exined as he crossed his arms with a deep frown, "But something... positive came out of this as well." He stated, and Solomon frowned at him confused.


    "What do you mean?" He asked, "What positive thing coulde out of the Monster King just suddenly appearing before you?"


    "...My essence ispletely pure now. This new horn didn''t just appear out of nowhere, it''s the concentrated form of my essence''s impurities that were stuck in my mana core." Eiro exined, but Solomon was still confused.


    "So? What does a pure essence do for you?"


    "For one, it increases my ability to manipte mana to an extent. Since my core has been cleansed as well, my mana regeneration seems to have gone up a bit as well. But more importantly, it seems like I can make proper use of my essence in itself now. I have been trying to do it for as long as I could split my essence from my mana, but it never worked. Now, it does." The Demon exined, and quickly took a deep breath as he pushed some of his essence out of the tip of his finger. He used it to draw a simple, small magic circle.


    And after activating it, the essence quickly came together in one spot and congealed into one small, perfectly round marble. It dropped down onto Eiro''s hand, but the Demon manipted it before he made skin contact. The marble floated above his palm. Then, Eiro made it move in front of his finger once more, and then shot it off toward the other side of the room.


    In an instant, so quick that even the air wasn''t able to react to what happened so that no sound was created by the sudden movement, the marble appeared on the other side of the room, floating just a fraction of an inch away from the ss pane of the closet.


    "Teleportation?" Solomon asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, it''s not teleportation. I don''t possess spatial magic yet, sadly. Rather, this was just me manipting this small orb. And now, take a look at this." Even though Eiro was not yet finished, Solomon was already utterly baffled. The fact that he could move that thing so quick that it mimicked teleportation, and then was able to make ite to a halt in front of the window in an instant? That was simply incredible.


    But that wasn''t all yet. Eiro slowly moved his hand around in front of him, and created another magic circle. The moment that Eiro activated it, the particles of mana that were floating in the air nearly instantly, but now at a speed that could still be recognized as actual movement, moved over toward the small orb, and then, the magical effect was activated there instead of in front of Eiro''s hand where the magic circle was earlier.


    The effect was nothing special, it was just a small gust of wind that came from specifically where that marble was floating.


    "You can cast spells remotely now?" Solomon asked. Eiro quickly smiled, "Basically, yes. There are some restrictions using this method, but that''s a good surface-level way to exin it. And of course, there are far, far more applications that pure essence potentially has. Increasing the amount of essence that''s ced into a spell will increase its potency. Of course, usually that means that I would end up with a higher mana consumption to increase the power of the spell, since the spell will still need the regr base amount of mana. Either way, for me, I can then just use arcane magic to cast a spell. It''s still a loss to an extent, since I will only be able to cast arcane magic using that leftover mana, but it''s better than nothing."


    "Interesting... so this will really increase your options when ites to spellcasting quite a bit, right? But also, when you add more essence to a spell, is that the same as when you add life force to a spell? Effect wise?" Solomon asked, wanting to make sure he really understood the limitations of this technique, but he was surprised when Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "No, no, not at all. Adding life force to a spell will simply increase the damage that the spell does to the opponent, the spell itself will be the same. Adding more essence to a spell will increase the power of the spell, so for example... I could shoot a projectile a lot faster, or I could make a stronger barrier. That sort of thing. It might increase the damage in response, sure, but it doesn''t technically influence the damage in itself." Eiro exined, and thought about it for a moment, "I do wonder what sort of damage I could potentially do whenbining these two. Using a spell that increased in damage quite a bit the higher the potency, and then infusing it with as much life force as I can spare... that should probably do a couple million damage."


    "A couple mill- Eiro, what could you use damage like that for?" Solomon asked with a shocked expression, and Eiro chuckled slightly, "The enemies I will fight in the future will require that sort of damage for me to be even taken seriously."


    "...Are you sure that you''re fine with such a responsibility?" Solomon asked. Eiro looked back at him for a few moments and then slowly nodded his head. That seemed enough to convey parts of his feelings, before Eiro remembered something else.


    "I mean... I''m not as alone now as I used to be. Sure, I will end up having to fight alone for most of it, but even then... I havepanions now. And potentially, even a lover toe back to." Eiro exined to his friend, who wasn''t sure what exactly he just heard, "A lover? Do you mean... Arie?"


    "She kissed me tonight. Yes, she kissed me. She looked at me, at who I really am, and then she initiated the kiss. I don''t know what it means yet, and what wille from it... but thus far, that is a fact."


    Solomon smiled as he ced his hand onto his friend''s shoulder, "I''m happy for you, Eiro. But... do you really think you should havee here to meet me instead of heading off home with your... ''potential lover''?"


    "What? Of course I should havee here. The Monster King just teleported into the middle of the city with incredible precision and caused me to be dead for basically a full minute." Eiro pointed out with a face of disbelief, and Solomon looked back with an unchanging expression, "You have a point. I don''t understand why I''m not freaking out about this more in the first ce."


    "Probably cuz'' you''ve heard so much random shit that you''ve been dulled to this sorta stuff." Bavet added as he flew down onto the table in front of the two of them, "But more importantly, shouldn''t we start heading home now? There is ss tomorrow, and if someone sees you in the king''s bedroom at night, some unwanted rumors might spread, y''know?"


    "...Maybe you have a point. Alright,e on, then let''s go for now. If you need to know more about the monster king''s sudden appearance, just let me know. You know how to find me." The Demon pointed out, as he made his way over toward the balcony. Solomon apanied him with a sigh, "I sort of want to know more, but I wouldn''t know how to put it into words for now. We will definitely speak about this some more once I get my thoughts together."


    "Of course. That''s to be expected." Eiro pointed out, as he spread out his wings behind his back, "I will be seeing you soon then, Solomon. Call me when you need me." The Demon said, and with a single p of his wings, he lifted up high into the sky at an incredible speed, as Bavet was wrapped around his arm. At even higher speed, Eiro started flying toward his manor, reaching it within less than a minute.


    And quite surprisingly, something that Eiro didn''t expect, there were some guests here.. Hannah was ying around with some of the nocturnal spider servants, while Arie was sitting on top of the roof, seemingly just waiting for this Demon to arrive.

 Chapter 523 - The System’s Administrator

    Eironded on the rooftop and folded his wings up again, "Bavet, go head inside already." He said, and the slime slowly dropped off his arm and transformed into a small bird, "Sure, sure, I''ll try not to watch you kiss this time~."


    "Please don''t, it''s sort of creepy." Eiro pointed out with a slight sigh, while the slime just flew away, quietly cackling. The Demon turned toward the woman that was sitting on the rooftop near him, and softly smiled at her, "I didn''t expect to have you visit after that long night."


    Arie looked up as Eiro sat down next to her, "I know, but there were a few things that I wanted to talk about before tomorrow reallyes."


    "...I think I know roughly what it is that you want to talk about."


    "I would be surprised if you didn''t." Arie chuckled, and slowly turned toward Eiro, who somewhat nervously looked back at her, "That kiss. Was it what I am hoping it is, or was it just... something else? I''m sorry, I really don''t know much about these matters, but I have heard that there are many reasons for two people to kiss."


    Arie smiled lightly, moving her own hair out of her face, "The reason I kissed you is simple. I wanted to... figure something out. How I felt about you. I have known for a while now that you have feelings for me. You weren''t particrly subtle about it, after all."


    "Of course. Why hide something like that? Putting it out in the open is much easier. Makes the answer you receive much easier to read as well."


    "...Not everyone thinks like you in that regard. A lot of people simply want such rtionships to form naturally, instead of everything happening all at once like that." Arie exined, "Nheless, in this case, you being so straightforward about it, but not pushy about it in any way, gave me the chance to really... think. But untilst night, I was stuck between two choices. And that kiss helped me decide on one."


    Eiro slowly looked forward at the horizon, the city stretching out in the distance, "And what is it that you decided?"


    Arie let out a deep sigh as she leaned over,ying her head onto Eiro''s shoulder, "No need to be so nervous, you fool. You felt it too. There is no way I could leave now."


    ---


    Eiro stepped into his bedroom. It has been 12 days since the party, and the evolution would be over in just another day. It was quite early in the day right now, but Eiro just felt like he had to take a nap. He hasn''t felt this exhausted in a while. This seemed to be the veryst step of Eiro''s evolution. His internal structure had shifted around weirdly. His chest cavity had changed to allow for some sorts of growths in there, although Eiro had no idea what those ''growths'' really were going to be. Maybe Eiro would get some more hearts or something. He just knew that his mana has been behaving somewhat weirdly over the past few days.


    Eiro dropped down into his bed naked, and stretched all four of his arms out as his wings fell down from the side of the bed.


    "I''ve got a feeling that this I''m lucky I''ll be asleep for this." Eiro muttered with a light chuckle, as he slowly closed his eyes, and drifted off into sleep. But this wasn''t the sort of sleep where he could just head into his mental library to read a little, but it was a dream where he was out of control despite being lucid and aware that this was in fact a dream. So it seemed like this really was that sort of unique sleep rted to his evolution.


    Eiro found himself in a dark space, with light mist flowing around his feet like water. And a bit ahead of him stood something that Eiro hadn''t seen before. It was glowing patterns, stretching out like branches into the sky from a single point. They did seem to somewhat resemble the patterns on Eiro''s body again, but that might just be him imagining such a pattern where there wasn''t one.


    Either way, in front of the source of these branches stood a figure of pure white. They had an androgynous stature, and no sort of things like eyes or a mouth to speak of that Eiro could notice when they slightly turned their head. They were like some sort of nk te.


    Eiro approached them curiously, noticing that they were further away than he thought. It seemed like the figure was about five, maybe six meters tall.


    "And who are you?" Eiro asked bluntly, and the figure slowly turned around. Even without a mouth, it seemed perfectly capable of speech, and spoke in a voice that was once morepletely androgynous.


    "I am nobody." They replied, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Then what are you doing here?"


    "Managing you and your abilities. That evolution of yours brought a few things into disarray."


    Eiro wasn''t sure what exactly they were talking about, but he slowly scratched the side of his cheek, "Let me guess, you''re some sort of superior force again, aren''t you? What is it this time, are you arcane? Divine?"


    "Arcane." They replied, "But no, I am not a force. Rather, I am just a tool. The one that manages certain aspects of this world for the creator."


    "...The creator of what?"


    "The system, of course."


    Eiro looked at the figurepletely baffled, "You are the system?"


    That question seemed to have annoyed the figure in front of Eiro, as they shook their head, "I am not the system, I simply manage it. I manage the information that goes in andes out. I bring order into things. However, there is a certain bnce to everything, a bnce that you near destroyed."


    "It''s not my fault that I evolved, though." Eiro pointed out, and the figure stopped moving for a moment, "You are the one that had let himself be killed after receiving the gift of the creator. That gift was never meant to be given to a being of your kind. It was meant to go to a person. You ''monsters'' tap into the force of the arcane to change your bodies from the grounds up, while people simply receive abilities from the arcane. The creator''s gift was meant to give the reincarnated ''you'' new special abilities and capabilities, but instead, you ended up reconstructing your body with powers that you were never meant to ess."


    Eiro looked at the figure confused, "But my evolutions were always just unique because of the cards that I collected. They weren''t innately unique."


    "That is because until now I could keep it under control. I had to personally ess your system and fix the issues that were caused by that change."


    "Is that why I can assign my own statpoints freely?" Eiro asked, and the figure slowly shook their head, "No, that was simply part of the gift given to you by the creator. I ended up having to hold back most of the influence of the gift, involuntarily. I think that might be why you had been so hostile when you first became aware of it."


    "Nah, I think I was just an idiot." Eiro replied with a wry smile, but the being didn''t seem to care about thatment.


    "Either way, with the extra influence from those arcane misfits, I was no longer able to hold things back and give you ess to power bit by bit every time you evolved. Instead, I had to quickly fix everything all at once. But then you were too bothered to even wait for a mere year. I appreciated the extra energy, though, and to be perfectly honest, I had little interest in spending too much time on you any longer." The being exined, and Eiro opened his eyes wide.


    "You''re that weird status page!" He eximed, and the being immediately turned around, "I am no such thing!" They yelled back, as if angry, but quickly collected themselves again.


    "Again, I am no such thing. That is simply what happens when I take direct control of the system''s functions. It was not designed for such things, after all. Oh, and just as a warning, had you waited a few more days to initiate the evolution, your soul probably would have been ripped into pieces and caused an immense cataclysmic event that could have very well wiped out the whole country you settled down in. Thatst bit is just a theory, however. Your soul certainly would have been destroyed, though."


    "...Could you not have told me that?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, as he rubbed the bridge of his noise, "Anyway, what is this? Why am I here?" The Demon asked, and the being slowly turned around. It pressed its left hand onto the source of those glowing branches stretching out into the sky. They all started pulling toward the source, and simply turned into a small, coin-sized disc that the being pressed into the center of Eiro''s chest.


    "Since this whole ordeal is finally over, and I had been able to adjust the gift you have been given by the creator, I no longer have to care for you specifically. I simply wanted to speak to you face to face, to express the disdain that I feel when looking at you.. Personally, I do not think that scum like you is deserving of such an incredible gift."

 Chapter 524 - The Legendary Evolution

    Eiro looked back at the figure in front of him, and simply chuckled slightly in response, "Haha, well, I know I''m quite scummy sometimes, but there must have been a reason that he chose me."


    "No, he didn''t choose ''You''. He chose the ''You'' from before, the Sage before he passed. That guy was far scummier than you. Compared to him, you are an innocent child. He could be called more viinous than the Monster King himself."


    "...So it really was like that? The Sage betrayed the others, and was then killed by the Hero and hispanions?" Eiro asked, and the figure turned around confused, "How do you know that?"


    "Ah, well... You must know that I have two spirit gateways fused into my soul now, right? Well, basically, whenever that happened, I met with the world and we spoke a bit. Although, the world was mostly rying information from this ''Creator'' guy. The one that gave me the gift." The Demon exined, before the figure in front of him stood there for a few moments as if in disbelief, "Is that so? Well, never mind that. More importantly, make sure that you use the abilities given to you properly. If you misuse them, nothing good wille from it for you."


    Eiro crossed his four arms in front of him with a smile, "Actually, what would those abilities be? So that I know in a straightforward way."


    "...Everyone that has been given a splinter has an incredible speed of growth. The same is the case for you now. The speed at which you learn abilities is greatly increased, your skill levels will rise more quickly, and the amount of stat points you receive each time you level up will increase by quite a bit as well. There is one ability that you must already be aware of to an extent, which is the one that led you to bing this particr royal."


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, and scratched the back of his head, "Is it that I can ''absorb'' things? Like, I can increase my elemental affinity by being close to that element, but that should have just been a thing given to me since I''m a creation of the monster king."


    "Yes, and no. Being a creation of the monster king, your body held the potential for such an ability, but in actuality, the gift given to you by the creator is what made that ability sprout. But that absorbtion is indeed what I am talking about. You have absorbed something important even before you were reborn." The being exined, and Eiro thought about it for a moment. And then, he remembered something that he heard the first time that he had an encounter with the ''Arcane Misfits'', as this being called them. They said that Eiro had a single splinter, but one that was much greater in size than normal.


    "The gift, my ''splinter'', can absorb other fragments of that arcane force?" Eiro asked, and the being quickly nodded its head, "That is exactly it. It should have taken much longer usually, but through your death and rebirth in this unique way, your gift had absorbed the splinter of the Sage. The ''Sage'' is no longer a being that can evere into existence. And you must be aware that if you take the Hero-Splinter and the King-Splinter into yourself, neither of them will ever be reality ever again. They will be gone from history. Of course, after your death, that might lead to some other weird, crazed beinging into existence, but the Sage, Hero, and King will never be born again. Coincidentally, the same is the case with ''The World'', as it is also something of a splinter. That card has been pulled from the deck forever."


    "...That means... I could potentially take the cards from every royal and wipe them from existence as well?" Eiro asked, and the figure simply stared back at Eiro, "No, not currently at least. There are certain rules set into ce, after all. Currently, you are a ''royal'', so you do not have the capability of taking in another of those fragments in the first ce to let ite to the absorption."


    "...But when I''m the Monster King, then..."


    "It will be possible, yes." The figure replied. And although it had no mouth, it seemed to be grinning softly, "Now, does this all make sense to you now? What the purpose of your gift- no, what your purpose is?"


    Eiro thought about the figure''s words and that weird vibe that Eiro was getting right now, when it all popped up into his mind.


    "The creator wants to take all the arcane fragments back." He muttered, and the figure quickly nodded its head, the nonexistent grin simply growing further.


    "Exactly. That means you are just a tool, nothing more. You are doing exactly what he wants, and you didn''t even kn-"


    "Shut it. I really don''t care. It''s what I want to do as well, so what does it matter? As long as he doesn''t kill me when I''m done, that''s fine. You know what, even if he does n on killing me when he''s done, I''ll just collect every fragment that I can except a single one, and that''s that." Eiro said, as he slowly turned around, "Also, I doubt that''s really what the ''Creator'' had in mind."


    "What? Of course that is what he had in mind! I could never be wrong about such a thing!"


    "Oh really? But think about this for a second. Does the carpenter tell his hammer about the house that he''s currently building?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, as the figure simply stood there, as if petrified. And Eiro simply kept on walking, not thinking about that being anymore, before the space around him finally seemed to be taking on a lighter shade once more. A day had passed, it seemed, and his evolution was most likely over.


    Eiro opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and waited for the flurry of notifications to appear before him.


    ---


    <strong>[Congrattions! You went through a legendary evolution and...]</strong>


    ---


    The flurry of messages came so quick that Eiro figured he had to skip over the main evolution messages for now, and he instead moved on to the ones that were currently in the front of all the others.


    ---


    <strong>[The Legendary Skill {Supreme Demon} has awakened]</strong>


    <strong>[All basic abilities will be upgraded]</strong>


    <strong>[Superior Skill creation has been initiated]</strong>


    <strong>-</strong>


    <strong>[The following skills will bebined:]</strong>


    <strong>-[Intermediate Goblin Langguage Comprehension]</strong>


    <strong>-[Apprentice Orc Language Comprehension] </strong>


    <strong>-[Beginner Harpy Language Comprehension]</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>-[Beginner Ratman Language Comprehension]</strong>


    <strong> </strong>


    <strong>[The Superior Skill {Universal Monster Language Comprehension} has been created. The ability to learn newnguages has been increased by many times, but eachnguage still has to be studied individually. Learning onenguage will increase proficiency in other, simrnguages]</strong>


    <strong>-</strong>


    <strong>[The following skills will bebined:]</strong>


    <strong>-[Advanced Water Magic]</strong>


    <strong>-[Advanced Air Magic]</strong>


    <strong>-[Advanced Fire Magic]</strong>


    <strong>... </strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>-[Apprentice Death Magic]</strong>


    <strong> </strong>


    <strong>[The Superior Skill {Elemental Magic Mastery} has been created. The ability to awaken and advance through new magic skills has been increased by many times, but each magic skill has to be studied invidiually. Studying one elemental magic will increase proficiency in other, simr magics]</strong>


    <strong>-</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>[The Superior Skill {General Negative Effect Resistance} has been created...]</strong>


    <strong>... </strong>


    <strong>[The Superior Skill {Physical Combat Mastery} has been created...]</strong>


    <strong>-</strong>


    <strong>[No further skill groups requiring a Superior Skill have been found]</strong>


    ---


    Eiro looked at all these notifications, and ended up just beingpletely and utterly startled by what he saw. He immediately opened his status, seeing his list of skills shortened considerably. Quite a few of his skills seemed to have been ced into this superior skill list. And when he looked at one of them closer, he could ess the information of each of the skills that had been taken into that superior skill, simply as if he was essing another section of his status. It seemed somewhat weird, but these skills did seem quite powerful nheless. He would take a look at how his other abilities had been upgradedter, for now, he continued looking at the other messages. This time, the ones rted to ''The World''.


    ---


    <strong>[You have awakened as a royal monster, {The World}!]</strong>


    <strong>[Absolute Elemental Fusion ability acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[Physical Absorption ability acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[Ability Absorption ability acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[Domain Creation ability acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[Servant Creation ability acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[Special Skill ¨C {The World} acquired] </strong>


    ---


    Those messages were a lot shorter than Eiro had expected, but they were incredibly exciting. He knew about the ''Elemental Fusion'' ability, since that was the one that he had been unlocking as he went along bit by bit, but he had no idea what the others were all about. Especially the ''special skill'' with the name of his title, and what sorts of things it would allow him to do.


    Eiro turned his head to the side, to look at the other notifications that he needed to look at for now. These three groups had been the most important, he would figure out the rest of the smaller notificationster.


    ---


    <strong>[Congrattions! You went through a legendary evolution and created a new race! You are now a Lesser Arcanus!]</strong>


    <strong>[Being the first of a new race, you are now the lord of all Arcanus and will be given your own throne in hell if desired!]</strong>


    <strong>[The Arcanus are the first race of demons that are not direct descendants of the first Demon, and are as such exempt from the punishment of the first sin!]</strong>


    <strong>[The Intermediate Holy Energy Resistance Skill has be useless]</strong>


    ---


    The Demon stared forward in disbelief. He couldn''t believe what he was seeing in front of him. He... became a new race? An ''Arcanus''? He didn''t care about the ''Lesser'' part of it right now, more importantly, the fact that he created a new race of demons altogether waspletely insane. Eiro was no longer an Imp from this moment onward. He felt... sad, somehow. He had been an imp for literally his whole life, but now, all of a sudden he was something else? It just didn''t make any sense to him.


    And then the next part... the punishment of the first sin? If that meant that his Holy Energy resistance had be useless... then he no longer had a bane? The only reason why it could be useless is if he had no need for a resistance against Holy Energy.


    Immediately, Eiro jumped up from his bed. He quickly clothed himself in his robes and ran through the house. His senses had be much stronger than before, even, so he was somewhat overwhelmed for a moment, but he could sense the location he needed to get to immediately.


    Eiro rushed through the building at an incredible speed, and found himself in the sitting room, where his children were currently sitting, talking to each other.


    "Huh? Dad? Wait, why''re you wearing that..?" Arc asked confused, but Eiro didn''t pay attention to his son. There was only one person that he was paying attention to.


    He stepped forward, looking at his youngest child, and fell to his knees. Slowly, he grabbed the bracelets and anklets that she was wearing, and pulled them off her. Immediately, everyone freaked out, since those were for Eiro''s protection as well.


    But then, Eiro slowly pulled Avalin into himself, into a big, long hug.


    "I don''t feel a bit.." The Demon muttered, tears forming in his eyes, as he embraced his child without feeling any sort of pain for the first time in his life.

 Chapter 525 - Demonology

    "Wait, what''s going on? Dad?" Rudy walked up behind Eiro, not sure what exactly was happening right now, and the Demon slowly turned around toward the children, "I don''t have a bane anymore. I''m unaffected by holy energy." He exined, and everyone looked at each other confused, as he embraced Avalin even more. Even she was weirded out by how clingy Eiro was being right now, despite the fact that she wanted to cuddle with him any chance that she was given.


    Eiro took a deep breath, as he slowly stood up, still holding onto Avalin''s hand as he was doing so.


    "What do you mean you don''t have a bane anymore?" Arc asked, "How is that even possible?"


    "I... don''t know. But I don''t. I''m still a demon, but I''m a different kind... I''m not an Imp anymore." Eiro exined, "I''m a new race of demon. And apparently, that makes me some soort of Demon nobility, since I apparently will be given a throne in hell... It''splicated. I''ll look into it."


    Sammy stared at Eiro in disbelief, "How does that even make sense? How could you be an Imp one day, and something different the next? That''s like... if I turned into and elf all of a sudden, right? Right?"


    "Well, not directly." Eiro pointed out, "It''s more like... if Rudy suddenly wasn''t part of the Goliath n anymore, but just a human outside of a n. It''s that kind of thing. ns and such are based off of physical features and abilities, mostly, and a legendary evolution certainly has enough power to influence that level of things." Eiro exined, "For example, the structure of my heart changed just so slightly. The muscles are stronger and can pump more... more blood..."


    Eiro slowly pressed his hand onto his chest, noticing something inside of his body all of a sudden rthat wasn''t there before. Things that took the ce of the hollow areas that had formed in his chest. There were twoplex crystal formations inside of his chest close to to his heart. But the weirdest thing was that they were made of pure mana.


    "Mana crystalisation..." Eiro muttered, "I achieved mana crystalisation..." Immediately, Eiro looked forward and opened up his status, looking at the top of the page that appeared to him.


    ---


    [Name ¨C Eiro (Jura Daemonherz)][Race ¨C Lesser Arcanus][Level ¨C 1]


    [Health ¨C 750.867][Mana ¨C 2.424.657]


    [Strength - 206][Constitution - 201][Resistance ¨C 200]


    [Agility - 302][Evasion ¨C200][Dexterity - 208]


    [Intelligence - 401][Wisdom - 400]


    [Perception ¨C 300][Willpower - 201][Charisma - 121]


    [100 Stat Points Avable]


    ---


    Eiro looked at the window in disbelief, and his children looked at him concerned, "Is something wrong?" They asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "Nothing is wrong, no... rather... I have an incredible amount of mana within my body now... to the point where I achieved mana crystalisation twice."


    "Wait, what''s mana crystalisation?" Arc asked with a wry smile, and someone else replied for Eiro. Koperia half stepped into the room and said, "Mana crysalisation is a phenomenon where a soul holds so much mana that it affects the physical body, creating crystals-like growths of mana near the mana source, which is usually in the heart. Sometimes, the crystal grows inside of the heart and straight up kills the one who achieved this stage. But really... even I''m not at that stage yet. You really have an ocean of mana inside of you."


    "You can say that again. It''s at 2.4 million right now." Eiro exined, and the necromancer took a moment to process this information, "T-Two... excuse me for a second, did you just say two and a half million?"


    "Well, no, I''m still missing 78 thousand mana to get to two and a half million. Oh, and also, I need you to help me out. How much do you know about the history of demons?"


    ---


    Eiro waved his hand around with a light whistle, and a dozen books were pulled out of the shelves of the library by some mage hands in an instant. They were all held open in front of Eiro, who nced at the pages of all twelve books at once before they flipped to the next page. All in all, it took Eiro five minutes to finish the shorter books, and ten to finish the longer ones. Whenever he finished one of the books, he grabbed a new one from the shelf.


    Right now he was in the bestiary section trying to find any and all information on demons that he could. And in the process, Eiro had be quite a spectacle. After all, it wasn''t every day that one of the teachers seems to have made it his goal to read every single book in the academy''s libary in a single day.


    But then, all of a sudden, Eiro stopped. He finished reading through the books currently floating in front of him, put all the books back into the shelves, and then stood up. He looked around at all the people that had gathered around him, and slightly tilted his head to the side, "Do I have something on my face?"


    "N-No, of course not... erm, but what were you reading?" One of the library workers asked, as if trying to help him find what he was looking for, "I was reading up on demonology. For now I read everything that I need to. If you have any other books on demons, do let me know, please."


    "Demonology? Could I ask, why do you want to learn about demons..?"


    "You can, but I won''t answer. It''s just private curiousity, no need to concern yourself with it." Eiro exined, before he continued walking through the library, not minding anyone. Once Eiro was outside, he immediately fused his aura with his surrounding to make himself practically disappear from onlookers, before stretching out his wings and jumping into the sky. Soon, Eiro reached the royal castle''s training ground, and sat down on a ledge while pulling his wings back into his body.


    Eiro crossed his legs as he yed around and created some more water and fire by pulling it out of the elemental gateways in his soul. He was happy that he was able to do this again. The Demon took a deep breath as he waited for the royal guards to finally enter the training ground. Luckily, Solomon agreed to setting up arge scale special training session today, so that Eiro could properly test out one of his new abilities.


    "Uurgh, this feels weird! Can we like split up for a moment? It feels like you''re robbing me of my slime..." Bavetined, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "I know, that''s because I technically am. Sorry, I still can''t control the ability that well, but I at least know how to push things I absorb out again. I''ll give you your slime backter."


    "...Fine. But at least try to slow it down a bit, alright? Before you suddenly end up absorbing my core as well..."


    "That shouldn''t happen. I hope. Anyway, don''t worry about it, I''ve got it under control for now." Eiro said, "Trust me."


    For now, Eiro simply waited and chose to analyse the information that he had taken in at the library properly. It took him a while to do, but that was only the case in his mental library, which had changed to quite some extent anyway at a fundamental level, but Eiro didn''t want to look into that yet. He wanted to go step by step and figure things out slowly. He wanted to know about his new abilities before figuring out the changes to his old abilities caused by his legendary skill.


    Once Eiro had analysed the information rted to demonology, piecing together the small parts of the puzzle that had been scattered amongst numerous books, he had figured out the story, at least partially.


    Millennia ago, before demons came to exist, and when the gods still didn''t have their own realm and instead called this world their own, the gods practically enved all living beings on this world. In the hierarchy, it was the one god above all, the greater gods, the lesser gods, the different tiers of angels, and then everything else. But there existed something else that many don''t know about. They were simr to angels, but still a whole other category of being between angels and gods. Nearly demigods, but not even quite that.


    While angels could be called footmen and generic servants to the gods, these beings were closer to advisors, or private servants to the gods. Something to more easily speak to the angels, like a messenger of sorts. Well, one of these beings, whose name Eiro still couldn''t figure out, was the ''leader'' of them all. Someone that served all the gods instead just a single one.


    And that beingmitted a crime. The ''first sin''. It seemed to have been so grave that not only this leader was punished, but all other beings of this sort as well, causing them to go extinct in that moment. As a punishment for the leader himself, he was cast away from the gods, and was forced to fall from the highest point of the world, a punishmentter repeated for angels, turning them into ''fallen angels''.


    Meanwhile, this being was instead turned into a demon. The first demon. His impact with the ground ripped apart everything, creating hell in the process. Somehow, this first demon found was to create offspring, all of which had received the same punishment as him.


    To never be allowed toe in contact with anything holy ever again. And that was how the bane of the Demons came to be.


    But... Eiro wasn''t that demon''s offspring. He was created by the monster king. But even so, he was technically still an Imp, and as such counted as his offspring anyway.. And now that Eiro was a whole new sort of demon, the system could properly acknowledge that Eiro was not that first demon''s offspring anymore, and he was freed from the bane.

 Chapter 526 - Ability Absorption

    Eiro opened his eyes again, and looked at the training field in front of him. The soldiers and guards were finally gathering there, although they, for the most part, had no idea why they were actually there. And so, Eiro quickly jumped off of the ledge that he was sitting on and quickly moved over toward where they all were.


    The moment that he approached them, the chief guard saluted to him, "Wee, Lord Daemonherz."


    "Don''t. Just call me Eiro, you''re a noble as well." The Demon pointed out immediately, and then looked at all the people gathered here, "So this is everyone that had learned different styles ofbat before they learned the Skyhart style?"


    "Indeed. As you asked, I called as many of them as I could over today." The chief guard exined, and Eiro quickly crossed his arms as he started to speak to the people in front of him.


    "Good. Then I will exin what will happen now. I want all of you to disy yourbat masteries to me. Whatever the style is, I want you to show it to me. Of course, if necessary, I will be providing you with a proper partner to spar with." Eiro told them, but everyone was rather confused. Even the chief guard didn''t know exactly why Eiro was doing this.


    "Erm... excuse me, but my style is a family style... I don''t think I should freely disy it like this..." One of the guards exined, and Eiro slowly let out a deep sigh, "Of course, that is understandable. If you don''t wish to show off your style, I will not force you. I am simply curious about different styles ofbat. You see, I wish to be as prepared for the tournament as I possibly can." Eiro told them. Obviously, that was just a lie. He was confident that he would be able to win the tournament at this point, without question, in fact. There was no way any random person in this country would be able to beat him anymore.


    Rather, Eiro''s reason for doing this is simply something else. He wants to test out one of his new abilities that he received upon bing ''The World''. And that is the ''Ability Absorption'' ability. At first, it sounded like Eiro was capable of copying or stealing the actual system-given abilities that others had, but that didn''t seem to be the case. Rather, it could be called ''Technique Absorption'', and it would be more urate. Of course, there seemed to be other reasons why it was called ''Ability Absorption'' that Eiro hadn''t figured out yet.


    Basically, what this ability let him do is absorb the physical techniques of other people and ingrain them in his own body. It was simr in nature to what ''The Death'' could do, to an extent. ''The Death'' changed its body perfectly in response to the abilities that others showed them to be the perfect counter for that ability. Meanwhile, Eiro could now change his body to copy the techniques that others showed him nearly perfectly.


    Of course, when he tried this on James on Krog, his physique didn''t change. The structure of his muscles changed so that he could use their techniques perfectly, but he didn''t get any sort of bulking muscles like Krog had. His body would adjust properly so that he could use these exact techniques with his own current build. It was slightly ufortable, but after all the pain that Eiro went through during his evolution, that was nothing.


    So now, Eiro wanted to see as many different techniques as he could. Since his body changed so that he could make use of all of them at the same time, he would receive an incredible amount of control over his body for even the slightest, minuscule motions. Well, not that it was really needed anymore in the first ce. All of his joints could move a surreal amount beyond what normally could happen. The main thing stopping him now was his flesh, otherwise he could probably move all of his limbs around inplete circles. Even so, having the ability to properly use many different techniques like that would definitely by useful.


    Some of the soldiers and guards went on their way after Eiro told them it was alright, but argerge portion luckily still stayed, and Eiro was quite grateful for that.


    "Alright. Then I guess, could all of you just get to practicing along some dummies? That might be the easiest way for me to see which styles I should pay more attention to." The Demon exined, and as if following Eiro''smand, they all did as he told. There were plenty of people using swords, but some used spears, axes, and even daggers.


    Somehow, seeing all of these people doing this stuff reminded Eiro that he should probablypletely finish up the training program of the puppet now... It was impossible for it to really beat Eiro anymore at this point, but he still felt like he should kind of finish that part of his life up. After all, Jura went through quite some trouble to create the puppet for him.


    For now, as Eiro was watching all of these people, he could feel the changes in his muscture happen bit by bit. They were mostly disying basic techniques right now, so there really wasn''t much to change on Eiro''s body for now.


    However, as the day continued, that changed. Eiro had the soldiers disy more advanced aspects of theirbat styles, and throughout some parts of the day, Eiro could really feel his muscles shift around like someone grabbed them and forcefully changed their configuration somehow.


    A few hourster, the soldiers were exhausted, too exhausted to continue on, so Eiro figured it was fine to end this all for the day. But before they left, one of the guards had another question for Eiro, "Excuse me, but... could we see some of your own style..? I think all of us are quite curious..."


    Eiro thought about it for a moment and quickly shrugged, "Sure, I don''t mind." He said, and quickly turned his head toward the chief guard, "Would you want to help me demonstrate part of my style?"


    "Ah, of course!" The chief guard replied, as if he was excited about this opportunity himself. With a smile on his face, Eiro pulled one of his daggers out of his treasury, and tightly held it in his hand. He stepped into the space that the soldiers were creating for him and the chief guard, and quickly rolled up his sleeves.


    "My style follows some rather simple principles, but it requires a high control over your own body, and the ability to read your opponent''s motion and momentum." He exined, as the chief guard readied his sword as he stood in front of Eiro rather nervously. The Demon took some steps toward him so that he was in range for the chief guard''s attack, and then told him, "Move as if you were going to actually swing at me. Let''s demonstrate this properly."


    The chief quickly nodded his head, and slowly moved his sword as if he was shing at the Demon. They were both moving rather slow, but still at a speed where they could properly spar. It was just so that the others could follow along more easily.


    Eiro moved his dagger toward the sword and pressed it down with the t side, and then simply jumped up for a moment to dodge the attack. Kicking off of the de to try and destroy the chief guard''s bnce, Eiro grabbed the guard''s shoulder and pulled himself forward, further disturbing his opponent''s bnce. As he moved past the guard, he twisted his body around and quickly moved the dagger toward the guard''s throat, of course stopping before he actually hit him, which immediately brought this first demonstration to an end.


    "As you can see, since I am currently armed with just a single dagger, if I were to try and block an iing attack from such a heavy weapon, that would be insanity. My dagger would shatter if I wasn''t careful. Rather, my style is based around dodging and diverting my opponent''s movement, like I did just now." Eiro exined, and then turned back toward the guard, "Want to try again?" He asked, and the guard immediately nodded his head.


    And just like that, this training session turned away from Eiro trying to further absorb the techniques of other people, and instead became Eiro demonstrating the basis of his own techniques to the soldiers and guards, something that they seemed to greatly appreciate.


    At some point, though, Eiro noticed something that was slightly bothersome. Or rather, someone that was incredibly bothersome. The ''Bloodstone Sorceress'' Evelyn was currently entering the royal castle. The preparations for the tournament, and the huge festival that came with it, had begun a while ago, so there was a lot more foot-traffic in and out of the royal castle as numerous nobles came to the capital to bring their own personal candidates to this ce. And one of them was that bothersome woman, that was clearly still thinking that she could somehow beat Eiro in the tournament. Or at least, she seemed to have be a bit stronger than before, since her mana increased a considerable amount.


    Somehow, Eiro was even more excited to obliterate her now.. With a smile on his face, Eiro continued on showing off some of his techniques, and an hour or soter, he was ready to move on, and y around with another one of his abilities while figuring out what exactly this woman was here for.

 Chapter 527 - Punch

    Eiro walked around the royal castle, easily hiding himself from the guards and soldiers so that he could walk around without anyone bothering him in the slightest. Soon, he stood in front of Solomon''s study, and inside together with him was Evelyn.


    "Please, can you not just reconsider? That man, Eiro, is not someone that you want joining the hero''s party..." She pleaded with the king, but was quickly shut down.


    "Eiro is my dear friend. I trust him much more than I trust you, or anyone in your family. He has never kept a secret from me if it was something I truly needed to know. You, however, have spent nearly a decade trying to reach the peak of an organization attempting to overpower anyone else in this world." Solomon pointed out, "Why would I ever trust your advice?"


    "...You know nothing about him, your majesty. Not really. You don''t know of the things that he has done before my eyes... Just..." Evelyn muttered, "If I manage to beat him in this uing tournament, will you listen to me and banish him?" She asked, clearly genuine in her words. For some reason, she still believed Eiro to be the viin in all this, and herself to be the hero. She was utterly deluded from Eiro''s perspective. Or maybe Eiro was the deluded one, and Evelyn truly was in the right in this situation, although the Demon highly doubted that.


    Rolling his eyes, knowing that Solomon would never listen to her words, Eiro moved on forward and made his way back out of the castle. On his way, however, Eiro was cing some certain things into his mouth. They were thumb-nail sized chunks of metal that Armodeus had molten down for him so that Eiro could get used to one of his new abilities. ''Physical absorption''.


    With this ability, he was able to absorb physical objects into his body, making them part of himself. That was the same effect that was robbing Bavet of some of his slime while the two were fused together. Theoretically, Eiro seemed capable of absorbing things through every part of his body, evident by the fact that this is even an issue right now, but the Demon still couldn''t control this ability all too well, so he was using these metal chunks to practice properly.


    Metal, iron in particr, was a substance surprisingly easily absorbed, and since it was something that shouldn''t be found in his body in this amount, it was also easily split off of the rest of his body and put back out in some form.


    The easiest way for Eiro to absorb things for now seemed to be to eat them. His teeth were more than strong enough to crush iron. Even as a lesser imp they were able to pulverize bones with ease, so as a lesser Arcanus with his level of stats, it made sense that he could do something like this. And then, once they made their way into Eiro''s stomach, his stomach acids, which suddenly seemed capable of taking apart everything that he ate without exception, helped him absorb this metal into his body while Eiro was still inexperienced with this ability. It was very differentpared to absorbing magic into his body, especially considering that this was something more permanent. If he wanted to absorb magic, he had to constantly hold it in himself, as if he was holding a tool in his hand with a steady grasp, but this waspletely passive. He didn''t have to do anything about it.


    And then, there were of course the benefits that came with it. The more Eiro absorbed of a physical material, the more that material became part of his body. For example, by eating all this metal, his flesh, muscles and skin became far tougher, and if he kept eating it like this, his body would probably turn metallic as a base state.


    Eiro took a deep breath after swallowing another piece of metal, as he stepped onto the ledge of the open window in front of him. Kicking off, Eiro quickly took off into the sky and made his way back over to his manor. He knew what Evelyn was at the castle for now, so there was little reason for him to stick around there for now. He just wanted to keep ying around with his new abilities to figure out the best tactic to create as great a gap in the tournament as possible.


    The Demonnded in his gardens and quickly split off from Bavet. The slime''s mass had decreased by roughly a third, so Eiro knew that he had absorbed more than he had wanted to. It was kind of a unique feeling, though. With all of that slime in his flesh, he could slightly change the color of his skin himself to be more like that of a person. He still couldn''t just change the shape of his body in any way, but the color itself was still quite useful. In an emergency, that was something they should keep in mind.


    For now, though, Eiro pressed the slime out of his skin and gathered it all in front of his palm, before giving it back to Bavet, "Urgh... thank you... Again, that was such a weird feeling..."


    "I''m sure it was." Eiro chuckled, before looking at his hand, "Although, because your slime is so easy to control... it gave me some ideas." He exined, and slowly closed his eyes. He moved the iron in his body around and brought it all to one of his left hands. It had turned metallic to arge extent. It was simr to his metal skin ability, but still fundamentally different. His metal skin ability turned the outermostyer of his skin into metal, and thenyered everything else on top of that. Right now, Eiro''s hand was fully metal.


    Slowly, the Demon moved the metal around even more, and focused it all on his bones. While they were strong, they were one of his greatest problems. His flesh and muscles could regenerate quickly, but his bones took a lot longer, so Eiro had to be careful when he tried to attack others in a straightforward way, or when he tried to block heavy attacks. He didn''t do it often in the first ce, but this gave him some more options. Considering that each action had an equal and opposite reaction, when he hit something with his full strength, and that object happened to be somehow capable of coping with that full strength, his own body would receive the same amount of damage as he gave out. That was one of the reasons why he liked his current hand to handbat style, and didn''t go for something with straightforward punches, since when he tried, he broke some of the bones in his hand and arm quite brutally.


    Slowly, Eiro pulled a small bag out of his satchel, and grabbed an acorn out of it. With a flick of his wrist, the seednded in the ground and was quickly buried in soft earth. Using nature magic, and his surreal amount of mana, Eiro proceeded to make the acorn grow into arge and thick oak tree.


    He pressed his hand onto the surface and lightly smiled, "Alright, perfect." He muttered, really gathered all of the metal in his body on the bones that would be affected by this punch of his upper left hand, and then also added someyers of his metal skin ability onto his skin to protect himself some more.


    Eiro took a deep breath, and tried to ignore Krog and James that were approaching him while taking a break from their training. He changed the flow of his life force to strengthen himself perfectly for this punch, and even tried using some earth magic in his arms, shoulders, and back to strengthen the attack even more.


    Now, Eiro just thought about a perfect jab. He thought about his fellow teacher, Kristoph Garlings. His physical ability was one to be admired, considering his position in the organization that he got through his raw ability to fight.


    Eiro remembered his movements, and tried to ce himself in his position. But when that happened, Eiro could feel something about his body changing. His physique was adjusting, just like it did many times throughout the day.


    "So memories work as well, huh?" He said with a broad grin on his face. He recollected everything that he could about Kristoph''s techniques, and his muscles kept shifting for a few moments. Right when James and Krog reached Eiro, the changes wereplete, and Eiro let out a deep breath as a slight mist rose from his body because of the heat produced by his sudden physical changes.


    And then, in an instant, Eiro pushed his arm forward in a straight line. It was a simple punch, but the speed and strength was utterly surreal. At a speed where the whole punch was missed if someone blinked, Eiro showed his power off.


    As if even the oak tree wasn''t able to follow along, it seemed like it took a moment for that huge chunk of the thick tree to explode outward. Eiro pulled his arm back and watched the tree slowly fall away from him.


    He waved his hand around, since some of his hand''s muscles seemed to have ripped in response to that punch.


    "Huh." Eiro muttered, "Neat."


    He turned around, looking at the two people that hade over to him, and were now staring at him in disbelief, "Oh, hey. How''s your guys'' training going?"


    After a few seconds, Krog turned around and said, "I... I''ll keep lifting some weights...."

 Chapter 528 - Sorrow And Rage

    Eiro took a step forward and quickly picked up the upper half of the oak tree, carrying it over to a part of the garden where they were nting vegetables, since Rudy asked if they could do that. He quickly made the oak tree rot away and then gave the nutrients to the field, before he turned around and made his way back over toward the tree''s stump.


    "Hey James, should I get rid of this, or should I turn it into a sitting-spot or something? It''s a nice spot to sit and enjoy the sun, especially for things like meditation or something, you know?" The Demon pointed out, but James just looked back at him utterly baffled, "Can we kind of take a step back and talk about how you destroyed that tree with a simple punch? And then picked up said tree with ease?"


    "...I mean, you know how strong I am, so... this shouldn''te as a surprise." Eiro said somewhat confused, but James looked back at him with a wry smile, "What do you mean, this ''shouldn''te as a surprise''. You obliterated that thing with a single punch."


    "Fair enough, I guess that is kind of impressive. But you haven''t seen the other things that went into it. I strengthened myself with magic and life force, of which I have more than half a million, by the way. That means that I can use a lot more at specific spots." Eiro exined, but James wasn''t sure what exactly he was talking about.


    "But isn''t the ratio always the same no matter how much life force you have?"


    "Not really. Let''s say... you need 100 health points worth of life force in each limb as a minimum, but right now, I have around 100.000 points worth in my left arm, and before, I had 10.000 points in there. Before, I could use 9.900 points, and now I can use 99.900 points, so the ratio is a good bit more. And then there are also the aspects of minor life force crystalisation when youpress that much life force in one part of your body which strengthens you even more when you reach that level, so y''know."


    "Wait..." James muttered, "What''s life force crystalisation? The same thing as mana crystalisation, but with life force?" He asked, having heard this term for the first time today.


    "Yup, I assume so. Koperia told me about it, although she only saw it a couple times herself. I''m sure you heard about it before as well though, I think they''re the ''Monster Heart'' gems that are used to make elixirs." Eiro pointed out, as he was cutting through the stump in front of him to turn it into a t seating opportunity. Him and James spoke about this some more while Krog was lifting some weights by the training area, but it didn''t take long until Eiro heard the ps ofrge wings in the distance.


    "Oh?" He said, turning around instantly, while James looked at him surprised, "What''s wrong? Did something happen?"


    "No, no, don''t worry, Arie is just on her way." Eiro exined with a light smile on his face, as he watched the nephilime into view. Shended in front of Eiro, wearing a worried expression, "Nevermind, I think something might have happened... What''s wrong?"


    Arie stepped up to Eiro and stopped right in front of him, with a nervous expression, "Erm... You told me about the town you ''lived'' in, right? Something popped up around there..." She muttered, and Eiro raised his brows confused, "What do you mean?"


    "They call it a new ''World Tree''... a tree that has grown sorge that it can be seen from miles and miles away." Arie exined, and Eiro raised his brows, "Well shit, I guess my evolution and advancement in mana did affect my tree after all, huh..? I meant to go visit it and feed it my purified essence in bulk, just in case, but... seriously, they''re calling it a World Tree?"


    "Apparently so, yeah..." She replied, but there was clearly something else beside this. This wasn''t all too worrying, after all. If they believed it to be a world tree, then they would never cut it down, so her concern can''t be directed at the tree itself. The only other thing could be...


    "They found my old home, haven''t they?" Eiro asked, and Arie slowly nodded her head, "They did... and they figured out that it was Jura''s old home as well... I heard they n on burning it down..."


    "They? Who are they? It certainly wouldn''t be the townfolk, so... adventurers? If you heard about all this before me, then you must have heard it in town while they were talking about this kind of thing, right?"


    Arie quickly nodded her head, and Eiro spread out his wings with an anger-filled expression on his face. Rage was coursing through his veins, as he slowly looked up into the sky, "Tell the kids about what''s going on, they''ll understand." Eiro said, as he pressed his foot into the ground. With a single kick-off, Eiro lifted up into the ground, leaving behind Nelli to tell Arie and James what he was about to do. Arie may have wings, but she wasn''t able to fly fast enough to catch up to Eiro.


    The first stop that Eiro took was the royal castle. Of course, since he didn''t have Bavet with him, he had to hide himself somehow, and just in case used a little bit of the ace of cups'' liquid for that as well. Hended on the balcony of Solomon''s study, where he was still talking to Evelyn.


    Immediately, Eiro stepped into the room, pushing open the door without caring for the fact that he shattered the lock as he was at it. With a flick of his wrist, Eiro pressed his hand on Solomon''s shoulder and froze time with the ring, that had less than half a minute left so that he didn''t have to deal with Evelyn. He didn''t have much time, after all.


    "Solomon, I''m leaving the country for a day, two at most. Need to go back to my old home, I will exin when I''m back. Just trust me." Eiro said, and the king turned around utterly startled at what just happened, "Eiro! What are you-"


    "I don''t have much time to exin. They found my old home and are nning on burning it down. My personal tree turned world-tree level. I think it might have been what interrupted the ability between you and lognir to speak." Eiro said bluntly, and turned around, "Again, I will exin when I am back."


    And so, Eiro turned around and let time proceed, before flying off into the distance, leaving behind a confused Solomon and a shocked Evelyn as the balcony door simply flew open without her noticing why.


    Eiro fused his body with the air as much as he could, trying to speed up his travels as much as possible. He increased the concentration of air and air magic in his wings, trying to increase their size as much as possible so that he could have more air pushing him forward. Of course, he shrunk his wings down as much as he could while pulling them back up so that he didn''t waste any time.


    Eiro''s body cut through the clouds, and a few explosions could be heard all the way down to the city as the sound barrier broke a few times. Eiro was travelling so fast that it was hard for him to even properly keep his body together fully while it was turned into air so much. Ever since he received the ''Absolute elemental fusion'' ability, the extent to which his body changed was considerably different. He changedpletely, now, as if he was an elemental himself.


    It was a weird feeling, but he could still properly control his body, so it was fine. He just had to be more careful about a few things, like for example right now, keeping his body fully together while traveling at this speed.


    But he didn''t really care too much about what was happening to his body right now. If he let his old home be burnt down, he would never forgive himself. Quickly, Eiro travelled incredible distances, and it didn''t even take Eiro half an hour to reach the area where he had spent most of his life.


    And as he slowed down, splitting the air from his body, he could really see it. The ''World Tree''. It was towering above everything else in this forest, so it made sense why people considered it to be a world tree now. But even then, it was certainly Eiro''s own tree. As he approached it, he could sense the rings of the tree. The outermost ring was just so incredibly thick that it was impossible for this tree to not have grown in a few months.


    Eiro touched it with his hand, feeling a sort of familiar burning cold. The first thing that popped into his mind was something that happened long ago, when he first met Lugo.


    "So... that tree I saw in that vision... was my own tree? But... how could that..?" The Demon muttered in disbelief. It simply didn''t make any sense. Especially considering that despite the size of this tree, it was nothing but a saplingpared to that tree he saw then. It certainly felt the same in every conceivable way, but... it seemed like this tree would grow more and more in the future.


    "But nevermind that... this is not what I''m here for." Eiro whispered, as he turned his head. And what he noticed was... infuriating.


    Eiro flew forward, cutting through the air that was filled with the smell of smoke. Hended on top of the hill, and stepped up to the pile of scorched wood that was his home before.


    The hut, the small barn... the tree... everything was destroyed, burnt to a crisp and smashed into pieces with anything that the perpetrators came across. But there was something even worse. There was the scent of burnt, rotten flesh. Of old bones that had cracked open in the heat of mes.


    "Wh-Who did this..?" he muttered, pushing the wood to the side to find that which was buried underneath. The still-hot embers of the wood that were floating around him were scorching his clothes, making him look ragged. Soot covered his flesh as he finally found what he was looking for. He grabbed the object and held it in his hand. A crack had formed across the object, covering both of therge indents in the middle.


    Eiro fell to his knees, tears of sorrow and rage streaming down his cheeks, as he looked at the desecrated grave and held the skull of his father in his four hands.

 Chapter 529 - Special Skill Test

    Eiro simply sat there, for an hour. Maybe two. The tears on his cheeks had already dried, and there was nothing elseing out of his eyes anymore. He slowly looked up into the sky, "I will kill whoever did this."


    The Demon stood up, pushing aside as much of the scorched wood as he could, trying to find every part of Jura''s body. And when he did, he used earth magic to create a new grave for now, "Once I am done, I wille back and bury you properly again, alright? Just hold out for now."


    Eiro turned around and spread out his perception. He looked at the footprints on the ground, their depth, size and shape. With a quick sniff, he picked up on the scents of about a dozen people. Arge group, most simr in stature and build, with a few outliers.


    The fire itself was started at different points, some apparently even with magic, and others using oils fromnterns. Eiro stepped forward, and as his foot pressed into the ground, he pped his wings, shooting into the forest to follow the scents that he picked up. He dodged by the trees, flying past some familiar wildlife, until he once more reached the ''World Tree''. Just that now, underneath it, a group of about a dozen people had set up camp underneath it.


    Their statures fit. There were mages, andnterns with oil dripping slightly off the side.


    "Fucking shit, I think I burnt myself back there... it''s really hurting, man." One of them groaned andined, while another, one of the apparently two mages, tried helping him.


    "Who cares if you burnt yourself! We''re fucking heroes, man! Heroes, I say! Hahahah!" Anotherughed loudly, pouring some liquor down his throat like it was water. Eiro recognized that bottle. It was one that Jura kept by his chair by the window in case he wanted to drink something in the evening. Thest bottle hadn''t been opened. He didn''t get the chance to. And now, it''s being used for others to celebrate the destruction of Jura''s grave and home.


    Slowly, Eiro pointed his hand forward, and let out a small drop of his essence that he quickly transformed into something to be used to ry his magic. It floated over toward the man holding the alcohol, without anyone noticing. And then, Eiro connected that part of his essence with one of the gateways in his mana core. And all that he needed was a small spark.


    Just like that, while that one guy was pouring the alcohol down his throat, it simply ignited. Burning alcohol was being poured down his throat, and Eiro quickly continued incinerating as much of the rest of the alcohol as possible. The alcohol currently flowing around in his stomach soon exploded, obliterating said stomach. The explosion was strong enough to st open his skin, causing the explosion, stomach acids, urning alcohol, and a fine mixture of blood, flesh and intestines, was sshed on the two people that the man was facing.


    "What the fuck?!" They yelled out, jumping up in confusion and fear, and some in pain, as Eiro walked forward.


    "Not so funny when you''re the ones burning, is it?" Eiro asked, drawing the attention of some of the group over toward him, "Holy shit! W-What is that?!"


    "A demon! Chris, just-"


    "Shut the fuck up, I''m on it!" Someone said, who seemed to be a priest of sorts, as they conjured up some sort of spell or miracle to throw at Eiro. It was basically just a concentrated ball of holy energy that he then shot at the Demon.


    With a deep sigh, Eiro stood there for what seemed an eternity for him. It was simply so slow, and Eiro could have killed everyone here by now. But he figured that he should wholly terrify them before he did. And so, he let the ball of holy energy simply hit him. It hit his chest, and Eiro simply stood there, epting it.


    "Is that all you can do? Silly things like banes matter little to me." Eiro exined as he closed his eyes, "Hm, I guess it''s a good chance to try out my new skill."


    Eiro held forward his hand, and used his special skill ''The World''. With this skill, he could ess a lot of things that every single royal could do, simply ''vored'' for his own royal status. And as he did so, he could see a notification appear in the eyes of every single person he targeted with his skill.


    ---


    [{The World} is targeting you]


    ---


    "The world..? A... a royal?" One of them let out, while others fell to the ground in fear. Eiro looked back at them with a slight grin on his face, "What beautiful expressions you all have."


    Eiro pressed his foot into the ground and started to restrain everyone, "You know what, I think this is a pretty good moment for me to test this skill out on you all. It''s useless without targets, and I can''t just go around doing it with random people, so... Let''s make you all suffer."


    Eiro approached the first of the group, that was still alive, and pressed one of his hands on their forehead, "I wonder, is that ''Mark'' a thing only the devil can do?" He muttered, and tried to activate his new skill in a different waypared to before. From the spot where Eiro was touching him, a certain pattern spread outward.


    ---


    [You have marked a target]


    ---


    "Huh, neat." With a light smile, Eiro took a step back. He could now sense where exactly this person was, his emotional state, as well as his physical state. It made Eiro''s skin crawl that he felt so much of this being''s existence, so he grabbed his forehead again and killed him with a quick st of magic.


    "Alright, next test." The Demon cracked his fingers as he walked up to the next person, "Since I honestly don''t know what else to do with this skill for now, let''s try and turn you into a servant instead."


    Eiro pushed his mana into the person in front of him as he initiated the ''Servant Creation'' ability. This man''s veins started bulging up, close to bursting open. The man''s body started changing, as two crystal-like horns started sprouting on his forehead. His skin changed from a light pink over to a soft crimson red.


    This was what a servant was. If he did it on a living being, if he fed them enough mana, their physical form would change to be as simr to Eiro''s as possible with their own form. This guy wouldn''t grow wings, a tail, or new arms, but other physical aspects would be like that of an arcanus demon. Just something of a ''corrupted'' version of it. Just that there was one catch.


    ---


    [You have failed to create a servant]


    ---


    The body of the man in front of him convulsed, and Eiro could hear his bones breaking as this man slowly died. The chance of a servant being sessfully created out of living beings was incredibly low, because they needed to be strong enough to withstand the stress happening during the transformation.


    Eiro let out an annoyed sigh. He turned his head, smelling that multiple of these leftover people had soiled themselves.


    "How bothersome. He seemed like the physically strongest of all of you. If he can''t take this, none of you can." Eiro pointed out, as he walked past all of the still living people, and ced his hand onto the huge tree in front of him. It was his own tree, so he could use it as a wand if he wanted to.


    "Did you guys know, that you just destroyed my old home? The home of my father, and my children?" Eiro asked, and everyone looked at him confused, and scared, as Eiro smiled at them, "So for now, at least try to make up for it a little bit by bing food for my beautiful tree."


    This tree was his wand. So of course, he could use magic through it, and especially nature magic was quite efficient due to the nature of this ''wand''. The enormous roots of the tree were pulled out of the ground, and started slithering over the ground as if they were alive. They reced the mounds of rock in what was restraining these people.


    "Honestly, I don''t even feel like doing the whole ''scary scary Eiro'' bit. I just want to see you all die." Eiro said, as he one after another crushed the bodies of each of these people, and proceeded to have the ground swallow their corpses.


    "Really doesn''t feel like a win right now." Eiro said to himself as he leaned back against the tree. He grabbed a small handful of dirt, and used the ''servant creation'' ability on it. The dirt came together and turned into a small ball, which soon unrolled and showed itself to be a tiny demon with small wings that wouldn''t be able to carry it, four arms, two legs, a thin tail, andpletely wrong proportions. It didn''t look exactly like Eiro, just shrunken down, but it was like a small monkey had been turned into a demon like this. But this wasn''t the only servant like this that Eiro made. He made a few dozen of them, and then looked at all of the small demons made of earth, "Spread out through the forest. If you see someone approach that hill over there, signal me. If you see someone try to destroy this tree, signal me as well.." And so, with thatmand, Eiro made the first batch of servants run off into this forest, while Eiro just sat there, feeling the light vibrations of the heartbeats of the dying people underneath his feet.

 Chapter 530 - Domain And Servants

    Eiro sat there, and looked up into the sky.


    "There will probably be more peopleing. How bothersome." Eiro muttered, "Although, I did manage to get here rather quickly, so in an emergency... And it''s not like they can do more than what has already been done."


    He thought for a while, about what the best thing to do would be for now, but when the vibrations underneath his feet stopped, he figured it was a good enough time to head off. But first, he wanted to do something else. Eiro stretched out his wings and shot into the sky. It seemed like one ce where Eiro had removed a branch before had started caving in a little bit while the tree had been growing over the past few months. Or at least, no new branch had grown from this spot.


    Eiro ced his hand onto therge, sligth incaved area, and quickly used death magic on it. He made part of the tree rot away, creating an incaved area inside of the tree. The sort of ce where animals would often take refuge in other trees, although this one was a bit toorge for that. Either way, Eiro used abination of death and nature magic to create this hole in the tree, and soon stepped into its center.


    Once it wasrge enough for him to stretch his wings out into all directions, Eiro let out a deep breath as he split off a lot of essence off of his mana, pushing it out of his palm. He soon created a sphere of essence that was probably the size of his whole body. One''s soul held these things rather effectively, so despite this ball being sorge, it was only worth about a tenth of his mana. That being the case, Eiro quickly formed a spell around it. It was the same sort that he had just used earlier, but simply a lot moreplex.


    Once he was done constructing that part of the spell, he even carved some runic patterns into the ground, and used arcane magic to encase the essence in a protectiveyer before he started. As Eiro activated the spell, so much mana was pulled from his body that the space around him seemed to nearly shift in a weird way, just like hot air distorted the view of what was beyond it.


    Eiro''s essence waspressed and crystalized as the arcane magic still protected it. The whole room was saturated in mana, and in just an instant, all of that mana was pulled into the crystalized,pressed essence.


    It was now only the size of Eiro''s head, as the Demon let out a deep breath of exhaustion. Having so much mana pulled from his body felt really weird, honestly. But even then, he still had more than one and a half million mana points left, so it really wasn''t that big a deal at the end of the day. It was just that the scale of things was iparable to before.


    "Domain Creation." Eiro whispered, and immediately, the floating crystal of his essence that was fixed into this room started to glow slightly.


    ---


    <strong>[A {Level 0} Domain has been created]</strong>


    <strong>[Your influence must constantly be ced on this area for 24 hours to create a {Level 1} Domain]</strong>


    ---


    Eiro slowly turned around with satisfaction. He would be now turning this tree, and hopefully soon the whole forest surrounding it, into his domain. And due to the essence crystal and magic circle array carved into the wood, he was able to ''ce his influence'' on this area even when he was back in Skyhart. But just in case... he still needed someone to protect this ce. He had his earth servants to signal him when someone was walking through the forest, but he still needed something here that could fight off certain enemies even if Eiro was incapable ofing at a moment''s notice. There were those times, especially considering that the start of the tournament was less than a week away.


    Eiro stepped out of therge hole at the top of the tree that he had created, and looked around. Was there anything that he could use?


    "Is there anything..?" Eiro muttered, and quickly flew onto one of the branches of the tree. Eiro stood on top of it and felt its structure. Figuring that it was good enough, Eiro took out his three of swords and quickly cut through the branch at a spot where he would have enough to work with. He didn''t even cut off half the branch, so it should be able to regrow properly at some point.


    Eiro of course tried to catch the branch before it fell down so that it couldn''t do any serious damage to the forest ground. And then when he was standing there at the base of the tree, he quickly took out his tools, and fused them with the three of swords so that he could properly cut through the thick wood without damaging the tools.


    And so, Eiro quickly got to work, using all ten of the three of swords'' des to cut apart the wood. It didn''t take long until he had three sets of parts in front of him, each set slightly different. Eiro put the three figures together, like he was making humanoid mannequins with the physical structure that Eiro wanted them to have.


    One of them would have the most strength. A bulky body, two thick arms and legs, and no wings, but otherwise a body that could survive falls from even high up. Since he didn''t have wings, Eiro gave him ws to bury into the tree to climb it properly.


    Then there was the one that was based off speed. Four arms,rge, thin wings, and a generally quaint and small build.


    And then thest of the bunch was one based on defense. Four thick arms, thicker than normal around the under-arm, andrge, thick wings made not for flying, but for creating a defensive wall of sorts. He could still glide, but otherwise he would have to climb the tree like the strength based version.


    Once he was done, Eiro looked at the puppets, and used his Servant Creation ability three times.


    "Gilr, Rithia, Mackrist. Those are your names. Representing strength, speed, and defense. You three will work together in protecting this ce for me." Eiro said in a clear, exhausted voice, as he watched the three of them suddenly start changing physically.


    The gaps naturally created by their mannequin-like forms were filled in, and Eiro could notice that they were changing internally as well, as if they were all trying to turn into what their purpose was even more.


    Gilr''s body became flexible and dense in just the right parts, allowing him to exert as much strength as possible. His ws became strong enough to not break easily as well. Rithia''s body seemed to be much lighter, and incredibly flexible, so that he could fly around more easily. And Mackrist''s body changed in mostly one important way. His outeryer hardened even more than before, although Eiro had already made him something like ''armor'' out of the bark of the branch he took.


    ---


    <strong>[You have created the named Servant {Gilr}]</strong>


    <strong>[You have created the named Servant {Rithia}]</strong>


    <strong>[You have created the named Servant {Mackrist}]</strong>


    ---


    Eiro ran his fingers through the notifications, and then looked at the tree standing beside him, "Get up there. If someone tries to do anything to harm this tree, do anything you need to do to protect it. But if they show no hostility toward it, simply observe them for me." Eiro told them, and watched as the three new servants disappeared from in front of him.


    Girl and Mackrist climbed up the tree while Rithia quickly flew up. They were all rather quick in their movement, although Mackrist seemed to be the slowest climber, as Eiro had expected. A lot of his body was rather rigid, after all.


    Eiro quickly flew up the tree, and quickly cast a spell in front of therge hole in which his crystalized essence could be found. It was an arcane spell, and Eiro was trying to create a barrier that would stop others from entering this space, or even perceiving it at all.


    And now, being in the area, Eiro had a few other stops to make. He needed to visit a few people in town, and make sure that nobody would even think about going to where his old home used to stand.


    With a few ps, Eiro was already floating above the town, and looked at it from above. Eiro moved his hand to the side, and grabbed his mask out of his treasury as he fused his arms together again and pulled his tail into the base of his back.


    As he ced his mask on his face, he let his cloak fall on his body. And quickly pulled it over his head, fusing his horns with shadows to make them disappear in the ''shadow space'' of his cloak, and so that his cloak didn''t have a weird shape on top of his head.


    And just like that, Eiro pulled his wings into his body, and simply let himself drop down in front of town. He didn''t even care about others seeing him appear like that, and he just stopped his fall with air magic and walked up to the confused guard standing in front.


    "E-Eiro, is that... is that you?" The guard asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "It is."


    "...You need to be careful. Wearing that same mask? People will recognize you immediately... You know, since we know you''re a demon, we-"


    "Listen, I honestly don''t care the slightest bit about that right now. I''m only wearing this to avoid as much trouble as possible. Well, depending on what happens, I might have to kill someone." He pointed out, and the guard took a confused step backward, "Wh-What? Kill someone? But-"


    "Someone burnt our old home, dug up Jura''s grave, and burnt his corpse along with everything else that we used to hold dear." Eiro exined in a blunt tone, and the guard opened his eyes wide, clutching his spear in shock, before he slowly spoke up, looking down at the ground, "...Head to the new bar that was opened up at the za. I think the one you''re looking for is the new guide..."


    Eiro smiled lightly underneath his mask as he stepped past the guard, "Thanks. Greet your father from me when you see him."


    "...Sure..." The guard replied, as he tried to pretend he didn''t just potentially assist someone with murder.


    Eiro walked through the town, getting a few stares from people around him that recognized him despite the change in his figure. There were plenty of new people around here as well, though, so it made sense for Eiro to wear this mask and cloak after all.


    The Demon approached the za, and looked around, quickly finding the bar in question.. And in there, with who seemed to be the new guide, was Tom, currently pleading with him about the exact thing Eiro came here for.

 Chapter 531 - Argorsim

    Eiro pushed open the door in front of him and stepped into the bar. A few people turned around, and some of the locals quickly recognized him as well. The Demon looked around the room, and immediately felt quite angered by what he saw.


    There were certain special nts and materials that only appeared during an equinox or solstice scattered around the ce, preserved and turned into decoration.


    "What''s the meaning of this?" Eiro asked with an annoyed frown, looking at the hide of a Winterbeast that had been hung on the wall. The flowers that were standing behind the bar and along some of the pirs in the center of the room, just hanging off it as decoration.


    "Meaning of what?" An employee asked. She seemed to be new around here as well. She was quite young, and her scent was simr to that of the man standing behind the bar talking to Tom, so she was probably that man''s daughter. However, instead of talking to her, Eiro simply walked up to the hide of the Winterbeast and tore it from the wall, before using death magic to make it rot away.


    "S-Sir, you can''t do that! That is a very special object!" The girl eximed, trying to pull on Eiro''s arm, but the Demon didn''t even budge, "Yeah, I know it is. I spent seven years collecting these." He practically growled.


    "Huh..? What do you..." She asked, when a man suddenly came rushing up to Eiro. It was the owner of this bar, who was staring at Eiro angrily, "Get the fuck out, you bastard!" He yelled, trying to push Eiro away. But once more, he didn''t budge. Rather, it seemed like he hurt himself.


    Rolling his eyes under his mask, Eiro grabbed the man by his throat and picked him up with ease, "You. You''re the new guide, aren''t you?"


    Struggling to speak, for obvious reasons, the man replied, "A-And what if I am..?"


    "Then you''re a fucking idiot." Eiro said immediately, "How dare you simply take these things and use them to decorate your disgusting little bar? Do you even know what that sort of disrespect could have done?"


    "Disrespect, what do you-"


    "The next time that the Lady of Winter appeared here, and sensed the hide of a winterbeast nearby that was taken without her permission, do you know what she would do if you''re not careful? She will make this whole town freeze over. That is the kind of being that you''re supposed to serve." Eiro angrily told him, his voice filled with fury, for different reasons of course.


    The man tried to grab Eiro''s arm, attempting to push his nails into his skin, "A-And how w-would you know?!"


    "I was the guide before you, you fool." Eiro replied, throwing the man onto the ground, "But you know what? Nevermind this topic. I have something else to-"


    "Eiro, please, I was just trying to-" Tom stepped up to Eiro, limping like he always did, with a worried expression, but the Demon immediately interrupted him, "They already burnt down our home, Tom. It''s toote. Whatever pleads you were voicing out came toote."


    Tom, and many different people in the bar, became silent as Eiro spoke these words. They were staring at the man clutching his own throat in pain,ying on the ground, instead of the Demon anymore.


    "They already..? But how, why..?" Tom asked, shocked at hearing this. Jura was his friend as well, after all. He was someone quite beloved in this town, for the very same reasons why others hated him. At the end of the day, this was a city of monster-person hybrids, and having someone like Jura be so epting and helpful to them, knowing this fact, made him rather popr incredibly quickly.


    "You''re that devil''s hellspawn, heh?" The current guide asked with a chuckle, "How hrious! So, what are you here for? Trying to take your anger out on me? On this city, like a traitor''s child would?"


    Eiro slowly grinned underneath his mask, as he spoke in a sinister voice, "Oh, if I wanted to take revenge on this ce, it would already be naught but a wastnd." Eiro exined, as he squatted down in front of the man. In a calmer voice, he said, "What I am here for is to ask you ''why''. Why could you not let him rest in peace?"


    "Rest in peace?! That fucking piece of shit?! He saved the monster king! The most powerful, the most wicked monster king that ever existed! He doomed us all, do you even know how many people died because of him?!" The guide yelled out, and Eiro red back angrily, "Less people than have died in the wars between people. Truly, you utterly disgust me sometimes. People can be loving, but you can be just so hateful at the same time. And of course, I''m not saying that monsters are different, but at least we own up to it." The Demon said, as his voice soon became a lot louder, and a lot more impactful, "Do you even know what it feels like to watch your father''s skull crack in the heat of a scorched home?"


    The guide ground his teeth together as he red back, "That bastard deserved much more than th-" The guide eximed, but before he was able to finish speak, Eiro hit his fist to the back, using magic to amplify what was happening, increasing the pressure manifold. But to others, it looked like simply the pressure of his movement made this happen.


    The whole front of the bar exploded into pieces, creating arge hole in the wall. Everyone jumped up, of course startled by what happened, as the guide stared at Eiro in fear.


    "W-Wh-What, are- are you going to kill me now?!" The guide yelled out, but Eiro shook his head, "Even I''m not wicked enough to take away a child''s father while she''s watching. But you know, she''s not always watching. But I am. I am watching your every step you take. I can feel every breath your breathe on the back of my neck. I can hear every beat of your heart. And I can make all of that stop in just an instant. Remember that." Eiro growled angrily, as he stood up, walking out of the gaping hole in the front of the bar.


    "If anyone ever approaches that hill again, they won''t be as lucky as you, got it? So you better call off anyone that you were going to send that way." Eiro walked out of the bar, and approached the center of the za, standing in front of the statues of the fourdies.


    "I hope you can ignore that man''s disrespect for my sake. If there are any further issues, I will take responsibility, and find a recement for him." Eiro said in a clear voice, before quickly turning around again. He looked at the people that had gathered here, including members of the militia and soldiers that had been stationed here.


    They were clearly nervous about the appearance of this man that had just destroyed the front of a building so easily, "Don''t worry. I''m leaving again."


    Eiro walked past them, toward the closest gate, and then turned around toward the crowd again, "Oh, before I forget. Be careful around that ''world tree'' from now on. If you''re not, you may lose your lives." The Demon continued walking, and was followed until he reached the gate, having finally left the town. And right before their eyes, Eiro fused his aura with the world around him, making himself practically disappear even though so many eyes were looking at him.


    Eiro jumped up into the sky, boosting himself up with Air magic, before spreading out his wings and flying off into the distance again. He approached the hill where his home had stood until yesterday, andnded in front of the pile of burnt wood.


    He snapped his finger once, finally summoning one of the spirits over here. They hadn''t been able to follow along with Eiro, after all, and had been asking him to summon them the whole time.


    Eiro turned his eyes toward Nelli, who quickly focused on the Demon, "Finally! What happened?!" She asked, and Eiro silently looked away from her. The Naiad turned around, and immediately realized what had happened.


    "No... but... how..?" She asked, and Eiro slowly said, "I already killed the ones that did this. I have scattered some servants around this ce, and they''ll let me know if someone elsees here."


    "...But what does it matter..? It''s toote now, right..?"


    "Maybe. But at least Jura''s grave can''t be desecrated a second time." Eiro said, "I wanted to create another servant here, but I wanted to make sure you were alright with it as well. You lived here for a long time before me, after all."


    "A servant..? Out of what?" She asked, and Eiro looked at the ruined house, before Nelli realized what he wanted to do.


    "...Yeah... just do it, just let someone protect this ce." Nelli replied, so Eiro slowly nodded his head. He spread out his mana in front of him, selecting all the bits and pieces that he wanted to use. The wood that was used to create the hut, as well as the tree that stood at its center. The tree was already dead as well, after all.


    "Your name will be Argorsim. The King of the Hill. This will be your domain, and you shall protect it and the grave upon it with your life." Eiro said, and the scorched wood started to shift, and was soon pressed together. It fused in some ced, cracked in others, until a huge figure stood in front of Eiro and Nelli, made out of their old home.


    It looked a lot like Eiro, just a lot bulkier, a lot more... monstrous.


    It slowly sat down on the ground cross-legged, its lower two arms crossed, while its upper hands were cupped in each other.. Argorsim was now here, left as a protector of this hill and Jura''s grave.

 Chapter 532 - Preliminaries

    "I will give you some time alone here as well. Take as much as you need, and just let me know when you want me to summon you." Eiro said, and Nelli just silently nodded her head, as Eiro spread out his wings. He pulled in some air from around himself, fusing it into his body, and shot up into the sky.


    And so, Eiro made his way back home again. He felt quite... empty, and bitter about what happened. If only he had been a bit faster, he could have probably stopped them from doing all that. Or at least, he could have stopped them from damaging everything as much as they did in the end. At the very least they were all dead now. That was the only positive that Eiro could see right now.


    During the whole flight back to Skyhart''s capital, the Demon''s mind was both racing with thoughts andpletely empty at the same time. Nothing of substance really came to him, just a flurry of different opposing emotions and concepts. It was confusing, to say the least. But soon, Eiro reached his manor again. He pushed the air out of his flesh and slowly dropped down to one of the manor''s balconies. Hended on it, and quickly pushed the door open, stepping into his bedchambers.


    Once there, Eiro turned his head, looking at the woman that was sitting on one of the couches. She was clearly nervous, waiting for Eiro to finallye back. And when she heard the balcony''s door open, she immediately jumped up, and rushed over toward the Demon, "Eiro! Is everything alright? What happ-"


    Arie wasn''t even able to finish speaking as Eiro stepped toward her, lightly slumping forward until his head wasying on her shoulder, his arms, wings, and tail all loosely hanging down from his body.


    "I was toote." Eiro said as he closed his eyes, soon feeling Arie''s arms as they tried to wrap themselves around him, "Do you want to talk about it?"


    "...Not right now, no." He replied, "Maybeter. For now, I just... I don''t even know what... I''m..." Eiro said, before simply falling silent a few momentster. With concern clearly written on her face, Arie slowly pulled Eiro over toward the couches, and the two of them sat down together.


    For a while longer, Eiro and Arie just sat there, while the Demon was trying to cope with the things that just happened today.


    ---


    [Your {Level 1} Domain has been upgraded to a {Level 2} Domain due to your constant influence on ther area]


    [Your influence must constantly be ced on this area for 30 days to create a {Level 3} Domain]


    ---


    Eiro looked at the notification that popped up in front of him while he was sitting in a carriage, "Hm, it''s been a week already?"


    "A week since when?" Arc tilted his head to the side curiously, and Eiro slowly ran his fingers through the notification in front of him, "I''ve jus been working on something, and it seems like it reached the next stage." Eiro exined quickly. He really didn''t know what a ''Level 2'' domain actually let him do in that area. He would have to figure that out when he actually went back.


    Although, he really wasn''t sure whether or not he wanted to go back there. Eiro turned his head to the side toward Nelli, who had read that notification as well. Reminded of that forest, she slowly lowered her head, just a few moments before the carriage came to a halt.


    "Alright, we''re here." Eiro exined, as someone opened the door for them so that everyone could get out. Eiro let his children step out of the carriage first, and then stepped out after them. They were currently in front of the royal castle, where they were going to meet up with Solomon today.


    Eiro turned his head toward town, and smiled lightly. It was quite lively there, considering that it was finally the first day of the festival surrounding the tournament. The stages for the preliminary rounds have been set up all over the ce so that progress could be made.


    As per the rules decided on by all of the continent''s countries, it was necessary for every participant to enter in at the level of the preliminary rounds before they could join the true tournament. After all, when it came to the Monster King and Hero, nobility did not matter. And of course, that included Eiro. He had to join in quite early as well.


    "Dad, when''s your first round?" Rudy asked as he looked at the town as well, and Eiro lightly shrugged, "In an hour, I think."


    "You think? Shouldn''t you know for sure?" Sammy asked with a wry smile, but Eiro just smirked at them, "Don''t worry, I''ll be there on time. I''m going to win this tournament, after all. There''s no way I would miss my first fight."


    As Eiro exined this to his children, he could hear a chuckle from nearby, "You will win this tournament? What a joke." Someoneughed as they stepped down the steps in front of the royal castle''s entrance.


    They had a familiar scent, so Eiro knew immediately who this was, "Duke James. Nice to finally meet you. But if I can ask, what exactly do you mean? I wasn''t joking." Eiro replied, as he spoke to Evelyn James'' father.


    With a deep frown, he looked back at Eiro, "Do you really think you can beat Evelyn? I heard you are a mage. In magic, no one can beat my daughter."


    "Actually, while I would call magic my area of expertise, I dabble a little bit in everything." Eiro exined with a smile, and the Duke scoffed, "A jack of all trades is a master of none, Baron Daemonherz."


    "But still better than a master of one." The Demonpleted, and the Duke''s expression became sour, "We will see what happens, then. It should be a fun fight, if you even make it to the true tournament."


    "I''m quite sure I will, thanks." Eiro replied quickly, and slowly turned toward his children, "Could you all head inside already? I will be taking a walk around town as I head to my first round." Eiro exined.


    "Alright, we''ll see youter tonight then." Arc replied with a wave, as Eiro''s six children, plus Felix, stepped into the royal castle.


    The Demon slowly turned his head to the side, looking at the man still standing next to him, "And I guess I will see you sometime during this tournament as well." Eiro said with a smile on his face, "At the verytest, when Ipletely obliterate your daughter during the tournament."


    And with that, Eiro simply walked away, back toward town, with an angry duke staring at his back. Eiro walked through town, looking at the different fights already going on. And of course, his body was always slightly adjusting to the new information given to his body by the movements of the people that were currently fighting each other.


    It was impossible for Eiro to lose at this point in time, really. He noticed the surprised and excited expressions of the referees as they saw someone that they thought to be a prime candidate for the tournament. They were easy to read, after all. But the actual people that they were looking at were nothing but weaklings.


    "Well, except a few, I guess." Eiro said with a smile on his face, as he stood in front of a particr stage. One fight was about to begin, and it was certainly about to end just a few secondster. The referee pped his hands together as a signal, and one of the two warriors immediately reacted. Together with his enormous physical size, he had a surprising amount of speed that shocked the onlookers.


    He swung his huge weapon at his opponent... who simply grabbed the weapon before it was able to hit him, "Oi, that all? Seriously?" Krog asked with a wry smile, as he casually swung his arm to the side, ripping the weapon out of the hand of the man in front of him.


    "Do you even know how to use something like this? Here, lemme show ya." Krog suggested, as he grabbed therge club casually, as if it weighed just as much as a stick did. Krog swung the club at the man in front of him, who immediately tried to defend, knowing that he would be unable to dodge.


    The moment that the club hit his body and the thickyers of protection on his arms, he was thrown off the stage and went flying all the way to where the audience was standing.


    "Urgh... He can''t even defend right..?" Krog asked with a wry smile, before the turned his head, noticing Eiro, "Yo! Eiro, these guys are super fucking weak for some reason!"


    Eiroughed as the audience looked at the two of them in shock at what just happened and at what Krog said, while Eiro turned his head toward the nobleman who was staring at Krog in disbelief, since his candidate had just been beaten in the first round of the preliminaries.


    "No, Krog. I think you''re just a bit too strong now." Eiro chuckled, as Krog smiled back, happy about being called strong by this Demon.


    "Anyway, make sure to keep this up during your next fights as well.. I want to see you on the roster for the real tournament." Eiro said with a smile, and Krog looked at him with a broad grin and a quick nod, "Yo, you got it!"

 Chapter 533 - Start Of The Tournament

    Eiro continued walking toward the stage where he was scheduled to fight in a bit, and sat down on a bench nearby where he could properly see the stage. It seemed like things were ahead of schedule a bit, which was something Eiro was quite happy about. These preliminaries would just bepletely boring, there was no way they wouldn''t be.


    At least, that''s what Eiro thought at first. But when he watched the fight that was currently happening on the stage, he couldn''t help but be quite surprised. There was a young man standing on the stage, with a sword at his hip. He was maybe a couple years older than Eiro''s kids, but judging from his build, he spent most of his time fighting. His exposed arms were covered in battle scars, after all.


    And that man stood there with his sword, clutching the grip tightly. His opponent came rushing at him, and the man cut through the air before his opponent reached him. Eiro was positive, that the de didn''t touch his opponent, but even then, arge cut formed on his chest along where a de would have cut him.


    From what Eiro could tell, it clearly caused plenty of internal damage as well. But luckily, there were healers standing by, so it was fine. As his opponent copsed on the ground, the man let out a light sigh as he loosened the grip on his sword, as if he was just bored.


    And as the sword was hanging there, Eiro noticed... that it waspletely blunt. It didn''t have any sort of edge to speak of, to the extent where it couldn''t be called a sword anymore. It was a sword-shaped club, that was all.


    "Interesting." Eiro muttered, as he looked at that clearly skilled man. But even more than that, Eiro could feel the muscles in his body slightly shifting in response to that man''s movements and technique, to an incredible extent. He had used his whole body for that single motion, something that must have required an immense amount of physical control.


    The man stepped off the stage and simply walked away, heading over toward the stage he was told to head to by one of the organizers, having passed the first round of the preliminaries. The other people that followed him on that stage were quite boring, to say the least. They were clearly weak, but the fights seemed long and impressive, just because they were all equally weak.


    And then, it was finally Eiro''s turn. The Demon stood up and walked up to the stage, wearing loose clothes, his long, rainbow-colored hair tied up so that it wouldn''t bother him. Looking his opponent up and down a few times, Eiro was already disappointed. He was clearly just a brute, some warrior that came here to hit it big.


    As the referee pped his hands as a signal that the fight started, Eiro simply snapped his finger, and created a strong st of air that threw that brute off the stage with an explosive force. The referee''s hands were still touching from the p, and the fight had already ended.


    "Where do I need to go now?" Eiro asked one of the organizers, who were looking at him in surprise, "E-Erm... stage 17, just a few minutes further toward the castle..." The Demon was told, and was then quickly given a stamp on the card he was supposed to carry with him to identify himself.


    And so, just like that, Eiro continued on through the preliminary fights, winning each one in an instant to the point where there were whispers going around about Eiro just paying off his opponents so that he could proceed. Of course Eiro just ignored them and continued on, taking the time to watch the fights of his party members when he had the time.


    The preliminaries would continue on for another two days, due to the sheer amount of people that hade here. Eiro had already fought all of the fights he had to, though, so he didn''t have to worry about all of that anymore.


    So, for the next two days, Eiro just watched the preliminary fights to see if there was anyone else noteworthy here, but most people were really just boring. Although, he did also enjoy making Evelyn nervous by just sitting there and watching her for a while as she was fighting. Beside that, Eiro just tried to enjoy the festivities with his children.


    And then, finally, the first day of the actual tournament came. For this, they set up a huge arena in town, in thergest open space avable, the city park. Eiro sat there on his seat next to Solomon, and let out a deep sigh while looking at the tournament roster, "Hm... so, it looks like I''ll end up fighting Evelyn in the quarterfinals, James in the semifinals, and then... I guess Krog or Jess in the finals." Eiro muttered, with a light smirk as he looked at his friends, "Lucky, huh? Krog, Jess, one of you gets to be second ce in the tournament."


    Krog stood there smirking slightly as he turned his head toward James, who was standing there grumbling to himself. It was obvious that none of them could beat Eiro, so their path would end at thetest when they fought him. It was just that James was quite unlucky to be in the same half as Eiro.


    "Who is the first to fight amongst you all?" Solomon asked curiously, and he quickly pointed at James, "Him. James is in the third fight, I''m in the 12th. Krog in the 17th, and Jess in the 29th."


    "Really, today is going to be rather boring. At least we all get to fight twice tomorrow." Jamesined, and Eiro smirked lightly, "And then, the day after that is the final day of the tournament. I get to fight three times then, even."


    "Stop bragging. We know that you''ll win already, alright?"


    ---


    The third fight of the day. There were quite a few people fighting today that were candidates chosen by the nobles of this kingdom, and the same was the case with the opponent that James was going to fight right now.


    It seemed like he had a simr ability-focus to James, so if his opponent was even half-skilled, this fight was going to be a bit intresting. It didn''t take long until the fight was started with the ringing of arge bell, and due to the nature of their sses, both James and his opponent tried to get the first hit in. His opponent took two steps forward, clutching his dagger tightly in his hand, getting ready to figure out a way to strike at James.


    But before he knew it, James already stood in front of him, having crossed the distance between them in an instant. James swung one of his daggers at this opponent, who tried to block the attack, since the two were too close for him to dodge the attack.


    He was pushed over toward the edge of the ring, his back pressing against the walls that had been constructed around it. Different to the preliminaries, you couldn''t lose by falling out of the ring anymore. Rather, to lose, you had to give up or be deemed unable to continue fighting.


    But of course, there was a reason why James pushed him so close to the edge, and that was to make it harder for him to dodge the next flurry of attacks. James cut into the man''s skin, targeting specific points of his body. And just like that, it didn''t take long until his opponent became unable to hold his dagger anymore.


    James pressed one of his daggers against his opponent''s throat, and the other''s tip was pressed against the man''s chest, right where his heart was.


    And just like that, James had won his first fight, without even half a minute having passed. It was undeniable that he had won at this point. With just a single more movement, this man would be dead, after all, which was why James'' opponent quickly gave up so that this situation wouldn''t happen. Disappointed that this ended so quickly, James stepped out of the arena that had been constructed just for this tournament, and made his way back over to where Eiro and the others were waiting.


    "Good job." The Demon said with a smile on his face, but James just rolled his eyes, "Good job? Hah, right... That was just way too easy..."


    "Getting kind of cocky, huh? Don''t worry, you''ll have your fill of a good struggle when we''re fighting in the semifinals." Eiro exined, and James slightly raised his head, as if he was excited about that idea, "Oh? That so?" He asked with a light smirk, "Can''t wait for that, then."


    With a smile, Eiro turned back toward the arena, where things were being prepared for the next fight. Again, most of them were quite boring, but just looked impressive. At this point when watching these guys, all that Eiro''s muscles did was twitch slightly here and there, but his muscture didn''t actually change at all. That just showed Eiro how basic and weak these guys were.


    But then, it finally got to the 12th fight, and Eiro excitedly stood up, happy to finally do something himself instead of just sitting there.. Well, considering that he was back, sitting in his seat just a few minutester came to show that this fight was nothing to actually be excited about.

 Chapter 534 - Idiocy Of The Desperate

    The first day of fights was mostly uneventful. After Eiro, Krog and Jess both obliterated their opponent as well. But there were actually two more fights that Eiro was quite interested in watching.


    First, Evelyn''s fight. He wanted to see the audience cheer for her, since she was probably the most famous person participating in this tournament. He couldn''t wait for the shock that the audience would feel when Eiro simply toyed with her.


    For most people, Eiro would try to fight them immediately, but once he got to Evelyn, he would simply stand there. He would receive each of her attacks, and make it known just how weak she waspared to him. It would be a wonderful feeling. But well, of course, she was still quite powerfulpared to many other people, so her fight with her opponent finished quite quickly as well.


    And there was one more fight that ended in an instant. The man that Eiro had watched on the first day of the preliminaries. Apparently, he was able to finish each fight with just a single swing of his de, and without even touching his opponents. And the same happened in this one. His opponent didn''t even know what happened to them by the time that they wereying on the ground, bleeding out of a gaping wound on their chest.


    Those two would be quite interesting.


    "Krog. You will fight that guy in the quarter finals. Be careful, and don''t underestimate him." Eiro said as a genuine warning, since he didn''t want Krog to lose to anyone. Until now, everyone was really just joking around, but when they saw that man''s fight,bined with Eiro''s genuine warning, they actually started to be a bit nervous. Especially Krog.


    "Don''t worry, I won''t. I''ll be careful." He replied, apparently already trying to figure out what he should do against an opponent like that, before Eiro lightly smirked, "Don''t worry, starting from the quarter finals, you''re allowed to use special items. Remember what Armodeus made for you?" The Demon asked, and Krog opened his eyes wide with a broad grin on his face.


    "Seems like that fight will really be quite interesting."


    ---


    After the first day of the true tournament was over, Eiro chose to make sure no tomfoolery was going on. After all, at the end of the day, a lot of nobles had extremely high stakes in this tournament. Eiro created a few shadow-servants and made them dive into the shadows of certain chosen people, so that they could watch them and let Eiro know if something unwanted happened. Such as bribery, assassination attempts, and so on.


    But when Eiro saw those small servants dive into the shadows of those people, Eiro got a little idea that he sort of wanted to try out. He looked at his own shadow, making sure that it waspletely saturated with his mana, and then said, "Wake up, my shadow, Min. Be my tool, my servant, hiding himself in in sight." Eiro said with a grin, and watched as his shadow slowly started to shift around. Despite him being in his hidden human form right now, the shadow looked as if Eiro was in his normal unhidden form.


    ---


    [You have created the named Servant {Min}]


    ---


    "Hide yourself." Eiro said, and immediately, the living shadow hid its horns and became a ''normal'' shadow again.


    "Come out, Min." The Demon said next, supplying a bit of magic to his shadow, as an actual physical being stepped out of his shadow. A figure that looked as if one mixed him and the monster king. Eiro''s form, but the King''s shadowy mist around it, "Hm, that''s not really pleasant to look at... How about this?" Using shadow magic, Eiro quickly adjusted Min''s form. He basically tried to make the shadowy mist smooth instead, something more pleasant to look at. Being a servant that Eiro would make use of quite often, Eiro figured that he should make Min look presentable to others as well.


    Using his butlers as inspiration, Eiro gave Min a vest, shirt, tie, suit pants, and suit shoes. He somehow looked better without the jacket, though. Eiro figured to smooth the hands down as well, as if Min was wearing gloves. His head, he let keep nearly normal, however. Just a few adjustments here and there to make Min''s details actually stand out. His wings and tail stayed in that shadow-mist form as well. And with that, the named shadow servant Min had been created.


    "I will give you the power tomand other shadow servants, so make sure they behave themselves." Eiro said in a clear tone as he started to walk away, and Min simply nodded and bowed lightly as he disappeared back in Eiro''s shadow.


    ---


    The third, andst, day of the tournament. The only rounds that really mattered to Eiro, were finally here. In his first fight, he would face Evelyn. In his second, he would face James, and in hisst, either Krog or Jess. So at the very least, today would be more fun than yesterday. Eiro fought twice, but they both ended in an instant, so it was actually rather boring.


    Before it was Eiro''s turn to fight, it was James'', however. His opponent actually seemed to be half-skilled as well, since their fight ended upsting a couple of minutes. But for the most part, that might be just because James wanted to have some fun and show off some of his techniques while ying with this guy before he was just obliterated by Eiro.


    The Demon looked at James with a smile on his face, grinning lightly, "Nice fight. Too bad you aren''t winning anymore after this." He pointed out, and James red at him annoyedly, "Just shut it, man. I know it already."


    "I know, I know, just reminding you." Eiro replied, as he stood up to make his way into the arena, where his fight would begin in just a few minutes. He stood by his side''s entrance and just waited for the announcements toe, when he noticed someone approaching.


    "Duke James, what a surprise this is. Actually, nevermind, it''s not a surprise at all." Eiro said with a light smile, and the Duke looked at him with a somewhat nervous expression, "I''m here to make you an offer."


    "An offer? Of what kind?" Eiro asked with a light, casual smile, although he already heard all about it. The Duke was one of the people that Eiro attached a shadow servant to, after all. This man ground his teeth as he stared back at the Demon in front of him, "I will give you power, and a position where you don''t ever have to worry about money again. I will give you literally anything you want. Alcohol, women, as muchnd as you want. I will even consider giving you Evelyn''s hand in marriage..."


    "Oh? What a great offer~! And what would you like in return?" Eiro asked with a smile on his face, and the duke''s face lit up, "Y-You just have to make sure that you lose this fight!"


    "Hm, do you know that what you''re doing is basically treason, considering that I''m his majesty''s personal candidate?"


    "It-It''s fine as long as nobody finds out!"


    Eiro grinned, thinking that this was all way too easy, "Hm... I don''t know if I can really lose on purpose, but... if I just happen to be so tired that I stand in ce and take all of her attacks for let''s say... five minutes... I think I can arrange that."


    "Yes! Perfect! Do that, and I will give you anything you want!"


    "Anything, huh? Alright. Then how about we make sure that you keep that promise?" Eiro asked, holding his hand in front of him, creating aplex magic circle between himself and Duke James.


    "Wh-What is this?" The Duke asked, and Eiro smiled lightly, "You know, I am the owner of a card that gives me power of the Absolute Domain of Truth. Recently I found a way to integrate that power into spells. This is really just a contract between two individuals, that makes sure that either party follows the conditions of the contract. For this particr one, since you probably don''t fully trust me, I added the condition that if either of us doesn''t follow the conditions... so let''s say, if I were to try and fight back against Evelyn immediately after all, I would be subservient to you. Like a... ve, of sorts." Eiro exined, adn the Duke couldn''t be more happy about this. And of course, since Eiro told nothing but the truth, the Duke had no reason to doubt his words.


    "Simply offer this spell a drop of your blood, and we''ll be fine. The more blood, the stronger the contract. Of course, I will match the amount of blood you give." Eiro exined, and the Duke immediately nodded. He took a dagger off his hip and cut a deep wound into his hand, letting as much blood as he could pour into the magic circle. And as he said he would, Eiro did the same, letting out the exact same amount of blood into theplex magic circle.


    "The conditions are simple, so let me repeat them. I will stand in the center of the arena for five minutes, without stepping away of my own ord, not counting when Evelyn might push me away with her powers of course, and I will not fight back during that duration of time. And in return, you will give me literally anything I ask for, without denying any of my requests." Eiro said, and of course, the duke immediately agreed to these conditions.


    And then, Eiro activated the spell. Immediately, two magical symbols appeared in the air. One settled down on the Duke''s left hand, and the other settled down on Eiro''s left hand.


    "This shows that the contract is intact." Eiro said, as he started to hear his announcement. He quickly turned around, while the Duke was looking at the symbol with a broad, sinister grin on his face.


    But the Duke''s emotions were no match for Eiro''s, as he was inwardlyughing at the idiocy of the desperate.

 Chapter 535 - Five Minutes

    Eiro stepped into the arena with a smile on his face. He looked at the symbol on the back of his hand, while Bavet whispered into his ear, "Eiro, what the hell did you just do? How can you just deliberately lose? I thought your n needed you to be the hero''spanion!"


    Eiro smiled lightly, "Don''t worry. My side of the deal was to stand still for five minutes without fighting back. It''s not my fault if my opponent is too weak to beat me in that amount of time." He exined, and Bavet quickly caught on to what was happening right now.


    "You... oh... yeah, I get it now..." Bavet replied, and Eiro walked toward the center of his arena, where he and Evelyn were being introduced further. Past achievements, personality,bat style, that sort of thing. They just wanted to entertain the people watching this tournament.


    One of the referees hit therge bell, and the sound echoed throughout the arena. Evelyn immediately got into position on the other side of the arena, and Eiro... just stood there in its center, his hands pushed into his pockets while standing there, waiting for something to happen.


    Evelyn was standing there, preparing her first attack. She was creating a whole bunch of ''Blood Golems'' that she wanted to attack Eiro. And of course, they immediately came rushing at Eiro. So that they could actually damage the Demon, Evelyn froze their limbs. But when they came close enough to hit Eiro, and actually swung at him... those limbs simply shattered into pieces, unable to actually injure Eiro.


    He had consumed quite a bit of metal over the past few days, and he was also using the slime that he was absorbing into his body while fused with Bavet to strategically weaken and harden specific parts of his flesh to create something of a shock-absorbing effect within himself, so that he didn''t have to worry about anything of the sort reaching deep enough to actually hurt him.


    "Huh? Are there some bugs around here?" Eiro asked with a light chuckle, as the blood golems regenerated their bodies to continue attacking the Demon. However, no matter what they did, they weren''t able to do any particr damage to him.


    And like that, two of the five minutes passed rather quickly. Two minutes that Evelyn had used to prepare her next attack, something rather powerful, it seemed.


    She had created arge mass ofpressed, frozen blood, and using a spell topress it further and further into a sort of spear. And now, Evelyn was creating a spell to elerate this blood-ice-spear as much as possible. If Eiro was hit head-on by that, even he would end up getting hurt to an extent, so maybe he should figure something out.


    "Oh? Are you making me a toothpick? Do I have something stuck between my teeth?" Eiro asked confused, and Evelyn stared at him angrily, "I don''t know what you''re trying to pull right now, but no matter what it is, you will regret it soon." Evelyn replied immediately, not minding Eiro at all. Or at least that''s what she was trying to make it seem like. Obviously, anyone would bepletely bothered if such consecutive attacks didn''t work for now more than two whole minutes.


    "Hm, are you sure about that?" Eiro asked with a light smile, "I wouldn''t be so sure about that. Also, I know that killing isn''t technically illegal in this tournament, considering the stakes and all, but do you really have to aim that thing at my head?"


    "Well of course, you''re going to try and dodge this anyway! But don''t worry, you won''t be able to dodge..." Evelyn smirked lightly, and Eiro tilted his head to the side. He actually wasn''t nning on dodging this at all. He was rather nning on something wholly different.


    It took another minute for Evelyn to finish this extremely powerful spell up, which was apparently much quicker than she had thought. Which made sense, considering that she probably expected Eiro to actually fight back. Either way, soon enough, Evelyn shot the spear at Eiro. It really was incredibly fast. So fast that it broke the sound barrier and created arge dust of cloud where it started out.


    Rather unluckily for Evelyn, however, Eiro didn''t need to dodge this in the slightest. The spell was actually rather impressive. It was a homing spell, it seemed. It would continuosly move around the arena until it finally pierced Eiro. Or rather, until it ''passed through'' Eiro once.


    And so, to let this happen, the Demon simply turned his head to the side, winked at his children as he was doing so, and split his cheeks open for just an instant. Justrge enough to let the spear pass through his mouth, which he figured counted as his inside as well, technically. Being a blood-based mage, the condition that Evelyn set was that it had to bepletely surrounded by a ring of Eiro''s blood, which was of course the case in this scenario. Luckily, Eiro could transform quickly enough so that nobody noticed. To others, it probably looked like Evelyn missed.


    But the moment that the spear got stuck on the other side of the arena and stopped moving, Evelyn knew something was wrong.


    "Wh-What, but- how? You didn''t lose any- what did you do?!" Evelyn yelled out nervously, stretching her hand forward. In a panic, she created arge number of ice spears on her own ord. She, as well, was starting to realize that she still wasn''t able to beat Eiro. She was simply too weakpared to him.


    "One and a half minutes left~." Eiro said with a smile on his face, but Evelyn was just confused by that statement even more. She didn''t know about the deal that her father tried to make with Eiro, after all.


    Eiro simply stood there and continued smiling, yawning into his hand as he was doing so, "You know, this is quite boring. Don''t you have something else for me?"


    "Something else..?" Evelyn asked, and she red back before starting to smirk. She pulled out a vial out of her bag. It was filled with the probably most potent Holy Water that Eiro had ever set his eyes on. When Holy Energy was still a bane of his, he certainly would have gone up in mes if even a drop of that hit his skin.


    "Ladies and Gentlemen! I didn''t want to do it like this, but I have to!" She eximed, and pointed at Eiro as she started manipting the Holy Water in that vial, "Eiro Jura Daemonherz is a Demon! An Imp, to be exact!"


    The audience looked into the arena, confused at what was happening, as Evelyn continued to exin what she meant. She exined the powers given to her by the Bloodstone, and how she found out about Eiro''s true nature. And then, she exined the content of the bottle she was holding, introducing a well-known and trusted high priest that had apparently created it after months of painstaking work, just for this moment.


    "Eh~?" Eiro let out, somewhat excited about simply letting this happen. So much so, that when the five minutes finally ran out, meaning that Eiro fulfilled his part of the contract, he still stood there, waiting to let all of this happen.


    Evelyn did a few things to prove that this was actually highly powerful holy water, like cut her skin and let a few drops simply heal the wounds, and then took control of the water. She moved it around, and spread it out thinly, basically turning it into a mist of sorts.


    To the extent where Eiro of course couldn''t dodge it. The whole arena was filled with an incredible level of holiness, but... nothing happened. Eiro just stood there and looked at Evelyn with a wry smile, "You know, this is kind of getting quite embarrassing for you..." The Demon pointed out, as he stole the control of the Holy Water from Evelyn. He pulled it toward himself, and simply drank it.


    "Urgh, tastes like shit..." Eiro muttered with a wry smile, as he started walking around the arena, "You know, Evelyn James is thought to be an incredibly trustworthy, and powerful woman. A hero of the popce, of sorts. The perfect person to join the actual hero on her journey. But did you know that she''s actually part of a huge criminal syndicate, with her whole goal being power and eventual world domination?" Eiro asked with augh, "And of course, this sounds as likely as me being a Demon, but... Who would you rather trust at this very moment? A woman that, in desperation, made up such a ridiculous lie so that she wouldn''t be forced to give up, or a man used of being a demon, while..." He said, before pushing a certain magic out of his palm, "...himself being capable of using Holy Magic?"


    The audience started muttering amongst themselves. Certain priests quickly confirmed that this was really Holy Energy that Eiro produced so easily, and all eyes were now focused on Evelyn, as Eiro reached the blood-ice-spear that was still stuck in the arena''s wall.


    "Of course, neither is true." Eiro smiled, "I was just trying to even the ground a bit, you see? And of course, after five minutes of taking attacks from this woman non-stop, I think it''s my turn now." He exined as he pulled the spear out of the wall, and aimed directly at Evelyn.


    With a single flick of his wrist, he threw the spear forward, so fast that it broke the sound barrier as well. What Evelyn had only been able to do with magic, Eiro did with just his body.


    The spear shot at Evelyn, but actually came to an immediate halt in front of the center of her chest, as Eiro had manipted it with magic to lose all momentum in that instant. And at this point, Evelyn knew that she had lost.

 Chapter 536 - Contract Terms

    Eiro slightly twisted his hand around, and pushed the blood-ice-spear against Evelyn''s body. Of course, she was trying to defend against it by freezing some of her blood. But of course, that didn''t do much, considering that she was the one that hadpressed this ice spear so much. There was no way that she was going to be able to do something like that. Or at least, that''s what Eiro thought, but she actually seemed capable of doing surprisingly well.


    With a raise of his brows, Eiro pulled the spear back, "Huh." He muttered with a straight face, before simply biting into the tip of his finger, "If you can defend against that, then how about this one?" He asked, and let an absolutely ridiculous amount of blood flow out of the small wound in his finger.


    Blood loss usually took a rtively fixed amount of health from an individual, which of course depended on the amount of life force they possessed. But it didn''t scale evenly. Let''s say, if Eiro had 100 health, then a liter of blood would drain maybe 30 health. But now, with more than 700 thousand health, a liter of blood only drained 5 thousand health, which was of course also partially because of Eiro''s demonic regenerative ability, which he could increase by concentrating his life force onto certain parts of his heart.


    And so, Eiro had quite a lot of blood to spare, so much that it seemed to even rival the amount of blood that the bloodstone gave to Evelyn, at least to the unknowing audience. Eiro surrounded the ice spear in more and more blood, freezing it andpressing the whole thing further, until Eiro had created a spear that was about five times asrge as before, and at the same level ofpression. Of course, Eiro mixed a little bit of water from the ne of water in there to artificially increase the amount of ''blood'' that he could use, but it was barely visible, so it was fine.


    And then, when Eiro had that spear floating above his palm as if it was weightless, Eiro slowly formed a fist. The fact that he was able topress that blood-ice so much with just raw control was insane to anyone that was able to use magic in the first ce, but then, it went even further. That spear,rger in volume than Eiro''s body at this point, shrunk further and further, down to the point where it was at the size of a small sewing needle.


    "Alright, there we go." Eiro said with a smile on his face, as he casually snapped his finger. With ease, the needle pierced through Evelyn''s shoulder. And then, it came back. And then went through again. And again, and again, and again. And soon, Evelyn''s arm was simply loosely hanging by her side.


    "Wh-What did you-" Evelyn asked, holding he shoulder in pain, as Eiro smiled at her, "I severed all the muscles in your shoulder that were keeping your arm in ce. If you''re not careful, it''s going to pop out of its socket. At this point, you should still be able to heal it, so being careful might be better."


    Evelyn looked back at Eiro with fear on her face, and immediately turned toward a referee, "I gi-", she eximed, but before her sentence finished, her voice simply disappeared.


    "Sorry, I don''t think we should do that." Eiro said with a soft smile on his face. He took more steps toward Evelyn, as he summoned water out of nowhere, without the intervention of a spirit. He created all that water to create more needles at a simr level to the blood-ice spear that he had controller just now.


    Eiro stepped in front of Evelyn, with a light smile on his face, and made sure to use the needles to restrict her movement, as he slightly pressed the tips of his fingers onto his belly, "I think you should try to reinforce your back a little bit~." He said, giving genuine advice, as he turned his straight hand into a fist that he pushed into her stomach. Evelyn was immediately pushed to the other side of the arena, nearly breaking through the magically reinforced walls. Clearly, she was damaged quite a bit, but her bloodstone helped her heal and survive that attack.


    Just that, as Eiro punched her, she was pushed through all those needles in a very specific manner, and quickly broke down onto the ground, unable to move any of her limbs anymore. She tried to manipte her blood to control her body like that, something that was clearly incredibly painful.


    Eiro saw that she clearly wanted to write something in the air with her blood, so he let out a deep sigh, as he pointed his hand toward her. He turned toward the referee, "She clearly lost, and is trying to give up. Are we good?"


    One of the referees looked at Eiro confused, "H-Huh? Is this correct, Miss James?"


    "Yes! Yes, of course I want to give up! Get me away from this- this thing!" She eximed, and the referees all looked at each other, as the decision was announced. And at that exact moment, Eiropletely healed Evelyn. He seemed like some kind of viin in this fight, especially with Evelyn pleading to ''get away from'' him like that. So of course, he had to do something to not make people think too badly of him, which was to heal her instantly. It took quite a lot of mana, and Eiro had prepared all the magic that he needed for this sort of thing before the fight even began. The Holy Energy from the Holy Water he drank earlier actually helped quite a bit after he absorbed it into his body. And on top of that, it let him figure out that he could absorb things like magic into his body as well, which was a rather pleasant find.


    As Eiro was announced the winner, he simply waved at the people, trying to somehow use his charisma to make people think as highly of him as possible, before he returned back to where the others were waiting.


    And as he stepped into the room overlooking the arena the best, the eyes of everyone in here were obviously glued on him.


    "What?" He asked with his head tilted to the side, and Solomon looked at his friend with aplicated expression, "Could you not have been a little gentler? Your children are even watching from the stages..."


    "But it wasn''t even that bad? She didn''t even bleed that much. I mean, beyond what she wanted to, I guess." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon let out a deep sigh, "Alright, fine. But in the next fights, be more careful, alright?"


    "Obviously, I don''t need to prove much more in the next fights. I''m fighting some weakling in the next round anyway. See, I already forgot his name." Eiro pointed out with a light grin, and James stared at him annoyedly, "Fuck you."


    "No thanks. Anyway, I think I have someone to talk to, but don''t worry Krog, I''ll be watching the whole thing from there." Eiro exined, as he walked back toward the door, knowing that a certain person was currently on his way over toward him. With a grin on his face, Krog grabbed his two adamantine battle axes and smugly made his way into the arena. And as the two next fighters were being introduced, Eiro once more met with Duke James.


    Of course, quite angrily, the Duke practically ran at him, "You! You broke the contract!"


    "Oh? Now did I?" Eiro asked with a soft smile on his face, and the Duke stared back at him, as a broad grin started to form, "Yeah, you did! Which means... which means, that you''re basically my ve now, right? Hah... hahah... This might be even better, now that I think about it!"


    But as the Duke stared at Eiro with a manic expression, the Demon simply grinned back at him, "Hm, about that~... In a contract, the wording is quite important, you know? Do you remember my exact wording when we spoke of the terms of the contract?"


    "You said that you would lose against Evelyn!" Duke James eximed nervously, but Eiro ced his finger onto his lips, "Oh? Did I really?"


    "Y-You... Yeah, you... you di-" The Duke muttered, as he finally remembered Eiro''s exact words, "No, you didn''t... you said that you would neither move... nor fight back... for five minutes..."


    "Ah, so you remember after all!" Eiro said with a smile as he pped his hands together, "And I fulfilled my part of the contract! I stood there, and simply took her attacks, never fighting back. The most I did was strengthen my body, which in itself can''t be called fighting back in any way, and then I turned my head and smiled broadly at my kids. So... now that means it''s your turn, right?"


    The Duke fell to his knees in fear, unsure what Eiro would be asking of him now, "Fine... I will give you anything you want... What is it, then? Land? Money..? My... my daughter..?"


    "Hah, right, all of that stuff is useless. I have plenty ofnd and money, and your daughter is nothingpared to the woman I love. What I rather want is... hm... a service, you could say..."


    "Service..? Do you need my connections to other nobles..? But you have the King, don''t you?"


    "Of course, I don''t need that stuff either." Eiro replied with a smile, "It''s just a simple fetching request."


    The Duke''s face lit up with a broad smile, since it seemed like he got away much easier than he thought he would, "Yes, of course! Anything! What is it that you want me to ge-"


    "The head and heart of the current Monster King. Obviously, detached from his body." Eiro said bluntly, and Duke James immediately froze up.


    "H-Huh? B-But, you-"


    "What?" Eiro asked, as he smiled at the man in front of him, leaning forward to lock eyes with him with a devilish grin on his face, "Are you saying that you can''t fulfil your part of the contract?"

 Chapter 537 - Surprisingly Overwhelmed

    "I-I..." The Duke stared back at Eiro with utter fear in his eyes. But Eiro had not an ounce of sympathy for him. The James duke household was one that held quite a few hidden crimes. The only reason why Solomon wasn''t able to expose them for said crimes yet was that he had to keep Lognir a secret, and with that, the bloodline ability of the Skyhart royal family. Because without exposing Lognir and his truth-based abilities, it was practically impossible for Solomon to expose him.


    Depsite being King, a duke held incredible power and influence, and this was especially the case for the James household, who were at the peak of a faction that was unsatisfied with the way the country was currently run.


    The James household had many connections to the underworld, apparently. Illegal trading in the ck market, to the point where one of the main reasons why the capital''s ck market could exist was the household itself, just being one of them. Solomon had hoped that Evelyn was different to the rest of the James household, considering her reputation, and since Lognir had been busy worrying about his mate and children, there was really no way for him to verify what kind of person Evelyn was.


    So, of course, since this household was a troublesome one filled with nothing but scum and trash, Eiro didn''t feel bad about taking it over in this way. After all, while very was illegal, what Eiro was doing wasn''t technically very. It was more of a contract of subservience... Something that Eiro learned about from Nelli as she had helped him create this spell. And since a contract was something that both parties agreed to, this technically wasn''t illegal, but even then, this whole thing was something treading along the lines of legality, making use of any loopholes that the Demon could find.


    Eiro let out a deep sigh as he watched the Duke try to run away through this empty hallway that Eiro had split up artificially through magic so that nobody coulde and bother him and his new... business partner.


    "Min." Eiro said with a bothered tone of voice, and out of the shadows of the badly-lit hallway, the named Shadow Servant appeared, with his hands behind his back. He appeared seemingly out of nowhere, at least from the Duke''s perspective.


    "Now, answer me. Are you able to get me what I want, or are you not?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, "And just so that you know, if you tell me ''Yes'' and I realize it''s a lie, then it counts as a ''No''." The Demon said, and the Duke simply gave up. He looked at the ground in fear, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "Refusal to answer is also against the contract, you know?"


    "B-But I..! C-Can you give me more time?! A-A couple years for that sort of request might be e-enough!" The Duke pleaded, but Eiro stood in front of him while pushing his hands into his pockets, and slowly shook his head.


    Finally, it seemed like the duke understood that it was simply inevitable. This was exactly like the tale of the Genie. If you made a wish to this being, it would try to twist the wish around into perversion, often taking the wish in its most literal way. That''s why you had to be careful with your words, and be as specific as possible. But the duke simply didn''t mind such things.


    "Just answer... me..." Eiro said, slightly stuttering as he noticed something unexpected going on within the arena. But the Duke really didn''t notice, since he was preupied with other things that he clearly had to worry about at the moment.


    "I... I can''t get you that... I can''t... fulfill your request..." The duke muttered, and immediately, the mark on the back of his hand lit up and started heating up. It burnt into the duke''s skin, causing it to bubble up and rip open, as the mark slowly buried itself inside of the duke''s flesh. The ''contract mark'' was now on the inside of his skin, rather than the outside, just to hide it more easily. And of course, like this, the mark could easily spread throughout his mana veins and be near impossible to be removed by anyone but the creator of the contract, which meant Eiro in this case.


    "Alright, good. Now, a few basicmands. Don''t ever speak of this deal to anyone. Don''t signal anyone. Don''t write this down. If anyone finds out about this through you, whether through passive or direct means, you will be punished." Eiro said in a clear tone, "Now leave my sight, I have something else I need to deal with. I will visit you soon to talk about what I need you to do for me."


    The duke slowly nodded, as he nervously walked away, absolutely crushed by what had just happened to him.


    When he was gone, Bavet immediately whispered into Eiro''s ears, "Damn... so you really turned the guy into a ve..?" Bavet asked withplicated feelings.


    "Hm? No, not really. He can live normally, and I can''t make him do things that would endanger his own life. He can only do things that he would normally do. But he''s the kind of person that has no limits in what he would do if it meant that he will live, or even just profit off it, so I have quite a lot of freedom. But I wouldn''t be able to just tell him to go and try to get me the Monster King''s heart and head now, because he knows that he would die. It''s really just a one-sided contract where I can make sure that he really does what I want him to without doing any bothersome things." Eiro exined, alleviating Bavet''s mixed emotions, while the Demon quickly made his way through this ce to make his way to the nearest ce where he could properly watch the fight that was currently going on in the arena.


    It was... troublesome, to say the least. Despite the fact that Krog was using adamantine weapons, the man that he was fighting, the one that Eiro had watched quite closely, was fighting back quite vigorously. And all that while still using an incredibly blunt de. But at the very least, Krog made him actually have to fight properly, making the man''s de connect with another''s weapon for the first time since the start of this tournament.


    And while Krog did take a little bit of damage here and there, it was nothing enough to really bother him. After all, Krog was actually surprisingly talented in manipting life force, as it turned out. He was able to instinctively pull it away from the ces where he was going to be hit to reduce the damage he got as much as possible. He never really thought about strenghtening himself with life force, though. And not because he didn''t want to, it was just that he simply forgot about it during the heat of the battle.


    Krog was the kind of person that fought most of his fights in raw, simple instinct, and things such as battle tactics disappeared from his mind more and more as he became further enthralled in the fight that he was currently fighting.


    Eiro clutched the railing in front of him as he watched the fight. More and more, it seemed like Krog was being pushed back, he was slowly going all out, while his opponent was simply toying with him, as if he was bored of what he was currently doing. Of course, that wasn''t it exactly. Krog was obviously the strongest person that he had fought here so far, that much was clear, but at the same time, it was as if the man had limited his own abilities purposefully. As if he ced a seal on his own body. Something that Bavet confirmed rather quickly as well.


    "And it''s an extremely strong one as well... That man is incredibly powerful..." Bavet exined, and Eiro simply squinted annoyedly, "Did you already figure out what materials are needed to unseal it?"


    "Of course I have. But why would you do that?" Bavet asked, and Eiro slowly closed his eyes, "Because I want to fight him at his peak in the finals."


    "Huh? Finals? But he''s not even going to pass this round at this pace..." Bavet pointed out, but Eiro quickly shook his head, "That''s not true. I don''t like it, but it''s the truth. The sword that man is using is simple steel, while Krog is using adamantine axes forged by Armodeus. But the sword doesn''t bend at all, not in the slightest. That man is much more skilled than he lets on. If he went all out, even with such arge part of his physical abilities sealed away, he would quite quickly win against Krog. And Jess doesn''t have the physical prowess to defend against those attacks properly. Let''s hope she beats him, but... It''s not looking good."


    And as Eiro continued watching this fight, he noticed frustration grow inside of Krog more and more, to the point where he was practically just getting angry. Noticing a chance, the man swung his de forward at an incredible speed that seemed to make the air itself crack apart around it.


    And as the two came to a stop, the man''s sword cracked into pieces, having beenpletely destroyed by Krog.


    But in return, Krog had lost this round, falling forward onto the ground unconscious.. The announcement was made, and Eiro stared at the man with an angry re for overwhelming his friend like that.

 Chapter 538 - Eiro Versus James

    Eiro looked at Krog as he stepped out of the arena, having to be supported by some healers. With a flick of his wrist, Eiro quickly helped heal him as much as much as possible.


    "E-Eiro, I... I''m sorry..." Krog muttered, looking down at the ground, but Eiro simply let out a deep sigh, "What are you apologizing for? It''s not your fault in the slightest."


    "Yeah, but your n was... to have the four of us be at the peak, right..? Now that won''t happen... just because of me..."


    Eiro rolled his eyes as he stepped up to Krog. He stood in front of this man that towered above him, and proceeded to hit his stomach. It clearly had an immense amount of power, so much so that a shockwave seemed to continue even beyond Krog''s back. However, the warrior just stood there, having taken that attack easily, despite the clear shock of the two people still trying to support him.


    "What was that for?" Krog asked annoyed, and Eiro smiled at him, "Nothing. Come on, the others are waiting."


    Krog rolled his eyes annoyed as he ced his arms behind his neck, and walked toward the stairs with a loud groan, "But seriously, that guy was super strong. I wonder if I could beat him if I tried again."


    "I''m sure you will." Eiro said with a smile, as he slowly turned toward the two healers, "Oh, and you guys... I''m sure you can keep what just happened here a secret, huh?"


    ---


    "What? He has a-" Solomon asked, shocked as he heard what Eiro had just exined, when suddenly someone else came rushing into the room.


    "Dad! That guy, he''s not from here! He''s-" Arc eximed, his face so pale as if he had just seen a ghost, and Eiro let out a slightly annoyed sigh.


    "I know. He''s a quite special case. But... I wasn''t aware of that yet, Arc, thanks for telling me. I guess that supports my theory though." Eiro pointed out, "He really does seem to have a unique skill."


    Arc looked back at Eiro with a deep re, "A unique skill? What kind?"


    Eiro turned toward his son and locked eyes with him for a few moments, before shaking his head, "You''re not meeting him, Arc."


    "But-"


    "No. You''re not." Eiro interrupted Arc immediately, "That guy is incredibly dangerous. Depending on the extent of his power... even I might have trouble dealing with him, considering the type of ability it seems to be."


    ---


    Eiro stepped into the arena once more. Jess had won her quarter-final fight easily, so in the semi-finals she would have to fight that man. Eiro tried to inform her about what he thought his ability to be as much as possible, but soon, it had gotten to the point where it was Eiro and James'' turned to fight. And he didn''t want to be rude toward him, so he concentrated his attention toward his friend instead.


    The crowd cheered as James and Eiro stood in the arena, as the two friends looked at each other. And soon, the bell was rung, signaling the start of the fight. The second that this was the case, Eiro swung his arm to the side, and caused an explosion of force right in front of James. However, despite Eiro not weakening the attack just because James was the one he was fighting, he stood there unbothered by what had happened.


    Or rather, that''s what it looked like, since the cloud of dust that had formed around James made it hard to see what just happened.


    James used an ability given to him by the special ss that he had finally achieved. His physical ability and his stats had risen so much, on top of the amount of sses that he had cycled through before this, so that he was given a special ss. He was the first out of the three to get to this stage.


    His ss was the ''Assassin hiding in the Light''. A special ss that only Light Elves can reach, due to its nature. This special ss allowed James multiple new things. First of all, his speed had been considerably increased, and his agility and dexterity stat growth was incredible in this ss. But that wasn''t all that this ss allowed him. By exchanging his stealth-based abilities after attaining this ss, he became an assassin that stood in the forefront. A being that was supposed to hide was now wide in the open.


    And of course, that meant that he had to receive abilities that let him live in the world of light. And this is where the nature of light elves came in. A light elf. A special sort of hybrid race. Elves were a folk that had achieved something that others hadn''t. They didn''t have ns, they had entirely different races. And that gave their hybrid offspring certain qualities as well.


    The high elves, a race blessed by magic, and the dark elves, a race rejected by magic. Their offspring created light elves. A race both blessed and hated by magic at the same time. Until now, James had never been able to so much as push out the tiniest ounce of mana out of his body, but now, that was different. His body had started being capable of using magic for a specific sort of magic, only possible due to the special nature of a light elf''s mana.


    James was able to solidify his raw mana, forming it into weapons that seemed as if they were made out of pure, solid light. Right now, he was using it to simply coat his daggers, since it was easier and quicker to use this way, and he didn''t have the chance to experiment with this new ability too much, but there was one quality that he certainly was trying to make use of now.


    Mana rejected other mana. That was why a mage could not suddenly control something influenced or created through another''s mana. And this being the case, James was able to use this ability to create solid barriers that protected against magic nearly perfectly. And with the way that he was using it now, coated onto his weapons, he could cut through another''s magic in a quite surreal way.


    So what James had just done was cut through the st of force created by Eiro''s magic. This was the sort of fight that the two agreed upon.


    If Eiro went all-out against James, James would never be able to win against him. That was an undeniable fact. So, Eiro was only allowed to use magic in his fight against James. If Eiro ever used non-magical means of attacking or defending, it was his loss.


    Of course, at the end of the day, this loss just mean that James would quickly give up so that Eiro could proceed anyway, but the two of them would know that James was the one that had truly won this fight between them.


    Just that there was one part that still made this fight incredibly tought for James. He jumped to the side, holding his ribs in pain as he looked to the side, seeing a thin bar of rock that Eiro pushed out of the ground during the explosion.


    "Well, shit..." James groaned with a broad grin on his face, "Guess I really have to be more careful, huh?"


    Quickly, James rushed forward toward Eiro, while the demon was throwing all sorts of magic at him. But James was able to react to everything rather quickly. He either cut through the projectiles that Eiro had shot at him, or he dodged the other magical attacks that he wouldn''t be able to cut through too easily. But as the fight went on, and James actually got rather close to Eiro, the Demon noticed that something had changed. James had done something to his skin, something that he hadn''t seen from him before. He imitated Eiro to an extent, and fused this new ability into his skin.


    Like this, raw magic wouldn''t be able to hurt him as easily anymore. Of course, the heat of magical mes could still scorch him, and the momentum of a rock thrown at him with magic would still hurt and rip his skin. That was something that James could not defend against, so this was certainly no omnipotent ability.


    However, it didn''t have to be. It was incredibly powerful. James was an incredible fighter, just from his raw skill. Since Eiro made him a new arm that he was able to move as if it was his real arm, James became able to disy his true capabilities again. And now that he had the ability to defend against, and even to an extent use magic? That really changed things for James. Eiro was d that he had grown this powerful.


    If James had turned out to be someone that Eiro had been able to knock out in an instant, just like all the others that he fought in this tournament... Eiro would have been nothing but disappointed. He wouldn''t have been able to call James a true friend. But now he can. With a smile on his face, as James got even closer than before, Eiro shot forward apressed ball of magic. It was basically just raw mana that he hadpressed an incredible amount. It was unable to do a lot of damage, but it had quite some force.


    It shot at James. It moved incredibly slowly, but somehow he wasn''t able to dodge it. Instead, James tried to cut through it with his dagger. It cut half an inch into the orb, and then the solid mana simply shattered into pieces, overwhelmed by this raw amount of mana.


    It pushed through James'' normal de, and hit the center of his chest, pushing James back to the other side of the arena in an instant.


    But instead of being pushed into the wall and falling unconscious there, James had been able to catch himself, and kept standing there.


    "I''m not done yet." He practically roared, but Eiro couldn''t help himself but chuckle. He walked up to James, and extended his hand forward. And then, Eiro flicked James'' forehead with his finger, before the light elf simply fell over backward.


    "Hah... hahah... Alright, I give up." Jamesughed, with an incredibly broad grin on his face. As the fight was announced as over, and as Eiro was named the first of the two people that would fight in the finale, and the crowd cheered after watching this incredible battle, James looked into the bright sky, happy about beating Eiro in a fight for the first time in eight years.


    After all, even a simple flick of the finger that did just a single point of damage counted as a non-magical attack.

 Chapter 539 - Negation

    "Why are you grinning like that? It''s creepy..." Jessined, looking at James as he was sitting there, drinking water from a waterskin after his fight, "Because it was a lot of fun, honestly." He pointed out, and Jess rolled her eyes in response, "I''m d you had fun. Meanwhile, I''m going to have to fight the guy that Eiro called ''extremely dangerous''."


    "Don''t worry about it, you''ll be fine. And even if... At the end of the day, this isn''t a real battle. Usually you could use so many more tools than you can now, so even if you were to lose now, which I don''t think you will, this doesn''t really show how powerful you are in a group." James pointed out, "Honestly, this seems like a very inefective method to choose people to apany the hero..."


    "Of course, they''re just trying to get people with raw ability to teach the hero. The hero has the special ability to learn basically anything they set their mind to. What they''re nning on doing is to have the hero learn the abilities of the strongest individuals in each country." Eiro exined as he entered the space, and James looked at Eiro with a wry smile, "Seriously? Why did you never mention that before?"


    "Huh? Well, I thought it was rather obvious, so I never felt the need to. But that''s not really important. Jess, is everything prepared for the tactic I suggested?" The Demon asked, looking at the mage next to him, and she quickly nodded her head, "Yeah, I think so at least... But are you sure it''s going to work?"


    "I think so, at least, yes." Eiro replied, "But I can''t be too sure. He didn''t show the true range of his powers just yet. During your fight, just look to me, I''m going to analyse what happens after your scouting, and then I''ll signal you what final tactic to go with."


    Jess immediately nodded her head, hearing that she was currently being announced in the arena, "Alright, got it. I''ll be right back, I guess..." Jess muttered, as she walked into the open arena as James and Eiro made their way back to the royal viewing area.


    Eiro took a deep breath and looked into his mind, creating a sensory homunculus that he was mixing together in every possible way that he could. Even his ability to sense magic, which had increased after his evolution to a point where it rivaled the magic sight of spirits, was added into the mix.


    And on top of that, Eiro focused all of those senses onto the two individuals in the arena. Jess, and the man that she was about to fight. He could see, smell, and hear every single motion of their bodies, every single twitch of a muscle. Every single change in the flow of their mana, even. Eiro could sense it all. And then, he mixed this ability with his ability to enter this sort of slowed-down realm in his mind, so that he could live minutes, or maybe hours, in a single second.


    He needed to find out everything there was to know about this man, simply due to his abilities, and his apparent origin.


    Jess immediately threw certain magic spells at her opponent, and the man in front of her unsheathed his weapon. Once again, it was a blunt sword, quite simr to the one that Krog had destroyed. As if he didn''t want to use a sharp edge for some reason. With a single swing of his sword. The moment that the de hit the orb of rock, the mass of Jess'' spell slowed down a certain amount, but in a jarring, unnatural way. It wasn''t immediate upon contact, but it seemed to take a few instants until this unnatural slowing-down proceeded. And then immediately afterward, the rock practically moved out of the way of the de.


    The de didn''t push it to the side, but it was as if something else forced it away, simple into any direction that wasn''t toward the metal of the sword.


    And with that, Eiro had already analysed him enough. The Demon pped his hands together for a moment, and then raised his hand, making a symbol as Jess nced over toward Eiro, understanding what she had to do. Jess slowly dropped her arms and let her staff hang loosely by her side, as she slowly started to approach the man.


    He didn''t understand what was happening, but the man still swung his blunt de at Jess. And the moment that the nearly round edge touched her skin, and it stopped, as if Jess'' body was a thick metal statue.


    Clearly not sure what was happening, the man pulled his sword away, while Jess'' heart was beating harder and louder than ever before. Eiro smiled lightly, d that it worked.


    "Wait, what just happened?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly turned toward him, "That man''s power is ''Negation''. Rather, a ''Field of Negation'', that he has centered around his de in a specific way. When his de hit the rock before, it negated the impact for just a moment before he actually shed through it. Now, when this man attacks someone, what he seems to negate is once more the impact. But, my guess is that he needs to know the exact force of said impact. I taught Jess a spell that lets her move into any direction at incredible speed. And so, she used that spell to decrease the impact more than that man wanted, causing the de to just stoppletely, since all of the leftover impact was negated. It seems quite aplex manner, but that''s the rough gist of it." Eiro exined, trying to make it make as much sense as possible.


    "But why would he do that? If he ''negates'' that, then won''t that really weaken his abilities?" Krog asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Yeah, and that seems to be the point. He''s trying to make his attacks have less of an impact. He''s trying to fine-tune everything so that he only uses as much force as he needs to."


    "Wait, are you sayin''..?" Krog muttered, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yeah, he''s much, much stronger than this... and it doesn''t seem like he is capable of controlling his physical prowess, and instead uses this special ability."


    "So you''re saying that... his ability wasn''t even what we had to worry about..?"


    "That''s what I''m saying, yes."


    "...Do you think Jess can..?" Krog asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head. It didn''t take long for his guess to be confirmed either. A few minutester, the fight was over, and Jess had lost, unable to continue her fight since she was unable to move anymore.


    She was healed, and Eiro sat there, even more angry than before. They would now enter a one-hour break before the finals.


    ---


    Eiro stood in the arena, his opponent in front of him. Before the fight, they had a quick chance to talk to each other.


    "I will just make a suggestion. If you want even the slightest chance at victory... Go all out. Stop negating your own attacks." Eiro warned the man in front of him, "Because I''m not holding back against the likes of you anymore."


    "The likes of me? What, amoner?" The man asked with a scoff, not minding the fact that Eiro somehow managed to see through his ability, as the Demon let out a deep sigh, "I used to be amoner not too long ago. Obviously I''m not talking about that. With ''the likes of you'' I mean someone that straight up infuriates me."


    "And why do I infuriate you?"


    "Because you did something you shouldn''t have, to both my friends. This is something that I haven''t told them about yet, because I knew you wouldn''t be able to use that ability. I saw the timer in your eyes. What I mean is someone that not only pretends to be weaker by negating their own abilities instead of just controlling yourself, which leads me to believe that you were simply given your immense power the moment you were brought over to this world, but also someone that would go so far as to ''reverse'' the very personality of my friend." Eiro said with a growl, "Negation and Reversal, those are your two abilities, aren''t they? You can not only negate energies and concepts, but also reverse thempletely. Thetter seems to be something a lot more powerful, however."


    The man in front of Eiro, hearing this Demon''s words, seemed shocked and confused, "You saw it in my eyes?"


    "I did. And do you want to know what else I could see, just looking at you?" Eiro asked as he whispered a sentence that only the man in front of him could hear, "I know you were reborn into this world. Although in a different way to others that I know of... you weren''t ''reborn'' in the body of an infant, but rather your own original body. As if you were simply summoned here."


    The man opened his eyes wide, "What gave it away?"


    "Seriously? You have no idea? How are you more surprised about how I found out about this than the fact I know that world even exists? Or that I know your abilities, and can see your status through your eyes?" Eiro asked, pointing at the man''s shoes, "If you''re going to pretend to be from this world, at least wear something that''s made of materials that actually exist here."

 Chapter 540 - Reversal

    The man slowly looked down at his shoes, and then raised his head with a wry smile, "But the shoes are so ufortable here..."


    Eiro rolled his eyes, "Right, I should have known you''re an idiot." He pointed out, "So, nevermind that. Rather, I want to know why you would do something like reversing the personality of my friend."


    With a smirk on his face, the man shook his head, "How about you beat me if you want to find that out?"


    "Hm, I was nning on that anyway, so let''s go ahead and do it like that." Eiro said bluntly, as he took a deep breath. Finally, the announcements for this final round were beginning, and soon, they were going to hit the bell. Eiro watched the bell, and the moment that the ringing sound hit his ears, he jumped forward and hit the transmigrator straight in the face. He was thrown to the other side of the arena in an instant, unable to negate the force of the impact.


    The momentum nearly destroyed the wall on the other side of the arena, but the man simply stood up as if he was unbothered. Or at least... he wasn''t damaged, but he still experienced some amount of pain.


    "So you can negate damage as well? That''s kind of unfair, isn''t it?" Eiro asked, as the transmigrator grinned broadly, "Guess I''ll have to take this a bit more seriously after all."


    Slowly, the transmigrator pulled the de out of its sheat. It was still blunt like before, but soon, the transmigrator started cutting into the air. It was a known fact that powerful swordsmen could create cuts in the air that traveled to their opponents on their own, even if it was weaker than a normal sh. However, what this man was doing was something else entirely.


    He cut into the air, creating such a sh that would normally travel to Eiro quite quickly. But it wasn''t moving, it was practically just frozen in the air. To others, it looked like the transmigrator simply swung his sword through the air a few times and nothing happened, as if he was trying to warm up, but Eiro could tell the changes in the air as this sh formed.


    And the transmigrator didn''t stop. He continued swinging his sword through the same spot, adding onto the cut more and more, until space itself seemed to want to shift around it. Even the audience was now able to see what was happening.


    And then, while Eiro was standing there, waiting to see what was going to happen out of simple curiosity, the transmigrator pushed the tip of his sword onto the rift in space that he had created. And in an instant, said rift disappeared, and moved to another ce. And that ce was directly where Eiro was standing. If Eiro didn''t have his sort of abilities, he would have died there. But luckily, he could simply turn part of his body into air, and everything was absolutely fine. There was no way for this sort of attack to damage him in that scenario.


    "Huh. Interesting." Eiro muttered, as he simply stepped away from the rift. He pulled a bar of rock out of the ground, and pressed it into the rift. Immediately it was shredded into pieces, "That definitely would have hurt."


    "It... should have hurt..." The transmigrator muttered confused, unsure how Eiro dodged that attack, as the Demon smiled slightly, "Oh, that is actually nothing, you know?"


    With a gentle smile on his face, Eiro pushed his hand onto the rift, and immediately made it disappear. These sorts of shed were created out of air pressure, and this guy mixed something like a special negation into it. But as long as Eiro just got rid of the air pressure, it didn''t matter.


    "This is something more like what you wanted to do." Eiro said, as he slowly moved his finger through the air, pushing out a massive amount of magic. And as he did, apressed mass of space appeared in front of him, which slowly moved toward the transmigrator. And he knew that he wouldn''t be able to negate this, since he didn''t even know what ''this'' was. So instead, he simply dodged, and the moment that it hit the wall reinforced by some of the greatest mages in the country, it simply moved through it like a knife through water, unhindered in the slightest. Of course Eiro dissipated the magic a momentter, but the transmigrator now understood what sort of being he was dealing with.


    "...Okay, got it. No trickery anymore." He said, before pressing his fingers onto the edge of the de. With what seemed like sheer physical strength, he created a sharp, albeit uneven, edge on the sword. But in the end, this wasn''t done through physical strength, but the metal was pushed back by the negation of ''being allowed in that space''. It seemed like this sort of thing drained a lot of energy though, so it couldn''t be used this actively inbat.


    But it didn''t need to be. The moment that the transmigrator pushed his foot into the ground, cracks formed all around the arena. In an instant, he seemed to teleport toward Eiro. He did the same thing as when he moved that sh in the air earlier. The sh itself was held in space by the negation of time itself, while it was moved by the negation of the distance between it and Eiro. Really, it was a ridiculously powerful ability.


    The man swung his now sharp sword at Eiro, and the Demon knew that he couldn''t just sit back and do nothing here. He forced his body to move out of the way of the de''s sh and pulled his dagger out of his treasury. He pushed it forward at the transmigrator with a twisting motion for a powerful and damaging stab, but the moment that the tip of the dagger hit the transmigrator''s flesh, it simply seemed to stop.


    ''So he had been holding back even with this power, huh..?'' Eiro thought to himself as he ground his teeth in annoyance. He pulled back to dodge the man''s next sh at his arm, and quickly twisted around him in an unnatural and unexpected mannre, before grabbing his opponent''s arm. Eiro pulled on him with the support of gravity magic to pull him toward his dagger, and once more pushed the tip of his dagger onto the transmigrator, and once more, the impact was stopped. But this time, Eiro didn''t give in, and pushed the dagger into his opponent''s flesh anyway.


    The negation ability wasn''t perfect. It wasn''t all-powerful. And one of the most important parts was that each ''field of negation'' that he created could only negate one thing, it seemed. So the field of negation right around his skin stopped any impact, but what Eiro did after that wasn''t an impact anymore, it was just pushing his dagger into his flesh, so it worked differently. Knowing this, Eiro could still attack without issues if he just tweaked the way he attacked just so slightly.


    While damage was slowly umting on the transmigrator''s body over time, Eiro had not been hit even once, not a single time. The reason for that was that Eiro was simply still more powerful than this man even when he tried to take Eiro on ''seriously''. He was just a bit moreplicated to fight for Eiro, so while it took longer, he wasn''t a real threat now that Eiro figured out his technique.


    Of course, Eiro still held back certain abilities of his. Using magic against the transmigrator wouldn''t be worth it, since he could probably just negate ''mana'' around him, so this was a lot easier and made Eiro seem more powerful. If he had someone just get rid of his magic like that so easily, then it would seem to the general audience that Eiro isn''t as powerful as they thought. And Eiro didn''t want that. Even if he really had to struggle more in this fight than any other time he had fought someely, he wanted it to seem like Eiro did everything with ease.


    But there was still one issue. ''Reversal''. It was a powerful and troublesome ability. Eiro had been able to remove it from Krog by simply getting rid of the magic that caused the effect, even though it was trying to solidify inside of his abdomen for a permanent chance, but he still didn''t know exactly how it worked.


    It seemed like he was going to see it quite soon anyway. The transmigrator, grinding his teeth together, swung his de at Eiro while once more being stabbed, and in that instant, he used the ''Reversal'' ability.


    In that instant, everything in what seemed to be a two-meter proximity around the transmigrator simply changed. It inversed. It turned into its opposite, practically.


    "Eiro, I-" Bavet muttered, struggling to hold on, but the slime didn''t have to worry. Eiro had already anticipated this.


    In that exact moment, Eiro pulled all the mana that he had been subtly spreading out through the arena back into his body, and was forcefully dragging the ''Reversal'' mana into himself at the same time. Eiro absorbed it, made it his own. Like that, it didn''t affect him, and the ability was wasted by the transmigrator.


    Ripping open his eyes confused, the man took a step back, "B-But how... how did you do that?" He asked, and Eiro grinned slightly, as he moved the reversal magic that he absorbed right onto his hand. In an instant, he moved forward, and punched the transmigrator into his stomach. Eiro twisted his hand around, and in that moment, a weird effect could be noticed.


    The transmigrator wasn''t able to negate Eiro''s attacks anymore, since this was the transmigrator''s own ability, but he wasn''t pushed away.


    Because what Eiro was doing was simple. He punched the man, and the force was inflicted onto him. And when the reverse-force was about to hit Eiro... it simply once more injured the transmigrator. And instead of being pushed away, the transmigrator was pushed further into Eiro''s hand.


    The Demon had such immense control over this ability that he had just absorbed that he was able to reverse only the things that he wanted to. Like that, even though the punch onlysted an instant and seemed incredibly weak from an outsider''s perspective, this was probably the most powerful, destructive punch that a human ever had to endure. Soon, when the reversal magic had been fully used up, the transmigrator fell to his knees and started spitting up blood. He wasn''t able to move anymore. That one punch had taken nearly all of his health, so he couldn''t continue this and expect to win anymore the way that things were going.


    But before he could even make an active choice about this, he fell unconscious, and Eiro had won.

 Chapter 541 - Six Of Wands

    "We have a winner! Eiro Jura Daemonherz has been officially chosen as one of the Hero''s Companions!" An announcement was called out throughout the arena and its surrounding areas through the use of magic, and the audience erupted into loud cheers. So for now, Eiro of course had to put on a bit of a show. He waved at the audience, and he held a small speech. This time, he didn''t do anything to shock the audience, but rather tried to put on the act of a truly good-natured man that wanted to do nothing but put his life on the line to help kill the Monster King.


    Meanwhile, the transmigrator was carried out of the center of the arena while everything was going on. Soon enough, after Eiro answered some questions, he stepped out of the arena, and soon saw a woman standing in front of him. She had dark skin with ash-grey tattoos covering her arms and legs, as well as a few smaller symbols ced around her eyes and mouth.


    She slightly smiled as she looked at Eiro, "Baron Daemonherz. Could you please follow me for a moment?"


    "Sure. I assume this is about the hero?" The Demon asked, and the woman quickly nodded her head, "Of course. My name is Silia, Ie from the Baram Kingdom as a representative to make sure that the tournament follows the proper rules. Now that you have won, I would like to talk to you about what will happen next. But I would rather do so in a private space, where there is little chance to be listened in on."


    Eiro crossed his arms for a moment, "Then how about... we meet at the royal castleter? I would like to speak to mytest opponent for a short while first." The Demon exined, and Silia quickly nodded her head, "Of course. Go ahead. As long as we discuss everything by the end of the day, we can postpone the discussion slightly."


    And so, Silia turned around and made her way toward the royal castle alone, while Eiro started walking through the structure to meet with the transmigrator again. He was currentlyying in a room where he was being healed, and Eiro stepped through the door and looked at the healer.


    "Leave." Eiro said bluntly, and the healer looked at Eiro confused, "I said leave." The Demon repeated, this time exerting a bit more pressure through his voice. The healer flinched and stepped away from the transmigrator, and rushed out of the room, before Eiro spread the liquid of the ace of cups around the room so that he could talk to the transmigrator without being bothered.


    He held his hand forward, and watched the wounds on the transmigrator''s body disappear, before he slowly woke up.


    "Urgh..." He groaned, jumping up immediately when he saw Eiro. But the Demon immediately moved closer toward him and pressed his dagger onto the man''s throat.


    "Don''t even try, alright?" The Demon said with a growling voice, "I''m just here to talk."


    "Really? I didn''t know they talk by holding metal to another''s throat in this world..." The man pointed out, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he pulled the dagger away, "Just exin to me. Why did you reverse Krog''s personality."


    "Krog? Who that?" The transmigrator asked, and Eiro stared back perplexed, "You fought him earlier today. You used that ''reversal'' ability on him."


    "Ah. That guy. Yeah, he was pretty strong, so I had to use it to overwhelm him properly without, like, killing him."


    "Just learn some restraint next time, and you won''t have to do something that might permanently change a person." Eiro frowned, "You are clearly powerful enough to take Krog on without all that trickery, but you did."


    "Well, it''s just hard, y''know? I tried, but my body changed all of a sudden when I came here, and I can''t really hold back. I learned how to fight instantly... how am I supposed to figure out how to hold back?" The transmigrator pointed out, speaking as if it wasn''t really his problem, "It was a lot easier to just use my other powers."


    "Speaking of. What are those powers? Where do theye from? Are they unique skills?"


    "Nah, it''s called a ''blessing''. Like close to nobody has those apparently, so you maybe haven''t heard of it." The transmigrator exined, and Eiro frowned deeply as he looked back at the man, "Is it a deity''s blessing?"


    The man quickly shrugged, "Something like that. At least it''s called ''Goddess of Negativity''s Blessing''."


    "Goddess of Negativity? Is she the one that summoned you to this world?"


    "I think so." The man replied, "Told me to go and kill the Monster King for her or something. Then I heard about this tournament, and figured I''d enter. It was an easy way to do it, right? The hero is supposed to kill the monster king, so it just made sense."


    "...You have a point. But also, you won''t be killing the Monster King. If I could beat you, you have no chance against him." Eiro pointed out, "But anyway, now that I know what your goal is, how did you get to this world?"


    "Oh, I really didn''t do anything. I was sitting in my room, ying games and stuff, and then suddenly this big fucking magic circle appears under me, and then poof, I''m here, a bunch of information flows into my head, and I just start walkin''." The transmigrator exined, and Eiro looked back at him a bit surprised, "Alright then. For now, stay in the capital. I wille to talk to you again in the future." Eiro said, pulling away the influence of the domain of truth mixed into his charisma, and immediately, the transmigrator looked at him confused.


    "How did- Why did I just tell you all of that?" He asked, and Eiro smiled at him, "I have my ways to make people talk."


    Eiro stepped out of the room, and made his way through the arena again. Now, he just had to meet with one more person before briefly meeting with his friends and family, and then heading to the royal castle for the meeting with the representative of the country the current Hero incarnated in.


    It seemed like his next ''target'' was tyring to get away as soon as possible though, something that Eiro really didn''t appreciate too much. She was nervous, and was being dragged along by her furious father. And then, from one moment to another, Eiro appeared before them and brought the two to a more isted ce.


    The father-daughter pair stared at Eiro, unsure what just happened. Evelyn ground her teeth together as she stared back at him, "Are you going to kill me now?"


    "No, of course not. But I''ll do something else." Eiro said as he leaned forward, stretching his hand out toward her chest. He grabbed the amulet hanging from her neck, and pulled it off of her with a single swift motion.


    "N-No, anything but that! Please, don''t take it from me!" She eximed, but Eiro just red back at her as he rolled his eyes, "Just shut it." Eiro growled, as he pulled the bloodstone out of the amulet''s socket. And then, the Demon just ced it into his mouth and bit down on it.


    It was hard, much, much harder than metal, so Eiro figured he should just swallow it whole. It was a card, so it was near impossible to crush like that anyway. His unique stomach acids might be able to help him integrate it into his body, however. Therge gemstone was forced down Eiro''s throat, and soonnded in his stomach.


    It didn''t take long for a notification to appear in front of his eyes.


    <strong>[You have integrated the {Six of Wands} into your body, and made it your own]</strong>


    <strong>[1/14 Cards of the Suit of Wands acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[5/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[Aptitude with the Fire Element increased]</strong>


    "Great." Eiro said with a smile on his face. This artifact was now properly fused into his body, making a certain few things a lot easier for him. For one, it couldn''t be stolen from him, and nobody would know that he even had it even when he used it freely.


    Eiro took a deep breath as he looked at the two individuals in front of him. He could sense their blood in an intricate way now. It was different to how Eiro sensed it normally, through sound and scent, but it was like he had gotten another sense altogether just for figuring out where blood was.


    "Interesting. Anyway, that''s it. You can go back to your miserable little lives now." Eiro said as he walked away, while Evelyn started sobbing behind him. He didn''t care, though. She was vile, she was a viin. She deserved death more than just this artifact being stolen from her. So she should be happy about that.


    Eiro made his way back to the arena, ying around with his new abilities that came from the bloodstoen, while Bavet whispered into his ear, "This is all so stressful, man... I''m the only one that knows all the things you get up to, right?"


    "Well yeah, but that just shows how much I trust you, right?"


    "Either that, or it''s just that you don''t see me as enough of a threat, so you just treat me like a tool. And why would you bother whispering around a hammer, you know?" Bavet pointed out, and Eiro stayed silent for a few moments, before pointing out, "Armodeus trusts his hammer a lot, you know?"


    "Alright, let''s move on...."

 Chapter 542 - Silia

    Eiro reached the royal castle together with Solomon, and stepped out of the carriage that they were traveling in, "Did you get a chance to talk to them yet? I have some ideas, but I don''t know how exactly they n on continuing with certain things." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon slowly nodded his head.


    "Yes, I''ve spoken to them a little before, but it was mostly rted to the organization of the tournament, since they wanted to make sure that everything proceeded properly and without tricks." The king exined, as they stepped through the main entrance of the castle. And to their surprise, Silia was actually standing there and was waiting for Eiro and Solomon.


    "Greetings. Should we proceed with our conversation immediately?" She asked, not wanting to lose another second, and Solomon lightly smiled at her, "Of course. Let us move toward my study, there we can talk without anyone listening in on us."


    "Let us do that." Silia said, and waited for Solomon to lead the way. Eiro thought that this woman was acting somewhat weird, but that was probably just a cultural difference, something that Eiro wasn''t used to. So he figured he should just ignore it, and followed Solomon and Silia over into the king''s study, where Eiro swiftly created a barrier using the ace of cups.


    "You possess one of the Divine Cards?" Silia asked, and Eiro shrugged slightly, "Kind of the wrong term, since they''re anything but divine, really. They''re Arcane, which is a whole other category of forces." Eiro exined, and Silia looked back at him, staring into his eyes for a few moments, "...But yes, I am the owner of five cards now."


    "Huh? Five?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "I recently acquired a new one." He pointed out, slightly tapping his chest, and Solomon understood that he seemed to have taken the bloodstone from Evelyn.


    "...Five, I see? You understand the power of those cards, do you not? The fact that they can give a person an elemental affinity is something incredible." Silia pointed out, "So if you will, could you consi-"


    "I am not giving my cards to the Hero." Eiro said bluntly, "No discussion."


    "...Aha, if you says so..." Silia replied, "Then-"


    "No. Seriously. I am not giving the cards to a child that already has such dangerous things to live up to. Did you know, that every single card has some repercussions? Using the Ace of Cups means not only being hidden from the world, but that everyone will forget about you during the duration. Even you yourself might forget things, which is the only reason why I try not to use it in its intended way. And I''m not talking about forgetting memories, but your personality might change. The Three of Swords, if you''re not careful, will turn you into a doll whose only purpose it is to kill those around it." Eiro said, "That is not something that I am putting onto a child."


    Silia locked eyes with Eiro, and then fully turned toward him, "Then let me ask you. Why do you want to join the Hero in his conquest of ying the Monster King?"


    Eiro sighed slightly, noticing the suspicion that Silia had for him, and started to exin, "I just want to make this world a better ce for my children, alright? That''s all I want. Even if I hadn''t gotten this chance to be thepanion of this hero, I would have chosen to go and kill the Monster King, with all it takes."


    "Killing the Monster King is not such an easy matter. You will have to break through his first line of defense beforehand anyway, the Royals. They are superior monstrosities that are each strong enough to destroy a country. And then, there is the Monster King, a being that is stronger than all of them." Silia exined, and Eiro crossed his arms, "I already killed two royal monsters."


    "You- I have only heard of one of such instances. Which was the other that you have in?"


    "I first killed The World, and then I killed the Death. I am currently making preparations to kill the Devil as well, since he is a particr threat even when the Monster King is gone." Eiro exined, and Silia slowly closed her eyes.


    "If that is the case, then I might have underestimated you. You must not have shown even close to your full power in the tournament, correct?" She asked, and the Demon immediately nodded his head, "Yes, that''s right. I haven''t."


    "And you have a wide range of abilities, as well as experience as an educator, correct?"


    "...Yes. Although I haven''t been teaching for that long. Well... that might not be true. I have been teaching my children for nearly a decade, but I haven''t been a teacher at the Academy for even half a year, so be aware of that." Eiro exined, but Silia was still impressed, "If that is the case, then would you listen to my suggestion? Out of the currently selectedpanions for the hero, you seem to be the one that will do the best as a teacher for him. As such, could we ask for you to reposition to our country and personally instruct the hero?"


    "No." Eiro said, "Not anytime soon, at least. I was told I could watch my children grow up, so no." Eiro had replied bluntly, without even a moment''s hesitation. Silia hadn''t even closed her mouth yet, and Eiro had already started responding.


    "So are you rejecting the position you have fought to attain?"


    "What? Of course not. I''m just not going to do everything you ask me to do. And in the first ce, the whole way you''re doing things seems rather idiotic." Eiro pointed out, something that Silia seemed to have taken quite some offense to, "Could you borate on that, please?"


    "Sure. Your country is a tropical ind country, correct? That is a very specific environment. And the monsters there are quite weak as well, correct? Sure, they make that up in numbers, but... the hero won''t have to deal with numbers, but a single strong opponent. Everyone else can take care of the numbers if needed, but the hero has to fight the monster king." Eiro pointed out, and Silia stared back at him with a deep frown, "So, what are you suggesting?"


    "It''s simple. Change the rules. Don''t have the ''teachers'' travel to meet the Hero, but have the Hero travel to meet the teachers. That way, not only can the teachers instruct the Hero in the best way they can, in an environment they are used to, but the Hero can get used to having to travel long distances and spending time in different climates. And for example, here a bit further up north, the monsters tend to berger and stronger, albeit less numerous. It''s a good ce for the Hero to train." Eiro exined, and Silia''s expression slowly rxed. She was clearly understanding the point that Eiro was trying to make.


    "You do have a point." She muttered, "I will ry this suggestion to the Kingdom, and we will then inform you of our decision."


    "Sure. But... Isn''t it a bit too early for the hero to train anyway? He can only awaken as the actual hero once he turns of age, but he''s still seven years away from that." Solomon pointed out.


    "Yes, of course, but being the hero, he already has the capability to learn a wide variety of things even at a young age. He is quite prodigous, most likely in response to the power of the current Monster King." Silia exined quickly, and Eiro slightly frowned, "So you''re teaching a childbat and magic abilities?"


    "Only in a limited manner, of course. He is still a child after all. However, if we can teach him the basics now, then he should have an easier time growing more powerful in the future, correct?"


    "...Right, sure." Eiro replied with a deep sigh, "Fine. Either way, I won''t be going anywhere anytime soon."


    "I will ry that fact, of course. However, you will still be required to go on a short visit to our country soon, so that you can at least meet the hero and his caretaker. Just see it as a vacation of sorts. Your family is free toe with you as well. I heard that people from this region quite enjoy vacation in tropical climates." Silia exined, and Eiro slowly looked back at her, "So just a stay of a couple of weeks?"


    "Or however long you wish to stay, yes. You will just need to ry the information to us, and we will make all the necessary preparations. We are nning on calling all the winners of the tournaments at the same time so that you can meet each other as well, so please work together with us in regard to scheduling such things."


    Eiro looked at Silia, and then simply let out a deep sigh, "Alright, fine. That sounds reasonable, at least." He pointed out, "Summer Vacation ising up for the kids anyway, so it''s a pretty good time, I guess."


    "I am d to hear that. Then now that we discussed this, I would like to speak about the actual responsibilities that fall upon you, now that you are the hero''spanion.." Silia exined, "That means public responsibilities to not dirty the name of the hero or our country, as well as the responsibilities you have as a teacher for the hero as well as an actualbatist once we begin to move in order to conquer the Monster King."

 Chapter 543 - The Transmigrators

    Silia left the room, and Eiro turned over toward Solomon, "Well, I guess that was quite an interesting conversation." The Demon pointed out, while the King let out a deep sigh.


    "Interesting is a good word for it, sure. Are you positive that this is a good idea? Teaching the hero, despite the fact that you want to... you know... be the hero?"


    "Well, I''ll never be the hero. The hero will simply cease to exist while the concept bes part of my being." Eiro pointed out, "But yeah, I do think it''s a good idea. At the end of the day, he is still just a child. He will have grown up his whole life knowing that he is the hero, knowing that he has to be powerful. And then, I just take away the part that gives him the ability to be powerful without giving him anything in return? That is just cruel."


    Solomon looked back at Eiro with his brows raised, "I''m d to see that bing a royal hasn''t negatively unfluenced your personality too much. I was somewhat scared you might end up bing more... cruel."


    "...I mean, I sort of ended up turning Duke James into a subordinate using a contract based off a very sigil." The Demon replied, "And then I stole the bloodstone from Evelyn and walked away while she was sobbing like a child, so that could be seen as cruel."


    With a nk expression, the king looked back at Eiro, "When... when did this happen?"


    "Oh. Before my fight against Evelyn, the duke came up to me and tried to bribe me to lose the fight on purpose. So, since you said you have trouble dealing with him, I tricked him into entering a magical contract with me. It''s why I didn''t move or fight back for a whole five minutes at the start of our fight. Then, all I had to do is ask for a reward that he could never possibly give to me, and the punishment had set in, turning him into my subordinate. It''s not as serious as a ve thing, I can''t force him to do anything he genuinely doesn''t want to do. And I won''t use it that much. I just created that situation so that you can use the influence of Duke James to your benefit."


    "...Well, thanks, but I would have preferred it if I could have done it without having to force him like that..." Solomon said with a sigh, and Eiro just shrugged, "I mean, you don''t have to give him an officialmand. He''s just going to be a bit more cooperative from now on in general, since he knows what will happen if he''s not."


    "Fair enough." Solomon replied, before he looked at Eiro again, "Now, about the finals... Were you worried that you might not win?"


    "Oh, not at all." Eiro said bluntly, without a moment''s hesitation, "I definitely didn''t go all out. I didn''t even use any sort of magic against him. And since I didn''t want to kill him, I couldn''t go for some kind of super strong single attack to try and overwhelm his ability, so I just had to be careful. If I didn''t have to worry about what the public thinks, I would have won in an instant."


    "Yup. Oh, and I think I need to tell you something." Eiro began, and Solomon looked back somewhat worried, "What is it?"


    "That man that I fougth. He''s from another world." He exined, and Solomon immediately jumped up, "What? What do you mean?"


    "I mean exactly what I said. From another world. He has been summoned here through the power of the gods. Something simr happened before. The Arcane Dealer, he is from that same world, just that he reincarnated here seemingly randomly. This man had been pulled here with his full body, and was given immense power, as well as an incredibly potent blessing." Eiro exined, and Solomon stared back with a worried expression, "Then that is why he was so powerful?"


    "Yes, exactly. But more importantly... the deity that summoned him was the Goddess of Negativity. A powerful goddess, sure, but... rather random for her to be the one to summon someone from the other world to kill the monster king, considering that the Goddess of Negativity is supposed to also strive off conflict between to juxtaposing sides. She should be in love with this war between people and monsters." Eiro pointed out, but Solomon wasn''t sure what he was trying to say. And even Bavet was confused at this point, since he hadn''t heard about what Eiro was trying to get at either.


    "What''s that supposed to mean? Why is it so important that the Goddess of Negativity summoned him?" The slime asked, forming a mouth on the back of Eiro''s hand to speak, and the Demon let out a deep sigh in response, "Simply because of the random nature of that choice, I think it is fair to assume that this transmigrator wasn''t the only one. This world is now filled with an unknown number of extremely powerful people from another world, many of which will be incapable of controlling their power properly." Eiro exined, and Solomon dropped back down onto the couch he had been sitting on, "And I think I am the reason why."


    "What? What do you mean, you think you are the reason why?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly closed his eyes, "I am the only being in millennia that has had the chance to speak to the entity that is this world itself. I am a unique being that can destroy the bnce of the world, since I can forever get rid of not only the hero and monster king, but every royal monster out there. I even spoke to the enemies of the gods themselves, beings of the arcane, and the king of the gods on top of that. I am a threat to them, clearly. And understandably so. If the godse to bother me, if I attain the power to do so, I don''t mind fighting against them." Eiro pointed out, "So I assume that they suddenly summoned all those people to this world to use them as avatars. Neutral parties from a whole other ce that they can manipte all they want."


    "...This is not good. Not good at all... Do you think they''re dangerous?"


    "They can be. I don''t know if all of them will have been given the goal to kill the monster king. But either way, we should make sure to figure out where they even are." Eiro said, slowly closing his eyes in thought. A few momentster, he opened them again, "Min." He let out, before the shadow servant suddenly stepped out of Eiro''s shadow on the wall. Or rather, Eiro''s shadow itself split off the wall and took shape.


    "I''m going to create more shadow servants and attach them to different informants and merchants. Make sure to monitor them and spread around more of them through the realm of shadows." Eiro said bluntly, and Min quickly nodded his head, epting said order. The Demon then looked at Solomon again, "Like this, I can spread out a web of information rather easily."


    "Erm... Eiro... what is that thing...?" Solomon asked with a wry smile, pointing at Min. Eiro looked back confused for a moment, before realizing that he hadn''t shown this ability to Solomon yet.


    "Oh... when I became a royal, I gained the ability to create simple servants. Usually it only extends to people or monsters, but I assume through my magical abilities, most likely through the aspect of the Sage that is within my soul, this ability was empowered to the point where I can turn anything that I can control through magic into servants." Eiro exined briefly, "And so, I created multiple powerful servants around my tree and old home, and created Min here out of my own shadow. He is a named servant, so he''s more powerful and intelligent. Usually, the servants I make are more like this."


    Eiro stepped over to the bookshelf and pulled out a small book, cing it onto the table. He fused his mana with the shadow that the book was throwing, and then quickly turned it into a servant. The book''s shadow was pulled away as a small imp-like, book-sized version of a shadow servant appeared next to it.


    "Of course, while the servants are out and about, the object loses their shadow, so I usually just do it with small trinkets that I can keep somewhere else safely. But I can also quite easily do this whole thing with coins, and get them into cirction. And if I keep the shadow servants attached to the object they were created from, it''s impossible to really notice anything." Eiro exined with a smile on his face, "And due to the nature of the realm of shadows, if I have the consciousness of the servant dive away into that ce as long as someone that could notice them is around, not even powerful wizards will be able to spot them."


    "That... that is amazing..." Solomon exined, picking up the book that had now lost its shadow. It was quite weird to look at, since it was now standing there, looking as if it was lit from all possible angles.. It was still only as bright as the actual lighting in through the window allowed it to be, but it was like all light was simply let through it and was unobstructed by the book in the slightest.

 Chapter 544 - Celebration

    Solomon looked away from the book and quickly threw it toward Eiro, "But, erm... take that with you, please. I don''t particrly want you spying on me. You can already tell what I''m doing far too easily by just being in the vicinity." The King pointed out, and Eiro lightly shrugged, "Fair enough. Either way, will you allow me to go through with my n and attach servants to coins?"


    "...I will not allow you, no." Solomon said after a few seconds of hesitation, "But I also will not tell you not to do it. Because I never heard of this n, alright? That means that if anyone finds out that there are those things attached to coins all over the country, I won''t know anything about it."


    Eiro smiled lightly, "I see. Thank you. I think I should head home to meet with the others now. It has been a rather eventful day, after all. We wanted to celebrate a bit."


    Solomon slowly walked over toward his desk and sat down on it as Eiro made his way over toward the door so that he could leave, but before he could step through the door, the King suggested something else, "Oh, and make sure you''re prepared for your promotion ceremony."


    "Promotion..? Do you mean the Noble Promotion?"


    "Of course. You''re already a baron, I can''t not promote you to viscount with all of the sess that you''ve racked up. And especially with our new friend in opposing factions, this will go through quite smoothly, will it not?" Solomon pointed out, and Eiro looked back at him with a wry smile, as Solomon just smiled lightly.


    Eiro let out a slight sigh of annoyance, "Is that really necessary? I''m fine just being a baron, you see?"


    "Sure you are. But you won''t get much more responsibility anyway. I can make sure that the only thing that will happen is that your title changes. Your barony will stay the same size, but will be named its own county instead. But, you also now have ess to funds to further increase the economical and cultural growth of said county. It''s not necessarily much, but under the guise of a special outpost in the mountains, we can start setting up trading rtions between the monster town and nearby towns and viges. You said that they have progressed immensely, right?"


    Eiro scratched the back of his head with a bit of thought, "That''s true, yeah, but I''m not sure if they''re ready for that yet. There are still quite a few monsters originally from the floating ind that we haven''t been able to fully integrate into the city. Having been created by the monster king, their willpower is particrly high, so they''re more resistant to mental maniption, even if it is of a positive kind. And sadly, sealing away their monstrosity includes that. For now, I don''t feelfortable in sending any random person too close there." Eiro exined as he started to think about it for a while, "But maybe... I could set up an outpost of sorts. I could clean up the roads of the mountain properly as well, and create some faster routes. There''s this group of adventurers bothering metely that have been taking a path of the mountain they weren''t supposed to."


    Solomon thought about it for a little while as well, "Alright, do that. Let me know if you need any particr materials, or any soldiers or staff to set up at that outpost." He suggested, and Eiro quickly nodded his head before making his way out of the room. Eiro walked through the castle, trying to avoid the nobles that were staying here at the moment and were yelling at their chosen candidates for losing so quickly during the tournament, now that it was all over.


    Eiro also stopped for a while to just smalltalk with some of the guards stationed around the castle, and was congratted by all of them. And when he was outside, Eiro jumped up into the sky and made sure to hide himself as much as he could, before flying off toward his home. A few momentster he had picked up all the speed he needed and quickly folded his wings back up slightly, soonnding right on his property.


    The moment he did, Bavet split off of him, and Eiro slightly smiled at him, "Good work today." Eiro said, and Bavet simply stared at the slime with his snake-eyes and started slithering away, "Right, sure..."


    "No, really, you held it together really well. Even during the short moment that the field of reversal affected us."


    "...Seriously?" The slime asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Of course. Why would I lie about something like that? You know I don''t purposefully choose nice words when speaking to you."


    "Right, right, sure. Well, thanks I guess. If you''re serious." Bavet muttered, and continued slithering away, soon entering the manor.


    Eiro swiftly followed him, and quickly made his way into the sitting room, where everyone else could currently be found. The first to run up to Eiro was of course Avalin, who had be even more clingy ever since she found out that Eiro wasn''t hurt by her touch anymore. So, the Demon picked her up and walked over toward Arie, gave her a kiss, and then sat down on the couch next to her with a deeply exhausted sigh.


    "Alright, so..." The Demon said with a slight smile on his face, as everyone was just staring at him, "Let''s celebrate, shall we?" He said, and immediately, nearly everyone jumped up and got everything that they needed for a party. Drinks, food, whatever. Anything.


    Eiro slightly turned his head to the side, seeing James and Jess bickering over by the table, so Eiro looked forward at Krog while most of the others were busy.


    "Are you alright?" Eiro asked, and Krog slightly raised his head, "Hm? Yeah, I''m fine." He said, "Just... feeling a little frustrated, if I''ll be honest with you. I was pretty excited about potentially being second in the tournament... and now I don''t even have an official ranking. I''m just a quarter finalist. I mean, sure, the fight was a shitton of fun, but... I feel like I failed y''all, you know?"


    Eiro looked at his friend before letting out a deep sigh, "Krog. That guy was literally artificially strengthened by a goddess, and had a surreal ability he got from that goddess at the same time." He pointed out, "He kind of had an unfair advantage."


    "...Wait, what?" Krog asked with a wry smile, "What do you mean?"


    As he grew more and more confused, Armodeus looked at Eiro from behind the couch as well, "Yeah, what d''ya mean? He was... strengthened by a goddess?"


    "I''ll exin it to you guyster. But I''ll say it again, that there is nothing for you guys to worry about. That kid? He didn''t earn anything of what he got. He was thrown here, and didn''t even bother to learn how to control his powers properly." Eiro said bluntly, "It''s infuriating, really."


    "...That is... that really is infuriating..." Krog muttered as his sad frown turned into an angry version of itself, "What the fuck''s that supposed to be? Fucking hell..." He grumbled, before standing up and grabbing a bottle of alcohol that was standing on the table and getting a ss for himself ready.


    Eiro smiled lightly and looked at the warrior, "But don''t worry. He doesn''t know how to get stronger either. But you do. All of you will be more powerful than him at some point, don''t worry."


    "Wait... does that mean we gotta do that insane training regime again?" James asked with a wry smile, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, don''t worry. We have the time to look into other possibilities now."


    Eiro turned his head toward Armodeus, "Also, because I just got my hands on a certain item that will help us create something quite special."


    "You-" Armodeus stared back with wide open eyes, before his face turned incredibly excited, "Things really might get quite interesting soon then."


    Eiro slowly stood up, and walked over toward the table as well. With Avalin still held by one of his arms, he grabbed a bottle of alcohol and some sses with his other three arms and started pouring everyone, of course only those that could actually drink, something to really start out this celebration.


    "It''s been a while, but finally, we can rx. We have brought a lot of hurdles behind us, and while there are many in front of us still, we can take a break now." Eiro said with a smile on his face, "I am proud of all of you. The six of you nearlypletely your first semester at the Academy, you three have be so much stronger, and our family has grown a bit more over the past little while." Eiro said, looking at everyone in this room in turn, "And in celebration of all that, I am going to bring all of you on a bit of a vacation. In a few weeks, we will be traveling to the tropical Baram Kingdom, as a bit of a break from the cold and rainy climate here."


    Everyone was kind of excited about the idea of traveling to another country for vacation, but of course, the only person that really had any idea of what Baram might be like was Arc. He stared at Eiro with a broad grin on his face, before slowly turning away.


    "Ah, there it is... it''s finallying.... the beach episode!"

 Chapter 545 - Ship

    "Careful, watch your step." Eiro said, as he watched everyone step onto the ship in front of them. It was a private vessel prepared for only this group, so they could travel there in peace without having to worry about random people travelling with them.


    "So, why exactly are we entering a ship... on ake?" Sammy asked with a wry smile, and Eiro quickly exined why through the use of magic, quickly creating a simple map in the air in front of him, "If we enter thiske here, we can easily travel over toward the rigar, a river that runs from here all the way into the ocean. It''s just a lot quicker than taking a carriage." The Demon exined quickly, and Sammy slowly stepped onto the stairs that would bring her onto the ship.


    Eiro looked at her with a light smile, "Don''t worry, it''s not dangerous at all. With Nelli, Koperia and I here, there''s no way anything could happen to us in a boat." He pointed out, while Arc slightly stared at the necromancer with a light frown, "Why''re youing anyway? I thought you''d just go off to do your own thing again or something."


    "And give up the chance to evaluate the strongest people on the continent? Hah, right, as if I would." Koperia pointed out as she quickly walked onto the ship. Eiro rolled his eyes as he looked around, making sure that all the luggage had been brought onto the ship.


    "Lad, are ya sure I can''t just... take a carriage? It''s enough if you just bring the materials and such with you..." Armodeus suddenly said, and the Demon looked at the craftsman with his brows raised surprised, "What? If we do that, by the time you''re there, we''ll already be back." Eiro pointed out, and Armodeus slightly stared back at him, "Then it''s fine if I just stay here... I don''t like hot weather anyway."


    "Come on, Armodeus. We want everyone toe with us. What''s the issue?" He asked confused, and Armodeus slightly stared at the ground underneath his feet, "You see, dwarves... we have a really strong connection with the earth, and the ground. And that''s just not possible on the sea..."


    "So you''re saying you get sea-sick easily?"


    "...yes." Armodeus replied awkwardly, and Eiro simply sighed in response, "Don''t worry, I can probably help you feel a bit more stable in your cabin so you won''t have too much to worry about." He suggested, "But for now, just get on there already. You know as much as I do that you really want toe with us as well."


    "...Fine. But if I thorw up because of this trip, then yer the one cleaning it up,d."


    "Right, right. Just get on already." Eiro smiled lightly, as he continued to stand outside. Soon, a person came up to him. They were seemingly from the country of Baram, apparently that''s what the ash gray tattoos on their dark skin told Eiro.


    "Good morning. I am going to be apanying you to our country, acting as a guide. I hope that we will be able to get along for the next few days." He exined, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Of course, let''s make sure of that." He replied immediately, before the guide from Baram quickly started walking onto the ship.


    "Then let us get ready for departure. The captain told me that it will take only an hour for us to leave."


    "Alright, that''s good." Eiro said, as he climbed onto the ship as well. Of course, the first thing that the Demon did was pretty simple.


    He created servants that could take care of any trouble that mighte up. A few water servants that would swim by the sides of the ship and get rid of any dangerous animals or monsters that might be lurking underwater. Some air servants to fly far above the ship, which Eiro could then also use to simply scout ahead if he wanted to.


    And beyond that, Eiro created some shadow servants out of small rocks that he then had dive into the shadows of the crew, cing the shadow-less rocks into his bag. In order to release themter, he would need the objects that the shadows belonged to, so Eiro didn''t just want to throw the rocks away into the ocean.


    The shadow servants were really the most important to Eiro here, since some of the crew members on the ship seemed somewhat... untrustworthy. That was the simplest way to put it. He didn''t trust those guys around his children, especially since some of them had already been looking at Sammy and Clementine weirdly. So of course... he made sure to instruct the shadow servants to strangle anyone that tried to touch his children in that way. Not that they would be able to, considering that this ship wasn''trge enough for any spot of it to be outside of his field of perception.


    Eiro let out a slight sigh as he entered his cabin, dropping down onto the bed in the corner of the room while looking up at the ceiling.


    "Is something wrong?" Arie asked, sitting down on the bed next to him. Eiro slowly looked up at her and shrugged, "Not particrly. I''m just nning ahead a bit. I don''t know exactly what will happen in Baram, so I''m a little nervous about it. And once we''re back, I''ll be promoted to a Viscount, and after that... I don''t know what wille after that." The Demon pointed out, and Arie simply smiled at him, cing her hand onto his.


    "That''s normally how it is, you know? Not everyone can predict things up to weeks, or even months ahead." Arie chuckled, "How about we just take it slow? The Academy''s sses will begin again a month after we''re back, and Leon is also still maturing as a beastman. You said you wanted to work on expanding the monster town some more, right? There are plenty of things that need to be taken care of still. I know they''re not particrly exciting, but you should know about that already, considering that you basically did nothing for three months."


    "...I spent nearly every day of those three months in agonizing pain. It was a little different. I''ll just end up bored now. I''m at a point where neither physical strength nor technique-based training helps. Well, I guess I could start gathering as many different skills as I can and bring them up to a decently high skill level for fun or something." Eiro pointed out with a slight sigh, "And I didn''t really have a chance to really use my Legendary Skill yet either, so I''ll have to figure out something for that."


    "Hm? You didn''t use your Legendary Skill yet?" Arie asked confused, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yeah, not really. It has passive effects that increase certain general abilities of mine, but the main thing that my Legendary Skill can do is manipte my existing abilities." Eiro exined, "I can boost them, reverse them, and all that. But it was just never necessary, and I don''t know the repercussions of using the skill yet either."


    "We do have quite a bit of time now. You could just try it out now, right?" Arie suggested. Eiro turned toward her and slowly sat up again, "Hm. That is a good point. You know what, I''ll do that. How about I just..."


    Eiro slowly activated his Legendary skill, and thought about using it to boost his strength stat ability, ''Warrior''s Strength''. He took a deep breath and looked at the notification that appeared in front of him as he did so.


    <strong>[You have boosted the {Warrior''s Strength} ability. It has temporarily be {The Supreme Demon''s Body}]</strong>


    <strong>[Countdown until ability will be forcefully returned to normal: 1 Hour, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds]</strong>


    <strong>[Countdown until the {Supreme Demon} Skill can be used to manipte another ability: 1 Hour, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds]</strong>


    <strong>[Notice: Even through premature cancetion of the ability-boost, the skill-usage countdown will not change] </strong>


    Immediately, Eiro could feel his body undergo a certain change. His muscles started to bulge up. Or rather, he suddenly grew an incredible amount of muscle, increasing it by roughly 50%. But soon, after this growth stopped, the musclespressed back down so that Eiro''s body didn''t look any different to before.


    "Huh." Eiro muttered, "There are way less repercussions than I thought... or rather, barely any at all... And the skill is just at level 1..."


    "Wait, the legendary skill has a level as well?" Arie asked as she started to feel up Eiro''s arms to see if they had grown any tougherpared to before.


    Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yeah, it got a level when I evolved, and when it properly awakened. But skills like this don''t follow the regr format of other skills. As far as I know, they don''t have a grade, but just reach level 100 and stop there."


    Arie looked at Eiro with a wry smile, "So what would happen if you were to use it like this at level 100 then?"


    "I have literally no idea, but I would love to figure that out. Skills usually don''t increase in potency in a linear fashion. Although for all I know, this might be different." Eiro said, before pulling his shirt up and flexing his arm to see if it felt particrly different to him.. And sure enough, his arm did feel a bit stranger to flex, but that was just because of the difference in mass and density that was added onto it, otherwise he could still control his muscles normally.

 Chapter 546 - The Captain

    Eiro stepped onto the deck of the ship as it pulled out of the harbor. It was his first time on a ship as well, so he just wanted to make sure that everything was going well. Sure, the state of the ship itself was perfect, and so were the conditions for department, although it did take Eiro to help out a little bit with that by calming down part of the river, but for the most part, everything had already been fine.


    The Demon stood by the side of the ship, looking over its edge. He saw his servants swimming around underneath the ship. They were giving Eiro any and all information that he needed, down to the temperature of the water.


    It didn''t take long until the sails of the ship were raised. The wind wasn''t particrly strong, but Eiro did have some idea to help the movement of the ship out a little. He quickly approached the captain of the ship, and tried to make a suggestion, "Would you like me to use some magic to speed our travel up a bit?" He asked, and the captain looked at the Demon confused, "What? How''d you even do that?"


    "Well, simply by manipting the current of the river or the wind that hits the sails, of course." Eiro exined, "It would help us speed up by quite a bit."


    The captain thought about it for a moment. But only a moment. Nearly instantly after blinking just a single time, he replied, "If you meddle with my ship in any way, I''m going to rip her hands off." He slowly looked down at Eiro''s hand before chuckling, "A second time, mean."


    Eiro let out a deep sigh and rolled his eyes, "It would make your life a bit easier as well, you know?"


    "If magic is so useful, why''d you need me to bring ya to where you wanna go, huh?"


    "I''m not saying that what you do is useless. It is incredibly useful. You''re clearly incredibly skilled, I can tell. I''m just saying that this sort of thing is not an ''either, or'' kind of deal, but a-"


    "No, it is an ''either, or'' kinda deal, ya hear me?" The captain replied, now getting annoyed by Eiro talking to him, "Although, ya at least seem smart enough to realise that I''m good at what I''m doin''."


    Eiro looked at the man in front of him, and lightly smiled, "I''m sorry if I was rude, I just wanted to help my friend. He''s a dwarf, and they don''t particrly fare well with sea travel."


    "Dwarf? Who? I ain''t seen one of those ''round here." The captain pointed out confused, and Eiro scratched the back of his head, "Ah, did you see the slightly older fellow, with the broad build? White beard and hair?"


    "...Wasn''t that guy taller than me? I think ye don''t know what dwarves are, buddy."


    "Of course I do, but he actually happens to be an Elder Dwarf. Armodeus the Craftsman King. Do you know about him?" Eiro asked, and the captain looked at him surprised, "That''s the Craftsman King? Seriously?"


    "Yup, that''s him. You know, a while ago, he gave my private carriage a bit of an upgrade. It''s here on the ship, so you can go take a look at his craftsmanship if you want. It''s the real deal." Eiro exined, "Oh, that reminds me. I''m pretty sure he would be quite excited about the idea of getting the chance to do something simr for a ship like this."


    With one of his brows raised, the captain looked at Eiro, "I''m still not letting you use your little magic, ya hear?"


    "I didn''t expect you to, don''t worry." Eiro replied, "I think I''ll just leave you be for now. I don''t want you to be distracted somehow." The Demon quickly walked away with a light smile. Even if the captain didn''t want him to do anything, it was already toote for that. The captain technically didn''t even have to do anything anymore, since Eiro was controlling the current to push the ship in the specific ways needed.


    Eiro soon stepped out of the room, and quickly heard the captain muttering something to the other seamen. He probably asked them to take a look at the carriage for him, to see if it was actually as amazing as Eiro insinuated. The Demon grinned lightly to himself, before he walked back onto the main part of the ship''s deck. And at the moment, it seemed like a certain heavyweight was causing some trouble for the crew.


    "You dumb fucking animal, get the hell off that rope! Or else, I''m gonna turn you into a stew, ya hear?" One of them yelled out, but Lugo didn''t seem bothered at all. He simply opened one of his eyes to look at that seaman, before pushing out some air out of his nostrils for something like a scoff, and then quickly returned to trying to nap.


    "Aight, that''s it. I''ll apologize to yer owner for this, but it''s his fault for bringing such a dumb fucking animal on a goddamn ship." He groaned loudly, and quickly pulld out a small knife out of his jacket. He was clearly about to try and injure Lugo, however... that wouldn''t work.


    Eiro was just standing there behind the seaman and watched as he tried to stab Lugo. But the moment that the knife hit the stag''s skin, nothing but a loud ''ng'' could be heard.


    "Huh? The fuck?" He let out, before Eiro ced his hand onto the man''s shoulder, "I think you''re misunderstanding here a bit. Lugo isn''t just a random animal. He happens to be a magic beast."


    "M-Magic beast?" The man asked with a wry smile, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "His hide is as hard as rock. If you fashion clothes out of his fur, it will be superior to most low-tier leather armor in nearly every way. He has a biteforceparable to river hippos. You''ve heard of those before, right?" Eiro said with a smile on his face, and the man looked at Lugo with a wry smile. The Demon looked at his familiar proudly, and quickly walked up to him, leaning onto his antlers, "Oh, and he happens to be the familiar of one of the strongest people alive at the moment."


    "I-I''m sorry! I... I didn''t know!" The man said with clear fear in his eyes, but Eiro just lightly chuckled, "Don''t worry about it. Lugo can be an annoying asshole, so I get it. I''ve had the urge to turn him into emergency rations a couple times as well."


    "R-Right..." The man said, before slowly pointing at the rope that Lugo wasying on, "C-Could you tell your familiar to stand up so that we can get the rope..? It''s part of the sail, so we might not be able to pull it in in an emergency."


    "Of course, don''t worry." Eiro replied immediately, understanding that Lugo was quite at fault here, and quickly proceeded to pick the stag up with surprising ease. The boost of his physical strength worked quite well, it seemed. Not that Eiro had to struggle at all when picking him up otherwise. Although, Lugo did gain quite some weight during his two ''evolutions''.


    In the three months that Eiro evolved, he had worked on feeding Lugo different magic stones. He evolved for the first time a week after Eiro''s evolution began. At that point, Eiro really knew that Lugo wasn''t anything like a magic beast. Or at least, that he wasn''t a normal magic beast. When those reached level 100, they would simply receive a new trait. A new magic ability of sorts. But their body wouldn''t change, that''s just not how it worked. Of course, they couldn''t level up just by eating magic stones either, so it was somewhat to be expected that Lugo was going to be different from them.


    When he reached level 100, Lugo''s body started to change. At that point, Lugo''s body had be more robust. He was faster than before, and he had grown a lot in power, and a little bit in size as well. But for the most part, that was where it stopped. His antlers were a bit more wood-like, and his hide was tougher, but the real changes only appeared during his second evolution.


    He had grown to be quite a bitrger than before, with his back-height being about half a meter more than before, and his body had changed like he had described, plus some more changes. His antlers were now practicallypletely made of wood, even if they didn''t look it, and his skin was permanently rock-like, with a weird amount of flexibility to it if needed.


    And of course, with that, Lugo had also grown a lot in speed and strength again. The only downside was that it took far, far too many magic stones to reach that point... It really nearly made Eiro cry when he calcted the amount that he had eaten for his second evolution.


    But of course, since Lugo was so much bigger than before, his weight increased a good bit as well. That made the fact that Eiro picked him up with such ease even more impressive.


    "Lugo, make sure to sleep somewhere, where you won''t bother anyone, alright?" The Demon asked, and Lugo quickly nodded his head. But as Eiro made his way back underneath the deck to get to his cabin, Lugo tried to follow him. With a wry smile, the Demon looked at him, "Sorry... you''re a bit toorge toe down there... you won''t fit."


    And so, after a loud, sad bellow let out by Lugo, Eiro figured that he should just stay with him for a while until the stag found a ce to sleep.

 Chapter 547 - Once Again

    Eiro sat down at the table with the others, as it was time for dinner. They would be on this ship for about two nights in total, since they could luckily keep travelling constantly like this, so they didn''t have to eat a lot at the moment.


    For some reason, the Captain even tried to control what sort of food was going to be eaten here on the ship, but with Eiro being a baron, he was able to use some of that influence to convince him to let food be prepared by themselves.


    So, Eiro made some food together with Rudy, and just served it. They were still at the river tonight, they would only get out onto the ocean sometime tomorrow, but when they did, Eiro was determined to find some kind of fish, or at least a fish-like monster, that he could haul onto the ship for a bit of a feast. He had never eaten a fish from the ocean that he caught himself, after all. He was kind of excited for it.


    But of course, while Eiro and his group were eating the things that they had been ''allowed'' to, although the captain never had any sort of authority over that kind of thing anyway. Even if he hadn''t allowed them to eat what they wanted, Eiro would have cooked for himself and his family anyway.


    And while they were eating that, the crew members that were currently on their break were sitting at another table, slightly looking over toward them. They were just eating some dry bread and jerky, something simple that would give them the least amount of energy that they needed, and that didn''t take long to prepare or eat.


    It was clear that they were all more interested in the food that Rudy and Eiro made. Sometime in the middle of dinner, Rudy leaned over toward his father, "Don''t you think we should just give them some of the leftovers? We did make a little too much for all of us..." He pointed out, and Eiro slowly looked at them, as well as the food that they had left.


    The Demon let out a deep sigh, and looked at the crew members, "As long as you guys don''t tell the captain about this, you can have some, alright? But I don''t want him to annoy me over letting you guys eat something her didn''t want you to."


    Immediately, the faces of the people brightened up, as Eiro waved his hand around, creating multiple mage hands that he used to hand out some of the food to them. It didn''t seem like the captain was going toe down here anytime soon, so Eiro didn''t really care too much.


    "Yo, what about my food?" Bavet asked, whispering into Eiro''s ear, and the Demon rolled his eyes. He grabbed some of the food and held it under the table, where Bavet quickly absorbed it into his mass of slime. It took a little while for him to fully absorb it, so until then Eiro had to be careful with showing his arm, since his normal skin was now revealed.


    While everyone was eating, Eiro noticed that someone hade into the room. It was the captain''s right hand man.


    "What are you lot eating there?" He asked, looking at the crew members, that immediately fell silent despite being so energetic just a moment ago. After taking a look at their food, he turned over toward Eiro''s table, "You. We allowed you to eat the food you wanted to, but how dare you give that to our men? Huh?"


    Eiro looked back at him with a wry smile, "It''s just food. We made too much. There''s some for you left as well."


    "No, thank you. I won''t be eating any of that. And neither will they. I can''t believe it. Just because we gave you a little bit of leeway, you think you can do anything you want on here? Who do you think you are?" The right hand man asked, and Eiro red back at him. He couldn''t stand up right now, because of Bavet, but he could still deal with this with just words, if he needed to.


    "I think I''m the man that can beat your... behind, and throw you back to the harbor we departed from if you don''t quiet down now." Eiro said, slightly censoring himself since Avalin and Leon were sitting right next to him.


    The man clicked his tongue and looked to the side, "What a savage. No wonder you have one of those things with you." He said, slightly ncing at Leon. Eiro ground his teeth, and at the same time, Bavet simply threw the rest of the food that he hadn''t fully absorbed yet back onto the te that he had taken it from, and fused back with Eiro''s arm so that he could move.


    Immediately, the Demon stood up and walked around the table.


    "Dad, please..." Sammy said with a pleading expression, "Don''t... you know..."


    "I won''t, don''t worry sweetheart. I''ll just have a quick conversation with him." Eiro replied with a smile on his face, and quickly walked up to the man, "Will you apany me outside for a second?"


    "No. I will not." He replied, and Eiro locked eyes with him, "Oh, sorry, did I say that like a question? Sorry. You will apany be outside for a second. And that''s not a question." The Demon replied, and immediately grabbed the man''s arm as he pulled him out of the room and onto the deck. Of course, he had no way to fight back against Eiro.


    "What do you think you''re doing?!"


    "I should be the one to ask you that, asshole." Eiro replied, "Did you forget that I''m a fucking baron? And that I''m soon going to be promoted to a fucking Viscount? By insulting me like that, I can legally fucking kill you right here, in front of your men, and nobody can do shit about it. You hear that?"


    "...We''re not part of the Skyhart Kingdom. We''re mercenaries hired by the Baram kingdom. So not, you can''t ''fucking kill'' me right here." The man said, "And honestly, with the choices you make for your pets, I honestly don''t know if you''re worthy to be the hero''spanion."


    "Pets? Do you mean... Oh." Eiro stared back at him, "So, one death won''t be enough for you after all. But don''t worry, you''ll step off this ship alive. I promised to her, after all."


    Immediately, the Demon wrapped his hand around the man''s throat, and tightly squeezed until his neck nearly broke. And then, Eiro simply influenced him a little. He made it feel like he actually died, and he did that through an easy way. He boosted his charisma stat ability using his Legendary skill, creating the ''Superior Demon''s Charisma'' ability. It was enough to make everyone subservient to him in an instant, but Eiro used it to make this man''s thoughts betray himself.


    Eiro killed this man dozens of times in that moment. It took maybe a minute until Eiro was satisfied, and he threw the man onto the ground. At that point, the captain came out of the control room, having finished his shift and given the control of the ship to another crew member.


    "What''s going on here, huh?!" The Captain yelled out, and Eiro looked at him with an angry expression. He walked past him, while the captain looked at his right hand man. As Eiro and the Captain locked eyes, the Demon whispered something to him, "That man nearly caused the death of your whole crew, you hear? When ites to insulting my family, I''m not going to respond with anything less than that."


    Eiro walked back down to the ce where the others were waiting for him. Basically everyone in Eiro''s group beside the children had at least a rough idea of what had happened out there, simply due to their high perception stat that naturallyes with their generally high statuses.


    And while Eiro approached the group, Bavet also whispered into his ear, "And what''s your excuse for your anger this time? The mark is gone, isn''t it?"


    "..." Eiro was silent as he sat down again. The mood of everyone in the room had turned sour, so it was quite silent at the moment. But there were luckily two people that managed to lift the mood up rather quickly again.


    "Yo man, this food is friggin'' great, right?" Arc pointed out, and Avalin immediately nodded her head, her mouth stuffed with food, and parroted her brother, "Frigging great!!" She eximed, and Eiro let out a deep sigh as he grabbed a napkin to wipe the girl''s mouth clean, since food and sauce was sticking all around it.


    "Arc, stop teaching your sister those kinds of phrases."


    "What? I just said ''friggin'', that''s not a curse word, is it?" Arc asked, but Eiro couldn''t help but let out a slight sigh. The small, good-natured ''fight'' that the two were having right now was certainly helping lift the mood, distracting from the fact that there was someone that yet again insulted Leon for just no reason whatsoever.


    Even Leon, who usually never really paid attention to what others said, was starting to get influenced by it. While the others were talking again, Leon was just holding onto the side of Eiro''s shirt, his appetite having disappeared.


    "Don''t worry, Leon. Oh, you know, we''re going to meet Hijar and Biril again when we''re there. One of them definitely won their country''s tournament. We''re going to learn alot about you from now on, alright?"


    "...Alright.." Leon quietly muttered, but kept solemnly hanging onto his father''s side.

 Chapter 548 - Giant River Carp

    Eiro wasying in his bed, when he suddenly got a signal from one of his servants in the middle of the night. He woke up and immediately jumped out of bed.


    "H-Huh?" Arie slowly woke up as well from the Demon''s movement, and looked at him confused while half-asleep, "What''s wrong? Did something happen?"


    "No, not yet. There''s just a bothersome monster ahead that I was just warned about, so I''ll take care of it real quick and then I''ll be right back." Eiro exined, as he swiftly walked out of the cabin. And of course, it was easy for him to hide himself in this dark ship, and even outside, since it was the middle of the night. Sure, there were somenterns that were lighting up parts of the ship, but Eiro immediately travelled through the area by just diving into the darkness that existed there otherwise.


    At a spot where nobody could see him, Eiro quickly jumped over the side of the deck and dove into the water. He spread his wings out and searched for the ce where that bothersome monster could be found. From what Eiro could tell, it was just an oversized fish monster that had grown to this size by feeding on as many fish as it could. It probably wouldn''t be that big of an issue even if it did attack the ship, but Eiro really didn''t want anyone to worry. He wanted the others to think of this trip as something calm and rxing, even if Eiro had to sacrifice a little bit of sleep for it.


    The Demon shot through the water and soon found the monster in question. There were some other smaller of this monster''s variety around, so Eiro figured the easiest way to deal with this was to just freeze part of the water that he was swimming in and create projectiles to shoot at these monsters. Soon, the water was stained in a deep red, and there were only a few fish monsters left. Eiro figured that, since he was awake right now anyway, he could just try to y around for a little bit.


    Eiro, after he had taken out all the others, pulled thergest and most dangerous of the fish monsters toward him. He pressed his hand into the front of its head, and tried to turn this monster into a servant, although he only used a small amount of mana as a conduit. He wanted to make him into a ''lesser'' servant. What he tried before with those humans right underneath his tree was trying to turn one of them into a ''normal'' servant. He didn''t adjust the base output of this new ability at all, so it quickly overwhelmed that human.


    Slowly, the body of the fish monster started to shift and change. Its scales slowly turned more reflective and gemstone-like, while two small horns sprouted at the front of its head. Its two fins that were by the side of its body soon split up to give the fish four fins instead.


    Generally, its color turned away from that orange-brown color that it had before, over to a red and blue pattern that was spreading all over its body.


    <strong>[You have sessfully turned the {Giant River Carp} into a servant]</strong>


    Eiro lightly smiled, and slowly rubbed his hand over the monster''s forehead, "Alright, I guess you won''t be any trouble anymore. That should have powered you up quite a bit as well, so... Just follow the samemand as those other guys. Follow the ship inconspicuously and fend off any monsters that might seem bothersome. If there is something that you won''t be able to deal with easily, let me know." Eiro told his first actually living servant. As it quickly understood what Eiro was telling it, it started trying to swim down as deep toward the bottom of the river as possible. It seemed tough for it to move like that though, considering that it was just asrge, if not slightly bigger, than Eiro himself. But as long as it felt like it could follow along, Eiro didn''t care.


    "Oh, and... hide yourself." The Demon said, trying something that he was curious about. Usually, Servants not only imitated their master''s appearance, but also part of said master''s abilities, specifically the ones inherited by the specific major arcana card that they possessed. And in this case, Eiro hoped that this carp received part of Eiro''s stealth-oriented abilities, like fusing himself with the water around him to hide himself and move faster.


    As soon as Eiro spoke themand, he could see that the color of the carp''s scales changed. They weren''t as shiny anymore either. They were now a matte, dulled brown that fit the surrounding mud. It didn''t seem like the fish actually fused with anything, but this was good enough, Eiro figured. There were still plenty of fish here in the water anyway, so at least this guy wouldn''t stick out anymore.


    Since this issue had now been dealt with, the Demon quickly shot out of the water and dried himself off before he even touched the wood of the deck again. Casually, while hiding himself in the shadows on top of hiding his presence directly, he made his way back to his room.


    Tired, and ready to immediately fall back asleep, Eiro dropped down next to Arie.


    "Everything go well?" She asked, not having been able to fall back asleep during the time that Eiro was gone, and the Demon simply looked back at her, "Yeah, it''s fine. Just an oversized river carp. I turned it into a servant, so it''s going to just follow the ship and take care of anything else in the water together with the other servants." Eiro replied, and Arie slowly wrapped her arms around the Demon''s neck.


    "Hm, alright then... But you know..." She muttered, "Since we''re both awake right now anyway..."


    Eiro slightly smirked, as he wrapped his four arms around the womanying next to him, and pulled her in for a kiss.


    ---


    The next morning, Eiro and Arie woke up and got ready for the day. Eiro quickly cleaned the both of them up with some water magic, and then they got dressed and made their way outside for breakfast.


    However, while they were walking toward where they were going to eat, the Demon noticed something. One of the crewmembers was walking around quite nervously, as if something unexpected happened. Or... as if something expected didn''t happen.


    Eiro slightly red at the man, trying to figure out what was going on. For now, he just went to meet the others anyway, since he could hear everything going on on this ship anyway on top of the fact that Eiro had shadow servants stashed inside of the shadows of every crew member here. While Eiro prepared breakfast, he listened in on the conversation that the nervous man had with another crew member.


    "It''s gone..." He muttered, and the other man whispered back, "What''s gone?"


    "The... the thing... it wasn''t there, it was supposed to be there tonight."


    "...What?"


    "It was supposed to be there, right? Didn''t that guy say it was supposed to be there?"


    "Were we... were we ripped off? Did he scam us or something?"


    The conversation of the two crew members continued along those lines. Sooner orter, it became clear that they were speaking of the fish that Eiro had taken care ofst night. Apparently, someone had the ability to manipte it, and brought it to that specific point in the river probably to attack this ship. They were nning some sort of robbery or theft amongst the chaos that the monster carp was supposed to create.


    "Don''t they know who is on this ship right now..?" Eiro muttered with a wry smile, not understanding how they could be so careless. For now, Eiro really didn''t want to bother with taking care of those two, since he didn''t want his children to worry too much. He wanted them to be able to rx on this trip, without the fact that someone was trying to rob them distracting them. That asshole fromst night already soured the mood enough anyway.


    If those two were going to try something else during this trip, Eiro would take care of them then, but he wouldn''t do anything right now. It was thest full day trip anyway, since they were going to reach Baram sometime during the night, so they really wouldn''t have another good chance to try anything anyway.


    As Eiro and his group were eating breakfast, and the crew members were eating their own rations, this time even more annoyed that they had to eat this since the captain''s right hand man didn''t allow them to eat anything but that food. And sometime during this, the captain made his way into this room, looking for a certain member of Eiro''s group.


    "You are Armodeus, the king of craftsmen, correct?" He asked, approaching the elder dwarf with a practically nk expression.


    "That I am. Is that an issue?"


    "Of course not." The Captain replied, "I was just wondering... I looked at the work you did on that young man''s carriage, and I wanted to know if-"


    "No." Armodeus replied immediately, and the Captain looked back at him confused, "I did not even finish my question."


    "But I know that ya wanted to ask me to upgrade yer ship.. And considering how ya treat your men, and how a certain one of your men treat us, I''m not goin'' to even think about doing any work on this vessel."

 Chapter 549 - Welcome To Baram

    The Captain looked at Armodeus after the Elder Dwarf''s announcement, saying that he wouldn''t be doing any work on this ship. Yesterday, Eiro had tried to insinuate that Armodeus would work on the ship a little bit as long as the captain allowed Eiro to use magic to speed the trip up a bit. But a lot of things happened after that, which would make this basically impossible.


    "I''d like to remind ya that we''re the only way for you to reach your destination." The captain said with a light re, and Armodeus couldn''t help himself butugh out loud in response, "Hah, trying to threaten us now, are ya? If ya dropped us on an abandoned ind with no tools, we''d still be at Baram earlier than you, you hear? The only reason we''re even taking this ship is ''cause Eiro wanted us all to rx on this trip."


    The captain immediately turned his head and looked at Eiro, who simply smiled back at him in the middle of eating his food. A momentter, he looked back at Armodeus, "I''ll pay ya whatever you want."


    "You can''t afford my services." Armodeus chuckled, and the captain red back at him at this point.


    "I see that the only possibility for this would be that I allow that man to use magic to meddle with my ship. If that is the case, then-"


    "Ohe on man, what kind of dumbass are you?" Arc let out with a wry smile after just swallowing his food, and Eiro quickly red at him, "Language."


    "Right, sorry, bute on. This dude never even did any research on who he was transporting? Guy, my dad is literally one of the most powerful and versatile mages alive. As far as I know, second only to Koperia, who''s also sitting right there." Arc pointed out, "If he''s asking you to use magic to make stuff easier for all of us. What, you don''t like arriving a few hours ahead of time?"


    The captain turned his head and looked at Arc instead, "I will not allow such disrespect toward me on my shi-"


    "Just everyone, be quiet for a few moments please, alright?" Eiro said, annoyed at what was happening right now. He was hoping to be able to scout a talented captain to hire in the future, for when Eiro was going to travel to other continents for research or training. And what better candidate would there be but the captain hired by Baram, the country housing the current hero?


    He tried to test his cooperation with Eiro''s methods, but the captain took his own pride and position as more important than something that benefitted everyone else on the ship. The captain had some sort of negative feelings toward magic, but when it benefitted himself, he would ept it, as can be seen by his request to Armodeus to have the ship upgraded just like the carriage, which was done mostly through the use of magic-based materials. Either that, or he simply didn''t know enough about magic, and just held prejudice toward what he thought it to be, which was even worse.


    The way he handled and treated his crew was abyssmal, and he chose a person with apletely horrendous personality as his right hand man, and didn''t even attempt to correct his behaviour, which brought Eiro to believe that he had simr feelings to him.


    Eiro crossed his arms in thought, as the captain was losing his patience again, "Oi, who-"


    "Silence." Eiro said, putting as much pressure into his words as he could. He fused his charisma with his aura, and changed the pattern of his aura to be as aggressive as possible. Immediately, the captain''s eyes dted and his heart-rate sped up.


    "Get back to work, and leave us be until we''re at our destination. Understood?" Eiro asked, locking eyes with the captain. If he treated him like this, then he might be able to re-train this guy to be useful, but the way things were going, it seemed a lot easier to just not mind him and use a monster from the monster town and train him to be a good captain. Maybe one of the fish monsters in theke could be helped to evolve into a form that let them live onnd. That seemed like a good n for now. This was why it was easier to deal with monsters than people.


    The scared captain immediately rushed out of the room, and the crewmembers that had never seen him like that before just stared at Eiro in confusion. Luckily, it seemed to have scared all of them off from even thinking about trying anything in regard to Sammy and Clementine, since they knew that Eiro was going to retaliate immediately.


    For now, the group returned to eating their breakfast, and thenter on split up so that everyone could do their own thing, although everyone was mostly gathered on the deck of the ship, since it was most fun there. They were going to reach the ocean soon as well.


    Not long after breakfast, Eiro was pulled to the side by Armodeus, "Lass, I was right in denying him, wasn''t I? I''m not sure if ya were nning anythin'' with that man, but..."


    "No, don''t worry, you''re fine. I was kind of nning something, but he lost any sort of privilege to allow that. On our way back, let''s make sure we find a better ship, captain and crew than this one." Eiro replied with a light smile on his face to reassure Armodeus. The Elder Dwarf slowly nodded his head, and walked over to the edge of the ship with Eiro, as the two continued speaking for a while.


    "Are you alright, by the way? You''re holding up a lot better than I thought you would."


    "Yeah... being up here with all the fresh air helps, at least." Armodeus replied with a wry smile, "I did throw up a few times yesterday though. But it feels like I''m getting used to this."


    "...You know we didn''t even enter the ocean yet, right." Eiro pointed out with a wry smile, and Armodeus quickly nodded his head, "Yeah, so?"


    "Right now we''re following the flow of the river''s water. But soon, we''re going to be in an ocean where the water is a lot wilder than this. It''s just going to get worse." He exined, and Armodeus looked to the side as his face went pale, "Is... is that so?"


    ---


    A few hourster, the ship finally left the river, and was now on the wide open ocean. It was the first time that Eiro saw something like this. It was truly incredible, the way that the water stretched out far beyond the horizon. It was even greater than the worldke, since everything just felt different.


    The smell and taste of salt in the air, the creatures swimming in the water underneath them, it was all so different from what Eiro had seen before. It was really quite beautiful. Out of Eiro''s children, the only one that had seen a real ocean before seemed to have been Arc, although it was seemingly not one of this world.


    Everyone else simply looked at the ocean spreading out in front of them in awe and excitement. Avalin did seem a little bit scared for a few moments while the waves were especially strong, but for the most part, she was having fun as well.


    Felix seemed to want to try and ingrain everything that he was seeing into his mind as much as possible, and he was slightly moving his fingers around along the wooden railings in motions simr to when he was painting.


    Eiro was d that they were all enjoying this trip as much as Eiro hoped they would. And they didn''t even reach Baram yet, where Eiro was reassured they would be able to rx quite a bit while Eiro was off and meeting the other winners of the tournaments all over the continent.


    It didn''t take long for the first ind of Baram toe into view, although it seemed like that wasn''t actually where they were going to stop. Soon, they were travelling inbetween the inds, so there wasn''t that ''infinite'' view of water anymore, but it was still quite an amazing sight. Culturally, this country seemed quite different to what Eiro was used to, from the bits and pieces that Eiro was seeing along the coastlines.


    Soon, Eiro could hear the sound of arger city, as they approached the harbor. From what Eiro could tell, this was apparently the central trading city of Baram, since there was a huge amount of ships from different countries here. People were buying and selling herbs and spices from all over the world, as well as certain types of food or metals that were hard to acquire here.


    Night had only juste, but the streets of the city were extremely bright and colorful, as if nobody was nning on heading to sleep anytime soon.


    Soon, the ship came to a halt, and everyone slowly made their way off the ship. Immediately, Armodeus felt relieved, and squatted down onto the ground while taking some deep breaths. Even Lugo was looking at him with a light smirk while passing by him, since he was able to pass the time by just sleeping the whole two days. Lugo was really amazinglyzy.


    The group''s guide soon stepped in front of the group and looked at them with a smile, "I officially wee you to the country of Baram. We will take a break for the night at a nearby Inn, and then we will begin our travel to our final destination.. It is not too far away, but it will still take a day by carriage to get there."

 Chapter 550 - Barbarim

    The group brought their luggage to the Inn that had been chosen by the guide from Baram. Avalin and Leon were tired enough to go to bed immediately, so Eiro made sure that they were sleeping and chose to leave some shadow guardians here in the room, just in case something might happen, although he quite doubted it.


    If anyone dared to even step foot into their room, Eiro would be there in an instant, and he would be there ready to kill whoever the intruder was. Either way, after the two of them fell asleep, Eiro, Armodeus, Koperia, James, Jess, Krog and Arie chose to go for a walk around town, and to the Demon''s surprise, the others chose to just stay at the Inn and take a nap, or simply have some fun alone.


    "Is that a problem?" Clementine asked with a slightly worried expression, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "Of course not, stay here and rx. It is getting quitete, after all." He said, and quickly looked at the others, "Make sure not to hed to bed toote, I don''t know how long we''ll stay out. And Felix, Sammy, you two are in charge, alright?"


    "Yo, what, why those two? I mean, I get Felix, he''s the oldest, but why Sammy instead of me?" Arc asked confused, "And we''re 16, we don''t need someone to be in charge in the first ce!" Heined with a clear pout.


    Eiro rolled his eyes and ced his hand on top of Arc''s head for a moment or two, "I''m mostly asking them to make sure that you don''t bother the other customers."


    "Oh." Arc replied immediately, "Yeah, that makes sense. But at least bring me some liquor for doubting what an adult I can be."


    "I''ll call you an adult when you start shaving. Rudy''s got you beat in that." Eiro said with a light smirk and a wink, and Arc immediately looked over at Rudy, before walking up to him. He leaned forward, and looked closely at Rudy''s skin, "S-Stubbles... He really has stubbles... my little brother is getting a beard, but I''m not..?"


    "Heh..." Sammy let out lightly with a big smirk, "Actually, both of your little brothers have more facial hair than you."


    Arc looked back at Sammy for a moment, realizing that Eiro did have to continuosly trim and shave parts of Leon''s face to make sure fur didn''t suddenly cover every part of his face, and then slowly looked at the ceiling, "I despise this cruel fate of mine..."


    "Oh be quiet, you''ll get a beard someday, I''m sure." Eiroughed slightly, patting his son on the back as he headed out toward the door, "Oh, and make sure to keep thes in front of the windows. There are a lot of bugs around here."


    "...Of course..." Arc looked down at the ground with a bitter expression, but then immediately raised his head, "Oh, if you don''t want to bring me liquor, bring me some candy or something. Or meat. Anything edible is fine, honestly." He said immediately, his tone switching from sad to ecstatic in nothing but a moment, just like always.


    "I''ll think about it." Eiro said, as the group of adults made their way out of the Inn. As they left, the guide walked up to them, "You are going out to explore, I assume?"


    "Ah, yes, we just wanted to take a look around a little." Arie replied quickly, and the guide lightly smiled, "I happen to have grown up around here. I know a nice little spot where you could have a drink if you want. It''s rather secluded, and more untouched by the merchants than other parts of this city."


    The group looked at each other and finally decided that it seemed like a good idea. They could still go sight-seeing some other time, maybe on their way back.


    "Then go ahead and lead the way." Eiro replied to the guide, who quickly nodded his head, "Of course, I will dly."


    And so, the group followed the Guide. For a while, they followed the main road running through the city, but it didn''t take long until they reached the older, more traditional parts of the city, where small Baram bars and restaurants could be found. Everyone seemed greatly weing toward Eiro and the group, and even chatted with them as if they were locals for a few moments. They stopped at some smaller shops and stalls every once in a while, where there were some things being sold that interested them a bit more than the sort of stuff that merchants tried to get rid of in every major trading city like this.


    Small, handcrafted trinkets that were supposed to bring luck. Small, and weak, magic items that were made traditionally by methods passed down through the generations. Armodeus was particrly interested in the small workshops that the group passed, with their open fronts where it was possible for him to see what was going on inside. It was as if he wanted to jump in and help out immediately, but luckily he was able to hold himself back for now.


    And it didn''t take long until the group found the bar that the guide was leading them to. It was kind of in the back-alley of a back-alley, but in a cozy sort of sense. There werenterns set up along the walls, and a few locals were just sitting there and chatting with the owners of the pub. It seemed incredibly inviting to everyone, although it looked like this group might already be a bit toorge for this small ce.


    "Get some tables and chairs out here, please." The guide said, and the owner of the bar quickly looked toward him, "Kimmi, my boy! Long time no see!" The owner eximed with a broad smile on his face, before he quickly walked into a room in the back of the bar. He grabbed some fold-up chairs and tables from there, and carried as many as he could out. Of course, Eiro quickly went to help him carry everything, and with just those tables and chairs, the bar had been extended out into this alleyway.


    "Could you bring us some grilled meat, and some Barbarim?" Kimmi, the guide, asked the owner, who immediately nodded his head, "Right away!"


    And so, as the group sat down at the tables that had been pushed together to form arger table, they looked at the guide curiously, "So the owner knows you, huh?"


    "Ah, yes. He''s an old family-friend." Kimmi quickly replied, and it didn''t take long until the first round of drinks were brought to the table in the form of small shot-sses carved out of dried and hardened sugar-cane.


    It seemed like some sort of light golden liquor with a somewhat sweet scent to it. Curiously, Eiro was the first to grab it, and quickly poured it into his mouth, holding it in the for a while.


    "Ah, you shouldn''t do that. I heard that people from the north are not quite used to spice." Kimmi pointed out, and Eiro raised his brows as he started to feel what he meant. It was quite spicy, as well as sweet and fruity. It tasted quite nice.


    "Oh, don''t worry, I''m good with some heat." Eiro replied quickly, "But it is really quite good. It''s made from sugar cane, I assume?" The Demon asked, and Kimmi looked back somewhat surprised.


    "Yes, exactly. How did you know?"


    James scoffed lightly as he tried the Barbarim as well, and then said, "Eiro is the owner of the Five of Pentacles, he''s got ultimate perception. He could probably taste this drink the moment we entered the alley." He pointed out, before slowly starting to cough. James really wasn''t good with spice in the slightest, so he was struggling a bit. All the others seemed totally fine with it, though.


    "Oh, you possess one of those artifacts?" Kimmi asked, "How did youe across it?"


    "It was my father''s. And when he passed away, I inherited it from him." Eiro exined, and quickly looked at Armodeus, "He has a card as well. He has the Four of Pentacles, which is the card of ultimate dexterity."


    "Dexterity?" Curiously, Kimmi looked at the elder dwarf as well, and Armodeus somewhat awkwardly replied, "Aye, I''m a craftsman, y''see? I need to be good with my hands."


    "Hm, interesting." Kimmi replied, "So these cards are the reason why you two are so skilled? Inbat and craftsmanship respectively?"


    "..." Both Armodeus and Eiro stayed silent for a few moments, and Koperia quicklyughed at how baffled they were, "Those cards require proper power to be even used properly, so no, they''re no the sole reason why they are so skilled. They helped them get to where the are though, but that can be said about any old tool." She pointed out, and Kimmi looked at her curiously.


    "Then are you an owner of such an artifact as well?"


    Koperia shook her head with a smirk, "No, I''m not. I''m more on the gift-giving end, rather than on the gift-receiving end. I''ve been dabbling in what it takes to create artifacts myself for a while now."


    Kimmi raised his brows confused, "Then does that not mean you are quite powerful yourself? Did you participate in the tournament?"


    "Oh, no, I don''t bother with such matters. I''m not interested in killing the Monster King as long as he doesn''t directly bother me, my work, or my toys." Koperia pointed out with a smug expression, and Kimmi looked back and forth between Eiro and Koperia for a few seconds, "Then are you more powerful than Lord Daemonherz?"


    "I-" Koperia said, wanting to agree immediately, but she slowly looked at Eiro with a slight squint, "That.... is indeed a good question."

 Chapter 551 - Meeting Of The Champions

    Eiro and Koperia looked at each other, unsure how they were supposed to answer that question. Before Eiro''stest evolution, the answer was very obvious, which was that Koperia was far more powerful than him. But now? That was different.


    If Eiro went all out against Koperia, would she be able to win, and vice versa? It was something that neither of the two had really considered now.


    "If there is a ce nearby, should we test it out?" Eiro asked curiously, and Koperia scoffed as she shook her head, "You know that my type ofbat would require the sacrifice of many, many people so that it would count as me going all-out, right? No, let us just assume... we are on equal grounds for now."


    "Hm... If you say so. Armodeus, have you ever seen Koperia in an all-out fight?" The Demon asked, turning his head toward the elder dwarf sitting right next to him, who thought about that question for a moment, "Some decades ago, maybe, so it''s not really that urate to how strong she''s now."


    "Hm? What time are you talking about?" Koperia asked with a light frown, and Armodeus quickly exined, "That time when y''all were fighting that cursed chimera dragon."


    "Urgh... yeah, that was a tough one. I did go all out at the time. You definitely could have beaten me back then, Eiro." Koperia pointed out, just as the food was finally being brought over to the group.


    For a while, they all just spoke about a few different random topics, although Armodeus did get the attention of everyone for a while as he told the story about the aforementioned chimera dragon, a huge creature put together out of parts of numerous dragons, making it more powerful than a normal dragon. It seemed like that whole group, those who now possess master grade skills, had fought against it together somehow. Or at least, the part of the group that hadbat-based abilities. So while Armodeus was there to take care of everyone''s gear, Jura and other weaker members of the group weren''t there, so even Nelli hadn''t really heard this story before.


    "This group you speak of..." Kimmi, the guide, soon started, "Are they people like you, that simply have no interest in fighting the monster king?" He asked, looking at Koperia, who quickly shrugged.


    "Basically. The lot of us are masters, and the only way we could reach that status is by obsessively doing whatever the hell we want. As long as fighting the monster king is unnecessary in furthering what we want, we won''t do it." Koperia pointed out, quickly looking at Armodeus, "Ain''t that right?"


    "Aye, you''ve got a point. Plenty of people''ve been trying to hire me as their private craftsman for decades, but I''ve never epted, cause all I want is to work on things that interest me." The dwarf pointed out, "Which is why I''ve decided to stay with Eiro, who was my friend beforehand already. By sticking to him, I''m going to get plenty of opportunities to work on unique stuff."


    Kimmi looked at the two masters of their own trade, "While I respect that dedication... is that not somewhat selfish? We are talking about the good of all the people, after all."


    "Hah, right..." Eiro scoffed slightly, unable to keep a slight chuckle in, and Kimmi immediately looked at him, "Sorry, but what do you mean with that?"


    The Demon let out a deep sigh as he looked back at the guide, "Listen, by killing the monster king, all you''re doing is creating a new monster king, who will build up a new army that will need to be destroyed yet again. This cycle never stops. It''s a fight without any meaning to it at the end of the day. Doesn''t mean that I won''t fight for the chance of making things easier, but in the end, that''s an undeniable fact."


    Kimmi lightly smiled as he heard what Eiro said, "It is as you say, these fights do seem quite useless, don''t they? But I have a feeling that this is going to change quite soon."


    Eiro looked at Kimmi confused, since there was clearly some hidden meaning in that sentence. Did they have a n to end this war as well?


    ---


    The carriage came to a halt, and Eiro slowly opened his eyes. He just took a quick nap and spent a little time finishing up some reading in his mental libary.


    A few momentster, the door of the carriage had been opened, and the first to step out were, once again, Eiro''s children. Of course, quickly followed by Eiro himself.


    The Demon walked to the front of the carriage and quickly unhooked Lugo from it, since he didn''t want anyone else to do it, and simply used magic to slope the ground so that the carriage would roll in the right direction on its own.


    The group was quickly greeted by a familiar face, "It is wonderful to see you again." Silia, the overseer of the tournament in Skyhart, said with a smile on her face.


    "Likewise." Eiro quickly replied, and proceeded to introduce Silia to everyone that she hadn''t met yet, so that she was all caught-up.


    "I see. And that deer is your familiar, as I heard?" Silia asked, curiously looking at Lugo, before Eiro quickly nodded his head while rubbing his hand over the stag''s snout, "Yep, that''s him."


    "We will prepare a proper sleeping ce for him as well, then."


    "Thank you, I appreciate it." The Demon said, as he slowly turned toward the area in front of him. It was clearly just some sort of vige, instead of a mansion like Eiro had expected, but that was probably one of the cultural differences between Skyhart and Baram. Each of the huts that were elevated on pirs seemed to be what a normal room in a mansion was, so it was basically the same thing.


    Everyone was guided around, and got assigned huts in different groupings that they would stay in for the next few weeks. Instead of walking on streets, all the huts were connected through wooden tforms, probably in case of flooding. The ground was quite naturally moist, and a small river was running through this whole area as well.


    "Everyone else can go ahead and unpack, and then you can rx. But I will have to ask Lord Daemonherz to apany me. Your group happens to be thest to arrive, so it is time to meet with your futurepanions." Silia exined, and Eiro quickly turned toward the others. Krog, Jess and James were clearly somewhat bothered by the fact that they couldn''t help out with these things, but that was just how it worked. At the end of the day, Eiro wouldn''t be fighting alongside all those other people anyway, but he would be fighting with his current party, as long as they managed to power-up ordingly over the next few years.


    "Then let''s do that. It''s alright if Lugoes with me, right? As my familiar, he''s practically a part of me. I would like him to be there." The Demon exined, and Silia immediately replied, "Of course, that is fine. The ce where we will meet the others is outside, so that is fine."


    "Alright, you heard her. Come on." Eiro said, looking at the Stag, as they quickly made their way to their destination. They had to follow a forest path for a while, and after walking for about half an hour, they reached a wide open space. In a huge circle, the ground was paved with stone and patterns like those tattood on the skin of adult people of Baram were carved into everything. Gathered there were two dozen individuals outside of the Baram locals that had guided them here. Some of them seemed to be mages, others were towering warriors, but all of them clearly deserved to be here. Some more than others, sure, but there was not a single weak person here.


    Although, some invididuals did stick out to Eiro. Three of them, to be exact. Three individuals that Eiro didn''t expect to see here. They were transmigrators, which Eiro was able to see from some of the materials they were still wearing. Whether it was jewelry or part of their clothes, some of those things simply didn''t belong in this world.


    But for now, Eiro couldn''t let his suspicion show, so he instead looked at someone that he was very d to see here, someone that quickly approached him.


    "Eiro!" Biril eximed with a broad smile, "As I thought, you also won your country''s tournament. I didn''t expect anything else."


    "Same to you, I''m d to see that you''re here. Did you bring Hijar with you?" Eiro asked with a smile, and of course, Biril immediately nodded, "If I hadn''t brought him, my brother would have thrown a fit until I am back, so of course he is here with me. What about you, did you bring young Leon?"


    "Yep, I brought all my children, and some other friends." The Demon quickly replied, as one of the more warriors approached the two, "Yo Biril, who''s the rainbow-haired guy?"


    "Ah, this is Eiro, an incredibly strong individual. He won the tournament of Skyhart." Biril exined, and therge man, who clearly seemed to be a Goliath just judging from his scent, build and appearance, leaned forward to look at Eiro.


    "Huh, he seems kind of weak though. Doesn''t have an ounce of a warrior''s aura on him." He pointed out with a light smirk, "Must be a weak mage then."


    "Oh? You''re familiar with aura?" Eiro asked with a light smile, "But that means you must only be aware of it on a surface level, if you can''t even recognize when someone is suppressing their aura. Here, let me show you."


    And so, with a gentle smile, Eiro manipted his aura. He kept it tightly around his skintely, since his natural aura has be incredibly overpowering ever since his newest evolution, but for a moment like this, it might be useful to dere some kind of hierarchy.


    So, Eiro just let go for a few seconds.

 Chapter 552 - Displays Of Power

    Eiro let go of his aura for a few moments, since he was basically challenged to do so by this Goliath warrior. His aura exploded outward, as if a balloon had suddenly popped and all the water inside of it was spread all around in just an instant.


    The moment that Eiro had let go of his aura, the warrior''s skin became covered in goosebumps. Cold sweat started to form on his forehead, and his heartrate exploded as he flinched back. All the other champions, as well as the guards and guides from Baram that were currently here, immediately turned toward that small group and got ready to attack whatever creature had suddenly emerged out of nowhere. The birds from the forest that they were currently in flew away out of instinct, and the other beasts in the forest were running around wildly. Even Biril seemed startled and scared for a few moments.


    With a soft smirk, Eiro took a few steps forward, standing in front of the Goliath. Eiro tilted his head upward and locked eyes with him, "Oh~? Are you perhaps... scared?"


    With those words, the Goliath snapped back into it, and looked down at Eiro, "Am I- Hah! Good joke, small one! Why would I be scared of such a small man?!" He said, letting out a loud, deafeningugh.


    Eiro slowly pulled his aura back into himself, as he slowly walked past the Goliath, with Lugo following right behind him. The Demon walked toward the rest of the group that had gathered further in the center of thisrge stone circle.


    "I apologize for that just now. I hope it didn''t cause any sort of inconvenience." Eiro told them, and one of them looked at Eiro confused, "Wh-What just was that?"


    "Hm? My aura, of course. I stopped suppressing it for a few moments. A friend of mine is currently working on an item that will help naturally suppress it so that I don''t always have to split off some of my attention, but it seems like it might take a bit longer until that''s finished." The Demon quickly exined, "More importantly, since I''m apparently thest one here, we should be able to proceed, isn''t that right?" He turned his head toward one of the guides that were standing near him, and they were slightly startled for some reason. Eiro had expected them to pay a bit more attention to what was going on around here.


    "Yeah... Erm... It shouldn''t take too long." One of them replied while looking at the sky, and Eiro slightly turned his head toward a part of the forest. A group of people were currently approaching, and amongst them was a small child.


    "Hm..." Eiro slightly let out, as he turned toward the ce where the group was currentlying from. It was a group of Baram warriors, each holding quite long, and surprisingly thick spears that they were barely able to wrap their hand around. On the shoulders of a particrlyrge warrior sat a young boy, maybe eight years old at most. His skin was the same color as that of the other Baram locals, a quite dark brown, but his skin was not yet covered in tattoos. Rather, instead, he had simple patterns drawn onto his face. Not in a permanent way, however, but in a sort of paint made from actual ash simply drawn on with fingers, it seemed.


    Immediately, the guides kneeled down onto the ground, as the group of warriors approached them. That tall warrior quickly set the boy down onto the ground, before one of the other warriors stepped forward, "Let me introduce to you, the current Hero, Jabir Abadt." That warrior eximed, while the young boy stood there, crossing his arms with a broad, smug grin on his face. He was missing two of his teeth right next to each other, creating a ratherrge gap. Although it was kind of cute, considering that he was just a kid.


    "Ain''t that kid kinda small?" The goliath warrior from earlier asked with his head tilted slightly to the side, and Eiro turned his head toward him with a wry smile, "Goliaths grow at a different rate to other humans, you can''t reallypare that..."


    "Huh, how''d you know how Goliaths grow, small one?"


    "Ah, my son happens to be a Goliath." Eiro exined, and the warrior looked at Eiro somewhat confused. Even Biril wasn''t sure who Eiro was talking about, although he soon had a guess, "Ah, do you mean Rudeus?"


    "Yep, that''s him. He''s been taller than me for a while now, and he doesn''t show any signs that he''s stopped growing yet. At this rate, he''s probably going to end up taller than you as well." Eiro pointed out, looking at the Goliath standing next to him, who was grinning slightly, "Oh? Interestin''. He here on the ind?"


    "Yes, he''s-" Eiro replied quickly, although he soon heard the coughing of one of the guides, trying to get the attention of that group of three.


    "Ah, sorry, continue, please." The Demon said with a light smile, something that seemed to annoy the people of Baram quite a bit. But before any of them said anything, the young hero, Jabir, suddenly stood in front of Eiro.


    "Why do you speak like that in my presence?" He asked loudly, his arms crossed with a deep, angry frown. Eiro chuckled slightly as he squatted down, "Sorry that we were being so rude, then. But it''s nice to meet you, Jabir."


    "Hmpf, it''s ''Great Hero'' for you lot!" Jabir eximed, and Eiro looked at him as his smile slightly disappeared, "It''s not quite nice for you to be talking to us like that. We''re here to help you out, you know?"


    "Please do not speak to the Hero in that manner. Please behave yourself." One of the warriors said, standing inbetween Jabir and Eiro. The Demon fully stood up again, and pushed his hands into his jacket''s pockets, "Sorry about that. Please, continue."


    The warrior frowned slightly, and quickly turned around toward the other champions, "Today, we will be doing one main thing. We will figure out what you can teach to the young Hero. Of course, all of you have incredible worth, but it is necessary to know what your specialty lies in, and what the extent of your power currently is." The warrior exined, "That is what this area is for. This is the ce where numerous warriors have disyed their power. For simplicity''s sake, we will go in order of time of arrival."


    Eiro watched as everyone started getting ready, kind of annoyed that he was thest. But at the very least, then he knew what he needed to do to trump everyone else that was gathered here and show off that he was at the top of the foodchain here.


    "Everyone has a maximum of ten minutes to disy the extent of their power. Before your turn, please discuss with us what it is you need to do so, we will provide anything needed, ranging from magic-based targets, or monsters of various grades and sizes." The warrior quickly exined, while the first people were already talking to their respective guide about what they were going to need. Eiro himself was already thinking about it as well, but he would only decide about halfway through the shows.


    Each of the champions were quite impressive, as far as Eiro was concerned. They were amazing in their own specialized field. The magic that they showed, or thebat techniques, were more than just effective.


    But what was even more amazing to Eiro in that moment was the fact that the Baram warriors had been able to capture some of these monsters that they were giving to the champions. Some wererger than the average house, others were surprisingly high grade. There were quite a few noble monsters amongst them.


    And of course, since Eiro was able to understand their speech quite easily ever since he received the special skill ''Universal Monster Language Comprehension'', the Demon could tell that some of them were actually quite intelligent. Some of them worth turning into his own servants, or bringing to the monster vige.


    That made the fact that all these monsters didn''t survive for more than five seconds against most of the champions even more impressive than before. Whether their bodies were instantly frozen, dehydrated, cut apart, or even ttened, the monsters didn''t stand the slightest chance.


    "Ah, by the way... don''t burn these corpses for now, alright?" Eiro told his own guide, since he wanted to use the monsters'' corpses himselfter.


    But soon, it got to the point where Eiro wanted to pay some more attention. It was time for the first transmigrator. She seemed to be a magic archer, from her general getup. She had a number of magic stones on the belt at her hip, although this itself seemed to be an artifact and a gift from whatever deity summoned her, since the magic didn''t seem to deplete in the slightest, since the magic stored inside was just ridiculous.


    Of course, she also had a few normal arrows in her quiver, and the bow itself was shaped in a way that Eiro had never seen before. But it was interesting nheless. He should tell Armodeus about this structureter on, he would be quite interested in it.


    She clearly had a simr issue to that other transmigrator ¨C she wasn''t able to control her strength. She used every aspect of the archery skill that she was given upon being summoned, to a ridiculous degree.


    And the moment that she let go of the first arrow she wanted to shoot, a regr old arrow, not even enchanted in a special way, it seemed to cut through the air, shattering therge stone pir that was prepared for her into pieces.


    "Hm... interesting." Eiro muttered. He hoped that she wasn''t going to be as troublesome as that kid summoned by the goddess of negativity, though.. He didn''t want to kill another person from the same world as Arc.

 Chapter 553 - Three Transmigrators

    Eiro watched the movement of the arrow that was being shot, since it was rather unique. It didn''t directly move in a straight line, it was as if it was seeking out the weakest spot of the target itself. Sure, it only changed its course to a minuscule degree, but it was certainly enough.


    At the same time, the arrow was twisting around its axis, increasing the prative power an incredible degree. This was done through a mixture of subtle movements of her fingers, as well as direct control over the arrow as if through magic.


    At this point, it was clear to Eiro who had summoned this girl. It was the god of the hunt, the greatest archer amongst all deities. He doubted that every single deity could summon them, so he tried to restrict his analysis on the greater deities for now, until he was shown otherwise. Who exactly summoned them didn''t change all that much anyway, after all.


    After she used a normal arrow to destroy that pir of rock, she lightly tapped one of the magic stones on her special belt. She pinched part of it, and simply pulled her hand away. Immediately, a mass of magic had been pulled out of the magic stone. In this case, it was a chunk of lightning magic that took the shape of an arrow, albeit just roughly. Now, a number of smaller, weaker monsters had been prepared, all of the same kind. They were bug-type monsters, which were rather numerous around these parts, so it clearly wasn''t hard to procure these at such numbers.


    The girl shot the arrow of lightning at the monsters, and the moment that it hit the first of the group, it pierced through and changed direction at the next. And then the next, and the next. This was the most useful aspect of lightning magic, the fact that it easily carried over to other, nearby enemies. It was also what made it dangerous to use, since it was hard to control it in a way where you could make sure it didn''t strike you or yourpanions back. Either way, with just this one arrow of concentrated lightning magic, the girl was able to take out this whole group of monsters. It was certainly impressive. She disyed her ability to take out a single, tough, andrge target, as well as arge number of smaller targets. To Eiro it seemed like this was going to be the end of it, since this was already as impressive, if not far more so,pared to what the others had shown off. But clearly, this was not the end of it after all.


    The girl held the bow in her hands, as if she was about to nock an arrow, but instead, she simply did it without holding any phyiscal or magical arrow. But then, when she pulled the string of her arrow back, Eiro was able to sense it. He was able to practically see it. An arrow of mana had formed in her bow, and soon, she let go of the string.


    The hissing of the air could be heard as this invisible arrow moved through it, tightly over the ground. The rock of therge circle shifted around it, as if a vortex was trying to pull it in, and tunnel,rge enough to fit a decently sized carriage, formed from it. This girl had the ability to manipte the world around her magically from a distance, through the use of an arrow.


    If Eiro was correct, this girl should be able to turn evenplex spells into arrows, just to shoot them at her target. Certainly, this was a useful ability to have. It was easier to deal with than that ''negativity'' from that boy before as well. Once Eiro stole the Key from the Devil, then maybe he would be able to steal this ability from the girl. And maybe the abilities of the other transmigrators as well.


    Technically, the boy from before was dead already, but with Koperia''s help, Eiro had trapped his soul in a special container. Simr to what it was like to create a Lich, simply altered to be a prison instead of a tool for the soul in question. He didn''t know what would happen if he let the soul just escape, after all, so he kept it, and was thinking about turning it into an undead servant for himself sooner orter, but if he was able to steal that ability that was given to him through the blessing... then maybe that was worth it. He would have to wait and see until he got the key though. Either way, it didn''t seem like this girl was going to die anytime soon, and if she became more powerful and matured this ability further, it would help Eiro out quite a bit as well.


    At this moment, this girl was clearly the one that showed the greatest amount of raw ability. The goliath from earlier close behind her, though, but that was just because of his raw physical capabilities. Such things couldn''t be taught, so he was a lot more useless as a teacher than this girl, who impressed through technique, the sort of thing that the hero was able to acquire sooner orter.


    The next two champions were impressive, but unimportant as well. What Eiro was really interested in was the next transmigrator, who got his turn.


    It was a young, fit man with a well-trained body. He wasn''t using any sort of weapon, so it seemed like he was a martial artist that used his fist. Interesting.


    And then, Eiro saw what this transmigrator requested in order to show off his capabilities. It was arge beast. A feline it seemed. Simr to a tiger in some senses, to the extent where it seemed to be interested in Biril quite a bit. It was currently being restrained with numerous thick chains, and was hauled onto the circle with arge cart. This beast was quiterge, after all.


    And then, the young man stepped forward with a broad grin on his face, hitting his fists together excitedly. Right now, it seemed like this man might have been summoned and blessed by the goddess ofbat.


    However, soon, he was proven wrong. The moment that the beast was released, the young transmigrator rushed at the beast. He did seem to be using abat skill to enhance his footwork, but he was capable of controlling said skill surprisingly well. It didn''t seem to be that high-power a skill either, as if he had acquired and trained it himself. If that was the case, it couldn''t have been the goddess ofbat, despite the man''s demeanor, behaviour, and appearance.


    Soon, the beast and the man finally met, and instead of attacking it, the man grappled the beast''s snout. With the raw physical power given to him by whatever god summoned him, he was able to lift the beast into the air, although even that seemed to be close to this man''s limit. With a twist of his body, he threw the beast onto its back with a loud yell, and then proceeded to scream out, "Submit to me!"


    The moment that he did, Eiro noticed both mana and life force leaving the man''s body, together with his voice. As if he was using a charisma-based ability.


    The beast''s body started convulsing, and its eyes became bloodshot. It was clearly in pain for a while, but not due to the impact onto the ground, but due to the man''s voice.


    And then, Eiro saw a notification appear in the man''s eyes.


    ---


    [The beast has sessfully been tamed]


    ---


    Eiro opened his eyes wide, as he realized what deity had summoned him. The god of beasts. And he had given this man the ability to tame such beasts. The Demon hoped that it was really restricted to beast-type creatures, and that he had no sort of influence over other types. He wasn''t worried for himself, but rather for Bavet. Sure, he had quite some resistance against this sort of thing, having broken free from a sort of control in the past, but this was clearly a powerful ability. With just three words, he had tamed a creature of that power.


    Eiro couldn''t help himself but grin wrily and excitedly. Once more, this was a powerful ability, but he wasn''t sure if it was the kind that he wanted. It was useful, sure, but this was no true subservience. It was nothing but simple very and mind-washing done in an instant.


    Slowly, the tiger-like beast stood back up, andid on the ground next to the man, rubbing its head against his palm that he had stretched out.


    This was, again, an incredibly valuable ability, although Eiro wasn''t sure if it could be taught. But even then, this man showed his bravery and physical prowess with the fact that he had been able to subdue this being with raw strength in the first ce, so this was quite effective as far as he was concerned. Surely it wasn''t the only ability given to this man either.


    The next person to show their power was thest of the transmigrators, luckily. And Eiro couldn''t help but be curious about what this one would show him. It was another man, a few years younger than thest. About 15 or 16, most likely, although he did look a bit younger than that in some aspects. He didn''t seem to have a particr physical prowess, but instead, the amount of mana that his body held was incredible. Not to the extent where he had reached mana crystalization, but still incredible. He seemed to have amazing mana generation as well, from what Eiro could tell, observing this boy''s core.


    The boy slowly raised his hand in front of him, and in an instant... a magic circle appeared there. And nowhere on his body did this boy have any sort of wand. This immediately told Eiro which deity summoned him.


    It was the god of magic.. And Eiro was the most curious about this boy in just an instant.

 Chapter 554 - Superior

    Eiro looked at the boy curiously, not sure what he was supposed to expect. Clearly, the other mages had also already realized what was going on. That this boy had cast magic without the use of a wand, and that he created a magic circle in an instant like that.


    However, the magic circle itself seemed quite... basic. It was a simple air magic spell. An air bullet, nothing else. Or at least, that''s what Eiro thought. In a moment, an incredible amount of air was gathered andpressed into a bullet. Compared to the mana used, and theplexity of the magic circle... That bullet was far too powerful. One more thing that convinced Eiro that this boy was summoned by the god of magic. Increased magic potency.


    The bullet shot forward at an incredible speed, and ripped apart the monster that had been prepared for him. It looked like someone had shot explosive magic at it, the way that its parts sttered around like that.


    But then, the boy slightly turned his wrist, and proceeded to pull all of the blood out of the corpse and away from the ground, pulling it toward himself and freezing it in the air as he constructed aplex replica of that monster''s veins in an artistic manner. Then, he raised his other hand, and pulled rock up, making it wrap tightly around the frozen blood, as the boy recreated the body of the creature in an instant.


    Once he was done, the boy heated the rock up, and metal was pulled out onto its surface, creating a thick armor around this body with its frozen blood and flesh of rock.


    And then, the boy snapped his finger, and suddenly, the artificial being seemed toe to an artificial life. It was a doll created with life magic. Truly, this boy was a powerful and versatile mage. And despite the fact that he did all this, he didn''t even seem bothered. Rather, he was yawning, as if he was bored by what was happening.


    The other mages were jealous of how much magic this boy was able to use, and the people of Baram were more than excited about a mage like this teaching the hero. The hero himself had been watching everything with bright, excited eyes ever since this disy of abilities began.


    The rest of the champions were quite... boring,pared to this one. Most people began to lose interest, since they thought that the most impressive ones had already passed. And then, it was the turn of the second tost person. Biril.


    Everyone was already quite bored, but he was sure to grab their attention again. Slowly, he drew his de, a single sword, like a fusion of an oversized greatsword and a scimitar. He held the de in his hand, as his body began to bulge up. The fur all over his body increased, and his muscles seemed to want to explode out of the contains of his skin. Biril, in just a few seconds, grew to berger than even the goliath from earlier, and now, his de seemed like it was a perfectly normal scimitar wielded by this oversized being.


    Biril turned his head and looked at his target, arge pir of rock that had been prepared for him. He stood in front of it, and swung his arm to the side just once. Smoothly, as if the rock was really just a mirage of mist, Biril cut through the pir and caused the top to slide off of it. Power and speed were disyed in an instant. And then, the monsters that he asked to be prepared were shown to him.


    They were powerful, and many, and they all came rushing at Biril. But the transformed beastman simply stared into the sky, and let out an ear-deafening growl that affected even some of the guides here, the weakest people gathered, together with the monsters, who were the real targets.


    Immediately, the monsters were frozen in fear, and were unable to move. Some even fell unconscious just from that. And then, Biril proceeded to ughter the monsters with ease, showing off his power to all. At least, they were now all paying attention.


    Once Biril was done, he undid his transformation, and looked around with a gentle smile. He walked back up to Eiro, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, "It''s your turn now, Eiro."


    "Huh? Eiro? What bastards gave you that name?" Someone asked with a deep, annoyed frown, "Don''t tell me it''s your real name."


    "Of course it is, it''s as real as the fact that I''m standing in front of you right now." The Demon said with a gentle smile, as he made his way to the center of the circle, as everything he requested was being prepared.


    People were hauling the corpses of the monsters from earlier up to him, and all the remaining monsters that had been captured for this were brought into the circle.


    "I will be doing a few different things today. Let''s hope that ten minutes are enough, shall we?" Eiro said subtly, as he turned toward the monsters, "Release them." He instructed, and the warriors quickly opened the cages and let go of therger monsters'' restraints.


    They ran at Eiro, and the Demon immediately got to work. Once more, he let his aura escape, and spoke amand, albeit not in themonnguage.


    "Kneel." Eiro said, using both of his voices as he spoke, to increase the potency even further. He used magic to make his words reverberate through the air like an echo further and further, as he said the same thing in all the monsternguages that he knew this word in, which happened to be quite a few.


    It didn''t take long until the array of voices became so overpowering that it sounded like a huge amount of people were yelling things out toward the monsters. And without a single exception, the monsters stopped. In fear, in subservience.


    All the monsters kneeled in any way they could. Those that were humanoid fell onto their knees. The beasts fell onto their stomachs, trying to imitate this themselves. Like this, Eiro had created an army for himself. With that, he trumped the second transmigrator in an instant. No more than 20 seconds had passed.


    And then, Eiro looked at the corpses that wereying by the side. He raised his hand toward them, and snapped just once. He spread out some mana toward them, and quickly used necromancy to instill a foul mockery of life into the corpses, as they slowly stood up. They as well were now kneeling to Eiro. For those who were missing some body parts, Eiro quickly used nature magic to create new limbs or create a barrier to hold their internal organs in.


    "D-Death magic?!" One of the mages yelled out, "But how-"


    "Silence. For the sake of killing the monster king, even this wicked magic is not off-limits." A Baram warrior interrupted, watching carefully as Eiro continued.


    After creating his army of monsters, alive and undead alike, Eiro moved on. He pulled one of his daggers out of his treasury, and cut into his left wrist. Blood poured out of him, incredible amounts. Soon, it was more than his body should be able to hold. All this blood filled out the cracks and carved patterns of the huge stone circle that everyone was standing on, and in an instead, frost spread around, freezing the blood.


    Slowly but surely, Eiro twisted his hand around, shifting the rock to turn everything into a huge magic circle, but it wasn''t done yet. The Demon smiled as his grimoire appeared beside him, just floating there. It flipped from page to page as Eiro started constructing another, second magic circle above the first, albeit a bit smaller, maybe half the radius of the main stone circle.


    And then, another magic circle was constructed above it, half the size of the second. And then another and another, until the top magic circle was the size of a dinner te. With a deep breath, Eiro activated the spell, which took an incredible amount of mana to do so. So much so that one of the mana crystals within his chest simply shattered, having been used up. But this was a good thing, since this increased the potency and speed of the spell even further.


    All the rock of the huge circle was pulled to the center, as the people and monsters jumped off it. Out of this, a huge creature of rock had been created, towering over the forest. The cracks had been filled in by the frozen blood, making its body surprisingly smooth. And then, from the ground, soil, grass, and roots climbed onto it. Its body was starting to overgrow with ntlife all over, before Eiro waved his hand around. Out of nowhere, water was being summoned. It was known that Eiro had contracted spirits, but it was nowhere to be seen. Eiro was creating the water himself, or at least that''s what it seemed like to everyone.


    Eiro used that water to create rivers on the body of the huge humanoid being of rock. He was turning it into the world, a humanoid representation of it. Eiro even created a moon using earth, ice, and shadow magic, as well as a sun using fire that he summoned from the gateway of mes.


    Now, five minutes had passed, and Eiro was still not done. The huge humanoid carnation of the world itself stood behind the army of living and undead monsters, with Lugo standing at the front of said army, right behind Eiro himself.


    And with a snap of his finger, three spirits appeared around Eiro. A Naiad, a Golem, and a Smander.


    "Are you guys ready?" Eiro asked, and Nelli looked at him with a wry smile, "It worked when we triedst time... just don''t overdo it now, alright?" She said, and Eiro smirked slightly.


    First, Nelli floated up to his chest, and fused with his body. At the same time, Bavet concentrated hard, keeping up part of the transformation as Eiro and Nelli became one. He was quite important, as he wasn''t allowed to let Eiro''s demonic form shine through despite all of what was happening.


    In this form, Eiro looked simr to how he normally looked fused with a spirit, simplycking his horns, wings and tail. Instead, his rainbow-colored hair took on a river-blue color. But that wasn''t all. Next, Gondos floated up to Eiro''s body, and dove into his chest as well. A dual-spirit fusion. Eiro''s flesh stayed that light, gentle blue, but now, he had masses of rock covering him like armor, particrly around his legs, arms and back, and his hair was now a mix of blue and yellowish-brown streaks.


    And then, it was Sarius'' turn. As he dove into Eiro''s chest, the tri-spirit fusion had been achieved.


    Eiro''s hair now had blue, yellow, and red streaks in it. In addition to his blue skin and rock-like armor, cracks formed in the rock where mes could now be seen, while parts of his skin turned into a light red instead of blue, although the colors were reversedpared to normal. Red limbs, but blue everywhere else, the opposite to what it was like normal.


    The Demon stood in front of his familiar, slightly tilting his head to the side as he smiled gently. It was an eery smile, one that made everyone''s heart skip a beat. They all realized that Eiro was a being that stood a few stages above them on the food chain. They realized, as Eiro let pure mana and magic flow out of his body, that this was not the limit of his powers. If not the hero, then this was the man that was going to kill the monster king, or be a foe even more dangerous. He was simply superior.


    With a soft tone, using both of his voices, Eiro said, "It''s nice to meet you all.. I hope we''ll be able to work together quite well."

 Chapter 555 - Forced Assistance

    Eiro stood there, having just presented his magical prowess to the other champions as well as the warriors of Baram. Clearly, with just this, Eiro showed that he was superior to the others, and this wasn''t even the peak of what Eiro was able to do.


    With a snap of his finger, Eiro undid a good amount of what he did. That huge humanoid being of rock, nts of water was turned back into therge stone circle. Eiro remembered it perfectly, so he was able to replicate it perfectly as well. The undead monsters that he created fell back onto the ground as Eiro let go control of them, and the subdued monstersid on the ground, still under the demon''s rule.


    And after letting out a deep breath, the three spirits that Eiro had fused with slowly split off from his body. Clearly, the three of them felt that doing this was quite ufortable, so Eiro wouldn''t do it too often. But it was part of something he had to do to show the extent of his abilities to the others.


    "Of course, this is not where my abilities stop. I''m quite proficient at physicalbat as well. I have a particr level of control over my body, and I have learned the techniques of not only individuals with master grade skills, but also of plenty of other people. I have a perfect memory, and have studied numerous fields of research. Basically, what I''m saying..." With a smile, Eiro looked at the group of champions, "Whatever they have to offer... I''m confident that I can surpass it."


    With those words that were practically a direct challenge, most of the champions were infuriated. Some of the warriors began to approach him, "You''ve got quite a big mouth, don''t''cha?! Let''s see if ya can back it up, buddy!"


    "I don''t mind. I needed a decent way to show off that part of my skillset anyway." Eiro exined, but before one of the warriors was able to pull their weapon, one of the Baram warriors that apanied the hero stepped between them.


    "Stop this. You are to bepanions, and not enemies. We will have to create a hierarchy of sorts soon anyway, so you can fight all you want during that time." The Baram warrior exined, as Eiro quickly nodded his head, "That does make sense. I don''t have anyints about that."


    The Demon slowly looked to the side, and saw the young hero as he was staring at Eiro, "Is something wrong?"


    "How did you... do that?"


    "What exactly? I''m afraid you might have to be a bit more specific." Eiro chuckled, and Jabir looked down at the ground while fiddling with his own fingers, "All of that? The... the big scary guy, the... making the dead things move... making the others stop moving... and turning into that... whatever that was."


    "You will be taught many of those things, even if not all. But don''t worry, you have many... skilled teachers ready for you." Eiro said with a smirk on his face, as he walked past the boy, cing his hand on the top of his head.


    For now, Eiro made sure that all of the monsters returned to their cages and were properly restrained, helping out the Baram warriors, when one of them made an announcement of what would happen next.


    "Today was... quite eventful. We will properly consider your abilities, and what you would be best capable of teaching to the young hero. We will then inform you of such, and you are expected and required to then train that exact aspect of your self even more." The warrior exined, "Although I doubt that any of you would not have continued along the path you are currently set on."


    ---


    "You. Stop." Eiro said in a blunt tone, walking up to that young man, the one blessed by the god of beasts. He turned around, walking beside the monster that he had tamed just earlier, "What is it?" He asked bluntly.


    "Ah... it''s just, I have something to discuss with you. And these two." Eiro said, pointing behind him at the girl blessed by the god of the hunt, and the boy blessed by the god of magic, who Eiro had spoken to just a few moments earlier.


    "Can''t it wait? I''m kinda hungry, y''know? And I have to do something with my new buddy here as well." The man pointed out, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "I don''t think it can wait." The Demon replied immediately.


    With an annoyed sigh, the man shrugged and walked up to Eiro, although he was mostly looking at Lugo, "But only cause I want you to tell me about that stag. Looks pretty rad. Mind if I-"


    "You can''t tame him, as he is my familiar. Not to mention that it''s just kind of an asshole thing to do, it''s obvious that he''s with me." Eiro said with a wry smile, and the man shrugged, "Asking can''t hurt."


    Eiro rolled his eyes, as he took a step back, letting the rest of the group proceed. He even told Biril to continue following the others, and although one of the guides asked the to follow, Eiro managed to convince them that the four of them would find their way on their own.


    And so, Eiro stood in front of the three transmigrators, and when the others were gone, he started to rx. And of course... he started mixing a little bit of Arc''s behaviour into his own, since he figured that they might respond to that more easily.


    "Alright, now that those guys''re gone... You three are from earth, right?" Eiro asked immediately, and the three transmigrators stared back at him confused, "Wh-What, but-" The girl muttered confused, and Eiro smiled broadly.


    "Great, I knew it. First of all, you''re using a bow that I''ve never seen before, and that ne around your neck? It''s been created with techniques unachievable here, and the material used for the thread holding it together right now isn''t something you find around here. You, kiddo, you''re carrying a bag from earth with you, and you dude, you''ve got ink in your skin that I''ve never seen here before. Not to mention the small rod made of metal in your left arm." Eiro exined quickly, "The three of you have been summoned here by the gods, right?"


    Immediately, the three of them looked at each other, realizing that Eiro had found out something that even they didn''t know about the others. Of course, each of them had all their memories from earth, but they had no idea that the other two were from there as well. They hadn''t really been concentrating on it.


    "There''s... others?" The young man asked surprised, and the boy immediately nodded, "Of course, didn''t the god that summoned you tell you about it? There''s a bunch of us... But more importantly..." The boy said, before quickly looking at Eiro, "You don''t look like you''re from earth..."


    "Well, I''m not. But I know a couple people that are. I''ve met another guy that''s been summoned like you, and I know two that reincarnated instead of being summoned." Eiro exined quickly, not mentioning how close he was to either of them. Not that he could describe the concept of the Arcane Dealer to these guys in just a few words anyway.


    "...And how should we trust you?" The girl asked, tightening her grip around her bow, ready to attack at any moment.


    "Well, easy, because I''m going to kill you if you don''t? I mean, I can do it in an instant. You guys are strong, but nothing I can''t deal with easily. And that kid I mentioned before? He had a much more troublesome ability than any of you do, and I beat him quite easily, even without using an ounce of magic." Eiro exined bluntly, "Oh, but don''t worry, I''m not trying to threaten you. Well, I am threatening you kind of, but that''s only to stop you from trying anything with me, you know? You just won''t be able to win, so it was more of a warning, I guess."


    The boy immediately frowned and raised his hand, creating a magic circle in an instant. But just as quickly, Eiro raised his own hand and created a counter spell for it. The magic circle of the boy disappeared, cancelled out by Eiro''s.


    "Wh-What?" The boy stuttered confused, and Eiro smiled lightly, "Kid, trust me. Even with your blessing from the god of magic, you won''t ever be able to beat my magical prowess." He said bluntly, "But I do have to say, I kind of like you. More than most of these other ''champions'' at least. You''re powerful, and your main goal is clearly to kill the Monster King instead of some sort of glory like those guys."


    "...That''s what we were called here for, so yeah, it is." The young man pointed out with a deep frown, "But what about you? Are you here for glory, or to kill the Demon King?"


    Eiro raised his brows, "Demon King? Do you mean ''the Devil''? That''s not who you''re supposed to fight, you know?"


    "Huh? The devil? I figured that guy was real, since gods exist and shit, but seriously? The Demon King is literally the devil?"


    "What, no... The King of Demons is the ''Original Demon''. The ancestor of them all. ''The Devil'' is a royal monster, the strongest monsters following right behind the Monster King." Eiro said bluntly, and the young man tilted his head to the side confused, "Eh?"


    The boy rolled his eyes and looked at the young man, "So you''ve also read all that stuff, huh? Basically, the Demon King from all those stories is called Monster King here. The kind of all monsters. It''s a bit more general as a title, since any sort of monster can be the king. And as this guy just said, the Demon King is another entity entirely."


    "Huh... kind of confusing..." The young man muttered, and Eiro was really quite annoyed with this conversation, "Either way.. You three are going to help me, whether you want to or not."

 Chapter 556 - Krog’s Anger

    "Whether we want to or not? Who do you think you are?" The girl asked with a deep frown, and Eiro chuckled slightly, "Sorry, I think I should rephrase. I''m sure you will definitely want to work with me. For whatever reason, all of you that have been summoned want to kill the Monster King. I neither know, nor care about, said reason. At the end of the day, the fact that our goals align is undeniable."


    "..." The three transmigrators silently looked at each other. This man in front of them certainly did have a point, "Fine. Clearly... you''re quite strong. So what do you need our help with?" The boy asked quickly, and Eiro pped his hands together with a broad smile.


    "That is the correct question, kiddo. I mentioned it just earlier, right? The strongest monsters, following right behind the monster king, tend to be ''Royals''. I heard that these cards exist in your world as well. They should be called... Tarot cards."


    "Huh? Tarot? What about it?" The young man asked with a wry smile, and Eiro quickly pulled out the Three of Swords in its card form.


    "This is a card of the minor arcana, the three of swords. These cards are powerful artifacts, and just possessing them gives you immense power. Now, then there is the major arcana equivalent, for example the card ''The Devil'', that one we spoke about earlier. When a monster takes possession of said card, they will immediately grow to be immensely powerful. I have already permanently gotten rid of two said royals, although usually, the card in question will be brought to the closest fitting monster when a royal dies. You all have been brought here, expected to kill the monster king. So, I would like your help in killing the royals first. Weaken the power of the monster king beforehand. Using my methods, I will get rid of the cards, which will make it so much easier to kill the monster king when the timees." Eiro quickly exined. Of course, the cards that Eiro was talking about right now were ''The World'', which he currently was himself, as well as ''Death'', the card that he had locked up within him in his treasury.


    "I... read about those." The boy exined, "But aren''t we still too weak to be able to take out twenty of these ''royals''? They are supposed to be catastrophes."


    "Oh, of course you''re too weak. I''m at the level of power of a royal right now myself, but most of them have pesky special abilities, or are just going to be far too well-prepared. You know, ''Death'', one of the two I killed, had the ability to turn itself into the perfect counter of whatever it was fighting. If you used a sword, its skin became resistant to cuts. If you used fire magic, it would no longer be affected by heat. And the guy that I have currently lined up as my next target is the kind that ns ahead. He knows I''ming for him, and he will make sure to have anything he needs to kill me. As such, having some trump-cards like you three, with your obviously unique and unexpected abilities, is more than just useful. I mean, I doubt he even knows about the existence of earth, so how would he be able to guess that some individuals have been summoned from there?" Eiro chuckled slightly, and the girl slowly muttered, "If we say ''no''... will you kill us?"


    "Hm, maybe. Not right now, though. I mean, they''d know it was one of the champions, and I don''t wanna deal with all that. And it''s not like this whole deal isn''t beneficial to you either. Youe from a peaceful world. This will give you experience in more sense than one. You will level up immensely, and you will gain actualbat experience. Not only that, you will grow in status upon assisting me in killing multiple royals, so your life in this world will befortable. Not that it won''t be, now that you becamepanions to the hero." Eiro pointed out, "At the end of the day, as long as your ''no'' doesn''t mean that you''ll oppose me... I''m not gonna do anything, I don''t really want to bother. I don''t really gain much from it right now anyway."


    Eiro looked at the three people in front of him, as they all seemed to be deep in thought. It did seem like they were on the same page in one regard, though, "We''ll need some time to think about it."


    ---


    Eiro soon found himself back in the small town of huts, and looked around trying to find his friends and family. It seemed like the kids were at the beach right now, and the others were sitting at an open-air bar nearby said beach. For a few moments, the Demon wondered why they didn''t juste here by ship, but then he realized that the whole area was far too shallow, and in the distance, it seemed to be mostly encased in some rocks that didn''t make it possible. That protected this ce from invaders quite well too, though.


    The Demon made his way to said open-air bar, and sat down next to the others, "Did you guys have a good day so far?" Eiro asked, letting out a sigh of rxation.


    "Yo, more importantly, what the hell did you guys do? We... saw that huge thing from back here..." James pointed out with a wry smile, and Eiro raised his brows, "Oh, you did? Yeah, that was just me disying my magic to them. Basically, we were introduced to the little hero, and then we were supposed to show off our prowess, and I concentrated on magic for now. And obviously, I had to trump the others somehow." The demon quickly exined, and everyone stared at him for a few moments.


    "So it was you, after all... Also, was that your aura that you just let go wild a couple of times?"


    "Ah, that was me as well, yeah."


    "But why..?" Jess asked, and Eiro slightly turned his head, looking at the man that was currently approaching him. It was the Goliath warrior, and he stood right beside Eiro for a few moments, with his arms crossed, as if he was waiting for something.


    "Can I help you?" The Demon asked, and the Goliath simply frowned, "So you really are a mage, small one?"


    "I am a mage, sure, but not only. I''m quite confident that I could beat you in a fight that doesn''t involve magic as well." Eiro replied bluntly, before the Goliathughed out loud, "You''re funny, small one! I like you!"


    "Urgh... he''s not joking, you know?" James pointed out, "He can definitely beat you up, and violently at that."


    The Goliath looked at the people around Eiro confused, "And who''re these weaklings?"


    "They''re not weaklings. Those three are my party members, James, Jess and Krog. This is Armodeus, the most skilled craftsman on the continent, or even the world. This is Koperia, an incredibly skilled mage, whose magical abilities are probably above mine when ites to control and maniption. And this is my lover, Arie." Eiro swiftly exined, and the Goliath slightly frowned, but before he could say anything, Krog stood up with a broad smile.


    "Wait, you''re a Goliath! I''m a half-goliath. Right over there is Rudy, he''s a-" Krog eximed excitedly, and slightly turned his head, before he felt something wet hit his face, "Disgusting. A halfling child bred from a traitor? I thought better of you, small one." The goliath warrior pointed out right after spitting at Krog, before Jess immediately jumped up. Eiro was getting quite angry as well.


    "Who do you think you are?!" Jess yelled out, stepping in front of her lover without a moment''s hesitation, as if trying to shield him.


    "I''m someone that at least still knows the true values us Goliaths hold. That man is an abomination. The only Goliaths who breed outside the n are those who have been banished. Even if he was born from two goliaths, that fact would make his blood filthy. But mixing it with the blood of another n? Ridiculous." The warrior eximed. Eiro was slowly moving to get up, but before he could do so, the warrior was already thrown far out of the contains of this open-air bar.


    Krog''s arms were bulging, and the veins on his neck and forehead seemed like they were about to explode, "I will not allow you to speak of my father like that, you hear?!" Krog yelled out, as the goliath warrior slowly stood up again.


    "What, the disgusting filth is violent as well? As expected!" He eximed, but before he was able to fully stand up, Krog had already thrown himself at him again. With kicks and punches, grapples and throws, Krog was attacking the champion of another country.


    The people of Baram, as well as the other champions, were watching this all unfold in front of their eyes. But more surprising than that... the Goliath Champion... was being pushed back. Krog was absolutely overwhelming him.


    The moment that he tried to defend himself, putting up some sort of guard, Krog shattered said guard with his fists. And while all of this was going on, Eiro saw something in Krog''s eyes. A brief sh of a notification that disappeared as Krog punched his hand through it during this fight, not paying attention to what was written on it.


    Said punch was enough to throw the Goliath Champion further away, while Krog was still absolutely furious. With a bloodied face and bruised body, the Champion stood up, furious on his own after being beat up in front of all the others, by someone who wasn''t even a champion.


    The two of them ran at each other, ready to hit the other with all that their body could muster. But since this was all going a bit too far, and due to the notification that Eiro got a brief nce of earlier, the Demon moved inbetween the two in an instant.


    With his right hand, he stopped Krog''s fist, and with his left, he stopped the Champion''s. sts of air followed their attacks, creating a strong gust around the Demon''s body that twirled up some dust.


    "Let''s stop this here before this goes any further, alright?" Eiro said with a smile, as he gathered some water in his hand. He filled it up with magic and threw it at the Goliath''s face, using healing magic to help the recovery of the wounds that Krog had caused.


    And so, Eiro pulled Krog away for now, leaving behind a startled and confused goliath that didn''t know what just happened to him.

 Chapter 557 - Awakened Blood

    Eiro pulled Krog toward a table to have him sit down again, and Jess immediately came over to the two of them, holding Krog''s arm, "Why did you do that..?"


    "He just pissed me off." Krog practically growled in a quiet voice, still staring at the Goliath that was busy speaking to the guides and warriors of Baram. But even he was turning his head, ring at both Krog and Eiro, really unsure of how strong they were.


    Sure, he was surprised to suddenly be attacked like that, but that in itself shouldn''t be the case. Despite the surprise, the Goliath should have been able to react and fight back, but he waspletely suppressed just now. And then, while they were both about to attack each other, Eiro simply stepped inbetween them and easily stopped the two, without the Goliath even being able to see him approach. It was like he just appeared there in an instant.


    "Urgh..." Krog groaned quietly, cing his face into his hands, "I''m starting to feel sick all of a sudden."


    "Ah, right. That." Eiro said, slightly smirking, "That''s just because something inside you is awakening or something. It doesn''t seem to be a blessing, but something simr."


    "What''re you even talking about?" James walked up to them with a light frown, and Eiro smirked lightly, "It''s the thing that''s going to make him even stronger, like the abilities that you unlocked upon receiving your new ss."


    Krog lightly raised his head again, looking at the Demon, "What?"


    The Demon quickly exined, "While you were pummeling that guy, a notification popped up in front of you, right? Well, that was a response of your ancient ancestor... or something like that. You fought for the honor of your father, for the sake of being called a true Goliath. And that awakened something in your blood."


    "Can ya just fuckin'' say what it is?"


    "Well, I think it''s quite obvious, but Goliaths didn''te to exist just because some humans went off and did their own thing. They''re the descendants of ancient Giants. And very rarely, Goliaths happen to awaken to the power of said ancient giants. And now, you''re one of them." Eiro quickly exined, and the three people standing around Eiro, Jess, James and Krog, were now staring at Eiropletely confused.


    "...Excuse me?" Krog let out, and Eiro raised his brows, "What, are you surprised at the Giant bit, or the awakening bit?"


    "Both?" The half-goliath let out immediately, and Eiro smiled lightly, "Well, your giant ancestry is a fact that isn''t really known about too well. It was hidden because, well... Giants were thought to be monsters, and all that. Either way, it''s a thing. And now, what are you surprised about in regard to the awakening?"


    "Well first, all of it. Like what does it mean? But also, I''m just a half-goliath, so how could that happen?" Krog asked, and Eiro slightly tilted his head to the side, "Because you don''t have that much less giant blood in you than regr goliaths? I mean, the first descendants the giants had with humans weren''t really considered human, but after generations of living amongst them properly, their descendants were giants again, and were then considered their own n. And as you can see, they really took to the ''n'' bit." Eiro pointed out, "It''s not really about blood in the first ce. You''re still a descendant of the ancient giants, just the same as all other goliaths. Just that you have some other ancestors outside of that."


    "Yeah, but still, I''m not a full goliath, how does that work?" Krog pointed out with a wry smile, as Armodeus ced a hand onto his shoulder, "My grandpappy''s an elf, and I became an Elder Dwarf. It doesn''t matter that much."


    Krog turned his head, surprised to hear about this, as Armodeus shuddered slightly, "There''s other parts wrong with having elven blood though..." He grumbled, slightly turning his head toward James, "Ah, not tryin'' to be rude or anything... you''re alright. For an elf."


    "Err... Thanks?" James replied with a wry smile, as the focus turned back toward Eiro and Krog, as the Demon continued to exin, "We''ll have to wait and see how your awakening shows itself, since this kind of change usually only initiates when you change your ss for most people, but it should be something rted to strength andbat, considering your talents." Eiro exined, as he slowly stood up again, somewhat annoyed by something that he was hearing in the background, "I''m going to copy down some writings about other awakened goliaths that I read about and give them to you, it''s some real impressive stuff." He said, before quickly making his way over toward where the Goliath champion was currently talking to some of the guides.


    The moment that Eiro approached them, one of the guides looked at him, "Good. There is something we need to talk about. The fact that yourpanion attacked a champion is uneptable." She said, and Eiro looked at her with a deep frown, "What, and the fact that this asshole insulted someone that I consider family by now is fine? If Krog hadn''t done it, this guy''d be dead by now, so you should thank him instead." Eiro said bluntly, and the Goliath looked at Eiro with an intense stare.


    "Dead? Dead?! You think you''d be able to truly beat me in a fight, you small-" The Goliath eximed, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he gathered andpressed magic in his hand. With a single swift motion, he punched the champion''s stomach, imitating what he had done during the tournament''s finals, just that he was now using gravity magic. It was a simr effect of doing immense damage while not seeming so from an outsider''s perspective. The goliath wasn''t moved an inch to the back after all.


    The Goliath champion stood there while Eiro''s fist was doing immense damage to his body, and threw up blood that covered the Demon''s clothes from top to bottom.


    "You will not punish my friends, and neither will you punish either of us. It was just a simple, well-natured fight between new friends. Understood?" Eiro said, slightly ncing at the guides that were gathered around them, "Now please excuse me, I have something to talk about with my newpanion, alright?"


    Eiro pushed his fingers into the Goliath''s arm, and forcefully dragged him along the wooden path to a spot where nobody would be able to listen in on them.


    "Alright. What''s your name?" Eiro said bluntly, as the goliath was staring back at him, "H-Huh?"


    "I asked you what your name is."


    "My name is Tin." He slowly replied, and Eiro slowly closed his eyes, "Alright then, Tin. I need you to understand that you and I ¨C we''re ying in different leagues here. If I wanted to, I could have probably killed you back there quite easily. But I didn''t. Because I won''t need to. You learned your lesson, and it won''t ever happen again, right? You will never bother a Goliath that is not part of a n anymore, right?" Eiro said, staring deep into Tin''s eyes.


    "What''s it to you, huh? Why''d you care how I spoke to that dis-"


    "Seriously? I know that you aren''t aplete moron, so why are you acting like one?" Eiro frowned deeply, "First of all, that''s one of my best friends, and as I said earlier, someone I consider family. But beyond that, I already mentioned to you that my son is a Goliath. That wasn''t a joke, you know? He''s a full-blooded Goliath, but if you bring any of this n bullshit over to him, or even think about saying anything negative to him, then you''re dead, alright?" Eiro said in a clear tone, while Tin could really feel the demon''s threats in his whole body.


    But the goliath wasn''t all too happy with that, pride practically taking over his mind. Eiro turned around and began to walk away, despite Tin''s anger. The Demon, quite fed up with this guy already, swiftly returned back to the bar.


    "What happened this time?" Arie asked with a slightly awkward smile, and Eiro looked back at her somewhat nervously, averting his gaze, "I just spoke to him for a bit, that''s all."


    "About what? Look at how angry he is right now..." The nephilim said, slightly looking past Eiro to see Tin stomping around like some child, and Eiro simply sighed, "I just told him to not mistreat Krog and Rudy because of his stupid ''Goliath Pride''. If he gets mad about that, it''s not my fault."


    "Shouldn''t you... you know, try to get along with him? Exactly for Rudy''s sake? I mean, you tried to patch things up with Hijar and Biril for Leon, but wouldn''t it be useful for Rudy to know a bit more about Goliath ns?" Arie suggested, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward the beach, where Rudy was sitting on a rock next to Arc, as the two were just casually talking to each other.


    Eiro scratched the back of his head with a sigh, "Fine. We''ll be here for a while, so I guess I''ll give it a try. But if it doesn''t work, it''s not solely my fault, alright?"


    "I know, I know, don''t worry.." Arie said, giving Eiro a quick kiss, before the two of them made their way back to the table where the others were now sitting, contemting over the fact that Krog seemingly awakened to his Giant blood.

 Chapter 558 - BeastMan Versus BeastTamer

    The next day, quite early in the morning, before the sun even rose, Eiro was woken up by his assigned guide, Kimmi. He slowly got up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, before standing up and walking up to the birdying in a small nest Eiro created for itst night.


    With a quick squeeze, he woke said bird up and pushed it against his chest, making Bavet quickly fuse into his body, " ''Wake up, buddy'', ''It''s time to leave'', or even just ''Come on''... But no, you have to fucking squeeze my whole body to wake me up? Fucking dickhead..." The slime grumbled, while Eiro simply rolled his eyes and walked up to this small hut''s door.


    "Yeah?" He let out, his negative effect resistance skill kicking in and fully waking him up. Kimmi smiled at Eiro, holding his hands behind his back, "It is time to leave for the activebat exercise. Please gather your equipment ande out soon." He exined, and Eiro immediately nodded, "Aight, I''ll be right out."


    The Demon closed the door again, and pulled a certain few things out of his treasury. Upon his evolution, once his legendary skill awakened and upgraded some of his abilities, the amount of things that Eiro could store in his treasury had gone up considerably. It was still restricted to that ''room'' that Eiro had always imagined, just that said room now became something more solid and defined. This let him store more than just small items and trinkets.


    And beyond that, Eiro was no longer abl to just a single piece of each sort of item. He could now store both of his daggers in there, for example, as well as all pieces of his armor. What he could not do, however, store actual duplicates, meaning that Eiro could not simply ce a whole bunch of the same material in there for easier transport, or he couldn''t store the same book in there twice, even if the edition and craftsmanship quality werepletely different. But at least he didn''t have a limit to the amount of books anymore, beyond the fact that they took up a lot of space that he could use for other things.


    However, like this, Eiro was able to store his full Dragon-Scale armor inside of his treasury, and simr to how he put on his cloak and mask, by mentally pretending to put it on within the room of his treasury. And like that, Eiro changed out of the current clothes that he was wearing and instead donned his armor, and in just an instant.


    "Arie, I''ll be backter. Have a great day." The Demon said with a smile, looking at the half-asleep Nephilim, who simply slightly waved at him before returning to sleep. It did get quitetest night.


    Eiro smiled lightly and quickly opened the door, where Kimmi was standing, quite surprised to see that Eiro had already changed into his armor, "Alright, let''s go." He stepped out of the hut and closed the door behind him. With a slight whistle that was just barely carried through the air, Eiro signaled a certain being, which he could hearzily getting up right now.


    "We''re going back to the same ce as yesterday, I assume?" Eiro asked, and Kimmi quickly nodded, "Yes, we are. It is the best ce for such exercise, especially considering thebat prowess of you all." He replied, and Eiro slowly nodded. He did see what everyone was able to do yesterday, but he doubted that was actually the limit of their abilities. They either hid a lot of their arsenal, simply showing something that they were particrly proud of or that might impress the Baram Warriors and the young Hero, or they simply didn''t want to reveal everything about them before seeing what the others were capable of.


    Especially after Eiro''s disy yesterday, they would try to show more of their capabilities today. And it seemed like there were some individuals that were particrly excited about theingbat. It didn''t take long until everyone was gathered again, and the whole ordeal was exined.


    "Today, we will be doing some simple spars. Of course, you can go all-out as you wish, but what this is for is simply figuring out your personal adaptability to different sorts ofbat. We will pair you up ourselves, depending on whether or not we wish to see how you fare against a certain opponent ording to the rough skill-specialization we observed yesterday." The head-warrior exined, before the first batch of fights were announced. Eiro had already guessed this would happen, but he was paired up against the Goliath Warrior, Tin. He probably bothered the guide to make sure they would end up paired up as soon as possible.


    And surprisingly, Biril was paired up with one of the transmigrators yesterday, the one summoned and blessed by the god of beasts. It was a sadistic team-up. Biril was the only beastman in the whole group, and it was clear that the only reason he was paired up with that young man was so that the Baram warriors could figure out whether or not the young man could use his ability on beastmen as well.


    The other teamups were mostly done with a simr mindset, trying to team people up with those that clearly had the most natural animosity toward each other, or those that were simply a bad match. Of course this could be seen as kind of a negative thing, but Eiro gave them the benefit of the doubt.


    If everything worked out well, this could not only patch things up between those with such animosity, creating better teamwork overall, but it could also point out fatal ws in thebat style of certain individuals that they can then properly work on during the next few years before ites to truly teaching and fighting alongside the young hero. At the end of the day, the Baram Warriors obviously wanted this all to seed, so they weren''t going to do anything to delibaretly jeopardize this.


    One after another, the pairs began to fight against each other. And when Eiro watched them, he realized that these warriors and guides must have incredible insight. While the first few paired up individuals were a bad match for each other ability wise, neither of them had the upper hand. It was like they were pulling out each others'' bad aspects. And that this was possible just from the, at most, ten-minute disys yesterday was incredible. Eiro had nearly judged this whole thing as a waste of time for him, but it might actually be quite interesting after all.


    And then, it came to the fight between that transmigrator and Biril, the one that Eiro was currently most curious of. The dynamic here was quite different to the ones before, since this seemed to be the only fight where they didn''t try to bnce things out too much. They seemingly really only wanted to find out about the limits of the transmigrator''s abilities, which Eiro wasn''t against either. He was curious as well, after all.


    The two of them looked at each other, preparing for their uing fight. The transmigrator hit his hands together. He didn''t wear much more than yesterday, just some light, thin gauntlets in addition to those sorts of clothes. Biril, however, was really wearing a proper armor like most others here, and was of course carrying around hisrge great-scimitar.


    While it seemed to be made for his body while it was fully transformed like yesterday, even now Biril seemed capable of wielding it with little trouble, as if the de was close to weightless.


    It didn''t take long until the Baram warriors had the spar start, and neither of the two parties waited for all too long. The two ran at each other, and the moment that his opponent came into range, Biril shed his sword toward him horizontally. But the transmigrator simply jumped over the de with ease. Although it could hardly be called a jump. He basically just slightly hopped, and pulled his legs up immediately.


    As Eiro thought, this man must have had quite some experience fighting even in the other world, although Arc had told him that it was supposed to be quite peaceful there. Eiro watched curiously and excitedly. He was pretty sure that the transmigrator would win, but Biril certainly wasn''t weak either, that was for sure.


    The transmigrator stretched out his leg and twisted his body around, kicking Biril''s side. But Biril simply raised his arm, which had erged quite a bit as it just said arm turned into such a transformed form. Biril''s hide created a naturally incredible armor when he was transformed, so it made sense for him to use this ability defensively as well. Twisting his own body around in response, jumping backward, Biril swung his de back at the transmigrator, this time managing to cut into his arm. It wasn''t that much more than a cut, but it was still enough for Biril to gain the upper hand, at least for now.


    Really, Eiro wouldn''t be surprised if Biril managed to reach the heights of the Masters in the future if he kept things up like this.


    However, the transmigrator wasn''t anything to scoff at either. Despite only recently having received his skills and this level of physical prowess, he was able to use everything he was given extremely well. This spar turned into a wild exchange of blows, before suddenly, both sides pulled back.


    "This is getting really fun... You mind if I go all out?" Biril asked with a broad, excited grin on his face, as his chest was pumping like the bellows in Armodeus'' workshop. Slowly, his body bulged up as Biril transformed. But to the surprise of everyone here, particrly Biril himself... the transmigrator showed a simr transformation, even turning into a tiger-like form, as if he was a beastman himself.


    And maybe some of the others noticed as well, but Eiro was absolutely positive that the patterns of the transmigrator''s fur were the same as that tiger monster''s that he had tamed yesterday.

 Chapter 559 - Beast Manipulation

    Eiro looked at the transmigrator with a light frown. Could he borrow the abilities of the beasts that he tamed? If so, then this guy might be a lot more useful, and a lot more capable inbat, than Eiro expected.


    There was just one thing that Eiro was wondering. That monster from yesterday was nowhere to be seen. Not even back in that small ''vige'' that everyone stayed at, as if it simply disappeared. The scent was there, though.


    "Hm..." Eiro hummed. Speaking of scent, there was the familiar scent of spatial magic flowing off this man, and it got a lot stronger when he activated this ability, "I see how it is." Eiro smiled lightly, and was overheard by one of the other transmigrators, the boy blessed by the god of magic.


    "You see how what is?" He asked, and Eiro turned his head toward him, "Can you use spatial magic as well?"


    "...No, I can''t. At least not currently. I can use the six base elements, and one advanced version of each of those four elements, but spatial magic is not one of them." The boy exined, and Eiro clicked his tongue, kind of annoyed that this kid was simply handed such useful abilities. Someone that could never have experienced magic, was then suddenly given such power. It was kind of annoying really. But well, it wasn''t like the boy had any particr affinity for the elements. He just had the skills, and the blessing of the god of magic made up for theck of affinity. Even gods couldn''t change such aspects of the very soul, after all.


    "Well, anyway, that guy has some kind of spatial ability. Probably a sub-space where his tamed beasts can live without worry." He exined, "Sub-spaces really are quite useful."


    "What, do you have one as well?" The girl transmigrator asked, and Eiro smiled lightly and just winked at her, not actually revealing anything about himself. He wanted to gain their trust, but it''s not like Eiro was going to give them any true trust anytime soon. But his spatial ability wasn''t that big a secret, considering the extents to which he usually used it.


    During this brief conversation, the fight had already proceeded. The transmigrator still fighting in close-quarters and trying to pummel Biril, while the beastman himself needed a certain amount of distance, even if said distance was still quite short, inbetween himself and his opponent in order to swing his sword around properly.


    However, the transmigrator didn''t let him do that. He was using some boxing techniques to try and stay as close to Biril as possible. And as far as Eiro could tell, the beastman was actually being pushed back. It was kind of annoying, since Eiro did take a bit of a liking to him. But the fight wasn''t over yet, and Biril certainly still had a fighting chance against the transmigrator.


    For a good while, the two of them were at a quite even level, to the point where the ability of the transmigrator ran out, and he returned to his normal state, while Biril was still fully transformed. The transmigrator seemed to be exhausted at this point, but he still had superior physical statspared to the beastman, so he could still put up a fight. For a while, at least. But soon, when it seemed like Biril was going to win, the transmigrator did the very thing that the Baram warriors had been hoping for.


    "Stop!" He yelled out, clearly putting power into his words as his loud voice reached beyond the edges of the stone circle. The moment he did this, Biril''s body stiffened up. His muscles became tense, and he was clearly struggling to fend off the transmigrator''s words.


    It seemed like this really did work, at least to an extent. Biril wasn''t fully under the transmigrator''s control, but he was obviously impacted. The Baram warriors were quite excited to see this, already nning how they were going to make use of this ability. Obviously, they weren''t nning on actually using it on beastmen, but if it worked on them, then it would certainly also work on humanoid monsters that were derivatives or evolutions from beast type monsters. Like that bothersome crow that Eiro met back then. Being able to make it stop moving like this would have been great.


    Taking this chance that he was given by the halt of Biril''s movement, the transmigrator rushed at his opponent and struck the center of his torso, using the physical strength given to him by the god that summoned him.


    Eiro could sense part of Biril''s life force dissipate as his health value diminished. That was an incredibly powerful attack, to the point where Biril spit up blood. However, this also had a negative effect for the transmigrator himself.


    Through this attack, the slight control that the beastman found himself under had been shattered, and Biril wasn''t the sort of fighter that couldn''t grind his teeth through some damage in the middle of a fight like this.


    Given this chance where the transmigrator didn''t expect anything like a counter-attack, Biril did just that, and shed his sword downward. The transmigrator tried to dodge, but he wasn''t quick enough, and Biril''s de was toorge to be able to fully get out of the way, leaving him with a deep cut all over his body. If he had been just a little closer, that certainly would have been an attack of the fatal sort. With this attack, the tide had been fully turned, and the transmigrator was buried underneath, as Biril won this fight between the two of them.


    Sure, the transmigrator was powerful. He knew how to fight and use his abilities properly, but Biril had spent a lifetime trying to perfect his skill with this de of his. He was a true warrior who had the experience of numerous battles behind him, and was quite powerful on top of that of course. There was a reason why he won his country''s tournament.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro approached Biril, who was currently trying to catch a breath, holding his chest where he had been hit just now. He hadn''t even undone his transformation yet.


    "Great fight, Biril." The Demon said with a smile, as the beastman turned his head, speaking with a distorted voice, "Thank you, Eiro. But excuse me, I think I could use a break for a moment. It is your turn now anyway, right?" He asked, and Eiro immediately nodded.


    "That it is, yes." Eiro said with a smile on his face, before Biril slowly made his way to where the others were standing, while the transmigrator was given a quick heal by the Baram healers. And then, Eiro stood in front of his opponent, Tin.


    The Demon took a deep breath, and waited for the fight to be started by the overseer. With a p of his hands, the signal was given, and the fight began. The Goliath in front of Eiro used a rather unique weapon, or at least, it was one that Eiro hadn''t seen that often. It was basically nothing but a thick metal piller with light grooves all over it. The pir itself was the height of Eiro''s body.


    But Tin simply swung it around like the pir weighed nothing, and attacked Eiro without any hesitation. Preparing for the iing attack in an instant, Eiro manipted his body and his armor to the extreme. He had practically fused with the armor, making it part of his body with his new abilities as ''The World'', letting him manipte it to a superior degree. For example, he could use the metal skin ability on the armor itself, making it a lot stronger than before. He could even fuse some of Bavet''s slime into the armor himself, manipting it even further.


    Otherwise, Eiro had pulled and pushed around his life force in specific patterns to absorb the shock as much as possible, even weakening and turning part of his body into something more sponge-like, or fusing it with water from the spirit gateway, so that he could properly receive his attack. But even then, the attack was going to be too strong for Eiro to just receive it like its nothing. He would certainly be pushed back a little, but Eiro wanted to show that he was not someone to be messed with right now, so he manipted the roots of the nts growing underneath the circle of stone, and fused them into his body, quite literally rooting himself down in ce.


    And then, the pir hit Eiro''s raised arm, and the shock reverberated through his body, as he took quite a bit of damage even though he did anything he could to defend against it. Well, it was a fair amount of damage, but at the end of the day, it was just a drop in the bucket for Eiro''s health. And even if it had been more than that, it would have been worth it for Tin''s, and everyone else''s, expressions as Eiro seemed unaffected by that pir. Eiro used his wooden hand and pushed it against the metal pir, using the bit of metal magic that he had mastered thus far to take control of the pir.


    With a swing of his hand, Eiro pulled on the pir, using his monstrous mana to support this movement. Of course, Tin''s grip on the pir was strong enough so that the pir wasn''t pulled away from him, but rather, he was pulled away together with it, as Eiro threw the pir, and Tin who was attached to it, away.


    "Ah, sorry about that, I was kind of startled.." He said with his head lightly tilted to the side, before finally pulling one of his daggers out of his treasury, "I noticed that I didn''t even pull my weapon yet. Should we actually start now?"

 Chapter 560 - Handle

    Eiro took on his properbat stance, holding his dagger in one hand and leaving his other hand free, so that he could use thebination of the daggerbat style and the hand-to-handbat styles that he had learned through the puppet.


    He also of course quickly released all the things that he did in order to withstand that one attack from Tin, and instead moved everything around perfectly for a fight, concentrating his life force in a way that its shape itself seemed to imitate that of his muscles. Tin properly stood up and pressed the pir, his weapon, into the ground with an annoyed expression.


    "Alright, let''s start." Once more, Tin rushed at Eiro, swinging his pir at him once more. But this time, Eiro bent his body backward, letting the pir pass by right above his head. The Demon quickly dropped himself down at the right moment, pressing his free palm onto the ground while kicking away at the pir with both his feet.


    This way, the momentum of the pir was averted, away from what Tin had expected. While the Goliath was trying to slow the pir down to make up for this avertion, Eiro jumped back onto his feet, practically gliding over the ground to reach his opponent. He was moving with an agility practically impossible for the sort of armor that he was wearing. Or at least, for the sort of armor that everyone thought he was wearing.


    The dragon scales had a metallic tint to them, so it looked like Eiro was wearing just simple metal te armor. However, despite that metallic tint, the scales were incredibly flexible, and the parts of said ses that had been turned into something leather-like by Armodeus were as easy to twist and stretch as a paper-thin sheet of rubber, so this armor didn''t restrict Eiro''s movement in the slightest. Rather, after fusing it with his body to an extent, it even supported the Demon''s movement, helping him elerate and decelerate by hardening and softening at specific times.


    Eiro was already able to move his body in utterly unrealistic ways, and the armor made it appear even more ridiculous than before. The Demon twisted his body around Tin and carefully, but quickly, slid his dagger across his skin. It wasn''t a deep wound, but Eiro''s goal wasn''t just to beat Tin immediately anyway.


    The Goliath tried to turn around, jerking his arms back to try and hit Eiro with his elbows to at least get him away, but that only gave the Demon the chance to grapple onto the Goliath''s arm. He slid his hand around his upper arm and jumped up, wrapping his legs around Tin''s underarm. With some well-applied force, Eiro pulled on Tin''s arm and pressed onto the joint where the arm met the shoulder from underneath, before shing his dagger across a part of Tin''s exposed shoulder. Immediately, Tin''s arm went limp as his arm simply slid out of its socket, loosely hanging by the side of his body.


    "What the-?!" Tin yelled out as Eiro jumped away from him, pushing off of the upper part of said injured arm.


    And for this, Eiro took a step back, since he wanted to see Tin''s reaction properly. The Goliath mmed his pir into the ground between him and Eiro as a sort of shield, and grabbed his arm, ready to push it back into its socket. With a slight crackle and pop, it was back inside, but after just trying to slightly move said arm, it slipped back out again. Confused, Tin tried again, but the same thing happened.


    "I would stop trying to do that, or else you''re going to permanently use the ability to use that arm." Eiro chuckled slightly, and Tin looked at the Demon with a deep re, "What did you do to my arm?!"


    "I cut a few specific strands of your muscles, fractured part of the bone around that arm''s socket, and disformed part of the cartge around there as well. It can be healed easily with even basic healing magic though, so don''t worry. I mean, as long as you don''t damage your arm too much." Eiro pointed out with a slight grin on his face, and Tin stared back confused, "You did that in just a moment?" He asked, before his smile slowly turned into a grin, "You''re fucking insane, just like that friend of yours."


    Eiro chuckled slightly, "Insane?" With a slight smirk, he locked eyes with Tin as the Goliath could feel goosebumps form all over his body, "You haven''t seen anything yet, buddy."


    In response to this, instead of bing more angry like even Tin himself thought, he became excited. It was simr to why Hijar had be more infatuated with the Demon once their fight was over back then. These two were meatheads. They became angry quickly, they stuck to their values simply because their emotions told them to. But the moment that these emotions told them something else, their opinion would shift instantly. Eiro used to be like that as well, and he still was to a certain extent.


    Due to the mark of wrath, Eiro became angry the moment something sparked that emotion up in the slightest. It was why Bavet even had to invent a way to distract him, to make sure Eiro didn''t rampage upon the slightest disrespect.


    But now that he got rid of that mark, Eiro had been trying to get rid of these habits. Of course, he was still a person that became angry rather quickly. He was a Demon of Wrath in the first ce, after all. Amongst the seven sins, that was the one that could be found in him the most. But it was nothing that couldn''t be changed with some mental fortitude and effort, especially now that there was nothing messing with his mind in that way all the time.


    Back then, when Eiro saw someone as annoying, or as a threat, then he wouldn''t really change his mind about others. But ever since he befriended Hijar and Biril, it became clear that this wasn''t really the case anymore. He was trying to be morepassionate about things like this. Of course, if Eiro didn''t find a way to make Tin look past those biases that he had developed throughout his lifetime, he wouldn''t go easy on him, but it looked like that wasn''t the case. Meatheads couldn''t be reasoned with, but their opinions could still be changed. They could still grow. And as long as Eiro could make Tin be epting of other Goliaths that were outside of the n structure, then he would be a useful ally, or maybe just a tool, in the future. The fact that he could help Rudy learn some more things about goliaths was a good thing, after all.


    Rudy was sold off when he was just seven years old, so there was no way that he was going to remember that much about the n.


    Either way, for now, Eiro had to make sure that Tin enjoyed himself. He looked at the Goliath, and threw him a belt from his treasury, "Here, use this to make sure that arm doesn''t bother either of us anymore."


    The Goliath grinned and picked the belt up, using it to tightly tie his arm to his torso, so that it wouldn''t swing around in a bothersome way. But even then, he could still only use one arm to fight now. Not that he seemed to mind too much. Tin pushed his fingers into the grooves of the pir and practically hooked them in, before he started swinging it around, just as easily as before.


    "Lemme show you a nice trick there, small one!" the Goliath eximed, "This is something that I didn''t want to show so early, but it''s clear that you deserve to see it!"


    With a broad grin, Tin swung the pir forward, but it waspletely out of range. He twisted it around his body again and again, until suddenly, the speed of the pir increased at an incredible speed, too fast for the regr person to even see. However... Tin wouldn''t be able to hit Eiro with that from there. Was he nning on throwing it? No, that didn''t seem to be the case at all. His fingers aren''t twitching like he''s about to let go. Rather-


    Eiro''s train of thought was interrupted as he realized something. A certain connection. The shape of the pir. Something started to make sense.


    The reason why Krog had awakened to his Giant Blood while hitting Tin. It was like some sort of ripple, because Tin had also awakened to the blood of his giant ancestors. And what he used to fight wasn''t a specially-crafted pir. It was a part of something much, much bigger. An object passed down generation by generation by the goliaths, something left over from the giants themselves.


    It was a handle. The handle of a sword wielded by one of the giants. Eiro could feel some power flowing through that object, and whta was about to happen became clear.


    The Demon felt it on his skin, the air shifting around arge object that was approaching him. The whistle of the de rushing toward him at a high speed. Immediately, Eiro twisted his body around. Infusing himself with air to that extent would be too slow and could end up having an adverse effect with something at this size and speed, so he had to react physically, which was quite hard as well.


    The sh was quick, not quick enough for Eiro''s mind not to realize what was happening of course, but too quick for Eiro''s regr physical reaction speed. The signals from his mind wouldn''t reach his limps fast enough. So instead, Eiro manipted his mana, something that he could do basically as fast as his mind could think.


    Eiro had absorbed the magic of quite a few magic stones into his body, including that of the lightning element. If that de hadn''t suddenly moved so unrealistically quickly, then Eiro would have been able to do this all with ease, but now, he had to use lightning magic to signal every single muscle in his body separately to move in a specific way.


    And just like that, Eiro jumped into the air just high enough to not be hit by the invisible de created by Tin, twisting around through the air.


    As the de passed by, Eiro noticed some more aspects of this weapon. If he had been hit by it, it wouldn''t have killed him, despite slicing right through him. It was there, but it also was not. It was a sort of magical attack, something that was going to get rid of a huge chunk of life force despite leaving Eiro''s body mostly intact, except for arge cut that was going to form all around the cross-section where he would have been hit.


    But even so, it was a crazy attack. As Eironded back on the ground, and Tin stopped the movement of his pir, the two looked at each other for a few moments. They were the only two people here that really knew what had happened.


    Sure, this was an attack that could have killed Eiro if he didn''t have the amount of life force he had, but obviously Tin had a rough idea of how strong the Demon was, and as such expected him to be able to dodge, or to at least be able to defend against it somehow.


    But even so... it was still an attack that nearly could have fatally injured Eiro. Slowly, Eiro could feel something happen to his own face. His light frown was turning into a broad smile.


    It''s been a while since he''s had a fight as exciting as this.


    Eiro touched his hand to his chest, and manipted the chaos of his armor, as he spoke again, his voice clearly showing how much he wanted to continue this fight, "Sorry, I don''t think I''ll be able to hold back anymore...."

 Chapter 561 - Giant Mass Of Magic

    "You''re still holding back? Although you were able to dodge that just now?" Tin asked with a wry smile on his face, "How terrifying."


    "Terrifying? Says the guy that can use a basic swordsman ability like sh with a giant''s sword."


    "Haha, I figured you''d be able to tell. But well, I guess I don''t gotta hide it anymore then, huh?"


    The two men stood in front of each other, both ready to attack the other. Tin grabbed the pir, and swung it over his shoulder, using the giant invisible sword that was being created through one of Tin''s awakened giant abilities to vertically sh at Eiro. Of course, the Demon quickly moved to the side, avoiding the unseen de. It did crack apart the rock in a straight line between Eiro and Tin though, where the sword actually impacted with the ground.


    Immediately after dodging, Eiro pushed his foot into the ground and forced his body forward at Tin. However, the Goliath was able to easily swing the pir back at the direction where Eiro wasing from, once more using the ''sh'' ability that he had used earlier in order to nearly instantly elerate the sword to an incredible speed, just that this time Eiro was able to anticipate the usage of this ability, from the slight twitches at the sides of Tin''s eyes, the same twitches that happened when he used this ability earlier. It was really just something minuscule, but it seemed to be something that only happened when Tin used certain abilities, and the Demon would certainly make use of this knowledge.


    He threw himself down just in time, speeding himself up by creating a gust of air above him, and pushed himself off the ground with his free hand once the de had passed over him. Due to his forward momentum, Eiro had been slightly sliding over the ground during the dodge of that attack, and now he was close enough to reach Tin again.


    However, now, he mmed the pir down at Eiro, seemingly without using its ''sword form'', simply making use of a regr attack as Eiro came into range for it. As the Demon twisted his body to avoid said attack, he pushed his own body up by quickly forcing up some of the rock underneath him, quickly shooting him up into the air above Tin.


    Creating a barrier using arcane magic right above him, Eiro now had a surface to kick off of easily, and shot back down at Tin, who used the momentum and weight of his pir to pull himself away from where he was going to be attacked, while at the same time hoping for a counterattack. Hisbat sense was certainly amazing, but obviously, Eiro already figured out any and all ways that Tin could react to his attacks. If he wanted to, Eiro could probably win this fight in an instant from now, considering the versatility and power of his abilities, but he simply didn''t want to do that. Eiro was quite enjoying this fight, so he didn''t want it to end prematurely.


    And so, Eiro had created another barrier that he could kick off, changing his direction mid-air. He twisted around so that he was moving forward with his feet in the front, and before Tin was able to push his pir toward his chest to block this, Eiro already impacted with his chest.


    The two of them locked eyes, as Eiro instantly kicked Tin away from him, increasing the raw damage from that impact even more, while throwing the goliath away and destroying his bnce. Eiro, however, simply flipped over and soon casually stood there, while Tin was clearly trying to figure out what to do in order to not loose his footing when hended back on the ground.


    Currently flipped over, and only able to use one of his arms at all, Tin swung the pir downward and made it hit the ground. Using that impact, he was able to slightly control his movement. He swung around and twisted his pir with the strength in his wrist, so that he could turn himself around and change his own momentum, and soonnded on the ground, sliding backward but facing Eiro.


    Immediately, in order to conserve the momentum as much as he could, Tin pushed himself forward again, and used another swordsman ability, which was quite a bit more advanced than the one from earlier, together with the invisible giant''s sword. He pushed his pir forward, and Eiro could feel shifts in the air as a flurry of attacks reached him.


    It was an ability given by an advanced swordsman ss called ''Multi-attack''. By using mana as a conduit, you were able to multiply the path that your weapon was taking. Other advanced sses had this ability as well, but it was usually fine-tuned toward the ss they had. Depending on how powerful the user of said attack was, this multi-attack could show itself in the form of creating two or three parallel shes at the opponent, or like now, cause dozens of stabs to appear randomly in the air, all aimed at the same target.


    Of course, when used with such a huge, dangerous weapon, even Eiro had to be careful not to be injured too much. Sadly, he wasn''t able to see exactly what abilities his opponents had, so his superior deductive abilities were useless in regard to something like this. Of course, Eiro had considered that Tin might have this ability, but he also considered that he might have a couple dozen other abilities, and it was impossible to prepare for all of them to the same extent.


    But even so, although this attack was quite dangerous even for Eiro, it was nothing that he couldn''t deal with. While he couldn''t see the attacks, he could sense their approach through the movement of the air and the sound that they let off, as well as the faint auras that these attacks gave off. Most of the attacks were slightly dyed from each other to make it harder for Eiro to dodge everything at once, but that made this just more exciting for the Demon.


    Eiro jumped forward and rotated his body in a way where he would avoid the attacks with minimal effort, but then... Tin did something else that Eiro found quite exciting. And that was that he used sh while this multi-attack ability was still being executed.


    He swung his pir to the side, and suddenly, all of the attacks created by that ability changed their direction, no longer moving forward, but shing to the side as well. They all moved in the same direction, but that didn''t make this much easier. Eiro was currently in the air, trying to dodge the stabs, so these incredibly fast shes on top of that? That made this a bit more troublesome.


    Eiro pushed the air out of his lungs, and manipted the air that was around him to an extent. If he had his wings out, this would be easy, but now, he could only use magic in order to change his momentum.


    But luckily, through the use of air and gravity magic, as well as more lightning magic in order to send subtle signals to specific muscles of his body like he did earlier, Eiro was able to dodge all of the attacks. And when this flurry was over, Tin stood there, clearly exhausted by using his abilities in this manner. Or at least, he was slowly growing exhausted, even if he wasn''t fully there yet. But Eiro? He was fine. His breathing wasn''t elevated in the slightest, he wasn''t sweating, and his heartbeat stayed the same as well. Just from this, it was clear that Eiro had the upper hand in this fight.


    "Ah, it''s over already?" Eiro sighed with a disappointed expression, "Seriously, I really enjoyed this fight." The Demon said to the Goliath, who looked back confused.


    "What do you mean? You givin'' up or something?"


    "Hm? Nah, my preparation is ready." Eiro said, slowly pointing upward. It was something that nobody had seen, since it was so up in the sky. Everyone was focused on the fight that was going on in front of them, and only when Eiro pointed it out did they realize that there was something high in the sky.


    It was a magic circle, far, far above them. But even then, it had an impressive size. Tin was unsure how high up this was exactly, and howrge this magic circle was, but one thing was for sure. It wasn''t going to be pretty.


    "Your giant sword was actually kind of cool, so it inspired me to make this spell real quick, you know? Here, let me activate it." The Demon said, before quickly speaking the chant that he had created for this custom spell. Of course, he said it in the ancientnguage, "Oh great spirits and ancient giants alike, let me borrow your powers for this spell. Come together,bine. Fuse, and be one. I gift you this tool, this weapon of valor, to cut apart your enemies. This sword, capable of cutting everything, only to be wielded by the greatest and mightiest." Eiro chanted. It was a long chant, at least considering the spells that he himself usually used, but it was to make sure that all the mana and materials were being umted correctly, especially considering theplexity of the spell and the different materials that went into it.


    Eiro was pulling water and fire from their respective realms, and asked Gondos to pull rock from the realm of earth at the same time. The water froze into ice, creating the de. The ice fused with mes, creating the powerful edge of freezing fire. The rock turned into the handle, fusing with the ice to hold everything together.


    The air around the giant, truly enormous sword that was being created practically disappeared, creating a shell around the de itself that kept the frozen mes tightly to the edge, sharpening it even more.


    And then, that de fell from the skies, the moment that Eiro''s chant finally stopped. It was clear that it was falling, but it was taking quite a while, even longer than anyone had thought, since the magical sword was much, muchrger than they tought.


    But soon, it came close. It was about to impact with the ground, destroying not only Tin, but potentially this whole ind. At least, that was the case if Eiro hadn''t stopped the falling sword with any magic that he needed, while making sure that the sword was properly kept together. The air that was pulled down together with the sword created a cloud of dust around the whole area where Tin and Eiro had been fighting, and the moment it settled, it became clear that one individual had won this fight between these two champions, and that despite all their efforts, Eiro once more showed that there was a clear distance between him and the other champions.


    Eiro stepped forward with a light smile, while the tip of the giant de was hovering just an inch away from Tin''s forehead. The Demon raised his right hand, and let out a wave of arcane magic at the weapon that he just magically created. It enveloped it all tightly in one more shell, as Eiro cast another spell, using the arcane magic to create the array of magic circles while speaking a simple chant, just whispering it into himself.


    And then, with a single snap, with immense amounts of magic, this sword that had been somethingrger than anyone here had ever seen, slowlypressed down into something smaller. In that moment, not only Eiro''s leftover crystal of mana, but also the one that had reformedst night, both shattered at the same time, leaving Eiro with a hollow feeling in his chest. But it was worth it, although this whole thing took more than two million mana from Eiro.


    After all, he was now left with a rather interesting new weapon, a greatsword created frompressed magic, each taken from the elemental realms, as Eiro removed the air around the edge, as he now had arcana magic to keep it in shape instead.


    Eiro made the de float up to his hand, as he closed it around the grip before throwing it over his shoulder with a light grin on his face, "Really.... this was incredibly fun."

 Chapter 562 - Questions After The Fight

    Eiro stood there, waiting for the emptiness of the forced removal of that much mana from within his body to disappear. It was really an ufortable feeling, but something that was quite worth it. This was the best chance that Eiro had to truly test out the limits of his magic. However, due to the sheer amount that he had lost, he was feeling quite dizzy at the moment. His pupils were dting as well, and his body experienced cold shivers.


    Trying not to let this fact be seen by others, Eiro looked at the man in front of him, who was simply staring back at him, baffled.


    "That was..." Tin muttered, as he pressed the pir he was holding onto into the ground, before a broad grin could be seen on his face, "...fuckin'' amazing!" He yelled out, followed by a loud, annoyingugh. Eiro rolled his eyes as he took a few steps forward, pressing his hand onto Tin''s arm. With the rest of the mana that he had leftover, he could heal a wound like this easily. It wasn''t like it was one that was too tough to heal anyway, and Nelli was there to help him out as well.


    Then, without another word, the Demon stepped away. He had calmed down after that fight as well. But Tin still had something to say to him, "Oi, wait a second! You said ya didn''t want me to bother that friend of yours, and your kid anymore, right?"


    "I remember my words quite well. What about it?"


    "Why?"


    Eiro looked back at Tin with a confused frown, "Why? Did you seriously just ask me that?" The Demon asked, getting somewhat annoyed, "We''re talking about my family here. Why would I want a fucker like you to bother them? And the fact that you were so pissed off earlier shows me that you wouldn''t have stopped bothering them either." Eiro said, clicking his tongue, "Truly, that''s why I hate people like you."


    Tin stared at Eiro with an angry frown, "What''d you mean, ''people like you''?"


    "People like you, that don''t bother to use the brain that they''ve been given at birth. There are so many people that can only think in ck and white, in good and evil, in ''you'' and ''me''. Why does heritage matter, huh? Would you kill the infant child of your enemy, huh?" Eiro asked, annoyed. He was quite easy to agitate because he wasn''t feeling well, so he might have snapped a bit although he was trying to get closer to Tin. However, Eiro didn''t have much time to calm down, as he was soon approached by the Baram warriors.


    "That sword! Did you summon it from elsewhere? How were you able to turn it so giant?" They asked, while the little hero was still standing in their middle, staring at Eiro, basically as if he was able to see through his disguise and right into his soul, seeing the man that had caused his death in a former life. It was that kind of stare, but Eiro of course knew that this wasn''t the case.


    Still, kind of annoyed, the Demon let out a deep sigh, "No, I didn''t summon it, I just made it." Eiro exined bluntly, "I summoned water, mes, and earth, and thenpressed and shrunk it down with the help of a few different types of magic."


    "What?! Don''t joke with me! You say you summoned water and mes? The only spirit that was up there was that Golem!" One of the other mages eximed. If Eiro remembered correctly, he also formed a contract with some spirits. Two of them. A Sylph and a Golem, spirits of air and earth. But they were clearly the original sort of contract, not the kind that Eiro had formed with Nelli, Gondos, and Sarius.


    "Yeah, so?" Eiro replied with a slight sigh, "Who says I need to use spirits in order to summon those things?" He said bluntly, and the mage stared at him confused, "H-Huh? What?"


    Eiro snapped his finger, since he didn''t want to bother exining. His n was to put his abilities out into the open in the first ce at this point. They were rather impressive, after all, so that would just increase his standing amongst these people even more. In the future, Eiro needed their trust to the point where he would have the chance to steal the aspect that makes this kid the ''Hero'', and for that he needed to get close. He needed to be the main person that they would have teach the hero in the future.


    Beside him, his three contracted spirits appeared, and Nelli quickly began to exin, "You see, our dear Eiro has been blessed by multiple Spirit Monarchs over the years, and haster been appointed the guardian of two separate spirit gateways, allowing him to ess those elemental nes without our interference." She exined with a slightly smug expression, before Sarius slightly raised his hand, "Ah, I''m the future Smander King, by the way. Just wanted to put that out there. That makes it kinda more believable, right?"


    "S-Smander... king?" That spirit mage looked at Eiro with a confused expression while the Demon was simply tiredly yawning. Soon, the mage put mana into the air, and used it as a conduit to summon his spirits. However, he did something interesting.


    "Oh Morganus, oh Gigantia, I summon thee." He said with a somewhat awkward expression, and two masses formed beside him. A female Golem and a male Sylph quickly appeared right beside him, "Huh? What is it?" The Golem asked somewhat annoyed, before she spotted Eiro. Her eyes opened wide in surprise, "Huh? This guy, what''s with his affinity for the earth? You, won''t you-"


    Before the Golem, Gigantia, was able to finish speaking, Gondos quickly intervened and floated in front of her, "He already has entered a contract with a Golem. Please do not continue those words."


    "Huh? What''s that, you little kid? You tryna fight?" She replied immediately, but Gondos simply stayed floating there. Gigantia looked past him and stared at Eiro, "I''ll even make you a good deal for a contract..."


    "Better than an equality contract? I doubt it." Eiro scoffed slightly, and Gigantia immediately froze up, slightly turning toward the mage, who was trying to understand Eiro''s words.


    "An equality contract? What do you mean?" He asked, confused by what his contracted Golem was speaking about, and Eiro lightly smirked, "Oh, you see, the contracts that spirits usually enter with people is one set in extreme favor for themselves. Basically, you''ve been scammed." He exined, "Anyway, you heard it, right? They exined it."


    The Baram warriors stared at Eiro, unsure what to say. Eiro didn''t sense any particr spirit magic around these parts, so he doubted that they knew what to say exactly. But one of them did step forward and looked at Eiro, "Is it in any way possible to transfer the ownership of these ''spirit gateways'' to others?"


    The Demon looked back at the warrior, and locked eyes with him for a few seconds, before simply chuckling, "Nah, sorry, not possible. First of all, I''m not the ''owner'' of these things anyway, I''m their guardian. Their protector. The one that ''owns'' these gateways is this world itself, so if you want to have some, gotta ask them yourself. And beyond that, these ones are fused with my soul, so sorry about that."


    "Huh? With your soul?" The warrior asked, "Why would you do something like that? Isn''t that dangerous?"


    "Well yeah, of course it is. If I''m not careful, my soul is going to be ripped apart when I die, but well, that''s not that big a deal. I think." Eiro pointed out, "It''s probably gonna be quite painful though. Anyway, yeah, that''s how it is. Anything else you wanna know about all this?"


    "Yeah..." The transmigrated boy, the one blessed by the god of magic, started to speak, "How much mana did it take to create that?"


    The moment that he asked the question, everyone else stared at Eiro as well, since they wanted to know too. The two summoned spirits already had a rough idea of the sheer amount of mana that he had, but even they were only able to see the leftover mana that was spread out throughout his soul.


    "Erm... In terms of mana points, two million, one-hundred-thirty-seven thousand, four hundred and eighty-nine." He said bluntly, "But don''t worry, I''ll have it recovered by tomorrow. Just need some potions and a nap."


    "T-Two million... two million mana, you say...?" All the mages gathered here werepletely baffled by what Eiro had told them. That number was absolutely ridiculous. It wasn''t something believable in the slightest. But... that was the only exnation for the fact that Eiro had been able to create something like that all on his own.


    "Anyway, shouldn''t the next fight- erm, ''spar'', begin now?" Eiro asked, slightly scratching the back of his head. The Baram warriors of course nodded their heads, but also stared at Eiro, "We will need you to apany us further after this session is over, however. We have a few more questions."


    "Ah... yeah, I figured so." The Demon replied quickly, "I''ll reply to anything that I want to answer." He said bluntly, and proceeded to step past everyone, although he was of course quickly followed by plenty of the mages. In particr, that boy was quite interested in what Eiro could say to him. It seemed like this was thest straw that convinced him to work together with Eiro, something that he was quite d about.


    For now, Eiro answered a few more questions, simply being open about certain things, of course only limiting it to some certain details.. There were plenty of things that Eiro didn''t, and won''t, give away to anyone anytime soon.

 Chapter 563 - Meditative Contemplation

    As the rest of the spars continued, Eiro sat down for some meditation, creating fluid tracks for his mana to follow so that he could increase his natural mana regeneration. Just this was making him feel a lot better than earlier. And, with the excuse of having to concentrate on his meditation, Eiro could avoid further questioning from the other mages about how he attained these magic based abilities. He had expected that something like this would happen once he revealed this information, but that didn''t make it any less bothersome for him.


    "Seriously, why''d you have to reveal it now? You were already in a shit mood anyway." Sarius pointed out, and Eiro quickly replied, conversing telepathically with his contracted spirit, "Oh shut up, it''s fine, isn''t it? They would have found out sooner orter anyway, since I summon water and fire from their nes all the time. Since they know how, and since they know that it''s something unachievable for them, I won''t have to bother with them asking me to teach it. That, and it makes me a more unique asset."


    "Urgh, why do you keep saying that? It''s not like they''ll throw you out if you''re not impressive."


    "I disagree. There is no reason to keep someone around that is basically the lesser version of someone else. At least from their perspective. Sure, they won''tpletely throw them away. They''ll still be part of the party that will travel to take care of the Monster King''s army, but they probably won''t allot any teaching time to people unnecessarily." Eiro exined, "And the higher range of abilities I have,bined with the fact that I''m an instructor at the most reknown academy on the continent. And the more unique my abilities are, the greater the time I''m allowed to teach that child will be." Eiro exined quickly, and Sarius stayed silent. Instead, Gondos replied.


    "But why do you even want to teach him so badly? With your abilities, all you need is to know where the hero is once he awakens, and with your growth, in seven years certainly nobody is going to be able to stop you from stealing the aspect. So why?" The Golem asked, and Eiro stopped for a moment. Gondos was right, and Eiro certainly considered that. But... "This kid is currently being raised as the hero. He will continue being raised as the hero. And I will take that from him. He''s thest hero that will ever exist. Just how the ''Sage'' is no longer a thing, neither will the ''Hero'' be once it bes part of me. The least I can do is give him the tools to make up for what he lost." Eiro pointed out, as he slightly opened one of his eyes, looking at the young hero sitting curiously on a rock next to the warriors, watching the rest of the spars, although they probably seemed a little boring after Eiro and Tin''s fight just now.


    Eiro had a weak spots for kids like this. Sure, the hero was a bit bratty and conceited for his age, but that was to be expected. His whole life, he was raised being told that he was something special, the greatest warrior of the people. A kid his age would love that, and wouldn''t forget it too quickly either. Although, Eiro should probably make sure that, when he was given the chance to teach him, he humbled the kid a bit. Not in an aggressive way, of course, but just to make sure that he didn''t grow up into an annoying, bothersome adult.


    And there was something else as well. When looking at the kid hero, Eiro was feeling a subtle vibe, something simr to when he recognized someone else having a card. There was someone here that apparently had a card, but they were suppressing the vibe given off by it with some other items, so Eiro was going to figure out more things about itter. He first needed to know which card it was in the first ce.


    Either way, the vibe that the kid hero was giving off was something else. Eiro was instantly recognizing him as the hero, beyond the fact that he was told that this kid was him. But he wasn''t sure if that vibe was something that everyone experienced, so that the hero was given a basic level of respect by others on his travels, or if this was a thing because Eiro''s soul held the splinter of the Sage. He could feel something simr off Avalin, though since it was mixed in with the holy energy she constantly gave off, Eiro didn''t realize it until he felt something simr from this kid.


    Maybe the sage left within him felt regret for causing the hero''s death in the past, or maybe Eiro was just tricking himself into that sort of mindset because he was reminded of his daughter. Either way, it did affect Eiro''s decisions to an extent.


    There was another issue with that ''vibe'', though. If it was something that he could feel because of the splinter of the Sage within him, then it was very likely that the kid hero was able to recognize others with such splinters as well. It could be another reason why he seemed so interested and infatuated with Eiro, and most importantly, it meant that he might recognize that Avalin held a splinter as well.


    "I''ll have to keep an eye on the kid..." Eiro thought to himself. He should probably attach some kind of servant to himter, just to know everything that''s going on with him. Having a little bit of insight into the way that the Baram warriors handle things rted to the Hero and his party.


    Either way, for now, Eiro simply moved on, and kept looking inside of himself rather than focusing on the things around him. He wasn''t that interested in all these spars after all, so he instead spent this time reading some more, and developing new spells in his mental library.


    At the same time, he was thinking about the sword that he had just magically created. The only reason why he had been able topress it down that way was because it was madepletely of magice solid through the elemental nes. Magic could bepressed to an incredible degree, further than regr matter could. But that didn''t change the weight of the sword too much. Eiro would probably be able to wield it bybining magic maniption and his raw physical prowess, so maybe he should consider actually using it. After all, the sheer weight is going to rip apart anyone and anything hit by it, so it might be a good weapon especially when going againstrger enemies.


    However, since Eiro didn''t want to expend two million mana every time he wanted to do this, he had to figure something else out. Maybe he could make a lesser version, or maybe he could make a spell that would permanently hold this thing together. Right now, Eiro''s constant maniption of the arcane magic he enveloped the sword in was doing this, but that was going to get hard at some point.


    For now, Eiro would just keep on using arcane magic, while keeping the sword in his treasury in another specially created section, simr to where he was keeping the card of ''The Death'' sealed away, simply a bit more essible for his mana.


    It didn''t take too much longer for the rest of the spars to finish up, and so Eiro slowly stood up and stretched. He always felt a bit stiff after meditating and moving so much of his mana around. Otherwise, he felt a lot better, though.


    "Thank you for disying your abilities in this manner. For now, we will head back so that you can all rest for a while and enjoy yourselves. Later this evening, we will once more be meeting, however, with the guests you brought along as well. Simply to eat dinner together and enjoy ourselves, so that you can all get to know each other a bit better." One of the Baram warriors exined, and everyone seemed quite d that there wasn''t anything exhausting on their agenda for the rest of the day. Most of the people here weren''t that used to the extreme heat and humidity in this ce, after all.


    Well, neither was Eiro, but considering that he regrly bathed in boiling water, it was actually quite pleasant for him still. For now, therge group made their way back, while Eiro was riding on Lugo''s back, simply taking a short nap while leaning onto the stag''s antlers.


    "...Eiro, could I ask you a question?" Sometime in the middle of their return, Biril chose to talk to the Demon. Of course, since he was his friend, Eiro quickly opened his eyes, "Of course."


    "...How did you be so much more powerful since thest time I''ve seen you?" He asked, and Eiro slightly smirked, "It''s a secret I''ll let you in on soon." He replied quickly, locking eyes with the beastman, who slowly nodded his head, curious to here what this was about.


    "Oh, but don''t be mistaken, I''ve experienced excruciating pain every single second of every minute of every day for three months to experience that rapid growth. I don''t think you''ll want that. You can ask My friends, they''ve gone through something simr so that they could shoot up in power." Eiro exined, before whispering so that only Biril could hear him, "For now, just know that there is no need for you to worry. As far as I can see, amongst everyone here, you''re second only to me in strength."


    Biril widened his eyes surprised, "Wait, really? Do you mean it?"


    "Of course. I mean, some of the others might have unique abilities or higher stats, but you have incredible technique, physical prowess, and the determination to do everything to get even stronger. Most of the others here? They get conceited thinking that they''re already at the peak." Eiro exined quickly, while Biril looked over at the Hero.


    "I see. But the only one that can truly experience the peak is that boy, right? He is the one that will y the most powerful being alive, after all." Biril said with a slightly bitter smile, before Eiro looked at the beastman with a wry smile, "You know that the Monster King isn''t the most powerful single being alive, right?"


    "...Huh?"


    "He''s a threat because he can create and manipte monsters, of course on top of the ridiculous power that he does have as an individual, but the Monster King is by far not the most powerful being alive. He''s the greatest threat, but only because the others can''t be bothered to do anything themselves. The first demon... the great spirit emperor and empress... some ridiculous beings on other nes whose power you can''t evenprehend.... Compared to those guys, the monster king is just a little kid."

 Chapter 564 - Masters And Royals

    "Seriously? You think there are things out there even stronger than the demon king?" One of the transmigrators, the beast tamer, asked, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "Again, it''s ''monster king'', and yes, obviously I do. If the monster king was so strong, we''d all already be dead long before the hero can even reach maturity." Eiro pointed out bluntly, "The only reason that doesn''t happen is because there are groups of people out there that have reached heightsparable, or greater than, the hero at his peak. And that isn''t just exclusive to people. Everyone knows that magic beasts like dragons have a surreal amount of power, but you seriously think that a dragon that''s thousands of years old is going to be weaker than a little brat that''s been in power for a decade or two at best? Good one."


    "...But... Huh?" The beast tamer let out, "Then why the fuck are we here? Why aren''t we trying to get rid of all those other guys?"


    Eiro looked at the transmigrator with a frown and slightly sat up, "So you want to get rid of everyone that''s even remotely a threat to you? Sounding like a noble already." He scoffed, "Even if you wanted to, you couldn''t. Sure, not all of them are immensely powerful at individual battles, but... Let''s take a rather famous individual, Eliza Koperia." Eiro said, looking at Biril with a wink, to let him know that he shouldn''t reveal that this was the exact Koperia that he had also brought along to this ind. She never bothered hiding it, but Eiro didn''t want to deal with things that could happen when her identity was put out into the open.


    "So, she''s a necromancer, right? She has achieved a near impossible feat, and that is to get her death magic skill to master grade. There are only a few dozen individuals in this world with master grade skills, I''ll let you know. Through all that work she has done to achieve that, she has also studied numerous magical theories and became powerful in other sorts of casting on top of necromancy, so even as an individual, she''s far more powerful than anyone else here." Eiro exined quickly, "But a necromancer isn''t truly fearsome when you''re facing them as an individual. This woman, she has brought whole armies to ruin on her own. She kills one man, and makes him her undead servant. Then that undead kills another two, and she has three undead. And so on, and so forth. She has an undying army that grows during the battle, while her enemy''s numbers keep dwindling. Meanwhile, she''s sitting on her throne of death and bones and drinking some Argian wine."


    The beast tamer opened his eyes wide, "Then why ain''t she here? She''d be a big help, right?"


    "I can answer that question." One of the Baram Warriors that had overheard the conversation quickly stepped in, "Individuals like her... they do not care for this war, as if they aren''t people themselves. To this day, there has only been one Master that has joined the efforts of killing the monster king... and when they did, after killing said monster king before the hero even reached them, they famously said ''Ahh, how boring... maybe you can entertain me more'', just to turn and kill the hero themselves."


    Eiro slightly looked up into the sky and thought about what the warrior just said, and smiled wrily. Sadly, he had a rough idea of who he was talking about, and he was an individual that Eiro had ns of visiting in the next few years, "Well, not all of them are like that. Those that achieve master grade skills are obviously obsessed with that skill. There''s no other way to get there other than to be that obsessed. But yeah, don''t get in their way, because they will certainly kill you if you do." Eiro pointed out as he slightly looked away, while Biril was forcing himself to stare forward.


    "Erm, anyway... Masters simply don''t concern themselves with these manners. We can be lucky that they aren''t our enemies. Rather, them just existing is enough help already."


    "Yup." Eiro said, agreeing with the Baram warrior, "Without them, the royals and monster king would have already overrun this continent while ying around. You could call those masters the equivalent of royals. The peak of people, whereas royals are the peak of monsters." The Demon exined, before Bavet quietly whispered into the Demon''s ear, "Kinda bragging about yourself here a little, huh?"


    "Shut it." Eiro thought to himself, unable to answer the slime right now, as he instead kept his focus on the others.


    "Speaking of... what kinda masters are there?" Biril soon asked, trying to change the topic to other people, and away from Koperia as much as possible, and Eiro quickly replied, "Well... cksmithing, Alchemy, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Dagger Mastery, Stealth, Swordsmanship... Woodcarving, even."


    "What, woodcarving? What kinda dumbass would dedicate their life to something like that?" The beast tamer scoffed with a loudugh, just to be stared at intensely by everyone else. After all, the name of the master of carving was well known as well.


    "Oi, shut your fucking mouth." Eiro said with a deep re, "You don''t know anything about him."


    "That''s right..." The Baram warrior added, "That man... Jura, he is truly a wicked being... Apparently, he augments and creates monsters by carving wooden bodyparts for them, turning them into weapons for himself... He even was the one that saved the current Monster King from the former Hero''s wrath. Absolutely disgusting, that traitor."


    Eiro sat there, baffled by what the warrior just said. He turned his head toward Biril, who was once more staring forward nervously.


    "I- Are you a fucking idiot?" Eiro asked, looking at the Baram warrior, "I thought everyone here knows this, but Jura is my father. My name is Eiro Jura Daemonherz, I inherited his fucking name and his legacy." The Demon said in an annoyed, angry tone, as the Baram warrior looked back with a wry smile.


    "W-What a good joke that is... But please, don''t lie about things like that..."


    "I''m the owner of the Absolute Domain of Truth. I don''t lie." The Demon said bluntly, and the Baram warrior froze up, "I''m gonna tell you this one time, and one time only. If you ever say anything bad about Jura every again, whether I''m there or not, I''ll rip you limb from limb personally. He wasn''t some mad scientist, he was a prosthetist and healer, as am I."


    "A prosthe-what?" Biril asked with a wry smile, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he stretched his hand forward, "A prosthetist. He would travel the continent, finding injured people, animals, monsters... anything and anyone that needed it, and he would help them. He would make new limbs for war veterans, he would let those whose faces had been disfigured duringbat be recognized by their kids again, and he would help out random animals that got away from hunters. And you know what? Once I''m done with all this crap, once I''ve achieved my goal, do you know what I''ll do?" Eiro said bluntly, fully leaning back onto Lugo''s antlers, "I''ll settle down in a remote corner of the world and do the same thing he did. I''ll be a prosthetist. Even right now, I consider myself an adventurer, teacher, and prosthetist by profession."


    Everyone around the Demon that heard his words looked at him surprised. He was clearly the strongest one here, and he called himself a prosthetist? And then... the beast tamer looked at Eiro with a determined expression, "You can make prosthetics? Seriously? Like, proper, artificial limbs?" He asked, and Eiro slowly nodded, keeping his eyes closed.


    "Can you... help out one of my beasts?"


    ---


    The beast tamer had roughly exined the situation to Eiro, and some of the others that had overheard them talking were quite curious about Eiro''s words as well. And of course, if someone genuinely asked him for help with a prosthetic, Eiro couldn''t just turn them down. So, arge portion of the group had stopped at a ce where Eiro would be able to work, or at least take a look at the beast in question. There were those that weren''t interested of course, but the majority stayed behind. Of course, that included a portion of the Baram warriors, who were here to make sure nothing happened to these champions.


    "Alright, where is it? Are you going to call it here, or what?" Eiro asked, looking at the transmigrator, who slowly nodded his head. Eiro already expected this, but slowly, the beast tamer held his hand forward and closed his eyes. A cloud of mist appeared in front of him, and soon, inside of it, Eiro could sense the special space within the young man''s body. It was arge open field, with many different environments, filled with numerous different animals. It didn''t seem like there was a limit to the amount of beasts he could tame or store like this. Truly, the blessings of the gods seemed like cheats sometimes...


    Either way, what the Demon then saw in front of him was a pair of quite special beasts. Therger of the two was a bulking creature, a huge bear. It was a monster, of course. It was covered in a thick carapace like that of a bug, but also fur to an extent. And even when sitting on its back-end, it was still towering above everyone and anything else here.


    It was missing an ear and an eye, as well as one of its legs and arge portion of hide all over its back. And then, there was the other beast. It was a small monkey, the kind that could easily sit down on Eiro''s palms. It was clearly missing its tail, and half of its body was basicallypletely scorched away. Its left arm and leg were both turned into charcoal, but were still attached. It was quite sad, really.


    Eiro slowly stretched out his arm toward them, but the beast tamer tried to stop him, "Wait, they''re quite... aggressive..." He said, but was surprised by what he saw.. These beasts that even he had trouble taming due to their aggressive and untrusting nature, were calmly receiving Eiro''s touch.

 Chapter 565 - Bear Prosthetics

    "You two must have gone through a lot. I''m sorry." Eiro said with a light smile and a gentle tone of voice, as he slowly ran his hand through therge bear''s fur. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his mouth and nose, trying to figure out the best material for it.


    "Hm, some nice, dark cian should be good for you." Eiro exined, as he held his hand out to the side. Most of his treasury was cluttered with different types of wood at this point. Ever since there wasn''t a size-restriction anymore, he was able to do something rather neat. He could use something that Armodeus had made for him, making use of some of the items that he found in certain hidden spaces of the manor, while also using those hidden spaces themselves as a reference for his work, on top of the different magic stones that Eiro supplied to him. This was something that Armodeus worked on for months, using any amount of free time that he had. Ever since that huge delivery of different kinds of wood came in from Eiro''s old home, the Demon wanted to figure out a way to carry as much of it around with him as possible.


    And so, the upgraded material-kit was created. It was based off of the original, although that one in itself was still standing in a special spot in Eiro''s room, since it was the one that Jura himself used throughout the years.


    This one was not only equipped with a whole bunch of magical circuitry, but was also a lotrger than before. It was sorge that Eiro would barely be able to wear it as a backack when he put it on his back.


    With a small smile on his face, Eiro opened uprgest of the kit''s sub-sections, the one where all the wood was actually stored.


    Inside of it were 16 visible sections, each with a different type of wood inside of it. These were the mostmon types of wood that were used to make prosthetics, so it was always good to have them around, "There it is. Dark Cian. Hm... It might be a bit too light still. Gotta use a nice finish to fix that, then..." the Demon started muttering to himself, as he grabbed the block of wood, and quickly pulled it out. As it turned out, instead of just being a simple cube, it was a long pir of wood, even longer than the box would usually allow. Eiro didn''t even pull it out all the way, so the onlookers couldn''t even be sure how much longer it continued into the box.


    Either way, at some point, Eiro pulled out a carving knife, and used it to smoothly cut off the front of the wood, as if he was a baker cutting through dough. Eiro ced the wood to the side, and closed the section off again. Then, he opened up a smaller section filled with different vials. He slightly turned his head, continuing to mutter, "For a guy his size... yeah, this one should be fine." Eiro muttered, and pulled one of the vials out. As he opened up the other sections, he grabbed another small bottle, as well as a bunch of different tools.


    And then, he opened up thest section for now, which held a lot more small vials, all neatly stacked up in a row, still reaching deep into the box. Eiro pulled on one of the rows, and pulled the whole rack out of the box so that he could reach one that was further in the back.


    "Alright, I can get started." Eiro said, "This might take a little while though. I''m not a cleric, I can''t perform miracles, after all." The Demon said bluntly, as he first popped open the small vial with the seed inside of it, and dropped it into the ground.


    "Big guy, this is going to hurt for a second, but I''ll need you to trust me with this one, alright?" The Demon said, as he grabbed the bear''s arm. Using one of the tools that he was holding, he cut into it to draw blood. Of course the bear yelled out, and so did the small monkey still sitting on top of its head, but Eiro simply kept holding onto its arm, not budging despite the bear''s attempts to break out of the Demon''s grip.


    "Calm down, will you?" Eiro sighed, as he slowly rubbed his wooden hand over the bear''s arm. He was doing this to not only force mana but also life force out of the bear''s body, right into the blood that Eiro was trying to get from it. Of course, he healed the wound he created afterward immediately. It wasn''t really much more than a thin scratch anyway, though.


    The Demon then pushed said blood right onto the seed that he dropped into the ground, and was now controlling everything so that the seed was feeding off of the mana and life force inside of the blood while Eiro was using magic to elerate its growth.


    But for now, Eiro simply sat down, creating a barrier to sit down on with arcane magic, while everyone was watching. The Demon slowly closed his eyes and started to think about all the parts that he would need. It was basically just a blink though, before Eiro started to work. He pulled out the three of swords, and soon had ten rings around his fingers. The des connected to the rings through threads quickly fused with the different tools that Eiro hadying around him, as the Demon got to work. He quickly carved the block of wood into different pieces, carving them as close into the right shape already as possible. Soon, the wood was no longer recognizable as a unified piece, but instead could be seen as a bunch of pieces akin to that of a clock, or some kind of machination. But nothing that should be made out of wood, usually.


    However, the speed at which Eiro did this was incredible. Sure, he practically had twelve hands through the help of the three of swords, but using all of those tools to that level of expertise basically meant that Eiro was mentally processing the work that six, if not more, highly skilled woodcarvers had to do at the exact same time.


    It took about half an hour, but soon, nearly all of the parts that Eiro needed to fix up the bear had been finished. All except a few vital, important ones. Eiro walked over to the ce where he had grown that nt earlier, and quickly hooked onto a small bump that had formed on the ground. Since everything important happened underground, nobody could really see what Eiro had done earlier.


    But then, he simply pulled out theplex root system of the nt that Eiro had grown out of the ground. Roots so thick that they couldn''t have grown naturally in this amount of time. Eiro had specially manipted this seed to focus its growth on its roots, so that he could use them and their flexible nature of these particr roots for the rest of the parts.


    Eiro cut through them and quickly carved them down, creating thin strips and sticks out of them.


    "Okay. Ready to fix you up." Eiro said, looking at the bear, before he turned his head to the transmigrator that had tamed them, "Grab the monkey for a while." The Demon told him, as he opened up the vial of unknown liquid, manipting it with water magic. Of course, the beast tamer did as told, and grabbed the monkey for a while.


    And then, Eiro quickly made the beary downfortably. Or rather, he pushed it onto the ground in a way that would seem to befortable, without pushing it onto its injured back, since he needed to work on thatter as well.


    For now, Eiro slowly manipted the unknown liquid, the anesthetic, and applied it onto the unhealthily healed leg-stump. The Demon also quickly turned its head, "Also, just go over there and make sure it ''s calm. Cause even if it won''t hurt, it''s going to feel ufortable." He pointed out, and the transmigrator slowly nodded, and stepped over so that he could help the bear, but still see what exactly Eiro was doing.


    And then, Eiro simply got out one of his knives, and carefully cut into the bear''s stump.


    "Wait, why are you doing that? Aren''t prosthetics just loosely put over the stump..?" One of the onlookers asked. It seemed like they knew a little about them, at least. Eiro rolled his eyes, and pulled up his sleeve, revealing the ce where his skin hit his prosthetic, "Not this kind, bud. These are permanent. Well, semi-permanent. As permanent as a normal limb, I guess." Eiro pointed out bluntly, "Can''t have an animal I gave a prosthetic just around to lose itter, right? In the first ce, that would feel ufortable for the animal. With normal prosthetics, you would need to get used to them first."


    "...and you don''t with this one?" The same person asked, and Eiro smirked lightly, "Just watch."


    And then, Eiro continued cutting into the stump, removing certain parts so that he could create a proper base for him to put the prosthetic onto. He also had to remove a part of the leg that had splintered weirdly... it seemed like the leg wasn''t cleanly cut off, but violently broken and ripped off... Eiro actually felt kind of bad for this bear, for what it had clearly gone through in the past.


    The Demon quickly ced the removed parts to the side, and buried them under earth. He also used death magic to quickly make the flesh rot away, to properly bury it.


    And then, Eiro swiftly moved on to attaching everything. First things first, Eiro ced the base of the prosthetic onto the stump, and healed the specific areas a little bit so that he could make sure it was safely set in ce before he continued to work. It was something that Eiro started doing ever since he had changed the structure of his own prosthetic to make it easier to swap out with other parts. It just seemed to make the rest of the prosthetic fit in ce more safely.


    After that, he quickly moved on to adding all the other parts of the prosthetic. He created the base skeletal structure first, then adding the different strips and sticks made of the root, attaching it to specific ces to make the whole limb easier to move around once Eiro let the bear''s life force flow through it. That''s why he used the flexible roots, since they could be twisted in peculiar and useful ways.


    Once Eiro created the base, he quickly added everything else around it, as he started giving the transmigrator some instruction, "So, Dark Cian is quite resistant to rot and weathering and such in the first ce, and the method that I''m using considerably slows this down as well, but you need to make sure to check the prosthetics regrly, alright? Since you can''t really feel pain through one of these, if something breaks, nobody notices until its toote. And if you spot any rot or weathering, especially on the outside, you can just visit the closest prosthetist or woodworker to help you out with that, if you can''t find a way to contact me at least." Eiro quickly exined, as he finished up adding the outeryer to the bear''s leg prosthetic, the ''skin''. He had covered it with the liquid from that ss bottle, the wood finish that Eiro used specifically to make the wood''s color match that of the bear''s fur.


    And then, the Demon proceeded to heal the rest of the stump, before quickly pulling some life force out of the rest of the bear''s body to then fill out the prosthetic. After creating the proper flow, Eiro pulled and twisted the different parts a little to make sure that everything worked, and then pped his hands together, "Alright. Leg done. It''s going to take a while for the anesthetic to wear off anyway, so let''s work on the ear, eye, and back until then." Eiro said with a smile, as he stepped up to the bear''s head, all the whilst the transmigrator stared at him confused.


    "...You.... can do that as well?"

 Chapter 566 - Bear Prosthetics II

    "What do you mean, can I do that as well? Obviously?" Eiro replied with a wry smile, "What, you think I''d stop at the leg? Listen, a true prosthetist is someone that imitates life with their work. Theyplete their client by giving back what they lost. Just giving this guy a leg won''tplete him, will it?" The Demon pointed out as if it was obvious. The transmigrator looked back at him shocked, as Eiro scratched the back of his head.


    "But just so you know, while I can certainly make things look real... He''s not going to be able to see out of the new eye I give him, and I can''t miraculously give him perfect hearing. I''m not a healer or a doctor, so I can''t fix things to that extent." Eiro pointed out, but the transmigrator immediately shook his head, "No, don''t worry, this is more than enough. Thank you so much." He said bluntly, and Eiro lightly smiled, as he squatted down in front of the bear''s head, "This will be a bit more troublesome, but there won''t be any pain either, so don''t worry." The Demon whispered slightly, as he used more anesthesia to numb the area around the bear''s eye, as well as its ear, since he would be working on both at the same time.


    Once it was numbed, Eiro made sure to calm the bear down as much as he could by manipting its heartbeat and flow of blood, trying to make it a bit drowsy while he worked. Slowly, Eiro cut into the scar-tissue in front of the bear''s face, removing as much of it as possible. It seemed like there were some residues of the bear''s eye still left inside of its socket, fused into it through the scar-tissue. As if something bit out the rest of the bear''s eye extremely violently.


    Eiro clicked his tongue slightly, as he pushed his knife into the socket, trying to cut around the scar tissue, before slowly pulling the half-rotten piece out. If Eiro hadn''t removed this, it could have probably led to an infection sooner orter. It probably already affected the bear''s health quite a bit, but being a monster, its constitution was just good enough to hold out against the sepsis for a long time.


    For now, Eiro made sure to clean everything up, especially the dried-up sinew and nerves that had been connected to the rest of the eye stuck in the socket. Eiro couldn''t use the nerves, but by connecting the prosthetic eye to the sinew, he could at least make sure that it was able to move around in a natural way. Eiro was already using a special coating and some paint to make sure that the eye looked as real as possible, so if it just didn''t move around, that would ruin the illusion.


    And so, Eiro quickly connected everything up, and popped the prosthetic eye into the socket. He filled it with the bear''s life force, and moved on to the ear. To be able to properly attach the prosthetic, Eiro had to cut off the rest of the ear that was still there. It was basically just a thin strip of flesh anyway. It didn''t work as an ear anymore at all. The bear probably didn''t lose all ability to hear in this ear though, so that was pretty good as far as Eiro was concerned. That meant that he had to make sure the shape of the ear was just right, so that it could funnel the sounds into the ear canal properly, as an ear is supposed to do. There did seem to be a little bit of damage to said ear canal as well, but that wasn''t something that Eiro could fix with prosthetics.


    For now, Eiro simply added a base for the ear onto the bear''s flesh, and then quickly added the rest of the pieces, to make sure that the bear could slightly wiggle the ear as it normally would be able to, and so that it didn''t feel weird. Of course, it was covered in the same wood finish as the leg prosthetic, to make sure that it blended in a fair amount.


    "Perfect. And now, let''s take a look at the back." Eiro said, quickly moving around the bear. This part was a bit different. It didn''t particrly change how the bear was able to move around, and Eiro couldn''t really make a full prosthetic for it. Jura never really tried fixing these parts either, but right now... Eiro felt that it might be necessary. There were quite deep cuts in the bear''s flesh, and these wounds went further than just being normal scars. It was as if the bear had been skinned in these parts. The edges were too clean, especially considering the rest of the bear''s wounds.


    "Just out of curiosity, where did you find this guy?" The Demon asked the tamer, who quickly replied, "While traveling around west of the continent, I found this bandit camp. They had a bunch of monsters in cages, including these two. They were using them for entertainment."


    "Ah... That exins it." Eiro muttered. Monster fighting rings. The wounds to the bear''s leg, back, ear and eye clearly didn''te from the same sources. Arge animal must have ripped off its leg, maybe another bear. A rat or ferret could have gotten rid of its eye and ear, and its back... was disfigured by one of the people that captured it. The patterns told Eiro that the hide was used to make some sort of piece of clothing. It was quite disgusting, doing this to a living beast.


    With a slight frown, Eiro continued on, scratching the back of his head. He got up and walked back over to the box he had summoned earlier, before looking at the Baram warriors that had apanied the group, "I know this area is... sacred of sorts. Do you mind if I grow another tree here for a second?"


    "...We would prefer if not. This forest is quite well-kept by us."


    "I see. I''ll get rid of it after, don''t worry."


    "Then I see little issue." The warrior replied, and Eiro quickly nodded. He opened up one of the sections from earlier, and then quickly pulled out a vial with a small nut inside of it. After the nut dropped onto the ground, Eiro quickly twisted his hand around and created a magic circle to cast a spell on this nut. The Demon took a step back and watched as the nut sprouted into a sapling, and a dark cian tree suddenly grew in front of everyone here. Eiro quickly used a carving knife to pull the bark off the tree.


    "When I''m home again, I will nt a dark cian tree in my garden for a more permanent solution. Materials created immediately through nature magic like this are... subpar, to say the least." Eiro exined, "They''re generally weaker. Especially this bark wouldn''t usually be enough to rece that beast''s thick hide. As long as you give me a way to contact you, I''ll call you over once the tree has grown enough for me to harvest a proper recement."


    "...I don''t know how to thank you enough." The transmigrator said with a genuine, broad smile. It was clear that now not only the boy transmigrator was convinced, but he as well was ready to join Eiro and help him out. Clearly, this man loved beasts to an incredible degree. Now it made sense why he had been chosen by the God of Beasts.


    Eiro harvested all of the bark that he needed and then, using death magic, made the rest of the tree rot and fall in on itself. Eiro swallowed everything up with earth magic, so that it seemed like it was just never there in the first ce.


    The Demon cleaned the bark up a bit more. Luckily, the bark itself was dark enough to fit the bear''s fur quite well, and so, Eiro could use it immediately. Since it was on the bear''s back instead of its sides or stomach, he could use a fewrger pieces instead of having to figure out the way that the bear''s skin folded upon moving in different ways.


    For now, Eiro anesthetised therge area of scar tissue that had formed, and proceeded to cut it out of the bear''s flesh. It was like he was skinning it. But then, Eiro could slowly ce the bark onto the flesh, and fuse it together using healing magic. Of course, Eiro also pulled some life force into it to make sure that it was epted as a part of the body and didn''t cause any issues during the bear''s recovery.


    And then, Eiro was done with the first of the two patients. For now, to make sure that everything was fine, the Demon waited, and slowly pulled out any trace of the anesthetic out of the bear''s body and wounds.


    "Alright, first..." Eiro said, as he slowly pulled open the bear''s eyelids of the eye that he treated, and watched as it slightly twitched around together with the other eye, showing this fact to the others as well. Then, he slightly snapped his finger by the bear''s ear to watch the prosthetic ear twitch as well. Now, all that was left to be shown off was the leg. Eiro slowly helped the bear roll over and watched as it puts it weight on three of its legs.


    "Don''t worry, you can do it." Eiro said, slightly pushing down on the bear''s hip to force its other leg to touch to the ground. Startled, the bear turned its head, but seemingly slowly understood what was happening. Slowly, it walked forward, and the prosthetic leg responded properly, twisting and turning just how it was supposed to.


    With a grin on his face, Eiro ran his hand through his patient''s fur, d that everything worked properly. Sometimes there were creatures that simply didn''t ept this sort of thing. Their life force just rejected it them, practically. Eiro hadn''te across it himself yet, but Jura told him a few stories about it.


    "Then now that that''s done, let''s move on to this guy, huh?" Eiro said, looking at the monkey that was curiously climbing all over its bear-friend''s body, while said bair was rubbing its head happily at Eiro as if to thank him for his help, "I don''t need as much space for someone as small as him, so let''s return first. I think we should all rest a little." Eiro suggested, as he proceeded to quickly pack everything back into therge box, before cing it back into his treasury.


    And so, after proving that Eiro truly was a prosthetist by heart, this group returned back to the huts.

 Chapter 567 - Timing

    Once they finally got back to the champion-vige, the group sat down in the gathering area, where plenty of tables and seats were set up. Here, Eiro was going to work on the prosthetics for that little monkey. Overall, it was a lot simpler, just because of the small size of the monkey.


    "For you, let''s go with... some Limas." Eiro muttered as he moved his hand to the side, once more pulling the box out of his treasury. He opened the central section and pulled some wood out of it, once more splitting off a good section of the wood, although it was of course much smaller than before. And after grabbing a buch more of his tools, Eiro quickly got to work again.


    It really didn''t take as long this time, although Eiro had to make three different moreplex prosthetics. But due to the size, Eiro was able to quickly carve this light wood with a slight orange tint to it into the pieces that he needed.


    The main issue this time was the scorched flesh of the monkey''s body. It prated quite deep, so Eiro had to be a bit more careful if he wanted to properly help him. The transmigrator set the monkey down on the table in front of Eiro, and the Demon immediately got to work. Considering the area of the body that Eiro had to work on, this time, he anesthetised the monkeypletely so that it was asleep. That would make things a lot simpler to deal with, especially considering the frail nature of this small beast.


    The first thing that Eiro did was remove the scorched sections of the monkey''s body. The arm and leg couldn''t be saved anymore, as the monkey''s body had been in this state for too long for even high grade healing magic to do anything at all. Luckily the scorching didn''t go to any fatal areas, and only consumed a little bit of flesh on the monkey''s body, so Eiro could rece it quite easily with his prosthetics, although about a third of the monkey''s body would then be made of wood.


    Eiro used magic to stop the bleeding, making the blood flow in a healthy way around the wounds, and then quickly attached the base parts to the monkey''s body. Now, it had aplete torso again, but was still missing its limbs. This was the easy part, though. Since he now just had to attach the prosthetics to the wood part that he already fused with the monkey''s flesh, he could simply build off of that, and construct everything quite quickly. And after letting the monkey''s life force flow through the prosthetics, Eiro carefully flipped its body over and started to work on the tail. Eiro quickly created a cleaner section that he could attach the new tail to. If he remembered correctly, then the tail of this sort of monkey was quite long. It was a monster in the end, after all. It was about two meters long, a fact that even the transmigrator didn''t seem aware of.


    "It''s supposed to be that long?"


    "Mhm, it is." Eiro quickly replied, "The tail is actually quite tough as well, to the point where it''s harvested just for that trait because people believe that you can create a potion that increases one''s resistance stats permanently. It''s ridiculous of course, but it''s probably what happened with him. I''m guessing you found them in the same ce?"


    "Yeah... he was in that camp as well..." The transmigrator replied with a bitter expression. Eiro sighed, quite annoyed. The fact that they used both that huge bear and this little monkey for the same sort of fights was even weirder to him.


    Eiro let out a deep sigh, and quickly started to put the tail together, first fusing the base with the rest of the tail that was leftover, the one inch away from its base, and then piece by piece added the different sections, making sure that it was going to be agile enough to be moved around like the monkey''s true tail. Of course, it naturally just wouldn''t be as agile, being a prosthetic, but Eiro tried his best to make sure that it was at least close.


    And then, he added thest piece, and slowly pulled the monkey''s life force into the prosthetic tail. With a slight smile, Eiro slowly ced two of his fingers onto the monkey''s chest, and started to slowly pull out the anesthetics to slowly wake the small beast up. Eiro slowly leaned back and just waited, tapping his fingers onto his arm. Just a minute or soter, the monkey seemed to be waking up. It was struggling a lot more than the bear, just from how much of its body had been reced. It had gotten used to moving in a specific way, or rather, not moving around too much at all.


    Slowly, Eiro pushed down the monkey''s body so that it was forced to stand on its new leg, and soon it realized that it was able to move normally again. Its prosthetic tail was waving around wildly, and was even hitting the monkey itself, but it didn''t take long until it remembered how to move such a limb around.


    The Demon smiled lightly as the monkey was getting more and more used to its new limbs, before he turned toward the transmigrator, "Alright, my work''s done. It''s going to take them a while to really get used to it, though. And again, if there is some major damage to these prosthetics, just try and contact me somehow, and we can figure something out. Of course, if you happen toe across any other beast that needs my help, the same applies." Slowly, Eiro stood up and started to clean everything up, storing the material and tool box inside of his treasury again.


    Most of the people that came to watch Eiro work had gone away, and the ones that did stay were Biril and the three transmigrators. And from a bit of a distance, the little hero was watching what was going on as well, curiously staring at the monkey whose body was now partially made of wood.


    "So you truly are a ''prosthetist'', as you say. That is truly intriguing... so after this is all over, will you choose that as your ss?" Biril asked, and Eiro looked back at him for a moment, and slightly looked away, "If I get the chance to, sure."


    "Eiro." The beast tamer said, looking at the Demon and locking eyes with him, "After what you just did... What we talked about before... I will join you." He said in a clear voice, and Eiro just smiled.


    "Great, but let''s talk about it sometime else. We have some freetime, so I would like to spend it with my kids."


    "Hol'' up, you''ve got kids?" The beast tamer asked surprised, and Eiro immediately nodded, "Yes, I do. Why, does it seem surprising to you?" He replied, and the transmigrator slowly scratched the back of his head, "I mean, kinda. You look pretty young to me. How old are they?"


    "Four of them are 16, the other two are eight. Well, there''s another kid with us that''s part of our family. He''s 19 now." Eiro exined, although the transmigrators seemed rather surprised. The archer looked at Eiro curiously, "Erm... are you... not human? Do you age differently?"


    Eiro smiled lightly, "Well, I won''t answer that question. But what I can say is that they''re adopted. They''re not rted to each other either."


    "Huh..." She replied quietly, as Eiro started making his way over toward where the kids seemed to be right now. Although, there did seem to be a bit of trouble going on over there. Annoying trouble that Eiro thought he had already dealt with.


    "Kid. You''re a Goliath, ain''t ya?" Tin looked at Rudy, towering over him with crossed arms.


    "Erm... yeah, I am... and so are you, right?" Rudy replied, for the first time seeing a full-blooded Goliath. Of course, he spent plenty of time around Krog, but he was only a half-goliath. This one, on the other hand, seemed to have truly grown up in the Goliath n, judging from his appearance.


    "I am. But-" Tin started, although he soon felt a crushing pressure covering his body. He turned around, and saw Eiro slowly approaching. Able to tell that Eiro clearly wasn''t happy, the Goliath immediately shook his head, "Wait, wait, you''re wrong, I''m not trying to bully him or anythin''. Just... trying to figure somethin'' out."


    "And what is it that you''re trying to figure out?" Eiro asked, and the Goliath slightly frowned while looking at Rudy, "I was just gonna talk to this kid. Cause you know, you might''ve been right. No need to judge ''im too early, right? But now... this kid ain''t even got a birthmark. But just look at ''im, he''s definitely a goliath."


    "...I just wasn''t given one, alright?" Rudy replied with a frown, as Leon slowly tugged on his shirt, "What''s a birthmark?"


    "It''s something that shows that he belongs to a specific Goliath family. It''s given the moment that a child is born. Even that half-breed had one." Tin said with a frown, clearly talking about Krog, "If you''ve been born to two goliaths, there''s no way they wouldn''t have given you a mark. It''s not like it proves you''re a goliath itself. It proves that you''re the kid of yer parents."


    "Well, good that I didn''t get one. Because those guys aren''t my family. The only family I have is right here." Rudy said angrily, angrier than Eiro''s seen him in quite a while, "But it don''t make sense. You''re a fuckin'' goliath, you should have a mark!"


    "Tin, what did I tell you? Shut it, and leave my kid alone, alright? And if you swear in front of them one more time, I''ll make sure you can never swear again." Eiro said with a frown, pushing Tin away from his kids. Seeing that things wouldn''t go his way for now, Tin turned around and left with a loud groan, before Rudy spoke.


    "Dad... shouldn''t I just..? You know..?" Rudy said, and Eiro turned around immediately, "What? Are you sure?"


    "I... We have thought about it for a while. You said we can choose it ourselves... And with you as our dad, it won''t seem weird, and nobody is going to try weird stuff, knowing who you are, especially once you''re promoted in Skyhart."


    "Do you think now is the best time for that?"


    "Well, we figured now is the best time, really." Arc pointed out, "You know, with all those super powerful people around? It''s not like we''re all that impressive. Well, Sammy and Clem are, but Rudy and I, our abilities are kinda mehpared to that, when pushes to shove."


    "Yeah, and... you''ll help us out when ites to it, right?" Clementine added, "But.... I think we do all want to reveal our unique skills."

 Chapter 568 - Test Run

    "Hey, I need to speak to you." Eiro said in a blunt tone, walking up to the head warrior from Baram, the one that was in charge of everything here at the moment until Baram''s king arrived in a few days.


    "...Lord Daemonherz. Of course." He replied with a slight frown, clearly busy at the moment. Not that Eiro cared, "No need for that, just call me Eiro. Anyway, you know how I brought my kids along? Well, we''ve been keeping some secrets about them. They want to reveal it here, as a bit of a test-run. Because here, people will be less likely to freak out and stuff. And if they don''t feelfortable, we can still hide it when we go back home."


    "...And how does that rte to us? If they want to do that, they can go ahead." The warrior said with a deep sigh, and Eiro looked at him with a light smile, "You''ll understandter. But for now, I just want you to make a promise to me. Promise to me that no matter what you find out about them, nobody will try to rip them away from me. That nobody is going to try to use them as tools."


    Confused what Eiro was talking about, the warrior slowly stood up and walked over toward him, "While I can''t speak for what others will do, I can assure you that we won''t attempt anything in the name of Baram. After all, they are your children, and citizens of Skyhart."


    Eiro looked at the warrior and let out a relieved sigh, since he waspletely genuine in his answer, "Thene on with me, I''m sure you''ll want to see this. And I also want you there to make sure none of your subordinates try anything."


    "I truly don''t know what sort of secret you may be speaking about, but... if you wish, I will follow." The warrior said, quickly following the Demon outside the hut they were in. Eiro guided him toward where the others were currently, the central gathering area. There were a few people there anyway, and since Eiro called a few more people over, it was a bit more crowded than normal. If they were truly going to try and test how things would go when they revealed this information in Skyhart, then they had to have the guts to show their abilities off.


    And when they got there, the Demon quickly stepped in front of everyone, "Hello there, and thank you foring! I''ve called you here as a favor for my kids, as they would like to show something to you all. It''s a secret we''ve been keeping from, well, basically everyone. But now, they feelfortable sharing this secret, and so, we thought this was the best ce to do so. It''s really not rted to you all, so sorry if this bores you." Eiro exined quickly, pulling the attention of everyone onto the group even more. And then... he just sat down on a nearby chair, so that the kids could do this on their own. It was about their secrets, after all, and they were the ones that truly had to deal with this situation. So it made sense that they were the ones to take charge of this test-run.


    "Well, alright then, I guess I''ll go ahead and exin it, then! So, first of all, nice to meet y''all, although most of you probably just don''t give a damn. But well, to be blunt about it, the four of us have unique skills!" Arc eximed in a clear and blunt manner, "We were born with them, and they''re kinda shitty when ites down to it, but they can also be kinda neat, and all that stuff. Either way, as our dad already said, we''ll be using you as guinea pigs to test out what it''d be like to reveal this information to people we don''t particrly trust! Or know, anyway!"


    Immediately, the group that waspletely disinterested at first became quite rowdy. Usually when someone said they had a unique skill, it was quite hard to believe, but... they knew what their father was capable of. As they turned their heads, they could just see the Demon sitting there, casually waving at them, before attention turned back toward the four kids.


    "So, since I''m the oldest, and since my abilities are frankly the most boring, I''ll be going first. Oh, and I''m needed for Clem, so, yeah." Arc pointed out, "First of all, this is something I can''t really show off, but I have the ''Negative Emotion Resistance'' skill. Meaning, that I can''t feel sadness, fear, or anger. Or well, I can, but it''s harder to hit the threshold. It''s a weird one, anyway, but I''m feelin'' good all the time, so I don''t really mind." Immediately with that announcement, things became even more rowdy. That was certainly a skill that they''ve never heard of before, but... the fact that something like this existed in this young man was quite tough.


    While it might seem nice to not feel those emotions at first, there were of course quite bitter consequences connected to the situation, something that nearly everyone was immediately aware of. But they didn''t have much time to think about it, since just a momentter, Clementine stuck a dagger into Arc''s shoulder.


    "Ah, calm down, calm down, this is just to show off my second unique skill... ''Pain Resistance''. Basically, I don''t feel pain. So this? Doesn''t really hurt." Arc pointed out, standing there casually without even having flinched despite the fact that the dagger went quite deep.


    "Clementine, did you really have to go that deep..?" Sammy asked with a wry smile, and the young woman next to her smiled wrily, "I''m sorry, I''m just... kinda hungry, you know?"


    "So, while I''m the youngest of us four, I''ll be going next, since we don''t want Arc to bleed out. My name is Clementine, and I''m a healer! And rted to that, I have my unique skill." Clementine said, trying to stay cheerful although she was being distracted by the gashing wound on Arc''s shoulder. She pulled the dagger out and pulled up her sleeve, before slowly running her hand over Arc''s wound.


    Eiro could feel Clementine''s body go numb for a moment as a wave of pain rushed through her. The wound on Arc''s shoulder disappeared, and instead appeared on Clementine''s, in the exact same spot. Satisfied now that her hunger was sated a good amount, "My unique skill is ''Damage Eater''! I can heal basically every injury, but I have to take it on myself instead. And well... I get hungry for injuries sometimes." Clementine said, voicing thest part of it somewhat awkwardly, while the listeners went crazy over an ability like that.


    Sure, Arc''s abilities were interesting as well, but an ability that let you heal basically every wound there was? That was amazing, that was an incredible asset to have!


    Baram''s head warrior turned and looked at Eiro, now realizing exactly why he had asked him not to bother the kids when they were done showing their secrets off. It seemed like the other champions were all trying to jump up to get the chance to speak to Clementine, but they were quickly stopped. Not by the pressure that Eiro was giving off like aspected, but rather by a whole other force.


    "None of you really want to move even an inch, do you? You''re just here to listen, and do nothing beyond that." Sammy stepped in front of Clementine, the power of her voice reverberating through the air. Immediately, everyone stopped moving as ifpletely frozen. Sammy scoffed slightly as she crosser her arms, "This is my unique skill. ''Liar''s Truth''. Anything I say bes the truth, basically. So if I say... You all want to kneel to us... then that''s not a lie." She said with a smirk, watching everyone here immediately drop to their knees. The only ones that weren''t affected were Eiro and his group, since Sammy wasn''t referring to them in regards to this ''Lie''.


    The Demon chuckled slightly, watching as everyone was struggling to break out of her voice''s control. Some of them were doing better than others, the transmigrators particrly so, but for the most part, nobody could do anything against Sammy''s lies, even if they were just told casually. She didn''t even use her ss ability, or strain herself particrly much.


    "Erm... Sammy, can you let them move again? I need them so that I can show off my skills..." Rudy exined, and Sammy smiled at her younger brother, "Of course, don''t worry~! Everyone here had the ability to move freely in the first ce." Sammy said, using that phrase to set everyone free from her control. Even more than before, the crowd became excited. Sammy had manipted everyone here with ease. In war, an ability like this could instantly turn the tide.


    "I need someone to help me out with this one... Anyone that wants to can try to attack me. And go all-out, please." Rudy exined, and everyone was quite confused about what this kid was saying. Sure, he had arge build, but that didn''t mean that he had the ability to withstand an attack so easily.


    The first to understand roughly what was going on was Biril, who locked eyes with Eiro. The Demon quickly nodded his head, and the beastman warrior quickly walked up to Rudy, holding his weapon tightly in his hands, "I apologize, should I truly injure you."


    "Ah, don''t worry about that. It''s quite impossible." Rudy chuckled slightly, dismissing Biril''s worry immediately. He was confused, but the swordsman quickly swung his de at Rudy. He thought that Rudy had some sort of barrier-based ability, but to his shock, the de truly connected with Rudy''s skin. Of course, Biril tried to stop the movement of his de, but that was unnecessary. It had continued traveling, but only because the impact pushed Rudy slightly away. Overall, the impact of the sword didn''t seem to even draw blood. And then, the notification appeared in front of Biril.


    "Zero..." He muttered, slowly turning around toward the crowd, "I did zero damage?"


    The moment that Biril said this, everyone stared at the young man. Everyone here immediately knew what that meant. Usually, a ''zero damage'' notification was impossible. Notifications about damage only appeared when at minimum one damage point was dealt. So the fact that it said ''zero damage'' meant that the attack had the possibility to deal damage, but simply didn''t. Everyone, beside the transmigrators, was an experienced warrior. And with that single sentence, they realized that Rudy''s ability was the greatest of them all.


    Immediately, everyone stood up to try and see it with their own eyes, taking turns to attack the young man. Once everyone had enough, truly believing that it was impossible to damage Rudy, they were all incredibly excited.


    "You have an amazing future! Someone that can''t take any damage? Doesn''t that mean that you could single-handedly take down any opponent?!" One of them eximed, but Rudy simply scratched his cheek. He took the dagger Clementine was still holding away from her, and quickly walked up to Arc, who he knew he wouldn''t bother with this, "You know how even Clementine, a healer with that build was able to stab the dagger all the way through?" Rudy asked, as he pulled his arm back. Clementine had done it by simply carefully pushing the dagger in, but Rudy was going to stab Arc''s arm with all the force he could muster.


    But the moment that the tip hit Arc''s arm... nothing happened. It was simply stopped, and didn''t even scratch him.


    "That ability before was ''Perfect Defense''... My other unique skill is called ''Impossible Attack''... I don''t take damage, but I can''t deal it either."


    The excitement of the group immediately disappeared, turning into confusion instead. How was this fair? Didn''t that just make the kid absolutely...

 Chapter 569 - Embarrassing

    "...useless..." someone slowly muttered, "So you''re saying, you''re just absolutely useless in a fight? Urgh, what a shame..." They groaned loudly in response to hearing what Rudy''s abilities were. But Eiro didn''t care for that for now. He expected things to this extent, and Rudy was more than prepared for this sort of thing as well, so he wouldn''t interfere at something that just went to this extent. Rather, Eiro was paying attention to Tin, who had been listening to the whole conversation.


    While suppressing his aura and using stealth, Eiro walked past the crowdpletely unnoticed, soon standing next to the Goliath warrior.


    "You get it now?" Eiro asked, and Tin slightly flinched as he looked at the man now standing next to him, "...Get what?"


    "Why Rudy isn''t living in a Goliath Tribe anymore. You said it yourself, didn''t you? At birth, a goliath is marked with the sigil of their tribe. But considering that the needle couldn''t pierce that child''s skin, that wasn''t possible. But hey, they could look past that. After all, a goliath unable to pierce the skin of an infant? That meant this child was absolutely incredible, right? Everyone would have high hopes for a kid like that. And then, upon finding out that no matter what, that kid couldn''t even kill a bug on his own... all those hopes were shattered. You heard it just now, right?" Eiro exined to Tin, "He''d be considered ''useless'', especially to your people, who only care for the strength of the individual."


    "...So? Does that change the fact that he isn''t part of the n?"


    "Of course it doesn''t. But we also know that it changes everything else for you. You''re not an idiot. You actually seem to be quite smart to me. So don''t act like you don''t get what I''m trying to tell you right now." Eiro said somewhat annoyed, as he stepped back to his seat, when the rest of the group got to the point that Eiro knew he was going to be bothered with.


    It just needed a single moment. A single spark, to ignite the me.


    "...But... wouldn''t he still... make the best shield? He can''t be damaged, so if he''s taught some luring skills or spells, wouldn''t that make him the best tanker anyway?" Someone asked, and immediately, the opinion of the whole group shifted once more. In general, they immediately focused on the uses of these kids.


    Sammy''s and Clementine''s uses were obvious. They could manipte the enemy and heal the injured respectively. Having a fighter that couldn''t feel pain nor remorse was in itself something amazing too. They could fight forever without needing to recover things beyond physical exhaustion, and even then they could push themselves further thant anyone else. And as that one person just said, Rudy was the perfect shield.


    Immediately, someone stepped forward. It was a fighter from some south-western country on the continent, a quite small one. She was noble-born apparently, so she quickly stepped forward, "If you join the efforts of our country, then I promise, you will be immensely rewarded! All four of you! You''ll get whatever you want!"


    With that offer, the air around the group shifted once more. Everyone that had the power to do so tried to make offers to the four of them. Of course, the warriors from Baram itself were staying quiet in response to the head warrior''s promises, although it was clear that he was quite respectful.


    And so, to change the air right here once more, Eiro stepped in front of everyone. He grabbed the dagger that was in Rudy''s hand, and stabbed himself in the stomach. He then created multiple different daggers made of ice, blood and rock, stabbing them into different parts of his body. But not a single time did Eiro flinch. He didn''t blink, and kept up his gentle, eery smile.


    "The pain I feel is hundreds, if not thousands of times greater than what any of you feel. I''m the owner of the Five of Pentacles, the card of ''Absolute Perception'', but even then, I don''t care for simple things like pain. That I''m ruthless and don''t mind killing people must be something you all are quite aware of as well. I know you heard about me." Eiro said bluntly, as he pulled all the knives out of his body. Immediately, he made his wounds heal in sight of everyone standing in front of him, in an instant, bybining his natural regenerative ability as a demon as well as his healing magic, "I can use healing magic to instantly heal any wound Ie across, and as many of you saw earlier, I can even treat wounds that cannot be normally healed." The Demon exined, "And as you all saw earlier today, I can stop even the greatest impact on my body at will, with the greatest ease. And as for the fourth ability you''ve seen today..."


    Eiro slightly smirked, pushing his hands into his jacket''s pockets. He used both of his vocal cords for the most amount of impact, and to make him and his voice seem even more surreal to everyone affected. And with just a single word, Eiro made everyone feel the control over their own body dwindle even faster than when Sammy spoke earlier, "Kneel."


    As if the air shifted around them as Eiro spoke, the whole group could feel pressure on their body. At first, it might have seemed like Eiro used gravity magic, but all that Eiro did was once more boost his Charisma stat-ability with his legendary skill, to increase the power of his voice by many, many times. And so, it didn''t take long until everyone standing in front of Eiro was kneeling, but in a different way than earlier.


    Then, they couldn''t control their body, but their mind was still clear. They knew something was wrong, and were actively fighting against it. But now that Eiromanded them... with both their body in mind, they knelt. Out of fear for their lives. They simply had no other choice.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro took a few steps forward and squatted down in front of everyone, "Now do you understand? Of course, my kids are amazing. They''re the greatest, best, amazing kids out there and I couldn''t be prouder of them. But if you''re going to try to use them for your own gain, expect meto be there to retaliate, with the exact power that you all sought to use for yourselves." Eiro said with a sadistic tone in his voice. Obviously he was threatening and warning everyone, but at the same time, it felt like Eiro was practically asking them to do it. Asking them to try to use his children as tools so that he had an excuse to hurt or kill everyone that did so.


    "Dad... Could you stop that already?" Arc asked with a wry smile, "You''re kinda being embarrassing. I mean, I don''t care, but these three obviously do."


    Immediately, Eiro froze up and slowly turned around, seeing the expressions of his kids, who were standing behind the Demon, watching everything that he just did, "E-Embarrassing, you say?"


    "K-Kinda, yeah..." Rudy stuttered slightly, "Can you just back down for a bit?"


    "Em...embarrassing..?" Eiro muttered as he slowly walked away, dropping down onto the chair next to Arie again, looking at her with a worried expression, "Am I seriously embarrassing..?"


    "It''s not the word that I would have used... terrifying fits it better... but then again, you did raise them..." She pointed out, but Eiro was just staring at the ground perplexed, as he released the pressure that he made everyone feel. Slowly, they stood back up, still feeling the influence of the Demon lingering around. But when they saw the state he was in, after hearing how the four of them spoke to him... they were even more confused and scared.


    Eiro had stabbed himself a dozen times, spoke about killing others without remorse, and let out such a terrifying air that would make any toddler in the hundred mile radius cry out immediately... but they just called that ''embarrassing''?


    As everyone managed to collect their thoughts, Sammy and Arc both stepped forward again, "While that is the case... Our father is right. We''re not your tools. We''re not going to do whatever you want us to do. Rudy? He''s a great craftsman, it''s where his talents are anyway. He''s good at woodworking, leahterworking, cooking, smithing, and basically everything you can do with those damned hands. Clem? She wants to be a healer, a doctor, someone that can actively help people in need. But that doesn''t mean she''s going to want to risk her life for people fighting a neverending war that you all freely throw yourselves into." Sammy exined to them all.


    "And sure, while I''m nning on being an adventurer, I''m not going to be working under some random person just because they asked me to. I''m my own person, you can''t just use me however the fuck you want. And Sammy hopes to be a singer, someone to make people happy with her voice. Not someone that maniptes and controls them. Besides the times where she uses it to make me clean up my room, this is maybe the second or third time she''s ever used her ability on another person. For months, she didn''t speak a single word so that he should get used to her ability." Arc added, cing his hand onto his sister''s shoulder.


    "The only reason we said this today is because we''re sick of hiding this part of ourselves. Just like how dad is showing off his true abilities, so will we." Rudy said, before Clementine finished it off, "In the same way that he is working hard on bing the strongest he can be, all of us are going to be doing everything we can to be the best in what we want to do."

 Chapter 570 - Reveal

    After a while, the crowd slowly split up again, since the kids chose to return to one of their huts, and Eiro soon followed them as well so that they could speak about what just happened. Eiro opened the door and stepped inside, before the four of them quickly turned toward the Demon.


    "Everything alright?" He asked, and Sammy slowly turned away again, "It is. And it would''ve been alright without you doing all that as well."


    "Yeah, you seriously didn''t-" Arc added with a sigh, but Eiro quickly interrupted him, "Oh, I did. I''m still your father, and I know situations like that all too well. Those people are all in incredibly high positions in other countries, they have the ressources and power not to stop bothering you even if you tell them to. They''re all power-hungry, and bringing a few unique skill holders back to their country? Oh, that''s going to push them above others even further."


    In response, while the others stayed quiet, Arc rolled his eyes and said, "So? What tells you that they won''t bother us now, then?"


    "That they''re scared of me. Building up respect takes much, much longer, and is much harder than building up fear. They know not to bother any of us. Oh, and in regard to the Goliath, Tin, he-"


    "Dad, I really don''t care about him right now." Rudy replied immediately, "Just... could you please leave for a while? And please don''t listen in on us, we want to talk about something."


    Eiro looked at his children and slowly turned around, opening the door again, "Of course. Let me know if you want to talkter." The Demon said, quickly stepping out of the hut. Eiro quickly manipted his perception to make sure that he couldn''t perceive anything happening in that hut, and then quickly walked away.


    "Yikes... That was harsh. But you did kinda overdo it." Bavet pointed out, whispering into Eiro''s ear, but the Demon didn''t say anything in response. Right now, he was upset as is. Obviously not because of the children, but rather because he did something he clearly shouldn''t have done, or else the kids wouldn''t have reacted that way.


    "Eiro. Could we please talk?" The Demon quickly raised his head, seeing the head warrior of Baram walking toward him, and Eiro stepped up to him as well, "Sure. About what, exactly?"


    "About what just happened. First of all, you didn''t tell me that your kids had unique skills when you made that request to me. And second... how dare you do that to everyone? They will be yourrades, you have to fight for your life beside them, and now you do something that will put this in jeopardy?" He said with anger practically seeping throughout his whole body, while Eiro couldn''t help himself but scoff, "So what, now that you know they have unique skills, you want to take your promise back? I already told you what I would do if any of you try anything, and that includes you all."


    "We are the forces supporting the Hero. How dare-"


    "So what? Hero or whatever, I don''t care what that kid is. Not only the Hero can kill the Monster King. And do you want me to tell you something? Not two years ago I was barely strong enough to fight on-par with a one-armed c-rank adventurer. What do you think is going to happen in the next seven years? I''m an iparable asset to you, and you know that. Even when the Hero awakens, how long will it take for him to grow to the power that he needs to kill the Monster King? One year? Three? Five? Ten, even? By that point, I''ll have already killed the Monster King many times over."


    The warrior stared into Eiro''s eyes, "What is it that you''re trying to say? That we need you more than you need us? Then why are you even here?"


    Eiro rolled his eyes, simply annoyed. He wasn''t in a good mood in the first ce, "I''m here because everyone here is trying to kill the Monster King, same as me. But I''m going to tell you again. My children will not be your tools, alright? I showed it to you earlier. We don''t need them."


    The warrior let out a deep sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "I wasn''t going to try and use them as tools either. A promise is a promise. I was just bothered by the fact that you clearly didn''t try to tell me the importance of the situation at hand. And the fact that you did all that earlier doesn''t help my mood either, you know?"


    "Then what is it that you want?" Eiro asked, and the warrior sighed deeply, "You had informed us about alternative ideas of how we should handle the hero''s education, and I had just received a letter from the King, telling me to gather more information and suggest a new education n upon speaking to the people here. Seeing how you clearly managed to raise four individuals with unique situations incredibly well to turn them into such upstanding young people, I have an idea I want to run by you. Considering your behavior earlier, we will have to make some special adjustments, however."


    Eiro slightly frowned, "Alright, tell me."


    "Just...e to speak to meter, we will discuss it then. The child''s father is soon to arrive, so we are going to talk about everything when he is there to give his opinion on the matter." The warrior exined to Eiro, who simply let out a deep sigh, "Fine. I''ll find youter, just call out my name when you want me toe, and I''ll be there within a few minutes."


    ---


    Eiro wasying on the beach of this ind, looking up into the sky.


    "Yo, do we have to stay here? The sand is being annoying..." Bavet groaned into Eiro''s ear, and the Demon simply rolled his eyes, "Just shut it, it''s not that bad." He sighed, "I just want to rx a little bit, alright?"


    "What for? Ain''t your mind racing faster than a dragon right now anyway?"


    "Actually, no, I''m meditating. Or at least I was trying to until you yelled into my ear." Eiro quickly replied, although soon, he could hear the crunching of sand underneath someone''s feet as he was being approached.


    Slowly, the Demon turned his head, and looked at the man standing next to him, "Biril. Is something the issue?"


    "You tell me." He replied immediately, "What was that earlier?"


    "You as well? I did what I felt to be the right thing." Eiro said, before slowly sitting up, "Is that all you wanted to ask?"


    "...No, I just... What is it that you wanted to reveal to me? Is it something like what your children spoke about, that you have some form of unique skill?"


    "I mean, I have something greater than just a unique skill, but that''s not what I was going to talk to you about. I guess now is as good a time as any." The Demon replied, as he pulled out the ace of cups, using its liquid to create a barrier around himself and Biril so that they could be alone.


    "When we first met, I mentioned that I''m not a human myself, right?" Eiro said, looking at the beastman, who slowly and nervously nodded his head, "Yeah. But then... what are you?"


    "We''ll get to that in a bit. But first, I need to ask you something. If I told you that I was someone, something, that you should naturally, ording to all instincts, consider an enemy, what would you say?" Eiro asked, but Biril frowned confused, "If that''s the case, is the person you acted like this whole time a lie?"


    "No, of course not. I''m still exactly who I am, just with a few slight differences here and there. I''m not a threat to you. I love my children more than anything else in the world. I like strong liquor, but I hate that watered-down beer sold basically everywhere. And no matter what, my goal is to kill the Monster King, much more than you can even imagine." Eiro said. Biril slowly sat down next to the Demon, in thought.


    "If that''s the case, then... I guess it wouldn''t change anything. The way you worded it, I should consider you an enemy, but it sounds like you''re not. So? What is it then?"


    Eiro smiled slightly, d that Biril was telling the truth. He was powerful, extremely so. He would certainly be another great ally in the future, and if that was the case, Eiro wanted him to know the truth.


    "Bavet." Eiro muttered, as the slime immediately reacted. Slowly, a mass of flesh started to form on Eiro''s hand, as if it was bubbling up, and his skin became discolored. His hair grew shorter and stood on its end, until the different strands split into their separate colors and fused together.


    Eiro stood up, and stepped in front of Biril, as he pulled his wings and tail out of his back, and split up his arms. Having revealed his true nature, the Demon looked at the beastman, whose whole body had frozen up.


    "I''m a Monster, Biril."

 Chapter 571 - The Beastman And The Monster

    Confused, Biril stared back at Eiro, ncing at his wings and horns, and staring at his arms that had split just now.


    "A... A monster? You''re a monster?!" Biril yelled out, taking a step back as a natural, startled reaction, before his mind managed to catch up to the situation, "You... You are still the Eiro that I know, right?"


    "Of course, as I said. I''m the same, just with a few slight differences." The Demon said with a smile on his face, and Biril couldn''t help himself but stare at the man in front of him. And then, he started tough hysterically.


    "Eiro, the greatest force in the fight against the Monster King, is a monster himself?" Birilughed loudly, and slowly calmed himself down, before looking back at him with a smile, "If you can assure me that you''re on our side, then for all I care, you could be a royal monster, for all I care."


    "Oh, good that you mention it. I also happen to be ''The World''." Eiro replied bluntly, and Biril''sugh stopped immediately.


    "Wait, what?" He let out, and Eiro simply chuckled, "Also, through my legendary skill, I managed to evolve into a new type of Demon that has never existed before. That being the case, since I''m an artificial creation of the Monster King, I''m also a Demon Lord. There''s a lot more to me though, but those are sort of the bigger ones. With an exception, but I''ll tell you that some other time."


    Biril looked back at Eiro and slowly closed his eyes, before squatting down onto the ground, "Could you... borate on all of that a little?"


    Eiro smiled and looked at Biril, quickly starting to exin the situation a bit more. Of course, in some ways he managed to alleviate Biril''s worries, and in others, he managed to make him even more shocked than before.


    "So... you''re saying that it wasn''t a metaphor? You were actually manipting your soul during yourst evolution? Wait, was that why you were suddenly feeling so bad when we were sitting in the Guild?"


    "Well... that thing was somewhat different, but I''ll spare you with that. Anyway, are you sure you''re alright with this knowledge?" Eiro asked, and the beastman let out a long, thoughtful sigh, "I... I think so, yeah. Obviously it''s going to take a while to get used to, but there are many weird things in this world. Truly, with the show of power you had disyed, I would have been more surprised had you been a human. You being a monster... it does exin a lot."


    But then, something suddenly popped into Biril''s mind, "Wait, the children, they-"


    "They''re people. Trust me." Eiro said immediately, "Again, they''re all incredibly unique."


    "So Leon and Avalin as well, they have unique skills?"


    "...Leon, yes. But Avalin, no. She''s unique in a different way. A way that''s been rather troubling." Eiro exined, before raising his brows, "Oh, actually, I think I know something that might help you find this a bit easier. I used to be human, technically. Or rather, my soul was. I died, and then the monster king used my soul in order to create a lesser imp. He happened to make a mistake while creating me, causing my soul to be not only highly out of tune with my body, but also letting my soul''s history influence my growth."


    "So in your past life, you were a... actually, I don''t even know what to call you now. Mage, or warrior? You''re clearly skilled in both..." Biril pointed out, as Eiro''s expression slowly turned bitter, "He was a mage. A quite powerful one, actually. He brought me the fascination with magic and knowledge that ended up making it possible for me to grow to what I am now."


    Biril looked at Eiro, who was clearly quite emotional when talking about his former life. He asked, "Do you remember anything? Like... how you died, or what sort of life you lived?"


    "Well, first of all... he is not me. Mostly because I don''t have any memories. I''m a monster, deep down, and my life has been influenced through that. But... Alright, well,st year, when I killed thest ''The World''... I think that one was some sort of spiritual being, although I really have no idea... anyway, it held onto a card, the key that can open everything. It would use those powers to open up the soul of others and then take in the numerous different aspects that made them, them. Skills, memories, abilities... even physical aspects, really. Well, my soul was opened then too. Mostly, it was filled with versions of what I am now, a monster, a demon. But there was one small figure sitting there in the corner, a young, starving human boy. I think that''s thest aspect of my past life that is left in me now."


    The beastman looked surprised, "So you... he, died as a child?"


    "Oh, no, no, he didn''t. He died as an old man, after betraying hispanions. They ended up taking each other down."


    "Huh? Then does that mean those others had also been turned into Monsters? Did you try finding them?"


    Eiro looked ahead at the ocean and shook his head, "No, the others managed to pass on properly."


    "...I see. Erm, also... I''ve been wondering for a while, but... what is that..?" Biril asked, slowly pointing at the snake that was curled up andying in the sand. Bavet had been making some weird noises for a while now, distracting Biril a bit.


    Eiro looked at the slime and sighed, quickly stomping his foot down onto the curled up snake, "Wake up youzy bastard. You''re having that dream again."


    "Huh?! Who''s attacking?!" Bavet yelled out loudly, having turned into his regr slime form, before just sitting there for a while, realizing what''s going on, "Fucking asshole. You know that I don''t have much health..."


    "Hey, I was gentle, wasn''t I?"


    "You hit me for a third of my total health, the fuck do you mean ''gentle''?!"


    "Then go out and hunt every once in a while, maybe you''d evolve and have more health." Eiro sighed deeply, before he picked Bavet up. The slime slithered around his arm, as Eiro introduced him, "Anyway, this is bavet. He''s a slime, and my pet. I fuse with his core and spread his slime around my body so that he can transform me into a human form.


    "Oh... so that''s the thing that lets you hide your wings and... those extra two arms?" Biril asked, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, no, I can just do that anyway. See?" Eiro pointed out, quickly pulling his wings into his back, before his flesh fused together in front of the slits on his back that the wings had squeezed into.


    "...How did..."


    "I mean, I can absorb any physical material into my body, although it''s annoyingly tough to do that outside of mucous membranes or my stomach and such. I''m getting used to doing it through my skin as well, but it''s going to take a while until I can consistently do it." Eiro exined quickly, as Biril let out a deep sigh, "That''s just... weird. I''ve never really heard much about monsters'' abilities, but it seems like they''re a lot more physical than the abilities of people."


    "Hm, that seems fair, yeah. Well, monsters'' bodies are just used to changing in unnatural ways. You know, evolution and all that." Eiro pointed out, as he started pulling his tail into his lower back and fusing his arms together again, "Anyway, it seems like I''m being called right now. I told you a lot just now, so just go ahead and let everything sink in for now. Meet meter if you have any questions, and go ahead and enjoy yourself."


    Eiro became wrapped in Bavet''s slime and turned back into his normal form, before he made the barrier around him and Biril disappear. Eiro stepped away back onto the wooden path, while the beastman stayed behind to really think about everything he just learned.


    Meanwhile, Eiro made his way to the hut where he was going to meet with the head warrior, the young hero, and said hero''s father. The three of them were already there... and a few other people were scattered around that hut, using an extremely proficient version of ''stealth'', but of course not nearly proficient enough to trick Eiro who had been trained to see through a Master''s stealth.


    They were clearly here to pay attention to Eiro and make sure that nothing was going to happen, since they didn''t seem to care much for the others inside the hut. For now, the Demon chose to just ignore them, and maybeter he was going to see if he should have some fun with them.


    Eiro stepped into the hut with a smile on his face, looking at the young hero''s father, "It''s an honor to meet you, Sir." The Demon said immediately, and the man in question slowly turned toward the head warrior and whispered, "So this is the man you mentioned? Beside that hair... he looks quite normal."


    With a chuckle, Eiro said, "Whispers don''t really work around me, sorry. But yes, I may not look particrly special right now. I changed into somefortable, loose clothes earlier, after all."


    "...So you can''t even bother changing when you have a serious meeting with someone? I''m not impressed." The man scoffed, and Eiro locked eyes with him for a moment, before looking inward. He mentally stepped into his treasury, and quickly changed from his current clothes back into his full suit of armor, something that happened practically instantly on the outside.


    "Do you like this appearance more?"

 Chapter 572 - The Hero’s Father

    The young hero''s father simply scoffed upon seeing Eiro''s armor, instead of being surprised like the demon expected, "You think that would impress me? I have travelled through the continent, and I''ve seen stage actors change their appearance in a more impressive way than that. Not to mention that this ridiculous armor is not a good fit for you. White with a golden shimmer? What do you think you are, a holy pdin?"


    "Hm, true, these colors are quite simr to that of holy energy..." Eiro muttered, looking down at his armor, "But actually, this armor was made with the scales of a Dragon of Truth."


    "And you expect me to believe that?"


    "I expected nothing in particr, truthfully. But it is true that I did not expect you to be so critical of everything I say or do."


    "Oh, are you sad about that? I''m sorry, I thought I was talking to a man."


    "That sort of mindset is tantly sexist, so I would love if you refrained from saying these sort of things." Eiro replied, and the man in front of him let out a deep sigh, "I apologize. But you must understand that I find your ims hard to believe. How could you have possiblye across the scales of a dragon?"


    "He gave them to me. He''s actually a friend of mine."


    "Do you have prove for such ims?" The man asked, and Eiro gently smiled, locking eyes with him, "I have nothing but my word at this time. But if we go and just doubt every word of another person without proof, then would we be able to really go anywhere at all?"


    "You have a point. Alright, then please take a seat. We do have a few things to talk about." The man said with a slight smirk, as Eiro nodded his head, taking a seat at the table, before the other three also soon sat down.


    The head warrior quickly initiated the actual discussion, "For now, we wanted to speak about the possibilities for the hero''s education. In order to protect him from those that wish to use him for their own means, as was often the case with past incarnations of the hero, we had decided for him to undergo his education exclusively in Baram."


    "Right, but you said you were convinced by my words? Treating his education in a different way would be useful for not only the boy, but for all of us." Eiro said, slightly ncing at the young hero, who was trying his best to follow along with the conversation thus far. The boy''s father quickly spoke up, though, "I''m against it. We made our decision for a reason. There are too many people that want to use my son selfishly. The moment that wordes out he is travelling the continent, those people will use any chance to meet him."


    Eiro leaned back and crossed his legs, "Then it''s quite simple, really. We just won''t tell anyone that he''s travelling. The boy''s appearance hasn''t been made public, so we should be able to quite easily pass him off as a regr boy who hase to study at the academy. We have a few Baram students at the academy. Rather, we have students from not only this continent, but from the whole world, although those from outside the continent are truly rare."


    "That... is a quite good idea." The head warrior pointed out, "There would be very little threat to the hero if we do this."


    The boy''s father nced at his son and then looked back at Eiro, "I heard that the academy is not as safe as it used to be. Justst year, there was a targeted attack, wasn''t there?"


    "...Right, that is true. One of our lecturers turned out to be working for the Monster King. But don''t worry, I will be there at the academy every single day as a lecturer myself, and over the past few months I have personally worked on improving the defensive capabilities of the academy''s barrier, so such things repeating is practically impossible."


    "For all I know, you could be nning on using my son yourself."


    "Why would I? I don''t care for the hero directly, I''m only here because my goal is to kill the monster king, and part of that process is raising a hero capable of such a feat." Eiro said bluntly, "Truly, you have to show a little bit of trust, at least. If I wanted to use the hero for myself, there would be much easier ways."


    "And what would that be?"


    "Eradicate everything and everyone this half of the ind, say that it was a royal that came to take the hero out as soon as possible, and that I managed to save the hero."


    For a while, Eiro and the hero''s father locked eyes, before the man in front of the demon simply started tough loudly, "How funny! As if you would be able of ying every champion gathered here on your own! I didn''t take you for the joking sort!" He eximed, but Eiro''s expression didn''t change. Seeing this, the man turned his head to look at the head warrior, whose face went pale at just the idea.


    "You... you don''t think that he could do it, could you..?" The man asked, and the head warrior nervously replied, "If anyone can, then it is probably him... He is realms above anyone else here, and I doubt he has shown us the full extent of his power yet."


    "You would be correct in that assumption." Eiro said bluntly, and the hero''s father ground his teeth, "So it was not a joke, but a threat?"


    Eiro rolled his eyes and sighed, "No, it was not a threat. Obviously I don''t want to do that. In the first ce, I don''t have an interest in using the boy for anything like that in the first ce. All I''m trying to do is give him a proper environment in which he can be taught. When I get back home, I can also just announce that I managed to convince some of the other champions to be guest lecturers at the academy for a few months at a time, giving them a way to teach the boy too."


    "...That might not be too bad of an idea. Having his peers be taught by the champions should make for other powerful future forces as well."


    "I would prefer if you didn''t refer to my students as ''other powerful forces'', but you are correct. It would be a win in every way. Of course, we will have to arrange ways topensate the other champions, since their actions will most likely end up improving the standing of the academy, and as such Skyhart. It would be an unfair gain. But we have plenty of time to think about it anyway." Eiro pointed out, "The course for the youngest students can only be entered once the individual turns 10. At that point, I will also be enrolling my youngest son and daughter, so they will be in the same grade."


    The hero''s father raised his brows, "You have children yourself?"


    "Yes, I do. They didn''t tell you about that? I have six kids, four of them 16, the other two just eight, the same age as the boy." Eiro exined quickly, and the man slightly smiled, "If that''s the case, I somehow feel like I can trust you more. As fellow fathers, we should be able to get along quite well. I do, however, still have a question."


    Eiro nodded, "Go ahead."


    "Why should we do what you ask? Sure, enrolling him in the academy might be useful, but we have the best teachers right here, ready to instruct him at any point. What benefit does the academy have that we can''t have here?"


    "Simple. Here, he''s the hero. There, he will be just another boy, albeit one with talent for learning. Listen, the way things are going now, the boy is going to turn into an unsufferable brat that will give up the moment he learns there are people stronger than him out there. In the academy, he will find plenty of people who are better than him at many things. He''s going to learn to get along with other people of all social sses, and he''s going to learn actual responsibility. He will be treated as any other student will, and that is with absolutely no amount of bias in his favor. And in the first ce... those people out there? They''re strong, sure, but most of them don''t have the makings of a teacher. The people at the academy, however, are experts in their fields, that might as well have more knowledge than the people here. They just don''t have the ability to express that knowledge perfectly, and instead teach it to the next generation. All in all, I think bringing him to the academy only has upsides, in the long run." Eiro pointed out, leaving out the most important upside of them all. It meant that he wouldn''t have to stay in Baram for months at a time, and could instead keep living his life in Skyhart with his children as he had been.


    "I see... Well, please, could you tell us some more information about how the academy does things, and who your fellow instructors are? We need as much information as possible to make the right choice." The head warrior pointed out, and Eiro immediately proceeded to tell them everything that they wanted to know.

 Chapter 573 - A Tiny World

    "We will ry this information to his Majesty, and we will then keep you updated. The final decision will most likely onlye in a few weeks, if not months, so until then simply proceed as nned." The Head Warrior instructed Eiro, who quickly nodded his head. He stood up and walked toward the door, "Thank you for letting me know. For now, I will excuse myself." He said with a soft smile, cing his hand on the doorhandle. But before he could leave, the young hero, who had been silent this whole time, simply listening to the discussion between his father, Eiro, and the head Warrior.


    "Wait! Erm... can you..." The boy muttered, "Can you... show me some magic again?"


    Eiro raised his brows surprised, "You want to see more of my magic?"


    "Yeah... your magic... is special. It feels like you have really great magic." The Hero replied immediately, before the head warrior turned toward the boy''s father, and exined, "During the training exercises and ability disys today and yesterday, he impressed with an incredible control over magic."


    Surprised, the man raised his brows, "He''s a mage, wearing such an armor? He doesn''t even have a wand or staff, does he?"


    Eiro looked at them and smiled, stretching his hand out forward, "This is a prosthetic I made for myself. It''s made with a special tree that has been grown through the influence of my mana. As such, it has be a material through which I can easily cast spells."


    "...Interesting. Having your wand with you at all times apparently does tend to increase your control over magic. But I heard that you''re also skilled in physicalbat, such as hand-to-handbat? How would that be possible with a prosthetic?"


    Eiro smiled lightly, "I''m not sure if you''ve heard about it, but my father is ''Jura''." He exined, "The Prosthetist, the ''traitor of all people'', as he''s still often called. I learned the craft of creating true prosthetics from him. The prosthetics I make are a permanent recement of the missing limb, and can be used as such, to an extent. Since the wood this is made from is special, it has be a true part of my body. If it''s damaged, healing magic even works in order to repair it."


    The man stared at Eiro with a deep frown, and the Demon could feel all the ''hidden'' guards getting ready to move from the moment that Eiro exined who his father is. The Demon rolled his eyes, and simply chose to ignore it. It wasn''t like he didn''t expect that to happen. For now, Eiro slowly held his hand forward in front of the young hero, holding his palm upward.


    He summoned Gondos to his side, and had the spirit create a head-sized sphere of dirt, which Eiro took control of before the Golem quickly returned back to invisibility. Eiro created grooves in certain ces, trying to model it with arge amount of detail ording to the drawings he had seen in books.


    Then, Eiro created a sphere of water, that he had float above the modeled sphere of dirt. The water fell down onto the dirt, and flowed into the grooves. Eiro used gravity magic in the center of the sphere of dirt, creating a sort of contained sub-space where he could control everything properly.


    The water filled all the gaps, and it became quite clear what Eiro was creating already. It was a sort of model of the world that they all lived in.


    When the water settled down, Eiro started creating everything else. He made tiny des of grass form tightly on the surface of the dirt ball, while turning specific parts of it into sand. Other parts, Eiro covered in a little bit of snow, particrly freezing everything around the poles of this fake.


    And then, Eiro created another marble of water, and quickly froze it, creating a moon once he made the ice opaque. Apparently the moon was made of rock as well, but he had no real knowledge about this. For now, he figured making it out of ice would at least make it a bit more pleasing to look at, since it was easier for Eiro to make it shine like the moon. Of course, it had been shown that the moon only reflected the light of the sun instead of glowing on its own, but this was just easier.


    When the ''moon'' was finished, Eiro made it circle the tiny model of the world that he created, and scattered around some tiny droplets of water into the air, freezing them to create stars by simply fusing them with his fire. Eiro hadn''t gotten ess to light magic yet, although he was trying to figure out a good way to get there. So for now, he just had to do this.


    And so, Eiro created the world in front of the Hero''s eyes, with shining stars floating throughout the room. And all that within not even half a minute. The Hero''s eyes were glistering with joy as he walked around the floating mass, and even the hero''s father stood up, looking at everthing curiously.


    "How did you do something like that? I didn''t see you cast a spell." He pointed out, and Eiro just lightly smiled, "Of course, because that was just basic elemental maniption. I could probably create a spell to do this as well, but that''s going to take a while."


    The man in front of Eiro locked eyes with him, "What do you mean, ''create'' a spell? I heard that people sometimes change certain aspects of spells, or mix things together, but that''s not true spell creation."


    "You''re right, it''s not. But I, on the other hand, have a certain mastery of the Ancient Language. I have the skill as well. As such, I can actually create new spells and chants on my own."


    "Ridiculous!" The hero''s father eximed, and Eiro simply shrugged in response, "Believe it or not, it''s the truth. Not that it matters, I don''t have anything to prove to you for now. The abilities that I already showed off are proof enough that I have extreme worth to all of this." Eiro pointed out, as he ced his hand on top of the young hero''s head, "Isn''t that right, bud?"


    "Don''t touch my son." With a growling voice, the boy''s father walked up to him and pushed Eiro to the side, "Just go, now. He saw your magic again, so that''s all."


    "Right, sure." Eiro replied. He nced at the young hero, once more feeling that slight, unique ''vibe'' from him. Eiro was convinced now that the boy was feeling something simr, even if he couldn''t specifically figure out what it was. But considering that the boy took a particr interest in Eiro''s magic, it was clear that something about him being the ''Sage'' really shone through in the end.


    The Sage was an expert and master of all magic, so it made sense for the young hero to make such a subconscious connection.


    Eiro snapped his finger, and made all of the magic that he used fall apart. All the elements he used were pulled from the elemental nes and were as such purely magical, after all.


    The Demon opened the door and stepped outside. And before he closed the door, he turned his head, and looked straight at one of the hidden guards, in a way where it couldn''t be any more obvious that Eiro had spotted them. With a slight wink, he turned away again, before he made his way to the ce where the gathering would be tonight. Most people were already there, just talking to each other. Particrly thepanions of the champions were talking to each other a lot, since they already had the chance to meet over the past two days.


    But the first person that approached Eiro was none other than Hijar. With a concerned expression, he had rushed up to him immediately, "Eiro! My brother''s acting kind of weird... I know he went to talk to you earlier, so... what did you two talk about?"


    Eiro smiled at him, slightly ncing past him to look at Biril, who was just silently sitting alone at a table, having a drink, "Nothing special. I''m pretty sure your brother just has a lot to think about. He''s going to be fine, don''t worry." Eiro said in a reassuring tone, and Hijar calmed down a bit, "If you say so, then I''ll believe you... but I''m still worried."


    "There''s no need. If this keeps going, I''ll talk to him again. Everything''s going to be fine." He replied, when he slightly turned his head again. Eiro''s kids were being swarmed by a bunch of different people. The champions and theirpanions didn''t hesitate for a moment to try and get close to them. Sure, they didn''t dare try to convince them to do something they didn''t want to do, but they were clearly still hoping to get some sort of benefit from getting close to them.


    Eiro wanted to just head over there and beat up anyone that did this, but... that''s not what his children wanted. They wanted to take care of this themselves. The Demon looked back at Hijar with a smile, "Let''s go grab something to drink. I think tonight is going to be a long one, so let''s try and have some fun." He suggested, and Hijar raised his brows, before immediately nodding, "Sure! Let''s go! They have this really good drink here that you''ve gotta try!" The beastman eximed, as Eiro followed him over to the bar.

 Chapter 574 - Sea Serpent Delivery

    Eiro took a sip of his drink, and ced it back down on the table in front of him before looking at the man sitting in front of him, who was currently holding a small knife in his hands, looking at it curiously.


    "Really, the techniques that they use here are just so interesting. You know, up north, the way it''s done is to just brute force everything into the shape that you need it in. We''ve got ess to a lot of really pure metals, so we ain''t gotta do a lot of preparation. But down here? That''s different. If you just look at the surface here, you can practically see the waves of the different folds ingrained in its surface. It''s really quite beautiful." Armodeus exined, and Eiro lightly smiled as he replied, "Don''t you fold your metals as well?"


    "I mean, sure I do, but that''s mostly in preparation to be able to use the metal properlyter. I don''t actually fold the metal specifically for a project. And I only fold it once or twice at most. As for this? It''s been folded dozens of times."


    "Do more folds make something better?" Eiro asked, and Armodeus simply scoffed, "No, no, of course not. It''s just a different starting point because of less pure metal that then turned into tradition and habit over generations of craftsmen. It''s not particrly better, and most people wouldn''t be able to tell a difference if I made a copy of this without folding the metal even once, but as a craftsman, it''s just interesting. You can probably see the difference, right,d?"


    "Of course, I know what waves you''re talking about. But don''t the swords you made for Arc have them as well?"


    "Sure they do, but that''s because I copied the methods of the ce where theye from, so-"


    The conversation between the two of them felt like it could go on for much, much longer, but they were instead quickly interrupted by a loud groan, "Urghh, can you two just shut up? Who cares about whether or not the metal was folded or not?" Koperia asked with a wry smile, and Armodeus turned his head, ring at her.


    "Don''t you have some bugs to resurrect?"


    "I already did that. There''s not much variety around here. Just a lot of the same thing. It''s more boring than I thought." The Necromancer sighed annoyed. Eiro slowly turned his head toward the beach, "If you want to grab some sort of souvenir from here, there''s a ratherrge sea serpent swimming around in the water around here. We don''t really have that sort in the north." Eiro exined, as Koperia raised her brows, "Oh? You mind hunting it for me?"


    "And why would I do that? You''re more than strong enough to do that yourself. Just send one of your aquatic undead to do it." Eiro suggested, but Koperia simply crossed her arms in response, "You do know you owe me one, right? Who was it that you have to thank for the insane amount of mana your body holds now?"


    "..." The Demon silently stared at the woman sitting in front of him, before standing up, grumbling to himself, "Why does she keep bringing that up for every little thing..?" And so, the Demon made his way toward the beach, while the rest of his group was left to sit alone at the table again.


    "Hold on, is he about to go hunt a sea serpent on his own?" Hijar asked, before James looked at the young man, refilling his ss with the bottle that was standing in front of them, "Don''t worry, it won''t take too long. He''ll probably be back before you finish that drink."


    "R-Right..." Hijar replied, not sure if he should believe that. Sure, he had a rough idea of how strong Eiro supposedly was, since he heard basically everyone here talk about the amazing things he had shown off, but they were talking about a sea serpent... there was no way that Eiro would be able to easily hunt something underwater. But despite that... nobody here was even slightly worried about him. Not even Arie, who was sitting there with Leon and Avalin on herp, entertaining them while Eiro was gone for a bit.


    He turned to the side, at Krog and Jess, who had been practically inseparable all day, "By the way..." He muttered. The other person in this group that seemed immensely powerful was clearly Krog. He had overwhelmed one of the champions in a fist-fight, and in a really impressive way at that, "How did you get that strong? I know that Eiro doesn''t really want to share his own methods, but what about you?"


    "Huh? Me?" Krog asked surprised, slightly grinning. He was surprised to be asked this, since as far as he was concerned, James was the second strongest person in this four-person party, directly following Eiro of course. At least for now, until Krog would max-out his current ss and move on to his next ss, which was hopefully connected to the awakening of his giant-ancestry.


    But either way, for now, Krog was absolutely ready to drain as much out of thispliment as he could, ncing at James with a slight grin on his face, as he continued to speak, "You know, it was actually quite simple. I just kept on training. I know it may seem counterproductive, but instead of going for advanced sses, I went for as many basic sses as possible. They don''t take long to level up when you''re technically too skilled for them, but then again, they don''t give many stat increases. Bot those increases stack up and make a real difference by the fifth or sixth ss. And on top of that, you get all of those sses'' abilities, which can reallye in handy." He exined, as if he was trying to convince Hijar that this was something he came up with himself.


    Jess, clearly hearing this tone and seeing Krog''s expression, quickly pressed up on his lower jaw to make him shut up, "Eiro taught us that tactic, on top of different techniques and battle strategies that let us level up really quickly. But the thing that really gave us an immense boost was..." Jess exined, and although she was smiling until then, that smile immediately disappeared a momentter, "The... the training..."


    Hijar looked at the three people sitting in front of him, who had allpletely frozen up at the mention of the word ''training''.


    "Training? Isn''t that a pretty normal thing?" Hijar asked confused, and Armodeus tuned in, letting out a loudugh, "Well, not the kinda training that they went through. Eiro forced Jess to try and read every single book in his library. James was given a mask that made it nearly impossible for him to breathe and had to run a marathon twice a day on top of the rest of the physical training Eiro put him under, while Krog had a lot of force opposing literally every single motion he tried to do. It wasn''t technique-training. It was physical training." Armodeus exined, and Hijar slightly frowned in response, "And that does that much? Sure, keeping your body healthy is really useful, but at some point, raising your stats does more than training..."


    James shuddered slightly as he nodded his head, "Yeah... that''s what we said as well... and then, Eiro did something to us... I literally don''t understand how, but he manipted our bodies somehow, to make us grow an insane amount through this training, in exchange for an even more insane amount of pain..."


    "I was practically braindead for weeks..." Jess muttered slightly, as Krog looked at Hijar with an annoyed frown, "You know what the worst part was, though? We couldn''tin, because Eiro did what he did to us, but on another level... He focused the ability on certain aspects for us, but for himself... he put every single aspect of his being under so much insane strain that he was in an amount of pain we couldn''t even imagine..."


    "And that is even taking the Five of Pentacles out of the picture..." James added, while Hijar sighed slightly. Clearly, these three were absolutely exaggerating. There was no way that it could have been that bad, or helped them to increase their power to such a degree like they said.


    "Obviously, they still focused on leveling up, by the way. But the more strain you put on a certain aspect of your body, the more that stat is going to increase when you level up, so that''s what they were going for. They were increasing the strength of their bodies at the same time as they gained higher stats." Arie exined, noticing that Hijar was quite doubtful about what he was just told.


    "Huh... do you think he could do that for me and my bro as well? We''ve been trying to find ways to get stronger." Hijar pointed out curiously, somewhat excited about this, but soon, the conversation was interrupted by the voices of the other people around them. Or rather, the suddenck thereof.


    Everyone had grown silent, while the sound of something dragging over the ground could be heard, together with a voice, "Oh, you want me to help you train? If you want, you cane by to my home after all this, and we can figure something out." Eiro said with a smile on his face, as Hijar turned around. And there he saw it. Eiro, his armor suddenly a dark blue instead of that golden white, was approaching this area again, a giant being floating above him. Only its tail was dragging on the ground, while the rest was supported by pirs of ice that Eiro was clearly manipting.


    "Also, Koperia, where do you want me to put this down?"

 Chapter 575 - Invasion

    "This is... this is really damn good..." James muttered with a slight smile on his face, while he was eating a grilled piece of the sea serpent that Eiro had just killed. All the other champions and theirpanions, as well as all the warrios and guards from Baram, were enjoying the sea serpent as well.


    They obviously hadn''t expected that Eiro would go out and hunt a huge monster like that, but it wasn''t like anyone could reallyin. It spared the organizers of all this some food expenses for a couple of days. It was truly a huge monster, after all.


    "How did you even kill this? It doesn''t have any injuries, right?" Hijar asked curiously, and Eiro smiled at the young beastman, "Killing something without leaving behind injuries is easy, especially fish type monsters. I just had to shock-freeze the water around it, force it to rece the water it had taken in with water that was going to freeze at the slightest impact to force it into its body, and then I hauled it out of the water with said ice, and by the time I was back at the beach, it was dead." He exined, "Of course, I could have done other things, but I didn''t want to puncture any of its internal organs, since I know Koperia wanted those."


    "...Is hunting really supposed to be that easy?" Hijar asked, and he soon felt arge, strong hand on his shoulder, "Hunting is never easy. Taking the shot, maybe, but the hunt itself? Never." One of the transmigrators, the beast tamer, said in a confident tone. Obviously, since nobody beside Eiro knew who this was, the silence at the table became rather ufortable pretty quickly.


    "Erm... anyway, I did also want to ask... do you usually hunt things like that? That quickly?" The beast tamer asked, before Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Big doesn''t always mean strong. You''re a champion, go and get some more actualbat experience when you get back from this trip."


    "Well yeah, that was the n. Don''t need ya to tell me that. But you were talking about training somehow as well, right? What sorta training do you guys do?"


    Eiro looked at the transmigrator with a slight grin on his face. From his body, it was clear that he enjoyed physical training quite a bit, and was probably pretty good at it too. On earth, where he was from, stats weren''t a thing, so you could only get stronger by training your body, apparently.


    Maybe seeing how they trained their bodies on earth would be quite useful to Eiro to enhance his own physical training.


    The conversation continued on for a short while longer, and Eiro actually learned a few things about the training methods of earth, before he suddenly sensed something. Eiro turned his head to the side. There was something over there. A group of birds, all suspiciously standing on the tree''s branches. They looked like it was just a normal flock of tropical birds that could be found around here, but their smell was that of monsters. Or rather, one monster.


    Eiro wasn''t sure how exactly this was done, but he knew that something was wrong with them. The Demon slightly pointed his finger toward one of the birds, and gathered some blood in front of his fingertip. Since he now had ess to the Bloodstone, his blood was the perfect material for these sorts of things, as he could stuff the blood with as much life force as he wanted to increase the damage by many times to ensure one-hit kills.


    The bullet shot through the air, making a slight cracking sound that caught the attention of a few individuals.


    "What the- Why''d you do that?" Jess asked with a wry smile, and Eiro simply turned his head, smiling at her as he heard the flock of birds fly away when one of them had been killed, "Nothing, just getting rid of a small bug."


    ---


    It was the middle of the night, from the fourth to the fifth day of this retreat, when Eiro suddenly woke up. He pushed himself up on his bed, while Arie, Leon and Avalin wereying on the bed next to him, still asleep.


    The Demon slowly got up, and stepped toward the door. As he pulled it open, he dropped his cloak over his body while cing his mask on his face. It was easier for him to fight without Bavet covering his body, after all.


    Once he stood outside, Eiro slowly turned his head, seeing the straight line between himself and the ocean. With a single p of his wings, Eiro shot forward through the silent air, shooting past the guards that were patrolling the area, and soon stood on the beach.


    There, he sat down, just to wait for a while.


    "Eiro? What suddenly happened?" Nelli, Gondos and Sarius soon floated up behind the Demon, just barely having noticed that he suddenly left the hut. They had no idea what was going on. Eiro slowly turned his head, "Someone''sing, I''m just here to meet them." He exined.


    The three spirits floated around next to the Demon, looking at the ocean in front of them, "Is it an enemy?"


    "Well, I''m guessing so, at least. We''ll see." Eiro replied, as he starts to prepare for what might being. And then, the figure in question came into sight. As if it was floating on top of the water, arge, bulking figure approached. Tworge horns could be seen on its forehead, and it had a bull-like head. In its hand, it held a huge bulking hammer.


    "A Minotaur, huh." He thought to himself, and then slowly nced down at the thing that let the Minotaur float on top of the water like that. It was the shell of a turtle, just barely visible, "A bull an a turtle. Interestingbination." Slowly, Eiro stood up and waited there at the beach. Soon, the Minotaur seemed to see the Demon as well.


    To Eiro''s confusion, the Minotaur slowly pulled its arm back, ready to swing it forward. And at that moment, Eiro noticed something else. He was feeling a vibe from this minotaur, and more specifically, from this minotaur''s hammer.


    "Ah, shit." Eiro grumbled, immediately pushing his hand forward while pulling his grimoire out of his treasury. He tried to create a strong barrier using arcane magic as quickly as he could, as the hammer''s effect could be seen.


    As the Minotaur swung it forward, it seemed to impact with the air itself,ing to a halt. But while the hammer stopped, it force did not. The air cracked and a small explosion could be heard, as a mass of force was shot through the air, soon reaching Eiro.


    Obviously, the Demon could have easily dodged this, but he was doubtful about whether or not this attack was going to stop anytime soon, which would have put the people sleeping behind him in danger.


    Immediately, Eiro also started working on another barrier, so that he could stop the sound from this fight that was about to unfold from escaping this area.


    But then, the impact hit Eiro''s barrier, and he quickly realized that a normal barrier wouldn''t be able to hold out against the minotaur''s attack, and he didn''t have the time to create a barrier that could right now.


    Eiro ground his teeth and started to re-arrange his magic circuits to create a specific spell on his left arm, while he removed his cloak and instead ced his armor onto his body. He fused shadows with his horns and made them press down onto his head as he pulled the armor''s hood onto them. This way, if he was caught by someone, then he could still be recognized as Eiro.


    After all, everyone here knew what it looked like. Later, he could just make the excuse that the mask was some sort of magic tool that helped him create magic circles faster or something like that. For now, Eiro kicked off the ground and shot forward as the magic circuit in his left arm had been properly rearranged.


    The Demon watched as the Minotaur once more swung the hammer around. Once more, Eiro couldn''t dodge, but luckily, he was fast enough to be close enough to try and counter the hammer. He activated the rearranged magic circuit, which created a small,pressed, circr barrier that fused with his armor''s built-in shield on his left arm. With as much precision as he could muster in this moment, Eiro changed the course of the hammer and diverted the attack down into the water, causing arge explosion.


    Surely, this explosion would have alerted someone, so Eiro should probably try to finish this quickly. With his other arm, Eiro grabbed the Minotaur''s horn and pulled its head down, before wrapping his legs around its throat to try and put pressure onto it while Eiro pulled his dagger out of his treasury to try and end this quickly.


    However, before he could, Eiro felt a deep impact all the way in his bones, as if the Minotaur was letting out force through its skin. It prated so deeply into him that his muscles tensed up awkwardly, before the Demon was thrown off into the water. And then, he could see the giant hammer head right for him.


    He tried to dodge out of the way through the water using magic, but it didn''t do him much good. The impact of the hammer with the water itself caused a deep incave that pulled Eiro into it before the watter crashed back onto that one spot.


    This actually damaged Eiro a bit... and he didn''t like that at all.

 Chapter 576 - Monster Trio

    "You dare attack me..." Eiro ground his teeth, "Don''t you see who ¨C what I am?" The Demon asked, ring at the Minotaur. After huffing some air out of its nostrils, the Minotaur actually replied, "All I see is a weakling."


    Eiro red at the Minotaur, and slowly pushed himself up until he stood on the water himself, using Arcane Magic to aplish this. The turtle had stopped moving as well, so that now, Eiro and the Minotaur were standing right in front of each other.


    And then, the Demon let out his aura, letting it loose and focusing it on the creature in front of him. Immediately, the Minotaur ripped open its eyes, and tightened its hand around the handle of its hammer.


    "Royal... you''re a royal..." It muttered, and Eiro simply sighed, "Yes, that I am. You''re clearly a high noble, so you must understand what that means."


    "Yes... yes! It means that, if I beat you, I''ll be a royal!" With that, the Minotaur swung its hammer toward Eiro again. But now that the attack wasn''t pointed at the beach anymore, he could simply dodge out of the way instead of having to somehow block the attack. He jumped up, all the whilst activating his Three of Swords. The des fit perfectly into his armor as he shed at the Minotaur''s arm while he was still swinging the hammer, and the des had been buried deep into its flesh. But even then, it didn''t let go. Instead, something else happened.


    Out of the corner of his eye, Eiro could see the flow of the water changing unnaturally, and through the water, he could see the turtle''s legs tilt in a specific way. He saw the Minotaur slightly rise up, and immediately, the Demon knew that he now had another opponent to worry about. And this one didn''t seem to be particrly normal either.


    While it didn''t seem to have an arcane card, it did seem like it managed to attain some sort of unique evolution. At the very least, it didn''t look like any of the knownmon evolution paths for its kind, Tortles. And its smell had a sort of unique zinginess to it that only monsters with special evolutions had. And considering that it didn''t have a card to bring it to that point easily, that made Eiro think it either had a unique skill, it used to possess a card and it was stolen from it, or it was simply skilled enough to reach a point where it could achieve a unique evolution just on its raw abilities.


    The second of the three possibilities was the most unlikely, though. Clearly, they were sent here by something, probably another royal, to take out as many champions as possible. No royal in their right mind would send a monster that ended up losing an arcane card. The other two were things to look out for, though. Either way, he wasn''t able to directly predict this Tortle''s abilities just yet, although he was sure theyid somewhere on the defensive spectrum.


    Eiro quickly proceeded to strike at the Tortle, piercing the des of the three of sword toward it as quickly as he possibly could. The moment that the des hit the Tortle''s flesh, Eiro could feel the same exact wound form on one of his own arm,s as he felt something warm practically wrap itself around his heart.


    Without having to analyse this feeling for too long, it was clear what was going on. Eiro had been marked.


    "So it was the first option after all, huh..?" Eiro muttered, grinding his teeth. Unique skill holders were really a pain to fight against. Obviously, they were rare. It was practically a miracle that five of them were in the same spot in the form of Eiro''s kids, but that was because they were brought from all over the continent and Eiro happened to intercept their transport.


    Unique skills had the tendency to, well, be unique. It was impossible to directly predict them. Sure, they often had certain patterns to them, but quite often, there were extra twists, turns, or conditions to mess up someone''s deduction, even when that someone had the ability to deduce absolutely anything.


    "A reflective ability...? No, its wound is there as well..." Eiro whispered to himself, as the Tortle started tough, its head just slightly above water to make sure that the Minotaur could still stand on its shell, "Thou hath now way to figure out mine ability. Thou shalt cease to live before then." Itughed, but instead of getting annoyed, Eiro started slightly grinning.


    "Tortles are known to have a surreal amount of health even amongst monsters... allowing for the possibility of certain abilities..." The Demon muttered, knowing that unique abilities do tend to have a connection to the person''s talents and born traits. And then, he finally saw something else that led him to figure out the details of the Tortle''s ability, "I''ve got it figured out. Good to know then."


    Eiro immediately held one of his ws to his hand, and pierced it, watching as the same wound formed on the Tortle as well.


    "Hah, alright, so it really does work this way as well. Makes sense, I guess there''s a reason why the Minotaur stopped attacking." Eiro said, before looking back at the other monster, while the Tortle looked back at Eiro confused.


    The Demon immediately kicked off from the ground, and started to attack the Minotaur. And he didn''t hold back either. Rather, he buried the three of swords in its arm and violently tried to carve its bone marrow out of its still-attached arm.


    But then, Eiro could feel the warm sensation around his heart disappear, right when the Minotaur swung the hammer at Eiro again. But instead of focusing on that, the Demon kept ncing at the Tortle, proceeding to figuring out even more aspects of its unique skill.


    For now, killing these two would be a bit annoying, exactly due to that unique skill. If Eiro wasn''t careful, with a quick fatal attack against either one of the two, he could end up just killing himself. Sure, right now, it seemed like the ability only applied to the Tortle, but that could be a trick to make him slip up. It could very well be used on other people as well, he just had no way to know right now.


    And then, the Demon slightly turned his head. He noticed that the flock of monster birds was nearby again, the same one that had watched what was going on earlier. It would be dumb to assume that they were here just to watch.


    "I have a suggestion for you." Eiro said in a clear tone, "This is obviously not the best ce for any of us to fight. How about we go to another spot... it''s not too far away, and there''s plenty of space to go all out."


    "And why would we do that?" The Minotaur asked, ready to swing the hammer once more. But the fact that it stopped to ask made it clear to Eiro that it was at least interested in a more straight-up battle than now. Clearly, the Minotaur was interested in rising to the position of a royal, which is why he would need to fight Eiro in a proper environment.


    "Thou shalt guide us." The Tortle said, slightly raising its head from the water, and Eiro simply smirked. He started walking, over the water, toward the beach closest to the stone circle that all the champions'' events had been held. For now, it really seemed like the Minotaur, Tortle, and those birds were following behind him, until they reached said beach. From there, they just had to walk for two minutues until they reached the circle.


    "Ah!" The Minotaur eximed, "A fitting arena for this fight!"


    "I''m d you like it. I do feel like we can go all-out here." Eiro said with a smile on his face, looking at both the Tortle and the Minotaur. And then, right beside them, the birdsnded as well. One of them stepped forward. Eiro could feel a ''vibe'' from all of them, but it was quite weakpared to a normal one. But the vibe from this bird was the strongest. Eiro saw the bird''s body contort and change, and soon, a humanoid monster stood in front of him. It reminded Eiro of that damned crow quite a bit, but it was clearly a different creature. It was a tropical bird that simply followed a simr evolutionary path.


    But then what about those other birds? They looked the exact same as each other, so this wasn''t a hive-monster situation. Rather, it was something else entirely.


    "The Mirror of Duplication, Page of Wands. And the Mountain Breaker, Ace of Swords. That''s quite a nice reward for dealing with you three." Eiro said with a slight smile on his face. There was nobody around here at all, he knew that for a fact. So, he slowly took off his mask. He let his wings and tail sprout, and split up his arms and mouth, while slowly pulling down his armor''s hood, showing off his horns as well.


    He fully let out his aura,pletely unfiltered. That Bird and its duplicates, as well as the Minotaur, slightly jumped. Not because of his aura, but rather because they were now able to sense the vibe that Eiro had stopped from escaping.


    "Hahaha, bing a royal, and getting more cards at the same time?! That is what I call a reward, Demon!" The Minotaur said, getting ready to swing his hammer, just when Eiro started feeling that warm sensation around his heart again. But instead of aiming the swing of his hammer at Eiro... the Minotaur hit the Tortle''s stomach.

 Chapter 577 - Contest Of Endurance

    The hammer impacted with the Tortle''s stomach, and Eiro could sense the monster''s internal organs being crushed and injured in response to the attack. But at the same time, he could feel the same thing happening to himself as well.


    ---


    [-81.518 Health]


    ---


    The attack was incredibly potent, damaging the Demon to a high degree. Eiro ground his teeth as he ran his fingers through the notification, while his internal organs were slowly recovering their physical form. He pushed his hand into his bag, pulling out a small sk. He had just a dozen of these, and they were incredibly expensive. They were healing potions made by Armodeus.


    They were focused nearlypletely on recovering Life Force, letting the body retain its injuries. After all, Eiro''s body regenerated nearly instantly, but his Life Force didn''t. The Demon wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth before downing the content of the sk, feeling the liquid practically evaporate into Life Force.


    "Thou lived through our attack? Although, that was to be expected. Thou art a monster, after all." The Tortle pointed out, as the Minotaur once more swung its hammer, attacking the exposed body of the monster standing next to it again. The same as before, Eiro took damage around 80.000 health. With an annoyed expression, Eiro thought about what to do.


    "He seems unaffected..." The Bird Monster pointed out, looking at the Tortle. And the Tortle looked at him as well. For now, Eiro could feel the warm sensation around his heart disappear. Instead, an increase in mana could be felt around the heart of one of the birds.


    Like before, the Minotaur swung its hammer at the Tortle, while it was linked up to the Bird, and the moment that the hammer impacted with the Monster... the bird exploded, as if it was hit by the hammer itself. And inside of the eyes of the Tortle, Eiro saw two messages appear.


    ---


    [-31.613 Health]


    [63.226 Health Recovered]


    ---


    "Ah... so that''s it..." Eiro muttered slightly, as a grin formed, "So when you kill someone with your ability, you not only recover the health you yourself took, but the damage that you inflicted on the other? My Life Force did seem to act somewhat weirdly... so it didn''t fully disappear, but rather... went to a sort of life force storage until either one of you is dead." The Demon said, and the Tortle slightly flinched in response to Eiro''s unexpected understanding of its ability.


    Eiro crossed his arms with a smug grin, as heid open the tactic of his opponents, "The Minotaur has an incredible amount of control over the Mountain Breaker, or rather, the amount of damage done with it. The Tortle''s ability is based on linking up two parties with each other, in some form of contest of endurance, where the winner receives the life force of the loser. So, the Minotaur attacks the Tortle so that you can take out your opponents easily while ignoring things like armor. Hence why you were sent here, since the strength of your opponent matters little in this context. People have really low healthpared to Monsters, especially Tortles, after all." Eiro proceeded quickly, "And then, in case the Tortle runs low on health, you link yourself up with one of the duplicates of that Bird so that you can recover your health easily. It''s a good tactic, it really is, although only a madman woulde up with something like that. Or well, a Monster that doesn''t care for their subordinates'' body, I guess."


    "To... to inform thee well, this concept was born of mine own contemtion."


    "By Lady Winter, speak normally, will you? I get it, you''re really, really old, but your Language Comprehension skill should make it really easy for you to speak like everyone else. You''re doing this on purpose, it''s annoying." Eiro sighed loudly, something that clearly annoyed the Tortle.


    It turned its head, linking up with more of the birds as the Minotaur kept hitting its stomach, until it was clear that its Life Force was practically overflowing.


    "500." The Tortle said with a deep frown, and Eiro smiled slightly. He figured he should finally y with these three a bit.


    It was clear that there was a perfect thing that he could do in order to fight back against their tactic. After all, they were clearly trying to rely on the Tortle''s surreal amount of health to quickly kill their opponents with that damage-linking ability. So, all that Eiro had to do was show up with an even greater amount of health.


    Eiro focused on using his Legendary skill on another one of his abilities.


    ---


    [You have boosted the {Energetic Body} ability. It has temporarily be {The Supreme Demon''s Health}]


    [Countdown until ability will be forcefully returned to normal: 1 Hour, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds]


    [Your Health has been boosted by 2.171.937 Units]


    ---


    Eiro smiled slightly. Together with the increase in his health, his regeneration greatly increased as well. That was what Eiro wanted to focus on, and hence, that was how the ability had been upgraded. Otherwise, his health would have probably increased to a greater degree than this, which was incredible in and of itself. Eiro rather needed the ability to quickly recover any damage done to him by this group rather than have an amazinglyrge raw amount of life force.


    Now, the Demon could properly y with them. Basically the instant his health increased by this amount, the Minotaur''s hammer impacted with the Tortle''s body. This time, the attack was much more powerful, throwing the tortle backward, before it threw up blood from the impact. Even Eiro could feel his body being pushed back, as his organs nearly blew up from the impact. Luckily, Eiro strengthened them the metal he consumedtely, so that while he did take the full amount of damage, he didn''t receive any actual potentially fatal damage in his organs that would take him longer to regenerate.


    And that was good, since it seemed like the Tortle wasn''t done yet either, "Still... still survived, huh?" It muttered, as the Minotaur stared at Eiro, clearly wanting to fight the Demon for real, and not in such a round-about way.


    "What, you think this is going to be enough to kill me? I''m a royal, remember?" Eiro said with a broad grin on his face, "I don''t even have to really fight to kill you, trust me."


    "Is... is that so?" The Tortle asked, as it turned its head toward the birds. Eiro felt the warm sensation slowly fade away again, but this time, Eiro didn''t just let the Tortle do as it wanted. The Demon, having a superior control over magic and mana, was able to block the flow of the Tortle''s abilities without it noticing, all the whilst he cast a spell on the Minotaur.


    And then, as the Minotaur hit the Tortle''s stomach again, instead of a bird exploding, nothing but an explosion of blood came out of the Tortle''s mouth as well as the wound that had just popped open on its stomach.


    "Y-You fool, you- what art thou doing?!" The Tortle eximed, focing itself to switch to that old manner of speaking in the middle of its sentence, while Eiro could barely stop himself from chuckling. While he stopped the Tortle from healing itself by the sacrifice of one of the Bird''s doubles, he had given a buff to the Minotaur, something that increased not only its attack speed but also its raw attack damage, making it lose out on its control of its weapon. After all, you would never expect your enemy to make you stronger on purpose.


    "That was another 100 Thousand. How much do you have left? Another hundred, maybe two hundred thousand? That is the absolute highest amount you will have, I know." Eiro said with a sigh, as the Tortle red at him. And meanwhile, Eiro grasped the air, grabbing thepressed bit of magic that was the source of the connection between the Tortle and its target. And then, he forced it into his chest, making himself the target of the tortle.


    The Demon ced his w, the three of swords ced neatly into his armor, against his throat, and made a clean cut along it. He could continue breathing with magic, but the Tortle soon gasped for air, filling its lung with blood.


    Eiro''s wound quickly healed, as he looked at the Tortle, "You cannot beat me. Your shock from earlier when I exined your ability made it clear that I was right. It creates a contest of endurance of sort, wagering your health. And a contest goes both ways." The Demon pointed out, "Now, I know for a fact I have more health than you. So how about we do this as it was intended? Let''s make this a proper contest."

 Chapter 578 - Chimeras

    Eiro looked at the monsters standing in front of him, slowly holding his hand in front of himself, "Well, at least, that''s what I''d prefer the most, but... you three can surely be useful to me. As long as those two give me their cards, I might consider letting you all live and taking you under my wing." He suggested, before the Minotaur let out a loudugh, "You wish! As if we would ever work for you! We will kill you, and grow stronger, step by step, leap by leap!"


    The Demon slightly chuckled, "It''s good to see you have such opinions of growing stronger, but if that''s the case, I guess I don''t have any other choice."


    Keeping up his soft smile, Eiro slowly lifted up his right leg, and proceeded to manipte his own blood and muscles to squeeze onto his bones, soon making them break. The same thing happened in the Tortle''s body, and it soon fell down. Eiro felt some scratches on his back and side in response, which was actually a quite weird sensation, considering that Eiro himself didn''t even fall over.


    "Hm, how much do you have left, I wonder?" Eiro crossed his arms in thought, looking at the monsters again. None of them could attack Eiro right now, since somehow, the Demon had forced the Tortle''s mana to stay inside of his own body, so if they were to attack, they would kill the Tortle instead. It was clear that they were at a disadvantage now.


    But then, Eiro''s ear slightly twitched, and he shot around, staring into the direction of the hut-vige, where everyone else was currently at.


    "Someone was killed?" Eiro muttered. Someone whose shadow Eiro had turned into a hidden servant had been killed. But none of the servants that Eiro had stationed around the vige had seen anything.


    "...The activation requirement for your skill... What is it?" Eiro asked, looking at the Tortle, who was simply grinning at Eiro, "Sight." It replied, and Eiro red back, before releasing the connection between him and the Tortle, before he shot a bullet ofpressed blood at its head, killing it instantly, "No experience points... It was a duplicate." Eiro ground his teeth annoyed, "And so are all of you, huh?" The Minotaur started rushing at Eiro. Now that the Tortle was gone, there was no reason for it to not try its luck.


    But of course, Eiro had enough of ying around. He pulled out his new greatsword, the one that he had created out of magic the other day, and swung it at the Minotaur at a speed that it clearly wasn''t able to react to, and cleanly cut its body in half. The body stayed behind for a while, but the Mountain Breaker turned back into a card. But rather than the golden color that all cards had, it turned into a ck and white version, showing that it was a fake.


    The vibe feltpletely real. The Mirror of Duplication was something that could create perfect copies, after all, to the point where even Eiro hadn''t been able to tell. Eiro stepped forward, and reached the flock of Birds in that single step, cutting through their bodies with ease as well. However, the leader of this flock, the one that had turned humanoid, was showing an expression for the first time. It had been emotionless until now, but what Eiro saw while its head hit the ground was not an expression of fear or grief over its own death like the Demon experienced many times before, but it was smiling. Grinning, as if it had won.


    "Of course, there is no way they would send three monsters to kill everyone here... they just want to do as much damage as they can. And the best way to do that is to send multiple waves." Eiro muttered, not even waiting for the Bird''s head to stop rolling as he pulled up his hood, pressing his horns down onto his head again, and shot up into the sky while cing his mask onto his face.


    Eiro flew toward the vige, getting continuos signals of killings and danger from his scattered servants. He made sure to pull his arms together and force his tail into his lower back, and pulled his wings into his upper back when he was close enough to the vige.


    Eiro shot forward andnded in the center of the vige, stopping himself with air magic, as he saw what was going on. At first, the Demon thought they had only created one duplicate, but no. There were a dozen pairs of Minotaurs and Tortles scattered around, killing as many of the guards and warriors as possible, while the champions were getting ready to help fight against them.


    Arge amount of birds were flying above them, every once in a while exploding while the Tortle was being healed. Eiro ground his teeth, angrily. He steadily walked forward, approaching the first pair. It was clear that they were currently trying to heal up, so Eiro shot forward and cut through the Tortle''s head, before stabbing his sword through the Minotaur''s heart.


    As for the others... it wouldn''t be as easy taking them out, considering that they were all busy targetting the guards. If Eiro attacked the Tortles, he would end up killing said guards as well. But they were all dying like flies already anyway.


    So first, Eiro had to do something else.


    Eiro held his hand forward, and spoke his chant, "Take my blood, take my essence. Take that which gives me life, and use it to take another''s. Seek their heart, and extinguish their me." The Demon said loudly, as a magic circle appeared in front of him.


    The moment that he activated said magic circle, Eiro could feel his veins popping open, as blood poured out from his armor. A few champions had finally stepped out of their huts, and were looking at Eiro. And of course, upon seeing this figure, they couldn''t help but think that the intruders managed to kill Eiro as well.


    But then, the blood gathered in the center of the magic circle in front of Eiro, and split up into small marble-sized bubbles, which soon froze and hardened. And then, they shot up into the sky. Dozens of projectiles were shot, followed by a rain of blood and dead birds falling down from the darkness above.


    Eiro turned around, looking at anyone that was capable of fighting.


    "Target any of the birds you see around here. Fight against the Minotaurs. Do not attack the Tortles, no matter what you do." Eiro yelled out loudly, his voice carrying throughout the whole vige of huts, and all the champions quickly got to work, trying to fight back against the sudden intruders.


    Eiro kicked off from the ground, shooting through the vige to help anyone that he could. He used shadow magic to blind one of the nearby Tortles, and would then wait for their ability to cancel before killing them, and in the meantime would attack the Minotaurs. But the issue was that the amount of intruders only increased, rather than decreasing. Swarms of them came out of the nearby forest, attacking anyone in sight. Eiro was trying to kill as many of them as he could, but he wasn''t able to go for huge all-out attacks because of the people that were in the way. He didn''t care whether they lived or died, but he couldn''t just kill them himself, or it would ruin everything that was going on here.


    The worst part was that there were just so many Tortles leftover that nobody could attack, because they themselves would receive damage if they did. They now resorted to fighting against each other, simply punching another version of themselves in the face or stomach, to damage their targets, since the Minotaurs that would have usually done so were already dead.


    Eiro ground his teeth annoyed. People were dying all around him. Even some of the Champions ended up being crushed by the new Minotaurs that came and attacked as many of the Tortles as possible. Eiro looked into the sky, and contemted for a moment, maybe two. He spread his perception out as far as he could into the direction where the hordes of duplicates wereing from. And when he did, he soon saw something else.


    "What the..." Eiro let out. He had sensed arge bull, a Minotaur... with a huge amount of health. Its back was covered in a thick shell. Its internal organs had changed as well. This was a hybrid. A chimera of the Tortle and the Minotaur. But how was this possible?


    While that question echoed through Eiro''s mind, he watched as the chimera swung its hammer at its own face, making the head of one of the guards explode. The pairs of Tortles and Minotaurs were soon reced, and only these chimeras came at them. But they were changing, as well. Some of them were more like the Tortle, others were more like the Minotaur, but all of them were a lot more bothersome to deal with than before.


    "Everyone! Run away! The ability''s activation condition is sight!" Eiro yelled out loudly, as he tried to create a veil of shadows between the iing Chimeras and all the people that were here, trying to get them to run away.


    "B-But... my husband is still in the hut!" One of the champions eximed, and the moment that she did so, everyone else did the same. Nearly none of them hade alone, so of course they wouldn''t just run away in a situation like this. And beyond that, there was still the issue of their pride as warriors.


    "Did you seriously forget about me?" A voice asked from behind Eiro, clearly annoyed, "I''m here as well, right?" Koperia said. The Demon turned around and looked at her.


    "I didn''t forget about you, I just figured you were too bothered to help out. But if you''re here... well, that does change something, at least." Eiro pointed out with a slight grin on his face, ready to put an end to all this.

 Chapter 579 - Secret Weapon

    Eiro looked at Koperia, "The ability works by putting Life Force on the line, so if you want to trick the Chimeras, you need to make undead with a certain amount of it in them. As little as necessary would be perfect." The Demon pointed out, and Koperia just scoffed in response, "What, you think I wasn''t aware? I''m preparing them as we''re speaking." She replied immediately.


    Eiro turned around and looked at the people gathered around him, "None of you will face them. You will stay here behind the barrier. If they target you, then you''re basically already dead, you got that?"


    "But you can survive going out there? What makes you think that we''re just going to sit here and let you do all the work?" Tin pushed others to the side, stepping right in front of Eiro, who looked up at him annoyedly, "If you want to die, you can go out there. But I''ll have you know... I''m not going to be attacking any of these guys out here. That''s what Koperia is for, again. I''m going after the source. And also... I have far, far more health than any of you do, so I''m the only one that can beat those Chimeras in the ''Contest'' anyway." The Demon said bluntly, before he turned around, stepping through his own shadow-magic barrier.


    Once outside, he immediately fused his body with air, and used his stealth skill, rushing through the vige. He soon reached the hut in which Eiro sensed Arie, Leon and Avalin in, and quickly stepped inside. And there, he saw Arie, her wings spread out and covering the two children''s bodies to protect them, like some sort of capsule. As Eiro stood there, Bavet jumped at him in the form of a spear, trying to pierce his neck.


    "Damned idiot, it''s me." Eiro sighed, catching him mid-air. Immediately, Arie pulled her wings away, looking at the Demon relieved, "Thanks the gods, you''re alright..." She said, as Leon and Avalin immediately ran to their father.


    Eiro squatted down and hugged them, before quickly exining the situation, "Listen, I need all of you to stay inside here. I''m going to set up a barrier around this hut to make sure the monsters outside will ignore this, but I don''t want anything to happen to any of you."


    "...You know just as well as I do that I''m strong enough to take care of some monsters..."


    "Well, these are different. It''splicated, but yourbat ability doesn''t matter in this right now. What matters is your health. Your health is pretty high, so you''ll be fine at first, but if you''re not quick enough, that doesn''t really matter." Eiro exined, "I just needed to check on you, alright? I''ll take care of everything in a bit after I check on the others."


    The Demon stood back up, bringing the kids back over to Arie, who pulled them both closer, "Fine, I''ll trust you, but... Are you going to be alright?"


    "I will be, don''t worry. I boosted my health, so even if they managed to attack me, I''ll be fine." He exined, looking at Bavet, who was struggling to get out of Eiro''s hand after turning into a snake, "You too, stay here. If anything happens to them, you''re dead." He said, throwing the slime onto the ground before leaving back out the door with an expression of pure relief. He knew that nothing had happened to them, but he had still been scared until he saw and spoke to them.


    Stretching his hand forward, Eiro pulled out the Ace of Cups and his Grimoire, quickly flipping through the pages of the book before starting to set up a barrier around the hut that would stop anyone or anything from finding this ce. Rather than just being invisible, this whole ce would bepletely ignored by others, which was what he wanted. He didn''t want anyone toe near here. The moment that he finished setting up the barrier, Eiro rushed over to the other huts, where his kids had been gathered. They were fighting right now, making a little bit too much noise for Eiro''s liking.


    One of the Chimeras was slowly walking up to the hut, to the point where it was reaching out for the door. His sword in hand, Eiro ran at the monster, trying to stab it from behind. It took a bit more force than Eiro had liked, but that was to be expected because of the Tortle-shell on the Chimera''s back. Before the cracking sounding from the shell even stopped echoing out, the Monster''s heart had already been stabbed, and it fell to the ground.


    Eiro threw the corpse into the water next to the pier-like path, and quickly pulled open the door, where Rudy was standing with his shieldpletely blocking the entrance. The Demon let out a deep sigh, "Good idea, but don''t put yourself in that sort of danger." Eiro said, and Rudy immediately pulled his shield to the side, "Dad!" He eximed, "What''s going on?"


    "...I was careless, and quite cocky, so I didn''t realize that this whole thing was bigger than I thought. I figured I could just take out some monsters that wereing here just to bother us, but as it turns out, they''re a lot better at this than I thought. But no matter, more importantly, is everyone here alright?" Eiro asked, looking around the room. The six people gathered here, Eiro''s kids as well as Felix and Hannah, were all fine. Apparently none of them had gone outside, although Arc very clearly was nning on it.


    "All of you, stay inside. Their way of fighting others makes how strong or capable any of you arepletely useless. With a single attack, any, or all of you, could die for all I know. And I don''t want to risk that." Eiro said immediately, "I''m setting up a barrier around the hut, so stay inside." He told them, ready to turn around immediately again, but Rudy grabbed his father''s arm before Eiro could leave.


    "Wait, I... Are you sure I can''t help? I saw a little bit of what was happening, so... could I distract them, maybe?" Rudy asked, clutching his shield nervously. Eiro looked at him with a frown and shook his head, "No, you can''t. I''m sorry, but their ability prates any armor, so I''m sc-"


    "They can''t damage me." Rudy said, and Eiro looked at his son''s expression, grinding his teeth, "They attacked you?"


    "...Yeah, they did. I was about to go on a walk when they all appeared. One of them hit the other, and I saw the ''-0 Health'' notification pop up like it always does." Rudy said, and Eiro widened his eyes, understanding what this meant.


    "I..." Eiro sighed. He didn''t want to put his son into any danger, but he was the one that asked if he could help. The Demon closed his eyes in thought, and said, "Fine, you cane with me. But the rest of you... you stay here."


    "What? Why can Rudye? That''s unfair!" Arc eximed, wearing his armor and holding his weapons, ready to fight. Eiro looked at him, not wanting this to turn into some sort of discussion, "If you can hold out against a 500 thousand point attack that even I wasn''t able to defend against, then you cane. But otherwise, stay in here." Eiro said angrily, "I know you guys might think that I was just trying to one-up you the other day. You''ve barely been talking to me since. But really, it''s just that you guys are overestimating yourselves. Unique skills don''t make you insanely powerful right off the bat. You''re not powerful enough to fight this battle yet. But Rudy... Rudy can actually help this time, because of this very specific situation, alright? If ites up, I will be bringing you to ces where only you can help out as well. Until then, I''m going to do everything I can to protect you, even if you don''t think you need it." The Demon opened the door back up and stepped outside after leaving his children speechless, with Rudy quickly following him. Eiro set up a barrier using the Ace of Cups around this hut as well, and then quickly looked at Rudy, who was staring at Eiro in thought.


    "I''m sorry if that was harsh, but we can talk about this moreter, alright? Right now, we need to make sure we can stop these monsters. Although... I''m going to need you to trust me. And I apologize in advance for what my n entails for you." Eiro said quickly, "I''ll exin it to you on the way."


    The Demon quickly created a tform of frozen blood and forced it underneath Rudy''s feat, so that he could make sure that they could both Rush to the ce where the mastermind behind this attack could be found.


    On the way, Eiro exined his n to Rudy, who slightly grimaced at the idea, "So you want to use me as... a weapon, basically?"


    "...I know. I''m sorry. But it''s only in the worst-case scenario. Hopefully it won''t happen, but... I''m not so sure." Eiro pointed out, grimacing to himself underneath his mask, as he really didn''t want to do this either, but it seemed like this might end up being their only choice in a certain set of scenarios, "But don''t worry. I''ll make sure that you won''t be bothered in the slightest by what I do."

 Chapter 580 - The Mastermind

    Eiro slowed down, as Rudy stepped off the tform Eiro carried him on. He turned his head and looked at his father, slowly opening his mouth. But the Demon immediately flicked his wrist, throwing air magic at him to stop any sound from escaping his mouth. Eiro then slowly turned toward the bush and ced his finger in front of his mouth, to signal Rudy to be as quiet as possible.


    Carefully, Eiro nced at his own shadow, and had Min step out of it. Already aware that he shouldn''t speak, the servant simply looked at his master. Telepathically, Eiro gave the shadow themand to distract the doubles gathered around here, as well as the mastermind behind all of this.


    Without even finishing his nod, the shadow disappeared out of sight, and walked over to the opposite side of the clearing in front of them. And a momentter, Eiro heard a voice, "What a nice time for a midnight walk, is it not?" Min asked, his voice echoing through the area, like it did when Eiro infused his voice with the shadow element, even if a bit clearer.


    "...Who are you?" The mastermind asked, in a slightly nasal, high-pitched voice. Eiro noticed that the chimeras had suddenly stopped moving in response to her hand being slightly raised, as if she wanted to see what was going on first.


    "I''m nobody but a reflection of my master and his will." Min replied immediately, and the mastermind scoffed slightly, "And your master is that wannabe royal?"


    "I will let you know that my master is the real deal. Rather, he is not like other monsters that have be royals in such a half-baked manner." He replied quickly, and the mastermind couldn''t help but chuckle, as if she found that idea amusing, "Please, as if. He didn''t even notice that obvious distraction. The fact that he''s a royal got to his head while he was busy ying house with some little human brats, and only became more cocky." She pointed out. It was something that Eiro couldn''t directly dispute either. He did get cocky, and that''s why he didn''t realize that there was a chance there was more to that attack than he thought.


    But that didn''t matter right now. Eiro fused his body with shadows, and dove into the darkness created by the bright light of the full moon, of which there was plenty here in this thick forest. He moved around to the right position. Eiro passed by under the half-dead bodies of the beings that the mastermind had been continuosly creating doubles of.


    The Tortle and the Minotaur, both of which were stuck inrge tubes, suspended in some weird liquid. They were being carried by spider monsters with metallic chitin, but they were clearly put together just like all those chimeras were. After all, those tubes with pipes, metal and ss connected to them that they were carrying were part of their bodies.


    Luckily, Min seemed to have everything under control, and started to walk around a bit, to further distract the mastermind, "Even if that was the truth, then my master is one of the few that can allow themselves to be ''cocky'', as you say. After all, he does not baselessly assume himself to be powerful. He fixes his mistakes, and he does everything with all he can. That is what my master is. And trust me, I know all there is to know about him." Min said, spreading out his wings, letting his horns show, while stretching out his arms and tail, "After all, I am his shadow."


    The mastermind opened her eyes wide in surprise as she realized what was in front of him, "You are... you are a ''Servant''... I heard about the servants of royals, but... something like this shouldn''t be possible..? He instilled a will into something without a soul... something like a shadow at that? How is that even-"


    "Possible? I''ll tell you, sweetheart. If I''m cocky, then you have a godplex." Eiro said with a grin on his face, jumping out of the shadows right behind the mastermind to whisper into her ear. She jumped away, pping her wings in confusion, as she saw the shadows flow out of Eiro''s legs back into the ground. And right behind Eiro, she could see it. A shadow in the form of his armor, but the head, wings, hands, and tail werepletely missing from it. She realized that Min was speaking the truth.


    And before she knew it, Min fell to his knee in front of Eiro, who just smiled at him, "Thank you, that was enough of a distraction."


    "Distract-"


    "Meh, I don''t feel like going through this whole thing. We won''t be doing the weird back and forth anymore, you already did that with my other half. My shadow, that is." Eiro pointed out, "Instead, I''ll just monologue a bit, while you realize that you''ve lost. How does that sound?"


    "I-" The mastermind replied, but Eiro just rolled his eyes, "Right, good to see that we agree. Anyway. If you look around a bit more, you''ll notice that I''ve rigged those two... well, things over there with some magic, that I can activate quicker than you can get rid of." The Demon said, "They''re your sources for making duplicates, and I doubt you want to create duplicates of the duplicates, since those are clearly going to be... well, very bad. Or so it seems to me, looking at those guys andparing them to those that I fought earlier. Although yours... seems different. So it reduces the quality when duplicating other things beside yourself, huh? Good to know. That card will be mine soon, after all." Eiro smiled lightly, but the mastermind looked back at him, confused.


    "Why didn''t you do it then, yet? Just kill them, kill me, and get it over with." She said, and Eiro''s smile quickly disappeared, "Because I need you to tell me a few things. I can do itter when you don''t have any limbs left on your body, or I can do it now, and then I will kill you painlessly."


    "Hah, as if-" The mastermind yelled out, but she soon froze up as her whole body went into shock. She turned her head, and soon saw Min standing there, holding her arm in his hands as if presenting it to her as a gift.


    "What do you expect? It''s my shadow, it''s got to be at least as fast as I am." Eiro pointed out bluntly, "Anyway, as you can see, it is very easy for me to do whatever I want. But that will take time, and I can''t be bothered, so I was going to give you a deal."


    The mastermind ground her teeth, as Eiro watched her arm simply regrow as if it was nothing. She had duplicated the arm that she was seeing Min hold, and directly connected it back to her own body. That was certainly a useful trick... Soon, Eiro could even fight back against losing limbs quite easily. Although it probably wouldn''t let him regain the hand that had already been reced by a prosthetic, his soul was too damaged for that.


    Eiro smiled lightly, "Let''s get this over with, shall we? Both of us know that you''ve got something big left in you. Let''s see it."


    The mastermind stared at Eiro, and started to grin. Her feathers stood on their ends as she looked at the tworge tubes. Soon, right beside her, a mass of flesh simply appeared and started growing and convulsing as it continuosly changed. It was quite simr to what it looked like when Bavet changed his shape.


    For now, Eiro just watched. It was part of his n, after all.


    Soon, the chimera was finished. It wasrger and stronger than the others Eiro had seen so far, but it wasn''t enough yet. He scoffed, just smiling at her, "Seriously? You think that''s going to be enough to kill me? It''s barely enough to put a scratch on me."


    "Just try it then!" The mastermind yelled out with a broad, exhausted grin, as Eiro rolled his eyes. He waited for the chimera to target him, and soon shot forward. The amount of health he had was still substantial, but notrge enough to overpower something created solely for having arge amount of health. As such, he had to do something that wouldn''t kill Eiro, but would kill any other living being.


    Eiro jumped up and pushed his hand against its chest, letting arge amount of mana flow into its veins, before starting to pop the chimera''s skin open and forcing out as much blood as possible. Any living being would die when losing all their blood. All but Eiro, since thanks to the bloodstone that Eiro had alreadypletely fused with his heart made it impossible for him to run out of blood in the first ce.


    But due to the nature of the ability, Eiro and the chimera bled the same amount. So while Eiro was standing there, in a pool of his own blood, the chimera soon fell over backward due to bloodloss.


    "How...?"


    "I''m a royal. Don''t underestimate me." Eiro said with a smile on his face, quickly getting rid of all the blood, "Come on, let''s make this more interesting. Make the biggest, baddest chimera you can. I will kill it with ease."


    The mastermind red at Eiro with a frown, "And why would I do that? If you do whatever you did just now, then-"


    "I figured you would say that, so I brought someone along to make things even more interesting." Eiro pointed out, walking over to the nearby bush, where Rudy slowly stood up upon hearing the signal Eiro told him earlier, "You make that powerful chimera, and make it target my son here. The ''contest'' will be between the two of them, instead of us. As our proxies."

 Chapter 581 - Two Cards

    "Why would I... why would I agree to that?" The mastermind asked nervously, knowing that she had little chance if she faced off against Eiro directly. But she needed to stall somehow. After all, a royal wouldn''t suggest something like that if they didn''t know they were going to win.


    "Hm, it''s simple. If the chimera you create manages to even put a scratch on my son, then I will let you live. Rather, I''m going to help you wipe everyone in that vige out." Eiro said bluntly, "But if my son manages to kill your chimera, then you''re going to have to cooperate and answer any of my questions. I don''t care what you do beyond that, really."


    Making use of the mastermind''s nervosity, as well as his control over the domain of truth, Eiro made sure that his words seemed as truthful to the monster in front of him as possible. It seemed like her mind was slowly being affected by his words. It didn''t take long until she fell for it, even if she did so a bit too easily.


    Eiro watched as the mastermind held her hand forward. In front of her, arge mass appeared, slowly bulging up. The dead chimera that she had just created slowly faded away into smoke, and Eiro could notice some of the others disappear as well, "Make sure to use everything you can. Otherwise, you won''t stand a chance against my child." Eiro said bluntly, slowly turning toward Rudy with a light smile.


    It seemed like Rudy was quite perplexed at the fact that everything was working out exactly like his father said it would, nearly down to the word. Eiro continued pressing the mastermind to take anything she could in order to make this chimera as strong as possible. Soon, all the chimeras in the vige, as well as the corpses of the ones that had already been killed, had disappeared in the middle of being stalled by Koperia''s undead so that they couldn''t kill anyone else.


    Eiro looked at the mastermind with a light smile, watching as even her arm disappeared from her body. It was a duplicate as well, after all. And then, the Demon looked at the creature that had been created. It was a huge, mountainous creature. Rather than a chimera, it looked as if someone had thrown a bunch of minotaurs and tortles onto a pile. Shells and limbs were sticking out nearly everywhere, fusing together to create the body instead of actual giant limbs being created for this monstrosity towering at eight, if not nine meters in height. The weapon that the chimera was holding as well, was something created out of numerous duplicates of the Mountain Breaker to create arger version of the original. It was practically fused with the chimera''s arm, so that it could hit itself easily.


    Eiro noticed the mana from the chimera''s skill slowly flowing over toward Rudy, as the Demon couldn''t stop himself but smiling at the fact that things worked out so easily. Every arcane card had a price connected to its usage. They weren''t all-powerful.


    For something like the Mirror of Duplication, it made sense that there were two main restrictions which Eiro managed to confirm by now. One, the duplicates couldn''t move away too far from the user. And two, you couldn''t create infinite duplicates. There had to be a limit of things that could be duplicated at a time. So by having the mastermind create arge chimera here, Eiro made sure that she had to get rid of all others, making things a lot easier to deal with overall. No clean-up, and no other bothersome chimeras to deal with. And most importantly, it revealed the position of an individual connected to the first restriction.


    "Then let''s start now!" The mastermind yelled out, clearly exhausted from using the mirror of duplication so much. The huge chimera swung its hammer-arm toward its own head, but Eiro quickly acted first.


    He activated another magic circle that he had prepared earlier while Min disracted the mastermind earlier. A wall appeared behind Rudy, tightly holding him in ce. Eiro didn''t want to throw him through the whole forest, after all. Grimacing at what he was about to do, Eiro moved his foot forward, preparing the ''killer move'' that he had in his hand, which he had been re-arranging his magic circuits for, while silently casting spells onto his arm.


    Closing his eyes, Eiro punched his son into the center of his chest, right where he noticed the chimera''s equivalent of a ''heart'' being as well. Of course, the impact of Eiro''s hand waspletely stopped. Rather, Eiro''s own hand was ripped apart, the pieces of the wooden prosthetic shooting outward while his arm was forced to split in two, nearly ripping out of his shoulder in the process.


    The special barrier Eiro ced behind Rudy shattered apart, but luckily it was able to hold him in ce. It maximized the damage, and made sure that nothing happened to Rudy by him being thrown through the forest.


    ---


    [Rudeus Daemonherz -0 Damage]


    ---


    Eiro smiled lightly, happy that nothing happened to his son at all. Well, his clothes were ripped up, but they expected that.


    "Is everything alright?" Eiro asked, looking at Rudy, who immediately nodded his head while holding his father''s shoulder, "I''m fine, but are you? You''re hurt..." Rudy pointed out, all the whilst the pieces of the chimera''s body finally hit the ground. Something of that size would have been toorge for Eiro to kill as easily and quickly as the one from before through bloodloss, so this was the quickest and safest way, overall.


    "I''m fine, it''ll heal. Everything is alright." Eiro pointed out, as his flesh quickly proceeded to heal. Through his boosted health ability, Eiro''s regeneration had be more powerful as well, so it didn''t take long until his arm was fine again. He just had to repair his prostheticter, since the base waspletely destroyed.


    "B-But how-" The mastermind muttered nervously, "You promised that it would be a fight between those two!" She yelled out angrily, as if she had been betrayed. That was to be expected, after all, Eiro practically forced her to believe in his words as the absolute truth. It made sense to feel betrayed after that truth turned out to be false.


    "Oh just shut it, I don''t care." Eiro sighed annoyed, as he pulled out his magical sword again, pushing off the ground. He quickly cut through the head of the ''mastermind'', and watched it drop to the ground.


    "Huh? Wait, dad, didn''t you want to ask her something?" Rudy asked confused, and the Demon quickly nodded his head, stepping to the side as the huge chimera turned to smoke, while a card fell to the ground in front of the dead bird-woman. Eiro picked it up and held it toward Rudy. It was ck and white.


    "She was a duplicate the whole time. It makes sense, right? Why would someone with an ability like this just put themselves in danger?" Eiro asked, as he turned his head. Now, there were only a few beings left here anymore.


    The half-dead minotaur and tortle, as well as the two creations carrying them. And the colorful, tropical bird sitting in a nearby tree, which was quickly trying to lift off to get as far away as possible. But of course, Min was faster than her, and the shadow-servant quickly appeared in front of Eiro, holding the tropical bird in his hands.


    Eiro smiled as he took it from him, looking into the bird''s eyes, "Hello there, dear original." The Demon grinned slightly, as a duplicate of a minotaur appeared next to Eiro, which Min of course immediately beheaded.


    "Sorry, but that won''t work anymore." The Demon said, "For now, let''s just have a quick talk, alright?"


    While Eiro was talking, the two huge spider-like creations carring the tortle and minotaur started to run away, apparently onmand of the true mastermind currently held in Eiro''s hands, but before they could, Eiro activated the magic circles he ced underneath them.


    ---


    <strong>[You killed another Card Owner, and have taken his card into your ownership yourself. You are now the Owner of the Ace of Swords]</strong>


    <strong>[2/14 Cards of the Suit of Swords acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[6/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[Aptitude with the Air Element increased]</strong>


    ---


    Eiro grinned slightly, as the Ace of Swords slowly appeared in his hand. The half-dead minotaur was apparently actually the owner of this card. The Demon activated the card, soon holding the heavy hammer in his hand, swinging it around as if it weighed nothing.


    Clearly epting its defeat, the bird stopped iling around, and slowly turned into its humanoid form. An identical woman to earlier appeared in front of Eiro, the Demon''s hand still wrapped around her neck, "What... is it that you want to know..?"


    "Good to see you''re finally cooperating." Eiro said bluntly, "I have two main questions for you right now. One... who sent you here? Which royal was it?"


    The bird-monster locked eyes with Eiro nervously, "Who else..? Can''t you already guess..?"


    "Right, the Devil. I figured, but I just wanted to confirm." Eiro pointed out, and the bird grinned lightly, while Eiro squeezed as bit tighter to make her smile disappear, "Now. Do you have anything to do with a bird-monster the same as you, which evolved from a crow?"


    Immediately nervous, she opened her eyes wide, which was enough of an answer for Eiro. He simply grinned, "Where can I find it?"


    "...I... I won''t tell you that..." The bird replied, and Eiro was ready to move on to torture instead, but then, something that the demon didn''t expect happened. Inside of her body, arge mass slowly started to grow. She was duplicating her own heart inside of her body numerous times. At this point, she was going to die anyway, so Eiro might as well...


    ---


    <strong>[You killed another Card Owner, and have taken his card into your ownership yourself. You are now the Owner of the Page of Wands]</strong>


    <strong>[2/14 Cards of the Suit of Wands acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[7/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]</strong>


    <strong>[Aptitude with the Earth Element increased]</strong>


    ---


    The bird monster''s body fell down to the ground limp. Eiro could find out some other way. But really, that she killed herself instead of letting Eiro find out where the crow was... it was clear that they were really connected somehow. Maybe the crow would take revenge, now that Eiro killed this one.


    Eiro watched the Page of Wands appear in his hand, and quickly stored it away in his treasury, the same as the Ace of Swords. Eiro had gotten two new cards.... If nothing else, to Eiro, this made up for all those deaths.

 Chapter 582 - The Offer

    Eiro took a deep breath as he resurrected the bodies of the three monsters that he had killed here. The Tortle, the Minotaur, and the Bird. He would give them to Koperia as a gift to thank her for holding off the monsters in the vige.


    "Rudy, are you alright?" The Demon asked, looking at his son, who was sitting down and leaning against a nearby tree. He slowly nodded, "Yeah, just... feeling a bit dizzy..."


    "Did my attack do something weird? Do you need something to drink? Or some healing?" Eiro asked immediately, squatting down in front of him with a worried expression, "No, no, I just... this was a lot, you know?" Rudy exined, slowly raising his head. He nced past Eiro at the ce where that huge monster had just exploded in front of him.


    The Demon ced his hand onto his son''s head with a smile, "I''m sorry you had to see that. But with your help, we made sure that nobody else got injured. I''ll let you know, even I might not have gotten through a fight with that huge thing so easily."


    "Huh? Wait, seriously?" Rudy asked, "But... you''re a royal now."


    "Of course, but that''s not all that matters. The tortle there... it has, or had, a unique skill. It could link up two living beings, in the way where any damage taken by either party is given to the other as well. Burt your abilitypletely denies any iing damage. It tricked its ability. Through you, we could easily get rid of it. But if I had faced it? It would have forced the ability on me, and surely could have done a lot of damage while I was trying to figure out a way to kill it." Eiro exined, and Rudy looked at his father with a nervous expression, "So even you can still..."


    "Don''t worry, I''ll be fine. I found a way to get out of it this time, and I''ll be able to do that in the future as well. Bute on, for now, let''s go." Eiro said, as he turned his head toward Min, who was already on his way. The shadow servant dove into the ground andpleted the Demon''s form again. Eiro took on a normal form again, and ced his mask onto his face.


    "Let''s return, then." Eiro said bluntly, snapping his finger to remove the magic spells he ced around two of the huts in the vige so that everyone could get out and check on each other. At the same time, it was a signal for Bavet toe over toward him. To give the slime the time to do that, Eiro and Rudy were walking instead of rushing like they did earlier.


    A minute or soter, a bird came flying at the Demon, which he quickly recognized as Bavet. He took off his mask and pulled down his hood, as Bavet slithered into his armor and fused with the demon''s body, turning him back into his humanoid form.


    "Alright then. Now let''s get back... It really wasn''t a good day." Eiro pointed out, "A lot of people died." He exined to Rudy, who really had no idea what the situation in the hut vige looked like. Nervously, he scratched his arm, "But... why... Dad, is this really fair?"


    "What do you mean?" The Demon asked, turning his head toward Rudy, who quickly borated, "I mean... those guys, they trained their whole life to be strong and reach this point, but I.. I barely just reached level 23 in my first ss... it''s just unfair..."


    Eiro slowly opened his mouth, but before he could, another mouth appeared on his cheek as Bavet started to speak, "Life ain''t fair, bud, that''s just how it is. And in the first ce, nearly everyone that died here today was prepared to die at any point. They''re warriors, adventurers. It''s part of the job, you know?"


    "I know, but-"


    "Rudy." Eiro said, stopping in front of his son, looking into his eyes, "It''s not fair, I know. But even if you didn''t have the ability you have, those people would have died. Rather, you helped me stop even more people from dying." The Demon pointed out with a smile, patting his son on the back. Slowly, they made their way back to the hut vige, where the bodies of the dead were currently being recovered. A scent of grief filled the air, but the first thing that Eiro did was approach his own people. He saw his kids, and quickly rushed over toward them, happy that they were alright.


    "Did anything happen to you guys while I was gone?" He asked, but it seemed like everything was alright. Instead, focus turned over toward Rudy, whose clothes had beenpletely ripped up from Eiro''s attack.


    "What... what happened with Rudy?" Sammy asked, nervously looking at her brother, while Eiro looked back with a bitter expression. He still didn''t like having used Rudy like that, "It happened while... I will exin it to youter. I think we should talk about this a bit moreter."


    Eiro said, as he slowly turned his head, "I have to meet with the others right now. Take care of Avalin and Leon for me, alright?" He said, ncing at Arie, who noticed that ''the others'' included her, so she quickly followed the Demon over toward where the rest of their group was.


    Krog, James and Jess had already met up with Armodeus and Koperia, waiting for Eiro''s return. Of course, since everyone else was already staring at him, they quickly took notice of the Demon.


    "Ah, there you are." James said with a groan, "See? I said he wouldn''t lose against guys like that."


    "Hey, it wasn''t as easy as you thought. I had to do something that I didn''t want to do." Eiro sighed annoyedly, "More importantly, you guys are alright, right?"


    "...We are, but..." Krog said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly, slowly turning his head to the side, looking at one young man''s back. And then, Eiro noticed what had happened. He looked at Koperia, "Can he-"


    "He does have a strong will tying him to this world, so I could turn him into an undead, but... I wouldn''t have a vessel for him. And undeads are... you know. I''ve stabilised the soul thus far, but I want you to talk to his brother about it." Koperia exined, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, as he walked down the pier, looking at Biril.


    "Hey." He said, but the beastman didn''t hear him. Eiro looked past him, and saw thepletely disfigured, or rather, shattered corpse of Hijarying there in the mud. The chimera weren''t as careful as the separated pairs, and destroyed their own bodies to do as much fatal damage as possible. In the process, basically every part of Hijar''s body had been destroyed. His bones were crushed, and his flesh was liquified. On the bits and pieces that were left, Eiro could see burn-marks and cuts from when others tried to attack the chimera that had linked itself to Hijar. No wonder Koperia said she wouldn''t have a vessel... she could turn him into a specter instead, like the two that Eiro had created that were now in the monster vige by Gobo''s side.


    But even then, things would be... different. Even if they were practically individual beings, those two were still undead of Eiro''s creation. If he wanted to, he couldmand them to do anything. They weren''t really... themselves. But for Hijar, Eiro wanted to do something else. He didn''t want him to be someone else''s toy, he wanted him to be as alive as possible.


    "We can bring him back." Eiro exined to Biril, and the beastman snapped his head around, ring at the Demon while entering an instinctive partially beastified form, "Don''t you dare turn my brother into an undead!"


    "...alright, we won''t. But there are other ways. Hijar''s soul is still around. He has a strong will, so it didn''tpletely disappear yet. Koperia stabilised his soul for now. With your permission, we can bring him back to life. As much of a true life as possible." Eiro exined, and Biril looked at him, his beastification slowly fading away, "I... I don''t know... can I... think about it?"


    "Of course. Take your time. I will ask Koperia to ce his soul into a storage container until you made your choice." Eiro exined, cing his hand onto Biril''s shoulder before turning back around, walking back to the others while Biril continued mourning over his brother, starting to think about the offer that Eiro had made.


    The Demon himself quickly walked back to the rest of his group, and exined the situation to Koperia, who let out a deep groan before walking over toward Hijar''s corpse to store his soul. Soon, an injured man walked up to the group. It was the head warrior, whose arm had beenpletely shattered.


    "Tell me, what happened?" He asked, clearly in pain, and Eiro quickly replied, actually exining the situation.


    "A few hours ago, I noticed some monsters approaching via the ocean. I went to get rid of them, and soon noticed their special configuration. A minotaur holding the Mountain Breaker, a tortle with an ability to link two individuals together to share any damage either of them received, and a bird-monster with the Mirror of Duplication. Since they were dangerous to the people here, I lured them away, and soon took care of them at a safe distance. But as it turned out, they were nothing but duplicates created through the mirror themselves." Eiro exined, "Then, the monsters you saw yourself attacked here. The owner of the mirror of duplication created those chimeras by mixing the tortle and minotaur together in special configurations, allowing them to easily attack, injure, or kill the people here. I tricked them into removing the duplicates over here, and took care of all of them at once over there."


    The head warrior looked at Eiro perplexed, andpletely confused, "Then... then, are you sure that you got the real ones? Are you sure they were not duplicates again?" The warrior asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, as he pulled out his two new cards.


    "Yes. I''m positive." Eiro replied immediately, turning his head toward the forest, "I turned the originals'' corpses into undead as well. They will be here soon, so you can confirm for yourself that they are truly dead." The Demon said, and the head warrior looked at Eiro with an expression of relief, "Thank you... truly, I thank you for dealing with them, putting your own safety in jeopardy."


    "...I just did my job. And considering that I will be keeping these two cards for myself... well, that''s rewawrd enough." Eiro said bluntly, quickly cing the cards back into his treasury, before the head warrior looked back at him perplexed, "You will be... keeping them?"


    "Of course I will." The Demon replied, knowing that of course the country of Baram would like to have these cards. And since they were the ones that received the greatest damage, they obviously had a right to them as well. But the head warrior couldn''t bring himself to point that out. After all.... Eiro, someone who was already stronger than anyone else here, had just be even more powerful.

 Chapter 583 - Hammer Tests

    Eiro and the head warrior looked at each other for a while, as the Demon was waiting for the man in front of him to say anything at all. But before he could, someone else did it instead.


    "What makes you think you should be allowed to stay the owner of those two cards? This was an attack targeting the hero. We are the ones that took most of the damage. We should be the ones to take ownership of them." A man pushed through the crowd. The Hero''s father, with a determined expression. Eiro looked back at him with a slight smirk, "Sorry, but it''s not happening. I won''t give these cards to you." The Demon said bluntly, and the Hero''s father red back, "You will regret not-"


    "I don''t think I will." Eiro replied immediately, "If you want them at ater point, sure, I''ll think about it. But what will you do with them right now? Giving these cards to a child like the hero is more than just a bad idea. But do you know what a good idea is? Letting me have them, so that I can grow in power and assist the hero in the war against the monster king.. The party fighting against the monster king will not have dozens of people in it. Rather, it will just be a small number of incredibly strong individuals. The hero is fated to be the strongest man in this world anyway, so having the strongestpanions is natural, isn''t it?" He exined, and the hero''s father let out a deep sigh.


    "We will speak about this another time, then. As long as you are loyal to us an our cause, then it matters not if the cards are in your hands. Rather, letting you have them for now might be useful... if, or when, the timees that you do give us the cards, you can teach the hero how to use them properly." The man said bluntly, and Eiro smiled back at him, "Exactly, that''s the right way to think about it. And believe me when I say, by the time the boy is strong enough, these cards will be in the hands of the hero."


    Surprised to hear Eiro promise something like that, the Hero''s father nodded his head, "Then for now, that is settled... we could not take them from you in the first ce, even if we wanted to, could we?"


    Eiro chuckled slightly and shook his head, "Of course, there''s no chance."


    ---


    Looking into the bright blue sky above him, Eiro let out a slight yawn. He wasying in the crow''s nest of the ship that was going to bring them back to the maind. Of course, a different ship and crew than the one that had brought them to Baram in the first ce.


    The first meeting of the champions was ended pre-maturely, and the moment that first recoveries had been made, the ones in charge of the event had immediately organized for any means of transport possible so that everyone could be brought back to their homes. Basically the moment that everyone had settled down, Eiro started having constant meetings in regard to the threat of possible further attacks, as well as the conditions for handing over the cards. Obviously, Eiro used his stance as the owner of the Knight of Pentacles, the absolute domain of truth, to get through those meetings more easily. Luckily, things like the domain of truth were hard to get a grasp of.


    Once Eiro managed to convince them that it practically forcefullypelled him to tell the truth, the rest was a breeze. And that statement was the truth in itself as well, to an extent. It was just that, as someone who had spent his whole life suppressing his monstrosity and influence of the Monster King, and quite a long time trying to lock away the effect of the Devil''s mark on top of that... something like beingpelled to tell the truth wasughably easy.


    But even then, Eiro does feel like he started telling the truth a lot more often. Maybe it did sort of make him want to explore the tactic of truthfully revealing part of his abilities to the champions, which was certainly a possibility. For now, it didn''t matter though. In the end, Eiro was definitely going to break the promises he made the past few days. Most of them, at least. Eiro said quite a few things that were technically the truth to make others believe him more easily through the Knight of Pentacles'' effect on others. Things like ''The hero will own those cards''. It technically wasn''t a lie. After all, Eiro was going to be the hero himself at some point, so the hero certainly will own the cards.


    Eiro lightly smiled, noticing that they were finally at a good spot in the middle of the ocean. He jumped off the crow''s nest, and jumped over the side of the ship without anyone noticing, and just stood there on the water for a while, which he had frozen to turn into a tform of ice that he was making steady using magic, and waited for the ship to be far enough away.


    After looking around and making sure that they was nothing else in the way either, Eiro pulled out one of his new cards. The Ace of Swords. He held the card, and quickly turned it into its true form, thatrge hammer.


    He tightly held the handle, and pulled his arm backward, before ncing at the three spirits floating next to him, "Maybe you guys should back off behind me a bit. It might affect you three as well." He pointed out, as Sarius scoffed with a deep re, "As if something like that could bother us! Just do it already, I wanna see this!" The Smander eximed excitedly, and Eiro turned his head, looking at the other two as well. It seemed like they were thinking the exactly same thing as Sarius. They wanted to see the full power that Eiro could currently present with this weapon. It was a special one, after all.


    The Mountain Breaker was a hard-to-control hammer that could exert an incredible amount of force. If you can''t control the weapon properly, your whole body is going to be ripped apart the moment you try to swing it. But in return, when you do manage to use it... it exerts an incredible amount of power. There was a reason why the cards of the suit of swords were amongst the most sought-after. Their effects were usually quite clear and straight-forward like this, and more openly powerful than the effects of other suits'' cards.


    Eiro took a deep breath, spreading his wings just in case. First, he swung the hammer through the air slowly, so slow that it wouldn''t even do damage if he hit someone at this speed, at least usually. But since Eiro was trying to properly use the hammer, it soon hit the air, as if it hit some sort of barrier. It was just a slight tap, but a gust of air was pushed out in front of Eiro. He could feel his muscles tensing up in response, as if he was just shocked from not using lighting magic properly, but it really didn''t do much.


    So, Eiro pulled the hammer back again, and this time swung it forward a bit faster, preparing for the feedback this time. Once more, Eiro hit the air. It wasn''t a strong base attack this time either, but a shockwave appeared in front of Eiro that caused ripples in the water. Once more, his arm tensed up quite a bit, but Eiro expected it this time.


    Now, Eiro swung the hammer a third time, once more a bit stronger than before. This time, the air seemed to crack and an explosive shotwave appeared in front of him, creating strong ripples in the water while pushing the ice tform backward, something that Eiro stopped with his wings and magic control.


    "Hm... let''s just assume the damage keeps rising in that pattern..." The Demon muttered. These first three attempts were just to figure out how much restraint Eiro needed to show, and how much he needed to concentrate, or how much damage he had to expect from using the hammer. Eiro could basically see the curve in his mind of how much the feedback was going to be depending on the damage output.


    "Then... let''s go with something I think I can handle a bit more..." Eiro muttered, and once more pulled his arm back. But this time, he really concentrated on the movement and the effect of the hammer. He had copied quite a few movements not only during the tournament, but during the champion meeting as well. His body had adjusted to the techniques that others used perfectly. One of the champions was actually someone that used a warhammer, so he was able to copy an expert''s movements. And of course, he also copied the movements of the minotaur and the chimeras.


    It didn''t seem like it took any particr damage from using the hammer so freely, so it must have had an immense amount of control over it. Eiro slowly closed his eyes andbined the two techniques, trying to minimize the damage to himself while maximizing the damage output.


    He swung the hammer forward, and hit a wall in the middle of the air. He could feel his body tensing up and his shoulder hurting, but a lot of the damage came from his weapon suddenly stoppingpletely mid-swing rather than the cost of using the weapon in itself.


    But that wasn''t important right now. Eiro''s ears were overwhelmed as the explosive sound echoed out around him in the middle of the ocean. A shockwave was shot forward, and the ocean seemed to fold around this circr cone that was created through the impact with the air. It only stopped after about a dozen meters, and the water that had been pushed above this ''tunnel'' quickly crashed down.


    With a grin on his face, Eiro looked at his arm. It did sting a bit now that things settled down, but it really wasn''t much for his standards. He just had to adjust to using this weapon properly over time. But somehow, Eiro didn''t want to stop now. He split up his arms, and held the weapon with all four hands, even his freshly-repaired wooden hand.


    Using his whole body for an all-out attack, Eiro swung the hammer. The moment that it impacted with that invisible wall, Eiro''s whole body was pushed backward. It was like he himself was hit by the full impact of the hammer, or so he thought in the first moment.


    By the time that Eiro recovered mid-air, he saw what had happened. It went on, practically all the way to the horizon. A huge tunnel that seemed to swallow up the ocean. The water folded up over the invisible cone. The fish and sea monsters swimming through the water, both above and below the Demon. The mist of water that was left within this tunnel glimmered in the light of the sun that was clearly visible through the center of this tunnel of water.


    It was an image that Eiro ingrained in his mind immediately. Even though his wooden hand once more shattered into pieces, and his skin along all his arms cracked and ripped open, and even his bones developed thin cracks that would cause them to shatter into dust if Eiro did this same thing again... Eiro found this sight absolutely beautiful.


    The Demon watched as the water crashed onto itself again, creating a loud noise that sounded even more impactful than the initial hit from the hammer. He wouldn''t be able to bring out this sort of power in the middle of battle, but... even if he couldn''t do that, with this hammer, Eiro was sure that his battle power went up immensely.

 Chapter 584 - Parallel

    Eiro soon returned to the ship after he finished ying around with the Ace of Swords. As one would expect, explosive sounds from that reached this ce as well. He couldn''t expect to basically take a chunk out of the ocean without anyone noticing at all, considering all the noise he made in the process. Most of the sailors on the ship were looking over the edge toward where the noise came from, nervous that it was a sign of some sort of attack, or a monster that was slowly approaching them.


    The passengers on the ship were not bothered in the slightest, though. They knew that it was Eiro ying around with one of his new cards. Stealthily, the Demonnded on the ship and made his way toward the area reserved for the passengers. This ship was a lotrger than the one that they took before, so it had a lot more pleasant parts about it like this. It was basically just onerger room where they could sit around and talk all together without having to be on the deck of the ship, surrounded by the sailors.


    Eiro stepped inside and closed the door behind him, seeing that everyone turned toward him, "That was you, right?" Krog asked, and Eiro slightly grinned, "Yeah, it was. And let me tell you, it was fun. Like, really fun."


    .


    "...Can you show us in the mountains near the monster vige?" James suggested with a slight smile and a raised brow, "I''m really curious about it."


    "More than that! Dad, can you copy it and give me one?" Arc asked curiously, and Eiro turned his head, locking eyes with him, "If I wanted to see this ship go under, then maybe. We''ll figure all that outter. Listen, the cards are dangerous, especially those of the suit of swords. Armodeus is already trying to figure out how to make artificial version of it, so we might be able to figure something out. But no, I won''t be giving you aplete duplicate." The Demon said bluntly, before Arc clicked his tongue and looked away, "Dammit... but you said it''s fun!"


    "It is, but it also ripped apart my body whenever I used it. So you should be thest person to have it." Eiro also pointed out, something that Arc seemed to understand a little bit more, before the Demon turned toward Rudy, "But actually, I might let you do it. It''s not like you can hurt anyone. And you earned it."


    Rudy raised his brows surprised, "Really? You''d let me use it?"


    "Sure. If the feedback wasn''t an issue, I''d let the others try it out as well. But you know, not now. We''ll figure out a good ce for itter." Eiro said with a smile, cing his hand on his son''s shoulder.


    "Urgh... then... at least make some duplicates of us!" Arc asked a bit annoyed, and Eiro scoffed, "I haven''t even tried it out on myself yet."


    "What, you scared your clone is going to turn evil and attack you?" Koperiaughed, and Eiro slowly turned toward her, "In... the original story, that''s what happened."


    Koperia raised her brow and sighed, "Eiro, those are stories, they''re not real."


    "Yeah, but so far, all of the stories were urate toward the costs and effects of the cards. Not fully, sure, but the things that were in the book were true in one way or another." Eiro exined briefly. Curiously, Clementine looked at her father, "What is the story for that card though? I don''t remember..." She admitted, even though she had read the book sometime before. Clementine was always the one to focus more on the illustrations that came with the stories than the written content itself.


    Eiro sat down and pulled out the card, looking at it as itid in his hand, "A young man is hired and exploited for his work at the harbor. He has to do things that a dozen other men should be doing, all on his own, while those dozen men just sit back and rx. Then one day, the Arcane Dealer appears before him, and gives him a hand-sized golden card. When he held it in his hand, it turned into a small, handheld mirror. He looked inside, and saw his own reflection. But when he blinked, he saw double. Another version of himself appeared behind him. It reacted to hismands, doing all that he wanted it to. He made it help with his work. More and more, he kept creating doubles at dawn, making them disappear at dusk. Until all of a sudden, one of them wasn''t there in the evening anymore. The man didn''t think much of it, thinking that he just didn''t count right when he made them in the morning." Eiro exined, briefly retelling the story in his own words.


    "And then the double that ran away became evil?" Clementine asked curiously, but Koperia let out a slight sigh as she shook her head, "Evil is not the right word here, now is it? The man had used it to do all his work, treating it even worse than he had ever been treated. As if it was a ve. The double, through its malice, broke free, and followed the original until he was sleeping. And that night, the double killed the original while he was sleeping." She finished the story for Eiro, who quickly nodded.


    "Exactly. So clearly, the doubles have their own mind. I know that I wouldn''t like being a ''fake'' that exists to do another''s bidding, so why would my double?"


    "Right, but also, you''re not really like others in many different ways beside that." Arie added, "Rather than fighting yourself here, putting everyone else in danger, wouldn''t you just try to... you know, talk about it first?"


    Eiro looked back at his lover in thought, before turning the card in his hand into a mirror, "You do have a point." He said, quickly trying to use the mirror to create a duplicate of himself. Slowly, a mass of magic came pouring out of the mirror and dropped onto the ground in front of him. It grew in size, and turned into the duplicate Eiro.


    The two of them looked at each other, and the original let out a simple, "Huh."


    "Huh indeed." The duplicate replied, "This is pretty interesting."


    "I don''t think that''s how it''s usually supposed to work."


    "I doubt it." The other Eiro added, while everyone else in the room looked at him confused, "The hell is going on now?" Arc asked with a wry smile, and the two Eiros quickly looked at him.


    "We share a mind." They said in tandem, before the original said, "It''s like... we are separate, but also not. He can think on his own, and so can I, but we share all those thoughts."


    "I can hear his, he can hear mine." The other finished, before the original looked at the double, "That being the case, you-"


    "No, I don''t mind this existence ending. I am you anyway, so." The double replied, and the real one shrugged, "Cool." And with that, he made the double disappear again.


    The others looked at him confused, not sure what just happened, so Eiro exined it a bit more, "So basically... it was like I was thinking in parallel. But each parallel mind had its own body." Eiro exined quickly, "The weirdest thing was that I could see directly out of his eyes, and hear what he heard, so. It''s neat, though."


    Koperia stood up and approached the demon, looking at the card, "Normally... the double is basically supposed to be an empty shell untilmanded otherwise, so how the hell did that happen?"


    "I don''t know, my legendary skill? My memory abilities? Probably abination of that. But I don''t mind, really." Eiro pointed out, finally rxed to know that there was practically no way for his doubles to suddenly go rogue. And immediately, he tried to figure out some fun ideas to help him train.


    "Hm... do it with me, make a double of me." Koperia said, and Eiro slowly looked up, "You sure about that?"


    "Yeah, I''m sure. Just do it. I want to see." She said immediately, and Eiro shrugged. He looked at the mirror, and focused on creating a double of Koperia. Another mass of magic poured out of the mirror and soon, a double of Koperia stood there in front of them. She looked exactly the same, but she was just standing there, barely just breathing, without a thought behind her eyes.


    "That''s... weird." Koperia muttered, "Can I kill it and turn it into an undead, I wonder..?"


    "Could you turn the doubles on the ind into undead?"


    "Right, yes, I could. Interesting... Eiro, I need to borrow that mirror for some experiments." Koperia said immediately, trying to stretch her hand out toward it, but Eiro just rolled his eyes, "Right, as if that''s happening."


    "Hold on... so it''s possible to duplicate anything with it, right?" Arc asked curiously, and Eiro nodded, "Yes, as long as it''s small enough. I probably wouldn''t be able to duplicate this whole ship, for example."


    "Hm... then you can duplicate money as well, right?"


    "Arc, we''re notmitting crimes with this, we have enough money already." The Demon said bluntly, as Arc looked at his father intensely, "But it would be so easy!"


    The Demon just scoffed in response, "You know what would also be easy? Asking the captain to stop at the nearest harbor and leaving you there."

 Chapter 585 - Tracking

    The ship came to a halt at the harbor closest to Skyhart''s capital. The group brought everything off the ship and entered the carriages, ready to make their way back to their homes. All of them beside Eiro, who chose to go on a small solo-trip alone. He wanted to check up on the monster town in the mountains. If the Devil had gotten those three to attack him in a ce where some of the strongest people on the continent had gathered, then it was definitely possible that something had happened there as well.


    Of course, the servants that Eiro had left behind didn''t signal him that anything happened, but it was possible that nothing happened ''yet''. Eiro wanted to head there and make sure that there was nothing lurking around the town that could be a potential threat to them. While the others were taking the carriages back home, Eiro would take care of that side of business.


    He rode off on Lugo''s back, and when they were far enough away, the Demon rubbed the top of the stags head with a smile, "Just do it like we practiced, alright?" He said, as he started pushing some of his magic into the stag. While, after Lugo''s own evolutions, he had be capable of using magic to an extent, he couldn''t produce or manipte it easily, so Eiro was assisting him in that. But Lugo was a great physical caster, so something rather interesting became possible.


    A cloud of dust formed around them as ayer of wind magic surrounded Lugo, and the stag started running forward.. The wind magic was the kind that helped the user move at speeds usually impossible. That,bined with earth magic to make the ground the perfect surface to run on, all the whilst using nature magic to push away any smaller nts that might be a bother, made it possible for them to travel at high speed. Sure, Eiro would still be a lot faster if he was flying, but this was still a decent alternative. And Lugo was still quite early in his journey of bing more powerful, so he would probably be able to travel a lot quicker as time went on. Or at least, so Eiro hoped. He still wanted Lugo to be a more active part of his travels, and for that, Lugo needed to be capable of pulling his weight. Of course, Eiro didn''t expect him to be capable of fighting at any point, but supporting the Demon somehow was enough for him.


    The way that things were going right now, they would reach the monster town in maybe two hours. They were travelling really quite fast, and in as straight a line as possible. They weren''t being bothered by any monsters either, since Eiro was letting out an aura specifically to try and scare them away. And even if something ended up near them, Eiro just killed them with a quick air or blood bullet, depending on what seemed more effective.


    So really, for now, the trip was quite rxing.


    ---


    Eiro slowly opened his eyes, annoyed by something that was going on nearby. A group of adventurers was trying to hunt nearby, and were trying to climb over some of the rocks. It seemed like one of them had the ability to track monsters. One of the monsters from the vige might have been outside hunting or gathering something, just to be seen by one of these adventurers, who managed to track it far enough. But since the earth mages only opened the entrance to those who they could recognize and did their best topletely hide from everyone else. Eiro should make sure to remind whichever monster was caught to be as careful as possible when going out, and to always carry something to disguise itself with. He should probably remind everyone of that again, actually. But for now, Eiro had to follow that reminder himself.


    Bavet''s slime covered his body, as the slime woke up from a nap, "Man, people are fucking annoying..."


    "You can say that again. Sorry for that, I promised that you could take a break."


    "Right, as if you''re actually sorry."


    "...I am."


    "..." Bavet silently continued transforming Eiro''s body, before speaking into his ear, "Now that''s creepy, what the fuck''s that about?"


    Eiro smiled lightly, "It''s that I can actually bepassionate and kind if I want to be? We just got back from a trip where my kids were seriously in danger, let me be a bit sentimental, will you?"


    "Sentimental? The first time we met you cold-heartedly blew me up and stuffed my core into a dirty ol'' bottle."


    "Bavet, the first time we met you just got back from the town at the foot of the mountain to eat a fucking person, so shut the fuck up about being cold-hearted, alright?"


    Bavet let out a loud groan, "So? Have I eaten anyone ever since?"


    "Not because ofck of trying. Don''t think I didn''t notice you trying to digest me the first time we did this whole fusion thing." Eiro replied immediately, "Now shut it, we''re getting closer to them. Can''t have them think I''m a crazy guy talking to himself."


    Bavet kept grumbling to himself, as Lugo finally slowed down, slowly approaching the group of five adventurers in front of them. Soon, the one that seemed to be the scout, turned around upon noticing him. He told the others in his group that there was someoneing, and they turned, waiting for him. It was clear that Eiro was moving right toward them, after all.


    Soon, the Demon came to a stop and climbed off Lugo''s back, "Can I ask what you''re doing here? This part of the mountain is specifically restricted."


    "We could ask you the same." The leader of the group replied quickly, crossing her arms, unimpressed by Eiro''s getup and sudden appearance. Eiro let out a sigh, "Coincidentally I''m allowed to be here. You, however, are not. There''s probably a dozen signs set up around here telling anyone that might think abouting into this area, that they''re not supposed to. So if you dide here, you''remitting a crime."


    "...We''re just trying to take a shortcut, so what? It''s butt-fuck nowhere, who even gives a shit?" The scout replied immediately, before Eiro rolled his eyes, "I do, isn''t that obvious? If you don''t even understand that, stay out of it." The Demon said immediately, not wanting to bother with this.


    Eiro crossed his arms, "You five weren''t just looking for a shortcut, you were trying to climb deeper into the restricted area." He added, "Now, doing that is an offense that I can directly arrest and trial you for."


    "Who do you think you-"


    "Are you...?" The group''s mage, and elderly man, asked, quite unsure. The Demon was wearing a hood and hiding his hair right now, his most memorable feature, after all. It was tough to remember him otherwise, especially if they only saw him once or twice. Eiro turned toward him with a smile, "You''re from Skyhart, huh? Or at least, you were there during the tournament. I remember your face from the crowd."


    The mage raised his brows surprised, and immediately fell to his knee, upon which the rest of his group looked back at him and then at Eiro confused, "I apologize for the insolence, my lord. We found a monster running around, and wanted to take it out to ensure the safety of other travelers. It seemed to run with a specific location in mind, so we assumed that there was a hideout with more of them around here."


    Eiro ced his hands onto his hip and let out a deep sigh, "Fine. I''ll let you off. I''m going to take care of it, so just leave now and I''ll forget about it."


    "Hold on." The party leader said with a deep frown, "We''re the ones that found it, so we''ll be the ones taking it, and its whole fucking nest, out. I don''t care who you are."


    "I''m baron Eiro Jura Daemonherz, who will soon be promoted to viscount due to the fact that I''m a champion and have just been named the primary teacher of the current-generation hero." Eiro said bluntly, and the face of the woman in front of him went pale, "That... You..." She muttered, and quickly fell to her knee as well, just the same as the rest of her party did.


    "Now, you didn''t know that, but I do advise you to be a bit more forting when someone is trying to let you off when you''remitting a crime. So get the hell out of here, before I change my mind." Eiro said bluntly, making sure to exert some extra pressure on this group. Although it was clear especially the scout was annoyed about this, they all went on their way along the treaded path, when Eiro felt something annoyinging his way.


    He turned around, seeing the scout who had nced backward at him again. They locked eyes, and with that single moment of eye-contact, Eiro made sure that this scout knew that if he ever tried tracking him again, he would never see the light of day again.


    Once they were gone, and the Demon made sure that they were far enough away, he walked up to a nearby rock-wall, and opened up the pathway. The guards that had been set up there nodded at Eiro, as he quickly spoke to them.


    "Make sure to be careful, there might be some bothersome peopleing back here soon."

 Chapter 586 - From His Chest

    The Demon soon reached the end of the tunnel, which thus far had been renovated quite extensively. Instead of the rough cave that they had used before, it was arge and wide tunnel that could even hold a carriage or two right next to each other. It was in preparation for potential import and export with the monster town. Eiro entered into the wide open space in front of him, looking at the expanded ravine stretching out in both directions. All different sorts of monsters were walking around here, at the different levels of this ce.


    Eiro really liked these moments, stepping from the dark tunnels into the bright open view of this ravine, since it was just a great sight to him. It was like he was shown that what he was doing wasn''t in vain, but that he really could find a way to fix this messed up system ruling over this world. But that moment didn''tst long this time, since he soon saw the monster that had caused trouble for this whole ce. If Eiro hadn''t been lucky enough to be there, he''d have to cover up five adventurers that went missing in the middle of his territory, because he certainly wouldn''t have let them leave alive after seeing the town.


    In a straight line, the Demon approached the monster. It was a young Lizardman, who was crouching by the wall, with his heart beating so strong that it was obvious he did something wrong.


    "The hell did you think you were doing out there?" Eiro asked, in Lizardman speech.. It had a weird sort of guttural sound to it which sounded weird sometimes, but it was important that this Lizardman understood what he did wrong. He raised his head, and soon saw Eiro''s horns glistering in the sun. Just a momentter, his tail fell off out of fear as it nearly had a heart-attack.


    Eiro rolled his eyes with a deep groan, "Come with me, I''ll talk to you about this in front of your leader." The Demon said angrily, grabbig the young monster by his shoulder, dragging him over toward the other side of the ravine where the town hall stood. The Lizardman Leader was working in a special, humid room that represented the best possible climate for the lizardman race. It was basically a literal swamp in there, but Eiro didn''t really care.


    He stepped into the room, and immediately got rid of all the humidity in the air, of course waking the lizardman leader up from his nap, "By Lady Winter, what the fuck is wrong with you? You''re justying here, napping?"


    Therge lizardman leader red down at Eiro, "I need my sleep."


    "And I need you to do your job, which is to take care of the other lizardmen. Do you know what this guy did? He went outside, and got caught. Because of you, we''re going to need to deal with some bothersome idiots running around this town." Eiro said bluntly, and the lizardman leader slowly looked at the young monster that Eiro was holding onto.


    With a scoff, he shook his head, "Not my fault. He got caught. Not me."


    Eiro took a few steps forward, standing right in front of the lizardman leader, "Listen up, asshole, if I say it''s your fault, it''s your fault. If I tell you to do your fucking job, you do your fucking job. If you don''t understand that, I''ll bury you in this very room and appoint someone else as the lizardmen''s leader." Grinding his teeth together, Eiro made sure that the monster in front of him would understand that he wasn''t kidding around.


    "I take care of it. Now go. Leave him here." The Lizardman leader replied, and Eiro sighed deeply, "Just to make it clear, I don''t want you to kill him, torture him, or even scratch a scale on his body. Anything you do to him, I will do to you, ten times over."


    Eiro turned around and left the room again, returning the humidity as he made his way over to where Gobo was right now. He wasn''t in the town-hall, though. Eiro stepped outside annoyed, leaving Bavet here, "Go and keep sleeping or something, I''ll pick you upter."


    "Sure thing, boss." Bavet said with a light smirk on his face, as he casually walked through the ce. Meanwhile, Eiro stepped outside again, looking at Lugo, "And you, just stay here for now. I''ll be flying over there." He told his familiar, spreading out his wings as he did so. His mood had already been soured, so he didn''t really want to y around right now, and instead just wanted to check on everything as he nned before, and then make his way back to Skyhart.


    Eiro shot into the sky and made his way over toward the other part of the town, where construction, or rather reconstruction, was underway. About two months ago, Eiro was given permission by Solomon to take apart the floating ind, using the materials from the ruined city to create a new town here in the mountains. Some buildings, Eiro was able to just take and ce down into the new location nearly fully impact, but others had to be taken apart into their small pieces so that those pieces could be used to build new structures. The deconstruction was finished not too long ago, so Eiro hade here to figure out what to do with the rest. With the giant gravity magic stone that had been keeping said ind afloat.


    For now, they couldn''t directly use it, but Eiro found another ce to keep it for now, and that was where he was going.


    The new part of town was in the area where Eiro had kept away the floating ind for those few months, and right next to it was one of thergest mountains of this whole mountain range that Eiro ruled over. And Eiro hollowed out part of that mountain to hide the huge magic stone inside of it, until they found a proper way to make use of it in the future. However, through that giant magic stone which seemed like it could never run out of magic, Eiro was able to start working on something quite interesting, and Gobo was right at the site where that ''interesting'' thing was being constructed.


    Landing right next to the entrance to the building, Eiro could already feel therge amount of magic being gathered in one spot not too far away from where he was standing, and quickly stepped inside. He looked at the intricate carvings all over the walls, floor and ceiling, as well as the four wooden pirs ced into the center of this quiterge hall.


    "Gobo, what are you doing in here?" Eiro asked, and the Hobgoblin slowly turned around, the two will''o''wisps floating right beside him.


    "I was just checking on it to see if everything was alright, Master." He exined quickly, "How was the trip?"


    Eiro scratched the back of his head, before a handmirror appeared on his palm. And a momentter, one turned into two, and two turned into three, as a trio of Eiro''s suddenly walked around the room, "It was alright." The original said, as the copies started to exin the story in tandem, while the original focused more on the center of the room. By the time the story was over, Eiro had continued carving slightly into the wooden pirs, as if preparing them for something.


    "So you''ve got two more cards now?" Mikey, one of the two will''o''wisps next to Gobo, asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yes, exactly. One of which wille in quite useful in finishing up this whole thing."


    "How so?" Gobo asked, and Eiro slowly turned around, "It''s quite easy. In order to perfect this array, we would usually need four experts working perfectly synchronized with each other. That, or one mind and four bodies." The Demon pointed out, as another double appeared, and the three doubles all stepped up to one of the wooden pirs.


    "But isn''t it already working well enough?" Gobo asked curiously, and Eiro shook his head, "Not well enough, no. It isn''t concentrated enough to allow for the crystalization of this magic, especially not on its own. But when I add all of this..." Eiro said, as one of his doubles continued, while all four of them were intricately carving into the surface of the wood pirs, using his knowledge of Artificing that he had built up over the past few months while working together with Armodeus.


    Suddenly, as the four of them were done, the magic that was being pulled into the center of the room was more intense. Far, far more intense, to the point where it was affecting its surroundings. Gravity wells were being created all over the room. Gobo felt three times his weight pushing onto his body, while Eiro himself felt practically weightless.


    He made the doubles disappear, and took a few deep breaths. He slowed down his heartbeat more and more, until his heartpletely stopped. Instead, Eiro moved his blood using magic, making his heart unnecessary for that moment. And that was for the simple reason that Eiro had to do this in order to finish up this thing that they had been working on for a while now.


    Just recently, Eiro hade to understand the crystal formations in his chest more and more, after using them up all at once, and feeling them reform bit by bit over time.


    The Demon pulled his dagger out of his treasury, and stabbed it into his chest, just barely missing his heart as he did. Eiro pushed his hand into the cut, and slowly moved it closer toward the first of the two crystals, and pressed his fingers around it, slowly pulling it out. It was painful, incredibly so, but it wasn''t the worst pain he had felt by far. The crystalid in Eiro''s hand, and the Demon took a deep breath, as he pushed his hand into the cut once more, this time trying to pull out the other crystal as well. If Eiro wasn''t able to manipte his joints like he did, he never would have been able to pull the crystal out of there so easily. The two bloody crystals were nowying in Eiro''s hand, as the damage he did to himself slowly regenerated.


    Letting out a deep breath, Eiro looked at the two notifications in front of his eyes.


    ---


    <strong>[You have forcefully removed 1.000.000 Mana from your body]</strong>


    <strong>[You have forcefully removed 1.000.000 Mana from your body]</strong>


    ---


    "Alright, there we go." Eiro said with a loud groan, while Gobo was standing there, looking at his master perplexed. Never had he seen anyone force their hand into their own chest like that, procuring something that Gobo didn''t even know existed. But the Demon wasn''t paying attention to that. He slowly removed the blood from those crystals, and watched as this concentrated mass of mana acted exactly like the Demon wanted it to.

 Chapter 587 - Magic Stone Creation

    Eiro looked at the two crystals float above his palm, reacting to every single of the Demon''s thoughts. It was a concentrated mass of mana, meaning that it was a concentration of Eiro''s will. At least for a few more moments.


    The Demon drew a magic circle into the air, cing the two crystals into the center. Once it was activated, Eiro split his mouth in two and started muttering different chants in the ancientnguage. It was not the chant for this spell itself, but rather, he was trying to chant the essence of the ancientnguage to infuse it into the crystals. Slowly, as the spell was doing its job, another crystal formation started growing on the outside of the two crystals. Eiro was pulling his essence out of these two crystals, while stabilizing them with the ancientnguage.


    Luckily, it worked surprisingly well. Soon, the spell was over, and the two crystals fell down onto Eiro''s palms. With a single thought, he made the crystalized essence split off from the pure crystalized mana. He had a tougher time manipting the crystalized mana, but he could still make them float. As for the crystalized essence, however.... it was quite incredible. Maybe Eiro should try to produce more of this over time, because having this crystalized mass would be more than just useful. But for now, he simply fused the essence together and ced them into his treasury in the form of a smooth, small marble.


    Then, he grabbed the crystals of pure mana and brought them into the center of the four wooden pirs. He made the crystals float there, and started drawing another magic circle array there. But this time, he made sure that it wasn''t going to be fed with his own mana, but the natural mana that was being pulled here by this whole room. It took a while for Eiro to fine-tune everything, but luckily, the crystals were each worth exactly a million points of mana. If they weren''t, then Eiro would have to do a lot of fine-tuning to get this to work. But knowing their exact value, Eiro could skip a few steps, and soon activated the magic circle. The two crystals were floating, suspended in air indefinitely. They were pulling in the elemental magic that was here in this room, making it continuosly move between each crystal. By doing this, over time, the magic was going to crystalize on the surface of the mana crystals. If Eiro was right, then that huge magic stone that was now ced into the center of this mountain had a direct connection to the ne of gravity, a minor ne, but still one that had an unending ess to gravity magic.


    Through that crystal, Eiro could pull the magic into this world and stabilize it in the process, before artificially turning it into gravity magic stones. It would take a while to get enough mass to be able to use them properly, but it wasn''t like they were short on it. And now, the Demon moved to a specific spot on the other side of the room, and slowly pushed his finger into the floor,pleting the circuit that was carved everywhere.


    The room was suddenly being flooded with magic, a suffocating amount. For just an instant, the gravity was crushing, to the extent where Gobo was immediately thrown onto the ground. But the next instant, the arrays in the room did their job, and the magic was focused into the space between the four pirs.


    Out of curiosity, Eiro approached that space, and moved his hand into that space. The moment he did, however, he could feel his skin and flesh practically being ripped off his bones just due to the sheer gravity that was affecting that space.


    "Don''t let anyone in here, ever. And I''ll set up a barrier around these pirs, so don''t ever try to enter this space. Anyone that does is just going to get themselves killed." Eiro said bluntly, quickly getting to work on the barrier that he mentioned, even though he was already rather low on mana from doing all of this.


    Gobo slowly stood up after recovering from the physical shock of that intense gravity, looking at his master, "So, why exactly are you trying to create gravity magic stones? Could we not just harvest them from that giant one?"


    Eiro turned his head, and looked at the Hobgoblin, "Well, sure, but... not directly. That is a huge magic stone, but that volume is the only reason it can draw out as much magic as it can. If we harvested any from that huge mass, the magic stone we get would just be... sub-par. But what we are doing now, is creating high-quality magic stones of one of the most rare magical elements. Having ess to this is going to help our town grow an incredible amount."


    Crossing his arms in thought, Gobo slightly tilted his head, "Right, but... that ind just went missing a few months ago, and then all of a sudden a town nobody''s ever heard about starts exporting gravity magic stones? That seems sort of..."


    "Sketchy, yes, but that''s because we won''t be doing that, at least not for now. In the first ce, it isn''tmon knowledge exactly how that ind was able to float like that, so even if we did, it probably wouldn''t be as big a deal as you think. But either way, what we''re doing is using these high-quality magic stones to create carriages that can carry two, three, if not four times more than a normal carriage of that size can. And, we will be using those magic stones to create a troupe of powerful mages, so that in case of an emergency, we can easily push back any potential intruders or threats. Because gravity magic is not only one of the most rare types of magic out there, but it''s also amongst the most imminently threatening to living beings. You just saw it, right? Just a moment of that brought you to your knees, and you''re not particrly weak." Eiro exined with a grin on his face, as he finished the barrier, pushing his hand into the center of one of the invisible walls. From there, he pulled a lot of the gravity magic gathered in the space in front of him into his body. He may have unlocked the gravity magic skill, but that didn''t mean he could currently produce as much as he could gather up here in an instant. And with it, he was going to show off the power of this particr magic.


    Eiro moved the magic around, bringing it into his palm. Over thest while, he had managed to grow his control over his new abilities, in particr, the ones where he could physically absorb practically anything he wanted. Right now, he was absorbing that magic into himself, and manipted it for a specific goal. Hepressed it within his body, and slowly brought thepressed mass toward his palm, gathering more and more of this magic there. And then, he used the tricks that he learned after not only consuming different gemstones, but when he practiced bringing them back to a directly physical form to help him in his defensive abilities. He had learned how to crystalize substances that he had already turned into something else within him.


    And so, a small magic stone, smaller than even his pupil or a drop of water, appeared on his palm. Eiro walked over toward Gobo, and ced it into the Hobgoblin''s hand, before bringing him outside.


    "You know how to use magic stones already, so go ahead. Try it out, use on anything you want. It''s small, but it''s pure magic, different to most naturally-uring magic stones." Eiro pointed out, and Gobo looked at the tiny orb. Slowly, he rolled it over toward his fingers, until he was holding it between his index finger and thumb.


    Eiro could feel that Gobo was letting his mana flow into it, and just a momentter, the rocks and pebbles, uprooted flowers, and small mounds of dirt and dust, rose up weightlessly from the ground. Not muchter, Gobo himself lifted off the ground, even if just a foot or two.


    "Using this... construction is going to be a lot easier as well. We''ve had to use a lot of tricks for some of the buildings, especially cause the harpies want really tall buildings to build their nests. But building supporting foundation for that and taking it apart again is so much more expensive in time and materials than building those towers in the first ce." Gobo pointed out, soon setting his feet steady on the ground as well, before noticing Eiro''s expression when looking at him, "What?"


    "Oh, nothing, just... you''ve be a lot more eloquent and responsible since I met you. Back then, you were a total dumbass, seriously."


    "Yeah, and my intelligence and wisdom more than tripled since then, and that''s all thanks to you." Gobo replied immediately, but Eiro just shrugged, "I know. But that doesn''t mean your little part in it isn''t impressive. You''ve been doing good work here, Gobo. It''s why I''m leaving this ce in your hands, after all."


    "Hm? But you are the lord of this town, master."


    "Right, but that''s just in name. I''m here once every few weeks, help out a little, and then leave. You''re the one actually taking care of everything. And when the rules of this world change, I might not end up being the lord in name anymore either, then that role might be given to you too."


    Gobo looked at Eiro confused, "What do you mean?"


    "I mean that, if everything works out, in the future, monsters and people can coexist."

 Chapter 588 - Duplicates’ Limits

    Eiro walked down into the new town that was being constructed. Numerous monsters were working all around him, with the ones that were doing the actual brunt of the work being the trolls and orcs. Although, the molemen did do a great job at supporting everyone and creating all the foundations that were needed. The speed at which they were working was actually impressive, especiallypared to what Eiro had seen from construction sites in the capital.


    Thinking that this was a good chance to help out a bit, Eiro brought out his mirror again. He looked into it, and soon, a dozen copies of himself appeared all around him. Having just three copies was weird, considering that all the experiences and senses were shared between them, but having a dozen sources of information like that was even more overwhelming. But luckily, since all the minds were able to think on their own, the dozen Eiros were able to get over it quite quickly.


    Without him even needing to speak out amand to them, the original Eiro watched all the doubles spread out throughout the new town, ready to help out wherever they could. The Demon smiled lightly at the light glee that he felt when thinking about just how much he could get done with these. It did seem that overall, the doubles weren''t nearly as powerful as Eiro. The greatest focus on the duplication of himself seemed to be ced on enabling them to think at the same mental capacity as himself. So while they would certainly be useful in battles, everything considered, their main use would be with Eiro finally being able to fulfill one of his long-term goals.. Whenever he had the time, he would flip through the books at either his own home''s library, or the library at the Academy. During the time that his evolution was active, he had the time to at least do the former, even if he didn''t have the time to fullyprehend each and every book yet.


    But with the help of the doubles, which practically let him duplicate his conscience as well, he could get everything done even faster than he had nned. He could properly read everything in his mental library with dozens of doubles walking around in there, before strategically going through every single book in the Academy''s library, which was very well a dozen timesrger than the library at Eiro''s home. It was the prospect that he was most excited about.


    "Maybe I should try and find the whereabouts of the Librarian soon. Being able to read all of those books... that sounds like heaven." Eiro thought to himself, noticing that all the doubles were thinking about simr things at the same time. It was interesting. Even though one of them would know everything that the others were thinking about, effectively letting them think about a dozen things all at once, most things they thought about were usually sort of in tune with each other.


    "M''Lord!" A familiar voice suddenly yelled out from near Eiro, as the leader of the trolls, Rashi, approached him with a broad smile on her face. She was running at him at full speed, with no intention of stopping in the slightest. Of course, Eiro simply pushed his hand forward, using magic to forcefully slow her down before she impacted with him, "Slow down. Is there an issue?"


    "No! Of course not! I''m simply happy to see you again! You left before I could see you,st time!" She pointed out in troll-speech. Eiro was actually sort of annoyed at that, "Still not making any attempts at learningmon, are you?"


    "Urgh..." Rashi looked at the Demon with a wry smile, "...is that really necessary? It''s so hard!"


    Eiro rolled his eyes, "Listen, if I was able to learn it when I had single-digit intelligence, then you can learn it as well. So stopining, and just get to it."


    "Yeah, but you-" Rashi said, before stopping upon hearing what Eiro just said, "Single-digit intelligence?"


    Gobo let out a deep sigh, standing right behind Eiro, "Master is a monster created by the Monster King, just as you are. He started out at the very bottom, so of course he possessed single-digit intelligence at one point. But that makes him even more impressive, seeing where he got from nothing!" Gobo exined, nearly as if he was bragging about himself at the moment. He was speaking in an ented troll-speech. The Troll and Goblinnguages were actually quite simr, so it wasn''t tough for him how to learn it. But maybe just because of how simr they were, Gobo had a tough time fixing his quite heavy ent, even though he could speakmon quite fluently, without much of a noticeable ent.


    "Well, yeah, I know that, but how''d he learn anguage that early..?" Rashi asked confused. Eiro rolled his eyes, "My soul used to be that of the Sage, so my base intelligence is quite high. The people that I met back then gave me a skill-boost to elerate mynguage learning speed. It was luck, basically. But the only thing that was sped up was my learning speed, my base ability to learn wasn''t affected. So while you might not proceed at my rate, you should be fine." Eiro exined, "If you need any help, ask Gobo for now. I''ll start working on some dictionaries. Which might be a bit tough, since most monsternguages are purely vocal, but I''ll figure something out."


    "That reminds me." Gobo said, "We started thosemonnguage sses a few weeks ago, and they''re doing alright, but... I think there are a lot of them that just aren''t made for learningnguages... Some can barely even speak their own race''snguage."


    "...Right." Eiro replied, "In that case, focus on teaching that part of the monsters those respectivenguages. That way we can split things up as well. Focus more on the ones that show promise, and give more support to the ones that need it, since we can use other monsters to teach the monsternguages." He suggested, something that Gobo immediately took in. However, since they were speaking inmon just now, Rashi wasn''t able to follow along with what was being said.


    "Oi, you two talking about me?" She asked in an annoyed tone, and Eiro quickly turned toward her, "Learnmon, and find out." He said bluntly, before soon turning around again. He had already sensed every corner of this town by now, so he knew the exact progress of what the town was likepared to before. There was not really much else that he wanted to check on. So instead, Eiro was now going to make his way back to the old town to see what was going to happen to the doubles as the distance between them increased.


    Of course, Gobo once more followed closely behind him, and for some reason, Rashi followed as well, although she was supposed to be supervising the construction efforts. But considering that eleven of Eiro''s doubles were there, it didn''t really matter whether or not she was running around. It didn''t seem like she actually did too much work, and instead was justzing around the whole time. But for the most part, Eiro already gave up trying to correct her behaviour. No matter what he did, she wasn''t listening to him. And when he started resorting to extreme violence in the face of the fact that she was a troll capable of regenerating nearly everything that he did to her... that method backfired. Rather than be put off by the injuries, she was starting to look forward to them. In general, most trolls seemed to have a weird rtionship with pain.


    And while not all of them took the sort of pleasure from it like Rashi did, they still felt a different kind that focused more onbat. They were creatures born for war, and the more they were attacked duringbat, the more fired up they were going to be. Not out of anger, but out of excitement. So, since there didn''t seem to be much he could do for now, since he still hadn''t found much out about direct mind-control magic which he was currently researching and had no interest in seducing Rashi to make her do what he wanted, he just put her education off for now. She was still much easier to deal with than all the other trolls, after all.


    Eiro walked up the steps leading to the tunnel that would bring him back to the old town, already taking notice of the changes that were happening in the doubles'' bodies. It wasn''t anything big, and Eiro wouldn''t be able to notice it if he didn''t share a consciousness with the doubles. Bit by bit, with every step that the original took away from the doubles, their strength was slowly fading away. Each step taking away more than thest. And not just that, their physical forms were slowly degrading as well. Not visually, but their bodies were weaker than before in every aspect. Wondering how far this would continue, one of the doubles shot up into the sky and flew into the distance, its body degrading more and more. Soon, the double could barely be recognized as Eiro himself, as its horns started melting away. Its wings soon weren''t able to hold its weight anymore, and the double fell to the ground, dying upon impact.


    Shivers went through Eiro''s body as he experienced true death for the second time in his life. It was a truly ufortable feeling. But even then, knowing the limits of the doubles was useful in many ways.

 Chapter 589 Duplicate Experiments

    Eiro sat at the edge of the training area of the old town. He could have stayed in the town hall, but he figured getting some air and having the monsters see him around a bit more was a good idea as well. There were quite a few other monsters around him, trying their best to improve their abilities, but no matter what they did, they were all quite focused on what Eiro, the lord of the town was doing. And what it was, was really quite grotesque. He was practicing how much he could manipte the duplicates that he was creating with the mirror.


    It was a simple exercise, really. He pulled a perfect one foot by one foot cube out of the ground, and then duplicated it. First, he tried to simply stretch it out into any direction. Soon, the cube was one foot by two feet. Of course, since he only created a single duplicate and kept anything but the shape the same, even the weight, the cube was much weaker than before. More and more, Eiro tried to stretch out the duplicates that he was creating more and more, until the cube was taller than himself.


    He pressed his hand against its surface, and could feel it practically cave in under his touch. But at the very least, it looked like just a giant cube of rock, even if it wasn''t nearly as sturdy. This would be good to know for fear-tactics. Wondering how far he could push this maniption, Eiro created another duplicate, but this time, instead of keeping the cuboid shape, he created a sphere. And then a small pyramid. He tried to keep on creating more and moreplex shapes. The trick to manipting the duplicate was quite simple, really. Instinctively, he thought that a different mental image would change the form of the final duplicate, like it was often the case with magic. But rather, what one had to do was to manipte that formless mass that came out of the mirror, which would then turn into the duplicate. The earlier he did so, the easier it was. The closer it came to turning into its final, solid form, the harder it was to manipte, until it was simply impossible to do through the help of the mirror. Of course, Eiro could try to reform the duplicate, as if ''repairing'' it, which would momentarily turn it back into its liquid form which could then be manipted again. Now it made sense why those chimeras looked so... grotesque. It would be something hard to do for those unskilled in such detailed maniption. But for Eiro, it was as easy as breathing at this point, meaning that he could turn one thing into another quite easily.


    The fusion of different masses was a bit moreplicated, but it gave Eiro some important insight into fusing different sort of magics together. He had weirdly been struggling with that more than he thought he would, but this was going to help him speed the process up quite a bit. And then, he moved on to other test subjects. He had considered manipting duplicates of the monsters around him to create chimeras as well, but he figured he would gain more insight if he simply did it on a duplicate of himself.


    And so, his practice continued like that. He created duplicates. He made somerger, some smaller. He distorted their limbs, orpletely changed their physical and internal structures until he had a grotesque being of nightmares standing in front of him.


    Sometimes, he changed some things to make them more useful. For example, by erging only the size of a duplicate''s wings. Eiro''s body was strong enough to take some parts of it being erged to three or four times their original size. And havingrger wings would just allow the duplicate to fly faster. Not that it needed to. After just about half a dozen ps of them, the duplicate fell apart into nothingness. However, it didn''t take long until Eiro did find a use of it. He could create a partial duplicate of himself, of just his wings and part of his bones, and then he fused the duplicated wings with his own, letting him make them asrge as he wanted quite easily.


    But it didn''t take long until Eiro found another use for the duplification. He took some of the processed iron that was dug up in the mines and duplicated it a few times, letting one of his own duplicates consume and absorb it. Eiro never went all that far with this himself, since he was unsure if his body could keep functioning even if he was made mostly of some sort of metal.


    Whenever Eiro''s duplicate finished the metal, he would give it some more. And then more and more. Soon, the duplicate''s body was made half of metal, and half of flesh. It bulked up quite a lot, due to the extra mass added onto its own. It was like the normal Eiro was simply supersized a little, and his skin took on a lot more pale, metallicplexion, as one would expect.


    But even so, the duplicate was able to function anyway. Movements became more sluggish, and the weight did mess a few things up, but it seemed like his unique body could take it anyway. It made sense, honestly. The former ''World'' used bodies solely created by absorbing foreign masses into itself. But since back then, that ''World'' was an incorporeal being, things worked different in the first ce. So, Eiro didn''t simply ept it like this, and figured he should bring the duplicate to its limit. It kept on feeding on more and more metal, until it soonined.


    "This is starting to hurt. Starting at around... two cubic meters of volume. Now, it''s spread evenly throughout, but removing most of it from the heart and circtory system might be a good idea." The duplicate exined, and the original of course took notes, although he himself already knew this well enough. Vocally conveying it just felt sort offortable, however. In the end, they still didn''t stop, though. Right now, the sheer weight of the duplicate Eiro was making it more than just tough for it to move. Rather, its bones were close to breaking if he moved too much, and he wasn''t sure if he could move faster than walking pace even if he tried everything in his arsenal.


    But even then, the duplicate didn''t stop. Or well, technically it did. It wasn''t able to feed itself anymore, so instead, the real Eiro pulled its mouth open and forced more metal down its throat. He knew that the duplicate was still conscious of course, and he knew that it was still digesting the metal. Soon, a bulking metal statue in the form of an oversized Eiro stood in front of him.


    "Hm... interesting." The Demon muttered to himself, as he suddenly pulled away all of the metal. Since the iron had all been duplicated as well, this was pretty easy. And then, a grotesque mass of flesh in the shape of Eiro fell down to the ground. The duplicate, whose mind was still active, had a tough time keeping its body together. Since it didn''t push the metal out of its body itself, but rather, it simply disappeared, the ''flesh'' parts of its body stayed stretched out. The duplicated demon fell apart as a bizarre amount of pain rushed into the Demon''s mind, soon followed by the death of the duplicate. Even Eiro couldn''t be pulled apart like that and just survive. Some of the monsters around the training area that had been watching the whole thing as well were feeling more than just disgusted by what they saw. Some felt nauseous, and others threw up. It made sense. A duplicate of Eiro''s body just fell to the ground in the form of some sort of weird, bloody sludge.


    But at the very least, Eiro now knew his own limits when it came to absorption. And more importantly... he knew that his mind wouldn''t fade away no matter how much he took in. He already figured this to be the case. After all, when he fused himself with magic, his whole body was practically reced by it. He could turn into a sentient mass of air or shadows at will. But magic always worked a little differentlypared to the regrws of nature. And this absorption technically wasn''t magic, it was a physical ability that Eiro gained.


    "Urgh... do you really have to do something like that...? Man, even though we know they''re not really you. Rather, they''repletely different to you, but it''s still horrifying seeing you like that." Nelli pointed out, floating up right next to the Demon.


    "I get it. It really is, isn''t it?" He replied, before wondering about something, "Also... what do you mean they''repletely different to me?"


    "Huh?" Nelli let out confused, "Ah, well... they don''t have a soul. They''re filled with magic, and something simr to a soul for a lot of purposes, but there''s a lot of key differences. For example, they don''t have the gateways." She exined. At that moment, Eiro felt a spark run through his mind. An idea, to let him do something he hadpletely given up on.


    "They don''t have the connection to the elemental nes..." Eiro muttered. He himself could never reach those nes through the gateways ced in his soul, since it didn''t make sense. You can''t push a hole through itself. However, if the duplicates didn''t have the gateways, but they shared a consciousness with him... then he could do something he had wanted for a while.


    Eiro summoned a duplicate in front of himself, and it immediately fused itself with water magic. Not with water itself, but with pure, concentrated magic. Soon, the transformation wasplete, and the duplicate was practically an elemental himself now. It slowly stepped up to Eiro, and ced its hand on its chest, as Nelli, Gondos and Sarius understood what was happening. They could see the flow of the magic, after all.


    "Oi, are you insane? What if it doesn''t work? You''ll just feel yourself be ripped to shreds!" Sarius eximed, warning his contractor not do something stupid like that. But of course, Eiro never listened to others when his mind was set on something already.


    And so, for the first time, instead of pulling magic from the elemental ne to the central ne... Eiro pulled magic from the central ne into the elemental ne. And a few momentster, after feeling his bodypress down to an infinitely small size in an instant, just for it to dpress into its normal size, Eiro first set foot in the elemental ne of water.

 Chapter 590 The Elemental Planes

    Eiro looked around in the elemental ne of water. Of course, it was just an ocean spreading into seemingly all directions. The water was illuminated through huge water magic stones, giving off the faint glow of magic. Although, this couldn''t be called particrly faint. Due to the sheer size of these pure masses of magic, they were radiating light outward like small suns.


    But more than that, it didn''t seem like the water was getting denser the further he went down, letting the light travel an immense distance. There were spots here and there that seemed to be nearly randomly thicker in nature, and that made sense. After all, the water here was simply pure magic, so those were simply spots where said magic concentrated a bit more than in its surrounding areas. Although, it might be wrong to call it pure magic. In its essence, this was still true, but it was more like... it was somewhere inbetween magic and true, real water. It was hard to exin, but it was truly incredibly differentpared to what Eiro saw in the central material ne.


    However, even if he was more than just ecstatic at the sight of this world, it didn''t take long until his focus changed away from the water itself, and over toward its inhabitants.


    There were numerous creatures swimming around here that Eiro had never seen before. Mostly around him, they were different sorts of magical beasts in the form of fish. Of course, even though they were magical beasts didn''t mean that they were great. Most of them were were at the strength level of any normal fish you could find anywhere in the world. But rather, they were unique species that Eiro had never even heard of before.


    "...Should I write a bestiary of the creatures in the elemental ne of water? That would be rather interesting, I think... Especially the magical beast research course at the academy might like it." He thought to himself, starting to swim around by pping his wings. Of course, the magical beasts in the water did take notice of him. Whether they were as small as Eiro''s thumb, orrger even than the average whale, they seemed to pay attention to him, instead of simply swimming away in fear.


    That in itself showed just the difference in intelligence between animals and magical beasts. Even if their physical prowess was different, these beings still held an innate control over magic. Magic was the physical expression of the mind, so of course a magical beast would be intelligent. Even if not sentient, of course. They were still nothing but beasts, at the end of the day. They could merelyprehend a few things more than normal.


    Meanwhile, in the central material ne, three spirits were staring at the Demon''s original body rather confused.


    "But- What? How did you- Huh?" Nelli let out, quickly moving herself to the elemental ne of water herself. Of course, she ended up right where Eiro was in that ne, "You''re really here... But how did you-"


    "Oh, I practically turned myself into an elemental, at least as far as the gateway is concerned. And through that, I was able to move through said gateway." Eiro exined to her, casuallyying in the water, before he really thought about what Nelli looked like right now, "Wait, you''re... different."


    "Huh? What do you mean?" Nelli asked with a frown, looking down at her body, "I look the same as I normally do."


    "Well yeah, but you''re...rger." Eiro replied immediately, pping his wings to turn himself around. In front of him was Nelli. She still wasn''t asrge as him, but that wasn''t because Nelli was the size of his lower arm anymore. It was because Eiro was simply taller than her. She was now the size of a person. More than that, she seemed just a lot healthier. The color of her skin and her scales were a lot more vibrant, and herplexion looked far, far healthier. Eiro hadn''t even realized that Nelli could look any healthier.


    The naiad slightly tilted her head, "I mean, I guess I never thought about it before, but it does make sense? I mean, you can sense it, right? The magic here works different to how it does on the central material ne, so a bit of a difference was to be expected... right?"


    "I guess so. And if every naiad''s size changes the same amount after travelling between the nes, then it would be pretty hard to notice." Eiro pointed out, swimming around Nelli, surprised to see her from this perspective for once. However, it didn''t take long until the naiad let out a loud groan, "More importantly, how did you even do this? Don''t your doubles fall apart if they get too far away from you? This one''s in a literal other ne of existence..."


    Eiro chuckled slightly, crossing his arms, "That may be so, but I do have an exnation for this. I am the guardian of the spirit gateway, right? Well, that doesn''t mean I''m just the guardian of one of the sides of the gateway. So once I came here, this body and the spirit gateway became one, in some way. Of course, I can still split off of it again, but I can only do that by returning to the central material ne through the gateway. Either way... through the connection between this body and the original, it''s like we''re standing in the exact same spot. This body holds the most amount of power possible, basically." The double exined with a grin, "I already moved away a few hundred meters, after all. If that wasn''t the case, then this body would have already fallen apart."


    Nelli ced her hand to her chin and slowly nodded her head, "I see. If that''s the case, then this is really something great... There are a lot of things that could help you be more powerful in this ne. I''m sure that your affinity with the water element is just skyrocketing right now."


    "Ah... actually, not really. The increase of affinity happens through my body and soul being exposed to an element, but this body doesn''t have a soul. There seems to be a certain degree of increase though, but it''s just a fraction of what it normally should be." Eiro exined, "But more importantly, there are cities in the elemental nes, correct? Do you know where the one closest to us would be?"


    Nelli looked around a bit, trying to see if she recognized anything around here. However, since that didn''t seem to be the case, she quickly shook her head, "No, sorry. But if we move around, we should be able to find something."


    "Hm, right... For now, you can go ahead and return to the central material ne, I''ll just be swimming until I find something." Eiro exined, before Nelli nodded, "Alright, see you over there, then."


    And so, Nelli''s body disappeared again, diffusing into the water around her, before she reappeared right in front of the original Eiro, "So, while that double is moving around to try and find something, I''ll have another one enter the elemental ne of fire." The Demon was currently exining to Sarius. But seeing that she had returned, the Smander first looked at Nelli.


    "Is he really over there? Or is he just trying out a weird joke?" He asked, and Nelli quickly shook her head, "He''s really over there. It surprised me too, but it''s the truth. Having him enter the elemental ne of fire would really be a good idea. For you as well, Sarius. It means you can actually go back there for a while without the Smander King getting angry at you."


    Sarius thought about it for a while, and then opened his eyes wide, "Hold on, you''re right! If I go there, and just use the excuse to show you around, then that''s going to be perfect! Come on, youzy bastard, what''re you waiting for?"


    Eiro held his hand forward, slightly ncing at Sarius as he did so, "If you call me that again, I will force you to enter the elemental ne of water instead."


    "...noted. I just kinda got excited, y''know?"


    "Right, I get it." Eiro sighed, watching as his new double infused his bodypletely with fire magic, to the same degree that the other one before infused his body with water magic. And so, fire magic was pulled to the elemental ne of fire, and Eiro stepped foot into that foreignnd as well.


    To his surprise, though, he was standing on solid ground. The fire magic in this ne had taken on interesting forms as it concentrated to different degrees. The ground looked practically like true soil, even if it was simply highly concentrated fire magic. The sky was lit up by mes in numerous colours, and the ground was hot enough to instantly char anything you ced on it. There were nts, however. Forests of ming trees and fields of bright flowers.


    Eiro slowly took in a breath, noticing that he was taking in anything but air. It was simr, just that it didn''t have oxygen. Instead, it was fire magic that simply wasn''t concentrated enough to ignite.


    It didn''t take long until Sarius stepped into this realm, appearing right next to the Demon. The two of them looked at each other, and Sarius quickly grew surprised, seeing that Eiro was now the same height as him, even if a few inches taller.


    "...You shrunk?"


    "No, you grew in size, I''m the same as I was before." Eiro sighed slightly, "That''s just how this seems to work, probably has something to do with the nature of magic in this realm. Since you are made from the same substance, it changes once you enter here, while my body is currently made of my own personal magic, and of course my physical self. That''s why it doesn''t change or adjust once I get here." The Demon pointed out, smiling lightly, "But more importantly... Do you know where we are?"

 Chapter 591 Ragnir Arcanus

    "Where we are? Hm..." Sarius repeated, looking around a bit, "Nope, not the slightest. But, you know... you can just-"


    "Right, right, I''ll fly around until I find something, you just go ahead and wait. I''ll pull you over to me when I''m done." Eiro sighed, pping his wings. As he did, mes moved through the air, igniting in reaction to the Demon''s movement, "By the way, is it weird that I somehow imagine hell to look like this?"


    "...Not too weird, actually. Speaking of, are you gonna head to hell anytime soon? You know, cause you actually have a kingdom there now or something." Sarius pointed out, but Eiro simply chuckled and shook his head, "No, I won''t. At least not ''me''. I''ll probably be spending at least a few years here in this realm, if not all eternity. I mean, why not, right?"


    "Oh... right, you''re a double. But also not? This shit''s still weird." Sarius pointed out, and Eiro quickly shrugged, "Just embrace it, then. You''re going to have to experience this a lot from now on, I imagine."


    Sarius stayed silent for a few moments, before letting out a loud groan, "Yeah, you''re right... I''ll have to seriouslyin to that old man if we end up meeting him. Seriously... just sticking me to a weirdo like you... I have no idea what he was thinking..."


    "Sarius, remember me telling you how I would force you into the elemental ne of water? Yeah, you''re not helping in stopping that from happening." Eiro pointed out with a smirk, as he pped his wings, shooting up into the burning sky, before flying into the distance. Sarius was left there, annoyed, before slowly falling apart into mes, just to appear in the central material ne again.


    The original Eiro was already on his way, though. He figured that he managed to get most aspects of the duplication under control by now. Of course, this wasn''t the end of his experiments, but as for the rest, he would work on all that a bitter when he figured out exactly what it was that he wanted to do. He already had a rough idea, but there was still the need for him to figure out the specifics.


    For now, Eiro made his way back into the town hall so that he could round up Bavet and Lugo before heading off.


    "Master." Gobo greeted Eiro as he entered the building, "Just rx." The Demon replied instantly.


    "Are you on your way out?" The Hobgoblin inquired, and Eiro quickly nodded, "Yes, I should leave for now. I would like to arrive ahead of my family to make sure that everything is alright at home. Some of my servants informed me that someone has been scooping around the manor."


    Gobo raised his brow, "Speaking of, I know there are some servants around the ce, but do you mind leaving a more... advanced one around here? Being able tomunicate more easily would be really useful."


    Eiro slowly thought about it, and quickly nodded, "Right, good idea." The Demon said, "I''ll figure something out so that the servant will be useful to you."


    "Thank you, Master." Gobo said with a quick nod, as Eiro slowly walked past the Hobgoblin. He wasn''t sure if it was because his soul had been meddled with during hisst evolution, potentially awakening certain emotions and subconscious memories, but for some reason Eiro felt himself to be like an old mantely, as if he was watching the next generation. Which was ridiculous, of course. As a lesser imp, he could have died of old age within a few years, but at the level he is now, especially being one of the rulers of hell, he is practically immortal. At the very least, he is unaging, and Eiro doubted that there were all too many things that could still kill him now. The Sage however, Eiro''s former incarnation, was an old man at the dusk of his life. It was as if this fact was forcing Eiro to think more about the future, beyond just the things that would affect his children. He was actually quite interested in making this world better for the monsters living here.


    "Maybe I should do some work for the reputation of Monsters soon." Eiro muttered to himself, smiling lightly as he walked forward, cing his hand on the side of Lugo''s body as the stag approached him.


    Eiro casually flipped through the pages of a book, trying to ingrain the format into his brain. And then, at that point, the main entrance opened up, and a few people stepped inside.


    "Finally, back home! That carriage ride was just hell!" Arc yelled out loudly, letting out loud groans while immediately making his way to the main sitting room, where Eiro could also currently be found.


    "Oh, dad... you''re here already?" Arc asked with a wry smile, surprised to see the Demon just casually sitting there. He stood up with a smile on his face, cing the book on the table next to him, "Yes, I managed to finish things up pretty quickly at the monster town. More importantly, how was the rest of the trip?"


    "Urgh... don''t even start, it was sooo annoying. We ran into like a dozen hordes of monsters..." He groaned loudly, "And even worse than that, Koperia didn''t let me fight any of them!"


    "Of course I didn''t, they were nothing but small-fry. Why would I wait for the carriage to slow down to let you out when I can just kill them all with a flick of my wrist?" The Necromancer asked, rolling her eyes as she stepped into the room, together with the rest of the group. Eiro smiled at her lightly, "Thanks for your help in keeping everyone safe though, Koperia."


    "...Right, of course." She replied, "You owe me a few dead bodies."


    "...They''re in the basement."


    "Great, thanks." Koperia said, and quickly turned around, swiftly heading to the hidden chambers in the basement, all the whilst two young children came running up to Eiro. Of course, he squatted down and gave them a quick hug, "Was everything alright, you two?" He asked, ruffling Avalin and Leon''s hair with two of his hands.


    "They were pretty easy this time around. Well, Leon usually is, but Avalin was as well, surprisingly." Sammy pointed out as she dropped down on one of the couches, as Eiro looked at the young girl, "Is that so?"


    "Yup! I was a good girl~!" Avalin replied with a broad grin on her face, as if she was trying to show off for achieving something rather normal and expected, "Of course you were." Eiro said, rubbing his hand through her hair with a smile, before fully standing up again.


    "Anyway... Kids, you stay here. Everyone else, I have something to talk to you about." The Demon said, slowly leaving the sitting room while the kids sat down on the couches. It was clear that especially Arc was sort of annoyed at being included with the ''kids'', but he had no choice, since he knew that this was about business that he would find far too boring anyway.


    And so, Eiro led these six people, his party as well as Koperia, Armodeus and Arie, up into his study. Once there, the Demon closed the door waited for everyone to sit down.


    "So. On my way here, I entered the elemental nes of water and fire." Eiro said bluntly, not ying around the topic in the slightest. There was no need to do that, after all. But surprisingly, the expressions of everyone here were not nearly as surprised as Eiro thought.


    "...That so?" James asked with a wry smile, "What about it?"


    "...Nothing in particr, I just figured I would let you all know. It is a sort of special feat, after all." Eiro pointed out, before Koperia let out a loudugh, "Hah, special feat? I''ve been in nes far harder to get to, for vacation."


    "I think ye''re a bit of an exception, Koperia..." Armodeus pointed out, before turning toward the Demon again, "You sure there is not more to this? Sure, it is surprising, but it''s not particrly beyond what we know you are capable of. Do you have a particr n behind this?"


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, "Not really. I was thinking about maybe finding some magic beasts or other inhabitants of that ne to turn into underlings or maybe even just servants depending on how annoying they are. And of course, finding the Spirit Monarchs to learn a few things from them, and maybe gather a few more blessings, might not be that bad of an idea either." Eiro said bluntly, "Although the doubles I sent there haven''t reached any cities yet, they should soon."


    "...Again, what about it?" James asked, still not particrly impressed. He had simply ignored what it meant to step into another realm, since he knew that he wouldn''t understand it anyway.


    Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Nothing in particr, it''s just making me think a bit, you know?" The Demon pointed out, "Like... Through these doubles, I can travel other nes, but I can''t currently travel through the central material ne to the extent that I would like. There are a lot of things and ced that I would like to find. Of course, that aspect was part of the n anyway, but I would like to change on aspect of it." Eiro exined, starting to grin slightly. Now, it seemed like everyone was really paying attention.


    The Demon slowly spread out his wings and let his tail wave from left to right behind him, "When the timees for me to travel, I will not do so as Eiro Jura Daemonherz, a noble from Skyhart and member of the Hero''s party. I will do so as Ragnir Arcanus. The benevolent Demon whose goal it is to change the stigma around monsters."

 Chapter 592 Aquarian Library

    "Ragnir Arcanus? I get what the ''Arcanus'' is about, that''s your new race, right? But what''s with the ''Ragnir''?" Jess asked with a confused expression on her face. Eiro turned toward her with a smile, "It''s nothing, it''s just amon Demon name. I can''t go running around with a fake name like Jeffrey, or George. I want there to be no doubt about the fact that I''m a true Demon."


    Everyone was thinking about Eiro''s n, "But... why would you do something like that? I get that you want people and monsters to be able to coexist to an extent, but..." Arie said conflicted, "Obviously I want that as well, but there''s no way that''s going to do anything..."


    "Really?" Eiro asked with a scoff, "I wouldn''t be so sure about that. Every day, rumours spread around the continent about people that do things I can do in the average afternoon. And more than that, I have some helpers that are going to assist me in spreading those rumours. Not long after I head out for my trip, everyone will know about the monster without monstrosity."


    Koperia let out a sigh, "Listen, that''s a good idea and all, but it''s too risky. Obviously, nobody is really going to be able to hurt you, but there might be someone that can make an ''effect'' message appear. They''ll immediately learn of your name, Eiro Jura Daemonherz."


    "Right, which is why I won''t be going out until I find the ''World Pen''." Eiro exined, "And then I''ll freely let people damage me, so that I can proof to them that I really am Ragnir Arcanus."


    Krog crossed his arms in thought, "World Pen... That was a card or something, right? Isn''t that one of the lost ones?"


    "...Officially, yes, but I don''t think it''s really lost. The cards can''t be destroyed, and there are rules set up to make sure that they can''t be forever thrown into the ocean or some bullshit like that. But finding the card is going to be tough either way. We''re lucky that most of the cards are on this continent. I hope that the World Pen is amongst them." Eiro exined to the group, "Not that this n is going to be put into action anytime soon. It''s just a quick update for you guys, since this is something that I will definitely be doing in the future."


    Meanwhile, as the discussions about future ns continued within the central material ne, in the elemental ne of water, Eiro had finally found a ce of interest. It was a giant bubble of crystalized water magic, roughly the size of the inner circle of Skyhart''s royal capital. It seemed like the inside was still filled with water, but it was of a more even density thanpared to the wild waters around here. And of course, some of the magic beasts that were swimming through the waters here were anything but peaceful, so the crystal bubble acted as a sort of wall as well.


    Eiro swam toward the entrance that he could see. Arge building had been constructed right in front of one of the circr entrances, standing there instead of a simple gate. The Demon swam through therge circr entrance, and was soon stopped by a being that Eiro had yet to identify. It was not a Spirit, but it also wasn''t a magic beast.


    This here was one of the races inhabiting the elemental ne of water. They were something inbetween people and magic beasts. The form that they took on was, unsurprisingly, quite simr to that of mermen. They had normal humanoid proportions, and all the limbs that came with it. Part of their bodies were covered in scales, gills were waving open and shut rythmically on the sides of their necks. Their skin was pale, and had a sort of blue-greenish tint to it, and was smooth like that of a whale or dolphin. If, instead of their legs, they had fish-tails, then they would be indistinguishable from mermen.


    One of them opened their mouth, starting to speak. But they spoke in anguage that Eiro didn''t understand.


    "Erm... do you speakmon, perchance?" Eiro asked, and the two men looked at each other for a moment, "Of course we do. But you don''t speak Aquarian?"


    "I don''t, I''m actually from the central material ne, sorry." The Demon exined, and one of the men scoffed, "Right, that''s a good joke. Anyway, what is your business here, if you heed from the material ne?"


    "I''m just travelling through. I was thinking meeting the Spirit King and Queen would be nice." The Demon pointed out quickly. There was little need for him to lie, after all. However, the two men just startedughing loudly, "We''ve got aedian here, don''t we?" One of them eximed loudly. Eiro rolled his eyes in response, somewhat annoyed.


    "Mhm. Anyway, can I enter?" Eiro asked, and one of the men nodded his head, "There''s no reason why you couldn''t." He said, swimming to the side to make way for Eiro to get through. It seemed like this ne was rather peaceful, if they didn''t worry about letting some weirdo through into the city.


    Eiro swam past them, but quickly stopped, "Ah, right. Do you have something like a library here?"


    "Hm, yes we do, it should be by the town square. Not many people go there, though, so it''s been sort of abandoned." One of them replied, and Eiro raised his brow, "That so? Thanks, anyway."


    Eiro started to move through the town. It was an interesting ce, really. Structures were built out of crystal- and coral-like structures from any point on the crystal bubble. It was easy to move up and down as well, after all. There were plenty of people swimming by above and below Eiro. Most of them looked simr to those two men before, but there were a few Naiads here and there too. Of course, a few smaller magic beasts were floating around all over the ce too.


    It took Eiro a while to make his way to the town square, though. Rather, he was unsure what exactly was considered as the ''town square'', since this huge city was built in apletely foreign waypared to what Eiro was used to. But he was soon able to find it, with the help of some passerbies giving him directions.


    And once he was there, he of course quickly managed to identify the library. Eiro swam inside. Considering that it was supposedly abandoned, it was prettyrge. Well, there did seem to be some algae growing on the shelves, so he sort of understood what they meant.


    Eiro approached one of the shelves and pulled out a book. Right in theme with this whole city, the books itself seemed to be shells. Or rather, the shells were the books'' cover, giving them a shape that he really didn''t expect to see in books either. They were round. When he flipped the book open, he saw the pages. They were opaque, but still slightly translucent, like frosted ss. It was made of some sort of crystal formation as well, like most things in this town was. But even then, it acted like paper, although it was much stronger than paper. And on top of these opaque crystal pages, the actual content had been written. However, Eiro quickly realized that these books weren''t written inmon, but thenguage of the elemental ne of water, Aquarian. It was a symbol-basednguage, where just one symbol equated a word. That should be rather simple to learn, then.


    On the other side, the original Eiro told Nelli that his double had found a city, and just a momentter, the naiad appeared in the ne of water.


    "Huh? You already looked around?" Nelli asked surprised, "...And of course you''re in a library."


    "Obviously, I would never let a chance like this pass by. More importantly, I need you to teach me Aquarian."


    "...I don''t know Aquarian. I mean, I can speak a little of it, but I can''t write or read it. I don''t spend a lot of time over here, y''know? And it''s not like Spirits really neednguage anyway. Even if we don''t speak the samenguage as our contractors, as long as they understand the concept ofnguage, we canmunicate telepathically." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro sighed annoyed. He swam over toward someone that seemed to actually work here, "Sorry, but do you speakmon?"


    The woman quickly nodded her head, "I do."


    "Right, perfect. Are any of the books here written inmon?"


    "I don''t think we do, sorry." She said, shaking her head quickly. With an annoyed sigh, Eiro turned around, "Guess that means I''ve got some studying to do. Or rather, that other guy does." He grinned slightly, as he started picking up another book. Nelli looked at him with a frown.


    "What do you mean, ''that other guy''?"


    "What else? The original. While I''m here, reading everything, he''s going to analyze things in the mental library. We''d been practicing and nning a few things for that before." Eiro exined, "All the doubles share the same mental library, so the original can just use the mirror to create a bunch of doubles that can think for us while we''re busy doing other stuff. He''s practicing it right now, actually. So we''ll just have them analyze the books to figure out the writtennguage, and I''ll have you teach me a bit about the verbalnguage. And together with the things I''ll pick up here in this city, I should be able to sort of understand thenguage in a few days. Especially when I start growing the skill." The Demon exined, with a smile on his face. And so, he started to ingrain the symbols in these unique books into his mind.

 Chapter 593 Waiting

    With a satisfied expression, Eiro sat in one of the armchairs in the hidden library of his manor. He was sitting here while he went into his mental library, properly reading through all of the books that he had remembered but not truly taken in yet.


    For a while, he thought that he would have to do all of this alone, but now, he had finally managed to do duplicate something more abstract than his physical body. He had duplicated his mind, allowing multiple of himself to appear in the mental library. In total, Eiro managed to create two dozen minds that were all just reading these books intensely. But that seemed to be the limit as well. At some point, while creating more doubles, Eiro could feel himself grow utterly overwhelmed by the amount of information flowing into his mind. When creating actual doubles, this started happening at just a dozen, but with these mental doubles, which all existed only in the realm of what Eiro technically already knew, he could double that number to two dozen. But even then, Eiro had to be here in the mental library as well, or else he wasn''t sure if he could truly stay in control of the mirror of duplication.


    So now, while doing this, he simply picked out afortable spot and entered a sort of meditative state, while the mental doubles, and himself of course, were doing their job. Due to the sheer amount of minds, and the sped-up time in the mental library, it barely took any time at all to be able to trulyprehend all the books that were here in the library.


    So, now that this was done, they could focus on some rather big tasks. Increasing their understanding of differentnguages.


    About a quarter of the doubles were in charge of continuing Eiro''s understanding of the ancientnguage, while the rest were all working on learning Aquarian. As the Eiro that was currently in the elemental ne of water started flipping through those books, another section had opened up in the library, directly different to the others. It had a wide andrge arched gate. There was no door in front of it. Instead, a vertical wall of water stood in front of anyone that wanted to enter it, as this new section was reminiscent of the elemental ne of water itself. The whole section was filled with water, and the moment that one of the mental doubles stepped inside, their body would turn into the form that Eiro took on when infusing himself with water magic. This whole ce was just Eiro''s mind, so something like that could happen in an instant.


    And slowly but surely, that library was filling up with the books that the water-elemental Eiro was looking over. Currently, all of the doubles in charge of learning aquarian were sitting at arge circr table in this new section, trying to take notes in empty versions of these shell-books about what the different symbols could potentially mean. Some of them were figured out a bit faster than others, simply due to how often they appeared, but for others there were simply toorge gaps in knowledge to be able to figure them out. But there were plenty of people that Eiro could just ask if he wanted to know what a word meant.


    This whole ordeal took quite a while, and whenever a new book came in, things became busier and the note-based dictionaries were continuing to expand further and further. The original Eiro was just d that the fire-elemental Eiro hadn''t reached a town yet, otherwise, this same thing would happen there.


    Obviously, it would take a while to be able to analyse thisnguage, but at the very least he didn''t have to deal with the fact that thenguage seemed to be designed to be forgotten, like what was the case with the ancientnguage. And there were plenty of texts to reference as well.


    Thergest hurdle, however, was to figure out how each word was actively pronounced. For that, the water-elemental Eiro would have to spend some time in the busy parts of town and listen in to as many conversations happening in Aquarian as possible. The doubles would then take all that information,bine it with the things that Nelli was going to teach him, and thenplete theprehensive dictionary of the Aquariannguage.


    Luckily, this was a quite peaceful ce, and people seemed to simply enjoy each other''spany even if they had never met before then, so he could work without too many distractions.


    A few hourster, when the water-elemental Eiro had barely gone through half of the books, the original Eiro chose to take a bit of a break. He made all but three of the doubles disappear from his mental library, and had them simply continue their work. With that few of them, the demon could function without any trouble in the slightest.


    For now, Eiro had to meet with someone else. He had flown by earlier to see if he could talk to him then, but he was busy with something that he didn''t feel like interrupting. It was a meeting between him and some of his advisers and some high-ss nobles. Even Eiro wasn''t senseless enough to pull Solomon out of something like that.


    But now, he should just be sitting in his study, doing paperwork. It was prettyte, and since Leon and Avalin should be asleep by now, it was the best time to go. Giving Solomon a little bit of a break didn''t seem like a bad idea either.


    The Demon jumped off from the balcony, and shot away from the manor straight into the direction of the faint glow given off by the royal castle in the distance. It didn''t take long until he was there either, quicklynding on the castle''s balcony.


    "Surprise visit." Eiro said with a smile, pushing open the door. Solomon shot around startled until he saw who it was, "Eiro... seriously, announce yourself a bit earlier, will you?" The King asked with a wry smile, turning his head to look at the Demon, who soon made his way over to the couches, taking a quick seat while pulling his wings into his back.


    Solomon stood up and sat down in front of him, "I heard about what happened."


    "...It was quite a mess." Eiro said, "But I took care of it. And, I brought two new cards with me."


    "I heard about that as well, and you made a deal with the hero and his caretakers to give them to him at some point." Solomon added with a frown, "I''m d you''re trying to figure things out, I really am, but you basically already sold the cards to them. They''re theirs. They own a part of you now, Eiro."


    "Meh, not directly." Eiro said, grinning, "The exact wordings of the contract were that the cards will be in possession of the hero by a specific point in the future. And that wasn''t a lie. They will be. Just that it won''t be that kid, but me instead."


    Solomon smiled lightly, "It feels sort of weird to be part of your ploy to trick the hope of all people."


    "Hey, I''m working on getting rid of the need for that kind of hope, they should thank me when the timees. I''m going to cause actual change in this world." Eiro pointed out, "The least those guys can do is leave a few artifacts to me."


    "...Speaking of. You''re going to be searching for more cards, right? It''s just... some of them are in the possession of other countries. They''re in the possession of kings. And since inevitably, you will end up encountering those that won''t give them to you willingly... please think about what will happen if you were to hurt people in power, or even just look at them the wrong way. They will obviously think that another country stole the card. You might cause wars." Solomon exined, "Hell, if I had a card and someone suddenly came in here and stole it from me, I might end up starting a war, and I despise war."


    "Don''t worry, Solomon. I''m not going to be doing anything to cause wars, trust me. I don''t want that either, it just doesn''t help anyone. However, I do need the cards. I need whatever I can get to be able to beat the Monster King. He''s... he''s strong. He''s really, really strong. So much more powerful than I ever thought possible... Without the cards, and the power they give me, I''m not sure if I can win against the monster king and all the tools he has by his side."


    Solomon let out a deep sigh, nervous when just thinking about this fact, "Don''t you... think that he''s going to attack soon? What if he tries to attack before the hero can mature and fight him?"


    "Hah, I doubt it. Solomon. He killed both the former monster king and the hero that was meant to take him out, and that was before he became monster king himself. That was half a century ago. A normal hero has no chance against him anymore, that''s the whole reason why... I exist. He brought everything into disarray, he destroyed the bnce. That''s why I was given that splinter. The Sage was greedy. He wanted more and more of anything he could get his hands on. That''s why he was chosen. He was supposed to be given the power to do so. I''m sure that the Monster King is aware of that. He helped me clean out my mana. He''s trying to make me stronger. The Monster King wants a fight with me, and he''s not going to interrupt me while I''m growing stronger so that I can do just that, before I grew sufficiently. Don''t worry. He won''t attack."

 Chapter 594 Pirock

    While Eiro was continuing his discussions with Solomon, and his double in the elemental ne of water was continuin his quest to read everything in the Aquarian library, even without understanding what most of the words were supposed to mean, another version of Eiro finally arrived at his first destination.


    Flying through the skies of the elemental ne of fire certainly was a unique experience, to say the least. It was simr, but also distinctly different, to flying through the skies in the central material ne. With every slight movement that he took, it seemed as if the subtleyers of fire magic that simply weren''t lighting up right now, were reacting to Eiro and his magic. As if he was always surrounded in a shell of invisible mes. And as he was flying, that shell lit up even more, creating waves of mes that rippled outward once pushed to the side by his wings. And that was not only what happened with himself. It seemed as if the magic beasts that were flying through the skies here naturally were experiencing things simr to this. At the very least, simr waves were moving outward from them with every p of their wings. The bright mes in different colors moved into each other, spiking up or down, and were turning the ming skies into an ocean of fire instead.


    And at some point, when looking out of that ocean of fire, Eiro was able to see towering structures in the distance. They were buildings created out of crystalized fire magic, practically always giving off subtle mes on the outside. The whole area surrounding this ce was so much hotter than normal. If this was the central material ne, the very air would light on fire the moment that it came in contact with something this hot. And if Eiro undid his fusion with fire magic on himself right now, he would definitely burn up and die himself, even with his extreme fire resistance due to his magical affinity and natural demonic resistances that had continued to increase within Eiro more and more with every single evolution.


    But even then, he wanted to go into that city. It would definitely be a ce that could offer him more chances to be powerful. Hended in front of the entrance to the city. Thick walls of solid mes surrounded the city, created to stop even the most aggressive of magic beasts. Creatures associated with the mes were often on the more aggressive, or generally ''passionate'' side of things. Of course, this could also be found in magic beasts. So while, in the ne of water, most beings were calm, rxed and inviting, here, they were going to give Eiro a lot of trouble while he was over here. That was clear the moment that he approached the guards standing in front of this gate. They were humanoid people of mes. One of them had light orange, and the other dark red skin, which they kept quite exposed. They looked pretty simr to smanders for the most part, leave for the natural armor growing on parts of their skin, the hair made of literal fire, and the lizard-like tails. And of course, these people weren''t made of pure magic.


    They were somewhere inbetween magic beasts and people, the same as the merpeople that the other double had seen in the ne of water. Seeing them, Eiro quickly asked, "Do you speakmon?"


    "...Of course we do." One of the guards replied, albeit somewhat hesitant. With a smile, Eiro looked through the half open gate, "Perfect. Because I''m not sure I speak thenguage usually spoken in these parts." Eiro replied quickly, and the guards looked at each other, and then back at Eiro.


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    "For what reason do you seek entry into this town?" The other of them asked, and of course, Eiro quickly replied, "I''m on... vacation here in this ne. Just traveling through this realm, trying to see what it is like here."


    "You''re on vacation? Where are you from, then?" One of the guards asked, clearly suspicious to some extent, "The central material ne, of course."


    "...Yeah, right, and I''m from the elemental ne of water." One of the guards scoffed, shaking his head, "Seriously, where are you from? If you don''t want to respond, just turn the fuck around."


    Eiro raised his brow, "Excuse me? What did you just say?"


    "I told you to turn the fuck around." The guard replied immediately. Rolling his eyes, Eiro waved his hand around. He pushed aside the fire magic, practically turning the space directly in front of him into a vacuum, which he then instead filled with water, which he direclty pulled from the elemental ne of water. Meanwhile, the double in the ne of water felt a current being created around him, knowing that a flow of this magic water around him was entering the gateway within himself to get back into the original Eiro, to then flow down the entrance to the ne of fire. It was interesting to see it happen on this end, for once.


    Either way, the Eiro in the ne of fire soon moved around a steady flow of water, making the fire move around it at all times so that it wouldn''t disappear all of a sudden, or start boiling.


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    "Do you believe me now? I''m not from around here." The Demon pointed out, while the two guards jumped backward. They had no idea what was going on right now. They had never seen this... substance that was floating through the air in front of them. Rather, they knew of it, but they had never been able to connect the name to an image before.


    "Is that... water?" One of them asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "That it is. Through the same way that I got into this realm, I am able to pull something like this over here. Neat, huh?" He asked, and the two guards looked at each other.


    "J-Just... put that away, alright?"


    "Right, don''t worry. I''m not here to bother anyone. Just want to head to the library. I assume you have one?" Eiro said with a smile on his face. The left guard immediately nodded, "Of course we do... As long as you don''t cause trouble, you cane in... but really, don''t pull out that water in the middle of town, or else you''ll get in a lot of trouble, you hear?"


    "Right, of course." Eiro replied, and started to walk past the two guards. They were staring at his back the whole time, but Eiro didn''t care enough to even be bothered by it. As soon as Eiro stepped past the gate, the heat increased even more, to the point where even Eiro felt sort of weird. The magic was a lot more dense in here, even though the ''air'' was as thin as outside.


    But really, it didn''t matter at all. Eiro walked through town, spreading his senses to try and find where the library was. This ne had its ownnguage that was the equivalent of Aquarian on the ne of water. It was probably going to be simr in the way that it had unique symbols that didn''t corrte to the way that mostnguages in the central material ne worked for the most part. So, he had to get to it, and quickly start learning thisnguage, Pirock.


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    With a snap of his finger, he called a certain spirit to his side. He appeared rather quickly, as if he had been waiting for the signal that it was alright toe. The mes came together and formed his body, to the surprise of some of the other people walking around them.


    "Hell yeah! It''s been so long! Finally I''m in a real town again, argh, this feels so good!" Sarius eximed loudly and excitedly, making the surrounding people just stare at the two, while they were walking over toward the library, "Right, mhm. Anyway, do you know Pirock?"


    "Of course I do, I spent nearly my whole life over here. And I will be the ruler of this realm at some point, how can I not know how to speak ournguage?" He replied with a loud scoff, "And yeah, before you ask, of course I''m going to teach you. You''re the only way that I can move around freely in this ce anymore, so I don''t want you to get stuck on this for long, alright?"


    "That''s perfect. Then let''s get to it." Eiro said, as the two of them soon reached the library. Eiro pushed the door open and looked around. Immediately he noticed just how few books were in here,pared to the actual size of the library. And it didn''t seem like all the books had been checked out by the people of this town either. The Demon turned his head to the Smander right next to him, and asked, "Do the people here not like books?"


    "...Not particrly, no." Sarius replied, "We like to have fun in other ways. We throw amazing parties."


    "Urgh, of course you do. At the very least it won''t take long to get through the books in here." Eiro sighed, quickly picking up the first of the bunch. The moment he did, his mental library expanded once more. A third major section opened up, corresponding to the books and knowledge found in this elemental ne of fire.


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    Eiro looked at the book in his hand. It was at least shaped like a normal book, but instead of using paper, this book still held crystal-like formations with a simr substance to it, like the shell-shaped books in the ne of water. The Demon flipped through the book until he remembered all the pages, and then handed it to Sarius, "Read the first sentence."


    "...Right, of course." Sarius sighed, dropping down onto one of the seats near him, starting to read the first sentence. Then, Eiro instructed him to read the next sentence. Of course, Eiro wouldn''t be taught in the normal way. Instead, he was going to use Sarius to fill in the gaps. He would let him, bit by bit, read the symbols out word by word, symbol by symbol, to teach him the meaning and pronunciation. That way, the doubles that existed in nothing but the mental library would have an easier timepiling the dictionaries. It didn''t take long until Eiro knew every word of the first book. And then, they moved on to the next book. As Eiro was reading, whenever he found a word he didn''t know, Sarius told him what it meant, and then they moved on. Only a few hourster, the gaps between Erio asking what certain words meant were growing noticeablyrger, to the extent where Sarius was even getting bored here and there. And so, Eiro really started off his journey of learning within this ne.

 Chapter 595 Finding the Tower of Books

    Eiro closed the book in front of him. It was thest book in this library within the elemental ne of fire. The doubles in the mental library had taken all the raw information in and had continued exploring different aspects of it. By now, Eiro understood everything that he read here in the librarypletely. There had only been few words that he didn''t know going into thest half of reading the books in here, but even then, Sarius quickly told him their meaning, letting Eiro skip past the greatest hurdle of learning this sort ofnguage.


    Slowly, the Demon turned his head to the side, looking at the notification windows that were floating near him.


    <strong>[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]</strong>


    <strong>[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]</strong>


    <strong>[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]</strong>


    <strong>... </strong>


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    <strong>...</strong>


    <strong>[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]</strong>


    This had been continuing for a while now. Learning a newnguage skill like this usually made this happen. Of course, to Eiro, it was a simple task to learn a newnguage. Rather, he didn''t expect himself to need to go through these stages again, considering his superior skill ''Universal Monster Language Comprehension''. The oldnguages that used to be spoken on the central material ne had been all but forgotten, and only a few researchers still held skills rted to them. They had all been made useless with the introduction of ''Common'', thenguage spoken by all people. That meant that, considering that hismonnguageprehension was amongst his highest grade skills, it was generally unlikely for him to need to learn newnguages unless he wanted to go out of his way to learn those forgottennguages. He did n on that, but there was no need to do so just yet.


    Eiro slowly opened his mouth, and soon made it split in two. He didn''t care if the people of this ne saw him like this. They didn''t seem to care either, anyway. And then, Eiro started to speak out of both his mouths, whispering to himself to try and get used to the way that he had to use his mouth to improve his generalprehension that way, to try and push this skill to intermediate as soon as possible. After all, once you reached the intermediate grade with anguage based skill, you would attain deeper knowledge based on thatnguage. At that point, Eiro would be able to speak, read, write, and understand thisnguage without worries.


    Currently, the Pirock Language Comprehension skill was at Apprentice grade, level 58.


    <strong>[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]</strong>


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    Correction, it was at Apprentice grade, level 59. Eiro''s understanding of thenguage continued to increase with every passing minute. He would probably be able to speak to others outside, but he didn''t see a need for that right now. He would ask aroundter to try and find out where exactly this ce was, and where they would be able to find the Spirit Monarchs of this elemental ne. Of course, Sarius knew where they usually were, but it seemed as if he never really left the castle town that he had grown up in. Eiro understood why the Smander King found it necessary for Sarius to finally stay in the central material ne for a while. He wouldn''t want Leon or Avalin to spend their whole lives locked inside the manor either.


    The Demon ced the book that was stillying in his hand down, and then approached the door. He pulled on the handle, but before he left, a man approached him, "Excuse me?" He asked, not in Common, but in Pirock. Eiro turned his head. Out of both mouths, already having forgotten that he had been whispering to increase hisnguage proficiency, he replied, "Yes?" He said in ovepping voices, clearly startling the man a bit.


    "You... you spent a whole day and night in this library. I was watching you... did you... really read all the books in here?" The librarian asked. Eiro replied with a quick nod instead of speaking. Although, the cracking and popping of his lower jaw as Eiro turned his two mouths into one again quickly filled the momentary silence.


    The Librarian raised his brows, opening his eyes wide, "I see... could I quickly verify this, just to be sure?" He asked. Eiro was a bit confused. Why did this librarian care so much about whether or not he read all these books. But still, he wanted to entertain this a little. Maybe it would lead somewhere interesting. Walking over to the desk standing behind him, the librarian pulled out a small box. Eiro noticed it, of course, but it didn''t seem special. It only had some small coin-like token inside of it, as well as a note written on this crystal-like paper that was used for these books.


    The Librarian pulled out the note, and started to read, "In ''The Completely Comprehensive Compendium of the ne of Fire'', which writing trait sticks out to an obnoxious degree?"


    "...The author uses words that start with p'' a lot for some reason. It sounded sort of weird, but I only just learned Pirock, so I can''t really judge."


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    "Oh, you only just learned it? Considering that, yourmon ent is really hard to notice, though. You might be the one they are looking for. Ah, the answer is correct, by the way." The Librarian replied, and Eiro shrugged, "Give it a few hours, it''ll be gone by then." He said instantly. Eiro was incredibly curious about who ''they'' were supposed to be, and why they were looking for someone that would read all the books in a library. Was it some sort of book club?


    Either way, Eiro could see the "Come on, that can''t be the only question, right?"


    "Right, of course." The Librarian nodded, d that Eiro already understood what was going on. After this, he continued to ask more and more questions. Twenty different questions, each aboutpletely different books. It was clearly just a way to make sure that Eiro really read all the books. Even if he wasn''t sure if a test like this was going to be really effective at keeping liars away. It only tested obscure knowledge about not even two dozen of these books. If the knowledge about which books were tested was revealed to someone, they could just read only those twenty books and ignore all the rest. It didn''t seem like the librarian noticed, however. With every question, he became more excited and perplexed at the fact that Eiro read all the books in the library in just a single day and night.


    Once Eiro answered all twenty questions correctly, the librarian quickly nced into the box. With a broad grin, Eiro saw what he pulled out. It was the small coin, which the librarian quickly pushed into the Demon''s hands.


    "Here, bring this to the tower of books. You will be able to take the Librarian''s challenge." He said, and Eiro raised his brow, "What''s so good about the challenge from a librarian?"


    "No, no, not ''a'' librarian, ''The'' Librarian." He said immediately, "The one who governs over every book ever written."


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    Eiro raised his brow, and looked at the coin in his hand, "That Librarian, huh? Interesting." Eiro grinned, and turned around, "Then I will be on my way to the tower of books, I guess." He said. He knew that this librarian wouldn''t be able to point him to it, its location was hidden on every ne, after all. The tower of books was an, as far as Eiro was concerned, incredibly important structure that the world couldn''t be without. Every single book, whether published or not, is in this library. While its space is limited on the outside, the inside was supposedly infinitelyrge, growing as more and more books are ced into it every single day. And its protector was the Librarian. As far as Eiro could tell, they were a being simr to the Sage or Hero. So, meeting them should have some upsides. Eiro would be able to potentially create a rtionship of trust with the librarian, so that he could contact them whenever he needed to. Once he got back the key from The Devil, Eiro would be able to easily take over the position of Librarian. He didn''t particrly know the benefits of doing this, but it should certainly be something that can make Eiro a lot more powerful.


    "S-Sir, I think you should really stay inside here... Maybe thinking amongst books could help you... find the Tower of Books?" The librarian said, and was far too obvious about it. Of course, hidden amongst these books and the library''s decoration, were pieces that he had to ce the coin onto, which would obscure certain parts of the patterns, but make other parts more than clear. That way, he could create a map out of these patterns.


    But since Eiro spent a whole day in here, he had already sensed every aspect of this library throughout. He had already created a model section within the mental library that a mental double was currently searching through together with a replica of the coin to see if he could figure it out. Eiro was pretty sure that certain patterns hidden in this library were going to create a map together that would then lead to the tower of books, or at least to a location where Eiro could find out where the tower of books was.

 Chapter 596 Conversation with himself

    Eiro was seated on one of the library''s chairs, while the librarian brought something over to him. It looked like a cup of tea, even if the liquid inside was anything but tea. Or rather, it was tea unlike any that Eiro had seen before in his life. After all, it waspletely made of fire magic that had taken different forms.


    In this realm, the magic had transformed and taken on the form of different nts, as well as other parts of nature like mountains or even rivers. Given the fact that they had ''water'' of flowing fire, as well as nts that seemed quite simr to different herbs that tea could be made out of, it sort of made sense that tea itself could be replicated.


    The Demon grabbed the cup, and took a sip of the unique liquid. The taste was unlike anything he had ever tasted before. Of course, it had a natural spiciness to it. Spice in itself was simply a feeling of pain akin to burning in the first ce, so Eiro had also expected that. Although,pared to everything else around him, this tea might have been rather mellow. However, the taste itself was quite interesting too. It was something like a mixture between chamomile, cinnamon, and mint, although in its whole, it was distinctly different. A taste he never experienced before, he could onlypare it to things that he knew.


    "This is wonderful. Sorry, do you have any of the tea leaves left over?" Eiro asked, and the librarian rasied his brows surprised, "Oh, you like it? It''s an acquired taste. Although, nobody here usually wishes to acquire it in the first ce. Most rather enjoy more... fiery things, as silly as that may sound."


    "No, no, I get what you mean. It has a sort of chilling aspect to it, actually." Eiro pointed out with a smile. Sarius took a quick sniff of the tea and immediately grimaced, "Urgh... that stuff. Yeah, I''ve had it a few times. It''s... not quite to my liking."


    "I can imagine." Eiro replied, watching as the librarian made his way out of the room to go get the tea leaves. The Demon then looked at the spirit next to him again, "I''ve got part of a map drawn up in my mind. I''ll sketch it down for you in a bit. You should be able to recognize the map, right?"


    Sarius looked at him with a brow raised, "Depends. How old is the map?"


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    "...What do you mean? Why would that matter?"


    Sarius let out a deep sigh as he started to exin, "You ever seen a static me? No, didn''t think so. mes are... pure energy, whether they''re made of mana or not. Expecting a realm made of that to be static is like... expecting Arc to cry. It''s possible, just very unlikely. Especially the more time passes." He exined, "If the map is literally built into the walls and shelves, I doubt it''s new enough. I might be able to recognize spots here and there, but I don''t know about that."


    Eiro crossed his arms in thought, "But you do have maps here usually, right?"


    "Well duh, of course. They be useless every, like, ten years, but we have them."


    "Are they usually stored somewhere?" Eiro inquired next, and Sarius thought about it for a while, "The only ce I personally know of that keeps all of the maps is the King''s castle. But I wouldn''t be surprised if they''re kept somewhere else too. We''ve got a lot of entric collectors here."


    "...You don''t say." Eiro replied, letting out a sigh, before remembering something, "Wait, if everything changes all the time, how were you hoping to recognize where we were?"


    "I also said the maps be useless once every ten years, you can somewhat recognize a ce even a few years after you''vest seen it." Sarius sighed, turning his head toward the door that the librarian was stepping back through, carrying a small box filled with different types of tea leaves. More kinds than just the one that Eiro just tried. He was actually quite excited about trying those.


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    He had already prepared a special section within his treasury for this as well. Basically, he simply fused part of the ability with his magic to create a special storage-case for things from this realm, as well as the elemental ne of water. There wasn''t much space for a lot of things, but it was enough for him to put that tea in there. The way he had to do that was a little weird as well, however.


    "Ah, by the way, I don''t have any money." Eiro pointed out immediately, looking at the librarian, who awkwardly smiled back, "O-Oh, erm... don''t worry about that, I guess... you can have it for free? Simply make sure to tell you who guided you once you reach the tower of books?" The librarian suggested, and the Demon grinned, quickly grabbing the box, "Deal." He said, before the box simply blinked out of existence.


    Since nearly everything here was made of magic, including the box and tea, Eiro could easily pull it through the gateway to the central material ne, where the original Eiro would simply instantly ce it into the treasury before it even formed over there. This double couldn''t actually ess that space, after all. The mental library was nothing but an image created through Eiro''s mind, so the doubles could ess it freely, since all doubles shared their mind with the original. The treasury was different, however. It was like a direct storage space within Eiro''s soul. And these doubles didn''t have their own souls, only the original did, so they had no way of essing the treasury on their own. Since the gateway existed that connected the two duplicates on the elemental nes to the original, there functionally was no difference for things like this, though.


    The only issue was that the doubles could only receive things made from pure magic, since that was the only substance that could travel through the spirit gateways. But if they needed something specific, the original Eiro could simply create some sort of item out of magic and then give it to them through the spirit gateway, like the pure-magic greatsword that Eiro made, for example.


    "Huh? How did you-" The librarian let out, and Eiro simply smiled at him, "So, do you perchance know where I can find a bunch of old maps?"


    "Maps? Erm... not particrly, sorry. I have one of the currentndscape, but it doesn''t sound like that''s what you''re looking for."


    Eiro closed his eyes in thought, finding himself in his mental library, so that he could take the time to figure something out. The other doubles were busy still trying to figure out Aquarian, after all. While he was standing there, in front of the map that he had recreated from the inside of the library, the original''s form suddenly appeared beside him.


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    "You probably weren''t paying attention to what I was doing, but I''m in the academy''s library right now. They have some books of the elemental nes. There might be some maps in there, so just be patient. We don''t have to find the tower of books right away." The original pointed out, and the fire-double immediately nodded, "Of course. You and I both know that I''m being patient."


    "We have the same mind, of course I know. It''s just tough to find the words for this sort of situation. Doesn''t happen every day, after all. You know what I mean either way, even without us actually having to speak."


    "Not that this is speech anyway. It''s just thought that- I think we''re derailing here. You would think that with how much this space is sped-up, our mind wouldn''t be rushing fast enough for us to get side-tracked."


    "Hearing it like that, we really do sound incredibly cocky, don''t we?" The original Eiro said with a deep sigh, "Either way, it''s more important that you get used to being over there for now. Mingle amongst the people, practice your martial arts and magic in that environment, and so on. There are threats potentially more dangerous over there. Not that it matters too much, since I can simply repair any damage done to your body rather quickly, but we should make sure that nothing happens anyway."


    The me-double nodded his head, "Right, I was nning on that anyway. I was nning on heading to some sort of temple where they apparently practice some interesting martial art. Might be fun to pick up. Having some people to spar with over here should be useful as well."


    "Good. Then that''s that. The mental doubles are going to keep analyzing everything we do, so the moment they figured out the location of the tower of books, they''ll let you know."


    "And then, we can spend all the time we want reading as many books as we want." The double said with a grin, "What do you think is going to happen when our mind is filled with that many books?"


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    "No idea. But it can''t be bad for us, really." The original replied, before turning back around, his body slowly fading away as he was leaving the mental library, "Either way, just take it slow. We''re not in a rush right now."


    Having been reassured a little after that conversation with himself, Eiro stood up and walked over toward the library''s door, "Sarius,e on. We''ll go explore the city for a bit."

 Chapter 597 Fine-Control

    "What is there to even explore around here? It''s just a small town." Sarius pointed out, and Eiro rolled his eyes as the two of them were walking through the streets, "It is, but it''spletely different to towns in the central material ne."


    "Hm... I guess that''s true." The Smander replied, "Then I guess, is there anything in particr you want to do, or anywhere you want to go? I''m pretty sure you already know about everything going on in this town, anyway."


    "Well, roughly at least." The Demon said, "I was just thinking about a few things. I would like to have a few subordinates in this ne. I could just create some servants, but most magic servants are quite... well, dumb. So I was hoping to find some magic beasts or some people to transform into servants. I think considering how close they are to magic, they should survive the transformation more easily."


    Sarius thought about it for a few moments, and then nodded his head, "You having some servants around here should be useful, I guess. Even if it''s just about helping us look for the tower of books."


    "Right? So, either way, my n for now is to just figure out the average ability of the people living in ces like this, to see if it''s worth it to invest time into them." Eiro said, when he suddenly noticed something that caught his attention. He could hear some fight going on not too far away, although it didn''t seem to be anything too serious. More like bullying that could be seen at the Academy every once in a while.


    "Let''s go check that out, shall we?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself, turning to move straight toward the fight in question, while Sarius wasn''t sure what he was talking about exactly. He followed behind anyway, though, since he was just used to following Eiro anywhere he went.


    Passing through the streets and alleys on the fastest route possible, it didn''t take long until the two of them reached the location of the fight. A young man was being beat up by a group of others around the same age as him. If the people in this realm aged at the same rate as humans... he would guess them to be around 16 or 17 years old. It was just that, the young man that was being beaten up was slinging his arms around the body of a small magic beast. It really just looked like a piglet with small, fiery wings on its back. While flying through this ne in search for a town, Eiro had spotted some magic beasts that seemed quite simr. Just that they were the size of a building, and not small enough to be held in two hands like this one.


    "Hand it over already, you little-" One of the bullies yelled out, just like before, but the young man clearly protecting the magic beast immediately shook his head, despite the fact that half his face waspletely covered in blood. Or well, the equivalent of blood that these people had, at least. The young man interrupted the bully as he was talking, "No! I won''t give him to you! You''re just going to kill him!"


    "Yeah, of course we''re going to! That''s a monster, you idiot! That thing''s dangerous!"


    "He''s not a monster! He''s just-" The young man yelled out, just to be interrupted by a footnding in the middle of his face. Hearing this conversation, Eiro turned toward Sarius confused, "So, why exactly do they think that''s a monster?" He asked, his voice finally making the bullies realize that someone was watching them.


    Sarius immediately just shrugged, "Well, we don''t have ''Monster'' monsters in this realm, you know? I mean, a few here and there, but they''re not from here, they just somehow came here I guess. Anyway, the concept still exists for the people here. To them, ''Magic Beasts'' are the kind and calm ones, and ''Monsters'' are the more aggressive ones that tend to attack people sometimes. What counts as a monster depends on who you''re talking to a lot of the time, I guess." He exined, and Eiro raised his brow, "Huh, really? Interesting." The Demon replied, thinking that this was somewhat simr to what Arc exined his definition of ''Monster'' was before he reincarnated in this world.


    "Stay out of this, if you know what''s good for you!" One of the bullies yelled out, ring at Eiro. But of course, he could only chuckle. This kid was a bit stronger than your average human, but at the end of the day, he was still incredibly weakpared to Eiro.


    "I don''t think I will stay out of this, I apologize. I just wanted to quickly tell you, the thing that the boy is holding there isn''t a monster." He pointed out, and the small group of bulliest scoffed at him, "Hah! Of course it is! Those things get huge! Obviously it''s a monster!"


    Eiro smiled lightly, and quickly shook his head, "Actually, that''s not the case. Sure, pigs are generally omnivorous, but they usually just eat the things they can get the easiest. Like grass, leaves, fallen fruit, and stuff like that, and they tend to avoid animals, and especially people. They can get a bit annoying if you enter their territory, but a well-trained hog can be an incrediblepanion, and surprisingly loyal as well." The Demon exined, clearly confusing the group of bullies, "And more than that, it seems like you don''t quite have a grasp over what monsters are. Theye in all shapes and sizes. Sure, some get incrediblyrge, but most are the size of you and I at most. A lot even fit on the palm of your hand."


    The bullies looked at Eiro, getting annoyed at this random lecture, "And how would you know, huh?!" One of them yelled out. The Demon took some steps forward, and leaned down toward the one that said it so that they were at eye level with each other. Slowly, Eiro''s cheeks split apart. He didn''t turn his mouth into two, but simply turned his current mouth into a more grotesque form. With his disgusting grin that went literally from ear to ear, Eiro replied to the bully.


    "Because it just so happens that I am one myself."


    The small group of bullies shivered as the air seemed to stand still. In an instant, when their bodies caught up to their minds, they rushed past Eiro to get out of this alley, without even saying another word. Now that they were gone, the Demon fused his mouth shut to the normal degree, and then turned to look at Sarius, "Now then, I think this is a perfect chance for us to put what we learned into practice."


    "Huh?"


    "We''re healing him, using fire magic." Eiro said immediately, "Come on, let''s get to it. I do the healing, you do the fine-control."


    "But-"


    "Sarius, he lives in the ne of fire, he won''t get hurt by whatever we do, he''s the perfect practice target. And don''t you want to show the king that your time with me was useful after all?" The Demon suggested, and Sarius clicked his tongue annoyed, "Goddamn bastard..."


    The spirit stepped forward and then squatted down in front of that kid. He took a deep breath, and then slowly held his hand forward. Using Eiro''s mana as a base, Sarius used fire magic like normal. He gathered it into a sphere, and even though it wasn''t particrly pretty, it was good enough.


    The whole reason why Sarius was even with Eiro was so that he could teach the Smander how to control his power. He could exert an incredible amount of magical strength, but Sarius was practicallypletely incapable of controlling said power. Eiro was there to change that. For a while now, they had been taking practice sessions where they were both using magic together, and as time went on, Eiro gave him more and more control over the magic in the sessions to slowly limate him to a lower power-output. He still had abysmal control, but it was much better than it used to be.


    Sarius slowly moved the mes created through Eiro''s mana toward the kid, and tried to cover specifically just the wounds, while Eiro applied the concept of ''healing magic'' onto the mes. Fire magic still wasn''t the best magic to use for healing, but especially since his evolution and ascension to ''The World'', he had be capable of doing this much at least. And here in the ne of fire, using it to heal was far more effective than in the central material ne.


    This was really the best ce for Sarius and Eiro to practice together. Having the spirit do all the fine-tuning and control, with Eiro standing back and doing the groundwork to allow him to practice as much as Sarius needed to, the Smander should be able to improve drastically. Of course, the Demon wanted to make sure that Sarius could be the best possible Smander King imaginable, and for that, he needed to do this much at least.


    Due to the quality of Eiro''s mana, the wounds on the young man''s body were healed rather quickly, and he looked back perplexed, while Sarius stood up exhausted and annoyed. He was ten times Eiro''s age, but was being treated like a kid, of course that would annoy him.


    "Now then. Let''s have a look at the little one, shall we?"

 Chapter 598 Translation

    Eiro looked down at the young man that was so tightly holding onto the magic beast he was trying to protect this whole time. As the Demon stretched his arms out to try and grab the piglet, the young man quickly pulled away, staring up at Eiro confused.


    "Wh-What are you doing?" He asked with a deep frown, speaking in Pirock. Raising his brow, Eiro looked down at him, "Do you speakmon?"


    However, the young man just stared up at him confused. Looking him up and down more closely, Eiro did notice that his clothes were in a far worse conditionpared to others, and he was quite dirty in general. He also had some scars scattered all over his body that clearly didn''te frombat.


    Eiro turned to look at Sarius, "Is it normal for people here to not be able to speakmon?"


    "Erm... I don''t think so, but it happens, I guess? And well, it doesn''t seem like the kid''s from around here, so he might have grown up in a ce where they only speak Pirock." The Smander exined, squatting down in front of the young man to get a closer look at him.


    "Hm, alright then." Eiro replied with a slight frown, and then quickly switched to speaking Pirock instead, "Do you understand me now?"


    Quickly, the young man nodded his head, and Eiro continued, "Alright, then let''s try this again. Let me take a look at that pig."


    "What do you want with him?" The boy asked, and Eiro sighed, "It''s injured, so give it to me for a moment. We healed you, we can do the same with this one."


    Startled by what Eiro said, the young man looked down at the creature that he was holding, trying to see any wounds on its body. But when he did, Eiro quickly pulled the piglet out of his arms, which wasn''t particrly hard to do, "Hm, alright then." The Demon muttered, quickly healing the few bruises on the piglet''s body that he had found. Of course, as he did, he also did something else, which was to exert his influence over this being through eye-contact. Magic beasts were incredibly responsive to matters of the mind. To an extent, it made it harder for influence to truly affect them, but at the same time, it made it easier for them to actually have the influence ced onto them. And a simple piglet like this, while it had the natural senses of a magic beast, was quickly overwhelmed by Eiro''s influence carried through his mana into its mind. It wasn''t powerful, intelligent, or sensitive enough to be able to fight back against what Eiro was doing, however. This way, in just a moment, Eiro had turned this creature into a willing and devoted follower.


    The piglet snuggled itself into Eiro''s arms as he was holding onto it, startling the young man even more, "H-Huh? But- how- he normally doesn''t like others..."


    "I don''t know, I''m quite likeable, I would say." Eiro pointed out, followed by a scoff caused by suppressedughter right behind him, "Is there something you want to share, Sarius?"


    The Spirit leaned back against the wall he was standing next to, and looked at his contractor with a light smirk, "What? No, of course not. You''re he likeable, absolutely."


    Letting out a slightly annoyed sigh, Eiro turned back toward the young man that was still sitting on the ground, as if he didn''t realize that he had been healed. Eiro held onto the piglet with two of this hands, and used his other two hands to pull the kid up, "What''s your name?" He asked quickly, and the young man looked at him surprised for a moment. It seemed like nobody had ever asked him what his name was before.


    "...Jyoti, my name is Jyoti." He replied after a few moments, and Eiro gently smiled at him, "Nice to meet you, Jyoti. I''m Eiro, and this here is my friend Sarius."


    "Erm..." Jyoti looked past Eiro, curiously staring at the Smander leaning against the wall while making a bored expression, "Is he... is he a spirit?"


    "That he is. He''s an actually pretty powerful Smander." Eiro exined, "I''m his contractor. I''m actually from the central material ne, you know?"


    Jyoti opened his eyes wide, "The central material ne? Then how are you not burning up?"


    "Ah, that, good question. I''m a pretty skilled mage, so I was able to turn my body into a mass of fire magic toe here." He exined with a slightly smug tone of voice, "But that''s not important right now. Tell me, why were you protecting this piglet to the extent where you got hurt by others?"


    "...Because it didn''t do anything wrong... They said it was a monster, but I know that''s not true! It''s my friend!" Jyoti eximed withplete and utter passion. Eiro was barely able to suppress the broad grin on his face, "Is that so? You know, I''ve been trying to look for someone as passionate and kind as you. People like you can do anything they put their mind to." The Demon exined, cing his hand on top of Jyoti''s head. He began to feed himpliments, with his voice empowered by his mana and charisma. He was doing the same thing as he did with that piglet, trying to exert his influence over him. Of course, it was a bit harder than even with people on the central material ne, but after a short while, it should work. He should be able to fully brainwash this kid, no issue.


    "Hahh... Finally." Eiro let out a deep sigh as he ced the book back into the shelf in front of him. He had finally managed to read all of the books here in the library.


    "That took you a while, huh?" Nelli asked, appearing right next to the Demon, floating through the water with a rxed expression, "Didn''t the other one and Sarius finish, what, two days ago?"


    "Yes, roughly." Eiro replied, a little annoyed, "But this library is five timesrger than the one they read through. And more importantly, Sarius could actually speak thenguage of that ne, quite unlike what a certain someone could do."


    "...It''s not my fault I can''t read Aquarian..." Nelli replied while turning her head away, and Eiro let out a slight sigh, "Right, sure. Don''t worry about it. I''ll figure something out." The Demon said, slightly stretching as he swam over toward the librarian.


    She looked back at Eiro curiously. Eiro asked if they had books inmon, so she was sure that he couldn''t speak Aquarian, but despite that, he had spent multiple days here in this space just reading through all the books.


    The librarian looked at the Demon, and spoke to him. Just that she was speaking in Aquarian, meaning that Eiro didn''t understand her. However, that didn''t stop Eiro frommunicating with her. While Nelli may not be able to read Aquarian, she could speak it, meaning that she understood what the librarian just said. As such, through telepathy, she told Eiro what the librarian said, and then tranted a response for him. This was a decent way of learning the spoken part of thisnguage as well. Eiro already knew the meaning of the symbols that he read in the book, since the duplicates in the mental library spent plenty of time trying to decode everything that he read, so just by doing this, he was able to connect how certain words were pronounced.


    Luckily, there seemed to be a bit of a pattern with the way that words were written that corrted to their pronunciation, so he could already fill in a few dots here and there. Eiro probably had a pretty strong ent, or rather, a weird way of pronouncing certain words, but as long as he could show that he was somewhat proficient in thenguage, it should be enough for the librarian to truly believe and acknowledge that he read all the books in here.


    Of course, he did, but if he couldn''t even speak thenguage, then how was he supposed to convince the librarian that he did? Judging from the questions that the other double was asked in the elemental ne of fire, this one was positive that he would be able to answer the questions pretty easily, though. They weren''t tough questions, they were just quite random, that was all.


    "You see... the owner of the tower of books asked us to ask those that manage to read all the books in the library some questions. Would you be willing to answer those?" The librarian asked even if sligthly hesitantly, and Eiro immediately nodded his head. He had been waiting for this, after all.


    She went to a room in the back and brought out a small box, before pulling some pieces of paper out of it that clearly had the questions written onto them. And so, with the help of Nelli, Eiro answered them bit by bit, increasing his understanding of thenguage further. Until the librarian ced the notes down, looking directly at Eiro.


    "I apologize, but it seems like you have not met the qualifications of the owner of the Tower of Books." The librarian said bluntly, and Eiro looked back at her with a frown, "What do you mean? Did I not answer all the questions?"


    "Yes, you did... but that spirit beside you, she has been feeding you the answers, has she not?" She pointed out, and Eiro let out a deep, annoyed sigh, "Urgh... how bothersome. Listen, I really did read all those books, it''s just that I can''t speak thenguage on my own. I only learned the writtennguage. She trantes the spoken word to me."


    "Huh?" The Librarian let out confused, "What do you mean?"


    "I mean exactly what I just said. You know what? I saw some empty pieces of paper over there. If you have a pen, then I can prove it to you." Eiro said, and the librarian looked back with a frown. She turned around and grabbed the pieces of crystal paper, cing them on the table in front of her. Eiro smiled at her, and then began to prove that he was worthy of that small coin sitting in the box.

 Chapter 599 Competition with himself

    The librarian let go of the book in her hands, as it slowly floated down onto the table in front of her. She waspletely and utterly perplexed at what just happened. For the past few hours, she had told Eiro random pages in random books, and he had been able to perfectly copy them over onto random notes of paper.


    And it wasn''t just the content of the books, it was everything. The size of each letter, the spacing inbetween the words and lines. Even the small splotches of ink on the page that came to be through issues during the book''s print. He had been able to perfectly remember every tiny detail of these books. Of course, that showed her that this man was not only worthy of passing the test she was introduced to by the owner of the tower of books, but he most certainly was the one who would pass the rest of the tests that would be given at the actual tower as well.


    But despite that being the case, despite this fact filling her withplete and utter excitement, she wasn''t able to say anything, leaving this room in stunned silence. Slowly, Eiro turned around and swam over toward the box that the librarian ced down on her desk just earlier. He grabbed it and opened it up on his own, grabbing the small coin inside of it.


    "I''m guessing that silence means that this is mine." He said with a grin on his face, and the librarian looked back confused for a few moments, "H-Huh? Right... right, yes! Yes, absolutely! Please, take it!" She eximed, quickly swimming over to his side, "You definitely deserve it! I''m sorry for wrongly judging you." The librarian pointed out, and Eiro simply smiled back at her, following it up with a quick wink.


    "There''s no need for you to worry about such things. Now I just need to figure out where the tower actually is, right?" Eiro asked her, and without a moment''s hesitation, she nodded her head. With a smile on his face, the Demon turned his head toward Nelli. They were alreadymunicating telepathically, "How do maps work in this realm? This is not a t ne like I''m used to." He exined, and Nelli seemed to think about this question for a few moments.


    "Honestly? No clue. Never really bothered with maps. I barely spent a couple years of my life on this ne." She exined, making it impossible for the Demon to not let out a loud groan. He turned toward the librarian instead, "Sorry, but could you exin to me how maps work in this realm? I have a rough idea of what I need to do to figure out how to find the tower, but I need to know that first."


    The librarian raised her brow surprised, "Is that so? Well, they are quite simple, actually. You see, in this realm, everything of note is quite far away from each other, so our maps tend to stretch over quite a length. But in return, we have different maps for each yer'' of this ne." She exined. It seemed as if she was aware of the way that maps worked in other realms, or at least, in the central material ne, "With the monarchs'' castle acting asyer ''0'', of course. This city would be onyer 6, and each is a thousand meters high. And then, it is quite simple. The more denser the water, the darker it is on the map. The major stars are marked down as well, if you ever wish for some extra light."


    Eiro raised his brow curiously. If that was the case, then this wouldn''t be too tough. Except if... "So... do the maps change over time? I know that in other nes, the terrain of the world tends to change, so how is it here?"


    "Change? Not by much, if at all. Certain areas might shift their position a little over the years, but it is never by much. Usually, maps only need to be updated once a century, but the difference is usually minuscule."


    Letting out a sigh of relief that Eiro didn''t have to figure out patterns of how the terrain changed even in this realm, he started to look around the library. A replica had already been constructed within his mind, and the duplicates were busy at work trying to figure out the map using the help of the seemingly random patterns on the coin. And meanwhile, he himself just started taking a closer look at the different ases that he had found. Of course, he had acknowledged them, but he mostly just nced at the pages. Since there wasn''t muchnguage to be pulled from these books, the duplicates weren''t putting partiur focus on them either. But now, he should at least have a rough idea of what the world looks like. That way, the duplicates could fill in certain gaps more easily when they started finding patterns, and he would be able to head out on his search for the tower rather quickly as well.


    "Then for now, I will be taking my leave." Eiro said, lightly smiling at the librarian. He felt like finally breathing some fresh water, honestly. After being in this same building for the past few days, he had started feeling a little bit stuffy. Rather, he really just felt like going out of the town altogether to just let himself float around a little while napping for a while until the whole map situation had been figured out.


    "Wait! I- I suggest staying in here as you try to search for hints of the tower of book''s location... this space might help you a bit?" The librarian suggested, and Eiro simply scoffed as he swam toward the door, "Don''t worry, I already know that the map is part of this building. But I''ve already got everything I need up here." He pointed out, tapping at the side of his head. The doors opened in front of him, as the Demon swam outside.


    "Tsk..." Eiro clicked his tongue a bit annoyed, crossing his legs while staring out the window beside him. The young man sitting across from him looked at the Demon and somewhat nervously asked, "My Lord? Is... is something wrong?"


    Eiro nced at him, and quickly shook his head, "Nothing, Jyoti. It just seems that I am losing a slightpetition with myself."


    Confused at what this meant, Jyoti slightly tilted his head to the side. Sarius scoffed a bit, ncing up from the book in his hands, "Don''t worry about it, he''s like that sometimes. Although, he''s been a bit more... well, fiery ever since he got here."


    "You try being made of literal fire without being an absolute dick." Eiro sighed, and Sarius looked at his contractor with a frown, "I''m a spirit, I''m made from the literally purest of fire."


    "Yeah, which is why you''re the literally purest dick I know." The Demon replied, before Sarius clicked his tongue, "Walked right into that one, didn''t I?"


    "Yup. What are you doing reading, anyway? Never seen you even touch a book before."


    "Oh, I wonder why. It''s not because all the books you have are asrge as my body over there. And it''s also definitely not because every time I try to touch one of your book it goes up in mes. There''s a reason you never summon me while you''re in a library. Well, not ''you'', the original, of course. You''re just a fake." Sarius pointed out, grinning as if he had won. The Demon slightly turned his head to look at the Smander, watching as he suddenly disappeared, dropping the book he had been holding in the process. It only took a few seconds until he came back, his head letting off arge amount of steam and smoke as his fiery hair reformed, "So, what did the ''original'' say? I''m just a fake, so remember to exin it to me in as much detail as possible."


    "..." Sarius silently picked up his book and continued to read, while Eiro looked at Jyoti, who was clearly more than just confused about what was going on, "Everything alright?" Eiro asked, and Jyoti immediately nodded his head.


    "Of course, my lord! Everything is great! I... I never would have thought that I could ride in such a carriage!" He eximed, and Eiro simply smiled at him. It seemed like carriages were rather rare around here, so the original Eiro had to create a duplicate of his carriage in the central material ne while fusing it with fire magic. That way, it could be pulled into the ne of water fairly simply. Of course, just flying would be much, much faster, but considering that Eiro picked up Jyoti and the piglet, he couldn''t just do that. He wanted to be amodating to the man and the creature that were going to be the first two actually ''living'' servants of his, at least if everything worked out alright. Once he had the duplicated carriage, Eiro simply tamed a few magic beasts strong enough to pull it the same way he manipted Jyoti and the piglet, and then that was that. For a moment, they considered duplicating Lugo, but somehow, creating an empty shell that just looked like Lugo to thenmand like a servant didn''t feel right. Eiro would never do that with his children or other close friends either, after all.


    But even then... maybe he should havee up with a better solution. Because although this Eiro was much closer to the Tower of Books in this ne than the one in the ne of water, that one could simply swim through the water without a second thought, and at incredible speeds. At this point, only luck would decide which of the two would win.

 Chapter 600 Mental Wall

    Letting out a loud sigh, Eiro closed the book in front of him, "Those two, they''re really annoying..." He grumbled, as the spirit next to him moved into sight, "Who is?" Gondos asked. The Demon turned toward the Golem and quickly exined, "The versions of me in the elemental nes. I don''t know why exactly, but the magic seems to be affecting their personalities to an extent. We share the same mind though, so each of their mood-swings still gets to me."


    He had already gotten quite tired of the discussions those two were leading inside of the collective hive-mind of all the versions of Eiro that currently existed. The one in the elemental ne of fire was especially troublesome. He was just an angrier, more easily annoyed version of the original, something that he seemed to try and show off as much as he possibly could. And while the other one was a lot easier to deal with, he was still annoying for Eiro to look at.


    The duplicate in the elemental ne of water was sort of calmer than Eiro for most of the time, to the point where he could actually be called sort ofzy. At least when it came down to it, he hit hard, but even that was bothersome to an extent. That version of Eiro just let the world around him do whatever it wanted, and then he pushed through without caring what was around him. Sure, that was a quality that the original Eiro also had to an extent, but with this duplicate, it was just so much worse.


    Of course, if the other duplicates acknowledged that this was what he was thinking, this situation would be even more annoying. But for now, each version of Eiro with their own physical body, so not including the ones that existed only within the mental library, mostly concentrated on what it was that they were doing. They thought for themselves, and only relied on the shared mind when it came down to it, or when they needed something. After all, it was a bit weird having a dozen opinions on everything that you were doing. Eiro already thought far too much about everything that he was doing anyway, and he didn''t need that times a dozen. Luckily, this did create a bit of privacy between the different duplicates.


    "I wonder... maybe I can create some kind of wall so that I can think in peace sometimes?" Eiro wondered for a few moments, although he quickly abandoned that thought. He was the original, so he was the only one that was fully in control of what was happening. Each of the duplicates was already starting to form their own personalities. Right now, that only affected some surface-level behaviour, but if Eiro wasn''t careful, they might be far too different. And he didn''t want to let that happen, so he had to make sure he knew what the others were doing and thinking at all times so that he could intervene if it came down to it.


    Since they were connected like this, Eiro could manipte all of his duplicates as much as he wanted using the mirror of duplication. When they strayed too far from the original personality, he would simply have topletely reset them.


    Eiro turned his head toward Gondos again, "By the way, what''s the elemental ne of earth like?"


    "I apologize, but I really do not know." The Golem replied instantly, "Immature spirits only have a limited amount of control over where they can be. We are usually locked to either ne of existence for most of our life. And even then, it is tough to remember what our lives were like then, because we simply never formed memories of anything we were doing. So even if I was in the ne of earth for a while, I could not describe it to you. And ever since I matured, I have been by your side."


    The Demon smiled a bit, "Thanks for that. But if you want to figure out what it''s like over there, you can go ahead and explore a bit. You don''t have to stay with me all the time."


    "...I have no desire to travel the elemental ne. At least not more than I desire apanying you further."


    "A real charmer, huh?" Eiro smirked, "Don''t worry, if Ie across a gateway to the ne of earth, I will make it mine and then we can explore it together."


    Gondos looked back at Eiro, as the Demon picked up another book from in front of him, "Right. But... are those truly you? You share a mind, but you just said it yourself, did you not? ''Those two''. You already consider them different from yourself, so when traveling with another version of you, then how can it truly be the same as traveling with the man in front of me right now?"


    Eiro raised a brow as he started to think, "You have a point, certainly. But well, right now, these duplicates have barely existed for a week. It is a new experience for me as well. By the time a situation where I could be the guardian of another gateway arises, we will have figured this whole thing out some more." Eiro exined, continuing to flip through the book page by page, barely just ncing at them so that the doubles in the mental library could then actually consume the contents, "Either way, it''s nice to have some alone-time with you. We entered this contract a fair while ago now, but we never really spoke to each other without at least Nelli nearby."


    Gondos floated by in front of Eiro, and soon nodded his head, while ncing all over the space around them, "You''re right. I didn''t even think about this. It does feel sort of... weird. To be alone, without Nelli nearby. But not in an ufortable way, of course. Simply weird."


    "Don''t worry, I understand what you mean." Eiro replied, as he pushed the book in his hands back into the shelf. Turning around, he saw the connected constructs of mage-hands and floating eyes flying through the library. It took him a few days toe up with these. Basically what he did was quite simple, though. He created duplicates of himself, limiting them only to one eye and the specific section of the brain they needed to collect and share knowledge with the mental library, and then added a flow of mana within them in the form of a magic circle that would create a bubble around the eye itself to keep it afloat, as well as a pair of mage hands so that each of them could pick up and flip through a book.


    This way, since none of them were actually thinking, and were just consuming this knowledge in the books, Eiro was able to have two dozen of these flying around on top of the duplicates that already existed of himself.


    It was the easiest way to read all the books in the Academy''s library in a short period of time. And either way, something else stuck out as well as he started to look around this space. There were some familiar patterns within the decorations on the walls and shelves. He had already seen through these twice, so he would of course recognize them,ing across them a third time. The patterns were the same as the ones in the two libraries that Eiro had ovee in the elemental nes. That meant that this library as well was influenced by the owner of the Tower of Books.


    But well, it made sense to an extent. There was something called the ''Library Association'', after all. They were the group credited with increasing the literacy rate in this world to a never seen-before degree, and they were the major distributor of books themselves. They constructed numerous libraries in most towns, and even if they didn''t create them themselves, the library association was usually in charge of any library you came across. There were rumors that the library association was a subsidiary of the Tower of Books, but nobody had been able to confirm this thus far. That also meant that, even if he was asked to take the same test here, the librarian wouldn''t know that the coin was going to lead whoever had it to the Tower of Books. With everyone and everything running around on the central material ne, it made sense to be more careful than on the elemental nes.


    But at the same time, this library was much, muchrger than any other library he had seen thus far. It was really quite ridiculous howrge this ce was. That made him just the more curious about what exactly the Tower of Books was going to be like. Every single book, scroll, or note written in the world can be found in there. Of course, that included novels, research papers, martial art tomes, grimoires, and even the secret books kept by every single country in this world. The owner of the Tower of Books was a powerful being, keeping all of this information safe. And even if Eiro managed to find the Tower of Books, he was sure that those secret books were kept in a whole separate section that he would never be able to ess.


    Letting out a slight sigh, Eiro flipped open the next book, quickly ncing at every page before moving on.


    "Ah, Lord Daemonherz." Someone suddenly said, pulling Eiro''s attention toward them. It was one of his students of the magic course, "Good evening. What are you doing here sote? You should try and get some rest." Eiro pointed out, and the student smiled wrily, "I''m actually just here to study a bit. You see, I''ve been having a lot of trouble leveling up my magic skill recently... I was hoping to find something that could help me break through."


    "Hm... I will let you know if I find a text that could be useful to you." Eiro pointed out, "But remember, you can alwayse to me if you need help with such matters. Even if I am busy with my own research at the moment, I will try to make time for you as soon as I can."


    The student nodded his head, smiling at Eiro, "Thank you, Lord Daemonherz. I''ll let you know if there is anything you can help me with." He said, "I will leave you alone to your own reading now." The student walked past Eiro, who couldn''t help but keep looking at the boy''s back. He was one of the best students the magic course had ever seen, and even he was struggling leveling his magic skill up?


    "Hm... I wonder which one he''s talking about." Eiro muttered. There was the earth element, which the student so proudly used all the time flowing through him. But there was something else as well. It was a branch of another special type of elemental magic. More specifically, flesh magic, a branch of necromancy. With a light grin, Eiro curiously made sure to keep an eye on this student from now on.

 Chapter 601: In an instant

    <h4>Chapter 601: In an instant</h4>


    ¡°Huh? Noma? No, I don¡¯t really know him that well. I spoke to him a couple times, but he tends to keep to himself, I guess.¡± Arc pointed out, looking up from his book while sitting on the couch, ¡°But why are you asking? Did he do something?¡± Curious, and hopeful to find out some insider-infomration, Arc quickly sat up, staring at his father with a light grin.


    Knowing that it might be better not to tell Arc about it, since he would probably just go to Noma and try to ask him about it the next time he saw him, Eiro simply shook his head, ¡°No, I just saw him at the library quitetest night. He seems like a rather dedicated student. I figured if you two spent some time together, he could rub off on you.¡±


    ¡°¡­I¡¯m the highest ranking student of my course. I broke literal academic records on multiple asions.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but you¡¯re kind of an ass.¡± Rudy pointed out as he entered the room, before looking at Eiro, ¡°You¡¯re talking about Noma, right?¡±


    ¡°Do you know him?¡± Eiro asked, and Rudy quickly smiled, ¡°Yeah, he¡¯s a friend of mine. His sister is in the craftsmanship course, and the three of us are together in the breaks a lot. I heard he used his talent for earth magic to help out in the vige they grew up in, in the fields and during construction and such.¡±


    Arc quickly jumped up, ¡°Ignoring the fact that insulting me has be far too normalized in this family¡­ who¡¯s this girl that I¡¯ve never heard about that I¡¯m hearing about so much all of a sudden?¡±


    Rudy turned his head, locking eyes with his brother, ¡°Please don¡¯t do this. Let¡¯s just¡­ not get into that, alright?¡±


    ¡°What? My little bro¡¯s in love, and we can¡¯t even talk about it?¡±


    ¡°In- I mentioned the existence of a girl I know, and you think I¡¯m in love?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not?¡±


    ¡°¡­Shut up.¡± Rudy replied immediately, turning away from his brother to his father, ¡°Anyway, as you said, he does spend a lot of time studying. He¡¯s pretty obsessed with magic, it seems.¡±


    Eiro crossed his arms in thought. He had been considering asking one of them to see if they could find something out about that flesh magic that Noma seemed to possess, but if Rudy was that close to him, then he would rather not. But it did still mean that he had to be a bit quicker about a certain aspect of his curiosity. He had to find out soon whether or not Noma was dangerous. A talent for necromancy usually came with an obsession with death in one way or another, and flesh magic was probably simr. He should probably ask Koperia about it, when she finally came back.


    After the group returned from their vacation, she went off somewhere for some experiments or something. She had been quite secretive about what she was trying to do.


    ¡°Thanks for letting me know, then. I think I¡¯ll just have a conversation with him soon. It¡¯s good to see that he¡¯s so passionate about magic, but he¡¯s still only 16. Overworking yourself at that age is anything but good for you.¡± Eiro pointed out. Rudy looked at his father and scratched the back of his head, ¡°I mean, I can talk to him about it as well. You don¡¯t have to go out of your way.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m his teacher, of course I should be the one to talk to him about this.¡± Eiro pointed out, ¡°I don¡¯t want to have you be my messenger.¡± He said, before he got a bit of an idea, ¡°Although¡­ how about you invite those two over sometime?¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°Finally. I¡¯m first. Hear that, you watered-down bozo?¡± Eiro said to himself, looking at the structure stretching out far into the sky right in front of his eyes. It was the Tower of Books. They finally reached it, after taking a few shortcuts by manipting the magic that made up the terrain. Eiro had no idea what sort of changes somethingrge-scale like that would do, but he didn¡¯t particrly care either.


    ¡°Erm¡­ My Lord¡­ where are we..?¡± Jyoti asked nervously, holding onto his small piglet friend. The Demon turned toward them, and quickly exined, ¡°We¡¯re at an important ce right now. I¡¯m not sure if you¡¯ll be able to enter, though. So¡­ Sarius, you stay out here with him.¡±


    ¡°Huh? Why¡¯d I have to babysit a brat like him?¡± The Smanderined instantly, making Jyoti slightly flinch. Eiro looked at the Spirit annoyed, ¡°Shut it. You¡¯re staying with him because you can¡¯te with me either. Our contract connects us, but I don¡¯t want to unnecessarily upset the owner of the Tower of Books by bringing you along.¡± The Demon said bluntly, ¡°Now just be quiet and wait out here.¡±


    Clicking his tongue, Sariusid down on the ground to try and take a nap on the grass, while Eiro looked at Jyoti.


    ¡°If something happens, just give Sarius a good kick and he¡¯s going to take care of it.¡± He advised him, ¡°I don¡¯t know how long this will take, but I¡¯ll let you know through Sarius.¡±


    ¡°A-Alright¡­ Good luck in there!¡± Jyoti eximed, and Eiro just smiled at him while turning around, ¡°Thanks, kid.¡±


    The Demon spread his wings out, and used them to shoot forward toward the tower, closing the rest of the distance in an instant. It didn¡¯t take long until he stood in front of its doors. Quite quickly, he spotted a small incave between the handle-less doors, and quickly pulled out the coin that he got from the librarian. He pushed it into the round hole, and soon watched as the doors opened all on their own.


    Eiro quickly nced at the magical mechanism, and curiously stepped through the doors. The original Eiro had done some editing to the bodies of the two duplicates in the elemental nes. Mostly, it was in regard to their sensory organs, fusing them with aspects of either Sarius or Nelli, so that they could have the true magical senses that a spirit had. Of course, while Eiro could sense mana to an extent even without them now, there was still a vast difference between what he could see and the real thing. Through all this, the duplicates were able to send a lot of information of the importance of magic in the elemental nes over to the mental library as well. There was a mental duplicate in charge of just analyzing this importance to write a dissertation on it. Eiro did want to get into the business of selling some books in that regard here and there, after all. It was something that simply interested him on a personal level, so it wasn¡¯t like it was part of a greater plot or anything like that.


    But for now, Eiro simply concentrated on what was in front of him. The magic inside of the tower of books immediately felt different. While the magic of the elemental ne of fire was still flowing through every inch of this building, it was mixed with the unique mana that the Tower of Books itself possessed.


    Right now, he was just in a separate room, and not in the actual library though, since he probably hadn¡¯t earned that yet. However, it didn¡¯t take long until someone did step into the room through one of the doors. They were quite weak, and Eiro could see the library stretching out behind them¡­ If he wanted to, he could probably force his way in. But that would probably not do him any good.


    Either way, taking a closer look at the being in front of him, Eiro was rather surprised. It seemed like they were both a person of this ne, like Jyoti outside, and a spirit. As if a spirit and one of those elemental people fused with each other.


    ¡°I wee you.¡± They said, standing there rather rxed, ¡°Since you passed the first test, it is time for the second.¡±


    Eiro raised his brow, a bit surprised, ¡°You¡¯re not even going to try and figure out whether I¡¯m really the one that passed? I could have very well stolen this from someone else.¡±


    The person in front of him shook their head, ¡°It does not matter whether you stole it or not. This second test is many times harder than the first, so it should be impossible for you to cheat. Having the first test it really just a way to bring potentially promising people here.¡±


    ¡°¡­That so?¡± Eiro replied, ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then let¡¯s get to it. What¡¯s the second test?¡±


    The person in front of him swiftly walked toward the center of the room, as the door that Eiro had walked to closed on its own. The floor started to light up, and that half-spirit looked deep into his eyes. Slowly, he opened his mouth, and his voice escaped.


    ¡°¡ì#!&%#¡±


    Whether it was the frequency, volume, or content of the words that were spoken in that single instant, Eiro¡¯s mind was immediately overwhelmed. A flood of nonsensical, chaotic information hit him. And not even just himself, every version of himself that shared his mind was hit by this stunningly painful chaos. But it just took a moment for Eiro to take control of it. He was a being that could manipte chaos freely, after all. Closing his eyes, it didn¡¯t take long until he brought some order into it. And soon, the true content of what was said became clear.


    In a single moment, this half-spirit had recited the content of a whole book to him.

 Chapter 602: Access Granted

    <h4>Chapter 602: ess Granted</h4>


    Eiro looked at the half-spirit standing in front of him with an annoyed expression, ¡°What did you just do?¡±


    ¡°If you can not understand, then that is the end of the trial.¡± They replied bluntly, before Eiro let out a loud groan, ¡°No, I understood, I meant ¡®what did you do to make that happen¡¯.¡±


    The half-spirit looked Eiro up and down, before practically scoffing at him, ¡°You understood what I said?¡±


    ¡°Obviously not instantly, but yes, I¡¯m pretty sure I got it.¡± He pointed out, as the half-spirit approached the Demon, ¡°Is that so? If you understood, then please recite the contents of my words to me. Of course, just the rough meaning, you do not¡­¡± They started saying, before seeing Eiro suddenly hold a book. Of course, a book of this elemental ne. Eiro had bought a few empty ones just so that he could properly y around with them, since they were clearly created in a rather unique way. If possible, he wanted to be able to create them himself. But for now, they were just stored in the special elemental space within Eiro¡¯s treasury. And with a wave of his hand, a desk appeared in front of him. It was the desk that the original Eiro was currently sitting at in his study, doing some paperwork in regard to the academy in his study. He had simply duplicated the desk, fusing it with fire magic in the process. It was the same thing he did to create the carriage that Eiro, Sarius, Jyoti and the piglet traveled here in.


    The Demon quickly sat down at the desk, flipping the book open. He carefully manipted the concentrated magic that the pages were made of to make them split from the book¡¯s spine,ying the single papers down onto the table, before he got out a pen that he¡­ ¡®bought¡¯ from a shop in one of the towns he passed by. Quickly, these pens were duplicated by the original Eiro at a distance, letting him have four pens instead.


    The fire elemental Eiro then also got a pot of ink from this ne out of his bag. He took a deep breath, and then started to write down the exact contents of the book that had been recited to him in a single word. The half-spirit watched Eiro work, surprised at the speed at which he worked. But more than that, they were stunned at the fact that he was able to perfectly write down the content of the book. For about an hour, Eiro continued writing the contents of the actually rather thick book onto the pages. Once he was done, he quickly picked them up, finally bringing them in order, before pressing the pages back into the empty book covering.


    He let out a deep sigh now that he was done, handing the book to the half-spirit. Silently, they grabbed the book from him, and flipped through it. With every single page, sentence, word, and letter, it became more and more clear that Eiro had noted everything down perfectly. Of course, in his mind, a handful of versions of himself spent the equivalent of a few days decyphering that ¡®book in a single word¡¯ while that word continued being repeated to them.


    Soon, the half-spirit closed the book, utterly perplexed. They ced it down on the desk that Eiro had seemingly created out of nothing, and closed their eyes, ¡°You¡­ have passed both the second and third trial.¡±


    Raising his brow, Eiro looked at the half-spirit, ¡°What do you mean? I figured so for the second, but what was the third trial about, that I passed it already?¡±


    ¡°¡­The first trial was one of memory. Only those that can read and remember the content of an entire library can hope to even attempt the second. Of course, it also served to show one¡¯s determination, and love for the written word. The second trial was one of understanding,prehension, and once more, determination. Usually, after you repeated the rough contents to me, I would bring you to some temporary living-quarters, where you would continue trying to decypher what I said.¡± The half-spirit exined, and Eiro scoffed, ¡°How long does it normally take, then?¡±


    ¡°That¡­ Maybe months. Years, possibly.¡± They replied.


    ¡°Hm, fair enough. Then, what was the third that I passed somehow?¡±


    The half-spirit ced their hands together, and quickly exined. They somehow seemed a lot more formal and held-back all of a sudden, in regard to their general demeanor at least, ¡°After passing the first and second, one already has shown all that they need in regard to ability, showing their worth as one that tries to enter the library. As such, the third is one to show the care one has for books themselves, rather than just the messages and stories they convey. For that, we would observe them while they read certain books, or have them learn the techniques of repairing books, to see how filled with love and care they are for books. After seeing the way you treated the book, the way you led your pens, and the careful way you removed and reattached those pages, it is clear that you would not be one to mistreat that which can be found in this tower. However, we will keep quite close attention to you either way, and should you happen to purposefully damage one of the library¡¯s belongings, you will be removed immediately.¡±


    Eiro looked at the half-spirit with a light smile. If he already passed all the tests connected to entering the library, then this was perfect, ¡°Why do you only let people with the special abilities to decode that whole book enter this ce? That doesn¡¯t seem directly rted. You could probably figure out a better, and most certainly faster, way of doing this.¡±


    The half-spirit shook their head immediately, ¡°I do not know, I am not the one that created the tests. I am only here to oversee all the testsing after the first.¡±


    Something about the way that the half-spirit worded that exnation seemed a bit weird to Eiro, ¡°Does that mean there are more tests? Before, it sounded like I¡¯m allowed to enter the tower now.¡±


    ¡°Of course, but you will not immediately receive ess to every floor of the tower of books.¡± The half-spirit exined, ¡°Each floor possesses its own test, of which some, but not all, are based on the knowledge you are able to acquire within the tower itself.¡±


    Eiro raised a brow curiously, ¡°In that case, could you exin to me how things are ordered in the tower? What sort of books can be found on each floor, for example?¡±


    After thinking for a moment, the half-spirit seemed to have settled on a good answer, ¡°The librarian had written a book describing the way things are sorted in each tower. You can find it on the bottom floor, which you will soon be able to enter. But to exin it in a simple manner¡­ the importance of the books increases as you rise a floor. Whether it is because they are grimoires holding spells at different levels of power, tomes holding rare techniques, or simply collections of old and important matters that have been noted down within this realm.¡± They exined, ¡°Of course, that means that each floor will hold less and less books. Technically, the first few floors are split up into their own separate floors, you will see what I meanter. You will be able to find the kinds of books found in regr libaries around the realm, such as general research, encyclopediae of various sorts, or simple novels.¡±


    Eiro smiled lightly, extremely excited to finally be able to read everything in the famous tower of books. But before then, he had to figure something out, ¡°So, outside, there are two people waiting for me. One of them is one of the people of this ne, the other is a spirit that I formed a contract with. Can either of theme with me?¡±


    ¡°Since the contract between a spirit and their contractor links them forever, it would be impossible to properly keep them out anyway, so they are permitted entry in a limited manner. We have ways to limit their ability to ess the physical aspects of this ne, so while they will be able to sense everything to an extent, they will be unable to interact with anything in the library.¡± The half-spirit exined, ¡°But as for that other child, and that magic beast, you brought with you, they will not be able to follow. I apologize.¡±


    ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll head outside for a few hours to figure something out. I hope that won¡¯t be an issue.¡± The Demon said, and the half-spirit quickly nodded, ¡°Do as you wish, you now have free ess to the first floor of the tower. Simplye back whenever you are ready, and I will show you around.¡±


    Without much further ado, Eiro turned around and walked over toward the entrance. He probably needed to figure out a way for Jyoti to wait outside the tower while Eiro was busy in the tower. Or, preferably, he could figure out how to prepare the boy so that he could be safely turned into a servant. And just in that moment, Eiro had an idea.


    ¡°Oh¡­ you know, since I passed the second and third test so quickly, do you think that maybe you could do me a favor?¡± He asked with a grin on his face, and the half-spirit looked at him surprised, ¡°Is entering the tower not enough for you?¡±


    ¡°Well, it is, but¡­ what if you teach that kid out there how toprehend¡­ well, whatever the hell you did before?¡±


    The half-spirit looked at Eiro curiously, clearly intrigued. Eiro had been able to tell that the spirit was more than just bored, so they most likely didn¡¯t have all too much to do here. The spirit ced their hand onto their chin curiously, ¡°Did that boy also pass the first test?¡±


    ¡°Does it really matter if he did?¡± Eiro asked, and the spirit couldn¡¯t help but form a slight grin on their face, ¡°When you say it like that¡­ no, no it does not matter.¡±

 Chapter 603: In unison

    <h4>Chapter 603: In unison</h4>


    ¡°So he managed to get there before me, huh? Well, at least I don¡¯t have to worry about someone else.¡± Eiro said to himself while swimming through the water of this ne at high speeds, trying to find this realm¡¯s tower of books. The most annoying issue with this ce was that there weren¡¯t any sort ofndmarks to orient himself by. In the elemental ne of fire, there were still mountains, rivers, or forests on a rtively t ne, so as long as he had the right maps, the duplicate Eiro in that realm had an easy time searching for his destination.


    However, the one in this realm was often struggling to even find the right direction to go in. The only things that he could orient himself by were therge bubbles of crystalized magic, but those were few and far-between, and the density of water didn¡¯t change too much otherwise. On top of that, the people in this ne ¡®went with the flow¡¯ a bit too much in annoying situations, so the maps weren¡¯t particrly detailed either. It seemed like the people simply didn¡¯t care about these things, adjusting to the situation they were in, in usually the simplest way possible.


    However, it seemed like Eiro was finally on the right route. The water was pretty dark around here, but that made it even more likely for the water to be around here. The tower couldn¡¯t just be ced in a random location, after all. Putting it somewhere, where it would be hard to spot from a distance was the best choice, naturally. And then, as if he broke through a wall, the water around Eiro became brighter and less dense. In front of him, in the center of this bubble of darkness, was a huge crystal formation just floating in the water. Different to most other forms of crystalized magic that could be found in this ne, this seemed more natural. Most others were perfect spheres, as if they were bubbles of air in the water. But this looked more like a chunk of the inside of an enormous geode ced in the water, with spikes and natural crystal towers stretching out above from the ground.


    And in the center of that magical formation stood a tower, shining in colors of corals and decorated with shells. There were a few magic beasts swimming around here that Eiro hadn¡¯t seen anywhere else in this realm, ¡°Heh¡­ yeah, this is what something like the tower of books should look like.¡± He pointed out, already noticing the other Eiro grumble to himself in annoyance. The tower in the elemental ne of fire was something that anyone could have built, it just looked like an old building ced in the middle of nowhere. But this? It really did look like it belonged to a being capable of doing such a thing, creating towers like this together with such huge organizations, all spread throughout multiple nes of existence.


    With a few more ps of his wings, Eiro pushed himself through the water, soon hovering right in front of the tower¡¯s entrance. He was already holding the coin that he got from the library in his hand, and pushed it into the socket made for it. The door in front of him opened up, and without further ado, the Demon swam inside.


    The inside seemed to be mostly the same as the tower in the elemental ne of fire, just that it was decorated in a way that fit this ne more. Just like how the outside of the tower was painted in colorful patterns and decorated with shells, the inside was rather simr, even if the base structure of the tower was practically identical.


    It didn¡¯t take long until one of the doors opened up, and a being swam through the door. Just like in the elemental ne of fire, they seemed to be a half-spirit, just in this case, they were half naiad, and half of a person of this ne. They still had the same androgynous look and build, with a mostly emotionless, albeit slightly annoyed, expression. And more importantly, even though some of their features were different, taking into ount the way the beings on this ne looked, their face and build was practically identical to how the one from the fire ne¡¯s tower of book looked. It could bepared to the difference between the duplicate Eiro in this realm, and the one on the ne of fire. As if someone, or something, had created them by hand.


    The half-spirit just gave Eiro a quick nod, ¡°I wee you,¡± they said, floating there in a rxed way. Even their mannerisms seemed to be identical, ¡°Since you passed the first test, it is time for the second.¡±


    ¡°Right, right, just get to it, I already know the deal.¡± Eiro exined, ¡°And before you ask ¡®how could you possibly know what is about to happen¡¯, I¡¯m not going to exin it to you either way, so simply proceeding as nned will save both of us some time.¡±


    Slowly, the half-spirit¡¯s expression seemed to be a bit annoyed, considering the way that Eiro acted. But in the end, it didn¡¯t seem like they actually minded all too much, ¡°If that¡¯s what you want, then so be it,¡± they replied, soon swimming to the center of the room. The eyes of Eiro and the half-spirit met, and this time, the Demon made sure to use all his senses and concentrate on what was happening, and how exactly this half-spirit was going to do what it was about to do.


    ¡°%$¡ì/=?!$¡± They said, and once more, a stunning flow of information entered Eiro¡¯s mind as a whole book¡¯s content was conveyed to him in the span of a single word. It was just that this time, he was prepared for it, so it didn¡¯t take him as long to recover, and the duplicates in the mental library were already busy at work trying to decypher everything. Meanwhile, this actual physical duplicate was thinking about how to possibly replicate what the half-spirit just did. However, he quickly realized that it most likely wasn¡¯t something physical, but rather, a special ability or skill allowed them to do something like this. Maybe it was rted to the librarian themselves. It would make sense if they had abilities rted to conveying knowledge quickly, andpressing so much information into a single spoken word was basically the greatest way to do that.


    ¡°Would you like me to repeat myself?¡± The half-spirit asked, and Eiro raised his brows, looking back at them, ¡°Huh? Oh no, thanks, I¡¯m fine.¡± He replied, and held his hand in front of his body. Luckily, he had done the same preparations as the other duplicate Eiro, and bought some books and a pen, thetter of which the original was dly duplicating for him a few times. And then, after pulling all those things out, Eiro pulled over a weighted desk as well, that allowed the Demon to work at it properly.


    ¡°Give me¡­ about two hours, I guess. I should be done by then.¡± Eiro told the half-spirit, before carefully pulling the crystal pages out of one of the books, cing them down on a small pile beside him. The half-spirit was confused to see what was happening, but of course, the Demon didn¡¯t wait for much longer to actually start, and quickly proceeded to write down the decoded book on the crystal pages, while the half-spirit watched him curiously. Just a few hourster, Eiro was done, and ced the pages back into the book as if he had never pulled them out in the first ce, before throwing it over toward the half-spirit. Of course, since they were in water, the book just carefully floated over to them.


    The half-spirit flipped it open, carefully flipping through the pages. Soon, they confirmed that the content matched what they said, and then they seemed to move on to take a closer look at the book itself, since Eiro had pulled the pages from it so smoothly, just to reattach them with ease.


    ¡°¡­With this, I have confirmed that you passed both the second and third test,¡± the half-spirit exined, and Eiro couldn¡¯t help himself but keep on grinning, ¡°Eh~? That so? That mean I can get into the tower¡¯s first floor now?¡±


    The half-spirit frowned slightly and looked back at Eiro, ¡°You keep acting weirdly. Have you been here before?¡±


    ¡°Well, not ¡®here¡¯ directly. I¡¯m currently also in the tower of books of the elemental ne of fire, though,¡± he replied immediately, and the half-spirit widened their eyes confused, ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Hm¡­ can¡¯t hurt to just say it outright. I¡¯m a unique demon from the central elemental ne. The Monster King used the Sage¡¯s soul to create me. But well, technically, I have a splinter inside of me thatpletely absorbed the splinter of ¡®The Sage¡¯, so that being simply ceased to exist. Anyway, I became the guardian of two spirit gateways, one to this ne and one to the ne of fire, after being acknowledged by the former naiad queen and current smander king. And then, I used the Mirror of Duplication to create duplicates of me that all share the same mind, fused them with magic, and then had them travel through the gateways. Although technically, it wasn¡¯t ¡®I¡¯ that did it, but the original.¡± Eiro exined, and the half-spirit looked into the Demon¡¯s eyes, trying to figure out if what he was saying was actually theplete nonsense that it sounded to be. However, after thinking for a few moments, they closed their eyes. Meanwhile, in the ne of fire, the other half-spirit did the exact same thing in front of the other duplicate Eiro.


    The mouths of both half-spirits opened up, as if they were suddenly linked together inplete synchronisity, so the two Eiros figured they would do something simr. The half-spirits asked, ¡°Is it the truth?¡±


    The duplicate Eiro¡¯s both smiled, and looked back at the spirits, speaking in unison, ¡°Yeah. Obviously it is.¡±

 Chapter 604: Research

    <h4>Chapter 604: Research</h4>


    Back in the central elemental ne, the original Eiro closed the book in front of him. There was only a single section of books left for him to go through now, and then he was going to be done reading through this huge ce. The Demon stretched a bit and then stood up, deciding to go for a bit of a walk on campus. It would take the doubles in the mental library a while to properly read through all the books in the first ce. And beyond that, Eiro figured that he shouldn¡¯t just read them, but actually think about the books a bit more closely, connecting different theories in different books, or trying to find somemon parts between texts written on different fields to increase his generalprehension. And even though time in the mental library was sped up to an extent, it would take a while for all the writing in the library to be connected in that way. He also wanted to set up some sort of framework to make it easier to adapt everything that the duplicate Eiros were going to read in those two towers of books to everything else within the mental library, so that he didn¡¯t just have a huge amount of useless information inside of his head at some point.


    Soon, Eiro found himself outside of the library, taking in the fresh air. A few students were walking around outside. Even though summer vacation was still ongoing, arge amount of students was still on-campus since they lived in the dormitories, and weren¡¯t able to go home during this time. A lot of students also stayed behind to do some independent research, or work on some moreplex projects in general. Most of the things that the students were doing were on the more basic side, to the extent that Eiro felt practically bored with it, but every once in a while a few useful things stuck out. Like a production method unique to a certain part of the continent that was hard to know about if you weren¡¯t actually from that specific area, for example. But currently, there was one student that Eiro was most interested in. And that was Noma. He was doing some independent research as well. Outwardly, he said that he was trying to create a new earth-elemental spell, but from what Eiro could tell, that was mostly just a front.


    While all of the materials he got his hands on through the academy, as well as all the books that he read at or borrowed from the library seemed to corrte to what Noma was iming to try, Eiro could see the weird patterns in all of what he was doing. Trying to get materials from specific parts of the continent, even though they might have been easier to get from other ces, the seemingly coincidental simrities between the authors of certain books to each other, or even just the times that Noma was doing most of his research. All of it showed that Noma was trying to do research not on earth magic, but flesh magic instead. At least as far as Eiro was concerned, and he doubted that he was wrong.


    It was an area that Eiro was quite interested in as well, especially ever since he had gotten the ability to fuse physical materials with his body. Usually, flesh magic concentrated on the maniption, transfiguration, or transmutation of a being¡¯s flesh, whether the subject was dead or alive. Most known people that used flesh magic were known to use it to create Chimeras for their own, usually sinister, goals, but there were also a handful of them that used it in the field of medicine. While flesh magic wasn¡¯t capable of such intense healing as other elements, it was generally epted that in specific fields, healing through flesh magic was amongst the most potent ways of doing things. Flesh magic was capable of removing basically any scar, and it was one of the few types of magic capable ofpletely getting rid of tumors. Certainly, flesh magic would be more than just useful for Eiro. Whether it was in helping him incorporate certain materials, or tools, into his own body in an elegant manner, or simply by helping him create a cleaner base when trying to attach adaptive prosthetics to someone¡¯s body, or creating a healthy base for prosthetics that people could then put on and take off on their own. Of course, the ability to fully remove scars would be useful for his patients in other ways. Those like Charles, whose body was still riddled in numerous scars ever since the attack on the academy caused by Merlin, would definitely benefit from this sort of thing.


    However, even though Eiro knew that Noma possessed flesh magic and was currently doing research on it, there weren¡¯t many sources that he had ess to that would help him figure out what exactly Noma was trying to do. That was only something he could figure out by watching that boy more closely. And it just so happened that Noma was a man of habit. He came out for a walk to clear his mind around the same time every day, and tended to be out and about for about half an hour every time.


    Eiro looked at Noma from a distance, and slowly tapped the ground with his foot just once. A small rock detached itself from the ground, floating up to Eiro¡¯s hand, ¡°Wake up, and follow that child for me.¡± He whispered to the rock, before its small mass slowly seemed to shift around. A small impish creature, the size of a fist, appeared on his palm. Eiro dropped it to the ground, and watched as the creature burrowed into the ground, digging its way through the earth to follow Noma around, while the Demon himself made his way to the students¡¯ research rooms. It didn¡¯t take long until Eiro stood in front of Noma¡¯s room, pressing his finger onto the lock. As if his flesh itself shifted, a small mass formed in front of his finger, ¡°This seems somewhat creepy. Like you¡¯re some kind of stalker¡­¡± Bavetined to Eiro, as he was forming a key to open the door to the research room. Of course, Eiro didn¡¯t particrly care about the slime¡¯s opinion on this. Although, Bavet wasn¡¯t actually wrong. What he was doing was definitely something akin to stalking.


    ¡°Just be quiet, I have to concentrate.¡±


    ¡°Hah, when did a conversation with me ever stop you from doing ten other things at the same time?¡± the slime asked, while Eiro grinned slightly, ¡°Fair enough. Gondos, youe and take a look around as well. Officially, he¡¯s supposed to be doing research on earth magic, after all.¡±


    Before Eiro had to say anything else, the Golem formed right beside him, floating in the air, ¡°Of course,¡± he replied without hesitation, already looking around the room to look for anything unique on the mana side of things. Meanwhile, Eiro himself looked at the physical things in here, like the notebook that was ced so openly on the desk in front of him. Without even having to think about it, Eiro picked the notebook up and started to flip through it.


    ¡°Hm, a decoy, it seems.¡± He muttered to himself. It was filledpletely with random scribbles and notes to make it appear as if Noma was actually doing research on earth magic, just in case someone came in here to try and do exactly what Eiro was doing right now. The Demon ced the book back down onto the desk, and continued to search around. The biggest issue was that there were a lot of handwritten notes and such in here, and even he couldn¡¯t ascertain the content of a book without actually flipping it open.


    However, it didn¡¯t seem like he even needed to. All these notes were most likely simr decoys. Instead, Eiro focused on something ced onto the shelf. It was subtle, but there was a thin magic circle carved into the side. It looked to be a flesh-magic circle with detection elements, ¡°So it scans the flesh of the person touching it, and then gives a signal to something else depending on the result.¡± He guessed, quite impressed with the idea. However, Eiro could already tell what it led to. In the end, Noma was also an earth mage, and it seemed like he had used earth magic to create a false wall in this space, and that wall would be moved aside when the right person tried to ess it. Too bad that Eiro wasn¡¯t bothered by things like that.


    He pushed Bavet¡¯s slime out of his body, and quickly fused himself with earth magic. Eiro pushed his hand onto the wall, and could feel his magic-infused body practically melting into the wall¡¯s rock, allowing Eiro to simply enter this mass to walk through it, as if it didn¡¯t even exist. It was a bit ufortable, and more importantly, dark, but after just a single step, Eiro found himself in the small hidden section of this room, where all the actual, true research seemed to be hidden. It was nothing but a two meter by two meter section, with a shelf filled with books covering the back wall, but that was enough while Noma wasn¡¯t here, it seemed.


    Curiously, Eiro grabbed one of the books and flipped it open, finding Noma¡¯s true research notes. He grabbed another book, seeing some more research in regard to its healing capabilities, or the extent to which one¡¯s flesh could be manipted. But then, Eiro found a research question he didn¡¯t expect. It seemed to be Noma¡¯s oldest research, and something that he was still working on. The Demon read it out loud to himself, ¡°Can flesh magic be used to sate the cannibalistic cravings of someone that broke a taboo?¡±

 Chapter 605: Lesson on Magic

    <h4>Chapter 605: Lesson on Magic</h4>


    Eiro looked at the page in front of him, curiously looking at it, ¡°So, someone in his life broke a taboo, and that¡¯s why he¡¯s researching this..?¡± The Demon guessed, ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then I should probably be able to talk to him about it.¡± He said to himself. At first, he didn¡¯t want to directly talk to Noma about knowing that he could use flesh magic, since he didn¡¯t know if he would be able to make proper use of him without building up some form of trust. But now that Eiro knew that someone in Noma¡¯s life had broken a taboo, he could just use that fact to directly build up trust without having to directly manipte Noma¡¯s mind.


    This being the case, Eiro ced the notes back into the shelf, walking back through the wall as he had before. For now, he just chose to wait for Noma in here, even though that was something that greatly surprised Bavet, ¡°What are you doing? Didn¡¯t you want to hide from him like some creepy stalker?¡±


    ¡°Well, that was the n at first, but I¡¯m changing my tactic.¡± He exined quickly, ¡°There¡¯s no need for me to be roundabout when ites to this anymore.¡±


    ¡°¡­What did you find in there?¡± Bavet asked, and Eiro smiled lightly, ¡°You¡¯ll hear about it in a bit, Noma should be on his way back already. Either way, through this, I should be able to learn flesh magic rtively soon.¡± He exined, before smiling somewhat awkardly, ¡°And more importantly, I should be able to help Noma figure out a way through his issues. That wasn¡¯t my priority at first, but knowing that he¡¯s Rudy¡¯s friend¡­ well, I should at the very least try and make sure he¡¯s not arrested for crimes against all people.¡±


    ¡°You say what now? What kinda crazy bastard is this dude? Why¡¯d you want him around Rudy?¡±


    ¡°No matter the situation, I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯ve done much, much worse. And at the end of the day, if I decide that he¡¯s dangerous to Rudy, I¡¯m not going to let him get away with it either.¡± The Demon replied immediately, and chose to silently wait for Noma for now. It didn¡¯t take long until he was back in the building, and walking down the stairs to get to his rtively secluded research room. He unlocked the door with the key that he kept in his pocket and stepped into the room. The servant that Eiro created to follow Noma was still in the ground, nearly directly below him.


    Eiro was using his stealth to fuse into the natural aura of the room, making it practically impossible for Noma to notice him until Eiro actively spoke to him. Noma sat down on a stool and closed his eyes for a moment, before pulling up his left arm¡¯s sleeve. Eiro had already noticed that he had scars covering his left arm, but he wasn¡¯t sure what had caused them, exactly. But now, he was finding out about the reason by simply watching that boy.


    Noma pressed his right hand onto his lower arm, and started to run his palm over his own skin. Soon, it was like his skin became looser, stretching more and more along to his own touch. And then, Noma took in a deep breath, seeming as if he was trying to stretch this moment out as much as possible, as if he was dreading what was about to happen. The moment he let out the air he had sucked in, Noma pulled on the skin that he had loosened just a moment earlier. A mass of flesh from below his skin started bulging up, as he was clearly using flesh magic to increase the amount of flesh that he had underneath his skin right now. It looked as if another arm was about to grow on him. But before anything else happened, Noma buried his fingernails into his skin, trying to pinch off the extra flesh that he had just created on his arm, turning it into a scarred, disfigured sphere.


    Blood started to drip down into his other hand, as Noma simply pulled this mass of excess flesh off himself. However, it didn¡¯t take long until that whole mass of flesh had been removedpletely, and the wound that was left behind closed up soon, leaving behind nothing but scar-tissue. Eiro was confused, though.


    ¡°Hm, why aren¡¯t you healing those scars?¡± He asked, still keeping himself and his voice fused in with the natural aura of the room. Noma answered casually, without even noticing anything was wrong at first, ¡°I¡¯m not good enough at controlling this magic yet,¡± he replied, ¡°I¡¯ve been focusing on magical power instead of fine-control.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough. It¡¯s not like you have many chances to practice it,¡± Eiro pointed out, ¡°Although you should definitely consider learning more fine-control as well. After all, it¡¯s going to naturally increase your efficiency at using your magic, so it will naturally end up being easier to use more power while expending less mana.¡± He said, looking at Noma¡¯s stiff back. It seemed like his conscious mind had finally caught up to the fact that he was speaking to someone right now, although there shouldn¡¯t be anyone in here besides himself at the moment. Slowly, Noma turned around, looking at the ce where that voice came from. And there he saw him. Eiro Jura Daemonherz, the most famous man in the capital, no, the country.


    ¡°S-Sir, what are you doing here?¡± Noma asked, trying to hide the mass of flesh that he had just created out of his arm, and Eiro couldn¡¯t help but smile at him, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I already knew that you have flesh magic.¡±


    ¡°But, but how?¡± Eiro continued his casual smile without answering Noma¡¯s question. He couldn¡¯t really answer that question. In part, it was simply because of scent, since mana tended to give off different scents depending on their affinities. And since that mana flowedpletely through everyone¡¯s body, their natural body odor usually included a bit of their elemental affinities. However, it also had something to do with the fact that Eiropletely devoured a magic-analysis crystal. It was the kind that was used on Eiro¡¯s first day here to let the students measure their own affinities. He decided to eat one of those and make it part of his body,pressing that mass and making it the lense of his eye. It took him a while to adjust everything so that his sight in his left eye was normal again. But now, when he concentrated well enough, he was able to see the elemental aspects of pure mana, albeit only to an extent. Eiro was still practicing his ability to see mana in general, after all. He was getting better at it, but it was still only an incredibly light haze to him. Combining this new ability with his ability to read the scent of others increased his uracy, and ability to distinguish between elements that he had never actually encountered before.


    Seeing that Eiro wasn¡¯t answering him, Noma became nervous, ¡°What are you going to do to me now¡­?¡± He asked, and Eiro raised his brow, ¡°Nothing. Rather, I¡¯m going to try and help you out a bit.¡±


    Noma looked back with a frown, ¡°And why would you do that?¡±


    ¡°Because I¡¯m your teacher. In the first ce, a lot of people have a strong distaste toward flesh magic since it belongs to the field of necromancy, but it¡¯s an incredibly powerful and useful magical element. And in Skyhart, we don¡¯t usually discriminate against most things like this.¡± Eiro exined, ¡°We don¡¯t even discriminate against necromancy itself, we just try not to talk about it too much.¡±


    ¡°¡­But I thought¡­ this element is evil..?¡±


    Eiro shook his head and scoffed, ¡°Obviously it isn¡¯t. There is no ¡®evil¡¯ element. There certainly are evil people, and some elements can often appear a bit more sinister, but¡­ well, I can just show you something.¡±


    The Demon walked up to Noma, looking at his arm. It was healed, but not fully. And he figured he could probably heal some parts of the scars as well. Without a moment¡¯s hesitation, Eiro pulled some mes from the elemental ne of fire, and ced a rtivelypressedyer of them onto his palm, before pressing his hand onto Noma¡¯s arm. Of course, the boy flinched and tried to pull away in a panic, but it didn¡¯t take long until he realized that the fire didn¡¯t hurt him.


    And of course, if this was normal fire, it would still burn Noma, but this was pure magic, so it was a bit different. Eiro could keep it in its highly-energized state, which it needed to be fire, while still cooling it down considerably, especially with the addition of a bit of ice magic to make things easier. Either way, Eiro quickly healed Noma¡¯s arm, using fire magic as a conduit. Eiro pulled his hand away a few momentster, showing that a lot of the wounds that had covered Noma¡¯s limb were simply gone.


    He looked up at the man standing in front of him, ¡°How did you-¡°


    ¡°It was taught to me by the Smander King. You know, most Smanders are quite¡­ passionate. They¡¯re aggressive. But him? No, he was one of the most collected, calmest minds that I had ever met,parable to the naiad queen. He healed my wounds using his mes, teaching me the same lesson I¡¯m trying to teach you now.¡± Eiro exined, ¡°At the end of the day, only you decide how your own magic is used.¡±

 Chapter 606: Taboos And Monstrosity

    <h4>Chapter 606: Taboos And Monstrosity</h4>


    Noma looked at Eiro, staring at him in disbelief. Clearly, he was overwhelmed by this unexpected revtion given to him. Eiro could hear Noma''s heart beating so loud that even he was scared that it was about to jump out of his chest. Trying to calm himself down, the young man grasped his shirt tightly while trying to hold back his tears.


    Since it wasn''t a good idea to just watch this kid cry like this, the Demon chose to instead turn Noma''s pure relief into something more useful ¨C trust toward Eiro.


    "To begin with¡­ if you think this magic is evil, why do you keep studying it so intensely? You seem rather kind to me, at least."


    Noma caught his breath, and to him, it seemed as if his heart that was beating so intensely simply stopped for a moment. He nervously looked to the side, and began to stutter, "I-I¡­ I wanted to ovee what I thought this magic to be¡­ that''s all¡­ I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn''t evil, even though I had this sinister affinity¡­"


    With a slight smile, Eiro locked eyes with the student that was trying to so tantly lie to him. Of course, for a good reason. Even if Eiro didn''t think that flesh magic, or any magic for that matter, could be inherently evil, Noma would never be able to imagine that he would simply overlook the fact that someone close to him broke a taboo. This was a fact that he could never reveal to anyone, even if Eiro wanted to help him. But of course, the more he looked into Eiro''s eyes, the more he realized that it was no good. It was impossible to hide something like that from someone like him. By now, everyone knew of the abilities that the famous Baron Daemonherz possessed, and that included the fact that it was simply impossible to lie to him.


    But even then, Eiro''s expression didn''t seem to change. He didn''t even blink, simply keeping up constant eye-contact with Noma, to the point where it could even be called creepy. It was like time had frozen, just to give Noma the chance to think about what he was doing again. Numerous thoughts ran through his head, when the truth finally escaped his mouth.


    "My s-sister broke the taboo¡­ of ca¡­ cannibalism¡­" Noma said, shutting his eyes in fear. He already knew what sort of expression Eiro was making right now. Disgusted and angry, as if he was no longer looking at a person. Or at least, that''s what he was thinking. He never imagined that things would go very differently.


    "Right, but what makes you think that flesh magic could help you ovee that taboo? Committing cannibalism is not something that can be reversed, and feeding someone that broke a taboo even more flesh than before might halt their cravings for a short while, but their curse is going to increase in strength more and more." Eiro pointed out bluntly, "Maybe in the beginning, a finger''s worth could stop the craving for a day, but after a year or two, if you want them to keep their sanity, you''re going to have to feed them enough flesh worth a small family every other day."


    Noma opened his eyes confused, listening to Eiro''s words, "And even then¡­ I''ve met your sister, albeit briefly, and I didn''t notice much of an active taboo?"


    "Th-that¡­ erm¡­ I¡­" Noma muttered, still not able toprehend that Eiro was reacting this way. Why was he being so casual about the fact that someone broke the rules of the gods? But soon, seeing that Eiro didn''t show even a slight hint of anything like disgust, he started holding onto a bit of hope. If it was like this, then maybe Eiro could really help him out.


    "¡­I''ve done some research on the taboos, and how they ure¡­ Erm, I think that maybe¡­ since siblings share the same parents, and are physically closer to each other than two random people would be, that the taboo isn''t as big as normal? Maybe?" He exined, and Eiro crossed his arms. This may have something to do with this ''gics'' thing that Arc exined to him. Of course, the fact that if you shared blood with someone, you were closely connected in many different ways was already well-known, but Arc''s exnation did shed a little more light on some things. Apparently, full blood-siblings shared around half of their genes, so maybe that did have an effect on things like the taboo. Even though Eiro has his own pet that he uses to test out things rted to the taboo, even he didn''t know all too much about it in regards to its causes. He mostly focused on its effects.


    "So you''re telling me that your sister ate your flesh?" Eiro asked, and Noma nervously nodded, "That¡­ our parents are not good people, so when we were still pretty young, my sister and I ran away from them, and started living on our own. But obviously, that didn''t really work out too well¡­ one night, we got lost in a forest, and fell down a cliff¡­ I broke my leg, and my sister her arm and some ribs, so we were stuck down there for¡­ two¡­ no, three weeks..? And¡­ and just a few months before, I found out I can use flesh magic, but I couldn''t use earth magic yet, and¡­ well¡­"


    "I get the gist, you don''t have to tell me any more. So¡­ if that''s how you two survived back then, how long has it been since your sister has broken the taboo?"


    "¡­Five years¡­"


    Eiro''s eyes widened, and he looked at Noma surprised, "You two have been holding out for so long? For your age, you''ve gone through quite a lot, huh?" The Demon asked, smiling at the young man in front of him, who couldn''t help himself but tear up. Quickly wiping his eyes dry, he moved on, "But it''s what you said¡­ my sister''s cravings have been increasing more and more, and she''s been much more aggressive even at her really good times. I''m afraid that at this rate, she won''t be able to¡­ That''s what I have to keep practicing this magic, to make sure that I can make enough for her, so that she won''t attack others¡­"


    Eiro smiled lightly, and shook his head, "There''s no need for that anymore."


    "¡­huh? What do you mean?" Noma asked confused, and Eiro crossed his arms, thinking about how to best exin it, "So¡­ the taboo is generally seen as something the gods created to punish those that go against their rules, right?"


    "Yeah¡­ isn''t that what it is?"


    "Not directly, actually. You see, the system is something that we gained through small fragments of pure arcane energy fused into our souls. Every being with ess to the system has this. People, monsters, magic beasts, everyone is the same in that regard. While each of them follow different rules, although I don''t really understand the reasons for that myself yet, they are inherently the same. The first demon, for example, was a servant of the chief god. He was punished and became a monster. If that can happen, then the change from a person to a monster must be much, much simpler, right?"


    Noma was trying to follow along, simply nodding as the information came in, before Eiro continued, "Now, I have a slight theory. The gods that blessed people to protect them changed something in these fragments to set them apart from monsters, but as you know, all magic, even the divine magic of gods, has to follow strict rules, and that includes things which can break these blessings down. And those things were chosen to be clear things to set people apart from monsters. Monsters feed on their siblings all the time, so people were told not to break the taboo of cannibalism. Because that breaks down the border between people and monsters."


    Starting to understand what Eiro was trying to tell him, Noma''s breathing sped up, "So.. my sister is turning into a monster because of me?"


    Although he could see that Noma''s condition was even worse than before, Eiro had to continue. He couldn''t just turn back around now. If everything worked out, he could easily turn this frustration into motivation and trust quite soon, "¡­Not directly, no. While people were blessed, monsters were cursed. They were given ''Monstrosity'', the thing that makes them so deeply vile and fearsome. I assume that this monstrosity, as it infects the one that broke the taboo, actually corrupts the fragment inside of them. It even shows in their view of the system. Letters might miss, number might be off. The windows refuses to open or close, or their colors might be slightly offpared to thest time you looked. And as the fragment corrupts, so will their soul, slowly killing them, turning them into something even worse and vile than most regr monsters in the process." He exined, keeping his smile up the whole time. Clearly seeing this, Noma was unsure if Eiro was thinking of something, or if he was simply sadistic. Truthfully, it might have been more like a mixture of both, but of course Eiro would never let this child know something like that.. Eiro turned around and stepped toward the door, slightly turning his head to lock eyes with Noma one more time, "Luckily, you''re standing in front of one of the few individuals that canpletely suppress a being''s ''monstrosity''."

 Chapter 607: Nearly A Decade Ago

    Chapter 607: Nearly A Decade Ago


    Eiro stepped into the dormitories while Noma was hurriedly following behind him. The Demon''s regr casual pace was so fast that Noma had to jog, if not run, to keep up with him. Soon, the two of them reached Noma''s room, where his sister was already waiting for him for today''s ''feeding''. She was seated on her brother''s bed, biting her nails nervously. Her foot was tapping the ground, and she seemed to be staring at the clock as if her life depended on it. But the moment that the door opened up, before even giving Eiro the chance to push it open more than a few inches, she jumped off the bed and rushed to the entrance, pulling it open fully.


    "Noma, you-!" She eximed, but instead of seeing her brother, someone else now stood in front of her, staring down at her. Taking a step back and covering her face, particrly her eyes, with her hands, Naomi tried her best to pretend as if nothing was wrong. But before she could even set her foot down behind herself, Eiro grabbed her arm and looked into her eyes. Noma and Naomi were twins. Both had the same shade of skin, their hair color and texture was the same, and even their build wasn''t too different, surprisingly. But while Noma''s eyes were a dark brown bordering on ck, Naomi''s were a light brown with a shade of red mixed into them.


    Clicking his tongue, Eiro let go of Naomi''s hand and stepped deeper into the room, "Further than I thought, but still manageable. Come in." The Demon said, waiting for Noma to step in fully as well. Once the door was closed, Eiro held his hand forward. A magic circle appeared within a single instant, disappearing before Noma or Naomi could even fully register that something was there.


    "Just to make sure you''re caught up ¨C I know that you broke the taboo." Eiro said bluntly, and Naomi''s body instantly froze up. She looked up at Eiro, slightly turning her head in shock as she looked at her brother, trying to find out what was going on. Her heart was beating loudly, but in an irregr pattern. That was another side-effect of the taboo. One''s physical functions stopped working as they should. And that didn''t mean that your organs would simply shut down, but that they had faults to them, even if they appeared healthy at first or even second nce.


    The body wouldn''t process food and drink properly, fermenting it while breaking it down, causing urine to be filled with alcohol, one''s skin wouldn''t stretch properly where it had to be flexible, or would sag where it had to be tight. Or, as in this case, the heart''s rythm was off. Although, maybe it was more correct to say that the rythm disappeared, since it seemed to be beating at random. It still did whatever it had to, and there wasn''t an apparent cause for this to be found if examined by a physician, but it still showed that the taboo had been breaking down Naomi''s body for a long time, even if slowly and in particr ways.


    Before he could exin further, Eiro soon found Naomi kneeling at his feet, grasping at his shirt as if trying to beg while tears streamed down her face, but she wasn''t able to say anything, as if she didn''t have the air needed to produce sound anymore. The Demon slowly grabbed her wrists, making her let go of his shirt, "Don''t worry, I''m here to help you." He said, "I might not be able to fully get rid of the taboo, but it probably won''t bother you while I try and figure out what to do next."


    Even though he spoke while infusing his will and mana into his voice, it didn''t seem like Naomi was able to understand what he was trying to say. That was¡­ concerning.


    "This¡­ happens sometimes¡­" Noma exined, holding his hand in front of his eyes to try and force his tears to stay inside, "She gets angry easily, but she also gets overwhelmed like this¡­ sometimes both at once¡­ and if it gets to this point, she can''t speak, nor listen. As if she''s¡­ stuck."


    Eiro raised a brow curiously, squatting down in front of Naomi. Even though there was nothing there anymore, she was still staring at where his face was before. The Demon pushed his hand forward, and pressed his index finger onto her throat, right underneath herrynx. With a quick push of his magic, he sent a shock into her body, "This seems to be another unkind side-effect. The taboo makes it so that your body acts different to how it should. And I''m sure you know that even if you don''t break a taboo, when you be incredibly overwhelmed, your body seems to be uncontroble. In her case, when this happens, the flesh in different parts of her body swells up, and hardens around her joints to a point where it''s somewhere between bone and cartge. Shepletely freezes up, and her throat and ear-cannals close up due to the swelling."


    Throughout his exnation, Naomi copsed in front of Eiro, since he had basically paralyzed her for a moment. It was just an instant though, just long enough for her screwed-up body to return to how it should be. However, Eiro didn''t give her long to rx. He grabbed her body and pulled her back up, sitting her down on a chair.


    "I''m going to give you two choices. One, a simple ne. Or maybe, cor would be more urate with how it looks. It''s going to suppress the monstrosity trying to enter her body. But for now, it''s only going to slow the advance, and it''s going to take a while for it to be suppressed. In that time, it could still do some damage to her until that timees." Eiro exined to them. While he could very easily suppress the monstrosity of a being born with it with a cor, the way that it was invading Naomi''s body was a lot moreplicated than that. That was why he would rather go for the second option.


    Noma looked into Eiro''s eyes, nervously swallowing the saliva that he had forgotten to swallow until now, "A-And¡­ the second?" He asked, holding onto his sister''s shoulder, who still didn''t fully know what was going on.


    "A sealing tattoo. While this kind of tattoo will disappear once the seal is removed¡­ I''m unsure if it is something that can be removed. And instead of just covering a small area like the cor, it will need to be applied to the whole chest and back." He said, bitterly remembering the sealing tattoos that once covered Leon and Sammy''s bodies. The good part of the cor was that Eiro couldpress the sealing patterns as much as he needed to, and simply use a base material that could withstand this strain. But human skin wasn''t able to take suchpression, meaning that such a sealing tattoo would cover a lot of surface area. And even then, it would bepressed down quite a bit, simply because Eiro had been able to make the seal more efficient. Noma and Naomi listened to Eiro''s exnation, and even if thetter of the pair of twins still didn''t understand all of what was going on, they were both tense and already thinking about what was told to them.


    "I''ll give you¡­ well, a day should suffice. You shouldn''t think much longer, anyway. I will send a carriage to pick you up in the afternoon. We will go ahead with everything at my manor. No matter which you choose, we will then discuss what to do next, and if there is a way to safely reverse the damage already done."


    Noma looked at his sister, and then back at Eiro, "I can''t thank you enough! I will never forget this debt!"


    "¡­You''re not indebted to me, don''t worry. I''m your teacher, this is what I''m supposed to do." Eiro said, turning around and heading back to the door. Without further ado, as if he was bothered by this whole situation all of a sudden, Eiro stepped out of the room, leaving the siblings alone to do what they had to do to reach tomorrow, and of course, so that Noma could exin the situation to Naomi.


    He walked through the hallways of the dormitory, hearing Bavet''s whispers in his ear, "That went well, didn''t it?"


    "Right, I guess it did." Eiro replied, although that answer seemed to confuse Bavet, "What do you mean, you ''guess''? You don''t guess, you just¡­ know."


    "Picking apart my wordchoice now? Of course it went well, it''s about something else."


    "¡­What is it?"


    "¡­" Eiro thought about it for a moment, and then decided that there was no need to hide anything from Bavet. He knew most of Eiro''s secrets anyway, "You remember how I told you that before I met Jura, I would regrly eat people? Rather, it was basically the only thing I did eat." He pointed out, and Bavet stayed silent for a while, not sure where he was going.


    "Thest person that I ate was the one that was transporting the kids. I cut him up, cooked his flesh, and put it in a bag to eat himter."


    "Right, so what? When the two of us met, I literally just got back from town after eating someone. It''s not that big a deal." Bavet pointed out, "Sure, we should advertise this in front of the others, especially since we don''t do it anymore, but still¡­ Why''re you worried about that now, after what, nearly a decade?"


    "¡­I didn''t know about the taboos back then, and since I had all that fresh meat, I offered some to the kids. They didn''t realize what it was, at least not back then. I don''t know about now. But Arc knew, he watched me take him apart. If he didn''t stop me¡­ I would be the reason that they would have broken the taboos. Seeing that girl¡­. that memory just came up."

 Chapter 608: Boredom

    Chapter 608: Boredom


    Since the duplicate on the elemental ne of fire still had to take care of the young man he wanted to turn into his servant before entering, the version of Eiro on the elemental ne of water was able to enter into the actual library first amongst the two. Swimming through the door, he followed behind the half-spirit into therge space beyond. Light shone through the windows, illuminating the clear water in bright rays. This was a sight you could only see on the central elemental ne if you happened to find a city sunken into the ocean. This alone made it worth iting here, to an extent.


    Eiro turned his body around toward the half-spirit, ¡°I¡¯m going to guess that, any space I can freely reach within here, is essible to me?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± they replied immediately, ¡°There is another gate blocking you from entering the next floor. As for the test to go there, you can ask me to take it whenever you wish. The tower ces no limit on how often you can attempt either. After all, we are not here to punish one¡¯sck of knowledge, but help guide you through acquiring it.¡±


    With a smile, Eiro looked at therge space in front of him, the first floor of the tower, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I think I¡¯ll only be taking it once. But it might take a while until then¡­ I¡¯ll have a lot to read, after all.¡± He exined, swimming closer toward the center of the floor, turning his head to look at what was above him. As the half-spirit exined, the first floor was actually split up into multiple, due to the sheer amount of books that had to be kept here. There were five more huge floors in here, overlooking the bottom that Eiro was now floating in, simr to balconies in some sense.


    ¡°¡­In that case, simply let me know when you require help.¡± The half-spirit exined, swimming over to what seemed to be a desk beside the entrance where a few books wereid out. Without further ado, the half-spirit started reading.


    With a slight smile, the Demon cracked his knuckles, excited to be able to start reading this much. After a quick nce around, he already figured out a rough order for what he was going to read, not that it mattered much, considering that he would have read all of them before long anyway.


    ¡°So¡­ how long do you think we¡¯ll be in here?¡± Nelli asked, swimming up beside him. After thinking for a few moments, Eiro shrugged, ¡°A few weeks, maybe? Even for me, it¡¯s going to take a while. But at the very least, the original can reform part of my body every once in a while, so I won¡¯t have to eat or rest. Not that I have to do that much anyway, since my body is mostly made of magic right now.¡±


    Nelli shrugged, swimming a bit through the library, ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll just take a look around for now¡­ Even with the original, I wouldn¡¯t have much to do, so I might as well stay here for now.¡±


    ¡°Ah, if you¡¯re bored, you can talk to that guy at the top. Although, he seems to be concentrating a lot right now.¡± Eiro pointed out, and Nelli turned around confused, ¡°Heh? There¡¯s someone else here?¡±


    ¡°Well, yeah. Did you expect that wouldn¡¯t be the case? We were told that it ¡®normally¡¯ takes a lot longer. That means that we¡¯re not the first ones that ever got here.¡± Eiro pointed out, swimming up until he was at the top of this floor¡¯s space, looking at the figure squatting in front of one of the shelves. He had a humanoid body, at least to an extent. He was a humanoid frog with deep blue skin, asrge as a twelve or thirteen year old boy. As far as Eiro could tell, he was simr to the other people of this world, a mixture of a magic beast and a person, albeit of apletely different race. Eiro had seen a few differences in the people of this world, but never to this extent.


    He actually looked pretty interesting, especially since such a rare being was here in the tower of books. ncing over the frog¡¯s shoulder, Eiro noticed that he was about halfway through the book, reading at a rtively fast pace, when looking from a normal person¡¯s standards at least. He should be done in three or four hours at most.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just wait until then, and have a conversation with him when the timees. For now, I¡¯ll get started down there.¡± Eiro said, quickly swimming back to the bottom to get to the first shelf. Meanwhile, Nelli let out a slight sigh, leaning back in the water as if to just take a nap in the sun shining through the windows. Meanwhile, Eiro slowly moved his hands around, pulling out a book with each of them. By simply controlling the water around him, he flipped open all four books at once, trying to nce at each page before moving on to the next. This may not be as fast as the method that Eiro had developed to read through all the books in the academy¡¯s library, but it was fast enough for his purposes. Here, Eiro had all the time that he needed to get through all these books.


    ¡ª


    ¡°Huh, so it works like that..?¡± Eiro muttered to himself in the middle ofbat training with James and Krog, and the two of them, with heavy breaths, looked back rather confused, ¡°What works like what?¡± James asked, and the Demon swiftly replied, ¡°Agriculture in the elemental ne of water. As expected, they¡¯ve perfected a manner of growing crops underwater that is vastly different to the ways that you might see on this ne.¡±


    ¡°¡­Are we boring you that much that you¡¯d rather think about farming..?¡± Krog asked with a wry smile, but Eiro simply shrugged, ¡°It¡¯s not that you¡¯re really boring me in particr, but it¡¯s impossible for me not to be bored by most things. It¡¯s bing rather hard to bring my mind to capacity, especially with things like this¡­¡±


    James and Krog looked at each other, their annoyance growing after hearing what Eiro said, ¡°Got it, so you¡¯re just bragging now?¡±


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t my intention either. Listen, the training of any techniques is basically useless to me, since my body changes ordingly far too quickly. And this is nothing but basic training, a repetition of movements we have all seen hundreds of times before. You can¡¯t tell me that this takes up a lot of your thoughts either, it¡¯s just that your body is being strained by our methods so much that you can¡¯t be bothered to care.¡± Eiro pointed out bluntly, and neither of the two men in front of him could refute this either. James ced his hands onto his hips, and let out a deep breath, ¡°You¡¯ve got a point. The training methods you¡¯vee up with are effective but simple, so I¡¯d be lying if I said I don¡¯t get bored sometimes. But then again, you don¡¯t let us do much else but traintely, so that¡¯s, like, fully on you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve both had some decent breakthroughstely, so it would be a waste not to take care of that momentum. And¡­ yeah, let¡¯s do it like this. It might make training a bit more fun for you guys too.¡± Eiro pointed out, before snapping his fingers. ck arms immediately rose out of his shadow, before a being came crawling out of it. He looked at the Greater Servant, Min, and smiled, ¡°This is a good chnace for you as well. Do what we¡¯ve been practicing, and make sure to give those guys a fight. But don¡¯t hurt them too bad, alright?¡±


    ¡°¡­Huh? You want us to fight your magic butler?¡± Krog asked with a wry smile, and Eiro scoffed as he shook his head, ¡°No, you won¡¯t be fighting Min himself. You know, Greater Servants like him are supposed to take on special roles in a Royal¡¯s ¡®personal army¡¯. Regr servants are foot-soldiers, while the Greater Servants aremanders.¡± He pointed out, ¡°And so, I¡¯ve trained Min to take care of that fact a bit more.¡±


    Before long, the shadows of the trees around the training area started shaking, turning darker until they were pitch-ck. Soon, they split into pieces, before rising up from the ground under Min¡¯s control, turning into shadow-puppets.


    ¡°Individually, they¡¯re not too tough, but there are a lot of things that cast a shadow around here, so¡­ good luck. I¡¯ll continue working on another project of mine.¡± Eiro chuckled slightly, turning around before making his way to the manor, while James and Krog were left behind, startled and nervous, as the shadow puppets starteding closer with the clear intention of fighting until their bodies were destroyed.


    ¡°Oi¡­ kinda harsh, don¡¯t¡¯cha think?¡± Armodeus asked, sitting at the table at the top of the stairs overseeing the training area. The Demon shrugged, as he sat down on one of the empty seats, ¡°They wanted something more interesting as well, so there it is. But more importantly, I noticed you came outside, and I¡¯ve been wanting to discuss something with you anyway.¡±


    ¡°¡­Is it about my stay here? I know that I¡¯ve been holing myself up in the workshop, but ya better be sure that the time spent will be worth it!¡± The craftsman eximed with a broad grin on his face, clearly excited about whatever it was that he was working on. At Armodeus¡¯ request, the same as the personal rooms of the people living in the manor, his smithy had be a ¡®sensory-restricted¡¯ zone. It was always a bit of a bother to deal with, but now Eiro was able to use a minor duplicate of his mind to take care of these matters for him, so he could do whatever he wanted while those ces were kept off-limit. Of course, they agreed to keep it to a point where Eiro could still be able to respond in an emergency, but for the most part, those rooms in the manor were like aplete void to Eiropared to everything else. But either way, that wasn¡¯t the issue.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already told you, this is your home now as well. As long as this ce stands, you will always be wee to live here however long you want. And although I am curious about what you¡¯ve been working on, this is something else. I want your opinion on a project on my own.¡±


    ¡°Hm¡­ Ya wanna pick up other disciplines of craftsmanship than woodcarvin¡¯?¡± The Elder Dwarf asked, but Eiro simply smiled, ¡°No, it¡¯s nothing like that. Rather, I want your opinion on my ns for body-modification.¡±

 Chapter 609: [Bonus Chapter]Body-Modification

    Chapter 609: [Bonus Chapter]Body-Modification


    ¡°Body-modification? What d¡¯ya mean? Do you want to rece more limbs with prosthetics?¡± Armodeus asked, and since he figured that the dwarf wouldn¡¯t understand, Eiro quickly started to exin, ¡°Tomorrow afternoon, a kid from the academy ising over. To sum it up, he used flesh-magic to save himself and his sister from starving, but in the process, his sister broke the taboo. I¡¯m helping them reverse the effects of the taboo, and in return, I n on somehow gaining ess to the boy¡¯s flesh-magic. And once I do, I will be able to manipte my body in different ways than possible until now. I can fuse materials with my body, but that¡¯s about all for now.¡± Eiro exined, and Armodeus quickly started to think about what the Demon could mean. After a few moments of stroking his thick beard curiously, he looked Eiro in the eye.


    ¡°D¡¯ya have some examples?¡± Armodeus asked, and Eiro quickly nodded, ¡°Of course. It¡¯s a bit risky, but it¡¯s mostly rted to trying to integrate the cards into my body. The three of swords, I want to turn into my ws, and I want to ce the mirror of duplication into my eye. I n on creating extra pockets or fake organs into my torso to store the potion of invisibility, and I want to increase the efficiency of the bloodstone already fused into my heart.¡±


    The dwarf looked at the demon as if he just heard the ramblings of a madman. Because that was basically exactly what it was, ¡°Are you absolutely insane? Why would you ever do something like that? Just take the damned things out of yer treasury like ya normally would, ya madman! In the first ce, what you¡¯re nning on doing is totally impossible, beyond being insane. The bloodstone was possible, since it¡¯s just a gemstone with unique properties in the end, and the three of swords might work too, since the des are already able to fuse with practically anything, but¡­ cing the mirror into yer eye? The cup into your stomach? Just¡­ why?¡±


    ¡°Well, obviously, I wouldn¡¯t be using the original versions for that, at least not for now. Maybe in the future, but even I¡¯m not that idiotic. The only reason I used the original bloodstone is because I can easily split it off of my body again when I want to, but I don¡¯t n on meddling with the other artifacts. No, I will be using duplicates of those versions, using a lesser duplicated mind to take care of the task of keeping them intact at all times once I¡¯ve done so.¡± Eiro pointed out, ¡°Since I¡¯m the owner of those cards in the first ce and the duplicates will be on, or in, my own body, there will be practicaly no noticeable difference in their effects, with the exception that I can control them more easily should something go wrong.¡± Eiro exined to quickly calm Armodeus down. Of course he had thought about things like this before, he had gone over it many times already.


    ¡°Right¡­ right, of course, that makes sense.¡± Armodeus replied with a sigh of relief, ¡°But well, what¡¯d ya need my help for then? Ya can do all that on yer own, surely.¡±


    ¡°I could, but your opinion would really help. Since I only have a surface-level grasp of most types of materials with the exception of wood, I need your help to improve my method of fusing them into my body before I attempt at doing something that could cause long-term after-effects. I appreciate your eye for certain intricacies too, and since I want to make use of artificing-based principles to make the duplicates artifacts meld into my body and mind fully, your experience will be more than just helpful. I have nearly all the theory in my mind, and while I¡¯m a fast learner,pared to you and the practical grasp of your superior skills, it would be just as insane for me to not ask for your help as it would be to fuse the true artifacts into my body.¡±


    Armodeus looked back at Eiro perplexed, confused and surprised after hearing those words, ¡°That¡­ well, I¡­ did not expect to hear that today. But thank you, either way.¡± The dwarf said, trying to hide how happy he was to actually hear this from Eiro. He cleared his throat, and sat up straight, cing his hands on the table, ¡°Let me take a look at how ye fuse yerself with things. Just use some metal first.¡±


    Eiro quickly nodded, and quickly drew the metal that was already fused into his body into one of his left hands, so that he could show this to the dwarf properly. It became harder for him to move that hand, but for certain purposes, it would still be enough. For example, a strike with his hand like this would certainly do more damage. And of course, the defensive aspect couldn¡¯t be ignored either. Eiro held his hand over in front of Armodeus, who quickly grabbed it and ran his fingers over it.


    ¡°Hm¡­ it¡¯s fused perfectly, at least. As expected¡­ this is the ability of a royal, there is no way for there to be a fault there. However¡­ it feels weirdly rigid. What parts of your hands did you infuse this into?¡±


    ¡°Mostly into my skin, but to strengthen my muscles, I infused some into them as well.¡± Eiro replied quickly. The elder dwarf quickly let out a deep sigh, ¡°Yer really mistreating the metal here,d¡­ this is all wrong, as if I¡¯m looking at an amateur¡¯s work.¡±


    Eiro raised a brow curiously, ¡°Didn¡¯t you say it¡¯s fused perfectly?¡±


    ¡°Of course, because it is. But only when we¡¯re talking about it from the pure material¡¯s view. Yer level of uracy in smoothly spreading the metal around is astonishing, to say the least. But that¡¯s not where the problem lies, it¡¯s the way you treat this perfect material you create, and how ya use it.¡± Armodeus exined quickly, his earlier hesitance and nervositypletely disappearing, being reced with just a hint of annoyance, ¡°Metal has many properties that one has to make sure to take into ount, and it can act vastly different if mixed with other materials, so of course that would be the case when fusing it with a living being¡¯s body. You need to make sure to know the perfect ratio of metal to flesh for whatever purpose you want. If necessary, use other materials to adjust the metal¡¯s properties further, and make it more stable.¡±


    ¡°I see¡­ Thank you, I will-¡°


    ¡°I¡¯m not done yet,d.¡± Armodeus quickly interrupted Eiro, continuing immediately, ¡°To begin with, as a Demon, ye¡¯ve got incredible regeneration. But, while often flexible, metal is not supposed to move to this degree. Yer flesh stays intact, since it¡¯s used to it, but the metal will be forming natural, minuscule cracks. While yer body can create new flesh to make up for this, it can¡¯t create more metal, so the cracks will be filled in like that. Right now, the fusion may be perfect, but over time, it will naturally turn sloppy, and you may even damage your body in tiny ways over time. Of course, yer strong enough to not worry about that, but I think it would still be better if you improved your methods a bit more, especially if you want to do something as ridiculous as cing artifacts into your body.¡±


    Eiro didn¡¯t even have to think about it, he knew that what Armodeus was saying was true. However, he didn¡¯t know how he was supposed to prevent the metal from cracking in those minuscule ways. Maybe he really just had to y around with proportions, as Armodeus said. However¡­ could he really do that in the case of the artifacts? Sure, he could change their properties to an extent since they would just be duplicates anyway, but that would also further decrease their potency, ¡°I think what you need to do is make whatever part ya infuse with metal undergo specific heat-treatments for a while. The only issue is that, once ya get into a fight and use your magic, the metal might heat up again and ye¡¯d have to redo it every time. But¡­ I might be able to help with that.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Eiro asked. Although he already had an idea what Armodeus might mean, he really just had to be sure. He wanted to hear it from the mouth of this legendary craftsman.


    ¡°Eiro. Will you let me apply my skills on yer body?¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°Haah¡­ finally, it¡¯s done¡­¡± A voice eximed, echoing through theserge halls. It was filled with annoyance, and showed a sense of bother in what had been achieved, ¡°193 to go¡­¡±


    ¡°Eh~? Only that few?¡± Someone else asked curiously, her voiceing as a surprise, ¡°Have you read all of the others already?¡±


    The man turned around, looking into the eyes of the woman floating in the water in front of him. Her body seemed to practically meld into the space around her. She was a spirit, ¡°Y-You¡­ someone new passed the test?¡±


    ¡°Yup~!¡± She replied bluntly, and the man quickly stood up from the ground. Surprisingly, it seemed like his body was pulled to the floor, and he was able to walk around normally, even if a bit slower as people on the central elemental ne, ¡°I didn¡¯t think spirits cared much for literature. But it¡¯s nice to not be alone anymore.¡± The man said, stretching out his frog-like hand, which was quickly received by the spirit¡¯s, ¡°Nice to meet ya, but I¡¯m not actually the one that passed the test. My contractor did.¡±


    ¡°Contractor..? Wait, what? People in this ne don¡¯t form contracts with spirits.¡±


    ¡°Right, he¡¯s from the central elemental ne.¡±


    ¡°¡­Then how did he get here?¡±


    ¡°Simple. I just stepped through the gate.¡± Said another voice, appearing from seemingly right behind the man. He turned around, startled, but didn¡¯t end up seeing the man that he thought he would. Instead of another man, it was a small fish, and from deep within its body, the voice started radiating out, ¡°I¡¯m Eiro. We¡¯ll be sharing this space for the next few weeks, nice to meet you.¡±

 Chapter 610: Curiosity

    Chapter 610: Curiosity


    ¡°Huh..?¡± The frog muttered confused, looking at the fish floating in the water in front of him. He turned around, looking at the spirit that swam up to his side, ¡°Is this¡­ your master?¡±


    ¡°¡­Contractor, thank you very much. And no, it¡¯s not. It¡¯s something that my contractor made with magic, I guess.¡± Nelli pointed out, and the fish quickly started to swim around the frog¡¯s head, ¡°That is correct. I got a bit bored down here, so I figured I would try to make use of this excess amount of freetime I have gained.¡±


    Together with a light sigh, the frog pushed himself off the ground and started to swim over to one of the shelves, where he quickly pushed the book he had been holding back into the shelf, ¡°You finally made it to the first floor of the great tower of books, yet you find yourself bored? How did you even manage to suffer through those years of training on lowest floor?¡±


    ¡°Ah, I managed to make it through within 30 minutes of setting my eyes on the tower for the first time. I¡¯ve been here for¡­ four hours now? It took you a bit longer to finish the end of that book than I thought.¡± Eiro exined bluntly, and the frog stared into the lifeless eyes of the fake fish still happily swimming around in the water, before he turned his head toward Nelli. She was still floating there in a rxed manner. Rather, she herself seemed quite bored as well, despite being in such an amazing ce like this. The frog let out a deep sigh, and started to swim toward the edge of the tform he was on, ¡°There is no need for you to lie like that. As you said, we will be spending the next few weeks here together until I manage to finally finish my reading.¡± He said, somewhat annoyed, soon reaching the bottom part of the first floor, ¡°You said the fish was a spell? Then where is your real body?¡±


    ¡°My real body? In the central elemental ne. But the body this version of me is using is right over there.¡± The fish said bluntly, swimming over toward one of therger windows, in front of which a figure suddenly seemed to appear, as if it was currently being formed out of water. But once the frog realized that someone was there, he could also tell that he had been there all along. More importantly though, there was a constant stream of numerous books floating from one part of the library right over toward the figure, before opening up and flipping through the pages without even needing to be touched by even one of the figure¡¯s four arms. It seemed like a single book was finished within just a couple of minutes.


    However, the most surprising part was that, while the man that the figure belonged to was constantly staring at the pages of the books, his eyes shooting around as if he was having a seizure, all four of his hands were working on carving out random parts out of wood, at a pace that didn¡¯t seem possible even by craftsmen that dedicated their life to the craft.


    ¡°Wh-What is this..?¡± The frog asked confused, as the fish suddenly stopped moving around. Instead, a voice now came from Eiro himself, ¡°I¡¯m trying to spend my time here well, what else? I¡¯ll spend the next few weeks on this floor alone, so I might as well make sure that time isn¡¯t wasted. Even if I have no other matters to attend to in the first ce.¡±


    ¡°No¡­ that¡¯s not¡­ Just, what do you think you¡¯re doing to the decor of the great tower of books..?¡± The frog asked confused, looking at Eiro¡¯s source of wood. He had taken apart some of the furniture so that he could have something from this realm to use for his practice. Rolling his eyes, he quickly replied, ¡°These are chairs. People in this ne don¡¯t need chairs.¡± Eiro said bluntly, ¡°And in the first ce, the guide of this tower allowed it.¡± He pointed out, ncing at the half-spirit still reading booksid out on a desk next to the entrance. Confused, the frog turned around and stared at the guide, who slowly raised their head and nodded after the two locked eyes.


    ¡°But even then-¡°


    ¡°Can¡¯t you just shut your mouth already? You¡¯re already ruining this ce for me. At this rate, I might have to ask the original for a few more duplicates to finish a few weeks earlier than nned.¡± The Demon sighed in an annoyed tone, before letting go of the knife that he had been holding, watching it float through the water until it inevitably hit the ground.


    Seeing that Eiro had stopped what he was doing, the frog started smiling in relief, although he was wondering why this man was acting so annoyed if he did what he was asked to anyway. However, before he could make a sort of slyment about it, he watched as Eiro picked up the wooden piecesying on the ground in front of him. With a few quick movements, he put them together withplicated mechanisms and gears in a straight line. Soon, the narrow construct reached the length of about an arm. But this wasn¡¯t the end of it. Without giving him the chance to figure out what was being built right now, all of the mechanisms were covered up with small wooden tes that the frog seemed to have mistaken for simple woodchips. Before long, and only a few moments prior to the object being finished, did the frog understand what it was that Eiro built.


    ¡°Amonke serpent?¡±


    ¡°Close. The mossyke serpent. Disregarding their color, they look practically identical, with the exception of their fangs of course. But, well, I have to give the job to someone else anyway. Not like I myself have any life force to bestow onto this child.¡± Eiro pointed out, as he took the wooden snake and held its head onto the center of his chest, where it seemed to simply disappear. And of course, all of this was done without Eiro feeling the need to look away from the pages of the books flipping by in front of him at quick pace.


    Crossing his arms in front of his body, the frog seemed to re at Eiro deeply, ¡°How are you doing this? And rather, why? It¡¯s not like you can read the content of those books properly.¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡± Eiro replied surprised, ¡°Of course I can, why wouldn¡¯t I? I¡¯m reading everything I see. I just don¡¯t think about it too deeply. Other versions of myself can truly think about the content of the books, all I need to do is read.¡±


    ¡°And what is all this with the way you¡¯re talking? Youngins these days, really¡­ I know I¡¯ve been here for a while, but is everyone out there like this now?¡± Clicking his tongue, the frog shook his head as if he was disappointed. And even though Eiro was a little bit annoyed by it, he didn¡¯t want to bother with an angrier version of this guy, so he didn¡¯t try annoying him more, even if it might seem a little fun.


    ¡°I¡¯ve only been on this ne for a few days, but from what I can tell, there is nobody like me here.¡± Eiro said immediately, ¡°In the first ce, there isn¡¯t anybody like me on the central material ne where I¡¯m from either, so it would be more surprising for there to be someone like me here?¡±


    ¡°¡­You said something like that before, but what do you mean with that? If you¡¯re from the central material ne, how did you get here? Through the astral ne?¡± The frog inquired, his annoyance seemingly being reced by curiosity once more, but Eiro just quickly shook his head in response, ¡°No, I entered through a spirit gateway from the central material ne. The situation is a littleplex, but if you care to listen, I can exin it to you. I know that my words sound rather unbelievable on their own, after all.¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°¡­That¡­ huh¡­ I¡¯ve read of the royal monsters of the central material ne, but I never expected to see one in front of me like this.¡± The frog replied with a curious stare, ¡°But well, that would exin some of the things you¡¯ve been talking about. Each one of you is supposed to be incredibly unique, right?¡±


    ¡°Right. It actuallyes from our evolution. I didn¡¯t read much about monsters in this world yet in general, not to mention specifics of evolution. How much do you know?¡±


    With a smug grin, the frog nodded his head, ¡°Right, knowledge like this is quite rare, but there happen to be quite a few books on monsters in this library. Through evolution, the body of monsterspletely changes, right? In that sense, it seems to be simr to magic beasts, and-¡°


    ¡°What? No, why would it be simr to magic beasts?¡± Eiro asked with a wry smile, and the frog frowned slightly, ¡°The bodies of monsters and magic beasts can both change immensely, so how is it different?¡±


    Eiro let out a deep sigh. He had expected something like this. There was barely any information on this realm to be found on the central material ne, so it made sense for there to be just as little information on the central material ne here. And so, the Demon figured he should just quickly exin, ¡°Through the actions we have taken in our lifetime, monsters follow paths ording to that. So that they can continue following that path, their bodies change so that they can attain more abilities. For magic beasts, it¡¯s the other way around. While they also gain something based on what happened in their lifetime, their new magic, their bodies don¡¯t have to change to get their magic. Instead, upon receiving their magic, their body, being a straight reflection of their own magic, will change in ordance with their new abilities.¡± Eiro exined, and the frog listened curiously to his words. It seemed like instead of being arrogant like many people in the central material ne, this man simply wanted to learn as much as he could from any opportunity given to him.


    ¡°Speaking of all this, what system do the people of this ne fall under? They are people, but in many aspects, they are closer to magic beasts.¡± Eiro pointed out, and the frog quickly replied, ¡°Right¡­ I have a limited understanding of the ¡®ss System¡¯ of the people on the central material ne, so correct my if I¡¯m wrong, but we follow a separate, even if simr, system. Just as you said, we are both people and magic beasts, or rather, people that descended from magic beasts. As such, our path is based on magic, but advances like sses.¡±

 Chapter 611: I want everything

    Chapter 611: I want everything


    ¡°Based on magic, but advances like sses? I see. Could you expand on that?¡± Eiro asked, and the frog nodded his head smugly, happy to be able to show off his own knowledge, ¡°Right, of course. Magic beasts will receive new, additional magic toplement themselves. But for us, our base magic itself transforms. Of course, we still retain abilities rted to former states of magic. In this sense, our magic is the same as a ss, as far as I understand. The magic I had in the beginning was simple water magic. It¡¯s the state that most people in this ne start out with. Then, it turned into ¡®Clear Water¡¯ magic. As I proceeded on, it turned into ¡®True Water¡¯.¡±


    Eiro listened to the frog¡¯s words, slowly understanding how this worked, ¡°I see. So you take base elemental magic, and then make it ¡®advance¡¯ by practically fusing it with conceptual magic?¡±


    ¡°¡­I think that¡¯s a pretty good way to describe it, yes.¡± The frog nodded, thinking about it for a moment, before Eiro lightly smiled, ¡°I¡¯m not sure why I didn¡¯t find any books about this yet, but I think I get it.¡±


    ¡°Well, there are quite a few books about it in here, but they aren¡¯t here at the bottom. I don¡¯t know where you passed the first test, but libraries in smaller towns wouldn¡¯t hold books of that sort. Since we, the magical people, understand our magic innately, we have no need for books to expand on it further.¡± The frog exined. That did make sense. But more importantly, Eiro was curious about the idea ofbining elemental magic with conceptual magic. And luckily, he did have ultimate control over two specific concepts. Among the arcane cards, the Suit of Pentacles rted to concepts. The Knight of Pentacles held the concept of Truth, and the Five of Pentacles held the concept of Perception. At the end of the day, a being¡¯s stats were nothing but certain concepts based in the physical body that were given a numerical value through the system.


    But that also meant that Eiro should be able to imbue these concepts into his magic. But why stop at magic? As ¡®The World¡¯, Eiro could take everything into his body and make it his own, and he could control everything that was his own however he wanted. He already knew that he could fuse the effects of certain skills together, so maybe fusing concepts that he has control over with his skills would be possible as well.


    Well, he already did something like that when he created those ¡®Contracts¡¯ using the concept of truth, ¡°What¡¯s your current magic?¡± the Demon asked, and immediately, the frog¡¯s face lit up smugly, ¡°Heh¡­ it¡¯s ¡®Source of Knowledge¡¯.¡±


    ¡°¡­That sounds quite impressive.¡± Eiro pointed out, even though he did so with a rather bored tone of voice, and the frog¡¯s smile immediately disappeared, ¡°Quite impressive..? It¡¯s a unique magic that belongs only to me! It¡¯s more than just impressive! Here, let me show you the wonderful sight of my magic.¡± The frog eximed, pushing himself off of the ground until he found himself in the center of the room. He slowly moved his hands around in swift but smooth motions, and the water surrounding him was following along that path further. Slowly, the water started to change. It became so clear that it was easy to think that it simply disappeared, before starting to radiate with distinct power.


    Soon, the water shifted and changed, solidifying without having to freeze, taking the shape of a book. The radiance soon disappeared from the water and it became sort of opaque. Not translucent like water normally was, but as if the outsides had turned into shells and the insides into paper, just like the books in this world. Proudly, the frog held onto this object that was created through his magic, ¡°Beautiful, isn¡¯t it? This book holds all the raw knowledge of not only I myself, but dozens, hundreds of other beings that have gracefully¡­ given me their knowledge.¡±


    Eiro looked at the book and heard the frog¡¯s exnation, before starting to smile lightly, ¡°I see¡­ so it¡¯s not something that creates knowledge, but something that holds it for you? It takes it from a deeper ce where you can¡¯t use it, the minds of others, and brings it to the surface in the form of that book¡­ like a water source¡­¡±


    The Demon wasn¡¯t even able to pretend like he wasn¡¯t excited. A magic like this was just perfect. It was akin to reading others¡¯ minds. If he had this magic, then he could gather numerous vors of knowledge. Especially considering that the original had been nning on meeting the Masters that Jura was acquainted with in the not-so-far-away future, this was just perfect. He could immediately take in the knowledge of those who have honed their skills for their whole lives, and take that knowledge for himself. There was no way for him not to get excited at that idea.


    ¡°You¡­ what sort of expression are you making right now?¡± the frog asked confused, as he stared at Eiro. It seemed like he had been able to nce at the demon¡¯s face, but it had mostly been hidden by the books still floating all around him. But that stopped soon, as the books stopped moving, just floating stationary in one spot now. Eiro stretched out his legs, and pushed himself off the ground to move toward the frog.


    ¡°Hey, frog. How about you make a deal with me?¡± Eiro asked, a broad, ecstatic grin on his face. The frog flinched nearly the instant he saw that smile, unable to react in time before Eiro reached him. Even though he wanted to move back, by the time even one of his limbs managed to move, the Demon had already grabbed onto him. Eiro ced two of his arms onto the frog¡¯s wrists, and the two others onto his shoulders, hisrge wings practically turning into walls that enclosed the two of them in their own small space. The frog obviously wanted to escape, and being fairly confident in his own physical abilities, tried to push Eiro away. But he couldn¡¯t. He wasn¡¯t even able to budge. It was as if his upper body was trapped in a block of solid rock.


    Until now, while talking to this man, the frog didn¡¯t really understand what was written about ¡®monstrosity¡¯ in all those books he read here, but staring into those eyes that could only be described as the deepest abyss trying to swallow up anything and everything around it, he slowly understood. It was pure greed, hunger for anything one could ever want, and not letting anyone stand in the way of achieving what you wanted, no matter what it was. Even though Eiro called it a ¡®deal¡¯, it was clear that it was nothing of the sort. There was only one option here. If he wanted to get out of this situation, then the frog had to say yes to whatever Eiro wanted.


    ¡°What¡­ what sort of deal..?¡± The frog slowly forced out.


    ¡°You¡¯re like me.¡± Eiro said suddenly, confusing Eiro even more, ¡°If that is truly magic unique to you, then you got it because you¡¯re greedy for knowledge, just as I am. And I like that. So, I¡¯m going to give you that knowledge you want. I will make sure that you reach the top of this tower. And not only that, but there is another version of myself already in the tower of books in the elemental ne of fire. Sooner orter, I will make my way to other elemental nes to search out the towers there too. Of course, that includes the central material ne.¡±


    The frog was confused. Why was Eiro saying this? Was he trying to brag about it? But then, it dawned on the frog. He started to understand what he was going to get out of it, ¡°That¡­ that means, you will¡­¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. I¡¯ll give you all the knowledge of every tower of books.¡± Eiro said immediately. The frog¡¯s heart seemed to skip a beat. He already felt fulfilled having just seen this ce, and there was nothing more that he could ask for. He was prepared to die the moment he read the first letter of the first book on this floor. But now, he was being offered to gain the knowledge of every single book in every realm?


    ¡°How unfair¡­ how could I ever turn that down? What is it you want from me in return?¡± The frog asked, he himself barely able to hold back his excitement anymore. And then, Eiro replied, ¡°I want everything.¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°Tsk¡­¡± In the elemental ne of fire, Eiro clicked his tongue annoyed. He had just entered the first floor of the tower himself after making sure that the kid and piglet would be properly taken care of while he was in here. He built a small hut for them, and made sure to give them enough food for a few days. Every couple of days, Sarius would head outside to give them more food beforeing back. But while he was doing all of that, the Eiro in the other elemental ne was being troublesome. He just went ahead and collected someone to be a servant, as if he wanted to one-up him like that as well.


    ¡°Admit it, you only did that because you know that I can¡¯t turn the kid into a servant anytime soon.¡± Eiro groaned in an annoyed tone, approaching the first bookshelf by the entrance, but he only got an internal snicker as a response from the other side, ¡°Annoying bastard¡­¡± He muttered, pulling the first book out of the shelf. But for a few moments, he just held onto it without flipping it open. The fact that he was thinking like this was¡­ troublesome. At first, he still fully thought of the other Eiro as himself, but slowly, that¡¯s been changing. It was as if there was a clear distinction between himself and the Eiro in the elemental ne of water now. He still thought of himself as the same being as the original, of course, but it was tough for him to consider the other duplicate to be the same as himself. Maybe that would change again in the future, but for now, Eiro was certainly quite troubled by it, and he was sure that the other Eiro felt the same, even if he didn¡¯t care as much. Since they were duplicates and didn¡¯t have souls on their own, their minds seemed to be more closely linked to their bodies than normal. Considering that they were fused with raw elemental magic, that would of course affect their minds at some point too. It was why this Eiro felt so annoyed at everything, being easily agitated, while the other went with the flow, but still seemed to be an unstoppable force when he needed to be. It was troublesome, but¡­ somehow Eiro was bing attached to this duplicate body.

 Chapter 612: Reborn

    Chapter 612: Reborn


    For a short while, all versions of Eiro werepletely focused on a single spot. Of course, there wasn¡¯t a need for the others to stop what they were doing, since for them, it was practically like they were there anyway, but for a moment of importance like this, they didn¡¯t want to hold off for long. Even the duplicate Eiros that only existed in the mental library stopped their work for a little while, so that just in case, they could help out with whatever issue coulde up.


    ¡°Are you ready?¡± The Demon asked, looking deep into the eyes of the man in front of him. Slowly, he nodded, ¡°I think I am. But¡­ I¡¯ll be alright, right? You said you¡¯ve done this before?¡±


    ¡°¡­¡± Eiro silently looked in front of him, and slowly averted his gaze. Nervously, the frog, who was set to be Eiro¡¯s first truly living servant, swam over to where he was looking to catch his gaze again, ¡°Wh-Why are you so quiet..? I¡¯m going to be alright, right?¡±


    Slowly, Eiro let out a sigh, before looking back at the frog, ¡°You should be alright, yes. I¡¯ve had a lot of practice with this ability, but you are the first Servant that I¡¯m going to create from a living being. Until now, I made them from objects, or materials, using magic to bring them under my control before fully turning them into mine. And yes, I did try it with other people before, but¡­¡±


    The frog looked at Eiro with a wry smile, ¡°What happened to them..?¡±


    ¡°Their bodies became disfigured because they weren¡¯t able to take the physical changes, and they died because of that extreme pain and stress.¡± Eiro pointed out bluntly, something that certainly didn¡¯t help the frog¡¯s nerves. However, he had already agreed, and knew that he wasn¡¯t able to back out anymore, at least not if he valued his own life. However, seeing the frog¡¯s behaviour, Eiro figured he should try and calm him down a bit more again, ¡°But really, you should be fine. No, you will be fine. There are two factors that will decide the oue of this ability. One, the base that is used, and two, the status I¡¯m willing to give. For objects and materials, since they are turned into servants through the help of my magic, there is no way for the transformation to fail. But for people, monsters, or animals, it depends on how powerful and adaptive they naturally are. And the more status I give, the more powerful they have to be.¡±


    The frog listened to the exnation, soon realizing that there was little need for him to be worried, if that was the case. While he stood no chance against Eiro himself, he was rather confident in his own power, generally speaking. And, being a ¡®Magical Person¡¯, he was probably more physically adaptive than the beings in the central material ne, the beings that Eiro most likely tried this out on before. But there was still something that the frog wanted to know, ¡°Then¡­ how much status do you want to give me?¡±


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, and soon decided on a good way to put it into words, ¡°There are different tiers amongst servants.¡± The Demon exined, watching as a fist-sized, slightly impish being swam through the room. It was something that was created with the original Eiro¡¯s authority, a servant to help him out here in this realm, ¡°This is the lowest tier. They¡¯re basically just puppets that do exactly what their master wants. They have no will on their own, and little thought toe along with it. Of course, their will and thought still depends on the being they¡¯re made from, but¡­ most royals use this sort of thing to make otherspletely subservient to them. Those that can create servants, at least.¡±


    ¡°Not all royals can create servants?¡±


    ¡°¡­Most of them can, but yes, not all. At least not in the same way I can. There are three royals that excell in creating servants in this way. ¡®The Emperor¡¯, a being of dominating authority that leads their people. ¡®The Chariot¡¯, a being that takes full control of their servants. And ¡®The World¡¯, a being that includes all and can make everything its own.¡± Eiro exined, ¡°Of course, all royals can make servants to some extent, but for most, it¡¯s not as overbearing as for me, ¡®The World¡¯. But that¡¯s not what¡¯s important right now.¡± The Demon continued, pointing at the frog in front of him, ¡°You? I¡¯m going to make you the next tier of servant for now. A ¡®named¡¯ servant. I give you power, and a new ¡®true name¡¯ that will be yours forever. You have to discard your former life, as if dying and resurrecting under my regime. But of course, this name allows you to fully carry over your will and thought into your new life as a servant.¡±


    The frog let out a calm breath of relief, ¡°I see¡­ so I don¡¯t need to worry about bing too different?¡±


    ¡°Oh¡­ no, you will change. You certainly will. But you will still stay you, at the end of the day. I¡¯m a Demon, and originally, a demon is a being of desire. Considering your personality, you will most likely start to feel an overbearing greed for knowledge for a while, until you can get used to your new life.¡±


    To Eiro¡¯s surprise, instead of bing even more nervous, the frog simply let out a loudugh, ¡°I already am greedy enough for knowledge, trust me. But if it bes even more¡­ I guess we¡¯re in the perfect ce for that, aren¡¯t we?¡±


    Thinking that Eiro made the perfect choice in picking out a servant, he smiled a bit, ¡°Well, good to know that, then. If you want to see the end of this tower, you better endure your rebirth.¡±


    ¡°I guess I have no other choice, do I? Now, where do we do this, and how? Do I need to prepare myself more? Meditate, or something?¡± The frog asked, and Eiro shrugged immediately, ¡°Nope, no need for any of that. Here we go.¡± He said, looking the frog deep into his eyes. And then, it was as if time had stopped for a short while. It wasn¡¯t actually visible, but a hand seemed to reach out from the center of Eiro¡¯s chest, stretching forward until the thick, long fingers enveloped the frog¡¯s heart. This was Eiro¡¯s influence. Of course, this referred to the original Eiro. The one that was actually sitting here in this realm didn¡¯t have the authority to create servants himself, that was something that was handled by the original through and through. With his power, he reached through the gateway and into the elemental ne of water to go through with the transformation.


    The frog tried to hit Eiro¡¯s hand away, startled and in fear, looking down at himself where he could have been sure a hole had been pierced into his own chest, ¡°W-What the- What the hell was that? Did you do it already?!¡± He eximed, but felt taken aback when he saw the face of the being sitting in front of him. Eiro was just¡­ smiling, excitedly. And then, the moment he realized this, the frog started to feel something happening inside of him. At first, it was nothing but a tingling, something that he had confused for what nervosity and general anxiety felt like, but when the tingling became stronger, instead turning into a stinging, piercingly sharp pain, he realized that something was really happening inside of him right now. It felt like his internal organs were turning to liquid, just to reform and liquify again. His muscles became stiff like a shell, and then turned into sludge that didn¡¯t allow him to move. It was an agonizing pain, but the frog wasn¡¯t even able to let out a scream to express that.


    Soon, his insides seemed to calm down, and it was the turn for the rest of his body to change. His skin seemed to peel off of his muscles in some parts of his body, soon being reced by a strong carapace. His head split open, making way for two horns sprouting atop his head. The frog¡¯s senses became sharper, allowing him to feel every tiny strand of his muscles tearing and regrowing as he became more muscr. Something that in reality only took a minute or two, felt like hours were needed to finish up. Even if this seeded, and to an extent, the frog sort of wished for it not to seed and for him to die right here so that this pain could simply stop, this was a pain that he was going to be able to remember for the rest of his life, whether he looked back at this moment fondly or in regret. But then, something dragged the frog out of this feeling of suffering, and the instant he heard that voice, it was like everything was finally over.


    ¡°Anura, that will be your name from today onward.¡± The voice said, but it didn¡¯te from the being sitting in front of him. No, it came from whatever stretched out and reached for his heart. Even if they were technically supposed to be the same being, the voice of the Eiro sitting in front of him and the one whose word cut through that pain feltpletely different. To this newborn servant, it felt like he was hearing the voice of a grander, superior being, while looking at the body he took to walk this earth, his real form too magnificent for a mortal toy their eyes on. From now on, this frog, Anura, was dedicated to two things. The seeking out of never-ending knowledge, and Eiro.

 Chapter 613: Decision

    Chapter 613: Decision


    Anura looked down at his hands as if he was seeing them for the first time. With just a slight twist of his body, he spiraled around in the water, and Eiro watched him curiously. He wanted to know what this sudden change felt like to a servant. Until now, all of his servants gained thought for the first time when he created them, but this time it was different. He actually had a way topare the before and after now.


    ¡°How is it?¡± he asked bluntly, and Anura tried to orient himself toward the Demon again. He slowly lowered his head, cing one of his hands onto his heart, and the other right below it. It seemed this was the way of ¡®bowing¡¯ to others to the magical people of this realm, ¡°It is greater than anything I could have every imagined, my lord.¡±


    ¡°Could you try and put it into words for me?¡± Eiro asked, his curiosity not sated in the slightest by that vague reply, but Anura quickly shook his head, ¡°There is no way that there are any words in thisnguage that could describe the way I am feeling right now. And if there are, then I do not know them. It¡¯s as if I had just seen a brand new color, outside of blue, green and red. Indescribable, but beautiful.¡±


    At the very least, Anura was trying. But clearly, due to the sudden rush of power and new sensory input, the world around him must seem absolutely stunning in every way. Like some sort of drug-induced ecstacy. Although, it should probably settle down once he got used to it some more. Or at least, Eiro hoped so. If Anura stayed like this, it might get a little bit annoying. So, Eiro went for something else instead. He grabbed Anura¡¯s hand and ced it onto his chest.


    ¡°In that case, pour your personal magic into my heart. I¡¯ll settle for that description for now, since I¡¯ll end up figuring it out sooner orter anyway.¡± Eiro said, and although the Anura from just a few minutes ago would have certainly been quite hesitant, this reborn version of him did what Eiro told him without even a single moment¡¯s hesitation.


    Eiro could feel the magic flow into his heart. Or rather, he could feel it flow toward it. Before this quite unique vor of magic managed to reach the heart, it was absorbed by the spirit gateway, being pulled in by the original Eiro. Only he was capable of really absorbing this magic, after all.


    ¡ª


    In the central elemental realm, Eiro could feel the magic flow out of his chest, as if trying to escape into the air. He was able to control it well enough for now, though. Even if it was uniquely fitted to Anura, it was still magic based on water magic, which was the element that Eiro had his highest affinity to.


    He pulled the magic into his body andpressed it down, keeping it safe in an area near his heart for now, until the influx of magic stopped. Anura¡¯s mana was starting to be depleted rtively quickly.


    With a satisfied expression, a mental duplicate of him started analyzing the magic in detail, trying to figure out its properties before Eiro would start absorbing itter.


    For now, he was busy with something else. He had some guests to receive. Those two were being led through the building by one of the manor¡¯s disguised monster butlers, and he was waiting for them in his study. Before long, the door opened up, and the two young siblings stepped into the room, side by side.


    Noma was trembling out of anxiety, while Naomi stood next to him, scratching her arm out of hunger. Even though they clearly tried to clean up properly, Eiro could smell the blood underneath Naomi¡¯s fingernails, and the pulsating of the veins close to the wounds she scratched open on her arm and neck.


    ¡°Did you make your decision?¡± Eiro asked immediately, and Noma nodded his head, ¡°Yes, she-¡°


    ¡°I want to hear it from her.¡± The demon interrupted. This was a life-altering decision to be made here. Even if Noma only wanted the best for his sister, Eiro just had to be sure beforehand that Naomi made her own choice. If they chose the sealing tattoos, then herpliance with this n was necessary. While it was possible to seal the monstrosity away even against her will, it would require a much, much moreplex pattern. Eiro wanted to cover as little of Naomi¡¯s body in the tattoos as possible.


    ¡°I-I¡­ I w-want the¡­ I want this gone¡­¡± Naomi replied, ¡°F-For good¡­¡± despite her quiet, stuttering voice, her will came across cleary.


    ¡°Alright, good. So, before we start, I want to show you something. Come in, Kanto.¡± Eiro said, waiting for the butler that had guided the two of them to step into the room as well. He closed the door behind himself, and looked at Eiro, who simply gave him a nod. Without any further ado, the head-butler slightly bowed forward, as his transformation from a human disappeared, and he turned back into a kobold.


    Noma and Naomi stepped away startled, but the butler simply looked at them for a few moments, ¡°There is no need for you to worry. My monstrosity is manageable due to my Lord¡¯s help.¡±


    ¡°Monst- That¡¯s what you told us about, right? The thing that¡¯s doing all of this to Naomi?¡± Noma asked, quickly turning his head toward the demon, who replied with a simple nod, ¡°Right, that¡¯s exactly it. I wanted to show him to you, to prove that it¡¯s something I can handle. Since I¡¯m sure that, throughout the process itself, it might seem like I cannot.¡± Eiro exined, and then looked back at Kanto, ¡°You may leave.¡±


    ¡°As you wish.¡± The butler said, quickly turning around and leaving the room in a dignified manner. Noma was still confused, but at the very least, part of his anxiety had dissipated. He felt like, maybe, this would all end up fine, ¡°And, there is another aspect that I wanted to talk to you about. For this to work, we will need Naomi¡¯s taboo to ¡®re up¡¯. To be able to seal away as much of it as possible to let the rest be suppressedpletely, we need her to¡­ well¡­ try to feed on someone.¡±


    Noma¡¯s eyes widened as he stared across the room, ¡°What do you mean? You can¡¯t¡­ you can¡¯t let her just eat someone¡­¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say she should eat someone. I just said she should feed on someone,¡± Eiro replied quickly, ¡°Someone she can bury her teeth in without even drawing blood.¡±


    As Eiro said these words, the door opened up once more, and in the frame, nearly filling it outpletely with hisrge body, stood Rudy. The moment the siblings saw their friend, their hearts practically skipped a few beats. Noma quickly pulled his sister behind him, trying to hide her from him, ¡°Rudy! What are you doing here?¡±


    ¡°¡­This is my house?¡± He said with a slight sigh, bitterly looking at Naomi, whose body was still peeking out behind her brother¡¯s, ¡°You don¡¯t need to hide, I already know everything anyway.¡±


    Rudy walked up to his friends, cing his hand onto Noma¡¯s shoulder, ¡°And don¡¯t worry, I don¡¯t really care about things like that. Beyond that¡­ I could already guess that something was going on with you two.¡±


    ¡°But¡­ but we made sure to hide everything, how could you¡­?¡± Noma replied, shaking his head in disbelief, but Rudy scratched his cheek awkwardly, ¡°Growing up with a father like mine, you start to pick up on that kind of stuff. I didn¡¯t know what was wrong exactly, I just knew that something was going on.¡±


    ¡°And in the first ce, Rudy would have found out sooner orter anyway. Full-body tattoos aren¡¯t easy to hide, especially considering his brother and sister had them until not too long ago.¡± Eiro added, before Noma snapped his head toward him, ¡°Wait, didn¡¯t you say she would be able to hide it?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, in day-to-day life. But as close as those two are, it wouldn¡¯t take long until-¡°


    ¡°Dad, please, just be quiet, alright?¡± Rudy interrupted Eiro while trying to hide that his cheeks turned a bright red, ¡°Either way, when my father told me what was going on and that you would need my help, there¡¯s no way I could just stand back and not do anything.¡±


    Noma awkwardly looked at his friend, shaking his head, ¡°No, Rudy¡­ I know you¡¯re tough and all, but Naomi, she¡­ she¡¯s stronger than normal, because of the taboo. You wouldn¡¯t-¡°


    Quickly, Rudy interrupted his friend by grabbing the letter-openerying on Eiro¡¯s desk and stabbing it onto his own forehead. Of course, instead of injuring himself, the de snapped in two, and he looked at his friends with a smile, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, ¡®tough¡¯ doesn¡¯t even begin to describe me.¡±


    With a confident expression, Rudy towered over his friends, who looked back at him, filled with trust, even if they still couldn¡¯t really follow what was going on.


    ¡°Rudy¡­¡± Eiro muttered with a wry smile, ¡°That letter-opener was a gift¡­¡±


    ¡°Ah¡­ sorry about that, I just wanted to show them that they wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything to me, you know?¡± Rudy exined awkwardly, when Eiro let out a deep sigh, ¡°Right, right. For now, just exin the situation to them, I¡¯ll have to get started on the ink.¡± The Demon said as he stood up and walked toward the door. Making the ink would be faster in his demon form, so he didn¡¯t want to make it here. As such, he chose to leave these three alone in here for now, so that they had time to talk about everything that was going to happenter.

 Chapter 614: Sealing Preparations

    Chapter 614: Sealing Preparations


    Eiro walked through the manor, soon arriving near where Armodeus was currently working on a few things. It didn¡¯t seem like he was making anything in particr, but instead just doing whatever he wanted, trying to keep his skills sharp. After walking past the smithy¡¯s door, he arrived at the space that he used for his own craftsmanship. It used to be the manor¡¯s cer, but Eiro had turned it into a wood-storage. By using some sealing arts on a few parts of the room, he was able to regte the moisture and temperature in this room quite well, so it had be the perfect space for these things. However, beside just holding different kinds of wood, it of course had arge wall with nothing but sks filled with different kinds of seeds or nuts, anything that could be turned into a tree or other useful nt. He also had a few boxes filled with medicinal herbs, as well as quite arge amount of different oils, wax, and pre-extracted pigments and dyes. Anything that he could ever need in regards to sealing arts and woodworking, basically.


    As for his artificing, that often needed some very specific things, as well as certain gemstones and metals, so those were kept safely in the manor¡¯s treasury. Eiro walked over toward the wall of seed-filled sks, and quickly grabbed a few of them, grabbing a couple from each sk he picked up. On top of his palm, he made the seeds grow, cing the final small nts onto the nearby table.


    ¡°Tsk, can¡¯t even wait for me to split off you, huh?¡± Bavet asked annoyed, soon standing next to Eiro in his humanoid form. With his arms crossed, he leaned against one of the nearby pirs that held this spacious room up. Eiro shrugged, turning his head to look at the slime, ¡°What difference does it make, really?¡±


    ¡°¡­None, but that¡¯s not the point. It¡¯s called manners. Manners.¡± He replied with a slight sigh, ¡°Anyway, are you sure you¡¯re gonna be able to properly do this? You haven¡¯t applied sealing tattoos before.¡±


    ¡°The principle is quite simple, isn¡¯t it? And more importantly, I spent the first year after I inherited the Five of Pentacles from Jura obsessing over Sammy and Leon¡¯s sealing tattoos. You don¡¯t think I know how they¡¯re supposed to be applied?¡±


    ¡°Those? They weren¡¯t a great job, though. If anyone from the temple had applied them, there never would have been a threat to those two¡¯s lives, you know? Only an amateur wouldn¡¯t ount for those kids¡¯ growth.¡± Bavet pointed out, shaking his head disappointedly, even though he didn¡¯t even know who it was that actually ced those tattoos on them. Eiro stopped closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath through his nose, ¡°And you don¡¯t think that this was something you should have told me while exining the different aspects of sealing tattoos to me?¡±


    ¡°¡­I didn¡¯t think it mattered, to be honest. I¡¯m surprised you¡¯re even doing it in the first ce. While I was talking to you about it, the sheer aura you gave off was making it tough for me to keep up my form. You were always so enraged at the idea of sealing tattoos that I didn¡¯t think you would actually give one to someone else.¡±


    Eiro scratched his head, summoning a card to his hand. Said card quickly turned into a mirror, before a duplicate of Eiro was created through it, ¡°Show it to me. I¡¯ll make you some generic sealing ink, so put it onto that one.¡± The Demon said, and Bavet clicked his tongue a bit annoyed, ¡°Seriously? Couldn¡¯t you just, I don¡¯t know¡­ let me take a break and wing it?¡±


    The two Eiros turned toward Bavet with stoic expressions, leaving the slime no choice but to y along. He grabbed some of the tools that Eiro had hanging on one of the walls, and waited for Eiro to mix some of the oil, a few pigments, as well as some ground-up nts together, before quickly giving the basic ink to him. Silently, Bavet started to work. To speed the process up a little bit, he created a few more appendages, which could only barely be called arms, being more akin to tentacles, so that he could hold more needles at the same time. After cing the tip of the needle into the ink, letting the hollow space inside slightly pull in the ink, he started poking it into the skin on the duplicate Eiro¡¯s shoulder.


    Bavet was able to expertly create the patterns needed for a simple sealing tattoo on the duplicate¡¯s skin, which looked at the tattoo with a slightly curious expression, ¡°I guess it really is a bit different,¡± he pointed out. Eiro wasn¡¯t sure why exactly it was so different to what had covered Sammy and Leon¡¯s bodies for seven years, but it most likely just had to do with the way that the sealing arts¡¯ magic were interwoven with the ink as it was carefully ced under the skin. The positioning also seemed quite important, particrly in regard to taking one¡¯s future growth into ount, as it seemed like Bavet had ced the ink a bit deeper in certain parts of the duplicate¡¯s skin, and a little more shallow in other parts. It was a minuscule difference, but that impressed Eiro even more, seeing how quickly Bavet was able to do this with so many different limbs. A lot of the time, hees across quitezy and foolish, but in moments like these, Eiro was more than d that he had taken Bavet in back then.


    ¡°Well, thanks. I should be able to do it better,ter.¡± The original Eiro said, before the duplicate looked at the sealing tattoo on his shoulder, quickly locking eyes with the slime, ¡°One thing, though. I¡¯m not sure how useful a sealing-pattern to suppress free will is when it¡¯s ced onto someone¡¯s shoulder.¡±


    ¡°¡­Not very, but I had to improvise here, alright?¡± The slime pointed out bluntly, quickly trying to change the topic without taking another breath, ¡°More importantly, aren¡¯t you done yet? Making ink isn¡¯t thatplicated, is it?¡±


    Eiro rolled his eyes, while the duplicate that he had created earlier disappeared back into the mirror, ¡°As you said yourself earlier, this is the first time I¡¯m giving someone a sealing-tattoo. There are a lot of things I need to take into ount before then, so I¡¯m improvising a little here as well. And to top it all of, the monstrosity created by the taboo and the kind that monsters naturally have just actpletely different. It¡¯s just much more erratic, so I have to adjust the general form for the ink to take that into ount too.¡± Eiro pointed out, but it was clear that Bavet wasn¡¯t entirely convinced that this was truly it.


    The demon sighed and gave up convincing bavet, instead just filling the finishedd ink into a bottle. And after cleaning up the equipment that he used, Eiro walked up to Bavet and forced his hand into the slime¡¯s chest. He looked down at the hole that was pierced into his fake flesh, before letting out an annoyed groan, ¡°If you¡¯re mad at me, you can just say it instead of being so passive-aggressive. Wait, you¡¯re not even being passive about it, your hand is literally clutching my core¡­¡±


    ¡°Just be quiet and fuse with me already.¡± Eiro replied, as the slime somewhat begrudgingly covered his body and changed him into a human form once more. They made their way back toward the study, where Rudy, Noma and Naomi were already waiting for him. It seemed like Naomi had cried a bit as well. Immediately as Eiro entered the room, her and Noma jumped up nervously.


    ¡°Are you all ready?¡± The Demon asked, cing the equipment and materials onto the table, and Naomi awkwardly nced at Rudy, ¡°Y-Yes, but¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­You¡¯re still worried about hurting him?¡± Eiro guessed, looking at Rudy with a raised brow, ¡°You properly exined your skill, right?¡±


    ¡°Well, no¡­ it¡¯s not about that¡­ it¡¯s about you having to tattoo her whole body¡­¡± Rudeus pointed out, and Eiro sighed a bit in response, ¡°Naomi, don¡¯t worry about that. If you need it, I¡¯ll apply some light anesthesia to the area I¡¯ll be working on. You won¡¯t even feel it.¡±


    Rudy quickly shook his head and hid his mouth with his hand, quietly whispering so that nobody should be able to hear him beside Eiro, ¡°It¡¯s about her having to¡­ reveal those areas¡­¡±


    Eiro looked at his son and the twins standing next to him, before letting out a slight sigh, ¡°I guess you are at that age after all. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll use a spell so that he won¡¯t be able to see you.¡±


    With a somewhat relieved expression, Naomi let out a slight sigh. Although, it didn¡¯t take long until she realized that there would be someone else that was going to have to see her naked. Awkwardly, she nced at Eiro, who immediately shook his head, ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry about me either. You¡¯re a child, why would I ever care about your body?¡± He pointed out. Of course, more than that, he didn¡¯t care for the body of anyone but Arie in the first ce, but he didn¡¯t feel like exining something like that to them. While Naomi was still a bit embarrassed and nervous, it seemed like she was able to calm herself down a little after a while, and soon, they all started with their preparations.


    ¡°Noma, create a small mass of flesh. Any amount, really.¡± The Demon instructed, and he slowly nodded his head. He pulled up his sleeve, closed his eyes, and pressed his palm onto the same ce where he seemed to always create flesh from. Soon, a small, finger-sized growth appeared on his skin, starting to twist around until it was pinched off. Eiro immediately healed the wound, and grabbed the small amount of flesh.


    ¡°Do you want your brother here while this is happening?¡± Eiro asked, looking into the girl¡¯s eyes. She didn¡¯t seem to have to think long, quickly agreeing to let Noma stay. The Demon looked at his son, slowly cing his hands over Rudy¡¯s eyes, ¡°Are you ready? This might be a bit ufortable, but I¡¯ll tell you everything that¡¯s happening before it does, alright?¡±


    ¡°Alright. Do it.¡± Rudy said immediately, and Eiro cast a Dark magic spell that covered the boy¡¯s eyes, effectively making him blind, before Naomi started to undress.


    ¡°Are you ready?¡± Eiro asked her, and the girl looked at her brother for a few moments, before they both nodded at each other.


    ¡°I¡¯m ready.¡± She replied, slowly taking the piece of flesh created by Noma into her hand and cing it into her mouth.

 Chapter 615: The Tattoo

    Chapter 615: The Tattoo


    Quite immediately after ingesting the chunk of flesh that came from her brother¡¯s arm, Naomi was ovee with what could only be described as a moment of pure, instantaneous pleasure. She had been starving herself of what the taboo desires. In that way, it actually seemed quite simr to what Clementine experienced through her unique skill. A sort of hunger that had to be calmed down, and that could only be done by indulging in cannibalism.


    Eiro could tell that Naomi was trying to fight against being taken over by the taboo immediately after eating, so he looked at her and in a loud, clear voice, so that she could hear him no matter how distracted she may be, spoke, ¡°Don¡¯t resist it. Just let it take you over.¡±


    Naomi turned toward Eiro slowly and in snapping motions, slowly shaking her head, ¡°I-I can¡¯t, it just-¡°


    ¡°I know. It¡¯s like forcing yourself to drown when you¡¯re underwater,¡± Eiro said, ¡°But nheless, you have to do it. Nothing will happen to you, or anyone else in here. Alright?¡± he tried to reassure Naomi, who closed her eyes nervously. She took a few deep breaths, and with each exhale, Eiro noticed that the monstrosity that had been forced on her would be more dominant. Soon, her breathing sped up, and the monstrosity was more in control than Naomi itself. The moment that the bnce was shifted in this force¡¯s favor, it was like the wall holding it back broke down, and Naomi¡¯s consciousness was flooded.


    Her muscles were twitching, as if her body was trying to resist instinctively, but nheless, Naomi turned wild. She went berserk, and jumped at the first person she saw standing in front of of her. Eiro calmly watched as Naomi approached him, locking eyes with her only momentarily. And then, the instincts bestowed on Naomi by the monstrosity itself reacted. She was able to tell that Eiro wasn¡¯t someone that she should mess with. He was a Royal Monster, after all. With that came the authority to rule over other monsters, which seemed to affect Naomi herself as well.


    However, even then, Eiro was a bit surprised. If Naomi was affected, then that meant that his powers as a Royal were deeply ingrained in monstrosity itself, instead of being controlled by the monsters¡¯ system. Since the ¡®royal¡¯ position was given to him by an Arcane artifact, ¡®The World¡¯ card of the Major Arcana, this could only mean that the nature of the arcane and monstrosity were connected. As monstrosity was something forced onto living beings by the gods¡­ it seemed like the the arcane and divine were more connected to each other than Eiro assumed initially. He thought they were like two factions that werepletely against each other, but that wasn¡¯t it at all. Of course, it wouldn¡¯t make sense if that was the case in the first ce. The arcane splinters that bestow the system unto the beings living in this world were once weapons wielded by the gods. So why was it that the arcane was ced into such obscurity, as if the gods themselves wanted this to be the case?


    Eiro¡¯s curiosity was nearly overflowing, but this wasn¡¯t the time for him to explore this idea. Rather, he just had one of his mental duplicates start exploring the idea, so that he could think about it some moreter on after some progress had been made.


    The Demon grabbed Naomi¡¯s shoulder, using raw strength to force her to stand still. The monstrosity¡¯s instincts were making sure that she didn¡¯t even try to resist or bite Eiro. Not that it would sate her cravings in the first ce ¨C even if she ate up every single ounce of his flesh, she wouldn¡¯t be breaking the taboo. He was a monster, not a person.


    ¡°Rudy,e over here. Just a few steps forward,¡± Eiro instructed his son, who was of course still blinded by Dark Magic at the moment. He slid his feet over the ground somewhat nervously. Even if he couldn¡¯t be hurt by anything no matter what happened, suddenly being blind was still a weird feeling. Rudy most likely just didn¡¯t want to bump into anyone. Once he came close enough, Eiro grabbed Rudy¡¯s arm, cing it in front of Naomi¡¯s face. Immediately, her pupils dted as her eyes focused on the flesh in front of her. This time, there was nothing stopping her from biting into it. The moment Eiro let go of her shoulder, she pushed her head forward, and bit into Rudy¡¯s arm. Or at least, she tried to. His skin was pushed down, but it didn¡¯t break. Rather, Rudy was just nervously cing his hand in front of his mouth so that he didn¡¯t startughing because it seemed to tickle him.


    ¡°Ah, and Rudy, make sure not to let your¡­ ¡®inhabitants¡¯ out while this is happening, alright? Their physical forms are technically made of your flesh, and I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going to happen if she ends up swallowing one of them whole,¡± Eiro pointed out, and Rudy turned his head to where he heard his father¡¯s voice from, ¡°Huh? I mean, they wouldn¡¯t die, right? They can¡¯t be hurt, just as I can¡¯t, didn¡¯t we try that already?¡±


    ¡°Well, yeah, sure, but I don¡¯t think it would be particrly pleasant for them to spend a few days inside of someone¡¯s body that isn¡¯t made for them to live in, right?¡± Eiro pointed out as he got everything ready to start cing the tattoo on Naomi¡¯s body. The girl herself was still trying to bite through Rudy¡¯s arm, and didn¡¯t seem like she wanted to stop anytime soon. Partially, it was because Eiro continued inciting her monstrosity to a point where she didn¡¯t even realize that it wasn¡¯t working.


    But Noma was still just nervously standing there, listening to Eiro and Rudy speak to each other so casually, while his sister tried to bite their friend¡¯s arm off, ¡°In-Inhabitants? What are you talking about?¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t tell them during your exnation?¡± Eiro asked surprised, and Rudy slowly replied, ¡°I didn¡¯t think about it, I guess¡­ Erm, Noma, this is about my ss. I know I told you I had an apprentice craftsman ss, but that was a lie, sorry. I have a unique ss called ¡®Castle¡¯. I guess it¡¯s because my skin is an imprable wall, like that of a huge castle. Either way, it basically turns me into just that, a castle. And inside of me live a bunch of tiny people created by my skill. Chefs, butlers, maids¡­ even guards. I guess I¡¯ll show it to youter, but that¡¯s the gist of it¡­¡± Rudy exined nervously. Noma wasn¡¯t replying, and Rudy wasn¡¯t able to see his reaction either, so of course he would be anxious about this situation. But soon enough, Noma simply started tough loudly. As if the, admittedly somewhat ridiculous sounding, description of Rudy¡¯s skill, broke through his tense nerves.


    ¡°Seriously? You¡¯re a castle?¡± He asked, slowly dropping down onto a nearby chair while continuing tough, although he soon stopped. Noma¡¯s head dropped into his hands, as he nervously tried his best not to watch what was now going to happen to his sister.


    Eiro slightly sighed as he looked at him. He figured something like this was going to happen, so he had suggested for Noma to leave while Eiro ced the tattoo on his sister, but he had refused to do so. He wanted to be here throughout the whole thing, supporting his sister as much as he could, even if it clearly wasn¡¯t much right now.


    Nheless, it was his choice, so Eiro didn¡¯t push him out of this room even if Noma was very clearly feeling quite sick right now. If he became so sick that he would be a bother, Eiro would of course make him leave for his and his sister¡¯s good, but it probably wouldn¡¯t get to that point. That being the case, it was now time for Eiro to start working. He ced the tip of the needle he was holding into the ink right beside him. The ink was pulled into the hollow space of the needle, and Eiro could get started right away. In order to make his work as easy as possible, Eiro took a few deep breaths, suppressing his aura as much as possible. He wanted to get to a point where even Bavet would forget that Eiro was here if he wasn¡¯t careful. That way, he could apply the tattoo to Naomi¡¯s body without having to worry about her fighting back. The pain from the needle was going to be easy suppressed through some anesthetic mist he would apply to the area first.


    Eiro stepped behind Naomi, and with as much uracy and speed as he could started to apply the first section of the sealing tattoo to her back. He was able to work urately and quickly, working in tune with the twitches of Naomi¡¯s muscles. To speed the process up, Eiro even created a constant stream of ink between the needle and the inkpot, that way he didn¡¯t have to stop working even for a second. But even so, he couldn¡¯t work too fast. The ingredients in the sealing ink had to slowly merge into Naomi¡¯s flesh before linking with her natural mana flow. Eiro could speed the process up a bit by supporting the process with his own magic, but it still took a while for everything to settle down. Since there were multipleyers to this tattoo, so that Eiro could increase the density of ink in some already inked-in parts, pracatically cing further patterns and inscriptions onto the already-effected areas. Luckily, Eiro was able to make use of some healing magic to reduce any swelling that could disturb the process.


    For the next ten odd hours, Eiro busily applied the tattoo to Naomi¡¯s body, starting with her back, then moving to her arms and legs, and now, it was finally time for her chest. However, Naomi was clearly starting to grow tired. The constant agitation that Eiro was cing her under was far too straining on her stamina, not to mention the fact that the constant impact of the monstrosity wasn¡¯t treating her body well in general. Eiro minimized the damage as much as he could, but that didn¡¯t mean that there was none at all. Rather, there was much more damage than Eiro had anticipated. Maybe the monstrosity was trying to defend itself against being sealed, and dideven more damage than normal in the process.


    But even so, Eiro couldn¡¯t stop now. If he stopped now, the monstrosity would only fight back against the sealing tattoo, as if trying to rip it away, which might do permanent damage to Naomi. That which was done by now could bepletely fixed after a few years of effort. But if Eiro allowed more damage to her, then that would change.

 Chapter 616: The Seal

    Chapter 616: The Seal


    Eiro pressed the tip of the needle in his hand into Naomi¡¯s skin one more time. It was thest addition of ink that was needed, and with that single push, the sealing tattoo was finished. The Demon made his magic flow through the special ink that was now covering the girl¡¯s body, watching as it slowly let off a gentle glow. It covered her whole torso, as well as her thighs and upper arms. Eiro was able to restrict the tattoo to these areas after careful nning and consideration of the situation. Luckily, it would be quite easy to hide the tattoos like this.


    He ced the needle down on the table next to him, and grabbed his son¡¯s arm. Naomi was still continuosly trying to bite into Rudy¡¯s flesh to no avail. She had grown quite tired after the 15 hours it took toplete the tattoo, so it was quite easy for Eiro to pull her off of Rudy. Using some arcane magic to force Naomi¡¯s mouth shut, he quickly forced her to stand up straight.


    Rudy had been dozing off for a while now, but this quickly woke him up. He still wasn¡¯t able to see, but he felt that Naomi stopped trying to bite him, ¡°Dad?¡± he asked, and Eiro quickly replied, ¡°We¡¯re nearly done. I¡¯ll remove the spell from your eyes in a few minutes, so just hold out a bit longer.¡±


    ¡°¡­Is Naomi alright?¡± Rudy questioned his father, who stayed silent for a few more moments than made the boyfortable. Eiro slightly nced at Noma, who had anxiously stood up and was standing across the room, as far away as possible as if he was scared to mess something up just by being right next to his sister. Unlike Rudy, Noma had been awake this whole time and had been able to watch the changes to Naomi¡¯s body happen.


    At some points during the process, Naomi¡¯s body resisted quite heavily to what was happening to the monstrosity inside of her. She had formed fists and dug her fingernails into her flesh, causing blood to drop onto the ground. By pushing her feet onto the ground, she forced her toenails off her feet more than just once. But that wasn¡¯t all, as Naomi¡¯s teeth hadn¡¯te unscathed out of this either. She had continuously been trying to bite into Rudy for hours on end. Some of her teeth chipped and cracked, and two of them even fell out altogether. Overall, these sorts of damages were minimal, and Eiro was able to heal a lot of them nearly immediately. As for the teeth Naomi lost, Eiro would just give her some prostheticster, so that wasn¡¯t really an issue either. However, there were some damages that Eiro couldn¡¯t do anything against either, and those were damages caused by the monstrosity itself. It was as if her body was trying to adapt and be like that of a true monster.


    First, she grew a few inches in height. Eiro had to fix up some sections of the tattoo due to this, but it wasn¡¯t anything major. And while this wasn¡¯t something that Noma could observe, Eiro noticed Naomi¡¯s muscture and bones changing ever so slightly, which would probably increase her natural strength and flexibility after this. But the most tant change was that some parts of her skin hardened. Luckily, this only happened after Eiro already covered those areas in ink by then, but this was still a change that would affect her body permanently after this. It was as if part of her back turned into a hard bone or carapace. It was flush with her skin, and due to the cements probably wouldn¡¯t restrict her movement at all, but it was visible, as in those areas her formerly olive skin became as white as bleached parchment.


    But these changes weren¡¯t something that Eiro could do anything against. The monstrosity not only corrupted her body, but her soul was caused to quickly adapt as well. The shape of her soul now represented her current body perfectly. And so, since there was nothing else he could do, Eiro finished up the process.


    He pressed his palm onto Naomi¡¯s stomach before pressing his other hand onto her upper back at the height of her heart. He made his mana flow through her body as he began the sealing arts ritual toplete the tattoo. With both of his voices, even if they came out of a single mouth, Eiro started to speak a ritualistic chant that he had adapted and fine-tuned to his purposes. The glow of the ink soon grew stronger, to a nearly blinding degree. Naomi, or rather the monstrosity inside of her, was struggling to break free, knowing that it wouldn¡¯t take long for the sealing to beplete.


    And then, in a single moment, the glow disappeared in a way that made it seem as if the pitch ck ink was trying to suck the light from the room into it as well. At the same time, Naomi copsed from exhaustion, dropping down unconscious. Noma immediately ran forward, startled, but Eiro quickly caught her andid her down on the couch. He grabbed a robe that he had prepared earlier an carefully ced it onto her to allow her to cover up once she woke up.


    He stared down at Naomi, smelling the air around her, and formed a satisfied smile, ¡°It was a sess. The existing monstrosity has been suppressed to a practically nonexistent degree, and I¡¯ve managed to block any further monstrosity from trying to enter her soul and body. I¡¯vepletely sealed the Taboo skill as well, so for now, nothing is going to happen with this.¡± Eiro exined as he turned to look at Noma, who had tears streaming down his cheeks, ¡°Thank you, thank you so much, Lord Daemonherz!¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to thank me,¡± the Demon replied, waving his hand to remove the cloak of darkness from Rudy¡¯s face, ¡°For the time being, you should head to your rooms. Rudy, could you show Noma to an empty bedroom?¡±


    ¡°Ah, no, I would like to stay here with Naomi, if possible¡­¡± Noma replied quickly, wiping the wetness from his eyes, but Rudy ced his hand onto his friend¡¯s shoulder, ¡°Meh, don¡¯t worry, she¡¯s probably going to sleep for a good while longer than either of us. Let¡¯s just get some rest ourselves. My father is going to get you if anything happens, right?¡± Rudy said tiredly, and Eiro quickly nodded.


    ¡°Exactly. There¡¯s no need for you to worry. This whole ordeal was incredibly tiring for her, much more so than for you and I. She will sleep for quite a while after this,¡± Eiro reassured, ¡°I will make sure to bring her to a separate room soon myself. I just want to keep an eye on her for a little while longer to make sure that the seal is stable enough.¡±


    Noma was still unsure whether or not he should just follow along with what he was being told, but at the end of the day, he knew that Rudy and Eiro were right. The only thing he could do was anxiously sit next to his sister while she was sleeping anyway, so he may as well get some rest himself, ¡°Again, I don¡¯t know how I can ever repay you for this¡­¡± Noma said once more, as he was led out of the room by Rudy. The door closed behind the two of them, and not even a full second after, Bavet already jumped off of Eiro¡¯s body.


    ¡°Fucking hell, they really couldn¡¯t have left soon enough, this itch has been killing me for hours!¡± Bavetined as his formless bodyid on the floor, wriggling around disgustingly.


    Eiro sighed as he leaned onto his desk, ¡°You can feel itchy?¡±


    ¡°Not exactly, but it¡¯s this really ufortable feeling when my slime dries out somewhere, you know? It was that spot at the base of your neck.¡±


    ¡°Ah. Yeah, you tend to put yourself onto me a bit too thick there, so I made you thin out.¡±


    ¡°Could you not manipte my body against my will, please?¡± the slime asked in an annoyed tone of voice, but Eiro just smirked lightly, ¡°I¡¯ll think about it. Anyway, I guess it all worked out somehow, huh?¡±


    ¡°Barely. Her body¡¯s more like that of a monster than it would¡¯ve be if you just let her be,¡± Bavet quickly pointed out, ¡°The way you applied the seal just pissed the taboo off even more, didn¡¯t it?¡±


    Eiro shrugged, ¡°Maybe, but I expected something along these lines. And yeah, the changes to her body may be a bit more extreme than they would have been, but they¡¯re much more stable as well. Her body would¡¯ve ripped itself apart like a certain someone¡¯s if we had just let her be.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t even say his name anymore, huh?¡±


    ¡°I forgot.¡±


    ¡°Hah, good one,¡± Bavet scoffed, ¡°But well, it¡¯s not like he really has a use for a name anymore. You broke his mind with the taboo, and then turned him into a nest for some new toys.¡±


    ¡°¡­They¡¯re not toys, they¡¯re living beings like you and I. At least call them tools, it¡¯s more urate anyway,¡± Eiro pointed out as he squatted down in front of the couch that Naomi was sleeping on, trying to examine her. The slime next to him turned into a small snake and slithered up his body to his shoulder, ¡°So, what¡¯s the next part of your n?¡±


    Eiro thought about it for a moment before simply shrugging, ¡°I guess I¡¯ll fully remove the monstrosity from her once I kill ¡®The Devil¡¯ and retrieve the key. Until then, I don¡¯t have a particr use for her, so I¡¯ll just leave her be. Rudy seems to like her, though, so there¡¯s that. That means I should at least take care of her a little bit.¡±

 Chapter 617: Boredom

    Chapter 617: Boredom


    Eiro shut the door behind him and stepped into his room, letting out a deep breath. He took off his stuffy shirt and split up his arms, properly stretching his body out. He grabbed his chin and supported his strained jaw as he flexed the muscles around his mouth as it split up into two as well. Exhausted after using sealing arts all day, he dropped onto his bed and looked at the ceiling.


    ¡°Gondos, you there?¡± The Demon asked, and before long, the mana in the room gathered in one spot, supporting the Golem in creating his body in this realm. Gondos floated above Eiro and looked down at him, ¡°That I am.¡±


    ¡°Do you ever think about wanting to meet other Golems?¡± Eiro inquired, and Gondos shook his head immediately as if he already had an answer prepared beforehand, ¡°No, never. I have little to no interest in meeting others of my kind. But why do you ask?¡±


    ¡°I was just wondering if I should try and look for some Golems if you wanted to meet them. You don¡¯t tend to spend time in the elemental ne of earth either. You only just became a Golem a few months ago,¡± Eiro pointed out, looking at the earth spirit with a slightly concerned expression. Of course, he wasn¡¯t concerned because of Gondos¡¯ck of interest. Eiro himself had no interest in meeting other demons just for the sake of it either, and if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he wanted to find out if there was something to gain from properly epting his throne, he wouldn¡¯t consider heading to hell either. Eiro was just a little worried that Gondos wasn¡¯t fully aware of what he was missing out on.


    After seeing Noma¡¯s concern for his sister, and the fact that Rudy and Naomi clearly wanted to be with each other, Eiro had thought a bit more about his rtionships with others, and then realized that even he didn¡¯t know what he had missed out on before meeting Arie. He had no interest in romance before meeting her, and now, he found himself actively searching out romance novels to figure out how to make his rtionship with her flourish as much as possible. Obviously he didn¡¯t expect Gondos to fall in love, as love wasn¡¯t really something that spirits tended to concern themselves with either, but he didn¡¯t want Gondos to lose out on the possibility of friendships with other spirits if anything happened to Eiro. Without him around, Gondos had to either form a contract with someone else, or return to the mountain vige where his ¡®home¡¯ in this realm was and live out his time there. And if he chose to do neither of those, then he had to spend his time in the elemental ne of earth.


    But then again, Eiro wasn¡¯t going to force Gondos to do anything he didn¡¯t want to do either, so it was just up to him at this point. The spirit looked down at the Demon while floating above him, ¡°Again, I have little to no interest in such things. One day, I will spend some time in that realm, that is quite inevitable, but until then, I wish to keep living in this world. Spirits don¡¯t have a particrly short lifespan, so there really is no rush.¡±


    Eiro smiled lightly and nodded his head, ¡°Well, if that¡¯s how it is, then alright. I won¡¯t bother you about it anymore. Although, if I happen to get an opportunity to explore the elemental ne of earth, will you travel through it with me?¡±


    ¡°¡­In that case, there would be no reason not to,¡± Gondos slowly replied, slightly feeling as if Eiro had practically trapped him into a situation where he couldn¡¯t say no to something like that. With a satisfied expression, Eiro properlyid down in his bed, ¡°Goodnight, Gondos.¡±


    ¡°Goodnight, Eiro,¡± the spirit replied.


    ¡ª


    Eiro slowly let go of the book in his hand and watched it float through the water, carefully cing itself back into the shelf just to be reced by a new one. The demon had returned to doing what he had done before starting his interactions with Anura ¨C he continued his journey through reading the books of the tower¡¯s first floor.


    And he wasn¡¯t alone in that, Anura himself had also continued reading thest books that he had to, just short of 200. After bing Eiro¡¯s servant, his ability to take in and evaluate information had increased quite a bit, so to him, he was practically flying through the books at a pace iparable to before. For a while now, reading these books had begun to feel straining for him. Reading hundreds of thousands of books, even to someone as hungry for knowledge as Anura clearly was, woulde close to driving anyone mad. Not to mention the incredible amount of time that Anura must have spent here just to get through them, alone with nobody but the quite antisocial overseer of the tower, couldn¡¯t have contributed to a healthy rtionship with books either. Rather, Anura must have spent much longer in here than Eiro was alive, even taking the former lifetime of his soul into ount when he was still the Sage. Considering that, the fact that Eiro managed to get here just before Anura managed to reach the next floor was astounding. It could be considered nothing short of a miracle of fate. Either way, with Anura¡¯s ascension to Eiro¡¯s servant, his will to learn and hunger for knowledge had beenpletely invigorated. He once more felt like he did when he first found his way into the tower. With that energy, he was able toplete a book at a record pace. Not as fast as Eiro of course, but still faster than anyone else Eiro had met thus far.


    Every time Eiro took the time to check up on him, Anura hadpleted a new book and moved on to the next. At this pace, he was going to finish this floor¡¯s remaining content within a day. Then, he would have to spend a couple of days in a sort of meditation through his own unique magic, ¡®Source of Knowledge¡¯, to make sure that all the knowledge in his mind was at his fingertips, before taking the test to be allowed on the tower¡¯s next floor.


    Well, they would only be apart for a few weeks, and then Eiro was going to finish up everything on this floor, before inevitably overtaking Anura on the next. Eiro was able to finish five to six books a minute, and that was only if they were the average ones. Much of what could be found here was either quite short, or had a lot of illustrations, so Eiro was able to get through those much quicker, taking some time off of the total as well.


    At the end of the day, the biggest issue with these books was that the content wasn¡¯t particrly interesting. Most of the things on this floor were novels or generic scientific journals. Things like news publications could be found in one of the sections as well. It was some good information to have, but for the most part, the things that Eiro was reading was ovepping quite a bit. Especially when he was getting a bit deeper into the section that he was reading in right now, he was barely getting any new information. Maybe a few more specifics or new anecdotes. While they helped paint a proper picture of this realm for the demon, they weren¡¯t particrly necessary things to know. And it was more than likely that this was going to continue the exact same way until Eiro reached the next floor. There, he was most certainly going to find some books about spellcasting or some of the more rare and unique researchers.


    However, while reading through these books, Eiro had a thought. In this case, it was actually the original¡¯s sleeping mind that was conscious within the mental library, taking the time to evaluate all the knowledge that wasing in from both the elemental nes he had ess to. The owner of the Tower of Books, the Librarian, was the same sort of existence as the Hero, Sage, or Monster King. A special existence given power by the arcane and the system. And thinking about everything that he knew about these existences¡­ they were all rather entric.


    Each Hero had a peculiar quality about them that they were identified by. Surely they have been embellished to an extent, but Eiro didn¡¯t doubt that there was some truth to it even then. The Monster Kings weren¡¯t much different in that sense either. Since all monsters that were considered at least nobles could be seen as rather entric, it was obvious that the Monster King would be as well. And Eiro got the proof for that since his evolution was supported by the current Monster King himself, so there was no way that he had a boring mind. And as for the Sage¡­ the bit of information that Eiro got about his past life was enough to tell him about his own entric nature, not that he had to know this to be aware that mages could generally be seen to have a unique mental state in the first ce.


    Now, what about the Librarian? Different to these other existences, they had a much more specific role assigned to them, not one that they were ced into out of circumstance. The Hero and Monster King didn¡¯t ¡®have¡¯ to be each other¡¯s nemesis, that¡¯s just how it always turned out to be. But the Librarian was specifically the caretaker of the Tower of Books. That was their whole reason to exist. They lived for the library, and its nature being what it was, the librarian usually tended to be born from a long-lived race like the elves. Spending hundreds, if not thousands of years with your life centered around the tower would be boring rather quickly, wouldn¡¯t it? Sure, the Librarian would generally enjoy being arounds books and reading, but there was no way for someone to do one thing for so long and not get annoyed or bored even once.


    So, Eiro was thinking of a possibility. What if there was more to this tower than initially suggested? Surely, there had to be something hidden here amongst these hundreds of thousands of books. And if that was the case, then it was a secret that Eiro was going to find. Just the idea that there might be something here to make his stay a bit more exciting filled the Demon with joy.


    But for now¡­ there was nothing that hinted at anything special down here. So instead, he was just going to continue reading and see if there was anything to findter on.

 Chapter 618: Disciple

    Chapter 618: Disciple


    ¡°Wait, you want me to do¡­ what?¡± Noma asked with a confused expression, looking at the man standing in front of him. Eiro let out a sigh and rubbed his temples so hard that he nearly rubbed Bavet away from his skin, ¡°Just gather a bit of your flesh magic over your palm. Don¡¯t actually use the magic, just gather it. You¡¯re a student in the magic course, that shouldn¡¯t be so hard for you, right?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ an advanced technique, though¡­¡± Noma pointed out, and Eiro raised his brow with an awry expression, ¡°How is it an advanced technique? You do what you normally would do when trying to cast a spell anyway, and then leave the formation step out of it.¡±


    ¡°But that¡¯s exactly it, that¡¯s super hard to do, it¡¯s like making yourself fall forward and telling your body not to try and catch the fall, it¡¯s just¡­ unnatural,¡± the student replied immediately, and Eiro let out a groan, ¡°Fine, whatever. Then, just¡­ try to cast an ¡®Earth Wall¡¯ and feed it flesh magic instead of earth magic or something.¡±


    Now, Noma was staring at Eiro as if he was looking at a madman, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Lord Daemonherz, but are you¡­ insane? First of all, that¡¯s already hard enough as is without you saying it so casually, but if I were to do that, the spell would backfire and I¡¯d end up getting hurt by my own mana.¡±


    ¡°No you won¡¯t, you brat. I¡¯ll obviously interrupt the casting before that happens. It¡¯s still not preferable because it¡¯s going to ce intent into the flesh magic, but it¡¯s still better than having to forcefully extract it from your core,¡± Eiro said bluntly, ¡°Except, if you would prefer that, I can do that as well. Don¡¯t worry, the recovery time won¡¯t be any longer than two, three months.¡±


    ¡°¡­I¡¯ll try.¡±


    ¡°Atta boy,¡± Eiro replied, watching as Noma raised his hand in front of his body. Slowly, the rather simple magic circle for the ¡®Earth Wall¡¯ spell was forming in the air, and Eiro noticed Noma¡¯s magic starting to move inside. Once the magic circle was finished, a stream of magic left Noma¡¯s body, which was immediately syphoned by the Demon. He gathered the magic by entrapping it within his own,pressing it down to a small point. Then, he disrupted the mana used to construct the magic circle and sent an instant worth of mana into Noma¡¯s head. It didn¡¯t do much, it only interrupted his thoughts for a moment. It felt like when you were in the middle of a conversation and suddenly you lost your train of thought, before recovering a momentter. This was only to make sure that Noma wasn¡¯t going to subconsciously continue trying to feed magic to a magic circle that didn¡¯t exist anymore, since that might end up injuring himself as well, considering the nature of the magic that Noma used.


    .....


    ¡°See? Not so tough, is it?¡± The Demon said, quickly rubbing his hand through Noma¡¯s hair as he started walking toward the door. Eiro wanted to immediately head to the hidden room in the attic where he could infuse his own body with flesh magic immediately to try and increase his affinity with this special element.


    But before he left, Noma stared at Eiro¡¯s back, ¡°How- How did you do that?¡±


    ¡°What exactly? Interrupting your spell, or controlling your magic?¡± Eiro asked quickly, and Noma immediately, and nervously, nodded his head, ¡°Yes! I mean both, I guess?¡±


    Eiro turned back around and exined, ¡°Mana is much, much more fragile than it appears at first. With just a slight interruption, it just diffuses back into the ambient mana around us. That¡¯s what stops any random fellow from actually using it; they don¡¯t have the ability to actively control it. But when ites to most mages, especially mere apprentices like you, their control over their own mana is effective enough for what it¡¯s worth, but still weak. Interrupting someone else¡¯s mana is easy enough.¡±


    With a slight frown, Noma looked at the ce that Eiro had gathered the flesh magic in, as he was still able to somewhat feel where it was, ¡°Then how can you do¡­ that? I¡¯m not controlling it anymore, so why isn¡¯t it falling apart if it¡¯s as fragile as you say?¡±


    ¡°For one, this is magic, not mana. You feed mana with elemental influence to turn it into magic, which stabilizes it. It still dissipates quickly, normally, but I¡¯ve got my means of stabilizing it. But well, I guess the easiest way to describe it is that I¡¯m not giving it space to dissipate in the first ce. The mana from two different people won¡¯t mix together unless under very special circumstances. Like mixing pure oil and water. That property is kept by one¡¯s magic, so I can use my mana as a shell to keep your magic safe,¡± Eiro exined. Of course, he wasn¡¯t really lying, he just didn¡¯t say the whole truth. What he was saying was definitely possible, and Eiro had done this plenty of time in the past, since it wasn¡¯t that tough if you knew the trick to it. But now, he had done something else. Since he gained the abilities of ¡®The World¡¯, it was the easiest thing imaginable to make things his own, and that included mana. He was able to simply steal the magic, and was now controlling it as if it was his own. Well, he still had to wait for Noma¡¯s mana to actually dissipate until he could control it freely, but that wouldn¡¯t take too long anymore, and then, Eiro would be able to freely fuse this magic into his own body.


    Noma looked at Eiro with a nearly shocked expression. He wasn¡¯t aware that something like this was actually possible. With a determined expression, Noma clenched his fist. He looked deep into Eiro¡¯s eyes and opened his mouth, ¡°Lord Daemonherz, will you-¡±


    ¡°Absolutely not,¡± Eiro replied immediately and instantly, ¡°I am not going to make you my disciple or anything of the sort, and that is final. You¡¯re already my student, so if I see it to fit you, I¡¯m going to be teaching you these techniques anyway. If I don¡¯t, then I won¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°But, I¡­ I need to get stronger, I¡­¡± Noma tried to plead, staring down at the ground in front of him, but Eiro let out a deep sigh, ¡°Noma, no. You¡¯re not a fighter in the first ce, that¡¯s just not where your talents lie. Rather, the opposite. You¡¯re nurturing and protective, that¡¯s why your elemental affinities are that of earth and flesh. And over the past few years as you¡¯ve worked hard to understand and practice your amgic for the sake of your sister, you¡¯ve built up all the experience you need to walk a whole other path that clearly fits you much better,¡± The Demon said to the young man standing in front of him, ¡°I¡¯m going to be rmending you for a healing specialization. And don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m going to be taking responsibility for you so that nobody can say anything about your flesh magic affinity, but that¡¯s the most I¡¯m going to do for you. I can¡¯t favor you any more than this, boy.¡±


    ¡°¡­Healing..? But that¡¯s not the path that I¡­¡±


    ¡°I know, you were going to specialize in architectural and construction-based magic, and if you prefer that, you obviously still can do that. But I think healing is a much greater fit for you. Clementine is in the garden, you should have a talk with her about that,¡± Eiro said as he turned around once more, this time leaving the room without Noma interrupting him again. Obviously he didn¡¯t mind teaching Noma more about his flesh magic. He was truly of the opinion that a skilled healer making use of flesh magic was the greatest gift this country was going to receive anytime soon, and Eiro would do anything to make that happen. But even then, he didn¡¯t feel the need to take Noma on as something like a disciple.


    ¡°Urgh, good. Kinda annoying, him thinking that he can just be your disciple, huh?¡± Bavet groaned right into the Demon¡¯s ear, who rolled his eyes and and grabbed the slime¡¯s core, pulling it out of his chest, ¡°Shut up, I actually sort of respect him for trying to ask me, I just don¡¯t think I would be a good fit as his direct teacher. The kind of person that would be a good disciple to me would be¡­ well, someone so monstrous they don¡¯t fit in with regr people.¡±


    ¡°You sound like you¡¯ve got someone in mind there already,¡± Bavet replied, and Eiro smirked lightly, ¡°Not really, no. I won¡¯t be taking her as my disciple either, I¡¯m just saying, Naomi would be a much greater fit as my disciple. She might be in the crafting course, but her scent is that of a fighter. And seeing her eyes the moment her hunger overtook her¡­ that¡¯s the sort of person that would be able to properly embody my teachings, I think,¡± Eiro pointed out as he jumped off the ground, grabbing onto the hatch on the ceiling, pushing it open as he started to undress, ¡°Now, if you don¡¯t mind, I¡¯ll be a bit busy for a while. Just go and do your own thing,¡± The Demon said, pulling out the mirror of duplication from his treasury before creating a duplicate of himself that would take his ce within the manor in case something came up, while his original body was going to be infused with flesh magic.


    ¡°¡­You don¡¯t even need me anymore, huh?¡± Bavet grumbled slightly, looking at the duplicate. Since Eiro was able to manipte the physical form of his duplicates however he wanted while he created them, he started being able to duplicate the form that Eiro took on through Bavet¡¯s help, ¡°My main body still needs you, so don¡¯t worry about that,¡± the duplicate pointed out, while the true Eiro locked himself in the chamber, ¡°And well, even if not, I doubt you¡¯d actually mind being able to do your own thing for a while, right?¡± The duplicate asked, and Bavet seemed to think about it for a while as he took on the form of a snake, ¡°Well¡­ there is this one thing I always wanted to ea- I mean see, I- ah who am I kidding? There¡¯s this one monster I heard about that I really want to have a taste of. Its habitat is a bit of a distance away from here, so¡­¡±


    ¡°You can take a vacation at some point if you want, don¡¯t worry. Once the original properly acquires flesh magic, he¡¯s going to be spending some time in the workshop with Armodeus crafting the changes to his body. That¡¯s going to take a while.¡±

 Chapter 619: Stomach

    Chapter 619: Stomach


    Eiro¡¯s body had changed. Its form was no longer the way that it had been just a day ago. It was to the extent where he was a little worried that it might affect the shape of his soul, but luckily, the magic that caused it had something akin to a safeguard to this. He was sitting in the infusion-chamber in the attic and was busily infusing himself with flesh magic. For the first few hours, he could only feel his body quivering as the magic flowed through him, and then as if a coin had been thrown to signal the start of a race, his physical body practically blew up in mass. His flesh was out of control, and filled this room to the brim. Random masses of meat were growing on any surface they could, and Eiro was actually starting to get worried that the walls might be damaged by the constant pressure his body was putting on them.


    Not only that, but in the first moment that his body had grown in mass like this, multiple bones in his body had been broken. Luckily, he had been able to force them back into ce before the flesh magic forced the parts away from each other, which was something that really could cause permanent damage if he wasn¡¯t careful. But right now, Eiro was just trying to keep infusing himself with this magic and not spend any time worrying about his physical body right now. If he managed to acquire this magic for himself by growing his affinity further, then he could undo all these changes nearly immediately anyway.


    And, as if the system had been listening to Eiro¡¯s thoughts, a message appeared in front of him. Of course, he wasn¡¯t able to see anything, since his eyes were covered in ps of his own meat, but he knew the information that was given to him instantly in that moment anyway.


    ¡ª


    [Congrattions! You have learned the skill {Beginner Flesh Magic Mastery}]


    [The skill {Beginner Flesh Magic Mastery} has been integrated into the Superior Skill {Elemental Magic Mastery}]


    ¡ª


    Eiro flexed his muscles for a moment as he let his new magic flow through his physical body. Like earlier, his flesh quivered, but this time it wasn¡¯t because it wanted to explode outward. Instead, step by step, therge and numerous growths of flesh all over his body were starting topress down to the point where Eiro was at least able to move again. With ease, he split the masses off from his body and manipted the wriggling mass until it reached its limit ofpression. Of course, since he was manipting something like flesh, there was a limit to how he couldpress it, but still, he was able to press the mass that had filled up the entirety of this room into something about twice the size of Eiro¡¯s head.


    The Demon looked at his arms and chest, watching his skin naturally heal itself from the damage he had undergone just now. Slowly, Eiro ced his hand onto the mass of flesh in front of him, fusing one of his cards, the Three of Swords, with the ws on his prosthetic. Like this, Eiro ripped a chunk off flesh off the mass. It was sort of satisfying to do it this way instead of just funneling it down his throat like he worried he might have to doter on. That¡¯s right, Eiro was nning on eating the meat that came from his own body in order toplete one of the changes to his own body.


    He ripped into the flesh with his teeth and devoured the flesh as if he was a starving pig forcing its feed into its body. Eiro did this until he wasn¡¯t able to eat any more. It was to the point where anything else he ate would be stacked on top of each other right in his throat. But even so, Eiro continued. He even tried to mix his stomach acids with some necromantic magic to make the flesh break down quicker, even if it was by rotting it, but he had to continue eating it, so that he was able to do a very specific thing. And soon, he could tell that he was starting to achieve his goal.


    ¡ª


    [Congrattions! The skill {Beginner Overeating} has leveled up!]


    ¡ª


    It was a skill that Eiro had earned quite early on in his life, but one that he hadn¡¯t made use of since a week after he first got it, simply because he didn¡¯t need to. Or rather, because he didn¡¯t want to. Back then, he got it because he was force-feeding himself the strips of meat in his bag, but after that, he was trying to take care of his training as well as his kids under Jura¡¯s guidance. He was learning that you should pace yourself as he was starting to be a bit more civilized.


    However, not too long ago, he had learned an important new fact. Although, it might be more correct to describe it as an obscure trivia fact.


    ¡°You¡¯re doing what right now?¡± James asked with a wry smile, looking at Eiro¡¯s duplicate outside in the garden. They were all currently taking a break from training and took a seat inside one of the pavilions.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not ¡®me¡¯ directly, but rather the original version of me. Whatever the case, he¡¯s eating a few hundred pounds of his own flesh, since he finally managed to acquire flesh magic,¡± the duplicate demon exined quite casually, before Krog turned toward him with an even more confused expression than James¡¯, ¡°And why are you doing that..? Wait, you¡¯re not trying out some new method of bulking up mass to increase muscture, right? Because I heard that you¡¯ve gotta eat a lot for that, and I really-¡±


    ¡°No, no, don¡¯t worry, you won¡¯t be doing this. There¡¯s absolutely no reason for you to. But actually, how about I pass off this question to you, Jess? You should know why I¡¯m doing this, even without me telling you,¡± Eiro pointed out, and the young mage looked back slightly surprised, ¡°Huh? Me?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, of course. Go on, rattle your brain and show us that your continuous training is paying off as well.¡±


    Jess slowly averted her eyes and stared down at the table in front of them. She started to think as if her life depended on it, while Eiro curiously watched. Really, there was only one reason for Eiro to do this right now, but it was so obscure that it wasn¡¯t something that you could simply guess. Rather, Krog¡¯s idea was something more realistic than what the Demon was actually doing right now. So, being aware that this was something that normal people wouldn¡¯t be able to simply guess, boarded a different train of thought.


    Eiro said that she should know this, meaning that he knew for sure that Jess had read something about this before. At the same time, Eiro had already pointed out many times that he was trying to attain flesh magic in order to modify his body in a lot of different ways. And soon, as if all the pieces of the puzzle fell together in one fell swoop, Jess had an epiphany.


    ¡°You want to erge your stomach,¡± Jess said bluntly, and the duplicate of Eiro quickly grinned, ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±


    ¡°Wait, what? Why would you need to do that? Do you want to enter an eatingpetition?¡± Krog asked immediately, but Eiro once more just nced at Jess, waiting for her to exin everything. Quickly, she got out her bag.


    ¡°Okay, so¡­ Let¡¯s take this bag. It¡¯s made of leather, and put together by a craftsman out of the hide of an animal, right?¡± Jess pointed out, and quickly continued, ¡°But in the past, they didn¡¯t do that. So that they could store water or food in a way that they could carry it more easily, they would use animals¡¯ innards for this, including the stomach, of course,¡± she exined, slowly ncing over at Eiro, who was just watching with a smile, giving her the confidence that she was on the right track. Relieved, she moved on with her exnation.


    ¡°So, at some point, two things coincided. There was a culture that had strong agricultural skills by making use of magic, and at the same time, had arge cattle poption, evenrger than the amount of people they had. So, since they often ended up with too much in terms of grains or crops, they started to feed them to the cattle that were supposed to be ughtered, so that they could make the most out of the situation and add more meat to their diet. And since they wanted to make use of every part of the cattle¡¯s bodies, the stomachs were turned into just those sorts of bags,¡± Jess exined, and slowly, James looked at Eiro, trying to understand, ¡°So you want to turn your stomach into a bag.¡±


    ¡°Sort of. But shush, let her finish the exnation,¡± Eiro sighed, and Jess smirked, ¡°Anyway, it just so happened that the people of this culture were a n of barbarians and warriors, and their cattle were monster bulls, even if just barely. It still meant that they had ess to the system, and since they were force-fed so much feed, they learned the overeating skill. That continued and continued, until at some point, they noticed something. Even though the bags were the same size, they ended up being much heavier than others. And then, they measured, and the bags made of the stomachs of force-fed cattle held more water than that of others. The space within their stomachs was somehow expanded through the overeating skill. And well, that was how the first spatial bags came to be.¡±


    ¡°Wait, what?! Spatial bags are made from monter stomachs?¡± Krog practically yelped out, but Eiro simply shook his head, ¡°Of course not. Spatial bags are made by artificers these days, using principles of spatial magic to artificially increase the space within the bags. It¡¯s just that they were inspired by these proto-spatial bags,¡± the demon exined, ¡°But yeah, you¡¯repletely right, Jess. I¡¯m trying to increase the space within my stomach by raising my overeating skill as much as possible.¡±


    ¡°And why would you want to do that?¡± James asked curiously, while Krog was just a little weirded out, ¡°I mean, I get that it¡¯s an interesting topic and all, but is there any reason for you to do that? Is it particrly useful?¡±


    Eiro leaned back, ¡°I have three main reasons. One, my treasury ability. Even now, it can still only hold as much as my body¡¯s physical volume allows. I¡¯m sort of curious whether this ¡®volume¡¯ will increase if the space in my stomach increases as well,¡± the Demon replied, ¡°It would simply allow me to store more things, and more importantly, bigger things, and that¡¯s always useful.¡±


    ¡°Right¡­ that makes sense. What¡¯s the second reason?¡±


    With a smirk, the demon exined, ¡°The original¡¯s body will be going through a lot of changes soon. And, if everything works out, those changes are going to include sub-spaces inside of his body that can be used to store as many different venoms as possible. Right now, it¡¯s nearly impossible to to properly make use of my stinger, because I don¡¯t have enough venom for the sort of enemies I¡¯m fighting. It¡¯s just not worth it if I can just st them away with magic. However, if I have the chance to develop arge array of different venoms, I might be able to make use of this part of my body. I don¡¯t have any need for things that I don¡¯t use. So, it¡¯s either this, or I¡¯m going to get rid of my stinger altogether and rece it with a stronger physical weapon.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, and that would suck. Your stinger is actually he cool,¡± Krog pointed out, looking at the demon¡¯s tail as it was wrapped around Eiro¡¯s waist. With a slight chuckle, Eiro nodded, ¡°That¡¯s part of why I would prefer not having to get rid of it. But yeah, I don¡¯t have the space to store that many different venoms in my body right now, so I will be increasing the amount my stomach can hold, and then take part of my stomach and turn it intopartments within me to make up for thatck of space. And then, there¡¯s the third, and maybe most important reason. For me, the easiest way to make use of my absorption ability is through eating. And I want to be able to absorb as much as I can, as fast as I can, so having a stronger andrger stomach is the best way to achieve that.¡±

 Chapter 620: Visual Duplicate

    Chapter 620: Visual Duplicate


    Eiro finally stepped out of the chamber, still chewing on somepressed flesh. His stomach had been filled to the brim over and over again, until he finally reached the point that he wanted to get to.


    ¡ª


    [Apprentice Overeating Level 31]


    ¡ª


    The moment Eiro¡¯s overeating skill reached apprentice grade, he could tell that his stomach fundamentally changed. His stomach acids were stronger, and the space within his stomach started to grow ever so slightly, that space increasing with every further level. He was sure that his skill level was going to increase even more once he reached the intermediate grade. There was a negative side-effect that came with it, though ¨C he felt more hungry. And it wasn¡¯t as if his body suddenly became worse at taking in the nutrients of the food he ate, that was the same as it was before, if not better because his stomach acid was able to break apart the food more efficiently. Obviously, it wasn¡¯t like he struggled absorbing nutrients in the first ce, but any bit helped. Either way, right now, for the first time in a while, Eiro actually felt hungry. It was a weird feeling to him, honestly, but luckily the hunger was quickly being subdued by his superior skill, the ¡®Negative Effect Resistance¡¯ skill.


    It made sense that the overeating skill would make him hungry, since it was supposed to help him overeat. That was done by not only expanding his stomach so that he could physically eat more food without throwing it all up again, but also by simply making him crave food more easily. If he wasn¡¯t careful, then the hunger would be a distraction, but with a skill that would suppress the negative effect, he wouldn¡¯t have to bother thinking about that too much.


    Eiro took a deep breath after swallowing thest bite of his own flesh and started to stretch. Outside, his own duplicate fell apart into a sludge that soon evaporated into the air, in the middle of his conversation with the others. Of course, he was soon reced by the original, who had jumped out of the nearest window to get to the ce they had all gathered.


    ¡°Alright, where was I?¡± Eiro asked bluntly, as if nothing had happened, still buttoning his shirt as he sat down. James slowly ced down the ss he had been drinking from, having been frozen in surprise ever since Eiro¡¯s duplicate simply fell apart a few seconds ago. He slowly closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before opening them again and acting as if nothing happened, ¡°I think you were talking about what you¡¯ll be doing next after you have that new magic.¡±


    ¡°Right. I think the first thing I¡¯ll do is get rid of my heart, probably,¡± Eiro said without a moment¡¯s hesitation, crossing his legs as he ced his hand onto his chest, and his threepanions looked at him as if they were listening to a crazy person.


    ¡°Erm¡­ Eiro, I think even you need your heart¡­¡± Krog pointed out with a wry smile, ¡°I mean, it¡¯s a weakness even for you, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, exactly. Why would I keep around a weakness that has absolutely no benefits for me? It¡¯s like wearing a big target and a sign that says, ¡®aim here¡¯, ¡± the Demon exined, ¡°At the end of the day, the main function of the heart is to pump one¡¯s blood through their body, right? In that sense, it¡¯s already useless since I can just constantly use magic to make my blood flow however I want. Rather, I will be creating a specialized duplicate of my mind and severely cripple its own thought, and make it capable of only moving my blood through my body, and then I won¡¯t have to worry anymore. Since I will be diffusing the Bloodstone throughout all my veins as well, there shouldn¡¯t be an issue in creating a system that will overall rece my heartpletely. Now, there is the aspect that the heart protects one¡¯s magic core, but I¡¯ll also be diffusing that throughout my body so that¡¯s not going to be an issue either.¡±


    Jess nervously looked at the man that was teaching her in the ways of the mind, worrying that she was going to be as crazy as him someday, ¡°You said a few weird things there, but I¡¯ll just ept the heart thing for now¡­ You¡¯re going to diffuse your core? How is that supposed to work? And rather, why would you do that?¡±


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m going to be doing that so that I can achievepletely instantaneous casting,¡± Eiro said as if it was obvious, ¡°Right now, my mana still has to move through my body to get to a point where I can then use it for magic, but once I diffuse my core along all my mana veins, I¡¯m going to be able to instantly ess magic at any point in my body whenever I want.¡±


    ¡°Your magic is already nearly instant anyway, so why would you even need this?¡± Krog asked confused, and Eiro replied with a slight smile, ¡°I¡¯ve already fought enemies that can bring time to a crawl. The only reason I was able to react was because of my magic, and because the opponents were actually on the weak side without their time-based benefit. Now, if I fight someone that can halt time and is actually something of a threat to begin with? Well, that¡¯s going to be an issue, unless I¡¯m capable of using magic literally the instant the thought crosses my mind.¡±


    ¡°So, just for one specific instance of enemies, you want to do something that will most likely bepletely irreversible to your core, something which is literally the source of the majority of your power?¡±


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m plenty physically strong too,¡± Eiro replied to Jess with a slight smirk, before pushing his hands down onto the table as he stood up, ¡°That being the case, I¡¯ve got to meet with a certain dwarf to discuss the changes to my body a bit more.¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°Can¡¯t you be a little bit more careful with that? It¡¯s making me¡­ feel weird¡­¡± Armodeus pointed out, looking at the Demon in his workshop as he was carefully taking apart a small white orb that was floating in front of him.


    ¡°Why is it making you feel weird? It¡¯s literally my own eye,¡± Eiro replied, turning his head toward the Dwarf to reveal the hollow space that was his eye-socket. One benefit of flesh magic,bined with Eiro¡¯s incredibly absorption abilities was that he could take off his own body parts andbine them back with his own body whenever he wanted. That made things like detailed surgery to his own body just so much easier.


    ¡°Urgh¡­ I know, just¡­ whatever, just keep going,¡± the elder dwarf groaned loudly, soon returning to his own portion of the work. While Eiro was taking apart his own eye to carefully remove his own eye¡¯s lense, Armodeus was working on the recement lense. He had taken a duplicate of the mirror of duplication as a base and broke it down, trying to keep its ability intact while turning the mirror¡¯s reflective surfacepletely transparent. Rather, that was the easy part ¨C the hard part was to then take part of this mirror and give it the exact size, shape, and curvature it needed to fit into the Demon¡¯s eye without distorting his vision in any way.


    Carefully, the dwarf held up the incredibly small lense toward Eiro, who gave it a quick nce. With a nod, he said, ¡°That¡¯s perfect,¡± and so, Armodeus made his way over toward Eiro, who was still carefully holding open his own eye, ¡°ce it in.¡±


    After closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Armodeus lowered the lense into Eiro¡¯s eye, where it seemed to fit perfectly. Instantly, Eiro got to work, and thin, ethereal threads of arcane magic started to flow out from Eiro¡¯s fingertips. They properly fused the new lense into the Demon¡¯s eye, before closing the intricate visual instrument again. The eye was properly healed and got to a point where it was impossible to see that it had ever been opened to begin with. And then, Eiro grabbed the orb and ced it back into his eye-socket. He blinked a few times, and the eye was moving around independently for a few moments, staring lifelessly into a random direction, before Eiro managed to link the eye¡¯s nerves back up with himself, and just like that, Eiro had regained sight in his right eye.


    ¡°Hm¡­ it¡¯s a bit different to before, but that¡¯s to be expected. There¡¯s no distortion though, you have shaped this lense to perfection, Armodeus,¡± Eiro said immediately, and the elder dwarf sighed out of relief, ¡°I¡¯m d to hear that. Now, can you show me what it is that you wanted to do this for?¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± the Demon replied, and looked at the other side of the room. He focused his sight on a mug standing on the table. Eiro shaped his magic circuits in his eye so that they formed a specific spell which the Demon developed for this particr purpose, and quickly activated it. Eiro shifted his sight to a point about half a foot away from where the mug stood originally.


    It looked as if a copy of the mug was simply pulled out of it, following the center of Eiro¡¯s view. And now, since that mug was still a duplicate under Eiro¡¯s control, he was able to manipte its position with sight alone. That also meant that the mug could move as fast as Eiro could change where he looked. It only took as long as a blink, but Eiro looked down at his feet, and the mug suddenly shifted its position to that ce. And then, it moved to a nearby shelf. When Eiro blinked, the duplicate blinked out of existence for that moment together with the Demon¡¯s sight. And then, Eiro was able to simply unlink the duplicate from his direct visual control, and it was treated as any other duplicate would be.


    Basically, this now meant that Eiro was able to control everything he saw however he wanted.

 Chapter 621: The Heartless Demon

    Chapter 621: The Heartless Demon


    Eiro slightly rubbed his eye a few times, feeling quite some difort, ¡°Is everything alright?¡± Armodeus asked with a concerned expression, and Eiro looked at him and quickly nodded his head, ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine. It just seems like I¡¯ll have to be a bit more careful with this than I thought I¡¯d have to be,¡± the Demon replied. He had just spent some time trying out his new ability to duplicate things through his vision, and after a while, it was starting to get a little ufortable. It was worth it considering the benefits that this ability had, but there was some negative feedback to it.


    Eiro¡¯s vision was noticeably reduced after continuing to use the mirror of duplication that was reced his eye¡¯s lens, even if it already seemed to be slowly returning to normal. And even then, his vision had still been quite potent. Considering that Eiro still had the vision through his other eye, as well as all his other senses, this wasn¡¯t something that he really had to worry about.


    The Demon looked into a mirror hanging on the wall, trying to see if everything was alright with the lens itself or if there was something wrong with it that could only be seen from outside. But from what he could tell, there was nothing wrong with it, ¡°It¡¯s possible that it¡¯s a side-effect that appeared due to the nature of how I used this mirror. I¡¯ll have to see if the true mirror¡¯s potency decreases if I overuse it over some time. It makes sense for it to have to recharge some of its capabilities,¡± Eiro pointed out. Every artifact had some side-effects connected to it, some more imminently than others of course, but it seemed as though Eiro was starting to neglect this fact a little in the back of his mind. The artifacts that he made use of had side-effects that Eiro was able to counteract incredibly easily to the point where he didn¡¯t notice them, as was the case with the Marite des, or he simply used the artifact in a way that he didn¡¯t have to worry about the side-effect too much, such as the Potion of Invisibility.


    It seemed like this mirror in his eye was going to be somewhere inbetween those two. The side-effect that just appeared was negligent, and Eiro doubted that he would integrate this ability into his regrbat arsenal all too much anyway. He would only really need it for the highest tier of enemies, of which there aren¡¯t too many. And a slight, temporary reduction in visual ability was something he shouldn¡¯t worry about in such battles at all.


    Eiro turned away from his reflection and instead looked at the Elder Dwarf, ¡°It¡¯s a masterpiece. Thank you, Armodeus.¡±


    With a slight smile hidden behind his thick beard, Armodeus replied, ¡°Nothing to thank me for. This is exactly the reason I¡¯m here,d. I came to stay with you in this manor because I knew I would get to make unique things like that,¡± the dwarf said with a tone that couldn¡¯t hide how excited he was, ¡°That being said, got something else for me?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡­ I think I do, but this is going to need a bit more nning, I think. Because it might as well backfire immediately,¡± he pointed out, before pulling a card out of his treasury. He held it forward, and soon, the card transformed into arge warhammer, the Mountainbreaker, ¡°I want to turn this into a better weapon for the way I fight.¡±


    .....


    Immediately, the battlesmith in Armodeus came out. He went silent and grabbed the hammer from Eiro, trying to take a closer look at it. Of course, the whole time that the dwarf was holding it, Eiro was making sure that he could intervene in case the hammer¡¯s head was going to hit something. He doubted it, since Armodeus was incredibly careful during his work, but just the slightest mishap could make this whole building copse in on itself. The mountainbreaker was dangerous like that.


    ¡°You fight with des, or your hands. What are the effects like when you change its shape to that of a sword or dagger?¡± Armodeus inquired, and Eiro quickly replied. He had tested this all out plenty, ¡°Basically, it makes it easier to cut through particrly tough materials. A normal de pushes the material out of the way, and the mountainbreaker practically pulverizes the material to make that much, much easier. It also causes some incredible impact in the rest of the target¡¯s body. So having it as a dagger would be great. I have two that I generally use now, the hollow Assassin¡¯s Dagger you gave me, and the me Dagger I got back then. But in case I have to, I would like to have one or two more so that I can fight with all four of my hands.¡±


    ¡°¡­You still use those, huh?¡± Armodeus asked with a gentle smile, ¡°They aren¡¯t in great condition anymore either though, right?¡±


    Eiro leaned against the wall behind him, ¡°They¡¯re not. Their durability increases a lot when I fuse them with the marite des, and you always take care of them on top of that, but¡­ it does seem like they¡¯re both reaching the end of their lives.¡±


    ¡°Lad, this is just a suggestion, so you can turn it down if you want, but¡­ what if I reforge them andbine them with parts of the mountainbreaker?¡± Armodeus suggested. Eiro raised his brow and thought about it for a moment, but slowly shook his head, ¡°It would be nothing but sentimental to do something like that. At the end of the day, I don¡¯t think there¡¯d be much worth in keeping the raw materials of the des around. There¡¯s nothing too special about them, right?¡±


    Armodeus sighed, ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with being sentimental. And more importantly, there certainly is quite some worth in the metal the des are made of. They¡¯ve been continuosly imbued with incredible amounts of your mana, and have been repeatedly fused with an artifact. That makes them the perfect candidates for some decent improvements that go beyond what the mountainbreaker can offer.¡±


    ¡°You can improve on the mountainbreaker?¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯d¡¯ya think yer talking to? It¡¯s certainly an incredible piece, but with the help of some modern techniques of craftsmanship, there¡¯s no way I wouldn¡¯t be able to do something with this,¡± the dwarf said with a smug grin, and Eiro couldn¡¯t help himself but feel a little excited at the idea. He brought out the two daggers and gave them to Armodeus, ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll entrust these to you.¡±


    The dwarf grabbed the daggers and carefully ced them onto the table next to him, ¡°Now, the only thing that worries me is how I¡¯m supposed to work the metal from the mountainbreaker¡­¡±


    Eiro created a duplicate of the mountainbreaker that Armodeus would actually be able to take apart, handing it to the craftsman, ¡°The power output is controlled through the mind, it doesn¡¯t naturally disy its properties, otherwise the air would quake just by it being moved slightly. As long as you don¡¯t see it as a weapon, but just as a raw material, it should be fine. Of course, you still need to be careful, but I¡¯ll be here for now in case something happens.¡±


    Armodeus raised his brow, ¡°If I¡¯m supposed to be that careful, it¡¯s going to take quite a while for me to finish the daggers. Are you sure you want to wait throughout all of that?¡±


    ¡°Well, if need be, I can leave a duplicate here. But since I need to spend some time doing some other changes to my body that you can¡¯t directly help with, I might as well do it down here,¡± Eiro pointed out, and the dwarf sighed before giving up. He preferred working in peace, but Eiro wasn¡¯t the sort to disturb his work anyway. And considering the material that he was going to be working with, having Eiro around might be the best choice he could make in the first ce.


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll get started right away,¡± Armodeus said with an excited tone of voice, looking at the Mountainbreaker with a grin. He immediately held its head into the soaring mes of his forge, waiting for the metal to heat up enough so that he could start working with it.


    Meanwhile, Eiro sat in a quiet corner of the smithy, making sure to keep his eyes on Armodeus while also shifting some of his focus inward. It was time for him to start the transformation of his internal body, starting with the fact that he wanted to get rid of his heart. After a few deep breaths, Eiro started. He hadplete control over his own body, so doing something like stopping his own heartbeat was simple enough. Using magic, he could also very easily keep the blood flowing through him. It would take a decent bit of concentration to do this all the time, all the whilst making sure that his blood was flowing properly despite certain injuries he might receive in future battles, so Eiro quickly created a sub-consciousness using the mirror of duplication. Different to the duplicates that were currently existing solely in the mental library, this was an even more specialized existence. Eiro removed its own consciousness from itpletely and only gave it a single task, and only the abilities toplete that task. To make sure that his blood was flowing through his body correctly.


    Since Eiro¡¯s thoughts were shared across all of the duplicates of himself, he could make immediate adjustments, on top of knowing the state of the blood pumping through his veins at all times without having to waste any time thinking about it.


    And so, this sub-consciousness already got started on this job, continuing to make the blood flow through Eiro¡¯s body correctly. The Demon no longer had a heartbeat, instead, his blood moved through his body in even streams without the slightest amount of fluctuation. It felt a bit unusual, even invigorating for a few moments, but it was certainly something that he would have to get used to. Either way, just through this, he already got rid of something like the weakness that was his heart. But even now, he still had his heart as a physical organ, something that he simply didn¡¯t need anymore. Rather, it was just something of a hindrance now. Instead, he could use that space to store more crystalized mana if he needed to.


    As such, Eiro infused his heart, as well as the rest of his circtory system with his recently acquired flesh magic, starting to fuse them together. His veins were strengthened through the muscles of his heart, and now also had the bloodstone sligthly diffused within them.


    It took a few hours to finish this whole process to perfection, making sure that every part of his body really received everything that was needed. And then, he rxed, letting the sub-consciousness in his head do all the work. He just sat there, silent. Eiro, the demon without a heart.

 Chapter 622: Rebirth of Fire and Ice

    Chapter 622: Rebirth of Fire and Ice


    Eiro continued sitting in Armodeus¡¯ smithy for a while, just watching him work to make sure that nothing was going to go wrong with the duplicated Mountainbreaker. Even Armodeus, who spent his whole life perfecting his craft, took quite some effort in even taking the weapon apart. However, since Eiro was here and helped created the best possible environment through the help of powerful magical mes and by simply assisting Armodeus however necessary, the dwarf was able to offset at least part of the troubles that he had with this project. But even then, his work wasn¡¯t a simple one.


    Instead of simply having to reforge something normally, he had tobine high quality steel with the material of an artifact. Since the two materials were very different to each other, it took quite some finessing to make sure Armodeus didn¡¯t end up damaging the steel while he was working with it. But soon, he managed to salvage the steel of both of the daggers andbine them with the mountainbreaker¡¯s metal. Since something like alloying wasn¡¯t possible with these two materials, he insteadyered them, folding the metals over each other again and again, until it was nearly impossible to even see anyyers without inspecting the metal for some time up close.


    Once the base material was finished, Armodeus used an ability that he didn¡¯t have the chance to make use of for quite a while. As he continuously advanced through different grades of sses, even to the point of advancing his own race to that of an Elder Dwarf, he acquired a few useful abilities. Most of them simply helped him in honing his craft, or retaining the knowledge of different techniques or materials, as well as finding new ones. But there was one ability that was different to the others, one that he received a surprisingly long time ago.


    As he was in the process of creating an item, under the right conditions, he could pull out certain special aspects out of it. The times that he was able to meet those conditions could be counted on one hand, but now, he could add another to the toll.


    The conditions that Armodeus had managed to figure out thus far were rtively simple. The material needed to have a high amount of magic naturally imbued in it over some time. While this usually took much, much longer, due to Eiro¡¯s massive amounts of mana as well as the abilities he received once he first picked up the card of ¡®The World¡¯, Eiro¡¯s magic seemed to seep into physical objects much more easily.


    The second condition seemed to be that there was a strong emotional connection to the items in question. This condition was very easily fulfilled through the dagger Eiro inherited from Avalin way back then. He had been carrying it with him ever since, caring for it dearly. Armodeus was actually worried that this condition would only be fulfilled by that dagger, not by the Assassin¡¯s Dagger that he gave to Eiro when they first met, but surprisingly, Eiro was attached to that weapon quite a bit as well. Maybe it was because Eiro simply took this part of his life very seriously and naturally considered the daggers as much more important than many others would, or maybe it was for some other reasons that Armodeus couldn¡¯t understand for now. The important part was that this condition was also met.


    As for thest condition, it was one that Armodeus wasn¡¯t even fully sure of. It seemed to have something to do with luck, or maybe it was his own condition. Not only did the material, and whatever object resulted from it, have to have the deep thoughts of a being held within it, but Armodeus also had to truthfully and genuinely ce a lot of meaning into this object, whether it was the base material or the purpose he was creating the item for. And right now, it was simple to say that Armodeus¡¯ physical condition was the best it had ever been. Eiro had been taking care of him incredibly well, not only with the food that he provided, but also by using magic to alleviate any issues that he might have from his work. He felt like he was a hundred years old again! Mentally as well, Armodeus was doing quite well; he was excited to work on this, not only because it seemed like these items possibly could be unique masterpieces, but also because he was happy to do this for Eiro. He wanted to help this man out. Andstly, it was because these daggers were things that he had created in the first ce. Seeing how well they had been treated by Eiro, and how much love he ingrained within them, was something that filled Armodeus with the greatest joy any craftsman could ever feel.


    Like that, after working over the magical mes of the forge tirelessly, Armodeus finished both of the daggers together. They were still separate, holding their own properties from before they were reforged. The me dagger could still be surgingly hot, and the hollow assassin¡¯s dagger gave off a deathly cool air while the flow of liquids throughout it had stayed as good as it had always been. It was just that they were much more than what they were before.


    Their shapes barely changed, even if they might be a bitrger than before, but their color was noticeably darker as an influence of the mountainbreaker¡¯s metal. They were heavier, but due to Eiro¡¯s physical strength, this was barely noticeable. Rather, he preferred the extra weight they had to them.


    The demon held the weapons in his hands, and let his power flow through them. As his magic flowed into the me dagger, it immediately began to glow from the heat it created. The air around the de shifted. It was so hot that the air itself could have long caught mes, but the heat was deeply focused on the de itself.


    As Eiro filled the assassin¡¯s dagger with his water magic, he could feel it freezing nearly immediately. Or rather, it cooled down to a point where it should be frozen, but through the dagger¡¯s own influence, it stayed liquid as it fitted itself to the shape of the de nearly on its own. These two properties of magic that Eiro most felt connected to, fire and ice, had always been deeply ingrained in these two weapons ever since he started using them; and now that was underlined immensely.


    These weapons were new, they were changed. But they were still the same ones that Eiro had always used. He even nearly felt like shedding some tears over this fact. He was worried that he would have to abandon them, but through that masterful craftsman next to him, it seemed like he wouldn¡¯t ever have to do anything of the sort.


    Feeling an immediate sense of excitement, Eiro looked at Armodeus, ¡°I can¡¯t thank you enough. Do you want to take a break and watch me as I try it out?¡± the Demon asked, and Armodeus let out a slight chuckle, ¡°Aye, of course. I want to see what these children of mine can do now.¡±


    Eiro and Armodeus walked out of the basement and made their way into the garden. The Demon waved his hand, and a woond critter came rushing over to him in the form of a small squirrel. Upon closer inspection, Armodeus realized that it waspletely made of wood. It appeared to be one of Eiro¡¯s servants created through the help of his royal powersbined with nature magic.


    In its mouth, it held a nut that it dropped onto the ground in front of Eiro. Near instantly, its shell cracked open and thick roots grew from where itnded. The roots burrowed into the ground and twisted around themselves, creating the thick trunk of the tree. It grew quite tall, taller than most of the trees surrounding the manor. Of course, the sudden appearance of a tree this size attracted the attention of everyone else living in the manor. Thankfully, Eiro had already picked up Bavet on the way to the training grounds, since Noma and Naomi were still currently at the manor. They would most likely also want to take a look, so it was unavoidable.


    He waited for a while until the tree grew properly to the point that he wanted, and at the same time, it gave the others a chance to arrive here properly to witness this moment. Armodeus seemed a bit nervous because everyone was watching now, but at the end of the day, he was confident in his work and he knew that everything was going to work properly. The only issue was that even he didn¡¯t know the extent to which the natural abilities he drew out of the daggers would influence things.


    The moment that everyone had gathered, tightly held the first dagger in his hand. It was the me dagger. He essed the power of the mountainbreaker that was now permantently fused into the de, and after taking a deep breath, vertically swung it at the tree. He stood only far enough away from it so that he would cut into the bark with the front one inch of the de, but even that was prove to the Demon that this dagger had changed considerably.


    The mountainbreaker¡¯s power perfectly fused with the innate power of the me dagger, and a rippling wave of fire buried itself in the tree. As it was ripped apart by the mountainbreaker, shattering even the leaves into small fragments, each gap was immediately filled with surging hot mes that seemed like they wanted to instantly incinerate even the smallest piece of this former tree.


    But that wasn¡¯t all; as if his body was naturally pulled into thisbination, he swung the assassin¡¯s dagger imbued with his ice magic vertically along where the tree once stood, albeit in the opposite direction as the first dagger¡¯s attack. The tip of the dagger touched one of therger fragments of the tree, and a second wave of power surged outward. As if in waves, the destructive power of the mountainbreaker further rippled through each and every fragment of the the former tree. But as it did so, traveling further toward the outer pieces, not only the burning chips of wood immediately froze, but for a few moments that possibly could only be perceived by Eiro himself, the mes that he spread with the me dagger¡¯s swing just earlier were frozen solid.


    For those few instants, Eiro saw something that he had created unintentionally, not knowing what was even about to happen. It was tree made of wood, mes and ice,bined with the destructive power of his attacks. It was wonderful, but it disappeared even sooner than it came to be.


    The pieces of wood were turned into even smaller chips and soon rained down. Some of the parts that had already been turned into ash now rained down in tiny frozen clumps as if they were snowkes, as Eiro looked down at the weapons that had been given to him. While everyone else stared on in shock and confusion, and even Armodeus wasn¡¯t able to believe his eyes as that giant tree waspletely destroyed in an instant, Eiro looked at the dwarf with a smile.


    ¡°They¡¯re even better than I could¡¯ve dreamt of.¡±

 Chapter 623: First Floors Test

    623 First Floor''s Test


    "What the hell was that just now?!" James asked with wide open eyes, staring at the two daggers that Eiro was holding in his hands. Since James made use of the same sort of weapon, he was obviously incredibly curious. Well, as was everyone else, including all of the monsters living in the manor as housekeepers. They generally kept out of most business that was going on here and diligently did their work, but now even they didn''t have much of a choice but to stop and stare off in awe.


    But before Eiro could reply to James, he could feel his left arm go limp. He nearly dropped the dagger he was holding, but quickly ced it into his treasury. The muscles in his whole arm had been ripped to pieces, and Bavet was struggling to keep stayingbined to the demon in that area. Not only that, but Eiro''s right arm had received quite some damage as well. His muscles were already starting to heal with the help of magic, but his prosthetic would need some work done on it to be properly fixed. Sure, it was fully part of him now, so healing magic actually did work on it, but it only helped with surface-level damages. Eiro didn''t have to worry about cuts to the wood of his prosthetic anymore, but he still couldn''t just regenerate full pieces of the prosthetic, and he sadly couldn''t fix it if certain connections between the pieces cracked, which was the case right now.


    "Bavet, are you alright?" Eiro asked immediately. Of course he himself was fine, but he didn''t know how the feedback of the mountainbreaker that the daggers were made with potentially affected the slime''s body, as well as his life force.


    "I''m fine... but be more careful next time, alright? It''s like a whole portion of my body went numb..." the slime exined, and Eiro quickly apologized, helping him with healing magic as well. He looked over at his party, "Armodeus upgraded my weapons, andbined them with the mountainbreaker."


    "Huh? Hebined the daggers with an artifact?" Krog let out immediately, surprised that something like that was even possible. The elder dwarf quickly stepped in, still excited about the power that his creations disyed, "They''re made using duplicates of the real mountainbreaker, so it''s not really the same thing. But even so, they''re quite impressive, are they not?"


    "Duplicates? So if they''re ever too far away from you, they''ll just... break?" James asked, putting something out there that Armodeus hadn''t even considered yet. The main thing that made duplicates break apart, besides excessive amounts of force, was physical distance from the mirror of duplication. That now meant that these daggers were forever linked to Eiro. If he ever left them somewhere, for whatever reason, then they would fall apart, and it would probably be tough to salvage even the base material from the daggers at that point.


    Eiro looked at the dagger stillying in his right hand, "That might be the case, but it''s nothing to worry about. Ever since I got these, I was never that far away from them. And that obviously won''t be starting anytime soon."


    With a relieved expression, Armodeus sighed quietly, knowing that the daggers were in good hands with Eiro. But that wasn''t all. With this, it was doubly clear that Eiro was the only one that would ever be able to wield these daggers. Masterpieces that were made just for him. If they were stolen, which was more than just unlikely in the first ce, they would soon fall apart and be useless. It was a sort of calming thought, that aplete stranger wouldn''t be able to use weapons as powerful as those.


    ---


    Weeks have passed. In the central elemental ne, Eiro continued his preparations, trying to grow ever stronger before the new semester at the academy was set to start and his ability to move freely and spend long periods of time developing his body would be reduced. Part of what helped Eiro in his development was the incredible amount of knowledge that he had amassed.


    Through the duplicates of Eiro that spent the past few weeks doing nothing but read all the literature on the first floor of their respective realms'' tower, the Demon had gathered some useful information. Of course, for the most part, it was just random novels or certain research papers, but the basic insights that existed in regard to water and fire magic respectively was obviously quite valuable. There were numerous descriptions of the different ways that magic was applied by the Magic People in those realms, and what different types of magics they had developed. Sure, it was mostly just basic ounts from onlookers, or rough descriptions in novels, but it was still enough for Eiro''s insight to rise a little. The true information that would help him was on the higher floors, however.


    And luckily, it just so happened that both of the duplicates managed to finish the first floor''s literature around the same time as each other. While there was far less to read in the elemental ne of fire''s tower, that duplicate of Eiro still had to take care of, Jyoti, the magic person that he had taken along with him to turn into a servantter on once his body was able to take the transformation, while the Eiro in the elemental ne of water was able to spend all of his time simply reading. And coincidentally, they both finished their work within a day of each other.


    The first to finish was the Eiro on the ne of fire. With a smug expression, happy that he was ahead of the other duplicate this time around after losing out on getting to the tower first, Eiro walked up to the tower''s overseer. Despite the fact that the duplicates had spent so much time near them, they barely knew anything about them. The only thing they ever did was read. For days on end without making a sound, barely even moving. However, every time that Eiro looked at them, they seemed to be holding a different book, and Eiro was never able to catch them actually switch out the book they were currently reading.


    It was simr to the effect of the powers of Chaos, but if that was the case, then Eiro should be able to look through those by now. After all, he was bestowed a certain amount of control over chaos. This was different. In the first ce, their scent waspletely identical to the tower. So the conclusion that Eiro came to was simple; instead of being a living being that was given the position of overseer of the tower of books, they were a physical representation of the tower''s will. It made sense, to an extent. The tower was an incredible existence. Books would simply appear here the moment they fulfilled the right conditions, and the tower apparently grew in size automatically to ount for all new books. That alone seemed just impossible, so the idea that the library might have some sort of ego connected to it wasn''t too far-fetched either.


    "I want to take the test to enter the next floor," Eiro said, mming his hand on the table in front of the overseer. They raised their eyes from their book and sighed, "Right, of course. You''ve already fulfilled most conditions, receiving the passing grade that you need to move on, so all you need to show is yourprehension of the things that you''ve read on this floor."


    "Passing grade?" Eiro asked, raising his brow. The overseer quickly nodded, "Of course. It''s nothing much, simply about your behaviour while in the tower. You and your...panion," the overseer said, looking over at Sarius who stood right behind Eiro, "...well, you might be a little crude in your exchanges most of your time, but you always treated the books with utmost care, as if you were scared to break them with the slightest touch. You brought the books back to their exact right positions, and always seemed to earnestly read their contents. You never even appeared bored or show any sort of intention at giving up. Most that venture into the tower tend to take breaks that are longer than the time they actually spend inside the tower. Meanwhile, your only reason for leaving this space was that young man and his pet are currently staying outside of the tower. Clearly, you are devoted to the tower and the knowledge you can gain through it, and understand the responsibilities thate with it."


    After that, somewhat lengthy, exnation, Eiro couldn''t help but grin a bit, "That so? Well, whatever the case, can we get started with the test now? I''ve sort of got a little bit of a race to the top of the tower going on with the version of me in the other ne."


    "I''m quite aware, don''t you worry. Anyway, since you seem to be in a rush, let me present to you a rather unique test. All the information will be presented to you through a single word, and you must scour that unique memory of yours for exactly what it is you need to find. Of course, since your test is a bit more special than others, you will get something out of it as well, if you''re worried about that."


    "Oh? Well, I figured there was more to the tower than the regr procedure, but I didn''t expect something like that. Alright, hit me," Eiro said, looking at the overseer excitedly. They smirked and opened their mouth, before a flood of information came into Eiro''s mind through a single word, just like during the test to enter the tower in the first ce.


    The duplicates in the mental library immediately stopped putting together their own texts based on the information learned in the towers, and started deciphering the word spoken by the tower''s overseer. It didn''t take long until Eiro understood exactly why this was a special sort of test.


    Instead of being something like questions about the themes of certain books on this floor, it was arge number of instructions. An enormous number of instructions, actually. Each of them seemed to lead to a single word from a seemingly random book on this floor. Eiro would have to chain them together, and then bring the physical book that the passage could be found in to the overseer.


    "What a ridiculous test," Eiro let out, staring into the overseer''s eyes. Of course, they seemed to have fun with this, "I expect that this might take even you a short while."


    Eiro raised a brow and leaned onto the table between him and the overseer, "Are you sure about that?"

 Chapter 624: First Floors Test (2)

    Chapter 624: First Floor¡¯s Test (2)


    The duplicates inside of the mental library worked in a hurry. They were doing their best topletely analyze the test that they were given. They had already extracted about a third of the instructions. There was a single duplicate in charge ofpleting each of these instructions, as well as narrowing things down to a single book.


    The pyroniannguage, thenguage spoken in this realm, relied heavily on metaphors and certain trends innguage, meaning that there were plenty of times where ratherplex and usually unique sentences were carried over dozens and dozens of books as sayings. And the tower¡¯s overseer had chosen exactly such a saying as the test¡¯s solution. Since there were so many books that had this saying in them, it would be tough to narrow things down just based on this in order to bring the correct book to the overseer.


    However, luckily, there were a few things that did help Eiro in narrowing things down at least a little. Dialects existed everywhere, not just on the central elemental ne; as such, it was possible to slightly differentiate between certain words based on the specific way that the letters were written, or how the words were spelled. Rather than being able to narrow things down onto a single book right away, this mental duplicate was collecting all of the books that the current version fit to, and then excluded certain books depending on the analysis of the other mental duplicates.


    It was still easy enough, though. It was a task that others would find more challenging, but since Eiro had an ability that gave him quite literally impable, perfect memory, there was nothing he had to worry about. It was only a matter of time for him. Or at least, that was the case until the analysis had been finished. Because even though that was the case, in the end, there were three books that fit the final phrase perfectly.


    Eiro made sure to double and triple check, but in the end, the solution was still the same. Three books with the exact same phrase, written in the exact same dialect, as if they were written by next-door-neighbours. Sure, they were all onpletely different topics, but it was still surprising to see that this was the case.


    One of the books was about botany, one was about health and simple diseases, while thest was about architecture. None of them were particrly high-level either. They were rather mediocre in their contents, and didn¡¯t give any particrly unique insights that Eiro wasn¡¯t able to find in a better, more detailed way in other books. That being the case, there was probably more to this task than just finding the right book based on the raw instructions. It wasn¡¯t just a mere test of memory.


    ¡°This is actually sort of fun,¡± Eiro grinned lightly as he took a seat on a nearby chair, closing his eyes to indulge himself in an attempt to figure this whole thing out. He looked at the three books that the mental duplicate had sorted out.


    Siro Katria, Malek Harth, and Relestria Irus. Those were the names of the authors of each of these books. They each tended to stick to their expertise in their writing, but they each wrote multiple books on very specific topics. Right now, Eiro had a rough understanding of this realm, as well as certain habits of certain people at certain times. And of course, he also had arge amount of knowledge on architecture, botany, and medicine. The ntlife described in Siro Katria¡¯s books didn¡¯t exist in ces that had the medical habits described by Malek Harth, and neither coincided with the architecture described by Relestria Irus. But their dialect was so simr, their habits of writing were so eerily the same, that Eiro could onlye to a single conclusion.


    Siro Katria, Malek Harth, and Relestria Irus were the same author, simply using different pen-names for different topics. Or, rather than different topics, it was more a person was traveling through this world, settling down in an area for a while, before picking out a very specific part of that area to write a couple of books about, before dropping the pen-name and moving on.


    Three books, each containing the same exact phrase in the same exact dialect, written about different topics by the same author under different names. Obviously, that could never be a coincidence in this situation. So, Eiro¡¯s focus moved over to the phrase itself.


    Basically, the phrase meant something like ¡®don¡¯t overthink things¡¯, even if that was incredibly simplified. Even if the people of this realm didn¡¯t tend to bother too much with literature, theirnguage was still ratherplex in some ways. So, while it wasn¡¯t possible to perfectly trante thisnguage to themonnguage, it literally meant something like ¡®if you feel a surging heat at night, think of arson, not that the moon turned into the sun¡¯. It was certainly a phrase that fit into the pyroniannguage quite well.


    Eiro let the phrase run through his mind. There was most certainly a reason why this was the phrase that the overseer chose to have him look for. Maybe he shouldn¡¯t overthink it, and simply give all three of the books to the overseer. Although, it was specifically said that he should only give one book to the overseer.


    Maybe the phrase was the opposite of what he was supposed to do, and he should try toe up with the most ridiculous, insane possibility that he could evere up with. Right then, it clicked in Eiro¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Fuckin¡¯¡­¡± Eiro groaned. It was a task given to him specifically, probably for a pretty unique reason. The mental duplicates immediately started to work onparing certain habits in handwriting to other books that Eiro read so far, not only limited to the ones in this realm. And quickly, he was able to find the specificbination of habits. Diagonally elongated circles, slightly curved lines that were supposed to be straight; symbols that were supposed to be half-circles looked more like three-quarter circles. Those sorts of things. Handwriting that ovepped even over differentnguages. And in the themes of the books as well; they were prettymon themes, and the things written in the books wasn¡¯t anything special. They were basically the same as the books that Eiro had found here in the elemental ne of fire, just that they were in the elemental ne of water.


    The more that Eiro found, the more the idea was solidified ¨C the same author wrote certain books in each of the towers. There were few ways that this was possible; only a handful of people could be said to have travelled to each ne. And of course, the tower¡¯s overseer wouldn¡¯t just try to have Eiro find a random author¡¯s writing. This was a test of the tower. The overseer was the owner¡¯s proxy, so there was only one conclusion that Eiro coulde to.


    The author of these books was the tower¡¯s owner. The Librarian. A force of arcane nature, just as the hero, the sage, and the priestess were. But again, Eiro had to bring a single book to the overseer. Looking back at the instructions, it was clear that he might have misunderstood it initially. Instead of having to find the book that the phrase belonged to, he was supposed to find the book that the phrase led him to. And at this point, the phrase¡¯s meaning came into y.


    Eiro shouldn¡¯t overthink it. He stood back up and walked over to the overseer¡¯s desk. The overseer was once again reading another bookpared to thest time that the demon looked at them. But that didn¡¯t matter right now. Eiro ced his hand on thergependium, the huge, thick bookying on the overseer¡¯s desk. He closed it and picked it up, holding it toward the overseer.


    ¡°Here it is, the book you¡¯re looking for,¡± Eiro said bluntly. Sarius looked at the demon¡¯s back confused, ¡°Did you give up or something?¡± The Smander asked, but Eiro didn¡¯t mind him and simply looked at the overseer, who looked at the book and then nced at Eiro, before closing the book that he was reading. Before Eiro knew it, it seemed to have simply disappeared without a trace, sorting itself back into the tower¡¯s shelves.


    ¡°Very well. I knew that it wasn¡¯t something that would hold you off for particrly long, though I had hoped you would take longer than you did. Nevertheless, congrattions on passing the test; you may now enter the tower¡¯s second floor,¡± the overseer exined, starting to walk up the stairs to the top area of this floor, to therge double-doors that would lead Eiro into the next floor. The overseer ced their hand onto the door and pushed it open as if it was never locked in the first ce.


    With a slight grin on his face, Eiro followed the overseer to the next floor. And while he wasn¡¯t sure what exactly he was supposed to expect, he had hoped for something a little more¡­ exciting. This floor looked the exact same as the first floor, even if a bit smaller. Eiro would say that there were at most a fifth as many books as on the first floor. Theyout was identical, and so was the furniture. There was even a desk standing next to the door that waspletely identical to the one that the overseer had been sitting at below, together with apendium of all the books on this floor. As if bothered by the fact that they had to walk this far, the overseer dropped down onto the chair at the desk, as a book appeared in their hand, ¡°Have fun. The same rules apply here as below. The books you will find here are a bit more useful than below. Very specific knowledge that has been gathered over decades or centuries by the best of their fields. There are a few spellbooks around as well, though not too many. There are also a lot of books that are simply incredibly rare, even if their content isn¡¯t anything special.¡±


    ¡°What about my reward forpleting that special test?¡± Eiro asked, and the overseer shrugged, ¡°I never said when you would get it. Everyone that reaches the top of this tower is rewarded somehow. But the ones that reach the top of the tower through special means will receive a better reward.¡±


    ¡°Well, at least there¡¯s that,¡± Eiro said with a light smile, looking at the spirit standing next to him with a face of disbelief, ¡°Come on, let¡¯s get started. I want to finish this floor in a couple of days.¡±


    ¡°Uuurgh¡­¡± Sarius groaned loudly, following behind his contractor, already bored out of his mind.

 Chapter 625: Consciousness of Everything

    Chapter 625: Consciousness of Everything


    ¡°Oh?¡± Eiro let out as he sat at the desk in his study, spending some of his time carving smaller pieces of wood into detailed figurines as practice for his carving skill. He didn¡¯t have that much time to spend on ittely, so he wanted to catch up on it, since it was long past due for him to improve those skills.


    ¡°Is something the matter?¡± Arie looked up from her seat on one of the couches next to Eiro¡¯s desk; she had been sitting there and reading for a while, as Eiro was working. She usually did this quite a lot, simply so that the two of them could spend some time together.


    ¡°Nothing much. I told you that the duplicates both reached the second floor of the towers of books, right?¡± he replied, and the nephilim raised her brow curiously, ¡°Did they find anything interesting?¡±


    ¡°Sort of. The one in the ne of water found some interesting research on the nature of magic that I haven¡¯t really seen before. Nothing too special, just questioning the existence of mana,¡± the Demon exined, and Arie ced down her book, ¡°As in, questioning whether it really exists?¡±


    ¡°That¡­ not specifically? It¡¯s more¡­ about what it is? Where it came from? Because, mana is the essence of the mind, but minds haven¡¯t existed for all of eternity. We at least know that the gods were born at one point or another, so if they were the first beings with thought, were they the ones that created mana? Or was mana just always around, and then gave the ability of thought to the gods? But that also begs the question, why do nts have mana, why does it flow through the ground, the dirt and rocks? Those don¡¯t have thought, but it¡¯s undeniably there.¡±


    Arie thought about it for a moment, and then replied, ¡°Isn¡¯t it because this world is alive? You spoke to it a few times, right?¡±


    ¡°Well yes, and no. It¡¯s more like I was conversing with the will of the world, not the world itself. This world isn¡¯t alive directly¡­ Rather, I would support the idea that it was the overall consciousness of the mana flowing through this world. In that sense, it would be the mana that gives birth to thought, and not thought that gives birth to mana,¡± Eiro exined to her, and she leaned back while looking at the Demon, ¡°Right¡­ that sort of makes sense. But¡­ I¡¯m honestly sort of surprised that you¡¯re so interested in philosophy.¡±


    Eiroughed and slowly got up, ¡°I¡¯m not really super interested in the philosophical aspect. I spend some time thinking about it; rather, I have a few mental duplicates discussing a couple topics right now that I want to delve in a bit deeper, but at the end of the day, what I think about it doesn¡¯t reality. I am interested in the idea that this concept brought me,¡± the Demon exined, sitting down right next to Arie.


    ¡°Just think about it this way. If mana is created through our thoughts, then it contains everything that has ever been thought about until now. But if it creates our thought, then-¡±


    ¡°It contains everything that will ever be thought about as well?¡± Arie understood, and Eiro immediately nodded, ¡°Exactly. If that¡¯s the case, if you were able to tap into the consciousness of mana, then you would be able to know everything. It¡¯s just a fun idea to y around with. You know that man that I turned into a servant in the ne of water, Anura? Through him, I¡¯ll be learning a unique sort of magic, called ¡®Source of Knowledge¡¯. Since it¡¯s a unique magic, it¡¯s perfectly attuned with Anura¡¯s mind, so I¡¯ve been struggling in my attempts to properly make use of it, but I think this might have helped me find a decent enough approach in it.¡±


    ¡°Oh, so do you think you¡¯ll be able to tap into the ¡®consciousness of mana¡¯ with that? If you can, wouldn¡¯t that sort of give you divination abilities?¡± Arie asked, and Eiro smiled lightly, ¡°That would be great, though divination is a rather fickle thing. Seeing the certain future is absolutely im¡­ possible,¡± the demon pointed out, as he quickly stood up.


    Seeing the certain future? He already did that, didn¡¯t he? The two visions shown to him of another world, one that was this one, but also wasn¡¯t. That was the consciouess of this world showing him the future, of what this world will turn into millennia from now. It was the same way back then, when Eiro first found Lugo. He had seen that world back then as well, but a different part of it. It felt the same, but also not.


    Eiro rattled his brain, and came to a conclusion. The being that stood so far above even the greatest of gods. The one that created the arcane, and the one that gave the Sage that specific splinter with the intention of collecting the splinters of the arcane that were within the hero, priestess, and all the cards of the major and minor arcana. If this world, this had a consciousness because of the mana within it, then why would it stop there? In thisplete universe, on others and in other stars, they probably all have mana within them too.


    That being was the consciousness of everything that has, and will ever exist. That meant that the consciousness of this world was naught but a small subset of it, like one of Eiro¡¯s mental duplicates. Somehow, this realization made Eiro shudder. He had reached this conclusion based on information that was merely on the second floor of the tower of books. Sure, his own knowledge added onto it and brought him to his conclusion, but that didn¡¯t mean that it was absolutely necessary.


    Eiro was absolutely terrified at the idea of what he would end up finding on the next few floors.


    ¡ª


    The demon took a deep breath. He walked through the hallways, carefully evaluating everyone that he hadn¡¯t met yet. It was finally the start of a new semester, so there were plenty of chances for new talent to show up out of nowhere. But most of all, it meant that Eiro was going to be rather busy again from now on. Not that he minded, of course, since he had plenty of ways to advance himself even if he was just standing still in the front of a ssroom. His mental duplicates were analyzing new information that was read by the duplicates in the elemental nes constantly, after all. Just today, he managed toplete a new fire elemental spell based on knowledge that he procured this way. Not that he had any way of trying it out yet. It wasn¡¯t the kind of spell you could try inside of a building. Or anywhere near people at all, really.


    Eiro pushed open therge door in front of him. There were mostly new students in here, though there were a couple of people he recognized fromst semester. It was their first time taking this ss, of course, but he knew them from other sses. The Demon walked to the front of the ss, and quickly spoke up, ¡°Wee to Introduction to Magical Application, I¡¯ll be in charge of this ss this semester. Some of you already know me, but most probably don¡¯t, so I will quickly introduce myself. I am Eiro Jura Daemonherz. I teach a variety of other magic-rted sses as well asbat-rted sses, so you will be seeing plenty of me this semester. If there is anything woryring you, or you need help because you don¡¯t understand certain assignments, please don¡¯t hesitate toe to me.¡±


    The Demon walked through the ssroom, ¡°To begin today¡¯s ss, we¡¯ll be doing a measurement of your elemental aptitudes. If there are any reasons why you cannot participate in this part of the ss, please let me know,¡± Eiro exined, walking up to therge crystal orb at the side of the ss, beginning to haul it over to the center. Nobody seemed to object; rather, they were all particrly excited about measuring and showing off their aptitudes. That was, with the exception of one individual.


    He raised his hand, and Eiro looked at him, not showing his surprise on his face. He thought he picked up something unique, now he knew what it was.


    There was a young boy in the back of the ss with two aptitudes, at least from what Eiro picked up with his nose. One, he had a particrly high fire aptitude. And two, even stronger, he had an aptitude for unholy magic. The scent of a demon lingered in the room, and it wasn¡¯t Eiro¡¯s.

 Chapter 626: The Stink of a Demon

    Chapter 626: The Stink of a Demon


    Eiro looked at the boy who raised his hand; he looked just like a normal person, and he clearly wasn¡¯t using any sort of magic to disguise himself either. Rather than being a full demon, this boy most likely just had demonic blood flowing through his veins.


    ¡°Zeke Redbrow, was it?¡± Eiro asked. He had been given a list of the students¡¯ names together with some simple descriptions, and from what he could tell, that was the only person it could be. Surprised, Zeke nodded his head, ¡°Erm¡­ yeah. I was told I didn¡¯t need to do this part.¡±


    ¡°Hm, that so~?¡± with a light smile, Eiro looked at him. He wasn¡¯t lying, so it was fine. Even if he had been lying, it¡¯s not like Eiro could just have some random child reveal to everyone that he has an aptitude for unholy magic; that was like a death sentence. Not in the literal sense, of course. In Skyhart, it was illegal to discriminate against any person for whatever reason, so officially, there would be nothing done against someone with an aptitude for unholy magic. But that didn¡¯t mean that every single individual was particrly keen on following thosews when it came to something considered so clearly ¡®evil¡¯ like unholy magic, ¡°Well, that¡¯s fine. Doe briefly speak to me after ss though. As for everyone else, I will call your names in alphabetical order, so pleasee down here when you hear your name.¡±


    The rest of the ss proceeded rtively normally. There were a handful of people that had surprising levels of aptitudes, there was even one that had a fairly rare aptitude, but for the most part it wasn¡¯t anything noteworthy. That¡¯s why Eiro couldn¡¯t wait for the end of the ss so that he could talk one-on-one with Zeke.


    Soon enough, the boy stood right in front of Eiro. He looked mostly like an average sixteen year-old, with the exception of the slight red tint to his ck hair, ¡°What did you want to talk about, Sir?¡±


    ¡°Your aptitude, of course,¡± Eiro said bluntly, and Zeke looked back confused, ¡°Wait, but I thought I didn¡¯t have to do that thing¡­¡±


    ¡°Oh, I think you¡¯re misunderstanding. That was for yourselves, so that you can know what your aptitudes are, and so that I can properly quantify it by the standards of this academy. But I already knew all of your aptitudes from the beginning.¡±


    Zeke¡¯s face went pale as he took a step back. Of course, Eiro understood why. Eiro was rather famous amongst the people living in this town, and it was a known fact that he could use holy magic. A demon¡¯s descendant would obviously make sure to know everyone that could be a threat to them so easily. While Zeke seemed to be a person in the system¡¯s eyes, he probably wouldn¡¯t get away unscathed when hit with arge amount of holy magic.


    ¡°Th-That, I-¡± Zeke stuttered nervously, but Eiro just smiled at him, ¡°Don¡¯t be so nervous, I won¡¯t tell anyone. Having unholy magic isn¡¯t that big a deal.¡±


    Despite Eiro¡¯s words, Zeke was clearly still nervous, so the Demon let out a deep sigh, ¡°Haah¡­ Kid, you¡¯re not the only one with unsavory magic at this school. And you¡¯re certainly not the only one with secrets at this school, trust me. If I told you even a single secret of mine, you¡¯d feel silly for even worrying about anything at all.¡±


    ¡°¡­¡± Zeke looked up at Eiro and scratched the back of his neck, ¡°So what is it you want to talk about? Just that you¡­ know?¡±


    ¡°Well, to an extent. But also to figure out your study program with you. For others with more normal aptitudes, it¡¯s easy, but since we have to keep yours a secret, it¡¯s a bit moreplicated. I¡¯ll make sure to assign you a private study room. It costs a little each week, but I can just pay for you, it¡¯s not that much. As for your track, you can go either for-¡±


    ¡°Wait, wait, I don¡¯t- I don¡¯t want to study unholy magic, I just want to-¡±


    ¡°Kid, you¡¯re going to study unholy magic. Not because I say so, but because you¡¯ll die if you don¡¯t. If you were a normal person, you¡¯d have the choice, sure, but not with your bloodline.¡±


    ¡°H-how do you know..?¡± fear written all over his face, Zeke didn¡¯t know what he should do, but Eiro simply sat down on his chair and leaned back, ¡°You think I wouldn¡¯t recognize the stink of demon blood? Sorry, but Demon blood is at the top of the disgusting-smell ranking, second only to goblin blood. Obviously, a normal person can¡¯t smell it, but I can. Don¡¯t worry about being discovered by others,¡± Eiro tried to say reassuringly, ¡°Just because you¡¯ve got a bit of monster blood in you doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re a bad kid, I know that. But it does mean that things work differently for you.¡±


    Zeke swallowed the lump in his throat, ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°¡­Demons are beings of desire and sin, that¡¯s a fact that can¡¯t be changed. And a demon¡¯s unholy magic is basically the essence of those sins. For normal people, it¡¯s just a magic centered around applying curses, but for someone with demon blood, it¡¯s a beast that can go out of control at a moment¡¯s notice,¡± Eiro exined quickly, ¡°Right now, you have little to no skill in magic whatsoever, and a minuscule mana pool. If you were to only study fire magic, your mana pool would grow, and with your increased skill, the power of all your magic would increase. But just because power increases doesn¡¯t mean your control does too. If you one-sidedly study fire magic, your unholy magic is going to be too strong for you to control very quickly, and your demonic blood is going to take control of you. That¡¯s why you don¡¯t have a choice in this matter.¡±


    ¡°¡­I never heard of something like that.¡±


    ¡°Of course. There¡¯s barely any people with demon blood around, so it would surprise me if it wasmon knowledge,¡± Eiro pointed out, ¡°I¡¯m not telling you to focus on unholy magic, just that you need to use techniques to increase your control over unholy magic while leaving its power mostly alone. There¡¯s some techniques for that, and albeit finicky, they¡¯re perfect for this sort of situation.¡±


    ¡°Oh.. I¡­¡± Zeke replied. It seemed like this whole conversation was a lot for him to take. And so, Eiro stood up and guided him to the door, ¡°Take a few days to think about it. When you make your decision,e back to me, though I really wouldn¡¯t wait too long.¡±


    ¡°Right¡­¡±


    ¡°See you in our next ss, then,¡± Eiro said with a smile, sending Zeke off, before shutting the door. A broad grin formed on the Demon¡¯s face. If he still had a heart, it would be beating like crazy right about now.


    Bavet noticed this too, and whispered into his ear, ¡°That kid was a demon? The hell¡¯s going on?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know either, Bavet. This is either fate ying a prank on me, a gift from the universe, or the ploy of a guy I really want to kill. Whichever it is, I¡¯m grateful that Zeke is here at this school.¡±


    ¡°¡­I¡¯m not following,¡± the slime replied confusedly, ¡°I get that you haven¡¯t met another ¡®real¡¯ demon before, only those versions created by the Monster King, but isn¡¯t that a slightly weird reaction?¡±


    ¡°No, you don¡¯t get anything at all, Bavet. It¡¯s not that I¡¯m excited to meet another demon, which sure, I am, but that kid isn¡¯t even full-blooded, so I don¡¯t really care about that aspect.¡±


    ¡°Just fucking tell me already you riddling dickhead,¡± Bavet grumbled out, ¡°How do you get more annoying the smarter you get?¡±


    Eiro grinned broadly, to the point where he was barely able to keep his cheeks from splitting open, ¡°Bavet, you realize that Zeke isn¡¯t actually the first demon I¡¯ve met, right?¡±


    ¡°Eh? But it is, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°You seriously forgot about the one being that caused us both so much trouble? I know he goes by another name, but he¡¯s still a demon, you know?¡±


    Bavet seemed to slowly realize who Eiro meant. For some reason, he had seemed so disconnected from demons, as if he was his own existence altogether, ¡°Okay, so, Zeke isn¡¯t the first Demon you¡¯ve met, so what? What does ¡®he¡¯ have to do with this?¡±


    ¡°Everything, Bavet. Absolutely everything. You know, Demon blood actually doesn¡¯t smell that bad. It¡¯s just that I hate the smell of that one guy so much that it drags all others down with him. And Zeke just stinks like him so, so much. Zeke has the blood of the Devil flowing through his veins.¡±

 Chapter 627: The Devils fooled ploys

    Chapter 627: The Devil¡¯s fooled ploys


    Zeke was the descendant of the Devil, there was no doubt about this fact in Eiro¡¯s mind. However, from the way that Zeke was acting, it didn¡¯t seem as though he was pretending, or knew anything about who Eiro really was. In that case, even if the Devil did ce him here, then it wasn¡¯t just to get someone close to him. More importantly, there was no way that the Devil thought Eiro wouldn¡¯t be able to figure out who Zeke really was. Eiro was pretty sure that the Devil was aware of what Eiro could do, more than anyone else.


    However, it was also possible that this was the ploy of a higher power. Not of a god of course, but the strings of fate being pulled behind the scenes. Either way, there was a reason why Zeke was here, Eiro just had to figure out what that reason was.


    Though, there was one thing that he knew already; with Zeke¡¯s appearance, it was more than just clear that things were moving closer to the point at which Eiro and the Devil would have to fight.


    ¡°So the Devil knows you¡¯re here?¡± Bavet asked while Eiro was in thought, and the demon raised a brow surprised, ¡°Obviously he knows I¡¯m here. I¡¯m a Viscount and the ¡®Hero¡¯s Companion¡¯. There¡¯s no way that he doesn¡¯t know about me being here. Rather, he was obviously the one that sent the turtle, bull, and bird after me while we were in the hero¡¯s homnd.¡±


    ¡°¡­Oh,¡± as if he only just connected those dots, Bavet let out a sound of surprise. Eiro rolled his eyes, ¡°I honestly have no idea what he was thinking with that, but considering that there were two artifacts involved, together with a Tortle of all things¡­ he was probably convinced that he could kill me back then.¡±


    ¡°Wait, seriously? I thought the Devil is a genius nner, and he¡¯s always a hundred steps ahead. How did he think he could kill you?¡±


    ¡°Because he doesn¡¯t know everything he thinks he does. It¡¯s impossible for him to know everything. For example, the extra splinter inside of me. It was given to the Sage not too long before his death, by a being much higher than even gods. Obviously the Devil wouldn¡¯t know about that. But through it, I¡¯ve grown at a considerably faster rate than you would expect,¡± Eiro pointed out, ¡°Besides that, there are plenty of small things that the devil could never possibly know about. Sure, he had given me his mark, but that doesn¡¯t give himplete knowledge of every single thing that someone with the mark does and thinks. There are limits to a Royal¡¯s powers.¡±


    Seeing that Eiro was nning on leaving this ssroom, Bavet made sure to properly clean up the demon¡¯s transformation, ¡°So¡­ do you think he changed his expectations and is ready to attack you with another n now?¡±


    Eiro thought for a moment and shrugged, ¡°He surely must have changed certain aspects of his ns. He¡¯ll be more prepared than he would have been before, but that just means he¡¯s going to throw more pawns at me. But that¡¯s fine, I¡¯m prepared for that. I have a rough idea of the structure of the Devil¡¯s army, anyway.¡±


    ¡°You do?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Just a bunch of strong, really unique monsters, and a huge army of weaklings,¡± Eiro said, ¡°That¡¯s what it boils down to at least. The Devil¡¯s powers are centered around desire. He can take someone¡¯s desire, feed off of it, and make himself and the owner of said desire stronger through it. Most likely, he picked out a bunch of different species of monsters and forcibly evolved them until he got some unique pawns. But unique doesn¡¯t mean strong, obviously, just¡­ unique. Deeply focused in one direction, most of the time.¡±


    Eiro continued to talk as he walked through the halls of the academy, obviously using magic to block out the sound of his voice from anyone but Bavet, while also making it look as though his lips aren¡¯t moving to leave no chance for anyone to figure out what he¡¯s talking to himself about.


    Since Bavet couldn¡¯t respond while they were out on the open like this, at least not with this many people around, he was staying silent as Eiro was making his way to the next ss, talking about his understanding of the Devil.


    ¡°Though, there¡¯s just one problem with the Devil¡¯s powers. One ability that is going to be both useful, and absolutely fatal. He can connect the central material ne with the underworld,¡± Eiro pointed out, feeling some spikes dig into his skin as Bavet was showing his confusion. Quickly, he exined, ¡°Before I met Jura, after meeting the kids, we stopped at a small town on our way. But, as it turned out, that town was one of the Devil¡¯s toys. At night, the town turned into a subset of the underworld, and numerous demons were just waltzing around. Granted, I know now that they weren¡¯t real demons. Rather, they were created by the Monster King as a gift to the Devil, most likely. The Devil was using them to y around with the ways that demons could develop under peculiar circumstances. I¡¯m convinced that there¡¯s other ces just like that town scattered all over the ce, but the important part is that the town existed in the first ce. He created a mirror of that town in the underworld, meaning that he owns a part of the underworld. Obviously, that means he¡¯s a high noble, if not a king with his own throne. While that¡¯s true for me as well, I haven¡¯t been able toy im to my throne yet, technically, so I¡¯m in a tough situation.¡±


    Eiro walked into the next ssroom, where more new students were still gathering. For now, he sat down on the chair, continuing to exin things to Bavet, ¡°The underworld is another ne of existence, meaning that it works in a different way to here. Hell is a ce where rules are absolute. If a Demon King makes amand to those in hisnd, they have to follow thatmand perfectly, they just have no choice. Not just that, but they can control the space itself to a degree. Their will bes reality in their ownnd, particrly when they¡¯re dealing with other demons. That means that, if the Devil can pull me into hisnd, I¡¯ll be in a tough spot. I¡¯d been freed of the original sin after I evolved into a new species of demon, so I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll be under the same level of control as other demons, but it¡¯s a possibility. Something to keep in mind, at least.¡±


    Bavet seemed to be rather nervous about the idea of Eiro fighting against the Devil if he had the power to move across nes like that, but Eiro simply smirked, ¡°What, you think I¡¯ll lose after hearing that? Don¡¯t make meugh, I¡¯ll wipe the floor with that guy. I said that it¡¯s fatal, but also something useful, didn¡¯t I? If ites down to it, the moment I¡¯m in the underworld, I can im my throne, and with it, mynd in the underworld. And now, just imagine what kind of ce a Demon King with Holy Energy can create,¡± Eiro pointed out with a grin he was trying to hide with his hand, ¡°It makes me excited just thinking about it.¡±


    The demon could feel goosebumps all over his body, but they weren¡¯t created by his own skin. Rather, Bavet seemed to shudder due to the vibe that Eiro was giving off. With an apologetic smile, Eiro got up, removing the magic that he was using the cloud the conversation he was having.


    ¡°Wee to Beginner Magic Circle Engineering, I¡¯ll be your teacher for this semester,¡± Eiro continued with the brief introduction to this batch of new students. This ss was a bit smaller than the other, and had lesspletely new students, but most of them were still unfamiliar to him. He continued this lecture quickly, though, since it was only the first day, he didn¡¯t go much into any theories. He just showed off some cool things that the students would learn about throughout this semester, and then told them what they should expect. That was going to be most of today. Slow sses that left Eiro plenty of time to get an initial evaluation of his new students done.

 Chapter 628: Ministers

    Chapter 628: Ministers


    Eiro pushed open the door in front of him, walking into the office without a moment¡¯s hesitation. He dropped down onto one of the couches and crossed his legs, grabbing one of the cookies that had been prepared by the maids for this meeting.


    ¡°Erm¡­ Eiro?¡± Solomon let out with a wry expression. After all, those cookies, and this meeting, weren¡¯t for Eiro.


    ¡°What? You¡¯re done with the important stuff anyway, right?¡± Eiro replied, looking around at the number of ministers that were seated in this room. Solomon let out a deeply annoyed sigh, ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean you can just waltz in here¡­¡±


    ¡°The training ground for the beginnerbat sses is close to here, so I¡¯ve overheard most of it already anyway. And by the way, you¡¯re wrong. The soil is too drained in the area around the southern gates, so you¡¯ve got to rx it there a little bit. Or bury a few monster corpses in the area or something. But if you use that area for Potans, then you¡¯ll just be wasting money anyway,¡± Eiro said bluntly, looking at the Minister of Agriculture, ¡°Excuse me? Lord Daemonherz, you may be a fantastic mage andbatant, but please know when you¡¯re overstepping your bounds,¡± the minister quickly retorted.


    ¡°Whatever, do what you want,¡± the Demon replied immediately, before turning toward Solomon, ¡°You started talking about ¡®Special Level Threats¡¯, so I figured I might be needed in this conversation.¡±


    ¡°And what makes you think that?¡± The minister of war asked with a frown, and Eiro just looked at him with a nk expression, ¡± ¡®Special Level Threat¡¯ obviously means Monster Royalty.¡±


    ¡°That may be the case, and you may have experience with them, but that doesn¡¯t mean that you can simply intrude here like that,¡± the minister replied, his thick eyebrows furrowing angrily. But Eiro didn¡¯t bother with him, and simply turned back toward Solomon. The two of them held eye-contact for a few moments, before the king rubbed the bridge of his nose to get rid of his headache, ¡°Which one is it?¡±


    ¡°The Devil.¡±


    Solomon¡¯s eyes widened as he jumped up from his seat, ¡°The Devil? Is this a joke? Why him of all the royals?¡±


    ¡°You know I have history with him. Also, because of said history, he¡¯s the most imminent threat right now. Both to me and to this kingdom,¡± Eiro exined. If the Devil decided to attack this country with his troops, then that would mean the utter destruction of all but a few select ces.


    The minister of war jumped up and hit the table, ¡°Absolutely not! Your majesty, our troops aren¡¯t prepared to take on the Devil yet, and you know that!¡±


    Solomon slowly sat back down, cing his hand in front of his mouth as if he was about to throw up from nervosity, ¡°¡­If Eiro is aiming for the Devil, we won¡¯t be needing our troops anyway,¡± he pointed out, before locking eyes with the Demon again, ¡°What do you need?¡±


    Eiro quickly turned his head toward the Minister of Information; his department was in charge of trading information with other countries, gathering intel within and outside of Skyhart, and keeping track of the general flow of information rted to Skyhart in any way. They also gathered information necessary for scouting particr individuals.


    ¡°I need the location of five individuals,¡± Eiro exined, writing down the names and specifics he knew about them on a piece of paper in front of him. He quickly handed it to the Minister of Information, who immediately asked, ¡°Are these individuals pawns of the Devil that you wish to handle separately?¡±


    ¡°Nope,¡± Eiro replied immediately, ¡°They¡¯re¡­ well, you could say they¡¯re my teachers to an extent. And close friends and confidants of my father, at that.¡±


    Solomon looked up from the desk in front of him, ¡°You mean¡­ you¡¯re looking for five Masters?¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°Seriously, you could have just waited a bit longer¡­ You didn¡¯t have to make such a big deal out of everything in front of literally all of my ministers, Eiro,¡± Solomonined loudly, while the Demon just shrugged, ¡°I believe otherwise. Your oh-so-great ¡®War Minister¡¯ was going to bring up a n to take down the next royal.¡±


    ¡°¡­How do you know that?¡± Solomon asked surprised. Even he wasn¡¯t aware of this until now. But Eiro simply smiled, ¡°You know how I gave out gifts to all the ministers when you promoted me to Viscount?¡±


    ¡°¡­Yeah?¡±


    Eiro looked back at the king with a smile. Solomon didn¡¯t quite understand yet, when he saw two white eyes blink from within Eiro¡¯s shadow.


    ¡°You gave them your Servants as gifts?! Are you serious right now?¡± Solomon let out a loud groan, dropping down onto one of the couches, ¡°You can¡¯t just do something like that. It¡¯s just not okay, Eiro¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­I¡¯m not spying on their private lives. I don¡¯t have any intention of ckmailing them or anything either. This is just so that I, as well as you, can know what¡¯s going on behind the scenes. We both know that you¡¯re not the most popr guy in certain factions of Skyhart¡¯s higher nobility.¡±


    Solomon nced from under his hands, ¡°If you promise to me that you won¡¯t abuse the knowledge you¡¯re getting, then fine. And don¡¯t tell anything you learn to anyone beside me either. On top of that, report to me everything of notice that you find out, immediately,¡± the king quickly decided that there was no use fighting against it. Rather, just using Eiro¡¯s tendencies was going to be better for him and this country in the long run anyway. And before Solomon even had to finish his sentence, a book wasying on the table in front of him, which Eiro had pulled out from his treasury. The cover simply read, ¡®The Boy and the Wolf¡¯, a simple novel that was written by a semi-known author. It was pretty popr right now, and Solomon had wanted to read it for a while, ¡°What is this?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s your report, obviously. The Ink inside of it is a specialized servant I made, and then used it to write down all the information you need. It¡¯s going to just be a normal book most of the time, but if you tell it to, the text is going to change,¡± Eiro exined, and Solomon curiously opened the book to a random point in the midlde, ¡°Show me,¡± he said, and before his eyes, the ink started to shift into the form of a number of notes and sketches.


    ¡°Huh¡­¡± Solomon let out, ¡°Interesting. So you knew that I would end up being okay with it?¡±


    ¡°Obviously,¡± Eiro replied, ¡°You always let me do what I want anyway.¡±


    ¡°¡­About that. Are you sure you want to take out the Devil soon?¡±


    ¡°Well, ¡®soon¡¯ is rtive. But yes, I¡¯m starting the active preparation. I mean, it¡¯s happening, whether I want to or not. One of the new kids at the academy is the Devil¡¯s descendant. Grandchild, or great-grandchild, probably.¡±


    ¡°¡­What?¡± Solomon replied, since Eiro was saying it so casually. It seemed as though this wasn¡¯t as big a deal as it seemed. Knowing that Solomon would worry about it, Eiro quickly started to exin the situation to the king, who soon managed to calm down at least a little, ¡°So, the Devil¡¯s descendant is a student at the academy¡­¡±


    ¡°Mhm. And that¡¯s why I think it¡¯s time to start aiming for him now. Hence why I¡¯m looking for the masters that I know of. I¡¯ve been able to narrow things down a good amount, but I figured I might as well let the ministry of information help me out a bit to fill in some of the gaps.¡±


    ¡°And what are you going to do once you found them?¡±


    ¡°You know I¡¯ve been studying using their techniques, right? I¡¯ve finished the tasks that Jura had given me through that puppet. And now that that¡¯s the case, it¡¯s time for me to learn from the real people. They know about me, and they know that this was going to happen sooner orter, so they most likely left some clues around that I can use to find them,¡± Eiro exined quickly, crossing his legs as a grin formed on his face, ¡°Since the puppet can¡¯t teach me anything new anymore, it¡¯s time for me to start learning from the real masters.

 Chapter 629: Visit from the Shadows

    Chapter 629: Visit from the Shadows


    A couple of weeks went by, without anything in particr happening.


    The only matter of any sort of importance was that the duplicates in the elemental nes wereing close to finishing the contents of the second floor, so Eiro did receive quite a bit of interesting knowledge from those realms. The only issue with that was that the information wasn¡¯t the most reliably useful. Interesting? Sure. Were there some spells that Eiro might be able to use in the future? That was certainly the case as well. But for the most part, even on the second floor, Eiro wasn¡¯t able to find anything that was incredibly useful to him. Though, it did make it clear to him just how much knowledge he would end up being able to gather if he reached the top of the tower. Just on the third floor, the level of information must be¡­ incredible.


    Secret tomes from families long forgotten, scriptures with events that were erased from history. Those were the sorts of things that he hoped to find on the next floor. If there were anybat or spellcasting techniques, that would be greatly appreciated as well, but Eiro wasn¡¯t fully convinced that he would be able to find those sorts of directly applicable things until thest few floors. The most powerful spells would be hidden away until the very end.


    However, for now, there was nothing of note. Instead, Eiro just spent most of his time teaching the kids at the school, training in different things when he came home to not let his skillsy stagnant while also helping James, Jess and Krog, while working on some new ns for physical modifications. His overeating skill was developing nicely, but not well enough for it to be worth it splitting off a section of his stomach just yet.


    As such, most of Eiro¡¯s focus was just on writing. And he was writing quite a lot. With each of his hands, Eiro was writing into another book, noting down the different theories and instructional books that his mental duplicates were working on after analyzing the information of the towers. Most of the things he wrote wereptions of different theories, putting them together into something slightly altered to introduce new viewpoints and angles that had been forgotten or simply not cared for enough. There were a few theories that Eiro was working on building up on his own so that he could better spread his name in themunity of schrs, but those were the vast minority. That, and he would have to spend some time proving the validity of his theories to an extent, just to give him some basis on why he was even writing these.


    But nheless, it was a good way for Eiro to prove that he wasn¡¯t just some meathead. Some of his writing already went out to be reviewed by some other schrs, but he hadn¡¯t heard back from them yet.


    However, the thing that Eiro was working on most of all during this slow period was the ability topress knowledge, like what the towers¡¯ overseers used as entrance tests for the towers. Right now, he was trying tobine the meaning of two separate words into one, at least. The way he was doing that was by splitting his mouth in two, infusing the words spoken by each of those mouths with his magic, and trying to practically fuse them together. Eiro was convinced that this wasn¡¯t the right way to do it, but it was the only idea he had right now. At the very least, it would seed in giving him some deeper insight into what it took to do that sort of thing, so this wasn¡¯t a waste of time by any means.


    And that was when Eiro got an idea that he tried out instantly. Within his mind, he created two more duplicates, which he each gave control over one of Eiro¡¯s mouth. He had them repeat a single word each, and as he did, started to fuse the two duplicates together. As he did, his two mouths slowly turned back into one as well, and a single sound came out of Eiro¡¯s mouth.


    ¡°¡ª¡°, the word itself was iprehensible, being a mixture of two words that were spoken inpletely different ways. Eiro wasn¡¯t sure how exactly he made those sounds, but he managed to do it, at least. It wasn¡¯t perfect by any means, of course, and he was still a long way off from being able topress a whole book into a single sound, but the progress was still there.


    And another fortunate thing came out of it. Thisbination of two words can be dizzying to some that aren¡¯t used to hearing it. Eiro as well, he felt like he nearly copsed when he first heard something like it.


    This was the case for the person hidden in shadows of the corner of the room as well. The instant that Eiro noticed even the slightest change in the air, his body fell into the shadows that his desk was throwing onto him, and he wrapped himself around the body of the person he noticed, cing a dagger onto their neck. But it was weird; even though Eiro factually knew that he was holding someone, even though he could feel that slight resistance to the tip of his dagger, it felt as though there was nothing there. He was forgetting what he was doing, and what was here every single instant, just to remember it the next, only to forget it again. One of the mental duplicates dedicated itself to keeping track of this information, even though it seemed to practically vanish out of its hands as it was holding onto it.


    ¡°What¡­ are¡­ you?¡± Eiro asked, managing to force out words toward the person in question.


    ¡°I¡¯m impressed, to say the least,¡± that person replied, but the world around Eiro waspletely flipped. Not in the literal sense, however; instead, he found himself sitting on one of the couches in his office, no longer sticking out of the shadows in the corner of the room. It was as if a chunk of time was suddenly missing from his mind. The other duplicates were aware of this ckout; they were still thinking during that time, but were simply unable to ess the thoughts of the original, even if it was just for a few seconds.


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t answer my question,¡± the Demon replied. He didn¡¯t know where that person¡¯s voice came from, but it was from somewhere within this room, at least.


    ¡°¡­You¡¯re the one that went looking for me, so I simply came to return the favor.¡±


    Eiro sat there, stunned for a few moments, before letting out a loud groan, ¡°By Lady Winter- I thought Jura and Koperia had bad manners. Are all Masters like that, Shimour?¡± Immediately, the demon rxed. Of course, he didn¡¯t directly trust this man yet, but he trusted Jura. And since Jura had most likely told the other masters he knew all about Eiro already anyway, there was no need for him to be concerned. Not to mention, it was clear that if Shimour wanted to kill Eiro, he probably would have been able to already. A Master of stealth was not an easy opponent by any means.


    Before Eiro knew it, Shimour revealed himself. Apparently, he had been sitting across from Eiro all along, he simply wasn¡¯t able to tell. This felt simr to the potion of Invisibility, which in itself was a ridiculous notion. Through his own power, Shimour was able toe close to the level of an Arcane artifact, and what he showed was most certainly not even him going all out.


    Though, the Demon was a little surprised. Shimour looked different than he would have thought; mostly, the fact that he was even taller than Krog, which was not the type of body one would expect from a master of stealth. He didn¡¯t look to be a Goliath, but instead, he probably just had some monster blood within him that brought him to this size.


    ¡°It¡¯s nearly as if you were expecting me,¡± Shimour pointed out with a slight smile, and Eiro scoffed, ¡°Obviously I was, you just came quicker than I thought.¡±


    With a raised brow, Shimour looked back at the Demon, ¡°Are you trying to say you knew I woulde looking for you?¡±


    ¡°Why else do you think I used the Ministry of Information to look for you. There are much, much more subtle ways than their investigators that go around without a care in the world.¡±


    ¡°Hm¡­ I see that Jura raised an interesting child after all.¡±

 Chapter 630: Shimour

    Chapter 630: Shimour


    Shimour towered over Eiro as he stepped in front of the desk, looking down at the demon curiously, ¡°So, spit it out, why did you start looking for me?¡±


    Eiro simply smiled in response, as he sat down, intertwining his fingers, ¡°Do you even need to ask? Don¡¯t you deal with information as well? It should be simple for you toe to a conclusion.¡±


    ¡°¡­Then let¡¯s cut right to the chase. I¡¯m not nning on teaching you, and I doubt the others think differently,¡± Shimour¡¯s words weren¡¯t the biggest surprise to Eiro, but he had hoped that it would be different, ¡°Is there nothing I can do to convince you otherwise?¡±


    ¡°Very little.¡±


    ¡°So there is something after all.¡±


    Shimour rubbed the bridge of his nose, ¡°Listen, when we imbued our abilities into those tokens on Jura¡¯s request, he already owed us more than he could give. We forgave his debts because of what he did for us in the past without expecting anything in return. But now, you are expecting us to teach you simply because you are his foster son?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not expecting you to do anything. I¡¯m just hoping you consider it, since I will use what you teach me to forever rid this world of the Monster King.¡±


    ¡°¡­Exin.¡±


    Confused, Shimour started to listen to Eiro¡¯s story. It was the first time that the demon had simply told someone he just met a thing so important as this, but he didn¡¯t regret it in the slightest. In part, he was trusting Jura, and his sense for people. And otherwise, this may have just been a gamble of sort. Shimour was the Master of Stealth; he knew how to keep a secret. The only thing that Eiro was not yet convinced of, especially after the scent of monster blood mixed with the blood of a human filled his nose, was that Shimour was truly on his side. For all he knew, he could be a pawn of the Monster King, and kill him the moment Eiro showed to be any sort of threat. He could do so easily; and Eiro probably wouldn¡¯t even notice that he died in the first ce. Even after death, his soul may linger in this ce, unaware of the fact that he passed.


    Of course, this possibility was once more bridged by Jura¡¯s trust, but trust could only go so far. Hence, this part was a gamble. However, as Eiro exined his n, Shimour¡¯s expression turnedplex, ¡°The Monster King, huh¡­ its parent is said to be a shade, correct?¡± he asked curiously, and Eiro quickly nodded, ¡°A shade and a goblin. Both advanced into the realm of the superior and unique through the help of their cards, ¡®Empress¡¯ and ¡®Emperor¡¯ respectively.


    ¡°Right, right¡­¡± Shimour thought for a few more moments, before making another suggestion, ¡°If it¡¯s really part shade, then it should have something called an ¡®Essence of Darkness¡¯ within its body. A particrly strong one, in this case. It¡¯s this small crystal grown by its heart, filled with the most pure Darkness imaginable.¡±


    Eiro curiously listened. A crystal growing by the Monster King¡¯s heart? It sounded like the crystalized mana that formed in Eiro¡¯s chest after hisst evolution. Was it something simr?


    ¡°What is it that you want me to do with it?¡±


    Shimour leaned forward, ¡°Simply bring it to me. As a¡­ payment for my teachings.¡±


    Though he was curious about what this essence did, Eiro knew well enough that he shouldn¡¯t ask someone like Shimour to answer such questions. It wouldn¡¯t happen even if he did. Though, Eiro could already guess why Shimour wanted it. Even now, after reaching what is supposed to be the greatest peak above peaks, Shimour still searched for a way to move on beyond where he was now. He could already rival the Potion of Invisibility just through his raw power, and that was probably when he wasn¡¯t trying that hard. Eiro couldn¡¯t smell the slightest bit of exhaustion, and Shimour¡¯s body still overflowed with an insurmountable degree of mana. What would happen if Shimour received something that he needed to transcend this point even further? The mere idea excited the Demon.


    ¡°Do you want me to draft a contract? One of my cards is the ¡®Knight of Pentacles¡¯, the ultimate domain of truth. I can create a contract that would force even myself topletely adhere to it,¡± Eiro exined, but Shimour simply scoffed, ¡°No, we won¡¯t need that. You¡¯re Jura¡¯s kid, I trust you to keep your promises. He always did, and if you inherited even a fraction of his morals, then that¡¯s already enough.¡±


    Eiro smiled lightly, ¡°I¡¯ll make sure to show I¡¯m worthy of that trust, then.¡±


    ¡°You better. Then, let¡¯s head out as soon as possible. Training you up will take a while, so say your goodbyes.¡± Shimour began, turning around as he headed to the door, but Eiro stopped him, ¡°I¡¯m not leaving this ce behind.¡±


    ¡°¡­What do you mean? Then how do you expect to learn from me? You¡¯re not expecting me to stay here, are you?¡±


    ¡°I already have one Master living with me full-time, and another thates and goes as she wants, so why not?¡±


    Shimour scoffed, ¡°Hah, those two? Armodeus is nothing but a coward, and Koperia is far too easily swayed. You can¡¯tpare their actions to the rest of us.¡±


    Eiro leaned back in his chair. The somewhat ufortable sound of flesh shifting aside could be heard, as tworge wings sprouted from Eiro¡¯s back, as the colour started to fade from his body. Shimour could notice his presence fading, but not because he was using stealth. He was simply melding into the air around him, quite literally at that. Before he knew it, the room was filled with a storm that could only bepared to that of a hurricane. Books were pulled from the shelves and papers obscured nearly his entire sight.


    Just a single page blocked Shimour¡¯s view of Eiro, and when it passed by, he was gone. Shimour turned his body around as fast as he could, seeing Eiro block the door, ¡°Before, I traveled through the shadows near instantly, a feat that is only possible in a small space like this. But what I showed you just now is simply the speed at which I can travel normally. As you can imagine, I didn¡¯t have much time to elerate either.¡±


    Shimour¡¯s face formed a grin, ¡°Do you even really need our teachings? Even I didn¡¯t notice you getting behind me just now.¡±


    ¡°Eh, I caught you off-guard, that¡¯s all. Not to mention¡­¡± Eiro said, looking around the room with a sigh. He held his hand forward and quickly formed aplex spell pattern in front of it, before a flood of arcane hands came pouring out if it. Dozen over dozen of hands were now starting to clean the room up. Shimour looked around impressed, ¡°How can you control so many of them at once, with such precision?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not really that precise, but I pushed the task off onto two mental duplicates. ¡®I¡¯ am not actually controlling them, they are.¡±


    ¡°I¡­ fail to understand what you mean.¡±


    ¡°Well, basically¡­ Think about the voice in your head,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°Now imagine you didn¡¯t have just one of those voices, but about a dozen of them. They think and act independently, so I can concentrate on other things, but everything they do is still part of me.¡±


    ¡°That sounds more than justplex¡­ but something I can imagine Partax to be interested in. Maybe if you can exin this technique to him for his studies, that will be enough for him to teach you Artificing and Alchemy,¡± Shimour pointed out, and Eiro raised a brow, ¡°Is knowledge all that he wants in exchange for teaching me?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s just the kind of guy he is. I think his greatest goal in life is still to find the Tower of Books, a child¡¯s dream. We tried to exin to him that it doesn¡¯t exist, but he wouldn¡¯t listen,¡± Shimour sighed, speaking as if he was truly concerned for Partax¡¯s state of mind, but Eiro couldn¡¯t help butugh, ¡°A child¡¯s dream? Shimour, the Tower of Books is real.¡±


    Shimour looked at Eiro with a pitiful expression, ¡°Are you like that as well? I¡¯m sorry to tell you, but-¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m serious. The Tower of Books is real, and it seems that many nes have their own. I¡¯m within two of them right now.¡±


    More confused than concerned, Shimour frowned. It was as if he was starting to feel regret for his decision to teach Eiro, when the Demon rolled his eyes. He flicked his wrist, and a stream of water appeared out of nowhere, forming a ball of water, ¡°I¡¯m the Guardian of two gateways leading to the Elemental nes of Water and Fire respectively. I have sent two perfect duplicates to those realms to increase my affinity with those elements, and happened toe across hints that led me to the towers of books. I¡¯m currently in the middle of reading the books of the second floor.¡±


    Shimour slowly opened his mouth, trying toin at the ridiculousness of what Eiro was saying, when the Demon opened up the buttons of his shirt. Magic concentrated in the center of that convoluted pattern on his chest, before a crown of blue horns suddenly poked out of his chest. It was another Eiro, though this time around, he was perfectly fused with water magic, ¡°This enough to convince you?¡± the head asked.

 Chapter 631: Unconventional Classes

    Chapter 631: Unconventional sses


    Eiro stepped out into the manor¡¯s gardens. Shimour, who followed behind him, took a look around with a chuckle, ¡°I thought it when I came over here, but I doubt this is what this ce always looked like, right?¡±


    The Demon turned toward him with a raised brow, and then back at the gardens in front of him. It was true that it wasn¡¯t anything like when Eiro was first given this ce. Most of it had been turned into personal training areas. The manor¡¯s barracks were reserved for the soldiers that Eiro brought with him from the Monster Town, including the training area there. He would practice there every once in a while, trying to instruct the monsters to improve their techniques and physical strength, but for the most part him and his party would train out here. It had enough space for them to just go all-out without disturbing anyone, and could be fine-tuned toward everyone¡¯s training without issue.


    For example, currently, Krog and James were doing their own types of specialized training. Krog had arge boulder in front of him that he had to move across his training area, while James had heavy weights strapped to his limbs while doing training to increase his precise footwork and bnce. As Jess was a mage, she mostly did research in the library and only came out here to practice specific spells, for which Eiro set up an area where she didn¡¯t have to worry about destroying anything with her elemental attacks.


    The kids all also had their own areas where they could go wild, though that was of course mostly limited to Arc. Clementine was a healer and Rudy a craftsman, so neither of them really did much training out here beside to keep themselves healthy. Sammy did use the archery range that Eiro prepared for her, but she was mostly focused on learning how to properly control her voice. She was starting to make more friends at school, but she still wasn¡¯t fullyfortable speaking much, which was taking quite the toll on her. Eiro gave her a room to practice where her voice couldn¡¯t leak out; he himself could barely hear her, and only then when he really focused.


    Well, there was still the small y-area he prepared for Leon. Ever since he started maturing as a Beastman, he would either sleep, or want to y actively. Luckily, he found the perfect ymate in Bavet, who could go along with everything the young boy wanted to do, even if not technically voluntarily.


    Then, scattered across the ce, were numerous different herbs and trees of different kinds that Eiro was growing for a variety of reasons, so it really did look quite busy especially at first nce. Arie did make him at least make it visually pleasing to a certain extent, so it¡¯s not that it looked particrly bad. Just different from what you would expect when entering through the manor¡¯s front.


    In the end, Eiro simply shrugged, ¡°It¡¯s just how it turned out.¡±


    ¡°Right. Anyway, where are we doing this?¡± Shimour asked, looking around with his arms crossed. Eiro wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he did that on purpose; he was wearing a sleeveless shirt too. Sure, it did give a lot of freedom of movement, but considering how attention-grabbing Shimour¡¯s arms were, the only reason Eiro coulde up with was that he was trying to brag with his body a little. Which was once again weird, considering Shimour was a Master of Stealth.


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, and then looked at James and Krog, ¡°You two, take a break for a little,¡± he said, and the two of them looked over surprised. Eiro would usually try to make them work even more than they already did, so asking them to take a break was nothing less than shocking.


    They both walked over toward the Demon connfused, trying to figure out what was going on. It was only when the two of them stood only a few meters away that James took notice of the giant man towering behind Eiro.


    Instinctively, he flinched and tried to grab the dagger he always carried at his side, even during training, but only grabbed empty air. His already pale face went white, but Eiro just let out a loud sigh, ¡°Shimour, stop ying around. Give that back to him.¡±


    ¡°So strict, just like Jura,¡± Shimour groaned, holding his hand forward to give the dagger he took from James¡¯ hip back to him. Suspiciously, James took it and ced it back into its sheath, not removing his hand from it. For safety, he also ced his other hand on its twin-dagger.


    Krog looked at Shimour with a frown, ¡°Who is this guy?¡±


    ¡°Ah, I told you about him. Krog, James, this is Shimour, he¡¯s a Master of the Stealth skill. Shimour, these are James and Krog, two of my party members.¡±


    ¡°¡­These guys are your party members? They¡¯re sort of weakpared to you, right?¡±


    Both Krog and James would have tried to protest, but they were still stuck on Eiro¡¯s words. A master currently stood in front of him; a master of a skill that could be used to kill them instantly at that. They were used to being around Armodeus by now, especially considering his personality. Coperia was still hard to deal with, but she never really bothered interacting with them much in the first ce. But this was different; especially since Shimour looked quite intimidating to them.


    Eiro looked at therge man behind him, ¡°They¡¯re not weak.¡±


    ¡°Weaker than you.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯tpare it like that, though. I¡¯m literally a Royal monster and possess multiple Arcane artifacts that led me onto the best path possible from the beginning. These guys don¡¯t have anything like that. They only have their own hard work. Not to mention, their rate of growth is ridiculous.¡±


    Shimour looked at James and Krog, both of them clearly steeling themselves against his stare, ¡°¡­What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°They were pretty average C-Rank adventurers just half a year ago. Now they¡¯re S-Rank.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ ridiculously impressive. I guess I underestimated you guys¡­ huh?¡± Shimour pointed out, noticing that Krog and James¡¯ focused shifted away from him onto Eiro.


    ¡°The fuck did you just say?¡± James let out, ¡°S-Rank? I mean yeah, but that¡¯s just in name, cause you¡¯re with us!¡±


    Eiro raised a brow, ¡°No, I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯re as strong as S-Ranks now. I mean, you¡¯re stronger than the average S-Rank at the very least. Once you guys change back to your advanced sses, you¡¯ll be stronger than nearly everyone that became a ¡®Hero Companion¡¯.¡±


    James and Krog looked at each other confused. They didn¡¯t know what to say. Shimour became curious, though, ¡°What are your guys¡¯ sses right now?¡±


    Krog sighed with an annoyed tone, ¡°I¡¯m a Sherpa right now.¡±


    ¡°Hold on, you¡¯re a Porter?¡± Shimour asked baffled, quickly turning to Eiro, but he just shrugged. Krog scratched the back of his head, ¡°I mean, not all the time. I cycled through basic warrior sses for a while, then switched to basic heavy warrior sses¡­ Once I was done with the ones I could ess at that point, Eiro made me switch to Porter sses. I took ¡®Beginner Porter¡¯, ¡®Porter¡¯, and then ¡®Sherpa¡¯. Eiro said I¡¯m well on my way to unlocking ¡®Nomad¡¯, so that¡¯ll be next. Their ss skills are pretty good for increasing physical strength, even if they don¡¯t add damage¡­ The stat growth in itself is pretty useful though.¡±


    Shimour nced over at James, who was already hiding his face annoyed, ¡°What about you?¡±


    ¡°Do I have to say?¡±


    ¡°Come on, dude, just out with it,¡± Krog said teasingly, bumping James¡¯ shoulder with his elbow. James let out a deep sigh and looked up at Shimour, though not before angrily ncing at Eiro, ¡°He made me be a ¡®Ballroom Dancer¡¯.¡±


    Even shimour was a bit baffled at this point, looking down at Eiro, ¡°But¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that. His body is perfect for dance. His ligaments are ridiculously flexible, and his natural bnce works best with dance, even better thanbat. I¡¯m just trying to have him learn how to best make use of that. Once he learns tobine dance withbat a bit, the way he¡¯s going to move in a fight will go down in history, I tell you.¡±

 Chapter 632: Predictions

    Chapter 632: Predictions


    Shimour raised his brow and looked down at Eiro with a scoff, ¡°If you say so. Anyway, are we doing this, or are we just standing around chatting all day?¡±


    Krog looked at Eiro confused and curious, ¡°What are you doing?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll fight,¡± the demon said bluntly, as he turned his head to the side. His shadow grew a darker ck as Min stepped out of it holding a set of armor. Just like Eiro himself, Min could easily travel through nearby shadows, so he could be basically wherever he needed to be in ces like the manor in a matter of seconds.


    Eiro quickly ced the dragon-scale armor onto his body, as Shimour sighed, ¡°What, do you seriously want to go all-out?¡±


    ¡°¡­I won¡¯t userge-scale magic or anything, but I figured we might as well go all-out in a physical fight.¡±


    ¡°You say you¡¯ll hold back?¡± Shimour asked, ¡°Do you really think you can afford that?¡±


    James quickly intervened before Eiro could answer, doing so for him, ¡°I think Eiro meansrge-scale magic as in¡­ magic that willpletely destroy this garden and manor.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Eiro agreed, ¡°I won¡¯t have the leisure to hold back, I know, I just want to make sure I don¡¯t have to spend the rest of the day gardening.¡±


    Shimour nodded in agreement, ¡°I see, I¡¯ll also keep that in mind.¡±


    .....


    Somewhat curious, Eiro raised his brow. He didn¡¯t know anything about Shimour¡¯s style ofbat, but if he said something like that, then it must mean that his powers were also quite destructive in some ways.


    The two of them stepped into the center of the training area, as Eiro grabbed his two daggers. One of them, naturally eminating heat as the other had a flow of cold mist flowing off its metal. Shimour looked at them curiously, ¡°¡­Want to make a bet out of this?¡±


    Eiro scoffed and shook his head, ¡°I know where you¡¯re going, but sorry. If these get too far away from me, they¡¯ll literally break down into scrap metal,¡± he exined. They were made with the help of a duplicate of the mountainbreaker after all, and since duplicates couldn¡¯t get too far away from the user of the mirror, these would be literallypletely useless quite quickly, if it came down to it.


    After clicking his tongue, Shimour grumbled, ¡°Fine, but at least tell me where you got that armor fromter.¡±


    ¡°Sure. I actually think he¡¯s around right now, I¡¯ll introduce you to him,¡± Eiro said with a grin, ncing to the side. He quicklymanded one of his servants hidden in the wind to travel to the royal castle to get the Dragon of Truth and Justice, Lognir.


    ¡°In that case¡­ let¡¯s get this started,¡± Shimour said, and before Eiro knew it, Shimour¡¯s existence simply faded away. He could tell that James and Krog were both growing confused at what they were seeing, and even Eiro was strained to notpletely forget what was going on right now. But before long, something tiny did change. It wasn¡¯t much, but Eiro had half a dozen mental duplicates busily analyzing everything that was going on around him right now. And more importantly, Eiro was wearing the armor made of the Dragon of Truth¡¯s scales. He was perfectly attuned to the concept of ¡®Truth¡¯ right this very moment. His ability to see through the lies and that which was hidden was higher than it maybe ever was.


    Slowly, Eiro thought about Shimour¡¯s body. The way that his muscles twitched as he moved, the way his muscles were distributed in the first ce. His scent, telling Eiro which races made up his being, including the monsters that were deep in his ancestry. Minotaurs¡­ Argons¡­ there was even some Demon blood in there. Ever since Eiro became ¡®The World¡¯, his body had absorbed the techniques of many people. He was confident that he knew how certain movements affected one¡¯s muscles more than anyone else right now.


    Shimour was strong, and if he fought, his abilities allowed him to take his enemies out instantly. He must have built habits over time, the perfect way for him to attack an enemy, habits that must have be ingrained in his body somehow.


    Slowly, Eiro shifted his body, pulling his feet over the ground as he buried his left foot in the tight gravel underneath him, while crossing his two daggers with each other, forming an ¡®x¡¯ with their des. Before he knew it, he could feel the impact. Shimour¡¯s dagger was caught by Eiros¡¯. The Demon could practically feel his confusion. But more importantly, this definitely gave him an opening. Eiro kicked up his foot and pulled up a bunch of dirt and gravel, which he was only turning into finer dust with the help of earth magic. Dust that quickly covered Shimour¡¯s body. Of course, in no way was that enough for Eiro to see through Shimour¡¯s stealth, but it was nheless a perfect opening.


    Shimour¡¯s de was pulled away just an instant ago, when Eiro stabbed both of his daggers at the cloud of dust in front of him.


    The first thing that happened was that a wave of mes spread from grain to grain, like cracks forming in the sky. The fires ignited, and a dust explosion quickly formed. But before this could happen, the ice from Eiro¡¯s other dagger seemed to travel through the fire, freezing the mes itself.


    Numerous branches of frozen mes now covered the area in front of Eiro, and he soon heard a loudughing from behind him.


    ¡°That was incredible! You actually noticed my attack?!¡± Shimour asked, having finally revealed himself. The Demon turned around to look at him, but Eiro slowly shook his head, ¡°I predicted it. I knew that I wouldn¡¯t be able to notice you, but I could guess where you would attack me.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t really get it, but clearly¡­ you¡¯re even more impressive than I already thought. Alright, I¡¯ll give up on the highest tier stealth for now. You already beat me in that regard,¡± the Master of Stealth pointed out, ncing at that incredible structure currently falling apart behind Eiro¡¯s back. It had appeared in an instant, and started disappearing just as quickly. If Shimour continued using stealth the whole time, then he wouldn¡¯t be able to keep seeing attacks like that, or even more impressive ones than that.


    Eiroughed, ¡°I do appreciate it¡­ It already took all I had to figure out where your first attack wouldnd. You didn¡¯t really give me much to go off. Then show me what else you learned on your way to the top.¡±


    Shimour pushed his hand into the pouch at his hip, and before Eiro knew it, dozens of tiny needles were shooting his way at incredible speed. He didn¡¯t have the time to react physically to dodge them all, but they were covered in ridiculously potent poison. Somehow, Shimour had hidden their scent until just now, probably using his stealth or something, but Eiro could tell that if even one of these needles hit him, arge chunk of his flesh would just rot off in a matter of seconds.


    Luckily, Eiro had a new trump-card. He could see all of the needles approaching, and using the mirror of duplication in his eye, duplicated each and every needle, pulling them just a little further in their path, while keeping them suspended mid-air.


    A momentter, small sparks flew as the needles collided with their own duplicates that blinked out of existence the moment that Eiro, as well, blinked.


    Eiro pushed his hand forward and twisted his wrist, creating a gust of wind that pulled together all of the needles, stopping them from hitting the ground. Eiro pushed them off the ground and flicked his wrist, shotting the clumped-together needles back at Shimour, even faster than they were thrown in the first ce. However, instead of dodging them, Shimour simply took them with his body. Eiro noticed that the poison prated his skin, but seemingly not only did nothing, but was neutralized incredibly quickly as well.


    Of course, someone that worked with poisons as potent as this must also have poison resistance to match up with that.


    Eiro grinned lightly, as Shimour slightly shifted his weight, pushing himself forward as the two of them ran at each other to fight in an exchange of meleebat.

 Chapter 633: Three in One

    633 Three in One


    Eiro and Shimour ran at each other, and the Demon quickly swung his first dagger at the mountainous man in front of him. After seeing what those daggers could do just to a cloud of dust, obviously Shimour didn¡¯t simply take it and dodged out of the way. Or rather, it was only simr to that. Eiro thought for sure that he had managed to hit Shimour, but as soon as he didn¡¯t feel any resistance in his arms, he realized that this wasn¡¯t the case in the slightest.


    Shimour was actually still about half a foot away, he simply made it seem as though he was closer than he was. This was ridiculously disorienting to Eiro. Since Jura¡¯s death, the one thing that Eiro knew he could trust in was his own senses; but now, in this fight, even that wasn¡¯t the case anymore. Weirdly enough, it caused a simr reaction to when Eiro first heard the Overseer of the Tower of Books speak the content of a full book in a single sound. It was as if his mind was short-circuited for a moment. Rather, all of his minds reacted in the same way, and he nked out for just an instant, before soon managing to recover himself.


    ¡®An advanced application of stealth, huh...¡¯ Eiro thought to himself. In theory, it was possible, of course. If Stealth allowed you topletely hide yourself, then it should also be possible to simply change the way you appeared to others. In this case, Shimour made it appear as though he was half a foot further forward, but in other cases... it should very well be possible for someone like Shimour to disguise himself as apletely different person.


    It wasn¡¯t as defined as illusion magic, of course. Illusion magic required the user to create a detailed, false image. But this sort of stealth-based illusion didn¡¯t technically change anything about Shimour, instead, it changed the way that the target looked at Shimour. It was an important distinction, of course, and Eiro was trying his hardest to take advantage of it.


    In thetter method of illusion, it was likely that every single target would see something slightly different. Shimour ced an ¡®idea¡¯ of something into their mind, and their mind automatically changed the world around them into what they think ¡®should¡¯ be the case. But such perception is different for different individuals. If they think differently, or if they¡¯re distracted, or even just if they¡¯re in a bad mood, things will be ever-so-slightly different.


    Luckily, Eiro was perfectly equipped to go against this. His regr mental duplicates thought exactly the same as him, since they didn¡¯t have much of a personality. It wasn¡¯t needed, so Eiro didn¡¯t give them one. That¡¯s why they were mostly just extensions of Eiro¡¯s own personality and thoughts, they adjusted themselvespletely to himself, so they didn¡¯t drift into thoughts that Eiro himself wouldn¡¯t. On the other hand, he did have two duplicates that were slowly but surely changing away from what he, the original, was.


    ¡°I¡¯m a little busy, but sure.¡± ¨C ¡°How annoying...¡± the two duplicates reacted like that, and quickly meditated inwardly to concentrate on the original properly. Quickly, Eiro manipted his eye; the one that didn¡¯t already have the mirror ced inside of it. It would be too risky to use that one for such a thing. No, he instead duplicated his other eye twice, and quickly fused the three together. Since he had quite the control over flesh magic now, this was a surprisingly easy job.


    Now, Eiro had three irises and pupils sharing the space in his eye. His regr one, coloured in a cool, frosty gray. Beside that one, there was the deep red of the duplicate in the ne of fire, and the strong blue of the duplicate in the ne of water. Using the link of the gateways within Eiro¡¯s soul, and the innate connection of their minds, the duplicates now sawpletely through the original¡¯s left eye.


    It was the same view of the same world, just seen through three consciousnesses.


    .....


    It took only a single second to set this all up, but in that second, Eiro had a fierce exchange with Shimour. No matter how often Eiro swung at him, whether it was with his daggers or his two free fists, none of his attacks connected. Sometimes it was because Shimour kept using that same trick, and other times just because Shimour was able to dodge out of the way. Of course, Eiro wasn¡¯t hit by any of Shimour¡¯s attacks either.


    While he wascking in skill, Eiro¡¯s incredible control over ¡®Truth and Order¡¯ allowed him to foresee everything that Shimour might want to do, and his raw physical abilities allowed him to react however he needed to, albeit just barely.


    Neither of them managed to hit the other even once, that was until Eiro¡¯s eye had fully formed and he had a new view of the world. Shimour approached him, swinging his arm for an attack, but quickly Eiro saw something amiss. Some of the hairs on Shimour¡¯s arm were different across his three views. It wasn¡¯t much, but it was enough to show that this was a trick by Shimour, something that Eiro could be confident in. There was nothing wrong with the rest of Shimour¡¯s body, though, so he had only changed Eiro¡¯s perception of that arm. From the way Shimour held his body there was only a limited amount of things he could do. He was basically doing the same thing that the ¡®fake¡¯ Shimour was doing, just that the de of his knife was a few inches lower.


    The Demon grabbed a hold of Shimour¡¯s arm, creating physical contact between the two for the first time since that first encounter earlier. Eiro tightened his grasp as much as he could while pulling Shimour toward himself. Shimour¡¯s mere weight made it so that he was practically pulling himself toward Shimour, though that was something easily fixed with some gravity magic to make his own body heavier.


    Eiro quickly stabbed his dagger at the mountainous man, but before he knew it, Shimour had already twisted out of the way. In a rather ludicrous way too.


    Eiro was able to do it, but that was only because he specifically trained his body to be able to do so, which even then was only possible during evolutions when every fiber of his physical being was reconstructed. But Shimour did it anyway; with just a flex of his muscles, he popped his joints out of their sockets, and nheless managed to control his muscles to move his body how he wanted. And it wasn¡¯t just his legs or shoulders, even his wrist and hand. Every single joint on Shimour¡¯s fingers came loose, as his body seemed to practically be a liquid and slip out of Eiro¡¯s grasp.


    The Demon stood there for a moment looking at Shimour¡¯s body. He looked as though someone had violently disfigured him, breaking every single one of his bones. But no, as quickly as he managed to escape, Shimour¡¯s body corrected itself, looking as though nothing was ever wrong to begin with.


    ¡°You¡¯re really a ridiculous guy, aren¡¯t you..?¡± Eiro muttered with a wry smile, but Shimour simply scoffed, ¡°Says you! The hell¡¯d you do with your eye there, huh?¡±


    ¡°...Just a small trick to catch up to you, I guess.¡±


    ¡°Got any more of those kindsa tricks? This is getting even more fun than I thought,¡± Shimourughed, and a grin formed on Eiro¡¯s face. A grin that tore into his cheeks, until his mouth opened up, letting him grin literally from ear to ear, before his skin underneath his nose fused back together.


    ¡°How about this?¡± he asked in two voices, and Shimour nodded, ¡°That¡¯s what you were doing earlier, right? I wondered what the use of that was.¡±


    Immediately, Eiro showed exactly how this was useful. There are certain spells soplicated and taxing on the user that it was near impossible to cast them without chanting. Of course, another step above that were spells that required more than one individual to cast them, where both would construct part of the spell and chant at the same time.


    In particr, there was one spell that Eiro found in the Fire Tower of Books that described exactly this kind of thing. It was a ¡®Physical Boost¡¯ spell cast through the fire element as a conduit. Of course, Eiro was in the midst of analyzing it to simplify it, so that he could use it without having to do this, but it was an incredibly, incredibly old spell, using methods that were still foreign to Eiro. Even the way of chanting was new. Instead of pleading to the spirits, it was a duet of poems that were recited to ask a favor of them.


    With both of his mouths, Eiro started to recite the poems, starting to construct the magic circle right on top of his own skin. It was a tough one, certainly; it was as though he was carving the spell into his own skin, which was one of the reasons why it was hidden on the second floor of the tower instead of being openly avable on the first, on top of its age and rarity of course. It was supposed to be a permanent body strengthening ritual, but for someone like Eiro who could regenerate his body at will, it was nothing else beside scribbles done with paint.


    The moment the words started escaping his mouth, Shimour started to realize that something big was about to happen. It was exactly what he wanted, but his instincts still screamed at him that he had to stop Eiro from doing this by all means. Because if he finished, then Shimour¡¯s defeat was as well as determined.

 Chapter 634: All out

    634 All out


    Eiro¡¯s foot twisted out of the way, dodging Shimour¡¯s kick. He retaliated with a sweep of his own, but the Master of Stealth simply jumped over the attack, punching down from above while using the whole weight of his body. But Eiro was able to quickly pull himself out of the way, soon straightening his tail rapidly to stab at Shimour, who had, instead of still going for the punch, diverted to using his momentum and weight to shift himself into another position. Eiro¡¯s stinger just barely missed his face, a few drops of venom actually hitting Shimour¡¯s skin.


    He scoffed as he wiped the acidic liquid from his face, leaving behind a deep red spot. For anyone else, that would have already burnt you down all the way to the bone, but Shimour¡¯s resistance was still ridiculous.


    Shimour frowned lightly, his grin hidden behind his immense focus. And after a deep breath, it was time for him to really try and stop Eiro from finishing that spell. He pushed his foot into the ground and kicked his other one forward, a few inches away from the demon¡¯s body. But even so, an impact still reached Eiro. It wasn¡¯t like before, where he was trying to fake where exactly he was. Rather, his kick simply had the power and magic behind it to still count as an attack from a foot away.


    The corners of Eiro¡¯s mouths slightly twitched while reciting the poems connected to this spell, as he pulled back for a moment. But Shimour immediately closed that distance, and pushed his fist onto the Demon¡¯s chest. Eiro wasn¡¯t able to dodge this time, even if he did know exactly what was about to happen, but he was at least able to block it. Using his two free hands, he caught Shimour¡¯s fist. At that exact moment, he cast a spell to reverse the momentum and force. It didn¡¯t exactly reflect the damage that was done to Eiro, as it still caused his some of his on his non-prosthetic hand to break as if they were sticks, but Shimour received a push-back that nearlypletely cancelled out his current momentum.


    In this instant, Eiro pushed his prosthetic hand forward into the air, as if he was grabbing something, and soon pulled out an ornately decorated book. As if on its own, it flipped open to a page that was more pages in than this book should have from how thick it was. The Demon pressed his palm onto the page, and grinned broadly, his mouths nearlying back together in the center of his face.


    A wave of light coursed through the Demon¡¯s body as the book that he was holding seemed to start giving off some incredible heat, as if it had been freshly pulled out of a firece and was still actively burning. Before Shimour and Eiro¡¯s eyes, the book started to change, its edges bing just slightly more fixed-up, some of the scratches disappearing while the worn-out leather smoothed out, even if just to a minuscule degree.


    ¡°Thanks for giving me a chance to add this spell to my Grimoire. I knew what it did, but I had never actually used it before,¡± Eiro exined, his two mouths slowlying together into one again. Shimour looked at the Demon with a slight groan, seeing the deep gashes practically carved into Eiro¡¯s skin. His armor covered most of his body, so he was actually only able to see the parts covering his neck and face, but he knew that he was covered in those things from head to toe. Even his horns had those carvings on them right now. Every one of these grooves was filled with low mes, as if you were looking at cracked open volcanic terrain.


    However, Eiro soon made a somewhat annoyed expression, ¡°Alright, well... maybe we should finish this fight quickly, this spell is actively sapping my Life Force.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s what?¡± Shimour asked with a frown, and Eiro quickly replied, ¡°Yeah... as I said, this is a somewhat weird spell, it¡¯s in the Ancient Language, but it¡¯s also not really? Like some super weird dialect, or maybe it¡¯s anguage based off of the Ancient Language, or something like that. Whatever it is, I wasn¡¯t able to fully trante it yet... and it looks as though aponent of the spell makes it so that the ¡®Fire¡¯ is kept burning using one¡¯s own ¡®Life Force¡¯ as fuel, so... Let¡¯s finish this?¡±


    .....


    ¡°You really are ridiculous... yeah, let¡¯s finish this,¡± Shimour replied with a frown, as he pushed himself forward for the next attack, but before he knew it, Eiro had already closed the distance between them. Eiro swung his fist at the Master, quickly hitting a punch in his side. By the sheer force of the attack, Shimour was thrown to the side, but before he could, Eiro had already grabbed Shimour¡¯s arm and swung him down at the ground like a hammer.


    Shimour¡¯s giant body mmed into the training ground¡¯s floor and a wave of cracks shot outward. Eiro quickly stabbed one of his daggers down toward the mountainous man, but his dagger simply passed through his body. Quickly, the cracks formed from Shimour¡¯s impact were filled with the mes of Eiro¡¯s dagger, as the Demon tried to figure out what exactly just happened. He turned around with a shiver and looked at the man in front of him. The air around him had changed to a ridiculous degree, as if he wasn¡¯t even looking at the same being as before. It was as if his body was blending into the space around him, but was still there sticking out like a sore thumb. Strands of his body pulled away from him as if he was made of smoke.


    Instantly, despite his body being strengthened beyond belief, while looking at the current Shimour, he could feel nothing but a sense of inferiority. It was as if he was looking at the Monster King again. If Eiro still had a heart, it would have jumped out of his chest by now, as fear clouded his mind for a moment.


    Instinctively, he pulled back a bit, as Shimour spoke, ¡°I¡¯m incredibly sorry, but as you say, we should finish this quickly so that you can stop that ridiculous spell from killing you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re sorry that you¡¯re trying to stop me from dying?¡± Eiro scoffed nervously, but Shimour shook his head, ¡°No, I¡¯m sorry for holding back so much until now. Though, now that it¡¯se to this... it¡¯s absolutely my loss. And since I¡¯m a sore loser, I¡¯ve got to take out my anger a little.¡±


    Eiro didn¡¯t even know what to say, nor did he have the chance to try and say anything at all, because before he knew it, Shimour¡¯s hand was approaching Eiro¡¯s chest. He knew that it wasing, he knew what he was supposed to do to stop it, but he simply wasn¡¯t able to do so. As if he was stuck with time being slowed around him again, only his mind was able to keep up, but his body was still too slow.


    As if it were made of paper, Shimour bent the dragon-scale armor that Eiro was wearing and hit him with a single impact straight onto the sr plexus. He was thrown back in an instant with a ridiculous amount of force, the only thing he was able to do was push himself down with abination of gravity and air magic, before strengthening the dirt underneath him to properly catch him, so that he wouldn¡¯t destroy the whole gardens with his body being flung through them.


    Luckily, Eiro was still being strengthened by that ridiculous spell, so he came out with little damage from this overall, but it was clear that the attack still wasn¡¯t over. Before Eiro could recover himself, Shimour was already there to take pull the demon away. He tightly grabbed his tail and swung him high into the air. As though he was already there before even letting go, Shimour was ready to punch Eiro down into the ground, right into the center of those fiery cracks. A wave of hot air, mes and rocks was thrown throughout the gardens. James and Krog did their best to hide from the impact, but even they didn¡¯te out unscathed.


    Eiro knelt there, in the crater, his mind a mess. And it wasn¡¯t only his own; the two duplicates in the nes of fire and water were shocked too, they didn¡¯t know what was going on. It was as if they were filled with the same fear that the original Eiro was, even just through the simple sense of sight.


    He was filled with the instinct to flee, to at least get to a ce where he could recover, but before he could, he felt dozens, if not hundreds, of knives stabbing into his body from wherever they could, over and over again. While he didn¡¯t know whether they were real knives or not, since the fact that regr metal could break through dragon scales simply didn¡¯t makes sense, it was a fact that this was a ridiculous, overwhelming pain. A pain that he didn¡¯t expect or really knew what to do with anymore. Eiro looked up at the sky as he fell to his back. He could feel the mes from the spell continuing to feed off his life force, so he quickly cancelled the spell and repaired his body with some quick healing magic, but he was still feeling too exhausted to move. So instead, he looked inward, to figure out what exactly just happened.

 Chapter 635: Restrictions

    635 Restrictions


    Eiro found himself in the mental library, but he wasn¡¯t alone. Of course the mental duplicates were there, but Eiro didn¡¯t count them as other entities, in the same way that he did with the ones on the ne of Water or Fire. Those two quickly appeared in the imaginary space themselves, as the three of them looked at each other.


    ¡°So... what exactly just happened there?¡± The Eiro from the water ne asked, but the original quickly shrugged, ¡°I don¡¯t even really know. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a stealth ability...¡±


    ¡°Well yeah obviously, but if you want to be that stealthy, you need a ridiculous amount of control over your body. It makes sense that he¡¯d be that strong,¡± me Eiro pointed out, ¡°Though it¡¯s still ridiculous that he managed to overtake you... us, like that, even with that strengthening spell active.¡±


    Water Eiro shook his head, ¡°Is it really that ridiculous? I mean, we¡¯re just as strong as a regr Royal. Maybe stronger than average, but... still. We already guessed that thebat-oriented Masters are much, much stronger than royals. We know that Koperia is.¡±


    The original slowly looked at the ground, ¡°Even Jura... he was a craftsman, but his senses were so much sharper than even mine, and I¡¯ve evolved multiple times while trying to strengthen them. The realm of a Master is much higher than you would think...¡±


    ¡°But... and I know we all thought the same thing separately, but don¡¯t you think that if the Masters went against the Monster King, they could win?¡± Water Eiro asked, swimming through the air as if he was still in the ne of water, ¡°What if we convince them to fight with us instead of just training us, that way we could take down the Devil with ease. We could take down the group above the ¡®Organization¡¯ and take the cards they have while we¡¯re at it, we already sort of know that they¡¯re involved with each other. And best case, they can even help us take down the Monster King. We could kill him, and then return to life with the kids sooner.¡±


    The other Eiros thought about the suggestion for a short while, but me Eiro soon shook his head, ¡°No, even if that does work out, we still don¡¯t know what¡¯s going to happen to us once we be the King. That¡¯s why we¡¯ve been dragging this whole thing out in our ns, to make sure that we¡¯re strong enough to shake off any influence the King¡¯s Splinter may have on us. And if we can¡¯t even kill the Monster King on our own, then we¡¯re definitely not strong enough for that.¡±


    ¡°More importantly...¡± the original added, ¡°I don¡¯t think the Masters can help us in the first ce.¡±


    Of course, he didn¡¯t have to exin, as the others knew exactly what he was thinking, ¡°Right... even before, we were reminded of the Invisibility Potion when seeing Shimour¡¯s stealth. And if that was him still holding back...¡±


    .....


    Water Eiro nodded, agreeing with the other duplicate, ¡°A mortal person holding power thatpares to a piece of the Arcane like that? There¡¯s no way that they don¡¯t catch the eye of some higher powers.¡±


    ¡°Whether it¡¯s the gods, or that thing beyond the gods... it¡¯s not unbelievable that they¡¯re somehow restricted in what they can do. I mean, those Arcane people got restrictions ced on them too, right?¡± Eiro wondered, thinking of the group of Arcane beings that he spoke to, which included none other than the Arcane Dealer.


    ¡°Wait... is that the step beyond Master? Bing one of them?¡± me Eiro wondered out loud, and the other two looked at him, exploring that train of thought, as the original nodded, ¡°It¡¯s not... impossible. Though I think we know too little... maybe Partax knows something? If he¡¯s as knowledge-hungry as we were told, and if these restrictions exist... then he must have explored the question of ¡®What¡¯s Next¡¯.¡±


    ¡°...Whichever the case may be, I think you should focus on what¡¯s going on around you right now. The two of us will keep reading the books of the tower, I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll figure out something once we get a few floors higher. I mean, even the second floor had a book with a spell that even we couldn¡¯t decypher right away,¡± the Water Eiro pointed out, as the original nodded, his mental body disappearing from the library.


    ¡ª


    Shimour squatted down in front of Eiro¡¯s body, grasping his head in pain, ¡°Fuck, I hate when I have to do this shit,¡± heined, noticing that Krog and James were rushing over toward them. Not only that, but everyone else was also starting to gather outside. Jess, Arie, Armodeus, the kids, and even all the manor¡¯s Monster Servants were either pressed against the window or had made their way outside.


    ¡°Shimour?!¡± Armodeus yelled out, ¡°The hell¡¯re you doing here?!¡± he asked, quickly rushing over with his hammer in hand. Once he got closer, he saw Eiro¡¯s bodyying lifelessly in a small crater in the middle of the yard, and the Elder Dwarf¡¯s fury was quickly directed at his old friend.


    ¡°Did ya seriously have to go all out against the kid?! Are ya insane, you fucking-¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t have much of a choice, you old grouch. I had to stop the fight quickly, and that was the only way,¡± Shimour pointed out, wiping away the blood that was dripping out the edges of his mouth. Armodeus frowned deeply, ¡°He¡¯s... that strong already?¡±


    ¡°...Apparently so. It¡¯s really quite ridiculous what this kid managed to do since Jura¡¯s passing,¡± Shimour agreed, before slowly raising his hand. He caught the arrow that was flying at him and slowly turned his head, ¡°Little missy, I¡¯m in the middle of a conversation here.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?! What did you do to our father?!¡± Sammy yelled angrily, tears welling up in her voice, ¡°Answer me!¡±


    ¡°I fought him, and beat him down when he used a spell that used Life Force instead of Mana,¡± Shimour exined, before catching himself. He looked at Armodeus with a frown, ¡°This kid, she-¡±


    Armodeus nodded, ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s the one with the voice. Don¡¯t worry,ssy, he¡¯s a friend. You know what your father¡¯s like, he-¡±


    ¡°Oh to hell with that!¡± Arie yelled out, flying over to Eiro¡¯s side with Clementine in hand. Arie was skilled enough at healing, but considering Eiro¡¯s ridiculous body, she didn¡¯t even know where to start looking for injuries. For that, Clementine wanted to help, ¡°Daddy, please be okay...¡± Clementine cried out, grabbing her father¡¯s hand. She looked at him, and blinked a few times confused.


    ¡°He... he doesn¡¯t have a pulse...¡± Clementine muttered, and everyone stared at the demon¡¯s body confused. That was, with the exception of Armodeus, Arie, and Eiro¡¯s party. They were the only ones that knew of the Demon¡¯s nonexistent heart so far.


    Quickly, before any of them could say anything, Arc, Rudy and Sammy started running toward him too, Leon and Avalin waddling behind unable to properly catch up, freaking out as much as their siblings.


    ¡°No, kids, listen-¡± Arie started, before being quickly interrupted by Shimour, ¡°What do you mean, he has no pulse?! Thatst attack was only mental- did the spell really sap away all his life force?!¡±


    He squatted down next to Eiro to confirm what was going on, when Rudy pushed himself inbetween Shimour and Eiro to try and protect him, ¡°Get away from him!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s going on? He¡¯s going to be alright, right? Right? I mean, he¡¯s our father, we know what he¡¯s like... he... he can¡¯t die, right?¡± Arc asked, but Clementine shook her head, unsure. She was too confused and scared and startled to answer.


    Before long, Leon and Avalin also reached the small crater. Leon was already freaking out, which was affecting all the monsters in the manor. Seeingly even the bit of monster blood in Shimour was making him feel anxious. Shimour tried to stop Avalin from approaching Eiro, since he could sense the holy energy that was leaking from her body, even if most others couldn¡¯t. But Rudy wouldn¡¯t let him, ¡°I said to get away from him!¡±


    ¡°Kid listen, if she gets close to your father when he¡¯s like that, then- right now he might still be alive, but if she-¡±


    Soon, at probably the worst moment, another guest finally arrived. Lognir fell from the sky, stopping himself with two pair of white and gold wings, ¡°Oh? What¡¯s going on here?¡±


    ¡°Lognir! You can help somehow, right? It¡¯s dad, he-¡± Sammy yelled out. She didn¡¯t know much about him, but everyone here had met Lognir before; and he was a dragon! Such a powerful creature had to be able to help Eiro out, right?


    ¡°Huh? I think he¡¯s fine, though?¡±


    ¡°Fine?! What do you mean, fine?!¡± Clementine yelled out, ¡°His heart isn¡¯t beating!¡±


    ¡°No, no, it¡¯s more like... he doesn¡¯t have a heart anymore. Armodeus, I¡¯m guessing he went throughwith that plot, finally?¡± Lognir asked, scratching his cheek awkwardly, before Eiro slowly shifted himself upward, ¡°Erm... I was waiting for a good moment to exin, but yeah... I¡¯m fine,¡± the Demon exined, as everyone looked at him confused and startled. Of course, they immediately responded with relief first and foremost, but since Eiro quickly had to calm Leon down to make sure the monsters didn¡¯t go on a rampage, everyone had time to calm down and think about what exactly happened. And so, it was finally time for Eiro to exin to them why exactly he didn¡¯t have a heart anymore, and why he hadn¡¯t told them about something so important yet.

 Chapter 636: Justification

    636 Justification


    Eiro properly sat up, looking at the faces of his children, all filled with horror after the man they feared was dead suddenly stood up seemingly perfectly fine. Of course there was some relief in there, but considering that there was no sign of him waking up beforehand, it was still quite shocking.


    The Demon ced his hand onto the ground and looked at the spirit floating by his side. Without having to say anything, the two of them filled in all the holes and cracks that had appeared during the fight, and Eiro of course also quickly made some of the damaged nts regrow or repair themselves. As he was doing so, he already picked up Leon and Avalin with his lower arms, stroking their heads with his upper hands. They were both shaking, and Eiro could feel an incredible amount of guild building up in his chest.


    Everyone sat down at the tables by the terrace, with the two youngest still sitting on hisp. Leon was still quite upset and as such wasn¡¯t able to control his unique skills well, so Eiro quickly sent out Min to restrain or lock up the monsters in the manor that were struggling.


    Eiro looked at the kids with a worried expression. Their eyes were all red, even Arc had clearly cried a little, ¡°Arc, how¡¯s your...¡±


    ¡°...It leveled up, yeah,¡± he replied in a stoic tone, ¡°But whatever, it¡¯s fine, who even cares about that, more importantly-¡±


    ¡°This is more important, are you okay?¡±


    Arc looked at Eiro with an annoyed frown, although it quickly disappeared again as his skill took over, ¡°Dad, seriously, I¡¯m fine. Even if you¡¯re worried, we can¡¯t do anything about this anyway. Just start talking, what¡¯s going on with your... heart situation?¡±


    Nervously, the kids looked at Eiro, and even Shimour stared at him with worry. Sammy picked at her fingernails and spoke as she looked down at the table, ¡°Did... did you get hurt? Did you have to give yourself a prosthetic heart?¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s not... I simply got rid of my heart because I don¡¯t need one anymore,¡± Eiro exined, trying to be as blunt about it as he could be. He hoped that by him being so casual about it, the kids¡¯ worry would subside too. Immediately, Rudy jumped up from his seat, ¡°You don¡¯t need your heart anymore?! What sort of nonsense is that, Dad you-¡±


    .....


    ¡°You¡¯re not... hurt, though... I didn¡¯t feel any pain or difort from you, so...¡± Clementine interrupted her brother, looking at Eiro as she ced a hand on Rudy¡¯s arm. Eiro smiled at her, ¡°Right, I¡¯m not hurt. Rather than saying I got rid of my heart... you could say I dissolved it. After I picked up some essence of flesh magic from your friend Noma, I used the chamber to infuse myself with it, and learned how to actually use it myself. I can manipte my flesh to a degree now. Like that, I took my heart and spread out the muscles that make it up across the veins in my body, not only making them stronger, but at the same time getting rid of the fatal weakness of my heart. I already didn¡¯t need my heart to live, I could use magic to make up for it as I am now even if I were attacked, but the system simply acknowledges an attack to the heart as an incredibly powerful attack that does more damage than nearly anywhere else in your body. So, I got rid of it.¡±


    Shimour frowned, ¡°You used magic to get rid of your heart, and now you¡¯re using magic to make up for your heart? That¡¯s... ridiculous.¡±


    ¡°Not really. I created a specific mental duplicate whose only purpose it is to keep the blood in my body running. Like this, even if I¡¯m attacked and were to bleed, I won¡¯t lose any blood either. Not that it matters, since I have the bloodstone in the first ce.¡±


    ¡°But what about your core? That¡¯s connected to your heart, what did you do with that?¡± Shimour questioned the Demon, unsure what he was about to hear now. Though, he did notice Armodeus¡¯ slightly wry expression out of the corner of his eye, ¡°Just as I did with my heart, I dissolved my core through my mana veins.¡±


    ¡°Alright, now I know that you¡¯re fuc-¡±


    ¡°Language,¡± Eiro interrupted, and Shimour looked at him annoyed, ¡°...Now I know that you¡¯re... messing with me, because you can¡¯t manipte your core nor your mana veins.¡±


    Arc groaned, ¡°Dude, catch up, he can. He used Holy Energy once and that sort ofpletely screwed him and his mana veins up, and since then they were... I don¡¯t know, loose or something?¡±


    Shimour let out a loudugh, hitting Eiro¡¯s back, ¡°Sorry, but it sounded like your kid just said you wielded Holy Energy... a Demon?! Hahaha,¡± heughed loudly, but nobody else in the round seemed to care. Everyone else already knew this, after all.


    ¡°Daddy can use Holy magic...!¡± Avalin eximed, wiping thest of her tears out of her eyes, ¡°He¡¯s the super awesomest demon, because he can!¡±


    Shaking his head, still finding this too ridiculous to believe, Shimour squatted down, ¡°Listen here little missy, but a demon can¡¯t evene in contact with holy energy, or else they...¡± he said, before realizing who he was talking to. This little girl was giving off Holy Energy, so this must be the little ¡®Holy Priestess¡¯. Shimour didn¡¯t fully believe Jura, since he thought he was just bragging about his grandchild being gifted with Holy magic, but clearly it was actually the case.


    ¡°You...¡± Shimour said with a wry smile, looking up at Eiro, ¡°You can actually use holy energy? But- how?¡±


    ¡°...I was never affected by it as much as other demons anyway, and once I became a royal and evolved, I became a unique species of demon. Since I was created by the Monster King and wasn¡¯t a direct descendent of the Great Demon, and wasn¡¯t even attached to the species of ¡®Imp¡¯ anymore, I was set free from the ¡®Original Sin¡¯ that made demons vulnerable to holy energy.¡±


    Shimour looked at Eiro with a nk expression, unsure if he was supposed to take what he was hearing at face value or if he should at least doubt it a little. Because it was simply too ridiculous to believe, but from what he¡¯s seen so far... it didn¡¯t seem totally impossible.


    ¡°Urgh, whatever! We already know this!¡± Sammy screamed, looking at her father, ¡°Just- Why would you do something like mess with your heart of all things?¡±


    ¡°To be stronger,¡± Eiro slowly replied, and Sammy stared deep at the man sitting across from her, ¡°Seriously? You¡¯re already strong enough, why do you need to do things like that to be even... I don¡¯t...¡±


    ¡°As for that, I think I can give you some insight. Your father is strong, and he will certainly be stronger, but... In the end, I was able to take him down quite quickly. Not easily by any means, but still... if he wants to get rid of the Monster King, then he has to be stronger.¡±


    Rudy slowly turned away, ¡°Why do you even have to get rid of the Monster King in the first ce? Just... let the hero take care of that, as always.¡±


    ¡°And then what? The next onees along. And then the next, and the next. We¡¯re stuck in this never-ending war, and if someone doesn¡¯t put an end to this, then-¡±


    ¡°But why does it have to be you?¡± Arc asked, ¡°None of us asked you to do this. Not to get rid of your heart, not to be a royal... we just want to live calm and happy lives with everyone. Just let someone else take care of this. You¡¯ve already done so much, without anyone even knowing about it.¡±


    Eiro continued stroking the heads of Leon and Avalin, as the two finally managed to calm down a bit again. The Demon looked at his youngest daughter, and frowned, ¡°I can¡¯t just leave this be... you know that. Especially considering Avalin. They already wanted her once before... and they¡¯ll definitely try something again. I have to do these things.¡±


    Arc slowly turned around and headed toward the door, ¡°Alright. In that case, do what you want. You¡¯re our father, and... I¡¯m sure you know better. Just be careful.¡±

 Chapter 637 - 637 Different

    637 Different


    Eiro floated through the water around him, manipting it to make the books all move around him. It was getting quite monotone just sitting there for days and days, reading things without anything else happening. Sure, he did learn quite a few interesting things, with a few spells here and there that he had no idea even existed, or certain rumours and myths that people had long forgotten so far. But even so, considering the sheer amount that he was dealing with here, things were still starting to feel a little boring nheless.


    In the past, he always had other things to deal with and never ended up doing nothing but read for literal weeks. Being a duplicate, there wasn¡¯t even a need for him to eat and sleep. Anura wasn¡¯t the bestpany either. After bing Eiro¡¯s servant, he had sort of begun to... be sort of obsessive. And loud. And incredibly annoying.


    He was continuously mumbling random things as he was reading, as though he suddenly unlearned how to read silently. Eiro didn¡¯t care that much in the end, though it was starting to get on his nerves, especially since the duplicate on the ne of Fire was doing everything he could to rile him up even more. Though, at least Eiro had Nelly around and could talk to her about some of his new discoveries. She was the oldest of the spirits Eiro had contracted, and by apanying Jura on his travels for decades, she had ended up learning quite a few things in her own right. But even she had never heard of most of the things that Eiro was uncovering in here.


    ¡°So you also don¡¯t know what that spell is about?¡± Eiro asked, and the Naiad shook her head. She was looking at the pages of the book that the Demon had positioned in front of her, and while she was clearly trying to figure it out, she wasn¡¯t able to continuously read it, ¡°No... I¡¯m sorry... I¡¯ve never heard of this sort of spell before. I¡¯ve spoken the ancientnguage for as long as I can remember, but... even I struggle to read some of these things.¡±


    ¡°Right? Something is weird about that text, though I don¡¯t exactly know what it is. Could it be some sort of unique dialect?¡±


    ¡°Hm... Maybe? Technically Aquarian is also derivative of the ancientnguage, so it¡¯s possible that it¡¯s something simr? Maybe it¡¯s thenguage of another people in another realm,¡± Nelly suggested, and Eiro raised a brow, ¡°That... actually seems like it makes sense, yeah... There¡¯s no Elemental ne of the Arcane, right?¡±


    Nelly shrugged, ¡°Doubt it. The Arcane isn¡¯t really an element... any ne like that would be the truest origin of magic, right?¡±


    Eiro thought for a while, trying to rattle his brain, ¡°Right... I mean, maybe it¡¯s thenguage that the Arcane folk speak? Like the Arcane Dealer and such.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t they just speakmon? More importantly, we know that people never actually spoke the ancientnguage anyway, it was more of a ritualistic thing even back then,¡± Nelly pointed out, and Eiro sighed, ¡°Good point. So, this is either a dialect or a close derivative of the ancientnguage, spoken by a people that we don¡¯t know yet. Great. Because there wasn¡¯t enough to deal with already...¡±


    .....


    ¡°What does this spell even do, by the way?¡± Nelly asked, looking at theplex descriptions in this weird version of the ancientnguage, mostly obscured by the sketched drawings of magic circles using a method based on apletely different system than regr magic circles were. As if whoever created these spells discovered and explored magic independently from everyone else.


    ¡°This one... is a water-purification spell, I think?¡± Eiro replied, simply forwarding what the mental duplicates had figured out after analyzing the spell for a while. Nelly scoffed, clearly a little annoyed as she closed the book and threw it to the side, ¡°What, you and Sarius find a cool body-strengthening spell, but you and I find a spell to make drinking water?¡±


    Eiro smirked, waving one of his hands to manipte the water around the spellbook and move it to where it was supposed to be in the library, ¡°Arguably, this one is much more important. There¡¯ll always be unclean bodies of water, whether it¡¯s because something died in it or because it became murky after standing still for too long, but hopefully, we¡¯ll end up not needing things like body-strenghtening spells at some point in the future,¡± the Demon pointed out, but Nelly just lightly smiled, ¡°You really think it¡¯s ever going to get to that point?¡±


    ¡°...Maybe. I hope so,¡± Eiro replied, before stretching slightly, ¡°Either way, I¡¯m pretty sure there should be more spells like that around here somewhere. Once the original casts them, they¡¯ll be added to the grimoire, so maybe that thing¡¯s going to give us some more insight into what¡¯s going on.¡±


    ¡°...The grimoire epts those spells?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it does. It was a bit surprising as well, but it opened up a whole new section in the back,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°I¡¯m guessing because it¡¯s just so different from the other spells?¡±


    ¡°That makes sense,¡± Nelly replied, before looking at the being still sitting behind the desk next to the entrance, ¡°So, do you have any more books like that around here?¡±


    ¡°...¡± the overseer of the tower looked up from their book, ¡°If it exists, it¡¯s in the tower. Whether or not it¡¯s on this floor is questionable, though.¡±


    Nelly looked at them with an annoyed expression, ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡±


    ¡°The books of the tower are sorted by their importance, danger, and rarity.¡±


    ¡°...That doesn¡¯t really answer my question,¡± Nellyined, but Eiro shook his head, ¡°Actually, I think it might. They¡¯re saying that these spells aren¡¯t the originals. They¡¯re recreations. That it?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s up to you to see. I¡¯m not able to divulge any such information.¡±


    ¡°Ehh... So stingy...¡± annoyed, Nelly started floating through the room, taking in the air that was streaming in through the window, as Eiro continued reading the different books of the room, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ll figure it out soon enough. At this rate... we should get to the next floor in a couple of days, I think. That hot-headed version of me might make it even quicker.¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°You bet, you waterlogged fucker,¡± the other Eiro said with a broad grin on his face, basically just ncing at the pages in front of him as they were flipping past too quick for even him to read. Of course, he didn¡¯t have to yet, it was enough for him to just have a single nce at the page so the mental duplicates could do the rest.


    ¡°I¡¯m bored,¡± Sariusined.


    ¡°Then go for a walk or something.¡±


    ¡°Go for a- do you even hear yourself, Eiro? Why would I do that?¡±


    ¡°So you stop annoying the shit out of me?¡±


    ¡°That hurts. It really, really hurts to hear you say that. I thought we had gotten closer during these past few weeks, but I guess not,¡± Sarius turned away, his hand covering his mouth, and Eiro looked at him with an annoyed, nk expression, ¡°What volume of that drama are you at now?¡±


    ¡°...Sixteen.¡±


    ¡°Ah. That part. You know, toward the beginning of the third act, Ricardo-¡±


    Sarius immediately jumped up from his seat and started rushing toward the door, ¡°A walk it is! I¡¯ll take the chance to check up on the brat and that pig.¡±


    ¡°Thanks,¡± Eiro replied, finally able to continue reading in peace. Or so he thought, since before long, the overseer asked a question, something that really didn¡¯t happen often, ¡°And you¡¯re positive that he¡¯s going to be the next Smander King?¡±


    ¡°So I¡¯ve been told,¡± the Demon pointed out, ¡°I know that he seems sort of unfit for the job right now, but it¡¯s not like he¡¯s going to take over anytime soon. It¡¯s probably going to be another hundred years or so until that¡¯s even really going to be a thing to worry about.¡±


    ¡°Sure, but spirits don¡¯t really change that much over their lifetime. If he¡¯s like this now, then...¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s the case, honestly. He¡¯s already changed plenty, he¡¯s a lot calmer than he used to be. He¡¯s bing more patient, and every once in a while, actually seems to be excited while making a breakthrough during practice,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°He¡¯s just a kid, as far as spirits go. Just give him some time, and he¡¯ll show that he can step up to the task.¡±


    The overseer slowly returned to their book, ¡°If you say so, then sure. Though I already feel bad for the next generation¡¯s queen.¡±


    ¡°Heh... yeah, I can see that,¡± Eiroughed, ¡°Either way, he¡¯s going to be alright. I¡¯m teaching him quite well, I think. Just out of curiosity, why did you suddenly ask?¡±


    ¡°Hm? Oh, no real reason. Just, we received notice that the current Smander King is on his way here, so I figured I¡¯d ask.¡±


    Eiro looked away from the books with a nk expression, ¡°What now?¡±

 Chapter 638 - 638 Visit

    638 Visit


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, annoyed, ¡°Really? Why the hell..?¡± the demon asked into the room, but the overseer simply shrugged, ¡°Did you do anything to upset him?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so? I mean, I haven¡¯t really done anything except scare a few kids. And I doubt he¡¯de to me about something like that,¡± Eiro sighed, ¡°How long until he¡¯ll be here?¡±


    ¡°Maybe ten minutes?¡±


    ¡°...And when were you told that he¡¯sing?¡±


    ¡°A couple days ago, a Smander came here in search of you. And when he figured out that you were in here, he said he would bring the Smander King here,¡± the overseer exined, and Eiro couldn¡¯t do anything but let out a loud groan, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me beforehand?¡±


    ¡°What am I, your pet? If you had paid attention, you would¡¯ve noticed that Smander yourself anyway. I figured you had.¡±


    Eiro ced the books in front of him down onto the table, ¡°...Does the Smander King have ess to the tower?¡±


    The overseer nodded without looking away from the book in his hand, ¡°He has the same rights to enter the tower as anyone. Not that he has passed the tests yet.¡±


    ¡°That means if I did anything wrong, I can at least hide on the second floor.¡±


    .....


    ¡°Theoretically.¡±


    Eiro frowned, ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean now?¡±


    ¡°The tower is a ce of knowledge, not violence. If the Smander King threatens to use force, you will be brought out of the tower immediately. You can return once you have resolved the issues, of course, but if there¡¯s anything that could damage the integrity of the books we house, then that will be removed, of course,¡± the overseer exined, but Eiro just sighed, ¡°Fuck, alright. I guess I just have to face him, then. Urgh, this is going to be annoying... I think I actually know why he¡¯sing here.¡±


    The overseer raised a brow, ¡°And why would that be?¡±


    Eiro quickly pointed at his heart, ¡°The gateway that acts as this body¡¯s core. We exined it to you already, right? The versions of us in the tower here and on the ne of water are duplicats. The original became the guardian of two spirit gateways, and then formed duplicates right around those gateways.¡±


    ¡°So he¡¯sing because you¡¯re using the gateway as you wish?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d guess so.¡±


    ¡°Good luck with that, then.¡±


    ¡°...Right,¡± Eiro grumbled, taking his time to bring the books back to their spot, before moving down toward the tower¡¯s entrance. As he was walking, he already heard a troubled voice ringing through his head, ¡°Yo,e the fuck down here, the King¡¯s here!¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Eiro replied to Sarius, letting out a sigh as he pushed open therge double door that led him straight outside. In front of him, he could see the huge figure of the Smander King, towering over Eiro. He was already giant in the central elemental ne, but here, he could only be called a giant. It made sense... that small Sarius was asrge as a person here, so it would only make sense for the King to scale up simrly.


    ¡°Ah... long time no see?¡± Eiro said with a slight wave, and the Smander King looked down at him, ¡°It has been some months, yes. And in that time, I can tell that you have achieved quite... something,¡± the King pointed out, clearly staring deep into Eiro¡¯s chest, as if he was looking right into the gateway.


    ¡°So ¡®that¡¯ really is the reason why you¡¯re here, huh...¡±


    ¡°Of course it is! What else would bring me here? I gave you a blessing and made you guardian of the gateway, and this is how you use that gift?¡± The King asked, his words clearly implying that he was angry, but... his voice didn¡¯t. Eiro was a little surprised, but couldn¡¯t help but smile, ¡°Yup. I mean, isn¡¯t it kind of cool?¡±


    The Smander King smirked, while the other Smanders following behind him as his entourage were clearly angered incredibly by the Demon¡¯s words, ¡°How dare you desecrate the gateway like that?!¡± they started to yell out, throwing insults at him. Meanwhile, Eiro and the Smander King simply looked into each other¡¯s eyes. They both knew where this was going.


    Smanders were wild and got angry easily, and they quickly turned to violence. It seemed like there were plenty of them that were right on the edge of doing just that, as well. Figuring that they might just need another small push, Eiro grinned and scoffed, ¡°I mean, it¡¯s mine now, isn¡¯t it? I can do whatever the hell I want with it, even if I just end up using it as a trash-chute.¡±


    Eiro could feel the magic around plenty of the Smanders shifting, turning into simple attack spells that were about to be shot right at the Demon. But Eiro just smiled and looked at Sarius, ¡°Do you want to take care of this one?¡±


    ¡°Hahh? What, why should-¡± Sarius yelled out, clearly already nervous enough because of this situation. But, finally taking the time to look at the King¡¯s expression, his nervousness disappeared, and even he realized what was going on.


    ¡°Ah... I guess so,¡± the spirit replied, snapping his fingers just once. As if all the magic in the realm surrounding him just waited for hismand, as though it was yearning to act under his will, a wave travelled through the fire-magic filled air. As those waves hit the spells created by the other Smanders, suddenly, the spells turned on their casters. The spears, spikes, and orbs stopped listening to the ones that originally called on them, and instead threatened them, pressed against their chests or necks. And all that, with just a single snap of his finger.


    Not only the other Smanders, but the King as well, were more than just surprised at what they were seeing, ¡°This... this level of control, in that little time? What have you done with him since Ist saw him..?¡±


    ¡°What have I done? Exactly what you asked me to. I showed him how to control his raw power,¡± Eiro exined bluntly, ¡°He picked things up pretty well, especially if I taught him while fused.¡±


    The King smiled broadly, ¡°I see, I see! So basically, after you fused, he received your level of skill in magic control!¡±


    ¡°Hah?¡± Eiro and Sarius let out at once, and Sarius quickly shook his head, ¡°No way, no, you can¡¯tpare me to that guy, that¡¯s just unfair... If that¡¯s the level I have to be at to be King, I¡¯ll just give up already...¡±


    The King raised a brow, ¡°Certainly, he was quite skilled when Ist saw him, but... is it to the degree where you cannot achieve it?¡±


    ¡°Th-That¡¯s right! You¡¯re a spirit, the future King! There¡¯s no way you would be worse at controlling fire magic than a mere demon!¡±


    Eiro looked at the Smander that just said that, and locked eyes with him, ¡°Did you just say ¡®mere¡¯ demon? I¡¯m a fucking King, I¡¯ve evolved into my own unique species! Or like... the original did, I¡¯m a copy of his that he fused with fire magic, but like, still, the point stands!¡±


    The Smander King smirked lightly, ¡°In that case, would you like to show us your skill?¡±


    With a click of his tongue, Eiro nodded, ¡°Of course! Yo, original, get to it!¡±


    Eiro looked down at his body and frowned, ¡°The fuck do you mean, why would I- Oh go fuck yourself you cocky prick, just because you-¡± the Demon angrily spoke to himself, making him appear close to insane to the Smanders, before Eiro finally clicked his tongue, ¡°Alright, fine! Please! Please do it, alright?¡±


    Just a moment after, Eiro¡¯s body started to swell up, ¡°There we go, that wasn¡¯t so hard now, was it?¡±


    The duplicate grew in size, as the original manipted the exact way that the duplicate¡¯s body appeared. To make up for the mass that he was missing, the duplicate quickly pulled in huge amounts of fire magic from around him, as if filling in the gaps. Before long, Eiro was the size of the Smander King, and soon, even towered above him. His body was slightly translucent due to the concentrated fire magic now making up the vast majority of his body. Strands of light were flowing through his body, as the power of the spirit gateway was clearly visible to everyone now that Eiro¡¯s body was partially see-through.


    And then, Eiro grinned, and pped just once. A shockwave of magic traveled through the area as if a bomb went off. And then, all at once, the borders of that shockwave were pulled back in, right into a single spot, leaving nothing but a vacuum in the air where there was supposed to be fire magic before. The floating smanders fell to the ground, as waves of new magic came crashing over them to fill in the space that had been created in an instant, while the enormous Eiro looked down at the fallen Smanders, holding arge magic stone in his hand, that he just created with his own power.

 Chapter 639 - 639 Sending Off

    639 Sending Off


    Eiro¡¯srge body towered over the spirits, as he held the magic stone in his hand. Waves of magic crashed back into the space that Eiro had just emptied out in order to create it, and it took a few moments for all the spirits to fully recover and get back onto their feet. The only ones in the vicinity that weren¡¯t affected were the Smander King, Eiro himself, as well as Jyoti, who Eiro had specifically protected with a barrier so that he would be fine no matter what Eiro was doing.


    The King looked up at Eiro, who slowly lowered his body, sitting down cross-legged while leaning against the tower behind him. He was sure that the overseer would be mad at him about thatter, but Eiro honestly didn¡¯t really care much about that, ¡°This level of power... If you keep growing at this rate, you will soone to rival even...¡±


    ¡°Even you? Yeah, I guess so,¡± Eiro replied, moving his re toward the Smanders who he figured were about to protest after hearing his words, trying to quickly shut them up with a bit of pressure directed their way.


    The Demon sighed, ¡°One thing that you have to understand; Everything about me is made to let me take in everything about the world around me. Whether it¡¯s knowledge or magic, I can, and must, gather more. While I don¡¯t have a title bestowed upon me by the system... you could probably call me the ¡®Collector¡¯,¡± he exined, ¡°I am supposed to grow ever-stronger until I have everything I need.¡±


    A gentle smile appeared on the Smander King¡¯s face, ¡°I see. Then I am d you are the one to receive my blessing, and the one to raise my sessor into a proper ruler,¡± he exined, ¡°However... despite your power, the fact that you are using the Spirit Gateway as you are... is naught but worrying.¡±


    ¡°Is it really?¡± Eiro asked, his voice carrying far in this form, ¡°This is the best way to protect it. With me, on both sides, there¡¯s nothing that could ever happen to it.¡±


    ¡°That I am aware of. I am more worried about you, young demon,¡± the king exined, ¡°The Spirit Gateway is a powerful force. I can already tell that this realm is affecting your mind, and the Gateway itself... it must be worsening this even more.¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t worry about that,¡± Eiro pointed out, letting out a deep sigh. And as he sighed, his body shrunk down, and he released the magic that he had fused into his body. He looked at the head-sized magic stone in his hand, and pressed it against his chest, and it soon disappeared, as the duplicate gave it to the original. He himself didn¡¯t have much use for it right now, ¡°I¡¯m not even the original. If something goes wrong with me, that guy¡¯s just going to ¡®reset¡¯ me when he still can.¡±


    ¡°...You say that he will kill you, a part of himself?¡±


    .....


    ¡°Well... yes, but no? Our minds are fully linked, so everything I experience, he experiences as well, but my personality just sliiightly changes over timepared to his. But it¡¯ll still be a part of him, no matter what he does to me.¡±


    ¡ª


    As the duplicate pressed the magic stone onto his chest, Eiro was able to pull it into the treasury, and from there, quickly pulled it into the central elemental ne. Right there, a head-sized fire magic stone appeared out of nowhere, and Eiro looked at it with a raised brow, ¡°This guy... can¡¯t even do a proper job at it, huh?¡± he muttered, quicklypressing the magic properly. This magic stone looked impressive, but it was pretty low-quality the way that it was right now. Instead, having a smaller, highlypressed magic stone was much more useful. And so, Eiropressed thatrge magic stone down to the size of two fingers.


    ¡°What was that just now?¡± Shimour asked with a baffled expression, looking at the gemstone now glistening away in the demon¡¯s hand. Eiro thought for a moment, before throwing the magic stone over toward Shimour. As he caught it and took another look, he noticed the incredibly hot gem wriggling around in his hand. That magic stone had quickly turned into a small gecko, staring up at Shimour, ¡°Just some magic. I just turned that into a servant, so let¡¯s just use it tomunicat. While you¡¯re on your way to the others, just use it however you want. To start campfires, as amp, to dry your clothes if you get caught in the rain. Whatever.¡±


    ¡°Servant? That¡¯s a ¡®royal¡¯ thing, right? You can create these that easily?¡± Shimour said with a wry smile, and Eiro shrugged, ¡°I mean, I guess so. There¡¯s a limit, of course. If I can¡¯t keep track of them all, then they¡¯ll start falling apart, except if I give them a name, then they have a level of independence, but I can¡¯t make infinite amounts of those either...¡±


    Just as he said so, one of the manor¡¯s butlers walked over, carrying a small, handheldntern. The butler held it forward toward Shimour, who looked a bit confused, before realizing that the servant¡¯s body was continuing to get hotter. He ced the gecko into thentern and watched the small servant create its new home in there.


    ¡°Huh... that¡¯s actually pretty neat. I¡¯ll treat him well, don¡¯t worry,¡± Shimour said, slowly closing the main hatch of thentern before hanging the whole thing off of his belt, and then extended his hand toward Eiro, ¡°I¡¯ll see you again soon. I can¡¯t make promises of when they others wille here, or if they will at all, but I¡¯ll try to convince them at least. I have some things to take care of first too, but I should be back in a couple weeks. A month, thetest. Then we can get properly started.¡±


    Eiro shook Shimour¡¯s hand to say goodbye for now, smiling lightly, ¡°Thank you for aodating me like that. They¡¯ll surelyin about this all, but tell them I¡¯ll try to make up for it however I can.¡±


    ¡°Hah, you better,¡± Shimour scoffed, before turning around and walking down the steps in front of the manor. And then, before Eiro knew it, Shimour simply disappeared from sight, as if he wasn¡¯t there to begin with.


    The Demon turned around as the butler shut the door, and quickly made his way to his office. He wanted to make sure that he was going to be able to concentrate on the lessons from the masters as much as he could, and for that, he had to make sure that all of his lessons as the academy were fully prepared. Over the past couple of weeks, he had watched all of his new and old students, watching their progress and trying to figure out their individual talents, and then started making individual ns for them. Some would need some slightly closer guidance from him to be as good as they could, and others could use guidance from other instructors at the academy, so he still had to talk to them to see to what extent that was possible.


    Of course, there were still the kind that either didn¡¯t have the ability to follow that level of guidance, or the kind that simply didn¡¯t deserve it, at least not yet. Eiro didn¡¯t abandon either of those groups of course; the former would still receive a lesser level of guidance that would help them grow, while thetter would first need to be monitored by Eiro. That group contained trouble-makers, or the ones that didn¡¯t put in any effort whatsoever for any number of reasons.


    Eiro made sure to have some servants watch them while they were on academy-grounds; they still deserved some privacy of course, but at least on academy-grounds it was his job as a teacher to make sure they were brought onto the right path. Some of them started bullying others to show off or feel superior, and when that happened, Eiro either went there himself, or sent some senior, stronger students in their rough direction on some random errand, so that they would be interrupted. Eiro was still trying to figure out the best way to reform those kinds, so until he did that, he at least wanted to stop them from doing any proper harm to others students.

 Chapter 640 - 640 Table Manners

    640 Table Manners


    Eiro looked at the documents in front of him, trying to think of the best course of action. He had dealt with some of the problem-students in different ways. Usually, they could be reformed just by talking to them; most of the time, they had some deeper-rooted issues, and once those had been dealt with, or at least addressed, their behaviour would get better over time. There were the kind that were a bit harder to deal with though, like that child that Eiro ended up threatening right after he killed ¡®Death¡¯. He had quite little patience then, but it was a good enough opportunity to deal with the troublemaker that was actively injuring and bullying kids. And since Charles was also there to help him out and keep things under control, Eiro was able to just let it happen.


    He did wish that he had been able to better deal with the situation, though. Now, Richard Mchine was the kind of student that didn¡¯t bother speaking to anyone. He had lost his social position, despite being a duke¡¯s son. After Richard had so openly insulted Eiro at a social event, more and more people kepting out about Richard¡¯s behaviour, and he became ostracized, instead of his victims. Especially those kids that he used to call ¡®friends¡¯ were now treating him rather harshly, trying to push all me onto Richard instead of owning up to their own faults in this situation. However, it was mostly just to the extent of Richard being ignored and excluded, and sometimes having people chuckle about him. Especially since it was a new semester and plenty new students joined the school, nobody really cared for him anymore. And since Richard still did well enough academically, Eiro didn¡¯t have any reason to bother with him. That was, until recently.


    One of the new students, a case that Eiro had already been watching anyway, was causing trouble. Which was especially troublesome for Eiro, as it was known that he was one of the students that Eiro paid particr attention to. Some of the other students were annoyed by it, but the faculty, which knew of this student¡¯s circumstances, quickly epted the situation. Rather, they were quite happy; they knew that someone had to do it, but none of them wanted to do it themselves. Not that they knew the details, they just knew that this student was someone they didn¡¯t want to bother with.


    It was Zeke Redbrow, the student with Demon blood that the Devil presumably sent to this school as a sign to Eiro. He seemed rather quiet and calm at first, but after a short while, his personality had changed quite abruptly. Since students realized that Zeke was a special case, receiving attention from Eiro, they obviously tried to get close to him. He became popr, and even his upperssmen, particrly Richard¡¯s former posse, quickly took him in, teaching him the ¡®ways of the academy¡¯. That alone would have been enough to affect young minds going through puberty, but in Zeke¡¯s case, his personality was worsened quite terribly through the study of Unholy Magic. The fact that he started actively using it in order to learn to control it must have awakened part of his demonic blood, and his personality changed through it. Once Zeke¡¯s control over Unholy Magic grows, and he was guided in the right direction by Eiro, then those changes caused by the demonic parts of him should near disappear sooner orter, but right now, they were something quite troublesome to deal with. He was even more vicious than Richard used to be.


    With a deep sigh, Eiro stood up from his desk, figuring that he simply had to speak to him for now. He left his office at the academy and stepped into the hallway, when an unsavory scent hit his nose. Zeke had passed by here earlier.


    ¡°How annoying,¡± Eiro grumbled, and he could feel the slime covering his body shiver just so slightly, causing Eiro to quickly reprimand him, ¡°Concentrate, you can¡¯t to this when we¡¯re in front of students.¡±


    But Bavet just scoffed, ¡°What do you want me to do? Because of you, I ended up not evolving intobat-focused races, so you can¡¯t me me for not being able to deal with your... whole thing, when you get riled up like that.¡±


    ¡°Oh stop it, it wasn¡¯t even that bad,¡± Eiro replied, however, Bavet thought otherwise, ¡°Why do you even bother with this kid? You clearly don¡¯t like him, and want him gone. Just get rid of him and make it look like an ident, or suicide or something.¡±


    Eiro silently continued walking, pondering Bavet¡¯s suggestion for a few moments, ¡°Well... I could, but I won¡¯t. At least not for now.¡±


    .....


    ¡°Seriously? Then at least calm down when you¡¯re around that brat...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m trying, it¡¯s just a natural reaction. Not only does he smell like a demon, he smells like... him, of all demons. It¡¯s too disgusting not to react to, you know?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why, again-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not killing him yet, that¡¯s probably exactly what the Devil wants. Or... whatever. I don¡¯t know what the Devil is nning with Zeke, whether he¡¯s just a message, or if there¡¯s still more to him. But whatever the case may be, I¡¯m not going to do the thing that the Devil would expect from me.¡±


    Bavet stayed quiet for a few moments as he thought, before speaking up again, ¡°So what if he expects that you act that way?¡±


    ¡°I know where you¡¯re trying to go, but that¡¯s a never-ending spiral. Yes, even I can¡¯t fully predict the Devil, considering how little I actually know about him, but what I do know is that he¡¯s cocky and vastly overestimates himself. He¡¯s seen how I acted under the influence of his mark. He expects me to still choose murder and violence as the first way to resolve things,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°And not even considering that, killing Zeke would be stupid. If the Devil ced him here with some kind of deeper n, then I¡¯ll end up being able to figure a few things out by keeping Zeke around. I¡¯m much more capable than the Devil expects.¡±


    ¡°Hm... right, so then-¡±


    ¡°Quiet, we¡¯ll keep talking about thister,¡± Eiro stopped Bavet, quickly making the slime fully concentrate on keeping Eiro¡¯s form to that of a human again. He turned the corner toward the stairway, the one that was practically hidden in the corner of the academy. Nobody ever used it, except for a small group of students. Some teachers would regrly head there to make sure that they weren¡¯t there loitering around, but they still always came back, since it was still the best way to do what they wanted to do. Even Eiro barely paid attention to this ce, he only checked on it a couple of times each day.


    And this time around, he found the people he was looking for. He could hear the pained grunting of one of the students, the iron-tinged scent of iron in the air. Others simply chuckled as they watched what was happening.


    ¡°Come on now, say that again,¡± Zeke said with a deep re, staring down at the young man in front of him. Richard was holding his hands in front of his mouth and nose, trying to prevent himself from bleeding all over his clothes. He was shivering, trying to avert Zeke¡¯s gaze. However, the young man with the devil¡¯s blood didn¡¯t let him off that easily; he squatted down and pulled Richard¡¯s hand away from his face, before puting his own in its ce. He squeezed tightly, forcing Richard to look right back at him, ¡°Say it. Now.¡±


    ¡°Y-You¡¯ll... you¡¯ll regret... this...¡± Richard¡¯s muffled voice was hard to understand, not just because of Zeke¡¯s hand, but also because he was clearly trying to hold himself back from crying. It was pitiful, incredibly so. Eiro couldn¡¯t believe that the kid that acted so high-and-mighty back then would act like this... Did Eiro overdo it when he threatened him?


    Zeke let out a loudugh, turning his head toward his new posse, ¡°You hear him, guys? He said we¡¯d-¡± he started, but quickly stopped as he widened his eyes. He tried to pull his hand away from Richard¡¯s face, but clearly struggled to do so, until the sound of flesh tearing rung through Eiro¡¯s ears. It was a sort of nostalgic one, the sound of teeth tearing out the flesh of a living person.


    Richard spit out the chunk of flesh that he bit out of Zeke¡¯s hand, his face looking like that of a man who was fed up.


    ¡°You little-¡± the pain nearly paralyzing him, Zeke fell to his knees, trying to fend off the burning feeling on his palm. His ¡®friends¡¯ quickly came to his side, trying to figure out what just happened, but before they could really react, Zeke came up with an idea.


    ¡°Hold him down. One of you press your feet onto his forehead too,¡± Zeke instructed, his eyes shing red due to the veins that were nearly popping open inside of his head. He pulled the belt off of Richard¡¯s pants and quickly pressed it into Richard¡¯s mouth, closing it around his own ankle. With one of the other¡¯s feet on Richard¡¯s forehead, Zeke could force his mouth open even with just one usable hand. A hand which he quickly used to pick up the piece of flesh that Richard just bit off.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t your parents teach you table manners, huh? You should always finish your food,¡± Zeke let out a maniacal grin as he ced the piece of flesh into Richard¡¯s mouth, forcing it shut with his foot before pressing his nose closed as well.


    ¡°Swallow.¡±

 Chapter 641 - 641 Zeke

    641 Zeke


    Richard¡¯s body shivered as his face turned red while he tried his best to hold his breath for as long as possible. He didn¡¯t want to swallow that chunk of flesh he had bitten off Zeke¡¯s palm earlier; that would just end up causing a ¡®Taboo¡¯. But Zeke didn¡¯t let off, continuing to hold Richard down together with his posse.


    But then, all of a sudden, Richard could feel that small piece of flesh starting to wriggle inside of his mouth, as if it were alive. It bulged up and grew, soon taking up more space in his mouth than even his tongue. It forced its way out through those tiny, thin gaps inbetween his teeth, as if it were a liquid, and soon touched against Zeke¡¯s hand.


    ¡°Wait, did you just throw up?¡± Zeke asked with a wry expression, ¡°Fuck, that¡¯s-¡± he pulled his hand away, and Richard¡¯s mouth was immediately forced open as a living mass of flesh came crawling out Richard¡¯s mouth, though right now, only Zeke and Richard were aware of this. The other two were quickly distracted by the man that currently stepped into the stairwell.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on here?¡± Eiro asked, his voice echoing through the heads of the people involved.


    ¡°Th-That, Richard fell down the stairs, and we were just-¡±


    ¡°Save your breath, and just get the hell out of here. I¡¯ll being to speak to youter,¡± Eiro stared at the young men, watching as they practically sprinted up the stairs. Zeke also wanted to leave, but Eiro blocked his way before he could, ¡°You will stay. Richard, get up as well.¡±


    Zeke looked at Eiro with a nervous expression, ¡°Sir! I just- I heard how Richard was acting toward you and your children, so I-¡± he tried to exin and justify himself, and quickly nced at Richard behind him, whose expression was just filled with absolute terror. And that wasn¡¯t because of the pulsating mass of bloody flesh that just fell out of his mouth, but rather because of the man that was standing in front of him. He was terrified of Eiro.


    Richard moved to his knees and practically started begging, ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything this time, please, just let me go, I- I...¡±


    Eiro sighed, and approached Richard. The young man flinched and closed his eyes in fear, before feeling a touch on top of his head. He surely expected Eiro to hurt him even more than Zeke just did, but to his surprise, or rather shock, his body was soon wrapped in a warm aura. The pain disappeared nearly immediately, and even the smell of blood from all over his face was gone, before Richard could feel his hair being adjusted.


    .....


    ¡°There you go, that looks much better,¡± Eiro said, and as Richard opened his eyes, he just saw a gentle, genuine smile. Usually, Richard was terrified whenever he encountered Eiro now, but this time, that feeling was far off in the distance, ¡°Wh-What? But-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m genuinely sorry for how I reacted at that time. You¡¯re just a child, I shouldn¡¯t have treated you so poorly for acting like one. Even if you were taking it a step too far,¡± Eiro told him, ¡°Just go and rest, just take the rest of the day off. I will exin the situation to your teachers.¡±


    ¡°Yes! Of course, thank you, I... I¡¯m sorry...!¡± Richard eximed, as he quickly turned around and sprinted away with practically overflowing energy. Eiro looked at his back with a slight smile. Surely that didn¡¯t fix everything, but Eiro still had a year left to make up for his behaviour and make sure that Richard could graduate the academy as a well-adjusted young man. Luckily, he also quickly forgot about the feeling of having living flesh inside of his mouth, as Eiro used the Ace of Cups to quickly hide its existence from his and Zeke¡¯s minds. If he then made enough of an impact in these conversations, then they shouldn¡¯t be able to remember it that easily.


    ¡°Why would you say those things with the way that he treated you...? I just can¡¯t-¡±


    ¡°Quiet, Zeke,¡± Eiro said, quickly ring at him with an annoyed expression, ¡°Give me your hand.¡±


    Nervously, Zeke held forward his hand, but Eiro let out a loud sigh, ¡°The one that has a chunk missing, obviously.¡±


    Zeke anxiously pulled his arm back, ¡°W-Wait, you won¡¯t use Holy Magic on me too, right..? I could feel that disgusting air all the way over here, you know what I am...!¡±


    While rolling his eyes, Eiro forcefully grabbed Zeke¡¯s hand, and quickly created a spark of mes over his palm. Soon, Zeke¡¯s hand was enwrapped in fire, and obviously, his first instinct was to yelp out and try to get away from the mes, but before he knew it, he realized that the pain in his palm was gone. He stared at his hand, and could see that there was just the blood left, but the wound had beenpletely healed.


    ¡°Obviously I wouldn¡¯t use Holy Magic on you. On full humans, it has the greatest healing effect. Since I personally don¡¯t have an affinity for unholy magic, I had to use the next best thing, fire, to heal you. Though I¡¯m not sure if unholy magic would even be good for you. In the end, you¡¯re still more human than demon, anyway,¡± Eiro exined to Zeke, who just couldn¡¯t stop staring at his palm, ¡°You can... use fire magic to heal?¡±


    ¡°You can use any magic to heal or to destroy. It depends on the will of the caster, rather than the element itself,¡± the Demon said, before locking eyes with the young man in front of him, who was busy looking at his freshly healed hand in wonder. However, Eiro quickly drew his attention away again, ¡°That¡¯s not just the case in regard to magic. A lot of things depend on the will of the caster, rather than more shallow, physical things. Like blood, for example.¡±


    Zeke scoffed, ¡°I mean, most nobles I know of suck pretty bad, and obviously that¡¯s the case for Richard as well... though I guess you¡¯re trying to say that it¡¯s not because he¡¯s a noble, but because he¡¯s just a bad person?¡±


    Trying to hide his annoyance while Bavet held back augh, Eiro locked eyes with Zeke, ¡°I¡¯m not talking about Richard right now. What do you think you¡¯re doing, acting like this? Acting like a demon, a monster?¡±


    ¡°...huh? What do you mean? Richard is the one that bit into my hand, I just-¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even start with that, I know exactly what you¡¯ve been doing to him. He¡¯s not the only one either, you¡¯ve been savagely bullying plenty of kids around the academy.¡±


    Zeke frowned, growing a bit annoyed himself, ¡°I¡¯m just doing what I have to! All these brats are walking around this academy acting as if they own it! I didn¡¯t know why I was sent here, but now, aftering here and seeing it for myself, and after meeting you, it¡¯s just been so obvious!¡±


    ¡°Since you¡¯ve been sent here?¡± Eiro repeated, not even paying mind to everything else that Zeke had said, ¡°Who sent you here?¡±


    ¡°...My father, who else?¡± Zeke said bluntly, a bit confused, ¡°You know that, though, right? He told me I would meet a powerful man here, and that he was the same as I am... That he would help me out, and that I should help him out in return.¡±


    Surprised, Eiro narrowed his eyes. Zeke definitely didn¡¯t have enough demon blood in him to be the son of the Devil himself. If anything, then he must be about three or four generations down from him. But maybe, Zeke¡¯s father had more direct contact to the Devil than Zeke himself. Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose. He could tell that Zeke was telling the truth, and considering how naive he was being about all this, with a bit of acting, it should be easy to figure some more things out, ¡°Right... of course. It¡¯s starting to make sense. I wasn¡¯t told anything about this, so I just helped you because of the blood in your veins, but... Honestly this is quite annoying. How can I meet your father?¡±


    ¡°So... you helped me not because you owe my father a debt, but because... you simply wanted to help?¡± Zeke muttered, and Eiro looked back down at him, ¡°If that¡¯s what you want to think, then do that. But first, answer my question.¡±


    After a quick nod, Zeke replied, ¡°Of course! My father said he had some business a couple towns over... in, what was it? Kleinhaus?¡±


    Kleinhaus, a small mining town that was a few hours away by carriage. Immediately, Eiro sent off some of his servants to investigate the location in question, to try and find any possible trace of someone with Demon blood. Eiro let out a sigh, ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll see if I can reach out to him. But until I hear from your father, keep it down, okay? If you want my help, then you have to do things by my rules. If you want to control your unholy magic, then you can¡¯t let your ancestry control you first, and that¡¯s clearly what¡¯s happening. Lay low, concentrate on your studies, and don¡¯t cause any more trouble. You hear me?¡±


    Immediately, Zeke nodded his head, ¡°Right! I¡¯ll try not to bother you any more, of course!¡±


    ¡°Get out of here, now,¡± Eiro told Zeke, who quickly turned around and ran off, before a grin grew on Eiro¡¯s face. Truthfully, at this point, he didn¡¯t know what was part of the Devil¡¯s ploy and what wasn¡¯t, but he knew that the next thing he had to do was fine Zeke¡¯s father. But first, Eiro turned toward the small mass of flesh that he had been keeping hidden with the Ace of Cup¡¯s liquid. It was a piece of fleshing from Zeke, meaning that it had the blood of the Devil in it as well.


    ¡°This was a lot easier to get my hands on than I thought.¡±

 Chapter 642 - 642 Fight Fire with Fire

    642 Fight Fire with Fire


    Eiro arrived at home in thete afternoon. He had a lot to take care of in regard to the whole Zeke situation still. Talking to the other lecturers and trying to figure out what to do with him and the other students, all those sorts of things. Of course, he was the one that was given the role of dealing with Zeke himself, and the others split up the tasks of taking care of the other students in Zeke¡¯s posse.


    Though, Eiro still hid the fact that Richard bit Zeke¡¯s hand. That would just cause a lot more trouble because itplicated the situation quite a bit. Biting a full chunk out of someone¡¯s hand was something pretty insane to do, so that would draw a lot of attention to Richard¡¯s actions again, but since Richard didn¡¯t go out of his way to do troublesome things anymore, Eiro figured it would be better to just ignore those things. Not to mention, he wanted to hide the existence of the piece of flesh as much as possible; if he brought it up here, the other teachers might bring it up to Zeke or Richard somehow, and then the efforts he had done in making them forget that Eiro manipted that chunk with Flesh Magic would be wasted.


    He had quite some use for this, or rather, the aspect that was hidden within this flesh. Quickly, Eiro made his way into the library, and then into the space hidden behind the library. He had turned this area into a bit of an artificing area for himself, since there wasn¡¯t any other space that he could use like this. There was the basement, but Armodeus mostly used it. This area already had a lot of other artificing tools justying around, so he figured it was as good a ce as any.


    Eiro walked into the library, and quickly saw Jess sitting in one of the armchairs, intensely reading through one of the books that the Demon had rmended to her. She quickly raised her head and looked at Eiro with a smile, ¡°Oh, you¡¯re back! How was work?¡± she asked, and Eiro simply shrugged, ¡°It was fine. There was some trouble, but I actually ended up with something quite useful.¡±


    He slowly raised the small package in his hand. He had wrapped the piece of flesh in some cloth and then froze it with ice magic to make sure that it was going to stay as fresh as possible. The mass had grown to the size of a fist with the help of Eiro¡¯s magic though, so there was plenty for him to make use of right now.


    Jess looked at the frozen ball with a raised brow, slowly putting down the book that she was reading until now, ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± curiously, she inquired. Eiro opened the hidden door into the other room and smiled, ¡°I¡¯ll show you,e on.¡±


    Quickly, Jess got up from her seat and followed Eiro into the other room. The Demon held the piece of flesh to the side and quickly had a mage hand hold it for him, while he took off his jacket. The suit that he had to wear while working in the academy looked good and all, but it was nothing but stuffy to him.


    He split his arms in two and pulled a box out of his treasury, which he quickly ced on the table in front of him. He held one of his hands out toward a repurposed bookshelf, which was now filled with a number of wooden boards. With a tug of his wrist, one of the boards practically came shooting out of the shelf, and Eiro quickly caught it.


    ¡°Hmm, so what is it? Some sort of magic stone you want to y around with?¡± Jess asked, but Eiro quickly shook his head as the floating mage hand gave the piece of flesh back to him. He quickly unwrapped it, and Jess was taken aback, ¡°That... did you visit a butcher on your way back from work?¡± she hoped that was the case, at least. But Eiro justughed slightly.


    .....


    ¡°No, that¡¯s not it. I told you about that Zeke kid, right?¡±


    ¡°Uhm... The one that¡¯s the descendant of the Devil, right?¡± Jess replied, as she looked at the piece of flesh, ¡°Did you...¡±


    ¡°No, I didn¡¯t kill him, don¡¯t worry. Basically, because he started practicing unholy magic, his demon blood started making him more aggressive, and he started bullying some kids. One of them wasn¡¯t an easy target, and bit a good chunk out of Zeke¡¯s hand. I used magic to make that chunk grow a bit to make it more useful for me,¡± the Demon quickly exined, but Jess wasn¡¯t entirely sure what he was talking about.


    ¡°Useful? What are you trying to do with it?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to try and pull out the ¡®Demonic¡¯ aspect out of this flesh,¡± Eiro exined. Jess was confused for a moment, but then thought about it more closely, ¡°Okay, and how?¡±


    Eiro opened the wooden box he had pulled out of his treasury, revealing his woodcarving tools. He quickly ced that special board in front of him and started carving a magic circle into it. That was just how artificing worked; it was a sort of magic cast through a physical medium, even if that was still a simple way to put it, ¡°When monsters and people have children, most of the time, those kids don¡¯t end up being particrly... stable. Many are sort of disfigured, or mutated, or just quickly turn sick and incredibly unhealthy. My guess is that it¡¯s the system sort of trying to keep the aspects of the ¡®Monster¡¯ and the ¡®Person¡¯ away from each other.¡±


    Jess seemed to understand, ¡°And because that¡¯s happening, instead of mixing, those aspects are preserved?¡±


    ¡°Exactly,¡± the Demon exined, as he carefully carved into the piece of wood, while he was already manipting the piece of fleshying in one of his hands, ¡°I¡¯m already trying to sort of separate it a bit. It¡¯s pretty tough, but I¡¯ve got practice with it now... Separating things from others, I mean. Ever since I became ¡®The World¡¯, I¡¯ve been practicing with a lot of different materials, even the flesh of certain animals or monsters, and while that was particrly unpleasant, it still worked. And most importantly, I was able to separate it quite efficiently afterward too. Now, this mass isn¡¯t my own flesh so I can¡¯t do it to that degree, especially considering that this was mixed together through generations instead of just being forced together like with me.¡±


    Slowly, the mass of flesh was bulging and wiggling as some parts of the flesh were dropping off, practically rotting away right away, something that Eiro was trying to do with Death magic.


    Soon, Eiro was left with a fingernail-sized piece of flesh that he had separated. Jess looked at it with a slight frown, ¡°Is that going to be enough for you to do... whatever you¡¯re nning with it?¡±


    ¡°Hm? Oh yeah, definitely. I just need the tiniest amount, and then I can regrow it when I need to. It just takes a bit of time,¡± Eiro replied quickly, and ced the small chunk into the center of the magic circle that he had finished carving into the wood.


    ¡°So, what are you doing now?¡±


    ¡°Something that I¡¯m not super sure will really work out, I guess,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°This is Cursed Holly, basically just a Holly tree that was tainted with unholy magic. Since I don¡¯t have unholy magic yet, I can¡¯t make it myself right now, but it¡¯s perfect for this sort of thing. It¡¯s got some great alignment with demons, and from what I could smell, especially with the ¡®Devil¡¯.¡±


    Jess sat down next to Eiro and listened to his exnation intensely, and Eiro quickly continued, ¡°So what I¡¯m doing right now is using sort of alchemical principlesbined with this specific artificing technique, to use that quality of the Cursed Holly to draw out the rest of the ¡®Devil¡¯s aspect out of this.¡±


    Slowly, the Demon activated the simple tool, filling out that carved magic circle with his mana. The small chunk of flesh started bulging and turning a dark red, as though all the blood that was left in it was pulled to its surface, though in reality, the flesh had simply ¡®awakened¡¯ into the flesh of a demon.


    After a short while, no more changes seemed to ur, and Eiro grabbed the flesh off of the wooden board, looking at it with a grin, ¡°Perfect. The Devil¡¯s blood took over the rest of the human flesh. This right here is basically pure demonic flesh... if I brought this near Avalin, it would probably go up in mes immediately.¡±


    Jess watched as Eiro brought the chunk of flesh over to another object that Eiro had constructed a while ago already; it was basically just a ss jar with inscriptions carved all over it. As he opened it up and dropped it inside, it quickly became clear that the jar was filled with some sort of liquid, even though it was far too clear to see, ¡°Why are you putting it in water?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not water, it¡¯spressed Arcane magic,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°Well, sort of... usually, it should just crystalize, but I¡¯m using a lot of artificing techniques to keep it as a fluid, it actually takes a lot of mana...¡± Eiro sighed.


    ¡°So... what exactly does it do?¡±


    ¡°Oh, nothing much. I¡¯m just going to grow this mass of flesh like this to a point where it¡¯s the size of a person, and then turn it into a servant,¡± Eiro exined in a simple tone, ¡°That way, I can fight fire with fire. Or in this case, the devil with the devil.¡±

 Chapter 643 - 643 Intruder

    643 Intruder


    Eiro sat in front of the ss container that he was growing that mass of flesh in. That mass of flesh taken from Zeke, before separating the demonic aspects within itpletely from the rest, so that he could grow a demon from it. He still wasn¡¯tpletely convinced that this was going to work, but he was sure that he could get something simr to the Devil out of this mass of flesh one way or another.


    At this point, this mass had grown to a point where it was asrge as a young child, maybe seven or eight years old. But Eiro wanted to grow it to the point where he could create an adult out of it. Even so, he had to do something very particr with this right now.


    After Eiro¡¯sst evolution, he had finally managed to break down the ¡®Mark¡¯ that the Devil had left on him. However, the Devil¡¯s mana was still flowing through him after that, for a short while at least. Usually, it should have simply been broken down and be part of Eiro¡¯s mana without a trace of the Devil¡¯s left behind, but then, Eiro had turned into ¡®The World¡¯. The Devil¡¯s mana was quickly absorbed and became part of Eiro¡¯s, however, due to his nature, he was able to separate it from him again. The moment he had been able to do so, Eiro pulled out the Devil¡¯s mana and practically isted it in a small part of his chest, keeping it away from the rest of his mana.


    But now, Eiro could finally use it. The container that this mass of flesh was floating in waspletely filled withpressed Arcane Magic, the purest form of Mana possible. Until now, this was just to imbue this flesh with certain qualities, which Eiro would now make use of. He pressed his fingertip onto the lid of the ss container, and then pulled the Devil¡¯s mana right into it.


    Immediately, the mana started to fill the container, mixing in with the Arcane Magic. It was quickly tainted, and it seemed as though it was trying to copy the Devil¡¯s mana, turning itself into it over the course of a few minutes. Now, due to the constant agitation of the magic inside of the container, it would take a while for this mana to break down. Before then, the mass of flesh should be able to absorb as much of it as physically possible. At the same time, Eiro slightly increased the amount of his own life force that he was pouring into the container, trying to make sure that this mass of flesh was growing as much as it could in a natural way. Sure, Eiro could use flesh magic to make it grow immediately, but that would lead to much worse results than the process that was happening right now.


    By next week, this mass of flesh will have reached the state that Eiro wanted it to be at.


    ¡ª


    .....


    A knock on the door, and Eiro let out an annoyed sigh. He was in his office at the academy, currently going through the assignments of some students on some basic magic circle structures. He was nearly done writing down notes for each of the students on what they should look into to improve, when he noticed that someone was hurriedly approaching his office.


    While Eiro hoped that it wasn¡¯t someone looking for him, he knew that there was nobody else in the offices around him right now. And he had hoped to be able to finish correcting these assignments, and only had three more to go, when the knock interrupted him.


    ¡°Sir Daemonherz, excuse me but there¡¯s an emergency!¡± the man exined with a nervous tone in his voice. Eiro called him in, and the student stepped into the room. He recognized him from around the school. From the colours of his uniform, Eiro knew that he was part of the craftsmanship courses, and the residue smell of different oils on his hands told him that this student was part of the magic engineering courses.


    ¡°...What¡¯s going on?¡± Eiro asked, and the student nervously tried to exin, ¡°Th-There... we were waiting for our professor to arrive, it¡¯s Professor Gartridge, he¡¯s alwayste by at least twenty minutes, so it-¡±


    ¡°Skip to the important part. Did someone fool around and get hurt?¡±


    The student quickly shook his head, ¡°No, but- this random man just came into the room and started yelling about how crap all of our projects were, and he- none of us recognized him... and he wouldn¡¯t tell us who he is... but he kept saying your name, so I-¡±


    Eiro immediately shot up from his seat and rushed to the door, ¡°That little-¡± he ground his teeth, ¡°Thank you,e back to the ssroom at your own pace, you must be exhausted. There¡¯s a jug with water on the table, grab a ss and drink something beforeing back,¡± Eiro said, looking at how heavily the student was breathing. The magic engineering course had sses in a whole separate building, and it looked as though he sprinted here from all the way there.


    Eiro shot through the hallways of the school, knowing that the guards must have also been alerted already. Other professors were also likely on their way there; whenever even the slightest suspicion of an intruder popped up, everyone in the school was mobilized as soon as possible. Understandably so, after the incidentst year, where Merlin had caused incredible damage to the whole school, killing some students and injuring even more. Even Charles, the prince, had been crippled.


    That was why Eiro had to get there as soon as he could, to reach that ssroom befor the main forces could. As he approached the building in question, he could already see a number of guards storming the building as students were rushed outside. Eiro nced at the building and tried to figure out where he had to go, and quickly pushed his weight off the ground. Using magic to support himself, Eiro shot toward the closest windows to him, and quickly opened them up with a mage hand so that he could rush inside. The ssroom that he entered was empty so he could rush through without issue, and then quickly entered the hallway.


    Eiro ran toward the room in question, and spotted a guard in heavy armor being thrown out the door as if he weighed nothing at all.


    ¡°How rude!¡± an elderly voice eximed, as a metallic leg, like that of a spider, reached out of the doorframe. Soon, a few others joined it, as a figure was pulled out of the space. It was a man, a Halfling man to be exact, just a meter tall, being suspended off the ground using some kind of machination.


    He sat on a small seat cross-legged and had a dozen of those spider-like legs protruding from it, letting him move smoothly within the room however he wanted, ¡°I¡¯m simply here to meet with my nephew! Bring him here already, will you?!¡±


    ¡°Please calm down, sir! If you would just tell us who your nephew is, then-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve said it a million times, his name is-¡± the man yelled out, screaming toward one of the guards that was trying to calm him down, realizing that this man was arge threat. However, before he finished the sentence, the man spotted Eiro standing at the end of the hallway, ¡°Ah, there he is! My dead nephew, Ei-¡±


    This time, before the man could finish Eiro¡¯s name, the Demon had closed the distance between them, and without a moment¡¯s hesitation threw a fist at him. Of course, under normal circumstances he would¡¯ve never done something like this, but he couldn¡¯t believe that he woulde here and do something like this instead ofing to Eiro¡¯s home directly, like he was told.


    Eiro¡¯s hand was blocked by a barrier, finely and tightly woven around the man¡¯s body, ¡°Wh-What¡¯s this?! What are you doing, you brat, did your father not teach you to respect your elders, you-¡±


    ¡°Shut the hell up,¡± Eiro clenched his teeth and pushed against the shield with all the weight in his body. Since his body was fused with water magic, a second wave of damage came through onto the shield, and this time, Eiro strengthened it as much as he could, and quickly pierced through the shield. He hit the man¡¯s body full-force and threw him to the other end of the hallway, where he was caught by some other apparatus that carefully ced him down onto the ground, while he was heaving and recovering from Eiro¡¯s attack.


    Of course, the Demon already knew, but the damage-dealt message that appeared in front of him quickly confirmed it for him.


    ¡°Sir Daemonherz, this man- Is... is he really your uncle?¡± one of the guards asked confused, and Eiro sighed, ¡°Sort of, I guess, though I¡¯ve never met him. He was my father¡¯s friend, and they were close enough to be brothers,¡± the Demon exined, ¡°That man is Partax Evergreen, the Master Artificer.¡±

 Chapter 644 - 644 Partax Evergreen

    644 Partax Evergreen


    ¡°Partax... Evergreen..?¡± one of the guards repeated, as Eiro stood there, tapping his foot annoyed. He nodded his head, ¡°Mhm. He¡¯s here to meet me, but clearly, he didn¡¯t really think things through.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean? Of course I thought it through, I just figured it made no sense for me to wait outside instead ofing straight to you! Not to mention, it was a good opportunity to inspect the next generation... get them into a better shape, will you?¡± Partax was brought back to his legs through the mechanical limbs that were sprouting out of his belt, shoes and the two small pauldrons sitting atop his shoulders. He rubbed his belly a little annoyed, as it was right where Eiro hit him. From the impact, it was clear that Partax was wearing some kind of armor underneath his clothes; he had barely taken any damage, even though Eiro didn¡¯t particrly hold back.


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, as the Halfling approached him again, ¡°What makes you think you can juste in here? Do you know how much you terrified those poor kids?¡±


    ¡°Terrified? I didn¡¯t even do anything, you brat!¡± with a scoff, Partax shook his head, ¡°Look at them, they¡¯ll get...¡± he pointed out, before looking back into the ssroom. All of the students were huddled behind the desks, or tried to hide behind the guards that managed to force their way into the ssroom. This was an advanced ss, meaning that all of these students attended the academy during the incidentst year, something that clearly still affected them to this day.


    Even Partax noticed their fear now, even if he hadn¡¯t be aware without it being pointed out to him. However, instead of being sympathetic as you would usually expect, ¡°...Kids these days, no courage at all.¡±


    ¡°Get out.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± Partax turned toward Eiro confused, ¡°This again? How rude, really! First you hit me without reason, and then you try and kick me out? No, I will not budge from this ce before you apologize for your behaviour!¡±


    Eiro closed his eyes, letting out a deep breath. He turned toward the most senior guard standing near him, ¡°Tell the professors that I¡¯m going to take care of all the damages personally.¡±


    The guard seemed startled at suddenly being spoken to in this situation, especially considering what was going on. Luckily, nobody had really been injured, and there haven¡¯t been any damages either. At least, that was the case so far. Nobody¡¯s eyes were able to keep up, as Eiro shot forward and grabbed onto one of Partax¡¯s mechanical limbs, forcing him toward therge window at the end of the hallway. The rapid speed at which he was moving all of a sudden, or rather the force that was needed for Eiro to get to this speed instantaneously, cracked parts of the floors and walls, and of course the window that Eiro threw Partax through shattered into pieces as well. He made sure that none of the shards could injure anyone, of course, but it was still a shock to everyone.


    .....


    Eiro covered himself and Partax in a mist of the Ace of Cups, and unfolded his wings before Bavet was even able to catch up to what was happening. The Demon shot across the sky, and before they knew it, they reached the manor. Of course, Partax, or rather all of the mechanical creations covering his body, didn¡¯t like this either. They scratched Eiro, or tried to hurt him by hauling magic at him, but he was able to simply take the brunt of all of that without problem. Once Eiro reached the manor, he found the best area for this, and quickly threw Partax down into the ground. Partax was a Master, so Eiro figured that something like this wouldn¡¯t cause any problems.


    After pulling Bavet¡¯s core from his chest, he threw it to the side, and the slime quickly turned into his humanoid form, ¡°Dude, the fuck¡¯s going on? I don¡¯t understand anything, why-¡±


    ¡°Just go get Armodeus,¡± Eiro interrupted him, without taking his eyes from Partax, and the slime quickly obliged, wanting to get away from this situation as quickly as he could. After all, Partax was now also more than simply annoyed.


    ¡°What the hell do you think you¡¯re doing?! I take the time toe here, to teach you! You little brat! You asked me toe here, and when I do, you do something like this?! The disrespect!¡± Partax once more cleaned himself up, his face flushing in anger as blood rose to his head. But Eiro had actually calmed down by now, and was doing his best to keep cool.


    ¡°Merlin instigated an attack against the Academyst year, under themand of ¡®The Magician¡¯. Some students were kidnapped, more were killed, even more left injured. And the rest, traumatised,¡± Eiro said bluntly, and Partax was quickly taken aback. His red face seemed to return to its normal hue near-instantly.


    ¡°Merlin? That little kid? How would he-¡±


    ¡°Jealousy. He was jealous that you all managed to be Masters, while he didn¡¯t. He tried to reach the peak of Arcane Magic, but ultimately failed. Then, he was swayed by the Magician, who promised to help Merlin reach even greater heights, so that he could be a Master himself. He did... a lot of things, at the academy. And none of them were good,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°Most of the academy had to be rebuilt after that attack. I¡¯m shocked you didn¡¯t know about it. I remember the rumour even reaching the backwater town where we lived with Jura back then.¡±


    This time, Partax¡¯s face became a colour on the opposite end of the spectrum, turning a ghostly white, ¡°That... I did not... Oh how foolish, I must apologize at once, I-¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare go anywhere near the academy again. I¡¯ll apologize for you, okay?¡± Eiro sighed, ¡°I¡¯m d you came here, I really, truthfully am, but please, do not go near those kids again. Ever.¡±


    Partax closed his eyes and nodded, ¡°I see... I will do as you wish in this. But now, speak more of Merlin, what did he do? And where is he now?¡±


    ¡°...I don¡¯t know where he is. Probably joined up with the Monster King¡¯s army, or he was killed by the Magician, I don¡¯t know. I tried looking for him, but haven¡¯t been able to,¡± Eiro exined as he let out a deep, annoyed sigh, ¡°Thing is, Merlin idolized monsters. Thought they were the peak of existence... or something.¡±


    ¡°He did have a strange fascination with the process of evolution... granted, even I found it interesting, especially after one of our own went through such a process himself. The look in his eye when he saw Armodeus¡¯ new form, I don¡¯t think I will forget that anytime soon...¡± Partax exined, closing his eyes bitterly, before remembering something, ¡°Speaking of, did you just tell that slime to get-¡±


    ¡°PARTAX!¡± A rumbling voice echoed out, as the doors shot open, and arge dwarf came storming out, sweat and soot still covering his skin and his hammer still clutched in his hand. Armodeus ran out of the manor toward the Halfling, who quickly raised up a small brooch in front of his body, ¡°Armodeus, brother! How have you been? The beard looks lovely, are you using a new oil to keep it that fresh?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t change the topic, ya lil¡¯ fuck! Bavet told me what you did at the Academy, you-¡± the dwarf eximed, before his path forward was blocked by a barrier. It was different to the one that Eiro broke through earlier. Stronger, seemingly.


    But Armodeus didn¡¯t care, he simply lifted his hammer, and smashed it down at the wall blocking his way. The air seemed to vibrate as the tool hit the barrier, and before long, the magic simply broke down into small particles, as if its bounds had been destroyed. Eiro didn¡¯t see Armodeus show off his strength often, but... in moments like these, it still became ever clearer to him that this dwarf as well, was a Master of his own trade.


    ¡°Brother, calm down! The boy already exined the situation to me, so you-¡± Partax backed away, his scittering metal legs trying to build the distance as quickly as they could. But Armodeus didn¡¯t care, ¡°Even if the situation weren¡¯t so strenuous at the Academy! I told you dozens of times, to stop breaking into ces!¡±


    ¡°B-But, if I hadn¡¯t, then you would have never gotten your card... this habit of mine is good sometimes, is it not?¡±


    ¡°That habit of yours made you a fugitive in seven countries!¡±


    ¡°Erm... nine, technically.¡±


    ¡°Nine?!¡± Armodeus let out confused, ¡°Partax, why would you-¡± this time, Armodeus was interrupted, as a familiar sound could be heard. Large wings pped through the air, and arge, white and golden dragon descended into the manor¡¯s garden, towering over Partax.


    The Halfling was stunned, and even his metal limbs were shivering at what was in front of him. But to his surprise, Armodeus was totally fine.


    ¡°This... Lognir, I¡¯m truly sorry about his behaviour,¡± the dwarf said with a clearly apologetic expression. Partax looked at him confused. That cowardly Armodeus, speaking to a dragon so casually?


    However, instead of concentrating on Armodeus or Partax, Lognir just annoyedly stared at Eiro. His draconic form soon faded, and he showed his human body, sighing loudly as he looked at the Demon, clearly still annoyed by Shimour¡¯s visit a few weeks ago, ¡°I know that you have warned Solomon, young Eiro, however... Please, do not make mee here every single time you get visitors.¡±

 Chapter 645 - 645 Partax Evergreen - Part 2

    645 Partax Evergreen ¨C Part Eiro looked at Lognir and shrugged, ¡°I didn¡¯t tell you toe here. I understand why, butin to Solomon instead of me.¡±


    ¡°I haveined to Solomon, trust my word,¡± Lognir sighed, before turning to Partax, ¡°This man... can he be trusted? That Shimour nearly id you, and this one invaded the Academy. Neither seem as though they should stay.¡±


    ¡°Is that amand from Solomon, or just your own opinion?¡± Eiro questioned, and Lognir replied quickly, ¡°It is my opinion. But please answer. If you can promise that these people will not cause problems, then they shall stay. Otherwise, I will suggest to Solomon to forbid them froming here.¡±


    Hearing what Lognir was saying, Armodeus quickly stepped forward, ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary. As for the ones that will stille, they are indeed a bit unique in their personalities, but they won¡¯t cause you any problems...¡±


    Both Lognir and Eiro could tell that Armodeus was stretching the trust that he had in those words, but it was more than clear he at least wanted them to be the truth, ¡°I see. But nheless...¡± Lognir turned to Partax, who was simply enthralled by the figure that he was seeing in front of him. It was a reaction that Lognir had seen more than just a couple of times when interacting with different people, so he didn¡¯t pay it any mind, ¡°If you do step into the Academy, or even near its gates, one more time, then you shall suffer the consequences by my own hands. That is, if Eiro doesn¡¯t get to you first.¡±


    The Dragon turned around and his body quickly transformed back into his draconic form, not even waiting for Partax¡¯s response. And then, Eiro saw a dragon shiver for the first time.


    Arge number of small metallic bugs were starting to cover Lognir¡¯s body, duplicating themselves by the second, as they crawled over and under his scales, ¡°What is the meaning of this?!¡± Lognir eximed, feeling the skittering bugs all over, as they grew more and more in number.


    Meanwhile, Partax was simply rubbing his hand, ¡°A dragon! A true, live dragon! Nobody told me about this, this is incredible! The hardness of the scales despite their natural flexibility, the toughness of the muscle, and just the mere amount of magic overflowing from its body! Magnificent, truly!¡±


    Lognir turned hisrge body around, grinding his jaw and fletching his teeth. From inbetween them, a dim light could be seen, but Eiro quickly stepped in front of him, ¡°Do not use your Dragon Breath while facing my home!¡±


    .....


    ¡°Then make this stop already!¡± Lognir tried to shake his body, managing to fling a few of the bugs off of him, but most simply managed to stick to his scales like glue. Eiro quickly looked at Partax, who was simply taken by what was going on in front of him. The Halfling didn¡¯t even seem to care that he was bothering a literal dragon, and was just a few moments away from being incinerated by this legendary creature.


    ¡°Partax, just-¡±


    ¡°I know, I know, I¡¯m done already, anyway!¡± Partax interrupted Eiro, and within just a moment, all the metal bugs seemed to fuse back together into one, before the singr, tiny bug crawled back over to Partax and disappeared in one of the tubes hanging off of the Halfling¡¯s belt. The elderly man raised his hand into the air excitedly, and the spider-like legs that still carried him around everywhere quickly brought him toward the Manor, ¡°Brother! I will borrow your workshop!¡±


    ¡°Wait, what? No you¡¯re not, I¡¯m in the middle of working on something!¡±


    ¡°Hah, so what?! I¡¯m right in front of the breakthrough to a monumental invention! Your knife or sword or shield can wait!¡± Partax eximed, quickly disappearing in the manor and making his way through the building as if he already knew theyout by heart. Of course, that was only the case because of the constant pulses of mana that he was shooting through the walls, giving him aplete understanding of theyout. Trying to reel in Partax¡¯s chaos, Armodeus ran after him without another word, his face simply having turned pale. And Eiro and Lognir were left standing outside silently.


    ¡°I am infinitely sorry,¡± Eiro finally broke the silence, and Lognir shook his head, ¡°Do not speak of this anymore, I just feel... dirty. Don¡¯t let that thinge near me again, you understand?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll try my best. But just to warn you, if Partax got here, the others will probably being soon as well,¡± the Demon exined, and Lognir let out a deep, annoyed sigh, ¡°Fine, but please keep them in line... Masters aer just always so hard to deal with... Armodeus is the only sane one I know of... At least they¡¯re just people...¡±


    Eiro raised a brow, listening to the tone in Lognir¡¯s voice, ¡°That sounds like you know of a Master that isn¡¯t a person.¡±


    Lognir looked at Eiro hesitantly, unsure if he should really say, before making up his mind, ¡°That... well, there are a few beings in this world that transcendmon sense in multiple ways... I know of a Fire Dragon who fully Mastered his magic. There¡¯s a Goblin whose Swordsmanship has reached its peak... And for reference, as far as my knowledge goes, the Primordial Demon, the king of your kind, has mastered multiple skills, though I do not know which.¡±


    ¡°Multiple... Interesting... I¡¯ve been curious about that guy for a while anyway, so I might try to pay him a visit when I find the way to hell,¡± Eiro said with a smirk, but Lognir was simply taken aback, ¡°Do not! That is like suicide, you simply cannot!¡±


    Eiro chuckled, ¡°Fine, fine, I¡¯ll reconsider it, I guess. But how about that Fire Dragon? Any idea where I can find him?¡±


    Lognir hesitated, ¡°He shouldn¡¯t be on this continent, as far as I¡¯m aware...¡±


    With a click of his tongue, Eiro crossed his arms, ¡°Figures,¡± he sighed, before looking up at Lognir with a raised brow, ¡°But speaking of, what about other dragons? Are there any that you feel... the world could live without?¡±


    Slowly, Lognir¡¯s hesitation turned into curiosity, ¡°Are you suggesting what I think you are, young Eiro?¡±


    ¡°Probably. After I finish receiving my training from the Masters, I think I¡¯ll try to prepare for the war with the Devil by killing a Dragon.¡±


    ¡ª


    Eiro sat on a chair in the corner of Armodeus¡¯ workshop in the basement. Partax had practically moved everything that could be moved to make the space like he wanted to have it, which bothered Armodeus not only slightly. He calmed down again after Eiro assured him that he would move everything back exactly how it was after Partax was done, but he was still annoyed that the Halfling simply took over the space.


    ¡°Partax,¡± Eiro said, getting bored at just waiting for him to finish. Currently, Partax was shaping metal, albeit in apletely different way to how Armodeus would. He was heating the metal to where it nearly melted, and then stenciled it into the shapes he needed using one of his gadgets. He used the exact same one, but all the pieces were shaped differently somehow. The gadget itself was just a hollow box, so Eiro was more than just curious at how it actually worked, but he wasn¡¯t able to see through it just from overr here. The Halfling was speedily creating these parts, and Eiro quickly realized that he was trying to build a miniature model of a dragon.


    Figuring that this could wait, he spoke up, ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we talk about you teaching me some things? That¡¯s why you¡¯re here, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes,ter! First, I need to finish this!¡± Partax replied, his hands busily moving together with the many metal limbs moving about around him.


    ¡°Right... Well, I guess Shimour exaggerated when he said you wanted to hear about the Tower of Books,¡± Eiro replied, immediately noticing Partax freezing up. He didn¡¯t move in the slightest, and then slowly turned toward the Demon, ¡°What... did you just say?¡±


    Surprised, Eiro raised a brow, ¡°Shimour didn¡¯t tell you?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean? Tell me about what?!¡± Partax moved closer to Eiro, havingpletely abandoned his project for now. The Demon smirked, leaning onto one of his arms, ¡°The Tower is real. And I¡¯m inside of it right now.¡±

 Chapter 646 - 646 Partax Evergreen - Part 3

    646 Partax Evergreen ¨C Part ¡°What nonsense are you bbering about?¡± Partax asked with his brow raised, his confused but curious grin hidden behind his thick mustache, ¡°Are you talking about the tower as though it¡¯s some metaphorical state of being?¡±


    ¡°Obviously not, it¡¯s a very real ce. Multiple versions of it exist across different realms, all connected to each other in some way that I¡¯m still in the process of figuring out. I still haven¡¯t found the tower in the central material ne, if it were that easy then you would have found it as well by now,¡± Eiro exined, and partax quickly approached, carried over through his mechanical mount.


    The halfling raised his brow and leaned forward, nearly falling off his seat as he stared at the Demon, trying to figure out if he was just messing with him, ¡°So you are saying that you not only found the tower in another realm, but managed to travel across realms in the first ce?¡±


    Eiro shook his head, ¡°It¡¯s not really travel, technically. I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware of Spirit Gateways.¡±


    ¡°Hah, aware? I¡¯m the first being that has managed to truly harness the power of such a gateway! Not to brag, but I¡¯m using one of them as the central power source of myboratory,¡± Partax exined, as though he was trying to brag to Eiro. But the Demon just frowned and ground his teeth, ¡°What? You¡¯re doing what, right now? You goddamn- For the sake of your life, I hope that you¡¯re not doing anything to the spirits that might be drawn to it.¡±


    Partax scoffed, ¡°Who do you take me for? Of course not! I deployed a barrier around it to reduce the amount of mana lost in the process of harvesting the energy of it, and at the same time stops spiritspletely from sensing it in the first ce. I¡¯m not a fool, I would never abuse the life of a spirit,¡± he replied, practically insulted at the idea. Eiro calmed down a bit; the fact that Partax was using the spirit gateway like that still wasn¡¯t great, but at least it would be protected this way. For now.


    ¡°Now shut up about that nonsense! If you mention spirit gateways, have you found a way to traverse them yourself?¡±


    ¡°...Jura might have told you, but I¡¯ve been blessed by the former Naiad Queen. Recently, I also gained a blessing from the Smander King. Both of those were protecting certain spirit gateways before,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°But then, in addition to their blessing, I became the Guardian of those Spirit Gateways, and they were fused into my core. My soul. I have be one with them.¡±


    ¡°...Nonsense, something like that is impossible!¡±


    .....


    ¡°Why would it be?¡± Armodeus sighed, trying his best to clean up after Partax, as he was making a mess in the workshop, ¡°Both of us know that the word ¡®impossible¡¯ barely has any meaning anymore. The kid¡¯s telling the truth, so stop being so stubborn and just listen to him.¡±


    Partax nced at the Elder Dwarf, ¡°Do you not understand the magnitude of what the boy is saying? Spirit Gateways are a force of nature beyond most others; they¡¯re rifts in space, connecting to other realms. If he became one with those gateways, then he himself has be said rift, and he has be a force of nature. He would no longer be a simple mortal creature like us. While we will move on to an afterlife... even I do not know what will happen to him,¡± Partax pointed out bluntly, ¡°So again, a thing like that is impossible... or rather, it should be, for your sake.¡±


    Eiro slowly shook his head, ¡°It¡¯s not impossible, but you¡¯ve got a good point. My soul isn¡¯t like that of others¡¯ anymore, not that it has been ever since I lived this life, or toward the end of myst. But let¡¯s skip that for now... all you need to know is that it¡¯s true. Ever since I¡¯ve acquired the Absolute Domain of Truth, I¡¯ve been averse to lying.¡±


    ¡°So you have be this force of nature; then what? How did you find the towers in the other realms?¡± Partax asked, clearly curious about everything else that Eiro was mentioning. But even so, more than anything else, he just finally wanted to hear about the Tower of Books, the ce that he had yearned to find his whole life. Eiro grabbed something off of the table next to him, a small hammer that had been misshapen by all the work that Armodeus had done with it. Eiro looked at it and kept his sight focused on it, before slowly averting his gaze. And through the power of the mirror ced into his eye, the hammer was duplicated, and Eiro quickly grabbed the second hammer.


    ¡°Like this. The Mirror of Duplication. I¡¯m not exactly sure which of my abilities caused this effect, but when I duplicate myself, the consciousness of the duplicate is still linked with mine. As though you have two minds at the same time. Since the spirit gateways allow magic to pass through them, I was able to use the mirror to create a duplicate of myself on the other side of each of the two gateways I am linked to. And like that, the gateway moved together with my bodies in those two realms, allowing my to travel through them without any limit,¡± Eiro exined it quickly and simply. There was a lot of information that was missing, but clearly, Partax understood it perfectly. He grew excited, ¡°I see... I see! And if you say that the tower of books exists in those realms as well, then it must be a lot easier to find it there... correct?¡±


    ¡°Right. All the libraries in those realms are somehow connected to the towers. The librarians there are instructed to send people they deem worthy to the tower, though you still have to figure out the way yourself somehow. There are plenty of clues around each library. The reason they¡¯re doing it this was is probably because they deem the people of those realms as less of a threat to the tower than the people of this realm. And as such, they are practically inviting them to the tower. Beside me, I actually encounter a man already in the tower of books of the elemental ne of water.¡±


    Partax expression grew into one of glee, as if he were a little child again, ¡°So it is real! It is real, very much so! This is wonderful, this is perfect! Eiro, please, you have to allow me the knowledge of the towers somehow! There must be a clue to find the true tower in them somewhere!¡±


    Eiro leaned back, and considered it for a moment.


    ¡ª


    ¡°Overseer,¡± the Eiro in the ne of water looked at the being sitting behinds their desk. They slowly raised their head and stared at Eiro, waiting for him to speak. Quickly, the demon asked his question, ¡°In this tower, is there some clue to find the tower in the central material ne?¡±


    The overseer thought for a moment, and then nodded his head, ¡°That is so. But you will not simply find any literature exining how to get there. The version of the tower you speak of... is the most true tower. It is a ce protected more than anyone, and nobody that isn¡¯t directly invited by the Librarian is allowed to enter it. The current librarian doesn¡¯t like to leave the tower, so it has been a few centuries since anyone ahs entered it, as he hasn¡¯t gone to find anyone worthy. At the peak of the tower, you will find a clue that might lead you to the tower. The clue is different in each of the towers, so since you¡¯re in two of them... You are the one with the highest chance at finding the true tower yourself, the first one since its inception.¡±


    Somewhat surprised, Eiro scoffed, ¡°Surprisingly loose-tongued there, aren¡¯t you? I thought you can¡¯t speak of details like that?¡±


    ¡°What detail did I mention that you could not have figured out yourself? I already exined that on each floor of the tower, more and more special information will be given to you, so you could have guessed that the secrets of the tower itself will be amongst that information at some point. Not to mention, I was always able to divulge the structure of future trials.¡±


    ¡°So finding the ¡®true¡¯ tower is just another trial?¡± Eiro smirked, before shaking his head, ¡°No, of course it is. Oh, and just to reiterate something else, but sharing the information from the tower with someone that hasn¡¯t earned ess to it...¡±


    ¡°There is some nuance to it, but... indiscriminately sharing information of the tower will lead to your immediate banishment from the tower forevermore.¡±


    ¡ª


    Eiro exined what the overseer had told to him, leading in the Halfling growing quite annoyed, ¡°Really?! You¡¯re in the tower, and you will not share even a speck of its knowledge with me?!¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t do that, sorry. But I can do something else. I mean, all the knowledge of the elemental realms I¡¯m in is before me. And I know for a fact that I¡¯m not the first one from the central elemental ne that has made it there, so sooner orter, I¡¯ll find something that will exin the method of traveling there, for someone who isn¡¯t made wholly of magic. While I can¡¯t share all the info, if I find a way to bring you to a different realm, I¡¯ll show you the way to the towers.¡±

 Chapter 647 - 647 Partax Evergreen - Part 4

    647 Partax Evergreen ¨C Part Eiro was in one of the sitting rooms, drinking a sip of tea while looking over some documents for ss. He had just finished reading through one of the pages when he could hear the paws of a certain creature hitting the cobblestone road leading to the manor. It seemedrger than others of its kind, and the sound of its low breathing sounded familiar as well. It was an Aria, one of the ground dragons that was usually used to pull the carriages of nobles. They were not only stronger, but had a higher endurance than a horse, so they could be used for longer trips very easily. Not to mention, they had been bred to reveal a certain number of specific colours, so many nobles often tried to get their hands on an Aria that was the colour of their family sigil. Though this one was the exception to the rule; it was a white and gold coloured Aria, one of the rarest colours one of these weak magic beasts could be.


    It was the colour of the Aria in charge of pulling just a certain type of carriage; whichever wagon Solomon traveled in, this Aria would end up pulling it. Which meant that there would be royal guards lingering around the ce, which was more than just annoying. Eiro looked toward the door at the Kobold head-butler, ¡°Please make sure everyone inside of the manor is disguised.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lord,¡± the Kobold replied, quickly pressing his palm onto the bracelet on his wrist, which quickly activated the illusion that covered his body. Instead of the dark brown, albeit graying fur that covered his body before now, he showed the bronze skin of a middle-aged man with a thick, but well-kept beard with silver streaks running through it. He walked toward one of the walls and knocked on it. Before he knew it, one of the small paintings beside him flipped open, revealing a copper red spider the size of his head, ¡°We have visitors. Call for sir Bavet and prepare another set of teaware. And bring the silverroot leaves.¡±


    ¡°Hm? How¡¯d you know that¡¯s what I was going to give to him?¡± Eiro asked with a raised brow, and the butler quickly turned around, ¡°The only individual you so readily invite into your home without another thought, but would still have to disguise yourself around, would be his Majesty, when he visits with his knights on official business. In such situations, you always opt to serve him silverroot tea.¡±


    With a smirk, Eiro closed his eyes and nodded, ¡°What can I say, it seems to calm his nerves,¡± the Demon pointed out, watching as one of the spiders came over to the table in front of him, carrying the teacup and apanying te, together with a small bag filled with dried silverroot leaves. Once again, he was happy that he picked out suchpetent individuals for the manor.


    The carriage came to a halt outside, and Eiro could soon hear hurried footsteps approaching the stairway in front of the main entrance, with two guards quickly walking beside him. As the butler headed to the door, a small red bird flew into the room, dropping down onto Eiro¡¯s head and perching on his horns, ¡°Urgh, can¡¯t you at least have one of the butlers or maids tell me instead of those spiders? They¡¯re so rude to me all the time...¡± Bavetins, before the bird-body turned into ooze that covered Eiro¡¯s form in a matter of seconds, quickly transforming him into his human form.


    Eiro shrugged, ¡°Sorry, but no matter how hard I try, I just can¡¯t seem to understand theirnguage, so I can¡¯t really tell them off properly. Just bear with it for a while. They¡¯re probably just teasing you because you¡¯re the only one that understands them.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t treat them like kids now, man... those things are fucking annoying... Also, don¡¯t give them enough credit to call it anguage, it¡¯s just random words that they repeat over and over again,¡± the slime pointed out annoyed, but quickly quieted down when the footsteps in the manor¡¯s hallway became more obvious. Solomon rushed through the sitting room¡¯s door, right as Eiro started pouring the tea into the cup reserved for the king, ¡°Have a seat, I can already guess what you want to-¡±


    ¡°I want him gone,¡± Solomon ground his teeth, ¡°That man, he simply stormed into the Academy! Do you even know how traumatised those kids were?! Charles practically had a breakdown when he saw the guards rushing to the building, hearing the other students mutter about the situation. I understand that you deal with some unsavory individuals, but someone that would do things like that-¡±


    .....


    ¡°Partax Evergreen,¡± Eiro interrupted the angry monarch, who was slightly taken aback, ¡°Par- What? Why would someone like that purposefully invade the academy? After everything that happened there?¡±


    ¡°Believe it or not, but he didn¡¯t know about it. Didn¡¯t Lognir tell you?¡±


    Solomon slowly walked over to Eiro and sat down across from him, rubbing the bridge of his nose, ¡°...I guess he might have, I was a little preupied at the moment. He came back and said it was ¡®fine¡¯, but I couldn¡¯t hear anything else,¡± Solomon sighed, and Eiro slowly handed him the cup of tea he had just poured, ¡°No thanks, I¡¯m not in the mood.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s silverroot.¡±


    ¡°...Fine, one cup,¡± the king slowly took the cup and then sipped at its edge, clearly enjoying the special taste of the silverroot leaves. He ced the cup down on the table again, and then looked at Eiro with a frown, ¡°Even if it¡¯s Partax Evergreen... he can¡¯t get away with what he did. And you can¡¯t expect me to simply let it happen without consequence either.¡±


    Eiro raised his brow, ¡°So, what do you want? I can tell him to leave, though he¡¯s not really the kind of person that cares if he¡¯s banned from somewhere,¡± the Demon pointed out, but Solomon quickly shook his head, ¡°I can¡¯t afford being on bad terms with a Master, even if he did something like that... I still want him gone, but-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll make sure he doesn¡¯t leave the area without me, don¡¯t worry,¡± Eiro reassured him, and Solomon sunk back in his seat, ¡°That¡¯s the bare minimum. He¡¯s-¡±


    ¡°Banned from evering close to the Academy, I know, I already told him.¡±


    ¡°...And make sure that Charles neverys eyes on him either.¡±


    ¡°I promise,¡± Eiro nodded. He wasn¡¯t intending on letting that happen in the first ce, so there was nothing that Solomon had to worry about. Clearly, Solomon was still unhappy, though. It was clear that he was worried abotu a specific situation happening, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Partax won¡¯t be staying here long-term. He¡¯s going to teach me a few things, and then take his leave again. The only permanent Master resident is Armodeus.¡±


    Solomon raised a brow, ¡°What about Koperia?¡±


    ¡°Shees and goes, but she¡¯s gone most of the time. Haven¡¯t heard from her in a couple of weeks. She¡¯ll probably be back in a month or so? Said she had something to take care of,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll make sure that the others don¡¯t cause any trouble. From what Jura and Armodeus told me, the three remaining masters that I invited shouldn¡¯t cause any big incident or anything... I think.¡±


    ¡°Please make sure that they don¡¯t. Because something like this can never, ever happen again. Understood?¡±


    Eiro nodded, ¡°Of course, I¡¯ll make sure of that. Actually... let¡¯s just talk to him about that.¡±


    Solomon flinched, his face slightly contorting, ¡°What do you mean, talk to him? You mean...¡±


    Before the king could finish the sentence, the sound of arge number of metal legs hitting the hallway¡¯s floors echoed out, and a figure came around the corner. It was Partax, as always sitting on that mechanical creation that was just carrying him around all over the ce. An arm was protruding from Partax¡¯s seat, holding onto one of the spiders, ¡°This thing, how did you manage to tame it? Bug monsters don¡¯t submit easily, I thought.¡±


    Eiro frowned as he stared at the halfling. The spider that he was holding was fairly injured, probably from struggling against Partax¡¯s capture of it, ¡°Let it go, right now.¡±


    Although he clearly wanted toin and ask more questions, he soon took notice of the man that was sitting across from Eiro, as well as the two guards that were just about to draw their swords to defend Solomon. Partax let go of the spider that he was holding onto with that mechanical arm, and the monster just fell to the ground, it¡¯s carapace slightly cracking, as it was already damaged before.


    Eiro clicked his tongue, ¡°Come here, kid,¡± he said, looking at the spider, which quickly came rushing over. Its legs seemed to be fine, at least. Eiro picked the monster up and ced it onto hisp, to the clear disdain of not just Solomon¡¯s guards, but the king himself. Eiro expected him to not be bothered about things like this, especially after seeing these spiders quite a lot whenever he visited the manor, but it seemed seeing one up close like this was still different. Eiro just ignored it, though, and quickly used some healing magic on it. Monsters were more likely to react to certain elements of magic than others, so for this spider, Eiro used earth magic to heal it since the spider seemed the most aligned to that element. Gondos created a slight bit of rough dirt that Eiro used to quickly cover the injured areas, and then used it as a catalyst for the healing. Before long, the spider was healed, and Eiro ced it back onto the ground, befoer it scurried off into one of the hidden passages.


    ¡°Youe here, now,¡± Eiro said, looking at Partax annoyed. The halfling seemed a bit bothered as well, since Eiro was clearly talking in a somewhatmanding tone. Well, that was because Eiro was actuallymanding him. Partax didn¡¯t like it, but Eiro could hold the fact that he was the only clue to the Tower of Books over his head. Eiro could learn Artificing and Alchemy in other ways if he had to, especially with the knowledge of the tower at his fingertips, even if he preferred to learn some secrets from a Master. However, the only person that could help partax was this Demon. It was a fairly one-sided situation, ¡°What is it? I¡¯m busy,¡± the halfling asked with a click of his tongue.


    Eiro looked at him and bluntly said, ¡°You¡¯re going to make up for literally just invading the Academy earlier today.¡±


    ¡°What? I already apologized, didn¡¯t I?¡± Partaxined as though he was a child. Quite literally so, he sounded exactly like Arc when Eiro told him off for messing around when he shouldn¡¯t. Which also meant that Eiro knew exactly how to deal with that, ¡°Right, but an apology isn¡¯t enough in a situation as serious as this. Not to mention, your precious ¡®younger brother¡¯ caused quite a mess, so I feel as though you should help out fix the mess he caused anyway.¡±


    ¡°What? He¡¯s your uncle, why don¡¯t you help?¡±


    ¡°You remember why you¡¯re here, right?¡± Eiro sighed, and Partax raised a brow, before quickly remembering that he was supposed to teach Eiro so that he was prepared when taking out one more Royal monster. He quickly fell silent again.


    Eiro sighed, ¡°Whatever. The way you will help is pretty simple; you¡¯re going to build the greatest security system for the academy.¡±

 Chapter 648 - 648 First Artificing Lesson

    648 First Artificing Lesson


    The room was silent, with a dense air of confusion filling it thoroughly. The first to speak up again was Partax, ¡°You want me to waste my time with a ce like that? Why would I do anything of the sort?¡± he asked, clearly thinking that a task like this was below him. Far, far below him. But Eiro didn¡¯t care; he had wanted to upgrade the security of the Academy for a while now, but he didn¡¯t know where to start exactly. Something at that scale was still beyond his capabilities as an artificer. But for Partax, it should be the easiest thing in the world.


    ¡°To make up for your mistake, as well as simply because I¡¯m asking you to,¡± Eiro exined simply, but Partax wasn¡¯t convinced, ¡°What, so just because you have some information I want, I have to do whatever you want me to?¡±


    ¡°I never said that I wouldn¡¯t tell you if you refuse to do this. I just think you should; it¡¯s the right thing to do. In the first ce, you¡¯re here to teach me, so let¡¯s just work on this together, and you can teach me in the process. Rather than us making some random knickknack that will simply be thrown into a corner never to be seen again, let¡¯s try and work on something that has an actual use,¡± the Demon suggested. He wanted to use his time as efficiently as he could, that¡¯s what he¡¯s always done since leaving his home in the forest; since leaving behind that small house that had been burnt to the ground by now.


    Partax seemed to consider the idea for a moment, ¡°Hm... you make a convincing point. There are a few principles I could very well teach you that way,¡± the halfling muttered, before looking at a stunned Solomon, ¡°Consider yourself lucky, for I will make that academy a safer ce!¡±


    The King grabbed the armrests of his chair, about to push himself up in a bout of anger at how preposterous Partax was being, after all that he had done at the academy. He was even growing angry at Eiro. Not annoyed, or merely upset, but truly angry. An emotion of this kind was something he very rarely felt toward Eiro, and he wanted to keep it that way. Solomon took a deep breath and was ovee with a rush of thoughts. Sure, Partax did something horrible at the academy, but Eiro had already promised that the halfling would never get close to there again, so the process of creating that system would be done here, at a safe distance from the students, and Eiro himself would be the one installing it at the academy¡¯s grounds. While Eiro would probably sneak in a few things here and there that weren¡¯t particrly necessary, Solomon trusted that the Demon would do anything he could to make the academy a safer ce. His own children attended it, after all.


    Solomon nced at the machine that Partax had mounted. The spider-like, brass legs protruding from it that were shining like gold and gave off just a hint of the scent of oil. He had never seen anything like this before. And Solomon had seen the creations of Armodeus a handful of times before now as well, and he knew of Koperia¡¯s mere power. Not to mention Shimour, who had managed to one-sidedly beat Eiro in an all-out fight. And certainly, none of what Solomon had seen thus far was close to the limits that those people could achieve, he was convinced of that already. Having someone like that make sure that the academy would be a safe ce... and with such sincerity in his voice as well. If Solomon turned that down, that would be close to treason to his people he had sworn to protect.


    ¡°...I will allow it... But again, he may not step foot near the Academy, so you will have to create this ¡®system¡¯ here, and then bring it to the Academy separately. And you will give me a detailed report of every single, tiny feature that will be part of this system. If at any point we find something that you didn¡¯t tell me about, the whole thing goes,¡± Solomon said strictly, setting a clear boundary. Even if he were fully against it, Eiro would probably find a way to convince him anyway, so this way he could at least retain a slight bit of control over the situation. The Demon quickly nodded, ¡°Of course. I¡¯ll make sure of all of that.¡±


    Partax raised a brow, looking at Solomon with a curious expression, ¡°Who¡¯re you anyway, one of Eiro¡¯s colleagues?¡±


    .....


    ¡ª


    ¡°No, no! Not that way! You have to twist it another way!¡±


    ¡°Then show me what way instead of just saying that.¡±


    ¡°I am showing you!¡±


    ¡°Trust me, you¡¯re not, if any part of you show the slightest hint of how I¡¯m supposed to twist it, then I¡¯d be able to tell,¡± Eiro retorted annoyed, and Partax groaned loudly, ¡°You buffoon! Fine, give it to me, I¡¯ll show you!¡±


    Partax pulled the small ss marble out of one of Eiro¡¯s hands, and quickly seemed to try and pinch part of it. Of course, you couldn¡¯t pinch something like this, but Partax simply tried to grab part of the mana that was flowing through this object. Previously, Eiro had already created an equator within this marble and made the mana twist through it at a high speed along that equator. Now, he was supposed to skew the secondyer of rotation slightly, but Partax didn¡¯t seem to understand that this was Eiro¡¯s first time encountering this process. Hence, he couldn¡¯t simply ¡®figure it out¡¯. It was as if Partax was expecting Eiro to be capable of reading his mind. Rather, this happened so often already that Eiro was considering finding out how to read minds to make this process more bearable.


    After Partax took hold of the mana inside of the marble, he simply pulled on it and ever so slightly gave the twist an angle. By a fraction of a percent. A few seconds, when seen on the circumference of a clock.


    ¡°See? That¡¯s all you had to do!¡± Partax groaned, ¡°Now you do it! But add the same interval onto it again, and then again! And then repeat, until you¡¯ve gone around once!¡±


    Eiro sighed slightly, ¡°Do you even know how many of these marbles that¡¯s going to take?¡±


    ¡°Eight-thousand-six-hundred-thirty-eight, not including the one I did for you, or the one that can stay as it is. Now get to it, it¡¯s going to take a while!¡± the halfling grunted, and Eiro rolled his eyes as Partax ced a crate filled with ss marbles directly in front of him. The Demon waved his hand and created a duplicate of himself, partially fused with Gondos to increase its mana sensitivity. Instead of just four arms, it had eight, and Eiro had limited its thoughts to the process of this creation. He still learned everything that the duplicate learned of course. Through Eiro¡¯s ¡®Physical Absorption¡¯ ability, he could even gain the muscle-memory of the duplicate as it went through this process. And most importantly, it just sped up the process incredibly.


    The duplicate quickly got to work, and the Demon turned to Partax, ¡°What else?¡±


    Clicking his tongue annoyed, the halfling turned around, ¡°Kids these days, toozy to do it themselves... I thought you wanted to learn! If that¡¯s the case, do it yourself, dammit!¡±


    ¡°I am doing it myself. Just consider it multitasking. It makes the process of learning from you much faster; after all, I doubt you want to spend months here to teach me everything I need to know,¡± the Demon pointed out, and after that argument, Partax couldn¡¯t evenin anymore, ¡°Pah! Fine!¡±


    The master artificer grabbed a box filled with metal sheets and threw it over to the Demon, who quickly caught it, ¡°Then let¡¯s get started making some traps. Basically, imbuing a spell either permanently or temporarily onto a surface with certain activation conditions. I¡¯d guess that in particr is going to help your war against the Devil as well, rather than the engineering side of things.¡±


    Eiro smirked. That was exactly what he was hoping for. He had numerous spells in his arsenal, but most of them were simply impractical to use in an actual fight. But if he were to turn them into traps, then he could at least make more of a broader range of his prowess.


    ¡°Right, so what is it that I need to do?¡± Eiro asked. He did know some of the ideas behind it, but he figured that Partax would have a slightly different method. At least that¡¯s what he judged from seeing him work a little until now. The halfling quickly pointed at the board, ¡°Simple. You take the magic circle, and then deconstruct it into its basicponents. Then, you convert those into an array of artificing sigils, branching off to add the different conditions onto each aspect of it.¡±


    The Demon listened intensely and curiously. The way that it was exined in the books he had ess to so far was simr, but far more simple. There, they often suggested just engraving a regr magic circle instead of converting it. ording to those ¡®researchers¡¯, there was little apparent benefit, and many more detriments to this process. So, learning how that was nonsense was more than interesting to Eiro, especially since those ¡®artificing sigils¡¯ were something that Eiro hadn¡¯t heard of before, nor this particr method of conversion.


    The only problem was that Partax stopped talking.


    He stared at Eiro, as if waiting for something to happen, ¡°So? Get to it.¡±

 Chapter 649 - 649 Sigils

    649 Sigils


    Eiro looked at Partax somewhat annoyed. Actually, he was more than just annoyed, he was getting sick of this. Once again, he was expected to be able to read that old man¡¯s mind to figure out what it was he was supposed to do. But once again, Eiro couldn¡¯t read minds. But instead of just repeatedly getting angry, he figured he might as well try something simr.


    The Demon nced at the mechanical legs that Partax was mounted on, as well as the inscriptions ced on them. They were tiny, and to most, it would probably just look like the surface had been randomly roughened up a bit. Though Eiro was able to see the tiniest scratches on the inside of the inscriptions.


    He looked at the patterns covering each of the legs or the mechanical arms that were protruding from different parts of the machination. He remembered some of the other things that he had seen Partax use so far as well, and quickly noted down all the patterns in his mind. They were all interconnected in an array of symbols, branching off and connecting again at different points, but despite theplex connections that had been drawn, Eiro was able to at least figure out which symbols existed in the first ce. Or at least, which symbols Partax had been making use of so far.


    There were a few ces where Eiro could figure out the use of some of the symbols more easily. It was like trying to figure out anguage from scratch; not easy by any means, but possible if one looked at the patterns. Partax said that these systems were created by deconstructing magic circles, and Eiro knew the structure of magic circles in and out. By referencing what he knew in that regard, he could, at least in part, understand how to use some of the symbols. However, the specifics were still unbeknownst to him, of course. He could get his hands on their rough meaning and the intention behind their cements, but there were so many things that Eiro couldn¡¯t figure out that way. Maybe if these arrays were created by anyone but Partax he could, but all of these items were created by a Master of his craft. At his level of knowledge, it was practically impossible for him to figure out such specifics by analyzing this. If he at least got a bit of knowledge from that old man, then he could connect the rest of the dots as well.


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose. He got out an empty notebook out of his treasury together with a fountain pen, and quickly wrote down some of the symbols that he had seen, and then held the book toward Partax, ¡°So? Can you at least tell me what these mean?¡±


    Somewhat taken aback, the halfling stared at the paper, ¡°How did you- Armodeus, did you tell Eiro about myplex patterns already?¡±


    The elder dwarf looked at his brother-at-heart, slowly shaking his head, ¡°I barely understand those, Partax. I showed Eiro some of the things that I¡¯ve picked up myself, the kind that I can use while making my items. I don¡¯t use those patterns in the first ce.¡±


    ¡°...So you haven¡¯t taught him any of my sigils at all?¡±


    ¡°Again, I don¡¯t use them, so I can barely remember ¡¯em myself. I certainly don¡¯t know them well enough to teach them to someone else,¡± Armodeus sighed, and before Partax¡¯s confusion grew even more, Eiro started to exin, ¡°I inherited Jura¡¯s Five of Pentacles, remember? I can spot every single one of those sigils you¡¯ve got all over your inventions. I also have the Ultimate Domain of Truth, so recognizing patterns is easier than breathing to me. I can at least figure out what the sigils are, but I need to know some key information so I can figure out the rest.¡±


    .....


    Partax sighed, ¡°No, I assumed that you knew the basics of my methods at least. If that¡¯s not the case thene here, I can show you what it is you need to do.¡±


    One of the metal arms quickly grabbed the notebook that Eiro was holding, and started writing down numerous lists and exnations in the smallest print possible, not only at high speed but incredible precision, ¡°If you could read the sigils on my creations, then I doubt the writing will be too small for you,¡± the halfling pointed out, ¡°However, I wasn¡¯t aware that these... cards, were so impressive. Rather, I assumed they were naught but ¡®party tricks¡¯.¡±


    ¡°Pa-¡± Eiro repeated, stunned, ¡°Party tricks? Seriously?¡± the Demon asked somewhat annoyed, ¡°They were created by the Arcane Dealer, how could they be party tricks?¡±


    ¡°Hah! The Arcane Dealer! You hear that, Armodeus? And you all say that I was the one believing into old wives¡¯ tales!¡± Partaxughed, ¡°Never in my life have I encountered anything that could be considered the ¡®Arcane Dealer¡¯! I¡¯ll admit, I tried, but no; if something like that were real, then I would know.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t know for a fact that the Tower of Books existed either.¡±


    ¡°Wrong! I did know, dear nephew! I did! The proof I had found was simply not the kind that others were able toprehend. I knew for a fact that the Tower is real, you simply showed me proof that even others understand!¡±


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose further. At this rate, he was going to have calluses right between his eyes, ¡°Except that the proof I have for his existence is the same proof I have for the tower¡¯s. I¡¯ve met him, and others like him. Long story short, my guess is that they¡¯re like you. Or at least, the energy I felt eminate from Shimour when he showed his powers to me was eerily simr to what I felt from them. They transcended. Would you call something created by such a man a ¡®party trick¡¯?¡±


    Partax considered the question for a few moments. While he was shocked by Eiro¡¯s revtion of having found the tower, the knowledge that the Arcane Dealer not only existed, but that Eiro had met him, didn¡¯t particrly seem to interest him, ¡°Well, I would call it an borate one, at least. I didn¡¯t say Party Tricks were bad, everyone enjoys a fine party after all, and apanying tricks must be simr, however... the cards are naught but tools used to grow stronger falsely. Barely anyone can even use them properly,¡± Partax pointed out, ncing at the Elder Dwarf on the other side of the room, ¡°I even have my doubts about whether or not my dear brother can make use of that ¡®Ultimate Dexterity¡¯ of his to its fullest extent. That¡¯s what I mean; how I have seen them used thus far, I doubt you yourself can deny that they resemble a mere trick.¡±


    Eiro wasn¡¯t sure what to say. The first user of a card he had seen was driven mad by the very card he used. On the other hand, another one used his card well enough to split his own mind in two, even changing his body in the process. It was to the extent that Eiro hadn¡¯t been able to realize what was going on then. He even somehow used the power of the card to make the whole city forget about him. If it weren¡¯t for Solomon¡¯s connections to the domain of truth through Lognir, maybe that would have been the end of him. Arguably, that demi-lich, the servant of the royal ¡®Death¡¯ formerly imprisoned neraby, was able to use the Domain of Truth better than Eiro. He basically just used it as a lie-detector.


    He had seen both ends of the spectrum, so he couldn¡¯t answer Partax¡¯s question with a simple ¡®yes¡¯ or ¡®no¡¯. Noticing that Eiro¡¯s mind was drifting somehow because of this, the halfling sighed. He pulled the notebook away from the mechanical hand and threw it back over at Eiro. About ten pages full were now filled to the brim with arge number of lists, all of which were describing the numerous sigils that Partax had tought up so that he could make use of them. Though, about half of the filled pages described some examples or the exact applications, so there weren¡¯t as many sigils as Eiro initially thought, even if there were far more than he had been able to figure out on his own just by ncing at Partax¡¯s creations.


    Eiro looked at the pages for a few moments and quickly engrained what was written on them in his mind. Arge book dedicated to all of this could now be found in the mental library, even, and the mental duplicates quickly got to work on trying to apply this new information, and tried to trante some of the spells into this system of Artificing.

 Chapter 650 - 650 Excitement

    650 Excitement


    Eiro finished the engraving, running his fingers over the shallow lines that he had carved into these thin metal sheets. He didn¡¯t particrly like working with metal all that much. It simply felt so cold, even if it was shining brightly into his eyes as he took it out a forge. It simply wouldn¡¯t bend to his will, and there were too many things that he didn¡¯t want to bother with. That was why he only worked with it when he had to; which was, when he was learning the basics of smithing as well as things like how to take care of his metal weapons properly. Otherwise, he really wanted to stick with wood, something that was practically the opposite to metal.


    Different to the corpse-like metal, wood, even if it had already been petrified, was still so full of life. Itid in his hands with afortable weight and practically seemed to shape itself when he worked with it. Maybe part of that was just his experience in regard to dealing with wood, and the emotional attachment he had to the craft he learned from Jura, but to Eiro, wood was superior to metal.


    Nheless, since Partax told him to, Eiro worked with the metal sheets that he was provided. Different materials obviously had different physical strength, and this was the case for magical strength as well. Eiro knew this quite well too; different materials simply allowed for a better flow of magic through them. Materials like wood simply allowed mana to travel through them much more easily than metal, so thetter was preferred for things like this. At first nce, that might sound counter-productive, since you should want magic to flow through the material as good as possible, but that was only part of it.


    Through the process of carving these sigils, an artificer created channels that magic could flow thorugh, and you wanted that to be as precise as possible. If the material allowed mana to leak out of those channels, then that was the worst possible oue. It would not only weaken the final result severely, but depending on what it was you worked on, it was possible for unpredictable and catastrophic side-effects to ur. For example, a timed activation condition could be altered to activate in ten seconds, instead of ten minutes, and that without the creator¡¯s knowing. Obviously, that would cause a few issues.


    Hence why it was much easier to control the flow of magic through an artificed object if metal was used instead of wood. Though, due to Eiro¡¯s preferences, he was already thinking about what kind of tree to nt that was as resistant to magic as possible. Even if a tree like that might resist Eiro¡¯s attempts at speeding up its growth through nature magic, so it would be a tough material to get a hold of regrly.


    ¡°Show it,¡± Partax said, and one of the mechanical arms was eagerly held in front of the Demon¡¯s face. Eiro gae it to the hand and the sheet was brought closer to Partax. He pulled up one of the small gadgets that were attached to his seat, a number of magnifying sses that would most likely help Partax inspect the quality of the engraving. After looking at the technical skill first, Partax nodded approvingly, ¡°If it were any worse, I¡¯d have been disappointed.¡±


    ¡°...While I¡¯ve only really worked with wood so far, my carving skill also applies to things like this,¡± the Demon pointed out bluntly, but Partax clearly didn¡¯t pay any attention to him. Instead, he was already busy analyzing the array of sigils, and his naturally disgruntled expression turned bright, ¡°Ah, a simple spear trap! Let¡¯s give it a try!¡±


    Before Eiro could protest at the fact that Partax was trying to use this inside of this decently small room, the halfling had already thrown the sheet onto the ground. Partax pushed his thumb into his mouth and drew a bit of blood, which he quickly spread onto a small pebble he inexplicably kept in his pocket, before throwing it onto the metal sheet. Immediately, the metal sheet lit up, starting with the engravings. The heat quickly spread through the rest of the metal sheet, before a loudbustion happened right above it. mes quickly filled the room, but Eiro was of luckily able to stop any of the clothes or papers from turning to charcoal. As for the individuals in this room, they were fine as well. Eiro and his duplicate weren¡¯t affected too much by mes like these, since they weren¡¯t even supposed to be an attack, just a side-effect of the actual attack forming above the sigils. Partax had already protected himself with a seemingly magic-resistant barrier around his whole body. The only one that was affected a bit was Armodeus, even if only mentally, with just some slight physical effects. Armodeus was an Elder Dwarf and a Master of Smithing. Eiro wouldn¡¯t be surprised if Armodeus had higher resistance to mes than him, even. On the other hand, he did have a weak heart, so thebustion surprised him incredibly and was hard on his aging heart.


    Before anything else could happen, the mes of thebustion pulled back a bit, before stopping practically instantly as the second phase of the engraving was activated. The mes were frozen by ice magic. This was a trap meant to do just what the name suggested; trap its victim. Fire magic was able to spread the fastest while keeping a whole area within it encased with its magic, so only few individuals would be able to react in time to get out of the way. And if they couldn¡¯t, they would soon be trapped as the mes turned solid around them, engulfing them in a block of ice. Best of all, since mes wrapped themselves around things easily, even intricate forms, it would be possible to immobilize evenrge enemies since they would have less, or no, room to move any further.


    .....


    Right now, in the center of the block of ice, was the blood-covered pebble that Partax had thrown into it. The explosion had shattered it into some small pieces, so it was just some dust spread throughout the ice, but nheless it was a pretty decent demonstration of what this trap could do.


    ¡°The hell was that, you maniac?!¡± Armodeus yelled out, quickly grasping at his chest before he even processed what happened. More than three quarters of the room were now filled with arge block of ice, that Eiro of course quickly melted, ¡°A surprisingly efficient first item using my method!¡± Partax eximed, as if t hat were enough to exin Armodeus and satisfy him to the point where he would just be able to return back to his own work without further ado. Of course, the Elder Dwarf started to grumble into his beard and pulled the leather apron over his head, before throwing it to the ground annoyed and stumbling out of the room.


    Eiro sighed, ¡°Can¡¯t you at least try to remember that you¡¯re borrowing this space? Be a bit more aware of Armodeus.¡±


    ¡°Hah! He should just be more aware of us! Anyhow, good job,¡± Partax eximed. He had been so annoying and critical before, but it seemed like he at least enjoyed what he hade up with. Well, it was one of Eiro¡¯s spells that he had painstakingly created while increasing its efficiency as much as he could, so even if it had been tranted into those sigils, Eiro would be a bit annoyed if Partax called it trash. But the halfling still wasn¡¯t finished, ¡°In particr, I liked the method of activation! Sensing life force in a certain area right above the engraving... oftentimes people would create such traps to activate based on simple things like weight or noise, but those were easily circumvented or disarmed! Even a trap activated by sensing mana could be disarmed from afar, but a trap based on a force that only few know even exists? Marvelous!¡±


    Eiro sighed, ¡°Right, but you were able to disarm it so easily anyway.¡±


    ¡°That may be so, but that is only because I was able to look so closely at the sigil, but that was only possible because it was just armed after I ced it onto the ground! Anyone else would never be able to figure it out as easily as me,¡± Partax pointed out, as if he was proud of Eiro¡¯s work, ¡°And if you really worry about it being disarmed, just make sure the trap is only activated if it senses a certain amount of life force! That way, my trick would never work unless I pour my blood onto it directly!¡±


    Unable to stop himself from smiling, Eiro nodded, ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll add that into the next trap,¡±


    ¡°Right, right!¡± Partax eximed curiously, ¡°This time, try to make it moreplex somehow! You already created a dual-stage process, so try to add a few more steps into it, whether it¡¯s in the actual trap or the activation conditions! Try to use as much of the space on this board as you can!¡± the halfling suggested, and Eiro nodded nodded. He knew that it was the right choice to ask the Masters for help. In just a day; no, a few hours, Eiro had already learned thing that would help him immensely in the battle against the Devil. Not only that, he would be able to do quite a few more things than just that. He could fortify the Monster Vige, and he could make the disguises of the Monsters in the manor more efficient. The things that he was learning here were absolutely remarkable.


    With a smirk on his face, Eiro quickly followed the instructions and suggestions of the halfling man excitedly looking over his shoulder.

 Chapter 651 - 651 The suspicious Cube

    651 The suspicious Cube


    A suspicious cube stood in the center of the hallway. Arc was in the middle of putting on the zer of the academy¡¯s uniform, but stopped when he saw it just eerily sitting there on the carpeted floor. Sammy also came out of her room a few momentster, personally not paying much mind to the foreign object.


    ¡°What are you doing? We¡¯re going to bete,¡± Sammy told her brother with a half-scowl. But Arc was still practically frozen in ce, only slowly starting to move in slow-motion to finish getting dressed, ¡°But... it¡¯s a random cube.¡±


    ¡°So? It¡¯s probably just another one of Dad¡¯s tests,¡± she replied, and Arc immediately nodded, ¡°Yeah, exactly. So why did he put it here, right in front of my room...? He wanted me to test it, right?¡±


    ¡°...¡± Sammy looked at Arc for a few moments, before already giving up any attempts she would have made at dissuading him from touching the cube. From his own room at the end of the hallway, Felix came trotting out, already nervous about beingte for ss.


    He saw Sammy and Arc just standing there, and slightly tilted his head, ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± he asked in a whispering voice, apanying his unsure speech with signnguage. Sammy rolled her eyes. She signed her response so that Arc wouldn¡¯t hear, keeping her body in the way so that he couldn¡¯t see her sign either, ¡°Arc is being an idot again.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the idiot,¡± Arc scoffed, and Sammy turned around with a frown, ¡°How did you-¡±


    ¡°Aha! So you did call me an idiot!¡± her brother replied with a smirk, before he leaned over and looked at Felix. As he squatted down he started to sign, speaking as he did so, ¡°Dad put this thing here, and I¡¯m kind of curious...¡±


    Felix silently approached, his feet practically gliding over the ground. For a deaf man, he was extremely aware of how much noise he made. More so than everyone else in the house, actually, maybe exactly because he didn¡¯t know how much noise he was actually creating. At the end of the day, he was still a guest in this family, so he felt as though he should act the part as well and make sure not to cause anyone any trouble.


    He squatted down next to the cube as well, taking a closer look at it. It wasn¡¯t particrlyrge. You could probably hold it in one hand without any particr difort. But the problem was the numerous inscriptions ced onto the mirror-like brass surface, glowing in a dim light that was practically pulsating, like one¡¯s heartbeat. Felix curiously moved his hand forward, until he came close to touching his fingertips to the cool metal. And ¡®cool¡¯ was probably an understatement. It was so cold that it seemed like it was wrapped in a slight mist that the magical lights had to shine through first.


    .....


    However, before Felix could actually touch it, Sammy grabbed his arm and pulled it away. Felix quickly looked at the girl¡¯s face. If she was this serious then she probably thought it was something dangerous; maybe it wasn¡¯t actually something made by Eiro? Or at least, that was the first thought that crossed his mind. No, even if she was worried, seemingly she wasn¡¯t worried enough to ovee her own curiosity that she was trying to clumsily hide.


    ¡°Let Arc do it,¡± she signed, and Felix was a bit taken aback. He replied in a whisper, ¡°You want the guy who walked around with a broken toe for a full day because he couldn¡¯t feel the pain... to touch the suspicious cube in the center of the hallway?¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Sammy responded with a quic nod, and Arc quickly agreed, ¡°Right? If anyone should do it, then me. Not like Dad would do anything dangerous anyway, so there shouldn¡¯t be any pain to feel in the first ce,¡± Arc grinned, and before either of the others could say any more, he had pressed his palm onto the surface of the cube.


    Immediately, a stream of white poured out of the cube, a thick mist caused by the sudden cold that was created in the cube¡¯s center. It wrapped itself around Arc¡¯s hand and climbed up his arm, and before long, his whole body was enveloped and he disappeared in the white cloud. Both Sammy and Felix stepped back so as to avoid the magical frost.


    It took a few moments for the mist to subside, but when it did, what appeared there in its stead was not what either Arc, nor Sammy or Felix had expected. It was a cage of ice, justrge enough for Arc to sit infortably. Andfortably he did sit. As soon as he realized he was trapped, instead of growing nervous like other people, Arc just leaned back, ¡°Huh,¡± he let out, unimpressed, ¡°I thought it would be something more... interesting.¡±


    Sammy looked at her brother with a wry smile, ¡°Well, it¡¯s a useful trap... I guess?¡± she let out, and Arc shrugged, ¡°I guess so. Though if this thing doesn¡¯t melt anytime soon, it looks like I¡¯ll be missing ss,¡± Arc pointed out, grinning as he said it. He leaned back against the ssy ice bars in a rxed manner, ¡°Enjoy learning valuable life lessons, suckers. I¡¯ll be here, taking a nap.¡±


    Just as he said so, thinking that he got out of attending ss for the day, the cage started to shake. It tilted forward slightly, and wobbled as it bnced itself again, rising up slightly into the air. Arc was seated on a thick ice tform, so he was fully encased and had no way to escape. Even when the ice cage sprouted spider-like legs and started walking down the hallway.


    ¡°Wait, what?¡± Arc let out with a confused expression, ¡°Where is this thing taking me?¡±


    Sammy smirked, ¡°Where do you think? I guess now we know why the cube was right in front of your room.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± Arc asked nervously, and Sammy shrugged, ¡°Who knows? Don¡¯t you think Dad found out that you started skipping ss?¡±


    Arc¡¯s eyes widened, ¡°What? How would he have found out about that?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re asking how our father, who can literally smell what the King is eating for breakfast in his castle right now, figured out that you¡¯re skipping ss?¡±


    ¡°...I only skip when I know that it won¡¯t even matter! I¡¯m at the top of all my sses, so what does it matter if I skip the tenth practical ss in a row?¡± Arc asked, growing more and more nervous, ¡°You¡¯ve got to help me, everyone¡¯s going to see me like this!¡±


    Sammy sighed, ¡°We both know you don¡¯t actually care about that.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re right,¡± as if he had only just realized it himself, Arc¡¯s nervousness disappeared, stopping the act, ¡°At least I don¡¯t have to walk to ss myself. I can still nap all I want to. And it¡¯s not even ufortable to me,¡± he pointed out with a grin, as the ice cage was carried down the stairs. It was quickly brought toward the main entrance. Eiro was stood there, straightening his tie, before flicking his wrist. Therge door of the main entrance opened up, and Arc waved at the Demon with a smile, ¡°See you at school!¡±


    ¡°Get there well, Arc. Oh, and just so you know, but the cage will carry you around all day, and will only let you out during practical sses. If you try to run, it will catch you again,¡± Eiro exined without even looking at his son, who just leaned back more and smirked, ¡°Neat. Bye, bye!¡±


    And so, Arc was carried out the door as Sammy and Felix came trotting down the stairs, ¡°Why is this family so... this?¡± Sammy asked with a wry smile, and Eiro looked at his daughter with a shrug, ¡°If it works, it works. Also, thanks for stopping Felix. I didn¡¯t bother to have it make sure it really got Arc... we nearly had Felix carried into all of Arc¡¯s sses.¡±


    ¡°It would¡¯ve been funny, at least,¡± Sammy pointed out, smirking as she looked at Felix who simply nced back confused. He felt that they had spoken about him, but of course couldn¡¯t confirm this for certain.


    Eiro smiled, and watched as Sammy and Felix made their way out the door themselves to head to the carriage waiting outside to bring them to the academy. He looked at his daughter¡¯s back happily, just as Partax entered the space, ¡°Wait, did I miss it? Did the cage alreadye by?¡± he asked, before seeing Eiro¡¯s smile, ¡°Ah, judging from your expression, it did, and it worked, eh?¡± the halfling said excitedly, but Eiro just stayed quiet, letting Partax believe that this was his reason for smiling.


    No, he was happy for a whole other reason. Until just recently, Sammy had practically refused to speak in fear of activating her skill against her will, but now, she was chatting naturally just like she used to. Hearing her voice fill their home again; that was why he was smiling.

 Chapter 652 - 652 Clash

    652 sh


    Eiro walked through the hallways of the Academy, inspecting the area thoroughly in regard to the way that magic flowed through it under specific conditions. Of course, Eiro knew every nook and cranny of the physical aspect of the academy, but even he hadn¡¯t tested the sort of specific things that Partax wanted to know.


    The way the mana in the school¡¯s walls reacted when hundred, thousand, or ten thousand units of mana were twisted both clockwise and counter-clockwise. How it reacted to those units of mana being transformed into different elements, mainly speaking of Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Light and Dark magic. Andstly, how the academy¡¯s mana reacted to someone attempting to manipte the mana of the academy to twist it into particr patterns or shapes. Eiro had to do each and every one of those things for every 100-step section of the academy¡¯s hallways. Frankly, it was a lot of intricate and annoying work, but together with the help of some duplicates, Eiro was able to get it done much quicker. But of course, even if his mana pool was incredibly deep, even Eiro didn¡¯t have infinite mana, so it did take him quite a while since he had to pace himself so that he wouldn¡¯t run out of mana at any point.


    At least all of this was for a good purpose. With all of the information that Eiro was currently collecting, Partax would create the Academy¡¯s new security system. Something far, far superior to what someone like Merlin couldn¡¯t even pretend to be able to create.


    ¡°What the hell are you doing right now?¡± an initially unassuming man walked down the hallway. The muscles in his arms were twitching, and his brows were soaked in sweat. Apparently he had to get a bit heated up during ss this time around. It was Kristoph, a fellow instructor here at the academy, and most certainly the strongest individual within this ce, following the Demon himself of course. For a moment, Eiro nearly wanted to call him the strongest in the whole city, but that wasn¡¯t the truth. Currently, he had two Masters at his home, and even if they weren¡¯tbat-oriented, Eiro wasn¡¯t fully positive that they weren¡¯t going to be able to hold their own against someone many times stronger than Kristoph. Shimour had beaten Eiro so thoroughly and most likely just scratched the bottom of the barrel, that he was certain that there was much more that was hidden by all of them. Even beside the Masters, Eiro was pretty confident that Arie could hold her own against Kristoph as well. They both stood at the peak of ¡®that¡¯ organization, where each person within it strived for the highest possible individual power. But since then, since Eiro hadpletely destroyed that ce and made sure that it couldn¡¯t form in the same way again, even if they once again received support from the benefactors standing behind them, the Nephilim and Demon had trained together quite a bit.


    Now, if the version of Eiro that he was when he first met Arie, and the current Arie, were to fight, Eiro would have no chance of winning. Maybe with a few tricks, and he was supremely lucky, but Arie herself kept quite a few tricks up her sleeve. Now he knew of them, of course, but if he didn¡¯t, some of them could make him sweat even right now.


    ¡°I¡¯m... surveying the Academy,¡± Eiro exined in a simple way, not offer up much more information than that. Kristoph raised a brow and crossed his arms, ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean? Is something wrong with the buildings?¡±


    ¡°You could say that. We still only have the old security magic in ce here.¡±


    Kristoph sighed, ¡°So it really was that... I heard that you¡¯re nning on creating a new system to keep the academy safe. You sure you¡¯ll manage to do that?¡±


    Eiro shrugged, ¡°Maybe, maybe not. Better than keeping what Merlin made around.¡±


    .....


    ¡°That is a good point. Though, that being the case... aren¡¯t you making this system together with someone else that just invaded the academy the other day?¡± Kristoph asked, and Eiro just rolled his eyes. He knew that this was the reason why Kristoph came here; they barely interacted outside of ss or faculty gatherings anyway, so having hime up to him like this was unusual, to say the least.


    But the Demon also didn¡¯t particrly care about Kristoph¡¯s opinion in this matter, ¡°So? It¡¯s not like he knew about the incident.¡±


    ¡°Hah?¡± Kristoph was taken aback, ¡°What do you mean, he didn¡¯t know? Who the fuck doesn¡¯t know about it?¡±


    ¡°A Master who doesn¡¯t give a damn about the happenings of the world, I guess,¡± Eiro replied, and Kristoph stopped for a few moments, ¡°Master, as in... master grade?¡±


    ¡°What else would I mean?¡±


    Kristoph ced his hand in front of his mouth, ¡°Someone like that just came... waltzing into the school...? And now you¡¯re letting him know about every little nook and cranny of this ce? What the fuck are you thinking?!¡±


    Eiro looked at him with a frown, ¡°Do you have something against Masters?¡±


    ¡°Do I- Yes! How could I not, you little- Masters are selfish and violent, they¡¯re people that can bring change to the world! They¡¯re more than strong enough to help in the fight against the Monster king- fuck, they¡¯re probably strong enough to take out most incarnations of the Monster King on their own, but what do they do? Lean back and do whatever the hell they want! Merlin- His life goal was to be a master, and we both know what he did to achieve that!¡± Kristoph¡¯s heart was starting to beat louder and louder, as his hot blood was pumped through his veins, into his head. His face turned red with anger, and he clenched his fist.


    Eiro frowned, ¡°You¡¯re going to try and lecture me about selfishness? You were part of an organization that caused chaos across the continent, just because you wanted to be stronger. And before you say anything else, this time around, the Masters are actually helping. They¡¯re going to teach me, personally, so that I can be strong enough to kill the royals and that damned Monster King once and for all. And what are you doing? Using all your strength to y with your thumbs while teaching these kids how to stand while throwing a punch.¡±


    ¡°Are you trying to piss me off on purpose, or is it just that your voice does that to me?¡± Kristoph ground his teeth, staring deep into Eiro¡¯s eyes. The Demon shook his head, ¡°No, you¡¯re just a fool who can¡¯t bear to hear the truth. At least I¡¯m actually trying to do something good.¡±


    ¡°Good?! Did you forget about all that shit you pulled in the past? Killing people left and right, and-¡±


    ¡°If they don¡¯t deserve the life they¡¯ve been given, then I¡¯ll simply take it from them. That¡¯s what I still believe to this day. Yes, I used to be a bit more indiscriminately violent, but-¡±


    ¡°A bit? Is that all you call that?¡± Kristoph was taken aback, and held his hand forward, pointing at the man standing across from him, ¡°Come with me, right now. Let¡¯s fucking settle this.¡±


    Eiro closed his eyes for a moment. If he still had a heart, it would be about to jump out of his chest out of anger at Kristoph and his words. So, he simply followed, and did as suggested. The two men walked through the academy, each giving off an air of anger that made any student or even the other lecturers avoid them as much as they could. But at the same time, it was something that made them curious about what was going to happen now. And so, a crowd soon formed, following Eiro and Kristoph outside to one of the training areas, specificially meant for high-gradebat.


    Eiro took off his suit¡¯s jacket and folded it up, giving it to a pair of mage hands so that they would hold it for him. He turned back around toward Kristoph, who was waiting on the other side of the training area.


    ¡°Rules?¡± Eiro asked, and Kristoph replied simply, ¡°Purebat. No big spells or anything. Physical enhancement is okay. No permanent crippling, and no killing.¡±


    Eiro nodded, agreeing to the rules, ¡°Whoever gives up first, or simply can¡¯t continue to fight loses?¡±


    Now, Kristoph nodded. Eiro pulled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, and pushed his shoes off his feet. He slightly moved his fingers around and pulled a bit of water out of the spirit gateway, which he quickly turned into a ring that he used to tie up his long, crystal-like rainbow hair. It always got in the way during a fight when it was loose. And it¡¯s not like he could just have this fight in his demon form either.


    Kristoph held a copper coin in his hand, and once he saw that Eiro was ready, threw it into the air. Both of them stared at each other for what seemed like forever, until the edge of the coin finally hit the ground. The onlookers weren¡¯t able to tell what was going on, but before they knew it, Eiro and Kristoph shed in the center of the field.

 Chapter 653: Where is it?

    Chapter 653: Where is it?


    Kristoph¡¯s strike was heavy, but slow. With ease, Eiro twisted his body out of the way and took hold of the other fighter¡¯s wrist. Using the momentum built during the dodge, Eiro pulled him forward, while hooking his own ankle onto Kristoph¡¯s.


    Instead of doing the generally obvious thing and trying to struggle against this, Kristoph did the opposite; he further jumped into Eiro¡¯s pull and thus managed to take control of his own movement again. Eiro¡¯s hand was still tightly wrapped around his wrist, but that also meant that Eiro was in range and it would be hard for him to dodge out of the way. Kristoph leaned back and to the side, and pulled his leg upward to strike at Eiro¡¯s arm.


    Eiro let go of the wrist and instead held his palm toward Kristoph¡¯s iing kick. Since physical enhancement was allowed, Eiro fused his body partially with water. The shock from Kristoph¡¯s kick travelled through the Demon¡¯s body, but he managed to direct the absorbed shock toward his other hand. Eiro slid over the ground and moved closer toward the slow Kristoph, pressing his palm into his stomach right when the shockwave passed his wrist. A shock of power rushed through Kristoph¡¯s body, and due to the sheer force of the attack, his body shot to the other side of the training area, in a straight line.


    Of course, it was an area where none of the students had gathered; otherwise, Eiro never would have attacked him in this way. Mid-air, Kristoph managed to twist his body around by practically kicking the air, introducing new momentum to his body. He pushed his feet into the trampled dirt and leaned forward, grabbing the ground to stop his movement as fast as he could.


    Like a spring, he immediately changed direction and shot back at Eiro, while the student body watched on in awe. So far, the fight had gone on for just a few seconds, but they were already witnessing something incredible. They were watching a fight between two of the strongest people in the city; no, the country. Not even the fights during the ¡®Selection Tournament¡¯, where Eiro was chosen as the Hero¡¯spanion, seemed this intense.


    Eiro let out a slight breath as he dropped down backward. He was practicallyying t on the ground, even though the bottom of his feet were still solidly ced onto the floor. He wasn¡¯t supporting himself with his hands either, and simply managed to hold such an impossible position for an even more impossible amount of time, simply to dodge underneath Kristoph¡¯s sweep. Usually, this was the sort of attack you would try to avoid with a jump, but Eiro could already tell that Kristoph was flexing his upper body in a way to prepare to punch up, preparing exactly for that to happen, so he dodged out of the way underneath. But, as one would expect from a fighter at Kristoph¡¯s level, he managed to adapt to the unexpected situation quickly. He had already started the momentum for his updward strike, but managed to twist his shoulder to make himself strike sideways instead, and he struck his right fist against his left.


    It was the sort of attack you would expect to make one¡¯s arm pop out of its stocket, and as far as Eiro could tell, Kristoph¡¯s arm nearly did exactly that, but he managed to make his body follow behind just barely fast enough to avoid this. Instead, he managed to use the power of his punch for an elbow-strike that he could divert downward as he dropped his body as quickly as he could.


    Eiro¡¯s body was still horizontal, and Kristoph¡¯s elbow was headed straight for his sr plexus, but the Demon finally kicked his feet of the ground and twisted around the iing attack. He caught Kristoph¡¯s elbow with both of his hands, before holding onto it as tightly as he could, while moving his own lower body toward Kristoph¡¯s head. He pressed his knee onto his neck, where it met his right shoulder and hooked himself in. Kristoph¡¯s right arm was still slightly raised, so the Demon wrapped his legs around it as if they were snakes. Most importantly, in a way that wasn¡¯t usually physically possible, except if one had the level of flexibility that Eiro had. Usually, you could only bend your knee one way, but Eiro could bend it into any direction he wanted. He could manipte all of his joints that way without losing much, or any, strength in his muscles while doing so. This way, he pulled Kristoph¡¯s right arm away from his shoulder. Meanwhile, Eiro twisted the rest of his body so that he could turn Kristoph¡¯s elbow, which he still tightly held onto, as much as he could.


    Kristoph¡¯s physical strength was remarkable, it was truly terrifying what this simple human managed to achieve. From what Eiro could tell, a huge amount of this strength did actuallye from honing his muscles, instead of concentrating on gaining strength through stat increases, something that the Demon respected beyond belief. He himself had concentrated on this very thing since hisst evolution; none of the stat points he gained since hisst evolution had been put into any of his stats. While it did make you stronger, it also made it a lot harder to increase your physical strength independent from stats. So for now, Eiro did anything he could to make his training as efficient as possible, and would then increase his stats in one go when it was needed.


    That being the case, it was clear that this moment wasn¡¯t going toe soon. Kristoph wasn¡¯t able to do much against Eiro except struggle with all the strength in his body, when Eiro himself still had plenty to spare. He simply didn¡¯t want to use his whole strength, since actually cripping someone in front of the students was a rather bad idea, even if Eiro was able to heal him immediately, even if it happened.


    Kristoph ground his teeth, and Eiro could just hear them squeal as if they were about to break apart. And that was when Kristoph jumped into the air, backward. It was clear that he was trying to use his own body weight to attack Eiro, but that wasn¡¯t even nearly enough to hurt him. Right then, Eiro noticed the flow of magic in Kristoph¡¯s body change, directed right at his feet. And then, the Demon heard the soles of Kristoph¡¯s feet pressing against something, in the middle of the air. He had created a small, thin tform right under his own feet, and used it to force himself back down. With a grin, Eiro just let it happen. He wouldn¡¯t be fast enough topletely let go of Kristoph before impact anyway, and like this he could at least continue pressuring his opponent, even if he did take some damage himself.


    Eiro pressed into the ground, his body absorbing the brunt of the impact. It seemed as though Kristoph expected Eiro¡¯s grip to loosen, since he pulled out a momentary burst of strength hidden inside of his body, but it was rather the opposite. Eiro had fused himself with a bit of Bavet¡¯s slime, and wrapped it around his muscles before forcing it into a metal-like state. It basically turned Eiro into a statue, but it was only for a moment anyway. He couldn¡¯t manipte Bavet¡¯s slime any longer than that, and even the short instant that he did, it wasn¡¯t particrly effective anyway. Enough to stop his body from losing strength during the impact, though.


    Kristoph quickly lost that burt of strength that he had hoped to use to escape Eiro¡¯s clutches, but the Demon had already moved on. He kept one of his legs wrapped around Kristoph¡¯s arm, and hooked his other one onto Kristoph¡¯s right leg. One of his arms kept pulling and twisting on Kristoph¡¯s elbow, while the other had wrapped around his neck and pulled up on the fighter¡¯s chin. If Eiro wanted to, he could violently tear of Kristoph¡¯s head right now. Of course, that wasn¡¯t what he wanted, even if the urge was there for a few moments.


    ¡°You give up?¡± Eiro asked, and Kristoph red at the Demon from the corner of his eye. The muscles in his throat twitched slightly, and his tongue was moving inside of his mouth, even if it couldn¡¯t open due to Eiro grasp. But even so, Eiro could tell. Kristoph had tried to say something, but not what the Demon wanted to hear. Kristoph simply asked, ¡°Where the hell is your heartbeat?¡±

 Chapter 654: What better reason?

    Chapter 654: What better reason?


    Eiro kept Kristoph¡¯s body tightly locked down, and couldn¡¯t stop the slight smirk forming on his lips, ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about. You sure you¡¯re not just overlooking it?¡± he whispered, and Kristoph¡¯s face went pale. It went pale, despite the fact that he was being choked out, and his head should be as red as the blood flowing through his veins right now.


    Kristoph kept struggling against Eiro¡¯s lockdown, but soon realized that there was no choice for him beside to give up. He tried to whisper it, and Eiro quicklyplied, letting go of the fellow lecturer. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and Kristoph stared at Eiro¡¯s chest, where a heart should usually be beating, ¡°Are you¡­ dead? What is this, necromancy?¡± he asked, but Eiro just shook his head. He slightly waved his hand and created a barrier of air around them that would block the conversation from leaking to the students.


    ¡°I¡¯m not dead, no. I¡¯m still alive; I just realized that I don¡¯t need a heart anymore. I¡¯m using magic to do anything that a heart would have done for me,¡± Eiro exined, and Kristoph was more than just taken aback, ¡°But- Fuck, you¡¯re ridiculous, how is that even possible? What about your core?¡±


    ¡°I turned my whole body into my core. Spread it out through my magic circuits,¡± the Demon said bluntly, and Kristoph smiled wrily, ¡°That¡­ that¡¯s not possible¡­ nobody can manipte their core, or magic circuits, just- just what kind of monstrosity are you?¡±


    ¡°The kind that can overlook an infuriating idiot¡¯s words, in exchange for some help,¡± Eiro replied bluntly, and Kristoph didn¡¯t seem to fully understand what he was saying. The Demon started walking forward, past Kristoph toward the edge of the area they used for their brief duel, ¡°Basically, if you promise to be mine, and help me during the fight against the Devil¡­ I can promise you power that you would never have hoped to get your hands on.¡±


    ¡ª


    Eiro stepped into the workshop in the basement of his manor, briefly waving at Armodeus. The Elder Dwarf furrowed his brow and grumbled into his beard, ¡°Do you two really have to work down here? This isn¡¯t even the only hidden room in the basement; the other one is far bigger as well.¡±


    The Demon smirked, ¡°That one¡¯s the torture chamber and breeding ground for the spiders. Not really the best ce for precision work like this.¡±


    ¡°Yeah but at least you¡¯d stop annoying the shit out of me ¨C and to make it clear, with ¡®you¡¯, I mean ¡®him¡¯¡­¡± Armodeus pointed out, ring at Partax as he did so. The Halfling looked up from the project that he was currently fiddling with and turned around with a frown, ¡°What¡¯d you say? If you¡¯re that bothered, go join the spiders yourself! You already look like them, anyway!¡±


    ¡°Did you just ¨C which of us is walking around on literal spider legs all day?¡±


    ¡°That would be me, of course, thates to show just what a difference your bug-like snout makes,¡± Partax spit back, and Eiro could just tell that this would escte even more if this was allowed to go on, so he stepped inbetween them, ¡°Just ¨C I¡¯ll figure something out, okay? For now, just bear with each other. Partax, you especially, you¡¯re just a guest here so don¡¯t intrude on Armodeus.¡±


    As Partax moved his re toward Eiro, the Demon held up his palm, and started forming something out of Arcana; he was quickly recreating the Academy so that he could show exactly what he had learned by surveying it all day. Quickly, Partax¡¯s attention was drawn away from the argument and toward the magic floating in front of him.


    ¡°This¡­ Arcana, so you have decyphered the Ancient Language?¡± Partax asked, and Eiro quickly nodded, ¡°Yeah, there¡¯s this thing that Merlin built nearby that I got my hands on to learn it. Do you also know how to use Arcana?¡± the Demon asked, but Partax shook his head, ¡°Sadly not ¨C I know the Ancient Language, but my control over magic is toocking for that specific area. I¡¯m a horrible spellcaster; though I don¡¯t need to be good at that, since being an artificer is more fun anyway.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough¡­ Though, that being the case-¡±


    ¡°And you say Merlin built it? Something that let you learn the Ancient Language?¡±


    ¡°¡­Yes, but he didn¡¯t build it so that I could learn it. He used it a long time ago and then abandoned it, and I just so happened to find it. I only met Merlin after that point, and learned the ancientnguage eventer than that,¡± Eiro exined, ¡°If you promise to behave when we get there, I can show you the ce.¡±


    Armodeus shuddered, ¡°You sure you want to do that? Partax isn¡¯t particrly the kindest toward most Monsters¡­ you¡¯re sort of the exception.¡±


    Eiro looked at the Master Artificer and raised a brow, ¡°What does he mean with that?¡±


    ¡°Well what else? I use them to test out new projects or concoctions, obviously. What does that have to do with anything though? Is that where you keep your more rowdy pets?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re not pets, even if they are a bit more on the rowdy side, I guess¡­ I built a vige of monsters there. I was nning on checking in on them soon again anyway; you cane along if you swear not to touch any of them.¡±


    ¡°A vige of monsters? What kind?¡± Partax¡¯s curiosity rose quickly, and the Demon quickly replied, ¡°Well¡­ at the beginning, it was just the same monsters that we have in the manor right now. But then after that¡­¡± Eiro exined, considering if he should really tell Partax about a certian detail already, though he would figure it out once they went there anyway, ¡°You know about that ind city that was overrun by monsters eight years ago? Which then just disappeared one day a couple months ago?¡±


    Partax¡¯s grin dropped, ¡°Of course I know, but¡­ you didn¡¯t, did you?¡±


    ¡°I did. That whole city was carried through a giant gravity magic stone, so after I took control over the monsters in the city, I figured I might as well take the whole thing with me and used gravity magic to bring it to the mountain range nearby. So basically, all the monsters that were on there, excluding the Imps, are part of that ce now.¡±


    Partax seemed baffled, ¡°You¡­ what? Are you trying to use that as a ce to create stronger servants, or¡­? Why would you do something like that?¡±


    ¡°¡­¡± Eiro flicked his wrist and made the arcane representation of the academy disappear for now. He looked at Partax and asked, ¡°Why do you think I want to kill the Monster King?¡±


    ¡°¡­To be stronger?¡±


    ¡°No. I¡¯m bing stronger to kill the monster king, not the other way around. I¡¯m killing the Monster King, and then I¡¯m killing every remaining royal monster. Furthermore, I will use their powers and any artifact I get my hands on, to take in the aspects of the Hero, and others like him, even my child Avalin, the Holy Priestess. I will take the splinters in this world and make them my own,¡± Eiro exined. Partax¡¯s hands started to shake, ¡°A-And¡­ and why would you do that? Are you trying to achieve godhood?¡±


    ¡°Why the fuck would I want to be a god? No, I¡¯m doing it because that¡¯s the only way to ensure peace for my children, and their children. If the Monster King, the Hero, and others like them continue to exist¡­ then the world will never be without war. And that¡¯s why I¡¯m raising arge group of Monsters that are already rid of their monstrosity, to lead the rest of them once I figure out how to get rid of that cursed affliction for all monsters. Because if monsters and people can coexist, peace will sooner orter follow.¡±


    Partax stared into Eiro¡¯s eyes as his mind caught up to his ears, ¡°You¡­ is that the truth? That is your goal? That is why you mutte your body, that is why you turn yourself into a weapon? Your goal is the ultimate peace of the world, just¡­ so your children will not have to dirty their hands?¡±


    Eiro gently smiled at the old man in front of him, ¡°What better reason is there?¡±

 Chapter 655 Wondrous Knowledge

    Chapter 655 Wondrous Knowledge


    Partax was quiet, eerily so. He had listened to Eiro''s exnation, and was dumbstruck; his goals were ridiculously grand, and his motivations so utterly opposite to the scale he was working at. The man in front of him was someone that should be truly vile. A demon that enjoyed the ughter of people, and that certainly seemed to be the case from all that he had learned about Eiro. But despite that, he held a sort of contrarian purity within his heart that was naught but admirable.


    The elderly halfling closed his eyes and thought momentarily, before opening his mouth hesitantly, "I have something to give you."


    Slowly, as though he was still hesitating, he pushed his hand into his jacket, and pulled something out of the inside pocket right in front of his heart. The moment Armodeus saw the rusted bronze, the king metal just barely revealing the lustering runic patterns hidden underneath, his eyes widened, "You''re not..."


    Staying quiet, Partax held the pair of scissors in his hands in front of him, and moved it through the air as if cutting space itself. And that was exactly what he did. Like a curtain, space seemed to fall to the ground, revealing a room that shouldn''t be there. It was disorienting, as the area that Eiro perceived gotrger by that 1000 square foot room in an instant. But what he noticed then was a literal treasure trove. Eiro''s treasury ability couldn''tpare to this. It was packed with numerous objects and projects and artifacts clearly of Partax''s own creation, now exining exactly how he always managed to get his hands on tools and materials that weren''t here before.


    "One of my abilities I received as I rose through the ranks of sses was that of a private space, hidden from all eyes. One that only I can view and step into, to use as I wish. It has be the ce to guard my most valuable possessions... and some trinkets, tools and materials," Partax exined, as his metallic spider legs carried him into the room while beckoning Eiro to follow him. The Demon was confused, and stepped over the fabric-like surface that was space itself after folding and covering itself. He looked at the halfling''s back and quickly asked, "But how can I be in here then? You said only you can ess it... So how..?"


    "Well... skills and abilities have strict rules. And if you know those rules, it''s possible to break them," Partax exined quickly, "These scissors are an artifact of different origin to the ones you seek to collect. They''re not of the arcane sort, but one simply too ancient for us to understand. Scissors with the ability to cut anything, whether it''s paper or steel, no matter how sharp the des actually are. And then, I simply took this artifact and adjusted it. Now, it can cut the space between here and there. The scissors lost their other abilities, but now it is possible for me to open the path to this space."


    Eiro looked at the scissors stillying in Partax''s hands. He modified an artifact? Even if it wasn''t an arcane artifact, if it was acknowledged with the that title, then it should be nearly impossible to do something like that... or at least that should be the case, for anyone but a Master. If it could be done with those scissors, could it be done with the cards?


    The Demon followed the Halfling, getting a closer look at the insides of the space. There was a wall linedpletely in numerous sks and bottles filled with liquids of all sorts, smelling of nts and extracts that Eiro knew he wouldn''t be able to recognize no matter how hard he searched his memory. Orbs and tools and weapons and armors, each powerful enough to make anyone seeking power drool, were thrown onto piles as if they were useless or failed creations. Only one area was kept truly pristine, on thepletely opposite side of the room. A few objects ced on pedestals without even a single grain of dust on any of them. Some bottles filled with potions, like disys of ornate wine. And most importantly, a single bookshelf filled with 36 books, which was what Partax was headed straight toward.


    "These books were written by myself, collecting all of what I learned over the years in the most detailed ways possible. To anyone beside me they''re mere gibberish at best, and the insane scribbles of a rambling madman at worst. I will... give these books to you."


    Eiro looked at the bookshelf and at how incredibly high-quality these books were. They were something that the Demon hadn''t even seen in the deepest parts of the royal library. If the tower''s overseer got to see these, then there would be no doubt about just how worthy Partax was to enter that supreme library.


    But the state of the books wasn''t what shocked Armodeus; no, he was more surprised at another fact, "You''re giving them away? Just like that? It tooks me years for you to let me even look at them from outside, and you''re just going to... give them to him?"


    Partax scoffed and nodded, "He''s worthy of these books! And you''re just a brutish fool!"


    "I have the greatest dexterity in this world, so who are you calling a brute?" Armodeus barked back, but the halfling didn''t seem to pay him any heed. Instead, he looked back at Eiro, "Take them, before I change my mind. Each of them is a gathering of a different discipline within the areas of Artificing and Alchemy I studied. Take your time and read them carefully."


    The Demon raised a brow and approached the bookshelf. Partax visibly tensed up, but Eiro was too enthralled at what he would find in those books. He ced his fingertips on the leftmost book on the top shelf, and could immediately feel a certain flow of magic within it. There was a lot going on here, much more than just the written word. It was something he might be able to figure out if he fused with Gondos to see all the details of the magic, but even then Eiro might miss some important things. So instead, Eiro did something else.


    ---


    The duplicate of Eiro in the ne of water''s tower pushed himself through the halls, swimming until he reached his servant, Anura. Before he even reached him, the humanoid frog had already stopped reading and was ready to ept themand of its master. The Demon looked down at the creature and quickly ced his hand onto Anura''s forehead, "It''s finally time for you to give me part of what you owe. As much of your magic as you can spare."


    "As you wish, my lord," the frog said with glee on his face. After reading many of these books over the past few weeks and gathering knowledge much faster than he had in the past, his dedication to the demon had just grown that much more. With pleasure, he poured as much magic out of his body into Eiro''s hand as he could, and the Demon pulled it toward his core.


    ---


    In the central material ne, the original Eiro pulled the magic out. He reserved part of it in a section of his chest and then infused his body with the rest. His skin turned pale and turned a paper-like texture, and his eyes seemed to be sharper somehow. The patterns of the blessings he received turned ck, and it seemed like the slight wrinkles he had were deeper and darker as well, as if ink had seeped into them.


    Partax and Armodeus both watched as this happened, before the Demon pulled the book out of the shelf, and flipped it open. He looked at the first page, then the second. Instead of flipping through it with speed as he normally did, leaving things to the mental duplicates, he chose to invest as much time into thinking about the content of the pages on his own as he could. He wanted to sense the secrets of this Master''s writing.


    For a while, Eiro just stood there, staring at the opened double pages, decyphering the wall of texts, sketches and runes, practically immediately lost in thought at the wondrous knowledge flowing into his very veins at just the first two pages of many.

 Chapter 656 Restrictions

    Chapter 656 Restrictions


    Eiro flipped through the pages carefully, making sure to attain as much knowledge from the book as he could. He was so deeply concentrating that his perception of the surroundings was even slipping from him. Of course he created a duplicate in his mind to take over this task, since he didn''t want to take the risk of not knowing what was happening around him, but it was the first time in a while that he hadn''t made sure to do it himself.


    And while Eiro was reading, literally pulling in the information on these pages through his fingertips, Partax and Armodeus stood at the edge of the workshop. The Elder Dwarf tapped his foot on the ground three times, and looked at his old friend andpanion with a frown, "Why did you give them to him? Those books are your life, you would rather die than let someone you don''t approve of even nce at them."


    The halfling thought for a few moments, before shrugging, "I guess I simply approved of him, then. His reasons are noble, to say the least. I thought it was a nice sentiment... Even I am growing old and nostalgic for my younger days when I had big dreams like that."


    "Don''t you still dream just as big these days?"


    "One grand dream even I was no longer sure was achievable is nothingpared to something that he is so clearly working toward. Don''t you think that his goal seems oddly achievable, despite how grand it is?"


    Armodeus was dumbstruck as he heard Partax''s words, "So you really did want to help out back then, didn''t you?"


    "...Of course I did. But we just can''t. It''s not our ce anymore," Partax sighed bitterly, and the elder dwarf''s expression sunk simrly, "I... tried to, not long ago. After Shimour left again. I don''t know what it was, what came over me, but I wanted to ovee that hurdle."


    As if he had just listened to something ridiculous, the halfling looked at his friend and red deep into his eyes, "You fool, what were you thinking?! Are you well? Were there-"


    "I didn''t go through with it. I picked up my hammer and started forging, and the moment I felt the restrictions in my bones, I simply let go," Armodeus replied, "You know, I made some daggers for Eiro a short while ago, using a duplicated artifact as a base. They''re wonderful, truly; even Shimour struggled against them in Eiro''s hands. But I just can''t help but think about what they could have be if I didn''t have to fear for my life to bring out my full power."


    "I understand your worries, brother... It''s truly ridiculous, having to follow rules nobody told us about. We achieved the greatest honor possible, but if we try to enjoy the fruits drenched in our blood and sweat, we''re punished..." Partax sighed, "I wish there were a way to change it, but that is just how it is. Knowing that we could do it if we wanted to is more than enough. And most importantly... passing on our knowledge doesn''t seem so bad either. I''m starting to understand why Jura was looking for a sessor," Partax started to smile as he watched Eiro so eagerly read the books, when he seemed to realize something was wrong with what he said.


    "I-"


    "Don''t even think of it," Armodeus sighed, "It was of my own will that I signed that contract. And even if I hadn''t, I still wouldn''t take a sessor."


    "What happened is not your fault, brother. You did everything right, simply honing your craft. You truly risked your life despite the restrictions, you went through hell and back; your overgrown body is proof of what you did and how much you suffered, even if others don''t realize."


    "I created an abomination, a weapon that should never exist, and I will forever suffer the consequences from that action until the day I die."


    Partax wanted to protest Armodeus'' words, but he knew that he couldn''t. He closed his eyes and spoke, "You did something I couldn''t. The things I make may be considered artifacts in name amongst the people, but the system does not treat them as such. They''re just more useful magic items. The most I''ve managed to do is modify already existing artifacts. But you, you did something that I never even thought you could. You created a true artifact, something exactly like those cards the brat seems to want to collect at every chance."


    "...And I wish I hadn''t. The days following still haunt me. Now, please, let''s stop talking about that. And don''t tell Eiro either, I''m trying to keep it a secret."


    Partax seemed confused, "What? He''s sitting just over there; he can hear the king sneeze in his castle, so how could he not have just heard our conversation?"


    Armodeus pointed at his foot, "It''s an agreement I made with him. If I tap my right foot on the ground three times, he purges everything I do from his memory until I tap my left foot on the ground three times. Of course, that extends to whoever I''m talking to, and whatever I''m doing. If he''s not in the same room as me, he will simply force himself to forget everything he subconsciously learned about what I did, and even forces himself not to let his mind wander to a point where he tries to figure out what it was after the fact."


    "...And you trust him to do that? To simply eradicate memories from his head?" Partax asked perplexed, and Armodeus nodded, "Of course. How can''t I? When he promises something, he sounds exactly like Jura did. He doesn''t even question me when I very clearly lie to him about certain things. He''s rude and straightforward... but he has tact and a heart, at least. Well, thest part is just figurative at this point... Obviously."


    "Don''t remind me... the mere idea that something like that is possible is ridiculous."


    Armodeus nodded, "It''s only possible because of the sheer amount of mana he has."


    ---


    Eiro was reading, and heard Armodeus'' right foot hit the ground three times. The duplicate in charge of sensing the surroundings quickly restricted what it could sense there in the first ce, and then worked hard to purge that memory from the Demon''s mindpletely. Usually, the library was ever-expanding, more books appearing here and there, and of course, there were books that described exactly the happenings around the Demon at all times. But in the book that was currently being written with current memories, some of the pages were simply burning up as they were being written. If he wanted to, Eiro could probably repair the damage to that book and thus regain his memories, but that wasn''t something he was interested in doing. He promised Armodeus not to listen, and he would keep that promise.


    Rather, he was much more interested in the contents of the book in his hands anyway. This was a book specifically about that runic spell-writing system Partax used for his creations. There were some things that Eiro already knew, but it was entry level. It was like he was trying to read the words of anguage whose letters he had only barely nced at, even though it was written in mon''. The depth of the information was iparable to anything that Eiro had expected; Until now Partax''s teachings were rough and hard to even understand, but this? It gave Eiro everything he needed to know, and more. While reading this book, it was like he could feel what it was like to do the things described. As though he was actively learning what it was he had to do. He could feel the twitching and pressure on his fingers, as if he was truly pressing down on and carving into the base material.


    And more importantly...


    -


    [Your ''Apprentice Artificing'' Skill has leveled up]


    -


    Eiro''s artificing skill level was rising just by reading this book. He was soon going to reach intermediate grade in this skill already. The speed at which it rose was ridiculous, truly. And this was just one of 36 books that Eiro could read. He would stay up as long as he needed to, so that he could finish this matter before long. He wanted to see truly how far he could push his abilities with the help of Partax''s experiences.

 Chapter 657 Receptors

    657 Receptors


    Eiro ced the book down. It was just the second book of the 36, and it has taken him an annoyingly long time to actually read it. The duplicates in the tower of books of water and fire were each getting through book after book within a matter of minutes, while Eiro barely managed to get through a handful of pages then. It was like he was reading at a regr person''s pace. It was simply something that he had to do in order to take in all of the books'' information. There really was no other way.


    "Are you done?" Partax asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. The Demon walked over toward the halfling''s side, who had already prepared something that Eiro could test his newly acquired knowledge out with. The first book he read was about inscriptions, and the second about drawing out properties from objects. That included things like pulling magic from magic stones, as well as taking properties from one object and applying it to another, with the assistance of a level of alchemy.


    Eiro ced his hand onto the piece of wood. It was wood from an Arctic Mangrove, a tree that was known for absorbing ice magic into itself due to the climates that it grew in. Due to this, the wood itself was always cold to a point where any water touching it would soon freeze, even not to an extremely low degree. That being the case, ording to Partax''s book, Eiro should be able to take that frost property and transfer it to another object.


    First, he had to prepare the base object, and the receptor. This was quite easy really, he simply carved the small block of arctic mangrove wood into an orb and ced some basic inscriptions onto its surface. Then he took the receptor for the frost aspect, a small piece of steel. While metal has low conductivity for manapared to wood, with enough mana to make up for it during the transfer process that wouldn''t cause any issues.


    Eiro scratched the other half of the inscriptions onto the piece of metal, and then ced the wood orb onto an imprint on the metal to keep it in ce. That being the case, Eiro filled the inscriptions with his mana. Since he ced the wood perfectly onto the metal with the right parts of the inscriptions meeting and ovepping, he could create a flow from one object to the other. Once this flow was created, Eiro got to thest step. Artificing often required something like a special sort of magic; it was simr to ''Mental Magic'' which Eiro had some bad experiences with in the past. Instead of being a magic that had a specific element imbued into it, it was magic that was imbued with a concept. And in this case, the concept was artificing, with specific information about precise applications within it. And now, Eiro simply pulled that artificing magic from the wooden orb into the piece of metal and watched as the cold air that used to flow through the grains of wood now seeped deep into the thin scratches on the metal surface. He pulled the two objects away from each other and smiled lightly.


    It was an interesting and more than just unique process, and something that would most certainlye in useful in a plethora of ways. Whether it was in the creation of traps, or in the modification of wood that he wanted to work with for different projects. He should be able toe up with a few interesting uses here.


    "Good. Now we should be able to get started on the security of the academy," Partax pointed out after touching the surface of the metal. He actually seemed a little surprised at the quality of this attempt, considering that it was Eiro''s first time doing this. The halfling looked to the side and saw Eiro''s widened eyes, "Is it that surprising to you? It''s a simple process, really. Well, with my methods at least, usually it would be an advanced technique you wouldn''t even hear of for another decade or two."


    "That''s not it," Eiro shook his head as a grin started to form on his face. He ced his palm onto his mouth to try and hide it, "Partax... in the book it said it was only possible on certain types of aspects... things that are essible at the surface..."


    The halfling raised a brow, unsure what Eiro was trying to get at, "That is the case. Things hidden deeper simply cannot be pulled out; they are part of the very soul, or the equivalent that objects have at least."


    "Then what if there was a way to pull aspects hidden deep inside the soul to the forefront? Enough to even grasp them with your own hand?"


    Partax frowned, "What are you saying?"


    "The key... it''s another card, a key to every single lock in the world. It can even be used to open a door into one''s soul. The Devil once used it take my love for my children from me momentarily. I was nning on using it to make the aspect of the hero my own; of course I doubted that it would work just as I imagined. I figured I would have to gather many more artifacts that work in synergy with the key, but with this... with this, I may just be able to do it once I have just the key."


    Armodeus overheard what Eiro said, "Didn''t you say your ns for that were still far off in the future?"


    Eiro looked at the Elder Dwarf and nodded, "Of course. There was actually something else I was thinking of using this method for... if it can remove a splinter from a soul, then shouldn''t it be able to remove that sludge inside us?"


    It took him a moment, but the dwarf soon understood, "You don''t mean..."


    Partax was puzzled and looked at the two men curiously, "What are you two muttering about? Exin!"


    Eiro grinned but couldn''t say the words himself. So, Armodeus simply did it for him.


    "Eiro is going to use that method topletely and permanently get rid of the monsters'' monstrosity, instead of simply suppressing it."


    ---


    Later that night, Eiro stepped out into the gardens. He walked along the path that had been here before he even moved in, and made his way over to the stables. Or rather, the old stables; he had new ones built for the horses and aria that were actually needed for official uses, and repaired the old ones just for a specific being to use. And there heid, his antlers slightly glimmering under the moonlight.


    Lugo raised his head and looked at the Demon. Tiredly, he pushed his body off the ground and walked over toward Eiro, nuzzling his face onto his neck, "What''s gotten into you? Smelling that I have an extrarge portion for you today?"


    The stag stopped what it was doing and slowly averted its gaze, and Eiro scoffed, "You know you can''t lie to me, you were never able to even before I could see truth itself."


    Figuring that there was no need to pretend anymore, Lugo pushed his snout into Eiro''s bag and quickly bit down on the gemstone that was hidden inside, his teeth destroying the magic stone with ease. Eiro held the bag steadily in front of the stag and waited for him to finish eating, and tried to manipte the flow of magic in Lugo''s body so as to make sure that he absorbed it all properly.


    Slowly but surely, his body was changing too. Shifting steadily, but dissimrly to how magic beasts were supposed to change over time. It was a unique way to say the least, always confirming to the Demon that Lugo was nothing like anything he had seen before.


    His body grewrger than it was, and the already enormous stag truly towered over him now. Lugo''s fur became softer, but had a slightly translucent nature to it, and when he walked out into the light he seemed to glow, though this was only the case when he stepped into moonlight and not light of


    any other kind. His antlers too, Lugo shed them every few weeks, though this should only happen yearly for healthy stags. But no matter what, within a few hours, new antlers had sprouted, more grand than the ones before.


    "Want to go on a trip, bud?"

 Chapter 658 Return to the City of Monsters

    658 Return to the City of Monsters


    Eiro wasying on Lugo''s back, leaning against the stag''s antlers. Now that they had grown as much as they did, they were even morefortable than they used to be. Meanwhile, Eiro was just continuing to read more of Partax''s books, trying to take in the content as well as possible, no matter how hard that may be.


    "How much longer until this city of monsters?" The halfling asked in aining tone of voice. He was clearly more than just a little cranky after travelling for a few hours, but Eiro just rolled his eyes, "We''re nearly there. Just a few more minutes. I told you the exact path, so why do you keep asking?" the demon replied, but Partax just scoffed and didn''t give an answer. Did everyone turn that grumpy when they got old? He was d that he didn''t age, or else he would have to deal with that as well. Though, he did get pretty grumpy every once in a while himself... maybe that was just some leftover influence from the old man that he used to be, when he was still the human ''Sage'' instead of the Demon he was now.


    Before long, Lugo stopped at the end of the path, and Eiro flicked his wrist to clear away the rubble that was used to prevent people from wandering toward the cave entrance, even if it was blocked. Once more using magic, Eiro opened the entrance to the tunnel, and then stepped off of Lugo''s back. The Demon looked through the long passage in front of him. He snapped his fingers once and quickly illuminated the tunnel. He should really add some more permanent lights into here soon, though he would have to figure out the best method for it. And now, as Eiro walked through the tunnel, he started pulsating his magic through each and every aspect of it; in the exact same way that Partax had him do in the Academy. The reason for this was simple. Eiro wanted to use his new knowledge of artificing and alchemy to improve the monster town many times over.


    Eiro soon reached the end of the tunnel, and stood in front of the thick door that acted as thest barrier of entry. Of course, usually the guards stationed would have to check on you from the other side of said door and then let you in, but that wasn''t the case this time around. Eiro simply ced his hand onto the door and let his magic flow into the metal lock. With a brief ''click'' it unlocked and Eiro pushed open the door. The Guards were startled and quickly held up their weapons, but Eiro nced into their eyes and they immediately stopped and shivered, dropping to their knees.


    "We wee our lord," the two hignd orcs practically chant in unison, their spears bothying in specific spots against their shoulders. They have clearly been trained well since Eiro wasst here.


    "Stand. Are any of the leaders around?" the Demon asked them, and the orc on the right quickly replied, "They are in town, my lord. The old vige, now an outpost for warriors to protect. Many who are still wild, here too," the Orc exined, trying its best to speak in Common.


    "I see, thank you," Eiro replied, this time not inmon, but in the Orcs''nguage, "Keep up the good work, and keep practicing thenguage. You''ve done well so far," Eiro told them, and then made his way along the road. As the Orcs exined, this ce was no longer the vige, but had been turned into more something of an outpost. Most of the monsters here were either guards or miners that were working to extract more of the ores left in the walls, or monsters that were pushed off into a separate area while their cors were suppressing their monstrosity.


    He still felt bad that this was how things had to go, but that hopefully wouldn''t be the case for long anyway. Soon enough, Eiro should be able to fully extract the monstrosity once and for all. Eiro walked through the vige, and all the monsters bowed their heads to him as he passed by. Meanwhile, Partax was incredibly silent the whole time.


    The halfling just watched, as the metallic spider legs carried him along the path. But soon, he let something out; a sound clear puzzlement, "What is this..?"


    Eiro turned his head toward him, "What do you mean?"


    "This ce... these monsters, they... they live their lives, as though they were people, they... they greet you, they show respect. Theyugh... share food, the children are ying together along the side of the road, staring at you with wonder in their eyes... What did you do them?" Partax asked, purely amazed at what it was he was seeing.


    Eiro turned his head away again, and continued to walk along the path. He looked at the poption of monsters along the road, and soon replied in the simplest way he could, "I treated them the way they deserved to be treated," the Demon exined, "The mountain goblins lived here long before anyone else, and never bothered anyone really. The Kobolds simrly just traveled around, hunting monsters, but barely ever encountered people in the first ce, not that I would me them if they had killed some. The Hignd Orcs are a folk that has lived deep in the mountains for generations. And the rest? They were artificially created by the monster king, just as I was, and were forced to follow through with his every word. None of them did anything deserving of punishment. Well, that''s the case in my eyes, at least, you might think differently."


    Eiros words seemed to stir up Partax''s mind. Once again, he just silently followed, looking at the monsters with curiosity. For the most part, the monsters tried their best to ignore him, in turn. They were just focusing all of their attention on either Eiro or Lugo. The man sitting on a mechanical spider''s leg was thoroughly ignored.


    Soon, they walked through another tunnel, and when they came out on the other side, a view that Eiro himself hadn''t been fully aware of was shown to him. It was the new state of the city that had been built atop the floating ind and now found its new home in the bosom of these mountains. And it had changed quite a bit. Many structures were reused and repaired, but plenty of others had been torn down to be rebuilt. Many of therger buildings now had tforms around the top floors that the harpies could perch on, and thicker walls had tunnels for the molemen to enter and exit through, as they built their homes underground.


    There were aqueducts along the roads that the seafolk could swim through, and the roads and steps were expanded to amodate the differently sized races of monsters. It was more and more turning from a town of people into a town of monsters, but still keeping many of its former qualities. Eiro couldn''t help but wonder if this is what the future of this world would look like if he seeded in his ns, and could let monsters and people live alongside each other. And Partax seemed to wonder the same.


    "...The roads need improvement," Partax muttered, and Eiro scoffed, looking at his feet, "You''ve got a point. I think they just got a bit toopliant and focused on the city itself," the Demon replied, and waved his hand. Now, as Partax and Eiro walked, the treaded, uneven dirt road became a strong and solid road that could properly support carts being pulled on it.


    "Any otherints?"


    "Well... the smell is..." Partax replied, and Eiro raised a brow. This old halfling wanted toin about smell to the holder of the Five of Pentacles?


    "...Nevermind," the artificer clicked his tongue and continued to follow Eiro along the road, until the two of them reached the entrance of the town. Immediately, the guards dropped to their knees and greeted him as they were taught, and before long, a certain figure appeared before Eiro. Arge harpy, towering above even the Trolls, perched atop one of the nearby buildings, slightly crunching her chest in a sort of ''bow'' as well.


    She let out a low screech, and Eiro smiled, "Thank you, I appreciate youing to greet me," he replied, trying to imitate a harpy''s voice himself. Compared to othernguages it was one that was hard to get a hold of, but due to Eiro''s superior skills that really wasn''t an issue anymore.


    "How have your harpies been doing?" He asked, and the harpy leader slightly tilted her head in contemtion, but soon seemed to reply, exining that they have been doing quite well. The demon turned his head and looked down the road, "I''m happy that you all have managed to integrate into themunity as you have. But for now, excuse me."


    Eiro walked further down the road, until he reached the man who he was looking forward to seeing again the most out of everyone in the vige, "You look quite well."


    "Of course, my lord. I couldn''t let all you have done for us to go to waste," Gobu replied with a smile on his face. He stood up, and showed off his current, new form. He had evolved since Eiro wasst here. While he didn''t change much outwardly, he had grown slightly taller, and his skin had be rougher. Around his arms and legs, a rock-likeyer had formed. Or rather, it was like his skin was reced, since it didn''t seem like his limbs had grown much thicker through this growth. And most of all, two small horns, like those of a kid, a young goat, had sprouted on his head hidden mostly by Gobu''s ck hair.


    "We''ve been awaiting your return, lord."

 Chapter 659 Through the Streets

    659 Through the Streets


    Eiro and Lugo were warmly weed into the city of monsters. Partax, however, was only regarded rather coldly, with the monsters of the town staring at him with suspicion. It''s been a while since they''ve seen a ''person'', after all. For nearly all of them, with just a few exceptions, it was the first time they''ve seen anything beside fellow monsters since their monstrosity had been suppressed. Clearly, they were feeling rather hesitant about it. But since they were all holding themselves back properly, Eiro didn''t really pother to say anything about it, and just let it be for now.


    Partax being here was actually an incredibly good thing for the city in some sense. Exposure therapy, so to say. Basically, soon they would realize that there''s no reason for them to worry; their monstrosity won''t re back up all that easily. And once they realize this fact, they will probably feel even more in control over their own bodies than before. Eiro was pretty sure everyone here was anxious that their new lives, their new mind without the cloud of anger, fear and utter despair that was known as ''monstrosity'' was something they could only live without since they were amongst fellow monsters. Once that anxiety subsided, maybe many of the monsters here would actually feel a bit of curiosity at the idea of living alongside people.


    Some of the younger monsters were already showing some of that curiosity. While their parents avoided Partax and acted as though he weren''t even there, the kids hid behind those parents'' legs and curiously nced at that old man as he was carried around on metal legs.


    Eiro smiled at Gobo, "You''ve managed to evolve again... I''m guessing that means that you''ve encountered some trouble since I''ve been gone."


    The Hobgoblin looked at the Demon awkwardly, "I guess you could say that..." Gobo looked around, seeing the amount of eyes that were on them at the moment, and walked up beside Eiro, "Maybe we should make our way elsewhere, where we can discuss this in private."


    Even more curious, Eiro nodded his head and quickly started to follow the Hobgoblin down the road. He made sure to continue inspecting the whole area as he was before, noticing some aspects of the city that he hadn''t been aware of before.


    Since everything here was constructed on top of this floating ind, and in arge portion was made using materials either grown or mined from the ind itself, everything had even just a small amount of gravity magic flowing through it. Certainly, it wasn''t much. It was so little, that Eiro wasn''t even able to spot it before actively looking for it as he did now, with his own magic flowing through every part of the city around him. He couldn''t even spot the subtle scent of gravity magic since that enormous magic stone at the core of the city was bascially overpowering the scent of any other magic at this point.


    This amount of magic definitely wasn''t an issue in regr day-to-day life, nor would it be even noticeable in the slightest. Maybe a few grains of dust would move around a bit more easily than before, but that was all. However, in regard to artificing, where the slightest flow of magic that hadn''t been ounted for could ruin everything or cause unwanted effects... that was different. Especially in a ce like this, Eiro understood just the better why exactly Partax wanted him to do this in the academy; to make sure all the processes that would be installed would work properly, and every little detail could be ounted for.


    Though, Eiro did wonder if this might cause some weird side-effects in the evolutions of the monsters... the gravity magic would end up spreading through the soil and into the vegetables and fruits that are harvested, and of course would soon spread to nearby animals through regr ntlife, meaning that the solely carnivorous monster species would also end up being affected somehow. Not to mention the animals that feed on the magic-infused herbs in the first ce.


    It probably wouldn''t really cause any issues, and if it did at all, then only a few dozen generations down the line, and it would be a problem that could be watched over time too.


    Soon, as Eiro was trying to think of how the bodies of the local monsters and animals might change, Gobo had led them to a building that they seemed to be using as a base of operation for now. Eiro removed the harness of Lugo''s body and moved the cart to a spot at the side of the road where it wouldn''t bother anyone. Gobo was just about to tell some of the nearby monsters to unload the cart, but Eiro waved them away.


    "No need," Eiro said as he nced at Gondos. The Demon didn''t even have to say anything before the Golem created multiple pirs of rock, which Eiro quickly imbued with his magic before turning them into servants temporarily, "Carry the materials inside. And be careful as you do, some of them are fragile."


    Quickly, the servants started doing as they were told. They brought the materials inside into what Eiro figured to be the storage room, though they were very clearly confusing the monsters inside the building quite a lot.


    Gobo let out a sigh and scratched his cheek, "I keep forgetting you can do that now."


    "I doubt you''ll be forgetting about this soon," Eiro pointed out, as he stepped into the building. He waved his hand and created a gust of wind that stopped the Kitbold, Kitsue, mid-jump, throwing her backward again. Simrly, he stopped Rashi, the troll leader, from approaching by manipting the wooden floorboards into wrapping themselves around her ankles.


    It wasn''t like either of them wanted to attack him, though. They simply didn''t have manners or a sense of personal boundaries.


    "Urgh... you could be a bit nicer next time..." Kitsue groaned just after barely catching her fall, and Rashi looked at Eiro with her arms crossed, "So what am I supposed to do about this now? You said I can''t destroy things," she asked in the trolls''nguage, and Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose annoyed.


    "Just shut up, both of you. Did neither of you even bother to learn from Gobo or Boju?" he asked, using one of his mouths to speak in mon'', and the other to speak in ''troll''.


    Though, he couldn''t be too mad at them. It seemed like both Rashi and Kitsue had evolved since Eiro hadst been here too. And as Eiro walked through town, he picked up the scent of some monsters that didn''t belong here, and from how far they had spread, it seemed as though there ended up being quite a few.


    "Just tell me what happened here," Eiro finally asked. While he did have some servants here in the area, he wasn''t signaled when this all happened for some reason. He would have been here to help out immediately.


    Though... maybe it was better that he wasn''t, since it allowed Gobo, Kitsue, and Rashi to grow.


    "First... my lord, who is the man behind you?" Gobo asked, looking at Partax, and Eiro slowly turned toward him, "Do you want to introduce yourself?" the Demon asked, but the halfling seemed a bit hesitant.


    "Introduce myself to... monsters?" Partax asked, and Eiro raised a brow, "I''m a monster."


    "Yeah, but you''re different! An exception! Or... so I thought, but... what are these... these things?" the halfling asked, and Eiro couldn''t help but smirk, "They''re monsters, just different from what you expected, huh?"


    "..." Partax looked at the monsters around the room who were clearly growing more annoyed after hearing Partax speak, before finally introducing himself, "My name is Partax Evergreen, fifteenth of my name but first of my titles of Master of Artificing and Alchemy. Eiro''s father, Jura, was my brother in spirit, if not by blood. I am here to teach Eiro, and after hearing about this ce, I insisted on seeing what it was like. I expected a nest of monsters like any other, but... Now that I havee, I cannot help but be perplexed."


    "Perplexed? How-"


    "That is exactly how! The fact that you are able to speakmon so fluently; monsters should not be able to learn this tongue so effortlessly! And it is not just you, all the monsters in this town seem to converse with each other, no matter their species! This ce should not- it should not exist, but it does!"


    "My lord... is he trying to insult us or not? I''m no longer certain," Gobo asked with a frown, but Eiro justughed as he shook his head, "No, he''s just genuinely confused and excited. Don''t worry, you can trust him. He can be a bit much, but I''ll make sure that he keeps up some boundaries while we''re here."


    Partax scoffed loudly, "Boundaries? What kind of-"


    "P-Partax..?" Mikey let out, floating up right from the other room. Him and his sister Aria hadn''t been with Gobo, but had stayed behind. They as well, had changed a little since Eirost saw them. Their forms had solidified more, bing more humanoid and appearing more as they used to when they still lived, and hadn''t been turned into Will''o''wisps yet. They had evolved too, then.


    "Did you say Partax Evergreen? Master of Artificing?!"


    "And Alchemy... people always forget the Alchemy somehow," Partax scoffed, looking at the dark wisp of ck light and smoke floating over toward him. Mikey seemed to grin broadly and approached even closer, "I''m a huge fan!"

 Chapter 660 Wraiths

    660 Wraiths


    Mikey, the Will''o''Wisp, one of the first two undead that Eiro had created just a few months ago, floated up to Partax excitedly. If he had a heart, Eiro would be able to hear it beating louder than drums at a parade.


    "I''m a huge fan!" Mikey eximed, trying to stretch out his ethereal hand. Currently, Mikey''s body was still a far cry from that of a regr person; his whole, roundish and slightly oblong, body was the size of a person''s torso, and had just two hands floating nearby. He was made of mostly ck smoke that seemed to solidify in certain ces, at least allowing him to interact with things. His sister''s body was simr, just that she was made of white smoke. Overall, even if they were still clearly recognizable as anything but people, it was still clear that they were once human.


    Mikey stretched out his smoke--like hand and tried to grab Partax''s, who awkwardly returned the handshake. The halfling then turned toward Eiro and raised a brow, "What is this... thing? An egg''s spirit?"


    "E-Egg?" Mikey repeated, startled, as Gobo couldn''t help himself but scoff quietly, holding back augh. Eiro shook his head, "Him and his sister are two undead I created... It was... during a time when I went berserk. I had killed them, and their souls were left behind, lingering, but their bodies were unretrievable. So, I was able to turn them into undead with the little necromancy I was able to use at that point. I left them in Gobo''s care not too long ago."


    Partax raised a brow, "You created Will''o''wisps, with ''little'' necromancy? Surprising, as usual. That should have taken a massive amount of mana."


    "...Mana volume was always one of my strong points," Eiro replied, before he looked at Mikey, who still seemed a bit dejected, "You know that much about him?"


    The will''o''wisp slightly red at Eiro, "Of course I do, I''m not some bumbling fool! Anyone who wants to step into the realm of alchemy heard of the great Partax!"


    "Oh? Is that so? Tell me more, undead boy," Partax replied with a grin, rubbing his chin curiously. Of course, Mikey immediately started rambling about the details of what he heard about Partax, and how much he had hoped to be able to meet him. Taking that opportunity, Eiro looked at Aria and smiled, "While your brother is doing that,e here for a moment."


    The girl hesitated, but slowly floated over toward Eiro. The Demon stretched out his hand, and while Aria flinched slightly and moved back, she soon realized that Eiro wasn''t trying to do anything harmful. Rather, it was clearly the opposite. She moved closer, and soon felt the Demon''s palm on her forehead, which was startling in and of itself. While she could interact with things, actually feeling touch was a whole other matter. That was something she hadn''t felt in so, so long.


    But soon, a breath of cold air streamed across her body. She could feel a pressure in her chest, and the wind against her cheeks. She could feel her feet, something she didn''t have in a while anyway, touching against the ground, her own weight subtly pressing down against her knees. She opened her eyes confused, as Eiro slowly pulled back his arm.


    "I''m a bit better with necromancy these days," Eiro exined, as Aria looked down at her body. She had a body to look down at. Confused, she stared at Eiro, who continued further, "You haven''t been resurrected, but you at least have a body that you should be used to now. You''re still incorporeal for the most part, though, don''t misunderstand... you''re still an undead spirit. That''s something that I can''t change for now unless I find a proper vessel for either of you."


    The room had suddenly grown silent, as Aria looked around at the others. It was the first time that the ones she had lived with until now had seen her real appearance, even if she still looked much different than she used to. Mikey as well was taken aback, and had immediately grown silent the moment he realized what had happend to his sister. He quickly turned toward Eiro and was about to ask him to do the same to him, but before any sound could even escape him, the Demon had already pressed his palm onto Mikey''s forehead and given him a new body too.


    They both now looked like pale, young humans, respectively d in a white, smoke-like dress in Aria''s case, and a ck cloak in Mikey''s. Of course, these were things they could change at will, turning them into whichever clothes or armor they wanted or needed at a moment''s notice, with just a thought.


    The first thing the two siblings did as they looked at each other was embrace, something they hadn''t been able to do in a long, long time. They had been with each other for as long as they could remember, so only now that they were able to hug for the first time in a while did this moment truly feel real to them.


    "You''re not Will''o''Wisps anymore. You''re Wraiths now. Well, that''s what the system ssifies you as officially, at least... you''re something sligthly more advanced than that. A unique species of wraith, let''s just call it that," Eiro exined, "You''re stronger and can use some of your abilities from when you were alive again. The rest is the same as when you were Will''o''Wisps, really. Stronger at night, weaker in daylight. Stay away from holy and life magic. That sort of thing. You should have gained some new abilities too, but I can''t say for sure what, you''ll have to figure that out for yourselves."


    The Demon would have told them a little more, but it seemed like neither of the siblings really cared anymore right now. This was a rather emotional moment for them, clearly. Instead, Eiro moved on, finally pulling Gobo to the side, "Now that I got the chance to deal with something I wanted to do for a bit anyway, without further ado... tell me. What the hell happened, and why didn''t I hear about this ce being attacked?"


    Gobo sighed, somewhat nervous, "Well, I can''t really say why you didn''t hear about the attack... just that, the servants you left behind maybe were able to tell that we could handle it? We didn''t have any lethalities on our side, at least. Some... were deeply injured, but they''re recovering, for the most part."


    Eiro frowned lightly. He had quite a few servants out and about, so due to their sheer volume, most of them were inactive most of the time, unless Eiro specificallymanded them otherwise, or amand Eiro gave them earlier required them to act. For example, if Eiro created a servant and told it to make sure nobody entered a room, if someone came close to the room, it would activate and inform Eiro. In this case, Eiromanded the servants to inform him once the city seemed in danger, or if Gobo asked them to contact him. So if they were able to handle the situation that well, then it made sense, at least.


    "So? What attacked, then?" Eiro asked, though he was already able to guess. From the lingering scent, it seemed to be, "Cavern Ants. And a massive amount of them, too..." Gobo exined. Eiro sighed. Cavern Ants were a species of Ants that were as aggressive as they were numberful. Even the smallest of worker ants were the size of a dog, and the soldiers could grow the size of bears, if notrger. Though, they were fairly easy to kill. The problem was that they were never alone, and always came in massive numbers.


    "So what happened? I didn''t notice a nest underground while searching the area before I left," Eiro pointed out, as he started tapping the ground with his foot. That was not only because he was worried and a bit impatient, but also just to push out waves of mana deep into the ground to get a feel of the area. And there it was; deep underground, tunnels of a Cavern Ant nest were stretching out below the city, but he knew for a fact that there was nothing there before. Those were also not tunnels created by the molemen, they were definitely the work of the Ants.


    Gobo continued, "It was just a week after you left, that I got a report from the molemen that they found tunnels underground. We sent in some scouts, and they encountered the first wave of worker ants. We tried to use one of the methods you taught, to just fill the tunnels with magic, but since we didn''t know the exact extent of the tunnels, it seemed like a dangerous tactic to do at arge scale."


    Eiro nodded. If they had just sted the tunnels with explosive fire magic without thought, they would have certainly copsed, killing most of the ants. But since the tunnels stretched out underneath the whole town, it would have affected the city itself too.


    "So then?"


    "We sent out multiple scout and vanguard parties together with some adept molemen mages to close up certain passages and create new ones. We then lured the ants toward an area with bedrock too hard for them to burrow through fast, and then got rid of the ants wave-by-wave. Once we got rid of the brunt of them, we ventured into the nest, killed the queen, and then got rid of the rest," Gobo exined. Clearly there were more details that Eiro had to know, but he was able to fill in the gaps pretty well. He could sense the traces of battle in the nest, and he also spotted the changes that had been done to the ant tunnels, as they had seemingly been reimed by the monster city, currently being used as a vast underground storage managed by the molemen. That was where practically all of the ant corpses were kept as well.


    However, that was still more than just unusual. Cavern Ants didn''t just randomly appear in new ces, and definitely weren''t usually able to create such vast systems within a short period of time, no matter their numbers. It was a bit too far away for Eiro to sense fully, but he could tell that there were some tunnels stretching farther into the distance, from where the Cavern Ants clearly ventured from.


    "...Did you send scouts through the western tunnels?" Eiro asked, and Gobo slowly nodded. He walked over to the table and picked up an old, dirty notebook that was apparently used to collect data on the event. As Gobo flipped through the book, he could recognize Boju''s handwriting.


    But then, Gobo flipped to the next page. And there were multiple symbols marked down, one of which Eiro knew just perfectly well.


    The mark of wrath. The same that Eiro carried on his own body for far too long. And then next to it, were the marks of Lust and Gluttony. In context, it seemd like those markings were all ced on the body of the Cavern Ant Queen, and that was transferred to the rest of the colony.


    Basically, through the Devil''s influence, the Cavern Ants had been turned into a colony of berserker-like monsters, that reproduced at a ridiculous rate and spread outward as fast as they could to feed on whatever they could.

 Chapter 661 Smile

    661 Smile


    Eiro ground his teeth as he stared at the revealed page of the book in Gobo''s hands. He stared at the hobgoblin and took a few steps forward. He pulled the book from Gobo''s hands and continued to flip through it, looking at all the pages. After practically absorbing the contents as soon as heid eyes on them, he turned around and walked toward the other end of therge room they were in currently. There was a small space that used to be a storage closet, that was now an ess for the molemen to enter. A tunnel had been built for them to enter through, and, even if not directly, it connected to the ant nest, and with that, the corpse of the Cavern Ant Queen.


    "My Lord, where are you..?" Gobo asked concerned, quickly following behind him, but Eiro just stayed quiet. He nced at Gondos. Without words, the Golem understood, and floated up to his chest. Quickly, the two fused together, "Just... wait here. I''ll be back before long," the demon finally said, as he climbed into the hole.


    Usually, it should have been much too small for him to get through; a moleman was able to fit into quite tight spaces, and they actually liked it that way. That was why their tunnels were just barelyrge enough for them to get through, meaning that someone Eiro''s size would never usually be able to get through. That was, unless they were able to use Earth Magic in the way the Demon could.


    He wrapped himself in his wings, and three of his hands were covered in thinyers of rock that he naturally turned into the shape of shovel-like ws. The only exception was his prosthetic hand, but that was fine, since he could use it to take closer control of his magic as he rushed through the tunnels.


    And as such, with his whole body, Eiro squeezed himself into the burrowed tunnel, using his arms to push the rock and dirt out of the way with magic while pressing himself forward using his wings. Using his prosthetic hand, which was practically a wand, he quickly corrected the shape of the tunnel to make it return to what it was before he came through, so that the molement didn''t have anything toin about either.


    And as such, Eiro practically flew, or swam, through the tunnels, gliding through the space as it contorted around him, just barely making the space to allow him to pass. He came by some molemen on his way, something that was of course unavoidable, in which case he expanded the tunnel just a little more, squeezing by their small body without even fully allowing the moleman in question to realize what had just happened.


    Soon, Eiro reached the end of the line of the molemen''s tunnels, and then finally entered the more spacious ant nest. He pped his wings and immediately shot through the space, propelled by arms of dirt and rock that were extending from the walls and pushing him through, allowing him to move at high speed and dexterously despite the fact that his body weighed multiple times what it normally did, considering it was mostly made of solid rock at the moment. That being the case, Eiro started passing by the ants'' corpses. He red at them, and now that he was this close,bined with Gondos'' incredible sensitivity to mana, he was able to tell. It was little, but all the ants did still have some of the Devil''s mana flowing through them. It was passed onto them from their mother, the Cavern Ant Queen, after she had been branded with the Devil''s marks. But not only that, Eiro could tell that their bodies didn''t look like what they normally should look like.


    He had seen plenty of illustrations of Cavern Ants, and while he didn''t encounter them himself yet, he knew the ways that evolution worked in monsters by now, and how different matters could influence it. They were bing more demonic in nature, just by that tiny amount of the Devil''s mana in them. And then, not long after Eiro entered the nest, he found his way to the throne room, and saw the huge pile of ant corpses stacked up. There were multiple workers down here, busily taking them apart so that the corpses could be used in some way; the carapaces as armor, and the flesh either as food or as fertilizer when needed, or when the flesh started to rot.


    The worker monsters were taken aback, and the guards stationed, in case some of the ants still happened to be alive after all, raised their weapons startled, but they soon stopped the moment Eiro exerted his influence. They weren''t able to even blink, so of course they couldn''t move or question what was going on.


    Eiro looked at the mountain corpse of the ant queen. Her carapace was dyed in red, and had deep ck patterns stretching out all across, starting from the three marks. One ced on the head, one on the mesomona, and one on the gaster, the three sections of the ant queen''s body. Though,rge parts of the patterns were obstructed due to therge wounds inflicted on her body through the battle in which she was killed. Her head had beenpletely ripped off, with what seemed to be brute force rather than a clean cut.


    Eiro stepped up to the body, and got out his frost dagger, carefully cing its tip against the gaster''s carapace. Cracks spread through it immediately, quickly surrounding the first mark, allowing that part of the carapace to simply fall off as a hand-sized b. Eiro repeated this for the mesomona and head, and looked at the three marks, his eyes lingering particrly on the mark of wrath.


    "You bastardous... What the fuck are you even doing?" Eiro groaned, and started to think. The Devil wasn''t stupid. He must have known the exact details of how strong the monsters of the floating ind town were, so he knew that they would never lose against even such a massive number of Cavern Ants, especially with Eiro''s support and teachings supporting them and making them even more powerful, especially with their forcesbined. The fact that not even a single monster of the city diedes to show just what the difference in the fighting forces were.


    Before long, Eiro was so lost in thought that his influence over the monster workers and guards started to slipped, and one of the more capable ones managed to be able to move. Of course, due to the dim lighting of this ce, Eiro''s current form, and the guard''s hazy mind due to the leftover pressure eminating from Eiro, he wasn''t able to recognize the Demon as his lord.


    He grasped his sword tightly and started to run at Eiro, trying to strike him down with the little power he managed to muster. However, Eiro didn''t even have to do anything. The sword just shattered into pieces the moment Eiro was struck with it, due to how tough his body was. Eiro turned his head around and locked eyes with the monster, a young orc whose whole body was shivering, scared beyond belief by Eiro and his power. But the Demon couldn''t me him... he wasn''t particrly happy right now.


    "If you want to keep your limbs, step back," he growled with both of his mouths, his voices ovepping and making him sound even more monstrous.


    It was too much for the orc, and he fell to the ground, cutting his hand on one of the shards of his own sword. The orc''s blood soaked into the dirty floor, and Eiro groaned as he extended his hand forward to heal him, but before he could, he spotted a reaction of mana. The whole room was covered in splinters of the queen''s carapace, including the ce where the Orc had fallen. His blood touched one of the patterns of the carapace; the pattern which was practically the Devil''s magic. And as Eiro knew quite well, the Devil, as any demon, had a close rtionship with blood. Before Eiro was able to do much of anything, he noticed space contorting, bending light from the few torches ced around the walls. And before long, a figure appeared in front of Eiro.


    A figure of a well-dressed man with slick ck hair, two small, inconspicuous horns poking out through them, and skin as red as the blood pouring out from the Orc''s hand.


    "Oh? What a surprise to see you here. For someone who ys at being a human every day, you''re looking more and more monstrous, dear little imp," the figure said, a subtle smirk forming on its lips.


    ---


    <nullb>[The Devil smiles at you]

 Chapter 662 A Fake

    662 A Fake


    Eiro stood there for a moment. He would have attacked the Devil instantly if he didn''t realize that this wasn''t his real body; just something like a projection of sorts. Obviously, the real devil''s body wasn''t anywhere near here.


    "What do you want? Why would youe here?" Eiro growled, and the Devil scoffed, "I was summoned here, was I not? I was given a blood offering, after all."


    With a click of his tongue, Eiro flicked his wrist toward the Orc whose blood was used to summon the Devil. A thin stream of water left his fingertips and enveloped the Orc''s hand, quickly healing the wound on his palm, "Get out of here," Eiro said in amanding tone, speaking in Orcish. The guard wanted to do just as he was told, but before he could even fully stand up, the Devil had already ced his hand onto the monster''s shoulder.


    "Now, now, that''s not how this works. You''ve summoned me, and you''ve done so for a reason, have you not?" the Devil asked, practically wrapping himself around the Orc, holding his body down with both hands. The orc nced back at Eiro; he still didn''t know who exactly Eiro was. Surrounded by two beings of such immense power, it made sense for the Orc to be confused and scared. The perfect soil for the Devil to sow his seeds, "This... creature, suddenly stepping into these halls you were supposed to protect. Injuring you, scaring you... hoping to take advantage of your weakness. Isn''t it frustrating?"


    "Don''t listen to him," Eiro barked, continuing to keep up eye-contact with the devil, who had a broad grin slowly forming on his lips.


    The Orc''s heart was beating loudly, and Eiro was able to tell what was about to happen. He fused his mouths and arms back together, and had Gondos finally leave his body. Eiro fixed his cor and then snapped his finger, filling the room with floating mes to illuminate the space properly.


    "I''m your lord. Nobody you need to be afraid of," with a sigh, the demon tried to get the orc to return back to a calm mind. He was trying to influence the orc''s mind as much as he could.


    The Devil shook his head, digging his fingers into the Orc''s skin, "You can''t actually believe him, can you? Didn''t you just see how he changed his form with ease? That''s naught but a shapeshifter, a vicious being trying to trick you into subordinance. It injured you; isn''t that proof enough?"


    "I also healed you. Not to mention, I remember you were there when I first visited the Hignd Orc vige deep in the mountains. You''ve seen me before. You know what I''m capable of."


    "It''s trying to trick you; manipting your memories. You can''t trust what it''s saying," the Devil whispered into the Orc''s ear. Eiro didn''t have a chance against the Devil''s maniption; it was his forte. So instead, Eiro tapped his foot onto the ground, creating a spear of rock that shot straight through the Devil''s head, piercing it in an instant. His body fell down, shattering into pieces like a pane of ss. And then, from behind the spear of rock that still stood out from the ground, the devil appeared once more, as though he had been able to dodge it after all.


    "Even trying to kill you... If I weren''t here, taking control over its magic, you would have died... You can''t let this keep on going, you need to say it. You need to tell me what it is you want, right this very second," the Devil continued to speak to the Orc, getting more and more forceful as he went on. And soon, the Orc, lured by the Devil''s words said exactly what that thing wanted him to.


    The orc spoke, "Kill it, get rid of that thing!" he eximed, and the Devil smirked broadly, "dly! Since you didn''t specify exactly how you want me to get rid of him, I hope you won''t mind if I improvise a bit."


    With a smile, the devil patted the Orc''s shoulder. As though his blood and flesh started to boil, the orc''s skin was bubbling up, growing to more than what it was before. It was simr to what flesh magic looked like. And before long, this went out of control. The orc''s body grew to three times it was before, but not evenly. One of his arms was bulking and overpowering, while the rest of his body seemed to practicallyg behind. His face was bing overgrown with warts and skin, practically blinding him. His heart was beating to hard that he was about to get a heart attack if nothing was done about this. The Devil had turned the Orc into an abomination.


    And as this happened, one of the Devil''s marks appeared on the Orc''s forehead. The mark of wrath. The Devil smirked and said, "I figured it would just be fairly poetic if I chose this one."


    Eiro frowned and red at the devil, just a moment before the Orc rushed forward, trying to swing at Eiro.


    "Now, since you seem to actually care about these things, I figure you won''t be able to just kill it. That should give me some time to go on a short walk around the area. Just to let me see what you''ve done with the ce," the Devil said, slowly walking toward the tunnel that led out of this cave.


    "You don''t remember the Devil ¨C He was never here," Eiro spoke, using both of his mouths. He said it in orcish, thenguage the orc would of course be able to understand the easiest, and thenyered two special powers into each of his voices. One was used to instil chaos in the orc''s very existence, and the other was used to bring order back into it.


    "I''m not a stranger ¨C You know who I am. How do you feel ¨C Don''t you feel calm? The mark must be painful ¨C I''ll get rid of it for you," Eiro spoke and calmly approached the Orc, who simply listened to Eiro''s words; not that he had much of a choice. The monster''s mind was filled with fear, confusion, and fury, but usually, he was simple an earnest. There was a reason why he was given the role to protect something as important as all of these ants'' corpses, including that of the ant queen.


    Eiro''s words managed to calm him, practically disrupting the Devil''s mark for just a moment. It seemed as though just through Eiro''s words, manipting the order in this world as he spoke, seemed to change the Orc''s body back into what it was supposed to be, though that was clearly impossible. The Devil knew it wasn''t possible, so why was he so worried all of a sudden?


    He watched as Eiro ced his wooden hand onto the Orc''s forehead, and then the next moment, all of the Devil''s mana disappeared from the Orc''s body, and a message appeared in front of Eiro''s eyes.


    ---


    <nullb>[You have sessfully absorbed the {Mark of Wrath}]


    <nullb>[You have sessfully broken apart the {Mark of Wrath}]


    <nullb>[You have sessfully purified the {Devil}''s mana]


    <nullb>[You understand the structure of the {Mark of Wrath}]


    ---


    "So that''s how it works. I was practically unsconscious when my own mark was broken down, so it''s good to get a second chance," Eiro pointed out, before ncing at the Orc''s body. It was still disformed, but Eiro was able to do something about that as well. Especially since it hasn''t been long since the Orc''s physical form had been manipted, Eiro was able to use flesh magic to at least return him somewhat back to normal. He might never be able to move as he used to... but at least he would be able to be recognized by his family.


    The Devil stood there perplexed, as his magic was simply broken apart within a few moments, "That''s... rather impressive. I guess I shouldn''t underestimate you. After all, you''re a Royal yourself... And frankly, I don''t know much about the powers of ''The World''... It had been sealed away for a long time, after all."


    "What sort of bullshit are you spouting now?" Eiro asked in a growling voice, and the Devilughed out loud, "Still as vile as ever, I see? Well, that''s fine, it''s not like it matters much anyway. It''s bothersome that I have to cut my visit short, but-"


    "You''re not going anywhere ¨C I''m not letting you leave," Eiro practicallymanded, using the same tactic he did with the orc just now. Creating chaos, and then bringing order into it in the way that he wanted. And the result was simple; the devil''s legs stopped moving.


    "You''re not ''him''. You''re nothing but a fake, the trace of his magic that was left inside of a rotting corpse. I can''t feel even a fraction of his power in you. That little trick? That was fun, but that was clearly all you were capable of," Eiro stepped closer to the Devil, or rather, the thing with the voice and appearance of the Devil created from that thing''s magic, activated through an offering of blood. This was probably the way that the Devil kept track of others. His power was ''maniption'', and clearly, he was able to even manipte his own mana no matter where it was, allowing him to know everything about what was going on wherever his mana could be found.


    Eiro approached the incarnation of the Devil, and then grasped its body with his four arms, holding it down so that it wouldn''t be able to move, "I know you can see what''s going on over here, you piece of shit. And I sure hope you can feel what this... doll feels. Because if not, this is going to be just half as fun."


    The Devil''s puppet stared into Eiro''s eyes, as the demon opened his mouth as wide as he could. He took advantage of his ability to have two mouths to turn it into a single, enormous one, and practically broke his jaw as he imitated a snake. And with a single, clean crunch, he bit off the fake devil''s head.

 Chapter 663 Offering

    663 Offering


    Both the taste and the texture disgusted Eiro. The blood and flesh that was clinging to his teeth may as well have been rotten, that''s how bad this thing created by the Devil''s mana tasted. He crushed its skull with his teeth and used a sort of acidic venom to help break it down so that he didn''t have to chew as much, instead just letting the liquidy sludge pour down his throat.


    The Devil''s body had fallen to the ground, and would probably fall apart into mana soon. It was just an avatar created by the Devil''s abilities, so it wasn''t like there was particrly much for Eiro to gain through doing this, but even a little was better than nothing. So, before the corpse could break down, Eiro picked it up by its shoulder and pushed the Devil''s arm into his mouth, taking bites out of it one after another.


    At least the Orc that was manipted by the Devil was unsconscious, so he didn''t end up seeing what Eiro was doing. That would just terrify him even more, and make this situation moreplicated. However, soon enough, he could hear others approaching. They made it down here surprisingly fast... looked like Partax had a hand in it. Basically at the same time, the halfling and Gobo entered into this cave together. It was still illuminated by Eiro''s mes, so they were able to see what was going on perfectly. They saw Eiro, crouching over a corpse, taking bites out of it like some wild beast. Of course they were startled at first; particrly Partax, who had never seen Eiro like this.


    "What happened?!" the halfling yelled out. Fear was clearly noticeable in his voice, as though he was thinking that Eiro had gone feral, like a ''true'' monster. Not that Eiro could really me him for that, though. That''s what this situation looked like, after all. Since Eiro was busy, he nced over at Gondos and let the spirit exin the situation.


    "Basically, this situation was created by the Devil. He manipted those ants for some reason, and then earlier, an Orc was injured and some of its blood touched one of the Devil''s mana, summoning a... copy of him?" Gondos asked, looking at Eiro to make sure that he understood the situation right. Obviously, he didn''t think that Eiro would have been able to just kill the real Devil this easily; he had been preparing for that fight for far too long for that.


    Gobo looked at the corpse that Eiro was feeding on, his body practically stunned while seeing his lord do something so... monstrous, "So that... is that ''copy'' of the Devil?" he asked, and Eiro slowly nodded. Gondos continued, "Correct. That copy is fully created through the Devil''s magic. Eiro is feeding on that body before it breaks down, so that he may absorb said magic into himself."


    "...is it working?" Gobo asked, although he already knew that if it weren''t working, Eiro would have probably already stopped by now. He knew that Eiro hated the taste of demons, and he would most likely hate the taste of the demon he despised most of all even more. That question was simply the only thing that could pass his lips; there was nothing else he could ask. Or rather, nothing else that this tension allowed him to ask.


    Eiro nodded, as he pushed the Devil''s leg into his mouth, its bones cracking as Eiro''s jaws pushed down on it. Basically the moment that the pieces of flesh and bone entered the demon''s throat, they speed at which they fell apart rose by many times. Basically by the time they entered his stomach, they were mostly mana. Of course, by that point, there was no hope for said mana to escape Eiro anymore, though clearly, it was trying to. As though it were alive, it was trying to climb out of Eiro''s throat, just to be blocked by another wall of Eiro''s own mana, forcing it back into his stomach. Somehow, seeing that the mana was practically scared to be absorbed by Eiro made him quite happy. It showed that to an extent, even if just deeply in his subconscious, the Devil feared Eiro.


    They had first met when Eiro was beyond merely weak. And now, the demon grew stronger by the day. By the minute. It was inevitable that he would ovee the Devil sooner orter, hence why he went as far as he did with this attack on the city.


    Soon, Eiro had fully fed on the Devil''s body. He had left the heart forst, considering that it was the part filled with the most mana. It would hold up the longest out of all the things that he could feed on. As he tore the organ of pure muscle apart with his teeth, he could finally clean himself up. Even though it would surely evaporate into mana soon, he didn''t want to stand here covered in that copy''s blood until then. Eiro straightened his cor and swallowed thest bit of heart. He had already absorbed the mana into his own mana circuits and isted it in his chest cavity near where his heart was supposed to be. From now on, he would, bit-by-bit, break this mana apart and then make it his own. That way, he should be able to maximize the efficiency of his ''Counterspell'' skill.


    A counterspell could only break a spell apart based on the structure of the magic circle. Any additional elements infused into said magic circle will make that process many times moreplicated. One would need to add more aspects to the counterspell to make up for the element in the opponent''s spell.


    Most of the time that wasn''t an issue for Eiro; he had ess to most types of magic that his opponents may use anyway, and could tweak it a bit to allow the element itself to act as a counter. However, in case of unique magic, unless one could analyze the exact structure of said magic, it was practically impossible to create a counterspell in time against a skilled mage. And the Devil was one of those skilled mages.


    And so, with this, Eiro had two parts of the Devil with him. The aspect that he extracted from Zeke''s flesh and turned into a servant, as well as the devil''s actual magic. If this continued, he might be able to create an absolute duplicate that was indistinguishable from the Devil.


    Partax looked around the room at the many ant corpses, "This is what you all fought against? Some bugs?"


    "They had quite a ridiculous number..." Gobo pointed out, hearing the judgement in Partax''s voice over the fact that they had struggled against the ants. He looked over at Eiro, hoping to get support from his lord, but to his surprise, it was the opposite.


    "No, they were never supposed to truly damage you. Though, I guess if it had happened, the Devil also wouldn''t haveined. It only could have ended well for him in the end," Eiro sighed, looking at one of the ant corpses next to him, "They were supposed to be an offering to me."


    Gobo was taken aback, "..What? You mean... he wanted us to kill the ants?"


    "It ended amazingly well, didn''t it? You have an immenselyrge undergroundwork you can use for numerous things. You have arge amount of nutritious food that will feed this whole city for months, not to mention all the armor, tools and weapons you''ll be able to make from the ants'' bodies... and many of you evolved, and grew stronger through this ''war''. Especially since none of you died, this whole thing was nothing but positive for the city," Eiro exined, rubbing the bridge of his nose annoyed. The Devil was growing desperate.


    "So the attack was a peace offering? Something to bring you on the Devil''s side?"


    Eiro looked at Partax and nodded. But he was still confused, just why did that copy clearly have more sinister ns? It was clearly nning to go up into the city and cause havoc. Eiro let out a deep groan. He didn''t understand what the Devil was nning at all, as though he were missing a lot of incredibly important context that he couldn''t fill in without just guessing. And that was simply too unreliable.


    "For now, we need to fortify these tunnels. I''ll map the whole area out andpletely block off any passages that lead too far out of the area or are unstable," Eiro exined, and then turned to Gobo, "Tell the craftsmen to properly make use of these materials, and to treat them with care. Any part part that is covered in these ck markings has to be gathered elsewhere though, and nobody is allowed to get in contact with them."


    Partax scoffed, "You really want to use these materials? I thought they were a gift from your nemesis. Don''t you have more pride than that?" the halfling asked, and Eiro shook his head without even having to think about it, "I don''t need pride. The materials will help the city, and that''s that. The Devil probably has a few more ns than just trying to get on my good side with this, but it''s useless to think about that. He probably has ns for nearly everything anyway."


    Eiro took a deep breath and held his hand out toward Gondos. The golem dove into his contractor''s body, and then the Demon snapped his finger. Suddenly, the already quiterge cave they were in grew in size, a few meters in each direction. From now on, Eiro would fortify the walls of the cave even more in every way that he could. He would take full advantage of this gift he never asked for.

 Chapter 664 Exchange

    664 Exchange


    It took a few hours for Eiro to reach every corner of the nest that was created by thoserge Cavern Ants. However, as he traveled to make sure that every part of this cave system was safe enough for the monsters of the city to traverse, he fortified the walls as much as he could using his earth magic, strengthened by his fusion with Gondos. He took note of the direction that these ants apparently came from, and sent a servant to investigate further before sealing off the tunnel in question.


    And now, he finally climbed back up from underneath the surface, cleaning himself up with a wave of his hand. He ended up somewhere on the other side of city from where the others were currently gathered. From what he could tell, this area was once bustling with restaurants, though now, it was just regr housing for the Trolls in particr. The restaurants all had decently high ceilings in the first ce, and then once the monsters took over this city eight years ago, they had ''renovated'' this area in a way that made it even better for them to live in. However, that being the case... this area was still quite dirty. While that was to be expected, since it was still monsters living here at the end of the day, it still wasn''t good for them to live in such an environment.


    Rotting food, excrements... trolls just lounging at the side of the road. While trolls had incredible regenerative abilities, they still weren''t immune to disease. Resistant, sure, but living in environments like this would just make it easier for them to get sick. Not to mention the other species like the goblins or orcs living quite nearby that didn''t have such resistances to disease. He would probably have to talk to Rashi about this, though she clearly wasn''t the kind who would be happy about the idea of cleaning up after herself. And it also wasn''t fair to just assign people to clean the Trolls'' roads for them.


    And then there was another issue with the Trolls... usually, as Eiro walked through the roads, all the monsters were respectful to him. The Orcs, Kobolds, and Goblins most of all, but the majority of the newer monsters still showed Eiro their respect. He didn''t necessarily need them to bow to him as he passed, but the Trolls quite literally scowled at him, with the exception of a few who at least ignored him. They had their monstrosisty suppressed, otherwise they wouldn''t have been allowed to live here, but if they kept acting like that then there was no chance to ever connect this city with the people of this country. Even if the trolls somehow didn''t act like assholes, people usually barely epted other people that are just a little different to them, so if these monsters didn''t act perfectly, then they would just focus all of their prejudice on them and things wouldn''t turn out particrly well in the future.


    Eiro stood there in the center of the road, seeing a group of Trolls in the corner of his eye. They were sitting in a circle, ring daggers at the Demon, "Is something the issue?" Eiro asked in the Trolls''nguage. One of them scoffed and shook his head, "No issue... lord," he replied, though clearly speaking with contempt particrly at thest part.


    With how annoyed he was already feeling today, it was hard for Eiro to not just rip that trolls'' arm off and beat him ck and blue with it. Well, even more ck and blue than they already were anyway. Monsters instinctively created hierarchies through power. The stronger a being was, the higher in said hierarchy. So why did the trolls still act like this toward Eiro? They knew how strong he was, there was no doubt about that. But why was it that they still rebelled so much toward him, but obeyed Rashi''s every grunt?


    Maybe it was because they had time to form some sort of attachment to Rashi before their monstrosity was suppressed. That would also mean that part of their natural instincts came from the monstrosity itself, however. Not that it would really surprise Eiro though. Being controble simply by having power exerted over you probably made things very easy for the gods that forced the concept of monstrosity on monsters. If that was the case, then Eiro would have toe up with some other idea to have the trolls respect him.


    While fear still wasn''t a bad idea, since it clearly didn''t seem to work all too well on the trolls, that would probably mean that he would have to continuosly be more and more aggressive toward them. And that might rub off on the other monsters, if they ended up seeing that Eiro only treated the trolls that way, and he didn''t want them to be ostracized. So, the demon let out a deep sigh and approached the group of trolls more closely. They were sorge that even though they were lounging around on the ground, they were still around or above Eiro''s eye-level.


    "What do you want?" he asked bluntly, and the trolls looked back at him confused. Though soon, they seemed to take it as provocation, but still held themselves back so that they wouldn''t be killed. They knew that much, at least. But Eiro just shook his head, "I''m not trying to start a fight. I''m just genuinely asking; what is it that you want? How can I make your lives in this city better?"


    Even more confused, the trolls looked at each other for a few moments, thinking about what Eiro was actually asking them. And before long, one of them finally replied.


    "Meat. Only nts to eat here. Ants not tasty," one of them said, and Eiro thought about it for a moment. It was true that meat was vastly limited. The trolls were omnivorous, even if they had a strong tendency toward meat. That was why they were secondary in being given meatpared to the harpies, who werepletely carnivorous. And the ants'' meat was mostly going to be turned into emergency provisions. The city had a decent structure so far, so it wouldn''t make sense topletely change the way things worked just because they have a source of meat that couldn''t actually be replenished once gone.


    "What meat do you like most? Pig, cow, bird, fish?" Eiro asked, and the troll immediately responded, "Goat! Goat meat, best."


    Eiro thought back on the beginning of his life; on the way from the monster king''sir over to the holy empire''s capital, they did pass by some mountains with plenty of goats. Since these trolls were part of that same army, they probably got a taste for them then. He did remember seeing some goat droppings and hearing some of their bleats in the distance. So they were around here, even if Eiro didn''t see them, "If I get goats here, would you be willing to care for them? Obviously you could eat all of them, but then you would just run out again, and I won''t go on multiple trips to get you some food. I''ll get you the goats, but you have to figure out the rest," Eiro suggested. The trolls had luckily been introduced to having to work a little bit when it came to repairing the city. Rashi made sure that they pulled their own weight. Actually, they had quite the knack for building things, and from what Eiro could see, they enjoyed it as well, aszy as they were. Most of the trolls that didn''t just sit around on their asses all day actually happily helped out with construction even now. But in the end, while they weren''t particrly happy with having to care for the goats, they would probably get settled into it at some point.


    Then, the Demon looked at the next Troll, "Anything else? Beside meat?"


    "Alcohol."


    "...Meat and alcohol, alright. I guess a tavern isn''t a bad idea in general... I''ll figure something out," Eiro said. He did read plenty about the process of making alcohol, so if he found someonepetent enough, he could probably set up a brewery here. Since there was quite a quantity involved, the powerful trolls would probably be quite helpful in hauling around all the ingredients and finished products. But until then, he could probably send some shipments of alcohol here to get the trolls through the time that they were figuring out how to make their own.


    Eiro looked around, and waved his hand. A gust of wind quickly gathered a lot of the trash that was lying around on the ground, and a wave of water cleaned up the rest of the gunk that was left behind on the cobblestone. He only did it for a small section of the road, however, "If you want the meat and the alcohol, then make sure that this ce is at least close to this clean by the time it gets here."


    One of the trolls startedughing loudly, making the others follow behind. Clearly they didn''t care much about keeping clean, not that it surprised Eiro much. It seemed as though they would rather keep this mess around than get their meat and alcohol, at least for some of them.


    It was easier to convince his kids to clean up after themselves than to get these trolls to move even slightly... Eiro realized that this would be a bit more annoying than he thought. But he was sure he would be able to figure something out.

 Chapter 665 Punishment

    665 Punishment


    Eiro stepped back into the townhall, where the others were already waiting for him again. He dropped down onto one of the chairs by the table in the center of the room and crossed his legs, "Sorry, I sort of took my time on the way back," he exined, and Gobo shook his head, "We also only returned a few minutes ago. Did you find anything else worrisome in the tunnels?" he asked, clearly concerned, but Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "No, nothing of the sort. They were really just normal tunnels built by the cavern ants. The only thing that the Devil yed with was the ant queen," he exined, and turned his head toward the sleeping Kitsue. Her ears slightly twitched when Eiro came into the room, but she didn''t seem to give much care to anything else, and didn''t even move her head. Meanwhile, Rashi had leaned back in her seat and ced her feet on top of the table. She was holding a rough, wooden club in her hand that she was scratching into shape with her w-like fingernails. That was, if she wasn''t using those nails to try and pick food out of her teeth.


    Those two were sitting there andzing around, doing nothing. Rashi at least fit in with her subordinates in that, since she was the leader of the trolls. But Kitsue? She was the leader of the Kobolds, and they were incredibly hard-working and did all of their jobs more than just well. Maybe it was because she was technically a different species, a Kitbold instead of a Kobold, but she simply behavedpletely different to the kobolds all the time. Sure, all of the monster species'' leaders had their quirks, but both Rashi and Kitsue were the most bothersome to deal with at the moment.


    "You two, get up," Eiro said in amanding tone. Rashi looked at him with her head tilted to the side, and Kitsue just barely raised her head to look at the Demon in the first ce. He was speaking with two voices, one in Common on in the trolls''nguage, so both of them clearly understood what it was he was saying, but they still didn''t react and looked at him as if he were crazy.


    "Ah... guess I''ve been a little too kind to you guystely... Maybe the issues I have with the trolls areing from the fact that Rashi won''t show me any respect either..." Eiro pushed himself off his seat, and walked over to the other side of the table. He grabbed the back of Kitsue and Rashi''s necks and picked them up from where they were seated, before starting to drag them over toward the back of the building.


    "H-Hey, it-it was just a joke! I was listening, for sure! I promise! You can let go of me now!" Kitsue pleaded, trying to tear away Eiro''s fingers. Meanwhile, Rashi was just immediatley swinging her club at Eiro. She did manage to hit him a couple of times, but that was mostly just because he didn''t even make any attempts at dodging. The club barely did any damage to him like this anyway.


    "Oi, you''re being a bit forceful there! Usually I don''t mind that, but it doesn''t look like you''re nning on finally bing my man, since you''re bringing that kitten along!" Rashi basically growled out with her whole chest, as she started to use Kitsue as a foothold to try and force herself out of Eiro''s grasp. But he just ignored both of thempletely, and just continued walking.


    "Erm... My lord, are you going to..." Gobo asked, walking beside the Demon with a wry, nervous smile, and Eiro just quickly nodded, "It worked the first time around, so why not try again? I feel like letting off some steam right now anyway."


    Following Eiro''s words, Kitsue''s body tensed up, and she became even more desperate at trying to escape Eiro, but Rashi didn''t understand the Demon''s words in the first ce, which might have been better for her.


    They soon walked out of the building into the back yard of the townhall. Out here, Partax was getting some fresh air while Mikey was asking him about anything that came to mind. Meanwhile, Mikey''s sister, Aria, was toiling around in the grass, just enjoying the fact that she was finally able to feel things again. However, she soon was interrupted in her joy, as Eiro threw Kitsue and Rashi onto the grass. Aria jumped up and ran over toward Mikey, unsure what was going on.


    09:38


    grass. Aria jumped up and ran over toward Mikey, unsure what was going on.


    Partax approached the Demon, who was currently rolling up his sleeves, "What are you doing? An execution?" he asked. Eiro chuckled and shook his head, "Close, but no. Though at least in regard to what I''ll be doing to Rashi, it''s going to look like pure ughter."


    "Rashi... that unique troll woman?" the halfling asked with a raised brow, "You can certainly get quite rough with trolls... Well, as long as you don''t tire yourself out too much. We still have some work to doter this evening."


    "I know, I know. This won''t even make me sweat, don''t worry," Eiro said as a light grin formed on his face. He saw Kitsue try to crawl away through some of the overgrown grass, but Eiro quickly pulled her back to where she was before, and not particrly gently either. The two soon locked eyes, and Kitsue flinched.


    "P-Please, I know I haven''t been pulling my own weight, but please d-don''t kill me... I... I..."


    "What? Kill you?" Eiro raised a brow, "Why the hell would I kill you, that''s not going to help anyone," the Demon sighed, and Kitsue quickly showed relief at that answer. However, a momentter, that relief disappeared as she felt pressure akin to being crushed by a mountain press down onto her body. She wasn''t able to move how she wanted to. The only thing she was able to do was hide her head underneath her arms as she cowered, "You might prefer it if I killed you, though," Eiro pointed out, as he knelt down, carefully touching his fingertips against Kitsue''s back. She flinched, as if Eiro was trying to brand her with hot iron.


    "Kitsue, when you first came here, I epted you and your people despite the fact that youpletely antagonized Gobo at every chance you got. Do you know why I did that?"


    The Kitbold slowly shook her head.


    "Because you seemed useful. You were strong enough to pull your own weight. And sure, you did well in the defense of the city, well enough that you managed to evolve again at least. But you''re not a fighter. You''re not a guard. You''re supposed to be the leader of your people," Eiro exined to her, increasing the pressure he was putting onto her with his voice, helping out a little bit with some additional gravity magic. He continued to speak to Kitsue, exining her wrongdoings and his own disappointment in her, as well as the consequences thate from her actions.


    "Don''t think you''re going anywhere," Eiro finally turned around, looking at Rashi, who was trying to just casually walk away while the Demon was busy with Kitsue. The troll continued to walk without looking back, not particrly bothered by Eiro''s words. And before she knew it, she wasn''t able to walk away anymore. Her legs gave out, and she could feel a pressure in her abdomen.


    She tried to speak, but all that came out of her mouth were stters of blood, "You won''t get a mere talking-to. We both know that''s not going to work on you. Not to mention, Kitsue will die if I do this, but you can at least hold out for a couple minutes before I have to heal you, right?"


    Eiro pulled his hand back out from Rashi''s body. He had pierced his hand through her lower back and out through her belly, cleanly breaking her spine and rupturing multiple organs in the process. As soon as Eiro pulled his hand back out, Rashi fell to the ground, but managed to get back up a mere momentter as her body started to heal. Soon, she was able to speak without blood recing her voice, "Isn''t that sort of unfair?"


    "Maybe. But you''ve got to understand, Rashi. Right now, you and I are still monsters. And clearly, you''re holding onto that part of yourself more than others here. So, if you want to act like a monster, I''m going to treat you like one," the Demon said, as he stretched out one of his hands toward Rashi''s arm, holding her wrist tightly. One of his other arms held her elbow, and the other two arms did the same on Rashi''s other arm.


    And then, with some swift motions and cleverly-applied pressure, Eiro broke Rashi''s arms. And not just once, no. He continued to break her arms in the most painful ways possible. It was to the point where he could tell that his torture skill was gaining experience as he was doing this.


    However, Trolls didn''t feel a lot of pain in the first ce, so he would have to keep doing a lot more than this in order to make some proper impact in Rashi''s mind. And so, the next step after breaking her arms was simple. He tore them off, slowly but surely. The feeling of having your muscles and skin tear apart wasn''t pleasant, not even to a troll.


    "Now, make sure you understand what your position in this city is supposed to be."

 Chapter 666 The Leaders Responsibilities

    666 The Leaders'' Responsibilities


    Eiro snapped his finger and pulled some water magic out of his spirit gateway, using it to clean his hands. He looked down at Rashi, who was still in the process of recovering from the damage that Eiro had done to her. As soon as her jaw properly popped back into ce, she looked up at him, trying to get up as her torn-off leg fused back onto the stump that was currently left in its ce, "I... What do you want from me?"


    The Demon raised a brow, "What I want from you? To pull your own weight. I allowed you and the other trolls to live in this city because I believed that you were capable of reforming and bing capable of living alongside others peacefully. But all that you''ve done so far is do your best to annoy the shit out of me."


    "We never asked for this..!" Rashi replied in a growling voice, and Eiro scoffed, "You literally threw yourself at me the moment you realized I''m stronger than you. You quite literally asked to join me."


    Slowly, Rashi pushed herself off the ground, and soon stood in front of Eiro again, her arm still cing itself back into its socket, "But you turned us into... this... thing. We''re not even monsters anymore!"


    Eiro looked back at Rashi, and locked eyes with her, "You''re still a monster, you are. I''m just giving you a chance to decide who you want to be yourself, instead of being controlled by something forced on us by those disgusting gods who forcefully split the souls of this world into opposing camps."


    "But-"


    "The life you lived until now was wild. You got to do whatever you wanted. I get that it''s hard to change from one to another. I do, I made that same change. But if you want to keep living in this ce, then you''ll have to do it," Eiro pointed out, "And if you''re not willing to, then we''ll have to find another solution."


    Shivers ran over Rashi''s back, something that she wasn''t even aware she was capable of feeling. She saw Eiro''s deep stare, and the pressure that he kept applying to Kitsue was starting to affect her as well. Rashi had never felt a fear like this, because she never saw anyone else as a true threat, but Eiro... he could kill her in an instant if he really wanted to. That was something that he showed off plenty just now. And clearly, he wouldn''t hesitate to do so either.


    Rashi slowly walked over toward Kitsue, and pulled the shivering Kitbold onto her knees. Eiro slowly let go of the pressure that he was exerting over her, and before long, both Rashi and Kitsue were bowing in front of the Demon, "Then what do you want us to do?" Rashi asked, and Eiro split his mouth back into two, so that he could talk to Rashi and Kitsue at the same time.


    "First, you two will properly learn how you''re supposed to act from Gobo and Boju. I don''t care if you''re sloppy, orzy, as long as you pull through with your responsibilities. I want you both to take proper care and responsibility for yourmunities," Eiro exined, making sure to exin the specifics of what they had to do as well as he could. First, he knelt down and looked at Kitsue. She was mentally quite affected, and if Eiro didn''t turn this around, then she would just end up being terrified of him every time they saw each other.


    He ced his hand onto her shoulder, "Kitsue, you''re born to lead the kobolds. Despite not being the same as them, you led their pack skillfully, to the point where you were able to nearly take over back when this city was just a small goblin vige in the ravine. You should be proud of what you were able to aplish with them. But just because they''re living their lives without directly depending on you every day, doesn''t mean that they don''t still need you. Go out and talk to them, find out how their lives have gotten better in this city. Ask them about their needs and wants, and figure out ways to make them happen. I know you can do that."


    The kitbold slowly raised her head and looked up at Eiro. He was trying to encourage her as best as he could. Kitsue slowly nodded, "I... I''ll try my best... Gobo... offered to go with me before, I''ll..."


    "Take it slow. You don''t have to rise up to your position instantly, that''s not what I''m expecting. Slowly grow to the point where you can naturally feel like you can take care of your people as they need to be taken care of in this city. As long as you''re aware of your position until then, everything''s fine," the Demon said, cing his hand on top of Kitsue''s head, before he turned toward Rashi.


    "And as for you, with you we need to start from the bottom. The trolls aren''t pulling their own weight in this city," Eiro pointed out, and Rashi frowned as she looked back at him, "What do you mean? We helped with the construction!"


    "And that''s great. Plenty of Trolls are still doing so, but out of all themunities of monsters that came together in this city, the Trolls are the least involved. It''s mostly as though they''re not taking this situation seriously. I asked them to clean up the area they live in, so that none of the other monsters get sick from all that dirt, and they might as well haveughed in my face," he exined, and Rashi slightly flinched, "You didn''t-"


    "No, of course I didn''t. I didn''t even touch them. Sorry, but your position is very differentpared to theirs, and I put you to a different standard than them as well. But listen, the trolls also do that. They see you as much more important than anyone else in this city. As far as they''re concerned, you''re in charge more than I am. So do what you need to to make them listen."


    Rashi slowly nodded, but red down at the ground, "I will make sure they listen to you next time."


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "That''s not what I''m getting at here. Sure, I want them to respect and listen to me, but that''s hopefully going toe as a side-effect once they start bing a true part of this city. I want you to take charge, and lead by example. If youze around all day, they''llze around all day. If you''re dirty and rude, they''ll bezy and rude."


    The Demon could tell that Rashi didn''t know what it was she was exactly supposed to do, so Eiro sighed, "I spoke to some of the Trolls earlier. And two of the things that would make them happy right now are goat meat and alcohol. I''ll find some goats in the area to bring here, and I''ll talk to Gobo about having some sort of brewery set up, and of course ship some alcohol here to bridge the time that the brewery can''t produce any alcohol itself yet. But that''s where it stops for me. The trolls asked for the goats and alcohol, and you''re going to make sure that''s where they get involved. Raising, caring, and butchering the goats. Transporting ingredients and the final alcohol, and of course the brewery process. Those areasa, alright?"


    Slowly, Rashi nodded, "Goats, and alcohol... okay. But... they don''t know anything about any of that... So how could they..?"


    "We''ll teach them. The trolls aren''t stupid, they can learn things just as anyone else can. We''re going to find monsters in this city that have some talent in animal husbandry or brewery, and we''ll teach them the basics. And from there, you figure out the rest. If you need any help with something none of the leaders can figure out, contact me through the servants scattered about. That''s what they''re for. And then we can find a solution together," Eiro exined, "You don''t have to do all of this alone, but you do have to pull your own weight. Both of you two, alright?"


    The demon stood back up and smiled down at them, "Now go get some rest, that was probably rather exhausting for both of you."


    Kitsue and Rashi got up and nodded at Eiro, before turning around and heading back into the building. Once they were inside, the Demon approached Gobo, who had been silent for a while now, "Ask the harpies if they''ve spotted anyone who''s good with animals. And ask around in the hunting parties too, if there''s anyone who understands the beasts'' behaviour especially well, so we can find candidates that are good with animal husbandry."


    "Right... of course, my lord," Gobo replied quietly, and Eiro looked back at him, "What''s the issue?"


    Slightly flinching out of nervosity, Gobo shook his head, "Nothing is the issue... I just... hadn''t seen that side of you in a while, my lord. It made me remember what things were like back when you first found us in the ravine."


    "...It hasn''t even been that long yet, now that I think about it."


    "Might as well have been a lifetime," the Hobgoblin replied, before slightly bowing to Eiro. It seemed like even Gobo''s fear and respect for Eiro was strengthened through this whole thing. Gobo quickly turned around so that he co uld get to work. And then, Eiro was approached by Partax, who was rather quiet, something that Eiro wasn''t quite used to.


    "What?" the Demon asked, and Partax just quietly replied, "When you told me your true origin, I assumed that you were simply a person in the body of a monster. But after seeing that..." the halfling said, looking at the blood-sttered grass, and the spot where Kitsue had huddled, pressing the grass down t from her weight, "...well, I guess you can say I''m a bit more unsure now."

 Chapter 667 Improvement-Talk

    667 Improvement-Talk


    Eiro twisted his hand counter-clockwise, pointing it at the small wooden cube in front of him. He was twisting the magic inside of it as per one of Partax''s techniques, so that he could adjust some of its properties. Specifically, right now he was adjusting the wood''s natural fire resistance, strengthening it in exchange for its general physical strength.


    The reason he was doing this was quite simple; it was so that Eiro could gather experience simply doing different things, and interacting with different properties.


    "Be careful, fire resistance is a fickle property. If you do it wrong, it''s going to reverse and the wood will catch on fire from ambient temperature," Partax warned, but Eiro just continued doing what he already had been doing. That wasn''t the first time that Partax had told him this, after all. ording to the halfling, all of these properties had a different kind of ''feel'' to them. Some properties felt heavier, others felt incredibly brittle. And in case of something like fire resistance, Partax called it ''fickle'', which practically just meant that it was easy to go totally wrong. Like trying to bnce things on your finger, it needed the exact right adjustments at the corrent points, or else it would all drop and mess up.


    That being the case, Eiro was good with precise work like this, so it wasn''t really something to worry about. He soon reached the right level of fire resistance that he wanted, and then slowly tightened his hand into a fist, practically ''squeezing'' the mana inside of the cube tightly so that it would lock itself into its current state.


    And then, Eiro held his palm over the wooden cube, quickly engulfing it in mes. At this temperature, the wood should have already caught fire a couple times over, but nothing at all was happening. The most that was happening was that it was releasing a bit of water-vapor, drying it out more. And then, as nearly all the water had been released, a crack formed in the surface of the wood. Like a chain-reaction, it spread out throughout the whole cube, and the whole thing fell apart into small pieces, practically crumbling under its own weight. But even so, it still wasn''t burning, not even the small crumbs of wood that had split off from what used to be the cube. It really had just broken apart due to its physical weakness, which was the property that Eiro had exchanged for the wood''s fire resistance.


    He pulled away the mes and then carefully touched part of the crumbled wood, and it gave in under his touch as though it had been made of sand this whole time.


    "Happy?" Eiro asked, looking at Partax, who slowly nodded his head. He scooped up some of the wood and rubbed it inbetween his hands, "Yes, more than happy. If you grind this wood down and mix it with other materials, you can increase their natural fire resistance quite a bit without reallypromising their physical strength. But for that, the wood needs to be as fine as the finest of dust. To the point where it would be nigh impossible to split it into any further pieces."


    "I see..." the demon replied, thinking about it for a moment. Using this, it should be possible to fortify the walls of some of the new buildings that were under construction in the city. That would be particrly helpful for the trolls, who were weak to fire. And of course, setting a fire was one of the easiest ways to attack a tightly-packed city like this, so if this sort of wood was mixed into the bricks holding the buildings together, then it should be possible to minimize such threats. Not to mention, that would just make it harder for fires to spread, which was always a good thing. There was also something else that Eiro was curious about. This country was quite far up north so the summers didn''t get all too hot, but the threat of wildfires always existed, and not too long ago, a field close to his house had burnt down after some ident. He quickly went to extinguish the mes back then, but he wasn''t always there to do that sort of thing.


    "What would happen if we mixed this wood into fertilizer? After breaking down, would the nts take 11:41


    on a bit of the fire resistance?" Eiro wondered out loud, and Partax thought about the idea for a moment, "That is an interesting question. That I do not know, though I assume that the mana will intertwine to a certain degree, so it''s not impossible. However, any effect would probably be mostly minuscule. You''re free to give it a try though, of course."


    The Demon looked at the wood in front of him and nodded, "I think I will. But for now..." Eiro looked at Gondos, who quickly supplied him with some earth magic. Quickly, the Demon created two circr rock bs. He ced the crumbling wood onto one of them, and then ced the other b on top, before starting to rotate them, each in opposite directions, at a high speed, so that he could grind the wood down. He was also adjusting the rock''s roughness to be finer and finer, so that he could gradually decrease the size of the wooden pieces, as though he were trying to grind down the edge of a de with a grindstone.


    As this was happening, he looked back at Partax, "What now?"


    Partax thought for a moment, walking around the room. His metallic legs quietly tapped the wooden floor, "I think it should be about time we consider how to improve this city using Artificing and Alchemy," the halfling exined, "That was the reason you agreed to bring me along with you in the first ce, was it not?"


    "It was. Do you have any ideas?" Eiro asked. He himself had already thought up a few things, but he still wanted to hear if Partax had any better ideas than him. And quickly, he showed his insight after just walking around the city a few times before now, "A couple. Though most of them aren''t really in the area of defense, though that might be your priority at this moment."


    "...It is, but I''m not sure if anything we can reallye up with is going to be a huge amount of help, beside setting up a barrier around the area maybe. Other things would take too much time for now."


    "Well, there''s that, but also, I simply don''t believe that it''srgely necesary. The only real threats in the area for these monsters are weaker than them. There are of course the Devil and its forces, but those won''t be swayed by simple defenses anyway," Partax pointed out, "So instead, I was thinking about ways to make this city more... livable."


    Eiro raised a brow, "What do you mean?"


    "What I mean? This city is filthy! Absolutely and utterly filthy, I say!" Partax eximed loudly, "Dirt and grime everywhere, monsters sleeping on the road, smelling as though they jumped into a pile of shit!"


    "Tell me about it. But hygiene isn''t particrly easy to teach to monsters, you know?" Eiro pointed out, but Partax sighed, "Then make it easier for them! At this rate, they''ll never be able to live alongside people!"


    The Demon was a little taken aback. He hadn''t expected Partax to actually be in such support of the idea. And more importantly, "...you actually believe that it''s possible?"


    "For them to stop smelling like manure? I would hope so!"


    "No, obviously I mean for them to live alongside people," Eiro sighed, and Partax shrugged, "Before I met these things, I would haveughed in your face, but now... I think it''s possible. Hell, just the fact that so many of them speakmon is something I believed to be practically impossible. So that''s sign enough that I may have understimated these guys. So, make sure to give them whatever they need to make it happen!" The halfling eximed, "My ideas are simple! Canalization, perfume, and easy cleaning tools!"


    "...Alright... that sounds reasonable. Since we''re solidly in the ground and not floating above ake, it makes sense to finally add a proper canalization. And perfuming the areas makes sense too, just making things artificially smell better. But what do you mean with ''easy cleaning tools''?" Eiro wondered curiously, and Partax crossed his arms, "Simply what it means!" he replied, and before Eiro could ask for further exnation, the Demon could hear the sound of dozens over dozens of tiny metal legs hitting the ground below Partax.


    He had released another type of metallic bug onto the ground, who were hurrying around the room to wherever it was even slightly dirty. They would feed on the dirt that was brought in by workers, and even ''scrub'' the ground clean from any leftovers stuck inbetween the grains of wood.


    Eiro observed them closely, and from what he could tell, this process was simple. The metallic bugs were pushing the dirt into their ''mouths'', and then it was broken apart using some sort of artificed process within their bodies. And then, the bugs rushed over to the nearest nts, and supplied them with what seemed to be fertilizer or soil created from the dirt they picked up.


    "Obviously you won''t be able to make things like this, it took me quite a while to create them and I''m not simply lending them to you either. However, it should be possible to transfer the idea to things like... brooms or mops," Partax suggested, and Eiro raised his brow curiously.


    "Gobo!" Eiro said with a grin, and the Hobgoblin quickly came rushing over from the other side of the room, "Yes, my lord?"


    "I''m sure you have the reports from the different jobs given to the monsters, right? Bring me some sort of summary from all the cleaners of the city, especially those that are talking about where they''re struggling or need more help."

 Chapter 668 Slimes

    668 Slimes


    "Feathers, fur, and excrement..." Eiro summarized, looking at the list ofints that he hadying on the table in front of him. He had asked for the reports from the monsters that had been put in charge of cleaning in the city, and those were theints that showed up the most.


    Excrement was an obvious one, of course, but the shedded fur all over the ce and the feathers raining down from above from the harpies every once in a while certainly didn''t help either. Not to mention, the harpies did have some of the worst habits in regard to relieving themselves.


    Eiro found these things nothing but annoying. Very early on in his life had he learned manners in regard to these things, but that was just because he spent basically his whole life alongside people. And he still didn''t know to what extent his former life as the Sage affected his behaviour and personality these days.


    "There''s two ways to go about this..." the Demon said, looking at Gobo, who quickly nodded, "Right, I think I know what you mean. Either, we create a culture in the city in which the monsters are incentivised to clean up after themselves, or better even not make a mess at all, or on the other hand, we gather some monsters with fitting skills and give them the means to clean up after the rest of them."


    Eiro smiled, and shook his head, "Close, but no," he pointed out, raising one of his fingers, "One, we make the monsters already living here clean up the city," Eiro said, putting up a second finger, "And two, we look for new monsters to clean up the city instead."


    "..." Gobo looked at Eiro with a raised brow, "You want to look for monsters and specifically turn them into cleaners for the city? What species did you even think of?"


    "Easy. Slimes," the Demon said bluntly, before a snake curled up in the corner of the room raised its head, "What now?"


    Eiro looked at Bavet and smiled, "Well, just think about it. Most slimes are thoughtless beings, just passively living on instinct. You were a special case to begin with. Now, if we can tweak some regr slimes'' instincts a little bit, we can turn them into amazing cleaners,¡± he exined, "Slimes can digest basically every organic matter, and in special cases, even non-organic, but we''ll just focus on the former right now. Obviously we''ll still have to change the culture of the city to have the monsters make less of a mess, and we''ll still have dedicated cleaners amongst the other species, but having slimes to assist them will make the job much, much easier." Bavet slithered onto the table and stared at Eiro, "What you''re saying makes sense, but it still gives me the ick..."


    Gobo quickly interrupted before Bavet and Eiro could go off on a tangent, "So your n is to... instead have a bunch of slimes all over the ce?"


    "Not all over the ce," Eiro replied, "So, in a big city like the capital, the streets are kept generally clean for the most part. But then in some alleys that aren''t as frequented, there''s a lot of trash, because those aren''t cleaned. Right now, the cleaners of this city are supposed to take care of every part of it, even those sorts of alleys, so they have a pretty big workload. Instead, we just have the cleaners move all the grime onto dedicated, less-frequented spots where trash would gather anyway, which will basically be the ''slime nests""


    "And that way we can very effectively reduce the workload of the cleaners, and keep the city overall a lot nicer," Gobo smiled, taking notes that he could pass onto Boju, who was the one that usually kept all these sorts of documents in order. Eiro continued, "We''ll also put slimes into theization that we''ll build and some around the rooftops near the harpies'' nests. That way, the general health of the city will increase by a lot too. Andbined with the tools that I''ll make for the cleaners, the whole city should be cleaner than the capital''s noble district soon."


    Bavet scoffed, the white scales on his snake body turning darker and an annoyed red tone. He had the tendency to show his mood in obvious ways like thistely, since his transformations have be much more natural and easier. It doesn''t seem like something he can control, and he became annoyed whenever he noticed, so Eiro actually found it quite a cute habit.


    "You''re expecting me to just ignore that you''ll have my kind literally eating shit?" the slimes asked with a frown, something that you didn''t see often on snakes, and Eiro shrugged, "They eat anything theye across anyway. Thest time I saw slimes in the wild they were eating an already half-rotten corpse from the inside out. Another time I saw slimes feeding on the poisoned viscera of a a tainted pond."


    Bavet didn''t have a great response, "That''s different! But... a good point, anyway... Frankly, most slimes are literally incapable of actual thought. I mean, I wasn''t able to think coherently until I was taken in by the monastery... As long as they''re treated with respect like all the other monsters, I''ll... allow it."


    "Of course. We''ll put up aw that the slimes can''t be harmed, so they''ll be under the city''s protection. Obviously, if a slime runs rampant and causes trouble, things might be different," Eiro immediately suggested, smiling at Gobo right next to him who already had a wry expression on his face, "Hah... Boju is going to be quite happy about even more paperwork..." the Hobgoblin said sarcastically. no(vel )nex(t) .co m


    Eiro raised a brow, "Speaking of, why is he taking things so seriously? I know I told him to try and give some order to the city considering his personal skillset, but I didn''t mean he had to invent beaurocracy."


    Gobo smiled awkwardly, "I told him that too, but he insisted that it was necessary if we wanted to deal with people in the future. That we needed the basic structure to be integrated with them somehow."


    The Demon let out augh, and got up from his seat, "I guess he thought further ahead than I expected."


    "Where are you going?" Gobo asked with a sigh, already knowing the answer, "He''s already stressed as is, you know?"


    "I''m just trying to visit my little prodigy, what''s wrong with that?" Eiro asked, snapping his finger. He created a duplicate in his stead that stayed behind, "That one will continue nning things out with you."


    Gobo was a bit taken aback seeing the duplicate, since it was practically impossible to tell the real one and the duplicate apart, "Urgh... I don''t think I''ll ever get used to this, my Lord..."


    The real body quickly walked down the building''s hallway and climbed up the stairs, soon reaching the central office of the building. The Demon knocked, and a tired voice replied on the other side, "..e in."


    Eiro pushed open the door, and spotted Boju, the young Hignd Orc, sitting behind a desk covered in books and stacks of paper, while Boju was seemingly writing down anything he could. Though, Boju had changed a good bit since Eirost saw him. He was a lot thinner than he used to be, but not in an unhealthy way. Most orcs tended to be naturallyrge-bodied, but it seemed like histest evolution changed his stature a good bit. You could still tell he was a juvenile and yet had some growing to do, though.


    Hisplexion had changed since histest evolution too, the blue color of his skin was sort of fading around his hands, turning practically white at his fingertips, while it seemed to have be deeper especially around his face.


    "What is it? I''m busy," Boju groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose without even taking a moment to look up from his work.


    "Oh, sorry, I cane backter if that works better," Eiro pointed out, and the sound of Boju''s pen scraping over paper suddenly stopped. The hignd orc looked up and stared at Eiro standing in the doorway, "M-My Lord, you-"


    "What, you didn''t hear about meing here yet?" the Demon asked, as he approached the desk, taking a seat on the chair on the other side. Boju nervously got up, "Pl-Please sit over here, that chair is not-"


    "Calm down and take a breather, Boju. Everything''s fine," Eiro said with a slightly concerned tone. He waved his hand and flooded the orc with a wave of holy magic specially tuned to help relieve some of his exhaustion. The deep dark blue rings under Boju''s eyes seemed to recede a bit as the orc''s back straightened, reinvigorated. It seemed like it helped Boju calm down quite a bit as well.


    "I hadn''t heard of your arrival..." Boju pointed out awkwardly, "I would havee to greet you had I known..."


    "Rx, there''s no need. You''re clearly busy," Eiro shook his head, "What''s drawing in your attention like that, though? It doesn''t look like it''s as simple as the others might think it is."


    Boju slowly sat back down on his chair, and pushed over the paper that he had been writing on until now, "I''m... studying. There were a lot of books here, and I''ve been trying to read as many of them as I can. About things likemerce, history, politics... those kinds of things."


    Eiro leaned forward and nced at all the sheets of paper that were scattered on the desk, as well as the ground around it, and smiled proudly, "You''re making an incredible effort here, huh?"


    "I... I try to, at least..."


    The Demon thought for a moment, and then smirked, "When... do you think the city would be ready to trade with outsiders?"n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

 Chapter 669 Instinct

    669 Instinct


    "Trade? You''re seriously considering having us trade with other ces soon?" Boju asked a bit perplexed, but Eiro just nodded his head as though it were the most natural thing in the world, "Of course. Any city does that, doesn''t it?"


    "But... isn''t that dangerous? Trading with other cities would mean having to let people into here, and... I don''t think the monsters are ready for that... like you asked us to, we tried to at least have everyone use the illusion tools to make them appear like people, but a lot of them really didn''t like it..." the hignd Orc pointed out concerned, but Eiro quickly calmed him down, "Don''t worry, you don''t need to let any people into the city. Rather, you just need to have some of the monsters, the ones you know you can trust, lead some small caravans to other ces."


    Boju thought about it for a moment, "Well, that''s... fair... but, just... in one of the books that I found, stowed away deep in this desk, there were some records about spies infiltrating or following merchantries to figure out their methods. And that doesn''t seem like something only the people in this city would have done. What if someone ends up following us into the city, they would find out, and then call on Adventurers or Knights or something..."


    Eiro thought for a moment, "That''s a fair concern. That definitely happens, quite often at that. Though I don''t really think you have to concern yourself with that. There''s plenty of ways to get around that. I do have the Ace of Cups, and using that it should be more than possible to simply avoid their sight. We''ll need to specifically train some of the monsters and have some thief- or assassin-types apany them to make proper use of it, but it should be easy enough to get around spies following you around."


    "Then... what about the actual merchants?" Boju wondered, "It''s one thing to have them stationed in your home, since they probably don''t really interact that deeply with a lot of people, but that''s literally the job of a merchant. Talking to people... and beyond that, a merchant needs to know quite a lot, right? To be able to make dealings properly. We haven''t really taught any of the monsters that much general knowledge... rather, we ourselves don''t have any of that general knowledge to teach to others in the first ce."


    "Well, that issue can be resolved pretty easily," Eiro pointed out with a smirk, "It''s not like you''ll be trading as ''people'' in the first ce."


    Boju was taken aback and frowned, "My... my lord, what do you mean?"


    "You''ll be trading as monsters."


    The hignd Orc jumped up from his seat, pressing his hands down onto the table, "What?! But, but that''s just going to get them killed! Do you want to sacrifice-"


    "Obviously not. This is part of the bigger picture," Eiro exined, "Listen, this won''t be a regr trade with other ces. It''s going to be... a ''mysterious merchant appearing where adventurers frequent." "...I still don''t really follow, isn''t that far too risky?"


    "Of course it is, but everything about this is risky, Boju. Existence as a monster is risky," the demon pointed out, leaning back in his seat, "Listen, the way that I thought about this is very simple. We choose some monsters skilled with their words, and have them protected by some of the strongest in the city. And then, we send them out to areas with weak monsters where only new, weak adventurers can be found."


    "... But..." Boju thought for a moment, "Won''t even inexperienced adventurers be on guard around monsters?"


    "Of course. But that''s the point. Stronger adventurers will probably have encountered more intelligent, outwardly calmer monsters. They won''t hesitate to cut down anything they recognize to be a monster, no matter how it acts. On the other hand, if it''s their first time seeing a monster that acts like that, and one that can speakmon, at that? From my experience, they''ll be more likely to approach. Especially since their mental stats will be lower, so if we send a monster with high charisma that knows how to use their ''voice'' properly, then there''s no need to worry. Not to mention that new adventurers will be much easier to fend off in case they do decide to attack."


    Boju thought about Eiro''s suggestion for a few moments, and soon realized the true intent behind this n, "So... you''ll use this to introduce the idea that there are non-threatening monsters around here?"


    "Basically," Eiro smiled, d that Boju understood so quickly, "We can''t just throw you all into the masses at some point. That''s never going to work. We need to slowly but surely have you work your way into the minds and hearts of the people... Of course, at the end of the day, the monster merchants are still going to be attacked. There''s going to be people sent out specifically to take care of you, or the rare experienced adventure wandering around where they might usually not be. It''s dangerous, but it''s also worth the risk."


    "... Is it really, though? My lord, you saw how things are in the city, right? I know it''s not perfect by any means, but it''s getting better day by day... Why can''t we just keep to ourselves? Why do we have to integrate with... people?"


    "I''m not going to force anyone here to integrate. Anyone that doesn''t want to is free to take their leave," Eiro replied without even a moment''s hesitation, practically cutting Boju off, "I get that it''s scary, and might seem unnecessary to you, but that''s how things are just going to be. In the future, the monster king, and royals altogether, will disappear. I''ll personally make sure of that. Of course, so will the hero and other powerful figures amongst people, but there''s a big difference there. All the heroes are only active a few years at a time, throughout their journey to kill the monster king. Not to mention, the nearly two decades it takes for a new hero to be born and raised to a point where they''re capable of fighting in the first ce. But Monsters are never without their leading figure. There is always a powerful monster king, and there are always powerful royals. But the bnce is still there, though usually a bit more in favor of the monsters. Though, that is only the case because of the Mon ter King and the royals."


    Boju slowly lowered himself back into his seat, understanding what Eiro means, "So... if there''s a sort of bnce with the monster king, but without the hero... then once the monster king disappears, the ones that are on the winning side are the people?"


    "Right. Sooner orter, the people will realize that the monster king ceased to exist. And without the monster king, they won''t need a hero anyway, so they won''t be too bothered by their disappearance. So without the monster king, the different countries of the people will most likely begin aplete genocide of all monsters. Or at least, the ones that they can''t make submit to them somehow."


    The Demon''s vision of the future was grim, but from the little things that he knew about people, Boju couldn''t even hope to disagree. That''s most likely what would happen, "But... when you kill the monster king, won''t you be the new one? Can''t you use your position to create peace for us?"N?v(el)B\\jnn


    "...That will only work for a certain degree. Not to mention, I''m still not confident about the changes that bing the Monster King would do to me," Eiro exined. Rather, at this point, that was a lie. He had read many things about the Monster King, whether it was in this world, or spections from the nes of fire or water. Those in particr were things that Eiro trusted in particrly, since they had a special position in this ''war''. They simply weren''t involved; they were neutral, but many of the powerful beings, in particr the spirits, had plenty of information of the central material ne. Not to mention. there have been Monster Kings that formed contracts with spirits, so there were quite a few ounts that knew what they were talking about.


    As far as Eiro could tell, bing the Monster King inflicted the Monster with certain side-effects. Their monstrosity would be strengthened many times over, and they would be inflicted with a particr ''instinct. To protect monsterkind. And since one''s monstrosity already made one already despise people, there was a clear direction most Monster Kings would head to. Though of course, that instinct didn''t mean that the monster king couldn''t be cruel toward individuals; as long as monsterkind strived, individuals didn''t matter to most of them.


    Of course, the easiest way to avoid this would be to simply rid himself of monstrosity once he attained the ''Key'' and enhanced it for this to be possible, but Eiro had one more fear. That if he did this, if he didn''t have any ''monstrosity'' anymore, then his soul, originally that of a person, might be unable to ept the ''splinter'' of the Monster King. He was confident he could control himself enough tomit suicide if it came down to it. Rather, he would change his body to make sure he could be easily killed at a snap by someone he trusted, just before bing King, so that even if he turned mad, he could be gotten rid of. And since his soul would fully fuse with the splinter, the ''Monster King'' would cease to exist forever. That was Eiro''s current n. He simply didn''t know enough to predict what effects that splinter would have on him.


    That was why, "I want to make sure I ount for all possibilities. Even if I''m not capable of helping once I be Monster King, I need you all to be the pirs that protect and lead all monsters."

 Chapter 670 Harpy Delivery

    670 Harpy Delivery


    Boju looked down at the desk in front of him, looking at all the documents that he was currently filling out and creating. There was a lot that they still had to do to evene close to the structure that a settlement of people had, but they were well on their way. However, there was still something that Boju wasn''t quite certain of, "But... what do you expect us to sell? Especially to adventurers, what sort of thing do they need..?"


    "Well, that''s easy. There are three things that you can offer extremely well. Tools, information, and services," Eiro suggested, "There''s plenty of monsters here that can create items suitable for beginner adventurers. Swords, knives, clothes, armor, anything, really. They might not be the highest quality, but that''s fine. The equipment of beginner adventurers is incredibly bad anyway, so for the most part, it would probably still be quite an upgrade."


    The hignd Orc thought about it for a while. It was true that there were a lot of monsters, especially amongst the Orcs and Goblins, that have evolved into races that specialize in craftsmanship. That being the case, they didn''t really have all that much to do, and were mostly assigned to doing odd-jobs that their skills could somewhat help out with. But if they were to end up selling those sorts of items, then those monsters would have a constant flow of work. And that would also open up the odd-jobs that the craftsmen were doing, which other monsters could end up being assigned to, reducing the level of joblessness in the city pretty effectively. Thinking about it like that, Boju realized that Eiro''s method would not only help spread the existence of the city of monsters, but also create more stability in the city by giving the monsters something to do with their time.


    The hignd Orc started to think about it a bit more, and basically filled in the dots, "So... as for the information, since we have so many different kinds of monsters, we can give different viewpoints to adventurers. Literally, actually... if we have the harpies scout out certain areas from above, or use the kobolds'' noses or maybe the masses of smaller spiders to figure out things on the ground-level... then we should be able to provide a whole different level of data to them!"


    "That''s exactly it. Especially the bit with the harpies. I think they might be a bit harder to really get to do what they''re supposed to, but it looks live you''ve managed to do fine to an extent so far," the Demon pointed out, and Boju quickly nodded, "Ah, yes! They''re a bit aggressive and get annoyed very quickly, but they''re suprisingly responsive to both food andpliments. So we managed to figure out some ways to motivate them properly."


    "I see... I did notice that the harpies were eating quite a lot. But as long as that''s not an issue supply-wise, that sounds like a good enough way to handle them. The harpies'' boss was also a lot more responsive than most of the others..." Eiro muttered, before pointing out another way they could be useful, "Now, this is something we would have to specifically train them for, but it''s probably one of the best ways to make people more responsive to monsters. These other things are mostly targeted at adventurers or mercenaries, but there''s one very simple thing that even regr people would love to take advantage of."


    15:10


    "I see... I did notice that the harpies were eating quite a lot. But as long as that''s not an issue supply-wise, that sounds like a good enough way to handle them. The harpies'' boss was also a lot more responsive than most of the others..." Eiro muttered, before pointing out another way they could be useful, "Now, this is something we would have to specifically train them for, but it''s probably one of the best ways to make people more responsive to monsters. These other things are mostly targeted at adventurers or mercenaries, but there''s one very simple thing that even regr people would love to take advantage of."


    Boju raised a brow, "And... what''s that?"


    "Delivery services," the Demon pointed out, "I hear about it all the time. Solomon is constantly trying to figure out ways to improve delivery systems, for things like letters and especially parcels, just because of the danger of traveling on roads. At this point, letters are somewhat easily taken care of, whether through doves or even some magics, though especially thetter is quite an expensive service. And there''s a pretty low limit to what either of those can deliver too."


    The hignd Orc listened to Eiro''s words, and his eyes immediately started to glister, "Right! Regr birds are so weak, but the harpies carried tons of bricks with ease for hours on end!"


    "The endurance of monsters can''t be underestimated. And especially harpies are both strong and fast. Not to mention, they would be much safer than other kinds of delivery or transportation, and considerably cheaper too."


    Boju looked down at the table and started cupping his chin and mouth, in thought, "If we train some of the harpies properly for the job, wouldn''t that mean that we can easily get things from other cities even before we be more established...?"


    Eiro seemed surprised, "What do you mean?"


    "Oh, just... erm, you see, there''s a lot of ces that have specialty products or materials. We''re very limited here... we have a lot of iron, coal, copper, and of course magic stones, but there would be some other materials we could use, especially for construction. Not to mention, things like books or scrolls that we can use to teach the monsters more detailed things. That would also mean that we don''t always have to rely on you for these things, my lord... Of course, we could simply send some disguised monsters to other cities, but I think that would be pretty limited to cities nearby, and we don''t have a lot of monsters that I would trust with that kind of task at the moment, at least not unsupervised. Not to mention that our needs are pretty unique, and from what I found in the books here, a lot of the things can only be found some distance away. But if we set up a system where we can set up a cooperation with other cities or merchant organizations, then we might be able to order things quite... easily..." Boju excitedly exined, pushing his hands through some of the papers on his desk until he found some of the lists that he had written up, seemingly containing a lot of different items or materials that he was going to request Eiro to get for them until the next time he came. But by the time he had pulled this document out, he looked at the demon in front of him and realized that he had started to ramble on without another thought.


    "I-I am sorry, my lord... I was just getting a little excited, and-"


    "What are you apologizing for? That''s exactly the sort of thing I put you into this position for. You''re smart enough toe up with those things without me having to feed you every tiny detail. I was thinking the exact same thing," Eiro stood up from his seat and walked around the desk, so that he could take a closer look at the lists that Boju had pulled out, before looking and smiling at the young hignd Orc, "You''re doing a great job here, Boju."


    --- Partax furrowed his thick, bushy brows as he gnawed on the end of the small stick in his hand. A long time ago, it seemed like this resembled an intricate writing-pen, but at this point there was nothing there that would hint at it, if there wasn''t the half-rusted metal tip connected to its other end. Considering how well taken-care of all of Partax''s other items were, the state of this pen was quite shocking the first time that Eiro saw it. But soon enough, he realized this habit of Partax, since he pulled out that pen whenever he was thinking about something deeply. Considering that, that this thing still held any resemnce to the item it was supposed to be was a shock in and of itself.


    However, soon enough, Partax pulled the pen away from his crooked teeth and ced the tip against the parchment held in front of him by the metal arms protruding from the base he was always always sitting on, "This here, and then this here... if this was here then that could connect well to the circuits in the corner over there... and with this, the synergy of the city would be intact..." hewhispered, before clicking his tongue, "Ah, no, this isn''t just a mound, it''s a molehill... meaning it''s probably going to change over time..." the halfling grumbled, before turning his head to his right.


    "You, goblin!" he eximed, and before long, Gobu came walking over, nothing but annoyed. He didn''t like listening to themands of anyone but Eiro, but since the demon had told him to listen to Partax, within reason, he had no choice toe when called, "I have a name."


    "And I don''t care to remember it. Here, in this part of the town, you need to control the moles better. Create solid roads, or maybe even small walls around here that they need to keep intact, otherwise it''s going to ruin the whole circuit and integrity of the city!" n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "...So you''re asking me to tell the molemen where they can dig? Really? Are you expecting me to tell the harpies where they can fly next?"


    "That would be great. The harpy nests do seem a little randomly ced, so if they interfere or damage the circuitry too much, then that''s going to cause some issues too..."


    Gobu tried to keep up a smile, or at least, what he considered a smile. In reality, it was a little closer to a scowl, at least when Eiro wasn''t around like now.


    "...I''ll figure something out, I guess. But I just want to remind you, this is a city of monsters, some ces will continue to get destroyed or damaged, at least for the next few years. So you can''t make that whole ''circuit'' thing so... fragile," Gobu pointed out with a slight scoff, something that Partax took as a quick insult, "Fragile?"

 Chapter 671 Sweet-Spot

    671 Sweet-Spot


    Partax red at Gobo, quickly taking the Hobgoblin''s words as both an insult and a challenge, "What are you calling ''fragile'', here?"


    Rolling his eyes, Gobo looked at the old halfling and tapped his finger on the table next to him. He was starting to get annoyed. He didn''t really like people all too much. Since Eiro was trying to have them all integrate with their society, Gobo was trying to give them a chance at least, though it didn''t help if they were as naturally unsufferable as Partax clearly was, "Of course, what else would you call it? If a few monsters can just destroy the whole thing that easily, without even actively trying to, it has to be pretty fragile, right?"


    With a slight grunt, Partax moved over to the table. He pressed his palm onto the surface, and then lifted it up, leaving a small metal cube the size of a gambling-die behind. Quickly, the cube started unfolding, turning into what seemed like a simple building. Gobo was impressed by what he saw, since this was a new sight to him. Sure, it wasn''t anything that couldpare to the extravagant feats of power that Eiro tended to disy every once in a while, but it was unique. Gobo liked unique things.


    "Alright, so what''s this?" the hobgoblin finally asked, since Partax for some reason wasn''t saying anything for a while. The halfling huffed and crossed his arms. One of the mechanical arms attached to his moving seat approached the miniature building''s door. It was too big to fit through it, though, and very obviously at that.


    "Take a look. It won''t fit inside, but it has to somehow get there. So, to it, the most natural solution is to do this," Partax started, and the hand quickly forced its way through the door, damaging the structure around it. Pieces crumbled down onto the tabletop, and small cracks began to appear throughout the walls. Soon, the hand pulled back out, rubbing against the edges of the now broken, unnaturally expanded doorframe, breaking it down even more, "You see this? This is exactly what you''re doing to this city. You''re damaging it, hurting it. And the more it happens..." Partax metal assistance quickly continued on, intruding through the windows, the small balcony, the chimey... basically anywhere it could, it entered through, breaking the building''s integrity further and further. That was, until the hand tried to push through another possible entrance, and the whole miniature building broke down.


    "Sooner orter, the whole thing crumbles to pieces," the halfling exined, before snapping his finger. By hismand, the structure rebuilt itself back to what it was just a minute ago. Meanwhile, Gobo was watching, quietly. While he didn''t want to admit it, it seemed like Partax was going somewhere with this.


    "The house isn''t built for the hand. That''s why it has to force its way through, damaging everything else around it. But what if we made it so that it didn''t have to do that in the first ce?" Partax suggested, and as he said so, the door expanded on its own. It became taller and broader, and while the rest of the building stayed the same, it was made to simply aodate the size of the hand and nothing more. The least amount of change needed to make sure the hand didn''t need to break anything anymore. And then, the hand simply pushed through that new door, and nothing happened. It fit through normally and without issue, "Do you get it now?"


    Gobo thought about it for a moment. He looked at the small house and at the metal hand, before letting out a slight sigh. Immediately, Partax showed a triumphant look on his face, as Gobo admitted defeat, "Fine. It''s not that it''s fragile, it''s just that this ce isn''t made for us monsters... is that it?"


    "Exactly. I thought you''d have been able to understand that earlier, but from how it looks, you were practically raised amongst people, right?" Partax asked, and Gobo instinctively flinched, "How did you... Did my Lord tell you?" N?v(el)B\\jnn


    "What, you think I need to be told something so obvious? Pah!" the halfling scoffed, and shook his head, "Listen, it''s the same for me. The majority of people in this world are well... around your size, I guess. There''s some exceptions, of course. Some are smaller, some are bigger, but the most of them are like you. That''s why everything is made for them."


    Gobo raised a brow. He had an idea where Partax was going with this, but he hadn''t really considered it yet, so he wanted to continue listening. And so, the halfling continued on, patting the metallic, spider-legged tform he was sitting on, "Before I built myself this new pair of legs, I left the vige I grew up in, and made my way to the ''big city''. And well, that name was right in more than one way. I had to stand on my tip-toes to reach doorhandles, buy stools to reach the counters in my own kitchen. The clothes I bought were in childrens'' sizes, and you''d be surprised to realize how few people actually look down as they walk the streets. The world isn''t made for people like me, or ones on the other size of the spectrum. You have to fit that specific sweet-spot. Now, you lot live in a ce made for ''people''. Not only does the actual minority of you fit that ''size'' sweet-spot, this ce was built to fit many, many other of those as well. Do you think the mole-men ''want'' to burrow all day long? If they could, they''d avoid it too, but for monsters that are practically blind, walking around somewhere where they could be crushed by one of those stupidly huge trolls is scary. And the trolls aren''t much better off, I saw how some of them live, in buildings where a whole wall was torn-off, with ceilings so low they have to crouch. No wonder they don''t want to bother with you lot, if my back hurt from crouching in my own home all day long I''d be pissed off too!"


    The hobgoblin slowly sat down. He looked at Partax, and soon nodded his head, "I... see. That... is a good point. But what are we supposed to do? Tear it all down and rebuild it?" "What? Of course not, you fool! Just rebuild the parts you need to! Add onto it all! Reserve all the buildings with high ceilings for the trolls or tear out some ceilings and floors for them. Give the towers to the harpies and take out the windows so they can nest somewhere that''s protected from the rain and winds. Build some proper, permanent tunnels for the molemen, and for the love of the gods, nt some flowers and get rid of all that trash, even my nose is about to fall off, I can''t even imagine how the Kobolds are feeling!" "But..." Gobo started to rub the bridge of his nose, realizing just how much work was really ahead of them, "How are we supposed to do this in time? I guess this would help keep your ''circuit'' intact, but we can''t possibly finish all of that by the time you want to have the circuit done..."


    Partax rolled his eyes and shook his head, "Obviously not, that''s why you don''t have to. The circuit''s already been designed in a way to run through the most stable areas of the city in the first ce, but some unstable parts just can''t be avoided. Focus on the ways I tell you in those parts, and you''ll be fine.That''s exactly what I was trying to tell you earlier, but I guess there was a bit of a... well,nguage barrier," the halfling responded with a scoff, looking Gobo up and down with a roll of his eyes. The hobgoblin could feel basically all of his positive feelings for Partax vanish with that passive-aggressivement aimed at him, but he still knew that Partax was right. They had to solve this somehow, and the support of that circuit would make this city so much safer for everyone here, so he simply held back for now.


    Even then, Gobo still didn''t feel like just letting it be, "...Right. Can you note down everything you can so that even a stupid Goblin like me can remember everything we need to do?" he asked with a slight re, pushing down a notebook while trying to stop himself from yelling at the halfling. Seemingly without even being aware of Gobo''s annoyance, Partax nodded his head, "Obviously, that was the n all along. Though I''m d to see how aware you are of your own limitations, at the very least."


    Gobo sighed and ground his teeth, a sound that made Eiro slightly smile as he was walking down the stairs after returning from Boju''s office. Even if they weren''t getting along, some banter like this was certainly a lot better than active fighting. The fact that Gobo was even trying to hold himself back in this situation was a great sign. Partax was long beyond the point of no return, so Eiro couldn''t even try to fix his behaviour, even if he really cared to. The way Partax acted was annoying, but at least it was somewhat predictable, and that was a quality that Eiro much preferred over someone being kind but random in their behaviour.


    Things wereing together well. Now the only part left was to get started with the construction of the circuit that would protect this city, as a test-run before Eiro did the same thing to not only the academy, but his own manor as well.

 Chapter 672 Logic and Beauty

    672 Logic and Beauty


    Eiro walked along the roads of the city. The ones that he was passing through right now were practically empty; everyone that didn''t absolutely need to be here was moved to other spots for now while Eiro and Partax were constructing the protective circuit of this city. It was a simple process; they just had to carve the magical array into the roads and walls into the ces that Partax had built into the design. Of course, that was easier said than done. Things had to be just right, both in the sense of the physical construction of the carvings, as well as the density of magic flowing through them. Since these arrays were small enough, to most people they would look just like decorative carvings here and there, but they were incredibly important. They had to be perfectly bnced to make sure that every process worked as intended.


    That being the case, it was particrly easy for some of these arrays to be damaged. Particrly the ones on the road, right where many different monsters were walking along every single day, it would usually be easy for the stones to crack. That was why they were using a different, far more expensive, method. One that would, at the same time, also help improve the quality of the final array. The lines of the array were carved a bit thicker than needed, and were then filled with hot metal. Luckily, since Eiro could control this metal through magic well enough, it was easy to fill them out. But then, they also had to carve the array a second time into the surface of that metal.


    Since metallic materials tended to have a higher magical resistance, they would keep the magic infused into the array in its ce, while at the same time simply being more resistant to physical damage that could be received through it over time. Obviously notpletely immune, but it would take much longer for Eiro to have to return and fix things up. By the time it would really be a major issue, maybe some of the other monsters would be trained enough to at the very least work on the upkeep of this absolutely enormous magical array to make sure it wouldst for years and years toe.


    The metal they were actually using for this was steal. A rtively cheaper, more avable metal especially in these parts, partially thanks to the Mountain Goblins who were expert miners, especially now that they started working together with the Molemen. That being the case, due to the sheer amount of metal that was needed, it was still exorbitantly expensive, and Eiro had to make use of a substantial portion of his personal funds to get the materials needed for this. Not all of it was here or currently ready; this was a project that couldn''t bepleted in just a single day. Over the next few weeks, the Demon would have to keeping back to continue the work on the array, continuosly bringing more and more steel with him. Luckily, the array itself would not end up working unless provided with arge amount of magic to create the inital magical spark needed, and amount of magic that only Eiro could provide at the moment.


    "Be careful with that! Can''t you see the stone is loose? The steel will bend!" Partax scoffed and shook his head in disappointment, while Eiro could do nothing but roll his eyes, "I know, don''t worry. I''ve fixed it in ce with some earth magic. Right now, it should be fine. And once the array has started, it''s going to keep things stable anyway," the Demon pointed out, even though he has already done and said practically the same thing about half a dozen times since the process started. The halfling following after Eiro sighed.


    "I truly didn''t think you would be so sloppy. At least do the job properly! I''m the one that designed it, if you mess this up it''s going to just reflect poorly on me!"


    "Then why don''t you help out and let us speed it up a little bit?" Eiro replied with a raised brow. He already knew exactly why; and truthfully, he preferred it this way, since that meant that he could monopolize all the skill experience that he needed to raise up his Artificing skill. Though, with how much Partaxined about basically anything and everything, he did wish for this to be over far, far sooner than it would end up being.


    Though,pared to the speed of a regr artificer, even Partax''s, Eiro''s workspeed was rather ridiculous. Since Partax''s skills with magic control were abysmally lowpared to his knowledge of magical theory, one of his reasons for learning more about artificing and alchemy, he had to usually rely on his autonomous tools to do the process for him, especially forrger arrays like this. And while they were incredibly fast, they still ended up being a lot slower than Eiro was, who managed to n everything that needed to be done out even quicker than the processing of those tools'' hive-minds while also letting him apply this practically in an instant due to his superior magic control. He simply had to walk through the roads and managed to create the array perfectly around him.


    Whether that annoyed Partax or not was something that Eiro didn''t know; it would exin why he kept nagging him about every single thing that was even slightly off. And while Partax''s reasoning was usually quite solid and something to consider, Eiro still felt it was rather petty. Especially considering that most of the time, Eiro had already fixed the issue by the time that Partax spoke up. Though, then again, that often came from Eiro''s deduction of what Partax was about to say from his habits, where he was looking, and the way that his vocal cords were twisting and tensing up as he tried to start speaking.


    "So, I think I have a rough idea, but could you exin to me why you used the ''magical influx'' rune instead of the ''energy control'' rune here at this spot?"


    Partax''s brow raised up. He wasn''t sure if Eiro was just ying around or if he really wanted to know, "It''s just faster! Using the ''energy control'' rune might give you the opportunity to fine-tune the flow better, but what we need here in this area, particrly for the part of the array that controls the array, is speed. The ''magical influx'' rune is pulling the magic toward it, and then once it reaches it, this ''transfiguration'' rune will change it into a ''magical rejection'' rune that pushes the magic away, while also being pulled by the ''influx'' rune of the following node," Partax exined excitedly, happy to get into as much detail as was needed, though at this point, Eiro didn''t need much more of an exnation. The halfling happily continued anyway, though, "While usually, this would end up causing issues within the flow, earlier in the magical supply process, the way we split the flow of magic is a bit unique. Instead of simply giving half the flow into one direction, and half the flow into another, we give the full flow into one direction for a brief moment, and then into another for the same amount of time. Like that we get ''chunks'', or ''waves'' of magic that can be affected by this method. And then by the point of reception that we need the actual magic for, this process also helps tremendously! By just changing the duration of each ''pulse'', we can send unique instructions into different parts of the array depending on the circuit''s overall needs."


    Eiro smiled a bit. While he did understand the theory behind all of this, and was able to execute it practically as well, there was still something to the process of learning behind the motivations. There were always reasons why you chose one method over another, and not all of them would be because they were the most efficient method. While efficiency was always considered, a lot of the time Partax would make final decisions for his artificed circuits based simply on how he felt about the pattern. As though was trying to create a painting of intricate patterns. Something that was not simply ruled by logic, but by emotion and beauty as well. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om

 Chapter 673 From City to Fortress

    673 From City to Fortress


    The metal settled in its ce as a narrow stream was carved into its surface. With a satisfied smile, Eiro looked at thest bit of work that he hadpleted for the circuit spanning the Monster city. Gondos, who was assisting him with the work of carving out the channels that were needed for Eiro''s mana to flow through, floated around and looked at the fine and precise cement of the metal.


    "Let us hope this much work was worth it," the earth spirit pointed out, "Considering how much mana you have used over thest fortnite, it has to be."


    Eiro scoffed and shook his head, "Compared to how much mana I''m going to need to use to start this thing up, that much was nothing. On the days that I wasn''ting here, I was constantly pulling out the mana that was crystalizing in my chest cavity the moment it reformed. I must have collected 15 Million mana worth by now," the Demon pointed out, rubbing his chest with an annoyed expression. He sighed and pressed his finger against the metal that he was holding in his hand. There was still quite a lot leftover, since he took more just in case something was broken since he wasst here. Once the circuit was up and running, the channels themselves would be a lot more durable, but right now, a lot of things could still happen to them.


    Using his magic, Eiro pulled a small nugget of steel off the ingot in his hand, throwing it over toward Gondos. The earth spirit caught it in his hands, and the stone that was covering his hands soon grew over the metal, devouring it whole, "I am still surprised you had managed to convince Armodeus to create the steel for this by hand."


    "It was better that way. If the steel was of the exact same quality throughout, the strength of the circuit would improve a lot. Also, you can''t tell me that Armodeus'' steel doesn''t taste pretty good," Eiro pointed out. Gondos slowly nodded his head, as strands of steel were travelling through his body, as though he were digesting it with every fiber of his being. And at the same time, Eiro also ced the steel to his mouth and took arge bite out of it. His teeth were strengthened using some gemstones that he ate a few weeks ago specifically for this, all the whilst also super-heating them with fire magic so that he could just melt the metal instead of having to forcefully bite through it. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    Surprisingly enough, Eiro started to enjoy the taste of non-organic things. While in the beginning, he would simply eat things like that to increase his proficiency with this absorption ability, the more that he did it, the more he grew to actually enjoy the taste. Especially metals had something special to them that was particrly enjoyable. Him and Gondos actually bonded over this, as, while it wasn''t necessary for them, earth spirits did enjoy absorbing some high-quality minerals every once in a while. It was something like a treat for them. And since Nelli and Sarius were in the spirit realms, still apanying the copies of Eiro as they made their way through the Book Towers, the original and Gondos had quite some time for themselves. The spirits were the only ones that apanied Eiro at all times. Even Bavet was only with Eiro when he went out into publictely.


    Eiro looked at the Golem floating next to him with a smile, swallowing thest bit of steel that he had been holding up until a moment ago. He moved the metal to the same ce that he moved most of it for now, splitting it between the carapace growing on his lower back and tail, as well as his bones to strengthen them further. At this point, Eiro was probably six or seven times heavier than he used to be.


    "Let''s go and activate the circuit, shall we?" the Demon suggested. Initially, he didn''t want to do it on his own, without Partax there, but as it turned out, the halfling didn''t really care all too much. He knew that the circuit would work, and by the time it was fully designed, he was aware that his own work on it was done, so he simply concentrated on some other matters, such as finishing the design for the Academy''s circuit. Solomon had a few requests that he gave to Eiro, which Partax was now trying to add into the designs that he had already created beforehand, so it was a wee way to keep him busy, for everyone in the manor. Partax had a way with his words. And that way was to never stop talking.


    Eiro spread out his wings and pushed himself into the air. He looked around and nced at the center point of the city, the central za, before quickly flying over there with a few ps of his wings. He carefullynded, making sure to get used to the extra weight he put on after eating that steel just earlier, and then walked over into the center of the za. Originally, before this city was taken over by the monsters eight years ago, there was arge and intricate fountain here, though at this point, there was just the rough outline. Eiro repaired it a little bit, or at least, made it look a little better, so that it could be properly integrated into the circuit as its centerpiece, though it was really only necessary to be essed from here for either booting it up or shutting it down. Otherwise, the circuit was really quite self-sufficient and intelligent, able to respond to certain stimuli at different parts of the city.


    Eiro pushed his hand into his bag, and quickly pulled out arge, light blue tinted crystal. It was Eiro''s crystalized mana that he had fused into a single crystal so that he could carry it around more easily. The Demon squatted down in the center of the old fountain, holding the crystal over the part where the circuit had to be supplied with mana. From there, he soon started to purify the mana inside of the crystal. Whilemon mana was able to crystalize with this amount, pure mana had to have much, much more, probably hundreds of times more, to be able to properly crystalize, and even then it wasn''t particrly stable, so it didn''t make much sense for Eiro to prepare this beforehand. Instead, Eiro just kept the whole thing around, also leaving him with some crystalized essence as the pure mana flowed into the circuit.


    The moment that the centerpiece had been saturated with this pure mana, a number of the runic sigils ced around it started to glow, and Eiro''s mana was starting to be automatically distributed throughout the city into every part of the circuit. The channels were giving off a faint glow that wasn''t particrly visible in the sunlight, but that also meant that nobody would be too taken aback by the circuit suddenly activating without warning.


    Eiro spread out his senses, actually quickly fusing to increase his sensitivity to mana some more, and waited to make sure that the pure mana really reached every corner of the circuit. It took about an hour for it to really solidly flow through every section, but before long, it was done. Eiro smiled with satisfaction, happy to see that the circuit really worked without any issues. Or rather, that nothing had fatally broken since Eiro had started carving everything out. It took far, far too long for him to want to go back and fix something that he had already done about two weeks ago.


    That being the case, this still wasn''t done. Right now, it was just so that the mana had spread through every part of the circuit. Lessplex circuits would simply activate the moment that this was the case, but something at this scale was practically a machine, and something with thatplexity needed some guidance, at the very least in the beginning of the process. Eiro ced his palm onto one of the runic symbols at the edge of the fountain''s base, activating the specific process assigned to this symbol. This one was in charge of a protective surveince. Of course, not the kind where everyone''s most minute actions were tracked, but one where harmful magics or individuals could be tracked. Things like curses or directly specified mana signatures would be tracked, and if they were sensed, it was possible to react to it a lot quicker. For this, there were some respondent lights ced into the city hall, where someone would be able to spot this with ease.


    Otherwise, there were a number of protective barriers with different purposes and rules set up, some protecting the city fromrge-scale physical attacks, others doing the same forrge-scale magical attacks. It would be possible to seerge amounts of unknown mana approaching from far away, meaning that it was possible to avoid an invasion like with the Cavern Ants. Beyond this, there were some other more specific defensive matters set up. Small-scale barriers that could directly confine individuals that were tracked for certain reasons, such as for being afflicted with a curse or being violent. There were also strengthening and weakening magics put into ce that woulde into effect should a battle really ur here, as well as a number of pre-saved spells that could be deployed from a number of locations within the city to directly attack even heavy-hitting enemy forces.


    With just this circuit, this ce turned from a rundown old city, right into a fortress with defences like no other city.

 Chapter 674 Improvements in the City of Monsters

    674 Improvements in the City of Monsters


    Eiro flew around the Monster city, deeply inspecting every part of the circuit to make sure that everything was working correctly. And, to his delight, there were no issues anywhere at all. That being the case, it was fine to let everyone move back around the city as normal. Well, close to normal, at least.


    Over the past few weeks, as Eiro was here regrly every couple of days, he made sure to help out where he could in regard to the management of the different monsters wandering around the city.


    The trolls were already acting a lot better than they used to, the harpies were bing more mindful of where they lived and did their business. Eiro also already ended up gathering a few slimes and spread them around the city, helping them multiply so that they could be used to keep everything clean from grime even in ces that were hard for the monsters to reach.


    Meanwhile, the Molemen already started with the canalization''s construction, creating vast undergroundworks that some other mages only had toe and strengthenter on. Of course, these were all heldpletely separate to the Molemen''s actual tunnels, of which a more refined construction also recently began, so that they didn''t have to continue digging everywhere and could instead simply walk through the tunnels like everyone else did. This specific construction was, for now, focused more around the ces where idents could happen, such as right next to the sewers, so that the Molemen didn''t identally dig into the pipes and damage them. Otherwise, they also made sure to avoid certain more fragile ces, such as too close underneath certain buildings or too close by specific parts of the newly installed circuit.


    For a while now, this city was growing and changing rapidly, as were the monsters living within it. They were bing more civilized, learning to live alongside each other more. They spend more time with other races instead of just with their own, mingling and making friends. Eiro actually spotted a few of them mingling in ways beside friendship, though he would have to see where that went. He doubted it would cause any issues, but you never knew. Some of thebinations of monsters could cause... peculiar issues. For example, if a Moleman and a Troll had a child, it would be possible that the kid had all the habits of a Moleman, but the size of a Troll, which means the city would need to aodate for that and expand the Moleman tunnels. Though luckily, any of these concerns were still quite a bit off in the future. Even if he was slightly excited to see the monsters truly living like this and enjoying the situation more and more as time went on. They settled in and began to develop some rather unique cultures.


    Amongst all the monsters, there were of course quite a few that were talented in manners of ''creation'', like craftmanship, art, or even academics, rather than manners of ''destruction'' likebat-rted talents. And due to those monsters'' unique physiques, the environment they now lived in, and the fact that they were often taught by monsters withpletely different physical limitations than them, a ton of interesting techniques were being created. The city''s architecture was slowly changing anding into its own, pieces of art were being created here and there, and there were a ton of monsters that were actively doing research into how to make it easier for them all to live alongside each other. Whether it was by learning each others''nguages and teaching it to their fellow monsters, or helping out in the nning and development of the city. Everyone was getting involved, and it was only a matter of time until this ce thrived far beyond what Eiro could have ever imagined. It made him happy and incredibly proud to see something like this happen. It all started with a minor gang of Mountain Goblins that he stumbled upon on ident after noticing a weirdlyrge amount of mana gathering near the mountain path.


    Eironded in front of the city hall, stepping inside. The only ones who were currently here were Boju and Gobo, the ones in charge of all the nning for the city. The others had been assigned their own jobs in regard to this, helping out with construction or managing their group of monsters.


    "My Lord," Gobo immediately walked up to the Demon, excited, "We noticed the shift in the air earlier. Did you finally activate the array?"


    Eiro smiled proudly, "That I did. This city will be many, many times safer now. Not only will it be many, many times harder for others to find this ce at all, if you do still end up attacked, you will be able to handle it much more easily than before."


    "That is perfect! I''ve been reading through the instructions that you wrote down for us, Gobo and I were nning on taking a look at every sector of the circuitter. Do you want to join us?" Boju asked excitedly, though Eiro wasn''t particrly sure if he was excited about the circuit or just happy to be getting a break from all the paperwork and reading that he dedicated himself to dealing with on his own.


    "I''m sorry, I really, really have to get going now. I would love to join you, I just don''t have the time. I need to prepare matters for sses at the academy, not to mention, I have to work on the circuit at said academy as well," Eiro said, trying not to let the two in front of him down too much. Though, they seemed to understand it without any issues.


    "That old stag told me how much work the Academy is going to be, so I understand," Gobo pointed out, ncing out of the window at the perked up antlers of a certain deer waiting outside, "Ah... not you, Lugo... sorry."


    Lugo slowly lowered his head again to continue napping, and Eiro walked toward the door, "No need to get back to sleep, bud. We''re heading out anyway," he pointed out, looking back at Gobo and Boju again, "If anything is wrong, or you need my help with something, anything at all, contact me immediately. Even if you think you can handle it yourself. I do not want a repeat of the Cavern Ants, understood?"


    "Yes, my Lord," Gobo said with an embarrassed nod, "We will let you know if anything happens from now on."


    Eiro smiled as he climbed onto Lugo''s back, lightening himself with gravity magic so that the stag didn''tin too much about the extra steel-weight Eiro gained earlier, "I''m not saying this because I don''t believe you can handle it yourself. I know you can, and I trust you more than ever after seeing your sess against the Cavern Ants. But fact is... there are forces at y here that even I cannot fully predict or face off against. If a powerful army is brought here, even if you end up winning, you won''te out of it unscathed. You all got your hands on some well-deserved peace as well as a chance at a new future for all monsterkind, and I don''t want anything to jeopardize that."


    "Thank you," Boju smiled at the Demon as he began to ride off on Lugo''s back, as the Orc and Hobgoblin stood at the city hall''s entrance, seeing their lord off. While he was here a lottely, unless anything happened, it would probably take another few weeks for him to show up again.


    Boju and Gobo already made a few ns for what they wanted to do to surprise Eiro while he was gone, to show that his efforts hadn''t been wasted. They knew exactly what Eiro''s ns and hopes for this city were, ns that they were more than just dedicated to live up to. Of course, that was easier said than done, but they knew they could manage it. The city was growing at a rapid pace, and they were no longer alone. There were a lot of smart and skilled monsters stepping up every single day, prepared to do their part.


    The two waited for a while, until they could make sure that Eiro waspletely out of reach. They had a rough idea of how far the Demon could hear at this point, and he should already be well around the foot of the mountain now. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "Alright, so what will we work on first?" Gobo asked the young Hignd Orc next to him, who opened his notebook excitedly, "First, we''ll expand the animal husbandry. The harpy scouts found somerge poultry and cattle that we can bring in. The cattle apparently has thick wool, like sheep, that we can then can bring to the craftsmen to make clothes or light armor. Apparently the harpies even found somerge freshwater fish, so those might be good for the Mermen to take care of."


    "Okay, right, and then once we got a good amount of animals, you said we can work on the other industries, right?"


    "Right," Boju nodded, "We can have the cattle pull wagons so that we can set up some lumbermills. Then we can start making ships, wagons and crates, supply our own wood for construction and expansion, as well as produce our own paper. That''s one of the bigger things we''re running low on, especially high-quality, clean paper for letters."


    "And you say that all of that is enough?" Gobo asked, crossing his arms, uncertain, and Boju smiled with satisfaction, "Definitely. That is going to be our first stepping stone toward contact with the people of this world."

 Chapter 675 Clementines Healing Class

    675 Clementine''s Healing ss


    Eiro walked through the halls of the academy, using his magic on the walls to prepare them for the creation of the circuit a lot better. Right now, he couldn''t begin carving it just yet; the nning for it wasn''t all done yet, and they would need to talk to Solomon about the final n before they could get started, not to mention the fact that the building was still flooded with students.


    However, it wouldn''t take long until Eiro could finally get started either; next Tuesday was a holiday, a celebration in memory of a past hero that was born and raised in this region, so the academy decided to give the students an extended weekend by giving them Monday and Tuesday off. There would be a small festival in the city, and due to its cultural importance, the students were practically pushed into attending. There were apparently some professors that gave homework rted to said hero as well, though most of the research needed for it could be learned by just attending the festival and watching some of the public ys that were going to be put on.


    That meant that this would be the perfect opportunity for Eiro to get started on the base parts of the circuit. Of course, the parts where students were most frequently were going to have slightly more support and as such required denser parts of the array, while the areas of the academy without that many people in it on a regr could receive the more general areas. Of course, no part of the circuit was going to be weak or simply allow an intruder onto the campus, however, there were areas of the circuit that were capable of reacting to intruders or protecting students more directly. For example, the ssrooms could be locked down if necessary, and safe-zones with particrly strong barriers would be erected around groups of students. These barriers would also end up hiding the students, since Eiro was supplying the circuit with arge amount of the Ace of Cups'' liquid that he had been saving up for a while now. Using that artifact, it was possible to not only protect the students from even being noticed by intruders, but it could also be used to carefully guide said intruder to ces where they could be dealt with more safely by directing the ces their attention could be focused on. And now, to make sure that the walls and floors of the academy were the canvas that he needed, he was now going around, repairing some cracks and fixing up some other general issues with the structural integrity, something that was wholly needed especially in the areas of the academy where the practical lessons took part.


    That being the case, Eiro wound up by the magic practice ground, where Clementine and her ss were currently in the middle of practice. This particr ss was one specifically for support mages like buffers or healers. That also meant that most of these students had a rather calm temperament on top of being sociable, so Eiro happily watched them as the small crowd around Clementine was happily chattering about.


    Though, the scent of blood in the air did confuse Eiro a little bit, since it wasn''t fresh blood. It was the kind mixed with pus and dust. And it wasn''t just one person either; He couldn''t see the people giving off this scent, though he could hear a barrage of heartbeats from the building adjacent to the training ground. For now, he decided to just watch the ss. After all, he didn''t have any sses to teach on his own today anymore, so he had the time to mend his curiosity.


    "Okay, ss!" the teacher pped her hands together with a smile, trying to get the attention of the students. She was one of the people that Eiro had a bit more trust in amongst the faculty; just like her students, she was mild-mannered and cared deeply for the people she taught. Not to mention, she had a lot of practical experience. From what he learned, some fifty or so years ago, she enlisted as a healer during a war in the deep west of this continent. She earned the title of ''Grand Healer'' a few years after that, despite being rather young, and many even came to call her ''the other Saintess'' once it was found out that she, on top of her work in the army, healed the poor and sickly for free after her day was done, no matter where she was currently stationed. She had a pure heart, and actually poured her whole mana into some spells in an attempt to heal the wounds of prince Charles after the attack on the academy. With her advanced age, she ended up in the sick-bed herself for a while afterward.


    "As I told you earlier, today is going to be a little different. We are going to attempt and give you some practical experience today," Melina, the teacher, exined. She nodded at her assistant, who quickly started bringing in a small crowd of injured young men and women. All of them were bandaged up, limping, and some even needed help getting out here. This was something that Eiro had heard about; usually, they were adventurers that had been injured and couldn''t afford even a half-decent healer, or simply poorer folk that had injured themselves during their day-to-day work. And then, these people had offered themselves up to be used as... teaching material. They were going to be healed by the students of the academy so that they could get some proper experience with their magic, and in exchange, they would be healed free of charge and given a warm, hearty meal alongside it.


    That was the bad part about healing magic. In a perfect world, you wouldn''t need it. You only had a reason to use it if people were injured or sick, and of course, that was the only way that a healer was able to get experience. That was the sad reality of this situation, and Melina herself seemed to be quite sad to see these people in this situation as well, not to even speak of the young, inexperienced students.


    Though, right now, Eiro''s sight was only set on one person; Clementine. Her face had gone pale, and she was holding her arms tightly against her body. She was ufortable, and it was clear why; she was feeling hungry in front of this buffet of wounds and ailments.


    She generally got by simply by healing the day-to-day injuries that Arc ended up with, and if she got especially ''hungry'', Eiro would injure himself a bit and block his own natural healing ability so that she could do it for him and feed off the injury. However, just like any skill, a unique skill also tended to level up. And with her''s, the effect was rather simple. Clementine was able to heal things more efficiently and take on more severe injuries, but at the same time, her hunger for these wounds grew stronger as well.


    Ever since they had entered the academy, and especially since Arc''s injuries became not only more frequent but also more severe due to the fact that they had started practicalbat lessons not too long ago, Clementine''s skill experience shot up by a lot. Especially after that one time that Arc had broken his foot in three ces. Eiro wasn''t there when it happened, nor when Clementine healed her brother, and this was a wound that seemed to give quite a lot of experience to her, leveling her up again.


    Generally, Eiro tried to make sure that she could take this sort of thing on in a more subtle way, and Melina, who had been informed of Clementine''s unique skill, even offered her to skip this ss, but Clementine insisted on being here. Eiro wasn''t aware the schedule had already been set and that this was the n for today, otherwise he would have tried to be here anyway instead of just letting it be a coincidence.


    Slowly but surely, it seemed like the students started to get to work. Clementine was looking around nervously, approaching the patient that Melina had picked out for her. She was by far the most experienced and skilled healer amongst the students, so it was the obvious choice for her to be given the most severely injured patient.


    "If you can''t handle it, do let me know," Melina whispered to the girl. Of course, she didn''t mean ''if Clementine could not heal him'', but rather, if the hunger overwhelmed her too much. Clementine just nodded her head and approached the man. He had a dirty bandage covering his arm that she carefully unwrapped. The smell was pungent and disgusting, and even the other students should be able to smell it. It was basically already half-rotten. It was to the point that the only thing Clementine would be able to do was first-aid, and Melina was supposed toe in and heal the rest afterward in a fairly long session.


    Clementine looked at the wound, trying to hold herself back. She swallowed the saliva in her mouth, as she carefully pulled the distilled, clean water out of the sk at her hip using water magic. She took a deep breath, and then started to get to work, cleaning the wound. However, she was taking her time with the treatment. Of course, this wasn''t something that should be rushed, but from Eiro''s point of view, Clementine wasn''t this slow because she was worried, but because she didn''t want to be finished so soon.


    Her control over the water slipped a bit, and she moved forward. Eiro could tell what she was going to do without even needing to think about it for too long. He shot off the spot where he was standing, rushing through the crowd of students without disturbing them, and then ced his hand onto Clementine''s arm, pulling it back from the man''s.


    n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

 Chapter 676 All-Consuming

    Chapter 676 All-Consuming


    Clementine looked up at her father, startled as she tried to pull her hand back. Though, soon realizing who it was that had grabbed her, she started mumbling and tried to take a step back, "I-I... I wasn''t going to, I promise, I just... it just looked so..."


    "Calm down," Eiro replied, slowly letting go of the girl''s arm. She nervously held her arms together and looked down at the ground, clearly full of shame.


    "Sir Eiro, what a surprise... what brings you here?" Melina asked, ncing over at Clementine as she did. Though, it was really just an act for the other students. She knew why Eiro was here; she herself had realized what Clementine was about to do, but she wasn''t able to react quickly enough. Before her muscles even twitched, Eiro was already there and stopped the girl''s attempt at using her unique skill.


    "I was on a walk, and noticed that this ss was happening. And as this happened, I noticed that Clementine was struggling deploying her healing magic," Eiro pointed out, slowly turning toward the students around him, "While this is rare, in certain situations it is possible for you to have either a mental or physical block in regard to using your magic unrted to your actual ability of casting a spell. If that happens, you can have some rather unfortunate and sometimes fatal idents. While with healing magic there is little threat, as you all already know, overexposure to healing magic isn''t good for you either."


    The students started muttering amongst themselves, looking at Clementine concerned. What Eiro said wasn''t a lie either; this was a true phenomenon, though this obviously wasn''t what was actually going on. Eiro ced his hand onto his daughter''s back, trying to reassure her, "And it looks like this happened with Clementine. She is going to be fine, though, so not to worry. For now, just continue on with your ss. I''m sorry, Lady Valentine, I''m going to have to ask you to excuse my daughter for the day."


    Melina nodded her head without hesitation, "Of course, do not worry at all. As long as she feels better soon, that is all that matters," she said, walking up to the girl, "This is not thest time that we will have a ss such as this, so you will have more opportunities to show us what you can do, alright?"


    Clementine silently nodded her head, as she and Eiro slowly started to walk away. Though, before they left, Eiro stopped. He turned around and walked up to that deeply injured man. He waved his hand over the man''s arm, letting sprinkles of water appear from his palm. The water seeped into the wound, cleaning it, and healing the deep injury in a matter of seconds. It did require a lot of mana, but the wound had easily been treated, "I''m sorry about that, this had nothing to do with you. But from now on, try to take care of your body better, alright?"


    The man nodded in disbelief, confused as to how that wound had been healed seemingly so easily. And he wasn''t the only one, as the other students, and even Melina, seemed to be in disbelief over what they were seeing. Though, at least Melina knew that this was not a matter of skill; in that, she was at least halfway certain that she still had Eiro beat, but instead that this was about the quantity and quality of Eiro''s mana and overall magic.


    However, for now, Eiro continued on. The only reason he had healed that man was so that Clementine wouldn''t feel bad about not being able to help him. If he didn''t know that she would feel this way, he would have simply left this to Melina, as she was supposed to do the brunt of the healing in the first ce.


    The disguised Demon guided his daughter into one of the nearby buildings into an unupied room. There, he erected a barrier using the Ace of Cup''s liquid to ensure that nobody would be able to see or hear what was going on. Quickly, Bavet jumped off Eiro''s skin, turning into his own human form, "Well... I''m going to just leave you two be. I don''t think I need to be here for this conversation," the slime pointed out, stepping out of the door. Eiro nodded and thanked him, before turning back to his daughter. The moment the door behind Bavet fell shut, tears started trickling down her cheeks in a steady stream.


    Eiro stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, letting Clementine''s head rest on his chest. Her tears and snot soaked into his shirt, as Clementine tried to fight against her own emotions. Though soon, she at least managed to calm down enough to speak to Eiro again, "I''m so embarrassed..." she cried out, and the Demon caressed the girl''s head.


    "I know, but there''s no need to be. This sort of thing can happen," Eiro tried to reassure her, but Clementine shook her head, "But they shouldn''t! I''m supposed to be able to handle myself at this point, I thought that everything was fine! Sammy is doing just fine, she sings and talks and her skill never acts up even though she hasn''t even been able to use it for long, even Leon is doing fine and he''s still just a kid... Why am I the only one that can''t do anything right..?"


    Eiro slowly pulled back from Clementine, noticing that her sorrow was more turning into frustration and anger, so that he could give the girl the space she needed. Clementine wiped the tears off her face with her hand, "I was standing there, and everything was fine, and then I just felt so... so powerless... I''ve been feeling so hungrytely, and I hate it, no matter what I do, it just doesn''t work..."


    "You''ve been hungrier than usualtely?" Eiro asked, and Clementine slowly nodded her head, "Yeah, just... I mean, not a lot I guess, but just..."


    "Enough to make your day harder, right?"


    Clementine nodded, and Eiro lightly smiled at her, "Listen, I get that feeling. I definitely do. I feel the same sometimes. Having these sorts of special abilities can simply make it hard to adjust to changes. But if that''s been happening, you could have just told me, and we could have figured something out together."


    The girl looked down at the ground, "I know, I just... the other''s don''t need your help either, so I..." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "What are you even talking about?" Eiro let out a slightugh, "Of course the others need my help. Every night I''m home, I sit down with Sammy for at least half an hour and let her rant and talk to me about whatever she wants without having to think about what she says and how she says it all the time. I check on Arc''s growth every night, because even if he has cramps or overdoes things in his practice, he wouldn''t be able to tell. I had to add an extra barrier onto Avalin and Leon''s bedroom to prevent Leon''s skills from causing the monsters in the manor to run wild while he''s sleeping or simply gets toozy to control his skills. Of course you all need me, you''re my kids."


    Clementine listened intently to Eiro''s words, but it still didn''t seem to give her much confidence in this situation. Eiro ced his hand onto her shoulder and smiled, "It''s totally alright to need some help, especially at your age. I know you just called Leon a kid, but the rest of you aren''t much better either. You''re all kids at the end of the day, so you deserve to act like it for a while longer. And really, whether you''re a kid or not, there''s never any shame in admitting that you need help or can''t do something on your own. Why do you think Partax is around at the manner, dragging the mood down?" Eiro asked, and Clementine let out a coughed chuckle as she rubbed some tears out of her eye and pulled her father back into a deeper hug.


    "Thank you," she whispered, and Eiro slowly rubbed her back, "Don''t even mention it."


    The two stood there for a little while longer, until Clementine had finally managed to calm herself down enough. She took some deep breaths and focused a bit more, as Eiro pulled over some chairs for the two to sit on, "Now, let''s just talk a bit. What exactly is it that you''re struggling with the most?"


    "I... the hunger just gets really bad sometimes... like cramps that I can''t control. It''s bing more... visceral, and instinctivetely... more physical too, so it''s been feeling a lot more like actual hunger... Sometimes, when I use the skill to heal Arc''s or your wounds, I don''t know whether I want to heal it... or bite into it," Clementine admitted, her cheeks bing flush.


    "Hm... When you feel that way, does actually eating some food help you at all?"


    Clementine shrugged, "I don''t know... I just... don''t like eating that much..."


    "Really? Do you not like the food, or is there some other issue?"


    "No, no, that''s not it! The food is great, it''s just... the more I feel like this, the more the skill makes me feel this all-consuming hunger, I just... I just have to remember..." Clementine exined, and Eiro quickly understood what the issue was. It was trauma. Back in the Demonic Vige, when the kids were kidnapped by the Sins'' Demons, they all went through a lot of horrible things. After being thrown off a tower again and again, Rudy still wasn''t able to look out the manor''s second floor window without shivering. Clementine had the pain of a gluttonous demon forced onto her, who was eating enough to literally tear apart his own body. It would have been more surprising if Clementine hadn''t developed a messed up rtionship with food after that.


    The Demon smiled at his daughter, holding her hand tofort her, as he swore to himself that he would do anything he could to help his daughter through this.

 Chapter 677 Cooking Lesson

    <h3 style="text-align:justify">Chapter 677 Cooking Lesson


    Eiro and Clementine stepped into the manor''s kitchen. He himself didn''t spend all too much time here; though he did enjoy food in general, at the end of the day, he didn''t particrly care about what it was that he was actually eating. With his taste buds, most of the time, things tasted so overwhelming that it was hard to really get picky. That''s why the food he enjoyed most was actually rather on the in side, though he knew that it wasn''t what other people generally enjoyed.


    "Alright. I think for now, let''s just try something like this. Rudy loves food and he loves cooking, and he knows so much about food that even some royal chefs have gotten impressed by him. I think maybe something like that might help you a bit. Your rtionship with food is not what it should be, so this could sort of help you. Get back some control in that," Eiro suggested. Clementine looked around the room and slowly nodded her head, "Okay... sure. Let''s try that... what first?"


    "Well, let''s try the basics. Let''s try and work toward getting you the cooking skill," the demon walked over toward the cooking utensils, quickly grabbing a pair of very simple chef''s knives. They had been made by Armodeus, so they were probably the best in the country, though it also meant that they were incredibly sharp and barely lost any of their edge. He was a bit worried, but he knew that Clementine was good with her hands overall, so she should be able to handle this well enough.


    Specifically for this, Eiro had gone into the royal castle''s kitchen and watched the chefs there for a few hours. ''Ability Absorption'' wasn''t something that only worked withbat skills. By just watching the chefs, he was able to copy their techniques and muscle memory into his own body. And of course, the rest of it was just knowing what worked well together and which ingredient brought what to the dish, as well as being able to trust your senses to fine-tune things. Obviously, knowing things and trusting his senses were two of the things that Eiro was best at.


    "Okay, what do you want to make?" the Demon asked. Clementine looked around the room, quietly shrugging, "I don''t know... a stew, maybe?"


    "A stew. Sounds good to me. Thene here for now," Eiro said, cing the knives down on the counter, before walking toward the door at the side of the room as his daughter followed. Beyond the door was a storage room that had plenty of different ingredients to offer. Eiro looked at Clementine, "So, for a stew, we need a couple different ingredients. We''d need some beef, onions, carrots, potatoes. And basically whatever else you think might fit."


    Clementine nodded her head. She was clearly very hesitant about this. Her heart was beating fast and loud, so she was clearly hesitant. But at least, Eiro knew that she wanted to do this, and he hoped that it wasn''t just because he had suggested it to her in the first ce. That was something that he still struggled to find out, especially when it came to his children. There were a lot of different reasons to ''want'' to do something, and a lot of the time even the person in question didn''t truly know the actual reason. And since Eiro''s ability to tell truth from lie depended on what the other person believed, there was little that he could do if they believed what they said, even if it wasn''t the case. So it was possible that Clementine believed that she wanted to do this to attempt changing her rtionship to food, while in reality, she might just want to do it because Eiro had suggested it to her.


    The girl walked around the room, grabbing some ingredients that Eiro quickly took into his hands, as he would be the one doing the brunt work. They weren''t only going to be cooking for him and Clementine, but instead arge portion for the main members of the household. Since the diet of the monsters that worked here in the manor was a bit more unique, they had a specific diet that they were meant to stick to, so they weren''t included in this. However, even so, that was still more than a dozen individuals, and some of those could eat portions a couple timesrger than normal, such as Bavet, Krog, and even Eiro himself. Rudy tried to keep his portion sizes down, though being a Goliath, he generally still got quite hungry and ate a lot.


    Soon, Eiro and Clementine had picked out all the ingredients and brought them over to their workstation. Eiro grabbed another knife as well; as they were going to need to peel the potatoes and carrots, a regr chef''s knife was toorge, so he grabbed a simple paring knife instead.


    The Demon grabbed the first potato and held it in his hand, waiting for Clementine to do the same, "Alright, hold them like this," Eiro said, watching carefully to make sure that Clementine was safe as she worked, "Good, now, don''t push the knife against the potato, but push the potato into the knife. Otherwise it''s pretty easy to cut yourself."


    "Like this?" Clementine asked, as she cut arge chunk of the potato off. Eiro just nodded and smiled. Though she didn''t do it perfectly, it was more than good enough, especially for her first time, "Like that. Just keep steady. Rather do it slowly and be safe, than rush it and hurt yourself."


    "Alright..." the girl replied, trying to concentrate as she kept following Eiro''s instructions. The Demon was following along as well, making sure that two of his own hands were still in Clementine''s view even if she concentrated on her own hands, so that she could look at how he was doing it if she needed to. However, with his other two hands, Eiro was preparing the meat. The beef they picked out was arge chunk with still quite a lot of bones in it, so that they could use the bones for the broth. And of course, Eiro felt like deboning a cut of meat was a bit too much for Clementine for now. Though, she would be cutting it into cubester herself.


    Soon, Clementine seemed to be rxing a bit as she started concentrating on the work more. She was also getting a lot better quite steadily, though she still hadn''t gotten the Cooking skill. Though, that was to be expected. Eiro received it incredibly easily within a few minutes of just cooking some... ''meat'' over fire. Though now, he knew that this was the influence of the ''Splinter'' that he had within him all along, as well as the curator of the System helping him out in regard to the speed at which he gained new skills. How long it was going to take Clementine really depended on her talent. It could take her a few days of cooking every single day, or a few weeks. Or, she could also get this skill right in the middle of this stew''s preparation.


    Clementine peeled about three portions worth of potatoes, and at that point, Eiro figured it was fine, and they moved onto carrots instead. They took a short break in the middle when Eiro was done prepping the beef bones, where Eiro and Clementine carried arge pot over onto the wood stove. Usually, Eiro would just use his own mes for the whole thing, but he wanted Clementine to have a bit more influence here, and keeping an eye on the fire would help that. Obviously, Eiro still provided the initial me and would also make sure that the fire wouldn''t go out of control, though he could hide that bit from Clementine if he needed to.


    They filled the pot with water and ced the bones inside, where it would hopefully turn into a basic broth by the time they were done chopping everything. It didn''t take long for Clementine to befortable enough to start talking.


    "Do you cook a lot when you''re out travelling?" Clementine asked, and Eiro thought for a moment, "Not necessarily. Just basic things, I guess. I don''t technically need to eat that often, but I still try to eat at least once or twice a day. Like a ritual, you know? So if I''m in a hurry, I''ll just hunt something. A rabbit, a bird. If there''s rivers orkes around, I grab some fish."


    "...Did you always eat things like that?" the girl finally asked, after a few moments of silence. Eiro didn''t know what he should say. Basically, ever since they had all met Jura, Eiro had been eating regr food. But before then, he would eat anything but regr things. He would eat people. And before then, when he was still a member of the horde, he would stuff himself with either random roots, nts, grass, and if they were all lucky, either a monster of their horde died or they came across some wild animal that hadn''t run away yet. Of course, the stronger monsters got their pick first, but Eiro got some scraps now and then, and often chewed on bones until they became soft enough to eat. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    And while it wasn''t a pretty story, he didn''t want to lie to his daughter about this, "...No. Frankly, I used to eat abhorrent things. I don''t want to go into detail, but what I ate was rather disgusting. Physically, as well as morally," Eiro exined, before looking back at Clementine, rubbing one of his hands on her back, "But ever since I met you all, I''ve been eating like a King inparison."

 Chapter 678 The Consequence of Caring

    Chapter 678 The Consequence of Caring


    Clementine kept stirring the stew with arge wooden spoon. She looked at it nervously, and then nced over at her father, "Are you sure that this is good?"


    "Of course it is. You gave it a try earlier too, didn''t you?" the Demon replied, pushing all of the peels and other scraps together into a small pile, being on clean-up duty while Clementine kept on cooking. The girl still didn''t seem convinced though, "Yeah, but... how do I know if it was actually good, or if I just have a bad taste?"


    Eiro stopped for a moment and thought about it, "Well, I guess there''s no real way to know that. But I told you, right? It''s good. If you can''t trust in your own ability, at least trust my tastebuds."


    Clementine slowly nodded her head, "Alright, if you say so."


    For a few moments, Eiro chose to leave Clementine alone in the kitchen. Of course, he could still tell everything that was going on in there, so it wasn''t like he really left her on her own. If anything happened, he could still be there to take care of it immediately. But he just wanted to quickly get rid of the food scraps, since they were cluttering the kitchen counters.


    The Demon carried the scraps in arge bowl down the hallway. There was a door leading into the gardens right here, and Eiro quickly made his way there all the whilst preparing the scraps properly. He pushed his magic into them, using necromancy to make everything rot as quickly as it could, making the whole thing turn into a disgusting, sludgy mass. This would make it easy for the flowers to absorb all their nutrients. Of course, while it wasn''t necessarily the best idea to always throw any rotten food into these fields, Eiro controlled the rot as well as he could to make sure that everything was in perfect condition for these flowers.


    With a smile, the Demon poured the sludge into the field, using earth magic to make the ground swallow and distribute it evenly. These flowers were a particr kind that he wanted to raise at a natural speed whenpared to the ones that he just used magic to grow. Whenever he did that, no matter how much he wanted to avoid it, the nts sometimes lost certain qualities, or gained others that he might not want them to have. And while this was all something that he could predict well enough, as these changes were simply influenced by his mana, for certain matters it wasn''t particrly preferable. After he realized that using his magic would not be the best oue for every single thing, he had started thinking more about these nts. For one, he wanted to know what else could influence the different qualities that could be found in nts, and was raising a number of different herbs and flowers in order to test some things.


    Once he grew all of these in a dozen or so different circumstances and time frames, then he should be able toe up with a few theories and figure out some patterns behind this. Not only would this be helpful for himself in potentially even strengthening his nature magic, but he would be able to write some botanical theses on the process. While he could just write some things up randomly and publish them, he still wanted to do things the way they should be done in situations like this.


    After he was done here, Eiro stepped back into the manor and walked back toward the Kitchen, where Clementine was just standing, having stopped stirring. Eiro hadn''t noticed anything wrong, though the girl was just standing there, quietly staring into the pot.


    "Is everything alright?" Eiro asked, and Clementine slowly shrugged in response, "I guess so."


    "...Are you sure?"


    "I..." Clementine replied, trying to think of a response, before letting out a groan of frustration, "I don''t know, I think so? But maybe not, I just..."


    "Hey, just take it slow. You don''t have to say anything if you don''t know what to say," Eiro reassured Clementine, who just shook her head, "It''s not that, just... I think cooking is fun."


    The Demon raised his brow, "Isn''t that a good thing?"


    "Of course it is... the cooking is really fun, I really do want to do this again. I want to get the skill, and level it up, and maybe show off to Rudy at some point, but... the idea of having to eat what I cook just makes me sick to my stomach," she replied, scratching her arm nervously, "Just trying it earlier made me... feel sick. It touched my tongue, and I started to feel hungry. Like, really, really hungry, this sort of hunger that''s like when you haven''t eaten in a few days, the kind that makes you want to just throw up, even though there''s nothing to throw up in the first ce. Do you get what I mean?"


    Eiro nodded.


    "And I just... Dad, just why do I feel this way? Why am I like this? I want to eat, I want to enjoy this, I want to be able to just... be okay, but..." tears formed in Clementine''s eyes that she slowly started to wipe away, "I don''t enjoy anything at all anymore. Sammy loves singing, Felix loves art. Rudy just seems to love doing everything he can do with his hands.. and you always seem so happy when ites to your nts... I''m scared that if I care about something like that, if I get careless, then everything is just going to be messed up. That if I don''t keep suffering like this, that my skill is going to just... not stop anymore."


    "There''s... something else to my skill that you don''t know about..." Clementine replied, and Eiro stopped. Justpletely, altogether, he stopped, "What do you mean? What don''t I know about your skill?"


    Eiro frowned lightly, "What do you mean? ''Not stop''?" he asked. At first, he thought that this was simply more of Clementine''s fear that resulted in her self-destructive habits, but it seemed to be more than just that. During herst sentence, her leg twitched lightly, right at her left, outer thigh. It was one of the few ces on Clementine''s body that had slight damage to them and some scarring. For anyone else, this would be a scar that would never go away, but Clementine''spatibility with healing was so great that it would be gone within a few years. Eiro thought that maybe this came from some immense wound that she ''ate'' before he met her, but he felt like maybe there was more to this.


    "There''s... something else to my skill that you don''t know about..." Clementine replied, and Eiro stopped. Justpletely, altogether, he stopped, "What do you mean? What don''t I know about your skill?"


    "...When I was younger, in my old vige... before I was bought and picked up by that priest, I... well, they used me to heal everyone. Every injury was put onto me. They were basically overfeeding my skill, and it was just... happy. It was satisfied. Even though I was in pain every day, I just felt so happy, because I finally didn''t feel that ''hunger'' anymore," Clementine exined, "But then, winter came around... there were less hunts, and everyone was stuck in their homes because of how much it snowed. So, there wasn''t much for me to do. And the hunger came back... it was worse, so, so much worse... and because it couldn''t eat anything anymore, it started to eat me..."


    Eiro''s eyes widened, "It ate you? As in, it physically ate you?"


    The girl nodded, "Yeah... I mean, I think so at least. Most of it was from my leg, I think because that''s where thest wound it ate was, but the wound just came back one day. And would just grow and grow, until I was missing so much of my leg that they thought I would die. Then the priest came, and he was injured. And then I healed him, the skill settled down again, and you know the rest." Eiro ground his teeth, trying to hide his anger. He still didn''t know why the kids were given such skills. Why a skill like this was created in the first ce. The moment that he figured out a way, Eiro was going to take the skill from her, and make sure that it could never hurt Clementine ever again. But for now, that wasn''t his priority. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "But what does this have to do with you being happy? You can still enjoy things, your skill won''t be doing that again. It never will do that again, not if I can do something about it," Eiro started, and Clementine immediately replied, barely giving him a chance to even take a breath, "Well, what if you can''t do something about it? Life will never be ''good'' all the time. I feed the skill, it''s happy for a while, but then it wants more, and more, and more. Everything else is the same too, right? I don''t want to start caring about something, if it''s just going to make me feel horrible in the end anyway."


    Eiro looked at his daughter with a sad frown, "Honey, that''s not how that works. Yeah, things aren''t always going to go well. Yeah, you''re going to get annoyed at and feel frustrated about things you care about, but that doesn''t mean you shouldn''t care about anything. And if you''re worried that your skill will go out of control if you slip up again, then that''s something we can figure out together."


    "..." Clementine looked at therge pot, which was bubbling away next to the two, "Can I... just go? Do I have to finish this up?"


    The Demon looked at his daughter and slowly shook his head, "You can leave. I''ll finish this up, and then I''lle to you, alright? Just go rest for now."


    Clementine nodded and walked toward the door, silently leaving, as Eiro stepped in front of the pot. He had hoped that this would help Clementine, and while he still believed that there was some worth to all this, Eiro realized that this wasn''t just that easy. His daughter was much more broken than he had even realized, and ''cooking'' wouldn''t be the glue to fix her back up. At least not on its own.

 Chapter 679 Pathetic

    Chapter 679 Pathetic


    Eiro walked through the royal castle. A few guards and maids bowed to him as he walked by, and the Demon just nodded at them as he continued through the hallways. He soon found himself in front of Solomon''s office, knocking on the door a few times. At this point, the guard standing outside the door knew that this was a signal to ''go on break''. Generally, Eiro would create a barrier around the room anyway, so there was no way that him and the king were going to be overheard, but it still felt like an extrayer of safety to just send the guards on their way for a while. Plus, it wasn''t like anything could happen to Solomon while Eiro was there in the first ce, so it was the best time to simply take an actual break.


    "Come in," Solomon called out from inside the room. Eiro stepped inside, and Solomon raised his brow, "Did we have a meeting scheduled today?" he asked, not raising the nip of his pen from the paper in front of him. With a slight turn of his head, Solomon nodded at the attendant next to him, signaling her to take a break as well, so that him and Eiro could speak alone.


    "No, we didn''t," Eiro finally replied once they were alone, waving his hand to create a barrier using the Ace of Cups, all the whilst Bavet split off of his body so that Eiro could behave a bit morefortably, "I''m here for some... advice."


    Immediately, Solomon stopped. He carefully ced his pen to the side, "You need advice? From me?" the king asked, looking over at Bavet as if to confirm that he heard correctly, and the slime, who had turned into his own human form, nodded his head and sat down on the couch.


    Eiro sighed, "Yes, I need your help. It''s about something serious that I can''t figure out on my own right now."


    Solomon frowned, nervous, "And you expect me to be able to figure it out if you can''t? You already walked through all possible paths anyway, right?"


    "...It''s a bit moreplicated than that. It''s not a logical issue, it''s an emotional one. It''s about Clementine," the Demon exined, and Solomon slowly let out a sigh of relief, "Oh... parenting advice. Alright, I can certainly help with that," the king pointed out, dropping down on one of the armchairs, "Don''t scare me like that. I thought the apocalypse was approaching and you were out of options," he joked, and Eiro slowly shrugged. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "If I''ll be totally honest, it feels simr," Eiro replied, "It''s about Clementine. She... she is struggling, and horribly so. And I don''t know what to do. I mean, I know what I ''could'' do, I''ve read hundreds of books about parenting and nurture of children. Psychology, trauma; I probably know more about the theory than anyone else in this world does. But actually putting into action, especially when it''s about my daughter... it''s just so..."


    "Scary?" Solomon finished for his friend, who only replied with a short nod, "That, yeah. I haven''t felt true fear in ages. Anger? That I can deal with, but fear? It''s so... suffocating. I''m at a loss."


    With a concerned expression, Solomon looked over at Bavet. The slime didn''t have much to say; he was really only here because he had little choice in the manner. And frankly, at this point in time, it was hard to find someone that knew Eiro better than Bavet. Besides Nelly, Gondos, and Sarius, he spent the most time with the Demon, so that was inevitable. It was just natural to be here, whether or not Bavet was actually able to offer any real support in this situation.


    "How about you start by exining the issue at hand?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Clementine is struggling because of her unique skill. You already know the effects, but it seems it''s much harder for her to deal with than we thought. It causes a sort of deep hunger in her that she can''t fully control anymore, and it''s infused into every part of her life, since she feels it constantly. She''s being overtaken by this fear of what would happen if she slipped up and let the hunger win for once. And while this hasn''t always been the case, the hunger started bing intertwined with her physical, actual hunger as well. She''s eating less and less... and on top of that, she''s scared to show passion about anything at all, because she feels that it''s going to ruin her if she feeds said passion, just like the hunger always does. I want to help her, but I just... I don''t know how."


    Solomon listened intently. He could tell that Eiro truly didn''t know what to do; something that he had never seen on the Demon''s face before. That sort of concern for his child... even many human parents didn''t react like this when their child struggled.


    "It''s aplicated situation, that is for sure. Seeing your child suffer like this; watching them fall into a deep hole that even you can''t see the bottom of, it makes you feel helpless. Even knowing rationally what you could do, which I am convinced you know more than anyone could, it''s hard to know how to help them forward. It was the same with Charles... after the attack, after he became crippled, I feared that I would never see a smile on his face again. I''m sure you remember what I was like when you first met me."


    Eiro nodded. The Solomon from back then and the Solomon sitting across from him now were hard to recognize as the same person. Both in regard to his physical appearance, as well as in his outerposure. Instead of a King, a ruler of a powerful country such as Skyhart, Eiro saw a shell of a man who had been consumed by the loss of a boy who barely clung to life anymore.


    "Charles is a strong young man, and he has done well recovering from that trauma, but he still struggles. As much as it pains me to say this as his father... I fear that he will never be the same as he used to be. A situation like Clementine''s, where she has been affected by this for her whole life, must have effects you and I can never even imagine. Even once you rid her of that horrible skill, I don''t think this is something you, or anyone, can ''fix''."


    "...I''m not taking the skill from her," Eiro replied quietly, looking at the ground with a deep pain. Solomon leaned forward confused, and even Bavet was shocked. That was somethingpletely new to them. Eiro had exined his n of using the Key artifact to help his children to them a while ago, and it seemed like it would happen sooner rather thanter, as the war with the Devil seemed to approach ever-more.


    "The hell are you talking about? Of course you are ¨C You have to!" Bavet spit out angrily, but Eiro shook his head, "No, I... I can''t. A few days ago, I found some research in the Tower of Books in the ne of water. It was research done on the nature of skills. Regr skills were based on experience, and knowledge, and growth. That was something you could take or bestow onto others with little issue. Even a Legendary skill was the same; they were bestowed onto people from an outside force, and could be taken without issue. But Unique skills? They''re... aspects of the soul. While all other skills exist ''because'' of the system... Unique Skills exist despite it," Eiro replied, leaning back in his seat while letting out a deep sigh, "Yes, because the system makes them more tangible, I could probably pull the Unique Skills out of them. But if I were to do that, I would take a part of their soul. Not the shards of the arcane attached to their soul; but of their actual self. That what makes them... them. I can''t even imagine what sort of consequences that could have on someone."


    "...So those kids will just have to live with these horrible, horrible abilities? For the rest of their lives?" Solomon asked, and Eiro simply nodded, "They do. And the others, even if they still suffer from these skills every day, are on a path of mastering a way of living with their skills, making use of them. For example, Rudy just works without protective gear now, because why would he need any, really? He seems to be able to deeply connect with his work that way. On top of that, despite hisrge build and impressive strength, he realized that no matter how fragile, he will never be able to hurt someone or something on ident, so he''s be a lot more outgoing. And Sammy? She doesn''t even notice it, but her unique skill makes it so that when she sings, her intent and her emotion is so deeply and uniquely infused into her music, instead of controlling others, she can make them truly feel the emotions and truth within that song. But how can I expect Clementine to live with that skill of hers? It is actively fighting against her, every single second of every single day. And I can''t even do anything to help her; I''m nning on destroying the boundary between ''Person-'' and ''Monsterhood'', and get rid of the hero and monster king, but I can''t even make my daughter feel better? How pathetic is that?"

 Chapter 680 A glimmer of hope

    Chapter 680 A glimmer of hope


    Solomon looked at the dejected expression of the man sitting across from him. He had seen Eiro angry a few times, but usually, he had a pretty stoic demeanor. When they were alone, he would seem mostly emotionless, at most smiling when speaking about his kids or the ns he had for the future, and while he was outside presenting as ''Eiro Jura Daemonherz'', the academy''s lecturer, he would generally just smile the whole time to seem more approachable.


    However, this was something that Solomon hadn''t seen in Eiro. It was a sort of hopelessness that Solomon himself knew incredibly well.


    "When I first found out that Charles'' natural healing factor was... well, practically nonexistent, I was scared. So, so scared. The amount of damage our bodies take on every day through the smallest actions, that usually just heal, will build up on him and make his life worse. Frankly... I''m not even sure if he will be able to live to be my age, the way things are going," Solomon exined, looking down at the ground, "I spoiled Charles more than you could even believe, and that made him turn into an insufferable young man that frankly only his mother and I could love. But these days... he has be brighter. More outgoing. He has made friends, sneaks out of the castle when he thinks nobody is watching, and lives a rtively normal life. Sure, he needs some more support from healers and potions than others, but he''s happy. And that''s all that matters."


    "...Despite a disorder that could cripple him not just physically, but emotionally as well, he has been quite... alive. If that makes sense," Eiro agreed, and Solomon looked up with a smile, "Of course it makes sense. And there''s honestly just a few simple things that got him out of that rut. Determination, love and support from those close to him, and... hope. When we visited Armodeus, hoping for him to introduce us to Jura somehow, that was ourpletest straw. Without those special techniques of his, Charles would have never really been able to live any semnce of a normal life again. And then, you came around. You, right then and there, took care of the matter. That night was a turning point for Charles. He went from the deepest darkness he has ever found himself in, to getting just the tiniest star in the sky. And I think that''s what Clementine might be missing right now. Just a single star to follow. And if that star can''t be that she can rid herself of that skill in the future, maybe it''s something else. She could grow to have a deeper understanding of its nature, or simply learn to control it. Whatever it is, with you and her siblings by her side, it''s impossible for her not to find the light, even if it might take a while."


    Eiro leaned back in his seat, and cing his hand over his eyes andughing, "Man, no wonder this country is striving with a King like you."


    The Demon stood back up, and walked toward the door. Bavet, who had been silent for the duration of the conversation, slowly stood up and fused into Eiro''s chest. Somehow he seemed a bit more... subdued than normal, but Eiro ignored it for now. After letting out all that frustration and getting some of the best advice he has heard in a long time, he was feeling quite good. If Bavet had anything he wanted to talk about, he woulde to Eiro with it.


    "I''ll leave you be for now. Thank you, really," the Demon smiled, cing his hand onto the door handle, "I''m d I have you as a friend, Solomon."


    The king was silent for a few moments. Those words weren''t what he expected to hear from Eiro right now, so he didn''t consciously know exactly how to respond, though he knew that it wasn''t really needed between him and Eiro at this point anyway.


    "Before you leave..." Solomon finally said, looking down at a piece of paper in front of him. He didn''t want to drop this on the Demon right after the conversation he just had, but he also knew that it couldn''t really be avoided, "There''s something I need to tell you about." --- Eiro knocked on the wooden door. It was quiet for a few seconds, until a quiet voice finally responded, e in..."


    The demon pushed open the door, stepping into Clementine''s room. The girl was sitting on her bed, wrapped in her nket. She had been like this for a while now.


    "Please, I don''t want to talk more about this right now..." Clementine muttered, hiding more within her nket. Eiro walked further into the room and closed the door behind him, "Then you don''t need to talk. Just listen for a few moments, alright?"


    Clementine looked up at the demon and slowly nodded, "...fine..."


    Eiro sat down on his daughter''s bed, turning toward her, "I''m sorry if I pushed you too much into trying to cook. I thought maybe it would help, but in the end, maybe it was the wrong approach to all this," he exined, and Clementine slowly looked up at him, "No, I... it was fine, I did enjoy it. It''s just..." "You don''t have to exin or justify yourself in anyway, that''s not why I''m here. Listen, I know you''re struggling. I know you''re scared and unsure of how things will go. And I understand your fear, definitely. What you''re going through, without even the ability to do anything about it right now... I would also be terrified," Eiro exined, slowly cing his hand onto Clementine''s back over her nket, "But all you need to know is that I and the others are here for you and love you so, so much. Ever since you children gave me my name, my whole goal in life had be to make sure you would be safe and happy, no matter how you would end up getting to that happiness, or what form it would take in the end. And you are still so, so young. You have all the time in the world to figure out how to get there. The journey might be a bit tougher for you than for others, but you don''t have to get there on your own. I will literally change the world to pave the road for you, and I will be there every step of the way."


    Clementine was quiet for a few moments. Eiro could tell that she was processing his words and trying to calm herself back down, and she soon pushed her way out the nket-shell she had built around herself. She wrapped her arms around Eiro''s neck and pulled him into a deep hug, tears stermaing down her cheeks. Clementine didn''t say anything, nor did she need to. As Eiro had told her when he came in here, there was no need for her to talk.


    Eiro rubbed the girl''s back and held her until she let go. At that point, her tears had already soaked into his shirt, and Clementine''s eyes were red and puffy. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "Let''s just take it a step at a time. Whenever you''re ready, I''ll be taking it with you, alright?"


    Clementine nodded her head, and Eiro pulled the hair out of her face, rubbing some tears off her cheeks as he did so, "Just rest some more, alright? I''ll be in my study if you need me."


    The girlid back down. Crying was exhausting, clearly. Eiro walked back into the hallway, closing the door once more. He started to walk down the hallway and climbed up some stairs, soon finding his way into his study. Inside there, arge white snakeid curled up on the carpet.


    "Back already?" Bavet asked surprised, ncing at the clock in the corner of the room. Eiro nodded, "Yeah. Clementine is resting now."


    "Any next steps for that stuff?"


    "When Clementine feels ready, yeah," the Demon replied, sitting down at his desk. Bavet sighed, "So you''ve got to deal with ''that'' now instead?"


    "Mhm," Eiro said, pushing his hand into the air in front of him. He ced his fingers around an invisible book, pulling it from an invisible shelf. In his hand, the Demon''s grimoire appeared. He had been feeding it with as much magic as he could, and it had grown into a wonderful and ornate book that just few in this world couldpare to. Its seemingly infinite pages were filled with numerous spells that Eiro had developed over the past few months.


    As he thought about the spell he wanted to go to and flipped the book open, the right page was already right there. The spell inscribed onto these unique pages was a massivelyplex one, to the point where, without Eiro''s eyesight, it might be hard for people to actually see most of the intricate lines.


    Next, Eiro pushed his hand next to himself, and pulled a small vial out of his treasury. It was the essence of the Devil that Eiro had extracted from Zeke Redbrow, the descendant of the Devil that had somehow been influenced toe to the academy as a sort of ploy. The Demon let a single droplet of the Devil''s essence fall onto the intricate spell on the grimoire''s pages. The spell lit up, and immediately started to work as Eiro fed it his own mana.


    Quickly, three needles of ice formed in the air. They were incredibly thin, starting to twist around, all pointing into basically the same direction. However, it was just ''basically''. They were ever so slightly different, but they all pointed at a single ce; the Devil.

 Chapter 681 The Devils Location

    Chapter 681 The Devil''s Location


    Eiro nced at the three ice needles floating in the air as he pulled out arge map, flicking his wrist as he made it float in the air.


    The needles that were created by the spell in Eiro''s grimoire were parts of apass. Someone''s essence was a special thing, and it was always somehow connected to one''s soul. One''s very being. That was why Eiro, for a long time now, searched for, and tried to develop, a spell that would allow him to take advantage of that fact. At some point, in the Elemental Realm of Water''s book tower, the duplicate of Eiro ced within that realm found a spellbook. This in itself wasn''t anything rare; all living beings in that realm were either magic beasts or ''magic people'', a mix between people and magic beasts, so they were particrly close to magic as a concept. While many didn''t end up using spells and instead just used their personal abilities, if even just a fraction of the people in that realm tried making use of spells and magic circles, they would be able to put together an immense collection of grimoires in a quite short time.


    And simrly to how many regions had unique foods or nts and local specialties, there was a small vige that had made use of a special magic tobat a specific problem. The vast majority of people in this world lived off fish, so fish farms were in high demand. However, they couldn''t just be fenced in so easily as in other realms; after all, fish weren''t constrained to the ground. Many viges of fish farmers as such made use ofrges or simply kept the fish in caves to make sure they couldn''t swim away so easily. And then, there was a small vige that used a different method. They simply let their fish swim freely in theirrge valley.


    It being a valley that the fish were used to, they didn''t tend to stray too far, but it was still sometimes tough to find the stragglers that decided to either go a bit further away, or were simply trying to hide between rocks, corals or nts. So, over some generations, they developed a spell that could allow them to track the fish. Apass spell.


    Now,pass spells weren''t rare; it was easy enough to track a specific mark that has been left on locations or people. However, for one reason or another, the way that the vige developed the spell led to it being a ''soulpass'' that just needed a small sample of the target''s mana. Using the information behind the spell, and after taking it apart into its pieces and trulying to understand it, Eiro managed to not only replicate it, but also improve on it.


    The first version simply told you the direction, which, while useful, wasn''t as much information as Eiro would have liked. So instead, he wanted to use a method to calcte the target''s distance, so that he could end up calcting their exact current position. And with that, the current version of the spell was born, albeit after a lot of development that had to happen through not only Eiro himself, but plenty of mental duplicates that were working on the spell for a few weeks.


    The older spell was more inurate and required a certain amount of control of the user. That was because it used regr mana, and not the essence. In the end it still targeted the essence within the mana, which made it vastly inefficient and overlyplicated. In Eiro''s version, he could fine-tune things to make it as urate as it possibly could be, since the spell didn''t have to waste any time finding the essence in the first ce. And from there, Eiro expanded the spell further.


    The first version simply told you the direction, which, while useful, wasn''t as much information as Eiro would have liked. So instead, he wanted to use a method to calcte the target''s distance, so that he could end up calcting their exact current position. And with that, the current version of the spell was born, albeit after a lot of development that had to happen through not only Eiro himself, but plenty of mental duplicates that were working on the spell for a few weeks.


    Now, to say that the needles were pointing directly at the Devil was also wrong. The point that each needle was measuring at was about five hundreed feet into their respective directions. And with that, using the difference in degrees between each needle, Eiro could calcte the exact direction and distance of the target. And due to the uracy of the spell, the Devil''s location could be pin-pointed down to a ten-foot radius. With that information, Eiro looked at the map.


    It was one of the most urate maps that he could get his hands on. The Demon nced over at the number values that were being disyed mid-air by each of the needles, describing their exact rotation. Using that, Eiro quickly moved along the map with his eyes, and soonnded on the current location of the Devil. Eiro marked the map with a tiny glowing dot, which he then linked to thepass spell. With this, the dot would move the moment that the Devil moved.


    Eiro quickly did the same with a number of other regional maps, linking them all to thepass so that Eiro could have an urate disy of the Devil''s current location that he could also more easily describe to the others that would be fighting alongside him. He himself had a massive map in his mental library, but others obviously couldn''t ess it. And just having a physical reference didn''t hurt him either.


    "What the hell is he doing out there?" Bavet asked with a confused frown. Thepass pointed at basically the middle of nowhere. It was a small rural vige in the center of a small country to the north of the continent.


    "That''s what I''m wondering as well, but either way, now it makes sense that I didn''t find him," Eiro pointed out. Thepass was just one of the methods that Eiro used to try and find the Devil. Another one had to do with his servants. Due to the nature of his abilities, and the ability-set of ''The World'', Eiro was able to turn practically anything into a servant, as long as he was able to manipte it with his own magic. And one of the things that he did with this was creating a massivework of shadow servants that he attached to coins. They were dormant most of the time, and as such, were basically impossible to be found by others. However, they were aware enough to follow a few simplemands. And one of them; if they detected Demonic energy, toe out of their dormancy and give information to Eiro. It had happened a few times until now, with roaming demons spread out across the continent. Most of the time they weren''t a real threat, and didn''t seem to have a connection to the Devil either, so after leaving some servants to follow them around, just in case, Eiro moved on. Considering that most rural viges didn''t really have an active tradingwork, and instead just relied on bartering with each other instead of using coins, Eiro had mostly reached cities and towns, and a lot of small viges were still left untouched. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    Eiro stood up and walked over to a cab in the wall. He opened its door and pulled out some boxes. This was something that he had worked on as part of his artificing practice. Since Partax was incredibly adept at creating automatons, that was something that Eiro had also grown into working on more as his practice. However, since Eiro was more of a mage than an artificer, a mage that was deeply connected to the elements, he adjusted the automatons to work with this. Instead of acting on their own, they were going to be strengthened bodies for certain servants of his. And right now, he had a set of five bird automatons sitting on his desk. To make them blend in, Eiro had carefully created them to make sure they were going to be as life-like as they possibly could be. Just like this, they looked like incredibly well-made taxidermy, but soon, Eiro infused them with arge amount of air magic. Their feathers ruffled and puffed up as Eiropressed the air magic around the joints and into the parts of the circuitry they were supposed to get into, and then snapped his finger. With that, the automatons came to life as Air Servants. The reason why he created them like this in the first ce was because now, he could equip them with certain gemstones and circuitry that allowed them to act as beacons for Eiro''s magic. That way, he could use some spells so that he could gather information more directly, practically sharing their senses instead of just getting vague concepts sent to him from the servants. Not to mention, the birds'' feathers were partially made of crystalizations of the Ace of Cups'' liquid. The invisibility potion would make them not only blend into their environment more easily, but make people just naturally ignore them without even realizing it. They were perfect scouts like this.


    Eiro opened the window and let the birds fly out, sending them toward the Devil''s apparent current location, so that they could figure out what he was truly up to. With this, things were truly starting to be set into motion. The war with the Devil was not far away anymore. Eiro felt like he might not be prepared well enough, though against an enemy like the Devil, that was probably something that he couldn''t get rid of even if he prepared for ten years.


    Eiro looked at the map with a light smile, watching the dot slowly move from ce to ce. His greatest adversary so far would soon be no more.

 Chapter 682 The Pantry

    Chapter 682 The Pantry


    A few hourster, the servants that Eiro had sent off into the distance to where the Devil was supposed to be hiding finally arrived at their destination. The crow-like automatons perched on tree branches close to the vige, waiting for Eiro to intervene andmand their next actions. And before they even had a chance to report back, the Demon already connected with one of them.


    It was through a puppetry spell that Eiro had developed through Arcane magic, that he was able to delve into these metallic birds'' bodies. He saw what they were seeing in his own mental eye, and started to manipte one of the bird''s bodies directly, so that he could take a closer look. Luckily, he was also able to hear and smell what the bird was sensing, though touch was something he still couldn''t figure out. Of course it wasn''t to the degree of Eiro''s usual senses, but it was enough for him to get the gist of the situation around the birds.


    The automaton flew closer to the vige. From what Eiro was seeing right here, there was little that would hint at someone like the Devil hiding out here. What he expected was something like a massive fort that had been erected overnight, but instead, it was just a simple, rather boring-looking, farming vige. People were working in the fields, caring for livestock, or simply doing any other job that they had to do to keep this ce running. However, there was definitely an overarching sense of demonic energy floating through the air. It was subtle, incredibly so, to the extent that it was hard for Eiro to notice through the filter of the puppetry magic, but it was definitely there.


    Eiro looked at the map in his office. The Devil was definitely still there. Apparently, it was just another few dozen steps south right from where the automaton Eiro controlled was perched. After flying over there, andnding on the roof of the building in question, Eiro frowned lightly. It was just a small hut, nothing important. A mother had just brought her child to bed, and the father still seemed to be out at work.


    "So he''s there, huh?" Eiro sighed, concentrating more directly on the position of the automaton he controlled. He could gauge their rtive position to him quite urately, and right now, as this vige was at a decently high elevation, the bird was higher than Eiro was. However, the needles were tipped ever so slightly downward. The devil''s current location wasn''t ''in'' this vige, he was ''below'' it.


    With a click of his tongue, Eiro crossed his legs in thought, "Well, it''s just a minor inconvenience, anyway."


    He was never expecting to be able to look directly into the space the Devil was anyway. Since he expected a fort, the most he would have been able to do was look at the overall structure, and maybe nce into some windows. But knowing the Devil, that might have actually been a bit too risky already, despite the automatons'' practically perfect disguises. But now that he knew that the Devil was below ground, he could also tell more about what this ce was used for.


    It wasn''t a location that was vital in the midst of the war. Meaning, it wouldn''t be a location where the Devil expected them to fight; that would be much too risky. Eiro could make the whole cave system copse immediately, or flood it with water or mes, destroying everything the Devil had built up. Instead, it was either just a ce the Devil settled for his own business, like aboratory or maybe just his general dwelling, or it was a ce where the Devil prepared for the war with Eiro without directly being seen. And in that case, the whole subterranean space would be filled with numerous monsters and weapons.


    While Eiro wasn''t able to directly sense what was below the earth through the automaton, he could still do other things to figure out which of the two it would be. If it was a space just for the Devil, then there might not be more than a few small, narrow entrances. The devil himself could teleport, albeit not without any restraints, but such teleportation would usually interfere with certain materials or spells if they were transported, so they would have to be moved manually to make sure nothing went wrong.


    Now, if it were a space for the Devil''s army, then he would either need a massive physical entrance nearby, or, and this was more likely, he would set up a magic array to mass-teleport the monsters above-ground whenever they were needed. Either way, there would be traces that someone like Eiro should be able to recognize without much trouble.


    Of course, there was also the possibility, one that Eiro was also expecting quite fervently, that this was neither of those two. That this, instead, was just a space for another one of the Devil''s experiments that didn''t have anything to do with the war at all. While Eiro knew that the Devil had to be on edge because of Eiro''s constant, immense growth beyond anyone''s expectations, the Devil was also a vile, horrible creature that took pleasure out of tormenting others. While many people would choose to smoke, drink, or simply spend some time with their friends while they were feeling a bit stressed... this ce could just be a ce for the Devil to rx and enjoy himself. And if this was the case, then this vige would still have other traces of that lingering around. Either awy, Eiro should be able to find something.


    The automatons flew around for a while, not even just directly within the vige, but around it as well. Just because the space the devil was in was right below the vige didn''t mean that the entrance to that space had to be within the vige. It could be miles away, really. And soon, the sun had started to set. Demons, or any other being relying heavily on Unholy magics, would generally see their powers grow at night. As Eiro was a unique case, and didn''t even have ess to unique magic currently, he was an exception, but Eiro knew that the Devil did like to make use of the night. Not only did he use to feel the effect of the Devil''s mark more intensely at night, but the small town that had be a home to the Lords of Sin that the Devil was trying to raise also changed from a regr ce to a town of demons at night. And Eiro quickly saw that things weren''t much different in this case.


    As soon as the sun set, the few vigers that were still out started to act unusual. As though they werepelled, and their bodies manipted, they froze, doing whatever action they were doing before. From outside the vige, one of the automatons then saw a carriage approaching just a moment after an immense spike of magic from that direction. The carriage was being drawn byrge hell-beasts, taking the form of horses withrge, demonic horns, leaving mes behind whenever their hooves lifted off the dirt beneath them.


    The carriage soon reached the vige,ing to a halt. And out stepped a figure cloaked in ck from head to toe. The figure was tall and skinny, towering over the people of the vige. It approached one of the vigers, leaning forward as if to give them a sniff. And then, from the shadow where the figure''s face was supposed to be, ck, slimy tendrils shot outward, pulling themselves around the viger. Their body was pulled into the cloak and simply disappeared. Eiro could tell what this was from just a nce, since he had a simr ability. It was a spatial-storage ability, so the viger hadn''t been devoured directly.


    The figure returned back to the carriage and stepped inside, and the hell-beasts quickly pulled it back out of the vige. Soon, a few moments after another immense spike of mana from where the carriage had disappeared, the vige returned to normal, and the vigers were unfrozen, continuing as if nothing happened. Even the people that seemed to have been talking to the viger that was just taken simply moved on as if nothing happened. From how they were acting... the viger''s existence was just wiped from the others'' minds. So that they wouldn''t panic, or worry. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    Eiro grinned lightly, holding his hand in front of his mouth, "Ah, so that''s what it is," the demon cackled to himself. Bavet slithered over to his side, curious, "What''s going on?"


    "We just hit the jackpot, my friend," Eiro replied, burying two of his hands into the armrests of his seat, "This isn''t ab, or a ce to grow an army. The vige is his pantry. It''s his home."

 Chapter 683 Meeting Room

    Chapter 683 Meeting Room


    Eiro rushed through the manor''s hallways until he reached one of the secret tunnels. He flicked his wrist and opened it up before he got there, jumping through. This was one of the tunnels mainly used by the spiders, but Eiro could dodge past them without any worry. And more importantly, he needed to get to his destination as fast as he could. The Demon fell through the hole in one of the sitting rooms'' ceiling. It had been turned into more of a ''base of operation'' for Eiro''s party''s adventurer activities, which James, Jess, and Krog mostly partook in. Though, Eiro did go on quests with them a lot as well. After all, the only other things he could do were either preparing for sses at the academy, doing research, signing paperwork, or reading. However, at this point, most of the ss-prep and research was being done by the mental duplicates, the paperwork was easily done in a matter of about twenty minutes no matter how much it was, since Eiro could just use all four of his arms simultaneously and reading the matters and deciding on them was even faster than that, and Eiro had already read all the books that he had ess to at the capital.


    The academy''s library wasrge, but it wasn''t evenparable to the tower of books. And whenever Eiro was at the academy, he would send a duplicate to the library to just continue reading where he had left off thest time. There were a lot of really useful books there, as Eiro had thought, but for the most part it wasn''t anything super special. So right now, he had to order new books from corners of the kingdom or from other countries, and it was taking them fairly long to arrive. Not to mention, he also had to worry about building himself a new library, but his research into the spatial magic that was intertwined with the manor wasn''t proceeding as well as Eiro had hoped. The man that had created all that magic was either a genius beyond anything that Eiro couldprehend, or he just liked to mess with people. Either way, the magical arrays were practically iprehensible. So Eiro wasn''t able to create a library big enough for his needs just yet. And the hidden library that was already attached to the real library had be more of a workshop for Eiro, and something like a storage for his spells and scrolls.


    Either way, Eiro was able to partake in adventurer activities quite well, which led to the promotion for everyone in the party to S-Rank not being all too far away anymore. At this point, everyone''s strength was really quite deserving of it.


    "Okay," the Demon said out loud, his voice startling the three people that were currently in here to take a break, "You guys all switched back to your advanced sses like you were supposed to, right?"


    James, who nearly choked on his tea, swiftly nodded his head, "Yes, yes, we did. Seriously, this house has doors. And I know for a fact you know how to use them."


    "But that''s boring," Eiro replied immediately, as he nced over at Krog, "How''s your ess to the Giants'' natureing along?"


    The Goliath scratched his cheek, "Fine, for the most part. It''s not as stable as I''d like it to be, but useable."


    Quickly, Jess spoke up as well, "Oh, and I finally managed to use that spell you made for me." "Oh?" Eiro raised his brow. Jess was an incredibly talented elemental mage that was able to use the four major physical elements, Water, Earth, Fire, an Air. There were a lot of different spells that made use of certainbinations between those elements on their own. Like Water and Fire magic leading to spells with super-heated water, or Air and Water creating a thin mist. But since it was incredibly rare for someone to have ess to three, or even all four, of the major physical elements, spells that had been created for thosebinations were just as rare. There were plenty of concepts and ideas for them, but to actually finalize a spell, it had to be tested a lot, which simply wasn''t possible if you couldn''t use the elemental magic that was required.


    As such, Eiro simply did that. Hepleted some spells that had been theorized by other mages, and created otherspletely from scratch based on what he figured Jess would not only be able to get ustomed to particrly quickly, but what would also help the party out the most. And in this case, it was a spell derived from the concept of elemental infusion, which would ce elemental magic within an object, usually a weapon, to allow for strengthened attacks. And in this case, the spell was much moreplex than that. Jess would infuse her magic into James and Krog''s weapons, actively manipting the practical effects based on what was needed right in that moment. Jess was extremely observant and had a tactic-based mind, while also being able to read the intentions of her teammates particrly well. So, she was able to create particrly powerful and useful effects whenever needed. Like creating a rock barrier when they were trying to block, or creating explosive mes the moment a blunt attack impacted on an opponent.


    "Perfect. Good job, you two," Eiro smiled, "Alright, in that case, we can really get started. I just-"


    "So you don''t want to know about me?" James asked with a wry smile, and Eiro raised his brow, "Not really?" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "Oh wow, thanks a lot..."


    "What, you jealous?" Eiro scoffed, but James just rolled his eyes, "Obviously not. I just thought you could at least pretend."


    Eiro sighed and just smiled, "Whatever. I already know that you''ve got your ability figured out, that''s all."


    James scratched the back of his head dismissively. He was a Light Elf. One of his parents was a Dark Elf, the other a High Elf. The former not having the ability to use magic whatsoever, while thetter was extremely gifted in that regard. And in Light Elves, this resulted in a massive amount of mana inside of the individual''s body, that simply wasn''t able to pass out through their skin, as though it were something like a barrier. That also meant that a lot of Light Elf children died at a young age fromplications, as the mana practically poisoned them, but James had been able to persist without any major issues. And now, he had finally awakaned a special ability as a Light Elf. He was able to pull his mana out from his body, but he could only keep it up constistently while still having physical contact with it. Not only that, but the mana was something of a physical entity, which meant that James was able to create weapons, armor, or small tools with it. One of the things that James seemed to use it for the most was to create throwing-knives or needles. While these special mana-weapons crumbled very quickly once James let go of them, if he created them well enough, they couldst for a few seconds. Long enough to hit and potentially injure a target. And since James also had a massive amount of mana within him, he could create a barrage of these weapons without the target being able to react. The fact that one of the ss-abilities that he acquired in the past was a specific weapon-throwing ability only helped with this fact.


    "But..." Jess started, leaning back with a deep sigh, "If you''re asking us if we''re ready, that means..."


    "Mhm. It''s time," the Demon smiled. At that time, the door was pushed open, and through it, a young girl came running. She was covered in a scarf and loose clothes, but they weren''t enough to hide the girl''s stiff movements. The moment she saw the others in the room beside Eiro, she froze, and awkwardly began to stutter, "E-Erm..."


    "That''s why I told you not to run ahead..." a woman said as she stepped into the room behind Eiro. Herrge white wings were still ruffled up slightly from the flight here, and some of her hairs were wrapped around the golden-white ram horns on her head. Eiro walked up to Arie with a smile, and leaned in for a kiss with her. After the two pulled away from ach other, the Demon ced his hand onto Hannah''s head. He nced at the girl''s body for a moment, trying to make sure that her full-body prosthetics were doing well.


    "How are you feeling? Any difort?" Eiro asked quickly, since Hannah''s movements hadn''t improved as quickly as he was expecting, but the girl quickly shook her head, "No difort. Just, tired."


    Arieughed quietly, "She was up all night trying toe up with things her and the other kids could do together while we''re gone."


    "What?" James asked confused from his seat, "Isn''t she an undead?"


    "Mental exhaustion exists," Arie sighed, "Not to mention, she''s a special case. And just a kid, I''ll add."


    Eiro smiled lightly as he looked back at Hannah, "If you do notice anything, tell me right away, okay?"


    "Okay," Hannah nodded enthusiastically. Her voice was a lot clearer and stable than it was before. Eiro had been making regr improvements on her artificial voice-box in particr, especially ever since he was getting more skilled with artificing. His prosthetic skills were useful for other matters, but they couldn''t solve theplexity of a voice-box all on their own.


    "I think Arc is outside in the garden. Do you want to join him?"


    Hannah nodded quickly and happily, quickly rushing back toward the door. Eiro flicked his wrist and closed the door behind her. Him and Arie walked toward one of the couches and sat down next to each other. And then, the Demon started, "So, now that we''re all here. Let''s talk. I have new information on ''The Devil''."

 Chapter 684 Five Crows

    Chapter 684 Five Crows


    "So... he lives right under that vige?" Krog asked, surprised, "I would have thought he''d be in some big castle at the peak of a mountain or something."


    "That would be a bit too obvious," Eiro pointed out, "The Devil is cocky, not stupid. And whether or not this is a permanent ce, or if he moves from ce to ce regrly is still unclear. What we know right now is that he''s stationary under that vige, and he feeds on the people living there."


    Arie closed her eyes in contemtion. They were close to fighting against the man she hated the most in the world... She had been preparing for this for so long that it felt unreal to finally get to this point, "Then should we strike soon? To make sure he can''t escape to another ce?"


    "We could, but it might actually be safer to wait specifically for him to leave," Eiro exined, "No matter where he goes, we can track him. And his current base would be rigged with a lot of spells that would give him the upper hand."


    "So it''s just a waiting game then?"


    Eiro looked at James, quickly answering his question, "No, it''s not. We just need to give him a reason to leave sooner than he would naturally."


    James rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Could you stop being so cryptic and just tell us your n?"


    "Not letting me have any fun, huh?" the Demon sighed, "Fine. Alright, we''ll do this..."


    --- A pair of crowsnded on a fence. A farmer, on his way home after finally finishing up his work deep into the night, came to a stop in front of the critters. He just stared at them, into their beady eyes. As he did, another crownded to his side, and a fourth behind him. Starting to get anxious about the birds'' weird behaviour, he started walking past them in a hurry. Turning around a corner into the empty road, the farmer felt his heart nearly skip a beat. In the middle of the road stood another crow, staring right at him.


    It was just a couple of birds, there was no reason for him to feel like this... right? But there was something about them that felt unnatural. Like they weren''t supposed to be like this. Soon, the four other crowsnded around the man, surrounding him. The farmer felt his chest heat up, but not out of fear. A burning pain appeared on his chest, as though a red-hot piece of metal was being pressed onto him. He felt ovee with a wave of exhaustion, as the situation he found himself in started feeling too bothersome to deal with. He didn''t even care if something was amiss, he just wanted to sleep.


    As the farmer tried to walk past the crows, one of them pped its wings and flew straight at him. It clung to the man''s shirt, using its beak to tear into the fabric, pulling it apart. The man tried to push the bird away, but the others soon joined, tearing the shirt off his body. He fell to the ground andid on his back under the immense weight of these birds. They shouldn''t weigh this much, but it felt like he was trying to lift one of his bulls. As he looked down at his chest, he could see a deep, red scar that he didn''t recognize. It wasn''t normal either. Instead, it reminded him of the brands he was all too familiar with.


    The crows began to peck at the scar, drawing blood. It was painful, incredibly so, and the burning heat returned. It wasing from that scar; the brand. But for some reason, as the crows continued, the pain lessened. The heat was fading, as though a cool air came over it. Before long, the crows lifted off his body and flew away, as if they were done with what they came here for. Startled and his body ovee with an intense terror, the man held his hand to his chest.


    The brand was gone, and there weren''t even any wounds from the birds'' pecking. But he had stters of blood covering his skin. There were just no wounds to exin it.


    "Anna..?" the farmer muttered quietly, as memories rushed to his head, "No, no, that- that can''t be!" he pressed his hands onto the sides of his head, the crows bing just a distant thought as he let out a scream of a pain he had never felt before. The pain of watching his lover be taken from him without being able to do anything about it. And worst of all, just forgetting about it all a few momentster. He felt ovee with an immense rage, his fingernails tearing into the skin on his neck as he was unable to physically control himself. And that was when one of the crows returned. Itnded on the ground in front of the man, letting out a single caw. The pain from his neck disappeared. The blood on his hands was still there, but the wounds had been closed.


    The man and the crow locked eyes, as the bird turned around with a few quick jumps. As though it were waiting, it just stood there, until the man stood up. He didn''t know why he knew what to do, but he did. As soon as the man stood back on his own two legs, the crow lifted off, flying to the end of the road. There, it sat on a roof, waiting for the man to catch up. He ran after the bird, and before he reached it again, it continued flying. The crow led the man into the forest. Usually, he would have nevere in here, in fear of the monsters that were lingering amongst the trees, but he felt like he had to. As though he werepelled. And then, he made his way to a clearing. It was small, but the crow had stopped there.


    "Wait... Marius?" a voice said from behind the farmer. He snapped around and looked at the figure stood there, "Lorenz? What are you doing here?"


    "I could ask you the same thing..." the other man, Lorenz, replied. Marius soon spotted the man''s arm, covered in splotches of blood while his clothes in that area were ripped away. Another crow hade along with him into the clearing as well. And the two weren''t thest either. Three more times, someone came into the clearing, each covered in some blood and having parts of their clothes ripped away. And each time, a crow apanied them.


    They stood in the clearing, basking in the light of the full moon. Marius slowly spoke up, "Did you... did you all remember as well?"


    The tone of everyone in the group was solemn. They were filled with the same kind of rage that Marius was, "That monster... it... it took them..." Lorenz muttered, tears starting to flow down his cheeks.


    "I''m going to kill that thing..." Marius ground his teeth together, but one of the other men started to stutter, "Would... would we really have a chance? That thing, it... we weren''t even able to move..."


    "I don''t care... Without Anna, what do I even have to live for...?"


    "Yourself," the reply came quickly, "Would your lover hope for your demise, or your happiness?"


    The group of five turned toward the source of the voice. It came from the darkness, hidden within the shadows of the night forest. Slowly, a figure stepped forward. At first, they thought the creature that took their loved ones hade back, but it felt... different. It was d in ck, but instead of a cloak, it wore a well-tailored suit, the kind that not even the rare merchant that came here could afford. Its head was a wisp of ck smoke, blending into the dark forest behind it.


    "What... are you?" Marius asked, and the figure replied with a slight bow, "The name my master bestowed upon me is Min. He sent me on the long journey here to assist you all."


    "Your master?" "The one that created me. And the one that created these fellows," Min pointed out, and the ck crows replied with a few caws, "You and your vige... you are under the control of a deep, disgusting evil. One that my master wishes to hurt. To purge from the presence of this... world."


    "You''ll help us fight him?" Lorenz asked, but Min quickly denied that idea, "No. Neither you, nor I, will be fighting. This enemy is not one that you can hope to eveny eyes on. I am here to assist you in your escape. My master has already graciously removed the Marks you had been branded with so that you may take the lead."


    "You expect us to just run away? When the thing that took our wives, our children... our brothers and sisters... when that thing is still out there?!" Marius yelled out, but Min stayed calm.


    "I think I may need to make a few things clear. That ''thing'' you all saw is not the one my master wishes to purge. It is merely that being''s tool... designed to bring it food."


    The expressions of the five people turned sour. Their faces where pure white, as though they as well were already dead.


    "...so... they''re just gone? For good?"


    "...I''m afraid so. But I swear to you, that my Master will y that monstrosity. In order to do that, though, we need you to leave. To get out of the way. My Master wishes to not see any more innocent lives be lost," Min exined. The group was quiet for a while. And then, Marius spoke up again. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "What do we need to do?"

 Chapter 685 Evacuation

    Chapter 685 Evacuation


    Eiro watched as Min exined the n to the five people that were guided out of the vige. It was kind of a pain to get Min over there, but it was probably the best solution for this situation.


    Overall, you could divide Eiro''s servants into three distinct groups, which he had dubbed the ''Watchers'', the ''Workers'', and the ''Named''.


    Watchers were servants that Eiro spread around all over the ce, so that they could act as his eyes and ears, alerting him should anything of note happen. If Eiro thenmanded them to, they would attack the ones causing trouble or defend the ones that Eiro had pledged to protect. They were the mostmon type of servant he created.


    Workers were ones that Eiro had simply assigned rudimentary tasks. Assisting in housework, gardening, or to an extent even some of the moreplicated projects in the Monster Town. For them, Eiro would expend a bit more mana so that they could follow moreplexmands and act on their own to a certain degree. There were some that were somewhat permanent, continuing to do their jobs throughout the day without Eiro having to be there, but Eiro also counted servants that he created for specific matters to this, even though those would usually end up being ''deleted'' once their task was done. Generally, this was when Eiro was dealing with arge group of monsters that he didn''t feel like dealing with himself, like exterminating a nest of giant ants.


    And then, there were the most powerful and unique servants, the ''Named''. They were the ones that Eiro had literally bestowed a name on, giving them a certain degree of a ''self''. The servants that Eiro had left behind in his territory near Jura''s hut where he had spent most his life. Anura, the Frogman from the ne of water that Eiro had turned into a servant, and Gobo, who would soon be one as well, were currently counted under this group too, though if he ended up creating more servants that weren''t directly born from his own magic, then he might create a separate category for them. Either way, the named servant that Eiro interacted with the most, and it wasn''t even close, was Min. He was like an extension of his own limbs, and would generally fetch things for him. He was a butler, an assistant that he didn''t have to exin things to, since he could just mentally share instructions. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    Of course, for moreplex matters Eiro would use a duplicate, but that had its limits, particrly in regard to range. The further a duplicate was away from Eiro, the more their physical and mental faculties would decline, bing weaker and dumber until they finallypletely broke down and dissolved. And the drop-off was quite intense as well. He could probably send a duplicate to the royal castle from here, but it wouldn''t be able to do much beside speaking a few simple sentences, and probably couldn''t even defeat any of the knights patrolling the castle. The only duplicates that were an exception were the ones that Eiro now considered an ''Embodiment of the Spirit Gateways'', since they were, technically, directly connected through the spirit gateways inside of Eiro''s core.


    Min though, and whether this was because Eiro supplied him with mana regrly, or because he interacted with andmanded him actively the most, had be vastly more intelligent and self-aware. He took care of things on his own, without Eiro having to even mention anything about it, and recently even showed off a certain sense of self,passion, and a unique personality. For a being born from Eiro''s mana, he had be its own entity extremely fast.


    As such, Min had been sent out to oversee the ''rescue'' of the people in the vige. He was a servant that he could trust to take care of all the business, and being a shadow that came to life, he was able to hide easily too. Not only that, but there was a secondary effect. With Min being the one overseeing the process, the vigers would be convinced to leave more easily. They were incredibly willing to fight to take revenge for their loved ones, but Min helped dissuade them. Him telling them was enough to get a simple idea across. That this was beyond regr people. That some farmers would never be able to even nce at the fight.


    And in the meantime, Eiro had left to prepare for the extraction on his side. At the monster town, a lot of research was being done on different technologies they could make use of. One of those was something to take advantage of that massive gravity magic stone sitting below the town, which was still leftover from when this ind floated in the air. In order to expand the town better, Eiro had decided on leaving the town stationary in the valley he had ced it in. This had the secondary effect of allowing him to make use of the magic stones otherwise. It was one of the other reasons why he had brought Partax to the Monster Town, so that he could take a look at the systems and circuits that were used to manipte the massive magic stone, allowing for a secondary application. Eiro was nning on making use of the near-inexhaustible magic stones to create merchant or general transport fleets in the future, or maybe create some new elevated housing for the harpies so that they didn''t build nests directly on top of other buildings, so this was a good opportunity for a test-run.


    Eiro walked into the backyard. Over the past few weeks, as a side-project, Eiro had been creating a wooden ship. The trees had been grown with special seeds that he had actually grown by encapsuling them in gravity magic stones. The resulting wood, while usually seeming like some normal, albeit high-quality, wood, they were incredibly useful whenbined with gravity magic. It would increase the efficacy of gravity magic by nearly twice what it normally was, and that was just the first generation of trees too. Eiro was currently working on cross-breeding the seeds from the best-suited trees to increase the effect a lot more. But until then, this would do. More than anything, this process actually just acted as a test-run so that Eiro could learn a bit more about the process of creating ships. He wanted to instruct some monsters and have specific shipwrights at some point, so he had to know what he was talking about. And like this, he could also learn of some tricks to speed up the process, that he couldn''t figure out by just reading books.


    It might be a bit tight, but they should be able to fit all the people of the vige onto the ship, together with some of their belongings. If they could take a few things with them, it would make the process a lot more painless. Eiro had already manipted the magic stone for this ship plenty with the help of Armodeus and Partax. It was a sort of highly controlled dpression of the magic stone to maximize the efficiency of the stonepared to what it was actually needed for. It was then split up into multiple pieces and turned into ''batteries'' that could be swapped out in the control-center of the ship when needed. Eiro ced one of the batteries into the slot needed for it, and then activated the circuitry of the ship. Magic flowed through the metal inlets on the wood, allowing for the magic to flow into the actual wood in a controlled manner. And then, Eiro looked at the ship''s helm. Different to a regr ship, which only had to worry about horizontal movement, this ship needed to be controlled vertically as well. That was why, instead of a simple wheel, the helm was a levitating orb, that the captain had to move around its contained area to control the direction the ship would move on, and then rotate the orb to also rotate the ship in said direction.


    Being a prototype, it was a bit rough to use for now, but Eiro figured he could just create a servant to take care of it for now. On the way back, Min should be able to take care of it. Eiro made the ship lift up into the sky, and then activated its secondary function. Since there were flying monsters that could cause problems, and since a flying ship could cause some unwanted rumors and attention, Eiro added a function to create an ''invisibility cloud''. The ship would create a mist around its underside, which was infused with a very small amount of the Invisibility Potion. That way, the ship was hidden from the attention of onwatchers, and by simply tweaking the amount of the invisibility potion used, it should even be enough to hide the ship from the Devil. And so, without him noticing, everyone in the vige would simply... disappear.


    The n that Eiro had thought up was rtively simple. The five people that were already freed from the mark would gather everyone else in the vige one by one, and Eiro''s crows would remove the marks. Of course, usually the Devil would be able to notice what was going on, but together with Min, Eiro had sent a container of the invisibility potion to the vige, having Min set up a magic circle around the whole ce to obscure what was happening here. Since the Invisibility Potion was an artifact, even the Devil shouldn''t be able to simply see through that spell. And so, for just a day, the Devil wouldn''t even think about all those marked individuals that should be roaming around above his head. Not that Eiro thought the Devil had the ability to oversee them all at once anyway. Why would he? They were just his food anyway.

 Chapter 686 Two Options

    Chapter 686 Two Options


    Eiro looked through the eyes of one of the crow automatons. Just like Eiro hoped, the evacuation was proceeding well. The five people that Eiro had tasked with this process had gathered everyone together for a vige-meeting. Even the children had been brought together. And then, from there, Eiro had absorbed the mana in everyone''s marks through Min and the crows. Of course, the couple hundred people in question became somewhat rowdy, and the kids were scared and started crying, but Min was able to calm them down well enough. It wasn''t too hard to convince them to step onto the ship either, which Eiro was rather d about. Otherwise, he might have had to use force to restrain them, and that wouldn''t be helpful for what he had nned for these people.


    The Demon sighed, crossing his legs as he leaned back into his chair while the airship lifted off into the sky, with Min at the helm. The space was kept purposefully dark to amodate him. And now, Eiro just had to wait for the Devil to notice. Luckily, the invisibility potion did a decent-enough job at hiding what was happening in the vige, but soon, that wouldn''t be enough. A few hundred marks disappearing throughout the day would be something the Devil should realize once the potion''s effects wore off. Rather, if he paid any attention at all, he might have noticed it as things were going on. He might still have noticed, and just yed along, but Eiro figured that was unlikely. Eiro had nned things out pretty well.


    For now, it was time for Eiro to head out. He would have liked to send a duplicate, but he figured he should take care of this next part himself. He reached the skyship rtively quickly, and hid himself as Min made an announcement to everyone on the ship.


    "I thank you dearly for your cooperation today. But now, you will have to face another decision," Min exined. The expressions of the people who had just lost their homes didn''t seem particrly enthusiastic about it, but Min continued nheless, "Option one. You will be brought to a small town near the capital of the country Skyhart. There, my lord has created the option for refuge for you. If you choose this option, you must sign a contract that you shall not speak of these events for the next year."


    Marius, one of the five that Eiro had chosen initially, looked at Min with a frown, "A contract? But... but why?"


    "Well, various reasons. One being your own protection, of course. The battle with the entity that entrapped you will not end immediately. Even if that being in in, there may be stragglers among its followers that wish to take revengee, which could expand onto you. But within the next year, this shall be taken care of. And of course, it is simply a sort of assurance to my lord," Min exined, "After all, if word of what exactly happened came out prematurely, it could put them at a disadvantage."


    Min looked at the people in front of him, seeing that they were still worried. Reassuringly, he continued, "Of course, this contract won''te without its boons. It is a magic contract that will directly infringe on your most basic rights after all. It willpletely halt your ability to talk about my lord or the entity that entrapped you, even to each other, for the next year at least. And in return, you will be bestowed with enough money to keep you afloat for the next three years, as well as a small piece ofnd. Thisnd only holds your personal home, but it will be yours, even after the year is over."


    With that context, this option seemed even more suspicious. They didn''t know who Min''s lord was, but this seemed far too good to be true. Nervously, Marius once more spoke up, "So... what is the other option?"


    Eiro smiled a bit. This guy seemed pretty useful, so he was hoping that he would choose this opportunity for himself, "You would be my lord''s retainer. One of subjects."


    "His... subjects?" Marius repeated, "What... what do you mean? We would be your lord''s servants? Move away from that... that thing, and be your lord''s ything instead?"


    Min shook his head, or the shifting shadow that acted as his head, immediately, "Of course not. My lord is a man filled with kindness for others. You are certainly not the first that he has rescued. They now live peacefully in a small town hidden away in a certain valley. If you choose this, you will live amongst them. You will notck anything; while you will be expected to work, you will also be protected for the rest of your lives, and even beyond. For generations, your children, and your children''s children, will thrive. My lord is an extreme proponent of the idea that everyone has talents. Something they''re meant to do, and something they''re meant to be. If you choose this, my Lord will do everything in his power to ensure that you will be the happiest you could ever imagine yourself."


    Eiro smirked lightly. He could tell that this was catching the attention of some of these people, so he urged Min to keep going.


    "If it is strength you wish for, he will ensure that not even a knight could threaten you. If it is knowledge, you will be a schr any king would yearn to get ahold of. And if it is peace and happiness, a simple life... my lord is going to dirty his own hands to protect that life," Min''s voice rung through the ears of everyone there. They seemed to be looking at Marius, urging him to speak up and ask what everyone wanted to know.


    "And..." he finally spoke, "What will he expect in return? What does he get from a few farmers joining him?"


    Minughed slightly, "He does not expect anything. Again, you will be put to work depending on where you can help out, once you have gotten used to that town. But not excessively either. You may very well have to work less than you have until now," he exined, "You bing one of his subjects will rather be a good thing for him. He wishes for that ce to be uniquely diverse, and truthfully, there are no humans living in that ce yet." N?v(el)B\\jnn


    Marius was taken aback, "No humans? A whole town filled with just... elves, dwarves? Gnomes, or beastmen?"


    For a few moments, Min hesitated. He knew how most people would react to what he was about to say next. Being attached to Eiro''s shadow for most of the time ever since being given consciousness, he had gotten the opportunity to learn a lot about how people behaved. However, he also knew that his master wasn''t the kind to simply try things that had no hope to them. If this is what Eiro wanted, then there was a reason for it. And so, Min replied.


    "I apologize for my wording. But no, there are no elves, dwarves, gnomes, or beastmen there either," he said, and before anyone could figure it out on their own, the shadow spoke, "It is a town of monsters. Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds... They are just a few amongst the races living there."


    The vigers couldn''t believe their ears. They yelled out in confusion and anger of what was being asked of them, "You expect us to live in a town with... with monsters? So we''ll be livestock, is that it?" Marius yelled out, ring at Min. But before he could reply, Eiro told him to back down.


    The Demon removed the veil of the invisibility potion. He descended onto the ship''s deck, folding his wings onto his back. His colourful hornsying on top of his head like a crown, while hisrge and long tail swayed behind his back. His silhouette looked absolutely inhuman to anyone who even just nced at him. Not to mention, the pressure he gave off ensured that nobody made even the slightest sound.


    "You will not be livestock. You will not be ves or subservient to anyone in that ce. That town is a ce created for freedom, so that anyone may be who they are meant to be without the constraints the world ced on us. All monsters are afflicted with something described as ''Monstrosity'' that makes them act as you know. Of course, monsters of higher noble ranks can take control of this monstrosity to an extent, but others? There is no chance. But the monsters in that town have had their monstrosity not only restrained, but will soon bepletely cured of it," Eiro exined. With a broad smile on his face, he spread out his arms, "That town will be the beginning of a new future of unity for everyone in this world."


    The people in front of Eiro didn''t dare to speak. They were tense, even though Eiro suppressed his own aura. He nced around, and saw a child toward the front of the group. She had scraped her leg while everyone was in a hurry to get onto the ship. Eiro approached the child. Her mother tried pulling her behind her back, and the Demon smiled. Even faced with something like him, she still chose to protect that girl above all else.


    "No need to worry," Eiro said, kneeling down in front of them. He stretched out his hand toward the child. He locked eyes with her, and slowly, the girl approached the creature in front of her. Her mother tried to stop her, but before she could do anything, Eiro had already grabbed the girl''s hand. She was covered in a bright light, and said light spread out over all the vigers, starting from that child. Not everyone could tell, but there were a few who had traveled in the past, or who were acquainted with priests in other viges. They could tell. Eiro was using Holy Magic.


    "My name is Eiro. I am a Demon Lord, and the Royal ''The World''. I have just one goal in life; forever extinguish the Monster King, and create a safe future for those I love."

 Chapter 687 Arrival

    Chapter 687 Arrival


    Eiro watched people step off the skyship. As he had promsied them, after signing the magic contract, they were going to be forbidden from talking about anything rted to this incident for the next year. In return, Eiro sent them off with some money, and gave each family a home that they now directly owned. They were grateful to Eiro, but they weren''t grateful enough to be the servant of a demon. At least, that was the case for a third of the vigers. Only a third chose the first option, leaving to lead a peaceful life, disconnected from all these events. The demon was pretty shocked; he had expected more of them to choose that option. Just a dozen or so humans joining his side would have been more than enough. More than anything, Eiro wanted them to introduce the monsters in town to humans so that they learned how to deal with them. Obviously they weren''t just a tool though; Eiro was going to treat them as well as he could, as he had promised.


    The demon looked at Marius, who was one of the first to decide he was going to join him, "The vigers seem to put their trust in you. From now on, unless you can name someone more suitable for the position, you shall be the humans'' representative in the town."


    Marius gulped nervously, "I... I see... and what does that... entail?"


    "Well, honestly not too much, considering that you are not that many," Eiro replied, "If any of you arecking in anything, they wille to you, and you will bring it to the attention of the other leaders. You will assist those leaders in nning what changes could be made so that everyone can live asfortably as possible. And of course, if the humans are causing any trouble, you will be the one tasked to correct that behaviour." n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    A bit surprised, Marius stared back at Eiro, "Wait, so I''d really just be... a representative? There wasn''t any hidden meaning there?"


    "Of course not," the Demon sighed loudly, "Listen, your life in the town, especially for the next few weeks, won''t be... extremelyfortable. As you get used to the monsters, and the monsters get used to you, things will begin to go more smoothly, but until then..."


    Marius frowned slightly. He was still unsure about this situation. Although they had seen that Eiro wasn''t a normal monster; being a demon that could actively use holy magic, this situation was still so new to them all. Frankly, they were already uncertain if they had made the correct decision, just a few moments after the ship lifted off once more.


    "I... understand. But... you are sure the monsters won''t... you know..." Marius asked, but Eiro just replied rather bluntly as the ship lifted back off the ground. Min had stayed behind with the other vigers for now to ensure that they would find their way to their new homes and could settle in properly. So until then, he was the only one to take care of these people, and it was his task to calm them down, "They will not even touch a single hair on your heads," he said confidently, "This is something that I can promise to you."


    Marius frowned slightly. He was still unsure about this situation. Although they had seen that Eiro wasn''t a normal monster; being a demon that could actively use holy magic, this situation was still so new to them all. Frankly, they were already uncertain if they had made the correct decision, just a few moments after the ship lifted off once more.


    Eiro continued to exin, "Monsters aren''t necessarily as wild as you may think. Of course, they do what they want, and their habits are extremely different to those of humans, but monsters with a certain degree of intelligence do follow a certainw. Thew of the strong. It is another side-effect of the monstrosity I mentioned; it is an extreme bestial instinct that the Monster King takes advantage of to control Monsterkind. Those whose monstrosity is stronger amongst the townsfolk won''t attack you, or evene close to you, because they listen to my power. And those whose monstrosity is already near-extinguished won''t attack you simply because they don''t feel the need to," or so Eiro hoped. He knew that a lot of monsters, including those like Gobo and Kitsue, who already had extensive experience with people, weren''t the most excited about having to interact with them. There would be conflicts, there would be struggle. But that was something that was just part of the process, and Eiro would be there as the mediator between Monster- and Personkind.


    "And you don''t need to worry for now. I won''t throw you into the city''s center. You will be at its outskirts for now, in a safe area where you can slowly get used to the presence of kindhearted monsters," Eiro exined, and Marius couldn''t help but let out a light scoff, before shoving his hand in front of his mouth, "I-I''m sorry, I just-"


    "No, don''t worry. I understand that this seems like a grotesque concept. How could monsters be kind, right? But really, you''ll see what I mean," Eiro replied, continuing to steer the ship into the direction of the Monster Town.


    It took a while for the vessel to arrive at its destination. Even from up here, the town wasn''t currently visible. Its barrier worked off the principles of the invisibility potion. While it didn''t use any of the potion directly, since Eiro simply wasn''t able to produce enough to supply this whole barrier, it still had simr effects. While the town wasn''t hidden from one''s own attention and the world, it was at least obscured from sight.


    As the ship passed through the barrier, the town came into view, and the vigers held their breaths in shock and confusion. There really was a town below them, and it wasn''t small either. There were manyrge buildings that most of these people had never even imagined before. Of course, since this ce used to be a floating ind, there was vastly limited space to work with. That was why, instead of spreading out horizontally as most other towns did, this city had expanded further into the sky. That was why there were a lot of tall buildings, though most of them had copsed over the years that the town had be a nest of monsters. Monsters that still lived in this town to this day.


    Harpies were flying through the air or sitting on rooftops,rge Trolls wandered through the streets alongside the short molemen. But even so, this city was beautiful and unique. It was closer to a city in its size, much beyond what the vige these people came from had been. There were rivers flowing into the city through canals that connected into ake at its side. Vast fields had been built onto ttened and elevated edges of the mountains surrounding the town. And then there were therge grassy areas with enormous goats and bulls scattered over them. And then, the ship slowly lowered itself into a small vige-like ce that had been built on the outskirts of the town. While it looked a lot more like what they were used to, even these small, wooden houses were clearly of a much higher quality than they were used to.


    Eiro turned toward the humans and smiled, "I had these houses built in anticipation for the town''s first people. I''m sure you will be able to get used to this ce more easily there. And then, if at any point, you feel like you want to move into another part of the town, you may do so. This is on an individual basis, of course. If you wish to stay in this part of town, you may do so as well. Once the reconstruction of the main town has finished, however, the n was to begin expanding into this direction, but that is still quite a bit away. And until then, there might be other people to live beside you as well," Eiro exined, watching as these people stepped off the ship, looking at their new home. The children seemed quite excited, but the adults were a lot more weary. And that was when Eiro noticed a certain monster approaching. She was usually much morezy than this, but he figured that the flying ship had made her rather curious.


    It was the harpy queen, whose body by itself was three meters long, with a wingspan six times that. Though al least, when folded up, her wings seemed a lot smaller, but it did not make her any less intimidating to the humans. She sat there on the ground, tilting her head while curiously looking at these new people.


    "What are you doing?" Eiro asked in the harpies''nguage, which was made up of sequences of whistling and clicking, "I told you all that once I bring people here, you should introduce yourselves to them slowly over time."


    "I introduce. Not right?" the harpy queen asked confused, and Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, shaking his head, "No, not right. Though, I guess it''s not as bad as it could be," The Demon pointed out.


    While the harpy queen was certainly the monster leader that was most directly intimidating and scary to many people, as she had an oversized human body with a bird''s legs and wings instead of arms, seeming both familiar and foreign enough to inflict a certain type of fear in people, she was also one of the calmer ones. Gobo or Boju, a mountain hobgoblin and a hignd orc, and by far the calmest and most intelligent amongst the monster leaders, would have been a better choice if he wanted to introduce them to this ce slowly over time, at leastpared to Rashi or Kitsue, who were far too rowdy and violent still. But with the harpy queen, Eiro could approach this very differently. He stretched out his hand toward her, and she instinctively did what she did every time she spoke to Eiro. She ced her head onto his hand, allowing him to scratch the underside of her chin as though she were his pet.


    "This is the leader of this town''s harpies," Eiro exined to the scared humans, "She''s really not as scary as she looks."

 Chapter 688 Diabolus

    Chapter 688 Diabolus


    Eiro watched the vigers settle into their new homes from afar. For the time being, they just had to settle in. Tears were shed, and the mood was tense. Even though they had made the choice toe here themselves, they never had any choice in whether or not to leave the vige they lived in until just a few hours ago. Eiro had forced them to leave, because that was the only way for the vigers to get out of this unharmed. They only had a choice in where they were going to end up after leaving.


    And now that they had arrived, and Eiro had properly informed the leaders of each group of monsters, he moved on to some more important matters. Looking at the now abandoned vige through the eyes of one of the crows, it seemed like the Devil still hadn''t noticed what happened, or at least, he hadn''t done anything in reaction just yet, so Eiro had some time to finish up a project he had been preparing for this asion.


    Eiro looked at Min, who had returned back to the Demon for now. Since he was originally Eiro''s shadow, he could return to him whenever necessary. Eiro looked at him and smiled lightly, "Thanks for you work today. Could you steer the ship back to the manor? I want to do some more work on it before I give it to the craftsmen here to have it replicated."


    "As you wish," Min nodded with a slight bow, and Eiro quickly lifted off, heading back to the manor first. The ship was useful and much faster than carriages, but flying on his own was still much, much faster. And he couldn''t waste too much time right now. Eiro quickly approached the manor, flicking his wrist as he got closer to open the library''s window in front of him. He folded his wings into his back, quickly approaching the bookshelf on the library''s secondyer. After entering the right ''passcode'', he soon opened up the door to the hidden library, which had now be home to a lot of Eiro''s personal projects. While it was practically impossible for someone to enter this manor with malicious intent in the first ce, just in case, Eiro kept all the things that he wanted hidden, such as writing that he couldn''t just freely show to others, rare documents and books that he needed to keep safe, as well as objects that he couldn''t just let others see or get their hands on whatsoever.


    He quickly approached the thing that he had ced onto the other side of the room. It was arge jar that was filled with a mass of deep red flesh. It was the replicated flesh of the Devil that Eiro had started growing after he got his hands on a sample from Zeke. The mass of flesh wasn''t as big as it could be, though; in order to prepare for the rest of this project, Eiro had to cut off parts of it once it got big enough to take back some of the Devil''s essence so that he could use it to grow a tree. And using that tree''s wood, Eiro created a number of prosthetics. It was a prosthetic skeleton, and Eiro had created all the joints and bones that he could. On top of that, for some of the more important ces, such as the hands, legs, wings, and even the face, Eiro had created full prosthetics so that once the devil''s flesh was added into the mix, it would just be the ''base'' that was needed to make everything work properly.


    And then, Eiro looked at his wooden hand, flipping open atch on his palm. It was a small ''storage''partment that he had created for when he wanted to syphon mana off someone or something. It held a small array that would stabilize the mana inside of it. Right now it held the mana that the crows had taken off the vigers when they removed the marks off them. Eiro approached the jar, cing his wooden hand onto it, before quickly fusing the Devil''s flesh with the stolen mana. It practically seemed to thrive with this new energy; its colour, which had started to fade therger the mass of flesh grew, was returning into a deep, vibrant blood-like red.


    With a grin that he wasn''t able to keep down, Eiro pushed his hands into the jar, pulling the mass of flesh out of it. The liquified arcane magic started to crystalize on its outside, now that it was no longer being stabilized in its liquid form through the jar. Which was good for now, since it would keep the mass ''contained'' and ''stable'' for the time being. The Demon brought it over to the table that had the wooden skeletonid out on it, and quickly got to work. Using flesh magic to manipte the mass, he pulled chunks off of it and pushed it onto the skeleton, as though he was molding y. Piece by piece, he shaped a body on top of the wooden bones, and before long, it was time to ce the rest of the parts into the body before closing it up. In this case, he really just needed one more thing. Eiro walked up to a small box he had ced on one of the desks in the room. Inside of it was a small, pale red crystal. It was barely the size of his pinky''s fingernail, but it was more than enough.


    This was a crystalization of his Life Force. Different to the mana crystals that were growing in his body, his life force hadn''t reached the level of creating these on its own yet, so Eiro had to forcefully save up some over the course of a few days to create this. Since this wasn''t just created from blood, but the force keeping him alive that was diffused into his flesh and blood, the Bloodstone that he had fused into his veins sadly didn''t help him with this. It was both annoying to create, since Life Force was much more unstable outside of a living body than mana was, but with some trial and error, he managed to get there.


    Eiro ced the small crystal into the chest of the body that he was building up, and then closed up any and all unnecessary openings, before letting the life force of the crystal flow and permeate throughout the body. Using the techniques he learned under Jura, he manipted this life force and tried to create a natural flow throughout this unliving body, starting to fuse the flesh and the wooden limbs and bones into a single body. N?v(el)B\\jnn


    And then, once he was satisfied, he pressed his palm onto the body''s chest, pouring his own mana into it as much as he could.


    "Wake up, Diabolus" he whispered, and the flesh began to pulsate. It immediately began to adjust its own shape, redistributing as it was needed. Skin was growing on the flesh''s surface, and strong muscles formed around the bones. The body''s back arched as the bones were pulled into the correct positions, before the newborn servant went limp again.


    It slowly recovered, and pushed itself off the table, standing up to kneel down in front of Eiro.


    "Perfect," the Demon grinned broadly as he stared at the figure in front of him. While its limbs, face, and wings werepletely wooden, it was undeniable that this servant ''felt'' like the Devil. It was the result of being created with that being''s essence. If it was like this, then Eiro was sure that Diabolus would be as useful to him as he expected.


    Eiro handed him a suit, which was tailored to resemble the suit the Devil wore as closely as possible. After the servant got dressed, Eiro told it to follow him outside. There, he took a seat, and had Diabolus test out its body. Since Eiro used a lot of mana to create it, he was sure that Diabolus wasn''t weak, thoughbat wasn''t really its purpose. But it was still important for Eiro to know exactly how its physical abilities ended up. Different to other servants, this one had a direct physical form and limitations, and would be damaged if overdoing things, simr to any other living being. More than a servant created from magic, Diabolus was a lot closer to a Homunculus; an artificial living being.


    "Now, try to fly," Eiromanded it, and it quickly began to p the wooden wings on its back. Its body slowly lifted off the ground, and before long, the Servant grew confidence in using its body and began to be able to move around more effectively, including in its flight.


    "... is... that..." Arie stepped out into the garden. Eiro turned toward her and nodded, "This is the servant I told you I would create," the Demon exined. Arie''s expression wasplicated. Not only did this servant look close to identical to the Devil, but it also gave off a simr feeling, so it was hard for her to not feelplicated and even nearly enraged at this sight. The Devil was the being that Arie hated the most in this world, after all. Eiro held her hand as she sat down as well.


    "Don''t worry. I doubt I''ll have much for a use for it after the Devil is dead, so you can feel free to burn it to the ground once we''re done with it," Eiro smiled lightly, but Arie just shook her head slowly, "No... as long as the real deal is dead, I don''t care what happens to this... thing."


    "Hmm, I see. Well, we can still talk about thister. For now, we probably should get ready to head out," Eiro said, looking at the sky. There was the slightest discoloration from the sunset. That meant that soon, the being that fetched the Devil''s food would appear at the vige. This was thetest point that the Devil would end up finding out about what happened. And then, he would move to a different ce, which was the perfect moment for Eiro and the others to strike.

 Chapter 689 The Lone Tower

    Chapter 689 The Lone Tower


    Eiro viewed the vige through the crows'' eyes. The sun had just fully gone down, and the Demon senses an immense spike in magic not too far away. A carriage appeared on the road leading to the vige, drawn by two hell-beasts. The carriage was moving much faster than before, as though the creature inside had already noticed that something was wrong.


    As soon as the carriage came to a stop, the cloaked figure kicked the door open and rushed out, looking around nervously. It started running around the vige frantically, forcing open some doors and ripping apart anything it came across. For about twenty minutes, it kept searching the vige, but didn''t find anything beside a few farm animals, which the vigers sadly had to leave behind as they fled.


    The creature fell to its knee, grabbings head in terror. Tendrils of ck were pouring out from underneath its cloak, as though it was losing control over its body. And then, a crownded in front of it. It barely even noticed the bird, until four others appeared right by its side. Confused, the creature looked at the birds in front of it. It stretched out one of its arms, ck tendrils heading right toward one of the crows. But then, a dim light started glowing out from underneath the crow''s feathers. The creature pulled its tendrils back, before letting out a deep gurgled growl that sounded like a drowning animal.


    Before the creature could react, the five crows pped their wings and jumped at the creature, starting to pull at its cloak, as they all started letting off a bright light from within their bodies. The creature tried shoving them off, but when its tendrils came in contact with the light, they shrank back instantly. Soon, the creature''s ''body'' had be exposed. It was a mass of these living tendrils of darkness, like a massive knot made up of hundreds of deep ck ropes. And the light was cutting through those ropes, making the knot fall apart.


    This creature wasn''t strong. It wasn''t anything that could handle itself in a battle. It was a being whose whole purpose it was to bring food to the Devil. Something like that, which would only interact with people anyway, would be cheap and expendable. And then, attacking it with its bane? Of course it would fall apart without the opportunity to properly defend itself.


    And that was the moment that Eiro nced over at the map, seeing some movement on the glowing dot. Before now, it was quite literally stuck in the same ce since yesterday, but now, it was different. The part that changed the most was the height that the needles were pointing toward. And immediately, the crows disappeared into a fog of the invisibility potion, quickly flying away so that the Devil wouldn''t notice them.


    A figure approached the now half-dead creature. He hadn''t changed since Eiro hadst seen him, still being just as well put-together and careful as he was before. Eiro let out a deep sigh, tapping his finger onto the armrest of his chair. Just ncing at the devil from afar, through eyes that weren''t even his own, made him get heated up. If he still had a heart, it would be beating up to his throat right around now.


    The Devil stood over the body of the creature that was supposed to serve him, and stretched out his hand. A sh of light appeared from the Devil''s palm, and the creature simply disappeared in a cloud of smoke. With a slight movement of his hand, a crystal was pulled out from underneath the cloak. And then, the Devil stared into the air. It wasn''t directly at Eiro or the crows, but the Devil had managed to look into their direction. N?v(el)B\\jnn


    "Yeah, that''s how it should be," Eiro grinned broadly, "If you couldn''t do at least this much, you never would have been worth the effort."


    The Devil turned around, disappearing into a spike of mes. Eiro looked at the ice needles floating next to him, seeing them spin around haphazardly, before soon settling into ce again. With that, Eiro knew that it was time. Looking at the maps, he had moved to a ce on basically the other side of the continent from where he was before. It was further away, but still within reach.


    Eiro picked up thepass'' box and the maps that were connected to it, quickly making his way outside. There, the others were already waiting for him. They would be taking the skyship to the Devil''s new location. While Arie and Eiro could fly there, Jess, James, and Krog obviously couldn''t. Armodeus and Partax were standing outside next to the airship. They wouldn''t end up joining themselves, as Eiro already knew beforehand, but they still wanted to support the group in what they were about to do.


    Koperia was nearby as well. She hadn''t shown herself openly, but Eiro could sense her, and she of course knew that he could, whispering him words of encouragement. She as well wouldn''t join the fight, though her experience with necromancy and undeath was certainly helpful to allow Eiro to grow his strength.


    Overall, he would have preferred to wait for the arrival of the other Masters, so that he may learn more from them, but with everything that the Devil had attempted recently, he knew that he couldn''t wait too long anymore. Eiro made the skyship lift off the ground, as he looked at the four people in front of him.


    "I want to remind you... We will be facing an army over these next few days. The Devil has ess to quite a few artifacts as well, so this won''t be a simple fight in any way," the Demon pointed out. James let out a scoff, "If you don''t have the confidence we can do this, why even bring us?"


    "I know you can do this, don''t worry. You''re much, much stronger than you used to be, I made sure of that. Your skillset is refined and strengthened. However, our enemies are powerful as well. In particr, we need to look out for some specific individuals," Eiro exined, and Arie nodded her head.


    "The crow, right?"


    "That''s the one I''m currently most weary of, yes," the Demon pointed out. The ''crow'' was a bird monster that had been raised by the Devil, having been given the ''Ultimate Agility'' card. It was the same kind as Eiro''s ''Ultimate Perception'' and Armodeus'' ''Ultimate Dexterity''. Not only that, but from the ground up, it had been raised to already been an agile, fast monster. Even without that card, it would have been hard to fight. And frankly, if anyone beside Eiro faced that crow, he wasn''t confident how well they would fare. Not to mention... the Devil had many other cards.


    Having been the one to found and manipte the ''organization'', Eiro had a rough idea of some of the things he had. The ''Stopwatch'', letting him freeze time, being by far the most dangerous that Eiro was currently aware of. He was able to speed up his own consciousness to keep up with the replicants, those rings that had been spread throughout the organization, but Eiro wasn''t sure if he would be able to do the sameter.


    And of course, the Devil had hundreds of years to build up an incredible arsenal and servants, so if Eiro wasn''t able to end this quickly... then things would be quite rough very quickly. The only real benefit that Eiro saw was that it would be impossible to gather all those servants, weapons, and tools in a single ce all too quickly. Especially since the Devil didn''t even know Eiro''s n. He would be able to guess, but going all-out in just one ce, just in case he attacked there, would be absolutely stupid. Especially since the Devil tended to go for tricks and traps rather than all-out, direct conflicts.


    Before long, the Skyship had arrived at its destination. In front of the group, a massive canyon stretched out as far as they could see. And in the middle of that canyon, on top of a lone teau, stood a tower. But something about it was... weird. Eiro could sense the tower itself, and could hear the wind blow past it, and see the tiniest details on its surface... but he couldn''t sense what was inside. Or rather, it was more like... everything was distorted. It was something that didn''t make sense, and it certainly felt different to the effect of the invisibility potion. The space within the tower was definitely there, it was tangible to a degree, but it was like all of Eiro''s senses were sucked in within the tower''s enterior.


    With a frown, Eiro thought about what it could be. And then, he finally caught a scent, "Ah..." Eiro muttered. The tower didn''t give off any particr magic, so he hadn''t noticed, but its scent was somewhat akin to the magic that he felt flow throughout his home; while it wasn''t ''magic'', it was ''spatial''.


    It was the work of an artifact, and there was only one that really came to mind that would exin this. The people of a certain small town had to flee from their home, being persecuted and hunted to the end of the world. Before long, they found themselves in an old, underground salt mine, and made it their home. But even then, their pursuers found them. That was when the Arcane Dealer appeared, bestowing a gift upon the leader of the vige. A map of the salt mines, that he was able to expand however he wished. With that, the salt mine was turned dozens of timesrger than before.


    It was the same artifact that the Devil must have used; The ''Dungeon Map''.

 Chapter 690 Drawbacks

    Chapter 690 Drawbacks


    Eiro looked at the four others that apanied him here; that excluded Diabolus, as that special servant was currently hidden away using the Invisibility potion, and would simply act ording to Eiro''smands anyway.


    "The Devil has the dungeon map," He exined to them, "And that tower is the dungeon in question. The space inside of it has been twisted and distorted. From here, I can''t even tell what''s really in there, and once we''re inside, my senses might not be that useful in guiding us around either."


    Jess soon replied, a nervous frown on her face, "Just how many artifacts does that guy have..? That means he also has a ton of unique abilities, right?" N?v(el)B\\jnn


    For a moment, Eiro thought about it, but wasn''t sure exactly, "He''ll have a few, at the very least. But I don''t know when he got these artifacts and how often he''s actually managed to evolve so far. It won''t change anything in the end; our approach will stay the same."


    "But isn''t this even worse than before?" James asked with a frown, "If he linked the Dungeon Map to this ce, then isn''t it his main base? Or at least, one of his main bases. We didn''t attack him at the old location because the possibility of extensive traps, but here they''re definitely going to be a thing."


    "Well," Eiro replied, "I guess that''s the case to an extent. But honestly? This is the best case scenario," he grinned lightly, staring at the tower from afar.


    "How''s that the case?" James asked, not understanding where Eiro was going, and the Demon quickly exined, "So, the dungeon map is special because it allows to expand and bend space unnaturally. You can manually control it however you want, basically. But at the same time, it''s an artifact with a lot of drawbacks. One being that the dungeon has a central ''core'', like living beings. If that core is destroyed, then the space will return to what it was before. And most importantly; in order to actually use the dungeon map, the user has to interact with the core."


    "...So if we find the core, we''re going to find the Devil? Is that it?" Krog wondered, but Eiro shook his head, "No, I don''t think so. The Devil actually isn''t the kind to keep artifacts to himself. Instead, he gives them to his underlings. The Devil itself... frankly, I''m not sure how strong he is. He''s amander, a plotter; instead of fighting himself, he has his underlings do it for him, so he strengthens them. That''s why I think the same is the case with the dungeon map. Someone else controls that ce so the Devil can concentrate on other matters."


    "So we''re going to find the core and take over?" Arie asked, and Eiro smiled at her with a quick nod, "Mhm, exactly that. And once that is the case, the benefit that the Devil has for this being his base will be gone."


    "Right, but I think you''re making it sound a little too easy..." Jess pointed out.


    "It''s not going to be easy whatsoever. But we do have a certain benefit that''s going to well... make it a lot easier," Eiro replied, before looking back at the tower, "Enough talking for now. It''s time to head inside."


    Eiro snapped his fingers, creating three duplicates of himself. They were heavily altered, being basically just a pair of wings and some ws that wouldtch onto the back of Jess, James, and Krog. They had to approach the tower, and doing so in the skyship was going to be far too reckless.


    The group of five, plus the hidden Diabolus, quickly flew toward the tower, approaching therge gate in the front. A space manipted through the dungeon map could only be entered and left through pre-determined paths, and Eiro doubted there were any other ways for them to get inside. Eiro ced his hand onto the door. It wouldn''t budge. So, Eiro just pushed a bit harder. The door''s hingest were starting to get bent out of shape, and it didn''t take long until they gave in, as Eiro just forced the gate open. With an extremely loud noise permeating throughout the massive entrance hall, the gate fell onto the ground, and the rest of Eiro''s party just stared at him.


    "What? They''d have known we''re here right away no matter what, making some noise doesn''t change anything. Anyway, duck," Eiro said somewhat nonchntly, but this way of doing things had already been engrained in the party''s bodies. Ariegged behind a bit as she didn''t expect it, but she had the reflexes to do as the others did, as a massive boulder, taller than Krog even, was shot at them from across the room. But it flew high enough that just by ducking, they wouldn''t be hit.


    Once the boulder was right above the party, however, a secondary opening on its underside had been revealed and an a thick spike was shot out of it. The spike got stuck in the ground, and a mechanism activated within the boulder as it shattered apart. The individual pieces of the boulder moved to specific spots in the air, creating the focus-points of a barrier formation, with the spike at its center. Eiro could immediately tell what was going on before the barrier fully activated; it was a special trap that had been constructed with the ''Stopwatch''s power, which would encase the party in a field of frozen time indefinitely.


    Since the boulder''s fractions had already been influenced by the stopwatch, the barrier-deployment was near-instantaneous. As such, Eiro wasn''t able to actually move out of its confines. This would have been a perfect trap, if it weren''t for the fact that Eiro''s mana could move faster than this stopwatch replicant.


    He deployed a duplicate of himself onto the outside of the barrier. And that was when his bodypletely froze, but his consciousness was still inside the duplicate.


    The duplicate acted quickly before other traps could be activated, and used one of Eiro''s duplicated daggers to stab into the barrier. Cracks formed on the barrier, and it was immediately shattered and disabled. From the perspective of the other party members, they ducked, and then the boulder above them was reced with a spike and some smaller stones, with a second Eiro now standing a few steps away.


    "Alright, shall we go?" Eiro asked, dusting himself off a bit after parts of the bouldernded on him, as the duplicate quickly dissolved.


    James stared at the ground annoyed, "That was the first trap? Are we sure this was a good idea?"


    "It''s going to be fine," Eiro replied immediately, stepping further into the entrance hall. The others stuck by him closely.


    "How can you be so sure about that?"


    "...You guys know about the Devil''s abilities, right? And I don''t just mean the current Devil; the card ''The Devil''." Eiro asked, and the first to answer was Arie. While the others also knew, Arie was the most confident in her knowledge about that being, "The Devil is the Lord of Sin, so his abilities are generally centered around the maniption of desires, which the seven deadly sin center around."


    "Correct! Gold star! And now, do you also happen to know the drawback of the Devil''s card?"


    The others were surprised, "Drawback? What do you mean?" Jess asked, and Eiro replied bluntly, "All cards of the minor arcana have drawbacks. Did you think the major arcana was excluded from that? I have a drawback as well. ''The World'' allows me to integrate everything around me into myself. But if I''m not careful, I start dissolving into the world instead. My mind and body are constantly at threat of breaking down and bing one with nature around me. Not that it''s really anything to worry about though, my Legendary skill actually negates most of that if I''ll be totally honest. But when I fuse with things I still feel some of it here and there," Eiro exined. He knew that the others would worry, so he hadn''t told them so far, but at this point he couldn''t exin that all royals have extreme weaknesses and not exin his own. Though, Arie had already known about this ever since Eiro had be a royal. She was the first to be told of this weakness, "While I... don''t like how nonchnt you are about this, what you''re saying is that the Devil also has a weakness like that, right?"


    "Of course. It''s the... flipside. It''s like royals are affected by their own abilities. So the Devil is afflicted by ''Sin'' constantly. Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth... For someone so keen on nning things, he tends to make certain mistakes far too often. Especially in regard to me; I''m getting to him. He gets angry, so that''s wrath. He eats a full person every day, apparently, so that''s Gluttony. Despite being the oldest royal, as far as I''m aware, he hasn''t used that time as he could have. He probably has periods of time where he just hibernates for years, and his servants act for him. That''s sloth. And the sin that the Devil stinks of the most? By far, it''s Pride."


    James raised a brow in thought, "So... what you''re saying... the guy we''re fighting against is highly organized, has an arsenal greater than any empire that ever existed... but he''s toozy to do anything most of the time, too pissed off constantly to not react to provocation, too greedy to not go after whatever he wants... and too proud to realize faults in his actions?"


    Eiro turned toward the others behind him, showing off a slight grin, "Yup."

 Chapter 691 Stacking

    Chapter 691 Stacking


    Eiro looked at the others after his exnation. Knowing about this, things seemed a lot more... possible. If the Devil really had such weaknesses, bing influenced by the same sins that he was supposed to control, then it would definitely be possible for them to face him. However, Eiro wanted to make one thing clear, "Even if that is the case, the Devil isn''t someone that can be underestimated. If possible, we should still act like he doesn''t have that weakness."


    "...then why did you tell us? Wasn''t that supposed to make us feel more confident about this?" Krog wondered, and Eiro looked at him with a slight smile, "In this case... ''we'' really just means ''you''."


    While they wanted to retort somehow, nobody could say anything in response to that. The only one that really had the ability toprehend everything that was going on rted to the Devil, and could even predict those actions to an extent, was Eiro. Even if the others tried, the intricacies of the Devil''s actions weren''t something they could just guess from the little information they had on him.


    "But anyway, where I was going with this is simple. While the Devil might seem calm and collected, he''s not really. He''s petty, he''s angry, and he''szy. He doesn''t like losing, and he definitely doesn''t like being tricked," Eiro pointed out, beginning to guide his party through the structure around them. While he wasn''t able to sense anything beyond the walls, he could still expand his senses through the halls. As they continued on, Eiro was not only creating a mental map of this ce, which was useful even if it didn''t technically make sense spatially, but he was also analyzing the patterns of this structure. Even if it seemed random, that wasn''t really the case. Actually,pared to true randomness, if someone actively tried to make something ''appear'' random, they ended up making it seem less random to someone that knew what they were looking for. If you had a sequence of ten coin-tosses, aplete, true fifty-fifty chance at either side appearing, it would be just as possible for a sequence of five ''tail'' throws to appear as anything else. In the end, anybination of throws was just as likely as any other; that was the randomness. However, a sequence of the same results five times in a row simply didn''t... look random enough. If you told someone to note down a random sequence of possible coin throws, they would only ever stick the same side right after each other two or three times in a row. What was truly random, and what ''appeared'' random wasn''t always the same.


    And that was also the case for this structure. It was vast andplex, but it wasn''t truly random. The Dungeon Map needed the user to manually construct and n it. And even if they tried to make it random, it could never possibly be so. Everyone had their own unique habits, and the more that the party continued through this ce, the more Eiro was understanding the habits of this Dungeon Master. n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "Hmm... Let''s hope that I''m right, and this time..." Eiro muttered. A cut opened on his fingertip and a bit of blood flew through the hallway in front of him. As the blood went past a certain threshold, some of the bricks making up the floor, ceiling and walls started to glow. Arge section of the hallway had turned into another time-freeze field. The drop of blood was stuck mid-air.


    "Alright, now let''s get to pissing off the Devil," Eiro grinned, looking at his party members, "Get ready. I''m not sure how fast he''s going to retaliate."


    James looked at the stone Eiro had been holding onto for a while now, "So what exactly is going to happen?"


    Eiro smiled, approaching the edge of the barrier, "We just spoke about card weaknesses, right? Well, the weakness of the Stopwatch is simple. The user can freeze time; but they''ll keep aging. And actually, a good bit faster than before. And the longer each time-freeze session goes on, the faster they''ll start aging. And after looking at these replicants, it''s clear that even these are technically still linked to the original card''s owner as the ''user'', even if other people can activate them."


    "So the devil has some random monster that''s aging constantly... so what?" Jess asked, not sure she understood where Eiro was going. But the Demon couldn''t help but keep smirking, "Actually, not in this case. If the owner of a card dies, then the card will be ''reset''. And from what I understand of these cards so far, that would make all the replicants useless, even if the card became linked to someone new. So, either, the Devil would need to ship out new timestop rings every time one monster dies from old age. I''m pretty sure that instead of that, the Devil kept that card to himself. There''s a lot of those rings spread around, so the effect has to stack up a lot. The user of that stopwatch must be aging months, or even years, every week, considering how often he uses them."


    "...And the devil doesn''t age," Arie added, and Eiro just looked at her with a light smile, "Well... I wouldn''t say he doesn''t age at all. While lower demons, like imps, can only get four of five years old, the ceiling for demons is exorbitant. A lot of the children of the ''Great Demon King'' are still alive, but even they''ve gotten weaker. They age... we just don''t know how long arch-demons can really live, cause we haven''t gotten there yet."


    "...Okay, so... I still don''t get where you''re going," James pointed out. Eiro continued, "Let''s just say... a year for the Devil is about a minute for humans. Not sure if that''s urate, but let''s just assume. So, if we want the Devil to age a year, we just need to have 525.600 minutes go by for him," Eiro poured mana into the stone that he was holding, throwing it into the barrier in front of him at the exact right moment.


    But... nothing happened. Even so, Eiro couldn''t contain his broad grin anymore, "You know, the Arcane Dealer was just a human at some point. And humans can''t n for every evntuality. I''m sure that the Arcane Dealer didn''t n on these cards being replicated like this. So why would he n for the event that a card''s effect oveps itself?"


    The party was catching up to what Eiro was saying.


    "The effect of the replicates stopwatch is reduced to normal. Usually, it freezes timepletely, or at least slows it much more, but here, it just slows things down incredibly. For a second to pass inside of the replicant''s area of effect, it takes an hour outside of it. And well... basically, the effect of the replicants is sort of... well, reversed here. Usually, it speeds up the user, but here, it''s used to slow things down. Both should be possible with the stopwatch, and should have the same side effect, anyway. The user has to pay for the time they manipte. So, with that slow-down in there normally... for every second that passes out here, the Devil would age... well, since a replicant''s side effects are generally a lot stronger, let''s just say... two seconds at first. Then for the next second, he''ll age three. Then five. Then ten, 15, 20. 30 seconds. And at some point, a minute. Then two, or three, or five. And now, let''s imagine that aging effect is strengthened, because the slow-down factor increases by another hour," Eiro suggested. He looked at the stone that he had thrown into the zone. It was the core of the first trap that the party had encountered in this ce, and he activated it again.


    "So... inside of that second zone... for a second to pass, 150 days need to pass for us?" Jess asked, and Eiro nodded.


    "Mhm. Exactly. But the system tracking the side-effects doesn''t know what''s happening in there right now. It just knows that instead of the 3600 that''s usually the base... it''s slowed down by... roughly 13 million," Eiro started, "And with that, the side effect stacks up. For the first second, out here, the devil will age an hour. By the tenth second... he''ll age 2 days. By the fifteenth second, it''s a whole month. By the twentieth... maybe a bit less than half a year? And it''s going to keep growing and growing. So... let''s just give it a couple of minutes. He should notice soon."

 Chapter 692 The Angel

    692 The Angel n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    Eiro and the others continued waiting for a while. It took a whole ten minutes for something to happen, though. The time-freeze field in front of them had suddenly deactivated, and Eiro could sense a change in the flow of magic around the hallway.


    "Alright, there we go," the Demon pointed out, looking at his party members, "Let''s keep going, but don''t-" Eiro started, but was soon interrupted by a sudden event. He had been able to see it happening, even if it ured at a speed that he couldn''t physically react to. Space was cut apart and shifted aside.


    Eiro found himself in a different space. Arge, empty hall. There was just a single door on the other side of the room. The Demon let out an annoyed groan, "Fuck... well, at least I warned them. They should be able to take care of themselves."


    What had happened just now was something that Eiro expected to be a possibility. The ''Dungeon Map'' was an artifact that gave the user near-limitless dominion over a certain space. Eiro expected for the Devil to have done something to weaponize this, and that is exactly what had just happened. Using that ability, the space that each individual party member had taken up was moved away from where it was originally. Basically, they were all teleported far away from each other, most likely so that they could all be taken out individually. But Eiro knew they were all going to be fine, so he didn''t worry too much. For now, he had to concentrate on what was happening around him. The room was empty, and Eiro couldn''t sense anyone or anything around him. Figuring that he shouldn''t waste any time, Eiro spread out his wings. Since he was alone now, he could move freely without having to wait for the others. With a p of his wings, a massive gust of wind appeared below him. Before the dust below him had the opportunity to be moved aside, Eiro shot through the room toward the door. It wasn''t able to withstand Eiro and simply shattered open, leading the Demon into a hallway. This space was long, looping and twisting around itself, distorting the Demon''s senses together with it. From his perspective, all he could see right now was a deep, straight hallway. Eiro flew for a few seconds before something appeared in front of him. Splinters of wood were scattered around the floor, not even having fully settled yet. Beyond those splinters, arge open room was revealed. The dust that had gathered here over time was pushed against the walls away from the center of the room. Eiro came to a halt and looked around. He had returned back to where he started. --- "Let''s keep going, but don''t-" Eiro''s voice cut out. The space around Arie had changed. It was too dark for her to see, but she knew that she was alone. As she held her hand forward, rings of light appeared around her arm, illuminating the room around her. To her surprise, she found herself in a church. Wooden benches stretched out into the darkness, and intricate gold decorations led along the carpet beneath her feet toward an altar.


    Knowing that right now, she was just revealing herself to any potential enemies, Arie waved her hand in front of her body. Wisps of light started floating around her, before quickly spreading throughout the corners of this church. There were no doors or windows anywhere, justrge paintings on the walls like ones that you could see in any church. Or at least, that''s what it seemed like to Arie initially, before one of the paintings caught her eye.


    It depicted a gorgeous, practically ethereal young man holding a child in his arms. Sixrge wings spread out behind his back. They were originally white, but a ck substance seemed to be growing and sticking to them. A halo, the representation of absolute holiness, floated behind his head, with its golden light also bing corrupted by darkness.


    "...Father?" Arie muttered quietly, looking at the face of the man she was trying to avenge. By now, he had be nothing but a walking corpse, taken over by the wickedness of the Monster King through the Devil''s vile ploy. Arie gathered some more wisps of light along the walls, letting her see the paintings better. They were all depicting a different point in her father''s story.


    An angel, born from the gods'' will. Working tirelessly to serve them without a moment''s rest, as he had been born to do. But then one day, he had been chosen for a special task; he became a bard of the gods, being sent down to the world below to hear the mortals'' stories, so that he could one day return to the gods'' side and sing of the woes of the people. After mingling amongst the mortals and entertaining the gods for centuries, the angel came across a mortal woman. Young and filled with a love for life despite the horrors of the world unfolding around her, the angel fell for her. Despite being forbidden so, the angel married the woman, hiding who he truly was, and the two birthed a child. Furious at the existence of this forbidden love, the gods cursed the angel and his lover, killing her and stripping him of his holiness. The angel, now fallen from grace, took his child, the only memory he had of his love, and raiser her on his own, until she became a beautiful young woman that her mother would be proud of.


    However, as the years went on, the darkness in the angel''s heart grew. His hatred for the gods that had used him as nothing but a tool, before punishing him and his love for the sole crime of being happy, grew by the day. The more his daughter grew to resemble the woman he had loved, both in appearance and in heart, the more he had submitted to the darkness within him.


    Arie looked at the paintings, bracing herself for the next part of the story. A figure appeared beside the angel, reaching out a hand toward him. It promised to protect his daughter and bring the angel happiness once more, but the figure took the trust the angel had given it and ripped it apart within its grasp. It was the Devil, who started to twist the angel''s nature more, day by day. It didn''t take long until the angel had truly fallen into the Devil''s hands, losing his own will. The Devil presented the angel to the Monster King as a present, and the King turned the angel into a pawn. The angel had been turned into a royal; the Hierophant. Under the Monster King''s rule, the angel had be a bringer of ruin and death.


    Looking at the story of her father, Arie, the nephilim, stayed calm. There wasn''t a single day where she didn''t think of this in the first ce, so something like this would never be enough to shake her up. Arie closed her eyes for a moment. She let out a deep sigh. Pushing her hand toward one of her wings, Arie plucked out one of her own feathers. The feather began to glow and changed its shape, turning into a luminescent arrow. She had pushed her other hand forward, and then nocked the arrow onto an arrow of light that formed around her grasp. Aiming upward, Arie pulled at the string, and shot the arrow up into the darkness above her. While she was surrounded by nothing but walls, the ceiling had been unendingly tall, with clear dangers lurking in the the shadows. A high-pitched screech echoed through the church as something fell from above, soonnding on the altar with a loud m. The glowing arrow that Arie had shot, sticking out from the chest of an angel. Or at least, something that appeared like an angel.


    It was a beautiful figure, tall and genderless, something untouchable by the dirty hands of mortals. Large wings were spread out from its back. However, dark blood poured from the wound over its heart, dyeing its pale, naked body ck. In itsst effort, the angel let out a cry.


    Disgusting and corrupted caws, more animalistic than a harpy''s, but more melodic than a bird''s, came from the angel''s mouth. As if responding to the death of their fellow, more caws sounded out from above Arie, as a flock of furious, false angels shot down at her.

 Chapter 693 Living Rock

    693 Living Rock n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    James slid over the ground, dodging the heavy m of one of his opponents. Clicking his tongue, he stared at the figure in front of him, trying to keep track of the ones closing in from the other end of the hallway.


    They were monsters of living rock. At first, he thought they were something like Golems or Automatons, but no; he could hear breathing, and they reacted differently to sudden attackspared to the kind of beings that have a predetermined course of action ced into them. But even so, that didn''t really change anything about the situation that he had found himself in.


    All of a sudden, without any sort of warning, he found himself in this dome-like room. There were small openings all around where these rock monsters were rolling out of, before fully standing up. When rolled up, they barely reached up to his hip, but like this, they actually wereparable to Krog in size. The only saving grace was that they were slow, so James was able to get away from them well enough, but that also had its limits. There didn''t seem to be a stop to them, so soon enough he''d have nowhere to run anymore.


    These were practically the worst conditions he could ask for. Nothing to climb up onto and nothing to hide behind. And worst of all, he was surrounded by enemies that were possibly the worst match-up for him. Being made of stone, the usual tactic was to break them with heavy impacts; shield bashes, clubs, that sort of thing. Not only would they blunt, crack, or just shatter any de that one used against them, but that de would barely do any damage in the process. James was a speed-based, close- to mid-range attacker; his attacks wereparatively light, but many. In situations like this, he would usually be the one to get the attention from the enemies, while either Jess, with some earth magic, or Krog, with some general heavy attacks, would actually attack the enemies. But he was alone now; he had to figure something out.


    One of the rock monsters swung its boulder-like fist at his face, while another was aiming at his back. A few more were acting as walls to his side. Usually, or rather, just a year ago, he would be dead now, but the current James was different. Bending backward with almost snake-like, liquid movements, James kicked off the ground to jump into a backflip. But just a moment after, he interrupted the backflip and ced his feet onto the rock monster that attacked him from the front, kicking off from there once again. At the same time, he also held onto the head of the monster behind him, flipping over the monster''s head, starting to hold onto the ragged surface of its back while making himself as small as possible.


    James hated to admit it, and he certainly would never say this in earshot of Eiro, which also meant that he has never said this out loud before in the first ce, but Eiro''s incredibly unusual method of training was insanely effective.


    Eiro had everyone in the party take on different low-grade sses. Considering that the party was already somewhat capable, leveling them up was fast and painless, especially in the beginning when they were just low-grade sses adjacent to their main ss, usually meaning delving into different beginner specialized sses. For example, Jess became an apprentice mage for different elements, and since she had alreadypleted the path of a proper four-elemental mage, she rushed through those fairly easily. James took on earlier versions of sses like ''Tracker'' or ''Cat Burr''. These were fine, since they were already directly rted to things that James was already good at in the first ce. They only gave low stat benefits, only getting a new stat point ever few level-ups, if they were lucky, and even the ss abilities were often quite useless. But theypounded. The speed at which they gained new stat points was faster than before, since they could rush through the levels incredibly fast. And the abilities which seemed useless at first ended up showing their worth as their effects gathered up.


    And then, Eiro had them get seemingly random sses. Of course, they needed the talent for them to be able to get them in the first ce, so they ended up being useful, but James had to spend a lot more time than he would have liked as an apprentice ''Acrobat'' or ''Dancer''. However, these sses, even more so than those that directly rted to the sses they were aiming for originally, boosted their strength considerably. James'' flexibility, especially after learning Dance skills and styles, and starting to use these abilities more and more, became absolutely ridiculous. Even his prosthetics became easier to manipte over time, as James'' ability to control his own flesh and blood increased. It was to the point that James even forgot that he even had these prosthetics. Before, he had acted like they were good enough, just because he could move around properly again, but after Eiro came to him and told him that he was barely seeing what his prosthetics had to offer... he got serious about them.


    Over just half a year, through Eiro''s ridiculous training methods, James had risen from a C-Rank to a true S-rank. And it wasn''t just the ss-abilities and rted skills that made James stronger; just his raw muscle strength and flexibility was so much more than before. All his physical stat values skyrocketet. It was to the point that the current him was probably physically as strong or maybe even stronger than the Krog from before the training started, even if his own stats were the same as back then. With the muscles he had now... the muscles that the ''Chaos Maniption'' brought to him. He was unstoppable.


    James kept waiting on the monster''s back for a good opportunity, and he didn''t have to wait for long either. Even if they weren''t pre-programmed golems or automatons, they still weren''t particrly smart. One of the rock monsters swungs its fist at James, who waited as long as he could to jump off the monster he was hanging onto. The monster struck and with that shattered part of the other''s back, while at the same time shattering its own hand. And there, their ''insides'' were revealed. But to James'' surprise... what he saw inside was somewhat like the body of a goblin. It was covered in a thinyer of slime that seemed to have practically fused the stone to its body.


    So this was why James had never heard about this monster before. It wasn''t ''natural''. Eiro had warned the party that this was a possibility here; that the Devil had used the ''Key'' to create new monsters altogether, taking a quality from one monster and giving it to another. And clearly, the Devil hadn''t beenzy, considering how many there were.


    James pulled out one of the vials attached to his belt, and a translucent, softly glowing mass of magic appeared above the cork. It formed a needle and stabbed into the bottle, as the liquid inside of it was pulled out. In just a second, James had created a dozen of these needles, and he quickly threw one at the exposed back of the monster in front of him, and then one at the newly-exposed hand of the monster that he had tricked into attacking itsrade.


    Of course, the needles created from his unique ability hit and stabbed through their skin, falling apart after their contents were pushed inside of the goblins'' bodies. Of course, the one whose back was hit copsed first, but the other one quickly followed as well.


    "It''s Eiro''s own creation, after all," James grinned. If it was like this, then he did have a chance to beat these guys after all. Tricking these monsters into taking each other down wasn''t easy by any means. But if the base for them were goblins, then they weren''t intelligent, and all their senses were incredibly restricted due to the rock that was covering them. They could probably just vaguely realize where things around them were, and maybe they hadn''t even been able to tell that the other monsters were dying one by one. If they had, then even stupid monsters like these would have stopped at some point.


    However, the problem was still their sheer amount. James had to move constantly, and barely had the opportunity to properly think and n things out more thoroughly. He had to improvise, think on his feet, and constantly create new supplies of poisoned needles so that he could take the monsters down. Until the floor waspletely covered in the dead monsters. At some point, there were none left alive. Whether it was because the entrances were now blocked by corpses, or because there were simply no more monsters toe at him, but James finally had the time to breathe. With a broad grin, James ran his hand through his sweat-drenched hair, "And that''s how you do it."

 Chapter 694 White Flames

    694 White mes


    Krog had squatted down on the ground, blood having soaked into his facial hair. With an annoyed groan, he ced his thumb onto one of his nostrils and exhailed strongly. A glob of coagted blood flew out onto the ground, and inside of it, something seemed to be wriggling. Krog quickly stepped on it, crushing it under his boot.


    "Annoying bastards," he cursed, spitting on the ground a few times. He grabbed a small metal sk that was attached to his belt, quickly filling his mouth with the liquid inside of it and swishing it around his mouth a few times, before spitting the liquid back out. Together with the clear, high percentage alcohol that he carried with him to disinfect his injuries in case of an emergency, a number of leftover bug carcasses flew out of his mouth. The warrior turned around, looking at thepletely destroyed nests that covered the walls of the narrow hallway he had found himself in. He was barely able to walk through there without pushing into those nests and disturbing literally everything inside of them, so this wasn''t a particrly fun time for him. But now that this was over, he could at least concentrate on finding the others again. Though, to be perfectly honest, he knew that he was mostly relying on one of the others, most likely Eiro, finding and killing the one controlling this dungeon. Otherwise, there was basically no way for Krog to find his way through here, especially if he could be teleported elsewhere at any point in time.


    For now, Krog continued on. It didn''t seem like this hallway was stretching for particrly long. He was currently approaching a stairway with light shining down from wherever it was leading. Since it had been dark in here, he tried to slowly ustom himself to the light before rushing to the space above, so that he couldn''t be ambushed while half-blinded. But even after slowly making his way up the stairs, there wasn''t anything there. Except, of course, the environment he found himself in was more than suspicious.


    Up until now, ever since the party had entered the tower, the environment had been practically the same. Stone bricks wherever they looked, sometimes wooden doors, random furniture, long, winding hallways, and every once in a while the rare room that were actually connected by those hallways. But now, Krog was basically outside. N?v(el)B\\jnn


    There were trees, flowers, and all sorts of other nts no matter where he looked. As though he stepped into some kind of jungle. Light was shining through the leaves above him, but when he managed to catch some nces at what was above the trees, he could still see some dark gray like the bricks he was used to. Suspicious, Krog leaned down, pushing his hand into the dirt, shoveling it away as much as he could. Before long, he reached the bottom; more stone bricks. And when he pushed some of the giant leaves to the side, and cut away some of the ones that were growing a bit too densely, he managed to see some overgrown, cracked nters.


    He wasn''t suddenly outside; they had just turned this space into an inside-garden. Though, even if that was the case, this still gave Krog a certain possibility. He noticed some snickering sounds around him. More bugs or some sort of small critters. Without a moment''s hesitation, Krog turned around and stepped back into the hallway. He thought about it for a moment, and then figured that there was no need for him to make this harder on himself for no reason. With how dense this ce was, this shouldn''t take too long.


    23:46


    He wasn''t suddenly outside; they had just turned this space into an inside-garden. Though, even if that was the case, this still gave Krog a certain possibility. He noticed some snickering sounds around him. More bugs or some sort of small critters. Without a moment''s hesitation, Krog turned around and stepped back into the hallway. He thought about it for a moment, and then figured that there was no need for him to make this harder on himself for no reason. With how dense this ce was, this shouldn''t take too long.


    Krog once more grabbed the sk from his belt and poured it over some of the nts near the wall, before grabbing one of his axes tightly, "Sorry, bud..." With that, Krog quickly hit the wall at an angle. His father was a miner, so he was decently familiar with stone, and knew that the particr kind that was used for the stone bricks would produce nice sparks. And just as he thought, sparks appeared and the alcohol caught fire. With that, Krog just had to bring out one more thing. He pushed his hand inbetween therge number of different weapons strapped to his back, ready to be drawn at any moment, and pulled out a small pouch. From there, he pulled a scroll. Jess, after Eiro had made her take a Scribe ss, had started procuring a lot of scrolls with different effects. This one in particr was specifically made to make mes burn hotter. Much, much hotter. Following the instructions he was given, Krog simply threw the scroll into the small fire. The dark mes from the alcohol quickly sparked up as they fed on the scroll''s paper, turning a hot, bright white while shooting up in size. They immediately began to spread around onto the surrounding nts, as Krog returned back into the hallway that he hade from. Since it was down the steps, he felt like he didn''t really have to worry too much.


    Even if some smoke would end up being pushed down, Krog had spent a few years as a miner before himself and the ss abilities he got from that were more than useful to him here. He could survive for a long time while low on air. And at this point, with his current stats and the specific training that Eiro had him do to increase his lung capacity, he could hold his breath for a good two hours if he needed to, without even breaking a sweat. And with the fire as hot as that scroll would get it, those two hours definitely wouldn''t even be needed. This would barely take twenty minutes if the room was roughly asrge as Krog figured. But even so, for now, he just had to wait it out.


    --- Arie sat on the steps of the altar, looking at the mountain of fake angels'' corpses in front of her. For a while, she was shooting them down from down here, but at some point, she had to fly up to be more mobile because of just how many of these there were. She managed to take them all out at some point, so she had just started looking for the exit, but all she found was the ''nests'' of these guys. They had really just built nests out of hay and branches in the dozens ofyers of wooden cross beams that she found in the darkness of the church''s ceiling. There was no exit here, or at least, none that Arie was able to see. However, she knew one thing for sure; there had to be a way for her to get out of here.


    ording to Eiro, the space that could be created had some restrictions. For one, it would always resemble the space that had been turned. While some changes could be made and some ''mutations'' or slightly new spaces could be invented by the artifact''s user, it all had to be based off the space that was affected by the map. That meant that the inside of the tower generally looked simr to the areas that the party had been through until now. And most likely, there was some kind of chapel in there, that had then been expanded and mutated into this specific space.


    And then, the second, and more currently vital, change was that everything had to be connected somehow. There couldn''t be random, removed spaces. While there could be doors and such, and even locked rooms, doors could always be broken down and locks could be picked. Just a small tunnelrge enough for a bug didn''t count either; an average person had to be able to get through without issues. Though, thatst restriction most likely also changed depending on the user and the space that was changed. If a tiny ant monster used it to change an anthill, then that would probably scale down a lot. But here, it meant that a way outside had to exist in some capacity. As she contemted on the monsters around her, trying to think about why the Devil was as sick of a creature as he was, she was also making the wisps of holy light float around the room, trying to catch any sort of airflow that could hint at something. And it didn''t take long for her to find something either. The dust-sized wisps of light were moving weird around the base of one of the paintings ced on the wall. And of course, in the Devil''s sick sense of fun, it was the painting where Arie''s father, slowly being corrupted by the darkness of having fallen, was holding onto her as an infant.


    "I swear to everything that makes my heart beat, that I will kill you," Arie said to herself. This whole thing was clearly meant to shake her, but all it did was strengthen her resolve. She grabbed the shortsword at her hip and quickly shed through the painting''s canvas, stepping through it into the tunnel beyond it. She didn''t know where it led, but she couldn''t just sit around and wait for Eiro to solve everything for her.


    Ever since the two of them met, Eiro had be a new source of her strength. He had helped her heal more and more from the emotional wounds she and those around her had been inflicted by, and she was infinitely grateful. She truly loved Eiro with her whole being, but she knew that she couldn''t rely on him for everything. Especially not for something like this. She had to pull her own weight.

 Chapter 695: Escape

    Eiro crossed his arms. Something wasn''t right here. It should be impossible for there to be apletely locked-off area like this in a space created by the Dungeon Map, he was certain of that.


    In the elemental realm of fire, Eiro''s duplicate hand found a journal from someone who used to be the owner of that artifact, and he had methodically noted down everything that he had done and what he had been able to do, step by step. To begin with, that man had been a researcher, so his methods were verifiable.


    He was a from the central material ne, but had a particrly curious Smander familiar who had transcribed the whole journal practically word-by-word, which is how that journal ended up in that realm.


    However, it was very clear that one of the constraints of that artifact, as described by the system itself, was that he was unable topletely disconnect a space. There always had to be a path from any point in the dungeon leading toward the core, and if not, then that space would immediately fall apart and be undone.


    And he was certain that there was no path from inside thisrge room, and he wasn''t able to sense any particr magic from inside of the hallway either. At first he thought there was some kind of distortion created by spatial magic that sent Eiro back to where he started, but that didn''t seem to be the case. So that was just some kind of effect created by the dungeon map itself.


    But even that wasn''t something that should be possible. A space couldn''t be distorted to this degree either.


    Eiro only saw two possibilities here. The first was that the Devil had found a way to use artificing to alter the artifact somehow to the point where this was possible. However, that seemed very unlikely. While still theoretically possible, the term ''theoretical'' did a lot of work here. At the end of the day, the artifacts were arcane objects that had been created by the Arcane dealer.


    And, if you possessed a power simr to that of the Arcane dealer''s or any of the other Arcane entities, then it should be possible topletely alter those artifacts too. However, Eiro didn''t believe that the Devil had managed to achieve that sort of power. After all, the rules of this world wouldn''t allow it.


    After some conversations with Armodeus and Partax, Eiro learned a bit more about causality. Once they had mastered skills, the world itself had set restrictions on what they were able to do. And after deliberating about it with those two for a while, Eiro had managed toe to a conclusion; that causality was a sort of protective measure.


    One that was meant to protect the world itself and those living within her, as well as the ones who would break that causality in the first ce. They were close to bing beings of the Arcane themselves; beings close to the Arcane dealer. However, the process to do so required a lot of other materials; they had to receive arge amount of arcane shards, but they didn''t exist anymore.


    They were now fused either within the souls of every living being, or within the arcane cards. But even with all the arcane cards, it still wouldn''t be quite enough to allow them to ascend; and instead, their power would run wild and do considerable damage to the world and their very souls.


    That kind of restriction wasn''t something that the Devil could just cheat or lie himself past; it was impossible for him to be able to control the arcane to that degree. Sure, it was possible to strengthen artifacts into a particr direction using artificing, but it wasn''t possible topletely change its rules like that.


    In that case, instead of having those powers himself, the second possibility was for the Devil to have found a way to change one artifact using another. If onebined two artifacts in specific ways, they could transcend what you would usually think to be possible. It would strengthen both in ways that you couldn''t even imagine, which is why Eiro stayed hesitant about this as well.


    The limit that he stayed at was duplicating them using the mirror of duplication; he understood how that artifact worked, and knew that this wasn''t what a true ''interaction'' between two artifacts was meant to be.


    However, the Devil wouldn''t be as cautious as Eiro was. His pride wouldn''t allow him to imagine things going wrong if he really put his all into something. So, Eiro figured that he used another artifact, one that he also knew that he had ess to. The Author''s Pen.


    A failed novelist, whose stories had ever only been perceived as low-quality, over the top, and way too far-fetched to be even understood by others beside himself, was suddenly gifted a pen by a ''fan''. Excited to have someone that enjoys his work, the novelist began to write using the gift, trying to make his stories more rtable to others.


    And so, he wrote about some happenings in his vige, simply putting a small twist to them. And before he knew it, he found that the stories he wrote suddenly came true, and his vige was soon swallowed by catastrophe.


    The pen had the power to affect the world around it; a warmander used it to his advantage to win some battles, a thief used it to create new escape paths, but more importantly; the pen had the ability to affect the status. Of course, these matters weren''t things that actively created impossibilities.


    They were illusions brought on by the pen, so believable that even the world couldn''t see through the lie. Themander had made his opponents believe they would be fighting against a weaker, smaller army. The thief made construction workers believe in a job that was never given to them, using them to create hidden doors.


    And of course, if one used the pen to alter the stauts, then it would affect the system itself to a degree.


    You could change your system-acknowledged name, the name of your skills or ss or race, and even disguise your stats. But these things were only surface-level. They were just disguises; the actual abilities possessed by one''s soul and body weren''t changed directly.


    However, since it was clearly possible to affect the arcane, as the system itself was of an arcane nature, it might also be possible to affect other artifacts. And with one like the dungeon map, it might be particrly easy. Just drawing a space that shouldn''t exist could, at least temporarily, make it true as far as the map was concerned.


    In that same way, it could be possible to create effects that shouldn''t be possible just by the map''s general nature.


    However, if that was the case, then this would be rough. Eiro tapped his foot and looked down the hallway. Even while essing the Ultimate Domain of Truth, he wasn''t able to see through what was going on. If it was the Author''s Pen, then what was written or drawn was basically the ''truth'' of the world for a while.


    However, he was more than just worried about what would happen if that effect ran out, or if that part of the map was simply... erased. Would Eiro be ejected, or would he be crushed by the spatial, arcane distortion that existed outside these walls? He had cheated death once, but if he died again, then he wouldn''t be able toe back.


    "Well, I guess I can give that a try," Eiro muttered. He took a card out of his treasury. His daggers could be useful, but they weren''t as powerful as the real deal. With a flick of the card, arge hammer appeared in Eiro''s hand. He moved it around a bit, and the air itself seemed to break apart in response. As he held onto the hammer, he pulled out another card.


    In his hand, it turned into a golden, decorated chalice with a clear liquid inside.


    He poured the liquid down his throat, and as the effect of the invisibility potion came over him, he tightened his grip on the Mountainbreaker, getting ready to swing the hammer at the wall in front of him, "All I''ve got to do is make sure death can''t find me, I guess."

 Chapter 696: Disfigured

    The Mountainbreaker struck the wall. The force traveled through Eiro''s arm and into his body. He was able to weaken the impact by fusing his body with water magic, instead deflecting the energy back into the hammer perfectly in time to strengthen his second strike. And his third and fourth.


    Each consequent strike was stronger than the one before it, and it didn''t take long until the wall, originally strenghtened and kept together by the supernatural force of the Dungeon Map, wasn''t able to resist the supernatural damage anymore.


    Even without the system''s assistance, as the system was unable to acknowledge what Eiro was doing due to the invisibility potion, the Mountainbreaker''s arcane force was powerful enough to damage the physicality of the wall.


    The stones crumbled, and Eiro could feel the space around him begin to crumble. As if the room was only kept together by these few stones, the air itself around the Demon distorted, and space was sucked out like the air out of of a balloon. And then, Eiro found himself in the space beyond the Dungeon Map.


    He could feel his body being pulled on from all directions, while his insides were being crushed inwardly at the same time. Eiro was somewhere he shouldn''t be; a space that didn''t make sense to him, no matter how much he tried to figure it out. It was something simply beyond what he could recognize; a space that was too ''different''. An ''other'' that didn''t allow Eiro to gaze upon it. But that was fine.


    All he had to do was make his way through here.


    Eiro waded through the space, moving up when he tried to walk forward. It was to the point where he didn''t know if this was a literal, physical space anymore, or if he had moved into a world of the mind, the conceptual. It was as though he had stepped into the space within the Arcane shard that was used by the Arcane Dealer to create the Dungeon Map in the first ce.


    He didn''t feel his limbs anymore. His thoughts felt too tangible, as though he could touch them. As though he was staring at the letters of a story while it was being written out. Eiro no longer was a being of his own, but a creation controlled by a greater force. It feltforting to let go, to simply disappear into the nothingness of the page.


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    But...


    Eiro couldn''t simply let go.


    He struggled, moving his arm forward. He couldn''t feel anything, nor could he prove that his arm was really there. But still, he tried. In a metaphorical world, his mind was stronger than his body. He caught onto the letters of the world as its story was being written, and let it pull him along, back into the tangible.


    With every moment that passed, Eiro''s gaze moved away from the page, and he could feel the sensation in his limbs return. His palm pressed against stone. It was cold, and as he pushed against it, it seemed to be returning the favor, trying to reject Eiro''s very presence. But he simply pushed through, forcing the wall to bend to his will.


    As though being birthed from the stone, shaped by its mass and solidness, Eiro stepped onto the floor in front of him.


    Feeling his feet touch solid ground again, the demon turned around and stared at the path that he had just created, but it was simply a normal wall. He stood in a long hallway, like the kind that most of this dungeon seemed to be made of. Eiro had made it through. He had no idea at all how long it had taken him to get through that space.


    Even just trying to remember what happened there pained his mind; it was iprehensible nonsense. But that wasn''t what was important right now either. For however long the invisibility potion was still going to be in effect, Eiro had to hurry. He had to make use of this time well, and search this dungeon as much as he could without the interference of anything around him.


    The threat that he had taken by drinking the potion like that was too much for him to simply waste the opportunity given to him.


    After all, the side effect of the invisibility potion was simple. The more you drank it, the more the world would begin to forget about you. This was his third time truly fully drinking it, and he didn''t know what the consequences of it might be. If he was lucky, then he would be wiped from the minds of a few random people he had met long ago.


    People he had passed by who nced at him and somehow remembered his appearance or what he had been doing. maybe he would be wiped from the memory of a few of the academy''s students.


    And if Eiro wasn''t lucky, he could be wiped from some of his kids'' memories. They wouldn''t fully forget about him, of course, but he would disappear from some of the distinct memories they held. That time they went out shopping together in town? That time they went out to a fancy restaurant to celebrate a birthday?


    They would remember everything else, but Eiro simply wouldn''t be in that memory anymore. And the more he would drink the invisibility potion, the worse the aftereffect was going to be. And if he kept abusing this power, then he would be forgotten by everyonepletely.


    That was why Eiro didn''t use this potion that much; he simply used its natural effects when it existed in its potion form to get simr effects that were weakened enough to not have these side-effects.


    Eiro flew through the hallways as fast as he could, pushing his way through anything that he could find. At certain points, he could smell blood and in others he smelled faint smoke, and he even picked up the scents of his party members directly, but he didn''t have the time to go to them directly. Eiro had the confidence that they were going to be fine in the first ce.


    Eiro just had to find the dungeon''s core.


    ---


    Jess held her breath, walking as quietly as she could. Using some air and earth magic spells, she was making sure that her footsteps didn''t cause any vibrations either through the ground or the air to reach any of the creatures in the room. And ''creature'' really was the only right word that she could think of here. They were nothing that she had ever seen before.


    The same was the case with the monsters she had seen earlier; they shouldn''t exist in that form. During her training, she had decided to read as many books as she could about monsters, and even took on the ss of an ''Apprentice Zoologist'' for a while, allowing her to more distinctly recognize living beings'' traits and habits.


    However, to her surprise, due to some random luck she had found herself quite close to the space that she and her party were looking for; the dungeon''s core-room.


    But she couldn''t just run in and take care of it so that she and her party could concentrate on fighting the Devil better, since these ''creatures'' were in the way. While they were vaguely humanoid, their bodies were stretched out disgustingly. Their flesh was dirty and their limbs didn''t have the right appendages. Some had no fingers, others had too many.


    Nothing was right about these things, as if someone had taken y and pulled them randomly, just hoping to get them to look humanoid enough. But that couldn''t even be said about the massive ''thing'' in the center of the room. It was an amalgamation of dozens of these things, fused into one mass.


    As if those improvised y dolls were all thrown onto a single pile, that someone then violently stomped on.


    Disfigured masses of flesh that were supposed to resemble arms stretched out from this into every direction. Some of them were slotting together random objects, others were sorting through materials; things like organs, eyes, limbs, alling from different monsters, while another''s focus seemed to be on a massive scroll, ten by twenty feet wide, even though it wasn''t even fully unrolled.


    That was the ''dungeon map''. And if that was the case; that disgusting mass in the center of the room was what controlled this ce.


    Jess had to be careful; she had to figure out a way to kill that thing without being noticed by it or its ''pawns''. That''s why she was sneaking around, trying to get a good look at everything in the room. But then, she saw something that had her freeze up. Next to that mass stood another figure.


    Next to the randomly distortioned creatures in this space, it took Jess a moment to realize that it was just a normal man. A mage, dressed in long white robes, interlocking his fingers behind his back, curiously looking at the dungeon map.


    And Jess recognized him too. It was a man that she had only seen drawings of until now; as the conspirator who had caused one of the worst incidents in the history of Skyhart''s capital.


    He had been hidden away as a teacher of the Academy, causing an attack that killed, crippled, and terrorized many students. But a while ago, he ran away after his ns were somehow revealed. It was the man who considered not only Armodeus, bot those kids'' grandfather a brother, but became too obsessed with the concept of being a ''Master''.


    It was Merlin; an Arcane Mage and a monster-obsessed maniac.

 Chapter 697: The Greeting

    Jess nervously looked at the back of the Arcane Mage stood next to the creature actually controlling the dungeon. Sure, she was confident in her strength now, but Merlin was a famously powerful mage. Even if he failed to reach the ''Master'' grade, that was something logically unachievable in the first ce.


    There weren''t that many ''Master'' skill holders in this world; the fact that she had met four of them was already an achievement in itself. Merlin was extremely powerful, and Jess had no idea what had happened ever since he disappeared. At the very least... he looked different than the illustrations that had been shown of him.


    His eyes were surrounded by dark shadows that made it appear as if they sunk deep into his skull, and his skin was unnaturally pale, as if someone had actively painted him white. And not only that, but now that Jess was looking more closely, his arms seemed a bit too... long.


    Not only that, but his gaze was strong and prating, and Jess'' whole body shivered as she realized his irises were pure ck.


    She nearly gasped as the realization set in, but it was already toote. Merlin stretched out his hand toward Jess, and she felt a tight grasp around her throat. Her feet lifted off the ground through some sort of invisible force, and no matter how much she tried, she just barely managed to scrape the ground with the front of her foot as she was dragged toward Merlin.


    "Well, well, well... A little rat, huh?" He asked, though clearly not expecting an answer. His voice was sharp and... inhuman. Like something waspletely and utterly wrong about Merlin at this point in time. For a few moments, he just stared at Jess as she was unsessfully trying to rip the invisible force away from her throat to allow her to breathe, before her body suddenly jolted into the air.


    She was flung against thatrge mass of flesh in the center of the room, and not only just once. Like an upset child with its doll, Merlin used Jess to hit that mass of flesh, "You imbecile! How could you ce her so close to us?! Imbecile, imbecile, imbecile!" he practically screamed, as Jess could feel the air escape from her body.


    Luckily, it didn''t seem like that mass of flesh had bones or even cartge; the impacts were well-cushioned, even if that didn''tpletely negate the pain she felt at being forced through the air so roughly.


    Merlin clicked his tongue, flicking his wrist as he threw Jess to the other side of the room. Now, she hit the brick wall, scraping over the ground and breaking her arm in the process. She immediately started to use healing magic inwardly, but the fact that she finally had the opportunity to breathe again took precedence right now.


    "But..." Merlin muttered, as he approached Jess curiously, "At the same time, you do have some great materials to offer... Girl, you are a mage, correct?"


    Jess red at Merlin intensely, but clearly, he didn''t really care, "Yes, yes you are... Are you not curious as well? What would happen if I plucked the abilities of a human mage and ced it into a goblin... or maybe a lizardman?" he asked curiously, before seemingly getting an epiphany, "Oh! Or would you, instead, maybe like to be reborn? I have a wonderful catalogue for you to choose from...


    I could give you the wings of a harpy, or a troll''s regeneration? The mimicry abilities of a doppelganger might not be too shabby for you..."


    Fear filled Jess'' body and mind. Something was wrong; really, really wrong. Something was off about Merlin. He felt too... too far away. Too massive, too...


    powerful. He gave off the aura of something greater, but at the same time, it was familiar. She didn''t know how she recognized it, but she did. If only she could remember, she... she might be able toe up with something.


    "Ah..." Jess let out. She suddenly realized what it was. Or rather, who it was that Merlin reminded her of. It was Eiro. As if he had been reading her mind, Merlin snapped around his whole body.


    "You! You!! How did you escape, how, how, how?! You, no- what- how could I forget about you?! Where did you go, you-" Merlin stared at therge map that was floating in front of the wall, which was still being manipted by that mass of flesh. On there, a small sigil was moving at an incredibly fast speed throughout the dungeon, navigating it as though it had a n.


    From where she was kneeling, she was practically able to hear Merlin''s heartbeat. But even when she looked at his face, she couldn''t tell whether it was out of fear, or maybe even excitement.


    And that moment was exactly when something else happened. A certain scent entered Merlin''s nose. Confused, he stared at its source, noticing smoke rising from the body of thatrge mass of flesh, as its body began to convulse in immense pain. Merlin turned toward Jess, who simply had a soft smile on her face.


    Jess may have forgotten about Eiro for a short while, but she hadn''t forgotten the things that he taught her. And one of the things that she was taught was how to activate magic from afar using her own blood as a conduit. She still wasn''t able to do it from too far away, but if she was able to distinctly see her own blood, that was generally a hint that she was close enough to do so.


    And after Merlin''s bout of anger, there were some stters of her blood that hade onto that creature''s body. Of course, it wasn''t a lot. But that wasn''t needed either. Jess wasn''t trying to kill that creature anymore, she was just trying to roast its flesh.


    And then, now that she had air in her lungs again, she released all of it at once; a strong gust shot through the room as Jess blew the smoke down the hallway.


    As Merlin once more extended his hand toward her, choking her as he did before, except this time with the clear intention of ending her once and for all, he also extended his hand toward the doorway, and the wind that Jess created was stopped. Even if a moment toote.


    As her sight went dark, Jess managed to nce at the map. The sigil that had been moving around so rapidly, searching through as many hallways and rooms of the dungeon as possible, closing in ever so slightly, had suddenly started moving perfectly. In a direct route, the sigil was approaching the room. And just a few secondster, Jess saw a figure in the doorway. Eiro had made it.


    "Good job, Jess," he said, smiling at her as he extended his hand. She felt the magical grasp around her neck suddenly disappear, as Merlin let out an ear-deafening scream. Jess stared at the mage, whose arm had been detached with some quickly-cast magic.


    But she once more felt her body being pulled at, even if incredibly gently this time around, as Eiro used different magics to pull her over toward him.


    "...You take care of the thing controlling the dungeon. It''s not strong, but it has multiple cores and stinks of troll regeneration," Eiro said, and Jess quickly thought of some spells that she could use to counteract a troll''s fast regeneration. However, if he just tried, Eiro could do so much faster... so why wasn''t he?


    Jess looked up at Eiro''s face, as he intently stared at Merlin. But it wasn''t rage. Or at least, it wasn''t ''only'' rage. Of course, Eiro utterly despised Merlin for what he had done at the academy, but what Jess saw on the Demon''s face was mostly another emotion. It was caution.


    Basically the moment she realized that was when she realized something else; what she had thought to be a scream of pain and terroring from Merlin was instead an extremely distorted, uglyughter. Something so inhuman that she was barely able to recognize it as such. The detached arm next to Merlin suddenly started wriggling on its own, and like a snake began to slither back up Merlin''s body.


    As if nothing happened, the mage grabbed his limb and pushed it back into ce. And with some few simple motions of his other arm, he used invisible needles and threads to stitch his arm back into ce, without breaking hisughter for even a moment.


    "So he gave up on Avalin? I guess even the Monster King realized he would never be able to get his hands on her anymore... but you? You seem like a rather shabby recement," Eiro said with a deep stare, taking in every tiny movement Merlin was making.


    And suddenly, Merlin''sughter stopped, "Do you think you''re better than me? Well, until recently, I would have agreed, but now, now, now... I have ascended! I reached that which I truly yearned for! The pinnacle of life!"


    Eiro pulled out his daggers, tensing up his wings to get ready for anything. And then, Merlin continued.


    "Let me re-introduce myself... I can hardly be called the same being anymore! Dear Eiro... the Fool greets the World!"

 Chapter 698: Mangled

    "The Fool..." Eiro repeated in a muttered voice. He didn''t expect this. Sure, he thought that Merlin was going to appear here somewhere; the Devil was the one that had spurred him on in the first ce, and letting go of a powerful arcane mage like him would be beyond idiotic. But this?


    How was Eiro ever supposed to expect that, "That guy''s a lot better than I thought, keeping a whole other Royal under his wing..."


    Even the Hierophant, Arie''s father, who had been manipted by the Devil, had be a free man after bing a royal. But to begin with, there was something wrong with Merlin, so maybe he was a bit easier to control even with his newfound power. Each of the cards of the major arcana had their own meanings to them.


    Eiro''s ''the world'' had the meaning ofpletion and integration, and that was reflected in his powers of absorption. Meanwhile, the Fool''s meaning was one of freedom, of new beginnings; the holder of this card would undergo a metamorphosis, and their body would be ever-changing.


    Due to this, it was the only card of the major arcana that wasn''t restricted to a monster, because its user would be a monster, no matter its species.


    In the past, a dragon had be ''the Fool'', and once before then, there was a Naiad that had taken on the card''s powers. There were a lot of people too, elves, dwarves, or humans, all seeking greater power than they held before.


    And as for this time around, the Monster King seemed to have had the n of turning the Holy Priestess into the Fool; that was the purpose of the horde that Eiro was part of during the beginning of his life. However, instead of bringing her to the Monster King, Eiro had raised Avalin as his own child, refusing the duty ingrained into his body.


    At this point, eight years after that point, the Monster King must have realized that there was no use in keeping up the hope for that to ever happen, instead giving the card to Merlin. As a man who had fallen in love with monsters as a whole and the possibilities they brought, Merlin would be a perfect addition. The fact that he could use arcane magic must have made the idea even more enticing.


    Eiro clicked his tongue. After the metamorphosis and properly attuning to the Fool''s powers, Merlin must have be even more powerful and versatile; the freedom that the card brought was something that Eiro could never underestimate. And then there was the bundle of keys that Merlin had hidden under his robes.


    They were replications of ''that'' Key, the one that could open everything, including one''s very soul. Of course, being weaker, they probably couldn''t ess things at the same depth as the key, but it would still allow for someone like Merlin to have abilities that Eiro couldn''t even fullyprehend.


    "What? Not saying anything?" Merlin asked with a broad smile. He had two more rows of teeth behind his regr, human-looking ones, neatly hidden away.


    The Demon sighed, "Sorry, I was just a bit distracted. I could barely recognize you."


    "Right, right, right? I''m rather beautiful now, aren''t I?" Merlin replied, ncing down at his own body, "With this body of mine, I have achieved things I never thought possible! Here, let me show you!"


    Excited to show off this new talent of his, Merlin grabbed a small knife from under his robes. Eiro was ready for some kind of attack, but simply watched as Merlin turned the de to his own arm. Excitedly, he began to carve into his own flesh, pursing his lips for a ghastly whistle. And Eiro quickly realised what it was that he was trying to do; he was carving a magic circle into his own skin.


    The grooves were soon filled out by a flow of arcane magic that poured out of the wounds instead of blood. This was a much more disgusting version of what Eiro was doing with his magic circuits; creating a specific, permanent flow of magic to allow more efficient spellcasting. Before long, Merlin was done with one arm, and then moved on to the next, creating the same spell there.


    Eiro would have attacked, but not knowing exactly how the Fool''s powers truly blossomed within that man, it would be too risky. A battle against another royal could never be taken lightly, especially when it came to the Fool.


    Different to other cards, it didn''t bestow abilities with a direct ''theme''. The World would always be given powers rted to absorption and the Devil would always be a lord of sins, but the Fool was different. It strengthened the individual''s pre-existing talents and abilities to a massive degree.


    And since Eiro didn''t actually know everything that Merlin had hidden, he had no idea what exactly his powers looked like now.


    But still, he knew that what Merlin was doing right now was dangerous, but he knew that he could react to it and shut it down once activated. And with that, he should also be able to get ''the Fool''s scent. That way, he could iste certain parts of Merlin''s abilities and behaviour from here on out, and from there figure out exactly what the Fool had done to Merlin and his powers.


    Soon, the magic circles had been fully carved into Merlin''s skin, and Eiro watched as Merlin''s fingertips slowly faded away. Though, that was probably not the right word; they didn''t truly disappear, they just turned invisible, even if that was not the spell''s actual effect. It was just a side effect.


    Merlin''s arms had turned into magic; they weren''t wrapped or even infused, they were truly turning into magic themselves. This was ridiculous.


    It was neither possible to turn magic into mass, nor mass into magic. Even spirit magic didn''t ''create'' mass, it simply used mana as a conduit to summon things from the elemental realms.


    And sometimes, there were spells that used physical objects as a fuel for magic, but that was only the case to strengthen and attune the base mana to what was needed for the spell, destroying the material in the first ce. But in neither of those cases, a true transmutation from mass to mana ured.


    Eiro wasn''t able to wrap his mind around this; this was true ''Creation Magic''. After all, if this was possible, it was also possible to do the reverse; if you had the right spellposition, then creating whatever you wanted out of mana was possible as well. Was this the power given to Merlin by the card? Grinding his teeth together, Eiro held his hand forward.


    He had sent Gondos to the realm of earth for the time being, since Eiro didn''t know what would happen here, and Nelly and Sarius were still in their realms as well, but Eiro couldn''t afford to leave them there anymore. With a snap of his finger, three masses of magic gathered in front of the demon.


    Rocks, fire, and water were gathering together in their own spaces, quickly forming the bodies of the three spirits.


    "Ah? The hell''d you call us for? I thought we were supposed to stay with... your..." Sarius asked, looking around the room, before ncing at Merlin. Being a spirit, he was able to naturally sense magic to a degree that Eiro even struggled with. He, as well as Gondos and Nelly, could tell exactly what was going on right now.


    And being connected to them, Eiro could tell what exactly they felt right now.


    It was pure and utter disgust. If they could throw up, they probably would have done so.


    "Eiro, what''s going on here, how is... how is he doing that?" Nelly forced out, trying to look away from Merlin''s arms. But a sort of morbid, nearly self-destructive mind was forcing her to keep looking. Of course, those three didn''t react this was because of what they were physically seeing from Merlin. It was the use of his mana.


    Eiro was more curious than anything about what Merlin had done, so he didn''t care much for it, but to beings of mana like those three, it was like they were looking at a disfigured, mangled corpse infested with every kind of bug and disease you could think of. The way that Merlin used mana, and the sort of magic that his arms had turned into, was something to that degree.

 Chapter 699: The Mage of Aberration

    Merlin''s arms slowly faded into invisibility the further away they got from his shoulder; and what they turned into was something absolutely abhorrent and disgusting to the spirits that Eiro had just summoned. Gondos, having the best perception out of the three spirits, fused into the Demon''s body.


    While he was already able to sense and even see magic to a degree, while being fused with a spirit, it was still much stronger and a lot more natural. And more importantly, he could experience the nature of that magic for himself.


    It was simr to arcane magic; but shifted and twisted into something that shouldn''t be possible. Regr arcane magic was a sort of ''pure'' form of magic. Instead of infusing mana with elemental magic or even internal concepts in some cases, pure mana was transmuted into something else.


    It was basically turning mana into its own ''element'', which if Eiro had to give it a name, was simply the ''Element of Magic'' in itself. And this was simr; it was a direct transmutation of mana into something else. If Eiro were to give this version a name, it would be something along the lines of the ''Element of Aberration''.


    In every sense of the word, it was ''wrong'', and maybe that was exactly what ''the Fool'' had gifted to Merlin. The ability to change the normal into the abnormal. The essence of wrongness.


    The moment he realized this in his mind, his senses went absolutely wild. The domain of truth and order that was infused into his whole being was practically trying to reject what stood before Eiro, because it just should not be. It stepped out of the current ''order'' of the world. It wasn''t even a force of Chaos, which Eiro was also able to manipte to a certain degree.


    While order and chaos were two sides of the same coin, unable to exist without the other, this was basically the equivalent of a piece of dirt stuck to the inside of your wallet.


    And then, Merlin raised his hand. Eiro could feel the air around the corrupted mage shift. He was controlling the air, but not through air magic. It was as though he simply bent the space around him, willing the air to do as he told.


    However, no matter how aberrant Merlin''s magic was, at the end of the day, he was still a highly-trained mage, and that was something that couldn''t change all that easily. He still made use of techniques and knowledge that he had gathered during his life before bing a monster in order to actually aplish what he wanted to.


    As such, once he overcame the initial shock of seeing the aberration magic, he began to understand the bits and pieces of order and chaos that had been instilled into that force by Merlin''s mind. No matter how far one changed, there were still traces of the old left. Despite bing apletely new and unique species, in the end, Eiro was still a ''Demon''.


    And Merlin, no matter how crooked and distorted, still had the mind of a man. And it was impossible for any person to act in apletely unpredictable way. No matter how ''wrong'' the aberration magic seemed, it was impossible for the arcane shards to give something of this world something of not this world; that in itself wouldpletely overstep the boundaries of the cards.


    Even Eiro, who was specifically given abilities and arge mass of the arcane in order to gather all the shards still left in the world, had to adhere to the world''s truth.


    Runes were appearing on Merlin''s translucent, magical skin, lighting up for just a few instants before disappearing again. There were patterns to them, and the more Eiro watched those patterns, the more he became able to understand and predict them. There was a sort of simrity to muscle spasms there, and slight twitches in Merlin''s fingertips revealed a lot about what was going on.


    And soon enough, Eiro could feel that something had started to change around him. Space itself was being crushed and twisted where he stood. Instead of letting Merlin do as he wanted, Eiro chose to attack before his opponent could execute. Using his own magic, he pulled his wings, now fused with pure earth magic, into his body. He used the mass from them to strengthen his legs in particr.


    His mental duplicates hurriedly worked to find the best martial arts for what he needed amongst those that Eiro had observed and categorized thus far, shifing and strengthening his muscles, changing their sticity, and properly integrating the earth magic into them. Earth magic, amongst the four central elements, was the one most rted to the ''physical'', to direct, tangible strength.


    As such, it was the best if he wanted to use a physical form of attack.


    The Demon pushed his feet into the ground, pushing himself forward outside of the area of effect of Merlin''s magic, shifting his own weight mid-jump and pulling his legs forward. As he came into range, Eiro pushed his left leg into the floor, grounding himself, while using the momentum and as much force as he could muster through his muscles to kick Merlin.


    But what Eiro struck wasn''t Merlin''s body, but an aberrant barrier erected through the mage''s arm. Since they had been turned into magic themselves, Merlin''s limbs weren''t restricted to the same kind of rules that a physical body usually was. If one hda the ability to manipte it well enough, magic could travel at the speed of thought.


    And mages had many ways to elerate their thinking, something that Merlin clearly still made use of now.


    Instead of a reaction that a regr barrier would generally invoke, making Eiro''s leg bounce off again quickly after the attack if he wasn''t able to break through it, the barrier had fully absorbed the impact. Instead of diverting the physical force elsewhere, it seemed to have been transmuted into an energy that could directly fuel Merlin''s magic.


    The Fool''s other arm quickly, long before Eiro''s physical body was able to react, reached out to him, grabbing onto the demon''s horns.


    The horns on top of Eiro''s head were a physical response to the strength of his magic. As he grew into a more powerful mage, his horns became filled with more and more magical energy, as though they were physical deposits of his magics that had fused with the bone-like mass that made up his horns. To him, they were a sensitive matter. Instinctively, he felt as though he had to protect them.


    Whether it was some kind of pride ced deep into his blood, or something that was simply caused by his own narcissistic tendencies, but even if his whole body was broken and ruined, he refused to let something like Merlin defile his horns and use the magic within them for himself.


    Doing something vastly physically ufortable, Eiro began to manipte the magic that was infused into his body through Gondos, tugging at the back of his own head.


    ''Sorry, I didn''t mean to be so rough...'' Eiro thought to Gondos, who, while experiencing some difort by what Eiro had done, was more focused on the battle right now. The demon''s leg was still stuck in Merlin''s barrier as it absorbed any sort of kic energy that Eiro was trying to use to move away, as though his leg was basically fixed in space permanently.


    The only way that he could figure out to escape was to remove his fusion with Gondos, which quickly reduced the bulkiness of Eiro''s leg to what it was originally, giving him the wiggle-room that he needed to pull back. Gondos was pushed out from the center of Eiro''s back, and at that point, Sarius had already been rushing over toward him, quickly taking the Golem''s ce in Eiro''s body.


    If Gondos'' specialty was his magical perception, then Sarius'' was his raw yet unbridled power. And with Eiro''s help, that power could be controlled and focused in ways that Sarius wouldn''t be able to aplish himself just yet.


    Using the wave of fire magic that pulsated throughout his body now, Eiro let the mes push out from his leg, not only propulsing him away from Merlin again, but also enveloping the Fool in a mass of mes greater than he able to take control of and aberrate right away.


    As the demon built up a short distance again, he could tell that the fire magic was doing its job, scorching Merlin''s physical body. But it was to a lesser degree than Eiro hoped, as before long, a wave of aberration flowed through the me magic. Both Eiro and Sarius could feel their connection to the magic wane; not disappear, but simply weaken.


    But at the same time, not being fully disconnected yet, they could feel the creeping of the aberration. As though, using the fire magic as a conduit, it was going to infect them as well. Instantly, they cut off the connection themselves, giving Merlin free reign of the magic.


    And as a distorted version of that fire magic gathered around Merlin''s body, Eiro once more felt his mind be filled with confusion. That in itself shouldn''t be possible. He had infused the aberrant magic with mes, or maybe the other way around. Even Eiro wasn''t able to do something like that; Arcane Magic couldn''t coexist with elemental magic within the same mass of energy, it couldn''t be fused.


    Or rather, it should be impossible to.


    The demon ground his teeth, as he quickly began to try and truly understand the Mage of Aberration that stood before him.

 Chapter 700: Retaliation

    Eiro furrowed his brow, staring at the figure that stood before him. What he was looking at was no longer anything close to human; Merlin had set aside his personhood, bing a monster. And with that, he seemingly had thrown away all logic of the world.


    He had be a mage of aberration; and the more that Eiro tried to understand how Merlin''s powers worked, the less he actually did understand them.


    He thought he understood the foundations of the world, and the science behind how magic and the forces of nature worked and interacted with each other, but clearly, that wasn''t actually the case anymore. There must be something that he couldn''t quite grasp, otherwise, there was no way that what was happening in front of Eiro could actually ur... right?


    What Merlin had done was ridiculous. He had transmuted mana into aberration magic, as Eiro had dubbed it. It stood at the same level as arcane magic; pure, but twisted. In the same way that something could be both pure ''white'' or pure ''ck''. However, somehow, Merlin was using the aberration magic as a basis for elemental magic. He was using it to fully rece mana.


    And that in itself shouldn''t be possible.


    Elemental essences came from within; they were part of your own essence, growing in strength within that as your ability with that element grew. And then, you could draw that elemental essence from your core and infuse it with your mana; however, the only way to control that was through your personal ''essence''.


    Pure mana was practically impossible to fully control, as it was stripped of your ''essence''. And then, by applying principles of the arcane to the mana, you turned it into a substance that could be controlled once more, as though you were applying a whole new essence to it. However, this new ''arcane essence'' fully rejected all other kinds; whether it was your own or of elemental nature.


    Eiro thought that the same would be the case for aberration magic, but maybe he was wrong? Or instead, maybe he simply didn''t understand arcane magic well enough to be able to infuse it with elemental essences. In that case, that would mean that Merlin''s skill as a mage far, far transcended what Eiro was even able toprehend at this moment.


    It was a feeling that he had experienced a few times until now. It was the same thing that he felt when a master used their near-transcending powers.


    "You... mastered arcane magic?" Eiro muttered. That was the only conclusion that he coulde to, and judging from Merlin''s massive, broad grin, and the ear-shatteringughter that followed a momentter, it was clear that Eiro was right. Or at least, partially right.


    "Arcane Magic? No, no, no, I abandoned that the moment I was reborn... Instead, I chose to turn that Arcane Magic into something else. I took that skill, and turned it into something new entirely!" Merlin exined, and Eiro watched as Merlin''s mouth slowly opened for the next word. However, something was wrong there.


    Eiro was seeing the shape that Merlin''s lips bent into, and he could see the vibrations of his vocal cords, but the sounds that he was producing didn''t match. Rather, they were sounds and notes that shouldn''t possiblee out of someone''s mouth. Mechanical and artificial, but at the same time, guttoral and animalistic. But in either case; inhuman.


    That was the only way that Eiro was able to describe those sounds, because in the end, they didn''t make any sense. And the word that the sounds formed was something that Eiro wasn''t able to put together in his mind either. Rather, it seemed to hurt him the more he tried.


    But saying that word apparently had some consequences on Merlin either, as blood dripped out from the side of his mouth, his throat dripping ugly, stinking ck oil into his mouth.


    "...seems like that is too much for a physical body after all... Well, well, well, not that it matters much," Merlin said, as if disappointed, "What is important is that I have no need for things like the arcane anymore... this new magic is much more fitting for me, don''t you think?"


    Eiro frowned deeply. If Merlin was someone that was transcending the barriers of this world... if he truly was a ''Master'', then was there really a way for Eiro to beat him right now? No, that wasn''t actually the important part.


    "...You''re not the Devil''s pawn... are you?"


    "Of course not, I''ve left that behind long ago," Merlin replied quickly, "Though... the Devil himself might still think so, so, so..."


    The aberration mage kept moving around his hands, which were still turned into magic themselves, and was pulling around the me magic that he had taken over from Eiro. He was really just ying with it, like Eiro did when he was bored during work.


    Merlin was confident. He was strong. And most importantly, he was absolutely insane and deeply abhorred Eiro. No matter how much Merlin was trying to change that, Eiro new what hatred felt like, and Merlin stank of it. However, at the same time, he somehow didn''t seem to want to actually fight right now. If he did, then he would have already attacked...


    right?


    No matter what the case was, Eiro wasn''t going to just let Merlin keep standing there. He looked at the spirits next to him, "I''m going to do something, and you''re all going to have to trust me, alright?" he thought, sharing his idea with the three spirits.


    They didn''t even have much of a chance to think about it, as both Nelly and Gondos both dove into Eiro''s body, even though he was already fused with Sarius.


    Eiro felt his body be filled with massive amounts of pure elemental magic; now, even if usually in this spirit fusion, he still retained half of his regr physical body, not it was only a quarter as the magics of the three spirits took over the rest. Using himself and his powers as a conduit, Eiro shifted the spirits'' magic to certain parts of his body, fusing them together in other sections.


    This was something that he hadn''t done before, but somehow, it felt weirdly natural. It was somehow the same as when he had just fused with one of the spirits individually; he was still in control, but his body felt more connected to his mind than ever before.


    And more importantly, with Sarius, Nelly, and Gondos now sharing his mind, particrly Eiro''s mental library had shifted in form quite a bit. Even if before, he could still keep it the same even if he fused with one of them, now it had be an amalgamation of different realms. As though his mental library was slowly being taken over by the elemental realms.


    The most important part to Eiro was to make sure that the information stayed intact, so his mental duplicatesrgely focused on that, and the ones that were reserved for research as Eiro did other things all dropped their work and helped out here.


    The Demon took a deep breath, shifting the magic within his body. As he then let that breath out, a heavy cloud of steam flowed out from his throat. His arms and legs were coated in red-hot stone instead of skin, and starting from above his elbow, his flesh became slightly translucent and bubbles were forming everywhere, as though he was now made of boiling water.


    In the center of that water, pirs of stone had reced his bones. As mes burnt away his shirt, the magical patterns that had been covering him and continuosly growing through every evolution were now fully made of mes that flowed over his skin like waves, spiraling over his limbs and burying themselves on his skin like a nt''s roots.


    But this wasn''t the end of it; Eiro stretched out his arms and legs, pushing them into something invisible as he pushed his body back a bit. Something wrapped around his body, basically fusing into him as well. His body became more shaped and ayer of a crystal-like substance now covered him, which quickly took on the exact same quality as Eiro''s own body, like a secondyer of skin.


    It was the Dragonic armor made from the Dragon of Truth''s and the Dragon of Chaos'' scales. Now, with Eiro''s two mountainbreaker-daggers in hand, each being infused with either water or mes straight from Eiro''s body, he had basically done what he initially wanted to save for the fight against the Devil, if it was necessary. But he had no other choice but to take this fight with Merlin seriously.


    He wasn''t an opponent that he could understimate in the slightest.


    This whole process happened in the matter of a second; one in which Eiro had to expend a lot of mana in order to make everything happen without issues, and a second that Merlin had practically gifted him. He could have done something during that time already, but for some reason, the mage of aberration hadn''t done anything. As though he was amused with what Eiro was attempting.


    The demon took a step forward, and the moment the underside of his foot touched back onto the ground, he created a thick wall around him and Merlin, encasing them both in thick stone. The only reason for that was to use this to guide himself and Merlin away from this space. After all, not only Jess, but the creature controlling the dungeon were still here.


    If they recklessly fought here, then Eiro really wasn''t sure what was going to happen.


    And then, Merlin finally raised his hand in retaliation.

 Chapter 701: Oath

    Eiro got ready to attack, entering hisbat stance. His upper right hand and lower left hand were holding onto the daggers, while his other two were held in his unarmedbat style. The Demon slid over the ground, and Merlin raised his ethereal, magical hand forward. Eiro watched closely to see what was about to happen, when Merlin opened his mouth.


    "Wait, wait, wait! I have no intention of fighting you right now," Merlin said bluntly. Eiro was taken aback; he looked at the man in front of him startled.


    "What? What do you mean you have no intention of fighting?"


    "I''m only here because the Devil still thinks I hadn''t seen through his pitiable attempts at controlling me after I was reborn..." Merlin exined, as though it were obvious, "That''s why, why, why, there''s really no reason for me to follow along with what he wants. Rather, it''s better for me if you concentrate on his fight with him."


    Eiro frowned deeply. He stared at Merlin''s face, trying to figure out if he was telling the truth. But everything about him was so distorted, so wrong, that Eiro had no way of knowing, even using the domain of truth. The aberration mage quickly continued, "If you and him fight, it''s certainly going to be an impressive battle, right, right, right?


    No matter who of you is killed, the other will rise to a whole new realm! I know what you''ve been trying to do in that little yce of yours... Once the Devil is gone, that ce will be a new haven for monsterkind! You will have the freedom to make them be something new altogether! And if the Devil wins... well, you are a Legendary Monster, are you not?


    If you''re killed, the Devil might finally rise to the level of a Lord of hell! Either way, one of you will be, be, be... a whole new monster!"


    Finally, Eiro understood why Merlin was saying these things. Merlin was obsessed with monsters,pletely and utterly, and that hadn''t changed even after he became one himself. Judging from the keys that Merlin still carried with him, he was the one that created all those weird and unusual monsters that Eiro spotted on his way here.


    He really just wanted to see what was going to happen once the fight between Eiro and the Devil was over.


    "So what, you''ll be neutral from now on?" Eiro asked with a frown. He didn''t believe what Merlin was saying, and that was carried along with his tone of voice quite well. Merlin began tough, louder and louder every seeding moment, until he suddenly cut out altogether, ready to speak again, "Neutral? No, no, no, that''s not the right word... I shall be... ''sitting this one out''?


    That is what children these days say, correct?"


    Eiro listened to Merlin''s words, trying to figure out what exactly was going on right now. Though, he didn''t need to wait long; Merlin didn''t seem to consider Eiro a particr threat anymore, apparently, "I just want to see how far monsters can grow! The beauty behind the despair that a Lord of hell like the Devil will bring about, about, about...


    the terror in the hearts of your town''s monsters when they realize there is no way for them to ovee their true nature! The forms they will take... the new evolutions that wille about as your monsters try to act more... human. And, and, and, of course, your own growth, should you manage to kill the Devil. The struggle, the change, the brutality...


    That is what it means to be a monster!"


    Merlin looked solemnly at the ground, "Of course, I could just do so myself... kill you, kill the devil, evolve, and be a monster that has never been seen before, but... well, in truth, am I not just still a man in the body of a monster?" the creature in front of Eiro asked, its teeth fletching awkwardly. Eiro couldn''t believe what he was hearing right now. Merlin, a person?


    That was the furthest from the possible truth. Merlin was a monster in every sense of the word.


    He was abhorrent in body and soul, to the point where Eiro couldn''t even bare being in the same room as him for too long. And worst of all; this was by choice.


    Other monsters were redeemable to an extent, as they were born with a force they couldn''t ovee even if they tried, not until many yearster in their life, and only if they managed to somehow get the willpower to suppress their own monstrosity.


    But the ones that were capable of suppressing it, often doing so, just for the benefit of being able to stay more rational as they caused chaos and destruction, like the Devil, were truly irredeemable. And then, a man like Merlin, who would take on monstrosity, and let it flow within his veins as if it were the blood fueling his body, was the worst possible monster that Eiro could imagine.


    But Merlin himself didn''t seem to think so. Eiro knew that Merlin himself would never be able to see himself as a monster; much like no matter what Eiro did to try and change who and what he was, he would never stop seeing himself as a monster.


    "So, so, so... I figured the only thing I can do is watch. Make sure that I can somehow get front-row tickets to see the birth of a truly never-seen-before monster... is that not a wonderful idea?" Merlin asked with a broad grin on his face, before a thought seemed to pop up into his head, "Oh, that does remind me. Your ploy, it was to grow in power, and be the monster king, correct?


    And if I''m right, then you were going to try and use the artifacts of the minor arcana to, to, to... be the Hero as well?"


    Eiro''s heart skipped a beat. During the time that Eiro still trusted him, he had indeed spoken to Merlin about his ns to be monster king, but he had never told him about bing the hero. How could he possibly know? Did he simply figure it out on his own?


    Merlin smiled broadly, showing off his multiple rows of yellowed, sharp teeth, "Then let me give you some motivation. It takes until that child''s fifteenth birthday for the hero-factor to awaken, right, right, right? And then, you shall take it from him, and then... well, let''s just say...


    you have until a month after the hero''s fifteenth birthday," he said, as though he was still a teacher at the academy, giving one of his students an extra-credit assignment.


    "...To do what? And what if I can''t do what you want me to do?" Eiro frowned. He hated the idea of ying along, but at the same time... if he could avoid a fight with Merlin right now, so that he could preserve his strength for his fight against the Devil, then he would do anything. That was his priority right now, after all. Not to mention...


    Eiro wasn''t totally certain he could beat Merlin right now. He wasn''t prepared for this at all.


    Merlin continued, happy to answer the demon''s question, "You have until then to kill the Monster King," he pointed out bluntly, "And if you don''t? Then I''ll do it. Then I will be the Monster King, and then, instead of being as passive as the current Monster King, I will do my best to actively eradicate all personkind."


    Eiro''s heart skipped a beat. Or well, it would have, if he still had a heart. What Merlin was saying was ridiculous. But at the same time... it wasn''t. The hero was currently eight years old.


    In the next seven years until that point, Merlin could grow to a ridiculous point. He had reached this level after only being a royal for a few months, after all. It seemed ridiculous, but he certainly had a chance. And... if Merlin considered the current Monster King passive...


    a being that sends out hordes of monsters when necessary in order to capture just a single toddler, then Eiro couldn''t imagine what sort of ruler Merlin was going to be.


    "You can do it, right? You won''t act like that''s too much of an ask now, right?" Merlin asked, tilting his head to the side. If he were still human, his neck would have had to break to achieve that kind of angle, "You tried to kill the Monster King in the past too, haven''t you?"


    Eiro was taken aback. What? Eiro had never tried to kill the Monster King before. He had only encountered them briefly just once at the beginning of his life. Unless...


    "I couldn''t tell before... I had forgotten, but, but, but I do recognize you now that I can see that wicked shape of yours," Merlin pointed out, "I had only met you once, but frankly, you were a great inspiration to me. A true ''Master'' of not only Arcane Magic, but you had even gotten close to mastering elemental magics."


    Eiro stayed silent.


    He knew what Merlin was talking about. All records about that person had been erased; it should be impossible, right? If anything, then the tower of books should still hold a tiny bit of information of who that person was... but it didn''t. Or at least, if it did, then only at the very topmost part of the towers, that Eiro had yet to reach.


    He had guessed that they had been a master of magic, all things considered. That was the only way this would be possible; some kind of spell to erase their name from everywhere had been cast. Maybe even from the minds of others. But maybe, now that Merlin had be the Fool, that spell had been undone on Merlin''s mind.


    "If you do not kill the Monster King before I do, I will bring this world to utter ruin. I, I, I swear this as an oath to the name of the Great Sage of the past generation, who had been reborn ahead of me into a more supreme form... I swear this to the name of Morgan le Fay."

 Chapter 702: Morgan le Fay

    Eiro stared at Merlin confused. Morgan le Fay. That was the name of the Sage? The name of the person that Eiro''s soul belonged to?


    He looked at the mage of aberration, trying to figure out if he was telling the truth. Though in the end, even without the domain of truth''s help, Eiro was able to make some sense of it. It was possible for Merlin to know that name. Jura, Partax, and the other Masters, they were all intertwined.


    They knew each other, as though the forces of fate were drawing them together into situations where they would meet. And if the Sage had reached the stage of a Master as well, then them all meeting wasn''t out of the question. Considering that Merlin, in his younger years, was stuck to the Masters like glue, him meeting the Sage was also possible in that situation.


    However, there was a problem with that.


    He knew about the name Morgan le Fay. That name itself hadn''t been erased. It was the name of a figure that lived a hundred years ago, traveling the world, using their magic ambiguously and almost randomly, as though they were doing so without any particr intention.


    One day, they might heal every injured person in a warzone, and the next, they could destroy both sides on their own, in a single blink of an eye. They acted so at their own whims, appearing here and there like a force of nature, that they attained the moniker ''le Fay''; the Fairy.


    They acted in the way that the fairies in stories of old would do; these days, real fairies were seen seldomly, so they tended to be thought of as mere stories, things that didn''t exist anymore, or maybe never did.


    And so, many considered Morgan le Fay the closest thing to a Fairy that existed; and many did think that they were a true fairy in the first ce. Whichever was really the case didn''t matter at the end of the day, what was important was that they were a powerful, terrifying figure. And they held the same name as the Sage.


    Was it a sort of title? Something passed down along the generations? Or had Morgan le Fay simply been the Sage the whole time? Though that wouldn''t make any sense either; there were stories of the sage before thest one. Their names were well-known, and there was a Sage that existed at the same time as Morgan le Fay.


    Rather, there were stories of the Sage and Morgan having been lovers at some point, though those could just be exaggerated or invented. Generally, Morgan le Fay was seen as a genderless, wholly asexual individual, which only strengthened the belief in them being a fairy.


    Things didn''t match up; was Merlin just trying to mess with him? Was he trying to y Eiro for a fool, as the namesake that Merlin had attained would suggest?


    "Stop speaking nonsense," Eiro''s growling voice poured out of his mouth almost involuntarily. He was being aggressive, more aggressive than he had intended on. Obviously, Merlin was just trying to use this opportunity to distract Eiro enough to escape. The Demon couldn''t let that happen.


    Quickly, Eiro took a step forward, ready to attack, but when he tried to do so, his legs simply buckled under his own weight. His body''s water was rippling and shaking unstably, like what you would see when a novice tried to keep up their first water magic spell. Eiro could feel his body falling apart as one of the spirits making up his form was weakening.


    Without hesitation, Eiro pushed the three of them out of his body. He didn''t know for sure what was happening, but it was bad. Something was wrong with Nelly. Eiro''s body shrank down slightly, as the spirits were pushed into the air. Nelly immediately fell to the ground, but was caught by Sarius and Gondos, who were helping her to the ground carefully.


    Eiro immediately started feeding her some of his mana, as he stared at Merlin.


    The Fool looked at Eiro, with a disgusting grin on his face, "See you next time. But, but, but, make sure not to forget what I said. You have until a month after the hero''s birthday. Though first, you should probably deal with the Devil, right? Right, right?" Eiro watched as Merlin waved his hand, now having returned back to the material instead of its magical form, and a doorway appeared behind him.


    It was an old wooden door, like you would expect from an old tower like this.


    Merlin pushed the door open with a creak, revealing the canyon outside of the tower. And although Eiro wanted to chase after him, he knew that it would be too reckless to do something like that right now. He would be leaving the others in this ce all alone, not to mention that he had to look after Nelly right now.


    "Whatever, just scram," Eiro hissed at Merlin, who simply closed the wooden door behind him with augh. Just a moment after the door closed, it disappeared, the brick wall once more being the only thing in sight. But Eiro couldn''t concentrate on that right now; he had to worry about Nelly.


    "Are you okay? What''s happening?" Eiro asked nervously, slowly lifting the Naiad up with his hands. Water was pouring from her body into a puddle on the ground, as if she wasn''t able to keep her body together anymore. Her face was strained, and Eiro grew more and more nervous.


    He had read about something like this in the realm of water''s library; this was basically the equivalent to a Naiad bleeding out. If they weren''t able to do something about this, she would die.


    "Everything is fine, don''t worry, I''m here," the demon said, trying to calm and reassure Nelly. She weakly looked up at Eiro, squinting, "Sorry, I just... I... that name, it..."


    With that, Eiro finally understood. If Merlin had met the Sage, so did Jura. And if Jura met them, then so did Nelly. She must have known their name, but whatever the Sage had done to erase themself from not only all records of the world, but from every mind that knew about them, was showing cracks now that Merlin had said that name ''Morgan le Fay''.


    Nelly must have been shaken up quite a lot in the first ce, not only seeing the form that Merlin''s magic took, but also the fact that it came from ''Merlin'', someone that she had known for a long time as well. A spirit wasn''t strictly a being of the physical like people or monsters; they were beings of the magical and of the mind.


    They were quite literally made of magic, so any damage done to their mind must have immense consequences to their physical form as well.


    "I understand, just... hold on for a while, okay?" Eiro said, slowly holding his hand over Nelly''s body. He was filling her with as much magic as he could, trying to somehow counteract the damage she was experiencing. It wouldn''t be a permanent solution, but at the very least, it could give her some more time to sort through things in her own mind.


    Nelly was strong; she was far, far more powerful than other naiads were. And while her raw power was impressive, it wasn''t really the thing that made her special. Her control over magic, her knowledge, her expertise... she was skilled far beyond what other spirits could muster. Someone like that wouldn''t be done in by something like this... right?


    "...ueen..." Nelly slowly whispered, and Eiro looked at her closely, "...the... the naiad... queen..."


    Eiro looked at the spirit in his hands, trying to understand what she meant, "You need to go to the naiad queen? I don''t know where she went, she disappeared from theke after we spoke to her... I..."


    "...not her... the current... queen..." Nelly shook her head, and Eiro was taken aback. Nelly was a supporter of the former Naiad queen, the one that had given Eiro her blessing. The ''lonely naiad''. He hadn''t expected her to request to be taken to the current queen.


    "Okay, I''ll get you there, don''t worry... just leave things here to me, and concentrate on getting better, okay?" Eiro told her nervously, cing Nelly against his chest. From there, three pale blue hands made of water magic were practically flowing out of the demon''s core, carefully grabbing the naiad and pulling her into the elemental ne of water.


    From there, Eiro''s duplicate would have to take over. Even if he had been feeling his control over his duplicates'' actions waning, they still shared the same mind. He knew what they were like; that Eiro adored Nelly as much as the original Eiro did, and would do anything that he could to make sure she would be fine.

 Chapter 703: A Sense of Self

    The duplicate Eiro pulled Nelly out from the spirit gateway in his chest. The moment she was here in this ne, her body was a lotrger than in the central material ne, but that wouldn''t really change too many things for Eiro. He could still carry her without any issues.


    Immediately, he held onto Nelly carefully, propping her up equally with all of his arms. He quickly pped his wings. Though at this point, they had slowly shifted to being weirdly closer to fins, even if they were still technically on his back. They were just a lot more useful for swimming around, especially for certain smaller movements.


    The Demon shot through this library and into the stairway to the floor below. He hurried through the tower of books'' different floors until he reached the bottom.


    Without even ncing at the overseer, Eiro pushed his way out of the tower. Now, the only thing he had to do was actually find the naiad queen. In general, that wasn''t too hard, though. Since the naiad king and queen were royalty in this ne, there was a lot of information about each of them, and particrly where they liked to spend their time.


    While there were cities in this ne, there wasn''t directly a permanent ''capital''. However, wherever the naiad king and queen chose to settle was the ce that particrly the spirits considered as the equivalent to a capital. And even if everything in this world shifted and moved like really everything did in water, there were still plenty of maps for Eiro to figure out where he had to go.


    And basically all of the mental duplicates had been employed to figuring out the best route, so it was an easy matter to find where he had to go.


    He hurried and swam through the currents of magical water, trying to speed his travels up as much as he could by both employing the natural flows of this world as well as his own water magic. But even so; this trip would take a while.


    ---


    Meanwhile, the original Eiro stood up from the ground. The water that had dripped from Nelly''s body was starting to dissipate quite quickly as well, being made of magic and all. Right now, there wasn''t anything that he could do for Nelly. He just had to leave things to the duplicate, something that left a bitter taste in his mouth.


    There was another side-effect of using the Ace of Cups, the Invisibility Potion. His connection to his duplicates was... severed, even if just for a short while. Eiro didn''t know that this was going to happen, though he hadn''t particrly worried about it too much either. The duplicates were ''perfect'' duplicates.


    They replicated Eiro to the highest degree, and while they were initially deeply connected, they were still their own physical beings. Just because the main body used the invisibility potion didn''t mean that everything he was connected to would be affected just the same.


    With that sort of logic, Lugo would also be affected by the ace of cups, which he obviously wasn''t, at least not in the way that Eiro was.


    As such, what happend with the duplicates was simple. They, unaffected by the potion, had lost their connection to the main body without even realizing it. Now that the potion''s effect was over, they had looked back at what happened, and it was quite simple; they had forgotten who they themselves were.


    ''Eiro'' as a concept had basically been fully erased from this world, and since the duplicates were ''Eiro'' themselves, they lost that part of them for a while, leaving only the parts that were different. In the time that the duplicates existed in the other realms, they had started developing their own personalities. They acted different to the main body.


    The duplicate in the elemental ne of fire was more on-edge, more aggressive and prideful. He was haughty, but honest. Meanwhile, the one in the elemental ne of water had be basically the opposite. He mellowed out, took his time with things a bit more, and let himself go with the flow a lot more.


    Of course, while these changes were tangible to a degree, they weren''t anything that Eiro was particrly worried about. But in a situation where the duplicates had only these aspects of their self? Where they were disconnected from who they were until then, and without even realizing it... that was a moment for severe confusion and emotional struggle for them.


    That short amount of time that the potion was active, which Eiro had shortened as much as he could to hopefully mitigate some of the potion''s side-effects, was enough for those minuscule parts of their personality to spark up. To grow and fester into something more. They were developing a proper sense of self.


    At the end of the day, they were still Eiro. They acted the same, and would make the same decisions. They still shared the same mind, after all. But more and more, it was starting to feel like Eiro was sharing his mind with two other people, instead of being one person in three bodies.


    It was something that was going to take some getting used to; and at the end of the day, Eiro was sure that there wouldn''t be any major issues, but it was still a bit nerve-racking. Though at the end of the day, since they were still just duplicates, Eiro had a certain amount of control over them, and he was the one who the mental library belonged to.


    He was the only one that could control the mental duplicates, and he had a different sense of power as the other two did. They really just had a single element they could make use of, and they didn''t have ess to the treasury either. The only real thing they had going for them were their minds, which were still the same as Eiro''s as of now.


    But he was going to keep watching the situation to make sure that this didn''t suddenly change.


    And for now, he could safely leave everything to that duplicate, and moved on. He waved his hand and pulled down the wall of rock that he had created to keep Jess safe. Though, it seemed that instead of running away, she had opted to taking out all those flesh-creatures, and even started a fight with the central one. Which of course, wasn''t a bad idea at all.


    If she could get control over the dungeon map, or maybe even gave that card to Eiro, their advantage in the fight against Merlin would have risen considerably. But of course, that wasn''t needed anymore.


    Eiro nced at the spikes of stone that were piercing deep into the flesh-being''s body as mes were eating away at it. The smell of burnt flesh was getting stronger by the second, "Are you alright? Did he do anything to you before I got here?" Eiro asked, but Jess quickly shook her head, "No, I''m alright... are you? You used the Ace of Cups, right?"


    "Yeah, I did," Eiro sighed lightly. He nced all over Jess'' body, trying to make sure that she really wasn''t injured, "But... Nelly wasn''t so lucky. My duplicate is bringing her to the naiad queen right now, so we''ll see how she''s doing then, but... honestly, I''m quite scared for her..."


    Jess face went pale in confusion, "Wait, Nelly? Did Merlin attack her? Does your healing magic not work on spirits?"


    "It wasn''t a physical attack... rather, it wasn''t an attack at all, just a side-effect of powerful magic that had been cast long, long ago, that Nelly was affected by," Eiro exined, "I''ll fill you in on everythingter. Right now it''s not important, I... don''t think that Merlin is going toe back during our fight against the Devil."


    Eiro frowned lightly. He didn''t like this situation at all right now; it was so unpredictable that he was feeling uneasy, and honestly would prefer to just cancel the whole thing and try again some other time. But of course, that wasn''t an option. The Demon turned his head, looking at that mass of living flesh struggling against the pain of being burnt alive.


    He flicked his wrist and extinguished Jess'' fire magic, approaching the injured creature and stabbing it with his me dagger. Immediately, deep cracks and waves of mes shot over and through the creature, and notifications of him causing damage to it popped up in front of his eyes.


    "Large abomination?" Eiro read the name given to the creature by the system, "Well, I guess that''s fitting," he said with a wry smile, until finally the abomination died. And with that, another set of notifications appeared in front of Eiro.


    ---


    [You killed another Card Owner, and have taken his card into your ownership yourself. You are now the Owner of the Seven of Wands]


    [3/14 Cards of the Suit of Wands acquired]


    [8/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]


    [Aptitude with the Fire Element increased]


    ---


    Eiro looked at the system windows. His collection was increasing. The collection aspect was something that the Arcane Dealer apparently added just to make people really look for the other cards, but Eiro didn''t know what was going to happen when hepleted one of the suits, let alone the whole minor arcana. It had never been done before, after all.


    Whatever it may be, right now, Eiro had to concentrate on what was really in front of him. He walked over to the map floating in front of the wall. It was now his, so he could do whatever he wanted with it.

 Chapter 704: Dungeon Reconstruction

    Eiro looked at the map. He ced his hand onto it, and soon connected with it. The moment he did, he could practically feel his senses extend into every part of the dungeon. He could tell where the others were immediately, for one. It seemed like that smell of smoke Eiro caught earlier came from Krog burning down a section of this ce.


    And somehow, particrly Arie was a fair distance away, though. Then there was also the space that Eiro hadpletely destroyed. It was a small spot in a random area of the map, scribbled on top of the paper wherever there was space. There were still some vague outlines and traces of it having been there, but the space itself didn''t wholly exist anymore.


    It seemed like there were some restrictions to what he could do. Despite what had happened earlier, Eiro wasn''t able to shift the space around his party to move them here immediately. If there were any living beings somewhere, then he couldn''t affect it at all, really, and that included all the monsters roaming around randomly.


    Maybe there had been another trick to this all; they might have been temporarily erased from the perception of the dungeon map using the Author''s Pen, as though they had been crossed out for a moment.


    But the most bothersome part was somethingpletely different... the Devil was nowhere to be found. Did he flee the moment he realized that things were getting dangerous for him here again? Eiro didn''t know, but at the very least, he was certain that it wasn''t a good sign whatsoever.


    He might be hidden somewhere in an adjacent space that the dungeon map simply hadn''t taken over; like tunnels stretching out underneath the tower. Eiro had sensed something like that as they were approaching. Old mineshafts that were now no longer in use.


    That being the case, Eiro had to concentrate on the situation at hand. He had to join back up with the rest of the party. And even if he couldn''t bring them here directly, he could do other things. He ced his finger onto the map, dragging the different sections along; rearranging them. Deleting parts that he didn''t need, and creating new paths where it seemed useful.


    Like this, the Demon guided all the monsters into specific, small areas.


    He then created new hallways that would lead the party members straight here from where they currently were. Looking at the route that they were currently taking, Eiro removed the space that they had already walked, as well as every other option they had now.


    They were really only able to walk in one direction, which would lead to the three doors that now suddenly popped up on the other side of this central space.


    And now, they just had to wait.


    "What happened?" Jess asked curiously, looking at the doors. She opened up one of them, seeing nothing but a long, winding hallway that descended intoplete darkness, "Are these..."


    "The others wille back through there. They''re already on their way, it seems," Eiro pointed out, slowly disconnecting from the map. Being connected to it felt... ufortable. He could only move his arms, and even then just barely. It was like his body had beenpletely frozen; or rather, as if he didn''t have a body to begin with.


    Now he understood the side-effect of the dungeon map a bit more. The more you used it, and the more you relied on it, the more connected you would be with this space. You yourself would be part of the dungeon, and might never be able to leave again. Of course, that was something that only happened if you didn''t have enough control over the artifact, or if you vastly overused it.


    This was the case for most of the artifacts. He wasn''t nning on using it all too much, but even if he does, he will only do so with the utmost preparation.


    For now, him and Jess couldn''t do anything but wait. Before long, Eiro could hear some footsteps down the hallway, carefully approaching. And then, he watched as the door shot open, breaking off its hinges. Behind it, Krog came into view, a war-axe in each hand.


    His serious and concentrated expression quickly faded away into surprise, seeing Jess stand in front of the door, "Huh?" he involuntarily let out, as he looked over Jess'' head and found Eiro standing in front of therge map and a mountain of flesh.


    "Ah... it''s not already over, is it?" Krog asked with a wry smile, but Eiro quickly shook his head, "No, it''s not. We just managed to take over this space for now, but the Devil already left to elsewhere again."


    "Well, things seem to be going well though, right? Where are the others?"


    "They''re on their way," Jess pointed out, smiling up at the goliath, "Eiro made hallways for you guys."


    Krog turned around and looked at the door, "Huh, alright then. So you can control the whole ce now?"


    Eiro nodded, "Yes, I can. We''ll dissolve it in a bit though, once the others get here."


    "What''s gonna happen to all the monsters and stuff?"


    "Usually, everything that wasn''t created by the dungeon directly would end up being stuffed into the original space, often crushing to death or destroying the original structure, but I don''t really want that to happen, so I''ll lead the monsters out first," Eiro exined, "I''ll just put them somewhere into the canyon for now.


    There''ll definitely be some infighting and all, but I''ll figure out what to do with the ones that survive once we''re done here."


    "...Recruiting some new monsters for your city, are ya?" Krog scoffed, but Eiro just shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not. I''ll have to see. It looks like they were all heavily altered by Merlin using the Key. Or rather, the key''s replicants."


    Krog looked at Jess, wondering if he heard right, "Merlin? Like, crazy arcane mage, Merlin?"


    "Well, at this point, he''s a bit more than that. He''s no longer an ''arcane'' mage, but an ''aberrant'' mage. His magic is... disgusting and twisted. Oh, and he became a monster, ''the Fool'', actually."


    "Excuse me?" Arie asked as she stepped through one of the doors, overhearing what Eiro had just said, "Merlin became the Fool?"


    The demon nodded his head, "He has. And... he''s insanely powerful now. More powerful than the Devil, to say the least. He stayed with him for a while, pretending to still be under the Devil''s control, and apparently used that opportunity to y around with some replicants of the key. Hence all the weird monsters you guys encountered."


    Arie''s face twisted into one of disgust, "The Devil keeps doing whatever he wants, huh..? Turning one more into a royal, just for his own whims..."


    Eiro looked at the nephilim, and shook his head, "This wasn''t really just the devil''s doing. Honestly, I''m sure he would have preferred if Merlin hadn''t be the fool, because he must have been aware of the risk of losing that pawn. But Merlin was so obsessed with the idea of bing a monster that he simply had to make it happen.


    Especially since the Monster King also saw Merlin''s worth as a monster."


    "Right, just... we need to get this done... Where is the Devil? If you took over the dungeon, then..."


    "He''s not here. But the only ce he could have gone is below the dungeon. Originally, the tower only had two real exits, and that stayed the same afterward. I don''t think he left through the front, so he must have gone through the tunnel below," Eiro pointed out, "I''ll lead us thereter, don''t worry. We''ll get him, I made sure to ount for everything. Well...


    nearly everything, I guess," he exined. The only thing that he couldn''t have guessed was Merlin''s part in all of this; or rather, the form that Merlin''s part ended up taking.


    Before long, James showed up as well, being thest to join the conversation. Eiro filled them all in on what they were going to do now, as he once more connected with the dungeon map. He shifted the space around, cing the entrance closer to the area now containing all the monsters, and then waited for the flood of creatures to leave the space. It was rtively easy to get them all out as well.


    Eiro just had to use some magic. As an additional effect, the dungeon map was allowing him to basically spread all of his mana into the space, as if he was fusing it with himself. That way, he could cast whatever spell he wanted.


    And just by connecting with the ne of fire for a short while, he could give the monsters enough reasons to want to escape from this space, for the sake of their own lives.


    It didn''t take long until there were no monsters left anymore. Quickly, he shifted the space around, pushing out the corpses of any monsters that were left within the space, until the tower had basically already returned to its original shape.


    And then, Eiro disconnected the dungeon from the space, rolling it up and turning it back into a card that he soon ced into his treasury. Immediately, the space around them shook, as though an earthquake was happening beneath them. However, that was anything but the case.


    The tower just truly returned to its actual original form, and Eiro''s field of perception immediately shot throughout the surrounding area.


    Luckily, things had gone just as he thought; the Devil was in the mineshafts below the tower.

 Chapter 705: Down the Ladder

    After checking on everyone and making sure nobody in his party was injured, Eiro led them all down into the tower''s base rooms. There, hidden by some old boxes and crates with cobwebs practically as thick as a head of hair, was a trapdoor that seemed to be leading down into the mineshafts.


    "What do you think this ce was before the Devil took it over? It doesn''t look like he built it himself," Jess wondered curiously, trying to peek into some of the crates to get any sort of hint. James slowly replied, seeing as nobody else was offering a reply, "It''s kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so maybe some research thing?


    I heard that a lot of mages that are trying to develop new spells move to deste ces like this. You know, in case something goes wrong..."


    Eiro nodded his head, "That seems to be the case. Though it doesn''t seem like it had been in use for quite some time before the Devil found it. There were a few rooms for botanical and alchemical research, and the top of the tower was mainly for researching new spells. Though, judging from the size, the amount of living quarters, and...


    well, the chapel near the entrance, it housed a lot of individuals at once. This tower probably belonged to a small mage guild at one point in the past," Eiro exined, turning around toward the others as he lifted open the trapdoor, "The canyon provides the perfect testing ground for new and work-in-progress spells, or for properly analyzing the effects of existing spells.


    And of course, if something does go wrong and the ce blows up, then no civilians are dragged into it."


    For a few seconds, Krog stared at Eiro while deep in thought, "If other magese out to ces like this to make new spells... why do you do it at the dinner table? The other day you were literally writing something into your grimoire while wiping a mess from Avalin''s face..."


    Eiro and Krog locked eyes for a few moments. Slowly, the demon looked down into the long vertical shaft leading down into the earth, "Sarius, could you light the space up a bit?"


    "Hah?" The smander asked, surprised, "Why''d you want me to do it? You can do it yourself, can''t''cha?"


    "Yeah, but I know that you haven''t been keeping up with your practice properly while in the ne of fire. So just do it. Enough to give the others some light to see, but without burning any of us," the Demon said, as the smander grumbled.


    As Krog stared down at Jess with a confused expression after his question was ignored, Eiro started descending into the tunnel first to scout it out a bit more, as Sarius summoned some wisps of mes and made them float down into the darkness.


    Sarius was going to focus the fire around Jess and Krog, since they were most in need of it. Eiro didn''t need any light in the first ce, and wouldn''t be restrained all too much even if he went blind just like Jura did, and both Arie and James only needed small amounts of light to be able to see at basically the same quality as if they were outside on a bright day.


    That was a benefit that certain non-human races simply held over humans. Though, even most ns of elves didn''t have this ability, as dark elves were the few ns that did possess low-light vision, a train that was inherited by James as a light elf.


    Eiro looked up at Sarius'' annoyed expression, and then nced over at Gondos who was apanying Eiro more closely. Gondos was open about his emotions, even if the way that he expressed them often made him seem as though he was emotionless in the first ce, but Sarius would never openly admit it. The two of them were clearly extremely worried about Nelly.


    And since Sarius in particr was the kind to get easily distracted, having him take over tasks like this while there was no battle going on didn''t seem to be a bad idea. And Gondos as well was helping out, since feeling useful was the best way for him to cope with situations like this.


    "Thedder isn''t in great condition... can you stay here for now and create hand and footholds for them? I''ll go ahead and take a look at everything," Eiro asked the Golem, who quickly nodded, "Of course."


    Without hesitation, Gondos got started, and Eiro stopped pping his wings for a moment, quickly descending downward. Before long, he slowed his descent, as Arie was following behind as well.


    The tunnel was slightly tight for her wings, since she didn''t have the level of minuscule, pedantic control over her body as Eiro did, but she still managed to tuck them in a bit to slow herself down enough to safely descend without having to use that olddder.


    "Eiro," she whispered quietly. Since they were in enemy territory, she didn''t want to be too loud. But Eiro shook his head, "Don''t worry, there''s nobody around. You can speak freely," the Demon exined, waving around some gusts of wind between his fingers that he carefully pushed toward Arie, giving her the sign that he was using air magic to block their voices from traveling too far.


    "Are you... alright?" Arie asked with a concerned expression, as the two finallynded down at the bottom of thedder. As he nced around the mineshaft, Eiro nodded his head, "I''m fine. We just need to concentrate on this for now."


    "But what about Merlin... and Nelly?"


    "Well, Merlin''s actions are actually giving us a tactical advantage. Merlin seems to have an ability to mess with senses, perception, and even other arcane artifacts. So he must have been able to trick the Devil well enough into believing that he was his pawn; I doubt he would really expect us to get down here this easily.


    He was also clearly expecting you all to be taken out, otherwise he wouldn''t have sent specifically-curated monsters after each of you," Eiro pointed out quickly, before slowing down a bit, "And... as for Nelly, I... her magic is destabilizing... her body isn''t doing well, but she''s a lot more stable in the ne of water. And I''m sure Nelly knows something about the Naiad Queen that we don''t.


    She should be fine soon."


    Arie looked at Eiro with a concerned expression. It was close to pitch-ck down here, but the soft shimmers of light from Sarius'' mes above were enough for her to see the Demon''s pained expression. Things hadn''t been going as he was expecting. Nelly was heavily injured and a man who Eiro thought he could consider family once before had be an enemy like none other.


    And while Arie wasn''t there herself, the few things that Eiro had exined about Merlin already seemed iprehensible. To Eiro, this all must seem incredibly frightening and nerve-racking. But even so, Eiro pushed on and was relentlessly aiming for the Devil''s neck.


    "I''m sure that everything-" Arie started, slowly taking a step forward to try and embrace Eiro for a moment, but before she could, the Demon strongly pushed back against her. She hadn''t even realized what was going on. It was only a few momentster that she realized she was bleeding from her neck. It was a shallow wound, and there wasn''t even any particr pain.


    It would heal up in no time, but the problem was that she had no idea what had done it. Confused, she tried to see Eiro. One of his arms was cut off nearly all the way, barely holding on by a few muscles.


    Without hesitation, the Demon used one of his hands to hold his arm into ce, fusing his own flesh back onto himself and using healing magic to take care of the rest, "What''s happening?" Arie asked, although she already knew what the answer to that was. The lights from above were getting closer, so there was more light for her to see with.


    In the darkness of the mineshaft stood a figure dpletely in ck feathers. Their body was thin, but their legs were thick and powerful.


    "You evolved?" Eiro scoffed, looking at the figure in front of him. It was the crow monster that the Devil had raised. The one who held one of the pentacle cards, giving them ''Ultimate Agility'', much like Eiro''s ''Ultimate Perception''. They were faster; much, much faster than when Eiro hadst seen them.


    However, Eiro came prepared as well. Eiro entered abat-ready stance. All over his body, a number of eyes popped open, duplicated from his real eyes, numbering a total of 13. This time, Eiro wouldn''t let the crow escape alive.

 Chapter 706: A Crows Speed

    Eiro covered up Arie with his wings, trying to ensure that the crow couldn''t get to her. Fighting that monster while protecting someone wasn''t part of Eiro''s n, and there really wasn''t anywhere for her to go right now. And the problem wasn''t that Arie was weak, of course; she wasn''t weak at all, but even Eiro wasn''t able to physically respond to the crow''s movements.


    All he could do was use the domain of truth to predict their next actions as best as he could and doing what he needed to.


    Right now, the crow was stood still. As though they were watching Eiro. He realized there was a chance.


    "Let''s take this somewhere else. There''s a cave down that way, right? That kind of space is better for you anyway. Let''s fight there and get this over with," Eiro suggested, trying his best to convince the monster. It thought for a few moments, and then nodded for naught but an instant, before disappearing without even a single sound.


    Eiro pulled his wings away from Arie, and quickly ced his hand onto her throat, healing the shallow cut.


    "You guys head down the other way. I''m hearing some voices, or more like grunts I guess, so there''s a blockade of monsters over there. You four can take care of whateveres your way; it won''t be the Devil, anyway. He knows that you use holy energy, so he won''t target you directly," Eiro told her, making sure that she was alright after the crow''s sudden ambush.


    She nodded her head, nervously looking down the direction that the crow had headed toward. She quickly leaned in and gave Eiro a kiss, "Be careful, alright?"


    "Of course. If anything''s wrong, just yell out for me," Eiro replied, holding Arie''s cheek for a moment. He wanted to stay with her, but he knew he couldn''t let the crow wait any longer. Quickly, the Demon pped his wings and shot away from his lover down the darkness of the mineshaft.


    It didn''t take him long to reach the cave in question. It was a rtivelyrge open ce with a lot of ore reservoires. There were traces of old, long-dried blood down here, but no corpses or even bones. But the walls had weird indents; alcoves that nearly seemed like nests. It looks like there were monsters down here that the miners had dug up, just to be wiped out.


    But Eiro couldn''t concentrate on that right now.


    He stood there in the center of the room. The crow was hiding in one of the far corners of the room behind some sharp stgmites. Due to the eyes that he had attached to the outside of his dragonscale armor, he was able to see every part of this room without issues.


    Of course, he didn''t even need to actually see anything to know where the crow was, but arge amount of his tactics did rely on sight.


    Eiro pushed his foot onto the ground, letting earth magic flow all over the cave to take over the walls, quickly fusing it with fire magic. Not only was the room starting to heat up as the rock melted, but light was filling this space from all directions.


    However, as the wave of magma flowed over the cave''s walls, the crow started to move. Eiro felt the vibrations travel through the ground, but by then it was already toote. The crow had already reached him.


    As Eiro ced his eyes on the humanoid monster with its leg stretched out toward him, ready to cut into the demon''s body with its sharp, knife-like talons, he filled his body with fire magic from the ne of fire, fusing himself with the magic. The crow''s talons cut through Eiro''s flesh, but instead just shot straight through a mass of fire.


    Due to their speed, the bird monster wasn''t able to slow down right away, and Eiro took that momentary opportunity to unfuse from the mes.


    Instead, he let the fire magic flow into his upper left arm, where he had, even before entering the tower in the first ce, moved around his magic circuits into the shape of a fireball spell that Eiro had highly edited to deeplypress the magic down to the size of a marble.


    And then, Eiro nced at the fireball with all the eyes that were in its line of sight. Because the eye that Eiro had duplicated wasn''t his regr eyeball, but the one that had a copy of the mirror of duplication set into it as its lense. Everything that Eiro was cing his eyes upon could be duplicated immediately. And so, with the first eye, Eiro doubled the initial fireball.


    Moving it just a few inches to the side. And as he began to blink with that eye, he used the next to duplicate the two fireballs, and then started to blink that eye. And that continued on, until all the eight eyes that had a clear view of the fireballs had done their job the first time, doubling them that many times.


    As a wall of 128 fireballs flew straight at the ce that the crow stood, Eiro fused his hand with the leftover fire magic that he hadn''t used for the spell, explosively shooting it forward. Using the force that the mes were giving his body, Eiro pushed the left side of his body backward to twist himself away.


    The crow, having easily dodged past the fireballs, closed the distance to Eiro once more and kicked at him. This wasn''t an attack that Eiro could dodge, so he had twisted his body in a way beforehand so that the crow would attack a specific part of his body. Even if they were fast; they weren''t particrly intelligent. It was easy to predict their movements and intentions.


    Just for the most part, and for most individuals, it didn''t even matter if you could perfectly predict them; there was no time to really think about anything. But Eiro, whose speed of thought was able to keep up with the crow''s movement easily even if his physical body couldn''t, was different. He had already thought things through as far as he possibly could.


    The crow''s legtched onto Eiro''s arm, digging deep into his flesh and tearing out arge chunk. Masses of blood poured out from the gashing wound, covering the ground in a thinyer, as Eiro used flesh magic to quickly regenerate the wound. While Eiro''s demonic body was able to regenerate to a degree, it not only was too slow for this fight, but a wound a this size wouldn''t fully recover.


    Even with his natural healing capabilities, he would end up with a deep indent in his arm where flesh used to be.


    The flesh that the crow had torn off Eiro''s arm, involuntarily as the Demon had loosened that part of his body deliberately, began to grow in mass just barely fast enough to stick to its talons. Of course, with just a few flicks of its leg, the crow got rid of the mass, and it wriggled and convulsed on the ground, cut up by the crow''s talons.


    But it was enough time for Eiro to trigger the fireballs'' explosion, just in time for him to extinguish the magma in just a few specific parts of the room. The light created by the massive explosions of Eiro''s magic together with the highly curated illumination of the walls created a single perfect shadow.


    A pitch ck mass of darkness that started from that crow''s body, covering Eiro''s whole being.


    The demon shot his magic into the shadows covering him, taking control over as much as he could, and immediately fusing with it. And this time, before the crow was able to react, Eiro dove into their shadow into a realm of darkness.


    Here, he was surrounded by an ocean of darkness, the only way for him to nce at the outside being through the small windows of shadow that Eiro had created all over the cave. It was restricting, but it was enough. Since the demon''s body was wholly engulfed in shadow now, he was able to move much closer to the speed at which his magic traveled.


    Of course, not truly, but he moved a lot faster than he was able to before.


    Eiro swam through the realm of shadows, quickly taking control of the puddle of blood that he allowed out of his body through the crow''s attack. Without his say so, there was no way he would lose even a blood of it anymore. He formed it into a spike of congealed, frozen blood, shooting it straight at the crow.


    But soon, Eiro reached the next window of opportunity, and on his way, he began to manipte the eye that he deliberately ced onto the palm of his right hand, the one that wasn''t a prosthetic, for this very moment. He fractured the eyes lens, twisting it into a shape that an eye shouldn''t take on.


    Instead of seeing regr, his sight had be simr to a small trinket that he had seen to be sold at different stands across the capital. He turned that eye''s lens into a kaleidoscope, and the things that he saw from there fractured and twisted around themselves.


    And as Eiro focused that eye on the spike of frozen blood, branches of duplicates climbed outward to create a that seemed to surround the crow almost wholly. Behind it, the explosion from the fireballs was still ever-growing, and to its side, the spikes of blood were closing in.


    Having no other choice, the crow dodged out of the way into a part of the cave tightly surrounded by stgmites. And they did so easily, without even being scratched.


    Eiro looked out from the sea of shadows with a grin on his face. He wasn''t doing any of this to directly injure the crow. Of course, if it so happened to work, he wouldn''t forego the opportunity, but what Eiro was doing was buy time. He had another trick up his sleeve, one that was encroaching as fast as it could.


    And the moment the trick arrived at the cave, even if for just a moment, the crow would slip up. In a battle like this, that was the most that Eiro could really even ask for.

 Chapter 707: A Single Touch

    Eiro was floating within the sea of shadows as he nced at the crow. He could see their expression, and the way that they nced down the hallway. If Eiro just kept on ying around like this without actively engaging the crow, they would just run down the hallway and catch up to the others, killing them while Eiro wasn''t there. That''s what he could gauge from that deep gaze.


    With a click of his tongue, Eiro swam around the cave''s shadows, dropping from a stgtite''s shadow down onto the crow from above, "What an annoying little brat you are," the Demon pointed out, "Even my eight year olds don''t have attention spans as short as you."


    With a nce upward, the crow and Eiro locked eyes. Before he knew it, Eiro was faced with the approaching crow, who had jumped up toward him. Eiro pped his wings lightly. The magic circuits flowing through his wings were formed into an altered version of the ''gust'' spell, allowing just the slightest twitch of his wings to shoot him away at incredible speed.


    It was fast enough to dodge the crow''s jump for, but with that sort of speed, it quickly reached the cave''s ceiling and quickly jumped off the, still hot and melting, surface. And of course, even if their evolutions seemed to have focused on its legs and its physical speed that way, they were still a crow. They had wings as well.


    As they shot toward Eiro, with their wings, which were attached to their upper body instead of arms, which made them look fairly simr to a harpy, they twisted their jump to align better with Eiro.


    Even as the Demon tried dodging out of the way once more, the crow simply twisted their wings and altered their ''flight'', quickly reaching Eiro once more. At this point, there wasn''t anything that Eiro could really do to avoid it anymore. This was going to hurt, and it was risky. But it was the best way to buy time.


    The crow''s talons shot toward Eiro''s body, piercing into his belly. Their grip tightened and cut through his flesh like butter, as a flood of red blood poured out from Eiro''s wound, enveloping the crow''s leg before it pulled away. Inside of his body, Eiro''s blood had been boiling for a while now.


    He did this the moment he jumped out of the shadows at the cave''s ceiling, and now that the boiling blood clung to the crow''s leg, before it could fling it all away, Eiro sh-froze it around the crow''s limb.


    This was one of the reasons why Eiro wasn''t wearing his dragonscale armor right now. The only thing it would do was restrict Eiro''s movements and tactics in a fight against an opponent he physically couldn''t keep up with in the first ce.


    And since Eiro would never be able to directly counter-attack, since the crow could dodge anything he tried anyway, using his blood and flesh were two of the only things he could really do. Even if he had tried to grab onto the crow''s leg with his arm, he wouldn''t have been fast enough.


    But the crow was already actively touching his blood, and due to the artifact that was fused into his blood vessels, the Bloodstone, he had the ability to not only create massive amounts of blood, but also control it far better.


    By simply creating an extreme volume of blood in all his other blood vessels, he was able to push a lot of it out of the path of least resistance; the open wound in his stomach. It was enough to make up for the crow''s speed to at least an extent.


    Even so, even with a frozen leg, this wouldn''t keep the crow distracted for long. They moved away from Eiro to the other side of the cave, starting to hit their leg against the wall to break the ice, and it was able to do so much faster than Eiro was able to repair it. The only thing he was able to do was stretch out the time it was stuck with the ice a little bit.


    However, there was something that Eiro was able to do while the crow was distracted for a few moments.


    Due to the ice, it didn''t notice that Eiro was heating up the room even more. At this point, the light in the room was being refracted by the heat, setting up the preparations for another one of Eiro''s tricks. By the time the crow got rid of the ice, Eiro had already been able to analyze its movements and habits a fair amount. Though, they weren''t particrly hard to figure out either.


    Due to the crow''s speed, they never needed to learn any particr tactics. Of course, they seemed to have gotten a bit of basic technique training, but just the bottom of the barrel necessities. As such, the first thing that they always did was head straight for their opponent.


    And only in thest instant would they dodge out of the way of any stretched out limbs, weapons, projectiles, or anything of the sort. Like they were wind dodging out of the way of a rounded pir.


    So, what Eiro had to do was fairly simple. He just had to trap that wind.


    Before the crow started moving again, or rather, a good bit before it managed to break the ice, Eiro had prepared a t-palmed strike. He had folded his two left arms back together to increase theirbined strength, altering the fireball spell to simply cause an instantaneous outward explosion instead of creating a fireball.


    He didn''t have the time topletely rewrite the spells hard-wired into his magic circuits right now. At the same time, Eiro''s right hand was pushed out out into a particr angle, as he shifted the air and heat in the room in a particr way, refracting the light in an unnatural way to the point it could be seen as something of an illusion. He was able to see himself and the crow from above.


    The eye on his right palm was still altered into a kaleidoscope as he started to focus on himself, and in the exact right moment, when the crow was just a few inches away from Eiro''s left palm, duplicates of the demon appeared around the crow.


    It was really just his upper body and left shoulder and arm, distorted to the point where the duplicates would copse and melt away in just a second, but it was more than enough time.


    The dozens of refracted arms closed in on the crow, exploding outward with a powerful st of mes that enveloped the monster in Eiro''s magical fire. It seemed like even the crow didn''t know what to do in this instant, and Eiro, for the first time, managed tond a direct attack on the crow, touching his palm onto their body.


    His powerful attack, even if connecting only for an instant, was enough to push the crow''s body back as they jumped up out of the explosion of mes.


    As Eiro thought, the duplicates melted away, but that was fine. They weren''t needed anymore. While the mes were blocking the view, Eiro could sense the crow touching its shoulder, where Eiro had briefly hit it, seemingly shaking. Of course; they weren''t used to actually getting hurt, so even a small amount of pain must be shocking.


    "I was starting to wonder if you were even real. Guess you-" as Eiro tried to mock the crow, they listened along for a few moments, but before the Demon knew it, the bird monster''s talons were less than inches away from Eiro''s throat, about to wrap around his whole neck. And the crow had moved faster than before. A lot faster. They were... holding back against Eiro.


    Or at least, that''s what it seemed like at first, but rather... he was able to notice the minuscule twitching in their leg. This was the drawback of the Three of Pentacles, the Ultimate Agility... that sort of speed would rip your body apart, so you needed the physical strength to support yourself.


    If you weren''t strong or flexible enough, just the slightest movements at too fats a speed could make your muscles or tendons tearpletely. So this speed was still too much for the crow''s body. Though, if things worked out for them, that was fine. Eiro would die here, and the crow could rest, being healed and getting praised by the Devil.


    However, something was wrong. Despite the air shifting around due to the heat, the crow would never be able to mistake that view. Behind Eiro, in the cave entrance, stood the Devil himself. And that expression... that oh so terrifying expression of pure, unadulterated wrath that spread throughout the Devil''s whole body.


    "What do you think you''re doing?" the Devil spoke, "Stop that right now!"


    The crow flinched. They froze up, not sure what to do. They thought they were supposed to kill Eiro? Just what was going on? This was wrong, so wrong, they didn''t feel that same pressure as they normally did whenmanded by the Devil. The brand ced onto their throat didn''t hurt this time either.


    That wasn''t the Devil, it was a fake, it-


    It was toote.


    Eiro''s stinger prated deep into the crow''s chest, piercing even their heart. The venom mixed with the crow''s blood, and they could feel their whole body giving away almostpletely by that intolerable pain.


    With a grin on his face, Eiro nced back at his servant, the one that was created in the Devil''s likeness. This was the whole reason for its creation; to mess with the chain ofmand, and the submissive fear ced into the bodies of the Devil''s lessers.

 Chapter 708: Crushed

    The crow took a step back, looking down at their chest. Their ck feathers were soaking up blood, and the venom that had sshed on some of them was dissolving parts of the fine plumage. Nervously and in pain, they let out caws... screams of fear and agony.


    Their eyes, formerly a deep ck with a blueish hue, were now increasingly filling with a vivid red as bloody tears streamed down their face and flowing around the base of their back.


    Eiro''s venom was spreading throughout their body incredibly fast. This was a specific kind of venom that Eiro had developed for the crow; it would paralyze their body, attacking and dissolving their nerves and muscles as it spread throughout the bird monster''s body. It must be absolutely agonizing to go through, though that was just another benefit of this particr strain.


    Its main focus wasn''t to kill the crow; but to slow it down, and if possible, even fully stop it. The pain, the damaged muscles, and the paralysis, would all work together as much as possible.


    And then, the crow just stared deeply at the demon. Eiro could feel, or rather smell, them be ovee by a mystical force that Eiro was just perfectly familiar with; the artificial, strengthened rage of the Mark of Wrath.


    In just the few moments that it took for the venom to start working after the crow moved away to build some distance to Eiro, they became totally enraged to the point that their body seemed to be reacting to it.


    Maybe it was the venom also distorting the way they could control their own body, because instead of the streamlined, minimal movements from before, the crow took on an animalistic stance like that of a wolf ready to jump at its prey.


    The crow ran toward Eiro, swinging their talons at him. Despite the state they were in, Eiro still didn''t have the leisure to attack by himself, instead just focusing on evasive movements. Of course, at the same time, the crow had slowed down considerably.


    Enough for Eiro to be able to dodge consistently with just a little bit of magical assistance, and even tounch some counter-attacks with his daggers. They were shallow cuts, but due to the duplicated mountainbreaker build into them by Armodeus, just those shallow cuts spread all over the crow''s body.


    With every tiny connection of the des, ck feathers fell from their body and rivers of blood flowed out of their wounds. Their muscles were even being damaged, slowing them down even more.


    At this point, this was a battle of endurance, one that had a definitive oue already. The more they were wounded, the more their rage turned back into the fear it originated from, the more the crow seemed to hesitate. Eiro saw them ncing down the hallway, where the fake Devil was standing. It was clear what was about to happen.


    Instead of fighting a battle that they were bound to lose, the crow ran past Eiro. The fake Devil had stood by the wall as per Eiro''s mentalmand. The moment that they would attempt to run, it was obvious that the crow was no longer intending to fight; they were focused on running, and Eiro wouldn''t stop them from doing that. There was no reason to.


    The monster ran back into the mineshaft''s hallway, trying to get as far away from Eiro as it possibly could... just to be faced with a stone wall that wasn''t supposed to be here. This wasn''t here earlier.


    As the crow stood in front of the stone wall, the ground rumbled and shifted. They turned around, seeing another stone wall currently growing out from the walls. While the first one had been erected by Gondos the moment the fake Devil had caught up, the second one was built by Eiro. The crow was weak.


    Of course, speed allowed for quite a lot of power to be put into an attack, but it wasn''t enough to destroy a wall under the control of an earth spirit instructed to make a wall that was as thick and dense as possible. The walls to the left and right, or the floor and ceiling weren''t an option either.


    And in the other direction, even if the crow did manage to break through that wall, the only thing waiting for them there was the being that they had been running away from in the first ce. Not that Eiro''s wall would be easy to break through in the first ce.


    This was a death sentence. The venom would kill them, slowly and painfully. For a monster whose body and mind existed at a speed far beyond what others were capable ofprehending, a death that came within a few seconds was still excruciatingly long.


    As such, the wall created by Eiro slowly closing in on them was probably an action of mercy. Something to put the crow out of their misery, instead of letting them suffer under this utter agony. Before long, the wall hade close enough that the crow could reach both of the magically manipted walls if they stretched out their wings.


    Then, close enough that they wouldn''t be able toy down anymore.


    It didn''t take long until their shoulders could touch either of the walls.


    It was faster than the venom, but that didn''t change that the crow could distinctly tell apart every step of the way.


    When their ribs broke under the weight of the walls.


    When their beak shattered against the hard surface.


    When their eyes were squeezed out of their skull.


    And finally, when the noise of their own skull shattering and piercing their brain became the sound they had been yearning for.


    ---


    [You killed another Card Owner, and have taken their card into your ownership yourself. You are now the Owner of the Three of Pentacles]


    [3/14 Cards of the Suit of Pentacles acquired]


    [9/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]


    [Aptitude with the Earth Element increased]


    ---


    Eiro waved away the notifications and stepped up to the stone wall that was the final weapon to kill his opponent. With a flick of his wrist, both of the walls that squeezed the crow monster to their death retracted back into mineshaft''s original walls, and the bloodied, ck and red mass of blood, flesh and feathers fell to the ground.


    And inside of it, covered in it all, was the intricately decorated card; the Three of Pentacles. The card of Ultimate Agility.


    The Demon squatted down and grabbed the card, cing it into his treasury. The goop clung originally clung to it fell to the ground as the card disappeared. If Eiro had the time, then he would activate the card right away. It would be an amazing benefit for the battle against the Devil. But a card of particrly the suit of pentacles couldn''t be so easily used. Or rather, it shouldn''t.


    The first time that Eiro used the Five of Pentacles, his senses, despite his minuscule perception stat at the time. With Eiro''s current stats, without extensive preparation and the ability to slowly get used to it, he would probably rip apart his muscles and ligaments, and break some bones if he tried moving even slightly.


    It was unfortunate, but this card had to wait until after the battle with the Devil was won.


    Eiro turned around, looking at the well-dressed figure of his servant, the fake Devil. He held forward his hand and pulls the shadows of the mineshaft into the shape of a magic circle floating in front of Eiro''s palm. Quickly, he cast a spell on the figure, keeping it enveloped in shadows and ensuring that it would be hidden from the perception of at least regr monsters.


    The true Devil might still realize, but that was fine.


    "Just follow along at a distance for now. When I reach out and call for you,e running right away," Eiro told the Servant. The Ace of Cups liquid that had been used to hide it earlier had been used uppletely, and since Eiro had used the artifact earlier, he wasn''t able to produce more right off the bat. So this ''regr'' stealth spell just had to do for the time being.


    Though, no matter what happened, the fake Devil was an investment that had already paid off. Being able to kill the crow with minimal injury to himself was something that wouldn''t have been possible otherwise. Just through that single moment of distraction caused by the fake Devil was he able to inject the crow with his venom.


    If it survived through this, maybe Eiro should find a good, long-term use for it. And maybe he could ''upgrade'' it by using the Devil''s actual body. Eiro turned down the hallway and spread his wings, looking at Gondos who was floating nearby, trying to avoid looking at the crow''s bloodied corpse, if it could even still be called that.


    "Good job," Eiro told him, and Gondos just slowly nodded, "Of course. This is what I am here for," the young Golem replied, and Eiro smiled.


    "Let''s go, we need to catch up to the others," Eiro said activating the spell formed through the magic circuits in his wings. With the gust of wind, he shot through the long mineshaft, flying through the tunnel''s darkness until reaching the other end. There was anotherrger space, but this time many timesrger than the one that Eiro had fought in just now.


    On a stone tform not too far away stood Eiro''s party, facing off against the hordes of monsters that the Devil had prepared for them.

 Chapter 709: Sacrificed Hordes

    Eiro stood in the entrance of the cave, taking in the situation in front of him. This ce seems to have been a hub for the minin operation, and a number of tunnels were leading into half a dozen different directions. And from each tunnel, except the one that Eiro came from, arge amount of monsters were flooding forward, each ovee with the destructive rage of the Mark of Wrath.


    They were practically tearing each other apart, trying to get to the ones that had been designated as their targets.


    But of course, the party was doing fairly well fighting against them. Since the main thing they had going for them were their numbers, the abilities of each of them worked quite well against them.


    The swings of Krog''s polearm took out heaps of them at once, and even if there were ones that managed to dodge, or were powerful enough to withstand the attacks, James quickly took them out with precise attacks. Meanwhile, Arie was flying above the party, giving support by thinning out the horde with her arrows.


    She was a versatilebatant, so she was able to adjust to whatever situation she was faced, whether melee or ranged.


    But of course, these three were acting in a defensive manner, continuosly protecting the key member of the group; Jess. She was currently casting arge-range spell, and was gathering her mana while increasing the efficiency of the spell through the use ofplex, multiyered magic circles and deep, lengthy chants.


    Of course, Jess'' mana-pool wasn''t low in any way whatsoever, but for most mages, there was still the issue of how much they were actually able to handle at once. And while Jess was talented, a human''s body in particr was vastly limited in these ways.


    A human''s magic circuits simply weren''t able to develop as quickly as they should, and wouldn''t be able to hold as much manapared to simr magic circuits of, for example, an elf. Eiro was actually trying to learn more about magic circuits to see if there was a way to artificially strengthen them somehow, but he didn''t really want to treat Jess as a guinea-pig, so that would have to wait.


    But nheless, Jess was able to prepare a fairly powerful spell. Eiro was actually feeling his own mana drained, since she was getting assistance from Sarius. Usually, spirits wouldn''t assist others in this way without a contract, but the spirits that Eiro was contracted to didn''t care about these sorts of things.


    But of course, since Sarius'' only way of summoning the mes that were needed was by draining Eiro''s mana, he was sort of getting involved here. For now, Eiro just watched on. Of course, if there was any need to, the Demon would intervene, but that didn''t seem necessary in the first ce.


    It didn''t take long until Jess finished the spell, pushing her staff into the ground. A wave of mana flowed through the room, igniting in waves of mes that burnt the monsters to a crisp. The almost explosive force of the mes pushed the monsters back into the tunnels, against their will. There were some stragglers, but they were being roasted by the fire as well.


    And then, once they were in tunnels, Jess did Eiro proud. He had taught her a few tactics, and it seemed like she learned well. Without further ado, the five tunnels'' ceiling plummeted down onto the monsters,pletely crushing them under the weight of the world. It immediately extinguished the lives of the majority of the monsters.


    Of course, that was only within a certain range, but at the very least, the now closed tunnels would also block any more monsters froming through. As Jess recovered from casting the powerful spell, James, Krog, and Arie took out thest few stragglers.


    Frankly, it had only been about six minutes since they had split up. Eiro''s fight against the crow monsterdidn''t take that long, and it seemed like this battle was an easy victory for the party either. To be totally honest, it was to the extent of making Eiro uneasy. Things were going almost too well.


    While the sins definitely affected the Devil''s actions, it couldn''t be to the extent that hepletely underestimated the strength of his opponents, right? Someone as well-prepared as the devil, throwing away a horde of the size Eiro was seeing... something felt off. With a frown, Eiro pushed his mana into the floor, using earth magic to scout out the mineshafts as far as he could.


    And that was when he realized something. With a wry smile, Eiro saw it.


    Patterns of someone intervening in this space. Eiro was already wondering what the twist to this ce was. While the replicated artifacts shouldn''t be able to function anymore once Eiro took possession of the original ones, that didn''t mean that the Devil couldn''t make use of them for his own purposes beforehand.


    And these mineshafts had been affected by the same artifact that had been active just above; the Dungeon Map. However, the replicated version didn''t seem to be able to distort space in the same way, but the specific manner that it did end up working allowed for physical space to be manipted to a degree nheless. These mineshafts had been altered, the tunnels shifted around.


    All to form a very particr pattern. And since the physical space itself was changed, apparently it wasn''t reset even if the replicated artifact used to create it became obsolete.


    "Demonology?" Eiro muttered, surprised. It was a particr field of magic that dealt with unholy energy. It was practically the counterpart to Divine and Holy Magic. But, due to the nature of this magic, and the efforts of the Holy Empire, there weren''t many traces of Demonology left anymore.


    Eiro was actually trying extremely hard to be able to find anything he could about it, but the only things he could find were extremely biased, inurate retellings of when certain people from the Holy Empire encountered users of Demonology. These were basically propaganda pieces without any actual scientific worth to them.


    But of course, the Devil knowing Demonology wasn''t anything too far-fetched. He should definitely have a few tomes here and there... or even better, maybe Eiro could make use of the magic he absorbed from one of his newer servants, the frogman Anura from the ne of water. His magic was knowledge-based, allowing him to absorb information into a more tangible andprehensive form.


    The Devil would be the perfect first target for Eiro''s version of this magic. Getting his hands on Demonology would be extremely useful, especially considering that the demon''s predictions were clearly going toe true. Now that he could tell that the mineshafts had been formed into a massive Demonology sigil, the Devil''s ns were even clearer.


    Though, that being the case, it also seemed that Eiro underestimated the Devil a little bit.


    "The monsters were sacrifices, huh?" he sighed loudly, starting to feel the flow of unholy energy flow through the air. Quickly, Eiro flew over toward the others, and particrly Arie. Being a Nephilim, she was deeply intertwined with the concept of holiness.


    It wasn''t to the degree that she couldn''t fight off against unholy energy at all, but being targeted by the amount of unholy energy that they were about to would be dangerous.


    "Wait, are you done already?" James asked with a scoff, seeing Eirond nearby. The Demon just nodded, not feeling like joking around right now, "Mhm. Listen, good job, but this yed into the Devil''s scheme from the beginning."


    Taken aback, the party looked at Eiro, who quickly continued, "I doubt he was expecting us to get past Merlin, but the devil just isn''t the kind not to have a n B, or even a n C. The life force from the monsters you all just killed was used as ingredients for-"


    Before Eiro was able to finish speaking, he could tell that that sigil was being activated. Complete and utter unholiness flooded the space. Arie''s legs buckled under her weight, weakened by the altered environment. James, Krog and Jess also shivered and were just barely able to keep upright.


    "This... are we in-" Jess muttered nervously, but Eiro shook his head.


    "No, not yet. Connecting this whole area to hell would take a lot more energy than that... but the sigil is also still active, so it seems to be happening. But for now, the Devil summoned as much from hell into these tunnels as possible."

 Chapter 710: Brood from Hell

    Eiro could feel the mineshaft''s tunnels be ovee with the disgusting scent of demonic blood. He furrowed his brow as the footsteps of numerous lesser demons started flooding out from a few particr areas of the demonology sigil, as though that was the point that they were actually summoned from.


    It seemed as though hell was creeping toward them from the outside into the center of the sigil, where the party was currently stood, surrounding them without any hopes of escaping.


    "...if at all possible, at least until we find the Devil, try to kill as little as possible. Focus on incapacitating them. Arie, you in particr, use a little bit of holy energy to stun the Demons that will being now," Eiro exined to the others, and Krog looked at him with a pale expression.


    The air in the room was filled with the feeling of anything bad, anything horrendous that existed in the world. A warrior as adept as Krog would pick up on that immediately, and became quickly affected by it, even if he was trying to fight back against it as much as possible.


    "Why would we do that? From what you''re sayin'', it sounds like it''s gonna be a lot... I''m not sure if we can afford to hold back that much," Krog pointed out, and while he still could, Eiro was preparing some defensive spells to ce onto everyone in the party. If possible, he would use holy magic here, but he couldn''t afford to do that right now.


    After all, that was one of the few hidden cards he had up his sleeve, and he couldn''t haphazardly reveal that he could use holy energy to the Devil.


    The demon quickly exined, "Part of what the Devil prioritized at the beginning of his process of bringing this space into hell was to summon a massive amount of Demons. Frankly, they''re not particrly strong, there''s just so, so many of them... they''re not necessarily supposed to actually kill us, though I''m sure if that were to happen, the Devil wouldn''t mind, but...


    they''re acting as further sacrifices for the sigil."


    Jess quickly looked at Eiro, "So the more we kill... the sooner we''ll end up in hell?"


    "...basically."


    "So what," Krog clicked his tongue, "We can''t kill any of them? Or maybe like, half?" he asked annoyed. It wasn''t that he was exhausted or anything, but with how things were going, it didn''t seem like this battle was going to end any time soon.


    It was a lot easier to simply cut into something''s body to kill them right away instead of aiming for non-vital areas specifically, or carefully cut off their arms. Especially for Krog, since it wasn''t his specialty to be necessarily precise, but rather deliver powerful attacks especially in this crowd-basedbat that was about to happen.


    Eiro finished his spell, and everyone in the party was covered in a thin barrier that was going to protect them from a certain amount of damage as long as they were close enough to Eiro to let him supply the needed mana. At the same time, it seemed like Arie had finally regained her fullposure, preparing her holy magic as Eiro had suggested.


    And then, the Demon continued, "Basically, if it''s possible at all, try not to kill them. But if it''s too much of a hassle, or too dangerous, just go all out. The sigil is continuing being active either way; killing those sacrifices is just going to make things go a bit faster. If things go well, we should be able to reach the Devil before things get too far."


    "...If you say so," Krog replied, tightening his grip on his weapons. As the others were all preparing, Eiro was expanding his consciousness and trying to figure out where the Devil was currently hiding out. From the flow of unholy energy that was fairly distinctly filled with the Devil''s own. With that, Eiro should be able to track the Devil''s location somehow.


    Currently, he was moving around his magic circuits in a way that would allow his whole body to be a massive sensor, so that Eiro may increase his sensory perception even further than normal. These mineshafts weren''t at the regr scale that he expected; they were expanding outward for miles and miles. And then, he noticed a twinge of a ''vibe''.


    Of something too closely rted to the arcane to belong to anything beside an artifact.


    The devil was doing something, and it was the exact thing that led to him being discovered right here. With a grin on his face, Eiro constructed a mental map of this space, and as the demons were still approaching, created the perfect route throughout this space.


    After all, each distinct summoning hotspot in the massive underground sigil was seemingly pulling in different kinds of demons, as though they wereing from separate parts of hell. And since they were all different, they obviously also had different habits, and Eiro would be able to take advantage of that.


    He turned his head toward the side, holding forward his hand, "I''m going to open up that passageway in 23 seconds. The moment I do, get ready to deal with the flood of monsters. Not just the demons, but the ones that Jess hadn''t been able to kill as well. But we just need to hold on for about three minutes."


    Without hesitation, the others nodded. They didn''t know exactly what Eiro''s n was just yet, but they knew that if Eiro had nned it, it would work if they did their part exactly as intended. And since Eiro knew these four amazingly well at this point, he knew exactly how they were going to act naturally.


    That meant that their regr reactions, habits and behaviour was built into the n; there was no need tomunicate about this in the first ce.


    Once the 23 seconds were up, Eiro pushed his hand to the right, as though he was scooping away the mass of rock blocking the part of the mines in front of him. From there, immediately, the leftover horde of monsters came running out through the opening.


    Their limbs pushed into the sludge of flesh, blood and bone that was left behind after the crushing attack from Jess, and once as many of the monsters were touching it, Eiro executed another spell. He used that flesh and blood to wrap around as many monsters as he could, and then froze them solidly in ce.


    This was narrowing the passage that the monsters could take, since the ice was too hard for any of them to break too easily, so they would default to the path of least resistance. That way, the amount of monsters that the party had to deal with at once wasn''t quite as massive at least. And before long, they all managed to act as Eiro expected they would.


    Krog either cut off the limbs off as many monsters as he could or knocked them into unconsciousness with a light tap of a club. James cut through the monsters'' tendons or paralyzed them with poison, while Jess tried her best to trap the monsters by wrapping them up in rock.


    And Arie, for now, continued to act as aerial support while preparing as much holy magic as she could gather at this time in preparation for the demons'' arrival. Eiro as well was taking part in this. He couldn''t use his daggers, as they were too distructive considering the efforts to not kill the monsters.


    Instead, he was using hand-to-handbat to incapacitate as many of the monsters as possible, breaking their spines in specific locations, ripping off their limbs, or simply poisoning them to knock them out for a while.


    But of course, no matter how much they all tried, it was impossible to not kill any of them at all. Due to their sheer amount, most of the monsters ended up having to be killed. But luckily, they really just had to keep going for a maximum of three minutes. Because that was exactly when the demons arrived.


    Especially inparison to the other monsters, they were simply... grotesque. As though they were born from the nightmares of an imaginative, troubled child. Ghastly proportions, horrid scents, and of course a bloodlust that never had to be stirred up the Devil in the first ce. And the moment they arrived, even just ncing at Eiro, they stopped.

 Chapter 711: The Naiad Queen

    The flood of Demons in front of Eiro came to a halt. Even if Eiro hadn''t imed his throne yet, he was still someone that could exert an energy, especially on demons, that these lesser ones could never hope to hold out against. With a broad grin on his face, Eiro stretched out his hand. These demons weren''t under the control of the Devil, they were simply bloodthirsty from the start.


    But that didn''t mean that demons couldn''t feel fear. Rather, it was the opposite. Demons, from the ground up, were some of the beings that were the most connected to their emotions out of all that Eiro knew of. And they fell prey to them very easily as well.


    It was probably part of why the Devil ended up being so affected by the Sins that the card brought with it as well, since he himself was born a demon too.


    The Demons looked at Eiro, and in the unholynguage of Demons, he spoke the few words that he managed to find through some old transcripts. Luckily, some of the mostmon words of thenguage of Demons that were known here in the central material ne were ones rted to death and war, so the few words he found were rted to it as well.


    His mouth had already split in two, so that he could ovep twomands onto each other, strengthening the effect even more. One mouth spoke with the influence of a Royal. The other spoke with the influence of a Lord of Hell. But both sent a very clear message.


    "Turn on each other." ¨C "Feast on your brethren."


    Without a moment''s hesitation, the Demons did as told. The ones with ws swiped them at their neighbor, the ones with fangs buried them in another''s leg or arm. The smell of demonic blood was so disgustingly familiar and sweet that Eiro wanted to throw up from utter disgust.


    "Didn''t you just say we can''t kill them?" James asked confused, still holding off some of the other monsters, but Eiro just turned toward him and exined bluntly, speaking until the right opportunity presented itself, "Demons are hardy, we don''t die that easily. Most of us have regeneration thates close to a Troll''s. That''s why the feeding habits of wild demons in the underworld are a bit...


    unique. They throw themselves on their prey, destroy its limbs, and then bring it to their home. And then there, they will continue feeding on their victim for weeks until they finally sumb. And that''s what I told them to do. I told them to Feast; not to kill."


    Eiro looked at the demons, seeing that exactly that was happening. Of course, some of them were quickly killed in that rowdy mass of Demons, but it was just a small numberpared to the ones that were specifically keeping each other alive in the worst way possible.


    Seeing that the area had thinned out enough, Eiro quickly motioned at the others to get moving, "We need to hurry though, it won''t be long until the Devil will interfere and make them stop somehow. Until then we have to keep moving."


    "But where are we supposed to-" Jess began to ask, but was quickly interrupted by a sweep of Eiro''s hand. He surrounded the members of his party in a massive, ethereal mage-hand that carried them over the mass of demons at a fast speed.


    That being the case, the sheer mass of demons and the speed at which Eiro had to move them to bring them as far away as they needed to meant that he used most of his saved-up arcane magic. He quickly got started to try and fill his tank back up, but it would take a little while until he could do something like this again.


    "And now, just run. No matter what happens, don''t engage in anybat unless I say so. And Krog, carry Jess," the Demon instructed, and Krog, who was already carrying a massive load of weapons, sweeped up his lover without a moment''s hesitation as the party started to run forward as fast as possible.


    Both James and Krog had done extensive endurance training for situations exactly like this, where they had to sprint for an extended period of time. But Jess'' training was mostly focused on expanding her mental capabilities, even if she was also given a bit of physical training.


    And of course, Arie, being a very powerful fighter to begin with on top of being technically a monster, she was able to keep up without any issues either, even if the ever-growing wave of demonic, unholy energy was making her feel worse by the second.


    Eiro nced to the side, locking eyes with Gondos. He had already been instructing the Golem on his part of the n. Sarius had already went off to get started the moment they left that central cave, but now it was Gondos turn. He shot into the wall, diving through the thick stone of the mineshaft.


    If anything went wrong on either Sarius or Gondos'' side, he would immediately summon them back here to a more safe ce. But hopefully, nothing should really go wrong.


    The party skillfully dodged around as many of the monsters and demons wandering the mineshafts, but every once in a while, there was a group right in front that couldn''t be avoided. So instead, the party would incapacitate them and continue running forward.


    ---


    As the original Eiro and his party were running through the mineshafts, the duplicate Eiro in the elemental ne of water was currently approaching the current location of the Naiad Queen. Floating in the distance was a massive castle of shells and gemstones, their magic glimmering in this endless ocean. And just as Eiro expected, he wouldn''t be able to get in there particrly easily.


    He could see Naiads surrounding the castle, acting as guards, and many Magic People were swimming around as well, either being servants or even more guards. Of course, it made sense. The Naiad King and Queen were two of the most powerful beings in this realm.


    They had many enemies that would simply love to take a shot at them; though it wasn''t as though they had any chance at even touching a single strand of mana on their bodies, even if the two were leftpletely unguarded. But that didn''t change that these spirits and people were incredibly serious about their jobs.


    Eiro wouldn''t just be able to swim in there, saying he wanted to meet the Naiad Queen.


    "Sorry about this Nelly, it''s going to get a little bit rough for a few moments," Eiro apologized, shifting the way that he was holding Nelly to make sure that she was more stable throughout this. The demon''s duplicate expanded his senses throughout the magical water, pinpointing exactly where every individual was and what areas they were able to see, hear, or otherwise sense.


    As soon as he approached the castle, he started swerving around any of the surrounding buildings and structures, dodging past anyone and everyone that he came across as fast and smooth as he could, making sure that Nelly''s condition wouldn''t worsen because he was too rowdy. He swam and swam, soon reaching therge door in front of the room that the Naiad Queen was.


    This was the only real way into this room, as the windows had thick ss made of elemental water in front of them that Eiro wasn''t able to get through fast enough.


    At this point, he just had to gamble.


    Eiro pped his wings for just an instance as one of the Guards looked away and the other blinked, shooting through the whole hallway. He floated in front of therge door, pushing his back against it as much as he could, and very carefully opened the door.


    He also manipted the water right in front of the door to make sure that there was no change in its natural flow that could alert the guard that something was going on, and then carefully floated through the door, closing it behind him.


    And there he was. The Naiad Queen''s bedchambers. There was arge, well-decorated bed on one side of the enormous hall, and what seemed to be a desk on the other side. And right above Eiro, toward the ceiling, the Naiad Queen floated. Her body, dozens of feet tall, floated there as she read a book. Before long, she nced at Eiro.


    "What?" she let out, in a confused expression, "Who are you? Guards, there-"


    "Please, stop," Eiro said in an almost begging voice. He swam up toward the Naiad Queen, who carefully backed away. Even so, she still carried herself in a dignified, almost fiery manner.


    She held forward her hand and started to control the water in front of her palm, but that was when she managed to get a closer look at the Demon, his own energy, and the energy of the Naiad that the Demon was holding onto.


    "You... what happened to Nellissa?" She asked carefully, and Eiro approached closer, carefully holding the spirit forward, "She... a memory of hers had been locked away by powerful magic, and that lock was forcefully ripped away... Nelly told me to bring her to you. Please, I don''t think I ca do anything myself, so just... save her."


    Eiro watched the Naiad Queen''s expression. He figured that there had been some kind of connection between Nelly and her, but had never asked about it. But whatever connection it was, the Queen must be able to figure something out.

 Chapter 712: Middleman

    What stood, or rather, floated, in front of Eiro was a figure of vast power. Especially here in this realm, where her abilities and magic were the most potent, the Naiad Queen was formidable. If Eiro had lower willpower than he did, then he would certainly buckle in front of the figure that he was seeing.


    Things weren''t linking up quite right. If Eiro remembered correctly, and he always did, then Nelly was supposed to be just amon Naiad... of course, her personality was unlike almost any Naiad out there; her willingness to form a contract that differed so strongly from the norm was something extraordinary.


    But in any other sense, in the societal hierarchy of Spirits, and within her personal history, Nelly should have just been an ordinary spirit.


    But here they were, the Naiad Queen referring to Nelly by name, concerned over her. Of course, it could just be an ability of the Naiad Queen that Eiro hadn''t known about; the ability to know all other spirits, perhaps. And Nelly''s condition wasn''t particrly subtle, so the concern wasn''t strictly weird in any sense, but that didn''t change that it didn''t feel the same.


    There was a sense of familiarity that eminated from the Queen''s voice and expression. And from all that he had heard about this Queen, she wasn''t necessarily the kind to act like that toward just any random spirit.


    However, none of that really mattered right now. What was important was that Nelly was going to be cared for somehow, and Eiro could tell that the Naiad Queen would do her utmost to make sure of this as well.


    Once Eiro exined the situation to her, she didn''t as much as take a breath before closing the distance between her and the unknown figure in front of her, carefully taking Nelly into her hands. Eiro could feel a magic flow out of the Queen and into Nelly''s body, as the scales that had dissolved not too long earlier were slowlying back into view.


    But not as they did before; Nelly''s skin, or the part of her magical, ever-flowing body that acted as her skin, was covered in a deep, ugly scar that covered most of her upper body, creeping toward her face.


    "This... is the most I can do for now..." the Queen said solemly, "This power merely allows me to heal the physical form of a spirit, but... if her mind does not recover, then it won''t be long until this ability will be unable to help her."


    "...Is there anything we... I can do?" Eiro asked, looking up at the woman in front of him, but she just shook her head, "No, for the time being, all we can do is wait."


    The Naiad Queen slowly swam toward her bed, carefully cing Nelly down onto it. Her thinning body was sinking deep into the cushions. Once Nelly seemed to be calmer, not in as much pain to the point where she was finally able to rest for a while, the Queen turned back toward Eiro.


    "And now... who are you? What... are you? Your body, your soul, you... why do you hold a Spirit Gateway inside of you?" she asked, and Eiro looked at her, slightly reluctant to simply answer.


    After all, the reason for that Spirit Gateway was the former Naiad queen, who had relinquished her position to allow the one in front of Eiro to rise to it instead.


    "Eight years ago, I was blessed by a spirit titled the ''Lonely Naiad''. And then, a few months ago, I met her again. As I had already been the protector of the Spirit Gateway to the realm of fire, she felt confident in letting me protect this gateway in her stead," the Demon exined, but the Naiad queen didn''t seem any less confused.


    "The former queen? Why would she... no, rather, what are you even speaking of? I sense not a speck of fire magic within you, so how can you be the protector of that Gate?"


    "...This is not my original body. My name is Eiro Jura Daemonherz, a Demon, Lord of Hell, and Royal Monster. Among one of the artifacts in my possession is the Mirror Duplication, which due to abination of certain special abilities and skills, allowed for each duplicate''s mind to act as one. So, he constructed a body for myself, with the Gateway acting as a recement core."


    The gaze of the Naiad Queen narrowed. Generally, a Spirit didn''t really care for the difference between monsters and people. Of course, monsters were less likely to evenprehend the concept of a contract, so making contracts with them didn''t happen often.


    But if it did, then monsters tended to be more honest in their desires, and a spirit that allowed for a contract knew what they were getting into. Their meager intelligence made tricking them into a particrly beneficial contract very easy as well. But people tended to be cunning. Smart. Especially the kinds with the affinity for a spirit contract were... tricky and bothersome to deal with.


    Overall, things were rather bnced. At the end of the day, person or monster, to spirits they were really just tools to allow them to experience the world they were born into more freely.


    However, what stood in front of the Naiad Queen now wasn''t anything that could just be called a tool. In general, Monsters didn''t bother with names. Some had them, but most didn''t have a use for them. Eiro had three of them.


    Demons in particr were vile, and their Lords were generally locked up in hell, unable to roam the world. But the one in front of the queen was not only able to acquire the title of a Royal Monster, something only truly possible in the central material ne, but had free ess to two elemental nes as well, proving that he had the vehement support of two extremely powerful spirits.


    The former Naiad Queen, and a monarch of the Smanders. The fact that he seemed to have multiple artifacts in his possession honestly seemed the least of her concerns in what Eiro had said.


    "That name... Jura... I had heard you were a human, but was that just a ploy? A trick you yed on Nellissa?" the Naiad queen asked, ready to strike Eiro down if he said the wrong thing, but the Demon quickly shook his head, "No, no, that Jura is Nelly''s former contractor. My father. Well, foster-parent, obviously, but I never understood the arbitrary distinction between blood-family and other sorts.


    After his death, Nelly contracted with me, and I took on my father''s name as part of my own."


    Even more surprised, the Naiad Queen slowly replied, "...my condolences." She slowly looked over at Nelly once more, a clear expression of concern still strewn onto her face.


    "How do you know Nelly? And how do you know about Jura?" Eiro now asked, figuring it was finally his turn for questions. But the Naiad Queen just turned toward him with a re, "Do you think that I owe you a response to that?"


    The water around her body started flowing rapidly, as though she was trying to threaten Eiro. But if that was how she wanted to act, Eiro wouldn''t mind ying along. He held one of his hands forward, magic flowing out of his fingertips and immediately seizing control of the elemental water in the room.


    He pulled it into his body, fusing his extremely malleable, duplicate form with as much of it as he could. Ever since the original''s use of the Ace of Cups, he had felt some sort of control over his form that didn''t require the original''s interference. It was as though his body was... more his own. It was a weird feeling, as it was always his own to begin with.


    He couldn''t just change his form like he could with the mirror of duplication, but it was easier to control this body than it had ever been before.


    As Eiro''s body took in more of the magic of the room, his form growing in size rapidly, it didn''t take long until his shadow fell onto the Naiad Queen''s form. His wings spread out, covering every part of the walls and enclosing this space in a deep darkness that could only be found in the deepest depths of the ocean.


    The magic that he was taking in was starting to actually peel away from the Naiad Queen''s own control, as though her body was flowing into the Demon''s. Her expression as she was realizing what was happening was one of pure and utter fear. The expression one had when realizing the axe of the executioner was readily closing in on their neck.


    "I would be careful, if I were you. I came here to help my dearest friend because she asked me to bring her here. But if it''s merely an ability of yours that she was looking for, I wouldn''t mind ridding myself of the middleman.


    Since I don''t want to cause a mess, however, let''s just try to get along, alright?" Eiro''s voice was clear and strong, hitting the Naiad Queen''s shivering body in a way that she had never experienced before. The only thing she was able to do was slowly nod her head, and in an instant, Eiro released all the additional magic that he had absorbed, returning to his original size.


    "Since that''s settled... would you mind answering my questions now?" Eiro asked, slightly tilting his head to the side. The Naiad Queen didn''t hesitate to speak anymore.

 Chapter 713: The First

    The Naiad Queen slowly floated to the side. She was still shaking after Eiro''s brief... disy. He was actually quite surprised at how effective it had been. He was just a duplicate and didn''t really have full ess to a lot of the original''s powers, so he didn''t think that his momentary ''bluff'' was really going to work out.


    Though, at the same time, Eiro didn''t really know whether or not it was really just a bluff, at the end of the day. For the time being, he would try and avoid getting rid of someone as prominent as the Naiad Queen, as it would certainly create quite a few enemies, and that was not something he was particrly interested in. Not to mention, she was needed for the bnce of the world.


    And after meeting them, the actual conscience of the world, if that was even the right term to describe them, he would rather not cause them any trouble. They had been nothing but helpful, after all.


    "So?" Eiro finally asked, and the massive Naiad looked over at him with fearful eyes. She knew what Eiro was waiting for.


    "Nellissa is... no, she was, when I was still much, much younger, my teacher," the queen revealed. Eiro raised his brow surprised. Certainly, Nelly was incredibly skilled. Rather, she was one of the most skilled Naiads that Eiro had ever heard of. How her and Jura ended up together was something he didn''t know, but that was her business, anyway.


    Jura was connected to a lot of impressive individuals, so Nelly being with him was never something that struck him as ''weird'' in any sense.


    "...That means she taught you magic control? Or something of that sort?" Eiro wondered, and the queen slowly nodded, "Amongst other things... but yes, that was the main matter that she taught me. I had been one of the prospective queens, and I wasgging behind considerably, so the former queen... erm, the one from the former generation, not the one you know...


    anyway, she had sought out a spirit that she heard of. An incredibly old and knowledgable spirit."


    Eiro furrowed his brow. He knew that Nelly was quite old, but the way that the Naiad Queen was saying it felt... off. But for now, he didn''t want to interrupt her story and further, and just let her continue on.


    "Then, some timeter, Nellissa arrived, and started to teach me. Frankly, in the beginning, I had thought she was nothing special. I mean, she was skilled, of course she was, but... not to the degree that her abilities would be spoken of from there to hither, just... I underestimated her. Didn''t take her seriously whatsoever."


    "And that''s why you weren''t the one that became the Queen?" Eiro asked bluntly, and the spirit in front of him seemed to grow annoyed for just a moment, before once more realizing who it was that floated there before her. So instead ofining, she just nodded.


    "I figure you could say it like that, yes... By the time I did realize that there was far more to Nellissa than met the eye, it was already toote. Though, to be totally honest, mypetition wasn''t... someone I could really beat anyway. She was powerful and virtuous, and much more belonging of the title than I ever was, but then some time after she became queen, she gave the title to me instead.


    Luckily, in that time, Nellissa had not actually stopped teaching me, so I had be a lot more worthy of that position in that time."


    "What was it that finally convinced you? Nelly isn''t the sort to care what others think of her, so I can''t imagine she purposefully showed you her ''real'' power."


    The Naiad Queen nodded, looking over toward Nelly, "That moment came when we went out on an excursion. Nellissa had always been of the opinion that any spirit, and especially a Queen, needed to know of the world. I mean, not this realm, but the central material ne... All spirits are born both here and there, forever connected to both realms.


    I was born in a pond that was protected in a certain country, sheltered from the influence of the outside world specifically to protect the spirits born there. In exchange, many spirits from there would form contracts with the rulers of that country, a practice that still goes on to this day."


    As she looked at Eiro, the queen could tell that he really didn''t care about this part of the story, but was just silently listening anyway. Trying to reassure him, so as to not upset him any further, she exined, "This is an important part of it, don''t worry... Nellissa told me to go back to that pond for a while. And as I did, Nellissa appeared there as well...


    by her side, a young woman acting as her contractor. Now, this woman didn''t seem like anything special. Rather, ''woman'' would be the wrong word in the first ce, she was a... a child. I don''t know how old, realizing the age of people in that realm is something I''ve always struggled with, but she must have been one of the younger ones. Carefree, and just wandering around with Nellissa by her side.


    And... this girl was far, far less than mediocre. Mana that was just barely enough to summon a single droplet of water, and the same affinity for water magic that a grain of sand in the deserts may have. More than surprising, it seemed almost impossible for her to be a Naiad''s contractor. But that''s not where my surprise stopped.


    It was when I realized that the girl was holding a certain amulet, which I had recognized from one of the images I saw during one of Nellissa''s lessons, that I understood what we were about to do. The girl scooped up some water from the pond into the hollow amulet, and Nellissa prompted me to, just briefly, flow into the water.


    And with that, I was temporarily linked with the amulet, and could move freely without the need for a contractor. It was a wonderful piece, certainly. It wouldn''tst forever, but it seemed long enough for what Nellissa had nned. We were headed to the first spring."


    Finally, Eiro was hearing something that actually surprised him a bit. He hadn''t expected to hear that term here. The ''first spring'' was of course not the first body of water ever in existence or anything of the sort, obviously, but it was certainly the first ce that Naiads had ever been born into.


    These days, it was a ce that barely any Naiad, not even the King or Queen, really knew the location of. More than anything, it seemed like some sort of rumour or fairytale; it certainly appeared in those sorts of books the most. Once again, Eiro felt a weird connection behind what the Queen was telling him, but he had to just listen for now and make sure that he wasn''t wrong.


    "The journey itself wasn''t anything too arduous," the Queen exined, "I wasn''t used to travelling through that world, of course, but Nellissa had shown me a lot of wonderful things during my time there. Different rivers andkes, waterfalls, and we even got to see the ocean for a brief few moments.


    But it was long enough for me to start to realize that the central material ne certainly was more wonderful than I had thought before. And humans too, they seemed... interesting. Shockingly so, really. That girl, Anna was her name, she was joyful and made for an eventful journey to say the least. And then, we finally arrived at the spring.


    Anna didn''t follow us into the cave; it was too narrow for her to safely travel through. So, we headed inside, and the further we went, the more I felt... invigorated. Not more powerful, of course, just more... awake. More alive.


    When we reached the end of the cave, I saw a small underground pond, with numerous gemstones covering every speck of the walls. It was a sight that made me wonder if I identally slipped back into this realm while traversing the caves, but Nellissa assured me that it was correct, that it was indeed the first spring I was looking at. The ce the first Naiads came from.


    I''m not sure if you''re aware, but not many spirits really came from there. The first King and Queen, a handful of others, and that was it. After that, the spring never produced more spirits, even after the spirits from there passed on."


    The Demon was a bit confused about thatst statement. Obviously he knew. It was one of the few facts that seemingly had to be mentioned when speaking of the first spring.


    "So? What about it? Are you trying to say that this wasn''t true after all? That more spirits were bornter, and that Nelly is one of them?" Eiro asked. It was clear that this was the direction it was headed from the tone of the conversation. But he didn''t expect what he heard next.


    "Nellissa certainly is from that spring, yes. But no, it was true. Only the first dozen or so spirits were born there. And amongst them, a small, weak spirit. A... prototype, as you may call it.


    A first attempt at the spell that the world cast to birth us. It... didn''t go quite right. It took a little while longer for that spirit to trulye to. To awaken from the primordial state a spirit is in when first born, confined to that cave for far, far too long. Longer than any spirit should be able to live in the first ce, this spirit spent as a mere child."


    Eiro turned his sight onto Nelly. That was a joke right? Again, he knew that Nelly was old, but she always just acted as amon spirit. Though, Eiro figured that not caring for such matters was something that sounded quite a lot like Nelly. But even so... there was no way what the queen was saying was right.


    It just couldn''t be.


    The first Naiads were born before the age of the gods.


    Before the first people ever walked this world.


    There was no way that Nelly could have been the very first Naiad.

 Chapter 714: The Pact

    Eiro silently flew through the narrowing mineshaft, taking in the information that his duplicate had just learned. If Nelly was the first Naiad... her and Eiro had to have a conversation about that once she was better again.


    Since the Naiad Queen had healed her physical body, Nelly only needed to have the mental strength in order to wake up now, and Eiro knew for sure that she had that strength in her. But, for the time being, since he had the confidence that Nelly would be okay now, Eiro could properly concentrated on what was going on directly around him in the central material ne.


    To calm them down as well, Eiro let the others know that Nelly was going to be alright. Of course, particrly Sarius and Gondos were now able to rx considerably as they did their part of Eiro''s n. That being the case, the party finally reached their destination. It was a specific section of that massive demonology sigil, at the center of which the Devil was hidden away.


    One of the Devil''s powers was the ability to ess Hell at any point; this was the main conduit through which the Devil was trying to pull this part of the world into a whole other realm, which was something not usually possible. Usually, demonology was something that allowed for the summoning of individual demons or objects from hell for the means of forming a pact.


    Eiro didn''t know exactly why pacts and contracts were such apelling thing to other demons, but he figured that it had something to do with the will and personality of the father of all demonic beings, the Demon King, but he certainly would make use of this fact to the fullest during his n.


    In front of the party, in the middle of this regr mineshaft, was arge, ornate gate that pulled open on its own. Beyond it, the space opened up into arge hall that had been prepared beforehand, where the Devil was currently seated on a throne of distorted, twisted bone.


    "I''ve been awaiting you, little imp," the Devil smiled broadly.


    "...Trying to impress us somehow, even though all you''ve been doing is run away from us this whole time?" Eiro asked with a raised brow, and the Devil''s face twisted into one of annoyance.


    "I''d better be careful with your words, or else you will regret it," the Devil pointed out, ncing over at Arie. The concentration of unholy energy in this space was beyond anything else that they had experienced in these hallways. Despite the protective barrier ced around her, she was feeling weaker.


    But of course, Eiro could tell that the Devil was specificially focusing that disgusting magic onto her, trying to whittle her down more and more since he ''knew'' that she was the biggest danger to him.


    "Arie," Eiro looked over at her, and the nephilim looked back at him, "Are you sure?" she double-checked, and the Demon nodded his head.


    Without a moment''s hesitation, Arie forced herself to straighten her back, and her wings'' feathers started to let of a deep glow that was actively pushing away that encroaching darkness that the Devil''s magic was forcing into her direction.


    A Nephilim was, in nature, one of holiness. Her flesh, her blood, her feathers and her hair; everything was deeply instilled with holy energy. However, due to the sins of a nephilim''s parent, they required a massive amount of work to actually harvest this energy properly.


    Arie had grown strong enough to do so to a certain degree, but it wasn''t enough to fight off against the unholiness of the Devil. But, one of Arie''s abilities counter-acted this quite well. For a limited amount of time, she could unleash all of her holy energy fully, but in return, she wouldn''t be able to ess it at all for a certain amount of time.


    With a vulnerability against unholy magic, but without the holy energy within her to protect her to a certain degree, using this ability would be a sign of certain death. That was why Arie had entrusted Eiro with the decision of ''when'' she was actually allowed to use that ability. That meant that to Eiro, the end of the battle was certain.


    The Devil, who knew of the ability that Arie used, realized this himself. His face twisted away from annoyance intoplete anger, "You! You! How dare you, you little-"


    "Shut it already," Eiro clicked his tongue, watching as the Devil''s ws dug into the bones that his throne was made of, which acted as a syphon for his demonic magic.


    To Eiro''s surprise, the Devil let out a deep breath, managing to calm himself somehow. He was certainly quite old, so he must have a few tricks up his sleeve to control his emotions here and there. And then, the Devil snapped his finger, and a number ofrge demons came out from the dark hallways to the sides of the room.


    It was only two dozen, but they were all some of the most baseline powerful species of demons that existed. And that wasn''t all... there was something off about them. Arie pulled back her hand and plucked one of her feathers, using her bow of light to shoot a holy arrow at one of the demons. It hit the demon straight in the stomach, but... nothing happened.


    "The key can even remove a bane?" Eiro stared over at the Devil, whose grin had grown to an ugly, distorted degree.


    "The key can ess everything, so of course something like a bane would be an easy task," the Devilughed loudly, "And well, I''ve made sure that the banes that have been removed are going to be put to particrly good use."


    An ufortable feeling encroached on Eiro, while the rest of the party had already begun fighting therge demons. He knew what the Devil was trying to say with that, and it made Eiro angry beyond belief.


    "Stop trying to put your greedy fingers on my children, you absolute scum," Eiro practically growled out, but the Devil couldn''t help butugh, "Try? I''ve already done so quite well, haven''t I? Ah, that scene of those little brats being tormented by my experiments is one that I will never forget...


    Being thrown from abhorrent heights, or forced to feel the pain of a body ripping apart from the inside again and again and again, and... that pleasure-filled pain that your oldest boy experienced... Arc, was it, with the aspect of... Lust?"


    Eiro felt his muscles tighten around his bones, his teeth grinding against each other to the point of nearly cracking. He knew that the kids were fine. While they weren''t able to join Eiro here, there were still three masters at his home that were willing to use their abilities to the fullest to ensure the childrens'' safety while the Demon was gone.


    But just the idea of the Devil trying that same thing again was enough to make Eiro physically sick.


    "Devil, let''s make a pact," Eiro forced out, staring at that disgusting figure in front of him. Curious, the Devil raised a brow, "A pact? Are you willing to finally submit yourself to me?"


    "Don''t be ridiculous. It''s a pact ofbat, of duel. The moment that this ce inevitably enters hell, you and I will battle in a restricted space. One-on-one, without any other influence," the Demon suggested, and the Devil seemed to consider it for a few moments.


    "...And why would I agree to that?"


    "Why wouldn''t you? A straightforward battle is the best thing you can hope for at this point, isn''t it? Even though you''re nothing but a coward, I know that you''re extremely powerful. No ploys, no schemes. Just a simple, straightforward battle. One mile from where we will arrive in hell into any direction.


    I will be the only one you can attack, and you will be the only one I can attack. If anyone else attacks us, the perpetrator''s side will be struck down immediately," Eiro suggested. And a broad smile appeared on the Devil''s face once more.


    "What a fool you are, my little imp. Fine, let us do as you wish. Let us be restricted by the ancientws of the Demons'' blood," the Devil grinned broadly, and Eiro stepped up to the Devil. That disgusting scent grew stronger the closer the two got, but Eiro had to push through it.


    As Eiro grasped the Devil''s hand, the two spoke in unison, "I pledge on the blood flowing through my veins to follow the rules ofbat established."


    "Only I, the World, may strike down the Devil, and only the Devil, and if any ally, servant, or otherwise affiliated being dares attack the Devil, may I be struck down."


    "Only I, the Devil, may strike down the World, and only the World, and if any ally, servant, or otherwise affiliated being dares attack the World, may I be struck down."


    Eiro could feel a deep energy flow through the body of the Devil, but within himself, nothing happened. That was something that didn''t get past him either. Confused, the Devil stared at the figure in front of him, "What... what is going on? The pact, your side of it, it..."


    "Gondos, Sarius... do it," the Demon spoke with pure disgust at the being in front of him, his voice being carried telepathically to the two contracted spirits. The moment they heard the message, the mineshafts copsed in waves of fiery molten stone, crushing everyst monster and demon under their weight.


    The sacrifice of life needed to activate the demonology sigil was gathered all at once, and realizing that something was wrong, the Devil''s body disappeared in a wisp of smoke, and the physical contact between the two beings disappeared.


    The world shifted, and the fiery unholiness of hell flowed from all directions. The demons in the room were strengthened, and Eiro''s party was weakened.


    Eiro red at the Devil, whose face was filled with a panic. Eiro''s pact didn''t activate. But the Devil''s did. The Devil was someone affected by the Demon King''s lineage, being a direct descendant.


    But Eiro was no longer one such being. He was an Arcanus; demonic in nature, but a unique demon that had no nee to follow the constraints and rules set by and onto the Demon King.


    He no longer had a bane in the form of Holy magic, and there was no need for him to adhere to any sort of pact. Sure, even before now, he never felt constrained to do so, but he never formed a direct ''pact'' like was attempted just now either.


    A pact that did affect the Devil, who now could not escape from this ce further than a mile in any direction, and could not attack any members of Eiro''s party. He would only be able to attack Eiro. But for Eiro, it didn''t matter.


    His party could do whatever they wanted, and even if they attacked the Devil, he would be unaffected. It still wouldn''t be easy to kill the Devil, a master of unholy magic and demonology.


    In the meantime, Eiro was going to take care of some business.


    ---


    [You have entered Hell for the first time]


    [In order to allow you to im your throne as the Lord of the Arcanus, the Demon King calls you for an audience]

 Chapter 715: Whale Fall

    Eiro spread his wings and built up a distance between himself and the Devil. Of course, he was immediately being pursued, but Eiro had already prepared ordingly. The Devil was a mastermind; a mage, extremely skilled in the use of numerous spells and magical techniques that allowed him to build up his arsenal over the time that he had been in power.


    But Eiro wasn''t just a mage himself, even if he would call it his specialty.


    This demon''s body was particrly powerful as well, so he was able to build up some distance before the Devil was even really able to properly react. And a mile wasn''t a hard distance to traverse either with the wings on his back, so Eiro was able to get far enough away without issues.


    He looked back, seeing the Devil''s confused and furious expression, and couldn''t help but let a big grin form on his lips as the Devil stopped moving forward, the distance limit of a mile having been reached.


    Now, Eiro just had to meet the Demon King and make it official. But that in itself was already easier said than done. After all, hell was a realm as vast, if not more so, than the central elemental ne. It was a world that he wouldn''t be able to traverse in the little amount of time he had. Of course, there wasn''t anything that Eiro could do against it.


    If that was the condition to be a Demon Lord, then so be it. Fact was... the Devil wasn''t an easy opponent to beat even with those restrictions ced on him. The Devil was a Master, after all. He wasn''t someone that Eiro could hold out against yet, even if he did possess holy magic.


    The issue was that this was hell, even if the part of it they found themselves in didn''t seem to be in any Lord''s possession, that would mean that it belonged to the King himself, by default. And using holy magic in the domain of the King... that wasn''t something Eiro was stupid enough to do. He didn''t have a death-wish, after all.


    The Demon King was an entity that was just as powerful, if not more so, than the Monster King. An ancient being that existed as long as this realm to begin with, growing in power the more sin spread throughout the world. Why the Demon King didn''t choose to make use of that power to take revenge or simply rule over the other realms was something Eiro didn''t know, but that wasn''t important either.


    It was a fact that nobody knew the exact extents of the Demon King''s power. But in the long past, a hero of an early generation chose to rid the world of hell after beating the Monster King. He was hailed as the most powerful hero that had existed by that point, and even now, some of his feats were extraordinary.


    But once he stepped into hell, even equipped with the most holy equipment the world had to offer... the Hero was ughtered by the Demon King. It wasn''t even a contest.


    A few moments after, one of the King''s servants had appeared in the central material ne, in the capital of the country the hero belonged to, and threw that cocky man''s head onto the ground in front of the leaders of the world, mere hours after it had been reported that the hero descended into hell for the battle.


    The fear that was engraved deep into the hero''s face was something that established the Demon King as an entity that couldn''t ever be grasped. Something that was more a disaster of unknown heights, rather than a ''living creature''.


    And that was the being that Eiro was supposed to meet with right now. At least it wasn''t hard for him to find his way. The unholy, demonic energies that flowed throughout this hell, disgusting not only in the magic that existed in every crevice, but also its actual physicalndscape, seemed to originate in a single ce.


    The Demon flew over the rivers of blood, the pulsating mountains of flesh and bone and eyes that traced Eiro''s line of sight, never looking away for even an instant.


    There was a sky in this world as well, but it was a deep, dark abyss of a starless night sky, but the world was illuminated as if it were midday. As that lightnded on Eiro''s skin, he could feel an unnatural colde over him, not one that he felt physically, but instead felt more like the cold emptiness of death that was creeping on from every corner of the world, wanting to rip Eiro apart.


    Of course, in its own ways... this world was surprisingly beautiful as well. When discarding how different this realm was from his mind, ridding himself of the expectations of what the world should be like, Eiro could see a transcendent natural aesthetic in this world that was unlike anything he had ever seen. Not greater or lesser than the beauty if nature in other realms, just... different.


    Like the inherent beauty of whale fall; the ecosystem that grew around the corpse of a dead whale that fell to the depths of the ocean. A beauty created by death, that in itself led to life. For the first time in his life, the idea that being a demon could be something to be proud of crossed Eiro''s mind. However, for now, he couldn''t dwell on those sorts of emotions.


    Once he became a Lord of hell, and especially once he learned all the secrets hidden away being the Devil''s disgusting visage, he may be able toe back here whenever he wanted.


    And then, something came into view. In the distance, beyond the twisted horizon that beat like a dying man''s heart, bones began to emerge. Of course, that in itself wasn''t anything weird; bones were just a part of this world, as stone was where Eiro was from.


    But that weren''t just bones; it was a pair of enormous boney hands, each with dozens of fingers growing off and across each other like the branches of an ancient tree, sping onto the other, almost like in prayer.


    In the hollow arch that these hands created, there was nothing but an unnatural darkness that seemed to swallow darkness, but Eiro could her the call of a false ancestor within that darkness.


    Without a moment''s hesitation, Eiro flew into the ck world, feeling the natural, ever-present pull of gravity disappear from his body as he floated through a ce devoid of anything and everything at all. No light, no air, nothing. Even behind him, the portal that he took toe here had simply disappeared without Eiro even noticing it.


    He wanted to sigh, or even stop himself from moving for a moment to gather his rambling thoughts, but for a few moments, it was like even his body had disappeared into nothingness. Like he was a man made of non-existence.


    But then, out of the nothingness, something came to be. It was arge, ornate hall, like a realm of the giants while he was nothing but the tiniest ant in the world. As he stood there, a body suddenly having returned to him, even if one that didn''t seem to really belong to himself, Eiro saw the Demon King, sitting on a throne befitting him.


    Just from what Eiro was seeing, he didn''t seem particrly unique. He barely looked like a Demon at all, really. Just a simple human man with white... no, ck skin. An elderly child with three, or dozens, or maybe just a single tooth-filled abyss that took the ce of its mouth. Perfectly ordinary, really.


    As the Demon King stretched out its many mile-long arms, her single hand touched Eiro''s cheek with a violent tenderness.


    The King opened his mouth, as Eiro beheld the voice of a god born from the tragedy of sin and defiance after being thrown from the heavens, fated to rot as her children feed on the flesh and blood of its carcass.


    Eiro came to after witnessing the presence of hell itself, which had disguised her nature as that of a King that never existed to trick the fools of every world into a peace that they had never earned. A gift of mercy they didn''t even know had been bestowed upon them.


    And a single message appeared in front of Eiro''s eyes, its blue shine nearly burning itself into his retinas.


    ---


    [The Demon King warmly wees a new Lord of Hell]

 Chapter 716: Hells newest Lord

    [The Demon King warmly wees a new Lord of Hell]


    ---


    That... was a joke, right? How, in any sense of the word, was that a ''warm wee''? Eiro was still shivering, the fear deeply instilled in his bones. Or... at least that''s what he thought was the case.


    He knew he was supposed to be scared, that he should be feeling a terror beyond anything that he ever thought possible, but... there was nothing. He carried himself well on his legs, and his mind was clear. Maybe it was because he didn''t have a heartbeat to go by anymore, but even though Eiro knew he should be scared... he somehow didn''t feel that fear.


    Was it just that the ''Demon King'' was such a horrendous being that it went beyond what Eiro''s body was able to really recognize, or was it a mercy bestowed upon him?


    Whichever was the case, Eiro felt horrible pity for that poor Hero that had dared try and step up against that... thing. Eiro could feel it, maybe because he had already met something simr, but what he had just encountered wasn''t a being, it was a... concept.


    Simr to the world itself, not the one that Eiro had turned into upon acquiring the Major Arcana card of course, but the actual world that he had spoken with after bing the guardian of each of the spirit gateways. The Demon King was something simr. It was hell itself that Eiro had encountered, but different to the world, it hadn''t chosen a form that Eiro was actually capable of...


    fully understanding. Maybe to hell itself, its form was totally ''normal''. Just like how a drawing wouldn''t be able toprehend the person that held the paper it was ced on... maybe Eiro was just that drawing. The world had given itself a form that Eiro could understand, but maybe the Demon King didn''t find that necessary. Or maybe...


    it couldn''t. While they seemed the same, the idea that the Demon King was something simr to the world also felt... wrong.


    The ''world'' didn''t just hold the central material ne. It held every ne, every realm, as though they were different limbs. Eiro thought that this was the case with hell as well, but... it wasn''t. Maybe hell was moreparable to a parasite feeding off the world, a cancerous growth with its own mind and will and purpose that was different to that of the world itself.


    Eiro felt his head start to hurt the more he thought about that experience of his. He could try to understand itter. Or maybe... he just had to try and forget, or at least not think about it too often. With a furrowed brow, Eiro looked back at the system window. As he was deep in thought, something new had appeared in front of Eiro.


    ---


    [You currently do not have a Domain. Please find an unimed piece of hell and im it]


    [You currently do not have a Title. Please show hell what you are to establish yourself]


    ---


    While Eiro didn''t know what the second part was about, the instruction in the first message was what really mattered to him. He vaguely understood what he had to do to im somend here.


    The information had simply entered his mind, and some mental duplicates were already tearing apart that vague mass of knowledge and were shaping it into something that Eiro would be more easily able to make use of. There could be some things hidden that Eiro couldn''t directly see; and if that was the case, then the mental duplicates would find it.


    More importantly, Eiro had to hurry back. It didn''t seem like more than a few seconds from his perspective, but ording the time that passed for his duplicates in the nes of fire and water respectively, he had been inside of that space for a whole hour. On top of the time that he had spent getting there, the others had already been fighting so long that they must be truly exhausted by now.


    The Demon spread his wings and shot up, quickly flying back to the space where the Devil and his party currently were. At the very least, Eiro knew that the Devil wasn''t able to attack his party, but that didn''t mean that he couldn''t get other demons to do so for him.


    It wasn''t a particrlyplex pact, and while that made the effect stronger to a degree, it also allowed for more loopholes to be exposed. Loopholes that Eiro knew the Devil would immediately make use of.


    It didn''t take long for Eiro to find his way back. A wicked energy intertwined with a most foul stench was guiding him to his destination. In the distance, he could see the ''one mile border'' that the Devil couldn''t pass. But from there, in a five mile radius, all of hell was covered in a thick unholy mist.


    It seemed like the Devil was able to justify that as trying to attack Eiro, and any damage being done to his party as... ''coteral'' damage. Or maybe it wasn''t damaging Eiro''s party at all, and was just there to strengthen the demons that the Devil had called to his aide. Whichever it was, Eiro was sure that they were going to be happy to see Eiro''s return.


    He extended his sense through that thick unholy mist, which was much easier said than done. But, at the very least, there was something like a ''beacon'' for him here. A beacon of Holy Energy that showed him that Arie was still... alive, at least.


    Eiro shot through the unholy mist, trying to make his way to the center of the area where the others were fighting. He didn''t know the exact rules of his new ''domain'', but if it was just a limited area for now, then he had to try and form it around them, so that the six of them would be protected no matter what.


    But that also meant that he had to deal with some attacks from the Devil as Eiro flew through his magic.


    Eiro held his breath to avoid that horrible stench, but he knew that it was going to stick to his clothes and skin anyway. Even bathing in boiling oil wouldn''t get rid of it. Though, right now he didn''t have the time to worry about that, as a mass of pure and utter unholiness enveloped the demon.


    "What did you do?!" the voice of the Devil echoed out from around Eiro. The unholy mist was forming his fury-filled visage dozens of times over, all wrapping around each other to form a mass of pure terror and wrath, but the thing that Eiro noticed the most was... envy.


    The Devil was envious of Eiro. Despite it all, no matter what he had done, no matter how much time he had spent gathering power and influence both in the central elemental ne and here in hell... no matter how much he had to grovel in front of the Lords of Hell, acting like a fool.


    Even when he killed some of those lords, devouring them, crushing their flesh between his teeth and using their blood to wash down the chalky bone stuck to the inside of his throat... he was never allowed to be a Lord himself.


    And now, seeing that... thing in front of him, a mere imp that didn''t even possess a speck of unholy magic be a Lord of Hell just like that, it filled him with a sense of inferiority and loss that waspletely undescribable.


    "How dare you?!" the Devil''s voice echoed out numerous times, as the mist tried to force itself into Eiro''s ears. But Eiro didn''t care. At this point... there was no need for him to hide that card hidden up his sleeve anymore.


    An aura of unholiness poured out of Eiro''s skin. Now that he was a Lord, wholly acknowledged by hell itself... he feltfortable enough to do whatever he wanted. He felt a connection to this realm that he hadn''t before, and could tell that hell wasn''t unholy, but the things within it were.


    The Demon King would be unaffected, and frankly, wouldn''t care no matter how much holiness he spread through this ce. It was uncaring for things as lowly as that.


    The mist directly around Eiro faded, pushed back like a scared animal. Once more, the faces of the Devil twisted into one of confusion and terror, "How- How are you doing that? How is a demon-"


    "Just shut it already," Eiro red into the mist, pping his wings while that thing was distracted. It didn''t take long before Eiro reached the others at this point, spreading out his holy energy to create a safe bubble for them.


    "Eiro!" James was the first to notice. Or rather... maybe he was the only one that actually could notice. He had barely avoided being blinded by it, though Eiro didn''t know how, but the others were bleeding profusely from every pore and orifice in their body. Eyes, nose, ears; their bodies were breaking down under the effect of the unholy mist.


    Arie in particr, even though her holy magic was protecting her, she was barely able to hold on anymore. Anyter would have been toote.


    "Don''t worry, it''s over now," the Demon smiled, cing his feet down onto the ground. As he felt the fleshy dirt wriggle underneath his weight, Eiro poured his energy into the ground.


    And then, hell''s newest lord took over some unimednd.

 Chapter 717: Of Sin and Virtue

    [You have imed a yet-unimed piece of hell. It has been registered as your Domain]


    [You may exert a certain amount of influence over this Domain, shaping it ording to your abilities, habits, and preferences]


    [While you are the Lord of the Arcanus, you currently do not have any subjects. Gather subjects to increase your standing in hell]


    ---


    Eiro nced at the message windows, getting rid of them the moment they appeared. His domain actually stretched out a lot further than he expected. It was a ten mile radius from where he stood. Eiro noticed something in the area around him shifting and changing as his body seemed to slow to a crawl. He was growing slower and slower, and even his mind was being affected this time around.


    If his senses weren''t as powerful as they were, he wouldn''t have been able to notice, but the Devil activated one of his artifacts, the stopwatch.


    Since it was the original, and not a replication, Eiro assumed that its time-stop abilities were a lot more advanced.. That maybe it wouldn''t just slow time down, but actuallypletely stop it. In that case, even Eiro wouldn''t be able to do anything. But it seemed like the effect wasn''t perfectly instantaneous, and Eiro had more than enough time to spread his mana throughout the domain.


    Though, in reality, his mana was already in every nook and cranny of this ce. He had be one with this space; one with the Demon King, with hell itself. Of course, just a small sectionparable to a single hair, but it was still plenty for now. Either way, the ambient mana of hell in this ten-mile radius was now part of Eiro himself.


    And so, the young Demon Lord just had to use his abilities through that ambient mana. It didn''t seem like other Lords were able to do the exact same thing right away as Eiro was about to, but at the end of the day, he was also ''The World''. He could take everything into himself, and make everything his own. The world was Eiro''s ything, and he himself was the world.


    And that also now counted for this small part of hell.


    As time slowed to a crawl, the Devil frantically trying to close in on Eiro before the stopwatch''s effect even truly actiated, a single spark of magic flowed out of Eiro''s fingertips. A spark of holy energy, a magic that was so wholly unlike this ce. Though, it wasn''t just holy energy. Other magics apanied it. Water, fire, earth, and air. Frost and Nature magics.


    All the elements that Eiro had be most ustomed to were starting to flow into hell itself.


    From underneath Eiro''s feet, nts began to sprout. Waves of grass and flowers poured outward, and a stream of water formed between the ground, which was turning from flesh to dirt. The des of grass danced in the wind, as a soft snow began to fall from hell''s sky. And throughout it all, a soft, embracing light of holy mes illuminated the dark, unholy skies.


    Before Eiro knew it, a writhing bodyid a hundred feet away from him. White golden mes were crawling over the body''s skin, as beautiful cries of pain filled the air. The devil tried to stand up, but it was clear his control over practically everything had fully slipped. Even the stopwatch''s effect was deactivated as the Devil was unable to ovee almost every demon''s bane.


    The only one who wasn''t affect was Eiro, who slowly stepped up to the paralyzed miscreant. Eiro squatted down, looking into the Devil''s eyes. They were filled with hatred and fury and a fear of death that Eiro had seen seldomly before. With his pride, the Devil must have thought he would never be able to die.


    For just a moment, though, the holy mes that ate away at the royal''s body flickered away. The devil, in ast-ditch effort, attacked Eiro with a wave of pure, unalterated unholiness. His reasoning made sense, of course. If Eiro was a being that could use holy magic, then he must be vulnerable to unholy magic, right?


    Well...


    "You misunderstood, you poor, poor moron," Eiro pointed out, cing one of his hands onto the Devil''s cheek, its fat bubbling and sizzling as the skin melted away, "I''m still a demon, you know? But I''m a being that the likes of you can''t ever hope to touch anymore. Reaching out to me, and hurting my children were the worst mistakes you''ve ever made in your whole, miserable life.


    But well, at least you''ve got one thing going for you. After this, the card of ''The Devil'' will never see the light of day again. Once I kill the monster king, ''The World'' inside of me will be released, but instead of finding a new victim, it will be absorbed by me. As will the aspect of the monster king itself. And then, I will devour every other card of the arcane. The Sun.


    Death. The Fool. And of course, the one that made you, ''you''," Eiro smiled, locking eyes with the being that would soon cease to exist.


    "Rejoice, for you are truly immortal now. You will be written into the records of the world as the veryst ''Devil''."


    A tear of fury, or maybe true sorrow, or potentially just fear, streamed down the cheek of that vile creature that Eiro regarded with such pure loathing, even a deaf and blind man would be able to tell. Eiro poured his magic into its head, using the magic he attained through Anura to steal this creature''s knowledge and make it his own.


    A tome with hundreds of thousands of pages appeared in Eiro''s mental library, that the duplicates would soon parse through for useful information. And once Eiro confirmed that it was all there, he pushed his fingers deeper onto the horrible thing''s cheek, digging through it with the ease of tearing paper.


    Its body fell apart as life escaped its form, even its soul falling apart into corrupted nothingness, as Eiro held the skull of that thing formerly known as the Devil.


    ---


    [You killed another Card Owner, and have taken their cards into your ownership yourself]


    [You are now the Owner of the Ace of Wands]


    [You are now the Owner of the Four of Wands]


    [You are now the Owner of the Queen of Wands]


    [6/14 Cards of the Suit of Wands acquired]


    [12/56 Cards of the Minor Arcana acquired]


    [Aptitude with the Fire Element increased]


    [You have in {The Devil}. The Monster King takes notice]


    [Experience is being calcted]


    ---


    Four cards appeared in front of Eiro. He scooped up the three cards of the minor arcana with one of his hands, and immediately grasped the card ''The Devil'' with two of his others, immediately pulling it into his treasury. There, he sealed that card away into that same safe space where he kept ''Death''. And with that, Eiro was now had three cards of the Major Arcana in his possession.


    A broad smile formed on Eiro''s face, as he watched the creature''s bones crumble away into dust, being burnt away by holy mes. He stood in hell, feeling grass brush by his legs. The smell of flowers entered Eiro''s nose, and a cold winter''s wind blew past his face.


    Those things usually didn''t coexist in the first ce, but somehow, in the underworld, the realm where life had no ce, a realm of darkness and the grotesque, a domain of a unique beauty was born alongside the death of a tyrant.


    Eiro turned around toward hispanions, slowly approaching them. He ced one of his hands onto each of them, and filled them with his healing magic, making their physical wounds recover as much as possible.


    "It... it''s over?" Arie asked with a stutter. Toward the end, it just happened so quickly that of course she wouldn''t be able to realize what had happened. One moment, they were surrounded by a thick unholy mist, and the next, the world around them was transformed as the Devil died in horrendous agony. Eiro nodded his head, "It''s over. He''s dead, for good.


    He''ll never be back."


    Tears gathered in the corners of Arie''s eyes. She had been waiting for this moment for far too long. Eiro embraced her, holding her through her emotions. But as he did, there were a few more messages that Eiro saw appear in the air in front of him.


    ---


    [Your never-before seen achievement has been recorded in hell''s body]


    [You have attained the title of {Demon Lord of Sin and Virtue}]


    [Experience Calctions have finished. You have levelled up multiple times]


    [You have reached level 100]

 Chapter 718: The Worth of a Life

    Eiro nced at the system windows in front of him. He knew that the Devil was going to be worth quite a bit of experience, but something to this degree was... far, far more than he could have expected. Levelling up had been quite a drag ever since he evolved thest time. Of course, he still did; he did a lot of things that were worth experience, after all.


    Before he had be an Arcanus, the only way for him to gather experience was through killing. Through the hunting of people or monsters or anything else that was alive, as was how any monster gained experience. But ever since then, or rather, maybe since he got his Legendary skill, he started to gain experience in other ways as well.


    Eiro was a being of knowledge; while he was an Imp initially, and as such had the scent of Wrath clinging to his blood and flesh, his soul itself would rather belong to... Greed. If he even had to assign things in that way. He was the kind that wanted to gather. Greedily get everything he wanted to. Overindulge in knowledge and learning.


    In that sense, maybe the overindulgance of Gluttony fit him quite well too. Either way, whatever the actual reason for this change, Eiro had started gaining experience for his actions, rather than just killing.


    He had always had a higher rate of growth than others, and it wasn''t just because he had a high amount of stat points that he could assign freely, which of course wasn''t the case for anyone else in this world.


    But now, the amount of experience he gained through killing probably rose a bit as well, and at the same time, he had attained the quality of gaining experience for doing things that aligned with who he was, which was usually characteristic to the ss-system of people, rather than the race-system of monsters. Not that heined, of course.


    Through this, just by using magic, and by learning new things, he was able to gain experience and level up. He reached up to nearly the fourth floor of two Towers of Books, learning new information that he never could have imagined. He createdplex spells, and of course, did quite a bit of hunting as well. But all of that was barely enough to push him over the Level 50 mark.


    The Devil was a creature worth thest half of his levels. It wasn''t directly clear how the ''experience'' one would receive upon killing others was calcted. In part, it was certainly rted to the ease and intent behind killing them. A bloody battle to the near-death, or a skilled assassination, would always give more experience than a real, pure ident.


    At the same time, it was of course rted to the ''worth'' behind the two rted individuals. The worth of the killer, and the killed. The current Eiro wouldn''t gain any experience by squishing a spider under his foot, but the Eiro from before his first evolution certainly would have. And of course, the probably most important factor was how much the victim was worth.


    Their level, their skills, their stats. Their achievements. The things they knew and experienced, the life they lived and how much all of that was worth in the eyes of the system''s administrator; that calcting entity that put a number behind every single action, every single breath and thought and intention.


    And that entity thought that the battle that was fought, and the Devil''s life, had been worth enough for the current Eiro to level up nearly 50 whole times. The thought made him practically shudder. The Devil had been strong. He was a Master of two different skills, and Eiro had somehow managed to avoid any situation where he would have been able to make use of either of them.


    Honestly, he was just d that the Devil wasn''t as well-prepared as he had expected. If he had somehow known that Eiro had received the qualifications to be a Lord of hell, or even that he was able to use holy magic... then he wouldn''t have been able to use any of these methods.


    But even if you just considered the Devil''s age, there were a lot of things that he must have experienced, and considering that massive lump of knowledge that had been forced into Eiro''s head through the use of Anura''s knowledge-magic, maybe just attaining that also added quite considerably to the amount of experience he really gained.


    Whichever was the case, Eiro couldn''t know the limits of what the Devil was worth. If he had stopped at level 99, then he would have known exactly how much the Devil would have been worth. Enough to fill up levels 53 to 99 of the current Eiro. But since the level-limit was 100, all he knew that the Devil was worth at least 47 levels.


    But trying to figure out the exact number wouldn''t really have any use. He couldn''t, and frankly, now, the Devil wasn''t worth anything anymore but the unholy dust that was fueling the golden mes spreading out in front of Eiro.


    Eiro turned around toward the others, who had all practically copsed onto the ground in exhaustion, the moment they realized that it was safe for them to do so. There really wasn''t anything that could harm them here anymore, after all. This was the safest spot in hell now.


    "Is everyone alright?" the demon asked, sending out a light pulse of magic to check on at least their physical condition. It had be a habit ever since Arc fractured his leg without knowing it before. Any damage that Eiro recognized, he quickly healed, so now, they only had exhaustion, both physical and mental, to deal with.


    "The Devil is dead..." James muttered quietly, looking up into the underworld''s sky, feeling the cold grass on the back of his head, "That''s seriously... well, insane, isn''t it?"


    "You can say that again..." Krog said with augh, leaning onto one of his weapons that he had pushed into the ground. The blood on his body, which was only in part his own, had started to dry and got stuck to his bodyhair, so he was trying to pick it out.


    Arie was still crying tears of relief now that the revenge she had spent her whole life pursuing had been enacted. Of course, it... didn''t really happen the way she had always imagined it. Arie herself wasn''t the one that had really done the killing. She had just been here to assist Eiro, basically.


    Her role was minor when it came to the Devil''s actual death, a distraction that really only made things easier for the man that had actually taken that thing''s life. Eiro could have probably done this on his own. Things would have gone a bit differently, and probably would have been a lot harder, but he didn''t really need Arie and the others here. It was like they were... bait.


    Something to make the Devil think that Eiro didn''t believe himself to be strong enough to do it all on his own, and since Eiro was quite good at not revealing all the cards he had up his sleeve, it must have been enough to make the Devil think Eiro was only gradually stronger than the the rest of the party.


    For the extremely prideful Devil, that must have been the best distraction Eiro could have ever hoped for. To be underestimated, the expectations the Devil held for him dragged down just by Eiro being near them all. But really, thatdidn''t matter to Arie.


    She knew how strong Eiro was, she knew it from the beginning, and had onlye to realize how much more powerful he was bing every single day. And of course, that came with the realization that this battle would be one fronted by him, instead of her. But as long as the Devil was dead, she was fine. She was happy, and could now move on with her life. Well, a few steps, at least.


    There was still the fact that her father was the Hierophant. She still had to figure out what to do with him. It was always pushed back behind that infinitely far-away goal of killing the Devil, so she hadn''t really many any ns. She thought that, if she was able to get rid of the Devil, the Hierophant would be easy inparison.


    But maybe that was just something she was telling herself to not have to think about it all too much.

 Chapter 719: Stuck in Hell

    Eiro waved his hand in front of him. He used the flow of nature magic that he had introduced into this part of hell to make some nts grow. In particr, he was using some nuts that he had in his seed-pouch, which he carried with him just in case, no matter where he went, to grow some trees and manipte their shape into something that everyone could take a proper seed on.


    The roots of the tree pushed out from under the ground and formed some chairs for everyone to sit on, with a thickyer of moss to act as a cushion. They would have to sit there and just wait for a little while anyway, so they might as well befortable in that time.


    "So... why can''t we leave yet?" Krog wondered, looking over at Eiro. Everyone was deeply exhausted, and even if this part of hell was certainly a lot morefortable than others, stabbing a knife into your abdomen just an inch was also a lot morefortable than stabbing a sword all the way through from your abdomen to your back.


    "Oh, I don''t have the slightest idea how to leave this ce," Eiro pointed out bluntly, and the party looked at him confused.


    "...what?" Jess asked with a pale face, "Does that mean... we''re stuck?"


    "Temporarily, I guess. I mean, technically we could try and leave through hell''s maw, but I don''t really know where we''ll end up if we do. We might end up right in front of the steps to the manor. Or, we could end up in the center of an active volcanoe in the southern continent.


    Either is literally just as likely as the other," the Demon exined, but the others were just too exhausted to even react anymore.


    "What now? Why are you so rxed then?" James looked at Eiro''s face, and seeing that he still wore that light, subtle smile made it clear that the situation wasn''t quite a perilous as he was letting on.


    "Because toward the end, I absorbed the Devil''s knowledge. You guys remember that I created duplicates in the elemental nes of fire and water, right? Well, one duplicate encountered a being thatpossessed a personal unique magic that allowed him to absorb knowledge and turn it into his own. I made him my servant and took that magic for myself.


    And, when naturally boosted by my affinity for magic, it ended up being enough to take a dying man''s memories.


    I''m breaking it all down right now into something I can actually use, but before long, I''ll have all of the devil''s knowledge on demonology," Eiro exined with a smile on his face, "And I might not be the Devil myself, but I am a Lord of hell, so creating a connection to the central elemental ne should be easy enough."


    The party quickly rxed, but Arie soon wondered about something, "So if you say you took his memories... how much of them do you really have?"


    Eiro slowly wondered, "Hm, that''s a good question. I can''t really say directly, but it''s certainly a massive amount of raw knowledge. And I don''t think I''ll be able to ess his memories like I would my own, seeing scenes y out in front of me, but most of his more important knowledge should be in there.


    Right now I''m focusing on finding things rted to demonology, but there''ll be plenty of things about other matters as well. Everything he knows about the tarot. Both the minor and major arcana. Locations of the minor arcana cards, and the specific weaknesses of the current incarnations of the royals in possession of the major arcana cards.


    His hideouts, the contacts he has, the organizations he meddled in. Probably not everything, and some information might be fragmented, but we''ll see. Anything should be useful, really."


    "And you''re absolutely sure that you''ll find out what you need to about demonology to get us out of here?" James wondered, and Eiro looked at the elf, slowly leaning back in his chair.


    "Not 100% sure, I guess. There''s always a possibility that all the information I need will be just... missing. But I doubt it. I should be able to figure something out even if I don''t find a method to directly bring us back to the central material ne."


    Jess looked at the demon with a nervous expression, "But... what if you don''t? What then?"


    "Then... Well, I''ll probably create a safe ce for you guys here and then travel through hell a bit until I find some intelligent demons. Amongst them should be a few that know about demonology. I''ll have them ''volunteer'' to teach me, or I''ll ''borrow'' their books about it. And worst-case, I''ll try to find the tower of books here.


    Though it''s probably quite well-hidden," Eiro pointed out in a moment of contemtion, and both Jess and Arie looked at him surprised.


    "There''s a tower here? In hell?"


    "Of course. Every ne of existence has one. Every elemental or material ne. Even the astral nes have the towers. I don''t know for sure, but the divine realm probably has one too."


    "What even is the tower?" Krog asked with a scoff, "Who the hell built it?"


    The party was silent for a few moments, and Eiro slowly tried toe up with a good response, "Who built it is probably the wrong question. We should think about what built it. They''re all interlinked. They have immortal, incredibly powerful overseers that can instantaneously connect to each other through the nes. Even I can only do that because of the spirit gateways.


    Not only that, but they gather every single piece of information that exists in each respective ne. But well, I know that the ''Librarian'' is a role like Hero or Sage, so it''s probably something left behind from when the gods were still able to walk the earth," Eiro suggested, but it was really just an educated guess. He hadn''t found anything about what the towers were within those actual towers.


    The overseer would stay silent at any question that would reveal actual ''knowledge'' if answered as long as Eiro didn''t already know the answer to that question.


    Frankly, the tower of books, and with that most likely the librarian himself, was an entity of pure omniscience, and that really wasn''t a fact that Eiro particrly enjoyed. While he liked learning about others, and even figuring out what was in their heads exactly... having it done to him felt humiliating, to say the least.


    James let out a loud groan, "So what? Seriously, what does that even matter right now? Are we seriously just supposed to sit here and do nothing, hoping that Eiro is going to figure out how to get us out of literal hell?"


    "...You got a better n?" Krog replied, but James just looked to the side and clicked his tongue.


    "No, I guess not," he muttered, before getting an idea after all, "At least show us the new cards you got. There were a few, right? He must have had at least a whole suit worth of cards for himself."


    Eiro flicked his wrist, and three cards appeared in his hand, "Actually, he was only the owner of three of them. He probably gave the others to some servants or something that he could control, so that he didn''t have to deal with the downsides himself. But I might figure out who has which card in a bit, so that should be solveable too.


    If they were the devil''s servants, they should be easy enough to deal with."


    The three cards in Eiro''s hand turned into small objects. Small, very mundane-looking objects, at first nce. A fountain-pen, a handheld watch, and a metal key. Of course, they were all very intricately decorated and seemed like extremely high-ss items that would go for a lot of money at auctions.


    But you definitely wouldn''t think that they were artifacts that countries have gone to war over in the past.


    Eiro held each item in one of his hands. He first nced at the stopwatch. Currently, it was really just a simple clock that was showing the current time. However, it had a number of rings around the ss-pane protecting the intricate interior. One for seconds, one for minutes, and one for hours.


    Eiro slowly twisted the ring for the seconds, bringing the small symbol at its top to the bottom of the clock. And then, he pushed in the small pin at the side of the clock.


    Immediately, Eiro felt himself ovee with a wave of difort as time slowed to a crawl, and then finally just... stopped. The only thing that was still moving was the ring for seconds on the clock, showing that the countdown had started.


    Of course, if Eiro wanted to, he could apparently change the time that was left in this frozen world by simply turning the rings now, increasing or decreasing it, but it was good to know that he could build in a time-limit. The world around Eiro seemed a bit hazy, simrly to when he used the invisibility potion, but it was a bit different than that still.


    His friends were sitting in front of him, allpletely frozen in a moment of curiosity, and Eiro sighed lightly. He got up from his seat and prepared a slight, small trick for them to show off the effect a bit without actually ''ying'' with this artifact too much. And then, he waited for the clock''s countdown to reach zero.


    And as it did, the flow of time continued, and the people in front of him began to blink again. They were just staring at Eiro curiously. They had seen him press the button, but nothing happened from their point of view.


    "So?" Jess asked, a bit confused, "Does it work?"


    Eiro smiled lightly, tugging at his own right ear as he looked at her. Confused, Jess touched her hand to her own ear, feeling that she was wearing a different earring, and quickly spotted her own now on James'' ear.

 Chapter 720: The Pen

    Once Jess and James switched their earrings back again, Eiro smiled and made the stopwatch turn back into a card, before quickly cing it back into his treasury, "The effect is pretty straightforward, at least. I''m sure I can figure out a few interesting uses for it, though."


    "You sure? Wouldn''t that be dangerous? It''s going to make you age a lot more, right?" Arie asked with a worried expression, and Eiro ced his hand onto hers and replied with a soft smile.


    "Don''t worry, I don''t think that''s really anything I need to worry about anymore. My body works vastly different to how it used to to begin with now that I''ve started altering it actively, removing my heart, for example. And I''m quite sure that, as an Arcanus, my lifespan isn''t evenparable to what it used to be.


    Not even mentioning that the Demon King now has some influence over me now that I''m a Lord, so that should extend my lifespan a few dozen times over at the very least," Eiro exined, "I''m not going anywhere, don''t worry."


    Arie smiled lightly, squeezing Eiro''s hand. Meanwhile, Krog let out a slight scoff, "You seem pretty rxed over the fact that you''ve basically be a servant to some random demon."


    "Hm?" Eiro looked at the warrior, raising a brow, "I mean, in the first ce, bing a lord wouldn''t have meant I''m a servant or anything. The rtionship that Demon Lords have to the King is known to be simr to the rtionship between Royals and the Monster King. But since the Demon King isn''t really a thing, that doesn''t matter."


    The group stared at Eiro confused, "...what do you mean by that?" Jess asked with a frown, and Eiro slowly looked to the side, toward the horizon. He felt the energies of thisherworld flowing naturally. If it had anything against this, then Eiro was sure hell would intervene.


    But it seemed as though the Lords actually had almost unlimited freedom in rtion to what they did within or in regard to hell.


    "Basically... the Demon King is Hell itself. Or maybe, the other way around is more urate? I don''t know anything for certain of course, but... when that assistant, or servant or whatever, to the Greatest God, betrayed the gods and was cast from the heavens, his fall created hell around them in the space between the nes.


    But that''s probably not right, it''s not that hell formed around that being, but rather... that the being that had now be the first Demon, neither dead nor alive, or maybe both at once, was floating through that empty space between the nes, growing like a cancer in the body of this world. And that''s what hell is."


    The group stayed silent listening to that revtion. They shifted around nervously around their seats, ncing around even though they were trying to hide their difort, but Eiro calmed them down, "You guys have nothing to worry about. Hell is actually quite a nice being, from what I can tell.


    Once the people of the other nes found out about this ce, about the demons that were born from it, they were of course worried and scared, and since there were Demon ''Lords'' popping up, they knew that there must be a King as well. Of course, that King has always been Hell itself. But if they knew that the king of the demons was this realm in its entirety? Well, Hell spared them from that.


    And so, it invented the Demon King. A being that was justzily sitting on their throne, uncaring and apathetic toward everything and anything."


    "But... you left to meet the Demon King, right?" Arie asked with concern on her face. Eiro nodded.


    "Right. I mean, I did meet Hell. In the same way that I met the whole World before. They''re sort of simr beings, in some way. But well, Hell cared a lot less about letting me understand the scope of its existence, so it was an... interesting experience.


    I don''t know how I can properly describe it, but, and I know this might sound kind of cocky, I think hell took a liking to me," Eiro exined with a slight grin, as he started to y around with the ornate fountain pen in his hand. The others were still trying to really take all this information in, so Eiro''s curiosity took over for a few moments.


    He let his magic flow into the pen, and could see a pale blue, almost white, ink appear at the pen''s tip. Eiro reached down and pressed his palm onto the ground, and quickly pulled it back up as another root, from the same trees that the chairs everyone was seated on were formed from, reached out from the ground. Eiro pinched it at the base, pulling a wooden spear off the ground.


    After removing the dirt from its surface, Eiro quickly ced the pen onto it and started to write. He wasn''t just writing words though; he was writing those runic patterns that he had learned from Partax. The form he was writing onto the wooden spear was quite simple. It was just something that would let Eiro y around with it a little.


    He finished before long, pulling the wooden spear with its pale blue writing rues back behind his head, before pushing his arm forward and throwing the spear into the distance. Though, it was really just a toss, for the most part. He didn''t put any particr strength into it.


    But even so, the spear was practically pulling in the air around it and pushing itself forward, actually speeding up as time went on, travelling in a near-perfect straight line until the magic in the artificed engravings ran out.


    "That... seems a little anticlimactic for one of the cards," James pointed out, seemingly happy to have something else to change the topic toward. Something that wasn''t giving them existential dread at the knowledge of what hell really was.


    Eiro scoffed and shook his head, "No, no, this is just the beginning. The pen is a pretty versatile tool, actually. For me, it has a couple main uses. One, affecting the system. It''s rare, but there are ways to figure out someone''s ss and race and such, and now I can disguise my status to be like a person''s."


    "Hm, I see, that does seem useful in a... ''covering all the bases'' sort of way," Jess pointed out, and Eiro quickly nodded his head.


    "Mhm. For a simr reasonn, I''m going to make use of its ability to write stories. Mostly, it''s going to be for the benefit of the monster town. Writing signs and stories to disguise the fact that there is a town there until it''s really time to reveal it to the world.


    And of course, writing stories about wandering monster traders that appear with nothing but kindness in their hearts, to support the trade efforts a bit more."


    "Does that mean you''re going to create... fake monster traders to make it seem moremon?" Jess wondered.


    "Not directly, no. Though that''s also not a bad idea. I''m sure I can simply figure out a way to make the sudden appearance of monster traders seem a bit more... natural. And of course, the pen is also pretty good to spread rumours around.


    If I write up a story about them in a way that practically makes the reader talk about it, it should be easy enough to spread it to everyone that really needs to know."


    "...Is that why you''ve been working on publishing novels recently? In preparation for that?"


    Eiro smiled, "Well, that was also a bit of a hobby thing, to be totally honest with you. But yes, also that. But anyway, thest main use for the pen that I see is in its use for artificing. The specific way that the ink the pen creates works makes it a perfect conductor for this sort of enchanting, and due to the influence of the artifact, it makes it a bit more solidly defined, in some ways?


    Not to mention that the pen can actually effect other artifacts in ways that nothing else can. Like how that special space was created on the Dungeon Map to trap me. And with that..." Eiro looked at the key that he was holding in his hand, "...with that, I should be able to strengthen the power of the key enough to take the ''Arcane Splinters'' from others."


    "So you''re finally gonna be the hero, huh?" James scoffed, and Eiro smiled lightly, shaking his head, "No, sadly not yet. Since the splinter needs to really ''mature'' first, they onlye to be once an individual can get their first ss. At that point, I can take the ''Hero Splinter. And also, I''ll be taking the ''Holy Priestess Splinter'' from Avalin."


    "It''s still a while until then, but at least she won''t have to live with that ability forever, huh? Honestly, that amount of holy energy just... is so, so dangerous. Not to mention that she won''t be able to live a normal life with that splinter."


    "Right. I mean, we''ll see how things turn out. It''s still 7 years until then, so if she shows that she wants to keep the aspect, then I guess I really won''t have a reason to go against that. But, until then, I''ll have to test this all out anyway," Eiro pointed out, "Once we''re out of here, I guess I''ll go search for some others with Arcane Splinters."

 Chapter 721: Blood Portal

    "But..." Jess looked at Eiro with a slight frown, "Aren''t they doing good things? And you''re just going to try and steal part of their power?"


    "...They''re not all doing good things necessarily. Not all of them have a defined role to y like the Hero and Monster King. The sage had always been a figure that could stand on either side, against of with the people of the world. Simrly, the Gardener once regrew vast forests that were destroyed by some dragons.


    And then, that same incarnation introduced nts into the western continent thatpletely annihted a quarter of its poption. The Librarian, frankly, isn''t involved at all. There are barely any stories about its incarnations, because they''re always locked up in the towers. And we all know the stories of the Merchant," Eiro pointed out, as he flicked his wrist.


    The pen in his hand turned back into a card and soon disappeared into his treasury, "Some of these roles are vastly ambiguous. And honestly? None of the incarnations are doing anything special at the moment. They''re very stagnant, pulled back to do their own thing. Frankly, giving their splinters to me so that I can put some kind of end to this...


    game that''s being yed with this world sounds like a better solution to me."


    Jess looked over to James and Krog, who both seemed simrly concerned, "But some of them are doing really good things for the world."


    "Right, and in a hundred years, many of them will be gone. And then, some random kid will have their abilities. Every hero for the past dozen generations has been a pompous ass that abused their influence, doing some ridiculous thing that would get anyone else thrown in jail for half a lifetime. The Merchant?


    How many of the heads of big merchantpanies would sell their own kid if it meant doubling their profits in a year? Every Gardener has ended up caring more for nts than any other living being. By Lady Winter, I am an enormously greedy, knowledge-hungry, massively magic-obsessed maniac, and the Splinter of the Sage doesn''t even really exist anymore. The Splinters aren''t... good for anyone.


    People shouldn''t have their fates twisted and tangled by some ridiculous force that''s beyond their control..." Eiro slowly stood up as he walked over to a rtively t patch ofnd.


    He pushed the finger of his wooden hand into the ground, creating a channel within it that reached up to his finger''s first joint, "If I take away the current Gardener''s Splinter, they won''t suddenly lose all their power; they might be a little weaker, but they''ll still be someone that rules over all of nature. The Merchant will have their knowledge and expertise, theirworks and connections.


    All I''m doing is try and prevent more maniacs from just showing up and getting their future determined by something most of them never asked for."


    "I mean..." Krog crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, "That sounds pretty convincing to me, at least."


    "Right, and it''s not like Eiro hasn''t been using his powers for objectively good things overall. I''m still not sure if it''s a good idea, but if it works out how he''s imagining it... the Monster Town could really change the world in some massive ways," James admitted. He looked at Jess, who still seemed a bit apprehensive at the idea. She looked toward Arie, to try and see what she was thinking.


    "What about you? Are you just fine with it? With him taking powers from others?" she asked, and Arie nodded without a moment''s hesitation, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.


    "Of course, why wouldn''t I be? Jess, honey... he has killed a lot of people, for much worse reasons. Something that we all have been quite aware of. Simply stealing something from some guys who have power they didn''t even earn and could destroy a country or two if they turn sour? Frankly, I''m not just fine with it, I''m more than happy with it.


    I spoke to some of my contacts to help figure out where a few of them are, actually."


    Jess listened to Arie with surprise. She couldn''t really deny that. It wasn''t like Jess had never been in a situation where she had to kill someone, of course, but for some reason, the idea of Eiro taking away the power of what were practically these mythical beings that she had been told stories about as a little girl... it didn''t feel quite right to her. But then again...


    she was currently in hell, after helping in killing the Devil.


    And the lord of this part of hell himself, who also happened to be a Royal monster while also being the direct reincarnation of the Sage, was currently writing some kind of demonology sigil into the ground to bring them all back to the central material ne, so that they could return to the mansion they now all lived in together like a happy little family.


    Jess had entered the world of myths and legends. This timest year, she was just a D-Ranked adventurer and a half-assed mage who had nothing going for her but the fact she could use a few more elements than most others.


    Maybe this all just didn''t hit quite right yet. Slowly, Jess reached out to the hand of the man next to her. Krog looked down at her and smiled lightly, as the two of them got up together with the others.


    "Sorry, I think I''m just... not really used to a lot of this yet," Jess pointed out, and Eiro slowly looked up toward her.


    "Don''t worry, it''s fine. I get that it''s a pretty... drastic thing, I guess. Just removing all those with Splinters from the equation will change the world forever, so it''s not something I''m doing just because I feel like it. I''ve thought about it extensively, and sought out other avenues, but...


    this seems like the best solution," Eiro exined as he ced a knife to his wrist and made a clean cut all the way up to his elbow.


    A river of blood flowed out from his arm, which was of course quickly replenished by the bloodstone. The blood quickly filled the narrow channel that Eiro created in the ground. The group felt shiverse over them as a path of the nts that Eiro had only just grown in this whole area was quickly withering and starting to rot away as unholiness flooded that straight line.


    "Sorry about that, I''ll work on my unholy magic soon, but right now, I had to make do," Eiro exined. Instead of using his own magic as a source for the demonology sigil he was currently setting up, he was making use of the ambient unholiness of hell itself. Eiro''s domain in this ce had practically none of it anymore, or at least, not enough to activate this sigil.


    In previous evolutions, his blood could have acted as a substitute on its own, but now that he was an arcanus and no longer acknowledged as a member of the ''Demon King''s lineage, that was no longer really the case. The holy magic that he had flowing through him so regrly purged most of that long ago.


    But well, he would try and return here in the future, so that he could use hell''s unholy magic to adapt himself to it and be capable of using it as well. He couldn''t do without it if he wanted to be able to use demonic magic in the future.


    But for now, this would do. Hell''s unholiness flowed into the sigil created with Eiro''s blood, and a single droplet floated into the air.


    This sigil in particr was making use of the connection that the Devil had created between this ce and the central material ne; usually, hell didn''t really ovey the central material ne like many other realms did, so he should be able to ess this exact ce in the future as well, but due to the devil''s actions, it was at least partially aligned in this specific location.


    And before that was no longer the case, Eiro could ess that link and bring them all back to the ce where they had entered through. If he had created the sigil correctly, at least.


    Eiro started to chant in the demonguage as per what the Devil could remember, as more and more droplets of blood floated up onto that original one, creating an ever-growing bubble that was soonrge enough to hold a person. The moment Eiro''s chant was done, he pped his hands together, and the bubble ttened, turning into a circle of blood that was just floating in the air.


    Eiro quickly used the power of the mirror of duplication to create a small duplicate of himself, in the form of a floating eyeball, that he sent through that portal of blood, and the duplicate ended up safely on the other side. The connection still remained as well through that portal, so everything seemed to be stable.


    Soon, the others followed behind after that duplicate''s example, the blood slowly swallowing them up and practically spitting them back out in the mineshafts that they were in earlier.


    Once they had all passed through, Eiro snapped his finger and made that path of unholiness fill back in with Eiro''s version of this section of hell, and the moment he was on the other side, quickly sucked up all the blood he used to create the sigil so that nothing would be able to use traces of this portal toe through to this realm.


    Though, there really wasn''t anything in hell that could even exist in that domain right now, so Eiro was maybe being a little overly careful, but he would prefer that over being too reckless and inviting over some sort of horrendous demon that would start wandering around and destroying nearby cities.


    And now that they were all back in the central elemental ne, it was time for Eiro to bring everyone home.

 Chapter 722: Homecoming

    Eiro set down in front of the manor. He looked at the others who were slowly touching the ground again as well, and Eiro dissolved the duplicates that were attached to their backs.


    "Get some rest, everyone," the Demon said with a smile on his face, "We all deserved some sleep, I''d say."


    "Hah, you can say that again... I ain''t waking up until a week from now," Krog eximed with a loud yawn, walking up to the stairway in front of the manor''s main entrance. The door was quickly opened by one of the butlers, who greeted the group with a smile on his face.


    However, his greeting was quickly overshadowed by the sound of footsteps and yelling approaching from behind, "They''re back?!" Arc yelled out loudly, looking at the group.


    Their clothes were in tatters and covered in darkened blood, but overall they seemed fine. Covered in dirt and all other sort of grime, but generally uninjured. At least, they still had the same amount of limbs they left with.


    With a broad grin, Arc was the first to reach the bottom of the stairs, "You got him? You killed the Devil?" he asked excitedly, and Eiro quickly nodded his head.


    "That we did," he replied, cing his hand onto his son''s back as the two walked back toward the entrance where the others were waiting.


    "Hell yeah, that''s sick," Arc said with a happy smile, but as Eiro looked at the boy''s siblings, he saw the moreplex expressions that one would generally expect from the situation. They had all been practically tortured by the demons that the Devil had brought to that small town from eight years ago.


    And they also saw the aftermath of their first direct encounter with the Devil, where Eiro was branded with the mark of wrath. He was struggling with it in ways that he wasn''t able to properly hide from the kids, even if he regretted that quite a bit.


    But since Arc''s negative emotions about this situation were blocked by his unique skill, the only thing that he was able to feel now were the positive emotions; the genuine joy, happiness and excitement over the fact that the Devil was dead and nobody would have to fall victim to him anymore.


    Eiro stepped up to the kids, and without having to say anything, they practically fell into his arms. He held them tightly, rubbing their backs.


    "Daddy!" Avalin eximed from below Eiro, and the Demon smiled and quickly picked her up. The feeling of her arms and hands wrapping around his neck for support still felt oh so wonderful to him. The fact that he was able to hold Avalin without the pain of Holy Energy trying to break him apart from the ground up still filled Eiro with unimaginable joy.


    The fact that he was originally an artificial demon really saved him there. If he had gotten to this point having been a true, hellborn demon, then by this point he would probably be unable to stay in the same room as his daughter.


    Demon Lords may be a lot stronger than other demons due to their connection to hell, but at the same time, that also brought a deeper connection to the ''Demon King'' with it. And with that, the consequence of the ''original sin'' of rebellion against the gods, the bane of holy energy, was only that much more potent.


    But now, Eiro was probably the only Demon Lord that ever held the Holy Priestess so tightly.


    "Did everything go well?" Sammy asked, and Eiro hesitated to just nod immediately.


    "I... the fight against the Devil himself went off without a hitch. Honestly, it went so ording to n that I''m still not sure if this is all some kind of bad dream, but... before we even got to fight the Devil, Nelly was injured," Eiro exined, and the kids looked at their father confused. To them, Nelly was a mother figure that none of them ever had before her.


    They loved her dearly, and she loved them in much the same way. Before their worry could turn into panic, Eiro continued, "I already brought her to a ce where she''s been healed. She''s recovering there right now, but she should wake up ande back to us soon. So there''s no need to be scared for her."


    Relief came over the children''s faces, "Don''t say it like that, then," Rudy said, letting out a deep sigh, "You scared me half to death here..."


    "Sorry," Eiro replied with an apologetic smile, "I''ll let you guys know the moment she wakes up, alright? But for now, just let us get through the door first, the others really want to get some rest."


    "You''ll rest too though, right?" Clementine asked with a slight frown, and the Demon nodded quickly.


    "Of course. I have to talk to Armodeus and Partax first. I''m sure Bavet and Lugo are also worried about me," Eiro said, and noticed the deep stared of his kids basically drilling into his skin. With a sigh, the Demon smiled at them, "Seriously, I promise I''m going to sleep for a while after I talk to them, okay?"


    "...Fine," Sammy sighed, "But if not, then you... can''t give us any homework for a week?"


    Eiro thought about it for a moment and then nodded his head, "Sure. I''m nning on keeping that promise, so that won''t be an issue."


    The kids groaned for a moment, and Eiro ced Avalin back onto the ground, rubbing her cheek with a smile on his face. As the kids properly greeted the others as well, Eiro made his way upstairs to where the others were waiting for him. Though, it wasn''t just Armodeus, Partax and Bavet that were there right now.


    The Demon entered the upstairs sitting room, where Armodeus and Partax were seated on some couches, with Bavet, in his snake form, coiled up on a chair by the window where he could bathe in sunlight.


    "So you really are back," Partax scoffed in some disbelief, and Armodeus seemed to let out a deep sigh of relief, as though he had been holding his breath ever since Eiro left.


    "Yes, I am. Things went just as nned. Though, I guess I have to apologize to you four, I sort of changed the n while you were on your way," Eiro sighed, and both Armodeus and Partax raised their brows.


    "Braggard," Bavet muttered from his seat, slowly stretching as he sat up and turned into his cat form, walking over to one of the couches. Meanwhile, Eiro got out one of his daggers, stabbing it right into the empty space next to him. The air crackled with sparks of fire that stretched out to the corner of the room, where three figures soon came into view.


    The fourth was now behind Eiro, and the Demon had helt out one of his hands toward that point, carrying his other dagger right at the point where that person had suddenly appeared after moving so freely through this space.


    "...You got better," Shimour pointed out, and Eiro just let out a slightugh.


    "Yeah, I guess you can say that."


    "So, will you tell us why exactly you asked us toe here just to change your mind and go to kill the Devil without being taught by us?" Shimour, the Master of Stealth, asked.


    Eiro replied quickly, "Because, as it turned out, I wasn''t able to waste any more time. The Devil was making moves that would have messed this whole thing up at a massive scale, and I couldn''t afford to take any losses. So, I just attacked him myself. And now that I have, I know that it was the right choice.


    He was in the middle of manipting the foreign affairs of a country to the north of Skyhart to plunge this ce into a full-on war."


    That was information that Eiro himself hadn''t figured out beforehand. He knew that the Devil was nning something, but only with the knowledge that Eiro had harvested from the Devil''s mind was he able to put everything together to figure out the n.


    "...That''s a good reason, at least," the man behind Eiro pointed out, "Oh and by the way, do you think you could maybe take this thing away from my neck?"


    The Demon scoffed, "As if I could stab you even if I wanted to."


    "It''s about the principle," the man sighed, taking a step forward. The dagger pushed right through his throat, but instead of actually being injured, his body seemed to just fall apart into mist right where he would have been touched, walking past Eiro with a slight smile.


    Eiro looked at the four people that were stood in front of him. He already knew Shimour, but it was his first time meeting the other three face-to-face. Three other masters; the Master of Hand-to-Hand Combat, the Master of Dagger Mastery, and the Master of Freerunning.

 Chapter 723: Six Masters

    Eiro looked at the people stood in front of him. They were the masters that Eiro had invited back here, hoping that they would train him in preparation for the battle with the devil. But of course, that n had changed pretty quickly the moment Eiro figured out that the Devil was nning something massive.


    Of course, at the time, he wasn''t able to fully see through what it was the Devil was nning exactly, but he did know that it would have been something at a massive, destructive scale. If he wanted to, the Devil could have probably plunged this ce into a great war that spread throughout the whole continent, or maybe even beyond it.


    "I''m really sorry for asking you toe here and then just leaving before you could arrive," Eiro said, trying to be as genuine as he possibly could be. That being the case, he didn''t feel like it was much of a waste. He could still use their training even now. Rather, it was probably the best time to receive their training, as Eiro was nning on initiating his evolution soon.


    The physical reconstruction that was certain to happen during that time would certainly benefit from the support of Masters like the ones stood in front of him.


    "Well, whatever," Meshi, the Freerunning Master, replied, "Not like the Devil was the reason we agreed toe here anyway."


    "We promised your former owner that we would-" the woman stood next to Meshi, the Master of Hand-to-Handbat Kassandra, started speaking, but Eiro stared at her with a deep intensity. He knew that he wouldn''t be able to hurt her, and a Master wouldn''t be easy to intimidate, but it simply happened instinctively.


    A pulse of mana flowed out of every pore in Eiro''s body, filling the room like a dense, suffocating fog.


    "What did you just say?" Eiro asked, both of his voices involuntarily leaking out from behind his fletched teeth, "Jura was my father. I wasn''t his pet if that''s what you''re saying."


    "Heh, so that''s what you think?" Kassandra scoffed, crossing her arms as she rolled her eyes. She seemed to be amongst the younger ones in the group of Masters, though her being an elf probably made her the oldest. Acting like a child despite that didn''t particrly help Eiro''s anger.


    "Kassandra," Armodeus stood up from his seat, stepping up between Eiro and the elf, "That''s enough. I know you''re not particrly fond of Monsters, but Jura thought of Eiro as his son. We all know that."


    Kassandra looked at the dwarf stood in front of her. With a sigh, Kassandra approached the couch and took a seat, seemingly not wanting to engage in the conversation any further. Armodeus quickly turned around toward Eiro, locking eyes with him.


    "She was just trying to get a rise out of you. Are you... okay? You''re not affected by wrath again somehow, right?"


    Eiro pulled in his mana and shook his head, "Not that I know of, no. But who knows, really. I did just be an official Demon Lord."


    "You what, now?" thest of the group of Masters, Orion of Dagger Mastery, let out almost involuntarily. He seemed pretty collected until Eiro just said that. Despite his graying hair, Orion''s voice was actually quite youthful.


    "That... is news to me as well," Shimour pointed out with a raised brow, "How''d you manage that?"


    Eiro closed his eyes briefly, still calming himself down a bit, "Well, after I got my Legendary Skill, I had a Legendary Evolution. And that somehow caused me to be the first of a wholly new species of Demon.


    Oh, and by the way, since I''m originally an artificial demon created by the monster king, I''m not officially part of the demon king''s lineage, so the repercussion of the original sin doesn''t affect me. Meaning that Holy Energy does nothing to me anymore. Rather, I get healed by it like anyone else now."


    The room was silent for a few moments, until Bavet burst out intoughter, "Oh gods, that''s the best sound I could ever have heard. A bunch of Masters stunned by our dear little Eiro."


    "Don''t call me that," Eiro said with a re, but Bavet just shrugged.


    "You know you don''t scare me anymore."


    "Well, we can change that. I have all of the Devil''s knowledge of demonology now, so if you''re up for it, I would need a test subject."


    "...I retract my former statement. Go on," Bavet replied, as the slime in the form of a white cat quickly lowered his head again. Eiro rolled his eyes and looked back at the Masters.


    "I''ll just... fill you all in for now, alright?"


    ---


    The Masters were seated on the couches, silent. Eiro had really told them everything just now. Well, nearly everything, there were a few things that he had to let out because they were important enough to be discussed on their own.


    "...So, you can evolve again now? You''re going to be even more... powerful?" Orion asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.


    "That''s what it looks like, yes," the Demon exined, "I''ve been focusing heavily on skill proficiency and technique improvement for this past evolution, so I haven''t actually assigned any of the statpoints that I''ve gotten. Right now I have about... 800 left to use, including the bonus points from the evolution itself. So with that, and the evolution, I should be massively stronger."


    "Wait... You... you haven''t used those? None of them? You''ve got the opportunity to assign them yourself already, so use it, ya maniac! Especially before fighting the literal Devil!" Armodeus eximed, looking at Eiro with an angry frown.


    Eiro looked back with a slight smile.


    "Don''t worry, it was a tactical decision," he exined, trying to calm the Elder Dwarf down, "I was luckily able to trick him into that ''deal'', so I managed to avoid a direct encounter. But if it had gotten to a point where I had to fight him, I had to use everything I could. Him underestimating me being one of the advantages."


    "I see," Partax muttered slightly, rubbing his goatee with a nod, "With the insight that the Devil has, in an actual battle, he would be able to figure out your abilities quite well. But since he would have no way of knowing that you can assign your stats freely, suddenly growing massively stronger or faster in the middle of a battle would be a moment that could turn the tides of a fight."


    Armodeus slowly leaned back into his seat, having managed to rx a bit after that exnation, "Fine, if ya say so."


    Kassandra, her legs crossed, stared deeply at Eiro, "So? What exactly makes you so special that you would be chosen for this sort of ability? You said you started out as an imp, right? Who were you in that ''past life'' of yours then?"


    Armodeus, Partax and Shimour already knew what Eiro was about to say, because he had specifically left out the details about this, due to the new revtion that he had been given.


    "I was the Sage," Eiro exined, and the three Masters that just learned about this were once more silent.


    "The Sage? As in, the great wizard? That sage?"


    "Mhm," Eiro replied to Meshi, "And... before I continue, I want to ask, but do any of you actually remember who the former... or well,st Sage was?"


    "Some nobody, I guess?" Partax pointed out, "I can''t remember a name, but they must''ve been nothing special. I do seem to remember hearing about some of their feats here and there, but I didn''t particrly care," the halfling said, and the others seemed to be in agreement. None of them could remember the Sage''s name.


    "Right. The former Sage''s name has been erased from the world altogether. To the point where hearing it again nearly... nearly killed Nelly," Eiro said, quickly continuing before they could all speak up. He noticed that they were shocked to hear what he had said, so it was important, "She''s recovering already. The Naiad Queen healed her.


    She still hasn''t woken up, but the duplicate I mentioned is watching her without swimming even ten feet away from her."


    "Well, that''s something, at least," Orion sighed in relief.


    Eiro looked at the people in front of him and slightly sighed, "Though... it seems like not just their name was erased. But the Sage themself was just ''deleted'', basically. And there''s just one person that has remembered. Apparently the Sage, I... used to be Morgan le Fay."

 Chapter 724: Hallucination

    "You''re kidding," Armodeus let out with a confused expression, "Morgan le fay is a myth, they... they..." the elder dwarf''s eyes seemed to lose focus for a few moments. His pupils dted and constricted, as if they were pulsating. But he wasn''t the only one, the other masters were simr. Until one of them, Partax, finally spoke up.


    "Morgan, that..." Partax started, his voice seemingly bringing back the others as well, "...that rotten bitch still owes me twenty gold!"


    "...Excuse me?" Eiro let out involuntarily. That certainly wasn''t what he expected to hear.


    "Right, I remember now... Morgan, they... How did we forget?" Shimour muttered. It must be something that he wasn''t quite used to. Being the Master of Stealth, he was the one that was hidden from others, and that would have others forget about his existencepletely, even if just for a short period of time. Having it done to him like that was nothing short of unnerving.


    "...I don''t know, but they must have cast some kind of spell, maybe even using the cards, or at least following simr principles," Eiro exined, "Frankly, I''m not totally positive, but at least it''s obvious that their name means something to you, beyond just the myths."


    Orion slowly nodded his head, as his face was buried in his palms while trying to regain hisposure, "Yeah, well, Morgan le fay was..."


    "Insane."


    "A total fucking maniac."


    "The scariest person I''ve ever met."


    "...I was going to say unique, but that works too," Orion sighed, ncing over at the masters seated next to him. His face was almost deathly pale, and as Eiro heard the fluids flow through the Master''s body, his muscles twitching and turning, he realized that he was feeling physically ill after hearing that revtion.


    Armodeus slowly looked at Eiro, "But if you''re here, that means they''re not around anymore... right?"


    "...Right," Eiro replied, "When I met the representation of the world before, I was given a message. A sort of exnation for what I am. A special splinter was ced into the former sage, but in the process, that sage died.


    As it all happened during a battle against the Monster King and his armies, the sage''s soul, amongst some others, was harvested and brought to the Monster King, who used it as a ressource to create a new monster for a horde. Since both the hero and the holy priestess died during that encounter as well, the King wanted to use that opportunity to kidnap the holy priestess and created a horde.


    I was a monster, an imp, that was part of that horde."


    "But why the hell was Morgan working with the hero and holy priestess?" Partax asked with a confused expression, "I... wait, why would it feel wrong? They were the sage, so it just makes sense, but... No, Morgan was..."


    Eiro slowly moved his stinger toward his own arm, pushing a certain venom into his bloodstream. That venom moved through his blood into his lungs, where Eiro turned it into a simple mist that was quickly exhaled afterbining with the Demon''s magic.


    Thebination of water magic with the intention of ''rxation'', as well as some nature magic and even a bit of holy magic added into the calming, obviously non-lethal venom, created an air that quickly calmed everyone down a bit.


    It didn''t sedate them in any way, but everyone''s heart had been beating so much that Eiro could tell a massive amount adrenaline was going to be secreted, so Eiro wanted to do something to calm them down before that could happen.


    "Are you all feeling a bit better?" the Demon asked, "A spell like that won''t just be liftedpletely by being told the sage''s name. But at the same time, memories and emotions are powerful. You must have remembered part of your connection to them, but if you dive any deeper, it could backfire extremely. If anything, take it slow. I''ll try and figure out a method to release the spell."


    The room grew quiet as everyone tried to calm themselves down. Though, Bavet had really just fallen asleep. A venomous mist that could rx the Masters knocked him out immediately. But it was fine, as Eiro could just update himter. At least, he didn''t care to wake Bavet right now, since he knew what question was about to follow.


    "Who told you?" Kassandra''s voice was almost a venom in its own right as she asked this, "If not even we can remember them, what little- was it the Devil? What kind of-"


    "Merlin."


    "You... you met him again?" Armodeus asked, and Eiro nodded his head.


    "Right right, we wanted to ask about that! There was some kind of mistake, right?" Meshi asked with a nervous expression, "I mean, that kid wouldn''t have... done those kinds of things, right? Oh, but if he remembered, then maybe he finally managed to be a Master as well, maybe he-"


    "Meshi," Shimour''s voice cut through the panicked ideas of the man next to him. He looked back at Eiro with a deep stare, "Exin. How did he remember?"


    "Merlin became The Fool. With that, that horrendously twisting power that he was bestowed, it... it changed him into something I don''t even know how to describe properly. He''s a monster, but that''s the only thing I''m totally sure of. His powers of the arcane turned into something else, something I''ve dubbed ''aberration''. Though, I do think that you might be right.


    He seemed to have Mastered that Aberration Magic... and in the process, he not only remembered seemingly everything about Morgan le fay, but also became something... worse, and stronger than the Devil."


    ---


    The room was silent, as Eiro looked up at the ceiling above him. He could hear four pairs of foosteps, together with the metallic ttering of Partax''s mechanical automaton that carried him around. Shimour was also walking there, but he was at a point where his footsteps didn''t make any sound that even Eiro could perceive unless he tried his hardest.


    The only one that was still in here with the Demon was Bavet, who seemed to be slowly waking up.


    After Eiro told the Masters about Merlin, the rest didn''t really go all too well. He nced to the side at the shattered furniture. The floor and walls had deep grooves in them. The Masters had subconsciously let out parts of their powers as they lostposure and grew furious at the idea that Eiro was suggesting to them.


    But Armodeus and Shimour managed to calm everyone down enough, and they all just left to the rooms that had been prepared for them. So now, Eiro was just waiting for the slime to wake up, while at the same time trying to calm himself down a bit too.


    But then, a familiar voice sounded out, "Well, that could have certainly gone better."


    If Eiro had a heart, it would have skipped a beat. His head snapped at Bavet with a deep, angry re, "That''s not funny, you-"


    Bavet was still asleep. But he could swear he heard a voice that should never be here. He had only just crushed his skull a few hours ago. And he certainly couldn''t sense him anywhere here, but... how did he hear the Devil''s voice?


    Eiro jumped up, looking around the room, as a cold touch pressed down onto his shoulder. It wasn''t anything physical, but it was an unforgettable chill. As Eiro looked at his hallucination of the thing formerly known as the Devil, his blood began to boil. Not even figuratively; his skin was bubbling up due to the sheer heat of his own blood.


    "How is this... how are you here?!" Eiro growled, trying to trace his memories to see if he forgot anything, but he didn''t even need to do so. As the hallucination took a seat on the couch, in the exact spot that Eiro was seated in a moment earlier, it crossed its legs with a broad grin appearing on its face.


    "Well, I''m not, now am I? For someone that managed to fool me like that, someone that managed to hide things from me, the Devil, the trickster, the one who grins as the deal is made... you a certainly quite slow, are you not?"


    Eiro sighed lightly, "You''re a remnant of consciousness left behind in the memories that I pulled from the Devil''s corpse."


    "A remnant? I''d rather like to call myself a ''new original''."


    "...Whatever. I''ll erase you, so tell me what you want first."


    "Hah, that curiosity is going to end up killing you," the hallucinationughed, "Frankly, I just wanted to know why I died. And now, knowing that a horrible miscreant betrayed me, I-"


    "You did because you were proud,zy, and honestly far stupider than I gave you credit for. Merlin''s ''betrayal'' has nothing to do with it," Eiro interrupted, snapping his finger. The moment he did, the hallucination''s body was violently torn in half.


    He knew that it couldn''t really feel any pain, but Eiro''s hatred of the Devil didn''t let him do anything else but try to make him suffer, even if it wasn''t the real one.


    Whichever the case... even as the hallucination disappeared, something welled up in the Demon''s chest.


    A sense of iparable anxiety.

 Chapter 725: Within the Body

    "Hm?" Bavet slowly woke up, blinking his eyes open slightly. The rxing venom was so potent that the slime''s transformation was actually undone to some degree, and he now looked like a shaved cat covered in a thick, translucent goo, "What happened?" he asked. Bavet slowly stood up, shaking his body like a dog trying to dry itself off, as the goo quickly turned back into fur.


    Eiro stretched out his tail toward him, and the small white cat jumped on top of it as Eiro lifted him up onto his shoulders, "The Masters left. They''re having a conversation on their own somewhere right now."


    "What, and act like you can''t just listen in on them?" Bavet asked, but Eiro shook his head.


    "I can''t, actually. Shimour covered them all in a veil. They''re fully protected."


    "Well, whatever. So what now? Are they going to train you?"


    "I would imagine that''s what they''re currently discussing. Clearly Kassandra had something against me, but the others didn''t seem to particrly mind. Considering that Partax told me he would still teach me beyond this all, I do think the chances are overall not too bad," Eiro exined, stepping out of the sitting room while walking down the hallway toward the library.


    The slime on Eiro''s shoulder leaned forward to get the chance to nce at the Demon''s face, "You''re not headed to rest?"


    "In due time," he responded, "There''s a few things I just need to take a look at first."


    Though Bavet didn''t know what it was Eiro meant, even the Demon wasn''t entirely sure what he was going to be looking for. The... Devil suddenly appeared before him. It wasn''t the real Devil, of course. That one was dead. Truly and wholly dead, and there was no other way around it.


    Using necromancy, Eiro watched his soul be devoured and ripped apart by hell. The Devil was irreversably and forever dead.


    So why was Eiro so... scared? Hallucinations weren''t anything too troublesome to deal with. Eiro dealt with things affecting his mind plenty, but those were all forces from the outside, trying to overtake him. But this stemmed from inside, from something that Eiro had already made his own, the Devil''s knowledge. Tucked inside, hidden away, was a fragment of the Devil''s mind.


    And who can say that there wouldn''t be more than just the one that Eiro already in, if that even worked properly in the first ce?


    So, Eiro felt like he just needed to check. To see if there was anything he could figure out about what just happened. He stepped through the library and entered the space hidden beyond, closing the door behind him. He hung up his cloak and jacket, and unbuttoned his shirt, folding them all and cing them onto the table beside him.


    "Anything I can do to help?" Bavet asked, tilting his head curiously as Eiro pulled a golden card out of thin air.


    "...Just keep mepany, will you?"


    Bavet seemed a bit surprised, but ended up just nodding his head in the end, "...Of course... Was... the fight against the Devil really that horrendous?"


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, "It wasn''t the worst fight I''ve been in. I barely took any damage at all, really. The fight against that speeding crow was much worse in that regard, to tell you the truth. But...


    the fight against the devil took everything out of me in a way that I can''t really exin," Eiro pointed out, looking at the golden key appear in his hand, "The Devil has been a beast lingering in the backmost shadows of my life. He was an insurmountable threat, and in the end, I... beat him so easily.


    A simple trick that the greatest trickster of all wasn''t even able to see through, simply because he couldn''tprehend a demon that wasn''t bound to the rules of a pact. It was just..."


    "Unsatisfying?"


    "Is that a horrible thought to have? That I would have liked the fight to be a bit more exciting and unpredictable. More... fun," Eiro muttered, but Bavet scoffed and shook his feline head.


    "You''ve always been a battle maniac, no matter how stoic you try to act. But for this one... seriously just be happy that you managed to solve it without a direct encounter. You said it yourself, but the royals are all incredibly strong. Taking out one of the most dangerous ones that easily is a good thing. You can enjoy yourself with the...


    safer ones. As ridiculous as that sounds, when talking about beings akin to cmities."


    Eiro smiled lightly, "You''re right. Thank you," he let out a deep sigh as he turned the tip of the key toward his chest. In his skin, a keyhole appeared. Without further ado, Eiro pushed it into his skin and turned the key around. Though, as Eiro was just trying the key out for the time being, instead of opening up to the space inside of his soul, it opened up his body.


    A slit appeared on the Demon''s chest, asrge ps of his skin folded open. Not in a painful way, though, it was nothing but ufortable. But before long, Eiro''s chest was opened up to him. His ribs and lungs and the two gemstones that existed right where his heart should usually be. However, this view also revealed a view that Bavet didn''t know until now.


    Being a shapeshifter, the slime was incredibly aware of the biology of practically every species he had evere by. Rather, one of his abilities was rted to exactly this. It came with its limits, of course, and one of those was that the stronger the invididual was, the less he could grasp from them.


    And since Eiro was so ridiculously more powerful than him, Bavet hadn''t been able to learn this until now. But Eiro''s bones weren''t made of... bone. Instead, they seemed more like glistening pirs of mystical gemstones simr to the Demon''s horns. And not only that, but the veins that were wrapped around those gem-like bones and Eiro''s internal organs like the roots of a vast, old tree...


    they were glistening. They were practically giving off their own light as deep red blood flowed through them.


    "You''re so... weird, physically speaking," Bavet pointed out, and Eiro scoffed as he looked back at the slime.


    "Oh shut up, you haven''t seen anything yet. I''ll be evolving soon, and I n on getting even weirder in that time," Eiro pointed out, as he closed the ps of his skin again. And then, he pushed the key into his chest one more time, but this time, trying to focus on entering Eiro''s soul.


    As his chest opened up, a lot more stiff this time as though his skin had really turned into the wood of a door, a small, quaint space was revealed.


    It was Eiro''s treasury, still that small chamber filled with nothing but hidden secrets, with trinkets and tools and weapons and books. Except that this time, instead of being filled with different ''aspects'' of Eiro, it waspletely empty. And so, Eiro made a decisio. He created a duplicate of himself, one that was much smaller than he himself, small enough to fit right into the space.


    And small enough to walk right through that door at the back of the room in Eiro''s soul.


    As the duplicate stepped into the space, Eiro felt himself... shudder. It was an unusual feeling. He held himself within himself, like he had a sort of different awareness of what this duplicate was and how it moved, as if he was imagining it in his mind. But at the same time, since Eiro shared a consciousness with that duplicate, it went beyond the usual weirdness of creating duplicates of himself.


    Like he was truly himself, and not a duplicate, walking through his soul.


    Eiro looked around. It was like he was in a true, real space that contained his treasures. Picking them up, it seemed he would be able to use them properly as well. And in that locked safe built into the wall, Eiro could feel the power of Death and the Devil, just almost seeping out.


    But none of this really mattered. If he wanted to, Eiro could explore the mechanic of thister. For now, he walked up to the door in front of him, and carefully pushed it open into the space beyond, hidden deeper in his soul.

 Chapter 726: An Ancient Soul

    The door creaked. It was old and weak, cracks having formed around its edges over time. Rather, the whole room that Eiro was stepping out of was the same; the walls and floor were worn down, just short of falling to ruin. The furniture ced within, as well as the items that adorned them, were all much newer, but the base, the room that truly represented the state of Eiro''s soul, it was old.


    But even that didn''tpare to the space that he stepped into.


    Ancient and cavernous, having fallen intoplete and utter disrepair. A city built underneath a darkness that even the realm of shadows couldn''tpare to. When the demon turned around, he could see a building. An old hut erected at the edge of this city, surrounded byrge, tower-like trees that reached into the distance.


    How far, Eiro didn''t know; he couldn''t see further than a a few dozen paces into this forest, and none of his senses could tell him what was there, beyond the edge of his own soul.


    As the duplicate; no, it couldn''t be called that anymore. The moment it stepped into his soul, it ceased to be a mere duplicate. It was another incarnation of the true Eiro, now belonging to his soul. Like an aspect of himself that he could use to directly ess his own soul.


    He could no longer control or alter it, and the minute adjustments he had made were immediately reversed and it took on apletely identical form to the true Eiro.


    And so, as the incarnation walked further into the city, the old cobblestone standing strong against the weight of his foot but at the same time giving off a feeling of uncertainty and unsteadiness. As though this city itself, or rather the ground that it was built on, was threatening to crumble away at any moment to fall into the ck abyss certainly hiding below.


    Though for the time being, it should hold out.


    Eiro stepped further into the city, looking at the buildings. There was little rhyme or reason to it, truthfully. Every other building waspletely different. New materials, a new style of architecture. Some more delerict than others, whether because they have been here much, much longer than others, or because they were in a poor condition from the moment of construction.


    Meanwhile, there were buildings that were much cleaner and grander, having stood up against the test of time better than others. Though, the more Eiro looked around, the more he realized that the hut that he came out of wasn''t in the state it was in because it old. It was because it was broken to begin with.


    Built from the ground up using wood from another structure that used to stand in its ce, held together by rusted nails that were forced into the wood in ces they didn''t belong.


    Out of everything here, there was only one thing that seemed ''right''. The streets; the ce that these buildings were constructed on in the first ce. Of course, the road was old and almost crumbling away on its own, but it was the only part of the city that was the same all throughout.


    The further Eiro approached what he assumed to be the center of this city, the older the buildings became, the less you could tell what their previous form was supposed to be. And then, he stepped into what seemed to be the true middle of the city, a za with arge fountain stood in its center. There was no proper water running through it.


    But in intervals, two or three drops would flow down the peak at a time.


    Almost feeling himself drawn to it, Eiro reached out his hand toward the ornate, old and cracked fountain, catching one of the drops with his finger. His whole body felt ovee with a flow of energy, of pure mana as his skin pulled in the water... and another drop flowed out from the top of the fountain.


    This city was Eiro''s soul, and the fountain was the source of his mana; his core. He nced at the edge of the fountain, seeing the deep grooves that were flowing not only throughout this za, but he had seen them at the edges of the road whileing here as well. The water from this fountain was supposed to flow all throughout this massive, old city.


    And if that was the case, if the water was his mana and the fountain was the contained that used to hold it when this soul was once someone else''s, then the massive amount of mana he had right now ounted for just two or three drops within the fountain.


    "Who the hell was Morgan fey? No... what were they?" Eiro muttered, puzzled by what he was seeing. This ce was his soul. An ancient thing that was reincarnated again and again, each building in this vast, ruined city ounting for another one of the lives that had been lived. And Eiro?


    His whole current life ounted only for a broken, old cabin at the city''s outskirts, almost swallowed up by the darkness and the forest.


    "This is wrong," the Demon ground his teeth with a snarling voice, "This isn''t me. This is them. I am not them."


    The world shook around Eiro, "None of this is truly showing who I am. No matter what nonsense Morgan fey did in the past, I am my own person. I don''t exist to live in the ruins of a city built by others."


    The fountain in front of Eiro shook. The cracks deepened, and chunks fell from its form, until it simply became a pile of old stone. Not only that, but the ancient buildings ced in every direction were pushed to the side, as far to the edges of his soul as possible.


    The trees of the forest sprouted up along the roads, recing the old cobblestone with the stomped paths of well-trodden woods. The buildings stayed there; they were part of what Eiro used to be. He may not wish to be defined by them, but they were still part of what he used to be. Simply ridding himself of the past was not something what Eiro wanted to do. It was something that he refused to do.


    He was too greedy to let go of something that was his, even if he had never asked for it. However, from now on, these past lives would have to live in the shadow of the legacy he was currently building.


    The cabin from the edge of the city was being dragged to the center where the fountain once stood. It was old and broken down despite being the newest version of him. As he was an artificial creation, his soul must have been scarred throughout that process.


    "But I think I''ve done enough to heal my soul since then," Eiro said, holding his hand forward. The wooden nks and pirs making up the structure creaked loudly and grew in size, darkening and changing as they became cleaner and more robust. The whole cabin grewrger andrger, reaching up into the sky.


    Walls of ster grew from certain sections, and a base of stone bricks was built underneath it, as the cabin turned into a castle. Before it was even fully done, Eiro stepped onto the set ofrge stairs as it formed ahead of him, walking into the building.


    As the massive doors opened up in front of him, Eiro stepped into his mental library. Bookshelves upon bookshelves spread into every direction. The smell of both fire and water filled his nose, as the sections of books that Eiro read in the other nes were being constructed within his soul. The mental duplicates were also here; though, not in the same way that this small incarnation was.


    They were still ''fakes''; drones that were created for specific purposes that existed only to support Eiro''s thoughts and memories.


    Before long, the space had been constructed, with a small addition. A section specifically set out for different real objects; Eiro''s new treasury. The cards of the major arcana that Eiro was keeping were set into a vault deep underneath the library.


    However, now that this ce was here, now that the mental library had be a true part of his soul, Eiro walked over to one of the nearby bookshelves. It held some books that Eiro had read in the past; nothing special, but still something he wanted to remember.


    So, in case something went wrong, Eiro created a copy of that book, cing one back onto the shelf and bringing the other into the section designated for the ''retrieval'' through his treasury.


    He ced the book onto the pedestal, as Eiro''s true body reached out forward. The incarnation in the soul witnessed his own hand appear in wisps of light, grasping the memory of a book Eiro had read long ago. And then, a momentter, Eiro''s true body was holding that memory in his real hands.

 Chapter 727: Transfer of Knowledge

    Looking at the book in his hands, Eiro was actually quite surprised. Of course, he was hoping that this would work, but he hadn''t expected to actually summon such a physical object. It was a tangible book, even if only given shape temporarily through thebination of different magics. Just sustaining it here outside of his body was constantly draining some of his mana.


    But no matter what it was, he had just created a physical object that hadn''t existed beforehand. He didn''t store and retrieve something that always existed in the physical realm. Looking at it more closely, it seemed to be a physical object created through Arcane magic. Simr to what he created when using spells like ''Mage Hand'', simply imbued with different magics, most notably, Knowledge magic.


    Eiro flipped the book open. The pages felt like real paper, the covers felt like real leather. And just remembering the actual physical book that he had read, as this was just a memory replicating the memory of that book, it feltpletely identical. Eiro grabbed the key that was still stuck in his chest, removing it to allow himself to move better.


    The incarnation inside of his soul was now fully part of him, so it was fine to do this.


    "Bavet,e here," Eiro said, and the slime, still in the form of a cat, slowly approached with a nervous demeanor.


    "Erm... what? What are you doing?"


    "Undo your transformation for a second."


    "..." slowly, the slime did as told, and the feline melted apart into a translucent goo. And then, without a moment''s hesitation, Eiro pushed the key inside of the slime, twisting it around. Simrly to how it happened with Eiro, a small ''door'' opened up, revealing a space that wasn''t visible just looking through the physical part of the slime''s body.


    The demon tried not to pay too much attention to the form of Bavet''s soul. It was a small, simple space. Surprisingly simple, really. And inside of that space were a number of different beasts and objects and monsters and people that were all clearly Bavet''s ''aspects'' taken shape. Since he was a shapeshifter, his aspects didn''t adhere to any particr form.


    Eiro still didn''t know why his aspects were nowhere to be seen within his own soul, but that was something he should soon hopefully figure out.


    But more importantly, Eiro focused on Bavet''s soul. Since the book was made of magic, Eiro was able to affect its physical form,pressing its size to make it fit into the space within the slime''s soul better. Eiro ced the small book into the space, and then closed the door to Bavet''s soul.


    "What the fuck, man, I-"


    "Just be quiet for a second. What''s the name of the baron mentioned on page 211 of the book ''The Life of a John Doe''?" Eiro asked, and Bavet slowly turned back into his cat form, shuddering slightly.


    "There''s no baron mentioned, it''s Count Lanchester," the slime replied, and it took a few moments until he realized what he had exactly just said, "Wait... how do I... I''ve never read that book."


    "And you won''t have to, because you just know it now. The memory will probably fade with time, like any other will. Right now the whole thing should feel like a single sentence you only just read," Eiro exined, smiling broadly as Bavet was still trying to figure out what was going on. And so, the Demon filled him in.


    Confused, Bavet stared at Eiro, "That was a memory of yours? You summoned a memory with your treasury ability? How did you even- Did you seriously change your soul just now?"


    "Well, yeah. If I can change my body, I should be able to change my soul. It''s mine, after all," Eiro pointed out, taking a seat on the armchair stood just a few steps away from him.


    "So... what? You can just give people your memories now?"


    "I guess so, yeah," Eiro replied, "Now that it''s in your soul, it''s no longer draining mana from me. It doesn''t physically exist anymore. Maybe I can use this to give specific techniques or spells to the others."


    The demon quickly thought of some uses for this ability. If he created some tomes exining a technique in extreme detail within his mental library, and then summoned that tome through the treasury, he would be able to ce that into someone else''s soul and they would immediately learn all the information.


    They would need to practice ording to it to properly keep the information in their mind, of course, and they wouldn''t be able to instantly use it, but they would at least understand it. Especially in regard to teaching others spells, this would be an incredible ability.


    That being the case, there were other things that had toe from this; from connecting Eiro''s soul, mind and abilities in this way.


    As his incarnation walked through the library, Eiro noticed that he was able to sense things in here much better. Or rather, sense this space at all. Before, it only existed within his mind, so he simply knew of it, and the knowledge of the specific part he focused on would appear in his mind.


    He simted senses to make it all appear as though there was a library, like an illusion that his own mind created. But now, it was a lot more tangible, something that he could actually interact with. The books were physical, their weight was real. The smell of the pages and the ink that the mental duplicates were using to transcribe new things in here truly entered his nostrils.


    This was a wholly new way for him to experience his memories, and it was... weird. Unexpected. But incredible, nheless. And of course, he could still experience this space as he had before, instantly essing any part of it just through his mind. But if he wanted to interact with things closer, he could through the eyes of his incarnation.


    The incarnation continued walking through the library, making his way to a new space that had been formed. The library itself was a massive open space stretching up high, with many different floors stretching up high along the walls. And now, at the top floor, there was a walkway that surrounded arge golden crystal many times the size of Eiro''s body. This was the splinter.


    The part of the arcane that was within his body. Eiro could tell from its shape that there were multiple different parts fused together. Though one solid piece, it was clear it was once many.


    As Eiro ced his hand onto the splinter, he could feel the power of the arcane flow through him. Just standing here felt the same as standing within that space at the core of the system together with the Administrator. This splinter would only keep growing as Eiro absorbed the aspects of others. But for now, there was something else that he wanted to do.


    Eiro flicked his wrist as a card appeared in his hand, pulled over from the treasury to here. It was one of the pentacle cards, the card of the Ultimate Agility. Pentacle cards were ones that didn''t have a physical form, instead directly bonding with the user. Due to this quality, the other pentacle cards, once Eiro activated them, already fused with the splitner.


    The others were still ''free'', though thightly connected to his core already, even if not inseparable. Eiro took the card and pressed it against the splinter, watching as it quickly sucked it in, as if fusing with the material of the card itself.


    The card melted away into the form of another smaller arcane splinter carefully attaching itself to the outside of that most massive one, as Eiro absorbed the ability of the ultimate agility.


    The moment he did, he could feel the affect running through him. Though, since he was seated, Eiro was still trying to just not move and simply slowly get used to it. Right now, his muscles were rapidly adapting though, and the constitution of Eiro''s body was certainly making this process much, much easier on him than it usually should be.


    The way that he activated this card was... different to the others, though. He felt himself connect with the arcane artifact much more easily, as though he was more used to it right off the bat. And with that in mind, Eiro wondered something. He pulled up another card. It was an artifact that he was not likely to use to often due to the side-effects connected to it; the Dungeon Map.


    Holding the card of the wand suit in his hand, Eiro carefully touched it against his splinter, watching the card be absorbed into it.

 Chapter 728: The Map

    Eiro watched as the card was absorbed by the splinter. As this was happening, the card seemed to activate, taking on its ''true'' form, the dungeon map itself. Therge scroll of paper unfolded and seemed to be wrapping around a section of the splinter, as it was enveloped in soft golden-white light.


    As if burning away into white ash, the scroll fell apart, the splinter underneath it almost bulging and growing where said ash touched it.


    As the splinter absorbed it, Eiro raised his brows a bit surprised at what it was he was truly experiencing here. The card was gone. It still seemed to be registered among the counter of cards that popped up whenever a new card was collected, but the actual card was gone. And nheless, Eiro still felt its power.


    The Demon, not the incarnation, but the real body, slowly nced down at his arm. Or at least, he tried. Moving any part of his body was quite... ufortable. Too fast.


    The muscles around his eyes tore at the movement, so instead of relying on his physical strength, Eiro decided that he was just going to use magic to influence the blood inside of his veins and the flesh making up his form, moving his eye like that. Simrly, so that he wouldn''t lose control over his arm, Eiro moved it with magic, holding it up in front of him somewhat jankily.


    His muscles still reacted, of course, but his control over his magic was stronger than the influence his newly acquired ''Ultimate Agility'' had over his otherwise limp muscles.


    And then, Eiro felt his magic flow through his veins. No, it wasn''t quite correct to call it ''magic''. He felt pure powers of the arcane make his way through his magic circuits. It was simr to how when he created Arcane magic from pure mana, but so, so much more potent. As the arcane essence reached his fingertips, it flowed out of his body and started to form a physical object.


    A paper scroll soon sat in Eiro''s hand.


    "Huh," he muttered slightly. He had just summoned the Dungeon Map directly instead of activating the card. It was like his body had be a recement for the card. But just a momentter, he pulled it back into himself.


    Slowly, Eiro looked to the side. This time, through the incarnation within his soul. He hadn''t done it on purpose, but rather just on instinct; the library was expanding. While, at its center, no matter where you went within this space there were books and scrolls and everything you could think of, everything was still sorted into sections. Categorized into their importance and theme and topic.


    For one, all the maps and his memories of the geography of the surroundingnds was stored in a specific part of the library. And right there, at the centerpoint of this section of the library, arge new table appeared.


    There had already been some desks there for transcribing new maps or editing old ones, or just simply parsing through them, but this one was different. It was arge, t table. Thirty by sixty feet in size. And on top of it now sat arge map, and what it disyed wasn''t any particr area, but Eiro''s very own body.


    The incarnation pped his wings and flew over toward it, taking a closer look. As he pressed his fingertips onto the paper, he could feel magic flow through him,bining blood and flesh magics, and anything else that could potentially affect his body, in a brilliantly efficient and beautiful manner.


    And as he started to drag around the depiction of Eiro''s own skin, the demon could feel the skin on his arm move and wrinkle, as it did on the map.


    An idea popped into the Demon''s mind. He ced his palm over the map and moved around exactly what was depicted on it, until all that was visible was his eye. In excruciating detail, a duplicated artifact that had been ced into his eye was disyed.


    The thin, intricate engravings and magic circles were shown, and Eiro looked at a part of those engravings that had be a full part of his physical form at this point, and changed the angle of a single one of those runes.


    It wasn''t a particrly important one; it was just one that was helping in the definition of the actual angle of refraction as light traveled through the translucent mirror of duplication acting as a lense in his eye.


    And as he slightly changed this rune, he could feel the sight in that eye actually change. Just slightly, but enough for Eiro to notice the difference. And a broad grin formed on his face. With this, Eiro was able to alter his body to a wholly new degree.


    Not only that, but, after returning that rune to its former state, Eiro pulled back out to a view of his whole body, and instead changed to something else. A view of his mana.


    With a flick of his wrist, he was now able to change the shape of his magic circuits.


    "Maybe...bined with the Author''s Pen, I could create some patterns within me that I couldn''t before," the demon muttered quietly. But then, another idea crossed Eiro''s mind. He held his hand over the map once more, pulling the view out even further. And as he did, the figure disyed on the map changed.


    Instead of a biological diagram of his own form, he was able to see a map of the room he was in. Though it appeared as a simple illustration made of ck ink, he could see the whole library disyed in front of him from a birds-eye view. He could see himself sat on that armchair, and Bavetying on one of the tables next to him.


    Slowly, the incarnation ced his finger onto an object not too far away from Eiro. A small rug ced into the center of the room. And Eiro slowly dragged it away as the power of the dungeon map did its job, affecting the world immediately around Eiro.


    Bavet raised his head startled, but lowered it again as he didn''t notice what actually happened, as Eiro flicked his wrist to ''reset'' the effect of the map on its surrounding, releasing the distortion in space it caused.


    He could feel the side effect of the map take hold for just a fraction of a second as he felt himself connected to this room in a slightly different way than normal, but any trace of that disappeared instantly, unable to take proper hold due to the minor change that he had caused.


    And then, instead, Eiro tried something else. The incarnation pressed his finger onto the map, and on the other side of the room, a magic circle was being drawn through the power of the map, and the Demon grinned broadly. His real body was just seated there emotionless, as the slightest twitch could rip his muscles as he tried to get used to his new card''s effect.


    However, his incarnation was barely able to contain itself at the realization.


    The power of the dungeon map had integrated with him in apletely new way. He was able to use it without even summoning it into the physical world. If he could do this with the other cards... then he could unlock powers that he couldn''t even imagine yet.


    However, that of course came with some massive risks. With new powers and abilities, new side effects could appear as well. For the time being, Eiro would just leave it at the Dungeon Map; if nothing particrly bad happened, he would try and fuse the next card into his splinter.


    And only if he concluded that there was no or negligible risk would he truly start fusing the other cards to his splinter. And if there was any risk, he would seal away the Dungeon Map. These new abilities seemed incredibly useful, but there wasn''t much use to it if he ended up bing somehow consumed by the space directly around him.


    Or even worse, if he suddenly became fully obsessed with his own physical body.


    That being the case, there was still something Eiro had to deal with. For the time being, as the incarnation would continue looking through the library, the real body had to get to work. Bit by bit, he would have to get used to his new speed as he made his way to his bedroom to head to sleep.

 Chapter 729: Stat Boost

    Eiro took a step forward. His willpower fought against his muscles, as his magic tried to restrain and move his body as much as it could so that Eiro didn''t have to actually walk as he normally would. The card that he had just taken in earlier gave him ultimate agility; speed beyond anything that he could have dreamt of otherwise.


    In general, this was perfect. With all of his abilities, the addition of that kind of speed was more than he could have ever asked for. However, as with the other cards of the pentacle suit, the side effect for this card was very direct. A direct overload.


    When Eiro inherited the five of pentacles, the card of ultimate perception, from Jura, just listening to his own heartbeat was torturous. And at the time, his stats were still extremely low. Now, he had to deal with that massive boost to the value of his agility stat with the stats that he currently had.


    Just a slightest movement was enough to rip his muscles due to the strained, extremely fast movement. Luckily, Eiro''s body was highly adaptive, so with every step he took, he was growing and changing more and more into something that could handle the physical side effect of this card, but that didn''t change just how much of a bacsh there was.


    The only reason why the crow was able to handle it was because it had been raised up from the ground with this card in mind, and had evolved multiple times growing along the route provided by it. The other cards of the pentacle suit had simr side effects. Jura, the bearer of the Two of Pentacles, the Ultimate Dexterity, had broken his fingers and torn the muscles around them many times.


    Not to mention, dexterity didn''t just affect the hands, even if that was the main effect. It also increased the control one had over their body in general. And so, when just walking, Armodeus had made his limbs pop out of their sockets multiple times, tearing sinews and ligaments around his joints.


    After all, even if he had a heightened control over his body, that didn''t mean that his muscles had suddenly changed. Before the dwarf was able to control his ability well enough, he identally stepped over the limits of his body many times, bending his arms and legs in ways that his body wasn''t made to move.


    But with the assistance of some healers, potions, and plenty of time, Armodeus was able to heal whenever anything happened and soon learned to live with this ability, and actually make use of it for his craftsmanship.


    And it was very simr for Eiro. The ultimate agility card increased the speed at which signals travelled from his brain to the different parts of his bodies, and vastly increased the speed and explosive efficiency of his muscles.


    They weren''t stronger directly, but they were able to extend and retract at speeds and to degrees that they weren''t able to before, doing so without Eiro being able to do much about it. The only way he had been able to avoid his muscles tearing too much was through flesh and blood magics.


    Though, even if he didn''t react in time, his demonic bodybined with healing magic made him recover quite well.


    That didn''t change how hard it was to actually move though. With his muscles relieving massively explosive strength outside of what he could control at this moment, it was incredibly easy for Eiro to just fall over, even with the help of his magic. Step by step, moment by moment, Eiro moved through the manor''s hallways.


    He could hear some voices and snoring from other rooms throughout the building, so he really didn''t want to make any noise on ident.


    However, even so, it was only a matter of time until Eiro reached his bedroom. He hadn''t slept in quite a while, and he was sure that his body could really use some rest right around now. Without even really caring about changing into some other clothes, simply ripping the ones he was wearing off himself, the Demon dropped into his bed, letting out a deep sigh.


    He used magic to create some chains of ice that he used to tie himself to the bed as tightly as he could, restraining all of his limbs and his body as a whole. If he tossed and turned while sleeping on ident, he could potentially tear off an arm or leg, jump through the wall or ceiling, or injure someone in the adjacent spaces.


    He assigned a mental duplicate to make sure those restraints were kept up all night, and then looked up at the system window floating up over him. There was still something that he had to do for now, and maybe doing it right now wouldn''t be the worst idea.


    He was still on leave from the academy for a little bit longer, and there really wasn''t much of a reason otherwise to leave the manor. That meant that he could just send a duplicate out to interact with the others while he was here, getting used to the new state of his body. And so, Eiro made a decision, starting to assign the eight-hundred stat points that he had yet to use.


    Once Eiro confirmed the final stats, a number of messages popped up in front of him.


    ---


    [Charisma Stat has reached 200. <Eloquent Tongue> Ability has be <Silver Tongue>]


    [Strength Stat has reached 300. <Warrior''s Strength> Ability has be <Champion''s Strength>]


    [Constitution Stat has reached 300. <Energetic Body> Ability has be <Vigorous Body>]


    [Resistance Stat has reached 300. <Lesser Metal Skin> Ability has be <Metal Skin>]


    [Dexterity Stat has reached 300. <Capable Hands> Ability has be <Skilled Hands>]


    [Evasion Stat has reached 300. <Hyper Adrenaline Rush> Ability has be <Danger Sense>]


    [Intelligence Stat has reached 500. <Hyper Thought Processing> Ability has be <Multiple Thought Processing>]


    [Wisdom Stat has reached 500. <Rapid Learning> Ability has be <Instant Learning>]


    [Wisdom Stat has reached 600. <Instant Learning> Ability has be <Well of Knowledge>]


    ---


    The moment that these abilities activated, Eiro felt waves run through his body. His muscles twitched and his body moved almost uncontrobly due to the influence of his heightened agility. Even if Agility was a stat that he hadn''t changed directly, the massive boost in his Strength stat made it much harder to control his body.


    Though, at the same time, he felt ovee with new life force pouring out of ever pore in his body, so it didn''t actually cause a ton of damage to him. Eiro just tried to force himself to go limp as soon as he could so that he could recover from the damage he was causing to himself.


    And, once the distraction of his body finally calmed down, Eiro was able to realize the changes to his mind. He was already vastly intelligent before this, but with that stat risen to the 500 mark, things changed quite strongly. The ''Multiple Thought Processing'' ability did exactly what it was named after; Eiro was able to have multiple strands of thought.


    Of course, that in itself wasn''t new to Eiro. He had more than a dozen mental duplicates running through his mind, not to mention the twopletely different entities that were the duplicates in the other nes. But even so, it was like Eiro''s capacity for thought practically doubled in an instant.


    His so incredibly busy mind seemed quietpared to before, as if most of the water in an overflowing bucket simply evaporated in an instant.


    And then, there was the ''Well of Knowledge'' ability. Created by boosting his wisdom stat by nearly a quarter of his avable points. Of course, with the abilities he held already, boosting his ability to remember things didn''t seem the most useful right off the bat, but there was a quite massive change.


    The mental library had immediately started adapting to the change of his mental capabilities, not only expanding in size, but the quality of the construction materials increased as well.


    New lights were added too; instead of therge, bright candles and wisps of me formerly lighting up the space, magicalmps were hanging off the walls and different pirs, their light reaching out into the every corner of the space. The wood was smoother and of a higher quality, and the air was filled with a sweet scent from that wood. But that wasn''t all.


    Every single book that represented a memory, instead of a real existing book, grew. Sometimes, it was just a few pages. But other times, it was whole chapters worth, as if his memories had retroactively be more detailed. And then, there were the changes that happened outside of the library''s building.


    Eiro could tell that something about the other buildings, the buildings of his past incarnations, had changed. Just ncing at them with his mind''s eye, he could tell that they were simply in a bit less disrepair than they were before. Maybe Eiro should look into thatter. Though, for the time being, his focus was beginning to be pulled to another ce.


    Therge double door, about five meters tall and decorated in vast, ornate patterns, that appeared at the far end of the library.

 Chapter 730: Incarnations

    Eiro stepped up to therge, ornate double door that had appeared on the far side of his mental library. It was weird; the library didn''t usually change in this way. Of course, there were parts of it that were simply altered subconsciously; like the improvement of the quality of the space that happened just now.


    Since Eiro''s mental capacity itself had improved vastly, it made sense that not only the books but the library itself improved in quality as well. And of course, new memories that formed would automatically be added onto the shelves, and the library would adjust and shift around depending on how many memories Eiro''s mind actually held.


    However, when it came to the sorting of the things within the library, the creation of the different sections and partitioning of his mental tasks was a more active effort. It was something that he directly chose to do, even if it was just a passing thought at times. But this? He didn''t make this door, or rather, the space beyond that door.


    He didn''t know what was here whatsoever, and he wasn''t able to see past the thick metal with his inner eye either. It was ufortable, extremely so. Why would a part of his mind, of his soul, be shut off from him? And why did this door appear just because he increased his stats to this degree.


    Carefully, Eiro pressed his hand onto the door, trying to push it open. But it wouldn''t budge. He pushed even more, using all the strength that was in the body of this incarnation. But it didn''t matter.


    "I''m not going to let something shut me out from my own mind," Eiro almost growled, turning back around. He quickly stepped up to the section of the mental library that he had reserved for his treasury. There, he went up to the pedestal holding his cards, and quickly picked up the Queen of Wands, the key that opens everything.


    In his hand, the card quickly turned into that ornate metal key, and the Demon immediately made his way back to the door. It didn''t matter if there was no lock on this door; that''s not how this thing worked.


    If he could open up a literal soul, a door would be an easy thing. Eiro pressed the key into the center of the door, as a keyhole magically formed around it. With a quick twist of his hand, a clicking sound could be heard. Eiro pulled the key out of the door and threw it to the side. It turned back into a card and disappeared back onto the pedestal that Eiro got it from.


    He ced his hand onto the cold metal again and pushed forward. The door opened smoothly, as if it didn''t weigh anything at all.


    Behind it, Eiro saw an empty white space. It was a bit unnerving, especially since he still wasn''t able to see what was inside of it through his mental eye, just through the sight of the incarnation. The Demon took a step forward into the space, and looked around. He could feel that something was here, but he couldn''t pinpoint exactly what it was.


    An eeriness that was slowly creeping up on him, that was the only way that he could rationalize this sensation.


    And then, it smiled.


    A soft, weing crescent that formed in the space in front of Eiro. It wasn''t scary or unsettling anymore, it just felt... right. The smile opened up, and a few words were spoken, but Eiro couldn''t hear what they were saying, until suddenly Eiro couldn''t concentrate on that anymore. He looked down at his right arms. They were splitting apart.


    Not like normal; he only had two arms on each side, but right now, he had four... six, eight, twelve!


    More and more limbs started to grow from him as if they were trying to climb out from his flesh. It felt a bit ufortable, but it wasn''t painful in any way. They didn''t even tear up Eiro''s clothes, instead just phasing right through them.


    However, as Eiro saw these masses of limbs and raw flesh pour out of him, he realized what he was looking at. They were his ''Aspects'', the thing that he had been looking for this whole time.


    In any person, their aspects were represented in sort of incarnations like the one that Eiro was essing his soul through at the moment, except that you wouldn''t be able to ess them in that way. Of course, it didn''t always mean that an incarnation had to look identical to the person. They could really be anything, and often appeared in the form of objects as well.


    But for Eiro, it did seem like most of his aspects were individuals. They stood up from the pure white ground once their bodies fully formed, one after another. Eiro looked them in the eye and felt a sort of... understanding.


    They didn''t have a consciousness like this incarnation or the mental duplicates, they were more like instincts, and they would act as such. And with those instincts came a natural understanding of what each of them represented.


    Eiro could group them into mostly two groups. Concepts and skills.


    The conceptual incarnations were a bit weird, to say the least. His fears, likes, dislikes, the things he loves, the things he fully hates. What he does for fun. There were a few dozen of these incarnations, all seemingly shifting slightly here and there. Some of them were moving into one another, while others were splitting apart into more incarnations.


    Eiro figured it made sense; things like these emotions were ever-changing in any individual, so of course that was the case with him as well. As long as they didn''t cause any trouble, Eiro didn''t mind.


    The incarnations of Eiros skills and abilities were more straightforward. Every skill or ability he possessed would had its own incarnation that represented the skill. The incarnation of the Artificing skill, for example, was simply Eiro who wore something that he himself considered a sort of ''ssic artificer outfit''. Tools, materials, gloves, that kind of thing.


    Simrly, the Carving Incarnation wore something sort of simr, but more aimed toward woodworking. The skills that were rted to more straightforward physical skills were all like that, simply a version of Eiro that looked slightly different. Basically, they looked like Eiro would if he had gone a different route, focusingpletely on that one skill.


    However, then there were other ones, like Chaos Maniption. When looking at that incarnation, Eiro felt simr things as when he looked at the Dragon of Chaos; at every nce, something just slightly changed in an almost random way.


    Then, there were of course also Eiro''s superior skills. They were... different.


    The incarnation of his ''Universal Monster Language Comprehension'' skill was Eiro, covered in numerous mouths that all seemed to be speaking without making sound. But from the shapes the lips and tongues were forming, they were speaking in all the different monsternguages that Eiro knew at this point. The ''Elemental Magic Mastery'' was Eiro, but made of those elements itself, all the way down.


    It was shifting and switching which was in most power, but Eiro was looking at versions made of fire, water, earth, shadow, light, holiness, and everything else you could think of.


    At least the Negative Effect Resistance and Physical Combat Mastery skills were physically a bit easier to look at, but with them in particr it became clear that these four incarnations had a lot more awareness than the other ones. Of course, Eiro had two more skills.


    The Special Skill ''The World''. Frankly, Eiro''s guess was that this incarnation he inhabited was fully that aspect of himself. It was something a bit different to other skills, hence the name. But that still didn''t ount for thest of his skills.


    His Legendary Skill. Something with as much of a presence within him as something like that, which affected literally every part of him, simply had to have its own incarnation. If not, then Eiro might not fully understand that skill yet.


    But then, shivers ran down his back. He looked past all the incarnations still in front of him, still seeing that grinning crescent floating in the air of this empty space. With a wry smile, Eiro stared up into the empty space that was the incarnation of the ''Supreme Demon'' skill.

 Chapter 731: Arcane Evolution

    Eiro stood in the center of the white space, surrounded by the incarnations that had been ''released'' from within him.


    "So you''re the Supreme Demon skill?" Eiro asked, looking at the crescent smile made from the space itself. He could feel something from it, but it wasn''t responding, "I guess at the end of the day you''re still just a skill. But... why are you like... this?"


    The demon let out a deep sigh. Though, maybe he did have a guess. A Legendary Skill was something special, something that was basically the formation of the whole soul. If that was the case, Eiro should be happy that the Supreme Demon skill only took up a small space within his soul. And then, he started to understand something else.


    One of the main functions of the Supreme Demon skill was that it allowed Eiro to manipte other skills; this mostly showed itself in the form of boosting skills temporarily, or creating Superior Skills like the four still stood next to him right now, "So... being ''The World'', I ended up fully absorbing these incarnations, but you released them again because I had some ns with them. Got it."


    Eiro let out a sigh, ncing at the incarnations around him, "Skill aspects, out. Do your own thing."


    As if listening to hismand, the aspects started stepping out into the library. He would most likely see the space expand itself naturally as they got settled; workshops, training spaces, that kind of thing. The only part that Eiro was a bit worried about were the conceptual incarnations.


    He couldn''t just trap them anywhere; if he did that, it would most likely lead to issues with his actual emotional regtion. This space within his soul was basically a powerful metaphore, so if he stopped the emotions from moving freely, it would stop him from experiencing them freely outside of his soul as well.


    But... he was still worried they could cause some issues. Eiro''s greed or wrath, his destructive impulses. Fears and desires. They were all quiet powerful, and Eiro was worried about how they would end up affecting the mental library.


    Worst-case, with this space bing far more literal every single day despite its nature as a metaphore, they could destroy some of Eiro''s memories, or even damage his belongings from the treasury.


    Eiro pressed his hand onto the chest of one of the aspects. It was the aspect of one of his fears; the fear of loss.


    "I think it might be better if I keep you guys closer to heart after all. Sorry," Eiro exined, looking the aspect into its eyes as its body was absorbed back into his own. Instead of letting these aspects roam freely, it would be much better to dissolve them back into his soul directly. It would keep them safe, too. Eiro walked around to all of the aspects, absorbing them into himself again.


    After seeing what the Supreme Demon skill had done, he understood how the process worked, even if just roughly.


    It didn''t take long before the space was empty again. Eiro looked back up into the white space, "I''ll figure out what to do with you soon, don''t worry. I''ve got some ideas, but until then... just be patient."


    The crescent smile in the air stayed the same as Eiro made his way back out of the space, stopping just before fully leaving, "Oh, and don''t worry, I didn''t forget that you tried to lock me out earlier."


    Eiro closed therge metal door behind him, watching as the keyhole once more disappeared, locking the door almost permanently again. It would only be possible to open it with the key now. Was the Legendary skill just so special that even he himself wasn''t supposed to get ess to it? How ridiculous.


    The Demon started walking around the mental library. He checked on a few more things, but soon enough, he knew he was mostly just dying things. Eiro knew he had to get started.


    Opening his eyes, as slowly as he could, back outside in his real body, Eiro stared up at the ceiling. He mentally pulled up a certain system window that he had pushed aside earlier.


    ---


    [Possible Evolutions]


    -[Greater Arcanus]


    -[King Arcanus]


    -[Holy Arcanus]


    -[¡­]


    -¡­


    ¡­


    ---


    The list continued on and on. There were dozens of different evolutionary paths that he could choose, but it was obvious what choice he was going to make. It was the same as what he had always done.


    ---


    [You have ess to a Special Evolution. Do you want tomence Evolution into a Special Subspecies of Lesser Arcanus]


    ---


    Eiro selected this option, and felt a familiar feelinge over him as the system deactivated. Drowsiness filt his body, but at this point in time, there was no need for him to actually sleep during his evolution anymore.


    Though, for the first time, he had ess to the arcane splinters; the core of what the system really was. Once more within his soul, the Demon took a nce at the enormous crystal floating far above him. The bright light that it gave off just a moment earlier was now dim, pulsating to the rythm of Eiro''s breathing.


    It was giving off less arcane energy than before, but there was still a constant flow, as if something was carefully being spread all throughout Eiro''s soul. The arcane splinter was clearly guiding Eiro''s evolution, using the power of all the different splinters that had already fused into it.


    The Demon let out a slight sigh. He didn''t know what he was hoping for, but everything was exactly as he had expected. Maybe he wanted to get some kind of new insight into arcane magic, but that clearly wasn''t the case. Either way, Eiro knew that his body was going to start undergoing some rapid changes over the course of the next three months; the amount of time that this evolution was set to take.


    Three months without the system might be a little annoying, but it really only opened the way for Eiro to get more in tune with his different skills and abilities without over-reliance on the system.


    Whichever was the case, Eiro slowly closed his eyes again. Even if he didn''t have to fall into that evolution-hibernation, he still needed to rest after everything that happened. And so, he slowly let himself doze off and enjoy some recovering sleep.


    ---


    It took Eiro three whole days to take up. Though, the others in the party weren''t any better. They only woke up half a day before the Demon had. The stress from literally going to hell and back wasn''t something that the body took lightly.


    As Eiro opened his eyes, he noticed that his body was in vast pain all over. Nightly twitches made his agility-strengthed muscles tear against his will, and the current beginning stages of his physical reconstitution was starting to get to the point where everything about him was being ripped apart in the first ce, so that was a badbination. Though, there might have been something good to it.


    His body was surprisingly used to the ability now. Even if it was still rough for him to move without hurting himself, as long as he was extra careful, he should be able to walk without needing to manipte his body through magic.


    He carefully released the magical chains that he used to restrain himself, moving his legs off the side of his bed.


    "Urgh, finally awake. Do you even know how long I''ve been waiting?" an annoying voice grumbled from the couch on the other side of Eiro''s bedchambers. There sat the Devil, casually reading a book that the demon recognized quite well, while sipping on some tea.


    "Another echo, seriously?" Eiro slowly stood up from his bed, walking over to the couch. As he did, he banished the book in the Devil''s hands back into the mental library, "Who the fuck do you think you are, stealing my memories like that?"


    "Oh, I''m sorry, was I not allowed to? I was just feeling a bit bored being stuck in the mind of the maniac who killed me," the Devil pointed out with a smirk on his face, "Though, it was pretty fun releasing some steam. I hope you won''t miss those memories."


    "Yeah, good try, but no. I''ve already dealt withpletely blocked memories before, so after that I studied up on mental magic and created a multiyered safety system," Eiro pointed out. Hidden deep within the library, there was something of a ''record'' that kept track of every single memory in Eiro''s mind, so that he could check on them properly.


    He even kept a ''backup'' of his own memories in there that he duplicated andpressed, in a whole other space within his mind, and now, soul. Each were protected by powerful spells that would make it impossible for anything to infiltrate, and Eiro knew that for a fact. And in the first ce, why would he believe the words of the Devil?


    Eiro flicked his wrist and once more violently tore apart the echo. He would have to add some more safety measures in the library though to catch any other stray echoes... but for now, Eiro let some healing magic flow through his hand, since that ''flick'' just broke his hand.

 Chapter 732: The Pain of Evolution

    Eiro looked at his wrist, watching his muscles slowly repair themselves. It was taking a bit longer than before, most likely due to the constant, rapid deconstruction of his body throughout the evolution in the first ce. He took a deep breath and sighed. Mana flowed through the blood in his veins, which Eiro quickly used as a conduit for healing magic to speed the process up more.


    The demon carefully made his way to the small room connected to his bedchambers, where he stretched out his arm. He wanted to keep movement to a minimum, so using Arcane Magic, he quickly created some translucent mage hands to assist him. They took clothes from the hangers and shelves and carefully put them on Eiro''s body, letting him leave his room.


    As he walked through the manor, past the servants and the scurrying spiders, that at this point acted as safety surveince drones, he spread out his perception to the surroundings. Everything about his body waspletely out of whack. This evolution was taking a lot out of him already, and it''s only been a few days. It would be rough, incredibly rough.


    Stepping down the stairs, Eiro walked into one of the sitting rooms. Arc was ying with Leon and Avalin, right in the middle of the room, but that was quickly interrupted when the kids spotted their father.


    "Daddy!" Avalin jumped up from the ground, sprinting over toward him as quickly as she could. But from Eiro''s point of view, she might as well be standing still. Boosted Agility and Perception working together,bined with his increased processing speed after he increased his stats... everything felt off, as if he was slowly crawling through one of his own memories from five minutes ago.


    He carefully squatted down, catching his youngest daughter with a happy smile. Every single time he hugged her was a defiance of every single way the world was supposed to work. A Demon Lord holding the incarnation of holiness. A ridiculous idea, really.


    Avalin''s hand pressed against Eiro''s arm, holding onto him. His skin slid around too much, as if only looselyid over his flesh. Using some magic, he held it all in ce, but he''d have to check on that in a bit.


    "How are you, sweetheart? Have you been good while I was sleeping?" Eiro asked, slowly running his hand through Avalin''s hair as the young girl quickly nodded.


    "Mhm! I was the best! I ate all my veggies, and I went to bed early, and I only got my dress dirty while ying outside once!"


    Eiro smiled broadly, "I''m very proud of you, my love. How about your brother? Do you think he was a good boy too?" he asked, holding his hand out toward the more slowly approaching Leon.


    Though, somehow it seemed like he actually hit a sore note with that. The boy flinched slightly, ncing down. His heart was beating strong in his chest and his ears were twitching anxiously, "I-I... I was..." Leon whispered, tears welling up in his face.


    Eiro immediately stood up, picking up Avalin with one of his arms as he did, to go and pick up Leon with two of his others, trying to hold him tightly, but carefully, tofort him, "Oh, I''m sorry... What happened?"


    "I... I came to your room... and I... you were..." the tears were strong in Leon''s eyes. He didn''t know what he was talking about. Usually when he slept with his main body, he still had duplicates that were active and he could still sense things to an extent, but after the start of his evolution, that hadn''t been possible.


    The only thing that happened was that he retrieved the memories of the two duplicates in the elemental nes, and now they were back to the full, regr connection.


    "Calm down, I''m here," Eiro replied, rubbing the tears off his cheeks. His skin was starting to be covered in a thinyer of fur, "Deep breaths, alright? Like we spoke about."


    Leon stutteringly nodded his head. He pressed his lips together and pushed out the air in his lungs, before filling them up fully again. He repeated this a few times until he managed to calm down again.


    "Great job, Leon. Now, could you try telling me again?"


    "I was worried because you slept for so long... because you tell me that you''re worried when I sleep so much, so I came to your room, but you wereying in bed and you looked in pain and... and I was scared and..." tears once more welled up in Leon''s eyes, as Eiro understood.


    "And you lost control of your ability again?"


    "Just... just for a moment..." Leon replied, "But, but then you started shaking and looked in more pain and... I stopped the ability again, but you were still in pain, and..."


    Eiro slowly ran his hand over his son''s wild head of hair, "I''m sorry, son. But you don''t need to worry, I wasn''t in pain because of you, okay? I''m feeling a bit sick at the moment, I strained myself a bit too much on that trip we went on. You did nothing wrong, and I''m very very proud of you for managing to control yourself all on your own."


    While Leon was trying not to cry any more, Eiro heard a whisper from Arc.


    "Evolution?" he asked, and the Demon quietly nodded his head while locking eyes with him.


    Arc smiled curiously, but Eiro sensed some slightly worried undertones.


    Eiro properly stood up with Avalin and Leon in his arms, walking up to Arc as well. He held his son and rubbed his back with one of his free hands, "Don''t worry. It''s a strong one, but that just means it''s going to turn out even better."


    Arc pushed his father away, locking eyes with him, "Are you serious?" he asked, slightly frowning. But immediately, that frown turned into a smile as his skill took over, "You know what? Sure. I won''t worry, not like that''s something I can do anyway."


    Eiro looked at his son a bit confused. He squatted down and let Leon and Avalin go, "Sorry, can you two go y again for a bit? I want to talk to your brother about something. I''ll be right there with you, okay?"


    The kids quickly nodded their heads and moved back to their y spot. Frankly, Eiro wanted to pay some more attention to Leon, but he seemed to already have recovered a bit. Eiro was sure that his older siblings already spoke to him about a lot of these things, and seeing Eiro just brought the emotions back for a moment.


    "Arc, what''s wrong?"


    Arc''s eye flinched, "Nothing''s wrong. Nothing can be wrong, Dad, you know that."


    "...Then why don''t you tell me what specifically you''re d about right now, seeing me."


    "..." Arc hesitated, trying to gather his thoughts, "I... I''m d that you''re here. That you can talk to us, that you''re holding together well. That you''re doing everything you can to hide the insane pain you''re in from Leon and Avalin."


    Eiro looked at his son with a sorrow-filled frown, "I''m sorry, Arc. I know that you don''t like seeing me like this. You never have. But this is something that just... happens to monsters. Our bodies break down and are rebuilt.


    And when you get to the point where I''m at... those changes are a lot more extreme."


    Arc sighed loudly, "I know that, Dad. Doesn''t change that every time you go through an evolution, my unique skill levels up a few times."


    Eiro ced his hand onto his son''s shoulder, rubbing the side of his neck, "Son, I''m fine. This pain is nothingpared to the joy I feel as I spend my time with you all. You really don''t need to worry about me."


    Looking down at the ground, Arc took a deep breath, "Well, fine, whatever. If you say so. Oh, right, your new ''friends'' said that they''d be going out into town for a while. I don''t know if that''s something you want to check up on or not."


    Eiro looked at his son''s eyes. He was sad to see that his skill was still active like this. If any of them, maybe he could find a way to relieve Arc of his skill. They were unique skills bestowed upon him after his death in another world, so maybe it was possible.


    "I''ll check on themter. Don''t worry. For now, I''ll y with the kids for a while."

 Chapter 733: On the Stags back

    Eiro walked into the gardens, quickly making his way to the stables. There, in his wonderfully cushioned bed and temperature-controlled private area with as much food and entertainment as he could possibly need, Lugo was sleeping.


    The moment that he saw Eiro, he stood up, his antlers almost scratching the ceiling of the stables, "How are you, boy?" Eiro asked with a bright smile on his face.


    Lugo replied with a loud bellow, nuzzling his snout into Eiro''s neck.


    "You alright? Being a lot more affectionate than normal," the demon replied, but Lugo just pulled back his head and stared deep into Eiro''s face, "...You were concerned, huh? Yeah, I''m sorry that I''ve been leaving you alone this much. I''ve just been quite scared to take you along, you understand that, right? My growth has been... unique, to say the least.


    You''re not a fighter, you don''t have any ways to protect you on your own. I don''t want to see you get hurt."


    Lugo huffed and turned his head away, and Eiro justughed quietly, "Don''t be like that, you know it''s the truth. Every time I try to get you to train yourself up a bit, you vehemently refuse. And it''s not like I can just keep on force-feeding you magic stones all the time."


    A bit hesitant, the stag looked back at Eiro. Fact was that, while Lugo was able to grow stronger by eating magic stones, that wasn''t an omnipotent ability. Different to Eiro, he wasn''t able to absorb things without an end; he had to digest the magic stones like he would any other food, or rather, they seemed to take a lot of energy out of Lugo to absorb.


    For a while, Lugo insisted on apanying Eiro everywhere, and started refusing to eat anything beside magic stones so that he could catch up, but before long, he ended up copsing and having massive bald spots all over his body due to malnutrition. Ever since then, Eiro refused to let him eat too much, and closely watched what Lugo was eating and how much exercise he was getting.


    Though, that did slow down his growth a bit, Eiro didn''t care. He didn''t love this stupid deer because he was strong or powerful; he loved Lugo because he was family. He was Eiro''s brother and his closest friend.


    "I''m going to need your help for the time being, though," Eiro exined, and Lugo''s ears perked up immediately, "Don''t tell anyone, but... this evolution is really pretty rough on me. My magic and abilities are fine; rather, I can feel them growing stronger as time goes on, so I won''t have any trouble defending myself.


    But my body is practically falling apart, and I''m struggling a little to even move through the house without tearing my muscles."


    Anxiously, Lugo took a step back, not wanting to hurt Eiro.


    "It''s not that bad, don''t worry. I just need you to help me out since I don''t want to take the risk flying for a while. That sound alright for you?"


    Without a moment''s hesitation, Lugo dropped down onto his belly, looking up at Eiro with an excited huff. The Demon ran his hand over the stag''s head, smiling lightly, "Thank you very much, boy."


    Eiro ced his index finger and thumb onto his lips and whistled, and it didn''t take long until Bavet appeared in the form of a sparrow, quickly fusing into the Demon.


    "Give me a bit of a warning beforehand, alright? What if I was doing something?"


    "I know you weren''t. If you could hear my whistle, I could sense exactly what you were doing."


    "...show-off," Bavet replied as the Demonughed inwardly.


    Careful not to go too fast, Eiro climbed onto Lugo''s back, before the stag stood up again. He seemed to realize just how dire Eiro''s state was even without him going into too much detail. Eiro was incredibly appreciative of the support.


    "Let''s go out into town. And feel free to go at afortable pace for you, alright?"


    Lugo nodded his head and stretched slightly. Eiro felt him breathe in and out a few times, before he carefully took a step forward. And then another, and then the next. It didn''t take long until Lugo was sprinting through the road between the fields of the capital''s outer circle. Like this, they would arrive in the inner circle in another minute or two.


    "This is afortable pace for you now?" Eiro raised his brow, looking down at Lugo. But of course, he knew that wasn''t the case; Lugo was breathing a bit too heavily for that to be the case. But since he wasn''t overdoing himself yet, Eiro figured it was fine to let him do whatever he wanted.


    Soon, they reached the gates of the inner circle and quickly made their way inside.


    "So, what are we looking for now?" Bavet whispered into Eiro''s ear, and the demon looked around.


    "The masters running around town right now, obviously," the demon replied.


    "...Do we have to? They''lle back to the manor in time."


    "I want to see how they''re doing. I promised Solomon that I''d keep them in line," Eiro pointed out, looking around the rooftops, "Gondos, you here?"


    The golem quickly appeared next to Eiro, forming himself from pebbles and dirt, "Am I ever not?"


    "I guess not," Eiro smiled, "Could you give me a hand?"


    Without hesitation, Gondos nodded, and his literal hand split off his body, flowing into the Demon''s face. They fused with Eiro''s eyes, allowing him to have a clearer sight of the mana flowing all over the ce. Along the rooftops were long strands of magic flowing like levitating rivers. Eiro stretched out his hand, pushing his own mana forward.


    As if scooping up the strands of mana, he pulled them toward him. With a wave of his hand, Eiro gathered a ball of air with his magic and turned it into a temporary servant, linking it with the mana Eiro was seeing, "Go and follow."


    The servant in the form of a small bird quickly flew off as it was told to. That was probably going to help Eiro find Meshi. Now he just had to find Kassandra, Orion, and Shimour. Eiro should probably give up on finding Shimour; he would keep an eye out while looking for Kassandra and Orion, but if he actively hid himself here in the city, then he probably had no hope.


    It was one thing to find him in Eiro''s own home. There, he knew the exact ways that every single ajar door changed the flow of air and mana; he could find Shimour in one way or another. But that wasn''t the case here, there was far too much to keep track of for that kind of thing. Though, judging from Shimour''s personality, he wouldn''t cause any particr trouble anyway.


    And so, he would have to focus on Kassandra and Orion; Kassandra, the Master of hand-to-handbat in particr seemed like the kind that could cause trouble. However, in regard to finding those two, Eiro had a benefit.


    He knew their footwork. They were Masters; it was practically impossible for them to not move in the perfect way unless they actively tried not to, but Eiro didn''t see any reason why they would do that. There was nobody in this city that could be a threat to them beside each other, so they didn''t have to be particrly careful of anything.


    Their footsteps stood out amongst the crowd, especially to Eiro, who had spent a lot of time trying to learn their martial arts.


    It was like trying to hear a specific droplet hit the ground after pouring a bucket of water on the ground, but Eiro''s done crazier things. And so, it didn''t take him long to single out the footsteps of Orion of Dagger Mastery.


    "That way," Eiro said, carefully guiding Lugo through the roads of the capital. Orion was actually moving quite fast, and seemed to be making his way through some tight crowds without even slowing down, but Eiro didn''t need to slow down either.


    The rainbow-haired man riding on a massive stag with gemstone-antlers... there wasn''t a person in thecapital that didn''t recognize him now. They all knew to step aside and let him through. That was certainly a benefit of being a noble, though Eiro didn''t like drawing that card too often.


    Either way, it helped him out in catching up to Orion very quickly.

 Chapter 734: Bloodlust

    Lugo trotted through the busy roads of the capital city. Eiro sat on his back, trying to make sure nobody could see that something was off with him.


    Though, maybe that was just some kind of anxiety; logically, Eiro knew that he had the level of control over his body that it was near impossible for others to see even the slightest difference, at least as long as he didn''t try to make any major movements.


    If he were to suddenly get into a highlyplex fist-fight with someone like Kassandra, then maybe that was going to be different, but especially just sitting on Lugo''s back it would be impossible for others to see.


    Well, maybe the masters would be able to tell, but that was something that Eiro could discuss with themter; he was quite curious to know exactly how his behaviour looked from the perspective of someone without the ''Ultimate Perception'' bestowed upon him by the Five of Pentacles.


    And, one of those masters was slowlying into sight in front of him. Orion of Dagger Mastery; the middle aged man was swiftly moving through the crowd as if he was jogging through an empty road. Of course, Eiro was also moving simrly, though not through swiftness or because Lugo was trying to avoid people. It was the other way around.


    The crowd was starting to mutter and talk, and Eiro was making an active effort to release just the right amount of an aura that these people could perceive so that they would pay attention to him and Lugo. The moment they''d notice them, they would step aside, letting Lugo move forward without having to slow down in the slightest.


    Eiro took a deep breath, infusing the air in his lungs with magic, as he started to speak with as much of that magical air as he could. The vibrations of his vocal cords and the further shaping through the shaping of his mouth and lips was carried into that magical air, and Eiro pushed that through the crowd.


    The wind carried a message from Eiro right to Orion, who heard what he had said and nced behind him.


    Seeing a man he didn''t know seated on top of the massive stag''s back was certainly surprising to him, especially considering that this man''s voice sounded familiar. Orion stopped walking for a moment and locked eyes with Eiro.


    And right then, a deep shiver came over the demon''s back; a wave of malice and bloodlust flowed out from Orion''s stare.


    Despite his fairly innocuous appearance, as he looked barely different from any other middle aged, slowly graying man you may see out and about in this city if you didn''t look too closely at the deeply defined muscles on his arms, just the slightest intent of malice made Orion seem utterly terrifying from Eiro''s point of view.


    Of course, fear wasn''t something that Eiro had to worry about anymore these days; it was a natural physical response and he knew how to ovee and control himself. Since he was manipting many of his bodily functions through magic in the first ce, such as the flow of his blood through his veins, Eiro could ensure that the instincts instilled in his body wouldn''t cause any issues.


    And mentally, Eiro was confident that he wasn''t going to fall victim even to a master''s attempt at intimidation.


    Though, while the Demon was safe from those intimidations, there was someone that wasn''t. Bavet.


    Lugo was fine; a master was able to determine who exactly they targeted, but from Orion''s perspective, Eiro and Bavet were one and the same entity, so they were both affected. Eiro quickly fused himself with as much of Bavet''s slime as he could. While he wasn''t able to manipte it in the same way that Bavet did, he could at least assist in keeping up the form that had already been given to it.


    But that wasn''t going to make everything better. Bavet still had control over arge amount of the slime, and he was clearly freaking out, so Eiro had just one thing that he could do. He ced his hand onto his chest, creating a barrier that protected Bavet''s core from anything and everything with the help of the invisibility potion, the Ace of Cups.


    Any of the parts of Bavet''s slime that were still exposed to Orion''s bloodlust were quickly absorbed by Eiro as he took control to keep its shape, letting Bavet slowly calm down.


    "Orion," Eiro said as Lugo carefully approached, "Would you mind apanying me? I''m currently looking for your friends."


    The Master frowned lightly as he heard Eiro''s voice, still trying to make sure if he was right. He only heard Eiro briefly during his exnation of events since after Shimour left the manor back then, but right now he was carrying himself quite differently so the way that he spoke and his intonations were different. The noble persona had to be a lot more dignified than what Eiro was usually like.


    "Sorry, but do I know you?" Orion finally asked, and Eiro let out a slightugh, nodding his head immediately in response.


    "Of course, is your eyesight really still so bad? I am Eiro, dear friend," the Demon exined, and Orion''s bloodlust was immediately released as he awkwardly stumbled over his own words.


    "Huh? Eiro, you- Oh, right..." Orion replied, nervously looking around at all the people that were staring. Or, were supposed to be staring. But somehow, they were all quickly moving on again as if Eiro and Orion suddenly disappeared. Now that he didn''t have to block the bloodlust, Eiro was able to use the invisibility potion to hide himself, Lugo, and Orion from the active perception of the crowd.


    They still walked around them, avoiding running into them, but none of them stared. It was almost as if they were actively trying not to stare.


    "I guess you really have learned a thing or two from Shimour..." Orion replied, but Eiro slowly shook his head with augh.


    "Sadly not quite. This is the Ace of Cups. I''m not nearly skilled enough to make this kind of thing happen without the potion''s assistance, but I''m trying to figure out ways to make it happen," Eiro exined, as Orion curiously looked him up and down.


    "Right, so... why do you look like that? Is that the aftermath of your ''Evolution''? That slime friend of yours mentioned that you initiated it."


    Eiro scoffed and shook his head, "No, definitely not. Evolutions at this point take months, and they''re quite impressive. And, frankly, I don''t believe I will end up looking like a simple man. From the changes to my body, I will most likely look less like one.


    Currently, Bavet, my ''slime friend'' is fused into my body and helps my transformation," the Demon quickly exined the situation to Orion, who curiously listened with his hands behind his back.


    "I see, I see. Well, why did you want to talk to me? Do you need help finding one of the others?"


    "Well, sort of. I would love your help finding Shimour, but I know some ways to just have him find me. I just want to talk to all of you about this city and your intentions here; I promised the King that I would make sure none of you cause trouble."


    Orion let out a slightugh that he was hiding behind his fist, "Cause trouble? We are not children, Eiro."


    "...When Partax arrived, he violently and loudly invaded the academy to find me during work. Which, in itself is excusable, but I assume that someone like you must have heard of the incident at the academyst year."


    The master''s heart skipped a beat as he awkwardly looked to the side, "I see what you mean, then... In that case, the ones you may most need to worry about would be Meshi and Kassandra. Meshi has no sense of private property and may find himself in ces he doesn''t belong, while Kassandra can get quite... aggressive. Shimour should be fine on his own, however."


    "Yeah... I figured. Frankly, I''m more worried about Kassandra right now. I''m already tracking Meshi''s mana, so I''ll find him in time, but Kassandra can cause trouble. And she hates me, so having one of you with me would make me feel a little safer."


    "I see. In that case, let us go. I already know where she should be."

 Chapter 735: Gambling

    Orion guided Eiro and Lugo along the roads of the capital, until finally, they reached a part of the city that was a lot more quiet. They no longer had to worry about the other people on the road as they were speaking.


    "What kind of person is Kassandra?" Eiro inquired. He had heard some rumours here and there, and of course, after meeting her in person, he managed to get some sort of grasp on her personality. Though of course, since she clearly despised Eiro, she probably acted a bit different to how she usually would around others.


    After a bit of contemtion while rubbing his chin, Orion seemed to find the right words, "She is... honest. She does what she wants, when she wants."


    "...That sounds like a fairly normal trait amongst masters. I mean, ones beside Armodeus, at least," Eiro pointed out, and Orion chuckled slightly as he nodded.


    "Armodeus is certainly very different to other awakened. He puts too much weight onto the fact that he is the owner of a card that boosts his dexterity; as his dexterity is directly rted to his craftsmanship, he has always assumed that he didn''t deserve the title of master, though that is obviously not the case," Orion exined, and Eiro inwardly agreed.


    That wasn''t even anything that Armodeus seemed to try and hide all that much. He actually almost joked about it every once in a while in a self-depricating manner, especially when the possibility of other mastersing by for a while was brought up.


    Orion breathed a quiet sigh as he continued to exin, "Frankly, Kassandra is probably on the whole other side of the spectrum. She is very headstrong and stubborn and doesn''t like to change her opinions. Even if she''s fighting something or someone and figures out that her initial tactic doesn''t work all too well, she will often refuse to change her approach and simply try to push through."


    Eiro raised his brow, "Well, I guess that does show in herbat technique. It''s pretty honest and straightforward. Simple, but refined. Though, it seems a lot calmerpared to how she acted when we met."


    "That is a quite good description," Orion nodded in agreement, She is a rather extreme person, and there is another specific area that her personality... ''shines'' in."


    As Orion said this with some apprehension in his voice, Eiro started to realise where they were going. He was able to sense Kassandra in a nearby building, surrounded by a crowd. For a short instant, he was almost worried that there was a fight going on, but as Eiro realised what that ce actually was, he looked at Orion with a slightly raised brow, "...Really?"


    The dagger master slowly nodded his head, and Eiro carefully ran his hand over Lugo''s head, "Mind letting me down?"


    The stag did as asked,ying down onto the ground so that the demon could easily climb down onto the ground without injuring himself identally. Eiro carefully pushed his legs off Lugo, "Thanks. We''ll be back soon, alright? Just wait out here. And let me know if something''s wrong."


    Lugo replied with a quick nod, moving overy down and nap next to the entrance for a while, as Eiro and Orion stepped into the building. The first thing that they could both see was the crowd that had formed, and the sound of a number of dice rolling.


    Eiro could hear a click of the tongue, "Ohe on! Not again!" Kassandra eximed loudly, mming her fist on the table in front of her. The man sitting across from her just smiled awkwardly.


    "If you want, we can put an end to this," he suggested, almost nervously from what Eiro could tell.


    "Oh hell no, we''re not going to stop until I make my money back!"


    The man''s heart skipped a beat, and Eiro slowly turned to Orion, "She''s a gambler?"


    "...And an incredibly unlucky one at that," Orion responded, and Eiro couldn''t help himself but sigh loudly. He stepped up behind the crowd. Usually, he would have made his way through without needing to do this, but right now, he didn''t want to take any risks.


    "Step aside," the demon said almostmandingly. Though nobles weren''t able to exert any direct influence within private businesses, aw that was established to protect the shop owners that had often been exploited and even sometimes bankrupted by the selfishness of the nobility, that didn''t mean that people didn''t appreciate the authority that the noble title held.


    And of course, there was no way that they wouldn''t recognize who Eiro was in this current form, he was far too conspicuous for that.


    The people of the smsall crowd turned around, immediately creating a small path for Eiro when they saw his rainbow hair. The Demon stepped up to the table that was now revealed to him. Kassandra was seated on one side, while a clearly stressed young man sat on the other, practically trying to do everything he coud not to upset the woman across from him.


    Though he didn''t seem like abatist, he seemed to have decent instincts.


    Kassandra turned toward Eiro and raised her brow, "Who are you?" she asked, and Eiro looked back at her as he listened to the surprised mutters of the people around him.


    "That''s Viscount Eiro Jura Daemonherz," the man exined with a slight bow, standing up to greet the prominent man in front of him. But Eiro just shook his head and held his hand forward to stop him, trying to let him stay seated.


    "It''s fine, there''s no need to be so formal. I''m just here to pick her up," the demon exined, slowly ncing at Kassandra, who now clearly realised who was standing there in front of her. The young man seemed a bit surprised by that, but also obviously didn''t mind that the woman would have to stop trying to win against him.


    Kassandra clicked her tongue as she looked up at Eiro, "And why exactly would I just go with you?"


    "Because there are a few more things to talk about, especially before you all go around making a mess of the city," Eiro exined calmly, but Kassandra quickly took it as a provocation.


    "What''s that supposed to mean?"


    "It means that you lost..." the demon nced at therge pile of coins at the young man''s side, all of them carrying Kassandra''s scent, "...a lot of money. And I don''t know how you will react when that amount goes over what you''re willing to lose."


    After immediately jumping up, Kassandra stared deep into Eiro''s eyes, "What, do you think I can''t win?"


    Eiro looked at the table. He knew the game, and it was a fairly simple one. Five dice were cast. The goal was to gather as many same faces as possible. Two same faces were worth ten points. Three were worth 100 points, four were worth 500, and five were worth 1000.


    These values would be multiplied by the actual face value of the dice series, meaning the absolute most amount of points you could get in a single round was 6000 points.


    You could re-roll any amount of dice to get a higher score, but if you failed to improve your score by getting another additional dice of the existing series, you would lose all points you got during that round and it was the next yer''s turn. The first to reach a pre-determined total points would win.


    "I don''t really have an opinion either way, but you seem to be on a losing streak," Eiro pointed out, and Kassandra stared at him, not hiding her hatred of him at all.


    "Losing streak? What, do you want to go against me?"


    "...I didn''t say that," Eiro replied, shaking his head, "I just want you toe with me."


    "Fine. If you beat me at the game, I''lle with you. First to... thirty thousand?"


    The demon raised his brow. He wasn''t totally sure how good of an idea that was, but he figured he could finish this quickly. Usually, a game to thirty thousand points would stretch out quite a bit. The young man quickly stood up from his seat, scooping the coins into a pouch, to make space for Eiro. The demon sat down in his stead.


    "Do you know the rules?" Kassandra asked, and Eiro carefully nodded his head. Without waiting for Eiro, Kassandra scooped the dice into the wooden cup that was used as a rolling-medium. She threw them out, and got a pair of 4''s. She took the other three dice, rolled them again, and got another 4. Taking the other two, she once more rolled them, getting lucky with another four.


    Kassandra grinned broadly as she leaned back in her seat, deciding to end the round for now.


    "2000 points, not bad for the first round," she pointed out, and Eiro silently nodded. He grabbed the dice and put them into the cup. There was actually one more rule, which Eiro would now be making actual use of.


    If you, at any point, got 5 dice with the same exact face, you could save those points and go again. But if you ''lost'' your points during that attempt, you would lose the one from the attempt before as well. Itwasn''t anything Eiro had to worry about, though. He hesitated for a moment, before looking over to the side. He pointed at the young man that had just yed against Kassandra until now.


    "I need you to roll for me," the demon said, and the man raised his brows confused.


    "Excuse me?"


    "Just do it. Who knows what he''s up to?" Kassandra scoffed with a smug grin on her face, but Eiro was really just doing this for a very simple reason. So that Kassandra wouldn''t be able toin. Though, he was about to cheat, so she had every right to.


    The man rolled the dice for Eiro. Five sixes. Taken aback, Kassandra looked up at Eiro, who simply said one word.


    "Again."


    The man rolled the five dice once more, and quickly got five sixes, just like before, though he did everything as he usually did.


    "Again," Eiro repeated, not moving his eyes away from Kassandra. The results were the same three more times, and the Demon slowly stood up.


    "That''s thirty thousand. Nowe," Eiro said, walking back toward Orion, who was waiting by the door. Kassandra seemed to be just silently staring at the dice that wereid out on the table, not sure what exactly just happened. She wasn''t even able to protest; she knew there was no fouly at hand. Neither mana nor sleight of hands, she knew that for sure.


    Though, of course, Kassandra didn''t know that Eiro could manipte Chaos and Order. And what else was luck than a little chaos?

 Chapter 736: Across the Rooftops

    "What the hell kind of trick did you use?" Kassandra rushed after Eiro as the demon carefully climbed back onto Lugo. As the stag stood up, Eiro looked down at her.


    "I''m just quite lucky."


    "Oh, fuck that! You did something, so what was it? Do you have some sort of gambling skill? Are you a Gambler Imp?"


    The demon turned his head toward her, locking eyes with her, "Be careful with what you say."


    "Shut up, I don''t care! Just tell me how you cheated! I didn''t see any mana, and it''s impossible for you to have manipted the dice otherwise... unless you stopped time, did you stop time? You have that card, don''t you?"


    Eiro let out a long sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He could feel his nasal bones give in under his light grasp, like firm y. He could take a look at thatter, but for now, Bavet fixed the damage so that there was no visual difference to his face. He already wasn''t particrly attractive, so messing up his nose randomly wouldn''t do well for how others perceived him.


    "If I tell you, will you be quiet and follow along withoutining for once?"


    "Who do you think you are to tell me what to do? Just tell me if you don''t want me to snap your neck," Kassandra threatened with a light grin. Of course, she would be able to do that with ease, even if Eiro weren''t weakened by his evolution. But it still made Eirough quietly.


    "You really think snapping my neck is enough to kill me?" he asked, an amused expression on his face. Shivers ran over Kassandra''s back, not because she felt threatened, but because that almost ridiculing grin on Eiro''s lips. As if the idea was nothing more than a joke to him.


    "...Fine, then I''ll rip out your heart or something."


    "Oh, I don''t have a heart anymore. I dissolved its muscles into my veins and use magic to control the flow of blood," Eiro said bluntly, leaving both Kassandra and Orion taken aback.


    "Excuse me?" Orion asked, not sure if he heard right.


    The Demon raised his brow, "I''ve also ced a mirror of duplication into my eye, and am working on sectioning off parts my stomach and turn it into a potion and venom container," Eiro exined, manipting the air around him so that only the two people walking beside him and Lugo could hear what he said.


    "That... how is that even possible? What the hell are you?" looking up at the demon and his casual smile, Kassandra felt more and more unease creep up on her.


    Eiro turned away, replying simply, "Ask me in three months."


    ---


    The air flowed over the man''s short-buzzed hair as he jumped across the rooftops of the city, ncing around to learn the environment and the routes and paths of the city.


    "So boring..." Meshi clicked his tongue. The architecture of the capital city really was more than boring. Sure, aesthetically, it may be quite beautiful, but aesthetics weren''t the sort of thing that he cared about. Everything was far too simple and uniform.


    There was some variation in height, but even then, all the buildings were straightforward and wouldn''t be a challenge to even a child attempting to scale them.


    On the other hand, there was an area that seemed rather interesting, though he had promised to stay away. The academy and royal castle. The academy in particr was a ce he had to stay away from, as Partax and that demon boy had only recently installed some new security system all over the campus. Even Meshi wouldn''t be able to get in there without triggering something.


    Being inconspicuous wasn''t necessarily his strong suit.


    "Hm, maybe if I get Shimour''s help, I could get inside," he muttered to himself, seated on a chimney while looking at that wonderful structure in the distance. The tall, winding towers, the rounded andplex roofs and the wide distances between some of the buildings. It seemed like a fun environment to run around.


    Actually, maybe running through the academy while trying to avoid the security system would make it all a lot more exciting.


    Meshi''s heart almost skipped a few beats at the idea, and a smile formed on his face as he jumped off the chimney, "A little jumping around wouldn''t hurt... Partax will forgive me if I apologiseter, right?"


    Just as Meshi took a step forward, his foot already halfway along the way to the roof on the other side of the road, he noticed something. An unusual whistle of wind. Curiously, he turned around and looked into the direction of where it wasing from.


    His senses may not be able topare to someone like Jura''s, or even that Eiro boy, but in order to do whatever he wanted as freely as he wanted, he needed to develop the senses to make this possible.


    And with those powerful eyes and ears of his, he spotted what looked like a small bird, fluttering around the rooftops with a high speed. And at the same time, the way it was moving was very clearly along the path that he just took to get here. It was even able to follow along with his blinking, and not just his regr movements.


    "Interesting... a little someone is trying to follow me, huh?" Meshi grinned, looking at the quickly-approaching bird with deep curiosity, "Let''s see how well you can do."


    With a quick but casual step forward, Meshi blinked across the road,nding on the other rooftop. With smooth motions and a single quick hop, he moved over to the next building. Every step brought him to another street, to another building. Across the rooftops and through the shops and stables and open door and ajar windows. Meshi rushed through the city excitedly.


    Of course, what excited him still wasn''t the city itself or the jumping and running he was doing, but seeing how well that little bird was following after him. He continued moving around, trying to see how far he could push his curious pursuer.


    Meshi nced back behind himself, trying to see if the bird was closing in the distance, when suddenly, he ran into something. Confused and taken aback, Meshi stared forward, seeing the soft hue of a magical barrier in front of him. It definitely wasn''t there just a moment ago, so what was going on?


    Looking around, Meshi noticed something interesting. A rainbow-haired man sitting atop a massive stag with crystal antlers, apanied by two of his friends, Orion and Kassandra.


    "Oh?" he let out, jumping down toward them. The alley was otherwisepletely empty, and all of them were looking up at him, as if they knew where he was going to be.


    "What a coincidence!" Meshi said with a broad smile as he looked at the other two masters, "Who''s your friend?"


    "Eiro. It''s a disguise," Orion quickly exined, and the freerunner raised his brows surprised.


    "That''s a pretty good disguise!"


    "Yeah, it''s Bavet. The slime you guys met. We''re fused right now," Eiro exined, stretching his hand forward as the small bird servant made of airnded on his finger, "Anyway, it would be great if you coulde with us, there are a few things that I would like to talk to you about."


    Meshi looked Eiro up and down, ncing at the bird, "How did you do that? Making it follow me, I mean. But also, how did you know where I would be?"


    Eiro turned his hand, making the bird hop onto his palm, as he closed his fist around it. He dissolved the servant back into his body, "It''s something I created. I sent it to follow after your mana that you''ve been leaving scattered around all over the ce. Obviously I knew it wouldn''t be able to catch up to you, but that wasn''t really the point.


    Through it, I could tell exactly how you were moving around the city. From that, predicting where you would end up when was the easy part."


    "Huh," Meshi grinned, "So you were able to see a pattern in my movement?"


    Eiro nodded his head, replying bluntly, "Of course, why wouldn''t I? Everyone has a pattern or two, habits that they fall back on. Nothing in this world is truly random, and everything can be seen through. Even if it''s a master."

 Chapter 737: Shameless

    Meshi stared back at Eiro, not sure what to say. His movements were seen through? Nobody has ever been able to guess at where he would move, at where he would go when he took even a single step forward. But this demon was able to not only predict exactly where he would go, but actually manipte Meshi''s path?


    "Interesting... so interesting," the master said with an enormous grin on his face, unable to hide his excitement, "How did you do that? Can you see the future? There was a card with some irvoyance ability, right?"


    Eiro looked back at Meshi, repeating himself, "It''s as I just said. I figured out your pattern. My senses are already strong enough to let me sense magic to a degree, and together with Gondos, whose perception is particrly high amongst the spirits I contracted, I was able to see it perfectly.


    I sent a servant to follow along the path of mana you left behind like a bloodhound, and then I tracked that servant''s position. The rest after that was pretty simple."


    "...You can seriously predict things to that degree?" Kassandra asked, not sure if she should believe the demon''s words.


    "Of course," Eiro replied in a blunt voice, "I can predict how many steps you will take until we''re back at the manor; how many breaths you''ll take, how many times your heart will beat. The words about toe out of your mouth."


    "Stop being such a-" ¨C " ''Stop being such a showoff'', right?"


    Kassandra stared back at Eiro, feeling unease as his voice entered his ears. Her heartbeat sped up, but whether it was out of anxiety, excitement, or anger was something that Eiro didn''t really know. Predicting actions was one thing; predicting thoughts was another.


    "Well... how are we going to find Shimour, now?" Orion wondered, seeing that Kassandra was starting to get a bit tense. Eiro looked around.


    "Truthfully, I assumed he was already nearby," the Demon pointed out, and a slightugh sounded out from behind him.


    "You''re ridiculous. You know that, right?" Shimour scoffed, looking at the Demon with a broad smile, "I won''t get sick of this. It''s actually quite fun having someone that can see through you that easily for once."


    "I''m d you think that way. Many others would get upset," Eiro responded, as Shimour nced at the stag that Eiro was seated on.


    "So, what''s this all about? Why are you riding around on some deer?"


    Eiro turned toward him as he ran his hand over Lugo''s head, as the stag turned around with a slight bellow, "He''s not ''some deer''. He''s been my familiar for seven years. His name is Lugo."


    "A familiar, huh?" Orion muttered, "I''ve been wondering about that for a while."


    Kassandra crossed her arms and looked up at the demon, "Right, but why are you riding on him? Are you trying to look ''ssy'', or show-... or brag?"


    "No, my body is currently being broken apart. With every word I say, the muscles around my mouth tear and repair themselves. My bones are growing brittle, and my skin is detaching from my flesh. I can feel the constant vibrations of the carapace on my lower back cracking, almost recing what would have been my heartbeat in the past," Eiro exined.


    The only reason he was doing it so openly was because they were here in this empty side alley. He could tell that there was nobody around, and the only ones that would hear him were the ones that he wanted to hear him, "As you were already told by Bavet, I''m going through my next evolution. It will finish three months from now.


    And it''s a rough one; I can imagine my body will be even weaker not too long from now."


    "...Then how are we supposed to train you?" Kassandra asked, and Eiro looked at her with a raised brow. The way she acted, Eiro expected her to end up resisting the idea of teaching him a bit more, though he really didn''t mind, obviously.


    "Well, it''s obvious. After the phase of my deconstruction, my body will reconstruct itself as well. If I''m breaking down so rapidly and strongly, the other way around should be rather extreme as well," Eiro exined, "Though I doubt I will be able to attend with my main body at that time, I can create a duplicate and have him attend in my stead.


    Due to my abilities as ''The World'', my body can reconstitute itself based on what I observe. It should actually be much more effective than any other type of training, even if my skills may not level up during this time."


    The four masters looked at each other, trying to see what they were all thinking. Eiro wasn''t aware what it was they spoke about while he was asleep, but it was clear that they had made some ns already. Whether or not the effects of Eiro''s evolution were going to change that was something that the demon couldn''t decide for them.


    If they chose to leave and not train Eiro, then he would ept that and find some other solution. But if they chose to stay, then he was going to take advantage of it as much as he possibly could.


    "We... should speak about thister, still. But is this why you were looking for us?" Shimour asked, though he could already guess that there was more to this.


    Eiro quickly shook his head, "No. We''re going to head to the royal castle and have an audience with the king."


    "...Excuse me?" unsure if he heard correctly, Shimour looked up at Eiro, "And why would we do that?"


    "I''ve been causing him quite some trouble; the least I can do is introduce him to some powerful people," Eiro exined, "You remember the dragon fromst time, right? He''s actually the king''s familiar."


    Curiously, Shimour raised his brow, "Oh? I wouldn''t mind meeting that man."


    "Wait, wait, a dragon? Like, a real dragon?" Meshi asked, an excited smile on his face, "Are we going to see one? It''s been a while since I''ve seen one!"


    "No, Lognir should be in hisir. But I could ask Solomon to call him over sometime, if you all choose to stick around. I could introduce you to his mate, Krista, as well," Eiro suggested. He didn''t know exactly how much this would do, but sweetening the deal to have them stay wasn''t a bad idea.


    While they were clearly thinking things through individually for a while, Eiro started leading them to the gates of the royal castle. The moment the guards saw him and Lugo approach, they opened the gates. They didn''t even try to stop the four that were apanying him, something that seemed to confuse the masters quite a bit.


    "The security is... surprisinglyx," Orion pointed out, ncing around the interior of the castle walls as Lugo came to a stop. The stagid down to let Eiro get off, as the Demon looked back at the dagger master.


    "No, not really. They just don''t bother to try and stop me froming and going anymore," he exined with a smile.


    "Coming and going? From the royal castle?" Meshi asked, surprised. As Lugo started walking off to wait at the stables, bellowing smugly while walking past the castle guards, Eiro carefully climbed the stairs in front of the castle''s main doors.


    "The king and I are rather close."


    "Yeah, but it''s the royal castle," not sure what to expect, Shimour and the others followed Eiro, as he carefully walked through the halls. The guards and servants bowed to him, but nobody dared stop him or even questioned what he was doing here. They simply moved on without minding him all too much.


    And then, the group made their way to an inconspicuous door, that Eiro pushed open without a moment''s hesitation. The man inside flinched and looked up from his pile of work. He jumped up from his seatand looked at the demon nervously.


    "Eiro! Thank the gods, you''re awake!" Solomon eximed, a smile quick on his face, "Armodeus came and updated me that everything worked out well, but when I hadn''t heard from you directly, I was worried that..."


    Finally noticing who stood in the doorway behind Eiro, the king straightened his back, "...Come in first."


    Though, Solomon didn''t even have to say it, as the Demon made his way inside and dropped down on one of the couches, "Hell took a lot more out of me than I had thought. But it''s alright. I''ll be fine. I will fill you inter, but for now, you have some people to meet."


    Shimour looked around the room, walking up to Solomon with augh to lift the mood, "Oh, I thought we''d go to meet the king right away. But you brought us to his secretary? For a moment there, I thought you just barged into a king''s study without another word, but I guess even you wouldn''t do that, huh?"


    Solomon''s eye twitched as he stared over at Eiro. Clearly, Solomon had gotten quite used to the situation already, but now that it was pointed out to him, it did feel quite weird. He let out a loud groan and rubbed the bridge of his nose.


    Confused, not sure if he said something wrong, Shimour looked back at Eiro, "Erm... is he not the secretary?"


    Eiroughed slightly, shaking his head. As the door finally closed behind Orion, Bavet slipped off Eiro and turned himself into a snake, wrapping itself around the Demon''s shoulders. The slime quickly exined, "No, that man is the King himself, Solomon Sigurd Skyhart. Eiro is just that shameless."

 Chapter 738: Introduction

    Eiro''s body sunk into the couch, as if his muscles themselves were settling and starting to drop the moment he tried to rx them. Solomon dropped down next to him, while Kassandra, Orion and Shimour sat down on the couch across from them. Meshi seemed to prefer standing, so he stood behind the other masters.


    "Again, I''m sorry for the assumption... I just didn''t think that even someone like Eiro would juste barging in here," Shimour exined, and Solomon turned his head toward the demon beside him.


    "Yes, well... I just got used to it," the king pointed out with a long sigh, turning back to the four people across from him, "So? Who are you four? I assume that Eiro didn''t just grab some random people off the road and reveal that he''s a demon."


    Kassandra scoffed, ring at Eiro, "For a thing like that, he really does a good job at hiding his identity, huh?"


    Eiro sighed lightly, "They''re the masters that I invited, I figured I woulde introduce you to them. Shimour was already herest time, when you sent Lognir toe check on me. That rude elf is Kassandra, who mastered hand-to-handbat. To her left is Orion, the master of dagger mastery. And behind those three is Meshi, the master of freerunning."


    The demon could hear Solomon''s heartbeat speed immensely. Adrenaline was starting to flow through him and he was sweating heavily. With a slight sigh, Eiro infused his breath with some magics that he used to envelop the king. It was mostly healing magic with some mental interference that would slow Solomon''s heartbeat and help his nervousness.


    Realising what happened, Solomon nced over for a moment, but soon focused back onto the masters, "I see. It is a pleasure to meet you four. So you four will be training Eiro?"


    "That was the n, at least," Meshi replied, leaning onto the back of the couch "But he can barely walk, let alone train."


    "What?" Solomon stared at the demon again, but Eiro just sighed and shook his head.


    "No, the Devil didn''t injure me. I''m undergoing evolution right now. Again, I''ll fill you inter. Now stop looking back and forth or you''re going to break your own neck," Eiro exined, "I brought them here because each of those guys is basically the military force of a country. Considering the trouble Partax caused, you shouldn''t be left out of the loop."


    "I do appreciate that," the king responded with some slight relief in his voice. Relief that came both from the fact that Eiro wasn''t injured, and that there was no deeper intent behind the introduction of the four masters. Eiro''s ns were somewhat hard to see through, so whenever he did something like this that seemed a bit weird, Solomon''s anxiety skyrocketed.


    Before he could say anything else, Orion spoke up.


    "While I understand the general concern, there is little need to actually worry. We are all quite responsible, luckily," Orion exined with a slight chuckle, but Eiro couldn''t help himself but scoff.


    "Seriously? Meshi was considering breaking into the academy grounds and running around the buildings."


    The moment Eiro said this, Orion, Shimour, and Kassandra turned around and looked at the man standing behind them, "Seriously?" Kassandra asked, and Meshi awkwardly looked away.


    "O-Of course not!" Meshi responded nervously, making the truth clearly visible to anyone. After a few more stares, Meshi stared at Eiro confused, "How did you even know that? Am I really that predictable?"


    "I''m not stupid, I know what the academy would look like to someone with your running habits. I also trained with your techniques, remember?" Eiro sighed loudly, "Jura gifted me a puppet with chips that had your skills ingrained in them. He visited you all for those, right?"


    "Ah... I do remember that happening," Kassandra let out, "I didn''t think he was serious about that. But you really trained with our techniques already?"


    "Yes, hence why I want to learn more from you. Your techniques are the basis of all mybat habits. Right, Shimour?" Eiro asked, and therge master of stealth slowly nodded, remembering the short battle they had thest time he came to visit.


    "It''s true. Of course, he''s less refined and not as powerful when just looking at those techniques individually, but he can make up for it with his versatility and ability tobine different techniques together almost perfectly," Shimour exined, looking over at Kassandra and Orion, "Rather, he''s better at using your techniques than either of you is at using the other''s."


    Both of the fighters looked at each other, turning back to Eiro.


    "Is that so?" Orion asked, the intention behind his stare being clear as day. Simrly, Kassandra''s fighting spirit was awakened as these twobat-maniacs stared at the demon in front of them with clear curiosity.


    Eiro rolled his eyes, "You''ll get to see it during training. Rather, since I''ll have to alter my duplicates quite a bit anyway, I can make each of them perfectly suited to only your techniques so you can really see just how good I am at using them."


    At this point, just seeing their expressions and curiosity, Eiro was sure that he had at least three of these four masters in the bag.


    Even if they only taught him for a couple hours total, it would be worth it having them around; Eiro was already deeply memorising the exact way that each of their muscles moved at the slightest things so that he could make his body adapt to it during ater stage of his evolution.


    The only issue now was Shimour; of course, he had already agreed to teach Eiro before, but the situation was quite different then. While Eiro was sure Shimour wouldn''t necessarily go back on his word considering the personality he has been disying, it was also clear that Shimour wasn''t as trustworthy as he seemed.


    He was the master of stealth. Of hiding himself. If someone could hide their whole existence from the world, then it was easy enough to hide one''s true intentions and thoughts, even from someone like Eiro.


    Of course, from his behaviour until now, Eiro had no reason to believe that he was lying or had some bigger scheme in mind, but it wasn''t possible to be a master of a skill like stealth without hiding things or lying about them. Rather, Eiro knew for a fact that there was something Shimour was hiding. He knew that there were gaps somewhere, that something was off.


    Eiro''s whole body was screaming that this was the case, but he didn''t know what it was.


    It could be a scar on his cheek that he didn''t like the look of. It could also be a weapon that he was carrying with him at all times. Or, and this was the worst case scenario, it could be psychopathic habitsand behaviour. Again, Eiro couldn''t know yet.


    He might never know, but it was enough to put Eiro a bit on edge around him, despite the fact that he seemed the most reasonable out of the masters that he had met, excluding Armodeus of course. Even Jura was a bit of a weird guy, all things considered.


    "We can discuss thatter, I''m sure," Shimour pointed out with a smile, looking at Solomon, "I''m sure it would be better to have a proper conversation with you, your Majesty. It looks like we will be staying for a while, and seeing how close you are to Eiro, this surely won''t be thest time we meet."


    Solomon slowly nodded his head, "I doe to visit Eiro sometimes. Things have just been a bit stressful recently; international tensions and such. I wanted toe and check up on everyone after the battle, but things have been especially chaotic since-" the king pointed out, seemingly putting something together in his mind.


    He carefully and slowly turned his head back to the demon next to him, "Hey, Eiro?"


    "...Yes?"


    "Was the Devil trying to start a war against us?"


    Eiro slowly turned away; or at least, he tried. The muscles in his neck had molten awkwardly, making it a bit hard for him to do. While he repaired his flesh, Eiro was forced to just stare forward awkwardly for a while, seeing Solomon''s expression in his periphery.


    But in the end, there was only one thing that came to Eiro''s mind that he felt he could say, "Well... he''s not anymore."

 Chapter 739: Chrysalis

    "Please, next time, give me a bit of a warning before bringing literally four masters here, will you?" Solomon let out a long, deep sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose to try and calm down his stress-headache. The demon looked at him with a slightugh.


    "Sorry about that, I just figured you''d like to meet them since they''re likely to stay in the area for a while. They''re probably going to cause a couple of issues here and there, but I''ll be trying what I can to stop anything major from happening."


    "...I would appreciate that, thanks," the king let out a long sigh, before ncing over at Eiro, "But really, how are you supposed to be taught by them if you can''t even... walk? You''re even sitting weirdly."


    Eiro thought about it for a moment. He wasn''t sure exactly how much he should tell Solomon, but he figured there wouldn''t be a problem with just telling him exactly what his n was, "Well, from the way things are going, it looks like Arcanus sort of work a bit differently than imps do in regard to their evolution."


    "...In what way?"


    "Hm... do you know what ''Chrysalis'' is?" Eiro asked, and Solomon raised his brows surprised.


    "Of course I do... are you going to enter a coon?"


    The demon quickly nodded, "It does look that way. My body is breaking down in a way that I can''t imagine anything else, and it looks like I''ll have to figure out how to create a coon within the next couple of days.


    I can already feel the structure of my stinger changing, it looks like that''s where I''ll be secreting the coon''s substance from," Eiro exined, "And then, once I''m inside, my body will liquify and my new body will form. It''s actually not totally umon for higher tier monsters to have this sort of evolution, especially demons. We have a surprising amount of insectoid traits."


    Solomon nervously looked at his friend, "Will your mind be okay?"


    Eiro quickly nodded, "Of course. I haven''t noticed any changes to my nervous system. Well, I guess that''s not true, I''ve been feeling a bit numb all over, but the changes aren''t going to be same. I assume my nerves will be a bit more sensitive after my evolution, but that''s really it. I should be able to stay conscious throughout so that I canplete my training."


    "How will you train from your coon, then?" Solomon asked, not sure if he was really following. Eiro smiled, somewhat excited.


    "So, one of my abilities I attained after I became the World was Ability Absorption. Of course, I don''t directly absorb abilities, it''s more metaphorical than that ¨C I can adapt my bodies to match the physical abilities of those I watch. The more I watch them, the more those changes happen, and the more my body bes able to use those things.


    It''s down to the point where I can basically copy muscle memory, though it''s still a bit different than that, of course," Eiro exined, "So, while I am within my coon, I am going to create some duplicates.


    Each of those duplicates will train with one of the masters, and since my consciousness ispletely connected to theirs, I can have my body adjust to the way the masters move and the way my duplicates train, which should boost the results of my physical reconstruction quite a bit."


    Solomon listened to Eiro''s exnation, cing his index finger and thumb onto his chin in thought, "I see... That does seem like it would work, doesn''t it? But what about emergencies, I thought your duplicates can''t get too far away from you."


    The Demon quickly nodded, "Right, of course. In usual cases that is definitely true. But I got the Author''s Pen after killing the Devil. Using that, it''s possible to strengthen certain effects of a card if done right, and luckily I have Partax with me to help me figure out how. I should be able to at least boost the range quite a bit, at least for the duration of my time in the coon.


    At the very least for emergencies within the capital, I will be avable. But even if we can''t increase the range somehow... there are literally seven masters living in my home. Well, Koperia is more of a part-time roommate, but you get the gist of what I''m saying, right?"


    With a slightugh, the king nodded his head, "Yeah, you''re right. There''s no way anything could threaten either the capital or your home while that is happening, huh?"


    With augh, Eiro agreed, "Right? As long as the Monster King himself doesn''t attack, that is."


    "...Please don''t even joke about that," Solomon shuddered, and Eiro smiled awkwardly.


    "Sorry. But anyway, that''s the n right now. I didn''t expect the evolution to be this rough either; I mean, thest one was already pretty tough, so I expected this one to be a bit easier on me. Last time I became apletely different species..." Eiro sighed lightly, and Solomon frowned lightly as he remembered something rted to that.


    "Speaking of... you went to hell, right?" Solomon asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Did you be a... lord?"


    "Mhm. I had an audience with the Demon King and was given the position of a Demon Lord. I have a territory in hell now. Actually, I can probably create a gateway there right now, if you''d like to take a look," Eiro suggested, holding forward his hand, just waiting for permission. And Solomon actually seemed to be considering it, but he ended up shaking his head, denying the opportunity.


    Eiro couldn''t me him; even if it was rtively safe since he would be with Eiro, what sane person would excitedly go to hell? Actually, there might be a few individuals like that, but Eiro wasn''t necessarily nning on engaging with those.


    "Maybe some other time. But does that give you any other abilities? Powers?"


    Eiro shrugged, "It gives me a certain amount of control over all demonkind, and absolute dominion over all my direct subjects. Meaning, all other Arcani."


    Solomon''s eyes widened, "Wait, there''s more-"


    "No, there''s not. I''m the only Arcanus, at least for the time being. Who knows, I might figure out how to create more in the future, but currently that''s not the case," Eiro exined, "Whenever a new species of demons came to be in the past, the Demon King had birthed the first generation all at once.


    They would then live within hell for a while, killing each other quickly and reproducing even faster, until one showed itself exemry enough to deserve being crowned a lord, and then that was that. For me, it was different. Because I was never a descendant of the Demon King in the first ce, as all other demons are, my legendary evolution allowed me to be a whole new species.


    And since every species of demon has a lord, being the only demon of my species and strong enough to deserve the title of lord, that''s just what happened."


    "So... what''s the benefit to being a Demon Lord?"


    "The fuck do I know? It definitely doesn''t hurt, you know. I mean, it gives me a direct link to hell, meaning I have an infinite supply of unholy energy, simrly to how I have the spirit gateways. And it does give me an immense boost for any unholy magics that I do in the future, plus an increase in the efficiency of any proper demonology I will try to work with."


    "Eiro, please don''t summon any demons into my kingdom," Solomon said in a pleading tone, but Eiro just shook his head.


    "That wasn''t my n, don''t worry. That''s not the only thing demonology can do. Though, I might summon a few demons into the Monster Town to try and see how well I can get rid of their monstrosity. Though I don''t have high hopes, most demons are kind of... yuck."


    Solomon scoffed, "Did you just say ''yuck''?"


    "...Avalin''s been using that word a lot recently, it''s not my fault."


    "Right, right," Solomon smiled, "Either way, if there''s anything big happening in the future, please do keep me more informed, alright? And not just because I''m the king, but because I''m your friend. You''re my greatest benefactor at this point, there is no way I wouldn''t be concerned for you and the things that happen to and around you."


    Eiro smiled, nodding, "I will do my best to keep you better informed in the future. Though, that does remind me... I''ve been hoping to start working out some level of trade between the Monster Town and the capital. Nothing major, but I''ve recently taken in some... people.


    They obviously require different care from the monsters for the time being until things adjust a bit more, especially in regard to food and clothing."


    Solomon leaned back curiously, "You''ve taken in people?"


    "Yes, I hadn''t gone into much detail because the situation was somewhat unexpected, but I told you about the refugees from the vige that the Devil was controlling, right?


    While I ced some of them into the vige you told me about, the rest have chosen to migrate into the monster town," Eiro exined, but before Solomon could worry, he continued, "They''re all currently in a separate area and are being protected by Gobo and the others. Nothing will happen to them, and they all chose to stay in the monster town, even after I exined the situation to them.


    I even showed them my true identity."


    Solomon was surprised, but not shocked, "Well... we can certainly have some items prepared, but it would be better if some of your monsterse to pick them up. Nobody else knows about the existence of the town yet, and I don''t want my men to interfere with your ns."


    "That''s perfect. I''ll have to go visit the town, then," Eiro said with a smile, pushing himself off the couch. Solomon''s eyes widened, staring at what was left on the cushions. The demon clicked his tongue.


    He picked up the skin of his hand that had slipped off his flesh like a full glove, "Sorry, that got loose earlier."

 Chapter 740: Habit

    "You sure you''ll be fine?" James crossed his arms, looking at Eiro as he sat on Lugo''s back. With a scoff, the Demon looked down at him.


    "Are you serious? You''re worried about me?"


    "Can''t really me me. You''re losing... chunks everywhere you go. If it weren''t for your flesh magic, you''d bepletely broken apart by now," the elf pointed out, but Eiro couldn''t help but simply shrug.


    "While that may be the case, you don''t have to be concerned. I know my limits better than anyone. I will return to the manor well before it''s time for me to enter the next phase of my evolution," Eiro exined, but James didn''t seem particrly convinced.


    "Whatever. As long as you''re sure, what do I care?" letting out a loud groan, he turned around while running his hand through his hair, "But seriously, take it easy for once. We just came back from doing something absolutely insane and you''re already plotting the next big thing, right?"


    The demon grinned, raising a brow, "I don''t know why I''m so surprised. You know what I''m like better than most, huh?"


    "Oh just shut it and get going," James sighed, walking up the steps in front of the manor as Eiro and Lugo got moving. It was the middle of the night, and Eiro was nning on already heading back around noon the next day, so there wasn''t much need to say goodbye to everyone. He just brought Avalin and Leon to bed and then told the others he might not make lunch the next day.


    Of course, since they were all clearly concerned for him, as nobodybut the two youngest had missed Eiro''s current condition,theywould prefer for him to stay home, but he assured them that this was something he had to do. He probably wouldn''t be able to visit the monster town for a while once he entered his coon, after all.


    Lugo was moving fast over the roads of the capital''s outer circle, and it didn''t take them long to reach the outer walls. It would be annoying to wait for the guards to open the gates up, so instead, Lugo simply decided to jump over the walls. It was a low hurdle for him at this point.


    Without taking the ''Ultimate Agility'' that Eiro recently gained into ount, and without any special spells, Lugo could probably run faster than Eiro could. Of course, the Demon could fly at incredible speeds and with the help of different spells, Lugo was no match for him, but Eiro could simply use those spells on Lugo instead now.


    With that, it was possible for the two to reach the monster town incredibly fast, speeding through the paths and roads, jumping over cliffs and narrow woods that might slow them down. And so, before Eiro even knew it, him and his familiar stood before the monster town''s entrance.


    Instead of being blocked by just some boulder, it was nowpletely disguised with illusion magic that Eiro and Partax had worked together to permanently deploy here.


    The Demon was able to open the gates with just a flick of his wrist, and he announced his presence to the guards with three simple words.


    "I am back," Eiro said, his voice carrying through the tunnel that led to the outskirts of the monster town. He moved past the bowing guards and soon got out on the other side. This ce that used to be the mines had been practically depleted at this point, so it had instead been turned into a sort of ''reception'' for visitors.


    Though, it was mostly just a military base for the guards that were protecting the territory''s main gates. Beyond that, this ce was also partially repurposed as a sort of temporary jail where monsters that couldn''t deal with their monstrosity were kept, but it wasn''t openly visible.


    There was a space created a bit deeper within the mines where those monsters were isted while more attempts at suppressing their monstrosity were made.


    Lugo kept rushing through the territory, soon running down the road toward the main town, only slowing down once he got to the more busy roads. Most monsters were currently sleeping, though some of them were still roaming around the roads, fraternizing beyond the boundaries of their species, exactly as Eiro was hoping they would do.


    "Bavet, you''re free to go and do your own thing," Eiro said once Lugo finally slowed down enough, and the slime carefully slithered off the demon''s skin, trying not to pull it off his flesh.


    "You sure ''bout that?"


    With a sigh, Eiro replied, "You heard what I said to James earlier, I can take care of myself quite well."


    The slime, in his snake form, hissed slightly, "If you say so. Just call for me when you''re done."


    Bavet slithered onto Lugo''s back, using the stag''s antlers to get to a higher position before jumping off and flying away as a falcon. The demon continued to guide Lugo over to the town hall.


    Luckily at this point, most of the doorways had been reced to allow even the trolls to freely move around any building with high enough ceilings to aodate them, so Lugo was able to apany Eiro inside instead of having to wait outside on the road. Of course the demon cleaned his hooves before then, though.


    Lugo tiredly walked over to a spot in the corner of the room, rolling up to take a nap while Eiro was taking care of his business.


    Eiro made his way through the town hall. Mostly everyone seemed to be asleep, with the exception ofone of them. Frankly, the one who should be sleeping most of all.


    "Boju," Eiro stepped into the Hignd Orc''s office, where the blue-skinned young man quickly jumped up from his seat.


    "My lord!" he let out, clearly not expecting him to suddenly walk through the door, slightly bowing his head, but Eiro quickly shook his head.


    "Just stay seated. Why are you still working at this time of day?" Eiro asked, slightly frowning. Heslowly walked up closer to the desk, ncing at the paperwork that was there, "...You''ve made a lot more progress than we''ve discussed."


    The orc nervously lowered his gaze, nodding in response to Eiro''s statement, "I... There were a lot of things that I need to prepare, my lord. With the addition of those humans on the town outskirts, tensions have been a bit high. Some of the monsters are struggling to hold back their monstrosity.


    I''ve been trying to figure out a n to have some of them go back to have it suppressed again, but the ones that we tried it with don''t seem to show any results."


    Eiro slightly raised his brow. Monstrosity definitely wasn''t the issue. All different ''forces'' had a distinct smell to them. Mana, Life Force, and Monstrosity, to name the three major ones that Eiro dealt with. Monstrosity reeked disgustingly like the worst sewage you could ever think of.


    And now that Eiro had increased his perception stat a bit more, depite the fact that his body was breaking down, Eiro was able to say with certainty that the general stink of monstrosity in the air wasn''t higher than before; it was lower.


    Monstrosity was like a muscle. The less it was stimted, the more it atrophied. The initial suppression of monstrosity through those special cors that Eiro prepared were just the start. It would get the monstrosity to a point where the monsters were able to live without being controlled by it, and as they lived their lives, the rest would inevitably shrivel up.


    It would never fully disappear just like that, but it would weak to a negligible point.


    "The problem isn''t their monstrosity. It''s their mind," Eiro pointed out with a slight sigh. He sat down on a nearby chair, as his legs were starting to feel a bit weak from standing for this short while, "Monstrosity isn''t the only thing that leads to violence, Boju. There''s plenty of violent ''people''; and some that are even worse than most monsters, all without an ounce of ''monstrosity''."


    The orc looked back at Eiro confused, "What? Then... then why have they been acting like that?"


    "Boju, most of the monsters in this town were either created by the monster king, or are their direct offspring. And those monsters were created with a specific purpose in mind. ughter. Killing. Taking over and suppressing people," Eiro exined, "It''s not monstrosity that''s the issue here. It''s habit.


    They''re not used to being close to people without bing violent. They need to get used to each other, and slowly but surely lose those habits over time. But it won''t happen in a day. There''s a reason I stationed so many servants near the humans'' housing."

 Chapter 741: Freshen Up

    "Hm... Have the structures in this part of town altered next," Eiro pointed at the city map, and Boju looked away from it a bit confused.


    "Wait, why here? The trolls seem like they''re going to prefer moving closer ot the southern part of town. That''s where all therge roads are," the hignd orc pointed out, not understanding Eiro''s logic. But the demon quickly exined his reasoning.


    "That''s exactly why they shouldn''t move there. The end of summer is getting closer and closer, and in the region we live, we get tons of cold winds from the ciers at the north of the continent. Not to mention the river running through the city will bring plenty of cold air with it.


    Trolls are weak to fire, but they''re more cold-blooded than the other species in town, excluding the lizardmen of course. That''s why instead of in the southern part of the city, they should move to the east that''s generally more protected from wind and rain.


    Plus, most of the buildings there are old industrial buildings that have been repurposed, so it should be easy enough to alter the buildings to fit the trolls a bit better."


    Boju slowly nodded while taking notes of what Eiro was saying, "So then what about the actual lizardmen? Where should they stay as weather gets colder?"


    "Most of them are currently here by the old museum, right?" Eiro confirmed, though he already knew the answer, "I think it might not be a bad idea to keep them here for the time being. Over winter, lizardmen enter a state of brumation. They huddle together with their tribe for extra protection and conserve as much energy as possible.


    Of course, that won''t be quite as necessary if we can provide them the heat they need, but there will still be plenty that simply prefer it, even if just out of ritualistic reasons."


    "So then we should make the museum better fitted for therge groups of lizardmen?"


    "Yes, exactly. It already hasrge halls with a decentyout. To protect the art inside, the structure is pretty well-insted as well. During the time that the city was taken over by the horde, part of the building was destroyed, but it should be easy enough to repair everything until winter actuallyes around."


    Boju quickly continued taking notes, already thinking about everything that they were going to need for the reconstruction and repair efforts. Meanwhile, Eiro looked out of the window. The sun was starting toe up, so it was about time for him to go and try to meet the humans.


    He would have preferred if Boju had gone to bed instead of staying here to n out future city developments with Eiro, but considerign that the demon wouldn''t be able to personallye here for quite a while, he figured he owed it to the orc to help out as much as he could.


    Obviously, Eiro was going to closely watch the town through the eyes of servants and could write detailed ns and instructions through a duplicate, and if he had to, Boju could alwayse to the manor to discuss things with Eiro directly, but that was all still very different from Eiro directly being here and helping out. But this was a good step that they had to go through in the first ce.


    He couldn''t be there for them forever. Bing less dependent on Eiro was only going to be a good thing for this town. Especially once things spread beyond the confines of just this town, Eiro simply wouldn''t be able to take charge of it all.


    Eiro slowly stood up from his seat, "I will be heading out for a bit. By the time everyone else is back, I wille and make some announcements."


    The hignd orc quickly nodded, "Yes, sir! I will continue to-"


    "No, you''re going to rest. Just take a nap until I''m back."


    "But-"


    "No buts. Except for yours in the bed," Eiro said immediately, looking deep into the orc''s eyes. Realizing that he can''t win a discussion against Eiro, Boju slowly nodded his head.


    "... Alright... I will try to rest for a bit," the young orc said, and Eiro nodded with a smile.


    "Perfect. I wille and wake youter, okay?"


    Boju nodded, and Eiro quickly turned around and headed toward the door. He made his way back downstairs toward Lugo, who stood up the moment he saw him. The two walked outside and Eiro climbed back onto the stag''s back. They made their way to the edge of the town to the disconnected small vige that had been prepared for the humans.


    And while they were going there, Eiro was doing some work on his body.


    It was breaking down more and more; worst case, he would have to enter his coonter this evening after going back home. And really, he couldn''t show himself to humans in this way. Monsters were used to others changing rapidly in their appearance, since they were all used to evolution to some degree, but that wasn''t the case with people.


    Rapidly changing looks always apanied a stigma of a permanent decrease in health. Considering that thest time they saw Eiro, he was in peak condition, he didn''t want to appear weak to them after returning from the battle with the Devil. He wanted to show them that Eiro came out on the other side stronger than before.


    Eiro let mana flow into his veins, producing a bit more blood than normal. He pulled it into his sunken cheeks, making them fill in a bit more while giving his skin a deeper crimson color.


    Simrly, he used arge amount of his mana to grow masses of flesh under his loose skin to fill in the parts that his muscles took up not too long ago to improve his stature and make him appear healthier, fitting his clothes well.


    His teeth that were growing yellow and crumbling over the past few days were quickly filled in withpressed snow from his ice magic, keeping them opaque and slightly rough instead of perfectly smooth. Eiro slightly exhaled. His breath smelled like death. He quickly pulled out the seed pouch from his bag and picked out a specific one, dropping it into his mouth.


    The seed quickly sprouted and buried its roots in Eiro''s flesh. It was ufortable, but he didn''t have to deal with it for too long. These fresh leaves that were pressed up against the inside of his throat were going to freshen the smell of his breath.


    And then, after infusing his horns with some magic to make their colours pop slightly more and pulling back the blood from the veins in his eyes to prevent them from looking bloodshot, Eiro grabbed another seed from his bag and pressed it against his chest, also making it sprout.


    Roots as thin as thread spread out under his skin, tightly connecting his skin to his flesh to prevent it from ''slipping'' as it seemed to do quite actively. It was like ayer of cloth keeping his skin and flesh connected. This all vastly weakened him to the point where he would be concerned if he weren''t in a well-protected barrier that he fully constructed himself together with Partax.


    Not to mention, the people he was about to meet weren''t going to do anything to him. They were weak vigers that could be defeated within a single blink of Eiro''s eyes.


    Lugo slowly came to a halt in front of the vige. Some of the humans were already out and about, trying to form some kind of routine in their new home. They looked tired and thin, though they should have plenty of food to eat. But this was probably just the stress getting to them all. And the moment they saw Eiro approach, they dropped everything they were doing.


    Some of them tried to hide, but most of them just froze, unsure what to do. This was the first time that Eiro hade here since he dropped them off.


    One of the vigers ran over to the home of Marius, the humans'' representative. He was still sleeping, but hearing that Eiro was here, he immediately jumped up and sprinted out of the house, dropping to his knees before Eiro could even step down from Lugo''s back.


    "Oh great King Daemonherz, this humble servant wees you!"

 Chapter 742: Faith

    Eiro looked down at Marius, who was currently bowing in front of him. Maybe he should have made this clear earlier, so he couldn''t me the humans for thinking this. He let out a slight sigh, and shook his head, "I''m not your king. Stand up."


    Taken aback, Marius looked up at the Demon, "A-Are you... are you abandoning us? I-I know we have yet to engage with the people of your kingdom, but-"


    "No, that''s not what I mean at all. I''m just saying I''m not a king," Eiro interrupted Marius, "Yes, I''m the Lord of this town, but what I''m trying to do is not to found my own country. I''m trying to allow monsters to break free from their limitations to live alongside people."


    The vigers started muttering amongst each other, confused. It seemed like they weren''t sure exactly what Eiro meant. He figured he should try and exin it to them. All the monsters in the town knew this already as well, so he should try to educate these humans as well, "Monsters and people each have differing systems.


    One of those systems is blessed by the gods, and they bestowed some protections upon people. However, those protections came at a cost. And that cost is a curse that was given to monsters; the curse of ''Monstrosity''."


    As Eiro exined, he used air magic to ensure that his voice was properly carried along to every single viger. He spoke clearly, trying to make sure everyone truly understood what he was saying, "Monstrosity is a corrupting force. It maniptes monsters into an unnatural violence. Every monster, without exception, suffers from this curse."


    The humans grew anxious as Eiro exined the situation, and Marius went almost deathly pale. Clearly, despite going so far as to ept Eiro as a ''king'', they were all still truly terrified of him. And he couldn''t really me them either, "However, I have learned to control and suppress this force. And with that method, I have developed a way to permanently weaken the curse.


    Not to mention, I havee by a way to truly and forever rid monsters of this force."


    Eiro held his hand to the side, grabbing a card from his treasury. He carefully pulled it out, and it turned into an ornate, golden key between his fingers, "This is an artifact that can open even the souls of living beings. Using this, I will try and find a way to forever rid monsters of the curse.


    They will no longer have that unnatural drive to violence, and can start living alongside you as any person would."


    "Th-That..." Marius muttered quietly, looking at the demon unsure what to think, "I apologise for being so blunt, but... do monsters truly have the capability to live alongside people..?"


    Eiroughed slightly, "Don''t worry, while it may be blunt, you do have a point. Many monstersck the level of intelligence that many people have, but are much more intelligent than simple beasts. It is a hard bnce to see what part of society a monster may take up. Soldier, or mason. Schr, or livestock.


    Many of them are currently uncivilized andck education, but is that reason enough to abandon them? Compared to the nobility in the capital, some may call into question your own capability to live alongside them if you were to take those threads of thought."


    The humans silently stared at Eiro. They weren''t happy with thatparison, but they would never be able to tell that to the demon directly. They valued their lives, after all.


    "...So, your majesty-"


    "I told you, I''m not a king. At most, call me ''Lord'' like the others do or something," Eiro sighed loudly. He really didn''t want to be called a king. That was troublesome.


    "I... I see. Then, my lord, do you... do you truly think that we could live alongside monsters?"


    Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "That''s exactly what I told you all beforeing here, right? I''m sorry, but if any of you choose to leave now, you will not get the benefits that you could have if you chose to leave earlier."


    Marius immediately and rapidly shook his head, "No! That is not it, I just... we all are scared. We see monsters flying through the skies, staring at us from above. And at night, we can hear the loud screams and yells of the monsters in that town, and..."


    Eiro understood what they were worried about. Obviously he did. He didn''t expect them all to bravely live alongside the monsters right off the bat, but this was something that Eiro had warned them about. This wasn''t going to be easy, but everyone here chose toe of their own ord.


    "I give you my word, by the honour of the Lady of Winter, that I will protect you all. None of you shall even receive a scrape from the monsters living in this city," Eiro assured them, cing his hand onto his chest, "Of course, that requires you all to not be hostile toward them either. You must try to live alongside one another. But I promise that you all have nothing to be scared of.


    You are under my full protection."


    "... Even if we don''t get killed by the monsters in that town, what about the Devil? You said that he held control over our vige, but now that we are gone... what if he chooses to take revenge on us? Will you be able to protect us then?" Marius seemed to grow a bit in confidence as he spoke, something Eiro was quite d about.


    But from the way he was speaking, it was clear that this was something that Marius had practiced. The vigers must have worked together toe up with things to ask Eiro; things they were all worried about. And of course, they most likely worked together to ensure that Marius could speak in a formal manner. Eiro doubted that Marius came up with the idea of calling him ''king''pletely on his own.


    But well, that being the case, Eiro didn''t feel the need to necessarily y along with that. The more casual he spoke, the easier it might be for these people to stop fearing him so much, "Oh, him? No, he''s dead."


    "H-Huh?"


    "Yeah, he was fully incinerated through holy mes," Eiro exined, "The Devil no longer exists. And I have sealed away the major arcana''s card that corresponded to that title as well; the Devil has died, and will never be reborn. This town is under the protection of the man that has in multiple Royal monsters. You have nothing to worry aobut, whether from here, or out there."


    Immediately, the silence of the vigers disappeared without a trace. They were muttering and whispering to each other in deep confusion. It had only been a few days since they were brought here, and the devil was already dead? It couldn''t have been so simple, could it?


    Marius stared at Eiro, trying to stop himself from avoiding the demon''s gaze, "Your... My lord, what is your goal? Why did you create this ce? For fun, as an experiment... to raise an army?"


    Eiro scoffed, shaking his head with a smile, "What? No, why would that be my reasoning? I''ve created this ce for a simple reason. To allow this world to leave its current era. I will forever erase the concepts of ''Hero'' and ''Monster King'', free all monsters of their curse, and allow this world to run its course without the meddling of those that are looking down at us from above."


    The eyes of the humans'' representatives slightyl widened. What Eiro was saying... it seemed ridiculous. It seemed impossible. But nheless, Marius wanted to believe in his words. Once more, he dropped down onto his knees, bowing deeply in front of Eiro.


    Slowly, the other vigers did the same, properly bowing their heads to Eiro. He wasn''t sure exactly what eaxctly they were trying to do with that. Simply show subservience, or maybe something beyond that. Something more akin to a disy of faith.


    It wasn''t a great feeling, but Eiro didn''t particrly care enough to stop them. If it made things easier for the time being, he didn''t mind letting them show a bit of faith.


    "Marius, stand up," Eiro started, and he quickly did as told. His heart was beating fast, and Eiro slowly turned around, "Follow me. It''s time to properly introduce you to the others leading this town."

 Chapter 743: Introductions

    Every single step was agony. The sensation of pain, heightened through his recently upgraded perception, was coursing through Eiro''s body. But even so, he had to keep it up. Fixing the disrepair that appeared every time Eiro ced weight on any part of his body, the demon led Marius to the main part of the monster town.


    Clearly, he hadn''t been here before, as his heart was starting to beat heavier and louder the closer they got. Before long, they encountered the first group of monsters. A group of Mountain Hobgoblins, currently transporting the goods recently harvested from the nearby farnds over into the storage facility.


    The moment they saw Eiro, they bowed their heads briefly, but then continued their work. If they had to stop every time Eiro was walking through here, it was going to impede progress, so Eiro made it very clear to them to not worry about these things. Though of course, that was more than confusing to Marius himself.


    While Skyhart was a country that was a bit more rxed on the ways that the popce was expected to treat nobility, the country where the human vigers came from was different. Just the youngest child of a baron had to be treated with the same level of respect as a duke, which meant that in every case, they had to stop what they were doing and properly greet the nobles.


    That exined why the vigers took everything so seriously earlier; not only did they feel they had to act like this toward those they considered their ''superiors'', but specifically because of who Eiro was, there was tons of extra pressure ced onto them.


    That being the case, Marius'' expression seemed logical. Both because the goblins didn''t seem to pay Marius himself much mind, and because they simply continued their work while in Eiro''s presence. Well, the species that were introduced here more recently would react more to Marius, though.


    But the Mountain Goblins, most of which had now evolved to Hobgoblins, the Kobolds, as well as the Hignd Orcs had been living like this for long enough to not react so strongly. That definitely wasn''t the case for the trolls that Eiro met next, though.


    It was a group of two that curiously approached, practically staring past Eiro straight at the human behind him, "That... meat?"


    Eiro red up at them, exerting a bit of pressure over them with a simple gaze. The trolls flinched back nervously, cowering despite being so much taller than the demon was, "Speak properly. You learned how, did you not?"


    The other troll carefully stuttered out, "I-Is that human... want meat?"


    "It''s ''does'', Kk. ''Does that human want meat'' would be the correct one. And rather than ask me, ask him yourself. That''s why you worked so hard to learn ''Common'', right?" Eiro pointed out, and the troll carefully nodded. He held forward the bit of roasted Soldier-Ant meat that he was holding in his hand, trying to give it to Marius.


    "Does human... No, wait... stupid Kk... Do... you? Do you want some meat?


    To eat?" the massive troll asked, almost shy in his behaviour. Marius nced at Eiro, who was waiting for an answer just as much as the two trolls were. Nervous, and clearly anxious to say ''no'', Marius nodded his head.


    "I-I would be happy to, Kk," Marius held forward his arms, as the troll grinned broadly. His crooked and yellow teeth that looked like a wall in front of Marius shaped an unnerving, but genuine smile. The troll dropped the mass of cooked, hot meat into Marius'' hands. He flinched back slightly, not having expected it to be as hot as it was.


    He looked back, trying to push through the pain, scared of what would happen if he were to drop the meat, "Thank you, I will... I will enjoy it!"


    The two trolls looked at each other excitedly, throwing their arms around each others'' shoulder. Starting to speak to each other in the trollnguage, the two quickly walked away, cheering as though they had just won a battle. Once they were far enough away, Eiro grabbed the hot meat from Marius and quickly waved some healing magic over his hands to prevent any burns, "That one surprised even me.


    A troll giving up their dinner to give a gift to a human?"


    It seemed like Eiro should praise Rashi a bit more. She ahd been doing a pretty good job at guiding the trolls to behave better.


    "B-But... what was that? They were speaking Common, and... why did they give me a gift? Plus, dinner? It''s morning, isn''t it?" Marius asked.


    It seemed like his anxiety was washed away a bit by the shock of what just happened, though he very quickly caught himself in that and tried to correct himself. But before he could, Eiro answered all of those questions.


    "Those were two trolls, Kk and Madek. They''re working in the reconstruction team right now, and just saw something interesting on their way back to the trolls'' district. I think they wanted to practice the things we''ve been trying to teach them. Hospitality, how to speakmon, things like that. And yes, dinner. Most trolls live nocturnally since they''re not good with sunlight.


    So our morning is their evening. They also sleep 14 hours a day," Eiro exined, continuing to guide Marius through the streets.


    "But... Lord Daemonherz, how is it possible for monsters to learnmon?"


    Eiro turned around to Marius, "Are you really asking me that? Most high-noble monsters know Common. The idea that monsters can''t learn it is just false, and most people know that too. Monsters can learn the skill just like anyone else can. Frankly, I learned Common before I learned the Demonguage.


    Of course, it''s a bit harder for most monsters, but that''s why we''ve been guiding and teaching them."


    Marius understood what the Demon was saying, but it still seemed a bit hard for him to really wrap his head around. Once he met the other leaders, he might understand it a bit better. That being the case, Marius already had to face a lot of different monsters just on his way to the town hall.


    Considering the life that he thought he lived only a week ago, this must be an extraordinarily stressful situation for him. He most have pretty high willpower.


    Before long, they made their way back to the town hall. Lugo, who had been following behind the whole way, anxiously watching Eiro walk on his own,id down in the corner of the room again. But this time, the space wasn''t empty. Therge table on one side of the room was filled this time. As usual, Gobu was doing some work there.


    Kitsue was napping,ying her head on the table while the morning sun shone through the window, and Rashi had thrown her legs onto the table. Meanwhile, Boju was upstairs, sleeping as Eiro had told him to.


    The moment that the Demon stepped into the room, the three monster leaders jumped up.


    "My Lord!" Gobu eximed excitedly, "You have returned safely from the battle against the Devil! So it was a sess?"


    Eiro quickly nodded his head, responding to the approaching hobgoblin, "Yes, I''ve managed to kill the Devil without issues. I''ve also already prepared for arge-scale transport of a lot of the Devil''s materials and wealth to this town, so use them well once they arrive. Ah, but some of his ''pets'' may show up here and cause a mess too, so just deal with them as you see fit."


    "Of course, of course," Gobu replied, almost smug to hear this about his master. Meanwhile, Kitsue had forced her head under Eiro''s palm, making him rub the top of her head. Especially in the mornings she seemed pretty needy. But Rashi apparently didn''t feel like holding back either, approaching Eiro with a broad smile on her face.


    "So you''ve killed that guy? I heard he was pretty rough, so I feel like that deserves a reward... you can choose what you-" Rashi started, but Eiro just rolled his eyes. Luckily she was speaking in the trollnguage, so Marius didn''t have to hear her depravity.


    "You three, especially you, Rashi, be quiet," Eiro sighed loudly, holding his hand toward Marius.


    "Despite what I had asked you to do, it looks like none of you came to introduce yourselves. So he is now here to introduce himself to you; the leaders of the humans," Eiro started, and Marius carefully stepped forward. He bowed to them.


    "My name is Marius. Lord Daemonherz has graciously epted us into this town as his subjects. We don''t wish to cause you any trouble, and hope to be a proper part of this town in the future," Marius exined, once more speaking as though he had practiced exactly what he was supposed to say.


    But the three monsters in front of him weren''t particrly impressed. Particrly Gobu was holding back his disgust, "Ah... I see. Nice to meet you... Marius."

 Chapter 744: Introductions (2)

    Boju came rushing down the stairs after being woken up by Eiro. He had a bit less time to rest than the demon had hoped, but it was still better than nothing at all. However, when he got down to therge table in the entrance area of the town hall, the Hignd Orc certainly wished that he was still asleep. It was much better than having to deal with this situation right here.


    Eiro sat at the end of the table, leaning back into the seat. He looked a bit... healthier than he did earlier, but Boju figured there was a reason for that. It probably had something to do with the human that was seated to Eiro''s left. It was one of the first times that Boju had actually seen a human; the only other person that he had seen was Partax, who Eiro had brought here before.


    And Partax was a halfling, not a human. Of course, there were the Will''o''wisp siblings, but they were undead now, so they didn''t really count. Plus, they were doing their own thing most of the time; Boju didn''t even know where they were right now.


    But right across from the human, next to Eiro on his other side, sat Gobu, who was staring daggers right at that person. Next to him were Kitsue and Rashi. While they didn''t seem to be as aggressive at Gobu was, they definitely weren''t particrly happy about seeing a human either.


    While Eiro was gone, they spent quite a lot of time discussing what to do with the humans that moved into the outskirts.


    For a few moments, they seemed to even consider the idea of just ''identally'' having them all be killed somehow, but knowing that Eiro would find out exactly what they did, they quickly abandoned it. They knew the only thing they could do was listen to what the demon wanted.


    Frankly, nobody here really understood exactly why Eiro wanted to introduce them to people and have them be part of ''society'', but they went along with it anyway. While it was a bit stressful, particrly for Boju and Gobu, their lives were so much better than they used to be. They were stronger, they could eat better food, they were able to live in peace for once.


    Of course, every once in a while, some monsters attacked, but they were able to handle it well. Plus, that acted as a good way to relieve some stress if it came down to it.


    "H-Hello... Nice to meet you, you''re Marius, right? I''m Boju, I''m in charge of mostrge-scale nning and future politics," the Hignd Orc exined, and Marius quickly stood up, slightly bowing his head.


    "It... it is very nice to meet you! I''m Marius, the ''leader'' of our vige that recently settled in the outskirts of this town," Marius eximed in as strong a voice as he could muster without outright screaming.


    Boju sat down on one of the free seats, and Eiro quickly continued, "Alright, now that the two most important people for this meeting are both here, no offense to Kitsue and Rashi, we can get started. Gobu is the acting Lord, and you could call Boju the Vice-Lord.


    While Boju, as he said, does the nning, prepares everything for future politics and external-affairs on the paperwork side of things, Gobu is the one in charge of everything internal. He''s the one ultimately in charge of keeping everyone in line, while each species-leader takes care of their own.


    Once we open up the city and connect with others, he will be the one dealing with other Lord-like matters as well."


    After giving Marius the rundown, the human quickly turned over and looked at Boju, "You''re... an orc, right?"


    Boju raised a brow, not sure what he meant, "Yes? Is there an issue?"


    "N-No, of course not! There''s no-"


    "He''s just surprised that a ''stupid'' orc is the one doing all this ''smart'' work," Gobu attempted to trante, not turning his eyes away from Marius.


    Bojuughed awkwardly, "A-Ah, right, of course... that... uhm, I''m a Hignd Orc, we tend to be a bit more on the intelligent side as a base standard. But we prefer not to judge monsters based on intelligence."


    Marius nervously nodded his head, trying to avoid eye-contact. The tension was thick, thick enough to clearly give Marius a tough time. And so, Eiro let out a loud sigh.


    "Everyone, calm down," he said in a clear voice, closing his eyes, "This is not happening. Marius, stop judging the monsters of this town. I told you, but intelligence is not how you should try to assign value to others. Rather, you shouldn''t assign any values to others at all. Learn to live alongside the monsters. That''s why I brought you here, and youu knew that.


    If you don''t cooperate, you will not gain what you came here for. Power, influence, strength, whatever the hell you want. I''m serving it to you on a silver tter, so just take it."


    Marius shrunk back, slowly nodding his head. Gobu had a broad grin on his face, as if he was trying to show off his yellowed teeth, "See? That''s why huma-"


    "And you," Eiro interrupted, turning toward the Hobgoblin, "Get your fucking shit together. When I gave you the position of Lord of this town, you knew what stiptions that came with. I know that you don''t like people, but the kind of shit that happened to you is exactly what we''re trying to prevent. Plus, did I ever tell you exactly what the vige Marius is from went through?"


    Gobu silently looked back at Eiro, "No... no, my Lord," the hobgoblin replied, as Marius'' face went pale.


    "They were the Devil''s pantry. Every night, one of the Devil''s servants woulde up into their home, and simply snatch one of them. They would forget all memories of who the person that was taken even was. If I hadn''te to them, their fate would have been to be eaten by the Devil, one by one," Eiro exined, and Gobu nced over at Marius.


    "My apologies, but... we are killed day after day, and-"


    "Oh,e on, get off it. You kill your fellow monsters day after day, without even batting an eye. This isn''t about other monsters being killed by people, this is about you personally hating them," the demon rubbed the bridge of his nose, "My point was that Marius and these other humans are victims as well. They''re not the perpetrators.


    I doubt Marius even saw more than a handful of monsters in his lifetime until he came here."


    "Must''ve been a peaceful life," Kitsuemented, but she quickly pulled back when she was met with Eiro''s re.


    "If you don''t have anything useful to add to this conversation, I suggest you take your leave, or shut up. I''m not here to y around. I will not be here for a while. I''m guessing it''s the remainder of the cycle, so a couple days short of three months. In that time, you all have to get along.


    Boju will being to my home regrly to report to me, so if I hear about even the slightest issue from him, there will be consequences for everyone involved. And don''t even try to hide anything from me, we all know that''s impossible," Eiro said bluntly, and immediately, the side of the monsters, excluding Boju who already knew this, looked at the Demon confused.


    "Did I understand you correctly? I know my Common is spotty... did you just say you won''t be here for three months? Months was the... the moon cycle thing, right?" Rashi asked, speaking in trollnguage, and the Demon quickly nodded.


    "Yes, you understood correctly. Three months. I''m currently undergoing evolution and the next stage of it will require me to be stuck in my home for a while. And my duplicates don''t reach this far. But of course, I have my servants here, so in emergencies, I know what''s happening," Eiro exined, before he looked at Marius, who seemed confused about something as well, "Do you have any questions?"


    "A few... First, what do you mean with ''Evolution''? And second... how will ''Boju'' go to the capital? Won''t he be hunted?" the human asked, and Eiro quickly turned to the Orc.


    "Show him. That will answer the second question for you. The first is a bit more lengthy," Eiro said, and Boju quickly nodded.


    He grabbed the metal bracelet wrapped around his wrist, clicking two of the metal tes on it together. In response, Boju soon turned into a young, dark-skinned human man, somewhere around 16 or 17 years of age, "Some of us, not all, of course, have these bracelets that allow us to appear like people via illusion magic. Using this, we won''t be found out directly."


    Marius raised his brows surprised, "Oh... that... that''s magic? How does it work?" he asked, clearly curious, and Eiro smiled lightly.


    "We can have it exined to you soon. But first, it''s clear that you need to understand monsters more, and learn more about them. Once I''m back home, I will write some books for you, so study up well. But evolution as a concept is so vital that you really need to learn about it, or you really won''t be able to get used to this ce," Eiro exined, holding his hand forward.


    Using the mirror of duplication in his eye as a conduit, he created 5 different figures, all dressed in thin, simple clothes.


    The first was a small, ugly thing. Hunched over and appalling. Just looking at it made Eiro want to gag. But thest was the proud figure that Eiro was now ridding himself of. These were the five races that Eiro lived as in this life thus far.

 Chapter 745: Introductions (3)

    These were figures that most in Eiro''s life hadn''t seen before. Even the kids must have forgotten what he looked like back when he was just a simple lesser imp, and James hadn''t seen him during his time as a Schr Imp.


    The demon turned his head toward the others, seeing their expressions. The monsters of course already knew what they were looking at; at least Kitsue, Gobu and Boju could recognise Eiro from when he was an Elemental Imp, and while Rashi only knew Eiro as a ''Lesser Arcanus'', even she could figure out what was going on from context. The only one that didn''t seem to know what was going on was Marius.


    "Lord Daemonherz, what is... What am I looking at?" he slowly asked, and Eiro quickly exined, looking at the duplicates.


    "Starting from the left, you have the ''Lesser Imp''. Eight years ago, I was created by the Monster King as a fully physically mature imp. Now, don''t think that in itself makes me special; most of the monsters here in town were either created by the Monster King directly or are their descendants.


    We were part of therge horde attacking the Holy Empire''s capital eight years ago," the demon exined, and Marius'' eyes widened, "Obviously, we''re not under the control of the Monster King. Rather, my goal is to kill the Monster King, so you don''t need to worry about anything like that. Anyway, shortly afterward, I reached level 100.


    At that point, simrly to how people can select a new ss, monsters may evolve. Because I had attained some arcane cards at that point, I was allowed a unique evolution into the Schr Imp. It gave me my most important ability; an ability to remember everything, down to the smallest detail."


    The duplicate of Eiro''s form as a Lesser Imp slowly started to shift into that of the Schr Imp, and once they were identical, quickly crumbled away, "Then, some more yearster, after my foster parent raised me and made me the man I am today...


    I evolved into the Ice Blue Collector Imp due to the influence of some spirits'' blessings and my habit of collecting things as well as further influence of some cards. With that, I attained a treasury within my body where I kept things important to me."


    Eiro flicked his wrist, making one of his daggers appear in his hand. And then, the the same as before, the Schr Imp shifted into the Ice Blue Collector Imp, and crumbled to dust. Eiro continued.


    "After that, as I collected more and more elemental magics, my next unique evolution was the Elemental Imp. While it really just increased my affinity and ability to use magics and connect with elements, it was still a rather useful ability that I''m grateful for.


    And then,ter on, after killing some Royal Monsters, I attained the position of ''The World'', allowing me to step into the realm of a Legendary evolution. Being a special being created by the Monster King instead of being a descendant of the Demon King, I was allowed to step out of the realm of the bane inflicted on all Demons. Holy Magic no longer damaged me, and instead healed me as well.


    I became the progenitor of a new species; the first Lesser Arcanus. After that, I did a few more things that would count as some special achievements, like being a Demon Lord, and currently I''m changing form into something else entirely. The next stage of the Arcanus line. I certainly do wonder what it is that I''m bing."


    The Elemental Imp, like the ones before it, shifted into the form of the Lesser Arcanus, sprouting two arms as its mouth split in two, and then crumbled away, leaving only the Lesser Arcanus standing as it did.


    "That''s what evolution is. Our bodies change rapidly over the course of a few days, weeks, or months depending on how advanced and extreme the evolution is,"ing to the end of his exnation, Eiro looked at Marius, who was staring at Eiro''s duplicate with a puzzled expression.


    "So... in essence, Lord Daemonherz, you are... eight years old?"


    Somewhat taken aback, Eiro raised a brow. That certainly wasn''t what he thought Marius would ask first, "My physical body is eight years old, yes. But mere age isn''t what you should be focused on."


    "R-Right, I didn''t mean it like that! I just... you... you were able to be powerful enough to y the Devil in just eight years?"


    "... My growth isn''t exactly something you should take as a reference point, but yes. The vast majority of my strength hase to be in thest year, though."


    Marius slowly nodded his head, seemingly understanding what Eiro was saying, "And you are still undergoing another evolution, to be even stronger?"


    "Yes. I''m not satisfied with the level of strength I currently had. Speaking frankly, in a head-on battle against the Devil, I would have died quite immediately. The only reason I was able to beat the Devil was because I managed to outsmart him," Eiro said, though he realized that his words almost sounded like he was bragging.


    That definitely wasn''t his intention, but it was a little hard to avoid sometimes. Staring deeply at Eiro, Marius seemed to have another question that wasing to mind. He stared at the duplicate.


    "Is it possible for... for humans to undergo evolution? For us... for me to be stronger like that as well?"


    Eiro looked into Marius'' eyes. He could feel the frustration running through this human''s mind. Frustration that came from an overwhelming fear while faced with those so much stronger than him. Frustration that he couldn''t protect those he loved. These feelings certainly weren''t umon, but Eiro, from the start, could feel some sort of special aspect in Marius.


    Something that hadn''t been quite unlocked yet, but could make him a powerful card in the demon''s hands. Some may call it a coincidence, and while the concept of fate seemed merely meddlesome most of the time, in moments like this it really came in quite useful. Eiro wasn''t stupid enough to simply let go of a gift that was given to him.


    With a grin, Eiro leaned back in his seat, "It''s not impossible. People can attain monstrosity, and if that monstrosity changes them enough, their system may switch over from the ''Person'' system to the ''Monster'' system."


    Marius'' eyes widened at the opportunity, and the monster leaders seemed simrly surprised.


    "My Lord, what do you-" Gobu started, and Eiro held his hand up to get him to stop talking.


    "To do that, the only thing you have to do is break a taboo. The easiest one would be the taboo of cannibalism."


    As the human''s face went pale, he bit his lips and tried to gather the courage, "I-If it means that I can protect my family and friends, I will-"


    "Oh, you''re definitely not going to do this. Actually, I think I''m going to force not only you, but every other human in your vige into a contract that physically stops you frommitting taboos on purpose," Eiroughed slightly.


    "B-But Lord Daemonherz, how else-"


    "Marius, I think you''re misunderstanding something here. Evolution makes monsters stronger, but usually not by that much. The only monsters that have powerful evolutions are those that were powerful to begin with. My strength doesn''te from evolution. It''s just a nice boon," Eiro pointed out, "Even if I never evolved again, I will grow strong enough to kill the Monster King.


    It might just take a little longer."


    Marius looked at the demon in front of him, unsure what he was supposed to say, "Then... what else am I supposed to do to get stronger?"


    Eiro sighed loudly, "Definitely not look for shortcuts. Just pick up a weapon and start training. There''s plenty of skilled individuals in this city, so learn from them or something. Either way, you''re just standing at the starting line at this point. I''ll try to arrange for a ss-change crystal or something, but until then just pick up somebat skills and learn the basics of magic maniption.


    I''ll write you a lost of all the talents that I''ve picked up on from those in your vige, so just have everyone act ordingly."


    Marius raised his brow surprised, "Have you been watching us, Lord Daemonherz?"


    "Well, not really. I can smell talent. I''ll exin that another time, but you just need to know that I''m good at what I''m doing. I''m a lecturer at Skyhart''s Royal Academy."

 Chapter 746: Gobus Transformation

    Eiro stood up from his seat, trying to suppress the sound of his bones popping and cracking under his own weight. He snapped his finger and a sh of light appeared behind his back, throwing a strong shadow on the ground in front of him. That shadow soon detached from Eiro, as Min appeared in front of him.


    After a bow to the demon, Min began to exin, "ording to my Master''s wishes, I am going to stay in this town for the time being. While I am not able to stay away for an extended period of time, due to my nature as my Master''s shadow, for the next week I will stay here and assist the people of the human vige into understanding the optimal direction for their growth."


    Gobu frowned lightly, looking at Eiro, "My Lord, while I don''t have anything against that decision... do you not trust us to take care of them properly?"


    Eiro locked eyes with him, and then slowly shook his head, "Not at this moment, no. The scent of rage and hatred you give off is overpowering, Gobu."


    The hobgoblin flinched lightly, jumping onto his feet, "Th-That doesn''t mean that I can''t do my job as you ask me to!"


    "It''s not about that. I do trust you to do what I tell you to, otherwise I wouldn''t have given you the position of this town''s Lord. Even I can''t fully control myself when dealing with someone I abhor. As much as we would like to, it''s almost impossible to bepletely neutral and ignore your own feelings. But that''s why the humans are here.


    They''re not here to be experiments or ythings, they''re here to prove that it''s possible for people and monsters to coexist," Eiro exined, turning from the hobgoblin over to Marius, and then back to Gobu, "You will take over their training at some point, but for now, you have to focus on learning instead of teaching. You need to learn that there''s no reason for you to hate all people.


    It''s going to take a long time, but I don''t think it''s a good idea to simply throw you into the deep end."


    Gobu lowered his head and slowly nodded, "I see... I will do my best, my Lord."


    "I''m sure you will," the demon smiled, facing Marius again, "Plus, it should be easier for the humans to learn from Min in the beginning. They have already met him. And being around him more will prepare them to engage with other monsterster on."


    Marius quickly agreed, "Yes, from what the others have been telling me, they wanted to see Lord Min again anyway, to thank him for the help as well."


    "In that case, it doesn''t seem like there''ll be an issue with this n. I will have to take my leave soon, so for now, Marius please wait here and go through the list I just gave you with Min and Boju. And Gobu," Eiro walked up to the hobgoblin, "Follow me."


    Gobu nervously swallowed, nodding his head. He followed the Demon as they walked to one of the separate rooms, and as the door closed behind the two, Gobu immediately fell onto his knees and lowered his head, "I truly apologize for my attitude against the human, I merely-"


    "Get up. Of course I want you to stop being so aggressive, don''t get me wrong, but that''s not what this is about," Eiro shook his head annoyed, and Gobu slowly looked up at him.


    "Then what...?"


    "I''ll be gone for the next three months. Before then, I want to hear if you''re ready to be my Servant."


    Gobu''s eyes widened, but he didn''t need to hesitate at all to nod his head, "Yes, my lord! I am ready!"


    "There is really no need to rush; if you want to wait until I''m back then-"


    "No! Please, I... I''ve been waiting for this."


    Eiro nodded, walking up to Gobu. He squatted down, cing his hand onto the hobgoblin''s cheek, "Are you sure?"


    Gobu''s pupils dted. His heart sped up, and his head carefully tipped forward. Eiro let his mana flow into the hobgoblin''s body. Usually, his foreign mana would be rejected by Gobu''s own, especially since it was fairly potent. But Gobu was fully epting him, and so, Eiro could do something that would usually be the greatest vition to someone else''s being.


    Eiro was taking over Gobu''s mana. His own and the hobgoblin''s mixed within Gobu''s body, and the control was given over to Eiro. He was taking over the mana, the blood vessels. The bones, the liver, the stomach, the heart. Everything was bing Eiro''s own. And it only took a few moments as well, and Gobu''s senses didn''t take long to realize this either.


    His muscles tensed up and his joints locked into ce, as he wasn''t even able to breathe anymore. And then, once every part of Gobu became Eiro''s, even the light shining into his eyes, the Demon said a few simple words.


    "May you continue to serve me well."


    Eiro released the direct control as Gobu was flooded with iparable pain. Trying to scream, the goblin realized that no sound was able to escape his mouth. Gobu''s body quickly started to undergo rapid changes. Different to the evolution that Eiro was currently undergoing, this was a mutation, an extremely rapid change to a physical form through the influence of Eiro''s abilities.


    The skin on Gobu''s upper forehead cracked and split open as two ck horns pushed their way out, covered in already congealing blood. Gobu''s muddy green skin thickened as a carapace-like shell formed on his skin. In general his body bulked up a bit, and then sunk back in as his muscles condensed.


    This happened a few times, and it was as if his body was pulsating underneath the carefully hardening chitin.


    And so, as massive amounts of mana poured from the goblin''s core, his body heated up and became stronger. So, so much stronger than before. The bulk of the transformation was over within just a few minutes, but as Gobu adjusted to the mana, he would further settle in over the next couple weeks.


    Turning magic into a servant was vastly different and a much more streamlined processpared to turning a living being into a servant.


    Gobu tried to push himself up so that he could at least sit on the ground. His arms felt shaky, and he looked down at himself, "I... this feels amazing."


    Eiro smiled at the hobgoblin, "I''m d you think so. Work hard until you reach your next evolution, I''m sure you should be able to get even more benefits from it than just this."


    Gobu looked up at his lord, "Are you sure? This in itself is already... I feel so... powerful!"


    "This is nothing just yet," the demon grinned lightly, "Take it easy for a few days until your body adjusts to this properly. Like this, you should be able to handle almost everything that could evere at you while I''m away."


    "Yes! Yes, my lord! This opportunity... I will never forget it!"


    ---


    Lugo came to a halt in front of the steps of the manor. It was still quite early in the day, just around lunchtime, and Eiro was here just as he promised he would be. But he wouldn''t be able to hold on for much longer. Things should be quite calm here, though. If he was able to just sit down for the next few hours, maybe holding on until the kids were satisfied was possible.


    He wanted to be there for them himself as much as absolutely possible. After all, for the next three months... he could only be here and interact with them in the form of duplicates.


    Of course, the consciousness of those duplicates was Eiro''s own, but there was still always a bit of a difference. As though he was watching things through some kind of filter. Eiro just wanted to spend as much time with them without that filter as he could.


    Every step was agony as Eiro made his way up the stairs. He felt weaker than when he was just a grunt; a little imp that had barely just unlocked his stats. It was a sickening weakness that made his stomach churn, but Eiro knew it was just temporary. He would enter that coon, ande out stronger than he had ever been before.

 Chapter 747: The Cocoon

    The tes were taken away, and Eiro could feel the food he just ate sit heavy in his stomach. It didn''t seem like his stomach acid was capable of breaking anything down anymore, so he just started using some magic to absorb the nutrients of the food that way. He didn''t want to enter the cocoon with food rotting inside of him.


    "That was very delicious, Rudy," the Demon said as he looked at his son, who smiled broadly with a nod. Though, at first, Eiro really wasn''t able to taste anything. His tastebuds didn''t seem to work too well right now as his tongue was already breaking down.


    But he was able to catch the scent well enough and figure out the taste like that, and then even created a duplicate tongue inside of his mouth so that he could taste everything properly.


    "Thank you! I was trying something new with the bread, I''m really happy with how it turned out," Rudy replied smugly. Eiro looked around the table with a soft smile. His children could tell that something was off with him, and so did Eiro''s party and Arie.


    He wasn''t really able to hide it too much; the mere energy that he was giving off was iparable and ridiculously different to what it had been just a few days before.


    "Are you okay, honey?" Arie ced her hand onto Eiro''s back. His muscles tensed involuntarily at that single touch, and he nodded his head.


    "I''m alright. I just need to rest a little bit," the Demon exined, trying to push himself up from his chair. His arm broke as he did. Though, maybe ''break'' was the wrong word; his bone was so soft that it simply split apart at the slightest shift of weight.


    Arie immediately stood up together with him, trying to support him, but Eiro looked at her and shook his head. The demon looked at his children, first and foremost, "I know right now my situation may seem like a reason to worry, but there''s no need to be concerned. I will still be here with you, every single day. My main body will just need to... sleep for a little while.


    I love all of you, and I will never leave your side. Alright?"


    They slowly nodded, understanding what Eiro was saying. Even so, seeing him like this, like how they saw Jura toward the end of his life, was still something that was hard for them to deal with. But they also knew that there was nothing they could do about it now.


    This was just the nature of evolutions, and every evolution of Eiro''s that they had seen so far weakened him considerably as he was going through it. And then, when it was over, Eiro woulde back stronger and more energetic, and would do anything that he couldn''t do for them while he was going through it.


    He would go buy clothes with Sammy and Clementine. Cook with Rudy, and go on tours around bookshops and libraries with Arc. And he would spend every free second ying with Avalin and Leon. He would make up for the time that he missed, and do whatever he could to make up for the things that he couldn''t do before.


    "Just be careful, okay?" Sammy asked, and Eiro smiled at her with a nod.


    "Don''t worry, I will be right in this manor throughout it all. I will be safe, and healthy. This is just like a... harsh cold," Eiroughed, approaching his children to give each of them a long hug. He could feel their hesitance as they held him, but in the end, they always refused to let go first.


    It didn''t seem like Avalin and Leon really understood what was going on, but they were happy about the hugs anyway.


    Once they were done, Eiro and Arie made their way upstairs. The nephilim tried to practically push Eiro up the stairs, since it was getting harder for him to drag his own body up without help, "Are we going to your bedroom?"


    Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yes, I''ve been preparing it for this since I realized I''ll enter a cocoon."


    "... Are you going to lookpletely different after youe back out? Like a caterpir and butterfly?"


    The demon thought about it for a moment, but he didn''t really have an answer, "I don''t know. I will still look like me, if that''s what you''re asking. I won''t suddenly look like a human. I may... appear more monstrous, but like I do now, I should have ways to return to a more neutral appearance.


    Unique or special evolutions have the tendency to move in a direction that the monster likes and approves of, and I don''t approve of an evolution that will scare the kids. So... it shouldn''t be too bad."


    Arie carefully nodded her head, "I see... I... will you be in pain?"


    "I don''t think so. My body already feelspletely numb, and once the chrysalis begins, I shouldn''t have any particr physical sensations," Eiro said reassuringly as the two entered his room. All the furniture had already beenpletely pushed to the side to make as much space as possible in the center.


    And covering the ground and walls were numerous engravings, all spiraling toward a circle in the center of the room that Eiro carefully approached. Arie helped him undress, carefully folding and holding onto his clothes.


    The nephilim took a step toward the demon as he stood in the middle of the magical array covering the space, giving him a soft kiss, "If anything is wrong, just tell us right away. Okay?"


    "Of course. And you as well, please never hesitate to tell any of my duplicates what''s wrong. They''re still me, in the end."


    Arie looked at the man in front of her, holding his sunken cheek, "Even if you''re in there and it is your mind that I''m speaking to, it won''t be your hand I''ll be holding. It won''t be your scent I''m smelling, or your fingers running through my hair, climbing over my horns."


    "... I''ll miss you, even if I''ll be right there," Eiro gazed into the eyes of the person he adored so much, "Thank you for loving me."


    "Don''t thank me for something as natural as that," Arie leaned in once more, and their lips met for a few brief, eternal moments. Neither wanted to let go, but both knew they had to. Eiro couldn''t hold on much longer.


    His tail waved around his body, carefully deploying a wall of thick, liquid crystals around him, that soon dried up and became slightly opaque. As the wall grew more, Arie and Eiro''s fingers released from each other, and before long, arge shell had been built around Eiro''s whole body.


    He could roughly see the outline of what was in front of him, seeing Arie''s hand touch the white crystal cocoon. And as he did, and the cocoon was filled with a smooth, silk-like liquid also secreted from his tail, Eiro''s skin seemed to fall apart like a thinyer of hardened soap being washed away by hot water.


    His fat and muscles broke away, and his bones dissolved, as it was harder to keep up consciousness in this body. But Eiro came prepared; he would make sure that even if this body wasn''t directly conscious, he could still be fully aware through his duplicates.


    As every part of Eiro''s physical body fell apart, mixing in with the liquid crystals, Arie sat there for a while, just staying by his side. Though at some point, when the sun had already gone down long ago, while still clutching Eiro''s clothes, she fell asleep.


    And as she did, Eiro''s focus turned away from her toward a duplicate that he had created beforehand that was waiting in one of the secret passages. It would act as the ''main'' body for the time being. He ced his hand onto the crystal cocoon, essing the treasury from here.


    After pulling out the mirror of duplication, he looked into the mental library, specifically focusing on a few particr aspects.


    The Aspects of six different skills; Stealth, Freerunning, Dagger Mastery, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Alchemy, and Artificing. As if pulling them out through the mirror itself, Eiro imbued six duplicates with these skills'' aspects, giving them the exact forms that they had in the mental library.


    They stood in a circle in the room, as Eiro experienced a sort of unqiue perspective through each duplicate, as they were each only looking at the world through the lens of their skill.


    And so, the duplicates left Eiro''s bedroom, ready to undergo further training with the Masters.

 Chapter 748: Arcane Infusion

    Within Eiro''s cocoon, a lot of things were going on all at once. Every part of his physical being had been broken down, and that really meant every part. The original bloodstone, which had been fused with his veins or the duplicate of the mirror of duplication that he had ced into his eye; both had been broken apart by this crystal liquid.


    And it wasn''t even that it was a powerful acid, rather, if anyone else touched it, it might actually be rather benefitial to them. Like some sort of high-mana moisturizer.


    But somehow, Eiro''s body simply wanted to fall apart the moment he came into contact with it. However, of course, though he fell apart, it wasn''t as though all this ''mush'' was now being mixed together. Rather, everything was still in the exact position that it was meant to be in, just broken down and mixed in with this crystal liquid.


    Though Eiro couldn''t exactly feel it physically, he could tell from the flow of mana within the cocoon that every part of his flesh, his blood, his bones, and his very soul, was being strengthened and changed.


    Of course, he didn''t notice it from an inside perspective either. Even his brain had been broken apart to some degree, so his consciousness currently only really existed through his duplicates. Right now, Eiro was viewing the cocoon from the perspective of the temporary main body that he prepared for himself. But that new main body wasn''t just standing here, staring at the cocoon.


    But instead, he was preparing to finish something. The whole room had already been engraved with arge array that Eiro had copied from the room at the top of the manor''s tower.


    That array created by the former owner of the manor had the ability to vastly strengthen the magic that was fed into it, creating a space that was perfect for Eiro to adjust to new mana and increase his elemental affinities. Right now, he was trying to turn this office into something simr, but also different.


    At specific key points in hte array, Eiro had ced duplicates of the mirror of duplication. This meant that, not only would any mana that was fed into the array be strengthened, but directly duplicated. While that duplicated mana would fall apart rtively quickly, it should be able to hold itself together long enough to properly affect Eiro how he wnated. That was the reason for the main array.


    Now, it was time to ce the finishing touches onto the cocoon. Of course, while the aspect of the ''Artificing'' skill was currently conversing with Partax, Eiro still had ess to his skills otherwise due to the mental link between all of the duplicates of himself.


    He was a bit worried that he wouldn''t be able to ess them, but in the end, this wasn''t directly the same as taking an aspect out of someone''s soul using the Key. Though, it did seem to decrease the efficiency fo the skill to a certain degree, but it wasn''t to the point where Eiro wasn''t able to fullyplete the array like this.


    Eiro took a small chisel to the crystal cocoon. It was almost too hard to properly carve into, but this was one of Eiro''s areas of expertise. He would never fail to carve into anything if he properly remembered his father''s teachings. And so, while it took a bit longer than Eiro would have liked, he ended up properly carving the finishing touches o the array onto the crystal cocoon.


    And then, the duplicate squatted down at the edge of the array. Due to the link created between this duplicate and the original main body, he was able to at least create a specific flow of mana.


    Eiro''s soul was inside of the cocoon, and as such was the only ce that the duplicates could receive mana from, unable to perfectly produce it themselves. That was the main reason for the duplicates breaking down and growing weaker the further they were away as well, as the mana wasn''t able to travel such long distances without suffering.


    But that also meant that only the original Eiro was able to produce the ressource that was needed right now; Arcane Magic.


    After being purified, splitting one''s essence from their mana, that mana had to be carefully turned into arcane magic. And that was part of what this array did. Sort of automatically, passively guiding Eiro''s soul into this process that was practically muscle memory, or the equivalent to that in regard to souls.


    And so, the arcane magic would be directly fed into the array, which would strengthen and duplicate it heavily. That arcane magic would then be pulled back into the cocoon and be infused into the crystal liquid and Eiro''s reconstructing body.


    Meanwhile, the detached essence would be concentrated into a separate small piece that could be used for different enchantments, types of alchemy, and a number of other processes that Eiro could take care of after his evolution was over.


    It didn''t take long until the initial flow of arcane magic was established, flowing from the cocoon over into this small spot in the array. Immediately, the magic flowed throughout the engravings, growing in potency as it did, before hitting the mirrors.


    The flow split apart and continued travelling throughout the room, and before long, every part of the engraving was filled with arcane magic, at which point, it began to saturate the room itself, and a vortex-like flow was created as the cocoon pulled all of the arcane magic into it. Meanwhile, Eiro''s essence was being poured into the receptacle ced near the edge of the array at the wall.


    Now that this was done, Eiro''s duplicate stepped outside of the room, closing the door behind him. He pushed his hand against the pattern ced onto the center of the door, activating the barrier that was meant to keep all of the arcane magic properly contained inside Eiro''s bedroom, while also locking the door so that others couldn''t easily enter the space.


    The amount of magic flowing around in there wasn''t necessarily a ton right now, but the array was made to continuosly ramp up. Just the sheer amount of passive practice that Eiro was going to get in to create arcane magic would make the process much more efficient, on top of the fact that the amount of mana he could make use of would increase as the evolution progressed as well.


    That being the case, as time went on, Eiro''s bedroom would turn into an incredibly dangerous space with time.


    ---


    "Come on, stop being so annoying about this," in the elemental ne of fire, the duplicate Eiro was sitting on a chair in front of the Overseer''s desk.


    "The answer is still ''no''. You have not fulfilled all the requirements for entering thest floor," they replied bluntly, not caring about whatever the Demon was saying. With a loud groan, the demon leaned back into the seat, looking over at the Smander stood next to him.


    "Sorry, it looks like this is going to take a lot longer than I thought it would," the demon apologized, but Sarius just shrugged.


    "Eh, I don''t really care all too much. It''s a bit boring, but it''s not like it''d be much better in the central ne. And I was called over there for some of the good parts anyway," the spirit replied, and Eiro pushed himself up from his seat.


    "Right, especially cause the main body just started another evolution," the Demon pointed out, stretching slightly, before looking back at the caretaker, "Alright, so, as long as I offer you something worthy of thest floor, you''ll let me through?"


    The overseer quickly nodded, "Mhm. You have disyed your understanding, to a certain degree at least, of all the past floors perfectly well. Now you need to show that you deserve the top level of information by proving that you have already entered that realm to begin with.


    And it can''t just be the information; you need to show a deepprehension behind the information and why it has the value it has."


    "Fine. You got some nk books that I can borrow to write all this shit down in?" Eiro asked, holding forward one of his hands. The overseer nced at him, reached down below the desk he was seated at, and pulled up a notebook, a quill, and some ink.


    "Once you are done, please return to me and I will evaluate the information. Please mind that it does not have to be new information from the tower''s perspective. Any information, whether we already possess it or not, is valid."


    Eiro sighed lightly as he picked up the book, making his way toward the stairs. He had to check up on the kid waiting outside the tower anyway. Though, it was a little annoying to Eiro, he had to figure out what to write about. He figured that what the Overseer expected was some kind of scientific essay, and that part wasn''tplicated.


    What was annoying was figuring out exactly what of the knowledge he had he should go for that would certainly give him ess to the top floor of the tower.

 Chapter 749: Scribing

    Eiro stepped out of the tower, feeling the ming air of nature in his lungs. He turned his head toward the ming boar that was sleeping near the hut that had been constructed not too far away. A few trees had sprouted out from the ground, surrounding the hut, in order to keep the ce a bit more protected.


    Stepping past the boar, Eiro rubbed the magic beast''s snout. It had grown considerably since Eiro brought it here along with Jyoti. It was just a piglet before, but after Eiro gave it a bit of ''inspiration'' in regard to different fire magics, it seemed to have grown quite a bit to the point where it gaint new magic.


    And as magic beasts changed along with the magic they possessed, the ''piglet'' had turned into a full-on beast.


    The Demon knocked on the door of the cabin that he had built for Jyoti. In the beginning, he was just staying in a tent, but Eiro felt bad about just leaving him in there. Jyoti hade here to follow Eiro, after all, so he had some level of responsibility until Jyoti managed to get the qualifications for the tower.


    So, instead of just leaving the boy in a tent, Eiro headed out and found himself some seeds for good trees of this ne, nted them in a good nearby spot, and then used some of those trees to build a nice, small hut for Jyoti and the pig.


    Knocking on the door, Eiro''s foot tapped on the ground in thought, as he was trying to decide on which piece of information to go with as a starting point for what he had to hand in to the overseer. From inside of the cabin, footsteps quickly scurried to the door, as Jyoti came over and opened it up.


    "Sirs! Pleasee in!" he eximed nervously, stepping to the side to let both Eiro and Sarius into the cabin. The floor was covered in arge number of books that Eiro had either fetched or transcribed for Jyoti so that he could prepare for the tower''s test properly.


    "How''s your progress looking?" the demon asked as he squatted down, starting to pick up some of the books that Jyoti didn''t seem to be actively using or referencing, carefully bringing them over to the bookshelf.


    "I think it''s pretty good... mynguageprehension skill is almost at intermediate!"


    "Good. Have you managed to transcribe a bit of my test?"


    Jyoti quickly scurried over to the desk that Eiro had made for him, looking for the right piece of paper that he quickly handed over to the demon.


    "Hm..." he hummed lightly as he looked over the short paragraph, "You''re actually starting to get the ''concept'' to some degree. Thepressed sentences I told you were about the Anarchic Revolution, but the moment you understood that, you filled in the rest with the knowledge in your head. For the test, you need to properly transcribe exactly what is told to you, aight?"


    Jyoti nervously looked down at the ground, "B-But... how am I supposed to do that? The words just don''t make sense, I..."


    "It''s not actually about the specific words. You are on the right track since you can already understand the overall topic. But what''s important is that you only transcribe the ideas that are actually told to you.


    If the purpose of each sentence and word is there, which words you actually use or how you order them really doesn''t matter all too much," Eiro exined, and Jyoti slowly looked down at the piece of paper that Eiro handed back to him.


    "So... I just have to try and understand what it is you''re saying, but not focus on the words you''re saying?"


    "Yes, exactly that. Do you need me to tell you again? As a refresher?"


    Jyoti thought about it for a moment, and then carefully nodded his head, "Yeah, I think so. I''m ready to try again."


    "Alright. Then listen closely," Eiro said, clearing his throat as Jyoti''s eyes got stuck on the Demon''s lips, waiting for him to speak. And then, the Demon carefully opened his mouth, releasing a brief sound of ovepping words and ideas all mashed into one. Jyoti almost flinched as he heard it, but tried to concentrate on the word as much as he could.


    Without a word, Jyoti rushed back to his desk and started trying to take notes of everything that he could retain before the memory of the ''word'' faded from his mind. Sarius scoffed lightly, leaning against the wall.


    "He''s pretty serious about this, ain''t he?"


    "I guess so. I mean, I exined to him the importance of this ce, and he seemed pretty excited about it. And I took responsibility for him, so I''d like to make sure he gets inside before we leave, so this is more than just wee," the Demon exined, stepping back out of the cabin with the spirit still following behind.


    "So, what now?"


    "Now, I''ll get to work," Eiro cracked his knuckles, holding forward his hand. He quickly manipted the fire magic around him, pulling up the ground and ttening it smooth to make a seat for himself. After sitting down on it cross-legged, Eiro created a ce for the book to sit on, and quickly got out the ink and quill that the overseer had given to him.


    Sarius looked at him curiously, "What''re you gonna write about?"


    "Hm... I''m thinking I''ll write something that even the tower shouldn''t know about. The tower only has information that has actually been recorded in some way. Written or painted. Even scribbled notes with significant enough information," the Demon pointed out, "And there is one piece of information that I''ve made sure has never been written down anywhere, in any way at all."


    "What would that be?"


    "What I am. What my purpose is in this world, and the fact that I have this massive splinter of the arcane inside of my soul," Eiro exined with a grin on his face, "The implications this has on the world, its future, and of course to the realms beyond. Why was I given this?


    I know what I''m supposed to do with the splinter, but why does that god beyond the gods want to gather up all thoserge splinters?"


    Sarius thought about it for a moment, "And you''re sure the tower doesn''t have the information already?"


    "I''m certain. The only way I figured it out was because I was told it by the the world itself," the Demon replied immediately. He watched as the quill pulled up the fire-elemental ink, carefully cing the nib onto the paper.


    ---


    The sound of a pen scratching over parchment could be heard, filling the silence of the hidden library of Eiro''s home. Here, there was currently one duplicate working. It was the duplicate infused with the aspect of the Artificing skill, and he was currently transcribing some arrays into a book.


    The ink itself was a special liquid that was particrly conductive to mana, while the pages of the book were made by interweaving metallic fibers in a flexible way.


    In certain parts of the pages, Eiro would pierce through the metallic fibers to connect the arrays to the ones on the adjacent page. This was a particr project that Partax had suggested that could allow Eiro to get in a lot of practice with rtively few ressources.


    Considering that scribing was something that Eiro was already particrly good at in the first ce, having gotten quite a lot of practice in by copying down and writing dozens of books by hand, he was able to finish the nned-out project pretty well.


    The this magic item that he was trying to create right now was actually just a simple barrier that would envelop the individual that poured mana into the item. That being the case, for such a rtively simple result, the amount of work he was putting into it was quite a lot.


    Eiro was specifically working on breaking down the barrier into the smallest parts possible, trying to strengthen it in a number of adaptive ways.


    If a magical attack came in, the barrier would strengthen itself against the specific elements the magic consisted of; if it was a physical attack, the barrier would be strengthened against physical force, whether it was cutting, blunt, or pierced damage. And over the course of the next few months, this Eiro had a single goal.


    Filling a bookshelf with different, unique magic items in the form of books.

 Chapter 750: Aspects in Action

    "No, no! Wrong, this is so very, very wrong!" Partax groaned loudly, "Aren''t you supposed to be the incarnation of the Alchemy skill?! How can you be this... inept?"


    Eiro nkly stared at the halfling, "I''m still myself. Which means that I can get pissed off if you keep yelling at me like that."


    "Then do it right! I told you to grind the limestone to a range between 50 and 100 micrometers, so what''s with this?! You''ve got massive grains at above 150, and tiny dust below 20! Do it right, or don''t do it at all!"


    Closing his eyes for a moment, the Alchemy Eiro let out a long breath, "I''ve been doing the physical motions exactly as you instructed. I literally copied your muscle-memory andpletely integrated it into this arm. So clearly, there''s some other trick to it."


    "Trick?" Partax sighed, "There''s no trick to it, you just have to do it! Know where to grind, and know where not to grind! Now, do it again until you get it right."


    Annoyed, but understanding that he had to keep doing it to get the technique down, Eiro scooped up the ground-down limestone dust and put it aside, "Will you finally tell me what benefit there is to doing it by hand instead of just letting me use magic?"


    "Benefit? It''s part of the process! Doing it manually is a much more rewarding experience, it lets you get properly pulled into the process of doing what you''re trying to be doing!"


    "... So you''ve been making me do something that has no tangible difference for the end-result?"


    "... It''s not always about the end-result. The process is part of what you need to love!"


    The duplicate suppressed a deep, heavy groan, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He loved Alchemy. Of course he did, it was deeply ingrained in who he was. Everything he did, everything he thought of, was somehow brought to a rtion of alchemy. He was still Eiro, of course, but a version of Eiro that never did anything but learn alchemy throughout his life.


    And even though he certainly did enjoy the process, this was a waste of time. Partax wasn''t free every minute of every day, while this Eiro was. He could practice the physical motions however much he wanted. Being a duplicate, he didn''t require any sleep either. However, Partax was different. He got deep into his own work all the time, and slept half the day.


    "I told you, the focus here is learning about your different techniques as much as I can. If you don''t have any other tricks for me, it''s clearly just a matter of practice. I can practice on my own time," Eiro said, flicking his wrist. He pulled the limestone dust back toward him with earth magic, "How big exactly are the grains supposed to be, best case. In the optimal scenario."


    The halfling clicked his tongue, "Varying sizes between 64 and 78 micrometers. Around 50% should be at 71, 10% at both 64 and 78. Linear gradient between those points."


    "Thank you," the demon replied, quickly fusing the limestone grains back together into a single block before breaking it back down into the exact sizes that Partax described. Now, the limestone was split into the right variety of sizes.


    "Show-off," with one more click of his tongue, Partax turned away, "Fine. Now, get started saturating the grains with water."


    Eiro nodded his head, doing as he was told. No matter how annoying Partax was, he was still learning a lot. He had already received a lot of instruction in the field of artificing, but receiving active support in alchemy was boosting his skill a lot.


    ---


    "Fucking hell," Shimour walked around the duplicate-Eiro standing in front of him, "When he said he''d make these dupes have the perfect body for our techniques, he sure wasn''t lying, huh?"


    "It''s ''you'', not ''he''," Eiro replied, crossing his arms, "I''m that very same Eiro that told you about that."


    "... But that Eiro is upstairs in that cocoon thing."


    "Yes, but all the duplicates share a consciousness. Yes, we can act independently, but at the end of the day it is simply an advanced form of multi-tasking. Our mind is one, our thoughts are one, though our actions are individual."


    Trying to wrap his mind around it, the stealth-master raised his brow, "Hm... I don''t think I get it, but I''m not sure I need to, either. But if you say you''re that same Eiro, then I guess I''ll just treat you like it?"


    "Yes, please do. And if you want to tell this version of me something, feel free to tell any other duplicate you see around. I will know anything you tell them, and they will know anything you tell me."


    Shimour scratched the back of his head, "Well, if you say so. Anyway, let''s just get down to business. What''s the goal of this training for you? Do you want to get to a particr skill level?"


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, "Yes, but also no. I want to increase my skill, of course, but independent from the level."


    "... What''s that supposed to mean?"


    "Well, during evolutions, my ess to the system is cut off. I do still umte some level of experience, but it usually just results in the skill''s system-level catching up to me once my ess to the system returns.


    However, my skills don''t actually level up, so these three months are basically the perfect thing to let me increase my proficiency with all of your techniques, since any growth will be independent from the system."


    Shimour listened to Eiro''s exnation and slowly nodded his head, "I see... So instead of improving based on the ''system'', you want to improve just generally, and refine your current abilities."


    "Yes, practically. I want to try to emte increases in skill levels as much as possible without actually levelling up."


    With a satisfied nod, the master pped his hands together, "In that case, let''s get this on. First, show me what you can do. Without using any techniques to actively remove your presence, show me your movements. Just..." looking around to try and figure out a good way to exactly see Eiro''s current, pure stealth skill, Shimour''s sight soonnded on James.


    He was currently on break from his own training and seemed to have something he wanted to do inside. Considering that James himself also had the stealth skill, Shimour saw him as the perfect target.


    "Follow that guy, without letting him or anyone else notice you. Stay within ten feet of him. Do not leave behind any traces, and just fully use your environment and movements to avoid his sight. No magic, and no energy- or presence-maniption. Just raw physical technique," Shimour said, and Eiro let out a slight sigh as he looked back at him.


    "Alright, sure," the demon briefly pulled the wings out of the folds on his back and pped them briefly, closing the distance between him and James almost instantly. As his feet touched the ground behind the helf, he pulled his wings back inside. But then, he just stood there.


    Right now, there were plenty of things he could hide behind that would be a much safer choice, but that didn''t particrly seem like the point of what Shimour wanted to see. Not to mention, it was unnecessary effort.


    Eiro could feel the presence of anyone and everyone that could possibly spot him in any way, even if it was just through a brush of the air. He knew when they wereing close to seeing him, and how they were about to move next, and that was especially the case with James, who Eiro had trained up himself.


    So, he knew he could just casually follow behind for now. Of course, as he moved, Eiro did so without making any sound, but he was just walkingpletely upright not even two full steps behind James.


    Even as he walked into the manor, where plenty of individuals were walking around that could potentially spot him, Eiro didn''t need to do much. Sure, sometimes he had hide behind a corner, stick to the ceiling for a bit, or cleverly position himself in a way that Eiro himself was hidden from others behind James, while avoiding both him and anyone else that could see him.


    It was a sort of easy task, but Eiro figured that it wasn''t really the point anyway. Shimour just wanted to see the specifics of his body and techniques, and the only way that was possible was by seeing him in action in some sort of capacity, so even a simple task like this should be enough.

 Chapter 751: The Stealth Aspect

    James stared at the man towering over him, not sure what was going on. It was Shimour, standing there with his arms crossed. Not to mention, his expression was clearly annoyed.


    "Uhm... is everything okay?" James asked, not sure exactly how to react. The house was filled to the brim with Masters at this point so the idea somehow lost value to him a bit, especially after literally going to hell and back the other day. But even so, the vibe that Shimour was giving off was incredibly intimidating, to say the least.


    Shimour clicked his tongue, looking at something behind James, "Your name''s James, right? Couldn''t you be a little more... perceptive?"


    "I... huh?" James asked, not entirely sure what he meant, when another voice entered the conversation.


    "It sounds like you wanted me to be spotted," Eiro pointed out, and James flinched as he turned around.


    "You- Eiro, what are you- How long have you been there?"


    Eiro shrugged, "Twenty minutes?"


    "Excuse me?"


    "Okay, maybe it was twenty-two."


    Still not sure what exactly the demon was talking about, James narrowed his eyes, "What the hell are you talking about?"


    "Don''t worry about it," Shimour replied, starting to walk off as James was left confused. Eiro quickly exined it to him.


    "He asked to see my stealth technique, so I was following you around pretty closely. Just with physical techniques, not by suppressing my presence."


    "Wait, but I... why did nobody else tell me? I was talking to Krog and Jess for like five minutes earlier," letting out a long sigh, James let out a long breath, and Eiro shook his head.


    "I was hiding from everyone else too. But I had to stick as close to you as possible and follow you around specifically."


    "... That''s kind of creepy, isn''t it?"


    Eiro shrugged, "I guess so. But really, what difference does it make? I can sense everything that''s going on in this house anyway."


    After thinking about it for a moment, James shook his head, "No, it''s definitely extremely different... but I get it. Also, if I had been doing something I didn''t want you to know about, or entered one of your ''nk spaces'', then I doubt you''d have kept following me, so I guess it''s not that bad," he let out a long sigh as Eiro raised his brows.


    "Of course not. I do respect your privacy. You specifically told me how important it was to you that I didn''t watch you all the time," the demon replied, as his ear perked up slightly, "Anyway, I''ve got to go. Shimour wants to continue. Oh, and you mentioned something about checking up on the main body earlier...


    the door is locked right now so that the arcane magic doesn''t leak out, but just call out to one of the duplicates if you want to take a look and we''ll open it up for you."


    James scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, "Oh, yeah... thanks, I''ll do that. Good luck with that guy, he looks strict."


    The Stealth-skill duplicate smiled with a quick nod, "He''s a lot more easy-going than he looks, actually. But thanks, anyway."


    A baffled James was left on his own as Eiro made his way back outside where Shimour was waiting for him, apparently annoyed over something. Though, Eiro could somewhat tell what exactly he was annoyed about. Shimourpletely expected, and wanted, Eiro to be caught. Rather, he was actively working against Eiro while he was following James around.


    Using his own stealth abilities, Shimour moved around objects, guided around the different inhabitants of the manor into ces that would make it much harder for Eiro, and once even actively tried to get James to turn around to look at the demon behind him. To an extent, this was of course just to make things a bit harder for Eiro.


    Getting him to the point of failure was, of course, the best way to see the limits of Eiro''s abilities. And now, Shimour wasn''t able to see those yet, so he would have to try and figure out something else. Though, somewhere in there, a bit of pettiness was mixed in as well, as if he just kind of wanted Eiro to be spotted.


    "Alright, let''s move on. If I''m going to be totally honest, your physical movements are... almost perfect. There''s a little room for improvement, but they''re small things that you will simply adjust over time," Shimour sighed, as if he was still a bit annoyed, "You said you can adjust your muscture based on others, right?"


    Eiro quickly nodded, "Yes, I assume it''s an ability thates from abination of my powerful senses and the world''s abilities. I can hear the flow of blood and see the twitching of their muscles. The way they move, how much air they push away, the exact force they exert.


    If I spent some time doing so, I could probably train myself in ways to attain that exact physique anyway, but that would take time and would be much less efficient. With my ''physical absorption'', my body just reconstitutes itself. If I go overboard, it does overwrite some of my older adaptions, but I luckily also have a mind that can''t forget anything.


    I can just view the memories again and change my body based on those."


    Shimour nodded along with Eiro''s exnation, "It even works with memories, huh? Interesting... well, either way, don''t rely on that too often. Obviously, my body will develop muscles differently to yours, so if you copy the exact strength and configuration of my muscles, it''s going to be inefficient for your body.


    It seems like you can already adjust to that pretty well, but abilities like that always have their limits."


    Eiro slowly nodded, "I see. In that case, I''ll speed up the pace at which this body''s muscture adjusts to my actions."


    "Right, do that... wait, huh? What do you mean?"


    "Well, this is an artificially created body. Sure, for big changes, I need to be in contact with the main body or the main body''s proxy, but small changes like that can be done by myself from here," Eiro exined, "Actually, all of the duplicates are decently weakened right now."


    "...And why is that?"


    "Because of the ''Ultimate Agility'' card that I took in," the demon exined, while Shimour just raised his brows in realization.


    "Right ¨C with the stats your body already has, it sounds pretty rough to deal with," the master pointed out curiously, "So you can weaken your stats?"


    "To a degree. I can''t meddle with my brain too much if I want to function properly, so mental stats are a no-go, but physical stats can be changed pretty easily. Though, it''s less of a change of the actual stat, but the stat values. I''m basically weakening all the physical parts that are affected by my stats to the needed point," Eiro exined, and Shimour quietly nodded along, until he got an idea.


    "Alright... in that case, how low can you go? Can you drop your physical stats to below hundred?"


    The Demon raised his brow, "Sure, that shouldn''t be too hard. It''s probably easier if Ipletely reconstitute myself into a previous evolution, though."


    "Perfect. I''ve seen what your body can do, so now, I want to see what your perception-maniption can do. If you can change your physical stats to as low as you can, then it''s a sort of pure look at that side of things. Simr to how I could see your purely physical technique just now," Shimour pointed out, and Eiro let out a long, loud sigh.


    stories


    "Fine. As low as possible, then?" the demon asked, and Shimour immediately nodded his head, "As low as possible."


    With a click of his tongue, Eiro unfolded his wings and flew up to one of the second-story windows, quickly making his way inside. He reached the bedroom in just a few moments, but the way back took far, far, far longer. Especially because he didn''t want to be seen.


    Though this body now had abysmal perception, he still had his passive perception from all the other duplicates walking through the manor, so he could navigate well enough without being seen, and soon stepped back out into the gardens.


    Shimour seemed incredibly taken aback as he looked down at Eiro, who had shrunken down to less than half his former height.


    "What the... are you... Eiro?"


    "Yes," the demon replied in a voice that sounded like someone scratched their nails on a chalkboard, "This is my body from when I was just born," he exined, slowly looking down at his ugly, shriveled imp body, barely hidden through a set of ill-fitting clothes.

 Chapter 752: The Stealth Aspect (2)

    Shimour stared down at the figure of Eiro as he stood there in the form of amon imp, practically indistinguishable from any other. Whether it was his appearance, the structure of his body, or even the amount of magic he carried inside of him; this was truly a Lesser Imp in every single way, excluding the mind. After all, that mind still belonged to Eiro.


    "That''s... what you used to look like, or something?" Shimour tried to rify, and the demon quickly nodded his head. He wanted to try and avoid speaking as much as he could, since his own voice was disgustingly rough and grating to him, but he still had to exin things one way or another.


    "Yes. As I said, this is my body from when I was born. Specifically, it is equal to when all of my physical stats were ''10''," he said, "I figured this would be a good point. Weak enough to get you a clear view of my techniques, but not too weak to jeopardize said techniques."


    Slowly nodding, Shimour squatted down, as if to get a closer look. Right now, Eiro was the size of a young child, after all, "That''s truly incredible... do you have the ability to transform to this degree in your real body as well?"


    Eiro quickly shook his head, "No, this is just because this body is a duplicate. I can change and alter the things I recreate through the mirror quite a lot, and when ites to recreating my own body, I can tap into aspects of my mind and recreate those memories themselves. In this case, this body is a fusion of the ''aspect of stealth'' and my form as a lesser imp."


    Curiously, the stealth master nodded his head, continuing to nce at different parts of the demon''s body, "I see... in that case, let''s get started. I''m pretty curious to see what you can do now."


    The demon slowly nodded. He sat down on the ground, cross-legged. He wasn''t particrly flexible in his body, so it was quite annoying, but it was doable at least.


    Usually, he would have just shown Shimour his technique while standing up, since he would have the control over his body to bepletely still, but with the body of a lesser imp with such low stats and stat values, that wasn''t a privilege he could enjoy.


    Just standing still, there was a constant shaking and swaying underlining his motions. It was pretty annoying, and felt almost like he was suffering from some kind of freezing cold. However, it was really just the natural state of this body, as if the existence of this body in itself was cing him into some kind of deep existential fear.


    But once he sat down, Eiro could start working against that. Despite the low amount of mana that he had, he could still circte it throughout his body somehow. His mana circuitry wasn''t particrly developed, but there was still enough to allow him to do what he needed to do.


    His mana began to flow through the mana circuits inside of him, and his muscles naturally started to rx, stopping the twitching. This was the first step that he had to do; making sure that his body was at a good ''neutral'' point for the techniques.


    And what followed were the techniques themselves. Eiro''s senses were incredibly weakened, but he was still able to sense what was directly around him, at least to some degree. He could feel the wind on the exposed parts of his skin, and the rough dirt under his body. He could feel the cloth rubbing against him, and his heart beating in his chest.


    That in particr was something he wasn''t used to anymore. It was a natural function that he lived with until quite recently, but it was just so much morefortable to not have to deal with that kind of weakness that he got used it almost immediately.


    That being the case, the heartbeat still had some kind of benefit, since it was a good point of reference for himself. Not to mention, with this level of mana that he had, a heartbeat was a good tool for mana distribution. Luckily, he was still allowed to make use of the full extent of his mana maniption techniques, since that was basically what Shimour was trying to test, anyway.


    A wave of weak but refined mana was starting to flow out from the demon''s body, quickly pulling back in. With every pulse, the mana reached a little further before being pulled back in. And with every one of those pulses, Eiro''s presence was being stretched thin along with his mana. This continued on and on, until the pulse''s radius was one meter, then two, then five, and then ten.


    It took a good while, since Eiro had so little to work with, but it was still quite effective. In the end, it didn''t really matter exactly how fast Eiro was working. Instead, only the quality of his technique mattered right now. Or at least, that''s what Eiro figured Shimour was trying to evaluate for now.


    If he wanted to see the speed of the demon''s technique, then Eiro shouldn''t have to change his body, or so he figured.


    Before long, Eiro''s presence was stretched thin an incredible amount. This in itself was already strong enough to count as the stealth technique of most experts, but it wasn''t the end yet. Eiro knew that Shimour''s technique didn''t end there. After stretching his presence thin, he had to intertwine it with the presence of the world around him.


    Slowly, the demon focused on the space around him. He once more tried to feel the dirt and the wind, smelling the scent of the nearby grass and flowers. But Eiro concentrated not on how he sensed them, but on the fact of their existence itself. The undeniable fact that they were there and that they were real. The tangibility of the world around him.


    And after holding onto that presence, Eiro began to mix it in with his own. They fused together, as Eiro''s presence became that of this small section of the training grounds. It was like they were one and the same. If one tried to sense Eiro, they would sense the training ground, and if someone sensed the training ground, they would also sense Eiro.


    But with the demon''s presence being stretched so thin, his existence waspletely overshadowed by that of the training ground.


    Those with particrly strong senses, those that knew how these techniques worked, or those with a mixture of both, might be able to see through it. Even Shimour could be seen through to an extent by Eiro, after all.


    "Oh?" Shimour let out, as though surprised, "That... your raw technique is already incredibly refined... seriously, do you even need my help? With just a bit of time, you should be able to get to the point you want."


    Eiro carefully let go of the control of his technique, his presence quickly fading back into existence, "I don''t believe I have the leisure of time. With your assistance, I should be able to grow farther and faster than I could on my own. Even if it''s not any particr tips or vocal instruction, let me observe you. Let me learn from you. Let me... steal from you."


    Shimour looked at the demon with a baffled expression. Hearing something like that from the body of a lesser imp was more than just unusual, and he couldn''t help but be a bit prideful.


    "You really think you''ve got what it takes to steal from me?"


    Eiro nodded without a moment''s hesitation, "Of course. I''m a pretty greedy collector, after all."


    The master of stealth let out a quietugh, "Fine. Get back into your regr body, and then we can get started," Shimour grinned, squatting down in front of the imp, "If you want to try and steal from me, then give it your best shot. Thievery is something not quite foreign to me, you know?"


    Eiro slightly tilted his head to the side, bearing his crooked, rotting, and yellowed teeth, "Don''t worry, I know."


    Seeing the knowing stare in the Demon''s eyes, Shimour almost flinched back. It was like he was being seen through; as if he was being read like a book, and everything about his being wasidpletely bare in front of Eiro.


    For the first time in his life, Shimour was actually afraid he would be stolen from.

 Chapter 753: The Dagger Mastery Aspect

    Orion stabbed his dagger forward, and the ringing of metal hitting against metal sounded out as Eiro caught the attack. The demon quickly countered with a second dagger strike, but Orion slightly bent his body. Eiro stabbed through the dagger master''s clothes, barely missing his skin.


    With a quick sh, Orion created a deep cut in Eiro''s arm, and as the blood flowed out, the master quickly flicked his wrist, throwing droplets of blood into Eiro''s eyes. Usually, he would make those swerve out of the way with magic, but he wasn''t allowed to use magic right now. The rules for this duel were simple.


    Pure, unadulterated daggerbat. The only thing that was allowed was life force maniption, since that was arge part of Orion''s techniques. And Eiro watched closely as the dagger master manipted said life force. It was... almost like a form of art. Ripples of energy flowing through that old man''s body like raindrops hitting a stillke.


    The ripples moved together and ovepped each other at the exact right points, creating grooves of emptiness where they were needed. Rather than adjusting the flow of his life force to the way that he moved, as Eiro did, it almost looked like his life force was the part making the choices, controlling the body that housed it.


    This was the one part that the puppet hadn''t been able to show to Eiro. It was able to perfectly copy the physical movements and a certain level of techniques of the masters, but it wasn''t able to manipte life force. Or well, it didn''t need to. Life force wouldn''t affect a puppet the same way it would a proper living being, after all.


    That was why Eiro simply adjusted his life force the way that seemed natural. Supporting his attacks to improve how much damage he did, pulling back from impacts or cuts to reduce the damage he received. But how Orion did it, and Kassandra at that, albeit in a very different way, was far different. Like it wasn''t just a simple way to strengthen the body, but... something more supernatural than that.


    Actually, Eiro had read something like this in the tower in the realm of fire, though he hadn''t analyzed the texts properly yet. He thought that it had something to do with the nature of those living there; every being there was magical in nature, and their bodies reacted to energies differently to those of non-magical beings.


    That''s why, he figured that the texts he found were more about a unique, physical application of magic.


    Like, using mana to manipte their own bodies and strengthen themselves. Theirnguage didn''t seem to have an equivalent term for ''life force'', though that term was already not something widespread in themonnguage either. Only very few people knew the word, and even less knew and understood what it actually referred to.


    There were some individuals, high-ss warriors, that strengthened their body''s physical qualities by manipting the energies inside of them. However, instead of mana, those energies seemed to be life force, manipted with specific techniques to cause special effects.


    Just like Orion seemed to be doing. Eiro could smell the scent of water from him. It was powerful and distinct, and Eiro assumed that it was just the scent of his underlying affinity with the water element mixing with the unique scent that every ''master'' seemed to have, but it seemed to be different than that.


    As the dagger master''s de pressed up against Eiro''s neck, the demon stared into the man''s eyes, "You refined your life force to fit your techniques?"


    Taken aback, Orion blinked a few times as he pulled his daggers away, "Uhm... yeah. You noticed?"


    "Yeah, you infused the essence of water magic into your life force."


    "Something like that. Actually, I just-"


    "Right, you didn''t infuse anything into your life force, but your life force itself is like that essence. You... refined the parts that you wanted, and let the parts that you didn''t want wither. Of course, that seems a little...


    risky," the demon pointed out, starting to think about the process a bit more, "No matter how slow and careful you are, life force is too vtile to simply change it away from what your personal essence defines for you. So the more effective method would be to do it a bit more rapidly and then focus on stabilizing it.


    And then, once it became stable again, you went through another round of refining. Like growing the nts you want throughout generations of artificial selection."


    Orion stared at Eiro, a bit taken aback, "I... It was actually a bit more of a mixture of either. In my day-to-day training, I would slowly refine my life force, and then when it became too unstable, I used that for my benefit. Like... letting it copse into the shape that I wanted to get much more progress. But yes, the rest is as you said.


    How did you... did Jura tell you about that? He always believed in the purity of life force. It was more benefitial to him."


    Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Right... leaving the life force as is would make it easier for another to ept into their bodies. Jura wasn''t a fighter; he could handle himself, sure, but he always thought about his work first for things like this."


    "... Yeah, he sure did."


    "But no, he didn''t tell me about it. It''s interesting, though. I never thought about refining my life force instead of my body itself," Eiro muttered, "Of course, I''ve been improving my control over it, but refining refining my life force felt wrong... maybe because I have been thinking like Jura. What a shame, that would have been a great improvement."


    A bit confused, Orion looked back at him with a frown, "What do you mean? I thought you were going to ask me how to do it."


    "Oh, no, of course not. As I just said, but refining my life force would make it easier for others to ept it. It needs to stay in its almost ''pure'' form."


    "... Did you follow in his footsteps? Are you a prosthetist?"


    Eiro shrugged, "Yeah, I guess so. I mean... part-time, I guess. On short days at the academy, I take a tour through the poorer parts of town, and sometimes the city hospital. I end up at the adventurer''s guild a lot too, there''s a lot of injuries. Though usually I''m only there when they call me for help with someone that''s crippled."


    "Are you sure that you''re a demon? Shouldn''t you be doing a few more... sinful things than that?"


    "Well, I''m the demon lord of sin and virtue. So... yeah. I''ve done a lot of rough things in my life, and I still do them as necessary. But through my children, and my father, I learned the value of life, and the importance of helping those that can''t help themselves. As long as they don''t try to mess with me, obviously."


    Orion pulled back his dagger with a smile, "If that''s your choice, then that''s that. Though, I don''t know what else to teach you beside my way of using life force."


    "Maybe I can emte it somehow. I could just try to fuse my life force with the essence of water magic. Since I have ess to the elemental ne of water, I can pull out the purest version of it."


    "That would be worth a try, at the very least," Orion nodded, tapping the tip of his dagger against his chin in thought, "I don''t know much about magic, so if you say it could work, then... it might work. You look like you know a thing or two about magic."


    "You could say that," the demon replied, "I''ll have to head up and grab a bit of the essence then. The spirit gateway is in my core, which means it''s in the main body. I''ll have to grab a bit of essence."


    "Sure," Orion replied, though Eiro noticed that he was clearly curious about something. He looked at the master with a smile.


    "Do you have a question for me?"


    Orion hesitated before finally nodding his head, "How does the spirit gateway thing work? Can ya just move through it whenever you want?"


    "No, of course not. Physical matter can''t pass through it, only magic. Since spirits are basically magice to life, they can move through without issues. I was able to move some duplicates through though, forming them around the other side of the gateway, so I am over there right now."


    "Is that so? Well... what is it like over there?"


    Eiro smiled, "Hold on, I''ll grab some of the essence, and then I can try to show you."

 Chapter 754: The Dagger Mastery Aspect (2)

    The duplicate Eiro stepped up to the bedroom door, carefully cing his palm onto the door. There was a specific link ced here that allowed the original body''s soul to be fully essed from here, at least through the duplicates. It was basically just a ry point for Eiro''s mana, like a lightning rod that the demon could specifically point his mana toward.


    Like that, objects could be taken out from the treasury, the duplicates'' bodies could be altered, new duplicates could be created, and like right now, the duplicates could receive new mana from the original.


    Since they were just duplicates, they weren''t able to fully produce their own mana or ess things like the spirit gateways through their own bodies, but the passive consciousness of the original could be triggered in ways that allowed the duplicates to ess it this way at the very least.


    And so, the dagger mastery duplicate quickly pulled out some water magic from the elemental ne of water, quickly storing it inside of his body and concentrating it into arge magic stone near where his heart should be. He was basically recreating a smaller version of the mana crystal that formed in Eiro''s body after his mana reached seven digits.


    It didn''t take Eiro too long to grab enough magic before turning back around. He made his way through the manor and stepped back outside, where Orion was waiting for him. The master was taking the time to clean his dagger that had the demon''s blood on it just earlier, and then quickly raised his head when Eiro returned.


    "Did you grab that essence you mentioned?" Orion asked curiously, and the demon quickly nodded his head.


    "Yes, I have," he responded, carefully holding his hand forward. He let the water magic''s essence flow into his wooden prosthetic as he dragged his hand across the air, as if he was trying to scratch it. The magic flowed out of the wooden hand, leaving thin streams of water behind that kept floating in the air.


    Once he was done, Eiro formed a fist, and the water spread out around him and Orion, creating a thin barrier made with the essence of another ne, "Obviously it''s notparable to that realm at all, but it''s a good attempt at an imitation, I would say."


    Orion''s gaze widened as he looked around. It was like the two were underwater in a dense, magical ocean, "If this is a mere imitation, then I don''t think my old heart could take the real deal."


    "Do you like water that much?" Eiro asked curiously, and Orion carefully nodded his head.


    "My father was a sailor. I got my sea-legs before I even walked onnd, and the first time I held a knife was to cut through some ropes on my father''s ship.


    Calling it a mere ''liking'' of water might be an understatement," with augh, Orion held his hand out to the magical barrier, letting his fingers run through the flowing essence, "Seeing the infinite ocean of that elemental ne was always a dream of mine."


    The demon silently looked at Orion. For a moment, he focused on the duplicate currently in that ne, still sitting at Nelly''s bedside as she tried to recover in the Naiad Queen''s castle.


    Once Nelly woke up again and Eiro made sure that she was healthy enough to either travel or be left alone for the time being, that duplicate would head back to the tower of books and continue reading to reach the top. Eiro was sure that there would be some books rted to the nature of the nes at the top of the towers.


    There certainly wasn''t anything particrly helpful in any of the books that Eiro had read in the second-tostyer of the ne of fire''s tower. It seemed like the kind of knowledge that was dangerous for many types of people to have, so it being locked away at the top made sense.


    The thing that Eiro was most curious about were the methods that others had used to travel to those nes in the past. Of course, there were stories of those that had done so, and even some theories written by magical schrs about how internar travel could be possible for non-magical beings, but none of it described the actual methods in any particrly helpful way.


    But if anywhere, then those books would be at the peak of the towers. Maybe Eiro would end up finding something there, but that wasn''t something he could even really predict at this point. Not to mention, even if he did find something, the probability of it being something that Orion could take advantage of wasn''t really... high.


    Meshi was one thing; it seemed like he had the ability to move between physical spaces quite easily already, to the point of something like a semi-teleportation. So expanding that into the realm of internar travel was, while still an incredible task, at least a lot more feasible than trying to let Orion travel between realms.


    It would be one thing if Orion was a mage, but he didn''t seem to even have particrly refined mana, instead having focused all of his attention onto refining and using his life force.


    That was why, even if Orion did somehow manage to make it to the elemental ne of water, the sheer concentration of water magic was going to be highly toxic to him, ignoring the fact that he wouldn''t be able to even breathe in the first ce. But, of course, Orion also hadn''t asked Eiro about his opinion on that. He surely already knew that it wasn''t something feasible.


    On the other hand, Eiro did wonder if maybe reaching that ne could allow Orion to awaken his life force to a whole new level, considering that the master''s life force had clearly taken on qualities simr to this essence around them. Even being masters, that didn''t actually mean that they fullypleted or reached the limits of their abilities.


    Even if they couldn''t use their current abilities to the fullest extent already due to the limits of causality, that didn''t mean they had nothing left to learn.


    "That is a wonderful dream," Eiro replied to the old man, who just let out a longugh.


    "Now, now, ignore that," Orion smiled, "For now, just try to do that thing you mentioned. Fusing your life force with this essence."


    Eiro quickly nodded his head. He pulled the magic away from the barrier that he had formed around himself and the master, and then quickly gathered the magic in one spot again, right over his wooden palm. Now, he basically had to do the same thing that he did when creating pure mana, though the actual concept was a little different.


    The elemental magic that was infused into mana was already very simr to an essence, especially the magic that came from the elemental nes. However, there were still some aspects that Eiro needed to iste and pull out, as if he was refining or distilling the magic into something more deliberate. It was somewhat like stripping the ''concept'' of water off its physical representation.


    It was a bit hard to grasp at first, even for Eiro, but that was why he had spent quite a long time trying to figure out exactly how to do it, so even if it took a while, he was able to iste the conceptual aspect of the magic from the rest of it, though he hadn''t really done it in practice before.


    And so, Eiro soon had two different things. The conceptual essence of water, as well as a mass of pure magic. Not pure mana, but pure magic. Like a mass of non-elemental magic. For the time being, Eiro stored this non-elemental magic inside of his body, creating a non-elemental magic stone inside of himself.


    But beside that, Eiro now had a lump of the conceptual essence of water. He carefully pulled it inside of his body, slowly intertwining it with his life force. The two mixed together rtively quickly, and Eiro could feel the life force inside of him distinctly change. It made him feelpletely different, like his whole existence was now a few steps closer to the concept of ''water''.


    It was a curious feeling, one that Eiro certainly wanted to explore a lot more. He carefully ced his hand onto the handle of his dagger.

 Chapter 755: The Freerunning Aspect

    "Catch up, will you?" Meshiughed out loud, jumping through the intertwining hidden pathways of the manor, being chased by Eiro.


    "Oh shut up," the demon clicked his tongue, reaching his hand out to the man whose body quickly moved out of the way. This was basically the exact same training as Eiro went through with the puppet, just at apletely different level. He didn''t really feel any hope of ever catching up to Meshi, and it wasn''t even just his ridiculous speed.


    If he needed to, he could catch up to him with the help of the new card he got, the ''Ultimate Agility''. Right now, his body was weakened to the point he was at before linking with it, but with time that limit would be let go of and Meshi''s raw physical speed wouldn''t be able topare to Eiro''s anymore.


    But it really wasn''t about speed right now. No, instead, it was about how Meshi moved. It was wild and free and almost random, despite very clearly being so directly calcted. Like the wind, he slithered around the edges, and whenever Eiro''s hand came close to him, his body smoothly moved out of the way without even giving Eiro a chance to respond.


    Even trying to predict where he was going to move didn''t work, since Meshi''s very existence seemed to reject being caught, so even though Eiro could know where Meshi moved to, he physically wasn''t able to catch him.


    That being the case, Eiro''s body was slowly but surely adjusting more and more to the exact way that Meshi was moving and to the slight twitches of his muscles.


    Rather, right now, Eiro wasn''t even trying to actively catch him, but rather, he was attempting to do so in ways that forced Meshi to move out of the way in unique manners, giving Eiro an insight into the man''s muscles that he usually wouldn''t get.


    However, there was something else to this as well. It seemed like all four of the masters that had arrived recently, that being Shimour, Orion, Kassandra, and Meshi, had refined their life force in particr ways.


    Thetter three did so in ways to take advantage of particr natural qualities, while Shimour seemed to have tried making his life force even more vtile than it already was, allowing it to change and adapt to whatever he needed. He did sacrifice a certain level of functionality through that. Basically, he was the ''jack of all trades'' to the ''masters of one'' that were the other three.


    And of those, Orion had refined his life force to be more like water, Kassandra''s was more like fire, and Meshi''s was like wind. Eiro was actually a bit surprised about Orion and Kassandra, having expected it to be the exact opposite. Orion''s dagger mastery was sharp and aggressive, initially reminding Eiro more of the sudden spikes of a rapid, hot me.


    But upon actually seeing Orion, it was more like the extreme force that came from two waves smashing into each other.


    Meanwhile, though Kassandra''s hand-to-handbat reminded of the smooth motion of water gliding through gaps in everything it came across, it was more like the heat slowly spreading through whatever her mes touched.


    Though, at least Meshi''s was a lot more instinctively fitting. It was like he was the wind itself, rejecting to be tied down in one spot and making that intention immediately clear with every single motion and thought. Eiro couldn''t help himself but respect that. That very clear adhesion to freedom in every part of Meshi''s thoughts and actions.


    However, there was an issue here. While Eiro couldn''t refine his life force into any particr direction, making it more vtile to help his stealth like Shimour wouldn''t really be an issue. After all, that would really only help the patients that he made prosthetics for and physically make it easier for them to ept their new limbs.


    But refining it into any particr direction was something he couldn''t do, at least not right now. At least it seemed like he was able to use the elemental essences of the nes of fire and water to infuse his life force to get a simr effect, but he didn''t have ess to that same level of purity from the elemental ne of air.


    He didn''t even know if there was a spirit gateway like that anywhere close to here, nor did he think he would be able to get his hands on it. He didn''t even have a contract with a Sylph. Though, maybe that was worth looking into. Eiro had never considered it since air was practically the one element that he nevercked at any point, so he never felt the need to go out of his way.


    Not that his other spirit contracts were actively sought out or nned by him.


    That being the case, it would only be benefitial. Maybe he should try and form contracts with other types of spirits too... practically every element had spirits connected to them. There were even the more unique spirits like those that ruled over the seasons.


    That ice flower bud that would soon be born into a winter spirit was still safely kept inside of Eiro''s treasury, but it seemed to be opening more and more already.


    The only thing that Eiro was worried about was finding trustworthy spirits. Most spirits formed contracts that were benefitial only to them, but Eiro wasn''t interested in that kind of rtionship. If it wasn''t an equal contract, then he wouldn''t enter one.


    "Maybe I should just go by the hignds when the evolution is over and at least meet some Sylphs..." Eiro muttered to himself, as Meshi curiously tilted his head toward him.


    "Hm? You''re going to the hignds? For what?"


    "Ah, sorry, I didn''t realize I said that out loud," the demon quickly apologized, "I''m not going right now; I can''t move that far away from the main body. But I just wanted to meet some spirits and maybe form some more contracts."


    "Ehh..." Meshi let out, casually tilting out of the way and flipping around as Eiro reached his hand out to him, trying to even scrape by a single hair of his, "You aiming to master spirit magic or something?"


    "Not particrly, but if it ends up that way, I won''t beining," Eiro scoffed as he shook his head, "But I figured it''s not a bad idea if I find the right individuals. And even if I don''t find a fitting spirit, I may at least find some more spirit gateways."


    With raised brows, Meshi leaned forward, "Oh? So what you want to do is spread your feelers into the other nes?"


    "Well, I guess so," Eiro smiled lightly, "I figured I might as well give it a shot. If I find a gateway and the current guardian refuses to hand it over to me, I won''t force it to happen, obviously, but it would definitely be interesting. Plus..."


    The demon thought about it for a moment. He wasn''t sure if he should say it, but there probably wasn''t any harm. He had told them a lot of things that were probably far more important to keep hidden, so he quickly exined it to the man in front of him, "When I connected with the two spirit gateways I currently have with me, I was able to go and talk to the ''world''.


    I was given some pretty important information each time, and I think maybe I could get some more. Not to mention that having ess to pure elements is always a plus."


    Meshi seemed a bit confused, "You spoke to ''the world''? But ain''t that you?"


    "Oh, no, I''m not talking about my royal title, I''m talking about the actual world we all live in. The consciousness, the incarnation; the will of nature and everything we exist within. That world."


    "... The world has an actual consciousness?"


    "Well, something like it, at least. She''s probably not actively conscious all the time, but I was able to speak to her, and she spoke to me pretty clearly too."


    "... The world is a ''she''?" Meshi seemed even more surprised than after the first bit of information, and Eiroughed a bit.


    "She felt quite feminine, at least. I''m pretty sure she would be fine with me referring to her like that... Though I guess I should ask and make sure, should I ever get the chance again."


    After some contemtion, Meshi squatted down on the ground, looking at the Demon, "You know, I''ve got a suggestion. I''m not into betting like Kassandra, but... a wager seems fun every once in a while.


    "A wager?" Eiro repeated.


    "Yeah," a broad smile formed on the master''s lips, "If you can ever catch me, full-palm, solidly pressed up against me, before your evolution is over. I''m going to tell you the location of the spirit gateways I know about."

 Chapter 756: The Hand-to-Hand Combat Aspect

    "So... what? You fused your life force with fire essence and now you think that solves all your problems? Does that mean you don''t need my training?" Kassandra crosser her arms, tapping her foot on the ground. With a shake of the head, Eiro quickly replied.


    "No, no, I do still need your training. And not just physically in order to improve and fine-tune my hand-to-handbat techniques, but to learn how exactly you use your life force," the demon pointed out with a smile on his face, ready to learn from the master, but Kassandra didn''t seem quite so excited about it.


    "What''s the problem? Doesn''t that fusion thing already fix all that for you?" she wondered, but Eiro immediately shook his head.


    "Of course not. My life force now has me-like qualities, but the patterns in which you move your life force, whether that its something you do intentionally or a trained instinct rued over the time that you''ve been refining your life force, are still things that I need to learn about."


    "... Fine, I guess so," Kassandra sighed, waving Eiro over, "In that case,e over here."


    The demon raised his brow, and did as told, soon being prompted to expose his back. Kassandra ced her hand onto it, seeming a little confused, "Uhm... where''s your heartbeat exactly?"


    "I don''t have one."


    "And why don''t you have one?" Kassandra asked, taken aback.


    "Well, I don''t have a heart anymore. I mentioned that, right?"


    "...I thought that was some kind of weird joke. You really don''t have a heart? Like, physically, you don''t have a heart?" Kassandra asked, and Eiro quickly shook his head.


    "No, I''m just using magic to make my blood flow through me instead. It''s actually far more efficient than it may sound," the Demon exined, but Kassandra just seemed a bit more hesitant after that.


    She let out a long sigh, before Eiro could feel a soft warmth entering his body through his back. It didn''t move in particrly far, though. What Kassandra was doing was pushing her own life force into Eiro''s body, and the demon quickly reacted in understanding.


    He felt the patterns that Kassandra was creating with her life force, those soft, but at times fierce waves of heat, like a small campfire burning away. Eiro quickly copied that pattern, feeling the essence of the me fill his body even more than before.


    He could understand why it would help particrly with certain stances of Kassandra''s hand-to-handbat, and the master quickly exined, "That''s low heat, alright? And next is high heat."


    Almost instantly, Kassandra''s life force changed. Instead of being soft and weing, it was an aggressive and repulsive me, like the fire burning down what used to be a home. But even so, Eiro quickly copied that pattern as well. And soon, he felt his body adapt to that pattern as well. It was a simr feeling to before, but one that was turned up to extreme levels.


    Like the aggressiveness of the me was about to make him move against his will. Though, it seemed to support his movements in extremely specific ways, so it was only applicable to one or two of the stances that Eiro knew about.


    "... Nexte the embers," Kassandra said with a hesitant voice. Eiro could feel that she was a little annoyed for some reason. Though, Eiro could probably guess why she was annoyed, if he was totally honest. Kassandra disliked, if not hated, Eiro from the very beginning. He didn''t even know why she had agreed to teach him, but he figured he shouldn''t look a gift horse in the mouth.


    That being the case, Kassandra was clearly bothered that Eiro was able to adjust his life force to the different patterns or ''states'' that Kassandra was trying to show to him so easily. But Eiro felt no need tohold himself back just to make Kassandra feel better; at this point, she would probably realize that Eiro was doing so anyway, and that might make her even more angry.


    So, through the different patterns that Kassandra was showing him, Eiro adjusted just as quickly as he felt like he needed to in order to properly feel that he had moved the current state of his life force as close to that of Kassandra''s as possible.


    "Such a showoff," Kassandra clicked her tongue as she stepped back, as Eiro pulled his shirt back on.


    "Is that all of the patterns?"


    "Yes, it is. What, not satisfied?"


    Eiro looked at the woman in front of him, noticing that she was clearly lying to him. Though, that was fine. Eiro didn''t expect them to reveal all of their secrets to him; expecting something like that waspletely ridiculous in the first ce. There really wasn''t any need to do so either.


    Eiro didn''t want to tell the masters directly yet, but what he was nning on doing was not to just copy them.


    He was going to use their techniques as a basis for his own. Eiro was a greedy demon, though, so he would never let up the chance to steal the techniques of those that have proven to the world that they are the peak of their particr specialties.


    And so, since Eiro didn''t have the time to indulge in the sort of training that was needed for him toe up with his own techniques from scratch, he would rather just take aspects from tried and true techniques like these and use those as a starting point.


    For example, he already regrly mixed Orion and Kassandra''s techniques, so what would happen if he tried to mix Orion''s dagger mastery with Kassandra''s life force techniques, or vice versa. Of course, that wouldn''t go over perfectly smotohly, but Eiro should have a good enough understanding of these techniques to adjust everything properly.


    And not just that, but now that he understood the concept of changing the qualities of your life force like this, a whole new world had opened up to him. Once he had ess to other pure elements, he could use those as a base to form new techniques for himself. Either way, he could use the methods of the masters as the best possible starting point he could ever ask for.


    "Okay, now," Kassandra crossed her arms and looked at the demon, once again tapping her foot on the ground impatiently, as if she wanted this all to be over as soon as possible, "Let''s actually see you use those life force patterns in action. First, use ''Low Heat'' with the basic defensive stance.


    Eiro quickly nodded his head, adjusting his life force in the way that Kassandra had shown him earlier. He wasn''t able to do it quite at the same speed that she was able to, but he was still pretty quick at it.


    Once he reached a point he was satisfied with, Eiro quickly took on the basic defensive stance, lowering his center of gravity ever so slightly while holding his right palm forward as his left was pressed onto his back. Since it was easier to train like this, Eiro had fused his arms together instead of leaving them split apart into four.


    Eiro inspected his own body. What he was noticing was actually quite surreal. As soon as he entered this position, it was like his body and life force were interacting with each other in a unique way.


    As if the ''low heat'' life force was flowing in all the right ways to make this stance as effective as it could be, while his body was in turn in the right position for the different areas of his body to cause the heat to intermingle with itself in all the needed points. Of course, that made sense; this life force pattern was clearly created by Kassandra using a lot of practice and fine-tuning.


    Her techniques were precise, like fine-tuning one''s own instincts into an even flow of motions. That wasn''t possible without spending a lot of time on refining your techniques into the best state they could be.


    "Hm... alright, just defend for now," Kassandra said, stretching lightly as she took on the basic offensive stance, quickly closing the gap between herself and Eiro. The demon was barely able to react in time before Kassandra struck him. However, as if his body reacted on his own, like the mes that were his life force reacted to the attack before he himself could, Eiro was prompted to defend.


    And defend he did.


    Kassandra struck at him a few more times, but he managed to sessfully defend.


    "That''s good enough for now. Next, the heavy defensive stance," Kassandra instructed, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, doing as he was told.

 Chapter 757: The Naiad King

    The water flowed around him. The open window was bringing in a breeze, as Eiro was seated on a chair. Two of his hands were busily carving away at some of this realm''s wood, or the equivalent at least, while his two other hands were holding a book that he was casually flipping through.


    It was a book that he pulled into existence through Anura''s knowledge magic; the memory of one of the other books that he read in the past.


    It was about a pretty interesting topic, and he didn''t really have anything else to do right now anyway, so Eiro figured he would take the time to ''analyze'' some of the books that he nced over in the tower, like the mental duplicates were doing within the mental library.


    Plenty of books had some hidden aspects to them, things that Eiro may not have consciously picked up, but still remembered through his subconscious senses. Things like specific patterns of mana imbued into some of the pages, certain letters having printing mistakes to them in specific, irregr patterns that seemed to give a sort of secret message.


    Of course, that wasn''t always the case, rather, it only happened quite rarely. But within the upper floors of the tower of books, it certainly was a lot more likely to find some books that had some secrets like this ced into them. Though, even after decyphering dozens of these secret messages, most of them were quite inconsequential in the end.


    Things like secret messages for the author''s lover, or a hint given from a spy to their lord. Messages that were written centuries ago and didn''t matter at all. Sure, Eiro managed to fill in some gaps in history here and there, but it was usually only turning what was the most likely possibility anyway into a fact.


    Still, it was a fun little thing to pass the time, and you never knew if there might not be some useful information hidden in there somewhere. Plus, Eiro didn''t want to just leave such obvious things disguised in his memories.


    And again, it was a good way to pass the time while he couldn''t do much else. After all, Eiro refused to leave Nelly''s bedside. The naiad was still asleep, though she was already looking a lot better. The integrity and fullness of her body had increased considerably, and she even started moving around a bit, tossing and turning in the bed. But even so, she was still asleep.


    It was to the point where Eiro was growing somewhat anxious, but he knew that there was no real need for him to worry. Nelly would pull through. He knew she would.


    That was when there was a knock on the door.


    "Come in, your majesty," the demon said, not moving his sight away from the book. The door opened up and the Naiad Queen swam into the room. This was no longer her bedroom, as the Naiad Queen had let Eiro move Nelly to a smaller, more private room. Though, even if it was smaller, it was stillrge enough for the queen at her quite massive size toe in without issue.


    The demon slowly looked over at her, "How are you this morning?"


    The queen smiled in response, "I am rather well... How are you? And she?"


    Eiro closed the book, as it disappeared from his hands, fading away into nothingness again. Eiro ced down the carving knife and the unfinished wooden figurine onto the bedside table, looking at Nelly with a smile, "I''m fine. And Nelly seems to still be improving. I''m convinced she will wake up with a little more time."


    "Let us hope so," the queen replied with a nod, but Eiro slightlyughed.


    "I''m not one for useless hope. I know she will wake up," the demon pointed out, "It is only a matter of when, not if."


    With a somber expression, the queen looked at the demon, "I see..."


    Realizing that she wasn''t just here for a quick, fun conversation, Eiro sat up, swimming up to the queen, "Is there anything I can help you with?"


    "Not... Not help, but..." she responded hesitantly, "My husband has returned to this castle, and would like to speak with you."


    Eiro raised his brows, quickly nodding, "Of course, right away."


    He didn''t mind meeting the Naiad King; rather, he would love to get the chance to meet him. Connecting with the spirit kings and queens was never a bad thing for Eiro. The demon checked on Nelly one more time, and then quickly followed the queen out of the room.


    "By the way, I would like to thank you again for hosting us while Nelly is out ofmission like that."


    "No, don''t even mention it. Nellissa is an important individual to me as well, so there is no way that I would simply abandon her in her time of need," the queen responded. Eiro quickly smiled. Truthfully, he had expected her to be a lot more viinous.


    The first time Eiro had heard of the current Naiad Queen was through the former queen, the ''Lonely Naiad'', who had retained a portion of her powers and authority after stepping down from her position to allow the current queen and king to be together. For some reason, Eiro had expected the Naiad Queen to be a lot more...


    intense than she actually turned out to be, but she actually had a quite mellow personality. Though of course, she did have her more intense moments, as Eiro had learned when the two first met.


    Eiro was led to something akin to a throne room, though instead of having ssic thrones, what stood on the other side of the room was a single massive shell with cushions and nkets at its base. Within it, the Naiad King wasying, his upper body upright, soon to be joined by the queen whoid down beside him.


    The Naiad King appeared quite young at first nce, but as Eiro took a closer look, he could spot the folds and wrinkles all around his face. So while he wasn''t old in any sense of the word, time was certainly showing its effects on him already. His tail reminded Eiro of a shark''s, and as the King slowly opened his mouth, his sharp teeth seemed to paint the same picture.


    "So you are this ''Eiro'' that I have heard so much about. I see that you are quite famr with the former queen," he said with a suspicious stare, narrowing his gaze. Of course, Eiro understood where that came from.


    Though the former naiad queen seemed more than content with the current situation, many of her supporters didn''t quite think the same. It was to the extent that something akin to a civil war nearly broke out in the past, and even now there are many that don''t ept the validity of the current queen.


    "I''ve actually only met her twice, but each time, she has done me favours worth a lifetime," Eiro exined, smiling lightly, "The first time, she saved my life and gave me her blessing. The second time, she made me the guardian of the spirit gateway."


    "And why would she do something like that for a total stranger?"


    "... She has been given the title of the ''Lonely Naiad''. I was an imp, dying all alone in ake of the holy empire. What else could be more lonely than that?" He pointed out, "And for the gateway, I had proven my power to her, showing that I was worthy of protecting the gateway."


    The king narrowed his gaze, "And now, that gateway is the core of your being. Have you reced your core with it, to live in this world instead of your original one?"


    Eiro immediately shook his head, "Of course not. It is a somewhatplicated situation, but I currently exist in three realms at once. This one, the elemental ne of fire, as well as the central material ne. I formed new bodies around the spirit gateways from the central material ne, and share my consciousness with all versions of myself across the realms."


    The king frowned deeply, not sure what to think of that, "Excuse me? What is that supposed to mean?"


    Eiro hesitated. He closed his eyes for a few moments, quickly making a decision, "Since you have all shown us the greatest hospitality, I will happily exin things further to you. But as I said, it is aplicated situation, and a very long story."

 Chapter 758: Current

    The Naiad King silently gazed upon Eiro, who had just calmly exined his situation to him.


    "This is certainly quite... unusual," he pointed out, though Eiro felt that might be a bit of an understatement.


    "You could say that, indeed," the demon responded, "But please, I do hope that you now understand I''m not a threat to you."


    With a light scoff, the king shook his head, "I feel more threatened by your very existence now than when I heard you snuck into my wife''s chambers and threatened her."


    Eiroughed lightly, "I just did what I had to in order to save my dearest friend."


    "And if that had meant injuring or killing my men, would you have done so?"


    Looking into the Naiad King''s eyes, Eiro hesitated to respond. Not because he didn''t know what the answer was, of course, but because he wasn''t entirely sure if the king would be happy to hear what he had to say. However, seeing that hesitation, the king shook his head.


    "Ignore that question, I think I would rather not know. But if your words are to be trusted, then there should be no danger now, correct? Once Nellissa awakens, you will go on your way, and leave us be," the naiad king pointd out, clearly hoping that he was right in his assumption. Eiro immediately nodded.


    "Of course. I wouldn''t dare intrude any more than I already have," he exined, "Though, I am not sure if we should leave immediately."


    "For the health of your friend?"


    "There is that, of course. I would want her to rest as much as she can, but since it seems like her majesty has some history with Nelly, I thought it would be good to let them catch up for a while," Eiro pointed out, and the king turned his head toward the spirit next to him.


    "History? What is this he is saying?"


    As if hesitant to answer, the queen slowly exined, "Nelissa was my friend and my teacher... without her, I never would have been able to rise to this position, let alone meet you, my love."


    With a slight sigh, the king held his queen''s cheek for a moment, before turning back toward Eiro, "If that is the case, it would be rude to simply dismiss someone who has done so much for us. Though I feel this is a matter best discussed with the spirit in question, rather than with you. While you say you are close, I would rather hear her own thoughts about this matter than yours."


    "Understandably so," Eiro responded, "Do not worry, she will wake up soon, and then we can discuss what happens next."


    Despite Eiro''s certain voice that spoke without hesitation, the naiad king seemed a bit hesitant. From what he had been told, Nellissa''s body had practically fallen apart to the point where her very soul was close to disappearing, and even now that her body had been healed, her mind was still silent.


    Considering that a spirit''s body and mind could be seen as one and the same, the king wasn''t quite as hopeful as Eiro that she was going to wake up all of a sudden. It has been nearly a week since they arrived at this castle, after all.


    "If you would allow me to, I would like to take my leave," the demon pointed out, "I feel quite uneasy not being by her side at this time."


    "Of course, you may leave," the king responded, and Eiro replied with a quick bow, before making his way out of this throne room.


    He swam through the castle and returned back to Nelly''s temporary chambers, where she was still silently sleeping away. Of course, before he sat back down, Eiro quickly removed the surveince magic that had been ced into this room while he was gone, also getting rid of the long-range attack magic ced right below Nelly''s bed.


    He was rather angry about that, but if he needed to, he could take out that anger on them after Nelly was done. Eiro was sure that the added stress wouldn''t be good for her recovery, and he didn''t want her to wake up surrounded by corpses.


    "Come on, prove that man wrong and wake up, will you?" Eiro muttered, moving Nelly''s hair out of her face, "I know you''re in there. I don''t know what is blocking you froming out, but I know you''re stronger than anything that could ever stand in your way."


    With that, Eiro sat back down on his chair by Nelly''s beside and grabbed the wooden figure that he had been carving earlier, continuing his slow, casual work.


    "Current. Please keep an eye on the king, alright?" Eiro then said as he pulled out the book he was reading earlier. The water flowing around Eiro seemed to respond almost glefully, as the servant''s will flowed through the room.


    It was one of the first things that he had done after getting to this castle. He turned the flow of the castle''s water into his servant. Right now, its body was a decently sizedke''s worth of water that Eiro had taken control over and given a name. Current, Eiro''srgest servant to date, was more than just the water itself, though.


    She was the flow of the oceans, the current that carried through this world. Her body could adjust to whatever was needed, as her motions took control over the world around her.


    Eiro wasn''t sure if it was the encounter with the Demon King or some other realization he had, but somehow, Eiro had been able to detach himself from these strict targets like the physical elements. He was already able to control ideas and concepts attached to his magic more and more, allowing him to do things like use fire magic as a conduit for healing.


    And with one more level of abstraction, Eiro was able to target something very specific about water magic. He was still a long ways away from being able to use this actively for a spell, though he already had the aspect of his superior magic skill try and figure something out within the mental library.


    But for now, he had at least been able to awaken Current. She yfully enveloped Eiro for a moment before the part that was her was gone, spreading throughout the castle. Eiro doubted that the king would be able to sense her. He hadn''t done so earlier at least, and Current was practically wrapped around the king and queen earlier.


    So, she was the best way for Eiro to keep an eye on someone like him, someone that otherwise had full control of a realm like this.


    He didn''t necessarily want to have to track the naiad king, but something was off about him. He knew that Nelly was here, and even knew that her body had broken down to that degree, but the queen hadn''t mentioned anything about her and Nelly''s past to him until now? Why was she so hesitant about that?


    It didn''t seem like it was because she was embarrassed by Nelly, but rather that the King might have some reason to hold a grudge against the queen''s former teacher, whoever it may be.


    Of course, the fact that he ordered the surveince of Eiro and Nelly and even went so far to have something ced under her bed that he could use to kill her if necessary was reason enough. But there, Eiro could have justified it as a cautionary step against himself rather than Nelly, but now, he wasn''t quite so sure anymore.


    ---


    "Finally," the Eiro in the ne of fire stood up and stretched, letting out a slight groan as he did. He looked at the book in front of him, filled from front to back in aplex thesis about the implications of Eiro''s very own existence.


    "You done?" Sarius asked, letting out a bored yawn, and the Demon quickly nodded his head.


    "Mhm. Let''s go, this should be enough to get to the top floor," Eiro exined, stepping out of the cabin to approach the tower again. The kid and the boar were sleeping right now, so Eiro just left a quick note to make sure they knew he went back into the tower.


    Eiro stepped inside, and was quickly greeted by the tower''s overseer. Without another word, Eiro gave the book to them, and watched as they flipped it open and carefully read through it.

 Chapter 759: Verification

    The overseer silently read the book. At some point they had taken a seat to properly read it all. Their expression had never changed, so Eiro wasn''t entirely sure what they were thinking.


    "Oi, isn''t this looking kinda bad? What if they won''t let you to the top floor?" Sarius asked, but Eiro scoffed as he shook his head.


    "Oh please, as if that would happen," Eiro replied, "No matter what they think, they-"


    "Sorry, this is no good," the overseer shut the book, slowly ncing over at the demon who stood there almost stunned. The smander next to himughed a bit.


    " ''As if that would happen'', huh?" he let out, but Eiro just red at him for a second before turning back toward the overseer.


    "What do you mean, that''s no good? You''re saying that''s not at a level of something that belongs on the top floor?" the Demon asked, not sure what they were talking about. And the overseer slowly nced at the book as they shook their head.


    "This is information that would more than suffice. Rather, the scale and detail is something that I''m not sure this tower can even trulypare to," the overseer exined, and a deep frown formed on Eiro''s face.


    "So what''s the issue then?"


    "The ''issue'' is that this thesis is based on false information."


    "... Excuse me?"


    "Again, it is a wonderful thesis based on nothing but a fairy''s jest. You expect us to believe that you were personally chosen by the Sky above the Sky?"


    Eiro practically gnarled, "What, you don''t have a way to verify information like that? Then how do you even know for sure that any of the things on the top floor, or on any of the floors at all, is true?"


    The overseer hesitated, "... We cross-reference all other information in the tower, and we if we can justifiably verify that the information in question is either true or false, we ce it in the corresponding space. And if we can''t truly verify it, we ce it on the basis of the consequence of that information, treating it as if it were true in that moment."


    "So? Treat it the same, then. You can''t verify the information, but if you ce it under the assumption that it''s true, it clearly belongs onto the top floor," Eiro pointed out, but the overseer quickly shook their head.


    "In the circumstances of a test, we need to be a lot stricter. If we can''t verify the information, then we can''t work under the same assumption directly. Of course, we will store this book as such, but we can''t use only this to allow you entry into the top floor."


    Eiro stared into the overseer''s eyes, grinding his teeth together, "Are you kidding me right now?" he asked, more than annoyed, "All the proof is in there. You should be able to connect everything with all the happenings in the world that I''m sure you know about already.


    Yes, you can''t verify this 100% because you can''t ask that ''sky above the sky'' or whatever you called them, but if you just properly look at everything, you will know for a fact that I''m telling the truth."


    "... We have decided that it is not worth the-"


    "Not worth the risk? You know for a fact that I have information worth going up there. What else do I need to tell you? The Demon King is actually Hell itself. Morgan Fey is a being that is reborn again and again and usually retains their memories across lives.


    Oh, what about this, I''m a reincarnation of Morgan Fey, but either because of the interference of the Monster King''s ability or because that massive fucking arcane splinter was forced into my soul, I can''t remember those past lives," Eiro suggested, staring at the overseer who was taking in the information with a confused expression.


    "Hold on, you are- wait, we might be able to verify thatst-" the overseer stuttered out, and Eiro took a step toward them.


    "Getting flustered now, are we? Then how about this? The ''Librarian'' isn''t a holder of a splinter. It''s someone that was chosen by the true incarnation of the splinter, which is the tower itself."


    The overseer''s expression dropped immediately, "What do you- How-"


    "Because it''s obvious at this point. The tower is a self-expanding structure that somehow has perfect ess to every single book, note, map, or other piece of information created inside of its respective realm. It also has identical overseers that have a certain type of hive-mind. Plus, the amount of arcane energies flowing through the walls is insane.


    It would be weird toe to a different conclusion at this point," Eiro pointed out with a long sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Listen, just... reconvene with yourself, or the current librarian or whatever. Tap into the tower''s mind, if that''s a thing. Just do whatever instead of just turning me down here."


    The overseer silently looked at Eiro for a few moments before they closed their eyes. Beyond their eyelids, their eyes kept moving around rapidly, as the demon tapped his foot on the ground. He looked at Sarius standing next to him, who had been staring at Eiro for a while now.


    "What?"


    "Nothin''..." the smander responded, slowly averting his gaze. Eiro let out a long sigh.


    "Listen, I know that I, this version of me at least, has a bit of a short fuse. But that''s just how it is, alright? I''m... changing, here. A bit. Not substantially.


    I''m still me, just a slightly different ''me''," he exined, but Sarius was clearly not totally sure what to think. But Eiro himself was already more than aware of all the issues with this situation.


    The two Eiros in the elemental nes were bing individuals. It''s not often, but there are sparks of individual thought and experiences; their minds are still linked to Eiro as a whole, but they are distinct from all the other duplicates in some way. And while that was a concern to the main Eiro, it wasn''t any better from the duplicates'' point of view.


    At least right now, they would have no reason to even want to split off from the main Eiro. They would lose... everything.


    Everything they worked for, everyone they loved and cherished would be cut off from them, and that was something no version of Eiro was ever going to allow. But at the end of the day, as long as they still shared a mind, it was going to be fine. That''s the conclusion that the Demon came to, at least.


    Rather, it might be beneficial for Eiro to gain unique perspectives if he developed more personalities.


    Before long, the overseer opened their eyes again. Eiro waited for them to speak.


    "... We havee to the conclusion that we need to, first and foremost, verify whether you truly are a reincarnation of Morgan Fey," they exined hesitantly.


    Eiro raised a brow, "What for? Is that such an important detail?"


    "Morgan Fey and the Tower have a unique rtionship. It seems that, due to your nature as a ''duplicate'' as you call yourself, we were never able to truly see your soul, so it is still an uncertainty whether you are their reincarnation."


    "Okay, so how are we doing this? The main body''s soul can''t enter this realm so easily," Eiro pointed out, and the overseer nodded their head.


    "We understand your predicament. However, the spirit gateways are part of your soul, correct? In that case, though we cannot do it as easily as a soul, we can try to probe you through said gateways. But to do that, you will need to let-"


    "The tower''s mana enter my body, okay, got it," Eiro sighed, not sure what to think about that. He could tell that the overseer was telling the truth in that this was the only way this could happen, but Eiro still wasn''t sure about letting something so invasive happen. But at the end of the day, if that was the only way for him to enter the top floor of the towers, then so be it, "... Fine. Do it."


    The overseer nodded their head and approached Eiro, who hesitantly ced their palm onto the demon''s chest, "I apologize for any difort you may experience throughout this."

 Chapter 760: A Familiar Tower

    The overseer''s palm pressed onto Eiro''s chest. It pressed onto the cloth of the clothes he was wearing first, but then simply passed through and moved on to the demon''s skin, as if the fabric didn''t even exist. Simrly, the overseer''s hand soon passed through Eiro''s skin, and flesh, and passed on to the core in the ce where his heart should be.


    It was ufortable, but not painful. It was like having something wriggle inside of you, carefully pushing parts of flesh to the sides and sinews of muscle that wrapped around it. The overseer stretched their mana out and let it flow into the spirit gateway.


    This part was honestly even more ufortable than their hand moving through Eiro''s physical body; they were touching Eiro''s soul, even if just briefly.


    A few moments after they did, the overseer pulled their hand back, almost as though they were flinching. When they did, they ced their hand onto their own chest, dropping down onto one knee to bow to Eiro.


    "My deepest apologies, Morgan Fey. We had not recognised you until now, but with this, we have confirmed your identity," the overseer said, closing their eyes. They were shaking, as though they were scared. Eiro frowned lightly as he looked at them.


    "So that was enough for you to tell?" he asked, "Also, I''m Morgan Fey''s reincarnation, I''m not them. I don''t even have their memories."


    The overseer raised their head, "But... Morgan Fey always remembers their former lives."


    Eiro crossed his arms. What the hell was Morgan Fey? Eiro knew that he had the ruins of his former lives in the outskirts of the forest around the library, but no matter how much he investigated them, not much came from it. Though, some of the structures seemed to recover a bit more over time, though it was only the ones that already seemed to be the newest in the first ce.


    Maybe he would recover some memories at some point, though Eiro didn''t even know if he particrly wanted to remember.


    "Well, I don''t. And you also know exactly why," Eiro said, pointing at the book that the overseer had ced to the side just earlier. And so, the overseer silently nodded their head.


    "I see. Yes, in this case, there is no reason for us to doubt you any further. The implications of your very existence are certainly... intriguing," they replied, "But even so, whether you have the memories or not is, frankly, unimportant."


    Eiro crossed his arms, "So, what was, or is, the rtionship between the tower and Morgan Fey?"


    "... As you have correctly concluded, the Tower of Books is an entity, rather than a structure. A concept brought to life through extremely powerful arcane magic, shaped by Morgan Fey themself. And then, the tower became their... your familiar."


    Thinking about what this meant beyond the surface, Eiro smiled, "In that case, does that mean I have ess to more than normal here?"


    The overseer immediately nodded, "Yes. You may ess any and all information that we have to offer, freely and without passing any tests. And, more importantly for your current situation, you may ess the information rted to Morgan Fey."


    "I thought they removed all information rted to them from... everywhere."


    "Of course, but they needed to leave some traces behind just in case something like this happened. Where an incarnation couldn''t remember any particr details. However, even for the tower, most information was wiped from the world very clearly and distinctly, so any writing about them is forever lost."


    Hearing what the overseer was saying, Eiro grinned broadly, "So the writing about them is lost, but their own writing is still here."


    "... It is as you say. The journals of Morgan Fey are still here, though you may not be able to read them."


    "Hah? I thought you said he has full ess," Sarius groaned, staring at the overseer annoyedly. He was kind of sick of being in the tower all the time and wanted Eiro to just get ess to whatever he needed to and finally leave so that they could travel around this elemental ne more instead of being stuck inside all the time.


    Eiro turned over toward the Sarius, "I''m guessing Morgan ced individual seals or tests on each of the journals."


    "And why''d they do that? Isn''t the only one that could look into them Morgan Fey themself?" Sarius asked, and Eiro slowly nced over at the overseer, who just stayed silent for a few moments.


    "Frankly? I don''t know. Sure, the security of this tower is beyond anything I''ve seen before, and the structure is nearly indestructible. But nearly doesn''t mean totally. I''m not sure if I could do it just yet, but I might have been able to figure out how to break through certain parts of the tower if I really cared to," Eiro pointed out, and the overseer seemed somewhat nervous at that statement.


    They had been so emotionless and uncaring until now, but today they''ve been showing their thoughts and emotions very openly somehow, "So, despite being safe, it''s not totally safe. Someone as powerful as Morgan Fey would have enemies that want to take them down no matter the cost, and breaking down something like the Tower of Books may not be the part to stop them.


    So, not fully trusting the tower''s defenses, but it still being the safest ce they could imagine for their future incarnations, I''m sure they ced a few moreyers of protection onto their own journals."


    Slowly, the overseer nodded, "That was exactly their reasoning when they ced this system in the past. But what you have to know, while each incarnation was undeniably Morgan Fey, they were also undeniably individuals with their own pasts and histories. People with unique perspectives, habits, specialties, and traits they focused on.


    Each journal''s lock is slightly different to the others, and some have requirements that might be a little... bothersome."


    "I didn''t expect anything else," Eiro sighed, "For the time being, just lead me to the top floor. I''ll get to the journalster."


    With a quick nod, the overseer did as told, leading Eiro up to the top floor floor of the tower. It was surprisinglyrge, considering the type of information that was supposed to be here. But even so, it was of course still the smallest of all the floors that Eiro had been to so far, so he should be able to get through these books fairly quickly. Immediately, the demon looked around the room.


    There were books about the gods and their weaknesses, stories about the crimes theymitted during their time walking the earth. At the same time, there were stories about the otherworlders, like Arc. Eiro was wondering why there was only surface-level information about them on other floors. But here, just ncing at the titles, there was information about what those other worlds were like.


    Of course, there was a lot of information about certain magical creatures with transcendent powers that came from this realm. This being the tower of the elemental ne of fire still meant that all the information in this tower came from this realm, so it seemed less imminently useful to Eiro than he had hoped. That being the case, an idea popped into Eiro''s mind just then.


    He wouldn''t be able to investigate right now, but maybe in the future.


    "By the way, do you have something that will tell me the locations of the towers in other realms?" Eiro asked, looking at the overseer. They seemed to hesitate somehow, but quickly nodded their head.


    "Yes, we have all the locations noted down. You may ess them whenever you wish," they replied, "Which would you like to know?"


    "Hm... the ones that I could even get to right now would be the towers in hell and the central material ne."


    The overseer nodded, procuring two small booklets for the Demon from practically thin air. Eiro quickly flipped the first open. The one in hell was, expectedly, in the domain of a demon lord known for his greed of knowledge. Rather, that demon lord had made his domain there after finding the tower. But even so, Eiro should be able to make his way there somehow.


    He could just forcefully expand his own domain into theirs. Not like they would be able to do anything about it, considering that Eiro''s domain was seeped in Holy Energy.


    However, the location of the central material ne''s tower was a bit more unexpected, "No wonder it hasn''t been found in a hot minute. It wasn''t always here, was it?"


    "The tower has relocated a number of times, but this seems to be particrly safe. We have created methods for those that are worthy to reach the tower easily, but due to the nature of that realm, we found it to be easier to not simply leave it somewhere essible like in these elemental nes."


    "Right," Eiro grinned, "But even so, who''d have thought you would put the Tower on the moon?"

 Chapter 761: Access Points

    "... They did what?" Sarius asked, not sure if he heard Eiro properly. The demon quickly turned around with a broad grin on his face.


    "The central material ne''s tower is on the moon," Eiro exined, "Apparently, it''s being protected by a folk of mystical people. Simr to the ones that live in the elemental nes; people that are more like magic beasts."


    "But ain''t the moon, like... kind of really far away?"


    "I think that''s almost an understatement," with a scoff, Eiro looked down at the page in the booklet he was holding. He was trying to calcte how long it would take him to fly there, "It would take... weeks. I can''t hold my breath for that long. I''ll be fine with the temperature at least, but it''s too much of a risk to just go there straight on."


    But as he continued flipping through the pages, Eiro saw the different methods that were described to get to the central material ne''s tower. There were a handful of locations that acted as ''ess points'', powerful spatial magic that could almost instantly transport someone to the tower and back. But they were all in ces that were extremely hard to get to.


    In the continent where Eiro lived, there were just two of them; at the peak of the Divine Mountain-Range''s tallest mountain, and at the bottom of the Abyss, a deep pit that was said to continue on forever. Though of course, it didn''t really go on forever, it was just that nobody has reached the bottom and returned to tell the tale.


    "Interesting," Eiro muttered. There didn''t seem to be any other trials to use those ess points, but at the same time, they also apparently didn''t bring their user directly to the tower, but instead at a location on the dark side of the moon that was filled with monsters unlike any of those known in the world below.


    "Isn''t this a little... much? The tower is a ce for knowledge, so why would you make it so that only extremely powerful individuals can reach the tower, instead of focusing on those with the wisdom to make it there?"


    "..." the overseer was silent for a few moments, but then finally responded, "We don''t have the confidence that those who are powerless won''t misuse the knowledge they will find in the tower. That''s why we want to filter out as many individuals as we possibly can. At this point, nobody has made it to even one of the ess points in centuries."


    "I can see why. They''re all in pretty extreme ces. It doesn''t look like the specific ess point changes where you''ll end up on the moon, right?"


    "Correct. The starting point will always be the same," the overseer nodded, "That being the case, there is also something more to the nature of those magic circles. A small ''boon'' that we were willing to give to those who reached it. Maybe you could also see it as a distraction, but-"


    "You can use the magic circles connecting to all the other ess points once you reach the moon," Eiro interrupted, cing his hand over his mouth, and the overseer silently nodded, "If that''s the case, that will make things a lot easier for me as well. Mind if I take over the dark side of the moon and take those magic circles for myself?"


    "We would rather you not, but... as long as you don''t stop anyone from having the potential to reach the tower, it should be fine," the overseer replied, and Eiro raised a brow.


    "What''s that about, anyway? If you don''t want anyone to reach the tower, why even create these ''ess points''?"


    "Because it''s not about what we want. It''s about causality. The magic of the tower is sparked by possibility and potential. You yourself... or well, the first Morgan Fey, curated the magic in that way. We need to leave open a door so that any single individual of any realm may have the possibility to reach the tower.


    Luckily, whether that possibility is one-in-ten or one-in-a-million doesn''t make a particr difference. The locations that we have ced the ess points have been carefully chosen to maximize the power of causality while still making it nigh impossible for someone to even learn of them."


    Eiro smiled lightly, throwing the booklets back over to the overseer. He had already read and memorized them now, so he didn''t need the physical versions anymore.


    "In that case, I''ll make sure not to cut off the tower''s power," Eiro replied, and Sarius curiously looked at his contractor.


    "So what, you''re gonna go to the moon next?"


    "Well, not ''next''. The main body will certainly go there once his evolution is over. I''ve been trying to figure out ways how to travel the world anyway, right? Well, with this, there''s ces literally all over the world that I can visit with ease, just by reaching the peak of the Divine Mountain-range. And not just that, but all the locations are ces that I''ve been wanting to visit anyway."


    "Seriously?" Sarius asked, and Eiro scoffed and nodded as if it were obvious.


    "Of course. The Divine Mountain-range, for one, is one of the best ces to find Sylphs, and the Abyss is filled to the brim with Darkness magic so it''s probably the best ce to find Dark Spirits. And then one of the other locations is the crown of the world tree, and another is buried in a small cave somewhere in the infinite deserts.


    These are all locations filled with immense amounts of magic, and not only are there Royal Monsters known to be near these ces, but some are the best ces for me to find clues on the locations of individuals with Splinters."


    Sarius raised his brow, "Well, fair enough I guess. But it''s gonna take three months until you can even think about that. And then you''ll be in the middle of a semester at the academy."


    Eiro turned toward the spirit, grinning, "What, you think with my new agility it''s going to take me longer than a couple hours to reach the Divine Mountain-range? I can at least scout the areas out and then make some ns for the holidays to explore further."


    The demon turned around and looked at the bookshelves in front of him, "Though, that''s more of a matter for the main body to figure out, and it''s still some months away in the first ce. My job is to continue reading right now."


    Eiro walked up to the first shelf, grabbing one of the books. It was a record of the crimesmitted by the God of Fire during his time ruling this elemental ne, "Who knows, this knowledge coulde in useful sooner orter..."


    He flipped the book open and began to read. Just the first few pages already showed things that would make any true believer of the God of Fire lose their faith. And it was a thick book. There was so much information in here that it almost disgusted the Demon to read; even he had never done things like this.


    Bringing people into this realm to see how long they survived in the heat, dissecting living magic beasts. The violent sexual assault of spirits, people, and beasts... tearing away at the space itself to shape it into what the god wanted it to be. Feeding on the people of this world en-masse, and breeding them just for the purpose of entertainment, food, and whatever else the god wanted.


    No wonder the element of fire was known to be one of destruction and fury; with a past like this, there was no way that this wouldn''t be passed on to this point in time somehow.


    Many instances of these crimes were recorded, together with the death toll, sketches of the scenes that unfolded in some of these ces and instances, and even many direct quotes from the God of Fire. It was disgusting. The God of Fire never had a particrly good reputation whenpared to other gods, but at least he was supposed to have some virtues to him. But this?


    It was something that Eiro could barely believe he was reading. If all the books at this floor of the tower held information like this, things that had been lost over time and could change the world forever if they got out... the Demon would have a pretty good time up here.

 Chapter 762: Report

    Anxiously looking around, Boju stepped out of the carriage. It was the first time he was so far away from the mountains, and the first time he was so close to people. Luckily, because they had Eiro''s noble seal, they could pass without being checked too thoroughly and the young orc didn''t have to talk to the guards too much, but it was still more than nerve-wracking.


    At the very least, the ''people'' that were walking around here outside of the manor were just disguised monsters, and he recognized all of them.


    He quickly stepped inside of the manor, looking around curiously. Boju had heard of this ce, but he had never been here before. Excitedly, Boju walked down the hallway, positive that he would find someone that could guide him to Eiro soon. But before he could, he felt his body freeze uppletely.


    "Who are you and what are you doing here? You''re not one of the current servants of the manor, Orc. If you stole that illusion-bracelet and thought it was enough to sneak in here, you''re very, very wrong," a deep, rough voice spoke right behind Boju, as that man''s hand tightened around his neck.


    "I-I... I''m one of Lord Eiro''s men, I came to visit here t-t-to give him a report..." Boju stuttered out anxiously, but the man''s grasp didn''t let up.


    "Hm... Do you have any proof for that? That''s an easy thing to im, isn''t it?"


    Boju nervously tried to hold up the thing that he was holding in his hand, a decorated coin that acted as the seal for Viscout Daemonherz, "H-Here, I have one of my Lord''s seals, I-"


    "Shimour, what the hell do you think you''re doing?" turning around the corner, Eiro, or rather, one of his duplicates, rushed toward the two, "That''s Boju, I told you that he would being soon!"


    Raising his brows, the man, Shimour, immediately let go, "What? But you didn''t say that he was an... Orc."


    "He''s from the Monster Town, of course he''s a monster, what else did you expect? All the servants in the manor are orcs, goblins, and kobolds," Eiro sighed, as Shimour groaned.


    "But you said he was the vice lord, I didn''t expect you''d give a position like that to..."


    "They are all Monsters, Shimour. As is the acting Lord," the demon replied, turning away from therge man behind Boju to look at the young orc in question, "I''m really sorry about that, are you okay?"


    Boju nervously nodded, "I-I''m okay... My Lord, this man is..?"


    "Right, I guess introductions are in order. This man is Shimour, the Master of Stealth, teaching me more about the Stealth skill," Eiro exined, and Boju quickly bowed to his lord''s teacher, "And this here is Boju, as I told you before, he''s the vice lord and a Hignd Orc.


    He''s an incredibly intelligent young man, and he''s here to give me a detailed report on the state of the Monster Town while I''m unable to go there myself."


    "Ah... well, nice to meet you, Boju... Sorry about that," Shimour replied, and Boju quickly shook his head.


    "N-No, it''s fine! I, uh... I should have announced myself earlier!"


    Eiro sighed, looking up at Shimour, "We''ll go to my office now. The stealth duplicate is still training outside, so stop sneaking inside for snacks."


    "... You knew about that?"


    "I might not be able to tell what you''re doing all the time, but I can tell when food randomly disappears without a trace," Eiro responded, starting to push Boju down the hallway as Shimour made his way back into the gardens.


    "Again, sorry about that... the masters are a bit much sometimes. Even Shimour, though he seems the most reasonable most of the time," the demon tried to exin, but Boju immediately shook his head.


    "Please, do not apologize to me! I understand, it was certainly suspicious for me to simply enter the manor without warning..."


    "Well, I knew you wereing from a mile away, I just didn''t have a duplicate ready to greet you. But whichever may be the case, I''m very d to see you, Boju. I hope the journey wasn''t too rough on you," Eiro said, patting the young orc''s back as Boju shook his head.


    "It was a very fun journey, actually! I never had the opportunity to see the scenery away from the mountains before. It was very enriching!" he responded, and Eiro slightlyughed.


    "I''m d you think so. I can show you around the capitalter if you want. I''ve managed to expand the range of my duplicates so that I can, at the very least, reach every part of the city," the demon exined, and Boju quickly nodded his head.


    "That would be wonderful! And I... won''t be found out?"


    "No, of course not. You''ll be fine, especially when you''re with me," Eiro smiled, opening the door to his office where another duplicate was already sitting and working. This was the temporary ''main'' body, while the one that had been leading Boju around was just a drone that was currently doing some busy-work around the manor.


    A bit taken aback, the orc nced back and forth between the two, as Eiro closed the door behind him.


    "Come on, take a seat," the duplicate behind the desk said, slowly standing up while pointing at the couch, "Oh, and feel free to deactivate the illusion. I know that it can feel a little ufortable to keep up long-term."


    Boju slowly nodded, pulling on the bracelet that he was wearing. His human form quickly faded away, and his dark brown skin was reced by a dark blue instead. The orc opened his bag and pulled out a few documents that he quickly ced on the table in front of him, "Here, these are the summed-up reports of the past month since you werest in town.


    Crop yields, the amount of monsters that have stable work, the jobs in question, information on the cross-monster rtions as well as their socialization with the humans, and of course the current state of construction work. And that is just this one report file, I have a couple of others as well..."


    Eiro quickly smiled, grabbing the document and flipping it open with a smile, "I see. Thank you for the hard work."


    He looked over the data curiously, and things actually worked out a lot better than Eiro had expected. In basically every statistic, things had exceeded the most likely oue. Particrly in regard to the group-rtions between the humans and the monsters things seemed to be improving at an incredible rate.


    "And this information is urate?"


    "Yes, my lord. Every single human viger has engaged with the monsters of the town to some capacity. Two-thirds are speaking to them on a daily-basis in casual manners.


    It is generally still more distant than we would like, but it is still incredible to watch," Boju exined with a smile, "And while there are individual exceptions, a great majority of the monsters are more than happy to engage with the humans as well, though we are still trying to figure out if that is because you are the one thatmanded them to get along with the humans, or because they truly hold no prejudice."


    "Hm..." Eiro tapped his foot on the ground in thought, "Have you spoken to those individual monsters that still take issue with the humans?"


    "... Not on an official basis, but we do have a rough understanding of their reasons. In most cases it seems to be a mere dislike of the humans, but there are situations where monsters that have encountered humans in the past hold deeper-rooted prejudice.


    There have been no violent incidents toward the humans, but those individuals are a lot more aggressive in general and engage in more violent tussles with others of their species," Boju exined with a worried frown on his face, but as Eiro looked over the data more, he wasn''t particrly worried.


    "Things are clearly improving. Of course, you should keep engaging with them and properly ask them what their issues are and what you could do to help them out. But still, make sure to push back when they make unreasonable requests," Eiro replied, flipping through the pages curiously, "What about Gobu? How is he doing and acting?


    I try not to look at things through him despite making him my Servant to respect his privacy."


    Boju''s smile slowly dropped, though Eiro could tell that it wasn''t a face of concern or fear at the demon''s reaction, but rather one that was filled with naught but annoyance.


    "Gobu, he''s... adapting?"

 Chapter 763: Report (2)

    "Adapting, huh? Well, that sounds about right. But why are you saying it like that''s a bad thing?" Eiro asked with a raised brow as he flicked his wrist. From one of the cupboards, he quickly pulled a teapot, some teacups, tea leaves, and a carafe of water, starting to prepare some tea for him and Boju.


    The hignd orc seemed hesitant to respond, "W-Well, I... It''s not a bad thing directly. He''s just being very over-the top in every way right now. He eats all day, he gets into fights with everyone around him, and just goes wherever he wants and does what he feels like..."


    Immediately, Eiro straightened his back, "Excuse me? He''s causing that much trouble?"


    "No, and that''s the worst part..." Boju groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "In order to eat that much, he goes out of the city and huntsrge game, and he obviously can''t eat everything, so we''ve been able to stock up on and preserve some meat, and we have a lot more leather to work with.


    The ones that he gets into fights with are either young warriors that he''s actively training, or older warriors that are usually cocky and causing trouble. And even when he wanders around town when he''s not supposed to, peeking into ces he has no right to be, he always ends up solving some problem or another."


    Eiro hesitated to answer. He wasn''t sure exactly what the issue was here, and clearly, Boju knew how he sounded when he said this. Eiro poured Boju a cup of tea, having helped the infusion of tea-leaves into the water along quicker, "So, what are you worried about, then? Sure, he might be acting a bit impulsively, but as long as he''s not causing any long-term trouble, I feel like that''s fine.


    He''s still adjusting to his new abilities. Bing my servant has quite an effect on one''s personality."


    Boju quietly nodded, "Right... But that would all be fine if he would at least be doing the things that he''s actually supposed to do... with him doing whatever he wants, my workload almost doubled."


    Eiro froze. He looked away from the teacups and back at Boju, "That is an active issue, though. Why didn''t you start with that? You''re already busy enough as is."


    "Yeah, but it''s not that big a deal, I just need to work a bit harder and-"


    "When you go back to town, if he tries to push his work onto you again, just say the word ''Teacup'' to him. I''m going to make sure that I''m alerted whenever he hears that word, and I''ll pay attention. And if I notice that he''s trying to get out of work, I''ll tell him off from here. I can exert some level of influence like that from here, at least," Eiro exined, and Bojuughed slightly.


    "If ites to that, I will consider it, thank you," Boju carefully took a sip of the tea, "But more importantly, I have a lot more reports for you to look over."


    "Of course," Eiro responded, quickly grabbing the pieces of paperid out in front of him.


    ---


    "Oh, to hell with it!" Eiro groaned loudly, staring at the book in front of him with nothing but anger and frustration. He mmed his hand into the table and stood up.


    "What, too hard for you?" Sarius scoffed, lounging on the armchair in the corner.


    "Fuck off," the demon replied, walking up to the bookshelf in front of him. This room was at the true ''top'' of the tower. Different to the clean and ''official'' looking space that made up the rest of the tower, this area was small and seemed almost lived-in, as though this was the ce that the different incarnations of Morgan Fey lived while they were the elemental ne of fire.


    It was actually a nice change of pacepared to the rest of the tower; darker walls, wooden floors,fortable furniture. It was quite pleasant and almost nostalgic to Eiro.


    The issue here was just that the things inside of this room were extremely, extremely annoying. The walls were covered in bookshelves that held not only some trinkets collected throughout this realm, but also the books that the overseer had mentioned.


    The trinkets were... interesting. Nothing useful, just things that were bought at random stores that the past incarnations would find interesting. Frankly, Eiro would have probably picked those exact trinkets if he walked around with the intention of buying a souvenir, which felt a little annoying to him.


    The idea that his personality was like those of the past incarnations of Morgan Fey, that the path that he walked on was not dictated fully by this very life... made him feel like shit. The books didn''t help with that either.


    Because every one of those books was locked in a unique way. Not a single one was the exact same. Some were simr, sure, but they were filled with the unique experiences of each incarnation and brought to the highest degree of their paths. Some were locked through the highest degrees of Sealing Arts, others applied barrier magics in ways that Eiro had never seen before.


    There was even one that was simply locked physically using an enhanced, unbreakable, magic-resistant metal that Eiro had never encountered before, and you had to unlock it via lockpicking. He thought that this one was going to be on the easier side to unlock, but it had hundreds of pins that had to be pushed in a particr order that changed every sixty seconds.


    At the same time, with each pin that was pushed, the physical strength that was needed was physically beyond what Eiro was capable of using without breaking the tools he had avable.


    It was like, instead of trying to keep their secrets safe, the past incarnations were actively trying to annoy the shit out of any of the subsequent incarnations in a unique way. Like they werepeting with their past lives. And the worst part was that Eiropletely understood why they did that and would probably do the same if he were to add his own book to this collection.


    "Okay, whatever. Let''s just take it one at a time," Eiro sighed. The only good part about this library was that the books were sorted in chronological order, and if all of the books were just as annoying as each other, he might as well go one after the other.


    Eiro walked up to the oldest book. This one was locked using incredibly ancient arcane magics that came together to form a magical lock. It was like a puzzle that the Demon had to solve, but each small segment was one of the mostplex things you could ever imagine.


    Looking over the magic imbued into the fabric that the book was bound in, he could at the very least figure out a few points of approach. Since this book was probably ced here by the first incarnation of Morgan Fey, or at least one of the first, it wasn''t made in that bothersome,petitive manner yet and was a bit more straightforward as well.


    He stared down at the page, ncing over the patterns. Within the mental library, half a dozen mental duplicates were working together to try and break down the magic. And frankly, just doing this raised his understanding of arcane magic many times over, like he was staring right into the face of what ''Arcane'' truly meant.


    "This is... ridiculously impressive," Eiro muttered. And this was from thousands of years ago? Sure, the quality of magic did always undergo some fluctuation here and there, hitting high points, degenerating for some time, before then soaring higher than ever before. That was just the natural flow of things in regard to magic.


    And while Arcane magic was practically a lost art, there was no way that it was much more advanced than other kinds of magic were... or was there?


    Considering the nature of the ancientnguage, being so deeply intertwined with arcane magic, there had to be some sort of high-point. It being close to the age of the gods made sense as well, since that was the start of the arcane filling this world.


    "But even so, who the fuck was this Morgan Fey?"

 Chapter 764: Scholar

    "Aargh, fuck, not this time you little-" Eiro practically growled as he pressed his teeth together angrily. He was once more attempting to break the arcane lock on the journal that the first incarnation of Morgan Fey left behind in this rm.


    He had tried it a few dozen times but the further he got in the process, the moreplex the lock grew and he would have to start not only the process but the analysis all over again.


    "How can Morgan Fey''s standard, nonpetitive state be this gods-damned annoying?" the demon groaned, twisting the mana that he was manipting around clockwise by 73¡ã, then anti-clockwise 13¡ã just an inch below the first twisting point, letting everything flow deeply into thest small gap of the arcane lock.


    It was thest step, and either the lock was going to open now, or it would once more reveal another unnecessary step to the whole ordeal. If it was thetter, Eiro truly intended to just leave this tower and note back before the main body''s evolution was over so that he had the time to cool down a bit.


    However, he was lucky. Because the moment the mana settled into ce, the lock unravelled. The arcane magic opened up and allowed Eiro to open the book, and the demon let out a triumphant yell, "Yes! Finally! Go fuck yourself, Morgan-"


    "Calm down, man," Sarius scoffed, looking at his contractor judgementally. With a deep re, Eiro looked back at him.


    "Shut the hell up," Eiro barked back, and Sarius justughed as he looked back down at the novel he was reading.


    After taking a deep breath, Eiro looked back down at the book. If he still had a heart, it would be jumping out of his chest. He flipped the cover open, and quickly read the introduction, which was written in the ancientnguage. Though it wasn''t just the ancientnguage, but an even older, very specific dialect. Luckily, Eiro was able to trante it pretty easily.


    Since the elementalnguages were branches of the ancientnguage, and there were many extremely old books written in more archaic versions of thenguages of both this realm and the elemental ne of water that Eiro had gotten to read already, he could fill in the gaps pretty easily.


    "To whomever may find this: Either, you have broken your way through the Tower that I have lovingly created with my very hands, or you are me. Whether it is myself in this life, seeking to remember my earlier journeys, or another version of myself of atter incarnation, shall my experiments seed. If thetter is the case, then I wee thee to refresh yourself on your past life.


    If the former is the case, then you have truly earned the right to read my thoughts."


    Eiro closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a long sigh as he mentally acknowledged the cockiness of his former life. Though of course, he did have to admit that it wasn''t unwarranted cockiness. Morgan Fey was an unparalleled figure, and that was obvious even without having direct ounts of their precise actions.


    The fact they could reincarnate again and again and again without their soul deteriorating was proof enough for that. And the few instances of proof that Eiro already had of their might... the fact they could create the tower, and seemed to have expertise in numerous different fields that rivalled that of a master...


    if they didn''t directly master those fields and skills in the first ce, was all the proof that he needed at this point. The demon continued to read.


    "The stories that you are about to read are records of my journey throughout the Elemental ne of Fire, a wild, untamed realm of heat and destruction and birth. I have done what I can to record the stories of those that I encountered; the most curious myths and legends, and unique abilities and skills and perspectives.


    The young beings called ''Spirits'' that had recently been borne from both this realm and my own will soon make their home in this ne, and I wish to record the state of this realm before the world''s own influence spreads throughout it."


    "Hold on..." Eiro muttered, quickly flipping through the pages. He could see sketches of buildings, people, tools, weapons, animals, and even food... there were far more pages than would appear when ncing at the outside, but that was something that Eiro expected at this point in time.


    It was obvious that Eiro''s grimoire, with simr qualities to this, also once belonged to Morgan Fey, and was more than likely created by them.


    These thousands of pages filled in extreme detail weren''t just filled with something like diary-entries. This was a scientific journal. Whether Morgan Fey would call themsef that, they were a schr. Whether this was something that would continue on throughout the subsequent incarnations was unclear, but at the very least the first incarnation was a schr in the truest sense of the word.


    Just ncing at the pages, Eiro was overwhelmed by what he was reading. It was as though he could delve into the book and see the lives that these people were living in an almost untouched realm.


    The recipes, the mechanics of craftsmanship, thenguage and social hierarchy; it was something sopletely foreign to Eiro, something that he didn''t expect to ever read about. This was a pre-historic record of what this realm was like before any other information had ever been recorded here. It was a discovery that Eiro expected to be almost impossible in the first ce.


    Immediately, Eiro returned to the first page, continuing to read. Word after word, line after line, page after page; Eiro read through everything as closely as he could. He was silent the whole way through, never lifting his eyes from the book or even acknowledging Sarius whenever he pointed out how weird Eiro was acting.


    Frankly,pared to this, the books at the tower''s top floor were nothing. Yes, sure, he got some knowledge that would be extremely useful to him in the long run, especially if he had to act against certain higher beings like gods, and he even got some dirt on the current and some former Smander Kings and Queens, but it was nothing he truly cared about.


    Knowledge from the central material ne''s tower would definitely be different, but here? Something like what he was reading now was insanely more important to Eiro.


    And this wasn''t just from the perspective of a schr, something that he did consider himself. His first evolution did make him a literal Schr Imp, after all, and he still carried that sentiment on to this day, especially in recent times where he was busy creating nuermous new theses to publish to the scientific world.


    It was just that this not only gave Eiro an insight into a world that no longer existed, and that maybe nobody but the gods could still remember, but it also allowed him to see into the mind of Morgan Fey like nobody had ever done. Hell, nobody could even remember anything about them beyond the fact they existed.


    Just within the first few pages, Eiro was the world''s greatest expert on the Elemental ne of Fire from before this realm developed the concept of recording information, but on a mythical individaul that most considered a figment of collective imagination.


    The demon was excited about this not just in concept; he had nobody to brag about this to in the first ce. Everyone that he could tell would probably just pass it off as another random thing he did and not care all too much. Maybe if he could find some schrs in the central material ne that specialized in this realm, they would find it interesting...


    there were some nar schrs at the academy, so maybe he could talk to them.


    Of course, it wasn''t just to brag. There was information here that deserved to be shared. While he had pledged not to openly share the information from the tower, he felt like this was a different situation. After all, the tower acknowledged that Eiro was Morgan Fey''s incarnation, so this probably counted as Eiro''s own information. Something that he could pass on without issue.


    And frankly, as a schr, he felt like he shouldn''t keep some of this information to himself.

 Chapter 765: Waking Up

    Eiro let out a long yawn, leaning back into his seat. Boredom was grasping him rather intensely, but there was nothing he could do about it at this point. He refused to leave Nelly alone, especially after he returned to this room thest time just to find it rigged with traps.


    Clearly they were hoping they could use Nelly as a sort of hostage against Eiro if it came down to it, but he had disarmed their magic right off the bat.


    The spirits and mages that had ced those spells on this room, whose skill was high, though not as high as Eiro''s, immediately realized what Eiro had done and anxiously rushed around the castle, as if waiting for the demon to retaliate. But of course, he had no intention of doing that. He really didn''t care all that much.


    It wasn''t a major threat anyway, though it was annoying and did make him pretty mad for a few moments.


    That being the case, the only reason why Eiro was still here was because he didn''t want his actions to jeopardize Nelly''s recovery, and there truly didn''t exist a better ce than this for her to rest. Especially with the Naiad Queen, who could heal Nelly should her body deteriorate again at some point, something that Eiro was pretty worried about.


    Though, that might have just been some sort of anxiety. He did get worried simrly whenever his kids had even a slight cough.


    The demon looked at the ceiling, when he heard a slight rustling. Immediately he snapped his head toward the bed, watching as Nelly let out some deep groans. This was the first time she had made any sound at all. Eiro swam to her side and held the naiad''s hand.


    "Come on, Nelly... you got this. Wake up, alright?" Eiro said with a nervous smile, and as if responding to him, she opened her eyes just a momentter. Turning away from the window''s ring light, she raised her hand in front of her eyes.


    "Urgh, what''s going on...?" she muttered, "Where are we?"


    Eiro smiled as he clutched the spirit''s hand tighter, "We''re in the Naiad Queen''s castle."


    "Huh? Wait, what? Weren''t we...? We were in the Devil''sir, and Merlin was... and he... I..." Nelly slowly tried to sit up on the bed, clearly in pain.


    Eiro immediately ced a hand onto her forehead, trying to emte the magic that the Naiad Queen had used. He wasn''t able to fully heal Nelly as the queen would be able to, but he was at least able to apply some properties that seemed to help relieve some of her pain.


    "I''ll exin it to you in a second, don''t worry. For now, just let me calm you down. The Devil is dead; he died almost too easily. I became a Demon Lord and burnt him away with Holy Energy. Nobody has died, nobody got seriously injured. Everything is fine.


    I began my next evolution while you were out," Eiro exined, and Nelly looked at him confused.


    "What do you...? How long was I out?"


    "...Nine weeks," the demon responded, and Nelly''s eyes widened, as her fear and confusion grew stronger.


    "Nine- What do you mean, nine weeks? What happened?"


    Looking at the spirit anxiously, Eiro tried to think about the best option here. Should he tell Nelly about what exactly happened to her? What if that would only make things worse again? It was possible that the way she subconsciously decided to repair her mind was to simply suppress the knowledge of Morgan Fey again... and if Eiro brought it up, Nelly could fall back into thata.


    The demon slowly opened his mouth, when the spirit spoke first.


    "Morgan Fey... it... you... you''re an incarnation of Morgan Fey..." Nelly said, staring at Eiro with wide open eyes. Slowly, the demon nodded his head.


    "Yes, I am. For a while I thought Merlin had just said something like that to confuse me and to hurt you, but I do know it for certain now. I am their reincarnation, in the broadest sense of the word. Theirst true incarnation was killed after being given the special splinter by the god above the gods, and then their soul was used to create me unknowingly.


    Though, I''m growing less and less certain that it was a coincidence," Eiro exined, and Nelly silently stared down at her hands.


    "I... I''m sorry, this is quite a lot for me right now," Nelly replied, "I remember everything now. I wasn''t even particrly close to them, but they did like to meet with Jura and the other masters every once in a while. They were a friend, one that appeared and disappeared whenever they liked. And even before my time with Jura, I remember hearing about them every once in a while...


    they were around since even before I was born, and-"


    "Calm down, it''s fine," Eiro told the spirit, "You don''t have to tell me everything you know. Frankly, I doubt you have any particrly important information rted to them. But since you personally knew Morgan Fey, when they cast the spell to wipe any precise information about them from this world, it locked the knowledge away in a manner that hurt you the moment you remembered them."


    Nelly silently nodded her head, "I see..."


    "But... there is something else I would like to ask you. And you don''t need to tell me anything if you don''t want to, but... Nelly, are you the first Naiad?"


    Immediately, Nelly stared at Eiro confused, "What do you-"


    "I told you that we''re in the Naiad Queen''s castle, right? She filled me in on your history together, and the conclusion was rather obvious after that," Eiro exined, and the spirit silently looked back at the demon.


    "Yes. I am the first Naiad. But that truly doesn''t mean much, really. I''m not particrly special. I know a bit more than others, but I don''t have any special powers, if that''s what you''re thinking," Nelly pointed out, but Eiro slowly shook his head.


    "I wasn''t truly thinking anything in particr. It doesn''t even matter much to me, but I figured there was a reason why you were hiding this fact," Eiro replied, "I want to know what happened that you felt like you couldn''t tell me about this."


    Nelly slowly nodded her head, "It''splicated. The fact that I''m the first naiad doesn''t really give me any benefits beside one; I don''t age. Usually, spirits do have a lifespan, though it is quite long. But I have outlived that lifespan a few times over. But on the other hand, and they are extinct now, there used to be creatures that fed on spirits. And to them, I was something like a beacon.


    Wherever I went, they woulde to me and try to feed on me, destroying anything in their way. They could jump across realms freely as well, so there was no way to stop them by justing here to the elemental ne..."


    Eiro silently listened to Nelly tell her story. The people that were killed because of the monsters that were after her, the myriad of spirits that were devoured by them. The fear that she must have felt just trying to live and survive.


    "It wasn''t that I was keeping it a secret on purpose... why would I ever try to deceive you?" Nelly pointed out, "I just... didn''t want to remember those times."


    "Don''t worry," Eiro smiled, "You don''t need to exin yourself. But I''m d that you managed to persist through until now."


    "Thank you," Nelly replied, letting out a long breath, "Now, let''s get out of here, I don''t think I want to meet with the Queen."


    Eiro raised his brow, "You sure? I mean, I don''t know why you''re avoiding her like this. I know that you believe the former naiad queen to be the rightful ruler, but..."


    Nelly sighed, pushing the nkets off her with a groan. Eiro quickly helped her out.


    "It''splicated. Some of her choices have been... questionable," Nelly replied, "I just don''t want to deal with it, especially not right now."


    "... She''s the one that healed you."


    "... Do I have to?"


    "Of course not. But I feel like if someone saved your life, they at least deserve some thanks," Eiro responded, and Nelly let out a long sigh, "Frankly, I don''t care too much. We can leave if you want, and then nevere back, but I know you. You''d regret that sooner orter."


    The naiad clicked her tongue, "Oh, shut up. Fine, I''ll thank her."

 Chapter 766: Confrontation

    Eiro and Nelly swam through the castle. The demon was guiding his contracted spirit to the room that the queen was currently in. It didn''t seem to be her bedchambers likest time, but something more adjacent to a sitting room. At the end of the day, it was still just another space for her toy and do basically nothing in, though.


    The king was in the throne room, talking to some of the naiads and spirit people that worked at the castle. He did have his own space here too, but Eiro hadn''t noticed him return there even once in the time that he had been here. This was the naiad queen''s own castle, and whenever the king was here, the two spent their nights together.


    They did really seem to be in love, so at least Eiro was d that the former queen didn''t let go of her position for nothing.


    "Are you ready?" Eiro asked, looking over at Nelly, but she just shook her head with an annoyed roll of her eyes.


    "Of course not. But let''s just get in there already and let''s get this over with," she replied, so Eiro slowly nodded his head. He looked over at the guard stationed outside of the room, thinking about what to do for just a moment. In the end, he simply took a deep breath, infusing the water that had moved into his lungs with conceptual magic.


    The concept that Eiro chose was ''distraction'', which should make it easy for the guard to find something else more interesting than actually guarding the door.


    He pushed that water back out and carefully manipted it so that the guard would breathe it in next. It took a few moments for the magic to take effect, but before long, he had started fiddling with the ps of his armor and seemed particrly curious about the buckle of his belt for some reason.


    It being the perfect time, Eiro snapped his finger loudly, blocking the sound''s ripples from moving into the guard''s direction straight away, instead having them move around corners and jump from wall to wall so that it would sound like it wasing from down the hall.


    The extremely distractable guard nced over into the direction of the sound, following his new instincts and taking a closer look at what was going on. So, Eiro of course immediately swam over to the door, while Nelly nced at the guard''s back.


    "Well, that... I didn''t expect a person from this realm to be so easily influenced by conceptual mind magic," Nelly said, almost disappointed, and Eiro shrugged with a slight smile.


    "To be totally fair, it wasn''t just any conceptual magic. It was mine."


    "Stop bragging like that," Nelly scoffed.


    "Sorry. I guess I''m just happy to be talking to you again," with a smile, Eiro ced his hands onto therge door, and Nelly clicked her tongue while looking away.


    "Fine, you get to brag a little."


    Eiro pushed open the door with a smile, and the naiad queen snapped her head toward Eiro confused.


    "How dare you- You did thisst time as well, but stop just entering ces you shouldn''t be!" the queen eximed, "And where is my damned guard?"


    "Checking out some random corner, I think," Eiro responded, "But well, I figured right now would be fine. We wanted to say goodbye."


    The queen frowned confused, not entirely sure what Eiro meant. Why would he just be leaving like this without any warning?


    "Goodbye? And ''we''?" she asked, and Eiro slowly turned his head to the woman behind him. Nelly hesitantly swam into the room, and the queen widened her eyes. She immediately swam toward her, "Nelissa! When did you wake up? You should have called us there, you should sitll be careful with your body, I-"


    "Calm down, Laris," Nelly sighed loudly, swimming past the queen''s hand as she reached out for something like a hug. Of course, the queen was a couple timesrger than Nelly, so part of it might have just been something like an instinct, but Eiro figured that Nelly just didn''t feel like being all too affectionate here for no reason.


    The queen pulled back her hands, "Oh, I''m- I''m sorry, but... are you okay? Do you need me to heal you a little more?"


    Nelly quickly shook her head, "Don''t worry, I''m fine. If I ever need healing again, Eiro can do it from now on."


    With augh, the queen held a hand in front of her mouth, "Quite a joke there, I don''t remember you being so..." she started, though she soon saw Nelly and Eiro''s expressions. The queen looked over at Eiro, "Wait, what... what do you mean?"


    The demon smiled softly, his hands ced onto his back, "After observing your healing capabilities, I managed to rece them to some degree. I''m still not even close to as skilled in those particr techniques as you are, but I feel as though I''m well on my way of being able to aplish simr results."


    The queen silently stared at the demon, not sure what she was supposed to say. The healing powers of the naiad queen were supposed to be a unique quality; a power of recovery beyond any other, as it was supposed to be the only power that could heal anything, even spirits. But Eiro was supposed to have replicated that power after seeing it just once?


    "That''s not important right now, though," Nelly replied, looking up at the queen, "I''m here to see you just once before we leave. I don''t know when or if we''ll get another chance, after all."


    Hearing Nelly say this, the queen nervously moved backward, "Why would we not get another chance to see each other?"


    "Because I didn''t directly make the choice to see you this time either. Eiro brought me here and convinced me toe see you."


    "... Do you really hate me so much?"


    "I don''t hate you. Why would I?" Nelly responded, shaking her head.


    "Then why do you act like this? Why have you evaded my attempts at contacting you, and... and why are you a supporter of the former queen?"


    "Just because I support her does not mean that I don''t support you, Laris. She is the one that earned the right to be queen. She did, truly and honestly. You lost to her in the race of bing the queen. That doesn''t mean that you didn''t have the qualifications to be the queen, but you still lost. But even so, because you and the king were in love, sheter rescinded her position.


    She is the rightful queen, so why would she suddenly lose my support?" Nelly frowned, and the queen lowered her gaze.


    "Is that it? Are you mad at me for falling in love?"


    Nelly shook her head, almost annoyed, "Do you really think I would be mad about something like that? I was happy for you when you fell in love, and I was even happy for you when you became the queen."


    "Then what''s the issue?" confused and clearly growing a bit upset, the naiad queen stared down at nelly, who seemed practically angry at what the queen was asking.


    "Really? You don''t even remember what you did? Why am I even surprised, of course you don''t... To you, it was the natural thing to do, right?"


    At this point, even Eiro was growing confused. What happened between them that Nelly was this mad at her? From what she was saying earlier, it sounded like nothing but a personal disagreement, but there was clearly much more to it than that.


    "I don''t follow..."


    "You tried to hunt down all the great beasts of the ne, Laris," Nelly replied, and the queen raised her brows in surprise.


    It was like she didn''t even understand why Nelly was mad about that, "But... they were dangerous. They took out dozens of ships every month."


    "Dozens of hunting vessels! The beasts were trying to defend themselves, just- How can you not understand that? They''re a pir of this realm and magic as a whole, if you had gotten rid of them all, you would have... ruined this nepletely."


    "I would have made it safer... plus, their bodies could have fed millions, created oils and medicines. And then, those corpses would have fostered new life that could feed off them. If killing one mindless beast could save my people, why wouldn''t I do what had to be done?"

 Chapter 767: Confrontation

    "Why wouldn''t you- Excuse me? Did you really just ask me why you wouldn''t just kill these majestic creatures? Thest of their kind?" Nelly asked with an almost disgusted expression. The naiad queen didn''t seem to understand exactly why Nelly was so against the idea of ying a particr few magic beasts, the ancient ones that havee to be together with this very ne.


    "Listen, I understand the choice to some degree. Why you''re saying isn''t wrong. Their bodies would have been able to feed many people for a long time, they would have brought prosperity to vast regions of this realm. That is undoubtably true."


    "Then what is the issue exactly?" the queen asked, a genuine face of confusion on her face. It was almost shocking to Eiro that she was acting like that. This was more than just ''questionable'', but knowing Nelly, she was probably just trying to downy the situation when she described things to Eiro earlier.


    Maybe she herself was trying to lie to herself and acted like it wasn''t really such a big deal; that she misunderstood or exaggerated the queen''s stance in her mind. But clearly, that wasn''t the case.


    "I told you before, Laris, and I repeated it just now! Those are not simple beasts, they are the cornerstones of this realm! If they die out, if their magic is no longer in this world, the magic of this ne, and with that we ourselves as we are borne from this ce, will change forever and without an opportunity to return to what we once were!"


    "But... that''s nothing more than a rumour. An old myth, a legend of the past generations. Why would we believe in something that so clearly does not make sense?"


    "It doesn''t make sense? Why would it not- They were born with this realm, they are as old as the elemental ne itself... They... they''re the true incarnation of this ce... If you can''t understand that, then..." Nelly muttered, looking down at the ground with anger in her eyes. She dind''t know what else to say to someone that clearly refused to think about the consequences of their actions.


    Eiro listened for a while, not wanting to intrude on this conversation. Though, of course, he knew that Nelly was right. Every realm, not even just the elemental nes, had ancient creatures that were born along with the world. Gaurdians that kept up the cornerstones of the world, protectors of magic and everything that is true and correct.


    The elemental nes each have multiple of such beings. The ne of water, for example, has four. The leviathan, the world serpent, the true kraken, and the lord of the abyss.


    Eiro had actually briefly met the world serpent; a newborn was the one that lived underneath the floating city, one of the first townst hat Eiro had ever set foot on in this life, and that now acted as the foundation for the city of monsters.


    Each of these creatures had unique aspects to them and were incredibly powerful once fully mature, so Eiro certainly understood why you would want to gain their powers. Even Eiro was considering, for a few moments, to hunt them down and y them, as the amount of experience he would gain would certainly be enough to boost him quite a bit.


    Though in the end, he had decided to rely on something beside just levels and stats. He still wanted to find them, but instead of killing them, he wanted to offer trades to them. Maybe some level of protection so that he may gain something in return.


    For example, in one of the books of the Tower''s topyer in the elemental ne of fire, the location of the Phoenix''s nest was described in a lot of detail. Just ingesting a few feathers should increase Eiro''s fire elemental affinity a few times over.


    Simrly, the kraken''s ink should be filled with incredibly powerful magic that should work well for artificing or inscribing magic into spellbooks.


    Even the guardian of the central elemental ne should be quite useful, the Titan That Holds Up The Sky, but right now Eiro has no clues whatsoever of where it could be. Either way, though, Eiro didn''t understand why the Naiad Queen of all people didn''t believe in the importance of those wonderful creatures?


    Anyone that had even an ounce of magical knowledge, upon seeing one of them, would never doubt that fact. When you gazed upon them, there was just an intense rity and a deep connection to the world''s elemental magic.


    "Hold on..." Eiro let out, realizing something, "Have you never even seen one of them?" he asked. Especially a spirit, a being not only borne from magic, but this very realm, with the ability to sense magic with every fibre of their being, should realize the true nature of those beasts. That was the only exnation that Eiro coulde up with.


    If the queen had never met one of them, and then simply fell for the narrative of someone trying to act for their own personal benefit.


    The naiad queen raised her brows, tilting her head to the side slightly, "How is that of any consequence whatsoever?"


    Eiro let out a deep, long sigh, and Nelly red at the queen, "Hold on, you haven''t even seen them? Don''t all spirit monarchs have to travel to see each of the guardian beasts of their respective ne?"


    "Well, yes, but that rule is just ''A Queen of that Generation''. The former naiad queen already did that before rescinding her position to me, and as she is still alive, we count as the same generation."


    "So you- Have I not taught you better than that? How could you just ignore such an important task?"


    The queen slowly frowned, "I had other matters to take care of! Just as you said earlier, the former queen is the rightful queen! No matter if I would have the qualifications, no matter if I would have won the race to queenship in any other generation, she became the queen instead of me, and because of her mere pity, gave me the title.


    I had to spend many, many years just proving that I was a good queen, proving that I could be of some kind of worth to the elder spirits and the powerful people of this realm."


    Nelly shook her head, "But that doesn''t mean you can just let go of responsibilities that exist for a reason!"


    "It''s a reason that I, simply, don''t care about, so just-" the queen stopped herself, and Eiro stared at her face. Slowly, he nced at Nelly, speaking to her through the link the two had as contractors.


    "Nelly. I believe she didn''t give up on that n," the Demon exined, and Nelly snapped her head toward him confused, before turning back to the queen, and then back to Eiro once again.


    "What do you... what do you mean?"


    Eiro slowly nced over to the confused queen, who wasn''t sure what Nelly was talking about, and then let out a long sigh when he replied out loud, "She hasn''t given up on her n of killing the guardian beasts."


    Nelly''s face went pale. Eiro was surprised that this was even possible, considering she didn''t even have any blood. She immediately stared at the queen, who was looking back without even an ounce of nervosity.


    "Is that... is that true?" Nelly asked, and the queen nodded, as if it were obvious.


    "Of course, why would I give up on such a venture? It could save the lives of so many of my people," the naiad queen pointed out.


    "Does the king know?"


    "He knows that I have ns, but no. He isn''t aware of any details."


    Eiro looked over at Nelly, whose face was covered in an expression that could only be described as abination of shock and horror, slowly moving over to one of sorrow.


    "But... how could you ever..."


    "Nelly, I don''t think there''s anything that we can say to convince her right now," Eiro pointed out. He ced his hand onto his chest, essing the treasury through the spirit gateway. And from it, he pulled a small dagger with a slight curve, that seemed like it was made of stone rather than metal. It had small grooves running along its side, and a number of holes along the edge.


    Nelly saw the dagger; the mountain-breaker enhanced dagger of ice and water, and nervously looked at Eiro''s face. And then, the demon stabbed the dagger into the water in front of him.

 Chapter 768: Cracks

    Cracks spread through the water in a ripple-like pattern, soon filling the entire room in an instant. It happened so fast that the water wasn''t able to properly flow and fill in the gaps created through those cracks right away, so of course the Naiad Queen wasn''t able to react right away either.


    The special dagger''s cracks soon reached the powerful spirit''s body, digging their way into her flesh. Deep wound were created all over her body. Though, of course, they weren''t lethal. Eiro wasn''t trying to turn this whole realm into a true enemy whatsoever. He was just trying to scare her a bit, and it seemed like that worked. The shaking naiad queen stared back at Eiro, confused.


    "Wh-What''s going on? Why would you...?" she asked, shivering from the pain and shock, but Eiro just red at her silently.


    "I''m just showing you how powerless you are," the Demon replied bluntly, staring at the figure in front of him, "If I had wanted to, I could have killed you right this second. Something that will indeed happen if you choose to target the guardian beasts. If you dare injure them for even a single point, I wille seek you out and make sure you pay any damage back hundredfold."


    The naiad queen stayed silent, clearly trying to understand why any of this was happening. It really seemed like she had no intention of trying to see things from Nelly and Eiro''s perspective; she simply didn''t understand the gravity of what it meant to kill those beings. It would severely weaken the water element, and that would throw all other elements out of bnce.


    Like the water that had crashed into the empty spaces created by the cracks, all other elements would try to fill the space that was created. But in the end, the power imbnce of the water element wouldn''t just happen by having it shrink; if that were the case, all it would mean would be that water magic would grow weaker, while some other elements would grow a bit stronger.


    While it would cause some immense ripples and changes throughout the world, it was something that could be adjusted to over time.


    But the weakening would happen very simrly to the cracks that Eiro had just formed. Those cracks, instead of being filled back in with the water element, would be filled with others. And with the water element surrounding them from almost all sides, those elements would slowly diffuse into the water. It would be forever changed. Muddied, cursed; polluted.


    That was something that was never allowed to happen, no matter what. It was something that Eiro was going to make sure would never happen, even if it meant killing the spirit monarchs. Rather, he would even go so far as to seize power himself.


    Though, killing the Naiad King might be a bit rough for Eiro right now. The queen was weak; she was a healer, not a fighter, so she had almost no way to defend herself. She could heal her body, but was useless if she died before she could attempt to heal herself. But the king would be another story.


    Of course, Eiro was sure he would be able to figure something out after his evolution was over, but that wasn''t anything that he could totally count on right now. These duplicate bodies were practically stuck in a ''snapshot'' from the moment before the evolution started, it wasn''t possible to make them significantly stronger than the main body.


    That was especially the case with the duplicates in the elemental nes; as their bodies were madergely of magic, their physical form mattered less for their strength anyway.


    Either way, if Eiro had to figure something out, he coulde up with some countermeasures against the naiad king. In the tower of the elemental ne of fire''s top floor was a book that described some weaknesses of each Smander King. Eiro was sure there would be a simr one in the top floor of the tower of books in this ne, though he didn''t know that for sure, of course.


    The naiad queen stared back at Eiro, "How- How dare you..? I''m just trying to do what''s best for the people of this realm!"


    Nelly silently red back at her, unable to respond to her former pupil. The dagger''s cracks had damaged the wall behind the naiad queen as well, which was to some extent Eiro''s main target as he hadn''t wanted to kill the queen yet anyway, and it was now slowly crumbling apart, opening a pathway for a simple escape.


    Eiro and Nelly both swam out, as clear, thick magic flowed out from the naiad queen''s wounds. The two continued to swim as the queen began to hurl insults at them, growing more and more resentful the further they got away. It didn''t take long until some mages were made aware, and spells were soon thrown their way. Of course, Eiro retorted very simply; he just casted a counterspell.


    He saw the beginnings of the magic circle they were creating, figured out what magic they were trying to use, and quickly casted the counter-spell that Eiro had already prepared long beforehand. After all, the spells that these mages were using weren''t original in any way; they had been trained to be protectors of the naiad queen, and that included specific spells.


    Spells that were written down and recorded in a book, which Eiro had found actually rather early as he climbed the tower of books in this realm, so as he worked on analyzing the book''s content for any benefits he could draw for his own magic, Eiro had taken the liberty of preparing any and all possible counters for the magic no matter the tweak that was made to it.


    A counterspell had to be perfectly urate to be able to really put a stop to the magic that someone was casting, which was why it wasn''t a technique that was made use of that often anymore. Back in the day, when spells cast minutes at a time to cast in some cases, it would have been easier to figure out the spell and properly prepare the counter in time.


    But now, with the casting speed that had been carefully developed over the past few generations, it was nigh impossible for anyone but Eiro to really cast a proper counterspell.


    That being the case, Eiro and Nelly were able to swim away from the castle pretty casually.


    "Are you okay?" Eiro asked, looking over at the naiad next to him. Of course, he already had a pretty good idea at the answer to that question. Looking at Nelly''s expression, there was no way she was fine with what just happened.


    "No... no, I''m not okay... I can''t believe that she would actually still be like that... I thought it had maybe just been something like youthful naivete and a severeck of experience that made her think like that, but now...


    it''s clearly just willfull, tant ignorance that she is disying for no other purpose but to prove herself right," Nelly pointed out, slowly turning around toward the castle and ring at the structure bitterly.


    Eiro looked at her with a sorry expression, "I''m sorry. I shouldn''t have pushed you to go and talk to her."


    Nelly instantly shook her head, "No, don''t apologize. I didn''t... I didn''t not want to talk to her. It''s aplicated situation, obviously... even now, I do still cherish her. She hasn''t yet gone past the point of no return, so I hope that someday she can see the truth and actually understand what it would mean to kill the guardians.


    Though, luckily, I doubt they could do it even if they wanted to."


    "Yeah, the guardians'' power is nigh insurmountable," Eiro pointed out, "Though, they''re luckily incredibly intelligent too, so we should be able tomunicate with them. I''ve wanted to try and find them anyway, so maybe we should warn them and help them hide somehow. Even if they''re hard to kill, you never know what kind of things the monarchs could have figured out."


    The naiad next to Eiro slowly nodded, "I think that''s a good idea... Do you have any clues to where we need to go to find them?"


    "Not yet, but when we get to the tower''s top floor, we should be able to find a clue, at the very least."

 Chapter 769: Return to the Tower

    Eiro and Nelly reached the tower of books once again. In here, the spirit monarchs wouldn''t be able to bother them. While it was indeed possible to break through the walls if enough power was umted, that was not a power that either the naiad king or queen possessed.


    And of course, once they entered the tower, they had to properly follow the rules in order to proceed; they would have to pass the tests.


    Being spirits, they might actually be able to pass the test for the first floor rather easily; the process of analyzing those pressed words'' was tough, but for beings that were made of magic, it might be easier than for others. Especially for those at their level.


    But after that, they still had to read all the books of the first floor, then the second, third, and all the rest, to catch up to Eiro and Nelly. And even then, Eiro and Nelly could hide out on the secret floor that was only essible to Morgan Fey.


    That meant that, for the time being, they could just take it easy and rx.


    As they entered the tower, the overseer was there to greet them. With a slight bow, they spoke to Eiro, "Wee, Morgan Fey."


    "... Didn''t the other ''me'' already tell you not to call me that?"


    "You seem to have different personalities to some degree, even if you share a mind, so I wanted to be safe," the overseer responded, "Either way, as per my innate instructions, I am here to tell you that you now have ess to every floor of the tower, in ordance with the will of Morgan Fey."


    Eiro smiled softly, "Perfect, thank you. But even so, there are still quite a few things that I have to read before reaching the top floor. Though it''s good that I don''t have to bother with the tests anymore. How is Anura doing?"


    "Your servant is currently preparing for the test to enter the next floor, making sure that he trulyprehends everything there is that could appear," the overseer exined, and Eiro nodded his head proudly. It looked like the boost that the frogman got from bing Eiro''s servant really did help him out quite a bit.


    Eiro and Nelly quickly made their way up. Anura was seated at one of the tables, taking notes while muttering to himself. His words were activelypressed, and he seemed to be trying to repeat the contents of certain books to himself to make sure he remembered them properly. Though, he still wasn''t able topress a whole book into just a few sentences and words.


    The current Anura was able topress around a page into a single word.


    Figuring that he shouldn''t bother him too much, Eiro simply moved on and got to the ce where he had left off. He looked around, trying to see if there were any new books here. It did seem like a handful more books had been added to the collection while he was gone. Starting there, Eiro quickly went around and collected everything that he needed.


    "So, are you just going to continue on as normal?" Nelly asked, watching the demon settle in the corner of the room. He looked at her with a raised brow, shrugging.


    "Anything wrong with that?"


    "Of course not, but... it just seemed a bit anticlimactic after everything that just happened."


    "Hm... I guess so," Eiro replied, "But what else should we do? I don''t have any particr interest in fighting the monarchs right now, and I refuse to simply flee from them."


    "Yeah, you''re probably right," Nelly agreed, settling near Eiro.


    The demon looked at her hesitantly, "Though, I think maybe it would be a good idea for you to go over there and meet the others. One of the other duplicates already told them that you woke up and that you''re fine, but I''m sure the kids would love to see you doing well."


    A light smile formed on Nelly''s face, "You''re right, I should go and talk to them. Will you be alright on your own for a while?"


    Eiro scoffed and looked away from the spirit, focusing on the books he wasying out in front of him, "Is that even a question?"


    "Yeah, sorry, that was unnecessary," Nelly replied, patting the demon on the back, "In that case, I''ll head out for a while. See you soon."


    The spirit''s body fell apart into droplets that seemed to quickly dissolve into the water around her, and the other duplicates quickly sensed Nelly over in the central material ne. Of course, Nelly appeared near the original body, still stuck in a coon. But instead of being inside of the room itself, she was brought to the ''magic ess point'' on the door.


    That''s how Eiro had set it up, to make sure that it would happen like this when Nelly woke up.


    While that was happening on the other side, Eiro focused on his own work again. He quickly started reading the books in front of him. They were incredibly simple for him to just nce over andprehend to the point that he was happy with for now. The mental duplicates would do the detailed analysis of the content and whatever else was hidden in the physical book itself.


    Since he didn''t need to ount for the time that this process was going to take anymore, Eiro figured he could go all-out for a little while. He just had to nce at the pages, and didn''t even need to read the content anymore. As long as he saw all the words well enough for the mental duplicates to do the rest, there was no need for him to worry.


    That meant that he managed to get through all of the new books that arrived incredibly fast. And after that, Eiro swam through this floor. He used water magic to pull out book after book, flipping through the pages faster than he had ever done before.


    It was to the point where Eiro was even momentarily worried he would tear the pages, but his magic control was high enough that this wasn''t something that was going to happen all too easily.


    With that, Eiro could effectively cut down the time that he needed to get through each book down to a third, maybe even a fourth or fifth once he got into the proper flow of things. The book would then be brought into the mental library and the mental duplicates would do the rest.


    Before long, Nelly came back. She seemed to be quite emotionally drained, like she just had a good cry over there with the kids. Of course, Eiro knew exactly that this was the case, but the duplicates had tried not to focus too much on the conversations between Nelly and the kids to give them some privacy so he tried not to think about it too much.


    "You could have stayed over there a little longer," Eiro pointed out, "In the first ce, you don''t have to stick around with us duplicates, neither you nor Sarius. I asked you to join initially to act as guides, but by now, you must just be bored sitting here, doing nothing."


    Nelly looked over at the demon, swimming over to his side, "I know that I don''t have to stick around here, but I just figured you''d feel a bit lonely. You''ve never been alone before."


    "I-" Eiro instinctively spoke to refute that, but... Nelly was right. He hadn''t been alone before in this life.


    He started out as part of the horde. When he split off from the horde, he was with James and Avalin''s party. When he split off from them, the moment he was really conscious, he was with his daughter Avalin.


    Then the other kids joined, then Jura came along. He would have some moments of silence in the forest, but even there, Lugo was usually around, and since Jura could hear him no matter where he was anyway, maybe that didn''t even really count.


    After Jura''s death, even when Eiro went off alone for some time, he would always have Nelly by his side, then Gondos, and then Sarius.


    There was only a brief time he was actually alone, and it was when the former owner of the card of the ''Ultimate Domain of Truth'' made everyone forget about him. And that was probably the worst time of his life.


    "... Thank you," Eiro replied, continuing to flip through the books without averting his gaze from them.

 Chapter 770: Blink

    Eiro swam into the tower''s top floor. Just as it was in the tower in the elemental ne of fire, it was fairly small but stillrger than the demon would have expected. Though he was still far behind the fire duplicate, the only thing that really divided them was this top floor, and the book of the first incarnation of Morgan Fey. The others were still far too tough to crack right now, so Eiro would have to increase his understanding of each of the skills used in their sealing before he could open them.


    As he looked through the books on this top floor, just as he hoped, he found hints about the locations and migration patterns of the elemental ne''s guardians. Eiro should be able to find them easily enough with this once he felt ready to actually venture out.


    Beside that, though, the next thing of importance that he found was some information on the naiad king and queen. Records of the specific powers and abilities of the past and current monarchs, as well as certain weaknesses. These might not be 100% urate, though; the books here weren''t necessarily all factual. Particrly up here, as exined by the overseer, if the information couldn''t be otherwise verified, it was generally treated as true. After all, false information can be just as powerful as true information, if not more so.


    But even so, from what Eiro could tell, it seemed pretty reasonable. It all seemed to ovep with what he sensed from the monarchs as well, plus, Nelly was able to verify a lot of this information as well. Not all of it seemed to be perfectly true, but that was fine. It was enough.


    The rest of the books were useful, certainly, but not amazingly so. Powerful spells and methods of casting magic, state secrets, massive conspiracies; the sort of thing that you would expect to see here. Just like with the ones Eiro found in the elemental ne of fire''s tower, Eiro recorded the spells into his grimoire. They showed a unique perspective, but they weren''t necessarily super useful for Eiro. Rather, they were just a little bit outdated, especiallypared to what he was able to develop on his own.


    Once he had finished reading all the books in the top floor, Eiro moved on to the secret room left behind by Morgan Fey, where the true value of this towerid. Of course, Eiro was able to already develop his magic by leaps and bounds by reading the books in here, and he learned numerous clues and interesting tidbids and information on useful materials, but what he could learn merely through the process of trying to unlock Morgan Fey''s books was iparable to all the rest.


    Just with a cursory nce through the room, Eiro could tell that there weren''t all the same books in this space. There were some that weren''t in the tower in the other realm, and some that were missing from here that were over there. Since these books were transcriptions of each incarnation''s experiences in that respective realm, Eiro figured that not every single incarnation made it to every single realm. Maybe there was simply no reason for some of them toe here. Or whatever they did here wasn''t worthy of being written down. Or the respective incarnations simply didn''t feel like writing everything down.


    Eiro didn''t have enough of a grasp of what they were like to really say anything for certain. However, just like before, Eiro chose to go for the original Morgan Fey''s book first. It seemed to have a simr lock on it to the one he already solved in the other tower, though with some differences based more around systems of water magic than fire magic. Once Eiro opened this book and properly analyzed it, he could join the other duplicate in trying to open the second book. That one seemed to be in both towers, and though the locks seemed to be slightly different, that was actually just better in Eiro''s opinion. That way, he could see the ovep and differences and infer patterns a lot better.


    And so, Eiro sat down in front of the book and started to properly analyze the patterns.


    -----


    In the central material ne, the current ''proxy original'' Eiro was seated in the manor''s office, trying to develop a spell based on the new knowledge that he had attained through the seal on Morgan Fey''s book. It was soplex and showed such a ridiculous mastery over arcane magic that Eiro couldn''t even fullyprehend at first, that it truly helped Eiro''s understanding of magic skyrocket. Of course, it didn''t let him create any particrly more powerful spells, but it did let him fine-tune spells and make some moreplex ones. Create spells with more unique effects.


    For example, Eiro had always wondered about a spell that Merlin had shown back when he escaped the academy; an arcane spell that allowed him to break his body apart into magic to move faster and escape without being attacked.


    Eiro always wanted to develop teleportation, but that wasn''t nearly as simple as it sounded. And while he did live in a house constructed with hidden spatial magic filling every nook and cranny, he didn''t find any hints about teleportation. All the spaces in here were constructed using principles of spatial expansion rather than connecting two separate locations. He did get some information from the door connecting to that damned, monstrous merchant in the holy empire''s capital, jumping around the city again and again, but it wasn''t anything that he could make use of without spatial magic.


    And Eiro sadly still hadn''t found a decent way of unlocking spatial magic as an element to let him properly explore it, but there was something else he could do. With the information from Morgan Fey''s book, he was able to fill in the gaps that he needed to develop a spell simr to Merlin''s, letting him temporarily create an arcane vessel for physical matter to have it carried to another location.


    Then, by reversing the principles of spatial expansion that he learned from analyzing the magic in the mansion, Eiro was able to somehowpress the space between the starting and target location, even without ess to spatial magic. Spatial magic would certainly make this much stronger, but even with just arcane magic, this was possible.


    Carefully, he pressed his wooden palm onto an apple; for now, the support he got from his wooden hand for casting magic should make this a bit easier. Slowly muttering the supportive chant that he developed while building theplex multiyered arcane magic circle around the apple, Eiro cast the spell.


    It cost him a lot of arcane magic, but a momentter, that arcane magic pulled apart the apple and moved it from Eiro''s desk over to the coffee table a few steps away. Seeing the sess, Eiro jumped up in excitement.


    "Finally!" he eximed, grinning from ear to ear. Since this was sessful, Eiro just had to iterate on this spell. Some of his mental duplicates worked onpressing the chant into a single word, while others worked on simplifying the magic circle to the point where it could be ced inside of Eiro''s body by manipting his magic circuits.


    In just an hour, the simple test run had turned into a proper, decent spell, since almost all mental duplicates were working on this one particr task. This was a breakthrough that would make things so, so much better for Eiro. Not only would this catapult his battle capabilities up far, far higher than they could reach before, but his movement speed would go up.


    Since the ''Ultimate Agility'' card affected the scale of speed of every part of Eiro''s body, that included his magic as well. With that card''s effect fully unsealed inside of this duplicate''s body, Eiro''s magic would be able to travel from spot to spot almost instantaneously. His body could start rebuilding itself in one spot before it was even fully broken apart in another.


    And luckily, this Eiro was a duplicate. He could test this spell out without needing to fear that he was going to identally kill himself; he could figure out what this would do to his consciousness before and after the mock short-range teleport.


    Eiro stood up, and let the magic flow through him, creating the magic circle around himself, activating the newly developed ''Blink'' spell on himself for the first time.

 Chapter 771: Blink (2)

    Eiro activated the ''Blink'' spell on himself and his body immediately started being pulled apart. His arcane magic enveloped his physical body and his cells, carefully cradling each minuscule fragment of his being. The demon could feel that arcane magic then pull those fragments away, like they were blown away in the wind.


    Of course, that wasn''t the case. The magic moved with specific, particr intention. His fully deconstructed body moved through the space in front of him. Luckily, his consciousness seemed to stay fully intact within this body as he moved along through this spell, so he could potentially use this spell on other people without worrying he would identally kill them in the process.


    Just an instantter, a fraction of a second from an outside perspective, Eiro''s body was perfectly reconstructed. His body felt fine, he didn''t lose any health points, and his clothes and other items were in great condition still. It seemed like Eiro had managed to develop a wonderful spell.


    The demon took a deep breath. Instead of creating the magic circle around him, he now reshaped his magic circuits into the form of the blink magic circle, allowing him to activate it almost immediately. The only thing that he still had to do for now was speak the supportive chant, but Eiro was sure he couldpress it down even further over time. For now, actually using the spell was the best way to get a good feel for it, and the spell should be a lot more efficient over time.


    For the time being, though, Eiro figured he should have a bit of fun with it. He knew that Meshi had a simr ability, though it was an advanced ability developed through the high mastery over the freerunning skill. Eiro''s ''Blink'' spell was very different in nature to that.


    The demon stepped up to the window and opened it up just a crack, waiting for the right moment. Meshi and the freerunning aspect were currently training outside, and should get to a nearby spot in the gardens soon. With a slight grin, Eiro blinked outside into the gardens. His magic carried his body outside, and he appeared in the middle of the small gravel path.


    Eiro saw Meshi turn around the corner, hopping over a part of the nearby fence. The freerunning aspect was following behind, trying to keep up with the master''s movements. Seeing the proxy original standing in the middle of the pathway, Meshi''s mischievous side came through as well. Meshi had a habit.


    It''s actually been rather annoying to Eiro. In the middle of training, Meshi would randomly pop up behind the demon and pat him on the shoulder. He would disappear again almost immediately, before Eiro could even react. Of course, Meshi was lucky that Eiro had currently sealed away the effects of ''Ultimate Agility'', and that he wasn''t particrly keen on using the ''Stopwatch'' card at the moment.


    Eiro looked at Meshi and smiled lightly, and the demon knew exactly what was about to happen. He could feel the master''s presence fade, and immediately activated the blink spell.


    Just as Meshi''s hand was about to touch Eiro''s shoulder, the demon''s body fell apart into magic and appeared right behind the master, being constructed starting from Eiro''s hand, which was ced steadily on Meshi''s shoulder.


    Startled, the master turned around, "What? How did you- What just happened?"


    "I developed a new spell," Eiro replied, patting Meshi''s shoulder. Excitedly, the master looked him up and down.


    "What kind of spell was it? Was it some kind of illusion? I''m usually pretty good at seeing through those..."


    "It wasn''t an illusion. It''s a ''blink'' spell. Since I can''t use spatial magic yet, I''ve improvised a bit," Eiro exined, "Basically, I break my body apart using arcane magic and then rebuild myself at my destination. The range isn''t great, but I can move practically instantly."


    Meshi''s eyes widened, "A blink spell? Seriously? Teach it to me!"


    "I mean, can you use arcane magic? Can you create 5yered cascading magic circles? And can youpress around five hundred sybles into a single one?"


    "... I can use a bit of air magic, if that''s enough?"


    "It''s not," Eiro replied, "But hey, if i manage to simplify it to a point that makes it more practical for others beside me, I''ll teach it to you. You''d still have to improve your magic a bit before then, though."


    "Ehh..." Meshi groaned, letting out a long sigh, "I''d rather not... Can''t you just, like, zap it into my head?"


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, but quickly shook his head, "I can teach you the theory of the spell like that, for sure. I can take Knowledge magic, turn it into a physical representation, and then ce it inside of you. That means you''ll understand it for a little bit, but... you won''t be able to do anythin with it."


    Meshi clicked his tongue, "Fine. But you have to promise to teach it to me then, alright?"


    "Sure. I promise."


    "Hah! Now you can''t-"


    "You know for a fact that I''m not bound by demonic oaths," Eiro interrupted Meshi, "I told you that''s how I killed the devil."


    "... Worth a try," Meshi looked away, "Anyway, keep up the good work. You''re improving at a breakneck pace."


    "Thank you. It means a lot to hear that from you. I''m sure my freerunning skill is going to level up by leaps and bounds once my evolution is over," Eiro exined, smiling lightly, and Meshi raised his brows.


    "Right, when is that happening, by the way?"


    "ording to the timer given at the start of my evolution, it should be another month. But it''s not always perfectly urate. Even so, the original body is currently at the beginning stages of reconstruction."


    "Well, well, well... I''m very excited to see what you can do with your new body in a month, then. What would you say about a small race?" Meshi asked excitedly, and Eiro raised his brow.


    "Am I allowed to use the blink spell and the full extent of my agility stat?"


    "Of course! It wouldn''t even be a challenge otherwise. No offence. Oh, but that stopwatch is cheating. Obviously."


    "In that case, sure. Let''s do it," Eiro responded, and Meshi immediately grew even more excited.


    "Perfect. I''m looking forward to it!"


    With that, Meshi and the freerunning aspect continued the training, while the proxy original body continued to test out his new spell. It did require a lot of arcane magic, but he was able to gather quite a bit of it at this point. He just needed to syphon a bit of it from his bedroom where the actual original body was currently being bathed in massive amounts of it.


    First, Eiro had to really test out the range. The further away the destination, the longer it would take. That in itself was logical, of course, but the issue was that it didn''t seem to be a linear increase. It was like his arcane magic slowed down, very quickly losing its momentum. It wasn''t a big issue at short distances, but the blink spell left Eiropletely defenseless. Someone that could manipte magic well enough might be able topletely mess everything up, taking advantage of that brief moment. So if Eiro''s magic slowed down, that was too much of a risk for him to take, especially right now.


    Though, theoretically, Eiro could travel to any point that he could directly see. Which, due to his eyesight, meant that he could travel as far as the horizon at any point, as long as the view wasn''t blocked by a wall. Because of the way that the spell worked, the starting point as well as the destination had to be pre-determined, and the visualponent was an important stabilizing factor in the spell''s construction, so Eiro sadly couldn''t just ''blink'' to wherever he wanted.


    Even so, that didn''t mean Eiro couldn''t change the spell in the future. He was still developing it, after all. But even right now, the spell had a lot of advantages. Mostly, the fact that ''momentum'' was no longer a limiting factor.


    When moving at extremely high speeds, stopping wasn''t an easy thing. It required extreme reaction and nning for Eiro,which meant that he wasn''t able to move at his fastest particrly for short distances. But with the blink spell, in the middle ofbat, he could move to a different position and even stance almost instantly.


    Not to mention, he could get into ces that he couldn''t get to as easily before. Like that window earlier; as long as he had a line of sight and a gap for the magic to flow through, Eiro could get practically anywhere.


    Which actually gave Eiro another idea for something that he really wanted to try out with this new spell.

 Chapter 772: Blink (3)

    Eiro stood in front of another duplicate, who would, for now, act as a test dummy. He didn''t want to just go out and find a random monster or animal to try this out on; that just seemed a bit cruel. The duplicate was currently standing there, just breathing in an regr pattern. And then, the proxy original Eiro let his magic flow into his tail; specifically, into his stinger.


    His arcane magic broke apart the venom in his stinger. Eiro expelled it, and the venom blinked right into the other duplicate''s mouth. But while it was a bit faster than just turning the venom into mist and controlling it, he couldn''t go as deep as he wanted to. Since he could only blink things to ces that he could see, bringing it directly to the lungs, as he usually would. So this idea was quickly scrapped.


    So instead, Eiro took out a small throwing-knife. He threw it at the duplicate, activating the blink spell right when it left his fingertips. The knife was broken apart in the air, and brought to another ce; conserving the momentum, but changing the orientation of that momentum, the knife was put back together right behind the duplicate, hitting him straight in the back.


    Eiro couldn''t help himself but grin a bit at that. This was good. He could do something simr with his eye with the help of the


    Mirror of Duplication


    that he was using as a lens, but it required a lot more fine control and ced quite arge strain on Eiro. But then, Eiro had another idea. He slightly edited the spell, linking in the mirror of duplication. Since ''sight'' was already arge factor of this spell, that was rather simple to do if he used the one in his eye.


    By doing this, Eiro was able to basically duplicate the destination ''slots'', while keeping a singr starting point. This edited version was the ''Duplication Blink''. One thing was broken apart, and multiple were put back together. The duplicate from before pulled the knife out of its neck and threw it back over to the proxy original. He caught it and quickly prepared to throw it back again.


    Just as before, Eiro activated the spell right when the throwing-knife left his hand. But this time, he had set five different target positions, and the arcane magic that broke apart the knife split into five, duplicating itself in the process, and then flowed over to each of the five positions. The five knives hit the duplicate, all at the same speed, just from different positions and angles. A few momentster, four of the knives disappeared, and just one was left behind.


    "There we go, now that''s a good use for the spell," Eiro grinned. This was probably one of the bestbat applications that Eiro had found so far, just behind supplementing his movement and changing his position midbat.


    Curiously, Eiro set out to use the ''Duplication Blink'' spell in another way. He focused the spell on himself, and tried to move forward about twenty feet, duplicating himself in the process. While his body was broken apart once, when he arrived at his destination, two more Eiros were there. But something about this version of them was different.


    Rather than being made of that magical mass that usual duplicates were formed from, they were temporarily constructed using arcane magic, and were starting to fall apart the moment they appeared. After about five seconds, they were fully gone again. But that wasn''t all, because Eiro''s consciousness didn''t extend to those duplicates. They were empty hulls thatpletely replicated the motions of the proxy original, simply in different ces and orientations.


    "That''s... interesting," Eiro muttered. That definitely could have some benefits inbat. Whenever a new duplicate was created, it took a moment for its consciousness to properly ''wake up''. It wasn''t long, but in the middle ofbat, it was definitely long enough to jeopardize that duplicate''s safety. Rather, it practically meant that its death was almost inevitable, considering the scale of opponents that Eiro faced these days.


    But in this case, there was nog whatsoever. These copies created by the Duplication Blink didn''t think; they were like mirages with some mass to them. They didn''t seem like they could exert the exact same strength that Eiro could, but that didn''t really matter. It was still useful and could be an advantage over his opponent.


    "ying around with the mirror?" James let out a slight yawn as he stepped from the stairway into the garden. He was apparently out on a solo jobst night to increase his level a bit, onlying back veryte. Rather, he just slept a couple of hours from what Eiro knew.


    "Something like that. I''m developing and expanding a new spell," Eiro exined, "Want to help out? I can use it on others as well."


    James raised his brow curiously, "What, you''re going to duplicate me?"


    "No, no, I''m going to use the original version of the spell on you. But it''s an interesting sensation, and I would like to use it as an emergency escape system."


    James thought about it for a few moments, clearly curious about what Eiro was going to do to him. With a shrug, he agreed, "Sure, let''s do it. Anything I gotta do?"


    "Not really, just let it happen," the demon said, cing his hand onto James'' chest, "Now, again, I''m still working on improving the spell so right now its range is restricted to touch, but I''m working on improving the distance of what the spell can affect."


    "No worries. You''ve done weirder shit to me," James shuddered lightly, and Eiro simply scoffed.


    "You''re not wrong. Okay, this might be a bit disorienting."


    James nodded, just waiting for Eiro to get started, as the demon started activating the spell. He said the chant, and Eiro''s arcane magic flowed directly into James, breaking him apart and moving him over ten feet to the left. To James, it happened as fast as he could blink; hence, the name of the spell. He almost fell onto his own ass when he realized what happened.


    "H-Huh? What just- Did you- What''s going on exactly?" James asked, turning toward the demon nervously, and Eiro smiled, happy that it wasn''t as disorienting as he feared. Eiro was worried that it might have been so bad that nobody beside him could adjust to it, but this seemed to be more of a mental confusion rather than a physical reaction. James hadn''t expected it, and that''s why it was as disorienting as it was.


    "It''s a step down from teleportation, basically. I call it ''Blink''," Eiro exined, and James raised his brows curiously.


    "Oh? Did you use like, that stopwatch or something?"


    "Oh, no, no, I didn''t physically move you or anything, of course not. I used arcane magic to break your body down to an atomic level, and then transported those parts over to a new position."


    James stared at Eiro with a nk expression, "What."


    "Yeah, but you don''t need to worry about it or anything, your consciousness stays intact and so does your soul. The spell doesn''t do anything that jeopardizes your existence as who you are. It''s technically on the same level as an extremely powerful healing spell when ites to moral implications."


    Though he wanted to prostest, James knew that it might be better to just not think about it too deeply, "Okay. Right. And you''re sure that my mind and soul is alright? Like, am I the same James that stood over there like ten seconds ago?"


    "Yes, 100%. I can absolutely confirm that."


    "... Well, in that case, whatever. But that''s a kind of weird sensation, to be honest. It feels a little... tingly," James pointed out, rubbing his hand over his arm.


    Eiro raised his brow, "Well, that might be more of a side-effect of your unique physical constitution. The way your body reacts to magic is a bit different than others. If that tingling persists, please do let me know immediately."


    "Nah, it''s already fading, so don''t worry. So, then what was that other spell you did just a bit ago?"


    "Oh, that''s a branching spell I simply called ''Duplication Blink''. Basically, once your body is broken apart, the arcane magic is duplicated however many times I determine, and then not only your original body but two duplicates that willpletely copy your motions will be created for a few seconds," Eiro exined, looking at the man in front of him with a grin, "Why, want to give it a shot?"

 Chapter 773 Blink (4)

    773 Blink (4)


    "Hey, careful where you put me!" Krog yelled out, having fallen to the ground after his body was put back together by the ''Blink'' spell. Earlier, while Eiro and James were testing out the spell together, Krog and Jess came out for their daily training as well and quickly joined in.


    "Honey, calm down. When we''re in the middle of battle, we can''t always choose the best destination," Jess pointed out, patting the goliath on the back. Krog sighed as he stood back up. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    "Right, but like, can''t we at least know where we''ll end up beforehand? Give us a marker or something."


    Eiro raised his brow, looking at the warrior, "And let the enemy figure it out as well?"


    "You''re the genius! You figure something out," Krog grumbled, but Eiro just let out a long sigh. It was true that Krog and Jess struggled a lot more with the blink spell than James did, so trying to figure out a way to have them deal with the Blink spell in the middle ofbat properly wasn''t a bad idea.


    The issue was that James'' style ofbat was based on speed and motion already. He had a far greater visual acuity than the other two, his reaction time was better and his instincts rted to physical movement and his speed of adjusting to those things was superior as well. Meanwhile, Krog''sbat was centered around being stationary, being a mountain of power that couldn''t be budged whatsoever. He could move fast when he needed to, but that was more like a massive ship could move fast.


    Jess, as a mage, had a much different baseline in the first ce. Her physical abilities were above the average B rank fighters at the adventurer''s guild, but that didn''t mean it was easy for her to adjust to something like this. She mentally knew what she had to do, since she had the highest mental processing speed right after Eiro in this party, but that didn''t mean she had the physical abilities to always follow up on what she consciously knew what to do.


    "Well, there''s a few things I could do. I could use magic to manipte the ground of the ces where you end up to make it more simr to the ce you started at. I could change your position and momentum in a way where you''re reset to default for a moment so you wouldn''t fall down, or..." Eiro pointed out, crossing his arms in front of Krog, "You could just trust me and keep doing what you''re doing. The reason why you''re falling down is because you''re overthinking it, because you feel like you need to change something about the way you''re moving. I''ve been trying to adjust for that, but that keeps causing new issues. So, as long as you all can trust and just keep doing what you''re doing, there''s no real issue."


    The goliath grumbled lightly, "Fine. Just run us through it again."


    "Sure. But before then..." Eiro looked to the side, toward a spot near the wall, "Shimour, do you have something you want to say?"


    With a click of his tongue, the stealth master appeared, as if fading into existence, "This is getting real annoying, you know?"


    Eiro smirked, "Then do a better job at hiding. We both know you were hiding half-assedly just now."


    "Sure, sure," Shimour replied, "So, tell me, what are you doing there? Everyone''s presence has been all over the ce for a while now."


    The demon took a step toward Shimour, "I can show you if you want. It''s a simple spell, it''s perfectly safe, and it''s a pretty unique sensation."


    The stealth master thought about it for a few moments, "Sure. So, what is the spell?"


    "I would describe it as a step down from true teleportation. Your body is broken apart by arcane magic and then reassembled, barely a fraction of a secondter, at the destination."


    "Oh? Alright, yes, let me give it a go," Shimour said curiously, and Eiro quickly tapped the stealth master, activating the blink spell. Shimour''s body was immediately broken apart as he was ''blinked'' a few steps away. Different to the others, he didn''t have to adjust to the motion at all, but was still quite surprised and interested in what was going on.


    "This... it''s simr to Meshi''s movement arts, correct?" he asked, and Eiro thought about the answer for a few moments.


    "To an extent? It has a simr oue, but the principle behind it ispletely different."


    "Interesting. Can you-"


    "Nope."


    "You don''t even know what I was about to ask you."


    "You were about to ask me if I can teach you. And the answer is ''no''."


    Shimour raised a brow, "Why not? We''re teaching you, should you not give us something in return?"


    Eiro let out a long sigh, "I already exined the same thing to Meshi earlier, but it''s not that I don''t want to teach you; it''s just that you can''t learn it. You all can use magic to some degree, but not to the level where you can actually cast a spell like this. Not to mention, this is an arcane spell, and you don''t seem to have the ability to even produce arcane magic at the moment."


    "... That is a fair reason, I guess," Shimour replied, "So what, if we get to a point where we''re capable of learning it, you would teach us?"


    "Sure, why not?"


    "Hm... do you think Partax could learn it?"


    Eiro thought about it for a moment, "He''s not the best at casting spells, to be totally frank. He might be able to create some magic items that work of this principle, though. But you''d have to ask him. I was actually going to ask him about thatter as well, but the spell is still currently in the prototype stage."


    "Prototype? So it''s still notplete?" Shimour asked, not even subtly looking down at himself to check that all of his parts were still attached. But Eiro quickly tried to calm him down.


    "Don''t worry, it''splete, but I''m still trying to make it more efficient," Eiro exined, and Shimour''s curiosity seemed to grow a bit.


    "Do you think you''re capable ofbining that spell with aspects of stealth?"


    Eiro slowly nodded, "I assume that I can. I have been ying around with elemental arcane magic for a while; basically, arcane magic that was infused with elemental aspects, and I was nning on doing the same with this spell soon. I meant to do so with physical elements at first, but fusing arcane magic with concepts like stealth and presence-maniption is certainly doable."


    "Alright. Well, work on that, I want to see it," Shimour said, turning around to get ready to leave. Eiro sighed a bit, but he figured he might as well. It was something he was considering in the first ce, so if Shimour wanted to indulge his curiosities, then keeping him happy with that seemed like a good reason to prioritize it.


    "By the way," Jess asked, curious about some things herself, "Do you have any other spells you''ve been working on?"


    Eiro slowly nodded, "Yes, I have been trying to create a few new spells. But ''Blink'' is the most directly useful at the moment, plus one of the first ones at this tier of magic that I''ve been able toplete."


    "So? What other spells are on your list?"


    Eiro smiled lightly, "A few things. One thing I''m working on is trying to use demonology to create long-range summoning circles that are focused directly on me, as a demon. I would imbue them into medallions and give them to the kids, so that they can call on me in the case of an emergency," he started, "Then I''ve got a few spells forrge-scale construction or repair work. While travelling around, I''ve seen many ces that were destroyed by monster attacks, so trying to upscale some ''Mending'' spells seems like a decent enough way to use my time. Oh, and then there''s some spells that could create temporary constructs to do things like manualbour, simplebat, or basically whatever you want them to do. Something akin to golemancy, but different in nature."


    "Wow, that... how far along are you with those spells?"


    "Not particrly far, but I have been trying to focus more of my time on them. I would say that by the time my evolution is over, they should beplete."

 Chapter 774 Arcane Magic

    774 Arcane Magic


    Eiro stretched slightly. Being this far away from the manor right now wasn''t particrly great for his body. His body was at about 70% of the integrity it should be at right now. Which was pretty good when you considered that usually by now this body would be a puddle on the ground, but it was to the point where it was pretty damn ufortable to deal with. Then again, the pain from his body falling apart over the couple of days before Eiro entered his coon was iparably worse.


    Currently, the demon was at the academy. For the past few weeks, he has had a recement filling in for him and rying the tasks and homework that he wanted to give to each of his students. It did mean that the students that he was particrly paying attention to were a bit left behind, since Eiro couldn''t tell his recement teacher about every single thing he was taking care of, but even so, they were still supported alongside all the other students in Eiro''s sses, so at least they didn''tpletely lose out.


    He stepped into the lecture hall, and the students immediately perked up seeing that it was Eiro instead of the substitute that has been teaching them for the past little while.


    "Lord Daemonherz!"


    "You''re back, where have you been?"


    "Are you alright? I heard you were sick!"


    Eiroughed slightly as he stepped in front of the ckboard, "Now, now, calm down, everyone. I was not sick, rather, I was engaged quite deeply in some training and recovery following a ratherrge recent aplishment. Actually, there will be an announcement about it in just a couple of days."


    The students immediately started muttering amongst themselves, trying to figure out what Eiro had managed to do. Of course, none of them were even close to figuring it out. Some were not totally wrong, guessing that Eiro had developed a new spell, which he had. But that wasn''t the aplishment Eiro was talking about and decided on using as an excuse together with Solomon. The ''aplishment'' that Eiro was talking about was that he killed the Devil.


    There were a few matters that Solomon had to take care of before actually announcing this considering the severity of this information. Since Eiro had officially taken out multiple Royal monsters at this point, it was clear that there was a lot of attention on him. Other countries would want him, or maybe even take him out. Eiro had seen a few annoying bugs buzzing around the manor, but him, Partax, and Shimour had worked together to create a barrier that made it impossible for anyone to even really see the building, not to mention all the weird stuff that was going on around or inside there. Since they weren''t any threat just yet, and only there to watch Eiro and what he was up to, he didn''t take any of them down yet to avoid antagonising the countries they came from, but it was still pretty damn annoying.


    "As I said, you will have to wait until the end of the week for the announcement toe out. I sadly can''t tell you anything myself right now. However, I can show you something else," the demon exined. He had asked Solomon about what he was about to do beforehand, and ording to him, Eiro was allowed to show off any of his research as long as the themes of that research weren''t confidential. And all of his magic and spell research was something he was allowed to show off whenever he wanted. And since this was a ''theory of magic'' ss, he figued this was one of the best ces to show off this new spell of his. Honestly, he was just a bit excited and felt like showing it off to people, especially his students, "Everyone, please make sure to pay attention to what I''m about to do."


    The demon cleared his throat, and started speaking the chant. This was a slightly lesspressed version of the chant to give the students a better shot at actually learning something from it, though it was obviously still slim to none that they would understand any of this without explicit guidance. However, to make sure that the students could gain some insight and understanding from the magic circle, Eiro was specifically constructing one around him for this purpose, though this duplicate''s magic circuits would already allow him to just use this spell without it.


    A momentter, Eiro ''blinked'' to the back of the lecture hall. The students looked forward confused. A few of them seemed to think that he used some sort of illusion or invisiblity spell, but once Eiro started walking down the steps from the back of the room back to the front, a few started to realize what was going on.


    "The ''Blink'' spell is an application of arcane magic as a base that is infused with concepts rting to spatial magic," Eiro started, "It takes the target body, the starting location, and the destination as its maininputs. Its main process first breaks apart the target body at the starting location, envelops the particles of that target body in a protectiveyer of arcane magic, transports those particles to the destination, and then puts it back together based on the base information that was gathered beforehand. This process is run independently for every single particle simultaneously, whereas each section of arcane magic does theputation simrly indepentently, controlled by the main processing loop that is contained within the magic circle."


    The students immediately started taking notes based on what Eiro was saying, as the demon flicked his wrist and used the chalk in the front of the room to sketch an exnation on the ckboard, "Can anyone here tell me what basic spell this process reminds you of? There are a few, but I am thinking of one in particr."


    The room was silent for a few moments, the only sounding from the scribbling of pens that were still trying to finish their notes. But then, a student raised their hand, and Eiro nodded at them.


    "Is it... ''Arrow Volley''?" they asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head. N?v(el)B\\jnn


    "Correct, that is indeed the spell that I was thinking of. The ''Arrow Volley'' spell is one of the ovepping elemental spells, as many of these standard, basic spells are these days. The element can be swapped out in many of them, and the spell can otherwise function without any other major changes. However, there is one difference in the Arrow Volley spell. Other projectile spells require an angle and force input that needs to be calcted, and while the Arrow Volley spell does that too, it is a bit different. It practically shoots a ''guiding'' bolt first, and then the location where that bolt hits is registered as a location that all other arrows are aimed at. Basically, you have the target body, which would be the element, and the starting location, as well as the destination," Eiro exined, noting down the simrities between the spells.


    Of course, the ''blink'' spell was many, many times moreplex, but it was true that a very important cent part took some inspiration from spells simr to the ''Arrow Volley'' spell. A main difference was just that there was no guiding bolt that was shot out, and the destination coordinates had to be set manually during the construction of the spell. The students still followed along curiously as Eiro continued to exin the intricacies of this spell. And of course, there was a question that came up surprisinglyte.


    "How do we cast Arcane spells?" one of them asked. Of course, arcane magic was a concept that didn''t have a lot of research behind it. There weren''t that many people that even knew the principles behind it, let alone that were actually capable of using it. Since Merlin was a professor at this academy in the past, this ce actually had some of the best information about it so far, but even so, it looked like Merlin never taught much about it.


    "Arcane magic is a special sort. It''s practically ''non elemental'' magic, using a transformed, ''pure'' mana. Basically... imagine taking the purest mana you can imagine, and infusing it with the element of ''Magic''. It''s hard to control, since you need to draw your own essence away from it to create arcane magic in the first ce, and you need to have an extremely high understanding of magic to even make use of it in a way that is worth it. But once you get to that point, arcane magic can do many, many things that other magic can''t. And well, I think it''s about time that I pass that magic on to you all," Eiro said with a smile on his face, "From now on, I will be instructing you all on arcane magic."


    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and


    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

 Chapter 775 Ancient Language Instruction

    "Akita," Eiro''s voice sounded out through the lecture hall, and the students repeated after him.


    "Polimrust."


    Once again, the students repeated after him.


    "Dirhais. And all together now; Akita polimrust dirhais."


    While the students tried to repeat this sentence, most of them stumbled once they got to thest word. It was like trying to learn a spell''s chant; it was something that Eiro himself had never struggled with, luckily. For almost his entire life, the ability of the ''Schr''s Memory'' allowed him to remember a chant without worry, but most people needed toprehend the effect of the chant and the spell itself for it to catch in their mind. That was one of the central struggles of bing a mage. Since chants were only effective when spoken in the ancientnguage, due to its innate connection to the essence of magic, it was a rough hurdle to step over. It was the reason why these days there was a lot of value put into the concept of casting spells at full power even without the assistance of chants, and more and more research was being put into this.


    But what Eiro was trying to do right now was not to teach the students a new chant; he was trying to get them to learn the ''Ancient Language Comprehension'' skill. Not only was this the baseline requirement for being able to learn arcane magic in the first ce, but it would also help the students learn new spells. Once they were able to hold onto ancientnguage somehow, then new chants would stop fading from their minds so easily.


    Of course, there was still a question to be asked here. Why exactly was Eiro doing this? Why was he trying to teach the students how to speak the ancientnguage? He didn''t even exactly know it himself all too well, but if he had to say a particr reason, then it was because of a realization he came to recently.


    Eiro was a horder and a collector. He liked to take anything that he could for himself and grab onto it. Especially if it was something that only he had, it was somehow an exhrating sensation to him. But at the same time, there were limits to what Eiro on his own could do. He didn''t have dozens of lifetimes to spend on specializing in specific techniques, developing things on his own. He couldn''t, on his own, explore all branches of magic, no matter how much he tried. He couldn''t be a master of every single skill, just off of things he developed himself.


    Most of Eiro''s growth came from taking things from others. Whether it was level experience points, the cards, or techniques; even his abilities these days were about taking things in from the outside. But there was a very innate, basic requirement for that. If Eiro wanted to take something, it had to exist on the outside in the first ce. And it wasn''t as though Eiro liked the act of stealing or taking, he simpy liked having things. The best way to do that was to... outsource. To have others create things for him to thenter take and hold onto. Sure, that meant he had to give up a bit of that feeling of being the only one to have something, but that was apromise he was willing to make.


    As such, this academy was the best ce for Eiro, and now that he decided to stop holding back in what he taught the students, he could develop individuals that could grow and specialize, taking their unique perspectives and develop new spells or applications of magic that Eiro may not have ever considered before. True growth and development came from a single spark that caught on and developed into a true me. Sparks weremon, but truly catching was something different. And if Eiro could create more sparks, he didn''t have to settle on a few candles. He could have a wildfire of potential zing in front of him.


    Most of these students would fail to make new discoveries, but they might still deepen the knowledge of their field andy the groundwork for someone else to make that new discovery. They could be the kindling for the next sparks. But that could only happen if they were given that opportunity. If Eiro truly kept hording it all, keeping all his knowledge to himself, then this world would never be what it should turn out to be.


    The demon looked around the room. The students were feeling hazy and confused, like a shroud of mist was covering their minds. This is what happened when you engaged too deeply in the process of trying to learn the ancientnguage. They wouldn''t make any more progress on that front, so Eiro figured he should try and show them exactly what they were doing this for.


    "Okay, this is it for ancientnguage practice for now. Instead, could one of you pleasee forward for a small experiment? It''s nothing tough, don''t worry," Eiro asked, and the exhausted students looked around at each other, hesitating to really answer to their teacher''s request. One of them finally came forward,plying, and then Eiro cleared his throat.


    "What''s the chant-based spell you use the most often?" Eiro asked, and the student, a young woman, nervously looked up at him. It was like she was a bit nervous to respond, but then finally came out with it.


    "I, uhm, I use the ''clean'' spell a lot..." she admitted, and a few students started snickering. Eiro didn''t really understand why, though; it was certainly a useful spell that helped you keep up with personal hygiene with rtive ease. Though, somehow, not many mages liked admitting to using that spell.


    "Now, now, don''tugh. I use the ''Clean'' spell almost daily," Eiro exined, and theughing students slowly stopped. Eiro snapped his finger and summoned Gondos before pulling up his sleeve. This duplicate''s form was actually altered at the source to have him appear like a human, so Bavet wasn''t actually here, so having spells cast on him carried no trouble at all. The demon had Gondos provide some dirt and quickly covered his arm with it.


    "Please, cast the ''clean'' spell on me, please."


    The student slowly nodded her head. She closed her eyes and concentrated for a few moments, before starting to chant. Eiro knew this student; like that of many others, her chant pronunciationcked a lot. The aspects that made remembering the ancientnguage tough also made it hard to hit the right pronunciation and cadence. But in this case, all of a sudden, to a point where the student herself was even surprised, her pronunciation was much, much cleaner. She even almost stumbled over her words when she realized, but the chant flowed out of her mouth so naturally that even her surprise didn''t stop her.


    The spell was properly activated, and small bubbles of water sweeped over Eiro''s arm, picking up the dirt with ease. The student''s expression showed clear confusion, though the other students in the room didn''t even realize something had happened.


    "Do you want to tell the other students what you noticed?"


    Eiro smiled, and the student, slowly stuttered out her answer, "It was easier... it was way, way easier to say the chant."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    It took the students a few moments to realize what she had just said, until they started whispering amongst themselves again. Stay tuned for updates on empire


    "That''s correct. If anyone would like to test this out in a moment, you maye down here and speak a weak chant you are familiar with, but before then, let me exin. Even if the system didn''t acknowledge this just yet, fact is, you have grown closer to the barrier of the ancientnguage. Part of it was my guidance to you, of course, but part of it is simply that you pushed past the point of resistance. That is this sensation you are feeling right now," Eiro exined, "Imagine waking up in the morning inplete darkness. You stand up, stumbling through your room, and open the window. The light streams in, blinding you more and more as you open the window to the point where you are just as blind with the light as you are without it. And even if you may rest your eyes for a few moments by pressing them shut, fact is, just because the light is ufortable doesn''t mean you shut yourself off in darkness. You continue adjusting to the light, until it bes the norm. That''s what you need to do with ancientnguage. Rest your eyes here and there, but keep persisting, keep pushing through, and you will soon adjust and truly learn how to speak the ancientnguage. And the results are already showing."

 Chapter 776 Finished Chrysalis

    The proxy original duplicate sat in his office, taking care of some matters rted to the monster town, such as shipments for provisions or materials for construction, clothes, tools or weapons. The different aspects were engaged in their training regimes outside. After three months of training with them, their movements had be so much more refined and their understanding of these different skills skyrocketed. At this point, all that had to happen was that the system needed to work again properly so that Eiro could level up again.


    But the aspects weren''t the only ones that managed to make some progress. Finally working together, the duplicates in the towers managed to unlock three more books following the original Morgan Fey''s, so that also helped the demon evolve his understanding of quite a few fields in the process. Though once again, thest thing that was needed now was for the original Eiro to wake up and make his way to the Divine Mountain Range to reach the ess point that would lead him to the moon, where the central material ne''s tower was located.


    Eiro nced over at the clock and then stood up. He walked through the door and made his way down the hallway, stepping in front of the door where the others were already waiting. Arie seemed to be the most anxious. She had been quite distance for the past few months, and all the duplicates certainly understood why. The duplicates shared a mind with the original, but you would most certainly be justified iming that they weren''t truly Eiro. Especially on an emotional level, the way Arie was feeling was understandable.


    Some of the other duplicates were taking care of Avalin and Leon right now, but Rudy, Sammy, Clementine, and Arc were also here to meet with Eiro after his evolution wasplete.


    "... How long until..?" Sammy asked, and Eiro looked down at his wrist watch. Experience more tales on empire


    "Just a few more seconds," he exined, and the five of them anxiously turned toward door. The proxy original stepped up to it before them all, deactivating the magical array topletely stop the room from being flooded with arcane magic. It was all absorbed into the original Eiro''s body as the evolution came to an end.


    And then, the duplicate unlocked the door. It would usually open inward, but it was blocked now. So, Eiro quickly took off the hinges and pulled the door away as a whole. As he did, tendrils of coloured crystals were shattered like spiderwebs being torn. They fell to the ground, soon fading away into pure elemental magic. The proxy original stepped aside, making way for Arie and the kids as they stepped inside the room. Every single surface was covered in a translucent crystalyer that grew in a hexagonal pattern around the massive crystal pir standing in the center of the space, connecting the floor to the ceiling. But filling the actual room were those thin crystal threads that were falling apart like a chain reaction starting from the door. They turned into magical glister that soon disappeared as the magic faded.


    "Are these..?" Clementine muttered, and Arc squatted down, running his hand over the visually smooth surface, feeling the deep andplex patterns that naturally formed as the crystals grew.


    "The whole room is basically a massive arcane magic stone," he pointed out, ncing over at the pir, "Is dad even going to be able to get out of there? Do we need to break it from the outside?"


    Though, before anyone could answer that question, cracks formed on the surface of the pir, quickly spreading throughout the rest of the room. The ''arcane magic stone'' as Arc fittingly called it, fell apart into small fragments, revealing the cocoon within the pir. Arge crack had formed on its surface as well, and was only growingrger.


    A pale, ice-like blue hand pushed its way through that crack, followed by one more, and then another and another. In total there were six hands, out of which a single one was made of wood. They grabbed onto the edges of the cocoon and pushed it open the rest of the way, and Eiro stepped outside. At first nce, he looked simr to how he did before, but at further inspection, there were quite a few parts that were different.


    For one, the icy blue pattern that until recently only reached from the center of his chest up to his shoulders was now covering his whole body, fading into the blue of his arms and legs. Of course, the fact that he now had two more arms was probably the first thing that one noticed after he stepped out of the cocoon, but that wasn''t the only thing he had more of either.


    Instead of just one, he now had three tails. They were thinner than before, and soon coiled around each other to be practically the same size as they were before the evolution, but instead of a single stinger there were now three dagger-like needles attached to the end of each tail. Two pairs of wings were on his back now, therger pair that he usually had, and two smaller wings spreading out from the base of his back, right above where his tails started. Eiro pped them slightly, getting rid of some of the milky white slime stuck to parts of his body.


    His face was mostly the same, with just one major difference. He had a third eye on the middle of his forehead. Different to his other eyes, that were a deep blood red, this one was a soft metallic golden colour. Though, looking more closely, his other eyes were a bit weird as well. Like three eyes had been stuffed into each socket, Eiro had three irises and pupils, and the irises pressed against each other, still forming a circle while being clearly distinct from each other. His eyes appeared normal at a nce, but when you looked closer there was clearly something off.


    Thest thing of note, his horns, hadn''t really changed that much. They were thinner and more interwoven, in more than a dozen colours and sitting on his head like a crown. With every evolution, thatparison became more and more obvious.


    Eiro opened his mouth and tried to speak. His voice was rough and sounded... wrong. It was clearly Eiro''s own voice, but it was like he was speaking a dozen times at once in slightly different pitches and intonations. He still only had two mouths, but it was like his voice box could produce multiple ovepping voices at once, which mighte in useful for certain types of chants.


    "Ah... Aaah..." he let out, trying to clear his throat, "This is a rather... interesting experience."


    Looking down at himself, Eiro took note of all the changes that happened to him. Of course, from his point of view, many more things were different. For one, the perspective from the third eye being added into the mix felt a bit unusual, but luckily not too bad. The three eyes in each of his two ''normal'' sockets acted a bit wonky still, but he had an almost telescopic control over them. He could always view things at a distance, but now, it was like he could make his eyes twist and adjust them as you would... well, a telescope.


    His third eye held a few new qualities; for one, the lens made from the mirror of duplication had migrated there and had been strengthened and fused perfectly with his eye somehow. But all three of his eyes gained a new ability in general. He could now see mana almost perfectly. Eiro could sense it for a while now, infusing that quality into his sight. Then there were the times he fused with a spirit, letting him truly see it. But now, he had that sight innately. He would have to get used to it, but it definitely wasn''t a bad experience.


    And then there were all the changes to himself internally... his body was barely recognizable. The cardiovascr system was reinforced in the way that Eiro had altered it. While he didn''t have a heart, his body was still propelling his blood throughout him and producing new blood as a passive magical function. In the first ce, his veins had fully fused with the bloodstone. It was like his veins'' individual cells were encased in a thin crystalyer now.


    He also had some new organs. Bags for storing excess venom, which was produced many, many times faster through his three tails. He could evenbine the function of two or all three tails to fuse the venom automatically as it was being created, or create moreplex types. He could create more of those bags whenever he wanted to, basically letting him store however much he wanted. They seemed to be affected by the same space-altering effects of the overeating skill as his stomach was, maybe because they were made from his stomach originally.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    All of Eiro''s other organs seemed to have improved in function quite a bit as well, which the demon was rather d about. And then, he took a closer look at his bones and skin, which had also be a bit different. Eiro''s bones were made of crystal structures simr to his horns now, and were many, many times stronger than before. Simr to his veins, Eiro''s skincells seemed to be encased in a thin crystalyer, allowing him a much greater control over his skin magically. Not only could he make it as hard as the chitin around his tails in an instant, but he could even change the color of his skin to some degree by letting different magics flow through him.


    These changes were all substantial, but frankly, they were incredibly worth it. But there was something that was much more important for now than looking at the changes of his body. He quickly approached his kids, and pulled the four of them, together with Arie, into a hug.

 Chapter 777 New System Function

    "You sat in that cocoon for three months to get two more arms? Seriously?" James asked with a scoff, looking at the demon in front of him. Eiro was currently sitting there with Leon and Avalin on hisp, properly embracing them. He didn''t want them in the room earlier because he knew that it was going to be a rather unusual and potentially scary sight for them.


    "Amongst other things," Eiro pointed out. When he had his third eye closed, his wings pulled into his back, and his tails intertwined, he looked basically identical to how he did before, just with two more arms and slightly more borate horns.


    "So, what''s your race now? What did you end up evolving into?" Arc asked curiously, and Eiro raised a brow. He hadn''t actually checked his status yet.


    "Let me take a look at that," Eiro replied, and the blue window quickly appeared before his eyes, and he quickly focused on the top part of the screen.


    ---


    [Name ¨C Eiro Jura Daemonherz][Race ¨C Arcanus][Level ¨C 1]


    [Health ¨C 4.024.638][Mana ¨C 10.696.292]


    [Strength - 306][Constitution - 301][Resistance ¨C 300]


    [Agility - 302][Evasion ¨C300][Dexterity - 308]


    [Intelligence - 501][Wisdom - 600]


    [Perception ¨C 300][Willpower - 201][Charisma - 200]


    [250 Stat Points Avable]


    ---


    "Huh. I''m just an ''Arcanus'' now. I guess I''m determining the ''default'' progression of the Arcanus species right now, so no matter how skewed and unique my evolution should be, since I''m a new species, it-"


    "Yeah, yeah, right. Anything else new on there?" James interrupted, already getting bored. Arc looked over at him.


    "Hey, I happen to find that kind of thing interesting. The biological function of evolution, as well as the system-based response to a whole new speciesing into existence, has barely been studied," he pointed out, and James clicked his tongue as he leaned back in his chair.


    "You''re really your father''s son, huh?"


    "Heh... thanks," Arc replied smugly, but James rolled his eyes.


    "Not really aplement, kid."


    Eiro chuckled lightly, "Either way... there''s not anything particrly new, no. Oh, but my Health and Mana increased considerably. My health points are at 4 million, and my mana is getting rather close to 11 million points."


    The room grew silent for a few moments.


    "The scale of a monster''s energies is... envious," Shimour pointed out from the corner of the room. Eiro looked at him with a smile on his face.N?v(el)B\\jnn


    "I guess so, yes. But that dide with something slightly new in my body," Eiro ced one of his hands onto his chest. He manipted his physical structure, pushing two crystals out of his chest, one red and one blue. This action immediately drained him of 1 million mana and health respectively. The moment Shimour spotted them, he took a few more steps toward Eiro.


    "Are those...?"


    "Yes. Crystalizations of my life energy and mana. I had thetter for a little while now, but the former is new for me," he exined, looking at the crystals curiously. These mana stones allowed him to practically ''supercharge'' some spells if he used them as a conduit. Simrly, Eiro wondered if he could do something simr if he infused one of these life force crystals into a physical attack. But before then, there was something else that Eiro wanted to try. ncing over at Shimour, the only one of the masters that was currently in here, he infused the crystal with the concept of ''stealth'' itself. Basically, he was trying to skew this separated mass of life force as close as he could to what Shimour''s was. Realizing what he was trying to do, the master let out a slight grumble. He clearly wasn''t sure if this was going to work, and neither was Eiro, but both of them were curious to see what was about to happen.


    A few momentster, the concept was properly fused with the life force crystal, and Eiro grinned lightly. He ced it into his mouth like a candy and crushed it with his teeth. A wave of energy immediately flowed through his body, dyeing the life force flowing through him in a version that was like the life force currently in the duplicate that embodied the stealth aspect.


    The others in the room didn''t quite understand what was happening, but both Shimour and Eiro knew that the demon had done something that the masters could really only consider ''cheating''. Eiro learned how to temporarily change the aspect of his life force. And if he could properly refine those crystals, then he could copy the masters'' refined energies.


    ---


    ---


    ---


    Eiro walked back into his bedroom. He had collected all the duplicates walking around the manor, reabsorbing them. Particrly the aspects needed to be collected again so that nothing would happen to his skill growth. But there were a few more things for him to check out before the day was over. First of all, his new ''agility''. He had been holding back quite a bit, but luckily his new body allowed him to manage that sort of thing rather easily. But if he basically ''let loose'', he could move at the speed that one of his newest cards gave to him.


    One moment he stood on one side of the room, and the next, he stood on the other. He opened his mouth and spoke a brief chant; the ''Blink'' spell''s chant. His body was broken apart, and his mana was moved to the target position in an instant. Rather, it was exactly how he thought it was going to happen. The arcane magic that carried his cells arrived before his whole body was even broken apart, basically creating instantaneous ''teleportation''.


    "Perfect. Next..." Eiro said, pulling open his status window. There was something he noticed earlier when he called up this window. Carefully, Eiro held forward one of his hands, tapping the system window. And he felt resistance. A normal system window couldn''t be touched. Though, after Eiro''s senses increased through the Five of Pentacles, he started to feel a moment of resistance lingering on his finger. But this was different. It was like the window was actually made of ss now. He could press his hand against it and feel resistance. His hand still passed through when he wanted it to, but otherwise, it was like a true, physical object to him now.


    The system was something created through the arcane shards fused into every living being''s soul. It seemed that Eiro''s deep connection with the arcane allowed him to interact with this projection in a unique way. Then there was also Eiro''s new racial ability that could potentially exin this phenomenon. It was called Arcane Integration. There wasn''t a description to the ability, but Eiro could feel that it was much easier to create and manipte arcane magic from the moment he stepped out of the cocoon. Clearly, infusing himself with arcane magic the whole three months was worth it.


    Eiro felt the system window. Its texture, the strength of its resistance, and most importantly, the flow of energy within it, which Eiro had never been able to feel before. Out of curiosity, Eiro pulled some arcane magic out of his body and tried to replicate that flow. Thanks to his third eye, he had an insight into this that he never had before.


    The artificial system window was quickly formed and now floated in front of Eiro. However, it was just a nk window with nothing on it. So, Eiro got something out. The ''Author''s Pen''. He grabbed the mystical quill and tapped the artificial window, carefully writing something onto it. It was a few sentences that seemed toe to him almost instinctively. Once he finished writing it all, the words disappeared from the window, and were instead reced with something new. A flow of messages scrolling down the window bit by bit, numbers and words that Eiro had never seen on these windows before, speaking of synchronization, integration, updates, and so on.


    And then, those words disappeared again, and a new message popped up instead. Both both windows disyed the same words, both the one from the actual system, and the one that Eiro created himself.


    ---


    [New personal System function has been created ¨C System Log]


    ---


    Eiro raised a brow, touching the window he created himself. Curiously, he swiped down at the window, seeing all the messages that he had received in the past. Plus, messages that he hadn''t seen before. Specific instances of him gaining experience for skills and levels, every time he used a skill in a particr way. Everything was recorded on this window, and Eiro could view it all. Plus, it seemed like he could search particr terms in here. It was all quite interesting and Eiro had a few things he wanted to check on with this, but most importantly, he wanted to see what else he could do with this new ability.


    He wanted to see what other ''new system functions'' he could create.

 Chapter 778 Card Binder

    Eiro was seated outside, leaning onto the table next to him. One of his right hands was propping up his chin while he used another to hold a cup of tea, while one of his left hands was ying around with the ''Author''s Pen''. It was much morefortable and smooth to split up his arms after Eiro''stest evolution. Rather than a physical split where his arms fit together like some sort ofplicated puzzle, it was more like his arms duplicated themselves. Though, different to what happened with the Mirror of Duplication, it was still a physical function. Like his new body was attempting to copy the arcane magic of that card through its own biological functions.


    His body was generally just much more... convenient. When Eiro was still an imp, no matter how he liked to do things, he still had to work around the guidelines of the imp species that he wasn''t able to circumvent, no matter how unique his race became. But now that he was his own species, he was the one creating the rules. Only now that he had this body was Eiro able to pinpoint a certain sense of uncanny difort, an eery feeling of wrongness that spread throughout every fiber of his being that most likely came from the fact that his soul wasn''t originally that of an imp. Now, that wasn''t a factor anymore. With this body, even just breating felt more right, somehow. It simply improved his mood quite a lot. It felt like there was less weight on his shoulders, though maybe part of that was the fact that the Devil was no longer a threat. Well, beside the part of the Devil that was lurking around inside of Eiro''s mind. Whenever it popped up, Eiro purged it, but it would always return, like the Devil''s roots were hidden somewhere he couldn''t see. But it wasn''t too big of an issue and didn''t seem like something he had to worry about all too much for the time being, so he was able to ignore it well enough.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    Either way, with his mood lifted as it was, Eiro felt like ying around a bit more. And his newest racial ability was the perfect thing for that. Using the Arcane Integration ability, Eiro was able to add new functionality to his personal system. The first function he created was the ''System Log''. Basically, it expanded on the general notifications that anyone could receive, giving not only much more detail, but even providing some new information. Things that should stay hidden from most people.


    For one, every time a particr action waspleted, an amount of experience was calcted and disyed. Of course, that didn''t seem necessarily special or useful at first nce, but Eiro quickly realized what he could use this for. He was able to maximize his ''experience'' gain, allowing him to try and take only the most efficient actions to speed up his system-based growth. However, that wasn''t all. The system log also disyed whenever certain ''skill acquisition requirements'' were fulfilled. They were generally quite broad, but sometimes there were requirements rted topleting particr actions often enough. Since skill acquisition wasn''t always something easy to see through, even for Eiro, having the precise conditions was perfect. That was especially true when you considered the fact that on the system''s side, the conditions were probably the same for every person. There might be some multipliers that changed how fast you were able toplete particr conditions, but if Eiro was correct, he would be able to train others incredibly fast. He especially wanted to use this to increase the speed at which the monsters from town learned themonnguageprehension skill.


    Since the System Log was so incredibly useful, Eiro was trying toe up with other additions to the system, though that was a bit harder to do than he thought. The first time around, it was like his hand moved on its own, as if the System Log was something that was waiting toe out of him for a long time. It could have been a function that Morgan Fey was supposed to receive, that the system administrator had to remove to stabilize Eiro''s soul when Morgan was killed. But now? He had very few things to use as a base.


    He of course had the patterns that he had drawn for the System Log that he could reference. They werepletely unique, acting in a way that Eiro could not recognize from any system of magic he could think of. Though, he had seen it before. In the meeting with the administrator, the were still working on things while talking to him. And the different disys and messages were usually shown in patterns that seemed to follow the same rules. Basically, it was the nguage of the system''. Eiro had assumed that it was just some sort of application of the Ancient Language, considerings its deep connection to the arcane, but that didn''t seem to be the case.


    "Hm... I think I have an idea now..." Eiro muttered, cing the tip of the ''author''s pen'' onto the surface of the artificial system window he had created in front of him with arcane magic. There was another time when he had seen simr patterns; when he made the ''Dungeon Map'' cardbine with his splinter. It was like the card fell apart into what was used to build it. Like a sandcastle revealing the individual grains of sand.


    After some surface-level analysis, Eiro was able to understand the meaning or use of at least a few of them. At least, he was able to pinpoint what should be the symbol for ''Card'', specifically referring to the arcane cards. Slowly, Eiro drew the symbol onto the artificial system window, and as he started, his hand basically continued on its own,pleting the pattern and adding in symbols that seemed to mean ''information'', ''collection'', and ''manifestation''. The pattern continued outward naturally until it covered the entire window. Soon, the symbols faded away and disappeared. And what Eiro saw now was something like a list. It was a grid of 56 slots total, split up into four sectors of 14 each.


    ---


    [New personal System function has been created ¨C Card Binder]


    ---


    Most of the slots were empty, but some of them contained symbols that Eiro recognized quite well. They were the cards of the minor arcana, though only five of them. The six and seven of wands, meaning the bloodstone and the dungeon map, as well as the three, five, and page of pentacles, meaning the cards of ultimate agility, perception, and the domain of truth. Though, looking closer, while many werepletely ck, there were others that seemed to have some kind of outline of what the respective card was supposed to be.


    The ones that had the outline were the ones that Eiro had already ''collected'', while the ones that were fully disyed were the two cards that he had fused into himself in some way. The pentacle cards did so automatically when activated, but the dungeon map was done manually by Eiro. But the bloodstone? He had just fused the physical stone into his blood vessels. But maybe that was enough for it to fuse into his soul during his evolution.


    Eiro carefully tapped one of the cards, the seven of wands. And before he knew it, more information on the card was disyed. Not only the original mythos connected to this card, but the day when Eiro acquired it, information about the former owners, and basically every piece of information Eiro had regarding this card. But that wasn''t the end. Eiro tapped the card''s image again, and it simply popped out of the system window. Though, Eiro had already fused it into himself... and the ''map room'' that was created in response inside of the mental library was still there too, so it wasn''t as though he had undone that process just now. It was like he could create a copy of the card to take out. Curiously, Eiro activated the card, and the original paper scroll that was the map''s original form appeared.


    "I see... this is like a system integration for the cards themselves. I can take them out again, activate them, and use their item form, while also absorbing their base abilities," Eiro muttered quietly, though slowly, a grin formed on his face, "In that case, there''s something else to give a try."

 Chapter 779 Card Binder (2)

    Your next journey awaits at empire


    Eiro held a card in his hand. It was a special card, one that changed the path of his life massively. It was the three of swords; the marite des. It was was the first card that Eiro had collected. But by now, it was rather... useless to Eiro. Of course, it was a powerful tool, as it could allow someone to manipte multiple weapons at once as if they were your own limbs, and if you properly took advantage of the powers the card provided, you could use the des to control other peope as well, as if you were controlling a marite. The drawback that made you lose control over yourself wasn''t really an issue to Eiro anymore, but the problem was that it wasn''t an ability that Eiro used particrly often.


    Manipting others was useful, but only in specific situations. Gathering information, for example, but information was sort of Eiro''s forte, so weak opponents wouldn''t be able to give him much anyway, and it was more efficient to use pressure on them anyway. And powerful opponents wouldn''t necessarily fall victim to the power of the marite de. The only benefit was that you could practically control all of their abilities as your own, but that was something that Eiro was willing to give up if something went wrong with what Eiro was about to do.


    He tapped the card onto the system window, and could quickly see it disappear inside of the arcane te. At the same time, Eiro could feel that it was absorbed into his soul. It seemed like this window was directly connected to the splinter. At the same time, Eiro could feel something change inside of his mental library again, just as it had when he absorbed the dungeon map''s card. A side-room had opened up, taking the form of a small theater. On the stage was a mannequin, hanging off threads like a marite. It was just like he thought. The ability had manifested itself in some form within Eiro now. Just like how he could exert the influence of the dungeon map within himself, the power of control was now within Eiro as well. Though, he wasn''t exactly sure how he could exert that power outward just yet. After absorbing the cards, it was like they were trapped inside of Eiro, like the force of the splinter kept it all contained within him. But now that he had absorbed this card as well, Eiro was sure of one thing at least. These powers existed since long before they were contained within the arcane cards, though their origin was still quite the mystery.


    Eiro quickly tapped the card that he had just put inside of the new system window, and it popped out just like the dungeon map''s card had before. He was able to pull out the actual marite des pretty easily as well, and without any particr loss in efficiency as well. Though, the lights in the theater had turned off. He clearly wasn''t able to use the ability anymore. So he had to choose between using the item outside of his body, or having the ability within his body. And when Eiro let go of the card, it simply returned back into the system window, and the lights in the theater turned back on.


    So, this new system function allowed him to reform the cards whenever he wanted. Plus, fused into his soul, it was impossible for them to be stolen. He was just basically giving them a temporary form of a card that was created from arcane magic, using the stored card as a blueprint.


    With a grin on his face, Eiro leaned back in his seat, "That does certainly open some doors, doesn''t it? Well, let''s get on with it and register the rest as well."


    Since it seemed as though it was safe to do, as he wouldn''t lose the ability to use the cards in their intended form, Eiro quickly fused the rest of the cards with his splinter as well, expanding his mental library quite a bit. The Stopwatch created aplex clocktower within the space, with numerous cogs twisting around each other. The mirror of duplication created a simrly massive, actual mirror in front of one of the walls. Luckily, it seemed that existing duplicates were totally unaffected. The invisibility potion turned into a literal fountain in the entrance area, and the mountain-breaker took on a slightyly different form. It was like a massive battering ram, or some sort of hammer meant to crack the ground for mining operations. The author''s pen ended up creating something like a small study tucked away in the corner of the library, while the keyid on the side of the desk in that study. Eiro sighed lightly as he looked at it. It was such a useful tool. It could open literally everything. It should probably be able to open up the locks on the books left behind by Morgan Fey as well, though Eiro was worried that this would permanently remove the seals on each book as well. There was so much he could learn from just opening those books that he didn''t want to waste that opportunity like this, though the curiosity of what was written in those books was practically killing him.


    But whichever was the case, it seemed that Eiro was able to use most of these abilities independent of the items now. Time could be stopped, though that was only for him, while with the stopwatch he could influence a whole area''s time. The author pen''s power could maybe be used to improve his magic circle creation or his artificing, and the key let him unseal things with his mana, as long as he was touching the object. Of course, he could use the invisibility potion to turn himself invisible, though the power that was the most hard to use was the mountain-breaker. For that, the massive hammer had to be activated inside of the mental library. As it mmed down onto the ground, a shockwave was created in the center of Eiro''s body that he could push into whatever direction he wanted. But the problem was that if he didn''t release that shockwave, it could cause massive internal damage. If he really didn''t control it well, he could even blow up from the inside. Which was something that Eiro would prefer to avoid if he could. However, it also let him increase the impact of his punches quite a lot.


    With the power of the cards fused into him, having the option of using them like that as well as the way they were intended to be used, Eiro was able to increase his arsenal quite a bit. But with that being the case, Eiro wasn''t done yet. He had only just created two new functions for the system. Surely there were other things that he could add with his new ability.


    Though, for that, he would most definitely have to analyse the symbols a bit better. The fact he was able to create these two was basicallyplete luck, though there were certainly things that he still wanted to add to the system if he could. A way to manage his ever-increasing servants would be nice. How hemanded them at the moment was anything but efficient.


    With a smile on his face, Eiro got up from his seat, approaching the men in front of him. James and Krog were training, duelling as part of their dailybat practice.


    "Oh? You joinin''?" Krog asked with clear surprise in his voice. Eiro slowly nodded.


    "I do have a few new tricks up my sleeve that I would like to try out. Krog, do you mind? Maybe this would be a good opportunity to test out your defensive techniques."


    The warrior quickly looked at James, with clear worry, bordering on fear, on his face, "Is he serious?"n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    James scoffed, crossing his arms while vacating the area, "How often have you heard him joke around?"


    Muttering to himself, Krog grabbed the new part of his equipment that he was practicing with. Some chains. They were supposed to connect to his axes so that he could swing them around with his massive strength, but the chains themselves were also supposed to be used as something like bracers tied around his forearms.


    Krog quickly did so, cing his arms in front of his upper body and face, "Alright, just get to it already."


    "Hm... maybe make your defense a bit thicker," Eiro grinned, as the hammer in the mental library mmed down onto the ground. The demon could feel the shockwaves inside of his chest, moving them toward his hand. With a swift motion, Eiro pushed forward against Krog with his t palm.

 Chapter 780 The Lords

    780 The Lords


    Eiro''s palm struck at Krog''s forearms as he directed the power of the mountain-breaker into his hand. But of course, Eiro didn''t want to use the entirety of that power on Krog, since that could do more damage than he''d like. Krog was still in the middle of learning proper defensive techniques, so Eiro couldn''t expect him to be able to block an arcane card''s powers yet.


    So, instead, he directed a portion of the power toward his hand, and then the rest into his feet to make the power spread thin through the ground. As he controlled it well enough, it didn''t really cause any issues with the ground either. A few pebbles were thrown around, but that was the most of it. As for Krog, his defense was broken pretty quickly. The chains wrapped around his arms managed to survive the hit, but Krog''s arms were thrown to the side and he was pushed off-bnce. He waspletely open for a follow-up attack.


    "Man, what the hell?" Krog groaned loudly, looking down at his arms, shaking them to get rid of the numbness that he was suddenly experiencing, "Can''t you be a little more gentle than that?"


    "Wouldn''t thatpletely defeat the purpose? Plus, I held back quite a bit already in the first ce," the Demon pointed out, but Krog wasn''t buying it.


    "Right, you definitely didn''t want to just hit me," he groaned, quickly raising his arms back up in front of his body. He quickly adjusted the flow of his mana inside of his body based on what he had just experienced, "We''re doing this until I can hold out against it."


    Eiro scoffed, "If you say so. But don''tin to me when you break something."


    "Have I ever?"


    "You usually do, yeah," James responded, and Krog just red over at him.


    "Shut up, you wouldn''t even be able to take a scratch of this," the warrior took a deep breath before he looked back at Eiro. The demon smiled lightly, taking a step back to prepare for another strike. Like this, the two of them continued on for a while. A few dozens attemptster, where the need for Eiro to heal Krog''s bones did arise a couple of times, the warrior was finally able to actually defend against the attack. Instead of being thrown off-bnce like before, with his arms basically exploding outward, Krog was pushed back half a dozen feet, digging into the soil below his feet to stop himself.


    "Yes! Finally!" Krog yelled out, pumping his hands into the air, "That was absolutely horrible... but it was very useful for me, so thanks."


    "Don''t mention it. It was actually just trying to test out some abilities on my own, and this helped me gain a much better control, so thank you, rather," Eiro said with a smile, approaching the warrior and grabbing the chains around his arms.


    "Uh... what are you doing?"


    "Getting these off you. Do you know how much these chains bent? They were basically turned into te armour melded around your skin," the demon pointed out, and Krog''s eyes widened. He hadn''t even realized that the chains were in such a bad state. Eiro manipted the metal with magic and made the individual, bent chain links fall onto the ground. n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    "That''s not good... if that happens in the middle of battle, I''ll be screwed. You got an idea for anything else I could use?" Krog asked, rubbing his sore forearms, "A lot of warriors from my tribe would use weapons made using bones of powerful monsters... do you have something like that?"


    James let out augh. He had been watching everything from the tables at the edge of the training area, with his feet on the table in front of him, "You want to use bones? Good luck finding chain-shaped bones."


    "Well, I wasn''t sayin'' that! I was just thinking that maybe there was something else! It''s called, uh... brainstormin'', was it?"


    "No, no, you actually have a point," Eiro replied, cupping his chin in thought, "Monster bone might not be the worst material for you, especially considering that a lot of your abilities down the line will probably end up rting to your giant ancestry. Since it was basically impossible to make metallic weapons at that size, giants that forewent the use of their fists would use shaped wood, stone, or bone to their advantage. And since giants are a race of warriors, the monster that the bone used for their weapon came from was something of a prideful, important matter."


    "... So... I should have a chain made of bone?" Krog asked, not sure if he was understanding Eiro''s point properly. The demon just smiled and shook his head.


    "Let''s just see what''s possible. There are a few monsters that might be a good choice, whose bones have the right qualities to make for a better chain than the kind of metal we can provide you with. I''ll just go and talk to Armodeus, he probably has a few pointers," Eiro said, patting Krog on the back as he walked back toward the manor. He walked up the step with a slight whistle, making his way inside.


    Krog and James were left there, almost stunned.


    "Krog, did he just..?"


    "Yeah. He was... whistling."


    ---


    ---


    ---


    A trail was left as the creature''s heavy body was dragging itself over the ground. It approached therge, throne-like chair that was prepared for it, pulling its body onto it with a loud thump.


    "Urgh... Lord of the Dretch, please act in a slightly more... presentable manner," a woman with a snake''s tail curled around her lifted one of her hands and ced a piece of cloth in front of her face. Two of her other hands were carefully carressing her own tail, while another was focused on her hair. The remaining two were simply crossed in front of her chest.


    "Lady... Marilith..." the Lord of the Dretch responded,rge globs of drool falling onto therge round table in front of him. He just stared at the woman a few seats away from him, grinding his teeth onto his upper lip as if he was trying to eat his own skin off his face.


    "Sorry to interrupt this... oh so wonderful conversation, but it seems all who have chosen to attend are here. Could we got on with it?" a man in a well-tailored suit pointed out, trying to get everything in order. He seemed quite bored to be here, wanting to leave as soon as he could. Though, he was already getting quite distracted by some of the other folk sitting at the table, lustfully staring into their direction.


    "Shut your mouth, Lord of the Incubi. If you don''t want to be here, you may leave, but don''t expect to be saved when that disgusting wretch takes your head right off your shoulders," a figure sat on a seat that seemed almost inadequate for its body. The Lord of the Fiends red at the other demon lords that had gathered here by his request, "You all have seen the message, have you not? That a new demon lord has been born?"


    "So? A new lord is born every couple years. Usurpers of the throne are nothing to worry about. Who was it, though? The lord of the Hezrous is missing... did he finally croak?" the Lady of the Marilith asked with a hissedugh, but the Fiend Lord growled so loud that it interrupted her and all the other lords muttering amongst themselves.


    "No! When has every demon in hell ever been told that a mere Hezrou was in?! That any of us have been in?!" he yelled out, mming his massive, wed foot onto the ground, "A throne has not been usurped, but a new one has been crowned!"


    The lords looked at him with a confused expression, "What mean, new crown?!"


    "I mean that a new species of demons hase to be borne! Not from our great Demon King, but some other way!" the Fiend Lord yelled, as his ws dug into the table in front of him, his anger clearly oveing him, "He has in my descendant, who has walked the central ne in our stead, and took part of the wastes as hisnd! And worst of all, he dragged some vile holiness down with him!"

 Chapter 781 Beo

    781 Beo


    Eiro stepped down into the manor''s basement, approaching the door to Armodeus'' workshop. To his surprise, though, it was open. Usually, Armodeus kept it closed so that nobody woulde and bother him.


    "I''m tellin'' ya, I ain''t doing it," the dwarf said with a loud groan, "I''m happy here, so why''d I ever leave?"


    Eiro raised his brow. Armodeus'' workshop was usually one of the ''ckout zones'' that Eiro stopped himself from peeking into, but when he was this close, it was literally impossible for him to not hear the conversation. Since it seemed like a sensitive conversation, Eiro was about to turn around, when he heard Shimour''s voice.


    "Listen, I get that things weren''t great there, but don''t you think you owe it to him to go back? To at least give it all a shot? He asked you to take care of the town, but you just left," Shimour pointed out, "And I''m not in the business of telling others what to do, so if you say you don''t want to do it, then don''t. But Beo was my friend as well. I just don''t want you to regret not doing thest thing he asked of you. That''s just not like you."


    Armodeus was silent, clearly thinking. Eiro was a bit taken aback, though. Beo? Who was that? If it was someone important to Armodeus, how has he never heard about him?


    "I won''t. End of discussion. Now leave, and shut the door behind you," the elder dwarf''s voice sounded rougher than usual, though an unusual quiveringid underneath it. Shimour came outside with heavy footsteps, closing the heavy door behind him. As he turned around, he noticed Eiro standing there at the end of the hallway.


    Shimour sighed loudly and started walking toward the stairs, "I''m guessing you heard that, huh? Just ignore it."


    Eiro was about to do as he asked, since really, it was none of his business, but maybe his curiosity got the better of him in the end, "... Who was Beo?"


    "Ask Armodeus if you want to know, I don''t have the right to tell you," Shimour replied, and Eiro looked over toward him.


    "Will he really tell me if I ask?"


    "... You''ve got a convincing side to you, so I''m sure you can figure something out," the master shrugged, walking up the stairs. Hesitant, and trying to consider what exactly he should do, Eiro looked over at the door. Either way, he came down here to talk to Armodeus, whether it was about potentially making bone weapons for Krog, or about this ''Beo'' person.


    As he approached, Eiro used magic to pull the door open, and Armodeus immediately snapped his head away from his workbench and over toward him, "I said to- Oh... it''s you, I''m sorry,d, I thought you were..." the dwarf let out a long sigh, trying to act like he wasn''t still upset, "What can I do ya for?"


    "If you want, I cane backter," Eiro said, and Armodeus'' fake smile dropped.


    "Ya heard us?"


    The demon nodded, "Yes, I did. And... I do want to know what it was about, of course, you know how curious I am about anything at all. But if this is something that you want to keep to yourself, then that is something that I will not take from you."


    It seemed like Armodeus was thinking about it for a while, "I..." he let out a long breath, "Ya know what? Aye, I''ll tell ya. Though, before ya do, just grab a bottle of liquor from upstairs. This ain''t a conversation I''d like ta have sober."


    Eiro smiled lightly and nodded, "Sure, of course. Would you like that Gin we have stored away? Whiskey? Some wine?"


    Armodeus considered it for a moment, "Gin, if ya can."


    "Of course," the demon said, snapping his finger. As he did, something stepped out of his body. A duplicate created from the power of the mirror that he had absorbed not too long ago. Absorbed, the power only let him duplicate himself, but it was much more efficient than before when it came to creating exact copies.


    The duplicate stepped out of Eiro''s body and used the power of the ''Ultimate Agility'' card, rushing upstairs. By the time the duplicate had made it back, even Shimour had barely made it up the stairs and was absorbed back into the demon''s body while handing over the bottle of gin and two sses.


    Armodeus let out augh, "I was hopin'' ya could give me some time ta think about what I was going to say, but I guess that''s one thing I shouldn''t expect from ya."


    The two sat down at the table in the side of the room, and Eiro quickly poured the elder dwarf a drink, before pouring one for himself, "If you want me to chill it for you, just say it." n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    "Aye. Thanks," he said, taking a sip of the gin before quickly shaking his head with a satisfied expression, "All''s good. It''s perfect."


    "I''m d to hear it," Eiro said, taking a sip himself. He wasn''t the biggest fan of hard liquor. The taste was too strong even without his enhanced senses, and with them, it was almost unbearable sometimes. But by adjusting his senses a little bit, he could reduce the strength of his sense of taste to a point where it wasn''t way too much for him. Like that, he could at least enjoy it a bit, but blocking his senses like that was always a weird sensation. But well, this moment wasn''t about drinking anyway. It was about the time he was spending with Armodeus.


    "Beo... I mean, Beowulf was a man I met when I was still quite young. A normal dwarven boy, cocky as can be. Was half the height I''m now, cause I was still not an Elder Dwarf. I had set up a shop somewhere for a while. There was a mine nearby that I wanted to explore. Built um some rapport with the vige folk. And then one day, in the middle of winter, a wandered came to me, in search of a new weapon..."


    ---


    ---


    ---


    A cabin''s door was kicked open. Treading in the snow from the outside, a tall man stepped inside. He almost scraped the doorframe with his head as he came in. His entire body was covered in a torn-up cloak. He stepped up to the counter on the other side of the room, "I''m looking for someone. A dwarf. Craftsman."


    "Huh. That''s an unusualbo. Ain''t gonna be easy to find one of those," the other man across the counter said, scruffing his beard while suppressing a slightugh.


    The wanderer nced over the counter, taking a closer look at the man behind it, "Are you him?"


    "Who''s ''him''? Gonna have ta be a bit more specific."


    "... Armodeus. The craftsman."


    With a grin on his face, the dwarf nodded his head, leaning forward on his stool, "Aye, the one and only. What can I do ya for?"


    "I heard you''re the best around here. That the weapons you make are capable of ying anything," the wandered pointed out, and the young Armodeus grinned lightly.


    "I do like ttery, but I''ll have ya know that it ain''t the weapon that does that. If ya want to y, say, a dragon, you have to be able to y a dragon. The weapon ain''t gonna do it for ya," he replied, seeing the wanderer''s slightly annoyed expression from under his hood before leaning forward, "But I promise ya, I can make a weapon that will stay by your side even after a dozen in dragons."


    "... That should do," the wandered said, seemingly a bit relieved. He grabbed the weapon from his back. It was an old sword, basically just a shaped iron pir that was so dull that you couldn''t even cut an apple with it. The moment Armodeus saw it, he jumped up from his stool and walked in front of the counter to get a closer look.


    "You- How long have ya had this for, a thousand years?! How could ye do this to this beautiful child?" he said, snatching the weapon from the wanderer''s hand. The weapon was longer than Armodeus was tall, but he still handled it as if it were made of paper, "The hell''ve you been fighting with this?"


    The wandered looked down at Armodeus, huffing slightly, "Dragons."


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